My cooking

Fry Bee Hoon (Rice Noodle)


Chicken Wing stew in dark soya sauce


Slice Pork and Bacon pasta with Tomato sauce



I like to cook. Well, not the kind with 3 dishes and 1 soup. My domestic helper prepares these most of the time. I usually cook on weekends and mostly with 1 dish kind of food. For example, porridge, fry rice, beef stew, fried Udon and some HK local snacks.

Last Fri I fried Bee Hoon and made Chicken Wings for dinner. This kind of food takes less than half an hour to cook, so it is really simple.

I like pasta too, whether it is with tomato sauce or cream sauce. It is costly to eat from restaurants. To me it is expensive if the dish costs more than S$8. Also they don't really give u good quality. So usually I cook from home and hardly order these dishes outside. I'll only try when I have buffet dinner/lunch when they have a chef there who specially cooks for you. I cook the sauce from scratch and I seldom use canned sauce or ready made bottle sauce. You can twist and turn the ingredients to your own liking. Good to match Seafood, sliced pork or mushroom and bacon. These could give you perfect match sometimes.

Busy cooking in weekends

I was so excited on the birth of my new blog. So to celebrate, I baked last weekend.

Friday night I baked some banana chocolate muffins for an outing on Sat. We had so much fun. This muffin was so good that I always take it for granted and did not take photos before. I must do so this time when I introduce this foolproof banana chocolate muffin. You can almost succeed instantly, especially for beginners - sounds like I'm very experienced... I'm still learning. This recipe will very much encourage you to carry on baking.

Start up cost is very low too. I mean all u need is a large mixing bowl, measuring cup (if you don't have one, just get a coffee cup) and a mixing spoon. Within 1/2 an hour, you can get it done - I mean send them into oven and do your washing.

It is perfect to go with a cup of home brewed lemon tea.

I found this recipe from Diana's desserts http://www.dianasdesserts.com/ (credits to her) feel free to browse it or write to her. She'll teach you some tips on how to improve your baking.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup butter or margarine (preferably unsalted)
1 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups mashed bananas (3 to 4 medium-large bananas)
1 tbsp. lemon juice + 1/3 cup yogurt
2 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/3 cup mini chocolate chips

Instructions:
Preheat oven to 180 C.

Cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs, one at a time. Stir in mashed bananas, lemon juice, and yogurt. Mix together with flour, soda, salt and cinnamon. Blend into creamed mixture. Stir in chocolate chips. Spoon into 24 muffin cups. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes. Let cool in pan for 5 minutes.

P.S

*I used berries yogurt most of the time, this will add a lovely fruity flavor to the muffins.

Preview .... if time permits, I'll post some of my cooking here tomorrow...

Bread Making Failure (1st attempt)

This is my 2nd blog. My last one failed as I didn't really keep it up cox I don't like the name - chan-mari-chan. So here I'm with a better name rather than chan-mari-chan. Start with a new series of cooking journal mainly for myself to keep track of what I've baked so far. This was inspired by Florence (thanks to you). http://wlteef.blogspot.com/ found out her blog before Chinese new year. I'm looking forward to see her new baking creation whenever I'm online since then.

I started baking and cooking since 2005 (though I like to cook since young, it was with many year cultivation fm my mum). However, I became seriously interested in it only when I was having my confinement at beginning 2006. I watched many Jamie Oliver cooking TV series then and realised cooking could be fun too. Also with my newly renovated kitchen (fully equipped with a full size confection oven) ... I started, even with my hectic working and family commitment. I still find that my kitchen is a place to "relax". I mean you may find it weird, but stepping into the kitchen really helps me not think of anything else but just focus to cook or bake some good food.

So as a start, I want to share my failure, which happens all the time, so don't give up. Florence has shared a golden bread by using 65°C TangZhong. The end results look fine but the skin was thick and turn hard after it cool down. I like the soft texture inside the bun though and I've turned some plain bun into "pork floss bun" (my girls have less expectation and love it anyway) which is a very famous creation from Breadtalk (not sure if I've violated any piracy).

I took some photos... and remember don't give up. I'll try again tomorrow!