Congratulation Jia Ying & Christopher (Slide Show)

I have more photos of this wedding cake so click onto the slide show and enjoy!

Pistachio Butter Cookies

My Humble Garden

Wagyu Striploin

This piece of steak cost us a bomb... Some times back, I bought a wagyu beef trimmings and I simply stir fried it with salt and pepper. It tasted heavenly. The marble of fat was evenly distributed. It just melt in the mouth. So this time I bought more and picked a better one. Surely we had very high expectation especially because this piece cost more. It turns out having lots of tendon in the meat and it's tough, although the meat taste great but I am really disappointed ;(

Thank You Teachers

Sea Food Feast

The sea food feast we had last Sat was the blog of the month. All thanks to God Ma Diana who generously paid me to cook for her to celebrate her coming birthday. She invited our Pastors, SH and our family to enjoy the occasion - total 8 adults and 4 kids. She emphasized that I must play with ingredients that I rarely tried before and the dishes had to be fanciful and of hotel standard ... ha ha, she has exquisite taste bud...

Some special requests from her : lobsters, crabs... of course seafood feast will be the best choice. I was busy the past week digging through my collection of cook books to look for the right recipes and work out the shopping list and process flow. The main challenge is to stay within budget, cook and be ready within very tight timeframe and serve them hot and be with the guests to have a good time.

Most of the dishes were new to me but I guess 1 of the tricks of cooking seafood is blanch the ingredients in hot oil before the actual cooking. This would seal up the flavour and the meat remain moist and juicy.

Menu:

1) Broccoli fried with Scallop

2) Fresh Oyster fried with Soya Sauce

3) Steamed Soo Hock Fish

4) Baked Chicken Breast with Palma Ham and cheese

5) Lobster baked with cheese

6) Fried Clam with black beans, chili and garlic

7) Black Pepper Crab

8) Meshed Potato

9) Fruit Pie

Shannea's Birthday

More photos to view

Thanks Louise from Cake Journal for the advise and the cake recipe from Baking Mum

Shannea's Birthday Cup Cake

Baked Alaska for "Daddy" (With Video)

"NEW ADDED VIDEO BELOW"

My husband is not a "cake" person so I was not sure if baking him a cake for father's day was a good idea. I always watch "Chef at Home" by Michael Smith. He showed how to make Baked Alaska once. I am really impressed by the way the dessert is presented. Pour some hard liquor on it and set the "cake" on fire... yeah u heard me right - set it "ON FIRE".

You shouldn't really call it a cake because the center of this dessert is ice cream, topped with flavoured whipped egg white, lightly baked in the oven for, say, 10 min. Then pour some hard liquor on it and set it on fire.

No harm trying it out because I had lots of left over egg white as a result of making so much ice cream. I chose mango ice cream because it is more refreshing compared to other flavour. I also did some special effect of some frozen diced mangos placed in the center.

My hubby was quite troubled and worried by the way I was going to play with the cake as I told him I'd set it on fire in the middle of our dinning table... After some explanation on how I intended to do it and with some fire safety precaution like standing by a few wet kitchen rugs and a bucket of water. We all had fun and he was pleased.

Here I wish all the fathers a "Happy Belated Father's Day".

Home Made Icecream (Part 2)

Weather is super warm this month, very good excuse to make lots of ice cream and forget about the diet...

As usual, my girls like the strawberry ice cream best. The parent choice will be a grown up flavour... Rum and Raisin, it is really a perfect match with rum soaking raisins in it, oh can't wait to make more.

Have few ripe bananas, no harm mixing them into the vanilla ice cream... it taste surprisingly good.

Black Pepper Crab (Dry)

This is one of the most famous/popular dishes in Singapore. All friends from overseas must try out this dish.

My brother Alan came to Singpaore two weeks ago and his friend brought him to Long Bridge @ East Coast to feast on the crab. Highly disappointed, he commented that the standard there had dropped. It was fantastic a few years back when he ate there. Seems like the chef just steamed or boiled the crabs and simply pour the black pepper gravy and serve. The crab was so watery and tasteless.

With that craving for good, tasty black pepper crabs still lingering in his mind, the very next day he proceeded to a supermarket and purchased 2 crabs and a bottle of black pepper sauce. He said he could cook it better than Long Bridge - You guys working there please pay attention and really do something about it.

My girls were so excited to see uncle Alan and they witnessed the cruelty of life when this nice uncle, for the sake of filling his appetite, slaughtered the crabs. "What a weird man who eats such ugly thing", they must be thinking.

I guess this is the first time they have such close encounter with the creature - one of them still alive, so I let it crawl on my kitchen floor.

By the way, this is also the first time they've eaten crabs. Shanice loves the dish though it is spicy. I am surprised by her love at 1st sight (or rather 1st mouthful). She had to drink lots of water while eating this spicy dish. She complained that the dish was hot but she kept asking for more.

I must say my family members are foodies and all of us love to cook. My bro kept his word and it turned out to be a tasty treat. I know I should not eat crab cox I had a C-section recently but I just can't help myself seeing good food laid in front of me...

Char Siew (Roasted Pork)

I make this almost every Monday because I promised to cook this dish whenever Shanice has phonic class. She doesn't want to attend the extra classes that we parents signed up for her, so we kinda push and entice her to go on. Char Siew is one of the favourite "meat" dish she like. I think she's born a vegetarian... From very young age, she'll ask for celery, cucumber, sweet pea and all kinds of fruits. It always take her ages to chew on meat except Char Siew...

I didn't roasted this in oven but using a short cut method. You can try this way if you don't have a oven but a small toaster...

First, choose your preferred parts. I prefer shoulder butt which has more fat and the meat is more tender when it is done but my hubby prefer lean so I did both. Just wash the pork and marinate it with salt. Then use about 3 - 4 table spoon of "Lee Kum Kee" Char Siew Sauce, some cooking wine, garlic, shallot and ginger. Stew it with slow fire until the meat is tender and the sauce is reduced and thick enough to coat the meat. It'd take about 45min, I think. Then use toaster or oven (high heat) to bake for about 15min. You'll have a juicy and tender Char Siew..

I always cook extra and chill it, cox my girls like Char Siew with Marcoroni too.

Pig Trotter Vinegar with Ginger

People either love or hate this dish. Some ppl couldn't stand the smell of vinegar but some of my friends can drink a big bowl of the vinegar itself (my ex-colleagues will know who!!!).

I think you can only find this type of sweet vinegar at Outram wet market near Temple Street, so I made a special trip to buy a big jar of this vinegar (in photo) + 1 bottle of HK "8 treasures" sweet vinegar. The hard work is to scrap off the ginger skin. The rest is simple... just boil it once a week so to make the ginger less spicy, and more seasoned to taste. I preferred sweeter in taste so I added a packet of slab sugar to sweeten the vinegar. Then just add the pig trotters whenever you're ready to eat. As usual I used my pressure cooker to cook the pig trotters, or you may have to stew it for hours.

My hard work paid off as most of my friends like it and I've been eating this dish everyday for 2 weeks.

Papaya Soup