Post #117

its xmas time!!!!! well, its boxing day today. and i had an extremely busy time before xmas, trying to slot in little bits of festive preparations whenever i can. and xmas flew by in a blink of the eye!!! all fun times tho~~

have neglected this blog for a short while, but definitely not cooking!!!

so, here begins some festive baking - xmas wreath cookies.


-Almond shortbread wreaths with rum + orange glaze-

hubby's boss invited us to his home for a xmas party, so i thought it would be nice to bring some homemade cookies along. this recipe's from australian gourmet traveller! caught my attention right away because they are soooo cute and chritmasy, despite the fact that i dont like baking cookies (and never have....)!





i changed the recipe a little bit - based on what i have in the pantry. hehe. changed a brandy glaze to a rum glaze, and used dried cranberries and currants and crushed pistachio. just thought the red and green and black would look so pretty!! :) also reduced the amount of sugar in the cookies, after knowing how much sugar is used for the icing glaze!!!!



as far as i dont really like eating cookies, these are actually quite nice and v crumbly!!

Post #116

i was meant to try this dish out for a long long time now. everytime we order it at fook yuen i've been saying that i will give it a try! so finally, with the leftover vermicelli from the vietnamese vermicelli salad the other day, i tried it out tonight!!


-Crispy vermicelli with xo seafood sauce-

so easy to make but so yum~ just the vermicelli seems too thin and not as crispy compared to the one at fook yuen. i suspect they use a lot of oil to fry the vermicelli. but the sauce was good! simply pan fry the seafood dices with garlic *i've got prawns, calamari + salmon here*, add the roughly chopped sugar snap peas, then some stock, oyster sauce, chilli, xo sauce and seasoning. finish off with corn starch water to thicken the sauce. i added the sugar snap peas in too early, so its lost its crunch *my bad :(*

on serving plate:



and for supper, i made a banana smoothie *cos i only have banana at home =.=* but i added honey, soy and cinnamon, and it was soooo nice~ banana is a MUST for smoothies. makes such a big difference.

hehe, forgot to take pic before drinking...


-Banana + cinnamon smoothie-

Post #115

effortless cooking ~ thanks to my dearest mum!!! everytime we go to mums we would end up taking bags of food home. mums just like our food supplier, especially those exotic chinese ingredients, like dried mushrooms, dried shrimps, pickled mustard greens, dried figs, dried dates, chinese north + south almonds, etc etc.

and this time, mum made some braised dried abalone!!! *thanks to dad too as mum would only make it when dad's around!!* and we got 2 to take home~!


-Noodles with abalone, buddhist delight + abalone sauce-

2 massive abalones!! wakakakaka, v rarely we get to eat like this i feel a bit shameful... hubby said, we should have shared one and save the other one later... but we're given 2, its just convenient to each have one... the buddhist delight and the abalone sauce were also supplied by mum. theres hardly any cooking required!

a close up



yum yum yum~

Post #114

only on rare occasions that i would cook breakfast. the reality is that on the weekend, we would either get up at a time thats after breakfasts normally eaten or if we get up early it would be because we have something scheduled to be done early (meaning no time for breakfast).

this saturday we got up early to get things done at the RTA, and surprise surprise it was still brunch time when we got home. so with the right ingredients in the fridge, i was able to whack up a quick brekkie~


-Toast with cheese, avocado, ham + poached egg-

only if i know how to make a hollandaise sauce!! i only used bbq sauce =.=

hey but it was still yum! :) and here's a perfect brekkie, with a strawberry banana smoothie~~

Post #113

sis came over tonight so i bought some king prawns and rib eye scotch fillet to greet her :) such nice sis i am! hehe.

thought about making a beef tataki with japanese ginger dressing, but i wanted to try something new, and to use up some of the truffle oil thats been sitting in the pantry for a long time now. so instead of the usual ponzu dressing, i cooked some chopped mushrooms with truffle oil, garlic, eshallot, cream and chopped parsley to go with the seared beef, finished off with some more truffle oil :)


-Seared beef with creamy mushroom + truffle oil-

and with the king prawns, i cooked them with chorizo, tomatoes, fetta and pearl couscous. hehe, this time actually cooked the fetta too before dishing up.


-Tomato king prawn, chorizo + fetta with pearl couscous-

and a close up:



also made a veg side dish that i recently found a recipe for. brussel sprouts, a veg i remember cooking once a long long time ago, have suddenly caught my attention again! haha. these mini cabbages are just too cute!! and so easy to prepare and cook too! AND apparently they contain good amounts of vitamin A, vitamin C, folic acid and dietary fibre! i think these will appear on our dinner table again :)


-Brussel sprouts with chopped chorizo + almond-

Post #112

still having great fun with the new blender!! delicious freshness~ :) and such a great way to consume fruits when we're too full to eat anything solid. deceptiveness~ >.=

this one - papaya, honey, squeeze of lemon juice + soy milk


-Papaya smoothie-

this - strawberries, banana, yoghurt, apple juice + mint


-Strawberry banana + mint smoothie-

and this - mango, banana, yoghurt, honey, soy milk + mint


-Mango banana + mint smoothie-

Post #111

my continuing experiment with savoury muffins. and i'm glad i havent given up after the first so-so batch of savoury muffins, because these potato ones are awwwwesome!! :)


-Potato bacon + cheese muffins-

i tweaked the recipe a bit. instead of grated potatoes, i went to the trouble of boiling the whole potatoes beforehead and roughly chopped them into chunks as i like waxy potato bites rather than tiny grated pieces. and i used rosemary instead of chives *because i still have some in the fridge ;p* and they were soooo good :) but a bit oily on the bottom, probably because of the tasty cheese. will definitely make again, and next time i might half the tasty cheese and substitute the rest with parmesan!!

see the chuncky potatoes?! :) these are quite morish~ and requires a bit of self-control!!

Post #110

i always cook simple when hubby's on-call. just in case he needs to dash any moment, so best to cook quickly and he can eat as much as could before someone calls.

japanese don is so simple to make but so satisfying! and hubby *for the first time* was surprised at how little washing there was afterwards!! haha.



firstly, boil some japanese rice. then simply chop up onion and carrot in large thin pieces, and briefly marinate some chicken thigh pieces. pan fry the carrot, onion and chicken with chopped garlic in a pan and until the veg and meat are almost cooked, then crack 2 eggs in a separate bowl, roughly stirred, then in they go into the pan. swirl the pan but dont stir. when the eggs are about 60% cooked and there is a little fried crust on the edge, pour in a little dash of konbu dashi stock and chuck in some finely grated ginger, season, then swirl again. when the eggy bits look kinda cooked but still a little runny, its ready!

this is the perfect dinner-for-one dish! but i used a slightly bigger pan as its our dinner-for-two, and filled a big bowl with rice, then place the egg goodness on top. *thats better then cooking 2 separate servings* and we just spoon the rice into our separate bowls, and eat merrily~


-Japanese chicken don-

made a side dish too *to finish off the green beans in the fridge*


-Green beans with peanut + sesame sauce-

Post # 109

saw one of the little masterchefs' recipes - garlic prawns, and i thought to myself, if a kid can do it, then surely that's manageable! and so the menu grew from there. not alot at all, but enough to go from manageable to not so manageable... =.= lucky last night hubby finished work early and gave me a hand!!!

so starting from the garlic prawns, the brainstorming begins - garlic prawns would go well with a lemon linguinni, and what about the prawn shells? why not try a chilli prawn oil so they dont go to waste? and maybe pasta's not enough, should also make a salad? theres a really cool cucumber and pomegranate salad i want to try too!!

and thats how things go out of control...

certainly didnt help when i found out in between all the pots and pans and boiling and frying that i had to do a work conference call last night!!!


-Garlic prawns + lemon linguinni with chilli prawn oil-

i gave up on using fresh breadcrumb for the garlic prawns which could have given it a better texture. lemon linguinni is actually quite simple *so i'm not sure why its taken me so long...* keeping it simple, i only used onion, garlic, stock, lemon juice and zest, lime juice and a hint of chilli. just before dishing up, chuck in a handful of rocket! the chilli prawn oil took a while, and in the end i wasnt sure whether it was worth it, as i could hardly taste it when i only had little droplets here and there =.=

now with the salad, it was a bit more fiddly than i expect. the cucumber had to be shaved into long ribbons. with chopped mint, celery heart and pan fried almond flakes. hubby dealt with the pomegrante and did a great job taking the pome seeds out!! then to find that the fetta cheese in the fridge has gone MOULDY :(


-Shaved cucumber + pomegranate salad-

the dressing is simple enough - just white wine vinegar and extra virgin olive oil. initially i was worried that the salad has no salty and creamy element that the fetta cheese is meant to give, but luckily the salad still tastes really good without the cheese, thanks to the pome seeds!! little bursts of sweetness explodes in the mouth and went perfectly with the crunchy almond. will definitely make this again, and make sure that i have fetta cheese next time!! :)

Post #108

having a chaozhou ancestry means a lot to me in terms of the food we eat. the truth is, chaozhou people eat fairly distinct food compared to people from the other provinces in china. one example is the white congee - not in a runny consistency, but where the rice has soaked up the water and forms a thick gluey consistency. and we would merrily eat that like rice with pickled black olive, dried shrimp with soy, pickled crunchy cucumber, or other nibbles as a meal.

another type of chaozhou congee is to boil cooked rice in stock to form a rice soup, with minced pork or small oysters topped with some dried fish flakes. my type of comfort food :) pity we dont have dried fish flakes :(


-Chaozhou congee with minced pork, dried shrimp + chinese mushroom-

Post #107

we have a brand new blender!!!!! :) a fabulous gift from hubbys parents. i've always secretly wanted a blender, but havent got round to buy one due to lack of storage space. so whenever i come across recipes that require a blender, i would have had to sourly turn the page.

our first test on the blender.



chucking in bananas, blueberries, soy milk, quick twirl of honey and a handful of ice.


-Banana + blueberry smoothie-

one deliiiiish healthy smoothie, and great natural flavours too :)

Post #106

got a big carton of buttermilk in the fridge initially for the sweet muffins. on the side of the carton theres a super easy recipe for blueberry pancakes. and its almost magical that i so happen to have fresh blueberries in the fridge *they were discounted at coles ~ 2 punnets for $6!!* and even an orange in the fruitbowl, so that i could add some orange zest as suggested by the recipe!!


-Blueberry pancakes-

perfect brekkie to take to work tomorrow - one stack for hubby and one for moi :)

Post #105

my very first pork chop!! haha, i've always been reluctant to try them out because they're so thick! gives me the wrong impression that they are v tough. so i've always only cooked pork in asian style.

with the pork chop, i still used the asian method to "tenderise" the meat, i.e. by bashing it with the back of the knife. not sure if its necessary... then i poked little holes into the meat and stick little sprigs of rosemary through, roughly season with salt + pepper - like so:



looking great so far.

i also attempted to make some sort of a pear relish, which only consists of pear dices, sugar, maple syrup and a pinch of salt. the result was... err... a bit too sweet. =.=

pan frying the chop took quite a long while as it needs to cook through. about 2 min after flipping the chop, i added some garlic and a small knob of butter into the pan. when the chop is cooked and placed on a dish, i added a sprig of rosemary, some water and chicken stock into the pan, and some corn starch water to make a quick gravy - absolutely delish~~


-Pork chop with rosemary, sweet pear relish + white wine jelly-

the white wine jelly we bought the other day from a market - sooo beautiful~ perfect with seafood and white meat. also went v well with pork!! made the pear relish unnecessary =.=

to go with the chop, i made couscous with currant and a squeeze of lime juice, and a cabbage, carrot + pear salad with balsamic vinaigrette.



so satisfying~~

Post #104

i've re-established a love and excitement for baking muffins. they are just so fabulously easy to make but also fulfilling and yummy~ after baking the savoury ones, i came across a few sweet muffin recipes, and this is one of them that i'd love to give it a try.


-Mixed berries, white chocolate + macadamia nut muffin-

these are so good, they make the perfect breakfast!! i think i like sweet muffins over savoury muffins, but will probably give another savoury muffin recipe a go again later!!

then, the other night, the sis in law came over for dinner, and brought along this pancake mix:



you simply pour water, whisk, wait for 5 minutes, then pan fry! mum gave me some dried currant, so i sprinkled some onto the pancakes while pan frying :)


-Pancakes with currant, banana + maple syrup-

so convenient! but i think pancakes starting from scratch taste nicer~

Post #103

its so warm today, but got cooler as the sun set.

i have always wanted to try making my own vietnamese cold noodle salad, but its been so cold, i've delayed and delayed trying it out. so finally, it would be perfect to make this dish today!! :)

i had problem finding the right vermicelli - in fact, i was surprised that i couldnt find any vietnamese vermicelli. the right ones should be thicker than the chinese vermicelli but still quite thin. in the end i snatched a packet of chinese thick vermicelli.

getting all the cutting and chopping done - cucumber, carrot, mint, lettuce, chilli, peanuts and fried garlic:



going with the noodle salad, i marinated some chicken thigh fillets with lemongrass, ginger, garlic and fish sauce, to be pan fried to golden. absolutely delicious~


-Vietnamese noodle salad with lemongrass chicken-

Post #102

been sick, so was in no mood to cook :( just been whacking up the simplest food from whats in the fridge.

bought some beautiful large portobello mushrooms, so i slice them up into big thin pieces, which would go nicely with fettuccini. portobello mushrooms must be the big brother of swiss mushrooms because they have the same firmer texture compared to field and button mushrooms.


-Beef + portobello mushroom fettuccini-

in with the mushrooms there are some beef pieces, asparagus, chopped rosemary, a few dollops of sour cream and a sprinkle of grated parmesan. nice n easy~

Post #101

breakfast. i must confess, i dont pay much attention to breakfast, esp on the weekdays. the most i do is ensure that i eat something for breakfast, but i'm not fussed with what i eat - a banana, instant oat microwaved in a cup, or a piece of bread...

on the weekend, i baked some savoury muffin for breakfast! muffins are so easy and quick to make :)




-Bacon + leek muffin-

Post #100

Wow~ Post No. 100!!!!

its been fun recording this cooking diary, which sometimes motivates me to come up with some diff food ideas and urges me to keep learning, experimenting and enjoying food! :)

so chinese food continues to be the theme this week! hubby and i have developed this bad dry cough since we came back home, so i think its time for some soothing chinese soup.


-Apple carrot + corn soup-

one of my fav soups and one that i've had since i dont remember when. the addition of corn and chinese large dried dates is an absolute must for this soup! as to the apple, it doesnt really matter which type and a mixture can be used. actually, any overripe apple or pear would do!

speaking about domestic cantonese food, one part of the chicken that we always cook at home is chicken wing. i dont think any other culture is as obsessed with chicken wings as the cantonese! this time i tried out 2 diff marinades.


-Baked lemongrass wings + Shrimp paste wings-

lemongrass wings on the left with lemongrass, garlic, fresh ginger, fish sauce and chilli, all pounded in a mortar n pestle. shrimp paste wings on the right with shrimp paste, finely chopped dried shrimp, mirin and a little drop of honey. both wings are v tasty! the shrimp paste and the dried shrimp work really nicely together and go well with chicken meat. but be cautious with the amount of shrimp paste as its v salty!

this last dish seems to be a classic cantonese dish, but strangely one that i see quite frequently made by westerners than by chinese. its actually my first time too.


-Chinese cabbage rolls with veal mince + woodear-

i wasnt exactly sure what normally fills inside the rolls, but i used veal mince, woodear, carrots and finely chopped dried shrimps. also i wasnt sure whether the filling should be rolled raw or cooked. i opted for partly cooked filling in the end and shorten the steaming time afterwards. then finish it off with clear xo thick sauce.

my word of advice with this dish is this - dont buy half a chinese cabbage if you want to have proper rolls. otherwise you'd end up like me battling with pieces of broken leaves, trying to overlap 2 pieces of broken leaves here and there, and taking twice the time n effort than i would have had i bought a whole cabbage. =.=

Post #99

We're back.

G'bye europe, g'bye laduree macaron, crepes, berthillon ice cream, croissant, leon mussles, laderach chocolate, cheese fondue, wiener schnitzel, burnwurst, goulash, souvlaki, tzatziki and greek salad. G'bye holiday~ *sob sob*

after these 3 weeks, we came up with this one piece of culinary wisdom - eat what a place is famous for and stick to it! NEVER attempt to eat your hometown food even if you feel nostalgic and homesick, because chances are, they'd do a crap job and you'd miss home even more. this is what i felt after eye witnessing the scooping of fried rice and oyster sauce veg into a plastic box, and then shoving the box into a microwave over the counter, right before your eyes. disappointment.

anyways, so logically, the first food we had on our return was chinese. and it was chinese food in its simplest domestic form.. or maybe thats laziness on my part :p


-Scrambled egg with bbq pork-

i used homemade bbq pork *thanks to mum's donation* and i like my egg scramble partly soft and partly golden.


-Stir fry chinese cabbage with chopped dried shrimp-

simple, but comforting.

Post #98

will be out of action for 3 whole weeks - EUROPE HERE WE COME!!! ^^

its been a crazy week at work whilst also trying to find a tiny bit of time to finalise our trip planning etc. absolutely no cooking in the last week... hardly much eating, let alone cooking >.<~

anyways, here i have in store a special risotto cooked a while back - the idea coming from sis, when she gave me 2 tiny sachets of black stuff, plus some large king prawns and a squid.

never tried cooking with squid ink before, but apparently its just like any other pasta, you squeeze the sachets of squid ink in when you cook the sauce.

cooking in process:



so what does squid ink really tastes like?! just a bit of saltiness is all my palette could taste. and the ink does stain the fingers a bit =.= but it was kinda fun!!


-Squid ink and prawn risotto-

we're aiming to do a squid ink pasta with squid ink sauce next time!!! :)

Post #97

i have always loved the simplicity in japanese cuisine. when it comes to late night comfort food, this one i've always wanted to give it a try - rice ball in clear soup.

my rice balls wrapped tightly in glad wrap - mixture of cooked rice, tinned smoked salmon pieces, dried seaweed, jap dried pickles and togarashi chilli powder.



here, my failed attempt to pan fry those rice balls :( i was trying to get a crispy crust by pan frying the outside of the rice ball, but it could be because i didnt use japanese rice (which should be stickier) and the ball wasn't holding tight enough, it started to fall apart v soon after i fiddled with it :(



ok, lets hope i do something right with the soup base. i mixed konbu dashi stock with hot water, and thrown in a japanese rice tea bag :)



so finally, the final product - it was yummy but i could have added more tea leaves :)


-Smoked salmon rice ball in clear tea soup-