Healthy Banana Oatmeal Cookies

I have seen so many beauty gurus making these healthy cookies. To be honest, I’m not a person who eat healthy, but seeing how easy they are to make, I decided to give it a try.

I searched online and customized my own recipe. To give the cookies some extra flavors, I added peanut butter and cinnamon powder. You can, of course, add other ingredients to enhance the flavor, such as honey, nuts, raisins and chocolate chips (evil little ingredients). So this is how I made them:

Ingredients:

• 2 ripe bananas
• 1 1/2 cup of instant oatmeal
• 2 tablespoons of peanut butter (optional)
• Cinnamon powder (optional)

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 170°C.
2. Peel the bananas and mash them in a bowl, until no chunks remain.
3. Pour in your own choice of ingredients and instant oatmeal. Then mix well.
4. Place a teaspoon on a lightly-oiled aluminum foil, and shape them as you wish.
5. Bake them for 20 minutes and let them to cool after taking them out of the oven.

Volia! Don’t expect them to be like crispy and crunchy cookies; these cookies are soft and moist, and of course they are delicious and healthy.

Snack Review: IKEA Cinnamon Buns

I love cinnamon buns, but they are not very popular here in Hong Kong and I haven’t found a bakery that sells really tasty ones, so I haven’t had them for quite a long time. Two days ago, I was at IKEA looking for a bed light and some storage boxes, didn’t find what I want, but instead I found these frozen cinnamon buns at their food section. They look pretty delicious, so I decided to give it a try.

IKEA Frozen Cinnamon Buns (HKD$29.9)

There are 6 mini cinnamon buns in a pack, and sold at HKD$29.9. They are not really expensive, and seem to be a convenient choice, as it only takes 15 minutes and you will have “freshly-baked” cinnamon buns at home.

Ready-to-eat Cinnamon Bun

The overall texture is okay, the outer part gets a bit crunchy while the inner part remains soft. They are not bad, but definitely not even close to the ones I had in Canada, and the cream cheese icing is missing!

There are 2 things I don’t like about these frozen cinnamon buns:

1. When you buy them at IKEA, make sure you get a pack that is not thawed. I already chose a pack that isn’t thawed, but when I arrived home (less than 30 minutes after I left IKEA), they have become a bit soft (even during winter), and started to stick to each other, which makes it difficult to separate them apart when I take them out of the freezer and want to bake them.
2. It gets a bit messy when taking them out of the package, as the sugar topping falls out and sticks everywhere.

My conclusion: I wish we had Cinnabon in Hong Kong!

Snack Review: Arnott Shapes Aussie BBQ Meat Lovers

Arnott’s Shapes are my favourite childhood snacks, so I get really excited when they are on sale at $5 for 3 boxes. However what surprised me was seeing this Aussie BBQ Meat Lovers flavour. I have never seen them before, and on its packaging, it says that it’s only at Coles, so I’m not sure if this is a new flavour/product or not.

Arnott’s Shapes Aussie BBQ Meat Lovers AUD$5 for 3

The unique shape actually caught my eyes, I think they are so cute! The flavour isn’t really that special, just the taste of tomato powder with a hint of bacon, but I like how it is not too meaty, if that makes sense. I tried Smith’s crispy bacon flavoured chips months ago, and they were too “meaty” with the very strong bacon flavour.

I actually love all the flavours, but if I have to pick some of my favourites, it would be Sensations Tomato & Chilli,  Sensations Lime & Chilli with Poppy Seeds, BBQ and Pizza. I still need to try out their Roadies collection, only tried Peri-Peri Chicken flavour, which I didn’t really like that much.

Snack Review: Kraft’s Vegemite Cheesybite

So I’m finally back in Hong Kong for holiday, and opened my jar of Vegemite Cheesybite I bought earlier. Well, I have to say I like the original Vegemite more. When I first opened the jar, the Vegemite Cheesybite looks like chocolate mousse, which seems to look better than original one. However, I didn’t really like the taste, because it’s just a mild version of the original Vegemite and you cannot taste the cream cheese or any cheesy flavour at all. I asked my dad for his opinion too, he said exactly the same thing as I did, we both prefer the original Vegemite much more. Of course, my mom didn’t like it as usual, and she kept saying it’s still the same Vegemite flavour.

If you love the original Vegemite, I don’t think you would like this Vegemite Cheesybite. However, if you have never tried Vegemite before or you don’t like the original one, you might wanna try this one, as the flavour is more mild and the colour looks better.

Snack Review: Smith’s Vegemite-flavoured chips

I read the article about Smith’s launching the Vegemite-flavoured chips when I was doing my newspaper review at my intern; I was pretty excited when I saw the article and was looking forward to its launch. However, the first time I saw them at Coles, I thought they were a little pricey than the usual Smith’s chips, so I didn’t get them until I saw them on sale $3 for 2 yesterday, and decided I should give it a try.

I know many non-Aussie people hate Vegemite; they think it tastes weird and salty. Well, I kinda of grew up eating Vegemite, I guess it’s because my dad studied in Australia and lived here for some time, so the taste of Vegemite kinda of reminded him the good old days. That’s why we always have a jar of Vegemite in our fridge, though it takes a long time to finish one jar. I don’t eat it every day, not even every time when I have toast for breakfast, but I like to have it occasionally and I actually like how it tastes.

However, after trying half a pack of the Vegemite-flavoured chips, I didn’t really like it. Firstly, the chips don’t look really nice, somehow I thought it looked like regular chips with dirt on it. I know that doesn’t sound nice, but I just didn’t like the dark-colour Vegemite powder on top of the chips. I know they can’t really do anything with it, because Vegemite is indeed black in colour. Anyway, the second thing I didn’t like was its taste, you can feel that Vegemite flavour there, but not really that outstanding. I understand Vegemite is pretty salty and they can’t really add a lot onto the chips; but if you really like Vegemite, then Vegemite-flavoured chips don’t really do the job. I rather have Vegemite on my toast.

The only thing I like about it was the wavy chips, I always prefer wavy chips over thin and crispy chips; so that’s the only thing I liked about it, the chips’ texture.

I also tried the other Smith’s limited edition chips, such as the meat pie sauce, crispy bacon, and Sunday roast. The meat pie sauce one was okay as I remember; the crispy bacon one was okay but after eating a third of your bag of chips, you wanna stop eating, because the crispy bacon flavour is too strong. I didn’t really like the Sunday roast one, mainly because it wasn’t the wavy chips (not sure if they only have the thin and crispy or what) and the flavour wasn’t particularly outstanding. Out of all the Smith’s chips, I like the Heinz’s Big Red one the most!

Still thinking if I should try the Vegemite Cheesybite, as I haven’t seen them in Hong Kong yet. One of my friends who dislikes Vegemite told me that the only time she would eat Vegemite is when she puts a slice of cheese on top of her toast with Vegemite; so I think cheese does go with Vegemite.

P.S. I got the Vegemite Cheesybite today, but I’m not going to open it yet. Will bring it back home and let my family try it. Will let you know if I like it or not.