Simple Dinner

I rushed home after work and managed to cook a simple meal for Ben. I am glad he loves it and he even wanna keep some for tomorrow's breakfast.

Slurppp...

Tonight we tried mushroom seafood sauce and it tastes even better ..

Simple PASTA

When parents are not around, we have to eat out at either restaurant or food court but tonight, Margaret suggested to cook pasta. As mentioned, I am already 3/4 dead after work, how to cook pasta?

Our Pasta with Bacon & Asparatus

-First, cook Thai asparatus in boiling water for 5 minutes.
-At the same time, cook the pasta in boiling water for 6 minutes.
-Heat the wok/pan, add chopped garlic into 3 tbsp of olive oil.
-Stir fry our bacon and pour in a 300gm of Campbell's mushroom soup and another 300gm of water.

Tadah!!

Surprise ! Surprise !

We decided to give mum a surprise - To Celebrate Her 56th Birthday, actually not one surprise but TWO!

First, we told her not to cook and our weekend gathering will be over our place on Saturday. Of course, I will be the one cooking. Ben was very kind to accompany me to do some marketing at Cold Storage and NTUC as he knew I can never carry all the bags on my own. Yeah, we took a cab home after that.

What's for dinner? LAKSA!! Eh...don't ask for recipe because I used premix and add other stuff. *come on, one man show leh, use only 4 hours, ok?*

I know I know, no big deal right? This is not the first time cooking dinner for 10 persons, so what's the surprise?

Tadah !! Peach Longevity Bun from D'Bun ! Mum was so happy!And our second Surprise - ICE CREAM CAKE for mummy!

Although it was a failure but mum never complained and she never did, I remember

- Baking numerous non edible stuff and wasted more than 50 eggs, she always says," Try again tomorrow.."

- During my Sec, I was so FAT that I still thought I was a pretty girl, why? Because no one(in the family)ever tease me. Of course now I know I was indeed SUPER DUPER FATTY BOOM BOOM. I was so touch when she told me she will definitely send me to Marie France..

- I SPENT $800 yakking on the phone with an idiot in my Poly 1st year instead of buying myself an air ticket to London but mum didn't scold me.

- I drove our Toyota out without license and banged against the lamp post, causing a big hump at the front and headlight was gone, mum said," you're so daring.." I thought she was going to wallop me! Maybe she would if it is dad's Merz..hahahaha... joking, I didn't get to drive daddy's Merz because I don't have the guts to get a car license after that accident. *chicken la*

Yeah, that's our mum... Happy Birthday Mummy!!!!

We Cook, We Eat !

Count the calories and divide by 6

Ben's kopi C (coffee with fresh milk) and my teh (tea with condensed milk)

Mum cooked prawn noodles - home recipe

The very tasty and cute hello kitty fishcake from Japan

It was so yummy that we all took at least 2 bowls of prawn noodles each (picture is for illustration only, we had a bigger bowl)

炒伊面

Ben loves Hong Kong Fried Noodles so much! Can you believe that it took me only 15 minutes to prepare this?

冰糖银耳雪梨Double Boiled Winter Pear with Snow Fungus

冰糖银耳雪梨

* Recipe will be updated *

A Long Break

Obviously I need a long break, Haha...

Mango Sago

See, we are really busy today..Here is the recipe from Zu's
Ingredients
600gm mango (abt 2 honey mangoes)
400ml mango juice (Peelfresh or any other similar brands)
125ml evaporated milk
80g sago pearls (original uses 300gm pomelo, split into small pieces)
250ml water
2~3 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp cornflour/tapioca starch
1 tbsp water
extra 100ml water

Directions
1. Boil 250ml water and sugar till sugar dissolves.
2. Mix cornflour/tapioca starch with 1 tbsp water and pour into the syrup and stir over low heat until mixture is smooth.
3. Take syrup and cornflour mixture off the heat and leave it to cool.
4. Cut the sides of the mango and cube them.
5. Scrap the remaining mango and put in a bowl, add 100ml of water to blend, put aside.
6. Add blended mango, cubed mango, mango juice and evaporated milk into the syrup solution (from 1) then stir.
7. Add sago pearls and stir, if too thick, add abit of cooled boiled water or more mango juice.
8. Chill before serving.

Preparation of sago pearls
1. Soak sago pearls in water till they turned abit translucent (About an hour)
2. Boil the pearls with water till it turns totally translucent.
3. Pour the cooked pearls into a sieve and wash it with tap water remove the starch and now it's ready to be used

Let's Make Acar !!

Acar aka Pickles - my favourite appetizer ... *slurp*

We don't like Malay styled acar --> too blend

We don't like Peranakan acar --> too strong

We don't like M'sian acar --> turmeric powder?

We don't like Taiwanese acar --> just vinegar

Mum has improvised the recipe and here we have our very own Acar ..
Recipe :
(A)
1 Large spanish turnip (mangkuang)
2 Large cucumber
1/2 pineapple
1 large carrot
3 tbsp of salt
Instruction: cut them into slices. Add salt and mix well. Put a side for approximately 20 minutes. Salt will make them crunchy and you will see quite a lot of water after that, remember to pour them away after the vegetables become softer and make sure they are dry before adding (B).
(B)
6 scallots
6-8 fresh red chili
some sesame
Instruction: Slice the scallots and blend the chili. Heat up your wok and start frying the sesame, followed by scallots and lastly, the chili. DON'T COOK THEM ALL TOGETHER! One after another.
When (B) are ready, add them into (A) and mix well. Don't forget to add in approx. 200gm sugar together with half a bottle of white vinegar. Mum said is ok if add too much sugar, because we can always pour more vinegar. If you think is too sour to your liking, then you can add more sugar. Like I've said before, there is no exact amount of ingredients when come to cooking (for my mum only) so sometimes, you need to taste your cooking using your fingers. Haha..

Hong Kong Styled Chee Cheong fun 猪肠粉 - Failed badly

After the lousy prawn dumpling, here I have terrible CCF. Maybe these days I shouldn't try cooking, I mean shouldn't have cooked when I am not really in the mood. Bad rolls...

Again, nothing is wrong with the recipe, must be the measurement! I think I need a pair of specs..Margaret suggested me to pour everything in and steam it, yeah, like carrot cake.

Recipe extracted from Baking Mum
Ingredients :
150g Rice Flour
1 ½ Tbsp Wheat starch flour
2 Tbsp Corn flour
1 Tbsp Oil
450mls Water
½ tsp Salt

Method :
1. Sift dry ingredients together.
2. Slowly add the water, mixing as you add.
3. Lastly add the oil and salt and mix thoroughly. Set batter aside for at least an hour.
4. Prepare your steamer. Grease a swiss roll pan or any aluminium tray with oil and pour the batter directly on the pan and steam for 5 mins.
5. After steaming, using a plastic scrapper roll the ccf up. If you are using ingredients like char siew or prawns, you can sprinkle it over the steamed ccf and then proceed to roll it up.
6. Place in a plate brushed with a little oil. Continue with the rest of the batter.

Sauce
Ingredients :
1 tbsp oil
2 tbsp sugar
a few slices of ginger (optional)
½ cup water
4 tbsp mushroom flavoured soy sauce or normal light soy sauce
½ to 1 tbsp dark soy sauce

1. Place ginger with oil and sugar in a pot. Cook over small fire until sugar turns brown.
2. When sugar is brown, add in the rest of the ingredients. Cook over medium fire for about 5 mins. Taste the sauce and adjust taste accordingly. If you find the sauce too sweet, you can add in a bit of salt.

Sweet sauce (cwl's recipe)
1/2 cup water
7 tbsp Hoisin sauce
3 tbsp soya sauce
3 tsp dark soya sauce

Mix all ingredients together and cook over medium heat until it thicken slightly.

甘香葱油饼 Onion Pancake

Using the same recipe from my Taiwanese Pancake. I know, the style is incorrect, I'll try again next time, ok? I prepared extra dough for the taiwanese pancake too, I prefer this one!

Tau Suan 豆爽

There were mung beans in the cabinet and pandan leaves from our corridor garden. Mum decided to cook dessert for us - Tau Suan 豆爽 !

Fellow friends, forget about recipe, mum never measures or weights the ingredients before cooking for all these years. Sigh, that's why is tough to learn from her.

Crystal Prawn Dumpling 水晶虾饺

This is such a super dupper big failure, think I have to discard all, after eating the filling..hehe..The skin is super thick and chewy, don't get me wrong, the measurement is correct, it was me that lazy to use the weighing machine and everything was like agaration and here I have - lousy prawn dumpling !

Crystal Prawn Dumpling (recipe from BakingMum)

Ingredients for the dough
110 gm wheat starch
220 gm potato starch
160 gm boiling water

Ingredient A
3 water chestnut (minced)

Ingredients for the filling
300 gm fresh prawn
3 gm msg
3 gm salt
6 gm sugar
5 gm potato starch
1 tsp sesame oil

Method
1. Combine filling ingredients until elastic. Add in A.
2 Pour in the boiling water to the dough ingredients until half-cooked. Knead into a dough.
3 Knead dough into a long strip. Divide into equal parts, each 15 gm. Roll into flat round piece.
4. Wrap in 20 gm filling and fold into a har kow shape. Steam over high heat for 5 minutes.

Chicken Rice Balls

My mummy is a good cook! I am so proud of her and that explained why my weight rose up 72 kg 8 years ago. Thanks to hubby who constantly reminded me that "health is wealth" few years back and I've learnt how to control my diet and most importantly, control the amount of food I consumed, no matter how nice it is. Okay, sorry for digressing, one of mum's signature dish is Hainanese Chicken Rice. As mentioned many times(in my blog) that we are pure Hainanese, how can we not know how to cook authentic chicken rice and make rice balls? We tried the famous chicken rice balls in Malacca but find it too oily and it is not handmade. It is very tedious to prepare as my mummy used her bare hand to roll the steaming hot rice with a little bit pressure to form into ball shaped. After rolling, her palms were all red and sore. Some may ask why must it be steaming hot? "so that the rice will stick onto each other and hold the shape nicely", said mummy.