Recipes from a Cook Wannabe

Urgent - Puppies for Sale

2009-07-18T11:01:00.003+08:00

Just helping a friend out. Pop over to my other website and have a look if you are interested.

Have a great day everybody. I will be back with more post shortly... and I really mean it this time :)

2009-05-24T11:25:00.001+08:00

Chilled Oreo Cheese Cake

2009-02-25T16:15:00.008+08:00

There were so much great food to eat over the festive period just past and before I get into the Chilled Oreo Cheese Cake, I have to show you the beautiful Peach Cheese Cake that my niece-in-law brought over during the Chinese New Year celebs. Yah, she is the same one who did the Little Moo Moos thingy :). I am still waiting for her recipe for this cheese cake as she did this one without eggs and with a hint of some sort of liqueur. If I am lucky, I might get it before the year is up haha.. coz we don't really get to see each other that often.. only during cny.

After that cake, I was truly inspired to try to do one myself and since it was Nick's birthday on the 27th of January, I said.. what better reason to do one. So, went to dig up my recipe books and came across one which had the basic ingredients for the cake. Did a little bit of improvisation (as I always need to do since I am such a bad planner, I don't always have enough of everything that the recipe calls for) and wallah, I got a pretty presentable Chilled Oreo Cheese Cake.

Ingredients

Base
120 gms of Oreo Biscuits without the cream inside (I used 60gm of Oreos and 60g of Digestive Biscuits as I only had 1 tube of Oreos)
60 gms of butter, softened at room temperature

Fillings
1) Using a double boiler, cook

2 egg yolks
150 gms sugar (reduced to 120 gm if you desire a less sweet cake)
160 gms milk

2) 2 1/2 tbsp gelatin dissolved in 6 tbsp of boiling water

3) 250 gm of cream cheese

4) 250 gm of double cream (lightly whipped)

5) 2 pieces of Oreo Biscuits with the cream fillings. Put in through a blender so that when mixed with the cream cheese mixture, the Oreo black spots are seen.

6) 1/2 tbsp of lemon juice

Method

Combined the crushed biscuit crumbs and the melted butter into a base of a 9inch loose base pan. Leave in the fridge to chill.
Beat cream cheese until smooth and then add all the rest of the ingredients.
Pour the mixture into the chilled biscuit base and return the cake into the fridge for 3 hours or overnight.

For the decoration, I just whipped up some whipping cream and if you like it to be a little bit sweet and stiff, add a little icing sugar. Put it inside a pipping bag and decorate. If you also have only 1 tube of Oreos for the entire cake and have been following the recipe above to the letter, you will find that you will have about 6 pieces of Oreos left, which is exactly all you need to have.

Cut 4 of them into halves and decorate all round the cake. Have one whole Oreo for the middle. The 6th piece is a spare, in case whilst cutting the Oreo's into halves, you break any. But if you didn't need to use the 6th piece, then put it into you mouth and savour the goodness of a delicious Oreo's Biscuit...mmmmm....

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Little Moo MOo Things in a Bento Box

2009-02-14T07:11:00.009+08:00

The Chinese New Year celebrations have officially ended. And so have most of the other festivities. In addition to that, I have also completely moved on from my job of 15 years. Looks like I have almost run out of reasons for not having the time to blog :).

There are plenty of nice photos which I have managed to take during the last month and this is one which I would like to share first. This is a little something which a very close relative brought to the house during the "tuen lin"- family reunion lunch. They were almost too cute to eat, which ordinarily the kids would have just popped them in the mouth and the adults would have just looked past them as they are rather high in cholestrol.

Ha ha.. aren't they just oh so cute. Little moo moo quail eggs. Decorated with punched out nori sheets, little bits of carrots, spring onions and ham pieces, sitting on little paper cups and all in a bento box. I would say a fair bit of effort but really a great piece of eye candy.

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Bento #19

2009-01-19T17:01:00.007+08:00

Wah.. it has been a long while since I have published a Bento post. It is not because I have not been Bento-ing, I have :). But I have not been blogging as frequently as I use to do. Why? Coz something is brewing in and soon I will share with you what's coming up :).

So, for this Bento #19, it is somewhat a left over from dinner the evening before. I made dumpling noodles for dinner and as I had extra dumplings, I decided to keep a couple to be brought to work the following day. I only cooked them in the morning.

In the evening, these were what we had for dinner....

Dumplings with fish balls in soup

Dry wanton noodles with dumplings

For lunch the next day, I packed these which I cooked in the morning....

Left: Wanton noodles with dumplings and fishballs
Right: Water chestnuts and jackfruit

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Chinese Styled Fried Rice

2009-01-13T10:46:00.013+08:00

My mum has always told me that fried rice is the easiest thing to cook where the preparation time and the actual cooking time is relatively short. Most of the ingredients that one needs for fried rice could be anything that is left in the fridge. The most important ingredient being leftover rice as great fried rice normally is cooked with overnight refrigerated cooked rice :).

Oh yeah, there is this toy in the cupboard that I have not yet opened and I am quite excited to see if it does what the packet says it will do. It is a Rice Mold that I bought from Daiso.

Took it out of the packet, washed it and laid it out to dry whilst I prepared myself to do a Chinese Styled Fried Rice.

Ingredients

2 cups of overnight cooked rice
2-3 shallots (sliced)
1 Chinese sausage (this can be replaced with chicken meat, ham slices or any meat bits you may have left in the fridge) - sliced
2 eggs
1 cup of frozen mixed vegetables (corn, carrots and peas) - washed
A few leaves of lettuce (whichever type you prefer) -sliced
Cooking oil
Sesame seed oil
Soya Sauce, Salt, Sugar and Pepper to taste
1 tomato (for garnishing only)

Method

1) Heat some oil in the wok/pan and put in the sliced shallots. When the shallots turns aromatic, put in the sliced Chinese sausages. Fry these for about a minute or so.

2) Add in the cooked rice and sprinkle a little water (with your hands) into the hot wok if the rice appears too dry. Break up the rice clumps.

3) Make a little well in the center of the rice, pour a little sesame oil into the center and crack in two eggs. Put in a dash of soya sauce into the eggs and scramble them.

4) Add in the cup of mixed vegetables. Add in soya sauce, sugar, salt and pepper for taste.

5) Lastly, add in the sliced lettuce. Stir in and your rice is ready to be served.

I scooped my rice into the rice mold. Since the mold is made of metal, it can get pretty hot. So, use an oven mitten or a cloth to protect your hands *ouch.. I learned this the painful way.

I think I should have to pack in the rice tighter as the rice shape was not as nice as that on the picture on the packet. Oh well, I will do it again soon as I simply love fried rice and I can eat bowls and bowls of it... *carbo meter blowing up...weeeeeee

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Bellygood - A Pork Lover's Paradise

2009-01-12T13:59:00.015+08:00

It has been my plan to visit this restaurant but somehow, the time was never right. The first time I saw this was on my way to a Christmas Party and another time was to meet up a friend for dinner...sigh. You've guessed it. I am really a true-ching-chong, whose best friend is the piggy, esply when it is bbq-ed :D.

Anway, I finally made it yesterday evening and even at 8pm, the crowd was virtually queuing up onto the 5-foot-way (exaggerating only lah).. haha..but there were 5 sets of people waiting in line before me. We had to write our names on the list and I saw that there was a group of 6 pax, 2 sets of 4 pax and 2 sets of 2 pax in front of me. So much for slowdown in the economy. We finally got our seats after about 15 mins of waiting. Not too bad.

Wow.. my eyes were salivating before my mouth could do so on their porky selections in the menu. Everything looked so tempting but I know that I will have to come back many times to try all of them. We ordered soups, starters, main porky main courses and of course desserts.

I did not managed to take photos of some of the dishes that came as they were wolfed down within seconds. But never mind, I managed to "steal" a photo here and there from Bellygood's website and a blogger named Donny Ang. Lovely shots Donny :D.

This is the Sausage Platter RM26.90 (Photo courtesy from Donny's post)

I must say that the food is really good, especially the ribs with their Honey Mustard Sauce. The next time I will order their platter, so that I can have of them in one dish, I mean on my own dish, without having to flick them from other people's dish.

They only have soup of the day (Mushroom for that night), but my oh my, the soup is lovely. RM8.30 a bowl

Apart from the food, the service is wonderful. Even though the place was packed and naturally the kitchen is already full steam ahead, tempers of some of the diners there were running a bit short, especially this rather round gentleman seated at the 5-foot-way table. He was showing his irritation towards the poor waitress when she could not tell him the name of the dish he was just served. Perhaps it was because she could not quite understand what he was asking. Overall, the waiters and waitresses kept their cool and their smiles intact. Kudos to them :D.

This Baked Portabello Mushroom with Bacon and Cheese must have fallen from Mushroom heaven..yuuuummm RM12.50.

The only thing that irritated me was the neighboring food outlet. We were seated outside as the air-cond area were full. And as we waited, the smell of the bbq was really agonizing (the stomach was doing its' flipflops already, as the wait was to be expected) and the smoke was horrible as it billowed quite thickly over to where we were seated and I can imagine the diners all swathed with oil particles in the air.. yuck!

Apple Pork Ribs with Mash and Coleslaw RM24.90 - This is a CNY Special

We ordered the Honey Mustard P. Belly (RM22.90) but the porky belly didn't not last long enough to see the light of (day) the camera's flash. This photo is taken from Bellygood's Menu.

There was no way I was going to end my feast without savoring these two beauties. These are 2 of the 3 flavors of Ice Cream Cakes they have on their menu. The 3rd one which we didn't order was their Mocha Ice Cream Cake. Next time my love... I promise you....

Cookies and Cream IceCream Cake (RM8.90)

California Raisin Ice Cream Cake (RM8.90). This has a hint of alcohol taste which is rather nice.

My verdict is that the food is great, the price is reasonable, the location is good. Their operation hours are 11am to 11pm everyday, with Mondays off. So, the next time I visit Bellygood, it will definitely not be a weekend :D as I want the totally undivided attention of their waiters and waitresses.

The Mixed Platter that I want to order on mynext visit (Photo also courtesy of Donny Ang's blog)

Location:

20, Jalan PJS 8-18,
Dataran Mentari,
Bandar Sunway,
46150 Petaling Jaya
Selangor Darul Ehsan
T 03 5630 1699
E reservation@bellygood.com.my

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Belated Christmas Gifts... for Myself :D

2009-01-09T17:19:00.012+08:00

Christmas is always about getting gifts for those you love but who does one love most in this world? Oneself lor.. hahaha.. I dare to say this now after having been told my so many wise ones that in order to love others, one must first love oneself. And because I do love myself, I decided to splurge and get all these nice little prezzies for mua :).

I got them from a shop which actually if I had a choice, I would not like to shop in. Now why is that you might ask? Oh, they have got lots of great stuff there and a girlfriend swore that after doing her market survey, this company's outlet in her housing area apparently sells baking stuff at the cheapest price. However, that skinny lady with the glasses at the cash register must be be a yearly recipient of the Rudest Person in the World Award for the longest time. It really pays not to ask her anything whilst you are paying for your stuff if you do not want to be shouted at. Anyway, I am not the only one at the receiving end of her sharp tongue. I have been there at least 3 times and I must say that each time, other customers have also gotten it from her. This time, I refused to say a single word to her and I got off unscathed :D

Anyway, if you are really interested to get these "toys", just drop me a comment and I will "whisper" in your ears the name of the shop hahaha.

Blossom Plunger RM9.50

Snowflakes Plunger RM11.50

Leaf Plunger RM9.50

Small Daisies Plungers RM9.50

Three Leaf Holly Leaf Plunger RM8.00

Big Daisies Plunger RM14.50

Flower plunger RM9.50

Leaf Plunger RM9.50

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Almond Biscotti

2009-01-07T14:25:00.005+08:00

I actually did not have intention to bake last night. In fact, I was looking forward to a nice quite evening, in front of the telly. However, after chatting with my dear friend Susan over the MSN in the afternoon and after looking at the link to a recipe which she sent, I was totally inspired to test the recipe out.

The recipe is from Aunty Yochanna's blog which I have reproduced below.

Ingredients:

3 egg white
100 gm. sugar
1/8 tsp. salt
1 tsp. vanilla essence
200 gm. whole almonds
120 gm. plain flour

Method:

(1) Whisk egg white (about 100g) with sugar and salt till thick.
(2) Fold in flour and almonds.
(3) Pour into a 7" sq. tray.
(4) Bake at 170C for about 25 mins. until light brown.
(5) Remove and place onto a cooling rack to cool.
(6) Wrap cake with aluminium foil and keep in the fridge for a couple of hours.
(7) Slice the cake into thin slices and lay onto a baking tray.
(8) Bake in oven at 160C for about 15 mins. or until it's crispy.
(9) Cool and store in cookie containers.

After the 1st round of baking

Waiting for them to cool

All bottled and waiting for my test bunnies

I followed Aunty's recipe to the letter and the results that came out looks nice. However, I felt that it was still a little hard. So, what I did was I took half the stack to work this morning and along the way, gave it to some test bunnies.

These were the comments from my bunnies:-

1) Bunny Malaysia Voxique - mmmm.. very nice, very crunchy

2) Bunny PuayAun - isn't this how biscotti should taste like... I mean, people have to dunk them into their cuppa, don't they?

3) Bunny Babe - nice and crunchy. Yah, a bit hard but you should have tried biscotti from my first try... hard like rocks, had to throw away the entire batch :(

4) Bunny DCYK - *crunch crunch... nice..*crunch crunch.... *takes a second piece.. :)

5) Bunny Anna - nice, thank you.

6) Bunny Sharon - nice, a bit hard though.. but something's missing...arrrhhh.. just cannot put my finger on it....mmmmm...aroma?...mmmmm

7) Bunny Thoughts - a bit hard but nice

Conclusion : I have a feeling that I may have to do another batch again this time doing 3 things. One, to add the egg mixture to flour instead of flour to eggs. Two, to use only pure vanilla essence, and not the el-cheapo ones. And three, try to slice the biscotti into thinner slices, but at the same time, without it breaking up.

Perhaps I will do another batch during the weekend, when I buy more almonds. Anyone wants to volunteer as test bunnies ? ;)

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Walnuts & Choc Chip Cupcakes

2009-01-06T13:10:00.004+08:00

Wow, I just realized that it has almost been a month since my last post. What happened? I supposed that time just flew by without me realizing it. I did bake some, cook a few things but perhaps I just didn't have the time to post them up.

I decided to make this Walnut and Chocolate Chip Cupcakes after clearing my kitchen cabinet and finding that I still have heaps of walnuts and chocolate chips in there. It is going to be Chinese New Year soon and I do need the space in the kitchen cabinets for storing the new stuffs.

I tried this recipe which I picked up from a friend. The cake tasted quite ok but I had complaints from the few test bunnies. They complaint that I didn't put more walnuts into the cupcakes. Ok Ok..next time yeah.. have to put a note at the recipe :D

Ingredients

115g unsalted butter
115g Castor sugar
115g self-raising flour
2 tbsp of cocoa powder
2 eggs
1 tsp of vanilla essence
1 cup of chocolate chips (Van Houtens)
1/2 cup of chopped walnuts (have to increase that to 1 full cup)

Preparation

Cream the butter and sugar until fluffy
Add in the eggs, one at a time
Stir in the cocoa powder and flour (sieved beforehand) and beat on medium speed for about 2 minutes.
Gently stir in the vanilla essence
Add in the chopped walnuts and chocolate chips into the mixture (leave a bit for the top of the cupcakes)
Scoop and fill the cupcake cases up to 2/3 full.
Sprinkle some chopped walnuts and chocolate chips on top of the cake mixture
Bake in a preheated oven at 180C for about 20 minutes in the centre of the oven.
Take out and cool in the cake tray for 5 minutes before removing them from tray.
Continue cooling on the wire rack.

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Kopi Club at Low Yat Plaza

2008-12-09T17:48:00.008+08:00

Going out for lunch with JW these days are never planned. All you get is a call or an sms about 1/2 an hour before lunch. But then, that is alright for me. When it is about food, you can just snap your fingers and I am there :D.

That was precisely what happened last week. JW sms-ed and told me that she was in the city and whether I would like to have lunch. We decided to go over to Low Yat Plaza for lunch. When we got there, I surprised myself by deciding to skip my favorite Chee Cheong Fun stall and settled for Kopi Club. Was thinking to myself, the last time I was there, I was with Babe and not being very sure when that was, I decided to go browse her blog and there, I found it. The last time I was there was with Babe was in September, almost 3 months have passed.

This time around, I decided to try something western and their Chicken Chop (RM11.90) looked quite inviting and the portion was quite generous too. It came with a bun, yum-yum, with a real slice of butter in it, some french fries and gravy with lovely carrots and onions.

JW opted for Nasi Ayam Goreng (RM10.50) as Ayam Goreng is her favorite. I thought we just had Ayam Goreng at the Sisters a few days ago. Haha.. I reckon JW can eat Ayam Goreng everyday.

With a Hot Lemon Tea (RM3.90) for JW and an Ice Honey Lemon (RM4.80), the total bill came up to RM32.66 (Service Tax of 5%). Once in a while, we have to treat ourselves to good food like these.

Venue:
KopiClub
LG-8, Plaza Low Yat,
Off Jalan Bukit Bintang, KL

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Marble Cake

2008-11-26T16:47:00.006+08:00

Wow.. I didn't realize that it has been weeks since my last post. Time really flies .. especially towards the end of the year. And soon, Christmas will be here and I thought to myself? After not having baked for such a long time, could I still do it? So, I decided to bake the world's easiest to bake cake, the Marble Cake.

As usual, started only doing this on Sunday evening. Luckily I still have a block of butter in the freezer. So, took that out at dinner time and by the time dinner was done and all the dishes have been washed, I started work on the butter cake.

My cake has a big fat mouth.. just like me *smirk

This is an old recipe which I cut out from a news paper many years back but it is quite a foolproof recipe.

Ingredients

2 cups wheat flour
1 cup sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup of butter, soften (about 115g)
2 eggs
1 cup of milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 tbsp of unsweetened cocoa powder (I used Van Houtens)

Method

Preheat the oven at 180C. Grease and flour a 9 inch round pan (I cannot remember if mine was actually a 9in or 8 in pan. Should have written it down at the bottom of the pan when I first bought it).
Place the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, butter, eggs, vanilla and milk into a mixing bowl. Mix it all up with a spatula and then beat it with an electric mixer at slow speed for about 2 minutes until the mixture is smooth.
Remove about a bowl of batter into another container A.
Stir in the cocoa into this batter in container A until it is well mixed.
Pour in 1/2 of the original batter into the cake pan.
Drop in either spoonfuls of the chocolate batter into the cake pan or if you are lazy like me, I just plonked in the entire lot of chocolate batter into the middle of the cake pan.
Cover the cake pan with the remaining original batter.
Using a knife or a chopstick, swirl the batter around so that this will create a marble effect to the cake.
Bake in the oven for 35 minutes or until the wooden pick comes out clean.

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I Love Japanese Ra-Men

2008-11-09T17:49:00.007+08:00

I love Japanese Ramen, whether it is from the shops or those in the packets which I cook at home. They taste much better than the local instant noodles as I find the Japanese Ramen a lot tastier. I am not sure how much I paid for them but I don't think that they were too expensive. Will need to go check out the price for a bag of 5 packets the next time I go shopping.

Normally I will just add some vegetables, a little meat (like left over chicken or duck from dinner) or half an egg into the ramen. This was what I had for lunch.

After eating that nice lunch, I decided to go check my email and I received an email from an old friend from University. He sent me a mail entitled " Beware! If you love Ramen". His email read "Sorry guys. Have to send to you so many negative news concerning foodstuff these days. Pretty soon, I'll run out of things to eat."

This was his email to me.... "Beware! If You Like Ramen"....was rather scary. I didn't want to post the pictures here as I don't think it is right to spoil people's appetite for Ramen. But if you want to have a look at what the email has to say, then click here at my other blog to have a look.

I know the packet of Ramen that I bought and cooked was manufactured in Hong Kong, China but I don't think I will throw away the last 2 packets. I am sure my body can handle it :D But I might not want to buy any more after this until I do a bit more research (coward me).

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Cup Cake Toppers Makes My Life Simpler

2008-11-08T22:42:00.015+08:00

I have been rather busy doing a lot of exciting things of late and blog wise, I have appeared to be doing a lot of bento-ing rather than baking... so much so that Christene of AllThingsPurple gave me a call 2 weeks ago for a chat and also to ask me if I still bake. Ha Ha.. yeah I do.. especially for a good reason or a good cause. I have realized that baking for me is really a hobby that I love. It will never really be a business or a money making venture for me. The money bit may be okie but the time it takes to bake and decorate can be rather long. Furthermore money does not appear to be the compensation I seek from doing it. It is the happiness and joy from recipients faces that I seek and value. Perhaps that is why I have only been doing baking for family, friends and charity. And I really had a hard time convincing Christene that I will not accept any money for baking those few cuppies for her little girl's birthday. Read here for her little princess' birthday party. Ha Ha.. in the end, we reached a compromise. I will bake the cuppies and she will go get the toppers for the cuppies.

The spirals were done using the lovely rolling pin I bought at Cake Connections

These imprints were done using a little rolling pin which was a present from my good friend Susan (Sue mei mei)

For the cuppies' recipe, I merely used a simple butter cake recipe but added chocolate chips into one batch and dried strawberry bits in the other. The butter cake recipe was taken from Aunty Yochana's website here. I will normally try to use her recipes as they are guaranteed to work and furthermore, she uses weight measurements. I get a little worried sometimes when I read recipes when the ingredients are measured with cups.

A plain old cuppie design with a fondant table cloth design which I made

A cuppie that most child would love.. thanks to the added sprinkles and clown topper from Cake Connections

I actually took 2 evenings to prepare the cakes. The first evening was for the fondant and I know that fondant can be kept longer than the cuppies. I made the fondant into a few colors and set them aside. The next evening was for the baking and the laying of the basic decorations with the fondant and some sprinkles.

Now isn't this a lot prettier?

And this too?

I think if I were to have made the toppers for the cuppies, it would easily have taken at least one to two evenings shaping them as we need toppers for 40 cuppies. Hence, I am so glad that Christene was getting the cuppies toppers from Cake Connections.

The basic decorations on the cuppies which I did at home before they were sent to Christene's house

At Christene's place, we took out the cuppies and laid them all on the dinning table, took out the sprinkles and the toppers she bought and I think in less than half and hour, we were done decorating 40 cuppies. Opps.. forgot to mention. We were so efficient and quick as we also had a little helper. Her name is Kimberly (Christene's elder princess). She managed us using the convey style system. She will first dictate which of the cuppies get to be decorated with sprinkles (which was my job - to put on the sprinkles). Then her job was to stick on the topper and mummy's job was to put them into the plastic dome cup and staple them. See, when you have a system, everything works efficiently and quickly. This child has potential and I have already earmarked her for one of my projects when she grows up :D.

Pretty flowers for the little girls

Cute clowns for the little boys

I am so happy that people like Cake Connection has made my life as a cook(baker)wannabe so much simpler. When in need a great toppers, I know where to get them :)

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Pancake House International - Food Review

2008-11-05T15:10:00.011+08:00

It was Sunday late afternoon when my mum decided that she wanted to buy some nyonya kueh for offerings to one of the ancestors. As I was going out in the evening, decided to go to Sunway Pyramid to see if there were any around. Was walking towards the supermarket entrance into Jusco when I spotted the Pancake House International. Mmm.. I have only tried Paddington's Pancake at The Curve and Mid Valley, The Gardens. Was wondering how different this would be.

Decided to go try it out after picking up what I wanted for mum (mum had to settled with Man Tou - dumplings from the frozen food section as I couldn't find any nyonya kueh).

Surveyed the menu and it turned out that the food sold there was quite interesting. Pancake House unlike Paddington's had more than pancakes on the menu list. They had pastas, rice dishes, pancakes (of course) and waffles.

We order one piece of their "Best Taco in Town" (RM6.50). I like it a lot as it is light and tasty. Generous amount of cheese toppings.

For the mains, we tried their Gambero Spaghetti (RM21) and the Smoked Golden Tinapa with Garlic Rice and a fried egg (RM15).

The Gambero Spaghetti, a tomato based sauce with about 5 medium sized prawns was quite tasty but not hot enough. At best, it was only warm. That kind of spoiled it for me.

The Smoked Golden Tinapa was quite a disappointment. Firstly, if you looked at the picture, you might not have guessed that it was a fish dish. The poor fish came with it's skin broken up and it was not on the fish. The waiter did apologize to us for that but he gave us the excuse that they have to make sure that the fish is cooked before serving it up. And the garlic rice served with the fish.. which was under the fried egg is again at room temperature. I expected the rice to be hot. The taste of the marinade on the skin of the fish was quite overpowering. Overall, I didn't like this dish one bit :(.

Their desserts were much better (luckily). We ordered 2 desserts as I was so tempted by their Waffle Foldover (RM12.00) but since this is a pancake shop, we also order the Caramel Banana Pancakes (RM12.00).

The Waffle Foldover was very nice and they were very generous with their scoop of vanilla ice-cream. It was gi-nor-mous. And they sprinkled it with a good bit of chopped walnuts and smarties.

The pancakes are what pancakes should be but I was just wondering where the caramel was. It came with a small container of maple syrup only... mmm..

The entire meal with 2 bottles of mineral water came up to RM78.65 (10% service charge - RM7.15 included). Well, I am not sure if there will be a 2nd time for me there but if I do go again, it will definitely be for their Waffle Foldover :D.

Pancake House International
LG, 126 Sunway Pyramid
No 3 Jalan PJS 11/5, Bandar Sunway,
46150 Petaling Jaya,
Selangor

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Bento #18

2008-11-04T14:21:00.006+08:00

Ya Ya.. I know. I have been bento-ing a lot more often then I am baking these days... so much so that my dear friend Christene of AllThingsPurple called me up to ask me if I am still baking haha. Yah I am still baking. It is just that bento-ing seems fun and lately it has started to become more a necessity as I am planning to start my 3rd project... a weight management project. Will share this once I have tighted up all the screws to my little project boat.

The other thing is also to catchup with the other bento bloggers so that I can qualify for competitions organized by my favorite bento blogger - Pat of BentoPet. So, here goes my Bento #18.

I made this bento for lunch as using minced meat that was left over from making my wonton during the weekend. I found out that I made more meat then I had wonton skin. Oh well, improve a bit to make it into another meal :D

These are the meat patties that I made. For simple meat patties you can use minced chicken (or pork), mince prawns, water chestnuts, spring onions and some shitake mushrooms. Marinade the meat with a little sesame oil, salt and sugar to taste and a dash of pepper. Shape them into a small hockey pucks. First dunk them into a beaten egg, then cover the pucks with some breadcrumbs. Fry them in a wok of hot oil and there you have it... home made meat patties.

This other tray holds my rice topped with some nori bits and sesame seeds, a rolled up plain omellete and stir fried mushrooms with brocolli.

Okie.. that is my 18th bento post.. Another 82 more to go if the qualifying criteria is 100 bento posts for next year's competition :D

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Japanese Curry

2008-11-03T16:41:00.006+08:00

I have only tried Japanese curry once before this and it was at Sushi King. They were having a promotion and only after much persuasion by the nice waitress that I decided to order my first Japanese curry. Not sure why there was so much reluctance on my part but I think it is my stupid mind set. I always only associate good curries to Indian and Malay cooking. Ha Ha.

Anyway, the curry tasted quite good. A little sweet but then sweet is my favorite flavor. Have not ordered it again, not that I didn't like it. But I reckon it was more like a habit.. a habit of not ordering it.

So, one day, I decided to get a pre-cooked curry pack from the Japanese food outlet. They actually had a whole lot to choose from. I decided to pick one which was in a blue box, blue being one of my favourite colors.. and also I was told that it was one of the more popular one :D.

The cooking is very easy. Just microwave it or dump the entire packet (take it out from the paper box first yeah) inside the boiling water for 5 minutes (I forgot how long .. please read the instructions on the box). I boiled some rice to go with it.

The taste is as I liked it, sweet with only a tinge of spicy. My only complaint is..... where are all those chucks of meat and vegetables they showed on the box?? It was like "hoi dei low chump" - trying to fish a needle from the sea (literally translated from Cantonese to English).

Mmmm.. cannot read the Japanese writings on the box. Maybe I was supposed to add more meat and veg into the curry???

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Bento #17

2008-10-30T13:40:00.003+08:00

Last week, I put up a post on how to cook Okonomiyaki. As I had 1/2 a bag of flour left, I decided to finish it before the horrible weevils find their way to that bag of floor, especially in this damp weather. This time, I replaced the mushrooms with a little white squid and small prawns. Maybe I didn't add enough squid and prawns as I could not really taste that much of a difference, except the little bit more chewy when I bit into the squid. I think I will stick to the mushrooms the next time. Healthy and cheaper :D

Top tray : Okinomiyaki with squid and prawns
Lower tray : White rice with a sprinkling of the yummy nori bits, bonito flakes and some leftover egg furikake.
Right tray : Lovely seedless grapes

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Bento #16

2008-10-28T18:46:00.005+08:00

Bento #16 is a relatively simple on as it is made up of mainly leftovers. The rice is from the same batch of Multi Grains Rice which I made earlier.

The meat stew is a plain one which is made up pork bits and I added a freshly boiled egg as mum says that it is not good to eat eggs which have been left overnight. Not sure why but when we were kids, she absolutely refused to let the sons eat them.

The veg is freshly stir fried as normally vegetables are all eaten up on the day they were cooked. I guess vegetables which have to be refried will be rather limped and none of the vitamins would have been retained. The veg dish was stir fried carrots, cabbage and some abalone mushrooms in a little garlic.

For desserts, I had a banana.. yum yum :)

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Mixed Grains Rice

2008-10-27T18:27:00.008+08:00

I have never tried mixed grains before. At best, it was either brown rice or the Thai Red Rice. But after reading Babe's post on Mixed Grains Fried Rice, I simply had to give it a go. Got some advice from Babe and went shopping over the weekend. Actually, there were quite a few varieties of mixed grains at the Organic shops. I was actually at a loss as to which one to select. Finally, I went to this Organic shop in near OUG (Overseas Union Garden) market in Kuala Lumpur. The lady was very helpful and she recommended the Chinese Yam and Multi Grains Rice. This is the packet I bought. The cost of this packet was RM14 for 1 kg.

The ingredients inside the bag included Australian Brown Rice, Oat, Sorghum Rice, Job's Tears, Buck'wheat, Gordon Euryale Seed, Wheat, Barley, Red Lentils, Pearl Rice and Yam. Actually, I could not recognize more than half of the stuff inside the bag.

Her advice was to soak the grains between 1 hour to 2 hours before cooking. And as this was my first time eating this, she also recommended for me to add in 1 cup of white rice to 1 cup of the multi grains rice, in case I am not use to the texture.

Well, I followed her instructions to the letter and cooked up a pot of multi grain rice with the same portion of white rice. This is what I got. It was quite yummy but the best part of it, after eating a bowl of it for lunch, one can last the entire afternoon until dinner without any hunger pangs :D. A great diet meal.

The results .......

1 cup of white rice, 1 cup of mixed grains rice (soaked for 2 hours) and 2 and 3/4 cups of water. I steamed the rice instead of putting it into my lousy rice cooker. I reckon that if you did put it into the rice cooker, you may need to add a little bit more water. A bit of a trial and error.

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Okonomiyaki

2008-10-23T14:50:00.007+08:00

Okonomiyaki is one of those Japanese dishes that I like very much and I finally was able to get all the ingredients that I needed to make this. Okonomiyaki is really like a Pizza, japanese style. But when I did it, mine looked more like a pancake :D. This is how it out to look like, in a restaurant..

This image was borrowed from Travel To Japan website.

This is what mine looked like.Not sure why the entire photo color is orange but then it was only a camera phone.

Here's another picture of my okonomiyaki.

It was very easy to do and quite tasty. Here, this recipe was taken off a brochure they were handing out at that nice little Japanese shop at Mid Valley, The Gardens. Haha.. finally got the name of the shop.

I already halved everything in the recipe as I think one full pan of okonomiyaki is quite enough for 1 meal.

Ingredients

100g okonomiyaki flour
2 eggs
100 cc of water
250g of cabbage
50g of meat ingredient (chicken/beef/squid/prawn) - I didn't add any... coz I didn't have any in the freezer
50g of vegetable ingredient (mushrooms/onion/ corn) - I only used mushrooms and onion)

Garnishing

Brown okonomiyaki sauce
Mayonnaise
Dried Bonito flakes
Green seaweed flakes

Method

Slice cabbage finely
Finely cut up the ingredients that you want to add
Mix okonomiyaki sauce, eggs and water together in a big bowl and stir until frothy
Add cabbage into the mixture
Pour in all the finely cut ingredients into the batter and mix thoroughly
Heat some oil in the frying pan
When oil is hot, pour all the batter mix into the frying pan and fry in medium heat
When the bottom surface of the okonomiyaki has turned golden brown, flip it over
Once both sides have turn golden brown, serve it on a plate
Garnish it with the okonomiyaki sauce and mayonnaise
Sprinkle the bonito flakes and the seaweed flakes just before serving

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Bento #15

2008-10-21T13:49:00.005+08:00

Went over to the Japanese Store at Mid Valley The Garden again over the weekend and bought a few cool stuff. I hope I still have the packet at home as I forgot to take a photo of the bag. It was a sushi rice mix, I think the bag only had Japanese words on it. The little white sticker with the few English words on it had quite a lot of things on it... including carrots, vinegar, etc etc. I must really go back and retrieve that bag soon, if I have not already thrown it away.

Anyway, I made a simple bento for lunch using whatever that was in the fridge. I noticed that I have been bento-ing more than I have been baking.... oh, I do miss baking... but bento-ing is fun and it is quick and simple too :).

I have also started discussing a new project I have in mind with my dear bento blogging friend Pat of Bento Pet. Hope to see my proposed project take off soon. And thank you very much Pat, for giving me the time and keeping an open mind on this (hopefully NOT) a hare brain scheme of mine. Keeping fingers and toes crossed.

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Top tray : Short grain rice with the delicious pre-mix that came complete even with the nori bits for garnishing and 2 sausages (steamed)

Bottom tray : Quail eggs (bought a rabbit craft cutter from MPH bookstore MidValley but the sumo were cut free-hand - notice how untidy they are heehee), cucumbers, crab sticks and grapes.

Bento #14

2008-10-17T15:26:00.007+08:00

Ever since I found that little Japanese supermarket like outlet at the Gardens, Mid Valley, I have been going there almost every weekend. The people there are rather nice as they will take the time to explain to me what new products they have and also how to use some of the products. I have been buying quite a few interesting stuff from them each time.

One of the items I bought recently were rice cakes (I think that is what they are called). They are made totally of glutinous rice and they come in either rectangular pieces like those in the photo below and also in small disc forms. These can be either lightly fried in a little oil or put into sweet soups like the red bean soups to give it more body.

I also got some of these Egg Furikake. Looks very nice and interesting.

With just these two ingredients, I am ready to make my very simple Bento #14.

I just had to lightly fry the rice cakes and once they are done, i used a small piece of nori sheet to hold it up. Lightly smear some Japanese mayonnaise around the 3 sides of the cake and press it into a pile of Egg Furikake. And this is how it looks.

Cut up a plum or two, wash a bunch of grapes and some cherry tomatoes and you are ready.

And this is the end result, almost hassle free.

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Bento #13

2008-10-14T18:43:00.004+08:00

I didn't think that I will be bento-ing yesterday as I knew I was going to have a company paid lunch but when I got back, I realize that I didn't have much time for a leisurely sit-down dinner before I had to rush off for my Monday night meeting with some of my business partners. After frying the rice and taking a quick shower after that, I only had time to cut up 2 plums and 1 kiwi fruit and stuff some rice into my bento box before I ran off.

I think it was rather rude of me but I cannot help it. I arrived at 10 minutes to 8pm and the meeting is to start at 8pm. So, without too much ceremony, I just took out my Bento and ate my dinner at the office, with 2 of them eyeing my food. I didn't ask if they have eaten as there was definitely not enough to share *evil grin*

Left tray : 2 plums and 1 kiwi fruit
Right tray : Fried Thai Red Rice (recipe in the previous post)

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Fried Thai Red Rice

2008-10-14T18:19:00.008+08:00

I have normally eaten only white rice or brown rice. But the first time I ate red rice was at this eatery Ying Ker Lou - Hakka Cuisine in Sunway Pyramid which serves authentic Hakka Cuisine. The dishes were lovely and I am trying to get some photos to post it up on the blog. I remember taking photos with my camera phone but I cannot locate them now :(

Anyway, I found the red rice very nice indeed and decided to buy a very small packet (I think the 1 kg packet) as any packet larger than that will be a magnet to weevils (gosh, how I detest these little bugs). I cooked them the first time following the directions on the packet 2 cups of water to 1 cup of rice. The rice turned out pretty hard. Luckily none of us who ate it had indigestion that night.

Yesterday, I cooked it again but this time, with 2 1/2 cups of water to 1 cup of rice. It turned out much better. As I was in a hurry to rush of for my Monday night meetings, I had only enough time to fry it all up with whatever I can find in the fridge. This is the result.

Ingredients
2 cups red rice, cooked
3 shallots - chopped
1 large carrot - diced
1 cup of frozen corn
1 fresh red chilli - sliced
4 pieces of mushroom sausages - sliced
2 eggs, beaten and scrambled
1 tbsp of mini dried shrimps

Method

After the rice is cooked, dish it out and fluff it to be cooled whilst preparing the other ingredients
Heat up the wok/pan and add a little oil.
Once the oil is hot, put in the shallot and fry until aromatic.
Add in the dried shrimps and then add in the sausages.
Put in the chilli, carrots and corn.
Add in a 1/4 tsp salt, 1/4 sugar and some pepper
Put in the rice into the wok and mix all the ingredients into the rice.
Add soya sauce to taste.
Finally add in the scrambled eggs and dish it out.

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Bento #12

2008-10-12T23:50:00.008+08:00

It has been raining incessantly for the last few days and eating out meant really getting drenched. Hence, I decided to do a bento on a Sunday :), just for the fun of it. Wanted to make only something simple as the later part of Sunday is really a damper as the next day is working day.

There were some chicken wings in the freezer, a tray of unagi which I bought yesterday, some cauliflower, carrots and capsicum. Alright, the menu is all set.

Whilst the chicken was left to marinade, I managed to send out 20 emails to friends, inviting them to download a free video from a website, watched one episode of CSI Season 8 on the PC and chatted with a few friends over the MSN. The rest of the stuff which I made was easy and quick. These were the results.

This first bento was for me.

Left: Chicken in teriyaki sauce, omelette and mixed vegetables in oyster sauce
Right : Rice with a sprinkling of Sakura Denbu.

The bottom set was for Tobiyama's dinner. The dishes were the same except his had unagi, as an extra dish. I suppose this sure beats running out in the rain for a decent dinner.

No bento for lunch tomorrow as I'll be attending the company's Mid Year Business Review and there is lunch provided....buffet lunch... yummy :)

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Bentos #10 and#11

2008-10-08T17:12:00.006+08:00

These days are so packed, just like my bentos haha.. not really. I have been seriously trying to eat a little bit more healthily but every now and then, I do cheat.

Did I mention something about the 3 Hour Diet? Oh yeah, I did. I have yet to prepare any of the recipes recommended from their diet plan but I promise that when I do, I will definitely share it here.

I am trying to design bentos which is light enough to last me the entire day since the 3 Hour Diet recommends that I eat every 3 hours. So, these bentos are actually prepared with that in mind. I can tell you though, I am really enjoying this diet. Only time will tell if I will lose weight or actually put on haha.

Bento #10, Tuna, egg and weight watchers mayonnaise on wholemeal bread, dried garlic bread which I got from the Japanese shop in MidValley, The Gardens, a plum, a kiwi fruit and some cucumbers.

Bento #11 - Crab sticks, hard boiled egg, with only 1 yolk. I gave the dog the other yolk (doggies can eat egg yolks, can they?? che-cheh?? Help me on this one please) Salad is made from carrots, cucumbers, yellow bell pepper, purple cabbage, pistachio nuts, weight watchers' mayonnaise on a lettuce bed.

I had a banana and a small apple on the way to work. And dinner was just normal. I will tell you if it works... provided I don't cheat big time... teehee.. else I will have to call my friend to find out more about the carbo blockers.

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Selamat Hari Raya

2008-09-30T16:44:00.004+08:00

To all my Muslim friends, Selamat Hari Raya. Maaf Zahir Batin.

To everybody else, a happy holiday and happy feasting :D

Secret to Losing Weight without Tears & Pain

2008-09-28T19:41:00.008+08:00

It has been a really strange week of coincidences for me. I have always been talking about weight management on and off and just as it was that "off" time for me that I met a few people who pushed me back into thinking about weight management.

It all started last week when I was in the office pantry that I saw at least 2 of my colleagues drinking some meal supplement. They were part of a group of girls in the office who have just signed up with an Multi Level Marketing company to purchase the meal replacement package. This is not the first time this group of girls are taking some form of meal replacement or special diet to reduce weight. They have also taken the British Heart Foundation Diet (which the British Heart Foundation didn't not endorse haha) which did warn that prolonged consumtion of this diet will actually cause harm to a person.

British Heart Foundation Diet Plan

This diet is not recommended

Breakfast

5 ’snax’ biscuits (dry crackers)
1 slice of cheddar cheese
1 small apple
1 cup black tea/coffee/water

Lunch
1 boiled egg
1 slice of dry toast
1 cup black tea/coffee/water

Dinner
1 cup of tuna
1 cup of beetroot
1 cup of cauliflower
1/2 melon
1/2 cup of diet vanilla ice-cream
1 cup black tea/coffee/water

The British Heart Foundation diet is a very low calorie diet (approx. 700 calories per day), and is often only used for a few days. It is unsustainable. The meal plan should not be undertaken for any length of time without medical supervision.

Then, a day later, I met with an ex-colleague who is a very successful multi-level marketeer and he shared his list of food supplements plus diet plan which have helped many people. He showed me the testimonials of these happy people. Well, there is definitely something called the Carbo-blocker from his list which I would like to consider.

After that, a long lost friend came on MSN on Friday and wished me a belated Birthday. At the same time, he asked if we could meet to catch up. I agreed to meet him up this morning (Sunday) and guess what, a little way into breakfast, he shared his weight management plan with me. He does have a very interesting plan and basically it is about food supplements and special menus. The difference is that his plans suggests that the person eats 3 main meals plus 9 snacks a day. Wow.. this definitely sounds like my kind of diet plan haha. He promised that he will send me more details of the plan.

In the midst of all this, I have also stumble across something called a 3 Hour Diet Weight Management Plan. How many of you have heard of this? There is actually a website called the 3HourDiet.com. The guy who created this diet is Jorge Cruise (no relation to Tom, I think). The secret of his diet " lies in eating the "right foods" every 3 hours to stabilize your blood sugar, which controls your appetite. This steadies your moods and boosts your energy all day long."

When you click through the tour, it is really fantastic. You could even live on meals from McDonalds (my fav fast food) and still be able to lose weight. Wow.. this is fantastic.

I read that some research papers which says that the biggest mistake a person can make in trying to lose weight is to skip meals. When a person skips meals throughout the day, the blood sugar plummets, causing cravings and the potential to overeat later. When the person overeats, the even more weight is gained. Seems logical.

There is also this Starvation Prevention Mechanism that the body triggers whenever it senses that there is insufficient food coming in. It will start to automatically preserve fats and starts consuming the precious fat-burning lean muscles (*ouch). Now I understand how come people who are on diets and meal replacements put back the pounds immediately they stop their diets and meal replacements.

There was also one more scary fact I found during my search on the internet. It is this thing called the Belly Bulging Hormone Cortisol.

Extracted from About.com - Cortisol and Stress,
Cortisol increased abdominal fat, which is associated with a greater amount of health problems than fat deposited in other areas of the body. Some of the health problems associated with increased stomach fat are heart attacks, strokes, the development of , higher levels of “bad” cholesterol (LDL) and lower levels of “good” cholesterol (HDL), which can lead to other health problems!

A study conducted in Toronto, Canada, found that participants who eats frequent small meals, as opposed to three large meals that contained the same calories, reduced their cortisol levels by more than 17%..

Okie.. that settles it. I am not going to go on any replacement meals (not that I ever had before - I dislike all forms of liquid foods like that) and I am not going to try the Heart Foundation Diet ever again (ya ya.. I admit, I did try it but then I cheated. I will always double up the rations haha). I will however, consider the carbo blocker, the supplements (as whether or not i am on a diet, I do believe in supplements) and I am definitely going to start eating every 3 hours...(wow.. I can't believe it... a diet that finally allows me to eat regularly). Anyone want to join me in this journey towards a fitter and healthier body?

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Bento #9

2008-09-24T09:34:00.004+08:00

The wholemeal muffin that I made for Bento #8 was nutritious and healthy but it was rather difficult to swallow down without a glass of water or juice haha. Today, I decided to try the wholemeal pita to see how it tasted. Had 1/2 a piece for breakfast and it was really lovely. Much softer in texture and totally delicious. So, decided that I will have it for lunch too.

Still trying to go on a healthy diet course until at least tomorrow. Going to have a dinner meet with friends tomorrow at a lovely place that was introduced to me by JW and her sister Jean. That reminds me, I still got a load of photos somewhere on my PC of the lovely dinner we had there.

Back to Bento #9. Had to finish up the tomatoes on vines that I bought last week. They are very pretty to look at but I still prefer the Honey Cherry Tomatoes as they are much sweeter. Made a simple potato egg salad and wallah.. I have bento #9. Nothing fancy as my mum is back at the hospital for her checkup (still had to do extra bandings yesterday as the doctor found more lesions inside her guts) so no dinner at home, hence no leftovers.

Top Left : Washed potatoes and egg salad with a little mayonnaise, salt and pepper
Right : Tomatoes on veins, kiwi fruits, cucumbers and carrots
Bottom Left : Wholemeal pita bread with turkey ham and lettuce

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Bento #8

2008-09-22T12:09:00.004+08:00

I was at the Popular Bookstore last night and came across this cookbook entitled 50 Recipes for Diabetics. Flipped through it and found that most of the recipes were fashioned around all things wholemeal and oats. Didn't buy the book as most of the recipes were quite simple. When I got home and opened the fridge to decided what to make for the Monday's bento, there was hardly any leftovers...sigh! Looked up and whoa.. saw a bag of wholemeal muffins. There were 2 punnets of strawberries in the fridge. Haha..decided that I will have a very healthy bento.

I made 2 wholemeal muffins with lettuce and some chicken turkey slices. Just a little bit of ketchup on the bread. No butter or mayonnaise at all. Took some honey cherry tomatoes and some strawberries. The strawberries were a tad sour but very large and very juicy. Perhaps that is why people sometimes eat their strawberries with cream and sugar.

I made a little vegetable salad using sliced carrots, cucumbers, radish, pomelo (left over from the Mid Autumn Festival celebrations a week ago) and a bit of plum sauce.

Was checking what strawberries was good for and found a write-up on strawberries in the World's Healthiest Foods website.

Health Benefits of Strawberries

Strawberries not only look like a fruity heart-shaped valentine, they are filled with unusual phytonutrients that love to promote your health. It also has the following benefits.

Potent Antioxidant Protection from Phenols
Strawberry Phytonutrients that Promote Optimal Health
Protection against Macular Degeneration
Protection against Rheumatoid Arthritis

These days strawberries are no longer seasonal fruits (or so it seems as I think we are able to get strawberries the whole year through). So, have a strawberry a day :)

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Oatmeal Walnut & Raisin Muffins

2008-09-16T16:09:00.005+08:00

I was looking at this recipe book which claims that their desserts are healthier, as they have lower fat content and less sugar. So, I decided to use the 1st recipe in that book to see if it was true. However, what surprised me was that the name of the muffin was Oatmeal Cheese Muffin but there was not an ounce of cheese used in the recipe ??? But anyways, the recipe also asked for bran, which I didn't have. So, I substituted it with Walnuts (which I like more than bran) and renamed the recipe Oatmeal, Walnut & Raisins Muffins.

Made about 12 mini muffins and brought some to my business meeting yesterday evening. One of my teammates, Jeffrey seems to like it. At first I thought maybe he was just being his normal polite self when he said "Mmm.. nice" but he ate up what Husna didn't finish. Sharon and Simon didn't say anything but they finished theirs. So, I took it as passable. Haha.. but when it came to Husna, my dear friend took 1 bite and she looked like she is going to puke. That bad meh? Then I remembered, Husna only eats chocolate cakes and muffins, she loves meat, does not take vegetables except Kai Lan.. and yeah.. hates pizzas. In short, she loves junk food. Oatmeal and walnuts and raisins apparently didn't fall in her category of Junk Food...haha.. So, nice Jeffrey ate up Husna's muffin.

So, moral of the story... you just cannot bake to please everybody. There will be someone who will like your cake and others who don't. My friend Tobiyama probably loves them to bits as I think on the last count, he must have eaten no less than 1/2 a dozen of them. So, friends at the office, this explains why I have none left for you. Next time yeah??

Ingredients

240g plain yogurt
1 tsp baking soda
150g low gluten flour
1/8 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
100g oatmeal
30g bran (which I substituted with crushed walnuts)
1 egg
85g brown sugar
90ml vegetable oil
60g raisin

Method

Preheat oven to 180C for about 10mins
Place 6 large muffin cups or 12 small muffin cups on a baking tray and set aside
Mix yogurt and baking soda and set aside
Sieve low gluten flour, baking powder and salt. Add oatmeal. Mix well.
Beat the egg in a separate bowl. Add brown sugar and vegetable oil and stir well.
Add yogurt mixture slowly.
Pour the yogurt mixture into the dry ingredients in step 4.
Stir quickly with a plastic spatula until the mixture is no longer lumpy.
Add walnuts and raisins and mix well.
Scoop the batter into the muffin cups and bake them in the oven for about 20 to 25mins at 180C, or until the muffins turn golden brown. Insert a skewer or toothpick in the centre of one of the muffins and if it comes out clean, then the muffins are done.
Take the muffins out of the oven and let them cool on the rack.

The recipe book suggested that for added taste, the muffins can be served with honey on the side for dipping.

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Bento #7

2008-09-15T10:57:00.006+08:00

It seems like it's been a long time since I cooked or baked. I do miss it but it seems there is not enough time these days to do all the things I want to do without having to give some a miss. But this weekend, I must have made up for it as I made ping pei mooncakes for the family as it was the Mid Autumn Festival, helped prepared some stuff for the Steamboat dinner we had at Mum's on Saturday, baked some muffins yesterday and prepared my Bento #7 this morning... phew... but it was really fun.

I used the bento box which Susan gave me last week. Besides that, she also gave me some yummy agar agar mooncakes and delicious cheesecake (which I ate during lunch). She gave me a bento box, knowing that I am now into bento-ing and I only have one set of boxes which was given to me by Christene of allthingspurple, plus Susan made me two lovely homemade bento straps. Oh, they are so very cute. See for yourself.

I made today's bento with some of food leftover from Mum's steamboat dinner. And there is a little bit of salad leftover from yesterday too. Haha.. and they say leftovers are yucky. I think these are quite nice.

Top: Crabsticks, Honey Cherry Tomatoes (i love these) and little chicken sausages (with cheese and black pepper)

Bottom: Carrots cut with a doggie cookie cutter lying on a bed of crunchy salad, more Honey Cherry Tomatoes, cucumbers and quail eggs. Copied the little chicks design from a book. The eyes are little black sesame seeds and a small piece of carrot for its beak.

I was not sure if those would last me until the evening so I made some kaya on wholemeal bread, just in case. I bought a cute little dragonfly cookie cutter from Cake Connection recently and just couldn't resist "playing" with it. Anyway, there are lots of cute cookie cutters at Cake Connection. They have new stocks every now and then. Go have a look if you are free :)

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On A Diet.... Soon!

2008-09-12T10:42:00.003+08:00

Even though I have not been cooking or baking very much at home the last few weeks, my waistline continued to grow... by the day. It must have been all the quick meals, fast food and hawker food that I have been stuffing myself with...*sigh*. But life is good.. as I was reading my mails today, I saw this mail from Flat Belly Diet. Ha Ha.. do I want a Flat Belly. Went through the page and saw the Recipes page... yippeeeee.

I have copied 3 of their recipes here and I cannot wait to start on them but I think there will be some improvisations necessary as I don't think I know where to get a few of the ingredients. Perhaps my waistline will start to reverse gear after going on this diet for the next few days *keeping fingers crossed*. Thank you very much Flat Belly Diet. Click here for their page.

Crunchy Tuna Melt
1 slice Food For Life1 Ezekiel 4:91 Sesame Sprouted Bread (80) topped with 2 oz chunk light water-packed tuna (80), 2 tbsp sunflower seeds (165), and 1 slice Applegate Farms provolone cheese (70), and placed under broiler or in toaster oven to melt.
Total calories = 395

Shrimp and Snow Pea Sesame Pasta
Chill 2 oz medium broiled shrimp (60) and 1/4 cup cooked whole wheat spirals (105) and toss with 1 tbsp sesame oil (120), 1/4 cup fresh snow peas (10), 2 tbsp chopped scallions (4), 1/4 cup chopped celery (5), and sprinkle with 1 tbsp whole black sesame seeds (50).
Total calories = 354

Cheesy Spinach Ziti
1/4 cup cooked whole wheat penne (105), tossed with 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil (119), 1/4 cup nonfat ricotta cheese (50), 2 tbsp Organic Valley1 Shredded Italian Four-Cheese Blend (45), 1/2 cup fresh baby spinach leaves (3), 2 tbsp sliced onions (6), and 1/2 cup Newman's Own1 Marinara Pasta Sauce (60).
Total calories = 388

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Love Myself Enough to Go For It

2008-09-09T11:50:00.004+08:00

Hi everybody. I have not been able to cook or bake for more than 2 weeks. Firstly, it was because my mum was in the hospital, but after that, I was working very hard on a program which I signed up for. It was called the Entrepreneurs Action Program Boot Camp. It was rather exhausting as I was involved in discussions almost every night for 2 weeks but it was really worth it. The payback was that I made many good friends, won 2 prizes, one for being in the Ultimate Winning Team and the other being the best leader in the group. The best was yet to come. Now I am part of a new extended family and on my way to making my dreams come true.

So, over the past 2 weeks, I only had mostly fast food and hawker food for dinners. But over that one weekend which straddled the program, I made myself a very special breakfast.

I love myself enough (haha.. not the breakfast lah) to give myself this chance to creating a better life for me... and also ultimately my family and friends. Til the next post :D

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A Bento Party.... Here I Come :)

2008-08-22T14:02:00.004+08:00

And they say that every cloud has a silver lining... and I think mine came in the form of a blogger... Pat of Bento Pet. I have not been accessing my PC since last week and I only got to read her post Bento Enthusiasts/Bloggers Meet? only when I came back to work on Wednesday morning. Despite the little bump in my personal space at this time, her post managed to put a smile on my face. She has so kindly, with her friend Emily, decided to organize a Bento Meet to be held on the first week of September. As days passed, the event is quickly taking off and it is really getting more and more interesting by the day.

The last post which was sent this morning has even promised more exciting things in the form of contributions for the goodie bag by my dear blogger friend SueSue of Cooking Momster. I am sure that before we get to meet, the event would turn out to be a real "Party of the Year" and those who will be meeting up will be talking about it for many years to come .. and I would like to bet my last dollar on this :).

I like it when I read her little marketing nudge which read "Don't worry about being a beginner, an observer, a veteran or just a passer-by, please come and join us! If you don't reside around the area and you want to fly in for the event, please feel welcome to join us!" Ha Ha.. now.. I know that I definitely will be in their beginners' category.

Even if you have only a shade of interest, please do pop over to her blog or Emily's to have a look at the details of the event they have arranged for us.

This bit below is just to entice you to come... if only for the yummy lunch when nothing else appeals to you :)

Venue: "Onsen"
Lot: B-G01, Block B Jalan Persiaran Surian, Palm Spring @ Damansara.
Kota Damansara. Tel: 7801 5366.
(Map will be posted soon)

Date: 6th September 2008
Time: 12.00p.m. - 2.30p.m.
Participating Fee: RM50/= inclusive of a complete Japanese lunch, free flow of Ocha (Green Tea), goodie bag of surprises and an afternoon of Bento-licious fun!

The lunch menu includes:
Kani Salada - Crabstick Salad
Mixed Tempura
Mixed Maki
Tori Karaage - Fried chicken
Niniku Chahan - Garlic fried rice
Mixed fruits
Ice-cream

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Bento #6

2008-08-12T11:17:00.006+08:00

Still enjoying and appreciating the newness of my Bento Set gift from allthingspurple *smirks*.. so when it came to preparing my Bento #6, I decided that it should be mostly items that need not be kept warm.. haha.. want to keep that set in the bag for one more week.

I didn't fancy rice for my bento but love carbs (that accounts for the waistline of a whale). Decided to make a very simple potato salad and when I say simple, it is because I don't have anything in the fridge to add to the potato... not even one sprig of spring onions :(. Didn't go do my marketing like I normally would in Sundays. Too excited about baking and decorating my cuppies. Anyway, I did have some eggs. So, boiled an egg to be mashed into the potato salad and added mayonnaise and pepper. The rest of the stuff were straight out of the fridge.

Fried chicken burgers with a fried egg

Simple steamed potatoes with 1 mashed egg and mayonnaise

For veg and fruits, I washed some honey cherry tomatoes, some cucumbers and a kiwi fruit.

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Cake Connection

2008-08-11T13:18:00.011+08:00

Thanks to a post by Min of Baking Projects, I met up with the two lovely ladies at Cake Connection. I love going around checking up cake decorating shops and I seriously feel that there are just not enough of them here in Kuala Lumpur. I normally surf the internet to look for new items and most of the lovely things that I would like to have are not available here.

Anyways, after reading Min's blog about Cake Connection, I was very eagered to pop-in to see what lovely items they have there. My first visit there was during lunch time. It had to be a quick one as it was a working day for me. Had a bit of a problem finding them as Cake Connection was located in a new mall called Jaya One and because the building itself is new, there were not enough signages at the moment. It did not help matters that the security guard who I chose to ask was a foreigner... I asked him if Cake Connection was on the block on my right, he nodded. After 10 minutes of searching and not finding, I went back to him to ask if perhaps it is at the block on my left? He nodded again...aisay...

I finally found it.. in fact, the directions were posted quite clearly on their blog.. which in my haste to look for them, only remembered that they were at Jaya One. Just look for Block D and if you are parking inside their car park, try to look for 9-11, Block D. The lift will take you straight up to Cake Connection. If you happen to see Kluang Station Kopitiam from the road, Cake Connection is right above Kluang. This is their address:-

D-11-1, Block D, Jaya One, 72A, Jalan University. Section 13. 46200 Petaling Jaya.
Phone number : 03 : 7956 4450
Fax number : 03 : 7956 4450

I met up with Nancy and Shyamala (on the next visit) and they seem to be very nice ladies. Their shop is lovely. It is very tastefully decorated with lots of floor space. Every thing is so neat and I love their cookery room cum training room at the back. It looked exactly like I've just walked into someone's homely kitchen. Nancy told me that they wanted to make it very informal and have people really feel like they are at their own homes during the class.

Cake Connection carries quite a fair selection of toppers and gumpaste flowers, and they are simply beautiful. On my second visit, I spent quite a long time admiring the lovely products. Bought several products home which included sugarpaste roses, amongst other things and something which I really love, their spiral rolling pin.

I couldn't wait to use all the items that I bought and it was so timely as I needed to make some cuppies for the prayers at my dharma centre and also some fondant flowers and butterflies for a friend's daughter. Hence, I did both.

There is definitely a difference between making fondant flowers yourself and buying them off the shelf. For amatures like myself, the flowers that I do are a far cry from those lovely ones I bought at Cake Connection. From far, it looks passable but like they say.. "good from far but far from good" haha. With these ready made flowers, the cakes really looks much prettier and you can easily achieve the consistency and standards that you want. For those expert cake decorators, buying ready made flowers will probably be time saved, which is better used for other things.

And the fondant roller, I love it. It adds another dimension to an other wise boring finished piece. I have posted some of the pictures of the cuppies which I have made over the weekend, and you can easily tell which ones do look definitely better and nicer :D. Don't believe me, just have a look...

Cuppie with only homemade fondant, which is rather simple and "bland"

My homemade flowers,which is a poor comparison to the sugarpaste flowers bought at Cupcake Connection. But have a look at the fondant impression done with the fondant roller.

The greatly enhanced cuppie....

complete with sprinkles ...

and sugarpaste roses.....

These were the cuppies that I made for the Tsog offering but I am saving the lovely roses for the next offering.. I have to finished those homemade ones first, no point wasting them :D

Don't you love the spiral indents.....

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Cupcakes for Little Girls & their Mummy

2008-08-11T12:09:00.011+08:00

I was so happily surprised when I read a comment made on one of my older post by one of my new bento friends, Christene of allthingspurple, that her little girl Kimberly liked the fondant flowers and butterflies which I made. And she politely asked if I can sell them to her .... haha.. that is about the highest compliment I have received so far since I started this Recipes blog of mine. A little girl liked them well enough to ask her mummy to buy them for her **still floating on this cloud happiness**.

Since I already had plans to make some cuppies as an offering for Tsog Offerings Day at my buddhist centre, Kechara House, I simply replied Christene that it would be my pleasure to make a few extra ones for her little girls (Kimberly & Ashley). Work on the flowers and butterflies started on Saturday as I needed for them to dry sufficiently. My theme for the cuppies for offering was just simple roses but cut some extra flowers with some butterflies from the extra fondant.

The cuppies were strawberry cuppies and orange with poppy seeds cuppies. But Christene later called me to tell me that her daughters' were only concerned with the fondant... not the cake.. haha...phew, luckily I remembered to pack them all the extra leaves, flowers and butterflies in a small container.

As I personally cannot bear to taken in all the sweetness of buttercream myself, I decided to make the icing for the girls out of whipped cream instead. The only problem with whipped cream is that refrigeration is necessary and fondant cannot take refrigeration. So, what I had to do is to put in the whipped cream first and store the cuppies in the fridge. Only at the last moment, when Christene said she was leaving her house to make her way over that I took the cuppies out of the fridge to add in the fondant flowers and butterflies.

These ones were for the girls....

This little green mouse is made of chocolate pellets which I melted and dropped into the moulds the night before.

An overkill with the number of flowers and butterflies on a cuppie .. but I was told the girls liked it like that :D

The green veins on the cuppie are made from royal icing

But I cannot forget about the girls' mummy and daddy...so, these are for them....

I was a little worried as to whether the cuppies could take the hot journey back to her place but I got a call later (must have been 10 mins later after she has left with the cuppies and her girls) and told me that there is no need to worry about the cuppies... at least 4 of them are safe.......safely tucked inside the tummies of Ashley and Kimberly...hahaha.

Latest addition...... check out allthingspurple's blog for photos of her two lovely little princesses here.... they are the two prettiest little girls I have had the pleasure to meet... must be the genes from their mummy :D

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My First Complete Bento Box

2008-08-11T11:50:00.005+08:00

This weekend just past has been a rather packed weekend for me and I do enjoy them very much...it is like I am truly living life to the fullest, just like how it should be. I have so many things that I want to post but first things first, I must really thank Christene of allthingspurple for her lovely gift. After getting to know her through Bento Pet's blog, I got to meet her in person, even though it is only for a short while. My place was really a mess, so was too pai seh (embarassed) to invite her in. Next time Christene, when I have time to clean it up and make it more presentable.

She gave me my first real bento set. How wonderful and when she passed it to me, all she said was "I know that this will be very useful to you as you have started to bento now". I opened the gift and saw that it was a Thermos branded set... wow, complete with a bento strap (the one that I picked up from the 100Yen shop has no strap, so I have to use rubber bands to hold the lids down) and the best part was the thermos bag. Goody, now I can have warm food to eat.

It is indeed a most wonderful gift as I have now that I have started my bento journey. And you know what Christene, you have chosen one of my favorite colors too... blue :D.. Thanks again so much dearie.. hugs!!

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Pressure Cooker

2008-08-06T14:35:00.006+08:00

I am so in love with the latest thing that moved into my kitchen... and that is my Pressure Cooker. I have always been thinking about owning one, but have heard (rightly or not) about the terror stories of exploding pressure cookers if the users are not careful when using them.

However, what decided it for me was after tasting the totally out of this world beef stewed cooked by babe of babeinthecitykl. Went over to her blog for the recipe and that is exactly when I made up my mind to get one of those babies back.. the pressure cooker, I mean.

Got my sister-in-law to go get it for me at the place recommended by both babe and a colleague. They both recommended me to get the Premier Pressure Cooker as it was not only reasonably priced, but also the availability of spare parts will not be a problem later.

Was so very excited about putting it to work that very night but as it was quite late by the time I got back, I had time only to read the instruction manual, which was rather brief. I reckon that it should not be rocket science when it comes to using a pressure cooker. The very next day, I tried steaming rice with it. By the way, there was no recipe manual inside the box, which I was told, used to be available.

Actually, I was a bit apprehensive from all those "horror" stories I have heard. So, followed the instructions in the manual very very carefully but nothing really prepared me for the real life sound effects of the pressure cooker.

The hissing came fast and very loud... so very loud that it set the dogs barking. With the super loud hissing and the dogs going crazy, I went into a total panic mode. Ran from the dining room to the kitchen and turned off the gas stove. Phew, luckily no explosion, I told myself. When the pressure cooker finally depressurized, I opened it and found that the rice was only partially cooked. Turn the gas stove back on and watch the cooker like a hawk for 5 more minutes before turning it off. No hissing this time.

The next day, went to office and checked with a colleague. She said "Shouldn't that be how a pressure cooker works meh?"... haha pai seh (embarrassed). She was probably right. Went home that night and decided to give it another try. This time, used it to soften some meat for making soup. Maybe due to the assurance given by the colleague that the cooker will not just blow up in my face, I was very prepared for the hissing bit. When it did, I still jumped. But the dogs didn't bark and I managed to coolly wait until the hissing stopped. Then I realized, this is how a pressure cooker works. Ha Ha.

I have so far managed to steam rice with it, boiled soup and make a soya sauce pork stew. I am very happy with the time savings and the gas savings this pressure cooker is giving me. And the meat really turns out wonderfully, even for meat which I forgot to take out to defrost was cooked without any hassle.

I am planing to steam a spare ribs dish using the pressure cooker to see how different the meat will taste but definitely, it will take a much shorter time to do. Made this steamed spare ribs a while back. The ingredients and method would be exactly the same, except that it will be using lesser gas and lesser time.

Oh my pressure cooker...... let me count the ways I love you .... beef stew, stew pork, soups.. ah.. i also want to boil porridge using you soon....ahhhhhh

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Snow Skin (Ping Pei) Mooncakes

2008-08-05T10:32:00.007+08:00

It has already been at least 3 weeks after attending the mooncake making class at Melinda's but have not got down to making any since then. Anyway, I think we do have at least a month more to go before Mooncake festival, which I believe falls in mid September. However, since in my enthusiasm after the class and having bought some ready made lotus pastes, I finally decided to pick up my arse and did something about them.

Of all the the types of mooncakes, I reckon the snow skin ping pei ones are the easiest to make and I quite like them myself. When I told my mum that I was going to make some, she insisted that I made enough so that my brothers can take home some for their in-laws too. Oh well, I was not going to be too ambitious, hence, I made them in two batches, since both of them were not going to make it back for dinner on the same weekend.

I used the recipe which was given by Melinda for the first batch. That produced only very few mooncakes and as they were my first attempt to make them without Melinda's supervision, they were passable. Made an error in reading the recipe though. Used more pastry dough than fillings. Hence, I must say that unless you like pastry dough more than you liked fillings, those are really low grade mooncakes haha.

The second time when I made then, I used another recipe which I got off a recipe book. The quantity was a lot more as it yielded 4 large ping pei mooncakes and about 15 smaller ones. I forgot to take a copy of the recipe this morning. Will edit this post later when I do.

The pastry dough is quite yummy as it is basically the "yuen koh", soft cake that you can sometimes find at the pasar malam, night markets. They used to cost only about RM1 a bag. These days, I reckon they must cost at least RM2.60 a bag. You can still find an uncle selling them in OUG pasar malams on Thursday nights.

As I only made 4 large ones, I asked my brother if he liked the salted duck eggs. He said he did. So, I made one with 2 duck eggs especially for him. Any more eggs then i might as well just hand him the duck eggs with a clump of pastry.

I had some pastry dough left which I used a cookie cutter to cut up... mmm.. I like these as much as those with the lotus fillings :) yum yum.

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Bento #5

2008-08-04T10:29:00.007+08:00

These days, waking up early in the morning is not as much as ordeal that it used to be. Perhaps it is the thought of waking up to prepare my bento lunch that has giving me this extra burst of energy to jump off my nice warm bed :). All this is really with much gratitude to my new Bento buddies Bento Pet, Allthingspurple and LZMommy.

I am still eagerly checking out the blogs of these bento bloggers and others too but there is one particular one that I am keeping an eye on... and that is Bento Pet's blog. Why? Cause she is going to research into some low calorie recipes and I am in much need for bento meals which are nutritious but at the same time... ahem... perhaps reduce my waistline from that of of a whale to perhaps a garoupa or a siakap :)

This morning, decided not to fry anything for lunch and as there were no leftovers from last night, I had no choice but to open up the freezer to look for whatever is there. Goody, found a small tray of Unagi. Luckily of the pressure cooker, it only took about 10 minutes to steam up 1/2 a cup of rice and after that, recycled the water in the pressure cooker to just defrost the Unagi.

I got a packet of broad beans which is rather yummy. Picked it up at Isetan KLCC. Never tried it before but found that they were rather yummy. The packet read "Onishi Shokuhin - Tabekiri Shoyu Mame"

Left container: The yummy broad beans, an orange and some cherry tomatoes.
Right container, top: Unagi
Right container, bottom: Rice sprinkled with some sesame seeds, bonito flakes and seaweed. Cucumbers as dividers and 2 eggs (without yolks)

Can't wait for lunch time :)

pssst, christene of allthingspurple... if you are reading this post, I hope you win.. my vote goes to you. Why, your bento is not just about the yummy food or the lovely presentation. Your bento virtually oozes with the love you have for your daughters. Good luck :)

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Bento #4

2008-07-31T13:58:00.003+08:00

There is a very painful story behind this Bento #4.... gastric pain that is.. hahaha. I know that most bento bloggers are normally so filled with joy and happiness whilst making their bentos.. of course, my favorite bento blogger Bento Pet did admit that she was feeling a bit frazzled whilst making her bento (but when you look at her bento, you would not have guessed it... it was still looking yummilicious)...haha but never in pain :p. If you want to know what happened, do drop in at my other blog.

Bento #4 consisted of only onigiris with chicken floss as fillings, some cherrie tomatoes and 2 kiwi fruits. It does look like a little bit too much but this bento went from being my lunch (which would have been only 3 onigiris) to a breakfast for 2 brothers :). I do hope they enjoyed it.

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Bento #3

2008-07-30T12:49:00.007+08:00

Didn't need to take lunch to work on Monday and Tuesday as I had lunch appointments lined up but I knew that today, Wednesday will be a working lunch for me as I will need to do some final checks on my presentation materials for my meeting in the afternoon. Wanted to make a very simple, almost vegan bento lunch for myself as I reckon that I've been taking a bit too much meat lately.

So, last night, before I went to bed, I looked into the fridge to see what I have in there that are either leftovers or has to be eaten before it expires. Ha.. spotted a packet of Chuka Wakame (soft seaweed in vinegar sauce, with sesame seeds), some left over homemade terayaki chicken and some cherries with skins starting to look like my grand auntie's. That's what I decided to make as my bento lunch for tomorrow. Steamed some rice in the steamer before calling it a night.

This morning, preparing the bento was quite fast and easy. Just had to re-steam the rice ( and found that i do have rather a lot, enough to make 2 bentos) whilst preparing the rest food. Decided to do one for my friend Tobiyama, letting him have the teriyaki chicken pieces. This is my bento lunch, complete with some soup in a cup :)... I really needed the soup as it has been quite cold in the office lately.

Rice topped with some seaweed, bonito flakes and sesame seeds, Cucumbers, scrambled eggs which I fried this morning and wakame.

Cherries

Hot soup in a cup

This is the bento for my friend, Tobiyama. The only difference is the chicken pieces.

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Fresh Fruit Tarts & Tartlets

2008-07-28T11:14:00.006+08:00

There was nothing for the food exchange today as I spent most of the weekend doing tarts for 2 friends. They both had their birthdays on the 24th July, which was last Thursday but I didn't have time to make anything special for them. Wanted to do cupcakes or a simple cake, but with all the work I had last week, I just didn't have any energy left by the time I got home.

Anyway, was deciding what to bake for these 2 friends of mine... when the punnets of blueberries and strawberries caught my eye at the usual fruit shop that I go to at Subang. Their Kiwi fruits also looks big and yummy. That kind of decided it for me... I shall make them fruit tarts and tartlets.

I have done this before but I didn't know how to make those fruits all shiny and nice. After surfing around the food blogs, I realized that it was just apricot glaze that did it. So simple but the effect is so nice. Just take 2 globs of apricot jam and 2 to 3 tablespoons of water and boil these (or microwave them). To play it safe, I double boiled the jam and the water. Have a look at the photos, it does make that little bit of difference.

Click here for the fruit tart recipe.

A belated Happy Birthday to my friends Melvin Kuo and Puay Aun. May this year be all fruity and sweet for you both :)

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Kitchen on Fire

2008-07-28T10:22:00.002+08:00

I received this mail from my friend Simon this morning and I simply have to share it. A similar accident happened to me some time back but it was not in the kitchen. I did exactly what this video recommended not to do. Anyway, I reckon that most of you who visit here are likely to spend a lot of time in the kitchen.

Read first, - then watch attachment !
I never realized that a wet dishcloth can be a one size fits all lid to cover a fire in a pan!
This is a dramatic video (30-second, very short) about how to deal with a common kitchen fire ... oil in a frying pan.

Read the following Introduction, then watch the show ....
It's a real eye-opener!!
At the Fire Fighting Training school they would demonstrate this with a deep fat fryer set on the fire field.
An instructor would don a fire suit and using an 8 oz cup at the end of a10 foot pole toss water onto the grease fire.
The result s got the attention of the students.

The water, being heavier than oil, sinks to the bottom where it instantly becomes superheated.
The explosive force of the steam blows the burning oil up and out.

On the open field, it became a thirty foot high fireball that resembled a nuclear blast.
Inside the confines of a kitchen, the fire ball hits the ceiling and fills the entire room.
Also, do not throw sugar or flour on a grease fire.
One cup creates the explosive force of two sticks of dynamite.

This is a powerful Message----watch the video and don't forget what you see.-

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Taiwanese Mooncakes

2008-07-22T12:59:00.007+08:00

Believe it or not.. but more than half the year has pass and Chinese people normally measure the passing of the year by its festivals. Actually, there is the Ghost Festival to go through before the Mooncake festival but looking at the many shopping centres in Kuala Lumpur, the mooncakes have already made their appearance. I love mooncakes and the prices of the yummy cakes have been going up and up each year. I can still remember that they were only about RM3.50 each and my dad would already be complaining how expensive they were. These days, the going price is about RM10 plus minus, depending on the fillings. Of course there are some with more exotic fillings costing way beyond that RM10 price tag.

As a result of that, I decided to sign up for Melinda's Taiwanese Mooncake (of Apple Bakings)class together with my gal pal Sue so that perhaps I can make my own mooncakes. We spent almost the entire day at Melinda's and as usual, class was really fun. There was so much chatting and laughing. Actually, it was a rather great way to loose weight too.. haha.. as we were all so engrossed in making and baking these mooncakes, that by the time we were all done and seated, it was close to 4:30pm. Well, to reward ourselves, we wolfed (actually it just me) down a few of these little yummy cakes...but I had enough to pass around to some friends later.

These are some of the mooncakes made.. there were others but I didn't do that great a job with the phone camera. They turned out rather blur so did not post them. If you are interested to have a look, I do believe Melinda would have plenty to show you :)... perhaps if you are nice, she might have some tasty samples left :D

This one has soft mashed yam as fillings .... super yummy :)

This lovely flower is filled with bean paste and half an egg yolk (salted ducky egg yolk)

There are several varieties here.. some with red bean paste, some with lotus paste, salted duck egg yolk, century eggs.

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Fondant & Gumpaste Toppers

2008-07-18T13:44:00.010+08:00

Yesterday was Thursday and when I woke up, it had seemed like it would be just like any other day until I hit the roads. OMG.. the traffic had almost come to a standstill. What is happening? It seemed like a repeat of Monday 's traffic when there were police road blocks going into the city. Did not managed to get very far after about 1/2 hour and my petrol was running low. Sigh.. decided to ask the boss for an Emergency Leave and made a u-turn and headed back for home. That was the bad part of the day.

When I got home, was still in a sore kind of mood. Went to switch on the TV to see if there were any news as to what's happening.. but trust the TV news... which is like no news. All I saw was the ticker which read (translated) "Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim as been released from jail... yada yada yada". Channel surfed for a while but there was nothing much to watch.. not even on my favorite Asian Food Channel (AFC) on Astro. Switched off the telly and went into the kitchen (ahhhh.. one of my favorite place to be). Saw the left over gum paste and fondant that I have from the last cuppie session. Mmmm.. now, why don't I do some gumpaste and fondant toppers. If you need the recipe for gumpaste, please hope over to Min's blog "Baking Projects".

Cleaned some of the cutters and other equipment that I needed. The time was around 11am.

Did I have fun... as my mood meter turned from sore.. to sour... to easy...to happy and smiling. Oh yes, playing with gumpaste and fondant is definitely therapeutic for me. Started off with the normal flowers and leaves cutters. These are easy and fun.

Cut out a couple of butterflies just to a variety.

After having done about a few dozens of them, decided to put away these cutters and tried some free-hand stuff. I remember seeing these in some magazines in MPH some time back. Recalled that they look vaguely like these.. but without having the image in front of me, I must say that these are really very crude models of what they should really have looked like. Ha Ha.. just like software applications.. these are definitely versions 1... have to wait for another day off to do versions 2.

You may have to use a little of your imaginations to picture in your mid what I really wanted them to look like..

A basket (alamak.. must have been from the rejected pile)

The rabbit's supposed to be inside a flower pot.. please use imagination

If I didn't tell you that this is supposed to be a frog... would you have thought that it was a lizard.... buahahaha

Hoped that by putting 2 little flowers atop the lotus leaf made this frog look more like a frog... No?? ...sigh..back to the drawing board....

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Bento #2

2008-07-16T09:54:00.004+08:00

Some of the food that I used for my #2 bento are in fact leftovers from yesterday's dinner. Ha Ha.. is it about non-wastage or just being lazy to really make fresh food for the bento ;).

Woke up a little earlier today as I knew that I had to boil the egg and roll up the cheese and chicken ham rolls. Found out that using the toothpicks to hold up the cheese & chicken ham rolls served 2 purposes. One, it prevented the rolls from unfurling and two, the top few can be held intact by piercing them against those at the bottom :). It is also great for holding onto the cucumber pieces and cherry tomatoes.

The black pepper chicken sausages were from last night's dinner. What a great way of getting rid of left over food. And also great for stuffing between a bit of corn on the cob (also left over from yesterday's dinner) and the sliced kiwi fruits.

Luckily I decided to pack lunch today as it is raining now. I am sure that the rain will carry on for a bit as the entire sky is covered in dark stormy clouds. Lucky lucky me :D

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Bento #1

2008-07-15T10:53:00.004+08:00

This is my very first Bento and I must firstly thank Bento Pet for all her encouragements to me to start this Bento journey :). I hope to be able to qualify for her next Bento competition similar to the one she is currently organizing "Bento Pet's Bento Competition". I do so love her Winner's Haul.

I have taken the liberty of checking out some of the Bento bloggers who will be taking part in the competition. I am so glad that I'm will not be the one deciding on the winner. To me, each of them is a winner and most are clearly mummies and wives who have put so much love and care in each of the Bentos. I will be going back to many of their sites to learn and also to get more ideas as to how to fill up my own Bento box.

These are the few Bento bloggers whom I shall be stalking from now on....haha

Allthingspurple of Allthingspurple
LZMommy of BabiestZ
JustBento .. i love the little comment on the side bar which reads "Eat healthier, save money, maybe lose some weight with bento!"
And a whole lot of others.. and if you are interested, just hop over to Bento Pet's comment list here to find out who those other Bento bloggers are :)

At the moment, I do not have any of the nice bento boxes that some if not most of the Bento bloggers are using. I went shopping the other day at that outlet next to HomeFix at 1 Utama's new wing (cannot for the life of me recall the name of the outlet) and spotted several beautiful laqueured bento boxes.. the most expensive one costing RM999. Ha Ha.. this is definitely not a box that I can afford this lifetime. So, I ended up with a Lock'n Lock box which I reckon will serve its purpose for the time being.

Went home yesterday night to prepare some sushi rolls for today's lunch, washed some cherry tomatoes and lettuce leaves, cut up so carrot sticks and peeled some longans which I bought on Sunday. This morning, got up at 6am thinking that it would take me some time to prepare my bento box but I think since most of the work was done the night before, I only took less than 10 minutes to fill the box up (and that was because I had to cut up the sushi roll).

Wallah... my first Bento box....yum yum.. :)

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Chicken Curry with Nasi Briyani - Food Exchange Program

2008-07-14T12:46:00.007+08:00

Lately, we have all been baking a fair bit of sweet stuff for the food exchange program, and not that I am complaining. I think I have not one sweet tooth, but all 30 over sweet teeth in this big mouth of mine. But something savory would make a nice change. Whilst I was doing my supermarket shopping yesterday morning, I decided to go pick up about 1 kg of chicken thighs, chicken drumsticks and wings. Bought the rest of the ingredients like coconut milk and that wonderful bag of premixed spices from Mak Nyonya. Decided to stick with this recipe as the previous one that I made for the potluck turned out dark and really not the type of curry that I like. In my haste to run through my marketing so that I could venture up to the Exhibition Hall at Mid Valley to view the Malaysian International Bakery & Confectionary Exhibition, I completely forgot to buy the Basmati (long grained) rice. Oh well, only realized after dinner when I was preparing to cook for the food exchange program.

The curry again turned out in the color that I like my curry to have.. heehee.. red and not brown. I also went back to cooking nasi briyani the simple way that I am used to.. and not the totally complicated recipe that I used during Joyce's potluck.

I used the one pot cook all manner of cooking this rice, i.e. washed the rice and place all the ingredients which included the ghee, the 1stick of cinnamon, 6 Cardamom pods, 1/2 tsp of mustard seeds, 3 star anise, 6 cloves, some cumin seeds and a sprinkling of mustard seeds. For garnishing, I added some cashew nuts and golden raisins. For 3 cups of rice, I used roughly 3 1/2 cups of water. Didn't use milk this time as in the previous time as it made the rice a little too mushy for my liking.

The curry and the rice were ready at about 11am and after letting it cool, packed the curry into little plastic containers. Ran out of these containers, so, had to pack the nasi briyani into aluminum foils. Reminiscence the time when I was a factory girl in Australia during my Uni days. Use to pack fried rice this way to work and factories in Australia has utilities like the Convectional Ovens, Microwave Ovens, Coffee-makers at the disposal of the workers. Hence packed lunch is a norm back then.

Anyway, hope this week's food for the food exchange program meets the expectations of those who are in the program. Sue, I am so sorry that you have to be left out this round as I knew that the traffic condition would definitely set your mood to register "LOUSY".. with all the road blocks coming into the city that it would not be wise to ask you to swing by my office to pick up this load... and (haha).. curry is going to further fuel that "seeing red" mode.

By the way, the food exchange program group has grown overnight to include PuayAun of Thought Bubbles and dcyk of See a lil bit of evil, Hear a lil bit of evil, Talk a lil bit of evil

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Tiramisu Cake

2008-07-11T14:04:00.006+08:00

This is my first attempt in making this cake. I have been wanting to make this for the longest time but back then, whenever I took up a packet of Finger biscuits at the supermarket to read the ingredients by the side of the packet, the one ingredient called Mascarpone cheese would leave me stumped. Sounded so mafia-ish. Then of cause, there was the baileys or some other coffee based liqueur that is needed. And because of all that, I will set the packet of biscuits down and carry on dreaming that one day, I might learn enough to just try it.

But in life, sometimes just happened. My friend Sue told me that she made an order of a Tiramisu cake for father's day. Round about that time, I was looking at babe's blog to check on a recipe when I stumbled across her Donna Hay's Chocolate Tiramisu post which looked so beautiful. Was already tempted then, so went out and got myself a packet of the sponge fingers. But nothing happened as somebody in the house ate the packet of sponge fingers :( before I could get around to doing anything with them.

Anyways, made another attempt to make it last month. Got all the ingredients except the liqueur and an angel in the form of Sue, out of blue, gave me a small bottle of a coffee based liqueur (which I forgot to ask her what exactly was it). So, all ingredients were ready and available... no more excuses. Haha.. I even got a recipe from Sue which she sent via YM. Made some slight adjustments to her recipe as it was rather complicated and used quite a lot of sugar (I am really getting worried with all the cakes and other sweet stuff that I have been downing recently... and I think some of my test bunnies would agree too) and this was the outcome.....

Ingredients

250g Mascarpone
25g icing sugar
150ml of brewed coffee, chilled
300ml of double cream
45ml of coffee liqueur
12 pieces of sponge fingers
bitter sweet chocolate and cocoa powder for decoration

Method

Put mascarpone and sugar in a mixing bowl and beat it up.
Place in about 30ml o f the coffee into the the mixture and mix well with a spatula. Set aside
Place the double cream into another bowl and add in the half the coffee liqueur. Beat that until the mixture peaks
Add this cream mixture into the mascarpone mixture and mix well.
Pour the remaining coffee and coffee liqueur into a flat plate. This is used for soaking the sponge fingers
I used a bread loaf pan for my Tiramisu. Before this, you must line the pan so as to make removal of the Tiramisu easier later.
Pour half the cream and mascarpone into the pan. Smoothen it with your spatula.
Take 8 sponge fingers out of the packet and soak each finger quickly into the remaining coffee and coffee liqueur mixture. Do not leave it too long as the entire biscuit will disintegrate.
Line the fingers along the pan in one layer
Pour in the rest of the cream and mascarpone mixture into the pan.
Repeat steps 7 and 8.
If you have any coffee and coffee liqueur mixture left, just dribble it on the 2nd layer of sponge fingers
Wrap up the pan with cling film and leave it in the fridge for 4 hours or more.
Serve chilled

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Spaghetti with Meatballs

2008-07-10T16:02:00.005+08:00

After watching Hancock the Movie, my cravings for a good Spaghetti with Meatballs started to build up until I just simply have to have some. I have not really had them for the longest time as a result of consuming many a yucky tin of these in my Uni days. They were soft and yucky. But I don't think you are able to find these sort of canned food in the supermarkets in Kuala Lumpur. Not too sure about Cold Storage but I doubt it.

Anyway, after watching Hancock gobbling down those giant meatballs, I wanted to try to do some homecooked ones. Naturally I was not going to make them hand grenade sized... haha.. the prize of mince beef is not exactly cheap . Got about close to 300gm for RM12 over at Cold Storage... prime Australian beef... haha.. I am still very partial to all things Australian.. it is the country where I grew up in... virtually... coz before my 3 over years in Australia, I used to be a God useless coward.. who would set my dad's blood to boil each time he watches me whimper my order to the wantan mee seller hahaha.

Well, I must say that the meatballs that I made definitely had the asian taste to it and a whole lot tougher than those from the can.... mmmm...just the way I like them. Ray calls it their Spaghetti Madness on a Thursday... maybe I will call mine Spaghetti Monday Madness.... :D

Ingredients

Sauce

2 tbsp olive oil
1 lg onion, diced
5 cloves garlic, crushed
1 cup fresh basil, roughly chopped ( 1 made do with the dried ones from a bottle)
1/2 cup red wine (optional)
1 lg can (800g) tomato puree
salt and pepper to taste

Meatballs
300gm mince beef
1 tsp of sesame oil
salt and pepper to taste
1 tsp of cornflour
1 egg

Others
1 punnet of fresh button mushrooms
a few sprigs of coriander for garnishing
Parmesan cheese (optional)

Method

Put in all the ingredients for the meatballs into a bowl and mix well. Set aside to marinade for about 10 minutes.
After 10 minutes, make little balls out of the marinaded mince meat. The size of the balls depends very much on personal preference. You can make them nice and dainty or giant hand grenade sized ones :)
Heat up some oil in a pan and when the oil is hot, fry these meatballs. This is so that the meatballs will be able to retain their shape later whilst being cooked in the pasta sauce.
Once the outside looks cooked, dish them up and set aside. Don't worry about the meat balls not being cooked as they are going into the sauce again later. Plus, beef can be eaten raw :)
Put the olive oil into a pan and when hot, put in the onions, garlic and basil. Saute until fragrant. If wine is used, then this is the time to add in the wine.
Add the tomato puree.
Add in the button mushrooms.
Finally add in the meatballs.
Simmer for about 10 mins or until you hit the thickness consistency that you want.
Add in salt and pepper for taste.
Dish up onto some cooked spaghetti and garnish with some coriander and Parmesan cheese.

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Fondant, Gumpaste & Buttercream

2008-07-09T10:13:00.014+08:00

I decided this as I was working into the wee hours of Sunday morning.... I like cooking and baking, but I simply love cake decorating.

It all started sometime in the middle of last week when I had a tele conversation with the president of our Kechara House. They were having a booth at the flea market on Sunday at Amcorp Mall and wanted to ask for volunteers to help out, either in terms of money sponsorship, items to be sold or just hard labor. I volunteered to bake some cuppies for them to sell and the president agreed without hesitation. I reckon that in my enthusiasm, I didn't really consider if I actually had the time to do as many cuppies as I intended to... also with limited resources such as only a small electric oven that can only perhaps bake only 9 to 12 cuppies each time, depending on the size of the cuppies and only 1 pair of hands to do the work.

Since I do have a day job and I had my swiss roll class at Melinda's of Apple Kitchen almost the entire Saturday, I realized that I may not really have that much time :(.

Anyways, on Friday night, I started making the fondant and the gumpaste. Stored them in an air tight container and went for a movie with a friend (haha.. still hella confident mah that I can make it for Sunday's flea market). During class on Saturday with Melinda, who is an old hand at this sort of thing was rather doubtful that I can do the job with so little time. She asked me how many cuppies did I intend to make? Without hesitation, I replied "100 cuppies". She tactfully said "I think 30 to 40 should be enough lah".

It was only at 9pm that I finally got down to starting my "work". First was the baking of the cuppies. Did 2 varieties, the moist chocolate cuppies and the vanilla mixed fruit cuppies. Whilst the cuppies were going into the oven in batches of 9 to 12, I started making flowers, mushrooms and butterflies with the fondant and gumpaste.

Started the decorating on the first batch of cuppies after they have cooled down enough.. wah.. sure is taking a long time. I know that it was getting quite late, or shall I say early, but I was really have such a good time that I had to force myself to stop at 3am. I know that by the time I clean up and showered, it would be 4am.. but I still have lots more to do...*panic*.

Got up at 8am on Sunday, brushed my teeth had a quick shower, ate one of the undecorated cuppies for breakfast and stated work again. Started with the buttercream preparation. I didn't do it the night before as I wanted it to be fresh. Put in butter vanilla flavoring into the buttercream as I simply love this smell and taste...just like the toffee sweets I used to eat by the bagfuls during schooldays.

When I did the first few ones, I still had time to take photos of each of them.... but by the 6th or 7th one, I knew that I was really pressed for time. No more photos until maybe after they have all been done. Oh, I didn't managed to make the 100 cuppies that I intended. Could only make 40 and in 5 batches. By the time I was done, it was almost noon. Took another quick shower and called Madame President. She told me that the business at the booth was kinda slow and since it is such a hot day, she was very afraid that the cuppies would not hold up in the heat. Actually, they should be able to but she didn't want to risk it. So, instructed me to bring it to Kechara House for the puja which was happening that same night. So, my cuppies ended up not at the flea market that day. Instead, they had a nice time sitting in the beautiful air-conditioned Kechara House. Well, it was really a long Saturday and Sunday for me doing the cuppies, but I really enjoyed myself very much and would not mind doing it again and again as decorating those cuppies really gives me so much pleasure :)

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Swiss Rolls

2008-07-08T10:37:00.004+08:00

I have always wanted to attempt to make swiss rolls and chiffon cake but have not got the confidence to attempt either one. Many have told me that making those two types of cakes needs skills and probably a little bit of secret which most recipe books don't share with you. My friend Sue has confessed that she has made 3 attempts to make the swiss roll but each time the cake turns out a little too hard to roll. The chiffon cake is even tricky, as I've been told that the utensils must be totally oil free, plus the fact that the batter cannot be over beaten or under beaten *sweats*.

Anyway, I have decided to go to Melinda of Apple Kitchen for help. Signed up for her Swiss Roll class last Saturday with Sue. As usual, spending time with Melinda and Sue is always a fun learning experience. Melinda shared a wonderful butter cream recipe with us that is so smooth and soft. I could just eat it up without the cake. Sue was looking absolutely disgusted as the sinfulness of the cream. She was probably imagining her waistline thickening by just looking at the cream hahaha.

We were shown how prepare the batter first, from start to end before we were let loose. It was really fun but as first timers, we were rather clumsy with the rolling. I found out that one set of hands was simply not enough. Needed Melinda's help with the rolling. Sigh.. when I am home doing it alone, it might be quite a challenge.

Gave some to Joyce and Jean, some to Nick and Melvin...and the rest are for mua.... yum yum. Just received an sms from Joyce 5 mins ago. Told me that she bought me some kaya... mmm.. do I sense an ulterior motive there.... like do some more swiss roll with this kaya I got you .. hahah...thanks Joyce. If I don't make the swiss roll again anytime soon, maybe i can pass you the kaya, in between 2 slices of Gardenia bread.

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Banana Oatmeal Cookies - Food Exchange Program

2008-07-01T16:43:00.008+08:00

Whilst I was clearing my fridge last night, I notice that my block of Philadelphia cheese has already molded...sigh.. I know I still have many things in the kitchen cabinet which are probably headed to the rubbish bin soon if I don't make something out of them soon. There were still bags of flour, oatmeal, breadcrumbs, coconut bits. And 2 bunches of bananas sitting on the dining table, waiting to go black very soon if I don't eat them. How.. how.. what to do??

I remember that I have come across a cookie using oatmeal and bananas. Yah.. saw the recipe in Baking Bites. Luckily I saved the page on my PC. Did a quick check on the recipe and found that I have every ingredient in the kitchen, yipppeeee !

This recipe is terribly simple and takes only very little time to make. And the results... I must say it was rather nice. These are soft cookies, which I know some people are partial to. Once they were cool enough, filled up some into 2 cookies bags for the food exchange program and enough left to almost fill up the cookie jar :)

This recipe is taken straight from Baking Bites and I followed to the letter. Didn't need to change anything. Must wait for comments from Sue and Babe as to whether the sugars quantity needs adjustments.

Banana Oatmeal Cookies

1 cup all purpose flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

2 tbsp butter, very soft

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup mashed banana (1 small/medium)

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups oats

1 cup chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
In a small bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking sodaand salt.
In a large bowl, cream together the butter and the sugars. Beat in egg and banana, followed by the vanilla extract. Gradually, on low speed or by hand, add in the flour mixture. Stir in the oats (either whole rolled oats or “quick cooking”) and chocolate chips.
Drop dough by tablespoonfuls onto prepared baking sheet.
Bake for 11-14 minutes at 350F, until set and lightly browned.
Let cookies cool for about 5 minutes on the pan before transfering them to a wire rack to cool completely.
Makes 2 dozen cookies.

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Sugarpaste & Gumpaste

2008-06-30T09:39:00.007+08:00

Wow.. it has really been a very hectic week for me, plus the fact that I had food poisoning, complete with the works. Will not go into the details. Don't intend to spoil anyone's day *grins* . Anyway, I am so glad that the week really ended with a wonderful time at Min's place on Sunday. That was my basic Sugarpaste & Gumpaste class at Min's. I thought it would just be me and Sue, but had to pleasure of making a new friend, Sarah and I am sure Sue and Sarah had as much fun as I did.

Finally meeting Min was indeed a pleasure for me as I have been following her blog Baking Project way before I even started my own blog (this one, I mean heehee) and her creativity has always inspired me. Looking at her creations and my own, I realize that I have a long way to go and I was very happy that she does carry out classes. However, due to my hectic schedule, I could only finally make it for a class yesterday.

Wow... looking at her well equipped kitchen immediately sets my mind planning on how I could afford to buy my first heavy duty mixer :). At the moment, I only have a hand mixer at home :(. But I think Sue and I felt the same about the maid though.... sure could do with one to help clean up all the mess after we are done "playing", especially when it comes to washing up buttercream and shortening... you can use half a bottle of detergent and the utensils are still oily... yucks!

Min sure has a lot of tools and I was totally impressed. This is truly a sign of a real artist in the making. Which great painter or sculptor or cake decorate goes without his (in this case, her) tools of trade? I am not sure about Sarah or Sue, but I think I have a long long way to go. At the moment, I am living on borrowed tools .... heehee.. the flower cutters which I am using actually belongs to my neighbor. Will have to go and buy my own set soon.

We were taught the basics of marzipan, fondant and gumpaste making before we were let loose on creating our cake's deco... I wonder if I'll turn out to be the next pro-cake decorate or the guy who created Frankenstein ?? *Sweats*

3 of us really got into the heat of things that by lunch time, Min was telling us to take a break and grab some of the spaghetti she made for lunch. Looks like there were no takers. I hope Min's not insulted. There was nothing wrong with the spaghetti but the thrill of watching our cakes take shape was just too exciting.

At 3 plus, I think Min cannot take it anymore... made some coffee and virtually made us drink it up. I dare not take any as I was still recovering from gastric pains caused by the food poisoning. Thanks Min.. I'll take up the offer the next time ... :)

We finished off our cakes at almost 4pm..... and thanks to Min's guidance all the way, these are our cakes.....

Sue's beautiful Sunflowers on a Sunday

Sarah's Sweet Spring Daisies

My Roses from the Heart

There are lots more ideas and if you are really interested, do go to Min's blog. Her classes are really absolutely fun and the best part is you also get to meet people who shares the same interests as you....

mmm.. how to work today, when I am still living in yesterday.....sigh!!!

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Cream Pasta Sauce with Prawns

2008-06-24T12:41:00.005+08:00

I must say that I do prefer cream pasta sauce to tomato based pasta sauce. Maybe I had a bit too much of that during my University days. I can still remember the yucky beef balls in tomato sauce in a can that I used to purchase to be eaten with home cooked pasta.. yucks...how could I have eaten those almost every other week. Maybe because it was the cheapest thing on the supermarket shelves.

This is a relatively simple sauce which can be made in a jiffy. Whilst preparing the sauce, I had a boiling pot of water for my spaghetti. Before putting the spaghetti into the boiling water, add a bit of oil and salt into the water.

I bought large prawns from the hypermarket. I cannot remember how much they were selling but I got 10 of them for RM8.60. The rest of the ingredient were what I could rummage from the kitchen cabinet, including a can of large button mushrooms.

Ingredients

1 can of button mushrooms (fresh would have been much better)
115g butter
2/3 cup flour
5 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
4 c. chicken stock
2 c. light cream
1 c. grated Parmesan cheese
Salt and pepper to taste

Method

Heat up some butter in the pan and put in some of the chopped garlic.
When the garlic turned aromatic, put in the prawns and fry them until they turn orange in color.
Remove them from the pan and set aside.
Add in the remaining butter and when hot, put in all the garlic and fry.
Drain the button mushrooms from the tin and add into the hot pan.
Saute the mushrooms for a minute
Mix the flour and chicken stock before pouring it all into the hot pan.
Lower the heat and stir until the sauce thickens.
Add in the cream, salt and pepper.
Finally, put in all the prawns into the sauce.
For garnishing, use parsley and the grated Parmesan cheese

I know that I will not have that much time in the kitchen to cook or bake from tonite until the end of the week. Nope, I am not going away. It is just that there will be quite a number of activities lined up right up to Sunday.

Tonight, I will be watching Beauty and Beast at the KL Convention Centre.

Tomorrow night, I will be at Sukhi Hotu, who will be hosting a Dhamma Talk and Concert by Ravenna Michalsen..

Thursday night, I’ll be at DanSing Thro Broadway at the Pangung Bandaraya.

Friday is Casper’s birthday dinner, likely to be at Jaya33

Saturday, phew.. a breather here… dinner at mum’s

Sunday… yippppppppeeeeeee…..gumpaste and sugarpaste class at Min’s.. soooo excited lah.

Looks like the only rest I'd be getting is when I am working in the office...heehee

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Why Eat Out when you can Eat In

2008-06-20T11:31:00.004+08:00

I was really wanting to see how expensive it would cost to have a decent western meal at home. Previously I tried cooking a simple Japanese meal at home to see how much it would cost (approximately RM30). Not too bad hor? I attempted to do the same for a western meal to see how much my savings would be.

I bought a piece of lamb shoulder and a few slices of beef steaks from one of the hypermarkets one weekend ago. The piece of marinaded lamb shoulder costs RM2.89 and 3 pieces of also marinaded beef steaks for RM7. A tray of button mushrooms for RM4.99. Some broccoli for RM2.30. 2 eggs for RM0.80 (rounded upwards). Oil and gas...hard to calculate ...haha..so, decided to omit the cost.

These are the results for a total of less than RM20 ...

I suppose this is the ideal substitute for a western meal at the end of the month when you have that craving but the pocket is light. Perhaps a meal like this would cost RM40 at the restaurants and there is also the nasty bit of tax we have to pay :(

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Steamed Chocolate Cupcakes

2008-06-19T11:20:00.007+08:00

I know that my dear superheroes have just embarked on their new adventure in baking and as they have quite successfully made an Oreo Cheesecake, Well done supes :)

I decided to share this very simple fuss free steamed chocolate cupcake as there is no need for an electric mixer or oven. Good for those who do not have an oven yet in their kitchen. This was the original recipe that I got from a girl friend but she cannot remember where she got it. I made it for the first time last night and as they turned out pretty ok, I reckon that for less than an hour kind of effort, it is worth doing.

Ingredients:

1 3/4 cup of flour
3/4 cup of cocoa powder
3/4 cup of sugar
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp soda bicarbonate
3/4 cup cooking oil (vegetable oil)
1/2 cup of fresh milk
2 eggs (beaten)
1/2 tsp vanilla essence

Method

Sift flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and soda bicarbonate in a bowl
Add in the sugar and mix well
Pour in the oil and the milk and make sure that everything is mixed thoroughly
Add in the beaten egg a little at a time and mix well
Add in the vanilla essence. Stir until the mixture looks well blended
Put your wok or pan with water. If you have a steamer, that would be easier.
Line cupcake foils or tray with cupcake cups and scoop in the mixture
As the mixture will rise, only fill up to 3/4 of the cup.
Steam for about 15 to 20 mins.

You can top these little cuppies with cream cheese or you can just leave it plain. The texture is smooth and moist. But I didn't do the topping as there was no more cheese at home (phew...good excuse as I will probably be too lazy to do toppings even if I had cheese at home).

But the difference between the baked cuppies and steamed cuppies is the aroma whilst the cakes are being cooked. When it is oven baked, the kitchen smells wonderful and aromatic. When cuppies are steamed, one does not get this aroma but nevertheless, it tastes good as sometimes the baked ones can turned up coarse and dry (also depends on the recipe).

Cream Cheese toppings: - 6 oz. low fat cream cheese (cold) - 1/2 cup (or more) icing sugar - 1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence

Coffee Biscotti - Food Exchange Program

2008-06-18T09:23:00.006+08:00

This week, the Food Exchange Program was delayed. Sue was on leave on Monday, and Tuesday was a rather busy day at work for her as there was quite a lot to catch up with. Babe is going through a sad rough bump in her life's journey. She will be recuperating for the next 3 or so weeks. Get well soon Babe. Can't wait for you to get back into the Food Exchange Program.

As the Food Exchange was not going to happen on Monday, I took my time during the weekend to look through some of my cook books. I recently bought this one by Catherine Atkinson called Coffee Cakes and Desserts.

There were so many yummy cakes and desserts that were so tempting but as I had to do whatever it was that I wanted to do on a Monday evening after work, I selected something which was relatively simple. I decided on her Coffee Biscotti recipe. I have never tried doing a biscotti before, hence I read and reread her recipe a few times to make sure I understood it. These days, we cannot afford to make mistakes as mistakes are rather expensive with the increased price of all ingredients (Sue understands this best as we both have thrown out our fair share of failures in the past *sob*).

The recipe and the method have been reproduced below. The aroma from the coffee during the baking was so heavenly. I wonder if the neighbours could smell it. It lingered almost the entire night until morning..... mmmmmm....

Ingredients

25g of roasted coffee beans (i only used 10g of nescafe powder)
115g of blanched almonds
200g of plain flour
1 1/2tsp of baking powder
1/4tsp salt
75g of unsalted butter, cubed
150g of caster sugar
2 eggs beaten
25-30ml strong brewed coffee
1tsp of ground cinnamon for dusting

Method

Preheat oven at 180C/350F
Put the espresso coffee beans in a single layer on one side of the baking sheet and the almonds on the other side.
Roast for 10 mins and leave to cool.
Put the coffee beans in the food processor or blender and process until fairly find. (Using instant nescafe powder sure saved me a fair bit of time and probably tasted as yummy. The smell was absolutely heavenly)
Tip it out and set it aside. Process the almonds until fine.
Sift the flour, salt and baking powder into a bowl.
Rub in the butter until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.
Stir in the sugar, ground coffee and almonds
Add in the beaten eggs and enough brewed coffee to form a fairly firm dough.
Lightly knead for a few seconds until smooth and shape into 2 rolls about 7.5cm in diameter.
Placed on a greased baking sheet and dust with cinnamon. Bake for 20 minutes
Using a sharp knife, cut the rolls into 4cm slices in diagonal slices.
Arrange the slices back onto the baking tray and bake for another 10 minutes or until lightly brown. Cool on a rack.

There was a cook's tip at the end of the recipe which read "Store the biscotti in an airtight tin for a day before serving". That explains why Sue is only getting her biscotti this morning :)

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Fruit Tartlets

2008-06-16T15:15:00.007+08:00

Ah Mah means grandma in some of the chinese dialets and last Saturday happened to be Ah Mah's 99th birthday. You say... ah.. 99 years old? That is 1 year short of a being a century old. Yup. That she is. But if you were to look at her photo, she sure does not look that old. See....

The 99 years young Ah Mah

Ah Mah used to smoke ciggies (I think it was either Benson or Dunhill), drinks the truly caffeinated local coffee by the mug-fulls and she can at this age still scold you silly or kill you with one of her piercing looks. We used to go out to restaurants to celebrate her birthdays but at 99, she does get tired and needs to lie down ever so often. Hence, it was going to be a home-cooked makan session. Most of the dishes were cooked by her 1st daughter, my Tai Ku Cheh, who is a rather good cook. Together with the maid, she cooked up a vegetarian dish (chai choy), fried chicken, fried wonton, french fries for the kiddos and the obligatory longevity noodles. The people were rather hungry as some were waiting (like mua) since 11 plus to eat. By the time we started eating, it was almost 1:30pm. The way the food was being attacked, it was just like a whole bunch of piranhas attacking a juicy succulent piece of meat.

I decided to compliment the birthday cake which was bought at a bakery at Isetan KLCC with some fruit tartlets. After having put up the Fruit Tart post and receiving suggestions on how to improve the tarts, I decided to do it again but this time as tartlets. Well, I must admit that I cheated a little this time. As I was really short of time to do the custard, I went over to a bake ware shop to purchase a packet of instant custard to do the job. Sure saved me a fair bit of time (phew).

This was how the instant custard looked like before the fruits went on. Tasted quite ok. I think perhaps I will stick to this the next time.

Before the fruits

After the fruits were added

Ah Mah is probably thinking...."don't light me a candle... light be a ciggie"....haha

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Assam Fish Curry

2008-06-12T14:32:00.004+08:00

Mum has a lot of curry and assam dishes and this is one of my favorite. I don't know if it is the tamarind in the recipe that really makes this dish so appetizing for me as I could eat platefuls of rice with just the curry gravy. I can do without the fish or any of the rest of the accompaniments for it is the gravy that I like.

Mum cooked that for us 2 weekends ago and she was rattling off the ingredients and method of doing it. Apparently you can use any type of fish or fish fillet for this dish, but most of the time, garoupas and pomfrets are used. I used the bawal hitam (promfret) for the dish.

Apparently this curry dish tastes better overnight but sometimes, there just isn't any left at the end of the meal to be kept for the next meal even, let alone the next day :).

This is mum's version of the Assam Fish Curry.

Ingredients

1 large bawal hitam (pomfret) cut into slices about an inch thick
10 pieces of okra (ladies fingers)
2 tbsp of assam jawa (tamarind paste). Soak this in 2 cups of warm water and strain, keeping the juice only
3-4 stalks of daun kesom (polygonum)
1 tsp of curry powder
1 tsp of turmeric powder
3-4 stalks of lemon grass (white part only)
1 tbsp of sugar
salt to taste
3 tbsp of oil

Paste ingredients
1 clove garlic
5 shallots
8-10 dried chillies (depends how spicy you like)
1/2 tablespoon of belacan (prawn paste - optional as some people don't like this)

Method

Blend the paste ingredients in a food processor and set aside.
Heat up 3 tbsp of oil in the wok and put in the blended paste and fry until fragrant
Add in the tamarind juice, curry powder, turmeric powder, lemon grass stalks and bring to a boil.
Add in the okras and the daun kesom.
Add in the fish and about 2000ml of water
Simmer on low heat until the fish is cook
Add in the sugar and salt to taste.
Best eating with steaming hot rice on a rainy evening

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Cream Cheese Brownies

2008-06-11T14:05:00.006+08:00

I love brownies but a lot of people would prefer to only eat it sparingly. I understand as this is really a terribly sinfully sweet food. I was looking around for a brownie recipe and found a very good one at Joy of Baking's website. The picture really won me at first look.. Hence, I decided to do last Friday as I was on leave.

The marbling effect of the cake was simply gorgeous but i probably left too much of the chocolate dough for the top layer. Hence, I was not able to achieve the nice results at that shown at Joy of Baking's website.

I have reproduced the recipe here. Most of the brownie slicers were given away. I only had too and they were very very sweet. I don't think I will be making this again anytime too soon :). The test bunnies who ate the lot has probably hit their sugar quota for the month..hahaha

Ingredients

Brownie Layer
1/2 cup (113g) unsalted butter, cut into pieces
4 oz (114g) of unsweeten chocolate, coarsely chopped (yikes.. i only had sweeten chocolate)
1 1/4 cups (250g) granulated white sugar
1 tsp pure white vanilla extract
2 large eggs
1/2 cup (70g) all purpose flour
1/4 tsp salt

Cream Cheese Layer
8oz (227g) cream cheese at room temp
1/3 cup (65g) granulated fine sugar (white)
1 tsp pure vanilla essence
1 large egg

Method

Preheat oven at 325F or 160C and place rack in the center of the oven
Have ready a 9x9 inch (23x23 cm) sq baking pan lined with foil
Melt butter and chocolate over a simmering pan of water
Remove from heat and stir in sugar and vanilla extract
Add eggs, one at a time, beating well with a wooden spoon after each addition
Stir in the flour and salt and beat with the wooden spoon until the batter is smooth and glossy and comes away from the sides of the pan (about 1 minute)
Remove 1/2 cup of the brownie mix and set aside
Place the remaining of the brownie batter evenly into the pan
Cream cheese until smooth, either by hand or with a mixer
Add sugar, vanilla and egg and process until creamy and smooth
Spread cream cheese over the brownie layer filling
Spoon small drollops of the remaining brownie batter evenly on top of the cream cheese filling
With a table knife or skewer, swirl the 2 batters without mixing them
Bake in a preheated oven for about 25mins or until the skewer comes out clean
Brownies will start to pull away from the pan and edges will start to brown
Remove from the oven and cool over the wire rack
Refrigerate brownies before cutting them
Use a damp cloth to wipe between cuts.

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Fruit Tarts - Food Exchange Program

2008-06-09T11:56:00.009+08:00

I was browsing through the recipe books on Sunday afternoon and even though I still have a block of cheese in the fridge, but the sound of cheese does not turn me on any more.. perhaps a bit of an overdose...of baking, not of eating though :). So, please sue, bake more cheesecake, I will eat them all up haha.

Mmm.. Sunday afternoon at about 4pm. Not much time for too fanciful recipes to experiment on. I have never tried to make tarts before. Was considering either the egg tart or the fruit tart but as I have quite a fair bit of Red Globes grapes, Kiwi fruits and some blueberries in the fridge, I decided to make the Fruit Tarts for the Food Exchange Program.

This recipe is from the Cakes & Pastries Cook Book and the pictures in there is simply mouth watering.

Firstly, the tart shells have to be made. To do this, I needed the following items:-

Ingredients for the Pastry

100g butter
35g icing sugar
1 egg beaten
140g cake flour
35g almond powder (which I didn't have)

Method for the pastry

Melt butter under room temperature
Add icing sugar and beat mixture until it turns pale yellow
Pour in beaten egg and mix well
Sift in cake flour and stir in almond powder to form dough
Divide into small portions and press each portion into a greased tart mould.
Poke holes in dough base with a fork
Bake at 170C-180C for 10-12 mins.
Remove and cool.

Whilst the tart shells are cooling, I commenced on the fillings.

Ingredients for the fillings

100g white chocolate (I used dark as I had half a block left)
3 egg yolks
65g of sugar
40g cornflour
350ml of fresh milk
A dash of vanilla essence
150g of whipped cream
Various fruits

Method for the filling

Heat chocolate indirectly until melted
Brush over pastry and cool until chocolate is solidified
Combine egg yolks, sugar, cornflour and fresh milk.
Stir well and bring to boil
Allow mixture to cool and thicken before adding in the vanilla essence
When the mixture is cooled completely, add in the whipping cream which has been beaten until 60% fluffy. Stir well to make custard. Allow to cool
Fill custard in a pastry bag. Squeeze custard into pastry and top with fruits.

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Cranberry and Currant Bread

2008-06-05T13:47:00.006+08:00

With the increase in petrol price, it will be a matter of time when we will see a rise in price in everything else. This is a clear indication of an on-coming austerity drive for many of us. What we can save, we save. What we can recycle, we should. If we could eat in, why eat out. What we wanted to throw away, we have to consider whether we are able to salvage. And that was precisely what happened yesterday.

I was reaching into the kitchen cabinet for a can of tuna when I saw this can of Cranberries which upon checking, was due to expire in June. Could not quite see the date but it was definitely June 2008. Normally, I would have seriously considered throwing it out but with an afterthought, put it aside and went to check my trusty bread bible "One Hundred Bread Machine Recipes" - Vicki Smallwood (this could have been a pressie from JW) to see what I could do with this soon-to-be expired (or already expired??) can of cranberries.

Found 2 recipes actually but decided on the simpler one. I do believe the recipe asked for dried cranberries but don't matter. I will not feed my test bunnies expired or expiring foodstuff. So, I will be the only one eating up this bread.

I followed the recipe and instructions to the letter but was not sure about the end result. I did not see the dough raising in the proportion that it was supposed to. In fact, it rose only very little. I am not sure what actually happened. I have reproduced the recipe below. Could it have been the yeast (I used instant yeast)? Could it have been the cool night temperature? Or the bread only can work with dried cranberries? I seriously don't know why the dough did not rise up twice the original size. The bread turned out edible, but it did not have the cottony effect (or rather was it meant to be like that?).

Since the dough did not inflate like it should, I didn't even bother to plait it. Just rolled them up and baked them. Had some for breakfast this morning. Will finish the rest within the next few days.

Ingredients

1 cup water, tepid
3 tbsp honey
2 tbsp butter, melted
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/4 cups white bread flour
1 cup wholemeal bread flour
1 tsp yeast

To finish
75g (3oz) dried cranberries
75g (3oz) currants
beaten egg for brushing over

Method

Place the first seven ingredients in the baking pan. Set the program to "DOUGH"
When the dough is ready, transfer it to a floured surface. Knead in the cranberries and currants int ht dough until they are evenly dispersed.
Divide the dough into 3 equal sized pieces and then roll each piece into a long sausage measuring approximately 30.5cm (12in) in length.
Loosely plait together the three lengths of dough, pinching the ends together to seal them.
Place plait on a greased baking sheet, cover it with a piece of oiled cling film and leave it to prove in a warm place.
Preheat the oven to 200C/400F/GM6.
When the dough has almost doubled in size, remove the cling film and lightly brush the plait with some beaten egg.
Bake the plait in the oven for 20 to 25mins or until golden.
Transfer plait to a wire rack and leave to cool before serving.

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Stir Fried LaLa (Clams)

2008-06-04T11:15:00.006+08:00

I was at the supermarket yesterday after work, just to pick up some stuff for the bak kut teh soup that I had in mind to make when I walked pass the fish section. Saw their la la selling at RM1.09 per gram. They were very nice and fresh (as most of them were sticking their little tongues at me). Decided just to get about 300g of these lovelies back and when they are all so nice and fresh, 300g is enough for 2 to 3 people. Normally when they are less fresh, you end up throwing quite a fair number away, which is such a waste. I have bought some before at another supermarket when they were not as fresh. Ended up throwing more than half away as they were either just empty shells or dead (they do not open even after cooking).

I love Kam Heong La Las but have not really asked mum how to cook that dish. She has only taught me how to do to stir fried la la in fermented beans style. Anyway, for kam heong style la la, I would need curry leaves, and they didn't have any left in the shelves at this time of the day. So that decided it for me. I'll do the stir fried la la in fermented beans.

This stir fry dish is done in a matter of minutes as there was not much preparation need. All you needed were some chopped garlic (I used 2 large cloves, but you can add or reduce the amount depending on how partial you are to garlic. Took 2 tablespoons of fermented beans out from the bottle and mashed them up a bit. Julienned some spring onions and 1 red chillie (these are part of the garnishing actually).

Rinse the la las in running water but the ones that I bought were so clean that I didn't see a single speck of mud in them. They really made my job easy. Set them aside to drain off all the water.

Heat about 2 tablespoon of oil in a hot pan and put in the chopped garlic first. Fry these until they are aromatic and add in the 2 tablespoons of fermented beans. You should really be getting a very aromatic smell now. Add a little bit of water if the gravy is getting too dry (this happens when your fire is too hot).

Stir in the la las. The fresh la las will all open up now. Stir it around to make sure the gravy covers all the lovely fleshy la las. Add in the spring onions and chillie. Dish up and ready to be served for dinner :)

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Fish Paste Soup

2008-06-03T15:36:00.005+08:00

Of late, I have been getting a little lazy trying to think of what to cook for dinner. Must be all the baking and cupcake decorations that I have really been indulging in. Cooking dinners seemed less exciting :).

Anyway, for me, simplicity is always to the key. Must be these lazy bones of mine. Dinner normally consists of 2 dishes or 3 and where possible a soup... to make the rice go down easier in case the dishes don't turn out too good. A relatively simple soup that I like to do is a fish paste soup. And the best part of it is that the soup appears to be quite oil free. Fish, unlike chicken or pork, does not really expel oil (even if it did, it would be relatively less), hence it gives one the feeling that it is a more healthy soup.

This simple soup only needs some fish paste from the market. I got about RM4 from the auntie selling fish at Petaling Street, Kuala Lumpur. Marinade it with some soya sauce, sesame oil, some salt and pepper and a dash of pepper. Leave it aside for about 20 minutes. Meanwhile, chop up some chinese parsley to be added into the fish paste. I do not want to add more than that into the fish paste as I wanted it to be simple.

Boil some stock using dried anchovies (ikan bilis) and when the water is boiling, dunk in the fish paste. Make little balls with a spoon before you plonk them in. Cut up some lettuce or any of your preferred greens into the soup. When the soup starts to boil, give it a little taste. Add some salt if the soup is too bland. Serve with hot steaming rice on a rainy day like today would be nice :)

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Buttercream and Fondant

2008-06-02T16:14:00.014+08:00

As I was driving home on Friday evening in the jam, I was wondering what to make for the niece and nephews when they came over to mum's. Actually getting stuck in a jam is not that awful, especially when you have things to think about. And as I was slowly inching my way in traffic and thinking really hard, this little fella (actually I have 2 of them in my car) was swinging left and right, each time I braked. And that is when I had my idea and inspiration.

These were some of the mini cuppies that I made for the kids... my first attempt in trying to decorate a cuppie without trying to copy someone else's design :). Well, I must say, it was a case of "ngak sai lo kor" (con little children).

The cuppies were actually blueberries cuppies. Simple vanilla cupcake recipe with blueberry fillings added. I also tried to do some roses and flowers with fondant and buttercream leaves to impress them.

But sadly, none of these were really to their liking. To the kids, yeah, it is just another cupcake....until they saw this one...
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Nearly started a kiddo war at mum's house over a cuppie :(. Mum's words of advice "Next time don't decorate cake like that... eat already sure get sore throat".. :(

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Woo Tow Koh - Yam Cake - Food Exchange Program

2008-06-02T11:58:00.012+08:00

On Sunday afternoon, I was still deciding what to cook for the food exchange program. Actually I have a vague idea of what to make as I already have 2 yams sitting in the kitchen :). I did not want to do anymore cupcakes or muffins as it was getting a little boring (but that did not stop me from making them for the kiddos on Saturday though). I went and hunted down the recipe which I used the last time from Lily Ng. That is really and truly a recipe to keep.

I made absolutely zero alterations to her recipe but I think I may have to reduce the amount of salt the next time. This could be due to the type of soya sauce I used this time. Just recently changed brand from the normal one that I usually used. They have already discontinued that brand of soya sauce.

Ingredients:

250g yam, diced and coat with 1 tsp 5 spice powder
1 cup water

(B) Mix together and sieve:

125g rice flour
20g tapioca flour
1 cup water
1/4 tsp potassium carbonate & sodium bi-carbonate solution(optional)
150 g yam, sliced thin, steam then mashed

Seasoning:

1 tbsp chicken stock granules
1 tsp soya sauce
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sesame oil
Dash of pepper
1 tsp sugar

For garnishing:

100 dried prawns, soaked and chopped coarsely - use the food processor
4 shallots, sliced and mix with 1 tsp oil, microwave on high until crispy
2 stalks spring onions, chopped
2 red chillies, chopped

Chilli sauce :

10 red chillies, (chop or blend in the food processor)
2 tbsp tomato ketchup
1 tbsp sugar
2 tsp salt
2 tbsp lemon/lime juice (can be substitue with vinegar)

Method:

Heat 4 tbsp oil and saute dried prawns till fragrant. Remove 3/4 and set aside for garnishing.

Add 2 tbsp oil to the remaining oil in the wok, add diced yam and stir fry well. Mix in water and bring to a boil.

Add in (B) and seasoning and cook till batter is fairly thick.

Pour thick batter into a well-greased 25cm round tray.

Steam till kuih is set and cooked through. Spread the garnishing on top and press lightly. Leave aside to cool.

Serve yam cake with chilli sauce.

The only hiccup that I faced last nite was that half way through the steaming process, I ran out of gas :(. Yikes.. and it was at 10pm in the night. Where to get gas delivery at this hour?? Luckily I also have an electric steamer but as it rather small, I had to cut up the half-baked Yam Cake to continue steaming it in batches. Could that have resulted in a saltier cake?? Nah.. it was probably either the soya sauce or my heavy handedness when measuring the 1tsp of salt :).

I didn't realize that Babe will be on leave the entire week as I bought her a portion of the cake. Never mind, I can easily eat it up for lunch later :). So, today's food exchange was only with Sue and wow.. Sue baked some cheesecake and made some yummy sushi (complete with dipping sauce) for me.. wow...this is where I definitely "untung" (gain).

I also managed to pass some of the woo tow kow to some test bunnies. Hope they will like the yam cake, albeit a little too salty :)

Some of these were for the test bunnies

Yummy Sushi from Sue

My favorite baked Cheesecake from Sue also

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Food Exchange Program

2008-05-30T10:02:00.006+08:00

This idea was given to me by Babe after I posted this on Monday. There are times when I would sit back and think to myself..... if I were a test bunny, and unless I am already dead from eating someone else's cooking or creations (i like to call it that as everything that we cook up is in fact a creation, our own masterpiece) or have to be hospitalized, I would always be kind and give very encouraging comments. Maybe it is because we are kind and we don't want to hurt the other person's feelings or it is in fact genuinely great food or what I have seriously wondered sometimes is whether these nice encouraging comments were given just to make sure that the flow of food does not end. HaHaHa.... I wonder if my comments here will truly end my own test bunny position. I hope this is not a Sharon Stone opps!

This Food Exchange Program that I had in mind is mainly to round up a few ardent and enthusiastic people who like to cook or bake and also has an intention to improve their cooking/baking skills. The idea is that we will have a forum to share (haha.. I wanted to say off-load... so rude hor) our creations with a few who will give genuine and honest opinions and suggestions on improvements. I wonder if many will be game for this as I truly believe that only with honest opinions (even though the truth does hurt.. sometimes) can I improve on my cooking.

At the moment, unofficially I already have Babe and Sue in this food exchange program (actually, they have no choice as they are already in by default). I wonder if Supes are interested? How about you Amy? And anyone who is interested, just leave me a comment.

I have made some of these mango cream cheese tarts for the food exchange program but last nite, some test bunnies came over and ate every last crumb. Oh well, lucky for the weekend coming up. Can relax tonight and decide what to "create" over the weekend. Have a great weekend everybody :D

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Oreo Cheesecake

2008-05-27T13:43:00.005+08:00

This is going to be a post which I did over two days. Yesterday, all I had time to do was post up the pictures. Did not have the time to put in the recipe. Furthermore, I was still trying to adjust the recipe, especially the base. I still had a lot of base left and that was the reason for the Mango Yogurt cake.

The ingredients below has already been adjusted. I will most likely be making one more cheesecake by the next 2 weeks. This is an Oreo cheesecake using Toblerone chocolate as the filling. This recipe was given to me by my friend Sue. It is going to be an extremely sweet cake, I am sure :). I'll do it when I have picked up all the ingredients.

Oreo Cheesecake Ingredient (8 inch pan)

Base

1 tube of Oreo biscuits

60g of melted butter

Filling

250g Philadelphia cream cheese

200g of whipping cream

2 tbsp of gelatin

6 tbsp of water

120g of caster sugar

150ml of full cream milk

5 pieces of Oreo biscuits (coarsely chopped)

Method

For the Base

Crush the Oreo biscuits either with a blender or put them in a zip lock bag and crush them with your pestle.
Leave the butter out in the open for ½ hr to soften it.
Use your fingers to mix the crushed Oreo biscuits with the butter.
Line the baking tin with aluminum foil as this will really ease the removal of the cake from the tin later.
Place the biscuit mix into the pan and press down with a spatula to ensure uniform thickness.
Place in the fridge for about an hour to set the base.

For the filling

The cream cheese should have been left in the open for about ½ hr or so to soften it.
Place it in a mixer and mix until the cream cheese turns creamy.
Slowly add in the whipping cream
Put this aside whilst you prepare the next lot of ingredients
Dissolve the gelatin in water. Set aside.
Dissolve the sugar in the milk either using a microwave oven or in a double boiler. Leave aside to cool.
Place the dissolved gelatin and sugar and milk into the bowl of cream cheese and whipping cream
Mix well until they are all combined.
Add in the 5 pieces of coarsely chopped Oreo biscuits
Take out the chilled Oreo biscuit base from the fridge and pour the mixture into the pan.
Put the cheesecake into the fridge to be chilled for at least 3 hours or overnight would be even better.

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Mango Yogurt Cake

2008-05-26T13:52:00.006+08:00

I am still trying to make the ultimate non-baked cheese cake and that was exactly what I did on Saturday evening and Sunday morning. More about that later. I had made 2 pans of biscuit base but as I only had enough Oreos for 1 cake, I had to decide what to do with the other base. I didn't want to leave it in the fridge just like that when I remembered babe showing me a site some time last week with the recipe for a yogurt cake. I checked all the ingredients and wallah.. I didn't exactly have everything in the list but I'll just have to make do.

The original yogurt recipe was from Tazz in the Kitchen. I had to improvise as I did not have all the items listed, or rather, I did not have them in sufficient quantities. I wonder what my test bunnies had to say about that...a rather funny mixture of taste probably.

Tazz's recipe has been reproduced below with my adjustments in green.

Ingredients for the base:
crumbs from 7 pieces of disgestive biscuits
40g melted butter
(i used the remains from the Oreo Cheesecake base)

Ingredients for the filling:
100g sugarless natural yogurt (mango flavored yogurt)
150ml yakult (natural flavored & apple flavored vitagen)
1 tbsp lemon juice
150ml non-diary whipping cream
1 tbsp gelatin
3 tbsp sugar (2 tbsp sugar since the yogurt and vitagen are already sweet)
150ml water
Grated lemon zest (left this out)
2 large mangos, one for filling and the other for decoration

Jello Topping:
1/3 pkt Jello
120ml hot water
1/2 tsp gelatin

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Poppy Seeds with Mixed Peels Muffin

2008-05-23T13:35:00.009+08:00

Most of the time my inspiration comes as a result of interacting with others. Was on the Yahoo Messenger with my gal pal Susan the last few days and we were chatting on and on about baking and everything related to it. She mentioned that it is her colleague's birthday on Friday (which is today) and she wanted to bake something nice for her (I just assumed that it is a girl colleague...haha.. i know that it is very presumptuous of me to think that only girls appreciate baked gifts).

We have been looking up blogs to learn more about about baking and specifically cupcake decoration. My current favorite 3 sites baking sites are Yasmin's Baking Project, Aunty Yochana's Yochana's Cake Delight and Melinda's Apple Kitchen.

By the end of yesterday afternoon, I have already made up my mind to bake something which I have not attempted before (yah..I know it can be risky business but this is what I do for kicks...I like trying new recipes). Went checking out some recipe blogs and found this at Cooks.com, Mixed Peel Muffin. So, printed out the recipe from Cooks.com and was so excited to go home to try it out. Left the office on the dot, before my boss could even realize that it's already knock off time :).

The ingredients and the method have been reproduced here from Cooks.com Recipe Search.

Ingredients

1 c. all purpose flour
1/2 c. sugar
1 tbsp. poppy seeds
1 heaping tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1/4 c. melted butter
1/2 c. fresh lemon juice
2 lg. eggs
Finely grated rind of 1 lemon (this I replaced with 1 cup of mixed peel)

Method

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
Line muffin tins with paper liners.
Combine dry ingredients and blend well.
Mix melted butter and lemon juice. Add eggs and rind.
Stir egg mixture into dry ingredients and stir just enough to moisten.
Pour batter into liners, filling just to lip. Bake at 375 degrees for 15 to 20 minutes, until nicely browned.
Remove muffins from pan and cool totally before you start decorating with buttercream and fondant.

The muffins smelt so nice and lemony ... interesting flavor (actually that was the comment by the test bunny at home. No indication of whether it was nice or not nice.... just "INTERESTING"). I will have to wait for Susan's colleague's comments later if she liked it.

Played with some fondant and buttercream for the decoration. Was using the Melinda's formula for the fondant. If you want it, do please get in touch with Melinda. The butter cream was the same one I used previously except I added some shortening, based on Min's advice.

These are the results of what started out as a conversation with a friend and inspirations from the foodie bloggers, especially those 3 whom I've mentioned above :)

This lot will be going to Susan's colleague... Happy Birthday and Many Happy Returns !!

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Nasi Biryani

2008-05-21T13:56:00.006+08:00

A very long time ago, I made an attempt to cook Nasi Biryani to JW's pot luck dinner and back then, I did not follow any recipe from the internet or book. It was a pure guessing game for me. I cooked it exactly the way I would cook claypot chicken rice, except instead of frying the ginger, chinese mushroom with the seasonings before adding in the rice, for the Nasi Biryani, I fried all the spices, cashew nuts and raisins before adding in the rice. That method is simple and I reckon quite yummy.

However, this time, when JW invited us to another of her pot luck dinner, I decided to be smart. Surfed the net and found a recipe for Indian Chicken Nasi Biryani. It took quite a lot more work than what I would have like. I think my mistake is that the recipe would really work if you were making Chicken or Lamb Nasi Biryani. But I only wanted to cook the rice without the meat. Hence, the result was a soggier version of how I would have preferred my rice to be. And at the dinner, someone commented that the rice was not salty enough. Sigh.. another one that takes me back to the drawing board.

The recipe which I used was from Recipes Indian and I have reproduced both the ingredients and the methods below.

Ingredients :

For Chicken
3 1/2 lb./ 1 1/2kg Chicken
1/8 tsp Ground turmeric
1/2 cup Sour cream
1 cup Crispy fried onions
2 tbsp Garam masala
1 3" cinnamon sticks
1 tbsp Brown mustard seeds
3 Star anise
3 Cloves
2 tbsp Cumin seeds
5 Small green chilies
5 cloves Garlic
2 tsp Paprika
Salt to taste

For the Rice cooking
4 cups Rice, washed
3 Clove
3 Cinnamon sticks
6 Bay leaves
8 Cardamom pods
1 tsp Brown mustard seeds
3 Pandan leaves
10 cups Water
1 cup Milk
1 tsp Whole saffron
1 cup Frozen green peas
1/2 cup Dark raisins
2 tbsp Vegetable oil
100g Butter or Gee
Some mint leaves
Salt to taste

Method:

For Chicken

Mix the chicken pieces with sour cream, ground turmeric and salt & let it sit for about 2 hours.
Mix crispy onions with garam masala and set aside.
Roast the cinnamon stick, brown mustard seeds, star anise, cloves, cumin seeds in a dry skillet. Pound them together in a mixer. Set aside.
Pound the garlic and green chilies together.
Mix marinated chicken with crispy onions mix, ground spices, paprika, garlic and green chilies. Set aside.

For the rice

Soak saffron in the warm milk and set aside.
Heat the oil in a skillet and add butter,add 1 cinnamon stick and 3 bay leaves and fry until nice aroma comes out. Set aside.
Boil the water in a large pan and stir in cloves, 2 cinnamon sticks, 3 bay leaves, cardamoms & brown mustard seeds.
Add rice, pandan leaves and cook until 2/3 done. (do not cover the pan while rice is cooking)
Drain the rice and discard the pandan leaves. Mix the rice with salt for taste.
Place all the marinated chicken in a pan. Add a layer of rice on the chicken and sprinkle with some colored milk, fragrant butter, green peas, dark raisins & mint leaves. Repeat the layers with the same order and bake in 325 deg F oven for 30 to 40 minutes until the chicken is done. (must have at least 2 layers).
Ready to Serves.

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Mango Cheesecake (recipe not included)

2008-05-20T13:34:00.007+08:00

It has been a blastingly hot weekend... and standing in front of an oven baking was really out of the question *sweats*. I have been taking an average of 2 to 3 showers a day and just walking out of the air conditioned room to the kitchen to get a cup of iced tea is a hot affair. But I cannot let this weekend go by without doing something ... else I will have absolutely nothing to post here today.

I have been trying to enroll for a cheesecake class with my friend Susan at Melinda Apple Bakings but somehow the timing just wasn't right. Anyway, I have been looking at recipes from a cookbook plus that posted by several bloggers. Some are much harder to do than others and not being overly ambitions, I chose a highly simplistic recipe and added some fruits into the cheesecake to give it a little bit of added flavor.

I have made no bake cheesecakes in the past (oreo cheesecake and peach cheesecake) but i have yet to find one that I am totally happy with. I have found another one and this time, the filling was quite okay but I think the ingredients resulted in a tad too much base. I have to reduce the quantity of biscuits and butter for the base. I didn't make that big a cake and as I did this on Sunday night, by the time it was Tuesday, there was not much cake left. Could only bring 2 pieces to pass to Susan to test it out for me. I will have to wait for her verdict before I try to do it again. The other test bunnies had only this to say "Why is your base so thick ah??" Sigh.... back to the drawing board..

Will post the recipe only when I get it right :). So, watch this space.

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