I make ugly food & it TASTES SO GOOD: Vol III

Hi friends! I’m back with the third installment of ugly food I cook and for some reason, you can’t get enough of!

I cook a couple of times a week and many times I look to the Internet Gods for guidance, advice and of course – recipes.

This installment is the longest I’ve ever done and features heavily on desserts… Clearly I need to stop pretending I live in a cold country and need sustenance in the form of sweet treats.

Because I live in Singapore and my ass needs sustenance in the form of raw green things. And some lean protein. But you know #details

SO. This time around I changed up the format. See the pretty pictures first and the ugly AND REAL pictures later.

You guys like reality? Right?

Classic Lemon Bars – Joy The Baker

Scrumptious Classic Lemon Bars

Lemon Bars – Argh

This dessert, like so many others, was born out of a frenzy of denying my body sugar for days. Actually it might have been 24 hours. But as they say, same-to-same. I found the lemons in my fridge, stole my flatmate’s flour and baked these babies up. They might look questionable but I can actually say I pretty much ate ALL of this, by myself.

Healthy Quinoa Chicken Curry Bowls – Pinch of Yum

Healthy Quinoa Chicken Curry Bowls

Watery Curry Quinoa Bowl

I always REALLY regret making Indian-fusion food or anything with the word curry in it. Why? It’s always insipid and then I crave my Mom’s food and then I crawl into a fetal position and cry. True story.

Ginger Walnut Chocolate Blondies – Joy the Baker

Ginger Walnut Chocolate Blondies

Ginger-choc blah-dies

I have featured these babies before here, but before the editing and amateur “food styling” I attempted, they looked like this. They tasted friggin AMAZING though.

Goat Cheese and Blackberry Jam Grilled Sandwiches – Aamupalalla

Stunning Goat and Blackberry Jam Grilled cheese

Off-putting morning goat and jam grilled cheese sammies

I saw this grilled cheese, I had some left-over goat cheese, Hoi had just given me a mini-pot of strawberry jam – and I knew, it was meant to be. Stinky, cheesy and yummy, this baby was intense. Would I make it again? No. But do I regret it? No.

Chicken Shwarma Nachos – My Name is Yeh

Beeyootiful Chicken Shwarma Nachos

Not-so-beautiful Chicken Shwarma Nacho bits…

I made these nachos for a girlie dinner and it went down like a hit. Looking back at these pictures makes me realize though that man – I have got to learn how to style food! Or accept that having a food blog might mean not eating the food you present on the blog. ANYWAY, this was very tasty and Molly Yeh’s original post on it is beautiful. I recommend taking a look.

Oatmeal raisin cookie baked oatmeal – Two Red Bowls

Inspiring oatmeal raisin cookie baked oatmeal

Mildy sick-inducing raisin baked oatmeal

I saved the best, err ugliest, for last. A questionable textured breakfast that tasted pretty yummy, this baked oatmeal looked like the stuff of breakfast dreams, but in actuality looked CRAZY TERRIBLE. UGH.

I swear my food tastes good.

I make ugly food & it TASTES SO GOOD: Vol II

My first ugly food post is actually the most popular post on my blog EVER. It got 105 views which let’s face it is, pretty paltry and in all honesty it only got there because Shutterbean linked to me. THANK GOD FOR HER.

In a bid to replicate my early success in a time of complete creative drought (I find that I’m mostly really concerned about what lipstick color I should buy) that I thought I would copy an old post.

Like always, I’ve been cooking up a storm and it’s been good, but it really hasn’t looked good. AKA I haven’t bothered styling it.

Here’s what I’ve been cooking and enjoying these past two weeks! Bon Appétit!

Bonkers Awesome Mushroom and Onion Shells and Cheese – Joy The Baker

Vaguely Awesome Pasta Cheese Mess

Bonkers Awesome Mushroom and Onion Shells and Cheese

The minute I saw this recipe on Joy’s blog I had to make it. However the amount of cheese and butter held me back knowing that really eating this could in no way be classified as healthy or good for you. Still I made it (Sans Gruyere – which I will use next time) and not only was it an awesome dinner, it was an awesome lunch to take into work. Too bad it really looks nothing like the original.

Strawberry and Spinach Salad with Quinoa and Goat Cheese – Cookie and Kate

Too much Strawberry and Spinach Salad with Soggy Quinoa and Passable Goat Cheese

Strawberry and Spinach Salad with Quinoa and Goat Cheese

I don’t really impulse food shop because I have a set amount of things I eat in a day and at certain times (5 o’clock apple – everyday!).* So when I do buy something out of the ordinary it generally causes a lot of panic and my mind immediately tries to slot it into my routine. This is what happened when I recently bought some cheap strawberries. I don’t have the calorie bandwith or time to eat strawberries but I had to eat dinner, so I made this salad and added some grilled chicken and was good to go! Was it good? Ish.

Spicy Sweet Potato and Coconut Soup – All Recipes

Mildly Fragrant Sweet Potato Swimming In Coconut MIlk Bath

Spicy Sweet Potato and Coconut Soup

Honestly, All Recipes? I know, how very 2000 of me. But seriously this recipe, which I stumbled across after typing in “sweet potato” and “coconut milk” into Google, was actually AMAZING. Make it and dunk in some udon, veggies and some silken tofu and you’ve got A MEAL my friends.

Big Clusters Maple Cinnamon Chocolate Chip Granola – Averie Cooks

No Clusters Maple Cinnamon Choc Chip Granola

Big Clusters Maple Cinnamon Chocolate Chip Granola

I make granola from time and time and it’s always vaguely healthy. This time I didn’t want to do healthy – I wanted to do chock full, can’t even pretend this is good for you granola. Because sometimes you want to. Sometimes you want to be bad – and then feel good – and then feel obese. Because really this is what happened when I made this granola. And honestly – check out the photography in the original post and drool because it is oh-so-good.

*If you think this is strange and weird and you are still my friend then you obviously think this is a charming quirk of mine and we need not discuss this further.

Chicken Tikka! (Kind of)

My Mom refers to this as her chicken tandoori recipe – I made it for friends during a recent boardgame night and it was deemed chicken tikka.

Whatever it actually is is irrelevant because it’s yummy, tastes like home (well my home at least) and is fairly easy to make. So easy that I make it practically every week and eat it for two nights in a row. What can I say, it’s easy to scale down for smaller portions and I’m unimaginative like that.

You want to be like me too and do this. Don’t lie.

2 chicken thighs (boneless and cut)/ 10 chicken wings (cut into two – wing and drummet separated)
2 Tbsps ginger-garlic paste
1 1/2 Tbsps chili powder
1 Tbsp cumin/jeera powder
1/2 Tbsp garam masala
1 1/2 tsps salt
1/2 cup lime juice
4 Tbsps yogurt
1 Tbsp vegetable oil

Clean the chicken and place in a bowl. Mix all ingredients in with the chicken until evenly distributed.

Place in a container and let it marinate for 3 hours/overnight in the refrigerator.

When you’re ready to cook it, prep by taking the grill bit out of your oven, you can cover it with foil and slit it so that the marinade juices can run through and your chicken doesn’t DROWN in it’s juices and become a soggy mess.

I suggest you put some foil on the tray at the bottom of the oven so that your oven doesn’t become a masala mess.

After that preheat your oven to 180C/350F.

Put the chicken on the grill in the oven for 30 minutes, after 30 minutes flip it and bake for another 10.

Serve!

*You should check if it’s done by cutting into it. I’m not really clear on baking times to be honest.
** This is a Diniblini’s Mom’s TM Recipe 🙂

I make ugly food & it TASTES SO GOOD

The food I make is partly inspired by my Mom’s cooking, partly inspired by the contents of my refrigerator and sometimes inspired by THE INTERNET. Here’s a rundown of some dishes I’ve cooked from recipes found on some of my favorite food blogs and websites. I’ve also included the pictures and links to the originals JUST so you can see how desperately I need a new camera. Mine are first. Obviously.

Nutty Cranberry Granola – Shutterbean

This actually turned out really well except that the oats got a bit too overdone. But honestly, they taste kickass with any kind of milk and are super filling and good for breakfast.

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Pancakes (Vegan) – Top With Cinnamon

This recipe make super heavy pancakes but they’re quite good and you feel weirdly healthy when you eat them. What the recipe doesn’t tell you is that it sticks to the pan like crazy if you use normal vegetable oil. So you know that’s cool if you don’t mind destroyed pancakes. Or you could use coconut oil which is recommended.

Pineapple Upside Down Cake – Nigella

This cake is a classic. It is easy and always turns out good. Mine looks a little different because I don’t do maraschino cherries and it also tasted different because I used pineapple slices in syrup. Don’t do it. Get pineapple juice and use that instead.

Green Chili Chicken – Singapore Shiok

Okay this was ugly and it didn’t taste so good. Was it something I did? Personally I think it wasn’t a very good recipe.

The Reset Button Salad – Shutterbean

I HAD to make this salad when I saw it. Unfortunately my version didn’t have spring onions because Fairprice decided to run out. Wow the contrast of how bad my salad looks next to the original is shocking. But it tasted awesome!

So get cooking this weekend and make some ugly, tasty food!