Post #131

hoho, finally scored some food out of hubby!! i suppose there is a small positive from working late at work...


-Veg, beans + pork mince soup-


-Celery, egg + ginger fried rice-

hehe, not too bad for a guy. considering hubby would be happy to eat rice with canned tuna, this is a-class food!! hahahaha.

Post #130

started this post last friday but my computer was acting most uncooperatively :( it kept crashing on me and yesterday hubby finally fixed it and its back and running now!! :)

so what did we have for dinner last friday? plan b. the plan no. 2 i had for valentines day, which was postponed till last friday. AND its not for the reason to re-celebrate v's day that we're having plan b, just that we need to rid the stuff from the fridge/freezer... little sad...

so. what was plan a? plan a emerged v quickly but died even more quickly. it was hubbys grand plan to cook me a meal on v's day! as lovely as it sounds, he hasnt really thought about it till midnight before v's day, let alone buying any groceries. then plan a died almost completely when we figured that hubby needs to be on-call on v's day. and it was then that i secretly sneaked to the kitchen and took 2 pieces of steak out of the freezer to defrost.

in the end, plans remain as plans. i ended up finishing late at work and hubby finished even later, arriving home after midnight. at that time of the day, serving steaks would be gastronomically illegal and we resorted to a more approrpriate meal of instant noodles.

so much of my rambling... but its ok! we're not defeated just because we missed our nth chance to celebrate a special occasion!!

so what was in store for my plan b?

steak of course! and yes, its looking a bit lonely on the plate. let me explain.


-Pan fried steak with parsley mustard butter-

lonely steak was meant to have mashy friend underneath.. i was intending to try cauliflower cream as a lovely alternative to potato or pumpkin mash. and it was actually quite easy to do with a blender, only that i added too much liquid in, and yes... steak's friend has turned into a frothy soup and needed to be contained in a bowl or it would be running loose on a plate =.=


-Frothy cauliflower soup-

soup was beautifully sweet, frothy and creamy. so so simple to make, and would make an excellent starter. see that froth?! ^^



and of course we cant have a healthy meal without a salad! this time the hero is carrot!


-Carrot + orange salad with lime dressing + pine nuts-

v refreshing and crunchy salad. it just took a bit long to juilienne the carrots. along with the carrots were orange pieces, chopped parsley, mint and toasted pine nuts. i also added a small sprinkle of chilli flakes which gave it a nice kick.

and finally lonely steak has some friends on the plate.



ps. i'm still giving regular 'friendly' reminders to hubby that he still owe me a homemade dinner!! will see how that goes!

Post #129

have been watching jamie's 30 minutes meals lately on youtube. thanks to whoever uploaded these as i would never make the time its showing on tv. and hence our grand plan of getting a tivo soon!! hoho, cant wait~~

anyways back to FOOD :)

this episode of jamie making a feta and spinach pie along with 2 salads and a dessert in under 30 minutes really excited me. tho never in my dream would i imagine myself whacking up a meal like that in 30 minutes.. i actually found myself working a bit faster than usual *probably trying to stay as close to the 30 minutes mark as much as possible*. in the end i was quite glad to have whacked up a dinner in under an hour, and.. er.. minus a salad. but hey, i dont have those fancy food processor that does all the grating and slicing and chopping, and i dont have a team to clean up after me!! hehehe... least to say that i dont work like a machine as jamie does!! but 1 hour to make a decent meal is actually quite worth the while.

building the filo pie, the filling has feta n cheddar cheese, egg, thyme, spinach, lemon zest and pine nuts:



the baked product. notice the cake tin?! my frying pan has a plastic handle so i couldnt just conveniently chuck the whole pan in the oven :( had to transfer it to a cake tin, which takes a bit longer to cook through. nice and golden!



the sliced baby.


-Feta + spinach filo pie-

the one and only salad i could manage tonight!! simple simple salad with a beautiful salsa verde dressing. my first ever attempt to make salsa verde. i couldnt really imagine how "beautiful" a dressing could be despite the number of times that word was repeated by jamie on the show *another episode*. after trying it, you'd get the idea :)


-Tomato + spinach salad with mint salsa verde-

adored that brilliant vivid green colour!! i used mint, parsley, capers, garlic, anchovy, lemon juice, white wine vinegar, dijon mustard, little salt + sugar and extra virgin olive oil.



and finally, the dessert. i saved 2 pears i got from work *hehe....* and decided to use them to make baked pears :) could have poached them, but since the oven's on, it may as well do the job at the same time!

oven baked pears in a pool of orange juice + peels, honey, cinnamon and a dash of water. dead simple. when its baking, spoon the syrup over the pears every now and then to keep them moist and flavoured.



crushed some ginger choc biscuits - arent these biscuits adorable?? altho they were a tad too sweet >.<



now, the assembled dessert:


-Oven baked pears with crushed ginger choc biscuits + ice cream-

SO, not bad for a meal for 3 i think. although noticing that this would be a vegetarian meal i went pass nXndo's after work and boyght some chicken wings :) keke.

the pie was not a let down at all, it was v delicious. the thyme and the lemon zest gave it that twist and made it an absolute winner! will definitely make again! the salad was surprisingly good too, thanks to the green dressing! tho i dont think i made enough for 3 to share. that salsa verde was amazingly beautiful, it was definitely worth digging out all those ingredients for a dressing!! i've saved some for use with other stuff later - apparently its great with virtually anything!! and lastly the dessert. the baked pears were packed with orangy fragrance, so so nice!! would probably work better with cream rather than ice cream as it got a bit too sweet. or maybe a less sugary type of biscuit.

it was a v satisfying dinner tonight. v satisfying for the cook :)

Post #128

a close friend of sis recently came to syd from hk, and before her friend's arrival, sis' been asking me where she could find sticky date puddings, as her dear friend is a real fan of them!! i suggested sera lee and perhaps some casual cafes, none of which sis was happy with. as cafes often change their menu, its hard to say for sure which one would do sticky date pudding on the day they pick to pay a visit. then naturally, the most promising answer would be, to bake your own.

sis has minimal interest in baking, and i had to keep reassuring her that sticky date puddings are really quite easy to make! so i gave her a little guidance on the way :) altho i must say that i'm no expert, having made sticky date pudding only once in my life.... hehe.

i found a great recipe with a lovely twist. this version of sticky date pudding has in it 4 earl grey tea bags!! i love food with a twist. one little difference makes everything so much more interesting and surprising!!

pudding babies coming out of the oven:



resting. i knew it was a success as soon as i took one out to have a feel of it!! sis was looking v relieved at this stage :) at least it looked alright!! hehe.



making the toffee:



pudding served on a plate with fresh sliced figs and vanilla ice cream:


-Sticky date + earl grey pudding with toffee sauce-

the puddings are so soft and spongy!! i would be happy even without the toffee, as you can taste the earl grey a bit more that way. sis' friends a little addicted to toffee, as she wanted a second pouring on her pudding!! these puddings would easily taste better than sera lee or any averaged cafes!! well done sis!! :)

Post #127

Gung hey fatt choi~!!!!!! :)

the year has flew by in a quick blink of the eye! as we say g'bye to the tiger, we say g'day to the happy bunny!! hm... apology for the dumb intro... it may have been caused by the high carb + sugar intake lately. blame the food that us chinese eat during CNY!!

my CNY food supply came from mum this year!! homemade radish cake and sweet sticky rice cake. ive been busy with work lately so couldnt help mum this year... or we would have made potato cake as well!!

mums been practising on making radish cake lately and has become most pro at it now *except for the occasional slip where she'd forget the odd ingredient or to season =.=* but these are yum!! they have chinese mushroom and dried scallops in them!! hehe.

radish cake made 2 ways - pan fried with chilli sauce:



and "steamed" *aka revived from the microwave (hee)* with soy sauce:



this is a cheat really, when i cant be bothered to pan fry or am short for time. the quickest way is just to chuck the whole block in the microwave. its kinda like the steamed radish cake in bamboo steamer that you'd get at yum cha. nice :)

and tis mum's red bean sticky rice cake, pan fried with egg. sticky and chewy. and with red bean! so so much nicer than the supermarket bought ones!! not so sweet as well :)



happy year of the bunny!!!!