yummies to whack after delivery

This is a growing list:
1. Proscuitto ham & freshly baked bread w balsamic vinegar fr Jones e grocer

2. Salmon belly, and all types of sashimi fr sakuraya fish market

3. Feyel fois gras pate

4. Rojak from the hawker at the singapore food trail (flyer) - have not tried it yet but when i was there i was already preggars and not allowed to have it =(

crispy banana pancakes

mum's recipe for traditional indonesian banana pancakes

ingredients
3 batu bananas
approx. 3 dessert spoons of sugar
approx. a small sauce dish of melted butter
a pinch of salt
some water
approx. 3 tbsp of flour

yeh i know, all the amounts are based on agah-ra-tion
mum just based it on instincts =p

steps
wash hands thoroughly
mash up bananas with fingers/hand
mix all the ingredients with fingers/hand
add water and stir well (can use spoon now)
mix in the flour till you get a thick batter

drop dollops of e batter into oil at low heat
continue frying them in low heat
till the final stages of frying when the pancakes have browned
press hard on the sides on the wok to make them flat

and then u will get delicious golden, crispy banana pancakes!

salty salty cheese straws

Had cravings for salty cheese biscuits
I remember making them w mum when I was a kid
The cheddar cheese we used was the kraft kind
that came in a blue box, wrapped in foil
Asked mum if she could remember but she couldn’t

Anyhoos, with more spare time on my hands now
i decided to make instead of buy them
googled and found on allrecipes.com a recipe for them
the good thing about allrecipes.com is that it allows you to switch between imperial and metric units,
and also adjust the qty you wished to make
the recipe would adjust the amounts accordingly -
it's really a no-brainer

Ingredients
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 cup shredded sharp Cheddar cheese (I used mainland vintage cheddar)
• 1/4 cup and 2 tablespoons margarine
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper (I skipped this)
• 1/4 teaspoon salt (skip this if the cheese u are using is already v salty!)
• 1/4 cup water (I didn’t use up all the water because the cheese I used was rather soft and was worried the dough might become too sticky)

Steps:
• Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (205 degrees C). Grease or line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
• Combine the flour, baking powder, cayenne pepper, salt, grated cheese and butter or margarine in a bowl and mix until well combined. Add water a little bit at a time to make a very stiff dough.
• On a lightly floured surface, roll pieces of the dough into just slightly thicker than pencil shaped sticks. Cut sticks into 4 to 5 inch lengths. Arrange the pieces on the baking sheet.
• Bake at 400 degrees F (205 degrees C) for 5 minutes or until browned.

And they taste really yummy!!!
shared them w my family and they said it was great too
Overall no fuss to make because you don’t need an electric beater
i didn't have a rolling pin, so improvised w a pringles bottle wrapped with foil
if you don't have a rolling pin, a wine bottle will do the job too

The only tough bit was grating this particular cheese because it was rather crumbly. Get a really hard cheese if you wanna have an easier time grating.
But I really love the taste of this vintage cheddar, so it was worth it! =)

cooking with mum

I've loved plain tang yuan since I was a kid
we call them sorh yee - which is teochew for the action of rolling the dough into round balls
old fashioned, plain glutinous rice balls with no fillings, in a clear sweet soup base
and goes without saying mum's version is my favourite

so i decided to start a series of "cooking w mum" session every saturday to learn how to make these yummy sorh yee amongst mum's other delicacies

made these sorh yee two weeks ago
mum's (secret) recipe makes very Q balls


and i attempted to make my very first orange chiffon cake!


very hard to make ya know!
the technique of mixing the batter has to be very carefully controlled
so that the batter will not be lumpy, or trap too much air
otherwise the cake will have big gaping holes within
or not be soft and fluffy

happy to say that my first attempt was successful!
and passed mum's stringent standards
the colleagues whom i shared the cake w said it was yummy too!

much inspired :)

Happi Lunar New Year!

promised ms 211 that i will upload this recipe

one of my favourite CNY snacks

i tried another recipe previously

but it involved many ingredients, beating & baking etc

and it wasn't really the type of cornflake cookies that i liked

this one is really simple and yummy

no baking nor beating involved

and only 3 ingredients required!

so very cheap to make

ma bought me a box of similar cookies

from Taka that was so overly priced!

$18 for 28 pieces!

ma said "never mind la, buy and let u try"

here's the recipe:

125g butter

120g marshmellows (plain ones)

170g cornflakes

- melt butter fully in a pot, smells heavenly...

- tumble in the marshmellows and keep stirring until u get a smooth creamy paste

- pour in the whole lot of cornflakes

- scoop the mixture with a teaspoon into the cupcakes paper

- let to cool and harden

done! :)

cooking for two

seemed a lot easier and effortless in melbs -
pork chops & mushrooms,
or a pot of chicken curry and frozen pratas toasted,
and it was a most satisfying meal already
(perhaps being students back then, and it being so cold,
everything tasted better.
these days, the palate's too spoilt for choice)

and it's strange to find that we cooked better and faster then
back home in singa, we've tried cooking after work
and always having to only start eating at 10pm!

it's really quite an effort to cook with both working
and with such late hours...
but we've always enjoyed cooking together
so we're learning to be savvier cooks
think k is a better cook than me,
but 'cos i dread washing more than cooking
so he lets me have the hand at the stove =p



look at how dark the sky is, gonna rain anytime soon
just nice for a steamboat-dinner-for-two
we've learnt that since we cook so rarely,
and there's only just but the two of us
it's makes more sense to buy quality ingredients, which are pricier,
but the quantity smaller and quality better,
so there's less wastage & makes for a healthier meal


healthy and effortless steamboat-for-two menu includes:

red grouper fillet
tiger prawns
pork sirloin, thinly sliced
fish dumplings
salad cos - get organic ones, they really taste sweeter

soup base
ready-packed chinese herbs

staple
because we no longer keep any rice at home,
(major breeding ground for evil weevil, yucks)
we bought tang hoon as the staple
you can replace wtih udon or rice vermicelli

and all these for only $25! :)

"silent night, holy night...

didn't deliberately plan anything on christmas day itself
but we decided to give ourselves a treat and bought some foie gras
& made a baby spinach salad with an asian-style salad sauce aunty grace taught us when were were in melbs

asian salad sauce ingredients:
- thai sweet chilli sauce
- juice from a lemon,
i substituted with lime cos dad & mum bought me a lime plant!
so i had the thrill of plucking fresh limes from my balcony
- coriander,
which i substituted with lemon thyme leaves from my new herb garden!
it felt altogether very jamie-oliverish


christmas supper!

in the background is a minty green cup covered with hearts
which was k's early christmas pressie to me
& SATC dvd! cos k didn't catch the movie with me
and i so wanted him to watch it , so he got it for me as a gift
it's the second time i'm watching it
and it still made me cry

this was a gift i 'fought' valiantly for and fobbed off several attempts
to challenge it from me at Tea's christmas party -

& it's exactly what i wanted to get myself for christmas this year!
a radio for my bathroom.
so pleased with this one cos it's really unique and the sound that comes out from it is a little squeaky and rattly, like those old records
which i really dig

wend! always gets me such quirky gifts -

and i couldn't resist piecing this together the moment i got home
it's those primitive model planes that you have to piece together
and this one is really handsome
it's now swaying in my balcony overlooking my patch of green!

...all is calm & all is bright."