Plain white bread from home

My first attempt (well, not exactly first since the very first time we baked a loaf of bread was around 6 years ago) on the plain white bread. Turned out very disappointing but finished that up in 1 day nevertheless.

 The 2nd time with all the ingredients in and measured accurately was much better.

And now after learning how to operate the timer function, I made the bread timed ready baked and piping hot in the morning awaiting us when we get ready to school.

Just a little tweet in the routine change made life so awesome.

Nevertheless, I feel exhaustive to make bread every night, since 1 loaf like the above would be gone in 1 day, so there are still some odd days I settle for some other buns or stuffs bought from outside to cater to their breakfast and school recess time's needs.

My first pizza making experience

OH yeah... I tried my hand on my very own, first homemade pizza. All from scratch, the dough and the fillings.

The bread maker was very helpful indeed, it was a no-brainer, I just need to weigh the ingredients and dump everything in, turn the switch on, press for the designated program and press start. 

By 1.5 hours, the dough is ready to be poured out for the pizza making time.

There, I figured my first mistake. I had no rolling pin! Hence, I just used my fingers to try spreading the dough as neatly and evenly as possible. It wasn't a disaster but a rolling pin would certainly do a much better work than these fingers!

Next, squeeze the tomato sauce over it but I realized I should have use a spoon to even them out. That was done the next time and the next. Learning through the way. 

 I used minced pork the first time since it was what I could find in my fridge that time. Diced up capsicum and big onions and sprinkled on top of the minced meat.

 Almost there. Just 2 more ingredients, mushroom and mozzarella cheese.

 Meimei snapped a picture of me washing up as I went along. I have this habit of washing up in the process of cooking anything at all, as I don't like seeing a messed up kitchen.

It's a very rare picture of my back and I like it. I look like a freaking ghost with long hair!

Ahh... I also liked some tangy spicyness on the food I prepare, so in went some long sliced red chilly.

 And there, ready to go to the oven. I think it was too overloaded with stuffs!!!

 Then, I realized my 2nd mistake. The pizza pan I bought for the first time was too big! I was so upset with myself for overlooking that very important detail and I couldn't throw away the pizza as well! The kids would be too disappointed and me too. I tried to find something else to replace the pan but it was also tough to move the whole pizza without destroying the whole array totally.

In the end, I put the pan tilted to its side as shown in the picture above, praying that it would still turn out ok.

ta-da!! The end product.

It was still very yummy and the kids had nothing but praises for it. The hubs didn't believe I made it from scratch, suggesting that I bought those frozen ones from the hypermarkets (as what he normally does) and just heat it up, claiming then I made pizza.

The next day, I quickly bought a rolling pin and a smaller pan back home and made another one, with ham and sausages topping. I also did a banana kaya pizza, imitating Domino's which I absolutely LOVE! They turned out all pretty good.

And here, I share the recipe for the dough for you. You can knead it up yourself too, I believe, by mixing all the ingredients up evenly and kneading it for around half an hour then letting it sit for another 1 hour. At least that's what the bread maker guide/ recipe book says!

Dough
Ingredients
water - 140 ml
olive oil - 15 ml
unbleached white bread flour - 225 gm
salt - 5 ml/ 1 tsp
sugar - 2.5 ml/ 1/2 tsp
easy blend dried yeast - 2.5ml/ 1/2 tsp

No more Pizza Hut or Dominos!!

Soups for warming the tummies

My kids absolutely LOVE soups, especially the ones I cooked (I believe!).

I am a very soupy person too. I used to have my soup covering my rice bowl, and savoring both together. Guess this habit is picked up by my 2 younger ones too and they just beg me to cook soup everyday. I read that it's not probably good for digestion, but I can't stop myself and can't stop them! We love it this way too much!

Their favorite soup should be the ABC soup, without the pepper. (Cannot pepper spray in it ah)

Hubs' favorite should be the watercress.

Mine is almost any or all of them!

Korkor's not too particular in soup. He doesn't like to have the soup in his ricebowl so he takes it in after he finishes his meal.

The usual ones I make are

1. ABC soup with potatoes, carrots, big onions, tomatoes with meat.
2. watercress soup with dried squid, red dates and meat
3. herbal soup with meat
4. corn soup with big onions, red dates and meat
5. old wintermelon with dried squid, red dates and meat
6. radish with red dates, dried oysters with roasted pork bones
7. lotus roots with peanuts, dried squid with meat
8. "fan-kot" with dried squid, red dates and meat
9. dried radish leaves with mushroom, dried squid and meat.
10. spinach with egg, mushroom, ginger and ikan bilis.

As you can probably notice, a lot of the ingredients used are dried squid and red dates. It does the trick to give the deep flavour to the soup.

A tips I learnt from my mom is to boil the water first and run the hot boiling water over the meat before mixing the meat in. Discard the used water. Then the soup won't turn too oily.

I also love the soup mug I discovered in a groceries outlet a few years back where the spout doesn't allow pouring from the top part of the mug but the bottom of it The strategy is to let the soup sink in first and allow the oil to float upwards and we only consume the bottom part of the soup. When it was poured out, it's definitely a big difference! To wash it might seemed to be a tricky part but a long thin brush like for washing milk bottles would do the job perfectly! Then again, my mom still prefers to use her method of scooping the oil from the surface with a special kind of utensil for that purpose. To each their own.

I wonder if their memories of childhood later includes lots of warm stomachs by mommy's soups?

Butter cake, anyone?

Promised someone I'd share a recipe of a simple but sinfully gorgeous butter cake with her.

As you know, my inlaws absolutely lovesss my butter cake. It might be the only triumph card I have to say "I'm the best dil you'd ever have!" (of coz, apart from the 3 lovely and cute grandkids I popped out for them). But to hear comments like "It's very easy to make butter cake only, just put in more butter in a generous amount" made me go think "okkay... you go do it yourself then"...

It's very simple, I agree, but helloh?? the time I give, to whip out the cake for you, it's THE main ingredient of LOVE that not everyone else could get from me, ok? And to hear a friend who had sms-ed to say the cake was gorgeous and could feel the love in each bite? It sent me to the moon (and left me stranded there)! Happiness comes from the joy of giving and making someone else happy, AND hearing appreciation for that effort, no doubt. (Though I would want to be happy without the last part, but I'm being honest here, I DO feel great to be appreciated back)

If you liked a simple easy butter cake, here's the recipe... I took it from the internet, I believe it's from 5xmom, it's eons years ago, and hence, I couldn't find the link and link it back to her. Thanks to her, I always have this cake for myself and my family when I feel down, or as a gift when I couldn't think about anything to give to friends who already have everything else.

250gm butter (SCS butter is what I always use)
200gm caster sugar
250gm flour (I use Blue key)
4 eggs (either A or B sized)
fresh milk (about 10 tablespoons) or orange juice.

Method:
Sift flour into mixing bowl, mix with sugar, then blend in the butter. Make hole in the middle and slowly blend  in the eggs, one by one each. Beat it up nicely for about 5 mins and blend in the milk/ orange juice till the texture is nice. Pour into round or square tin and bake for 2 hours in 185'C. That's what my 3-in-1 microwave, grill and convection oven's setting which bakes the right cake for me.

Enjoy your butter cake!

First rolled sushi

Pretty nice-looking, eh? (I mean, the plate)

It's a lot of fun too rolling the sushi up, other than eating them heartily. After all, we don't need to think about the $$ for every bite we ate.

I test-run the first sushi with just one and a half cup of rice and cucumber slices. It's really much easier than I thought. Then I went out to get some tuna and add them into the sushi. Now that I have more confidence, I am googling for recipes for more varieties. It's a good thing I finally get started. No need to go Sushi King already, I told the boys.

Surprisingly, meimei who doesn't fancy sushi before, didn't even need encouragement to give mine a try. She takes them in, piece after piece. I'm so happy.

Korkor was the one who asked me to take picture of our first home sushi and put it up on the blog here, after three quarter of them was wiped out.

And I also baked raisin cupcakes.

*burp*

Pleasure with cooking

After last night's "junk" for dinner, I do feel guilty and worked a bit harder to cook up a better one tonight.

Yong taufu is one of my favorite dishes to go with white rice. But the preparation is so much more tedious and takes up longer time. Then again, usually these kind of dishes are much more tastier and appetizing. Can feel the effort pays off when I sit down finally to enjoy my dinner.

I make the fish paste myself, scraping off the fish from its bone from ikan tenggiri. Very, very tiring work. I hate that part, but at the same time, I can't bring myself to buy those ready made paste from the market.

I like to add bits of spring onion into the paste, if it's not for my kids, I would have injected some bits of chillies into it, and if it had not been my fussy eater hubs who can detect the tiniest flavor of coriander leaves, I would have include them in it too. For tonight, I added some prawns.

There are just too many stuffs we can stuffed the paste in. Those I like are brinjals, long beans, chillies, taufu, wanton skin, taufu paper, taufu pok, ladyfingers... in fact, I like everything that are stuffed! But I can't do all as I have a picky family who have their own different favorites.

These are for the gravy. Could do with some lime juice, but I don't have any in my fridge, so this would do.
And, ta-da~ our dinner for tonight. *burp* I was full to the brim!

Your wish, my command

Burger for dinner? OK! If that's what you want...

And all of them were happy I delivered.

No fuss, need not nag them over and over to come over for dinner. And they finished their wholesome burger in less than half an hour as well. Isn't that good enough? Wonder how many days consecutively they can eat burger for dinner...

This' mine, purposely taken after the first bite. *burp*

Dinner for tonight

This post is solely to show off my prowess in culinary skills and remind my kids (when they grow up and want to send me to old folks home) that I'm a great mom!

*retching sound*

Tonight's dinner

*slurp* Grilled ribs. Makes me feel like a hungry man-eating animal.

Have you tried baking?

I'm so a baker these days. Cupcakes, carrot cake, back to cupcakes, then back to carrot cake. Ya ya, I know, I should try some other recipes. But these 2 are my favorites at the moment, and certainly it gives more push when I can look forward to eating my favorite cake after all the hard work.

So I was craving for the carrot cake I had in a hotel on my last birthday. Even spreading around the word on how good that cake was. Then I couldn't tahan anymore and I wanted to try and make it on my own.

I got all the stuffs, kept procrastinating, and finally I made my first attempt during the holidays when I had VIPs in my home for a few days. And I thought "whoa!!! This is almost as good as the one which I was yearning for!" Wow! Am I talented or what?

But it was too little among so many of us. Though not all appreciated it, but a visiting friend from Penang said it's good. I'm sure he and his wife weren't lying about it... I was pretty sure as I was scanning their faces for any hints of twitching eyes. hmm...

Anyway, I made my 2nd attempt, double all the ingredients up and enjoyed the aroma spreading to our nostrils. Mmmmm... how good it was.



It appeared too much and I don't like to keep cakes for more than 2 days. So I cut 2 portions up and gave it away to 2 of my neighbours. Ooh.. the joy on their face, the surprise feeling, it's double joy for me to know they appreciate it. I want to keep baking and keep on giving. It feels so good. The same therapy of lying down with closed eyes for a few mins, listening to your own snores, opening up the eyes and see details of things you've never really seen before, breathing in, breathing out (ah-choo! that therapy hearsay need you to be naked summore! easy catch cold la wei!)

Friday ta-char-fan

Just to prove I'm a silai indeed. Joe silai joe doe ngor gum... bin doe wan.. hor?

This dish is called "Ha ha Halowing Pumpkin".
Full with vitamins, texture like potato and sweet like sweet potatoes.

"Ichiban Ma Lei Mong fah sang and lin-ngau affair Soup"
Double boiled for 6 hours and kept warm for lunch and dinner.
Poe lou, poe ngan, poe san tei, hoe hoe yum.

"Hak kor mak dau fei jau bawal fish",
"green french babes"&
"A-cup braless chicken dipped in horny beans"
Green, red, black, multi-colored for a colorful life and a happy family meal.

And also a glimpse of my brand new table, can see not?

Yummy

Nothing better a medicine to cure the blues than yummy-licious indulge in sinfully fried food.

Even when not in the blues, it's too hard to resist the temptation. Drooling yet?


Sure more pimples popping over to say hi.

Ipoh Nga Choy Kei

Sometimes, I really miss our hometown's speciality. We were so used to having weekly supper at the crowded stall under the tree along Cowan St. for the delicious and mouth watering steam chicken and beansprouts. Somehow, that towkay managed to stir up this dish of simple delicacy to an extremely delightful taste and aroma that it would make a sleepless night if we missed one week of supper of that. Well, maybe not to that level, but yes, it did made us remember to revisit them time and again.

People not from that sleepy town, wouldn't understand what the fuss is about. After all, it's just a dish of steam chicken and another separate dish of beansprouts. What's so special about it anyway?

We heard sayings that the town has a steady stream to provide endless good quality water which made the beansprouts crunchy and sweet, the kuay teow smooth and soft, the chicks nice and tender, and the pretty girls with good complexion. I am so proud to be an Ipoh girl! :)

Anyway, nowadays we have chicken rice everywhere. I love to make it for my family at home too. Simple to cook, nice to eat. Who wants to try my version of chicken rice from the sample given here?

Honeydew sago in coconut milk

I spotted honeydew in my fridge.. so, yummy, I'm gonna make my favorite dessert, honeydew sago in coconut milk to savour. I could feel my saliva drooling already. I went to get coconut and sago, should be needing some pandan leaves too, sure smells nicer with those. But... it's just out of the way right now.

It's very easy to make, and it makes a nice cooling dessert for the family. Something different than just eating the fruits by themselves.

The process of making it is truly simple..
1. Pour a cup of water into the grated coconut, sieve and discard the coconut.
2. Boil the coconut milk with rock sugar (with the pandan leaves, if you have)
3. Boil the sago in another pot until it turns transparent. Sieve and rinse with cold water.
4. Cut the honeydew in squares
5. Chill the coconut milk and sago.
6. When served, add fruit flavoured fresh milk (or fresh milk + fruit juice), sago and honeydew into the coconut milk. (Putting in other variety of fruits cubes can be fun too, like papaya, banana or coconut strips)

So easy, right? Don't worry, you won't get diarrhea from it, it's tried and tested. I was fine hours after savouring it, apart from longing for more!




How do you think? Looks good?



But hey! This isn't honeydew. It's rockmelon. My hubby won't buy rockmelon for all I know, 'cos it's too expensive. Who in the world put rockmelon in my fridge??

Anyway, it tastes just as good, or maybe I'm not a fussy fella.

Homemade fresh bread

There's a new kid in town! And this kiddie makes freshly baked bread for the family.

From the manual, seems like these are just some of the variety of products I can achieve with this new kid. Doesn't it look yummy? Just makes you jump into the mood straight away to work on it!





Having brought home at 1pm, both my friend and I excitedly went to get some of the ingredients needed to make bread. Most of the names were unheard of before, luckily the shop assistant guided us to make the right purchases. It wasn't very exciting to try and make white bread, so we decided to be adventurous and selected the "Fruit and nut bran loaf" recipe to work on.

Measuring and weighing the each of the 8 ingredients separately wasn't too much fun though. How nice if there's another appliance which can do that for me.. I guess that appliance caould have only spelled something like "M A I D".

It was rather easy for the next few steps. Just dump the ingredients in, close the window panel, switch on, press select button to select the appropriate program and press the start button.

Only a dumbbell would take longer than 5 mins to figure how that works with the easy-to-use panel here. I guess I was the dumbbell, no doubt.



About 3 hours later, the aroma of the fresh bread can be smelled. The bread turned out like this...






Not bad for my very first try on homemade bread, eh? 3 people ate it and said "Ichiban!" "Very good" "Excellent!"

I have to give the credit to the bread maker and the easy to follow recipes.

Also, the bread maker not only make loaves, it is programmed to make
1. french bread
2. cakes/ quick bread
3. dough (pizza, naan bread, croissant)
4. jam as well

Like to bring this kid home too?

Must-have for modern moms

This is my baby which sits in the kitchen all day..






















See the little buttons below? This is how it works... well, let's see..

1. Put all the ingredients in the ceramic pot.
2. Fill the water level to the indicator on the outside of the ceramic.
3. Press the "On" button, choosing the number of hours you want the water to boil for 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 or 1 hours and it will keep it warm for you until you press "Off"

It has a special filter to put inside the ceramic pot specially for making chicken essence.

Take a peek of how it looks when the cover is removed.

I made this for dessert the other day...

Birds' dried saliva! Yucks!

With rock sugar and pak kor.

Enough for myself and my 3 little bosses.

Can feel my skin 1% smoother already...:)

Chicken essence in bird flu times?

I went to market today to stuff my fridge for the next few days and can't resist buying that kampong chicken to make essence, my favorite soup to call a day.
I know, why buy chicken during the bird flu scare right now, huh? The advice given is chicken is safe to be eaten as long as it's cooked thoroughly. A friend wondered aloud, if it's safe, why kill all the chickens when bird flu is detected in an area? Why don't we just eat them instead, just make sure they are cooked well done. I can't think how to respond to her.

Well, I tried to avoid chicken, but chicken is my favorite meat. What else to cook other than chicken? Fish and pork all week? Sigh.. that will make the already boring days even more boring. I figured nevertheless, one chicken a week won't harm us. I am not a lucky person to strike the jackpot or won any lucky draws before, why should I be this time, huh? Sounds logic enough to me... aiyah.. don't care liao....

Anyway, I am about to stress on this chicken essence I made, homemade, double boiled. The double boiler is my favorite utensil in the kitchen. I got this information about double boiled method..

"Double boiler method is a Chinese cooking technique to prepare delicate food by separating the food from direct heat with a layer of water and cooked for several hours over the slow and constant heat.

This traditional way ensures the goodness of the food is preserved as there is no loss of liquid or moisture (its eseences) from the food being cooked, thus bring good nutritional value when consumed.

Double boiled food is believed to improve blood circulation, aids digestion, increase appetite, reduce fatigue, speeds up recovery after illnesses and strengthens your health."

It sounds very convincing to me. I even wrote an ad to start a business on this soup business, believing working people wouldn't have the spare time to make all these simple, delicious and nutritious luxuries in life. I set a specific soup a day, requesting customers to call or email for order 24 hours before, and deliver the soup in a vacuum flask to his/her doorsteps. Well, so far, I didn't get any order yet, as the ad just stayed in my pc's hard disk ever since. I should kick myself in the butts for being damn lazy to make another move on this "ingenious" idea of mine.

What the heck! I am going to pamper myself now. The soup's getting cold.