The Food Site

I’ve been meaning to post this healthy cornflake snack recipe up before Chinese New Year but I was kinda busy the last week so I didn’t have time to put this up. Anyway, we still have one day to CNY so, what the heck. Might as well post it up! This is a very simple and darn easy recipe for a wonderful snack to serve your guests during Chinese New Year or simply just to enjoy yourself.

I call it Crunchy Chili Cornflakes. It is a Malaysianised cornflake snack and no, you don’t serve it with milk. It is generally eaten as a snack, you know, like eating chips. Only, this is healthier, minus the salt and sodium and oil. You can even get whole wheat corn flakes for it to be even more wholesome. I know this is not really one of the foods that help your lose weight (as in my fat burning food list) but it has chillies in it so…it is not all that bad.

So, here is the recipe for:

Crunchy Chili Cornflakes

Ingredients

2 cups cornflakes

1 cup plain roasted peanuts

1 cup plain roasted almonds (or raw if you prefer)

1 cup plain roasted sunflower seeds / kernels (or raw if you prefer)

1 cup fresh curry leaves

4 – 6 pc dried chilies

1 tbsp butter (or for a healthier version, olive oil)

Instructions

These are the curry leaves I used

The curry leaves have this rich spicy scent that I simply love.

I used only four medium size dried chilies so that it would not be too spicy. Remember to cut it into four pieces and don't remove the seeds or else it won't be as fragrant.

And, here's the regular cornflakes I used

1. Heat up the pan / wok. Spray it with cooking spray or pour in the olive oil or the butter.

2. Then, throw in the chilies. Stir fry it till it is very fragrant.

3. Add in the curry leaves and continue to stir fry over medium heat

4. Make sure the leaves and chilies are very fragrant before you add in the almonds and peanuts.

5. Add in the sunflower kernels and cornflakes and stir fry for a few more minutes to get all the flavours mixed up and nicely fragrant.

6. Remove from heat, let it cool and then store in an airtight container. Serve as snacks.

The best part about this Crunchy Chili Cornflakes snack is that you can substitute the peanuts/ almonds/ sunflower seeds with cashew nuts or any other nuts you fancy. But I love almonds and peanuts so I used those to go with the sunflower seeds.

This snack has a tinge of spiciness with a rich spicy scent from the curry leaves. The best part is that the curry leaves (and the chilies) would have been very crispy from being fried so those are edible too! If you want it to be extra spicy, then just add more dried chilies.

This snack takes about 15 minutes to prepare so it is very easy and importantly, it is also very good. So good that I ate almost half of it while waiting for it to cool. Heheh.

Crunchy Chili Cornflakes

This is a really wonderful snack for Chinese New Year (though it definitely won’t help you lose weight!). Happy Chinese New Year to all of you celebrating it and those who aren’t celebrating it, happy holidays. Or if it’s not a holiday where you stay, well, er, happy weekend.

I have always been inspired by Jessie’s (The Hungry Mouse) ribs of the week, any ribs she made always seemed just SO good. Much as I love ribs, we seldom have those at home. Mainly because we aren’t really major pork eaters and we don’t eat beef. Still, sometimes, thanks to Jessie’s wonderful recipes, I’d get a craving for some delectable ribs to chew on.

One day, I had this crazy craving (and no, I am not pregnant) for ribs so on the way back, I bought about 1kg of pork ribs to prepare for dinner. This is despite the wonderful meal my Personal Chef has prepared for us. Now, we don’t usually have much time to prepare for dinner so I wanted it to be quick, simple and fuss free. Thus, the three-step ribs which turned out like this…

Here’s the recipe for:

Three Step Blueberry Ribs

Ingredients

1kg pork ribs

a dash of salt

2 tbsp chili powder

2 tbsp garlic powder

3 tbsp sugar-free natural blueberry jam

Instructions

1. Rub the pork ribs with the salt, chili and garlic powder.

2. Pour on the blueberry jam and make sure the ribs are completely covered with the jam

3. Grill in the oven for between 20 minutes to 30 minutes until it turns dark brown with a crust.

The ribs should look like this when it's done.

The preparation only takes 5 minutes and after that, just let the oven do the magic while you do other things like preparing a bowl of salad to go with this or take a shower.

Although it may sound weird to combine blueberry jam with pork ribs and chili, let me tell you it is just the perfect combination. The blueberry gave it a sweet fruity flavour while the chili adds some spice to it. So, a bite into the succulent flesh brings forth a burst of sweet fruity flavours interpersed with spiciness. Ahhh..it really do hit the spot (and add at least a few more inches to my hips but I don’t care!). Best of all, we all know that blueberries are one of the food in my fat burning food list so these ribs are not as sinful as it looks.

Of course, if you stick around here more, you may find more baby back rib recipes in future.