Giddy Tigers

The healthier option to eat our vegetables, as I’ve learnt from watching The Biggest Loser, is to boil, steam, grill or oven-roast them.  Sautéeing and frying is a definite no-no, so I try my best to minimize it.

However, I was just a tad curious to find out if grilled or oven-roasted vegetables tasted better.  So I decided to do an experiment.

Being educated as a Science stream student, I found myself making sure that both instances of the *experiment* for comparison were on par, as much as possible.  Oh yes, hubby is always teasing me for NOT taking up Home Science in school but oh well…

For the purpose of my experiment, I used zucchinis, carrots (parboiled), bell peppers and white mushrooms, all sliced.  For lack of seasoning, I merely sprinkled some grapeseed oil (olive oil is also recommended), some salt and pepper on both batches of vegetables and left it to season for a few minutes.  I intended to use herbs like thyme, rosemary and parsley actually, but I forgot to buy them. 🙁

I oven-baked the seasoned vegetables in a baking dish lined with aluminum foil at about 180ºC for about 15 minutes.  And I grilled the other batch of vegetables using my new stove-top grilling pan under medium heat, for about 5 minutes on each side.  Love the multi-lined *design* formed when I flip the vegetables over.

Next…I served them hot, and prepared for the verdict and results of my experiment.

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Recently my kids started loving sausage buns, so I had been buying the sausage buns from the bakery twice a week.  Watching them eat the buns reminded me of the sausage buns my Mum used to make when I was a little girl.  So I did what any mother would do: I googled for a simple sausage bun recipe and modified it to my preferences.  My only worry was the kneading bit: I do not own a mixer to knead the bread dough, so I had to knead the dough entirely by hand.

The website that gave me the recipe had lots of pictures to accompany the recipe and it helped a lot.  The defining moment when I made these sausage buns was when I saw the dough had rose after leaving it for an hour.  That’s when I KNEW my kneading had paid off! 🙂

Taste-wise it was rather good, but the buns were not as soft and fluffy as I’d wanted them to be, perhaps because I didn’t knead them long or hard enough, and upon further *investigation online*, it could be due to me being impatient and adding a wee bit of flour to make it not stick whilst kneading.  Hey, I’m not a machine, right? 😛  Well, at least I know I am on the right track…might enlist the help of my kids to help knead next time I make this..hehe! … and will definitely knead the dough LONGER!  After all, kneading dough is also very good toning exercise for the arms! 🙂

Here’s the recipe I used to make sausage buns (adapted from the Sausage Buns recipe from Visual Recipes).  I used organic ingredients where possible, and for the sausages, I bought those from the cold cuts deli in the grocery store (the ones that sell the sausages by weight).

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