Pineapple Tart

Never thought there is time for me to bake pineapple tarts this year, one of the most popular CNY goodies in Singapore.  My hands are "itchy" when I  see loads of pineapples being stocked up in supermarkets, despite the fact that I'm busy packing my family luggage to prepare our trip to HK to visit my parents  this coming Sat til early Feb.

 

As I never made pineapple tarts before, for a start and given the time constraint, I only bought 1pc honey pineapple to try it out.  Wasting time you may think!!

 

I asked my helper to grate the pineapple and slow cooked it with some cinnamon and brown sugar in my microwave oven.  I wouldn't even try this recipe if you ask me to stand in front of a cooking stove and keep stirring it ..... My ex-colleague is brilliant.  She told me she used to make her own pineapple tarts’ filling using microwave oven.  

 

I didn’t really measure/weight the ingredient so not sure if I could achieve the same results the next time.  Over the process, I only burnt some of the pineapple paste at the outer layer and managed to cook it dry without much stirring.  I think it took me about 20 mins using 700W to make 15 pcs pineapple tart filling weight 6gm each.

 

The crust is good as it simply melts in the mouth.   The recipe is from one of the Y3K CNY cookbooks.  My hubby usually don't like this kind of stuff but he ate a couple of them.  The filling is a little too sour to him but it is fine with me as I like it sour.

 

May be I can put this up for sales next year!  ;)

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