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 :)