Christmas Set Meals

This Christmas we didn't go to church's celebration and only invited my girls’ God parents to come by to have a simple dinner with us and to open gifts with them.

My domestic helper for 4 years went home for good middle of Dec and knowing the new one will not be as good as her, I decided not to cook an elaborate dinner.  Instead, I prepare a 3 course western dinner (mostly frozed or pre-cooked) starting with minestrone soup http://shiraschoice.blogspot.com/2008/11/hk-style-minestrone-soup.html.  Main course is roasted beef which I bought from wholesale food factory (1kg @ S$24 really good bargain).  It is pre-cooked and frozen.  All I need to do is to bake with some fresh mushroom and potato for 40min.  Vegetable is a must and that will be my favourite HK style salad http://shiraschoice.blogspot.com/2008/11/hk-style-salad.html.

 It ends with a cheese cake.   I didn't bake the cheese cake myself and it is given free when I bought some baking material at Phoon Huat a few days ago.  However, I complete this ordinary cake by topping it with freshly cooked strawberry sauce and fresh cream. 

It took me 2 hours to prepare this 3-course set dinner and my girls had so much fun opening the gifts that night. 

Santa Claus Butter Cream Cake

I made this chocolate butter cream for Shanice and Shanae christmas party at school on 23rd.  

Glutinous Rice

Ladybird Chocolate Fondant Cake

This is the second cake that I made for AL. It is meant for her nephew, Jovan. He's 2 years old who likes insects and chocolate so I suggested making him a ladybird chocolate cake. I hope he likes it! Happy Birthday Jovan.

I conducted a fondant figurines workshop with my girls 2 days ahead of the actual ladybird cake decoration. My girls enjoy making little bees, ladybird, satay...

Shannea is my sous-chef:

Back to the ladybird chocolate cake, these are the step-by-step photos that I took throughout the process. Although I would like to take as many photos as I could, I was alone at home and I don't want to dirty my new camera. I hope these limited photos could share my experience of how I make this cake.

Fresh Fruit Cake/Pie

AL ordered 2 cakes from me. One is for her son, Bryan and the other for her 2-year-old nephew, Jovan. Jovan preferred chocolate cake and he likes insects so I suggested making a ladybird chocolate cake for him and a fruit cake for Bryan. The fruit cake will serve as a very nice dessert.

I feel that the key success factor for making a fruit cake is the "Fresh Fruits”. So I went to Pasir Panjang wholesale market and specially picked some fresh strawberries, blueberries and raspberries. I also cooked the vanilla custard and baked the cake base.

I am always amazed over the freshness of fruits used on cakes by the local hoteliers and bakeries and I wonder why we can’t get the same quality in the localsupermarkets. The vegetables and fruits at the wholesale market are super freshand I am also impressed by the varieties, price and quality. The local supermarkets can’t compare at all. I guess the hoteliers or bakeries have theirpurchasers who handle their bulk purchase with good supplier source. With that they'll have better bargaining power to buy fruits of very good grade at reasonable price.

The strawberries come in a small carton box and packed in 4 punnets. I know I need them but not that much. Thanks to Chris & Eileen who work 10mins drive away from the wholesale market and they are willing to share the carton of strawberries with me. I kept 2 punnets to make this cake and for my girls’healthy intakes of fruits... they raved about eating the fresh strawberries the moment they saw them ...

Sushi Maker & Assorted Sushi

My hubby and friends wouldn't believe I made these by myself. It took me only about 15 mins to make 60 plain sushi. The whole process took me about 3 hours including filling in the ingredients. 60 are enough to serve about 8 adults. Thanks to the new found sushi maker which I bought from Daiso. It is really efficient and it helps me make professionally looking sushi ;> It is really a good buy!

Yam Rice

Shanice Bento

HK style Minestrone Soup

I miss this minestrone soup from the day I migrated to Singapore.  Only get to "re taste" it once a year when I visit my family back in HK.  Kim Gary @ Vivo also serves this in an authentic HK style.  There's a unique flavour in it when you compare to the western one.

 

Cathy let me tasted her minestrone soup one day and I asked her for this recipe immediately.  Her tips: the most important ingredient is the V8 vegetable juice and you should make a big pot. Because the left over soup  can cook with pasta.  You'll have a tasty and healthy pasta a minute away.  So let's try this if you fancy HK style Minestrone soup.

As beef blend well with this soup, I buy beef cuts or trims from supermarket at good discount and use my pressure cooker to cook the beef broth and tenderize the tendon.  Next, throw everything into the pot and cook until the vegetable is soft.  My soup is done within an hour. If you want to have an extra dish to come along with the soup, you should use Ox tail.  It is rather costly though and it also comes with stronger beef taste.    Don't worry if you don't havea pressure cooker or u don't have time to simmer the soup for few hours.  You can always use minced beef, just lightly marinate them with salt and pepper and add them into the soup last.  It will just taste as good.

However, some people don't take beef.  You may choose to use chicken broth or use pork bones to brew your own broth.  The choice of broth is absolutely up to u.

 Ingredient:

 1 can (1 ltr) V8 mixed vegetable juice

1 can Chicken/Beef broth

1 packet beef trims (300gm) or Ox tail (300gm) or minced beef/chicken/pork

1/2 cabbage

1 - 2 stick celery

1 pc carrot

1/2 onion

1 - 2 bay leave

1 ltr water

 

Method:

 Boil V8 vegetable juice with beef broth/Ox tail and water in a big soup pot.  Dice/cut all vegetable according to the size that you like.  Add Beef trims and bay leaves in the soup. Simmer the soup for about an hour, then add all vegetables and simmer the soup for another hour until beef trims or Ox tail is tender.  Season with salt and pepper.  Soup is ready to serve. 

 For pasta, simply choose pasta of your choice and bring them to boil until soft.  Then add them into the soup and let it simmer for 5 mins.  My girls love it.

Sushi

Shanice is in love with Ebiko Sushi.  She likes eating seaweed very much ....... and the crunchiness of the roe .... yummy!!  It is time for me to learn how to make sushi in order to cut cost.  It cost S$2 to buy 3pcs from Giant or Cold Storage supermarket.  She can eat 6 at one go... 

Read some cook book but find the "start up" cost quite high.  For example you need to buy the bamboo rolling mat, seaweed, rice (wow, the packet of rice will cost u a bomb... about S$ 10 for 1kg).  So I consulted a friend who stayed in Japan for a couple years.  She should know how to make it in a more economical way.   She often makes this for her son to enjoy, a simple and healthy meal.

Based on her experience, there is no need to use Japanese rice.  Just cook normal Thai rice with more water.   Expect less sticky texture though, but I am fine with that.  For every 2 and 1/2 cup of "New Moon new crop rice", I use 4 table spoon of vinegar, 1 tea spoon of salt, 3 tea spoon of sugar and mix it well and pour into the freshly cooked hot rice and stir well.  Once the rice cool down, you can start making your sushi.

The best part is that she taught me how to use those rectangular plastic bags (those that you use in supermarkets for fruits or meats) if you don't have a bamboo rolling mat.  Well,  another good tip to cut cost.

Making sushi is something fun and flexible as you can choose whatever fillings/toppings you could think of.  It is indeed a good bonding session with your young kids.  I choose to have tuna and ebiko coz all my kids and myself can't take raw food at this point.  

The part that I need to improve on is my skill of rolling sushi and also wrapping the seaweed on the rice ball.  I make quite a lot this time round but my family finish them within minutes.  Will make more this Fri coz some friends are coming for a visit.  Thanks for Tee san's tips!

P.S.  Shanice was too hungry to wait for mommy to make the sushi one by one.  So to feed this little "hungry ghost", I just scoop out some rice, cut the seaweed into small pieces and put in the ebiko and do a final touch of some sesame.  Da Da!!  Here comes a ebiko bento. She finished 2 bowls in record time... raising kids is not so easy...

HK Styled Salad

I was craving for salad in one fine afternoon.  My fridge was loaded with some fresh purchase from supermarket.  So I decided to make use of some asparagus,potato, egg, ham, canned preserved peach, apple, cherry tomato and some fresh sweet corn to create a HK styled salad.  My sis taught me this recipe when I was very young.  She used to make this salad whenever she had a party.  

Idon't really like the "raw" vegetable taste from asparagus and sweet corn. So I just throw them in the boiling water for few second to get rid of the raw taste.  Then slice or dice all ingredients according to your liking. 

Beside using fresh ingredients to make your salad special, the blend of salad dressing is equally important.  Hongkongers like to use miracle whip as the dressing base and add some condense milk or evaporated milk to make it sweet.  Often I find the condense milk makes the salad too sweet and the evaporated milk too watery.   

I still prefer using Miracle whip as the salad base because it tastes fantastic.  I use it to make not only salad but also egg mayo or tuna mayo without using mayonnaise.  Just use your own imagination to add whatever you like into the miracle whip to create your own special salad dressing. I added black pepper, garlic, sea salt, lemon juice, olive oil, Italian herbs... The reason I use canned peach is that the syrup will somehow balance the sourness of the dressing so I don't need to use condense milk. Mixed and toss the ingredients with the dressing. A light and healthy lunch/snack can brighten up a usual, sleepy afternoon.

Oat Wheat Sandwich Loaf

Steak Sandwich with Salad

Teo Chew Porridge Set

This Teo Chew porridge set is one of my favourite dishes I cook occasionally especially when the weather is incredibly warm and humid. The Chinese believe that plain porridge could lower your body heatiness. It really helps to quench your thirst on a hot summer day.  

I like to make use of the left over cooked rice boiled to plain porridge. The 2 dishes are:
1) Salted preserved vegetable fried with sliced pork and garlic; and
2) Fried egg omelet with preserved salted radish.
A complete 2 + 1 dishes will be ready in no time.

Chicken Baked Rice with Cheese

2-Tier Fondant Cake Project

Happy Birthday Kyannda!!!




Last week I had another opportunity to test my skill of making fondant cake. I have never made any 2-tier cakes before. There would be about 50 - 60 ppl in the party and a 2-tier cake would be a better option than one big 1-tier conventional cake.


Kyannda is a beautiful young lady who is 14 years old and she likes pink. I found a book titled "Glamorous Cake" from the Library written by Eric Lanlard who is a famous pastry chef and his cakes are really beautiful. He has this light pink 2-tier cake with only simple decoration of white blossoms of 3 different sizes. Humm... I think this should not be so difficult to make. All I need are some blossom cutters which I didn't have at that moment.


So my home work was to go round Phoon Huat and BIY to hunt for these blossom cutters. To my disappointment, all were sold out and I only found the small size cutter. I bought it after all, cox I could never succeed without these cutters.


I planned to pipe the wording and make all the little blossom flowers 3 days ahead of her party (which was held last Sat 4 Oct). I would then bake 2 cakes the day before. She likes chocolate and her mother like cheese. So I decided to use chocolate cake and fill it with cream cheese icing. Finally, I would smoothen the whole cake with chocolate butter cream icing before covering it with the pink fondant.


I assume chocolate and cheese should blend well. I had never baked chocolate cake before ;> and I only rehearsed the process in my mind without testing it.... when I think back now, it is quite risky!


It went well on the 1st day when I piped the wordings and prepared the blossoms and butterflies etc. I also prepared the chocolate butter cream icing.


Although I expected things might not be all smoothly executed in the process, it turned out to be disastrous on the 2nd day as I baked the chocolate sponge cake. It failed to raise according to my expectation. I had to discard everything and immediately searched for another reliable chocolate cake recipe to bake 2 cakes... I was crossing my fingers... Luckily, I managed to patch up the mistake and have 2 cakes by midnight... phew!!... At that point, I wasn't sure if the cakes would taste good. The texture is a bit hard ... I had no choice but to use them the next day.





On the actual day (Sat), the 1st thing I did was to prepare the cream cheese filling before assembling the cakes. Gladly, Shanice volunteered herself to stay home (the 2 mei mei went out with daddy to zoo) and gave mommy a helping hand. So she helped whisk and prepare cream cheese butter cream. The next step was to smoothen the cake surface with chocolate butter cream icing. This is the part that I'm not confident in due to my lack of experience. I bought a turn table to help me in this but still, any imperfection like holes, uneven surface will mirror onto the top layer fondant. I just tried my best to make the cake surface smooth.


Another big hiccup: on Friday, I went to Phoon Huat and bought some baking materials and an extra pack of ready made fondant. On Sat when I was putting my baking stuff together, getting ready to start the last phase of works, to my horror, I couldn’t find the pack of fondant and I later discovered that I had left it at the cashier counter. It was one and a half hour prior to my scheduled assembling time. Oh no.... so my helper had to rush out and collect for me.... Well, a blessing in disguise, I could take a break and could do nothing but rested and enjoyed my lunch with Shanice.


At 2pm, I started assembling the cake. It was not easy to stack up a heavy cake without messing up the fondant laid on the 1st tier. Shanice kept asking me from morning why we still had not started putting the blossoms onto the cake. So after a few hours of anxious waiting, she was excited in helping mom glue a lot of flowers onto the cake. Although the cake turned out to have more flowers than what I planned to, seeing her eagerness and attention spent on this project, I must restrain my comment and let her participate in it rather than keep telling her "NOT this, NOT that".

It took us 3 hours to finish decorating the cake. It looked good and not bad at all. Taste good also. I put less sugar in the chocolate cake because the sugar paste is a pile of "sugar". It should compensate the sweetness as a whole. Christine is right. She commented that you should eat the cake and the cream cheese with the sugar fondant in one mouthful. The taste blends well. But I feel that I can further improve on the texture of the chocolate cake as it is a bit hard. Also, if there is one more layer of cream cheese butter cream, that will make the cake taste perfect.

My mission accomplished and here I wish Kyannda enjoy herself on the party night and wish her remain pretty always. Happy Birthday!!!

Pistachio Cookies

As the name suggests, it is a ordinary butter cookies coated with crashed Pistachio Nut and sugar. I made it for my girls to hand out to her Sunday school teachers on Teachers' Day. Got this recipe from Agnes Chang's cook book "I CAN BAKE". I added more sugar content and switched plain flour to cake flour. Process is easy, but you need to wrap up in cling film like a sausage and chilled before I can coat it with nut, cut and bake them. Extra paitence required.

Thick and buttery cookies that melt in the mouth will soothe the craving of those who love butter cookies. The unique flavour of pistachio nut gives a strong identity and turns it to an extraordinary butter cookies.

It is troublesome to have the pistachio nut opened one by one.....worth the effort though. Shanice later complained that her fingers hurt... poor girl. She patiently accompanied me in the kitchen and open the nuts one by one. She did that for more than an hour. She also helped to crush the nuts after removing the shell. However, she enjoys participating. She's also proud of her result (not forgetting munching and happily feeding her daddy with the nuts like feeding zoo animals at the same time ;> ).

These scrumptious cookies were nicely picked in Hello Kitty bags and she proudly told all her teachers and friends that she helped in baking these when she handed them out.

A wonderful weekend which I can do what I like and bond with my girl at the same time. "One stone kills 2 birds" hah!

Not only that, I received a call from one of the teachers the next day and she wants to order 2 jars of 30 pcs cookies from me as a gift to her friends. At the end, she ordered total of 6 jars from me (Thank you Mrs Chen). Ha ha, these small gesture brought me some surprises after all.

It has been a year

Time flies! Today is my 1 yr anniversary of becoming a homemaker. As I ponder and stock take of what I've done for the passed 1 year, "Thank God" are the words that I'll say. He has been the one who's our provider in many areas. I'm still learning many things as a homemaker. As my children grow, I'll need to learn to deal with them every single day and learn how to be patient and love them with all my heart. Although, sometime I fall into a trap of dilemma... on one hand you want to be with your kids, on the other hand, fatigue and anger may set in as they may not behave the way you want them to. You would want to say "leave me alone"... I want to have some "ME" time. Feeling guilty and selfish is a constant struggle in my spiritual journey. May God forgive my short coming and teach me to do things with all my heart.

I'm someone who can't sit still at home nor can I "Ta Han" the household chores and stuff like that. I don't want to "work" but not actually want to be "bored" at home. My answer to this question 'If I am given the choice, do I want to work?" is always a firm "NO". Not facing the "month end closing" nor the stress from work is really a relief. Gosh! During those times, I was really being torn apart. Tough to be a working mom though... need to take care of the office tasks and need to worry about my girls. Having time to think of some issues that you'll never have time to think in the past is also a great blessing. You feel that you've entered into a different dimension now and it isn't like what it used to be. May be I am just contented to be a simple mother who sometimes frantically yell at the kids and hears my voice echoing back... life has been ordinary but fulfilling and it is really full of joy and laughters.

I never thought that I was able to survive it after being a career woman for more than a decade. Thank God once again for my three beautiful princesses that always throw me big hugs, cries and laughters. My dearest supportive husband is also on the thanking list although I feel helpless sometimes seeing him face stress at work. All I can do is cook him good meals, hoping that he can enjoy this simple pleasure after a stressful day of work. It is really a dream that we can start our own business so he can quit..... Let's wait and see. (Dear, you may need to wait long long, but it is on my list!!!)

Although I miss my boss and beloved colleagues who had always been my buddies while I worked. Well, I think I gain more than I lose..... never regret quitting my job and spending more time with my family.

My friends will scold me when they read the first para complaining above: "You can always catch your quiet morning newspaper break at a shopping mall or shopping for grocery and food for the week". Most importantly, now I have more time to find "solace" in the kitchen cooking my favourite stuff... ;>

Mango Cheese Cake

Mango Cheese Cake

I have another good reason to try out another mango cheese cake recipe: My girls' God Mom's Birthday on the 28th of Aug.

I digged through my limited cheese cake cook books collection and managed to find a German cheese cake recipe as the guide for my trial. The book suggested using Mascarpone cheese and I added more personal touch and more ingredients like mango puree, diced mango. I lastly put a layer of mango puree gelatin on top to prettify the cake. I did this cake with 100% effort and love. It has to be perfect all the way, so I baked the crust as well.

God Mom commented: "can sell". I hope she said that not because of my hard work and out of courtesy :> she's always a woman of truth. She worked in 5-star hotel before and she knows how's their pastry taste like...high end taste leh!

To be honest, I'm quite happy with the result. Surprisingly it is not cheesy. It is a very light, smooth and refreshing cheese cake, most suitable for summer. It comes with a subtle mango flavour, and not to forget the layer of mango gelatin that boasts its identity. Its presentation is also to my satisfaction - less is more, simple is elegant. Wording... yet to improve although it is better than what I did the last time (I wonder why my white chocolate can't be hardened??? I used those off the shelf white chocolate bar and did lots of pattern but none of them can stand in room temperature... so can only put some of them flat on the cake).

I wanted to take a photo of Diana with the cake for this post but she refused. So my eldest girl, Shanice, volunteered with great enthusiasm, presenting this cake to her beloved God Mom.

Happy Birthday Diana!!

Mango Cheese Cake

This cake cost HK$ 180. My brother bought it from a small cake shop located in the eastern part of HK island (Chai Wan). It is run by a pastry chef who worked with many famous hotels before.

It is costly as this cake only weights about 500gm or less, but my verdict: worth paying.

At first taste, it surprised me with its rich mango flavour and the very smooth texture. I thought it is a mango mousse cake because it is a non-baked cake with very yellowish colour. As you eat on, you'll think maybe they used mascarpone cheese as normal mousse cake never gives u this kind of silky texture. Its smooth texture really helps enhance the substance of the cake. Big mango cubes are used in the filling too. The decoration its simple and elegant too. It is a simple delight. Only one comment... I always like cakes with crust crispy texture but this is a little soggy.

I may try to make this cake. Let's see if I'm right about the ingredient...

Multi Tasked Baby

A the end of Jul, my no. 3 Shannea and I visited my family back in HK. I spent some quality time with my friends and my loved ones.

Shannea is a cheerful and playful baby. While we're there, she could skip her meals and focused on only 1 thing: PLAY. At times, she only took, say, 1 sausage for her dinner. As I knew she'd recuperate well when she's back home, so I took it easy and just gave her as much milk as she wanted.

Below is a video clip taken after a 2-hour swim when we had our afternoon tea. While my nephew helped to feed her, Shannea was so tired and hungry and she decided to meet both desires at the same time. She struggled to finish a bowl of noodle while she tried to catch some sleep. It was really funny but my hubby thought it kinda cruel... Oops!! Caught red handed in a child abuse case.

Bento Set Lunch

4 Bento Sets

A friend of mine ordered some bento lunch sets on 2 consecutive days. So I thought this would be a good opportunity to test out my process flow on how to produce 16 bento sets within 1 and half hour each day.

I proposed beef stew and chicken chop for day one. On day 2, they will have chicken stew and Pork chop. I cooked beef stew a day ahead. With some help from my helper like cutting potato, carrot, chopping garlic, I thought it would easy.

I discover that as I take on different assignments from friends, I learn different lessons along the way. One critical area is time management and planning skill. It is very important to set aside time to plan for your recipe and jot down ingredient and plan out exactly how you are going to execute each and every step involved. Without this, your time estimation to complete the task will go badly off target. This is especially critical if you need to adhere to fixed delivery time - for this case, lunch hour at 12.

Making money out of it is not the main concern for these assignments although I have to commit a lot of "overtime" in my kitchen and it is tough working in the kitchen. I never regret taking on any of these assignments. They help me discover my love for cooking and my passion towards cooking just grow stronger each time. Every new recipe has its own uniqueness and there is infinite creativity in exploring and presenting it.

I have one regret though: I discover this passion a little too late or I could have seriously thought of taking this as my profession and career.

Chocolate Macaroon (Attempt 1)

I have too much egg white stored in my fridge, left over from chiffon cake and mango pudding making. I usually have trouble making use of left over egg white and I feel very guilty if I just pour them into the sink.

So die die must make something out of it... Macaroon is the best choice as I have yet to try it out.

Look at the result of my first attempt and you'll know I have failed. I am kinda used to the feeling - this is a normal learning path. One of the distinctive feature of Macaroon is their frilly feet. Those are absent from mine. I'm not sure why. Also the surface is supposed to be smooth and flat and yet mine look like volcano after eruption. And the belly button makes it look like a hazel nut rather than a macaroon...

My first attempt is not all bad though as the chewy texture and the rich semi sweet dark chocolate filling helps bring out the great chocolate aroma. Taste not bad at all.

Never mind, I'm sure I'll always have egg white left over and I will try again. Meanwhile, need to ponder why my macaroon looks different from others.....

Egg Cheese Bacon Pasta

Learnt this from a Italian cook book and it is super easy to cook. The total process and cooking takes less than half an hour.

First, cook pasta with boiling water with some salt.

Next, use a big serving bowl, beat 3 eggs with lots of Parmesan cheese. If you prefer saucy pasta, add some fresh cream.

Then wash and cut some vegetables of your choice. My choice was mushroom and sweet pea. Sizzle veg, meat in a frying pan with olive oil. Do not forget to add some garlic too.

Lastly, toss the hot pasta into a big serving bowl with egg batter and cheese mixed well with fried bacon, pork and veg. Simple and easy!!