Who stole the cookie?

Been feeling so lethagic and lazy. I wonder whether it is has to do with the exam fever. Can't they make it simpler? I really pity my child having to cope with all those tricky questions and I don't recall I having to learnt all these at that tender age.

In the past, when my elder was just a toddler, my husband and I said that we won't be like those paranoid and kiasu parents, we will take it easy. Now few years down the road, our beliefs changed.

Seeing your bright child falling behind his classmates set off RED alert. While going through school work exercises, you begin to realised that those questions are simply too mind boogling for you, the least we talk about for a 9 years old. Are they trying to rip off these innocent minds and forcing them to grow up quickly?

I wonder and wonder, what will become of young Singaporeans in the future?

Enough of my ranting....

My head is full of ideas but my body isn't so co-operative. Anyway, just need to destress and oiled those rusty joints of mine. I just need to get into momentum.

A long list of cookies that tempted me so much to make it real in my kitchen.

Chocolate chips cookies simply awesome with a glass of ice cold milk. Please join me.



Source: Adapted from All recipes.

What you need

250g plain flour
½ tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
170 g unsalted butter, melted
150g packed brown sugar
50g white sugar
1½ tsp vanilla extract
1 egg
1 egg yolk
170g semisweet chocolate chips
170g pecan nuts

Method

Preheat the oven to 165 °C. Grease cookie sheets or line with parchment paper.

Sift the flour, baking soda and salt; set aside.

Cream melted butter, brown sugar and white sugar until well blended.

Beat in the vanilla, egg, and egg yolk until light and creamy.

Mix in the sifted ingredients until just blended.

Stir in the chocolate chips by hand using a wooden spoon.

Scoop cookie dough using ice cream sccop. Cookies should be about 3 inches apart.

Bake for 15 to 17 minutes in the preheated oven, or until the edges are lightly toasted.

Cool on baking sheets before transferring to wire racks to cool completely.

When will be my turn

Started with a warm sunny morning. Instead of baking cookies as intended, I decided to bake Hokkaido Milk Bread that I found on this site. To me, this sounded like a Japanese bread, I have this impression that it is a soft and fluffy milk loaf.

As my machine was doing its work quietly, it started to rain. Though it is a much welcome rain but I was about to bake bread!!!! I needed warm in the kitchen to proof my dough!

It didn't rise to double the volume as indicated so I needed another 20 mins or more, placing my dough near to my stove when I was preparing lunch. It works!!!

When the dough was all ready for me to shape. *blank* blank* blank*. I don't know why. Suddenly my mind went blank. Nothing absolutely no recollection how I have done mine in the past. Since a loaf is tall and nice but what cake pan should I use? Should I use a little flour when rolling?

Wanted to make into sausage rolls as my kids love them but I did such a bad job that after 4 rolls, I gave up and decided to turn it into small nutella buns instead.

Though I had so many hiccups along the way, this bread turned out to be really good. It is soft and fluffy and it tasted really nice.

Guess, I have to give this a try another time again.



What you need

270g Bread flour
30g Cake flour
5g Dry active yeast
15g Milk powder
30g Sugar
4g Salt
1/2 Egg
125g Fresh milk
75g Whipping cream

Method

Preheat oven to 170 degree.

Mix all the ingredients in the bowl.

Knead until dough is elastic, smooth, non-sticky and leave from sides of mixing bowl. Cover with a damp towel and allow the dough to ferment until double in size, about 60 minutes. I took longer than this timing as perhaps the weather was cool.

Take out the dough and punched out the gas. Divide it into 4 portions. Round up and let rest for about 20 minutes.

Roll each dough out and roll up and place loaf pan. After shaping, let the dough rise up about 10 mins.

Brush with egg wash. Bake for about 15 - 20 minutes.

When will be my turn

Started with a warm sunny morning. Instead of baking cookies as intended, I decided to bake Hokkaido Milk Bread that I found on this site. To me, this sounded like a Japanese bread, I have this impression that it is a soft and fluffy milk loaf.

As my machine was doing its work quietly, it started to rain. Though it is a much welcome rain but I was about to bake bread!!!! I needed warm in the kitchen to proof my dough!

It didn't rise to double the volume as indicated so I needed another 20 mins or more, placing my dough near to my stove when I was preparing lunch. It works!!!

When the dough was all ready for me to shape. *blank* blank* blank*. I don't know why. Suddenly my mind went blank. Nothing absolutely no recollection how I have done mine in the past. Since a loaf is tall and nice but what cake pan should I use? Should I use a little flour when rolling?

Wanted to make into sausage rolls as my kids love them but I did such a bad job that after 4 rolls, I gave up and decided to turn it into small nutella buns instead.

Though I had so many hiccups along the way, this bread turned out to be really good. It is soft and fluffy and it tasted really nice.

Guess, I have to give this a try another time again.



What you need

270g Bread flour
30g Cake flour
5g Dry active yeast
15g Milk powder
30g Sugar
4g Salt
1/2 Egg
125g Fresh milk
75g Whipping cream

Method

Preheat oven to 170 degree.

Mix all the ingredients in the bowl.

Knead until dough is elastic, smooth, non-sticky and leave from sides of mixing bowl. Cover with a damp towel and allow the dough to ferment until double in size, about 60 minutes. I took longer than this timing as perhaps the weather was cool.

Take out the dough and punched out the gas. Divide it into 4 portions. Round up and let rest for about 20 minutes.

Roll each dough out and roll up and place loaf pan. After shaping, let the dough rise up about 10 mins.

Brush with egg wash. Bake for about 15 - 20 minutes.

Pop Pop Pop

Was down at the departmental store last week doing our errands and as we passed by the household department, pop corn aroma filled the air. My little boy couldn't wait to grab a handful of them. Hey, wait, I have the same frying pan as the lady was using to prepare the pop corn. Gee, how come I didn't know mine can do that?

Went home and quickly browse through the few pages of photocopied recipes that come together with the pan. Bingo! Of course, didn't have time to really do it till now.

More Caramel Popcorn to come.

C, eat your heart out, you don't need a machine to do that! hahaha.



What you need

3 handfuls corn kernels
1 tbsp butter
1 tbsp oil
1 cup sugar

Method

Heat oil in the wok and add in corn kernels. Stir evenly.

Add in butter and stir fry.

Cover the wok and lower to medium heat.

Open the cover only when popping sound stops.

Remove from pan and into a bowl that is big enough for the popcorn.

Add the sugar in a non stick pan and caramelised it on low heat.

When sugar has melted, pour over the popcorn and stir evenly till all pop corns are coated.

This is so nice

Though I know tofu is a really good in protein, I am very selective with tofu. I love egg tofu, steam tofu but I am not a big fan of tau kwa, tau pok or firm tofu. Perhaps it is the way they processed it.

Anyway, I read an article from Food Lover's Journey and her Five-Spice Tofu with Lemongrass Topping definitely attracted me because I love five spice powder and lemongrass!!!! hehehehhee.

Got two blocks of tofu two days ago, supposedly to have it on that very day but I had other menu on mind.

To cut my story short, I finally done this today and I am going to be a firm tofu lover from now on. This is soooooo good.

Thanks WhItE_PoPlAr for this great recipe!



What you need

2 cake of firm tofu
5 tbsp corn flour
2 tbsp plain flour
½ tsp Chinese Five Spice Powder
½ tsp salt
Oil for shallow frying
3 stalks of lemongrass, minced
3 cloves of garlic, minced
1 small red chilli, minced

For toppings

1 tsp five spice powder
1 tbsp oil
½ tsp of salt
½ tsp white pepper

Method

Cut the tofu into 4 portion each block.

Combine the flour, five-spice powder and salt together in a large plate. Coat the tofu well with the flour mixture.

Heat oil in a non-stick pan till hot, then shallow fry the tofu till golden brown. Set aside, keep warm in a low oven.

For the topping, heat extra oil in the pan till hot. Fry the minced lemongrass, garlic and chilli for about 1-2 mins, until tender and fragrant. Season with five spice powder and pepper.

Spread the mixture on top of fried tofu and serve hot with a dash of fish sauce.

Where have I gone wrong?

I was craving for something chocolatey and saw a recipe that mentioned a basic moist and delicious cake. This tempted me to give it a try as it looks really easy and definitely won't require me to spend more than half hour getting the cake into the oven.

Went about it merrily but with a nagging thought why the amount of liquid is so different from the other recipes that I tried and read before.

The final batter was really runny, I added some banana to give it more flavour. Imagine chocolate and banana, this won't go wrong right? Anyway, it didn't mentioned how long I should bake it for so I went by instinct. I am very sure it is cooked as the skewer came out clean.

The result was disappointing as the texture is very much kueh like. It does promised moist but somehow the texture isn't a cake. It is more kueh like. Gee how do I explain kueh texture?

I don't know where I have gone wrong. Over beating, over mixing or was it that I have cut down the sugar by half that resulted in this?

Now I am still craving for a nice chocolatey cake :(



I am posting this recipe so that perhaps someone can throw some lights to my mistake.

Greatly appreciated.

What you need

1 cup water
1 cup castor sugar
125g butter
1/6 cup cocoa powder
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1.5 cup self raising flour (sifted)
2 eggs slightly beaten (70g)
4 small bananas (cut to cubes)

Method

Preheat oven to 180 degree.

Melt butter, water, sugar and cocoa powder in a large microwavable bowl for 2 minutes on high with 30 second intervals for stirring. Beat till smooth and well combined.

Add in sifted bicarbonate of soda, flour and eggs. Alternating in 3 portions.

Beat with a mixer on high till smooth, pale and well incorporated.

Add in bananas.

Bake for 20 - 25 mins till skewer comes out clean.

Our favourite

Near to where we stay, there is this awesome tasting western food stall in a coffeeshop. The prices are also extremely reasonable. Just imagine, we been staying here for the last 10 years and we never know about it till 2 years back. Quite amazing right?

Anyway, we have Black Pepper Pork Chop tonight since I was down at the wet market and got some fresh pork.

Verdict, hubby said their is a little more tenderise but taste wise, I passed! Next round, I will add 2 bulks of roasted garlic to my potato mash instead of one bulk.

Fresh from the oven

I woke up earlier than before, hoping to settle my house first before baking another batch of cupcakes.

But guess my speed of working is not up to par today. By the time, S arrived, my house is still in a total mess. It didn't help that my little one was practically turning the house upside down just before she retires for a nap.

I wish I wish sometime, my house will be in order at least for a day or two. Such an embarassement having visitor to a bloody messy house.

Anyway, I hope S's friend will like these.

Finally a nice chap

Finally I was able to buy a really good yam. Thanks to a nice chap who is working in the supermarket. He was really helpful in helping me to choose the BEST yam!!! In the past, whenever I seeked help, none will offer. They either shrugged their shoulder to say they don't know or they will say it is all good. Then I will happily bring one home and discovered it is not that great. I love my yam to be of those flaky texture type.

I also hearsay that yam originated from Thailand are the best. Personally, I don't think it is really true all the time. Anyway, I was really happy this time round.

Since my mom isn't in town as she has a really good recipe so I adapted this recipe from Jo Deli's.

Verdict, my hubby would prefer this with a little bit more salt to this Yam Cake. I will take note of this for my next round of yam cake and hopefully that nice chap will be still around to help me out. *wink*

Huge

This is my first time seeing such huge fish balls in a supermarket. Perhaps it always existed but maybe my eyes are not open up wide enough. hehehe.

Anyway, son wanted this yellow noodle so being mommy, must try comply at times.

Was really happy that everyone enjoyed the Fish Ball Noodle as my stock was really nice.

Just had to do it

I am getting restless, sitting all day long facing my dear son. Been doing that for nearly a week or two and it is driving me crazy. Since hubby is leaving town again, the thought of handling this alone scares me even though only for 2 days. So have to destress before he leaves.

I bought a silicon mini bundt pan not too long ago and had been finding opportunity to use it. So tonight is the night.

Got out my pile of "to do" and was looking through it before I settled down for this Cream Cheese Pound Cake as I have all the ingredients.

This was challenging for me as it is my first trying my hand at pound cake and though traditionally, I know it is one pound of each of the major ingriedents I really had no idea how the texture should be besides the Sara Lee Cake (used to be my favourite till I had too much of them).

The result was disappointing as I have reduced too much sugar. The cake though nice, it was bland. My remedy to it was to topped it off with chocolate sauce to make it Cream Cheese Pound Cake with Chocolate Sauce.

Phew, guess this saves my cake!



Talking about inexperience, the recipe yield a lot of batter for my six mini bundt pan. So modified another batch into dual colour pound cake and added some canned cherries to make it Dual flavours Cherry Cream Cheese Pound Cake. This idea of creating dual colour came from My Kitchen My Laboratory, suddenly flashed to me during my "lost" moment. Thanks so much! Guess blog reading is good for me.



What you need

6 eggs
225g butter
150g sugar
½ tsp vanilla essence
8oz cream cheese
450g cake flour
½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt

Method

Preheat oven to 180 °C.

Sift flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt

Cream butter and cream cheese till smooth and light

Add the sugar, vanilla essence and lemon zest.

Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.

Add the dry ingredients and mix till combined

Spoon the batter into mini bundt pan and bake for 20 to 25 mins.

Let's see how this turn out

I have read many Cocoa Cola Spare Rib recipes and saw different ways of preparing it. Today, I attempted one that was shared by a member in a forum that I visits. Hers is very much like the 123 spare ribs that my mom taught me. Thanks M.

Since I am familar with the latter method and have no time for trials or errors, I chose this as our main for dinner.



What you need

600 spare ribs
¾ can of coca cola (regular)
1 tbsp lemon juice
4 slices of gingers (julienne thinly)
2 tbsp light soya sauce
1 tbsp dark soya sauce
1/2 cup water
Red chillies (julienne thinly)

Method

Marinate the spare ribs with coca cola for ½ hour

Stir fry the ginger strips in 2 tbsp of oil till fragrant.

Add in the spare ribs and cook till half cooked.

Boil remaining coca cola in a pot and add in the spare ribs.

Add in light and dark soya sauce.

Boil till spare ribs is tender and little sauce is left (at low/med heat)

Garnish with chillies.


********************************

Was down in the supermarket today and saw this old man busy picking up this. In the past, I always wonder how to prepare this. So today, the opportunity to know more. I chatted up with this old man and he told me that this plant is for brewing a kind of herbal drink that is good for "cooling" the body. Guess it is good to drink now as the weather has become horribly warm and humid. The haze is still looming over us and I think it is making me miserable.

A relatively easy way. Just washed and cleaned, add to a pot of water, bring to a furious boil. Add "black" sugar, boil further and voila.



Anyone know what is the name for this?

Stressing out

Spent the WHOLE day coaching my dear son in his Chinese. It is such a torture seeing him doing it and me a torture coaching him too. I wish I wish there is a simpler way but hey I tried many other methods but none worked!!! So back to the traditional way of drilling him to write.

Strangely it seems so important for him to pass this subject in primary level. When I was told how the kids are being assessed in their PSLE, I was totally shocked. I thought the relevant authority has relax the requirement for this language but I was totally wrong. What to do? I become the typical Kiasu mommy like the rest. I can only pity my baby but mommy really got no other choice.

During our time out period, saw E online and she gave me an idea how to prepare my chicken as I was completely brain dead by then. Keyed in the "lemon chicken" and I just briefly browse through the FIRST recipe that blinked on the screen. Rushed to the kitchen and began my the other "job".

I should call this a fusion marination as I have already added the Asian marinating sauces to it. But hey, this turned out fabulous. My son and hubby both thinks so too. I don't really think it is lemon chicken but I have no clue how else to name it. Any suggestions?



What you need

Chicken parts
soya sauce
sesame oil
pepper
parika
lemon juice

Sauce: lemon juice, a little sugar, salt and pepper, shallots and water.


Method

Marinate chicken with soya sauce, sesame oil, pepper, parika and lemon juice. This will taste even better if you leave it an hour or so.

Heat wok and pan fried till golden brown. Remove.

For the sauce, heat wok and sautee the shallots till light golden. Add in lemon juice, sugar and salt and pepper to taste. Thicken with cornstarch if preferred.

missing it all

During our "child free" days, which is a long time ago, we used to dine at our favourite Indonesian restaurant (acutally I am not too sure whether this restaurant still exists), one of the favourite drink from there was Avocado Shake. It was so good that if it is not because of its rich content, I believe I can have two at a go.

Was missing it lately, so grabbed some avocado while during grocery shopping last week. Seems to have waited so long for it to ripe. I am so poor in choosing a good one. Either it is too ripe or it is way to raw.

I just wish that there are some site that teaches us how to choose vegetable and fruits like pumpkin, watermelons etc.

Anyway, one of them was perfect but the other one wasn't so good. I think it is still alittle to the raw side.

Melted some Gula Melaka (a gift from my Indonesian neighbour). She told me these were homemade and was really aromatic while I was preparing it.

Since I didn't have any vanilla ice cream on hand. I added ice instead. A big mistake!

Despite that awesome tasting gula melaka, my Avocado Shake didn't really satisfy my craving. sigh!

A long time ago

I have known S during those "wow wow" nights. She was introduced to me by a mutual friend and surprisingly both S and I are no longer in contact with.

Through years till now, though we have since stopped those unendless of bourbon and vodka days but our friendship didn't end there. In fact, it grow more matured and steadier. We don't have to be in constant contact to know that we can always be there for each other.

I won't be able to make it to her b'day this year as I will be busy coaching my son's for this forthcoming exam. Can't bear the guilt of leaving him while me and my friend go for celebration.

Anyway, I am sure S will understand and we will make it up another day.

Happy Birthday my dear S!

going naked

Quite some time back, I was given a bag of poppyseed by K. Since this isn't available here, she was really nice to bring back a big bag for me. Thanks K, now I am putting it into good use.

Of late, I am really into lemon. I find that lemon has this refreshing feel to it and since I am into cupcakes again. Hey, let's do a Lemon Poppyseed Cupcake with Lemon Cream Frosting.

Actually I baked this for a dear friend's birthday but I have some leftover lemon cream frosting and some extra cupcakes. I decided to just frost them simply for our dessert.

Surprisingly my kids love it.



Source: adapted from Martha Stewart Living.

Any takers?

Initially I wanted to attempt a stawberry cupcake with strawberry cream frosting but since those punnets that I bought were sourish, I didn't want to take the chance. Instead, I used banana for my another trial recipe.

Verdict for my Banana Cupcake with Cream Cheese Frosting, I think my frosting is really nice and yummy but I am still not very happy with the cake texture. Somehow, again I can't point up what is lacking.

Maybe I should give myself a breather before embarking on another round of trials. Since the last time, I think my kiddos and hubby are sick of being my cupcake testers. I have to find someone who is willing .... any takers?

Relax relax

Today had been a good day. My dear son was very co-operative in his revision and we managed to at least covers the scheduled revision. Perhaps it is his night class that is motivating him. *wink*

As I still have some lemon curd left and I wanted to finish it up soonest. So I decided to bake a Lemon Cupcake with Lemon Cream Frosting. I think I need to work on this recipe as it is not want I am looking for. Perhaps I have underbaked it or perhaps it is the way I mixed it. I think I need to work on this again.



For tonight's dessert, is was a choice between the cupcakes or the strawberries. The vote was for strawberries. The three punnets of strawberries that I bought though looks good but was sour. To mask the sourish taste, I immediately topped it off with some cream with honey in it. I can't wait to dig into my Strawberry 'N' Cream, it was simply delicious.

I just got to do it

I went round searching for mini size removable base tart tins but was utterly disappointed that I couldn't find any. My jar of lemon curd is sitting patiently in the refrigerator. I just have to bake this but how......

A sale person in the baking supplies shop told me to add a piece of foil to the bottom of the tin instead. So here I am, in a hot hot late afternoon, with a sky full of haze, visibility hitting around PSI 130. In between "monitoring" my prince's revision, I was molding my mini tart tin with biscuit crumbs. Hoping that this will work. I have modified the crust a little and sticking to L's wonderful cheese filling topping it off with my lemon curd.

Guess, I took longer than expected. Hubby, my princess and our little friends are back home, we need to go out for dinner. The tarts were barely cooled but I have to get them out.

I was eager to find out how this taste like and normally I don't get the first bite. Come to think about it, all my bakes, I have never taken the first bite. My testers are usually my kid, hubby and neighbours.

This time is no exception, hubby popped one and said hmmm.... nice but our little friend said it is sour. Nevertheless, she was diplomatic enough to finish up. *wink*.

Enough said, my verdict is that this Lemon curd tart recipe definitely needs removable base tart tin and the recipe a keeper. So my search of mini tart tin with removable base continues.

Where have they gone?

My first experience with Leather Jacket fish was at my mother-in-law's dinning table many years' ago. I have never eaten such fish before prior to that. Anyway, got so bored with eating the same old few types of fillet so when I saw many aunties buying these from the fishmonger, I couldn't help but pick three fishes home.

I don't know how this fish looks like because somehow the fishmonger always removed their head and skin. Perhaps it is too hideous to be appetising. Anyway, this fish is easy to eat as the bones are not fine and the flesh is not too tough and have a subtle sweetness to it.

My mother-in-law will just simply pan fried this fish but I wanted more taste to it so I turned it into Sweet and Sour Leather Jacket Fish.



After dinner, as I wasn't really satisfied with the outcome of my chocolate moonies (I didn't "compressed" the fillings tightly), so I went for another round. This time, I added pecan nuts to it. Gosh! it tasted so good. I don't know why I had a balance of dough left so I simply wrapped them in white lotus paste. Well, we still prefers the ones with chocolate. So we had Assorted Moonies.

Happy Mid Autumn Festival everyone!



What you need for dough

130ml water
70g brown sugar
40g melted bitter couverture chocolate (melted)
10g cocoa powder
10g chocolate emulco
20g shortening
60g kou fen (fried glutinous rice)

Method for skin

Heat water in microwave for about 20 - 30 sec with brown sugar.

Add in melted chocolate, cocoa powder and emulco. Mix well.

Blend shortening and kou fen till well mixed.

Add kou fen mixture into chocolate mixture and knead well. Rest the dough for half hour.

Divide dough into required weight and wrap with filling.

Press into mould and chill a little before serving.


What you need for filling

300g white lotus paste
60g couverture chocolate (melted)
1/2 tsp chocolate emulco
100g toasted pecan nuts

Method for filling

Mix all ingredients together.

Divide into required weight and roll into balls.

Chocolate Moonies anyone?

Chocolate mooncake? Never heard of and never tasted one either.

Courtesy from L, I was able to enjoyed a Baked Chocolate Mooncakes not too long ago. Yes, baked chocolate. Cool isn't it? It was awesome but I doubt that I have the capability to reproduce them. :(

Then last week or so, I have yet another honour of tasting another variety. A crystal skin version (ping pei). It was good too. This one looks easy for me to attempt. So here I on the eve of Mooncake Festival, rolling and banging away to produce this little cuties that is called Chocolate Snowskin Moonies. I added a dash of cognac to make it "untouchable" for the kids.

I guess my skill is still not good as I think I didn't roll the filling compact enough. Nevertheless, this is still good. Try it.

Source: Phoon Huat



What you need for dough

100ml water
30ml cognac
70g brown sugar
40g melted bitter couverture chocolate (melted)
10g cocoa powder
10g chocolate emulco
20g shortening
60g kou fen (fried glutinous rice)

Method for skin

Heat water in microwave for about 20 - 30 sec with brown sugar.

Add in melted chocolate, cocoa powder and emulco. Mix well.

Blend shortening and kou fen till well mixed.

Add kou fen mixture into chocolate mixture and knead well. Rest the dough for half hour.

Divide dough into required weight and wrap with filling.

Press into mould and chill a little before serving.


What you need for filling

300g white lotus paste
60g couverture chocolate (melted)
1/2 tsp chocolate emulco

Method for filling

Mix all ingredients together.

Divide into required weight and roll into balls.

Taking a break from ....

... cuppies. Though I enjoyed baking and "dressing 'em", now it is time to take a break for a day or two before I embarked onto another project.

Been craving for Salted Fish Head Soup with Dried Vegetable for quite some time. I think it has been a decade or even more since I last had this. I remembered how my granny used to make this soup. Her friend who sells Salted Fish used to call her up to pick up a head or two and I will follow my granny to her stall. I will see huge salted fish hanging upside down in her shop. Guess I was too young to notice the stench that it gives off. Back home, granny will whip up this delicious soup for us. How I missed those days.

With the absence of such shop, I only managed to get them in packet form. Nevetheless, the house was filled with the aroma of this soup while brewing. Can't wait to have a bowl.




I found a packet of dried mango in the fridge, courtesy from Ly. I used to love this but once, my son's goddad gave us so many that I guess despite giving most away, my liking for this stopped.

Verdict: Really delicious and with the added cucumber, it gives a nice crunch.



What you need

2-3 cups cooked rice
2 tbsp olive oil
1 medium onion, diced
1 large clove garlic, minced
1/2 tsp ground clovel
1/2 tps ground cinnamon
50g dried mango slices, chopped into small pieces
1/3 cup raisin
1 Japanese cucumber, diced
1 dash of fish sauce
1 dash of pepper
200g minced pork
A bit of water

Method

Heat wok and add oil. Sautee onion till soft and then add garlic, ground clove and ground cinnamon, fry till fragrant

Add minced pork and stir till cooked

Add a little bit of water to meat mixture

Sprinkle a bit of pepper and fish sauce and stir well

Add cooked rice, blend well with ingredients.

Add raisins , dried mango and cucumber, stir till well distributed and let the rice cook further

Serve hot.

Where is the sunshine?

Been feeling lethargic, the haze in Singapore is getting bad. In fact, I dare not even opened up the window for fresh air. Last night, my girl was coughing badly so no school for her today.

After a sleepless night of being with her, my body is exhausted but my mind is active. I couldn't lie in bed.

Last night, I arranged with a kind parent to stand in for me today on my voluntary work as my boy will not be having his Speech & Drama lesson. Talking about good timing and bad timing. sigh

Anyway, after tasting L's, I made some lemon curd yesterday and am planning to bake a tart with it. Then I realised that I need a removable tart tin!!!

Wanting to get a removable tart tin since the day I think I can bake with a little more confident but with 3 glass pie dishes stacking in my cabinet, I am not sure adding another do justice. So I am still thinking.......... I would love to have small removable tart tins instead ....... I have yet to see them available here.

So in the meantime, this lemon curd is going into the fridge till I decided what to do with it.



What you need

114g unsalted butter
200g sugar
172ml freshly squeezed lemon juice
grated zest of 3 lemons
3 eggs, beaten

Method

Place the butter, sugar, lemon juice and zest in a microwaveable bowl.

Cook, uncovered, on High for 2 mins till butter is melted. Pause every min and stir.

Allow to cool for about 2 mins.

Strain beaten eggs into the butter mixture, whisking constantly.

Return mixture to microwave and cook on High for a further 6 - 8 mins, whisking vigorously every min till the curd thickens.

Pour at once into warmed airtight jars, allow to cool and store into fridge.

A joyous occasion

We are invited to witness a friend's daughter, S 1st Holy Communion. This is a joyous event and am very important to a child. My son sang in the choir this time round and he will be receiving his first next year so I better learn as much as I can to make it a very special day.

I am not too sure what I should present to S, so I just baked something that is close to my heart and that is cupcakes!!

Congratulation S, a step closer to HIM. I am also glad to know that S loved these little cuppies.





Sweet pea, mommy is really proud of you as you done extremely well in your singing. I have received lots of praises about you. Keep it up my dear.