Dumplings

It's been raining and warm dumplings seem to be a nice option. Made a bunch of juicy ones which go well with black vinegar and young ginger.

Worth the effort :)

Made about 40 and between the 3 of us, we polished them all up for dinner !

Moist Banana cake

Had a whole bunch of pisang emas ripening nicely and was wondering if I should bake some bread, cake, or banana cookies (will try this another day). Decided on this yummy looking banana cake. Baked 2 loaves - yes it's indeed moist :)

Will give one to the doc tomorrow.

Spinach quiche

My first attempt at quiche and it's easy and delish. Will try mushroom quiche next time :) and since button mushrooms are on sale now - maybe mushroom soup hmm..

Pre-bake quiche ..

And the freshly out of the oven spinach quiche ..

Here's the recipe for those who requested for it.

Ingredients
1/2 cup butter
1 onion, chopped
Spinach, chopped
100g shredded Cheddar cheese
salt and pepper to taste
1 unbaked pie crust
3 eggs, beaten
1 cup milk

Method
1. Preheat oven to 190 degrees C. Bake the pie crust for about 10-15 minutes (depends on the instructions on box).
2. In a pan, melt butter over medium heat. Saute onion in butter until lightly browned, about 5 minutes. Stir in spinach and fry till spinach is soft.
3. In a separate medium-sized bowl, whisk eggs and milk. Add the onions and spinach, and cheese (leaving some for sprinkling). Season with salt and pepper. Stir well to ensure egg and spinach mixture combines well.
4. Remove pan from oven. Pour mixture into the shell.
5. Sprinkle top with remaining Cheddar cheese, and bake an additional 35 to 40 minutes, until set in center. Allow to stand 10 minutes before serving. Quiche is ready when a knife inserted in the middle comes up clean.

PS: Have your favourite variations like tuna and chives, ham and onions, potatoes and ham, etc... Enjoy !

Shepherds pie

Since my hubby is not eating at home today, I can cook with beef. Wanted to try shepherds pie for a while so this is a great opportunity. Must use Russet potatoes - I got the potatoes from the market and they were not fluffy enough. Fine to eat but the mashing will be much better and nicer with the Russets.

Here's the beef with onions and some mixed veggies.

Assembled pie with mashed potatoes.

Freshly baked from the oven ! Can even hear the sizzling sound !!

Side view. The 2 of us ate half a pie :)

Baking cookies etc

Last Saturday I wanted to bake some chocolate chip cookies - saw this recipe which included cornflour and wanted to test the texture. Interesting - it's actually not very crispy as was mentioned. Instead it was a softer texture - not too bad but I think I prefer a crispy choc chip cookie - will look for another :)

But we finished all - it was very edible :) The dough baked almost 4 bottles. Gave 1 box away :)

Also baked these...

And some mini cheesecakes - yummy !!

Black pepper chicken udon

An easy to cook dish for lunch or dinner - just season some chicken strips with black pepper, cook some udon and throw some nice veggies and mushrooms for a ready to eat meal.

You can ransack your fridge for the veggies available - that's what I did for this :)

Lor mai gai

Another experiment - with glutinous rice - never cooked with this before. The rice didn’t turn out quite as starchy as those sold outside. I soaked it overnight per the recipe - not sure if that is the reason. Quite easy to put together and next time, will need to season the rice else it’s not quite tasty.

Minestrone soup

Here’s my son’s fav minestrone soup. I made some earlier but since son did not have his seconds, and I have lots of celery in the fridge, I remade another big pot.

It’s a relatively clear soup and comfort food especially for a cold day - not the current weather. It’s scorching, with some heavy short-lived showers in the afternoon.

Really good with a good old sandwich for a easy meal.

Dry laksa

This is a simple but tasty laksa - dry version, with lots of daun kesom (laksa leaves), taugih, fishcake, tau pok and prawns, or you can add cockles like the soupy laksa version.

Yummy - I made some for lunch yesterday and since there was lots of leftover ingredients (I bought thick bee hoon for 2 but there is enough to feed 4!), I made it again today ! Remember to get lots of daun kesom - wonder if I can plant some - really love the smell and taste of those leaves.

More muffins

I baked 3 trays of muffins one afternoon - Carrots with cream cheese fillings (getting exotic right?), cranberry and banana walnut chocolate chips !!

And the next day I baked blueberry muffins with blueberry cereal, apricot, honey and oat muffins, and (normal haha) chocolate chips muffins.. I gave most away to neighbours, and the doc and nurses :)

Some desserts

My first attempt at making lek tau suan - oversteamed the mung beans but the overall taste is still fine. Son had to queue for the you tiao for 15 mins though ! I thought it would be more complicated but actually it's really simple. Will make it again as I like my tau suan less starchy and the ones sold outside can be really starchy.

Also made some chendol agar agar. Wanted to put in small moulds but son wanted to use his "Happy Birthday" mould .. funny right ?

One dish meal - Stewed pork ribs with kuay teow

Used the slow cooker to cook stewed pork for dinner. After 8 hours of stewing, the meat literally falls off the bones. And I chose lean parts :)

Then added some blanched veggies and kuay teow and voila .. dinner is ready :)

Cooking with zucchini

Zucchini - looks somewhat like a cucumber (my hubby for one bought a Japanese cucumber when I asked him to get a zucchini!) - is an interesting vegetable (a squash to be more exact). I have only used it a few times - in soup. Saw this zucchini fritter recipe and since there is one z in the fridge, decided to make some to go along with the lemongrass grilled chicken.

You need to squeeze dry the zucchini first else it will be too soggy. I added some flour, breadcrumbs, cheese, onions and eggs to it and pan-fry them. Goes nicely with the chicken :)

Hmm next to try zucchini quiche :)

Muffins day

My sis gave me a big pack of dried cranberries and I can’t really take this now. But this recipe seems tempting so why not .. Oooo the result is a really tasty cranberry muffin ! Used nutmeg, cinnamon, ground ginger as base spices and the overall effect is just nice - not too strong.

Also did a batch of orange muffins.

Kong Bak Pao

Saw this lovely kong bak picture in the recipe book and had my personal shopper get some belly pork from the market this morning to try my hands on this dish !!

Enjoy the sight :)

I think this will be better if simmered for slightly longer. I started cooking a bit late and had to feed the boys - but it’s definitely a good first try :)

Made some teriyaki chicken pizza for lunch, with red capsicums and mushrooms.

Pre-bake look ..

Chap chae

Felt like some Korean glass noodle so here goes ..

I forgot bean sprouts - those big headed ones but there are enough veggies. Love this dish ! Accompanied with pork bulgogi, which btw tastes good but doesn’t look good enough to show ;}

Also made some coffee muffins for breakfast :)

Harvest today

Wow had quite a bake-off and minor cook-off today :)

Started with konnayaku jelly, then jam, followed by some muffins and cupcakes.

Tray of orange, walnut and choc rice muffins

Some chocolate cupcakes (missing icing sugar) for someone’s teacher’s birthday present !

Wanted to try making apple crips in mini muffin tray but was too tired after dinner, so settled for apple tart on puff pastries (another great use !)

This is an interesting combi - black sesame with sweet potatoes.

Cooked teriyaki chicken and cawanmushi but forgot to take some pictures … will try and remember the next time I cook (too hungry ;)) ..

Claypot chicken rice

For dinner, I thought we will have claypot chicken rice.

Also healthy version - just used some chicken thighs, cut into small pieces and marinade with some pepper, sesame oil, hua-teow wine, and teeny bit of black sauce. Used 1 chinese sausage (must have this for the taste and oil) and some shiitake mushroom (forgot to soak the dried mushrooms).

Stir-fried some spinach and of course old cucumber soup made with the magic pot (this is very very useful!).

Looks fancy but really quick to put together !

Pizza

Made my first pizza today !! Used my good old breadmaker to make the dough :) I wanted to make the thin-crust version but the dough was a little hard to manage so in the end I went with the thick-curst one. It’s great - the dough turned out really soft and nice !

Used 3 types of mushrooms, onions, green capsicum and ham, and of course 3 types of cheese. Here is the before and after :)

Heavenly :) And not so guilty !

Corn chowder

Back from my short stay and thought of making some comfort food. Saw this corn chowder recipe which looks easy enough to put together. Piled with potatoes, celery, carrot, corn, ham and a dash of black pepper. Cooked on low heat slow cooker from morning (it’s filled to the brim !) and had it with my flaxmeal bread lightly toasted with some butter. Really comfort food :)

Banana cake

Wah .. I think I “perfected” this :) Pisang emas with walnuts, and some choc rice in my fav banana cake :) Just hot out ! Moist, Yum ..

Richard & Rina - you came too early - tmrw wanna drop by and pick some up ?

Mini (or not) Chicken Pies

Shan - This is specially for you :)

We girls can take shortcuts and use ready-made stuff. These can make about 2 normal sized pies or 24 (give and take) mini pies (aka muffin sized ones).

Key ingredients are
* 1 can of chicken mushroom soup
* 1.5 cans of water
* 1.5 TBS of flour
* Puff pastries
* 1 cup of frozen mixed veggies
* 2 chicken thighs (deboned, slightly seasoned with salt and pepper if you wish, and roasted) or just buy ready ones
* 2 potatoes (if you want - boiled and cubed)

Steps
1. In a saucepan, cook mushroom soup, water and flour till consistent. Then add the shredded chicken, veggies and potatoes and cook another 1-2 mins. Crush some black pepper (I like that !)
2. Preheat oven to 200 degC.
3. Slightly oil the muffin trays or pie trays. If making the mini pies, use a small saucer (just slightly bigger than the muffin circle and drape a little over the sides) to trace the puff pastry (let it soften a little else it will crack). Same for the pie trays (then use 1 piece of puff pastry).
4. Pour the soup mix into the trays.
5. Cut a smaller piece of puff pastry (I use the Chinese teacup - about the same size as my muffin tray) and cover the pie. Press the edges (must press else the mixture will spill out !!!)
6. Prick some holes on the top of the pies to let steam out when baking.
7. Put in oven and bake for 20 mins. Watch that the top doesn’t burn.
** If you want the pie to look nice and brown then bast the top of the pies before baking with a egg yolk and 1 TBSP water (lightly beaten) mixture.

I made 12 mini pies and 1 big pie with the ingredients… sorry no pictures as the mini ones burst cause someone didn’t press (haha) and the big pie we were so hungry we ate it all up !!

Enjoy la and tell me if you like it.

Marmalade

Hmm had some oranges in the fridge and though I am not a big jam fan, I love marmalade, so I thought why not try making marmalade :)

Had to boil the peels 3 times and clear the 2 orange piths, etc, added half the sugar required in the original recipe and after 1.5 hours… I have a small nice jar of marmalade !

Ooo this will go nicely with my bread and even cornmeal bread :)

French bread..

I guess the name is the shape of the loaf :) texture is baguette type. Tried this yesterday but didn't manage to rush home in time to add garlic powder ! But this proves that the bread maker can make this type of bread !! The cycle is however 5 hours - will go and buy these in future ;) The electricity bill can probably pay for a gazillion of these !!

Slow cooker cooking - Pork stew with Peppers

For all those busy people but whom still want to have some home-cooked food, you need to get a slow cooker and / or a magic pot (aka thermal pot.. we will go into that another time).

I found this recipe which I tweaked a little to make it healthier (less salty, oily, etc) and it turned out pretty nice. And you can eat it with rice, bread (what I did for dinner), noodle, and this is keepable for reheating for follow-up meals.

First time I made this - using pork pieces (you can use beef but hubby doesn’t take beef), lots of bell peppers (capsicums - I only had the green and yellow in the fridge, use any you like), some onions and a can of tomato stew. Pretty much left the concoction in the slow cooker for the entire day on low and voila …

It’s easy enough !

KA :)

I wanted to start a KAadict posting (so excited hubby agreed that I could get one - did it during the Tangs sale !!) never really got around to it .. so let’s just add it here :)

First introducing my KA !

And here is what I baked using the KA - my Cedele wannabe carrot cake !

Yummy especially with the cream cheese frosting, which the KA is superb for :)

Homemade Foccacia

Pris says I am testing her Engrish with the word !! But seriously you can make focaccia using the breadmaker ! This is a little hard but with some nice extra virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar, the combination is heavenly .. especially with the rosemary from my little herb garden :)

Besides rosemary, I have some overgrown dill (higher than the fence !), some sad-looking Thai basil (need to regrow), luscious pandan... Tried growing cherry tomatoes from seed a couple of times but the birds are out for the plants. Need to find a way :)

Experimenting..

Started this a while ago but never got around to posting any stuff ;(

Since am ooa for a while let's see if I can be successful ;)

Used my fav Zojirushi bread maker to bake a cornmeal cake or bread today. My first cornmeal recipe :) it's quite nice, moist enough but think the next time I will add another TBS of brown sugar and some corn kernels. Not as crumbly as the Kenny Rogers muffin but healthier !!

Enjoy !