Sit down and feed, and welcome to our table.

random rant..

2007-11-01T02:43:00.000-07:00

gah, it's been a stressful two weeks, and when the stress levels rachet up, i start craving my microwave oven. there are tons of recipes i want to try, and ever since i saw a stack of gorgeous mini tart moulds, i've been wanting to bake tartlettes.

These Lime Curd Tarts and Butterscotch Tart, for one (or two), look darned tempting and delish, and these Butter Tarts look soooo sinfuly good, and come with the added benefit that they can be made with a muffin tin.
and speaking of muffins....
These Carrot Cupcakes look totally delicious, and i've already earmarked a orange-almond cake recipe my mum clipped from the newspapers to make into cupcakes. Add to that the fact that there were soooo many cool and exciting recipes that I've seen this week bloghopping, I just wish i knew more people, so that I could keep baking and giving away the food so that I can keep baking and giving and baking....

raar. I want my kitchen!

Cinnamon Chocolate Cupcakes

2007-10-15T09:01:00.000-07:00

So this weekend I made cupcakes. There wasn't much in the house to play around with, and I wasn't feeling particularly inspired by any one recipe anyway, but I just wanted to bake something. So, after looking through countless cupcake recipes that all looked delish, and rejecting them because they called for sour cream, yoghurt, buttermilk and etc, I finally found a recipe that called for basic, simple ingredients that I had at home. Got the basic cupcake recipe here, and, was inspired by a bar of expensive but absolutely delish Green and Black's Maya Gold Dark Chocolate, to add a little something to the recipe. The bar is 55% cocoa, so it's not extremely dark, which is nice, and its scented with a light spice mix of nutmeg and cinammon, and a hint of orange flavour. Check out their gorgeous website here. So I added about a tablespoon of ground cinnamon to the recipe, and the hint of spice in the cake was just totally excellent. I topped them with a dark chocolate frosting of butter, cocoa powder and icing sugar, with a half-tablespoon of cinnamon for good measure, and it was just yummy. I really love the way these turned out. :)

a few of my 'favourite' things

2007-10-10T12:12:00.000-07:00

Oh my gosh.
I went to Spotlight today, and I saw the most gorgeous plates and such! Not the kind for serving dinner on, but random pretty pieces that I an seriously lusting over.

First there were these nice stripey long plate-things: so pretty! these were really what caught my eye first, simply because they are so colourful. I'm not generally a pastels person, but these are nice. I think they're about $30 though. Whoever said that Spotlight was cheap.

Then there were these pretty, swirly-designed plates; I really like the black one. It's not very clear in the picture, but the pattern is in light blue and light olive, against the black and white it's terribly nice and sophisticated. The white and blue one's not bad either, but I do like the black one better. The only thing is that they're both much too big.

BUT! What I really, really, REALLY fell in love with were these 'frilly' plates:

I can't decide which of them i prefer: the cake stand or the long frilly-edged plate. siigh. I want them! but they cost tooo much for my impoverished wallet to afford.

there were also other really cool cake stands and stuff:

like this cupcake tree...

and this cake stand, decorated with tiny cakes:

And then there were these cool retro-esque colanders, in all the coolest colours. I think they'd go pretty well with whatever kitchenaid you happen to have...

I want some money to go kitchen applicance-shopping!

Instant food

2007-09-11T10:14:00.000-07:00

Tonight's dinner was a complete case of cooking-improv, which is what I do most often at home, when I'm hungry for real food, but tdidn't plan to cook so there's not much ready to cook in the fridge (seeing as how my mother is the Queen of Fridge Minimalists). In the past, I've made such self-explanatory dishes as Onion-Cheese Spaghetti (one colour, weird-sounding, but surprisingly ok-tasting), Potato Spinach 'Omelette', Random Vegetable and Tuna-Mayo Omelette "Crepe" and so on. The food was always made from whatever I could scavenge from the fridge, and while no one is likely to ask me for any recipes, they were tasty (to me) miracles. However, tonight's dinner was pretty unbelieveable, even by my super-improv standards.

Behold: Mushroom-and Cheese Soup Pasta, with Garlic Croutons!

yes, instant Campbell's soup powder (Mushroom and Cheese), a slice of processed cheese, water, and Carrefour brand Croutons, with $2 Daiso special pasta (special in because it's about half the length of usual pasta, making it small-pot-friendly).

I'd planned to make mushroom pasta with real mushrooms, sliced and sauteéd with butter, tossed with pasta and a some of the cooking water, but I had sadly kept my mushrooms too long and they were all wet and sticky. Not a good sign.
So, I made pasta with powdered soup.
Surprisingly, it was actually pretty good.

I "parboiled" the pasta for awhile, about 2 minutes, since the package says it takes 4 mins to cook, then drained away the water until there was about 4 cm or so of water covering the pasta. Then, I added the soup powder, and stirred in one individual sized package of butter (probably unneccesary, but I was afraid the sauce'd taste too much like soup), one slice of cheese, and stirred some more. Cooking the 'sauce' with the pasta this way made the sauce 'seep' into the pasta, flavouring it with a nice, mushroom-soup-y taste.

The finished product looked kinda boring, which is why I added the croutons. This is the only thing I wouldn't do the next time, as it made the sauce waaay too salty. I forgot to factor in the fact that the sauce was really a super-concentrated soup, which was nice in terms of texture, but rather salty. So, whilst the croutons added a nice crunch to the whole dish, they made it way too salty.

Nonetheless, I am quite proud of tonight's dinner, and I forsee many such "pasta nights". It's quite a quick way to make dinner; the longest period of waiting was for the water to boil. The sauce could have used a good dose of rough-ground black pepper to add another taste dimension, but overall, no complaints. And, I made this with absolutely no condiments: no salt, no pepper, nothing but indiviually packaged fridge-staples like butter and cheese, and powdered soup. Is it kind of sick that I'm really proud of that?

2007-09-03T06:03:00.000-07:00

Well, this weekend was quite a food-filled one, I made Dark Chocolate-Orange Muffins, Cinnamon Oatmeal Cookies, and I tasted a reallllly good cheesecake/brownie thing, and I discovered the greatest thing to snack on. All in just three days. This was one goood weekend, food/kitchen-wise.

The muffins, sadly, could have been better. Taste-wise they were really good; the orange flavour really strong, and the dark chocolate providing a rich but not too sweet foil to the zestiness. They were, however, a little tough, which I at first thought was because I'd mixed them too much, because I'd doubled the recipe to make enough for all the people my mother had "pre-allocated" them to, but then, when I made another half-batch, being careful to not overmix them, they were still tough. sigh. i don't know why. they taste good if you microwave them, though.

The chocolate bits inside get all nice and melty, and yummy. Or, if you don't have a microwave (or are too lazy to put them on a plate that you will have to wash, and walk down one floor and up again), you can blast them with a hairdryer. It works, really!

So, I guess, overall they weren't a complete failure.

The next thing I did were Cinammon Oatmeal Cookies, whilst waiting for the football match to start. These were a bigger success, although it really didn't seem so at first. The recipe called for coconut and oatmeal, but I didn't want coconutty cookies, so I omitted them, which I didn't think would be an issue. Then, the recipe said to drop rounded teaspoons on the sheet, but they expanded to a huuuge size, then flattened to wafer-thinness. I thought it might be because the lack of coconut might have made the dough too thin, so I added two tablespoons more of flour, and reduced the size of the dough balls to half a teaspoon. They didnt get so big (duh), but they were still quite thin, and they were a tad too sweet yesterday night. but today, they taste really good. buttery and chewy, and fragrant with cinnamon and butter. yumm.

So, those were what I made this weekend. what I ate, though, will be another post, because I just have to move on to my work now. buggers.

Shortbread Cookies

2007-08-29T11:41:00.001-07:00

When I first saw this recipe for shortbread, I was extreeemely excited, firstly because they looked sooo delicious, and, more importantly, because the recipe was so simple. most shortbread recipes i'd encountered before that had called for chilled butter and rice flour and whatnot, but this one, was basically just butter, sugar, and flour. and boy, is it good. i totally lurrrve this cookie, even though some people have not seemed very impressed to me. this is totally a keeper, to me. i love the way the texture of the cookie is dense and almost velvety, because of the use of icing sugar instead of caster, i think. and although the recipe called for unsalted butter and a pinch of salt, i went ahead with my salted butter, omitting the salt. i think the shortbread might be saltier than if one were to use unsalted butter, but i love the saltiness! not that the cookie is salty per se, but it is faintly salty, which contributes to the buttery fragrance and flavour of the cookie, a deeeelish counterpoint to the sweetness. the only thing about this recipe is the huuge amount of butter used. more than 400g ok! think that's little? it's almost two blocks of butter. yeah. yes, the yield is fairly large, but, seriously, this cookie makes it unable for you to tell yourself that the butter is divided among many many cookies, so each cookie doesn't really have that much butter. this cookie is seriously BUTTERY.
which is partly why it tastes so good with fruit, and even jam. it's delicious with cherries, and plums, and i think it'd go fantastically with strawberries! and oranges. the juicy tartness of both the strawberries and the orange would be a great way to balance the richness of the shortbread. it also makes me crave hot earl grey tea, or really hot black coffee, the kind with no sugar. it's also great with a smear of apricot jam. and raspberry too, i'd bet. mm. i love it, love it, love it.
the next time i make these, i'm going to cut down on the sugar, and roll them out very thin, cut them out in fluted circles, and drizzle/dip them in chocolate. maybe if i ever decide to sell (or rather, if people ever decide to pay me
for my baked goods), or give these as gifts. i think they make verry presentable gifts. and they're fun to make. and your kitchen smells delightfully of butter and vanilla when they're baking. yay. i love this recipe.
and yes, i know that the picture of the cherries is rather random, but i was very happily taking pictures of my yummy cherries just now, and i took some very nice shots, if i do say so myself.

Sweet simplicity

2007-08-21T09:31:00.000-07:00

Was browsing through Daiso at Vivo on Monday, and stumbled upon these:

"Sugar Crystal" candy! also known as Rock Sugar, really. Yes, I know, I paid $2 for 120g of rock sugar that costs $0.25 per 100g. But really, this rock sugar isn't totally like those you buy at Chinese shops or the 'herb' section of supermarkets. Each piece of candy is a single, large sugar crystal, not many small ones clustered together, so it doesn't disintegrate halfway in your mouth. Since it's one big crystal, it also doesn't melt as fast, and is hence less sweet than normal, granulated sugar—but this comparison doesn't, of course, mean that I, like, eat sugar. Because I don't. But whatever. The point is, I love my rock sugar sweets!
:)

Sweet nothings

2007-08-19T08:42:00.000-07:00

For all that we slam VivoCity for being overhyped and overcrowded (for no good reason at all—see overhyped), the one thing it does have going for it is the availability of yummy candy—albeit overpriced, yummy candy.
For a long while, everyone's go-to candy shop was Candy Empire, which was all good and fascinating and expensive, with festive-looking "promo" price tags that proclaimed prices in a way that tricked many an unsuspecting person into thinking something was a LOT cheaper than it really was. still, Candy Empire had provided us with many a happy munchy, like the delish Jelly Bean Factory Jelly Beans, Freddos, and, in more recent times, these funk-tastic Skittles!

These are Skittles, in special, Limited Edition, Showtime Flavours of Popcorn, Fairy Floss, Bubble Gum, Jam Donut and Toffee Apple:

I'm not quite sure how Jam Donut is a Showtime or Carnival sort of treat, but it is by far, my favourite flavour of the bunch. It had a cinnamon-y, toffee-y fragrance to it, reminding me of cinnamon-sugar dusted Churros, that complemented the fruity, jamy part of it. This was very addictive, and veryy delish.

Popcorn was my next favourite, because it had that weird, distinctive popcorn-jellybean flavour, which I really do love. Even if it didn't really taste like any popcorn I've ever eaten.

A close runner up was Fairy Floss, because it tasted uncannily like candy floss. Yes, I know candy floss is just sugar, but it doesn't taste like just sugar. Perhaps it gets heated as it spins, so that it develops the faintest tinge of burn-sugar-ness? Whatever the reason, the Fairy Floss was quite yummy.

Toffee Apple was quite a let down, because I do love anything with toffee in it, so I was very much looking forward to this one. Sadly, it tasted all of apples, with almost no toffee flavour.

Bubble Gum, I didn't really enjoy, mainly because I don't like Bubble Gum flavoured foods—ice cream, candy, soft drinks, whatever. The Skittle tasted very much like bubble gum, so much so that the first chew was rather unnerving, because for an instant, your brain processes it as bubble gum, not a Skittle, I guess.

Still, I enjoyed these very much, not just because they were yummy, but also because they were pretty.

Vivo also has a new Candy store, but more on that in a later post. :)

The Great Granola Bar Adventure

2007-08-12T06:55:00.001-07:00

Well, as you've probably guessed from the title of this post, this weekend's baking venture was making homemade granola bars. And, as you've probably guessed, it was something of a fiasco. Or adventure. I got the original recipe (and idea) from here, but when I got to the supermarket and saw flax seeds, I was rather turned off by the way they looked—for some reason, they reminded me of insects... Also, I couldn't find any puffed brown rice cereal—cereals in Singapore aren't so healthy, I guess—so I got rice crispies instead. To make up for the lack of flax seeds, I got a pack of dessicated coconut too. Plus, I'm not a big pecan fan, so I got slivered almonds instead.
Then, I got home and discovered that all the oats in the house would only make 2 cups. oh well, I thought, just...multiply the recipe by......two-thirds? Right. I can do that.

Not so, really...I kept forgetting to, so the mixture ended up being a study in chuck-it-in-any-old-how. As a result, there was waaay too much sesame seeds, so muuch so that it almost overpowers everything. plus, you can hardly taste the coconut. and the dried fruits were maybe a little too dried, because by the time they came out of the oven and cooled, they were quiiite hard.

Oh and then there was the issue of my granola not sticking.
This was because I added the honey mixture in a few additions, and after about 3/4 of the mixture had gone in, I tasted it, and it was extreememly sweet. So I stopped adding, since the mixture was quite wet already. Alas, it just. refused. to. stick. I got maybe 5 (precarious) bars out of the mix and a good-sized Tupperware full of loose granola.

This was on Thursday. Over the past few days, I'd been scooping out the granola and eating it as cereal, but the mix was just not sweet enough. So today, I was finally fed up enough to try again. I mixed up some honey, butter, brown sugar and salt, and re-mixed the loose granola, then baked it again.
Success!
Or, almost.
This batch held much better than the previous (not saying much, really), although some pieces needed to be pressed into bars. All in all, this was a really good learning experience, since now I know how the different ingredients work in the bigger picture of the granola bar, so in future I'll be able to play around more with ingredients. I'll probably use two different kinds of nuts next time, more rice crispies, definitely less sesame, and I'll prolly skip the vanilla and replace it with some cinnamon powder. If I'm feeling particularly rich, I might use maple syrup too, instead of honey and cinnamon. Or mix in some jam with the honey to make it less sweet..
whee, I'm already excited.

I wonder if a dried-mango (or some other Chinese dried fruit) granola bar would be nice..?

Here's "my recipe", all figures adjusted as they should be.

Ingredients:
2 cups rolled oats (old-fashioned or instant)
1 cup slivered almonds
¼ cup desiccated coconut
1/3 cup sesame seeds

1 1/2 generous cups rice crispies
1 1/2 cups dried fruit, chopped (I used apricots, cranberries and cherries)

2/3 cup honey
pinch of salt
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla

Toast the nuts, coconut, seeds and oats by spreading it out on two baking sheets at 180ºC, or by tossing in a dry frying pan on low heat.

Add the toasted mixture to the nuts and crispies in a large bowl.

Mix the honey, saly, butter and sugar together in a saucepan and heat, stirring til dissolved.

Take off the heat and add the vanilla.

Toss the dry ingredients with the honey mixture, then spread onto well-oiled baking sheets and bake, at 180ºC till toasty and golden.

Let cool for a few minutes, then cut the bars, but wait till fully cool before removing from pan.

Cake

2007-08-11T06:41:00.000-07:00

Some days I just want to eat cake. Not necessarily good cake, you know the kind: fresh whipped cream, soft, cloud-y cake base, rich, decadent flavour combinations, layers of ganache, meringue et al, at $5 a slice—sinfully good cake that you feel guilty about forking out $5 over. Cakes like that I utterly love. I've been known to stand in front of cake cases drooling, with a maniacal glint in my eyes, as I plan how best to steal all the cakes out of their glass prison and liberate them—into my stomach.
But some days I jst want to eat the cheapo cake that those neighbourhood bakeries sell—plain vanilla sponge layered with plain butter cream that's just a little oily and plastic-y.
I can just hear you asking yourself, "oily and plasticy?? why would anyone want to eat that, and pay good money for it??"
Well, I don't know. It's just good. and cheap. $1.50 a slice.
hmm. ok, maybe not cheap per se, but 'cheap' enough for you to delude yourself into thinking that it's a steal.

See? Isn't it pretty? yumm. :) this is good, old-fashioned, heartlander-type food. So don't call me elitist! (haha)

B Bakery

2007-08-06T04:43:00.000-07:00

Went to B Bakery with M this afternoon, after reading good things about its Sticky Buns in 8Days. Whilst I wouldn't say that we had trouble per se looking for the place, we did have quite a trek from the MRT station, and under the blistering sun no less. But I am happy to say that it was more than worth it. As there were only two of us, we only ordered 3 items, the Passion Fruit Cheesecake, Chestnut Opera, and, of course, the reason for our out-of-the-way travels, the Sticky Bun. All were fantastic. The photos in this post are all abyssmally terrible, thanks to a 1.3megapixel phone camera and insufficient lighting (sufficient for dining, but insufficient for photo-taking, that is), but I will definitely return, because it is of utmost importance that I take good photos of the food, of course. Definitely not because I'm a glutton and am already planning what to eat next time..
Well, on to the food, then.

M's cheesecake was rich and creamy in texture, but deliciously tangy and fruity, making it rich and light at the same time, paradoxical as that sounds. Another nice thing about it is that it looks just like a piece of normal cheesecake, so the first bite is startlingly delicious, the tangy passionfruitiness rather unexpected. I took of a corner of it before remembering to take a photo, and M had already begun eating from her side, so you'll just have to see it from this picture of the dessert case: it's the yellow rectangular slice, fourth from the left on the middle shelf. Yes, the picture is almost useless as an illustration of the cheesecake, but it shows many of the other lovely desserts that B Bakery sells: (from left) a meringue tart; perhaps lemon meringue, strawberry shortcake, tiramisu, passionfruit cheesecake, chocolate raspberry tart, apricot tart and pear tart. See why I already can't wait to go back? They also have a verrry delish-looking chocolate-lemon slice (i can't remember the name), bight yellow sandwiched between layers of seductively dark chocolate that is on my must-try list.
Also not in the picture is the Chestnut Opera, which I ordered, primarily because of its lovely, glossy, mirror-smooth top layer of chocolate.

Just look at it! All smooth and glossy and perfect, and all those brown, creamy-looking layers stacked on each other, looking oh so mmm-some.

The Opera was basically, from the bottom up, a base layer of nutty cake, followed by chestnut cream/mousse, chocolate mousse, then cake, chestnut, chocolate, and that gorgeous top layer. The top layer, I am glad to say, was pretty much as good as it looked, oozy sweet and chocolatey good, and the chocolate mousse layers were good too, light, yet rich, creamy and chocolatey. The chestnut layers were nice and nutty, although the overall chestnut flavour was a little too subtle. Overall, I wouldn't say I didn't like this; I did, but it could have been better.

Well, last, but definitely not last is the Sticky Bun:
It isn't very evident in the photo, but the bun is coated in a glossy, dark, layer of lovely, lovely glaze, not the typical white-sugar glaze that covers most cinnamon buns, but an absolutely fantastic brown sugar-esque glaze that is so good it pretty much defies description. The word that springs to mind is just, dark. And if I were to compare it to a familiar flavour, it would be gula melaka—it has that dark, almost bitter kind of flavour to it. The bun itself was a little dry, the best part was the very middle, where it was moist and springy. The texture of the bread was a little on the coarse side, not like the denser, yeastier chewy sort of texture most cinnamon buns are made of. I would have preferred a chewier sort of bread, but this was good, too.

The B Bakery also serves sandwiches, salads, and pizzas (on Fridays), so I really am looking forward to going back there with a biiiig appetite, so I can try more of their menu.

After M and I were done.

B Bakery
15 Bussorah Street
(Near Arab Street and Golden Landmark Hotel)
Nearest MRT: Bugis

2007-08-05T05:04:00.000-07:00

Came across a few panna cotta recipes this weekend, and whilst my favourite kind of panna cotta is the plain vanilla with a thin layer of rich dark chocolate cream on the top, i was looking through the kitchen cupboards when i saw some Japanese tea cups that my mother never uses, and i suddenly thought that i matcha panna cotta would be lovely. kind of like matcha ice cream, creamy and rich, but not frozen.

maybe next weekend—it's a long one coming up. :)

Eggy in a Basket ROCKS!

2007-08-04T21:43:00.000-07:00

Well, I said i'd go back and make myself an Eggy in a Basket breakfast, and so I did. and boy was it gooooood. buttery, crisp bread surrounding a delicious fried-in-butter egg: so simple, but so, so, so good. this is a fanstastic way to use up old, going-stale bread, even better than toasting, because the butter prevents it from becoming dry. This is so good, it might even over take pancakes as my breakfast-craving number 1.
but maybe not. but that's really not the point.

the point is, well, that this is such a decadently delicious, easy-peasy thing to throw together, that everyone should try it.
Ingredients:
Egg: 1
Slice of bread: 1
Butter
Serves one.
First, take out a slice of bread and place in on a flat, dry surface—i used the plate i was going to put my toast on, so i wouldn't have to wash another thing.
Then, take a drinking glass and cut a hole in the middle of the bread, making sure the glass is the right size to give you a border of bread around the hole.
Next, melt some butter in a small pan, spreading it out. when the butter starts to foam, place the bread into the pan, pressing down slightly with the spatula. Flip and repeat until the bread looks a little crisp/toasty.
Add a little butter into the hole, let it melt, then crack the egg into the hole. let the egg fry, making sure the fire is not so big that it burns the bread. if some egg white seeps out of the hole, cut it away with the spatula.
When the egg looks rather set flip the eggy over.

After the first flip: the bread isn't very toasty yet

Don't do this too early or the whole thing might wobble/slip all over the bread, and whilst it will still taste good, it won't look like an eggy in a basket.

If the pan looks too dry, add some butter and move the eggy around in the butter. when the egg is done to your preference—some like the yolk hard and cooked through, but i like it runny—and the bread is nice and brown and toasty, remove to a plate and eat. YUM. my favourite part.

Almost out of the pan: nice, brown toasty bread

Eggs in a basket

2007-08-02T09:27:00.000-07:00

Watched V for Vendetta recently (again), and wound up seriously craving those Eggs in a basket or whatever they're called. I mean, fried bread, butter and egg with a gooey yolk. Is there anything more alluring? Can you hear the siren's call of the dark, dangerous, but infinitely seductive eggs in a basket? I can.

I am definitely going to make these this weekend.

2007-08-01T23:41:00.000-07:00

To celebrate J's freedom from, and success over, the evil Special Term, the two of us The Simpsons Movie. Lunch was at the White Dog Cafe (02-131/132), and it was really really really good. We started with the Triple Mushroom Soup, which was excellent. Not the creamy, liquidated form that is found everywhere, not even the creamy, mushroom-flecked type that's really good, and slightly more rare, but a bowl of soup so chunky and mushroomy it was like minced mushroom stew. I loved the fact that you have to chew as you—literally—eat this soup, and as you chew, the juices from the mushroom pieces ooze out, amplifying the already-strong mushroom flavour of the soup. J and I both agreed that we'd go back just to drink the soup.

Then came our main courses: Creamy Salmon Linguine for her, and Chicken Leg for me. Her linguine was pretty good, the pasta perfectly cooked, not over-cooked and soggy, and the creamy sauce clinging lightly to the pasta. mm. My chicken leg, though, was much better, thanks to the delectable trumpette mushroom sauce—creamy, yet light, buttery, just slightly sweet, and sooo delish. It was the perfect foil to the chicken and mashed potatoes. mmmm, so, so, good.
As a result, J and I were both feeling absolutely stuffed when we finished, and just sat in our (quite comfy) seats for awhile watching the cable cars and sunlight. It might have been because it was almost 4 in the afternoon, and lunch hour was quite over, but the staff didn't make any of the usual signs that they were in a hurry for us to leave, which was nice.
Another plus was that both our mains came at the same time, and quite soon after our soup was cleared. I hate places where they serve you your main course five minutes after they serve you your soup, so that you either leave the soup to sit and get cold and congealed whilst you start on your food, or vice versa, neither of which is an attractive option, to me. All in all, this was really a rather good meal, a place i'll definitely visit again.

After lunch, before going in to the movie, J decided to go to Boost, that really very expensive smoothie bar on the same floor. At about $6.50 for a small cup, I've never actually been tempted to try on of their drinks, but J had told me about the craze it was in Aussie, so I decided to give it a go. Hers was some banana-honey mix, that was really lovely, very smooth, with a really nice honey flavour/scent, and mine was something called the Breakie to Gogo, which was banana and other fruits (I can't remember, exactly), and toasted muesli added into it before it went into the blender, which gave it a lovely wheat-y flavour, and a bit of texture. I wouldn't have believed it, but I'll prolly be going back there, too.
All in all, yesterday was a day for breaking out the bank, but I rather think it was worth it.

Raspberries

2007-07-21T00:38:00.000-07:00

Went to the supermarket just now and saw these gorgeous ruby-red, perfectly formed raspberries, releasing their soft, sweet perfume-y scent to lure people like me into buying them.

Aren't they just beautiful?

I love the way they're basically many many little seeds/sacs joined together. they look so pretty. and they're delish too. yumyum.
I really do wish i lived in a place where fruits like these don't cost half an arm. For a punnet of i think 100g, these organic berries cost more than $10. goshhh!!! the only reason i actually got them was cos i was with my mum, who, whilst she doesn't like berries because she thinks they're sour, was also unable to resist the way they looked.

Chocolate Chunk Cookies

2007-07-20T09:18:00.000-07:00

I recently discovered this website, which features really cool cooking videos. Not that i think people really need guidance to this extent, but it's fun in the sense that you can watch a sort of food tv on your computer. So anyway, they had a really nice-sounding/looking recipe for chocolate chip cookies, the chewy kind, here, and the comments were all very positive. I also liked the fact that they explain why certain things are done, which satisfies my inner 'why why'.
So anyway, i decided to give this recipe a try, but to substitute chocolate chunks instead of chips because i wanted that decadent meltiness in my cookies.
Then, i got home, and realised that i didn't have any brown sugar, but i remembered reading somewhere that most brown sugars are just white sugars with molasses added. No, i didn't have molasses, and no, i don't know if that is actually true, because if it is, then all those people who avoid white, refined sugar and eat brown sugars instead are sure not getting the whole picture. but anyway. i found the remnants of a jar of black treacle that i used to make Gingerbread Men, so i figured, with a few changes, i'd be good to go.

The end product was, well, not as good as i'd expected it to be, but that's probably in part due to my changes, because the cookies are too sweeeet. probably should have put less sugar, and not used the chocolate i did—cadbury milk chocolate. as a chocolate it is rather sweet, so next time i'll definitely use a different one. the good thing about this cookie is that it is quite chewy in the middle, as advertised, so that makes me happy.

Well, for those interested, here's my recipe:

3/4 cup butter, (converts to about 168g)
1 cup white sugar (better to use 3/4 cup)
2 tbsp black treacle
3/4 tbsp. vanilla extract
1 whole egg
1 egg yolk
2 cups plain flour
1/2 tsp. baking soda (aka bicarbonate of soda)
1 1/2 cups chocolate chunks

Melt butter in microwave and let it cool til it solidifies. This part takes quite some time, so i let my melted butter sit in a big bowl of cold water with some ice.
[melting the butter and letting it cool is what gives the cookies their chewiness, according to the recipe. watch the video for more info.]
Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 160ºC and sift the flour and baking soda together.
Scoop the butter into a big bowl and cream it with the sugar and the black treacle until fluffy.
Add the egg and egg yolk, and vanilla essence, and continue to beat until well incorporated.
Add the dry ingredients and mix til a soft dough forms, then fold in the chocolate chunks.
Use a tablespoon to scoop heaping spoonfuls of dough, roll into mounds and place on nonstick or oiled trays and bake til golden brown. Don't bake for too long or a crispy top will form and it gives the cookie a rather strange texture.

Just wondering, if the suffix -ies is generally to 'pluralise' words that end with -y, then why do we write many cookies and one cookie, not one cooky?

The purple container is a Tupperware container that is totally cool.
It expands and collapses accordion-style, so that storage is really easy.

Cravings

2007-07-19T21:45:00.000-07:00

Am currently experiencing terrible food cravings. severe and terrible.

1) Japanese food!!!! this is all the fault of that Lonely Planet Japan book. all that talk about tofu, abura-age, miso paste, green tea and all that. oh god. i want to get my hands (and mouth) on some:
a) Sashimi from that Japanese restaurant at Chijmes—seriously the best sashimi I've ever eaten, ever. especially the swordfish. oh. my. god. firm, chewy/bouncy, juicy and creamy, and oh so fresh. mmm. the green tea here tastes excellent—the sort that has roasted rice mixed into it to give it an earthy, roasty fragrance. mmmm.
b) yakitori from Shin Kushiya at VivoCity. They serve a type of yakitori that is not dipped in the sauce when they grill it. Instead, it's seasoned with salt, so that the outsides are dry and crispy, and the insides are just bursting with juice. They also grill their skewers with real charcoal (and apparently a special sort of charcoal too, for prolonged high temp), so there is a very nice hot-coal sort of fragrance to the skewers.
c) the scallops with miso paste from Megumi at Siglap. the best baked scallops ever. really. it's lightyears better than the whole cheese sauce baked shellfish. the miso paste is salty, creamy, a litte sweet, and has this fantastic flavour that is totally out-of-this-world good. ohh boy.
d) reverse California Maki roll from that Japanese restaurant at Paragon—i just can't remember the name. this is a really really good maki roll, rolled with the rice outside instead of inside and then rolled in crushed salted seaweed and toasted white and black sesame seeds. then topped with those little orange egg roes. totally divine. the sushi chef here is very skilled, because the sushi is well rolled and doesn't fall apart, and the rice is deliciously flavoured with that vinegary taste: just right, not actually sour, but fragrant. the green tea here is also good.

2) Breakfast food!!!
a) the pancakes from New York New York: need i say more?
b) sticky cinnamon buns—chewy, sweetandsalty, cinnammony goodness. mmm.
c) scrambled eggs—the kind i make: creamy, cheesy, with lots of 'juice' because of extra milk and butter. also heart-attack inducing.
d) grilled tomatoes. the ones in my pesto pasta at the Wine Garage were fantastic. halved cherry tomatoes griled til soft inside so that they just burst into a flood of warm tomatoe-y goodness in your mouth. mmm-good.
e) chocolate chip cookies. this i am totally going to bake this weekend.

3) Cremé bruleé: for some reason i am totally craving this, completely out of the blue.

okay, i think i'd better stop here before i drive myself insane.

Earl Grey-Lemon Teacakes

2007-07-07T02:43:00.000-07:00

I've been toying with the idea of earl grey-lemon as a cookie or cupcake flavour for some time now, and when I discovered this recipe, I figured with a small change, I'd have what I wanted. The basic cake recipe is a really really good one, in more ways than one. the flavour and texture are fantastic, and the cakes have a bouncy, springy texture that is really excellent. plus, it's a very forgiving recipe. i made two separate batches (because my mother, the earl grey fanatic, loved them), and the first time, i accidentally forgot to beat the eggs into the butter and sugar before adding the flour and milk. so, i actually added them after about a third of the flour and milk had gone in, but the results were still great.
i'd most definitely make these again, but the only thing i would do differently the next time is i'd probably not add the frosting. It's a little too creamy and thick for my taste, and i think the cakes on their own are nicer. If I had madeline moulds, I'd make them in those instead, too.

These'd be great as breakfast, or tea, with a steaming hot cup (or pot) of tea. something warm and vanilla-scented, i think, would be great. or a blisteringly hot cup of black coffee.

looking lovely and golden brown, sans frosting

Cupcakes Galore

2007-06-14T07:52:00.000-07:00

Seeing as how I spend many moments during work clicking around looking at food-related things, it isn't really surprising that I plan my baking/cooking schedule during work-time. Sadly, it isn't often that I get to bake two days in a row, since it does take time for the stuff to get eaten. This week, however, has been different.

On Sunday I made the One-Bowl Buttermilk Chocolate Cupcakes that I've been eyeing for a few weeks—I finally got around to buying buttermilk. They tasted okaay, if a little on the slightly dry side. I left them alone, but I was not very happy with them, since they were not "light and moist" as described. When I woke up on Monday, however, I woke up thinking that something on the top would take care of the dry problem. So I found a vanilla buttercream recipe and added cocoa powder to it, ending up with a reallly good, yummy, chocolatey cream to top my cupcakes with. yum.

Then, yesterday were pretty, fun Confetti Cupcakes made for M and my cousins. rather funny that the same thing can make both an almost-20-year old and two preschoolers so happy. Yes, M is rather perplexingly enamoured with coloured sprinkles and 100s-and-1000s. go figure. but well, whatever makes a person happy, right?

The recipe calls for vanilla and almond essences, but I know M doesn't like almond essence, so I put lemon zest instead, and topped them with lemon buttercream. The two elements tasted pretty good on their own, but together, somehow, it didn't quite work. They were a little better the next day, but still, they didn't taste as good as they looked.

I don't have a picture of the inside, because I finished one before I realised why I even picked it up to eat in the first place. Not that they were that good, I was just preoccupied with other things. For both a picture of the inside, and the recipe, check here.

When I gave them to M today, we both agreed that the chocolate ones were better. She even asked me for more, making me a very happy girl. I came home, with only one cupcake left after giving them to the various people, and a very good excuse to bake more cupcakes.

So here are the yummy chocolate cupcakes, complete with that mmmm-mmmm chocolate frosting. It's a testament to how good it is that my mother, who usually hates frostings and such, was scraping the bowl with her finger and eating the last bits.

Another happy thing: I tried the 'cone' method of filling cupcakes today, and wow, it's really fun. and cool.
and a really nice plus point is that, for people like me, who sometimes only get to eat one out of 12 of the cupcakes i bake, there's lots of soft cake to eat. :)

rich, chocolatey frosting topped with 100s and 1000s

pretty swirl!

happy yy.

New Food Sensations

2007-06-09T05:55:00.000-07:00

Today's post shall be dedicated to the strange and wonderful foods i've eaten in the recent past, dishes that i've never heard of, things that seem normal and mundane but are just so cool i have to blog about them.

1. Bittergourd slivers with honey.
Sounds pretty gross, right? bittergourd? pfft, not my thing. but this is really different and cool. it's strips of raw bittergourd, verrry paper thin, chilled, served with a dish of not-quite-honey, something like what you get when you eat guilinggao. sweet, gold syrup that's a little more watery than honey, and without that distinctive scent of honey. it sounds a little iffy at first, but it's totally excellent. and so easy to do at home too. just a bittergourd and a vegetable peeler, no cooking required. yumm. had this at a place that serves really good crab bee hoon soup, which is a milky soup similar to the sliced fish sort, but with crab, so that the soup tastes of that roasty crab-shell fragrance. yummm. it's somewhere along outram road.

2. "Indonesian Chicken".
They serve this at the cze char place outside my house, Sin Hoi Sai. it's pieces of chicken, deep fried, then stir-fried in this seriously fantastic sauce that will totally rock you socks (assuming, of course, that you wear footwear which requires socks to a cze char place....). it's seriously a flavour explosion in your mouth. sweet, salty, a little spicy, tasting of curry leaves and onions, and something else that defies description or identification. suffice it to say that this dish is fan-freaking-tastic.

3. Cereal Sotong.
Again, a dish from Sin Hoi Sai. Now, i'd heard of and eaten cereal prawns before, but sotong?? but boy does it work. i don't particularly like the prawn part of cereal prawns, mainly because by the time you've peeled the shell off, the prawn doesn't have much added flavour. plus, peeling prawns is messy business in a cze char place or hawker centre. but the sotong...the sotong were fantastic. tender and juicy, with a wonderfully fragrant heap of cereal crumbs, mmmmmmmmmmm. sooo good.

4. Soyabean ice cream.
yes, i've rhapsodised over this already; suffice it to say that a) this is REALLY good, b) i'm totally addicted to the point where i'm willing to travel out of my way to get to it, and c) i've made another convert, and i'm making it my goal to make MORE. hee. spreading the soya-lurve.

5. Hot-plate pork and onion.
E and i stumbled upon this after a movie uhm..slackathon at VQ's house one Saturday, and life has never been the same. okay, maybe that's overdramatic, but it doesn't change the fact that this is good, and cheap to boot. it's basically, pork and onion, stir fried then dumped onto a smoulderingly-hot hot plate atop a layer of raw shredded cabbage. mmm-mm! $3.50, at the Novena Square foodcourt. totally delish. so good that E and i were already planning another movie day the next week so we could eat it again, even before we had finished our dinner. haha.

hmm, can't think of much more. of course, this is not a comprehensive list of surprising good food to be had around Singapore, but it is pretty complete a list of things that i've just discovered.

Cherry Chocolate Muffins

2007-05-31T04:02:00.000-07:00

Bought about 250g of cherries at Carrefour the other day whilst I was shopping for my lunch-ingredients, without even knowing what i was going to do with them. they just looked so gorgeous that i had to get them.

On the way home, I decided to make muffins with them, and decided to add dark chocolate to the mix. So I pitted and halved about 3/4 of them, and grated the rest into a pulp, and chopped up about 3/4 of a small bar of Cadbury's Old Gold Dark Chocolate—which was the only thing 7-11 had. the muffins came out well enough, even though they seemed too wet at first. When i broke the first one apart, I thought I was doomed never to make successful fruit cupcakes. However, after sitting for awhile, they became pretty damn good.

So good, in fact, that they were all gone by this morning—I made them last night. And so good that my mother called me to tell me she'd ordered cherries, and that I should get the rest of the ingredients needed for more cupcakes. haha. this from my mother, who doesn't even like cakes and stuff very much.

So for this batch, I added more sugar, since my mother complained that they weren't sweet enough, and quartered the cherries instead of halving them, since my mother said that there needed to be cherries in every bite, instead of a big chunk or three here and there and none elsewhere. Also added a few drops of almond essence, since I thought that that would complement the cherries and the chocolate. But, as I was leery of adding too much, I ended up putting too little, and the almond-y scent I'd been aiming for was pretty much nonexistent. But, all in all, am quite happy with these muffins: they're sweet and buttery, with a nice, springy texture, creamy and darkly sweet from the chocolate, juicy and tart from the cherries. the only thing is, the batter itself has no cherry flavour or fruitiness, despite the almost half a kilo of cherries i grated in. but, they are nice and moist. plus, the fruit chunks give them a really nice look.

Drizzled with dark chocolate on the top—yumm.

Luncheon

2007-05-29T20:14:00.000-07:00

Mmm. lunch today is a good one. I've taken to bringing my own lunch to work, since there's nothing good to eat hereabouts, and today's lunch is a salad, one of the few things that can be prepared mostly the night before and eaten at room temperature. sure, it'd have tasted much ncer this morning, but well, it works way better than something like sushi or pasta would've. Plus, it's tasty, and pretty as well.
So what is in this luncheon salad of mine?

Let's see..
-Romaine lettuce
-French beans, blanched in salted water
-Asparagus, blanched in salted water
-Yellow zuchinni chunks, stirfried with butter and salt
-White button mushrooms, sliced and dry sauteed, then smeared with a little butter and salt
-Cherry tomatoes, seeds squeezed out and grilled
-Bread, cut into small 'cubes' and toasted on the hot frying pan
-Grated aged Gouda cheese
-Toasted pine nuts

YUMMM.
Crisp greens punctuated with the cheery, sunny yellow of the zuchinni, the bright red of the tomatoes, dotted with the earthy brwn of the mushrooms, toasty pieces of bread, a carpet of shredded cheese on top and a sprinkling of triangular little pine nuts. pretty, and yummsome.

mm-mmm! lunch today rocks. much better than those vending machine sandwiches. healthy too.

Carrot Salad

2007-05-25T05:49:00.000-07:00

Came home after work today after a rather disappointing 'dinner' of a sausage encrusted with potato cubes and deep fried. Dinner, if on a stick, is hardly ever satisfying.
So, I came back determined to eat something I had prepared by myself. Also, I wanted something light, and healthy, considering all the vending machine/junk food that has been my lunch for the past two weeks. saw this recipe online today for Carrot Salad, but I don't have olive oil at home, since my mother never uses it, and I didn't like the sound of raw crushed garlic in a salad. So, I made some alterations and came up with my very own Carrot Salad:

It was the perfect thing for tonight, since it was fast and easy, and it had the added perk of letting me practice my knife skills. It's basically carrots cut up into matchsticks, lemon juice to taste, pinch of salt, bit of sugar, and a touch of sesame oil, stir it all up, and eat. yum. it's tangy, sweet, crunchy, and with just a hint of smoky, fragrant sesame oil. am leaving a bunch in the fridge to see how it holds up, because I'm thinking of bringing some to work. Am utterly sick of the crap we keep making do with every day.
And just as a side note: I love this picture! haha.

Soyabean Ice Cream

2007-05-24T06:23:00.000-07:00

Everyone who lives in Singapore should try Mr. Bean's Soyabean Ice Cream. Especially if you like ice cream and/or soyabean milk. Sadly, there are no pictures, because i was too busy eating my ice cream to think about things like photographs, but this ice cream totally rocks. it's advertised to be low in fat and cholesterol and all the other things that are bad for you, which makes sense, since it is made from a bean. so, when you think about it, it does not sound very appetising, especially in my book, where stuff thats good for you is rarely good to eat. Plus, it sounds almost sacrilegious, ice cream, made with no..cream?? it sounds on par with reduced fat potato chips!!
so why did i even eat this ice-cream-imposter? well, my mum and i were at suntec's food fair one year and i decided to try it, because i wondered how it would taste. man, was it good. today, whilst working, i suddenly had an insade craving for it, so after work, M and i headed down to AMK Hub to eat it. mmmmmmmm-good.

it's thick, rich, creamy, and so, so distinctively soyabean in flavour that it quite boggles the mind for a moment after that first bite. soyabean is not supposed to taste rich and creamy, and, in M's words, sinful. soyabean is what my aunt eats/drinks when she's on a diet! but this ice cream will just smash to smithereens your previous ideas about soyabean. the texture is somewhat akin to that of coconut cream, especially when you eat it all the way into the cone, where the ice cream has sort of melted, and there's this thick, creamy sludgy thing that is oh-so-goood. mmm. i love it. lurrve it. love the creaminess, love the flavour, love the price too! a cone costs you only $1.20, and ice cream fills the entire cone, plus about 3 swirls on top. is that value for money or what?

man. thinking about it makes me want it again. pity it's soft-serve and you can't take a pint home...

Lemon Stars

2007-05-23T01:53:00.000-07:00

So i was feeling bored the other day and decided that i would make cookies. not really because i wanted to, but because i'd bought lemons and hundreds-and-thousands and was bored. which turned out to be a mistake, because the weather was so bloody hot, and i was all hot and sweaty, and and and and and. and by the time it was time to ice them, i was just so relieved to find out that i had just a little bit of icing sugar left, not enough to ice all the cookies. heh. this is NOT cookie-baking weather, let me tell you. especially in this house, where there is NO ventilation, and the kitchen is so bleeding hot. pfft.

so anyway.
i don't know what happened to my pictures of the end products—the cookies that i painstakingly spread lemon icing on and dipped (artistically?) in h-and-ts, so all i have are these plain ones, on the rack in the picture above, and fresh from the oven in the one below.

i like the end product anyway. the minus-icing ones. the lemon oil from the peel releases this really light, fresh lemon scent that is ever so light such that the cookies don't taste of lemons, they smell of them. i think my pictures are getting better. but perhaps that's because i took these in the afternoon, when there was plenty of sunlight—and heat. :(

ok, going to watch dvds now!

Santé!

2007-05-18T20:25:00.000-07:00

For those of you who didn't know (and before last night, this list included me), Suntec is having a French Fair, just outside Carrefour—it's really not bad, wide selection of cheese, yogurts, olives, jams and the like, some of it Carrefour-branded, but others not. There is, too, of course, a rather wide selection of wines. I don't suppose they're to be expected to be excellent vintages, since it Carrefour we're talking about here, and don't expect to be recomended a nice bottle by any f the staff, since, well, it is Carefour we're talking about here. But well, I was in the mood for wine, and so, it seemed, after a quick phone call, was mother. So I went looking around for a bottle to buy, and this one caught my eye:

yes, i admit it, it was because of the packaging. But would't you be attracted to a wine packaged like this? I liked it because it wasn't pretending to be some classy fine wine with an 'antique' label that was printed to look like it had been sitting in some cellar despite being a 2005 vintage. So what was a 'Beaujolais'?
Luckily, the fair also had those 'How to Choose Wines' books, so i flipped through one, and found out that a Beaujolais was a light red, with berry/red-fruit tones, suited for young drinking. Which i felt suited my purposes rather well, not a serious-drinker, "nice legs", "draws well", "good colour" and all that etc that i know squat about. This is not the wine i was craving, in case you were wondering, that deep, dark, rich wine that remains elusive. But i wasn't looking for that in any case; i know that i know nothing about choosing wines. basically, i just felt like drinking wine, just for fun. So i bought the Beaujolais.

After a quick sit in the freezer—my mother said an ice-bucket was too leche, we opened it. Obviously, I can't show you pictures with a corkscrew and someone pulling it out, but this should suffice. heh.

So the wine itself? Pretty much as advertised, light and young, a bit too young for my liking, needed a bit of swirling about to make it nicer. Which, incidentally, happened when i was trying to take a nice shot. But yeah, it's just one of those random things i do when i'm in the random mood—buy a random bottle of wine and drink it, and it turned out pretty okay. So yeah, pretty happy with the whole thing.

Chocolate-Hazelnut Chunk Muffins

2007-05-17T06:58:00.000-07:00

Aand the muffin saga continues, with today's foray into chocolate-hazelnut studded muffins.

Aren't they pretty? okay, maybe not pretty per se, but they look pretty inviting. haha. i think it's just chocolate in general that has the ability to make everything look inviting/enticing.
So why chocolate-hazelnut chunk? basically because i bought a square of riter-sport milk chocolate hazelnut and didn't feel like eating it like that. it was actually a toss-up between daim-studded muffins and choc-hazelnut, but i figured those hard caramel pieces in daim wouldn't taste very good after being baked. so, chocolate hazelnut it was.

the muffin recipe is basically the same as the jam one, with some changes

Ingredients:
75g butter, melted
3/4 cup (plus a bit) milk
1 egg
1/4 tsp vanilla essence
1 1/4 cup self-raising flour
a bit less than 1/4 cup caster sugar (the smallest measurement my cup has is 1/4, but less than that, cos of the chocolate..somewhere between 1/8 and 1/4 cup)
1 slab of Riter-Sport Milk Chocolate and Hazelnut, room temperature

Preheat oven to 180°C.
-Cut up the chocolate into smallish chunks, and place aside.
-Whisk together milk, egg and vanilla essence.
-Sift SRFlour into bowl, and mix the sugar in, then make a well in the middle.
-Pour the melted butter and the milk mixture in and mix. Whilst still lumpy, add in the chocolate and continue to mix, but be careful not to overmix.
-Ladle into muffin tins, almost to the top, then bake until they rise and turn golden brown.
(I can't really give you very detailed/specific instructions for baking time, since i use a microwave oven, but it's pretty obvious when they're done).
-Remove and place onto cooling rack, drizzle with tempered chocolate if desired. (or if, unlike me, you have extra plain chocolate to melt)

i suggest eating one whilst it's still fresh from the oven, or toasting it when you want to eat it, because when the chocolate is all nice and melty, mmmmm-mmmm-good. haha.

yumm.

Surprise Muffins

2007-05-16T08:14:00.000-07:00

My latest baking expedition has been to make these funky jam-filled muffins. Making them was pretty fun and easy too. got the recipe from here, and it's basically a prep, prep, prep, pour, mix to get the batter, then a dollop of batter, jam, and more batter. quick and easy in terms of making them, but I am less than pleased with the end result.

Even if they are pretty, they don't taste all that good, especially the day after, and the day after that. After they've cooled, they taste pretty good, springy, moist, fragrant and yummy, with a slight crispy shell on the outside. So, that night, I was pretty happy. Then, I ate one for breakfast the next day, and it was kind of a shock when i realised that the cake had somehow become a lot more dense and dry/oily overnight, not moist and all like the previous night. it wasn't horrid, but it definitely wasn't as good as it had been the night before. M seemed to like them though, so that's something. Then, i ate one for breakfast today, and it was like yesterday, but worse. sigh. tomorrow i'll try toasting them, see what happens.
Maybe i'll make them again, but substitute some of the butter out for water or milk. or maybe it's the microwaves—cooking from inside out instead of outside in. dunno. it'd be tragic if i had to stick to cookies ONLY. sometimes you just want to stir stuff together and chuck it in and get a nice end product, not cream, stir, roll, refrigerate, cut roll, refrigerate cut etc etc etc until you are so darn tired. ah well. maybe shall try another muffin recipe sometime soon. god knows i need the 'therapy' after staring at virtuallly METRES of microfilm for six and a half hours a day.

Potato Cheeps

2007-05-14T07:57:00.000-07:00

Yes, I've scoffed at those "REDUCED FAT (!!!) Ruffles", so what am i doing preparing to blog about virtually oil-free chips? well. i dunno. the main reason why i decided to make these was cos it sounded so fun/easy, and it was a good excuse as any for me to practice my slicing skills. I can't remember where i got the recipe from, but it's basically, slice as thinly as you can, place on baking tray/dish, salt, then bake.
i tried that the first time, and it was somewhat of a, shall we say, MONUMENTAL flop, since, contrary to what the recipe said, my potatoes stuck to the (nonstick) tray like barnacles, and were basically inedible. so i bid the kitchen a momentary adieu, since mother was preparing for the mothers' day lunch the next day, but inside, i had not given up!!!!!! yeah.
so that night, after dinner, i was back again, this time with plans to use the (nonstick) frying pan instead. have i mentioned how much i love nonstick? i loveitloveitloveitLURRRVE IT. er. right. back to tatties.
so i sliced (not very well), until my mother could not stand to see slice after uneven, thick slice fall from my knife, anymore, and told me to hand. her. the. knife.
so she took over slicing, but halfway decided that halving the potato would be easier. hence, i ended up with many semicircular chips. but what can you do right? it looked like instead of honing my slicing skills, i would be working on my patience instead, watcing the chips turn from white, to transparent, to yellow-brown, to gold.

So, the end product. They were an odd texture, half chewy and half crispy, with none of the shiok-ness that comes from eating artery-clogging, fat-drenched potato chips that have been fried in partially hydrogenated vegetable oil. but as an experiment they were mightily interesting.
and they don't look toooo bad here, do they?
heh. who am i trying to kid.
it sucks that i only really cook at night, since by that time there is no more natural light for me to snap my pictures by. plus, a lousy camera. pffts. they don't look like chips at all! they look like...mini quiches? fried egg-tofu? some kind of round vegetble gone wrong? overcooked eggwhites? pfft.

The best breakfasts are in the pm.

2007-05-10T23:45:00.000-07:00

Went to New York, New York for dinner yesterday with E and M, and it was gooood. the best thing about NYNY is that they serve breakfast ALL DAY. yes, all day! no dinky 'until 11 am' shit here, no siree! *chortles*

So whilst E went for the alfredo—or was it carbonara?—with chicken, I went for the Big! Big! Breakfast. Two eggs sunny side up, half a fried/grilled tomato, two sausages, bacon, a side of sauteed mushrooms and two of the fluffiest pancakes i have ever eaten in my life.
everything was pretty good, but the pancakes were simply fantastic. thick—about 2-3 cm—and fluffy and tasting faintly of sugar and eggs, and the slightest bit cakey, they were really really excellent. mm. i'd be over the moon if i could make pancakes like those. yummyummmmmmyumm.

list

2007-05-07T05:07:00.000-07:00

seeing as how this blog has been dedicated to all things edible, i've decided that my latest list shall be put here. it's called 'things my kitchen lacks'—or, if you like, 'kitchen stuff i lust over'. or 'thing's i'll buy when i'm building my perfect kitchen'. or 'how i'll spend that lucky draw top prize i'll never win'. or...well, you get the point.
so. here goes..:
1) an oven. i am so sick of the damn microwave. pfft. no matter how that best denki guy tries to hard sell you, do NOT believe him when he says there's no difference.
2) an ice-cream maker.
3) the woodles waffle machine. hee.
4) the perfect granite motar-and-pestle: big and deep, not big and shallow, please.
5) a set of lovely, big, heavy-bottomed pans/pots.
6) a set of measuring cups. one just doesn't cut it.
7) a hand-held blender/puree-er. whatever it's called.
8) a china tea-set, complete with teapot, cups, sugar and cream pots, the works. i have strange fantasies about drinking tea from thin-thin cups, pouring tea from a delicate pot, etc.
9) a coffee-bean grinder. why? because....
10) how could you have thought that i wouldn't include an expresso machine on the list??! haha. mmmm.

siigh. now if only half a million bucks would materialise.

Banana Macadamia Pancakes

2007-05-05T11:21:00.000-07:00

Well, after packing up the room today, came home and decided to make pancakes. Alas, there were still no apples, so I decided to make Banana Macadamia Pancakes. The basic pancake recipe
I got from here, go click recipe file, and the "inspiration" for the rather weird-sounding banana-macadamia combination was from 101cookbooks.com. The original recipe from 101 required way too many ingredients that i don't have at home, stuff like buttermilk and desicated coconut, which i don't like to eat much anyways, but i did have some leftover macadamias (from that trip to Pat's Oven..?) and we did have bananas, so i took the easy bits of the two recipes and mixed them together.
The end product(s) were toooo delicious–yes, I'm bragging, but credit doesn't really go to me, la—but boy were they ugly. but well. (which is why there're no pictures, hee)

so, i ended up making 4 variations of the banana/macadamia thing.
firstly, cos i'd eaten soo many of those yummy nuts, i figured there just was not going to be enough for the whole bowl of batter. so i poured about a third into a separate bowl and added mushed bananas to it and made plain banana pancakes.

then, in the other two-thirds of the batter, i added the crushed honey-roasted macadamias.the 101 recipe calls for the macadamias to be added to the batter, and after pouring the batter onto the pan, to add three thin slices on top, so they get nice and carmelised. sounds workable—and yummy—in theory, but the slices don't quite stick on the batter, so when you flip, they kida get scraped away. plus, they get burnt/browned before the rest of the pancake does, so after a few of those on-top kind of pancakes, i decided to stop with that.

so i made a few macadamia pancakes with the plain macadamia batter. also not bad. it's also quite cool the way the pancakes leave smudges of oil on the pan—it's the macadamias! cool, eh? haha

then, i added chopped bananas to the macadamia batter, since i was determined to get some improved banana-macadamia pancakes. this batter was by far the chunkiest, and the pancakes were shaped the oddest, cos they don't spread out to form circles, they kinda just plop down the way you poured them.

so taste-wise? i definitely liked the last version best, although the 101 ones were not bad, just..not banana-y enough, and visually the worst. the plain macadamia ones were a rather interesting pancake, crunchy, very pang; not bad at all.
so all in all, it's been a great pancake experience, and yy is happy. here's the recipe for those of you who want to try it.

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cup plain flour
3 tbsp sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
3 tbsp melted butter
1 1/2 cup milk
2 eggs
2 bananas
about 40g honey roasted macadamias, crushed (I have no real idea about the weight, it's just a guess. just gauge for yourself)

Mix the first four ingredients together in a bowl. Mix the next three in a separate bowl.
Get out your non-stick frying pan and heat it up, oiling it slightly. Just grease it like you would a cake pan—use kitchen towel to rub with a bit of oil.
Mix the wet ingredients with the dry, along with the nuts and bananas. Be careful not to overmix, or your pancakes will not be fluffy and nice. Don't worry even if there're some lumps.
Pour into the pan and cook them, then eat with butter and honey/golden syrup.
yumm.

Makes many many small pancakes. I usually halve the recipe. Half would get you about..17-19 small pancakes.

limbo

2007-05-03T08:12:00.000-07:00

Well, it's that last night before that last exam, and I cannot wait for it to all be over. Am already dreaming of the stuff I want to cook. Here's a list:

1) Apple Cinnamon Pancakes. v excited about these. was supposed to make them last weekend when i went home, but alas, there were no apples. How unbelievable is that?? but well, yes, apple cinnamon pancakes. yay.

2) A nice big, warm salad—the unhealthy kind, loaded with ingredients such as sauteed mushrooms, bacon, a fried egg, cheese, and whatever else catches the eye—and imagination— when I'm at the supermarket.

3) Cupcakes! mannn. I cannot wait. there's the candied ginger one from 101cookbooks, you can check them out here. and there's this other dark chocolate and peppermint bark one from here, although if i'm lazy, there'll be no bark, just crushed candycanes. or mints.

4) French toast! found this funky recipe and it looks funky-tastically delish.

and loads more! i don't particularly want to eat very much, i just want to cook! so if you're craving anything and want to eat, just tell me/find me a recipe and i'll cook for you! especially M and E, seeing as how i'll be seeing you guys most everyday..
yay i cannot wait for the weekend to come!

but ugh. packing. :(

nuts!

2007-05-02T08:23:00.000-07:00

Went to vivocity with M today for dinner, and after, we stopped by Pat's Oven again, to pick up more healthy, heart-friendly, low-salt, cholesterol-busting snacks. heh. i decided to cave to the lure of Honey Roasted Macadamias. They don't look like very much here, in a lousy, phone-camera picture, but they're really gorgeous, a lovely golden-brown, with salt/sugar crystals on them. And the best part is that they're so absolutely fresh that the oils in the macadamias are so..delicious. It's hard to explain, but if you've ever eaten those canned maui-whatever brand ones and then these really fresh ones, you'll know what I mean.

Also got a bag of relatively cheaper mixed nuts—plain toasted pine nuts, pumpkin seeds, slivered almonds and cashews. Not a big fan of cashews, but I do so love pine nuts and almonds. Yumm. And my phone camera is proving itself to be woefully pathetic. :( Well, after this week, I'll have my real camera, then hopefully no more ugly photos like these..

Woodles

2007-04-30T22:43:00.000-07:00

oh my. was doing one of the many timewasting things that fill my nowadays, when i chanced upon a foodblog with a recipe for these penguin shaped waffles. SO CUTE! I WANT!

The machine that makes them is called Woodles, and you can check them out here.

"Make fun penguin shaped waffles in minutes with Woddles. He even has an indent in his tummy to scoop the ice-cream in to. Yummy!"
How absolutely clever. and don't they look so so so so sooooooooooo good?

My cousins would seriously LOVE this. but I think they're only sold in Australia. So if anyone knows anyone... OH WAIT!
VQ!! hahahahaha. okay cool. will ask her to buy t for me. i think 30 bucks isn't thaat exorbitant, right...? then again, i am such a kitchen-appliances whore that i'm prolly one of few people who think so.. but well. i want it. and i'm going to be earning enough to buy more than a dozen of these if i wanted. so there. hah. yay. am now happy. :)
I hope V will buy them for me....

random foods

2007-04-30T06:50:00.000-07:00

yup, my latest obsession is the lovely, chocolatey, creamy-sweet, almond-crunchy Magnum Bar. yumm. and the best part is, 7-11 is having a one-for-one sale on magnum, so instead of the usual PRICEY $2.90, your (or mine, if you're feeling nice. grin) magnum is now $1.45. mmm.

oh and my latest discovery at Starbucks is the Caramel Frappuchino. Well, not precisely new discovery per se, but my drink of the moment, rather. Extra foam lattes are good and all, but when one is sitting there for hours, it is better to have a drink that melts than a hot coffee that goes stone cold. and i love whipped cream. :) i wonder if they have hazelnut fraps, though. caramel gets a tad too sweet.

oh and candy empire has these amusingly named 'potato snacks': Chio brand junk food. funky eh. haha. although they are cheap, at $2.80 for a 100g bag, they did give a little bit of a shock when i opened them and discovered they were not potato chips as I had expcted, but rather, the healthy, baked, puffy sort of 'potato snack'. now you know why they're called potato snacks. haha.

oh and M and i discovered a new place to buy cheap snacks that are also healthy, and depending on what you buy, can help boost brainpower. It's that shop I believe I once scoffed at, Pat's Oven, which sells nuts, seeds, dried fruits and the like. And when I say cheap, it does depend on what you buy. for instance, nuts like macadamias are expensive wherever you go, so don't expect $1 for 100g. but think about it this way, as a movie snack, $4plus for a bag of macadamia nuts isn't that expensive. seasalted sunflower seeds are $1.70 for 100g, and are really nice. they're not too salty, and the really cool bit—for me, at least—is that you don't see a single grain of salt on them, nor do you taste any, but the seeds are uniformly salty. yumm. cheap and good. :) haha.

well, that's all for this week. hopefully when the exams end next week i'll have more time to putter around in my kitchen and i'll be able to post about more food.

oh and if anyone wants to buy cookies, i'll be free after the 7th! :)

milk

2007-04-24T00:48:00.000-07:00

I know I've said this a million times, but I just had to say it once more: Meiji milk is the best. Sometimes I think it's even better than chocolate as a pms food. chocolate has a tendency to make one feel all gelat and guilty, and if taken in too great a quantity, could give you the beginnings of a sore throat. but meiji milk, now, doesn't. spoke with her on the phone just now, a sort of extension from yesterday's conversation, and hung up totally pissed off. as usual. then i opened my fridge and took out a bottle of milk, mainly cos I've eaten my freddo ration for the day. wasn't expecting any sort of happy effect, but well, meiji makes me happy. :)

yum.

Freddo

2007-04-23T06:25:00.000-07:00

alrighties, let's get down to the real first post, shall we?
today's post is going to be about....freddo!

for the uninitiated, freddo is a cadbury product—chocolate frogs in a variety of flavours: plain, strawberry, white chocolate, peppermint, and even crunchie, much to the delight of M.

my favourites are strawberry and peppermint. (just in case you're ever stuck for ideas regarding what to get me for my birthday/christmas)
sadly, though, they're hell to find in Singapore. the only ones that are more or less easily available here are the plain and white ones. te strawberry ones and the peppermint, i've only seen at Candy Empire's pick-n-mix. and it's bleddy expensive. about 75cents for one chocolate frog. but they're damned yummy.
we all know what cadbury's milk chocolate tastes like, but imagine it paired with sweet, gooey strawberry creme. mmm. something about that fake-strawberry taste brings out a lovely buttery taste in the chocolate.
and the peppermint. this is good because it is so minty. no pansy-assed faint mintiness for freddo, no indeedy. the filling is lovely and oozy and oh so pepperminty. perfect foil to the chocolate. mm.
another plus for me is the way the freddos look. i like to break off the head and eat it first, and when you do that, you see the bright green or pink filling oozing gently out of the middle, contrasting with the brown of the chocolate. pretty.

in celebration of finding my freddos (the last time i went, Candy Empire was out) i've bought some this week, so if you're reaaaaaaaallly nice to me, i might just share. (might only ah, don't say i promised!)

whee.

2007-04-22T01:43:00.000-07:00

Well, I've finally gone and done it: got a blogspot blog. three cheers, man. er. rights

but anyway. this one's not going to be for bitching about people, things, hall, school etc like the other one is. this one, my dearies (heeheee), is for that most lovely of things: food! haha. yes. have decided to have a blog just, JUST to talk about food. haha.

so, keep your eyes peeled, and as they say, keep watching this space! haha.