Category

Recipes

Cheese-European Cheese-Cheese Master-Fromage 101-Cheese Platter-How To
in Diplomatic Incidents, Home, How-Tos, Recipes

The Anatomy of the Perfect Cheese Platter

 

Cheese-European Cheese-Cheese Master-Fromage 101-Cheese Platter-How To

I’m a serial cheese eater. Pair a great cheese plate with wine then add great company, and a cosy living room and you have a very happy Carol right there. This is the really Danish bit of my personality, I guess. (Hygge!)

So it was quite amusing how, when my husband and I decided to host one of our first dinners with friends from the diplomatic corps at home, I found myself struggling when it comes to putting together a cheese plate.

The struggles of a diplomat’s wife are quite mundane to some, I know. Failing at this won’t start a world war nor turn into a major diplomatic incident. However, to fail at something so minor may kill the perfectionist in me inside.

In fact, I was having a minor panic attack that day. Surely, I would have retained some knowledge from all the diplomatic events I attended as a journalist and later on as a wife? I knew the most popular cheeses. How they taste and their textures. But choosing was a different story and I have a tendency to overthink then just want everything in there.

Continue reading

in Diplomatic Incidents, How-Tos, Recipes

Career Girl Cooking Series: Choco-Cherry Almond Cookies

Career Girl Cooking Series, Baking, Cookies, Cherry, Cherry Season, Cherries Malaysia, Cherries Kuala Lumpur, Cherry Recipe, Chocolate, Almonds, Easy Cookie Recipe, Dessert, Domestic Diva, Domestication, Diplomat's Wife, Cookie, #Foodporn, Food

Yet another super easy recipe coming your way just in time for cherry season, my loves!

Baking is therapeutic. It is also a great way to impress people around you with your ‘domestic diva’ skills and make them think you’re like the best diplomat’s wife ever when in fact, you’ve only exerted a wee bit of effort. Haha! I do admit to them later on that baking is easy-peasy. You just have to get yourself into the kitchen, drop the fear that you might blow up your whole building, and dive right in. It takes a lot of time but it’s definitely fun and worth it. 😉

I haven’t been baking for quite a while since my husband and I have been so busy. I was actually looking for an excuse to bake something just so I can make some desserts and disrupt his dieting. 😛

Career Girl Cooking Series, Baking, Cookies, Cherry, Cherry Season, Cherries Malaysia, Cherries Kuala Lumpur, Cherry Recipe, Chocolate, Almonds, Easy Cookie Recipe, Dessert, Domestic Diva, Domestication, Diplomat's Wife, Cookie, #Foodporn, Food

It’s currently cherry season so that’s a wonderful excuse to bake something sweet and fruity. 😉 I was also recently given a pack of Northwest Cherries to try. Been eating them fresh and adding them to shakes. Naturally, the next step would actually be baking with them. I decided to try a recipe I found on the internet for plain cookies then adding my choice of toppings.

Here’s the recipe! Enjoy! 😉

Continue reading

in Diplomatic Incidents, How-Tos, Recipes

Food: Career Girl Cooking Series – Cheesy Bacon Potato Boats

Recipe, Potatoes, Comfort Food, Cheesy Bacon Potato Boats, Cheese, Bacon, Baked, Foodie, Food Porn, Diplomat's Wife, Easy Recipe, Quick Meals

A cooking event I attended earlier today reminded me that I haven’t been posting much about my cooking. So I decided to just share with you guys this quickie post on one of my favourite types of comfort food. Almost effortless to make and so yummy!

(RELATED POST: Food: Career Girl Cooking Series – Ham, Bacon, and Mushroom Alfredo)

But be warned! This is very fattening! So try not to eat everything on your own. Sharing is caring after all! 😉

I made this for my husband back when we first got our electric oven. So yes, this post should have gone up months and months ago but it ended up in the bowels of my file folders. 😛 Some of the photos even got lost that’s why I only have two to share. Here I go again, justifying the lateness of this post. Sorry. 🙁

(RELATED POST: Food: Career Girl Cooking Series – Baked Chicken Pesto Pockets)

I actually saw this recipe while watching a cooking show back when I was in college. I think this is a really easy dish to make and can even be served to your guests if you plan to entertain at home. So, without further ado, (and so I can go to bed since I have a long day tomorrow) here’s the recipe which I’ve continuously modified through the years:

Ingredients:

  • 2 large potatoes
  • 2 tbs butter
  • A dash of salt
  • 2 cloves of garlic, diced (or if you have garlic powder, use 2 tsp)
  • 1 tbs sour cream / creme fraiche
  • 1/4 C parmesan cheese
  • 1 C Irish cheddar cheese
  • 1/4 C milk
  • 1/4 tsp pepper (for the mixture, not for rubbing the skin prior to baking)
  • 4 strips of streaky bacon, diced into bits and fried to a crisp

Continue reading

Quick recipe, Pesto, Chicken, Baked, Parmesan, Low-Carb, Healthy
in Diplomatic Incidents, How-Tos, Recipes

Food: Career Girl Cooking Series – Baked Chicken Pesto Pockets

Here’s a quick, easy, and well-loved recipe in this household. It’s actually the dish that finally convinced my mom that yes – baby girl can cook. 😉

It’s great for when you’re having guests or family over. Or when you’re trying to cut some of the carbs in your diet without sacrificing the taste that comes with an actual, filling (and yummy!) meal.

It’s healthy, low-carb, and a great way to get some greens into your system if you’re not much of a veggie eater (like hubby and I).

Related Post: Food: Career Girl Cooking Series – Ham, Bacon, and Mushroom Alfredo

Quick recipe, Pesto, Chicken, Baked, Parmesan, Low-Carb, Healthy

I always use a mortar and pestle to crush my garlic. I like them in really small pieces. When my OCD is really acting up, I even use a food processor. Hee. 😀

Continue reading

in Diplomatic Incidents, How-Tos, Recipes

Food: Career Girl Cooking Series – Ham, Bacon, and Mushroom Alfredo

First things first – a disclaimer.

I’m a career girl through and through. Went to college, worked long hours, partied hard, and lived on take out and my grandmother’s cooking for 25 years.

To be honest, I’m really not that much of a cook. Though I always knew that if I do try it, I will do great in it – and I did, if I may say so myself. On the rare occasions that I was found in the kitchen, I’ve been told that my dishes were actually pretty good. And no, my guinea pigs weren’t paid or threatened to say such things. I promise. 😉

Now that I’m married, I’ve been trying to cook more often but my husband and I love eating out. We love restaurants and hate doing the dishes (though SOMETIMES it can be therapeutic). So I cook at least once or twice a week as a way of being sweet to the husband. After all, the best way to a man’s heart is through his tummy and showing him you can handle stuff on your own. 😉

Western comfort food is my specialty and I recently got into baking while trying to learn how to cook Filipino food. Yes, it’s kind of a shame not knowing how to cook Filipino food when you’re married to a Filipino diplomat. It seems my Danish side is stronger, food wise.  But the good news is I was able to make some adobo recently and it was also good. My husband ate a lot after all. 😉 I’ll put up posts on that later on so that you can try it too.

I often tell my friends that cooking is easy. I read a lot of recipes and just like in most things you learn in school, once you know the basics, you can actually try and be adventurous, adding a little bit of this and that or deviating from the instructions to make a certain recipe your own.

A lot of career girls these days disregard cooking and other skills attributed to a domesticated woman and just end up focusing on their work all the time (guilty of this for the past couple of years) but the thing is, once you try it, it can be addicting and a great stress reliever. Cooking gives me a weird high and when people love what I make it just doubles up.

So, I decided to start Career Girl Cooking Series. A series of posts containing recipes of dishes or baked goodies I recently made with the promise that they will always be quick and easy cos we’re all busy girls after all.

Continue reading

Close