A Simple n Quick Christmas Dinner

Here's what we had for Christmas... We like this brand of frozen pizza (with a coupon it cost us $3.50)... But of course we did not finish it. We only managed to eat half of it. The rest will probably be for lunch tomorrow or snack later.

Merry Christmas

Sushi For Lunch

Yesterday we had sushi for lunch @ a restaurant that I discovered on the web. Since this restaurant is touted as having the best sashimi, we had to go take a look. Per pax was $15. This was what we had. The food was fresh n tasty, probably will go there again.

Longan + Nata De Coco Agar-Agar/Jelly?!

We have been invited to dinner tomorrow. The host said that there would be us and another friend. So I made this to bring along with a bag of chips and 2 bottles of dessert wine. Hmm, I'm not sure about the name of this, but essentially it is something like more like agar-agar but taste like jelly (in terms of sweetness). I used a can of longan and a half pack of nata de coco. Hope it's nice!

Craving for Marble Cake

Those who know me probably know that I dun fancy cakes. But I somehow got a craving for it after seeing it on someone's blog. I ended up baking it last night at 11pm and had my first taste about 12.30am. Haha! We had it for breakfast and tea today as we bought some out in a container. Here's the pic of the cake itself.

(p/s : we still have not finished the pop corn I blogged about in the previous entry. Haiz...)

Gigantic Bag of Popcorn

Got this bag of popcorn for $7.50 at the street fair. Huge bag of Kettle Corn. The picture says it all. We think we should be able to finish it in a week. 3 days gone, I think we managed to eat about one-quarter of it. Haha!

Saturday Night Dinner

We had BBQ T-Bone Steak and a huge portobello mushroom. It is more economical to have such a meal at home. The steak cost about $5.00 and the mushroom was $1.50. Put the BBQ grill to good use too.

Other Makan

Many Chinese Food

Tried - American and Mexican

I'm Back! (^_^)

Hello there my makan diary.... Your owner is now back to reclaim you. Muahaha!!

I had a good holiday in California. Hehe! Same old, same old. We went from San Diego to Orange County to San Jose to San Francisco to Napa Valley to Gilroy to Monterey to Carmel to Norwalk/Arcadia to Ontario to Palm Springs back to home. California is very big leh, still many places not covered.

Anyways, took tons of pictures. Some interesting activities this time was Dead Sea Scroll Exhibition, Napa Valley Drive-around and whale watching. Initially planned to go on the tram ride and wind mill tour at Palm Springs but it was raining so heavily that we could not do much but stay under shelter (anyways, I lost my courage for the tram ride the night before we were suppose to go).

Since this is my makan blog, I will be posting pics of the makan we had during the road trip. I did not take pics for some meals when we eat the left-overs, pizza or other take-out. Sometimes I just plain forgot to take the pics. Haha! Stay tuned!

"Relac" One Corner

Me going tour liao...gonna 'relac' one corner from 16th Nov 07 to 2nd Dec 07. Hehe, will take pics of things I eat to post.

Meanwhile, have fun cooking hor!

C is for Cookies - That's good enuf for me!

Finally finish the baking, sorting n packing into nice nice bags.

Loti, Loti

Baked 10 of these for my cell group last Thursday. They liked it, glad to be able to give them a taste of home.

Curry Chicken Buns

Used the ingredients for curry puff for tomorrow's breakfast.

Dinner 06 Nov

Food Diary

Broccoli

Mah Po Tofu

Bak Kut Teh

Belachan Asparagus with Fresh Shitake Mushroom

Cod Fish Claypot

Fried Spring Rolls

Chrysanthemum Tea

Buns - *Recipe Makes 19 Buns*

I am sharing the recipe for the buns I baked earlier today.

Recipe for Sweet Bread Dough
Ingredients:-
(A) 480g bread flour
120g plain flour
110g castor sugar
20g milk powder
4 tsp instant yeast

(B) 300ml cold water
1 egg

(C) 60g unsalted butter
10g salt

Method:-

1. Mix all the ingredients listed in (A) well. Add (B) to form a dough. Add in (C) and knead till the dough is elastic and smooth.


2. Gather the dough to form a ball and put in a big bowl (mixing bowl bigger than dough) and cover with cling wrap to rest for 1h.


3. Divide the dough into portions of 60g each. Shape each portion into balls and leave to rest for 10mins.


4. Roll out dough and wrap with filling. Shape as required and leave it to proof on greased baking tray for 1h.


5. Preheat oven to 180 - 190ºC or 355 - 375ºF.


6. Apply egg wash (1 beaten egg) on dough and sprinkle with shredded cheese.


7. Bake for 12 mins.

Baking Frenzy

Remember this new gadget that I got last weekend? It is really a wonderful tool to have in the kitchen.

See what the baby helped me to whip up! Weeeeee!

Gonna share some recipes throughout the week.

Pandan Chiffon Cake

Ingredients

4 egg yolks

70g sugar

75g plain flour

1tsp baking powder

75ml coconut cream

1.5tbsp corn oil

0.5 tsp vanilla essence

1tsp pandan paste

5 egg whites

30g sugar

1tsp cream of tartar

pinch of salt

Method

1. Preheat oven to 175ºC or 345ºF.
2. Cream egg yolks, 70g of sugar until thick n creamy.
3. Add flour, baking powder, vanilla essence, coconut cream, corn oil, pandan paste. Mix well.
4. In clean, dry bowl, beat egg white, 30g of sugar, cream of tartar, pinch of salt until stiff.
5. Mix egg white into flour mixture.
6. Pour into mould n place in preheated oven for 45 minutes.
7. When done, invert immediately to cool down for 10 minutes.
8. Use sharp knife to loosen side n bottom to release cake.
9. Leave on wire rack to cool down further.

Finally! A successful attempt at Pandan Chiffon Cake! I give credit to the new stand mixer Ken gifted to me. (^_^)

Gadget Replacement Therapy

The cheapo plastic kettle spoilt after about 4 months. So we had to replace it, Ken suggested this stainless steel one that has auto shut-off. It is really good, I am glad we got it despite the price tag. I have had the new kettle for 2 months.

The small hand-held hand mixer was left in a cold cupboard and the huge stand mixer was alloted its very own place on the limited counter space. Just got it 2 days ago.

Butter Cookies

Ingredients

175g unsalted (sweet) butter @ room temperature - diced

90g golden caster sugar

250g plain flour

demerara (raw) sugar for coating

Method

1. Put butter n sugar in a bowl n beat until light n fluffy. Add flour, using hands gradually work it in until the mixture forms a smooth dough.
2. Roll into a sausage shape about 30 cm long, pat the sides flat to form either a square or triangular log.
3. Sprinkle thick layer of demarara sugar on a piece of grease proof (waxed) paper. Press each side of the dough into the sugar to coat. Wrap n chill for 30 mins until firm.
4. Preheat oven to 160ºC or 325ºF
5. When ready to bake, remove the dough n unwrap. Cut into thick slices n place slightly apart on a non-stick baking sheet.
6. Bake for 20 mins until just beginning to brown.
7. Transfer to wire rack to cool

Do not chill for too long else become too hard and difficult to cut. Also the cookies taste better the next day. They taste like those danish butter cookies, the one that is square in shape with sugar coated.

Today's Dishes

sesame oil & ginger chicken breast tenders

xiao ba cai

tom ka (fishball, meatball, shrimp, mushroom)

Chow Time

Dinner last night. Our 'any-how' fried dish.

There's yellow noodles, tang hoon, shrimp, asparagus, bean sprouts, fresh shitake mushroom, egg, carrot, prawn + chicken stock.

Back in Action

Hey hey hey! I'm back in action. I will not bore you with the details, or do a blow by blow account of each dish I cooked. I will just 'feature' some dishes that I liked.Clockwise from top left :

Fried Spring Roll

Corn, Pork n Date Soup

Yam Paste with Ginko Nuts (Orr Nee)

Curry Chicken

I will be posting 2 other recipes that I have used. They are nice, maybe you would like to try them out.

No voice plus fever

On the day I was unable to find my voice....

08 Oct 07 - Monday

Sunday - 07 Oct 07

Breakfast : Clam Chowder Soup with Toast

Lunch : Sushi Row @ Shogun

- spicy scallop with unagi kabayaki

- soft shell crab

- salmon & scallop

- tempura shrimp with green bell peppers

Dinner : Skipped due to heavy lunch

Saturday @ Phoenix

So we sort of agreed to having Dim Sum with friends here at Phoenix. There were 4 couples including Ken and yours truly and 3 kids. So I only managed to take 2 pictures and one did not turn out well. Anyways, we had a nice time at the Dim Sum place. After which, we split up to shop at different places.

We went to get groceries first before we went to a mall to jalan-jalan. We ended up with a top each, think total less than $25, cause they were on sale. We decided to go to the restaurant we planned to had dinner initially, instead of joining the others. Also I was not feeling too well to talk much anyway.

05 Oct 2007 - Food Diary

Forgot to take pictures as I was not that well on that day. Was not in the mood to take pictures and all that. But was really glad that Ken did not have to work so that I have someone I can whine to. :p

• Lunch @ Miss Saigon again. Had the exact same things as 22nd Sept, plus an Almond Milk Tea with Bolba
• Dinner was some microwaved frozen BBQ wings

Chocolate Cupcakes

Like I mentioned before, this is really easy to make. We did it at Christine's place, and the batter was ready in just minutes. Just needed some vegetable oil, 3 eggs and water as per instructions on the box. The result is moist chocolate cake. I dun quite like cakes but I thought it was really good for pre-mix cakes. But the most that I could handle was one cupcake. Haha.

Food Diary - 04 October 2007 (Thursday)

Sorry for the lack of entries. Anyways, I got some virus in my body that caused my throat, glands and whatnots to swell up. I was having difficulty to breathe and had no choice but to see a doctor on Friday. God was good that Ken was home, we were stuck at the doctor's and pharmacy for like 2 hours. I was prescribed 2 doses of heavy-duty antibiotics which made me kind of woozy and weak. Think the virus is slowly going away.

So on Thursday, we had Japanese Curry Rice. I prepared fried chicken breast cutlet too, and it went well with the curry. I used the pressure cooker to cook the curry and 20 minutes later, the beef cubes were still nice and soft. Yummy. I also went to Christine's place to bake the pre-mix chocolate cupcakes for Caleb - see the pictures in another entry.

Mango is the Pudding!

Not bad cause 2 medium-sized mangoes were chopped and added to the pre-mix. However, we found it to be too sweet. Think I will look for a recipe to make it from scratch so I can control the amount of sugar being added.

Food Diary

C is for Cookie! Yummy!

So today is a more interesting day. Woke up and executed my plan of cookie tasting. Wanted to bake the cookies to bring to Bible Study for them to sample. I intend to use the recipe to bake the cookies for the Thanksgiving party favour. So wanted some feedback before the time comes, in case I need to make some changes.

Anyways, the feedback was that the cookie is nice cause not that sweet. I used dark chocolate morsels instead of the usual semi-sweet morsels. The cookies turn out a bit dark as I used the dark brown sugar rather than the light brown sugar. The recipe is below the pictures.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients:

110g butter (softened)

85g sugar (i used organic sugar)

85g packed brown sugar (i used dark brown sugar)

1 tsp pure vanilla extract

1 tsp salt

1 tsp baking soda

250g plain flour

2 eggs

220g chocolate morsels (i used dark chocolate morsels)

110g chopped nuts (i used macadamia nuts, halved)

Method:

1. Pre-heat oven to 190ºC or 370ºF
2. Add butter, sugar, brown sugar and vanilla extract into a mixing bowl. Beat until creamy. (i used a hand-held egg beater)
3. Add in eggs , one by one, and continue to beat until creamy and texture constant.
4. In a clean bowl, add in salt, baking soda and flour. Mix well.
5. Add the flour mixture to the above mixture and beat well.
6. Add in the chocolate morsels and nuts. Use a spatula and mix well. (i added the nuts on each cookie dough)
7. Drop a small amount of the dough (look at the photo for sample of dough compared to a half macadamia nut). Leave some space in between dough drops as they expand during baking.
8. Bake for 8 to 9 mins.
9. Remove from oven and leave to cool totally before storing. (if stored before totally cooled, cookies will be a bit soft)

Hope you enjoy the cookies!

Do give me feedback if any. Thanks!

A Boring Boring Day in AZ

Eh eh... Tuesday was an uneventful day for me. I cannot remember what I did but it passed by. However I thank God that I was able to fall asleep without much difficulty. (^_^)

Had yogurt for breakfast, then fried some beehoon for lunch/dinner and for hubby to bring. Also green bean soup cause suspect heaty as no appetite and also dun feel like drinking water. Wanted to bake some cookies but was too tired and put it off for the next morning. Butter is melting liao... zzz

Food Diary - 1 Oct 2007

30 Sep 2007 - A Sunny Sun Day

Sunday morning started with the balance of the previous night's soup and some bread. We had lunch out as Ken needed to back to office to clear his work. So we grabbed a quick lunch near church @ Carl's Junior. Dinner was just plain instant noodles cause I wanted something soupy and it being almost 7pm by the time we were leaving his work place.

29th September 2007

27th Sep 07 - Baking @ Mid-night

Sorry for the lack of updates. My internet connection was acting up and has been for quite some time. We finally diagnosed the problem when the modem went ka-put. Haha. Actually only the power supply was gone. We only managed to get the replacement on Saturday after comparing prices of new modems and power supply. We decided to go with a new power supply. But I was not well on Saturday evening and not 100% on Sunday as well. So here I am, back again. (^_^)

Last Thursday night, I was not able to sleep. At around mid-night, I decided to bake some cupcakes instead of waking up in the morning to do it. I was attending a fellowship, so thought of bringing some cupcakes for the ladies. I used a pre-mix box of butter cakes, so here are some pictures.

I made 2 variation of it. I pour half of the batter into the paper cups and added a walnut on top for deco. The other half, I added almost a whole pack of shredded cheese to it. And after mixing it well, I poured them into the remaining paper cups. So I have Butter-Cheese Cupcakes and Butter Cupcakes.

So some like the cheese ones and some like the regular ones. Haha. But only 24 cupcakes and not enough to give each family too many. Next time I shall make more. I should be making chocolate cupcakes this week if Christine is free, cause Caleb asked me for some. (^_^)

Simple Fare for Busy Day

Today was a day full of 'activities' for me. Haha. Woke up at 7am in the morning to prepare a simple sandwich for Ken to bring as breakfast. Took my daily supplement of Vitamin C and Collagen. Went back to sleep around 8am to 12noon cause I only slept at 3am this morning. zzz...

Anyways, after I woke up (in the afternoon), I had a bowl of cereal. Then I went out about 1 plus to shop! Not forgetting to bring my trusty granola bar with me. I had to use it around 3.30pm to sustain my outing. Hehe. I reach home about 4.30pm and had half of the blended green apples with celery (the other half still sitting in the fridge). Also had 3 small spools of haw flakes.

Dinner was real easy and fast today. Did an upgraded version of ABC soup and fried chicken rice. I usually cook lots more chicken rice and then use it for fried rice tomorrow. Easier and dun have to keep thinking what to cook.

Chicken Rice

Today we had chicken rice for dinner. On the top left corner is avocado milk with honey - just an avocado, milk and honey put into blender and blend. The result - yummy and nutritious drink. Top right is the chicken rice itself. Misc in the bigger pic is plate of cut chicken (ugly, cause I anyhow cut). The green mixture is a blend of spring onions and ginger mixed with the chicken soup, sesame oil and light soy sauce. You should not blend it too much like me, but my blender is too powerful liao...haha. The bottom left is lady's fingers with he bi hiam. And the oily corning ware is the chicken soup (very oily :p). Not bad but Ken commented that the chicken a bit dry, guess I cooked it too long in the pressure cooker. Need to use a lower pressure and cook in a shorter time too.

叉烧肉 - Non-bake Version

Today I tried the non-bake version for 叉烧肉. Ken likes it and it is easier to make than the oven-baked one, not to mention that the cooking time was shorter too. I think one strip of the 五花肉 was not enough, cause it was nice. Haha. When I do it again, I shall add another half portion and I could use the balance for 叉烧云吞面 the next day.

Monday, 24th September 2007

Yes, we had 生面 for dinner again. I used the pressure cooker to cook the sauce, only 2 to 3 mins, however, the broccoli and carrot become too cooked and melted in my mouth. Eh, think vegetables cannot use the pc (pressure cooker) to cook. Had to cook this as the balance half pack of the noodles were sitting in the fridge. The last time it sat in the fridge, some mushroom got to it before we did. :p