Of Potlucks & BBQs

Tomorrow's mass cook-out most probably shall be our last in STL. Here is how we plan our team's pig-outs. It was pretty nostalgic looking back at the past spreadsheets, really. To think that the last potluck we had, which was also our first, was actually a year ago when KY & PS shifted next door to be our immediate neighbours. It seems like it was just a couple of months ago when we were all cosing it up around the tight space for a sumptuous home-cooked meal.

Food, Oh Glorious Food!

When I'm in a good mood, I'll try to whip up something we both love. Today, it was Portugese egg tarts (again), and Chicken Rendang!

With 1 pastry sheet left in the freezer, I have been procrastinating for the past month to make these tarts. Since school ended early on Mondays and I happened to be carving for sweet stuff, it's the best time to get my hands dirty again!
My 3rd & best attempt thus far, as these gems had the right sweetness and the egg custards were nicely browned on the top and soft on the insides. Unlike the last try, the insides were a little too dry and over-cooked. Heh...

He had a nice little surpise when he came home to piping hot portugese egg tarts fresh from the oven!

Chicken rendang with Myojo's Char Mee were what we had for dinner tonight. These were part of the food to be cleared as well. Finger-licking good home-made rendang! All thanks to a nice girl, who introduced me to this marvellous sauce during a potluck back home.

If you haven't tried Brahim's Kuah Rendang, you will never know how easy this dish really is. I got mine from NTUC, and it took me 5 mins to get everything into the pot, and another 30mins to simmer the dish before we tucked in. Good with beef stew meat too!

Brown Sugar Bundt Cake

I have tons of food needed to be clear by December; one of them is brown sugar. I can't remeber what was the brown sugar for, and have no idea what are the uses for it (except the finger-licking-good lor bak I cooked last week). Thus I was on the hunt for a recipe that requires brown sugar. As much as possible, since I have one big packet of it left almost untouched. I have never heard of a bundt cake (call me a mountain tortoise), more so a brown sugar bundt cake, and thought maybe I should give it a shot. Especially so when it requres 2 cups full of brown sugar; perfect way to rid them asap.

My brown sugar bundt cake! I like how smooth and shiny my cake turns out. I like the colour and taste of it too!

Nice dense bundt cake. I enjoy the heavy texture, and it's marvellous when topped with my Haagen-Daz Vanilla Swiss Almond. Hubby likes it and it makes both of us happy.





*P.S. After a check on the net, I learnt that any cakes made using a bundform cake pan forming a distinctive ring shape is a bundt cake. So a bundt cake is defined by the looks of it. :p

Fragrant Yam Rice

We just had yam rice for dinner. It's finger-licking good! Of cos, I cooked that, with a pot on the stove and absolutely no help from my defunct rice cooker. If you're surprised with my culinary skills, I can understand cos I'm amazed with myself too! :p

No pics of our palatable dinner cos I was too hungry to reach out for the camera; I just had to tuck in immediately to the piping hot bowl of fragrant rice. Slurp!

饭

Just as when the sack of rice was depleted last week, the rice cooker decided to die on me. Very good. To begin with, I was never exactly into cooking; I cook more for health reasons since dining out often doesn't do justice to the heart and waist. Now without a rice cooker, I absolutely dread preparing dinner. To watch over the stove for 30 mins is a feat!

Sweet & Sour Pork

This is what we had for dinner tonight. Quite a good job for a first attempt huh? Of course it's as tasty as it looks! ;P No more of this in my kitchen again, not at least in a year or two. Frying is such a hassel! Lucky I'm not a fan of deep fried food.

Mooncakes

It's the time of the year again! I absolutely adore mooncakes, especially the Teochew-styled yam-filled ones, the durain mooncakes, and of course the traditional lotus paste gems. It doesn't matter how many yolks are in there, I love them all, even if they're without the yolks!

Bought a box of Guangzhou-made lotus paste mooncakes with double yolks from Olive market today. They tasted heavenly! It was of a different brand from the one I bought last year, and cost double the price at USD20. Still, I thought it was a steal, considering the steep price of good mooncakes sold in SIN.

Come next year this time, I must feast on tons of the durain mooncakes from Goodwood Park Hotel to make up for the 2 years of cravings! Oh and those fried mooncakes filled with yam too! Just the thought of these darlings is making me drool.

It's time to hit the gym religiously again, as I forsee myself piling on more calories in the coming weeks. I should plan a strict gym routine after class, seriously...

What's sizzling in the kitchen?

Since school's starting in about 2 weeks time (AArrrgggghhhhhh), I've been trying my best to dish up as many comfort food and yummy bites as possible, to make up for the lost opportunities ahead.

I've always have a penchant for baking since my first baking session during my secondary one Home Economics class, and used to bake quite often during the holidays ever since and all the way through JC. Uni days were spent mainly clubbing till the wee morning and struggling through tutorials, thus I hardly ever thought of baking anymore. Thereafter, the horrendous hectic work life crept into my world and sleeping was all I ever thought of. Moving into an apartment with an oven was one of the best things that has happened to me here. I've kept myself pretty busy baking all kinds of food I can think of recently, and here are the pictures of my first endeavors.

Portuguese egg tarts! With pre-packed frozen puff pastry available in Dierberg's, this was as easy as ABC. Delicious too!
Choc fudge cupcakes with frosting and rainbow rice. The vanilla frosting was too sweet for my liking, but I thought they just look oh-so-pretty for the camera. LOL!
An ugly choc fudge cake for PS and Jos' bday last weekend, with the too-sweet vanilla frosting and chopped nuts. The choc fudge cake itself was soft and tasty though. =)
Banana walnut cake made from scratch! Yummy stuff, to satisfy Hubby's constant cravings for his favourite cake.











Of course, efforts have been put into preparing our dinner menus too. Hubby has been the lucky one, to be presented with "exotic" fare ever so often.

Nasi Lemak with sambal french beans, assam eggs, ikan billis and luncheon meat! With the perfect nasi lemak chilli (courtesy from a very kind friend), this dinner was just heavenly!
Wanton mee, my second attempt unlike the others featured here. Much better than the first, and I'm glad I've improved. However to my dismay, I'd vomitted out quite a fair bit of the noodles later that night, as I'd over-eaten the huge portion placed on my plate.

Black bean soup, for hair nourishment. I'm very much concerned with Hubby's greying hair (the effects of nightly poker I supposed), thus this tasty comfort soup which my mum used to cooked quite often. However, this is so much more tastier than Mummy's, just like most of my other dishes. Wahahaha.....

I'm glad Hubby noticed that his once "kitchen-dimwit" wife has flourished into an amatuer cooking-connoisseur within a span of a year. All that matters after a tough grind in the kitchen is a heartfelt praise/ thanks, and enjoying a meal together with your other half...

And no, I am definitely not turning into a homemaker. I'm gonna ditch the apron once we're back in SIN for good, for I do not see any purpose for all that toil when delicious local food are all over the island.

T.G.I.Friday's

The other one thing other than shopping that placates me during any time of the day is good food. TGIF is just outside WH, and given that they've been having very good promos recently, we've been patronizing the restaurant as frequently as we can. The promotion this month is buy an entree and get the other free, as well as a free appetizer. To digress, I've mentioned before that we're in a land of freebies! There's always something good out there at no cost. Anyway, we were at TGIF again on Tuesday though we just went last Friday. However, the last trip was worth mentioning, cos the Prime Rib Stroganoff was spectacular!!! Super tender, juicy and flavourful beef chunks in smooth rich brown sauce. The next best meal I've had from TGIF is it's Shrimp Key West. The sourish marinate from key limes and herbs is mildly exotic yet very refreshing. However it's a meal suitable for only the small tummies, given it's small portion. Good as an appetizer to go with the local beers though. As an additional bonus to make these entrees taste better, they're both under $10 at the usual price (or even cheaper at half the price with the current promo)! Economical savory food, just a stone's throw away from home- I love this place to bits!

Sorry folks, no pictures of these yummy feast. The picture taken of me and my shrimp 2 months ago was kinda blur. As for the stroganoff, I brought my camera along on Tues, but the food kept me totally busy and engrossed that it stood still on the table till I licked my plate clean. =P I'll try harder the next time!

Kitchening Away

It's been a hectic day in the kitchen today. After working out in the gym, I had to rush home to prepare dinner before I headed to Yvonne's place at noon. Yvonne's mum will be leaving this Saturday after a 6-month long stay in STL, and thus made her signature Hakka Cai Kuehs for us before she leaves. I thought I was able to acquire some excellent kueh-making skills from her, but I ended up wasting some dough instead. As usual, my set of "wrapping" skills sucks to the core, and my kuehs were either of irregular shapes or had holes on the "skins".
Yuumilicious cai kuehs made by Auntie. Soft thin "skin" with peppery fillings; I couldn't keep my hands off them! My handicraft failed so you don't get to see any of my products here. =P







I had to think of an easy and mess-free dish for tonight's dinner, as I will be spending the entire noon away from home. Yet at the same time, I wanted to pamper Hubby and myself with another of our comfort food. We haven't had 梅菜扣肉 for months, and the thought of having a succulent piece of pork belly in a Kong Bak Pau was simply irresistable despite the high content of saturated fats in the dish. Hence, what we just had an hour ago was...
梅菜扣肉 with kong bak pau. Superbly melts-in-your-mouth-yummy, and the recipe is fabulously easy.

And this, is Hubby's packed lunch for tomorrow. Steamed egg and french beans to neutralise the salty 梅菜扣肉! Such a lucky guy...

Lunch and Dinner Menu

Breakfast and lunch today was Korean, and dinner, Japanese. Slurp! Cooked a big bowl of kimchee jigae early in the morning as I woke up very early (still very jetlagged since the trip back from SIN a week ago). Normally I will be too lazy to cook lunch but since I am today, I thought I should reward myself with something I love.

An extremely easy dish, that took me no more than 20mins to prepare and cook. Please pardon the unflattering picture; it actually tastes much much better than it looks. =P






Ingredients
1 to 1.5 cups kimchi with kimchi juice
1 pack tofu (cubed)
2 stalks scallions (sliced)
1/2 of large onion
2 cloves of garlic
1 tps oil
2 cups water
approximately 1/4 cup gochujang (red pepper paste from Korean section in supermarkets)
2 - 3 tbsp gochugaru (red pepper flakes)
pork belly chunks thinly sliced (shabu-shabu-type is the best)

Directions
In pot, add a little bit of oil (just a little - pork already has a lot of fat, so you wont need much). Add minced garlic to flavor the oil. Then add in pork belly chunks and cook until meat turns white. Then add in kimchi chunks and cook for about 2 - 3 minutes (this will help the soup cook faster). Add in water (approximately 2 cups serves 4 individual servings). Bring heat up to high and boil for a few minutes. Add one scoop (a little less than 1/4 cup) of gochujang (red pepper paste) and stir until dissolved. Add a couple tablespoons of gochugaru (red pepper flakes). Let it cook on medium heat for approximately 5 to 7 minutes (this will allow for the kimchi to cook through). Stir occassionally. Taste and if needed, reseason with kimchi juice. Then add in tofu and onion. Let it cook for another 4 minutes or so before adding in the scallions. (add in scallions last because you dont want them to wilt completely).
* Add some cooked vermicilli if you're interested.


Hubby and I had Tonkatsu and Tempura with Japanese rice and curry awhile ago. Since my tempura flour are expiring soon, I reckoned I better use them before they go to waste (again). The Tonkatsu was much tastier and jucier this time round as compared to my previous attempts, as I was more liberal with the salt today and had "invested" in a bottle of meat tenderizer.



Recipes for Tonkatsu and tempura are easily available online. Try googling for one if you are interested. I'm dozing off while signing off this entry....














Gdnight!

Raspberry No-bake Cheesecake

Dierbergs has been having raspberries sales at $1 per punnet for the past couple of weeks, which means it's the perfect time to make raspberries cheesecake! Normally it cost around $3 (I think) per punnet of about 30 counts, which converts to SGD4.50 or thereabouts, and this makes it an extremely expensive fruit. To digress, raspberries contain high amount of fibre as well as significant amount of antioxidant. Hubby doesn't like raspberries since he find them too sour; I think it's a men thing that he doesn't touch most berries. One of the ways to make him consume these beneficial fruits is to incorporate them into his favourite food. Heh...

Recipe for this extremely easy cheesecake, for lazy people like myself:

1 pkt of ready-made graham cracker crust

Filling:
8 oz. cream cheese, softened
3/4 cup sifted powdered sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1-1/2 cups whipped topping/ cream

Sauce:
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup water
1/2 Tbs. cornstarch
1 small pkt. or 0.3 oz raspberry gelatin
30 fresh or frozen raspberries

Filling:
Using an electric mixer, whip cream cheese in a bowl (I hand-beated it since I don't have an electric mixer). Mix in powdered sugar and vanilla extract. Fold in whipped topping. Spread on top of crust. Put in refrigerator.

Sauce:
In a saucepan, cook sugar, water, and cornstarch until thickened and translucent. Remove from heat and add gelatin. Stir until dissolved. Spread gelatin mixture over top of cream cheese layer and decorate cake with raspberries. Refrigerate until top layer thickens.

Viola! No baking hassle and it took me 30 mins just to get this done. Perfect for a lazy wife. Heh...

Ang Ku Kuehs

Life's been good good good! In fact it could not get any better as I do not have to worry about classes and assignments for 4 long months! To ensure that I spent some of my free time wisely, I cordially invited TWC to our apartment yesterday to make some Ang Ku Kuehs; especially since we were craving for the peanut-filled traditional chinese desserts. I haven't had those probably for at least 5 years. It was till the birth of Zeyi that the topic of Ang Ku Kuehs and red eggs surfaced, and set some of us salivating away.

Meeting early in the morning at 10.30 was quite a feat for me, as I do not usually wake up that early except to beat the sales or to head to school. Nevertheless, I was glad we started the quest early as our first batch of dough was not of the right constitution, and we spent a long time adjusting the amount of ingredients to fix it. Still it was time well spent, as the texture of the "skin" was just puuurrr-fect! Soft and chewy, and flavourful with hues of sweet potatoes and coconut. The peanut-filling was equally good as it was very fragrant and of the right sweetness. Perhaps our kuehs are better than what you get in some of the kopitiams. =P However, as the process to make ang ku kuehs is really tedious, this shall be my first and last pursuit; especially when it's readily available everywhere when we get back to Singapore. Anyway, I guess all three of us deserve a pat on the shoulders for slogging six long hours to make such yummy delicalies for our hubbies. Particularly so when it's our virgin attempts.

Just some pictures to whet your appetites...

Chicken with Sesame Oil and Ginger

I haven't been cooking proper and nice dinner for Hubby for the past 3 weeks. Had been busy holidaying, shopping and bringing Mum and Geri around when they were here. Feeling a little guilty, I whipped up one of Hubby's favourite dish again. It's also what I had been craving for recently and it's one of the dishes that has plently of health benefits.

It doesn't look as appetising here, but it is really kick-ass awesome! Not that I am trying to brag about my own culinary skills, but it's indeed one of the few dishes that I am proud of, really. I added lots of black fungus, which is known to cleanse a woman's womb, as well as ginger and sesame oil, to expel wind from the tummy. It's actually a popular confinement dish, but you can find it at most "cai-fan" store in the Kopitiams too. Hubby and I slurped up the entire big bowl of chicken wingettes, and he ended his meal with a burp and a "good stuff!"


Recipe:
* all measurements were approximated as I didn't exactly measure the amount of sauces used. I just poured from the bottle and estimated by past experiences.

Marinate 2 packs (28 count) of wingettes in 2 tbs of grated ginger for 30mins.
Thinly slice about a thumbsized of ginger and fry with 1 tbs of sesame oil till almost golden.
Add wingettes and fry till surface turn white (add more sesame oil if needed).
Add a handful of black fungus and chinese mushrooms (after soaking both), and stir for a min till fragrant.
Pour in 1/2-1 cup water, a tbs of cooking/rice wine, a tbs of dark soy sauce, 1-2 tbs of light soy sauce, and a tbs of DOM (and more sesame oil if desired). Adjust amount of sauces and water to suit your own taste bud.
Bring to boil then simmer till flesh from wingettes almost fall off from bones (about 30 mins).
Viola! Enjoy the nice, fragrant sauce with steamed rice.

Happy Dumpling Festival

端午节 is the time for bak zhang! TWC got together to make our very own rice dumplings, since no where can we get fresh n nice ones in STL. Very satisfied with my own virgin home-made zhangs, though all I did was wash, chop and wrap. The main credits still go to Peisuan and Josephine, who fry the ingredients and did the pro wrapping of the zhangs.

My masterpieces. See my ugly zhangs, especially those circled in red? As long as the rice doesn't spill out I'm good.

More ugly zhangs by yours truly, which "exploded" after cooking.

After spending the entire noon wrapping my dumplings, I still couldn't figure out the correct method to do so. Alas, I reckoned the fastest and easiest way is to wrap it like a parcel lah (recall how nuo mi chicken is being wrapped). You could see that my parcel-method didn't work very well too...

Our rice dumplings!
FYI, these nice ones are not wrapped by me.











Never thought that bao bak zhang is soooooo tedious. It shall be my first and last attempt at making home-made zhangs. Though these gems are seriously delicious, I still miss my Kim Choo Nonya zhangs...

Cravings

I'm longing for mee pok, orr luak, wanton mee, laksa, mala steamboat, Gayathri's fish curry, etc etc. Oh and rich chocolate cakes as well as cheese cakes. Sigh... I hope I have a bottomless-pit-sized stomach and that all local delicacies can be found here. Yum yum!

The Battle with Silkie

Silkie is the official name for our locally-known Black Chicken. Black chicken soup as long been hailed as a reinforcement to one's immune function, combat fatigue and restore youth. For sometime now, Chinese food scientists have confirmed that the black-bone silky fowl contain high levels of a substance called carnosine, which is a powerful anti-oxidant and is taken in supplement form in the West to improve muscle strength and alleviate the effects of ageing.

Mummy got us some herbs to make silkie soup, and the chinese supermarket happens to have a 20% discount on the normally-expensive frozen black fowl. With the exams just round the corner, it is now the perfect time to replenish all my drained energy with a bowl of herbal soup.

Defrosted the frozen silkie last night, and horrors of horrors, when I was trying to untie the knot of the plastic bag that contains it, I saw a pair of deadly-looking eyes staring straight at me!!!!! The worst part was that Silkie's head was just directly beneath the knot and I'd poked it unknowingly while trying to untie the bag. OMG, the thought of it now still send cold shivers down my spine. I threw it back right immediately into the fridge, and never ever wanted to deal with it again. I never had thought that the bag of silkie actually still had the head n neck intact. If I'd known, I'd never had bought it in the first place.

Anyway Hubby had to deal with it this morning, else we would have to waste the $8 spent on the black fowl cos over my dead body am I going to handle it.
The brave hubby chopped off it's neck, and the disgustingly-still-intact feet (think toes with claws!!). All the while I was hiding in the room, not wanting to even hear the noise made by the chopper on the chopping board. He dug out whatever remnant organs that were in it and Silkie had a good bath before I agreed to return to the kitchen. Then I got Hubby to strike a pose with Silkie, as a remembrance of his bravery. LOL!

The sight of an uncut black fowl still nauseate me much, and that 1-second touch (through my trusty pair of gloves) by just throwing it into the crockpot make my hair stand. I think I just can't handle uncooked whole chicken, whether it's headless or with its head on. It feels so much like manipulating a live animal. See the yellowish slimy weird thing near the opening after chopping off the neck, and blood on my chopping board? Yucks yucks yucks!!!!

However, I still want to restore youth and reinforce my immune system by consumming black chicken soup on a regular basis. So now I have to think of ways to humour Hubby into battling Silkie for the remaining months.

Me, off to preparing dinner...
















*Updated on 04/27/09: Hubby commented that the soup was tasty, and I took that opportunity to ask if he's willing to chop n cleansed the silkies whenever I buy them. Of cos he said yes! Woohoo!

Uniquely Singapore

Dinner this evening was PRATA! The Singaporean Indian dish. Chanced upon the well-known Singapore brand, SpringHome, in the chinese market and I just had to grab them. SpringHome roti prata is commonly found in NTUCs, and they are just the next best alternatives to the Jln Kayu's jewels. We used to buy them occasionally back home since it was extremely easy to prepare, without even a single drop of oil required.

If you are not aware by now that Roti Prata is unique only to Singapore, check out Wiki. It evolved from Pakistani and Indian Paratha, and the different flavours (cheese, tissue, paper, ice-cream, etc) are only available in our very own hometown!




















Crispy fragrant pratas with yummy curry. Nice! Who says you have to be a great cook to enjoy delicious home-cooked food?

I wish I can find ready-made Bak Chor Mee, Hokkien Mee, Fried Kway Teow and all the local delicacies here too...

More Food

Ju Shin Jung is gonna be one of the must-hit places when I land in SIN in June. I've read many marvellous blog posts on this Korean place, and I really really wanna go!

What's for Dinner Tonight?

Finally I get to clear the la-la (or clams) from my freezer. Supposed to cook it earlier in the week, but we had been eating out quite a far bit (since the sio bak episode) as Hubby won almost $700 in the Pokerstars tourney, by coming in 1st in the competition. Anyway back to the main topic. La-la isn't exactly anyone of our favourites, but I thought the recipe I chanced upon from the net looked really easy, so I wanna try my hands on dishing up something exotic.

With lots of chopped garlic and shallots, as well as big red onions and sambal, nothing can taste awful, seriously. I added a dash of fermented black beans (tau cheo) and ginger, and this is what we had for dinner tonight. Hubby said it's awsome, but I suspect anything with sambal is yummy to him.

Out of boredom, I took a not very appetizing pic of his lunch box for tmr. Green beans with minced pork, yet another of his favourite. I never liked minced pork from STL, cos of the pungent pork smell. Regardless of the duration I marinated it for, the smell just won't go away. Yucks!



P.S. As mentioned, Hubby won some money from Poker, and I am finally allowed to buy my Summer footwear!
Had been eyeing on it for 3 long weeks! At a hefty $50 price tag, I've been forbidded to own it, until that faithful Monday night... God is good! *chuckles*