Back to basics

It's back to basics for this meal. I believe lots of households have someone or other who was brought up on luncheon meat and baked beans. I've not cooked this dish in a long while as I can't take beans. It is not good at all for my arthritis and will cause lots of pain, but I do love this pairing. The only person who truly enjoys this, is hubby. Little girl doesn't like the beans. Come to think of it, she isn't a fan of luncheon meat either. She prefers ham. I know of someone who adds an egg into this dish to give it more protein.

The only vegetable left in my refrigerator is lettuce, and I found some fresh bacon, thus it was how this dish came about. First off, I fried the bacon on its own, scooped them up, and fried some garlic before adding the lettuce and oyster sauce for taste. I sprinkled the bacon on after dishing out the vegetable.

Nasi Lemak

How coincidentally that on the day I made this meal, my friend little corner of mine had the same thoughts in her mind. Our versions are both very different, except for the hard-boiled eggs. Check hers out. I think her's looks more beautiful with the green rice. :) My version had store-bought otah, sambal oelek prawns, halfway fried then baked drumlets (these were most tender), hard-boiled eggs & cucumber slices. The sambal on top of the eggs was bought from the same otah stall.

For Otah & Sambal -
Lee Wee Brothers
51 Old Airport Road
#01-79
Tel : 6348 9122

For the kid's version, no sambal (chilli paste) was present as you can see. There was an omelette, non-spicy otah (which is really just fishcake), ikan bilis (anchovies), a drumlet & cucumbers. She only ate some rice and some ikan bilis, and lots of cucumber. In fact, half of her dinner was left intact. Omelette not touched, and neither was chicken. She did however eat all the fishcakes.

I don't do nasi lemak quite a lot, in fact I've only done it a couple of times. Reason being I can't consume lots of coconut or any 'cooling' or what the Chinese would say 'yin' food. Recently, my girl has been on the catered food programme in her school and she tells me about her liking for nasi lemak, so I thought I'd try cooking it at home. Thank goodness I didn't suffer much the morning after the meal. When affected, the joints get all painful.

I had some remainder lemongrass which prompted me to boil them and make it into a drink to accompany the dinner. This drink is commonly found on the menus of Thai restaurants. From what I know, this drink helps to get rid of 'wind' in the body. I thought it would be the best accompaniment to counter the effects of the coconut. Maybe it did work after all.

This is very easy to do. Just boil approximately 5-6 stalks of lemongrass (after cutting off the top part & bruising them a little) with enough water for 4 glasses. Add sugar to taste.

Food I cooked

The omelette was inspired by the tiny silverfish that I picked up while out shopping with the bff one afternoon. I loved the look of the tiny Japanese silver fish which is 1/3 the size of the normal ones. I knew my girl would be in love with this, as I recently discovered that she likes crispy ikan bilis. This one's even crispier and not salty at all. But more tricky to fry as they are very tiny. I decided to cut up some spring onion, gave it a quite stir in the pan, then added 2 beaten eggs and made an omelette with that. Then I sprinkled the silverfish over the top as garnish. Lovely and simple dish. As expected, she loved it!

I decided I needed to give this dish another go, this time with all the ingredients on hand. It was beautiful and hubby loved it, for sure this time. Haha. Although I thought the pineapple juice was a bit sour. I should have used the lychee juice instead. I'm not going to write out the recipe here. Please check HK's blog for it.

I bought the above packet of mix in Mustafa's shopping with the bff on another occasion. It looked very tempting and I do love cereal prawns which they serve at seafood restaurants. I cooked this for our Friday night dinner, substituting the prawns for sliced fish as the little one doesn't like prawns. I omitted the chilli padi required in the recipe in order that she could partake of this dish. I think the chilli would give it some kick.

Verdict - It was lovely, but I think there might have been a lot of MSG as I was very thirsty, lips all dry after dinner, and for a few hours after. So, eat at your own risk.

To accompany the cereal fish, I made a veg using leftover lettuce, some young corn, crabsticks & fresh button mushrooms. I also made an Oden soup but didn't bother snapping a picture of that.

Soccer bento

This bento came about with the help of the little boy pancake which grandma gave. I got hubby to pick up the lian rong bao from the bao shop near my place and seeing the boy and the white bao gave me the idea of doing a football. The fillers include strawberries, raisins and pretzel fish.

Lately, I've found that she leaves some food behind, whereas before, she would clean out her entire bento. She says she doesn't have time to finish her food. I'm wondering if it's because these days she is in a hurry to go play with her friends. Since she started bringing a trolley bag to school, she has been putting her bento inside it, and I've told her that it messes up my 'work of art' ;P. Her answer was, 'Please don't make anymore nice bentos, just simple ones'. Gosh! Ok, I will try.

Last evening's dinner came about from thinking on the spot. My initial plan was to cook curry chicken with the half chicken that I had. However, at the last minute, I found myself attending the funeral mass of a dear old friend's mum, whom I've known since I was 7. Me and my friend lived in the same neighbourhood growing up. She was in the block beside mine, and we went to the same school and were even classmates. She as well as another friend of ours, M, are the oldest friends I have. We used to go to each others' house to play after school. I remember my growing up years as having lots of time for play, unlike kids these days, it's homework, homework, homework, and computer. We played imaginative games, and our favourite in those days was 'The Famous Five'. We will each 'be' a character from the books and my sis or one of the younger ones would end up as the dog. It was fun breathing life into the books we loved so much. I loved reading a lot, and my dad would take me and sis every weekend to MPH in Stamford Road, and we would be allowed a couple of books each. I 'ran' a little library in my home and loaned books out to friends complete with library cards, date borrowed and date returned. Those were very fun days.

It was indeed a very beautiful funeral mass and everything from the hall, to the church, to the music, to the singing, was perfect. Hubby attended the wake with me the night before, and I was impressed with how lovely and serene the church was. I told him that when I pass on, this is what I want my funeral to be like. I'm very glad that SS & I managed to be there for our old friend. She was very composed throughout, even while her sis was falling apart. I pray for God to give them strength during this difficult time. May you rest in peace, Auntie Jenny, as you prepare to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. And I will remember you always.

Coming home from mass, I knew I didn't have the time to prepare curry so I decided to quickly season the chicken with teriyaki marinade, butter some garlic toasts, and dumped some veg in to be roasted. It turned out to be a lovely dinner, hub's kind of dinner. The pasta is extra from what I cooked for the princess, so it went on his plate.

Steamed Stuffed Tofu

I posted this item in FB a few weeks ago, and a friend asked for the recipe today. Decided to show her how it's done here. M, please note that the ingredients do not have exact measurements as I estimated the amount of seasoning used.

Ingredients -

Round tofu (without egg)
Minced pork
Spring onion
Fried shallots

Seasoning -

Oyster sauce
white pepper
corn starch
light soy sauce
sesame oil

Method -

1. Cut tofu up into approximately 6-7 portions, not too thin, and arrange on a plate (suitable for steaming). Next, cut out a hole in the middle halfway through each piece of tofu and keep dug-out tofu aside.

2. Season minced pork with light soy sauce, white pepper, sesame oil and corn starch. Add in the dug-out tofu and mix well. Shape them into balls and stuff it back in tofu. Steam tofu on a soft rolling boil, not high heat, if you are using a wok.

3. Mix oyster sauce with water from steamed tofu and pour sauce back over tofu. When ready, sprinkle spring onions & fried shallots before serving. Serve once it's done and eat while it's warm.

The sauce didn't turn out too well this time, if you notice. The actual end result isn't supposed to be this wet. But it was still yummy. I'm still trying hard to get hubby to eat tofu. He doesn't like anything that doesn't have taste, such as tofu and chee cheong fun.

Speaking of chee cheong fun, I made this dish with some ccf which a neighbour picked up for me from the factory that produces it. It was super cheap. One roll cost me only 20cents, thus I got him to buy 10 rolls. He and his wife taught me to fry it this way and I'm in love with it.


Ingredients -

Chee Cheong Fun (cut into smaller pieces)
Dried shrimps (hae bi or xia mi) - soaked then minced
Bean sprouts
Egg
crabsticks or meat (optional) - you can even add prawns, fishcake, according to your taste and preference
garlic (minced)
spring onions
fried shallots

Seasoning -

Chilli sauce
light sauce

Method -

1. Fry garlic till fragrant, add minced dried shrimp. Next add bean sprouts. When half cooked, add in chee cheong fun and crabsticks, chilli and light sauce. Stir in beaten egg till cooked and serve warm. Do not forget to garnish with spring onions and shallots before serving. Delish!

Note - Do not overcook chee cheong fun else it will fall apart. It cooks relatively fast so it's a very quick dish to prepare. Great for a simple one-dish lunch.

Pork Bulgogi Udon

I have been preparing lots of one-dish meals lately. Firstly, to minimise cleaning up, and secondly, to make life easier for me. School holidays are busy times, with lots of activities to do, which leaves very little time for food prep. Of course, it's not really all true, just being lazy. :P

Sick of pasta all the time, I decided to do this using udon. I remembered seeing Peony do a fried udon dish recently. That gave me the idea. I have done fried udon before, and I thought the bulgogi will go very well with the noodle. Mum recommended the bulgogi marinade and it looked good. I do like some of the Asian Home Gourmet ready-mixed spices which I've tried so far. I love the convenience of it and I do use it a lot. The Thai pineapple rice is nice too. Mum has a whole fridge-ful of such ready spices hehe.

Here are the ingredients I used for this dish...

I marinaded the pork yesterday, thinking I was going to prepare this dish for dinner. However, at the last minute, we had a change of plans as princess wanted to swim at her friend's place for a lot longer than planned.

I picked these up from the Cold Storage at Takashimaya, and was delighted to see Japanese cabbage & bunashimeiji, from Japan. The best part is that both of them were selling at very affordable prices. I also added in some broccoli for fibre.

Ooo... look what I found at the supermarket?? Cold Storage's very own kids' sausages. What I love about them? Well, I haven't tried them out. But what made it very interesting was the various flavours they come in. Here, I picked the broccoli & cheese ones. I saw yoghurt & apricot, and carrot & apple, not sure what else there were. For sure, these will be a regular in my fridge. I love how they take the basic sausage and add in veg & fruits which most kids do not like, and make them into yummy food. Well done! I'm sure most mummies will approve. Love the very cute packaging too.

For tea yesterday, I picked up some 'happy donuts', and sushi to take to her friend's place.

I couldn't resist the hello kitty ones.

Today, she's off to art camp an entire day. Thanks to IM who introduced me to this place. I do love it. And I think the girls will have loads of fun. I prepared the bento below to take with me when I collect her from art camp. I know this girl of mine when she's hungry, she's not very patient. Many a times I have been nagged at while preparing dinner, as, it's late mummy, it's already 6pm, still not ready?? It's 6.11!

In the bento are hello kitty sushi, broccoli & cheese sausage, and white nectarine.

This is the end result of my udon with pork bulgogi... err... not very appetising-looking, but it wasn't bad at all... subtly flavoured, although I had to add in some soy sauce, a drizzle of sesame oil, and some black pepper to make it more tasty.

Dinner - Spam with baked beans, Corn soup, Spam Omelette, Yong Tau Fu

Yong Tau Fu with crushed salted soya beans.

Ingredients -

Fresh yong tau fu of your choice
Crushed salted soya beans
Garlic (optional)
Sugar )
Dash of sesame oil ) mixed together with some water
White pepper )
Corn starch mixed with some water to dilute
Spring onions for garnish

Method -

1. I usually start off with boiling the ytf and getting rid of excess oil & salt. Remove and set aside.

2. Fry garlic till fragrant. Add ytf followed by mixture of soya beans, sugar, sesame oil & white pepper. Add more water if you want more sauce. Season to taste. Finish off with cornstarch to thicken sauce. Serve & enjoy.

Note - YTF is by itself ready-salted & there is sweetness from the fish paste, so bear in mind when adding seasoning. I did not include exact measurements for the sauce as I leave it to individual taste. Some might like it sweeter, and some prefer more savoury.

Baked beans with Spam is a comfort dish of my childhood. However, I can't consume beans now due to my arthritis, so I do miss it. Made this for hubby. Princess and I just used the sauce to flavour our rice. She does not like beans & mushy food. I find that kids have very exact tastes. They mostly do not like mushy. And they prefer to have crunchiness in their food. Basically, they are simple people who go for simple, uncomplicated food, from what I have observed. For example, she loves young corn which is crunchy, and broccoli has to be cooked just right, not overcooked else she'll not like that. I guess once it's overcooked, there's no texture left, so it doesn't taste very nice to her.

Omelette with Spam for the non-bean eaters. :P

Corn, carrot & onion soup cooked with chicken thigh. This is a very standard soup in most Singapore homes. I love it because it's so easy to prepare & the soup is sweetened with the carrots, onions & corn. No additional seasoning needed except for some salt and some white pepper.

Gluttons Bay

Princess and I spent the entire afternoon at Esplanade enjoying Octoburst yesterday. There were performers from Nafa, and some plays in the Concourse which the public could enjoy for free. This is a yearly affair celebrating Children's Day which falls on 1st Oct. We watched a total of 3 plays, one story-telling session at the Library @ Esplanade on the 3rd level, and also a performance by the Nafa Young Talents with their Chinese musical instruments. We had a great time.

By the time the last play ended, it was almost 6pm, so we walked over to Glutton's Bay right beside Esplanade, and packed home some dinner.

Little one had chicken rice...

We also ordered some chicken satay to share...

Roti John for me...

And fish and chips for hubby...

Makansutra Gluttons Bay
01-15 Esplanade Mall
daily 6pm to 3am

How to get there?

• MRT (alight at Cityhall MRT Station, walk towards Esplande linkway)
• Buses numbers: ( 36, 56, 70, 97, 111, 133, 162, 174M, 195, 502, C1, C2, C3, 75, 77, 106, 171, 700A, 857, 960, 961, NR 1, NR 2, NR 5, NR 6, NR 7 & NR 8.
• Taxi

Homemade Italian Stew with Fresh Fettucine

I don't know what a traditional Italian stew is, but I was watching Micheal Smith one morning and he cooked something similar to what I did. So using that episode as an inspiration, I decided to make up something that somewhat resembled an Italian stew, or from what I can remember of that episode.

Ingredients:
2 fresh sausages cut into bite-sized pieces
A few rashers of back bacon
2 chicken thighs, deboned and cut into bite-sized pieces (then marinated in a bit of salt and pepper)
a can of chopped tomatoes
sliced onion
garlic
black pepper and salt to taste
fresh or dried pasta of your choice

My magic pot

I have a new toy - a magic pot. This thermal pot is not new in the market but it sure took me a long while before getting one. I was skeptical to say the least. I mean, does it really do the job it proclaims to? Just bring the pot of ingredients to the boil and then without any electrical device, leave it for a couple of hours and it can cook on its own? It sounded too good to be true.

I paid S$49 at OG. It's a great buy really, and worth every cent of it, except that it is kind of bulky. It's a most wonderful aid for a mum like me on the go. Why didn't I invest in it earlier... I often wonder??!! Well, it did cost an arm and a leg till replicas started flooding the market. The Made in Japan ones still cost S$200-300.

In actual fact, I did pick up a pot last month from a shop in the Marina area but as their stocks were not moving quickly enough, it turned out that there was mildew on the carton box as well as within the pot itself and I only discovered it after coming home. I couldn't use it and thus had to return it to the shop. The guy who first attended to me was reluctant to take it back. He said I could just wash it off. Oh come on, use your brains a little. I couldn't possibly wash the insulation in the outer pot, could I? In any case, our health comes first and I won't jeopardize my family's health with that. However, beside him was a lady who understood perfectly and she took over him to attend to me. I told her she was very nice and understanding and she said being a female, she knew exactly how I felt. So I got my money back.

I couldn't wait to try it out the minute I got it. So I made a pot of soup for last night's dinner, using a quarter of a sharksfin melon which J had given to me.

This is what I put in the soup -

a quarter of a sharksfin melon, cut into smaller cubes
pork ribs
ikan bilis
8 red dates
3 pcs of dried scallops
1 carrot cut into cubes

I cooked that for approximately 5hrs in the pot as I was out. I came home to steaming hot soup and I added in some fishballs and meatballs, before bringing it to the boil again on the stove and then returning it to the outer pot to keep warm till dinner. The flesh was falling off the pork bones and very tender. I'm convinced. :) And the plus point was that the soup turned out to be really light and flavourful as no flavours were sacrificed in the process of constant boiling on the stovetop.

I then steamed a fish as well, (not in the pot of course) but I believe it can be done as it comes with a 2l and 5l inner pot.

Italian night & some bakes

I finally did the risotto, and hubby loves it, S! Princess tried it and said yummy, but she declined to have more. Hahaha! Initially, I was a bit skeptical and thought the water was maybe a little too much, as it was nearing the 15mins mark but the water still wasn't drying up. Thank goodness I persevered and it finally did. Boy, was I rewarded. I added some fresh prawns to it and that really lifted the dish. However, I didn't get a chance to make a trip to the supermarket to get some greens to add, so it looks rather boring. ;P Also made some pizza using pita bread as a base, with a topping of ham, pineapple and mozarella.

I agreed to helping the teachers in school bake some cupcakes for their National Day celebration tomorrow. I was given the Phoon Huat golden muffins ready mix. Just needed to add eggs and oil. They turned out almost perfect. The first lot was the most beautiful but as the oven temp increased, the rest slowly resembled little hills. Hehe. Still, even though it was a pre-mix, I spent 3hrs baking the 50 cups and having to wait for them to cool to store. So much for sleeping early last night. ;P

Nasi Lemak

This is one food item which I am very careful not to eat too often. In fact I hardly do. I know I will suffer when I wake up the next morning and have to put up with all the pains in my joints. Coconut is a great ingredient in dishes and I do so miss being able to savour it. But between that and the pain, the latter wins. I am naughty at times, like oh what the hell, just suffer for one day. I will do it on a day or week when I feel good and am not having an attack of the joints. The same goes with tofu, which I do so love, but can now only pinch a little here and there.

For this meal, all I did was cook the coconut rice, fried an omelette and sliced up some cucumbers. The rest of the accompaniments were bought. Fried shrimp paste chicken wings from Crystal Jade Kitchen; otah from Lee Wee Brothers (I usually go for the Mackeral Otah at Joo Chiat but I didn't bother to do so today); and ready ikan bilis sambal by Woh Hup. I served them on banana leaves which I was given months back and had them in the freezer.

The portion below was for princess. In place of spicy otah, I got her the non-spicy kids' version.

This was the sambal which I tried. It wasn't too bad.

Part-time mum

We had a little guest with us in our home yesterday. Princess' little friend, C, had gone for her P1 registration at a school near my place. She currently lives in Woodlands and it's unusual for her to be in our area. But they are looking to move closer to school. While I was messaging her mum in the morning, I thought why not see if little C wants to spend the day with us while her mum went back to work. Her mum said to do it another time as C had speech and drama classes yesterday. So I took it as that. After like 5 minutes, she rings me up and says C refused to go to school and was asking when she was coming over to me. Her mum had told her that princess was in school and there was only me at home. That didn't deter her. Anyhow, I told her it wasn't a problem, that I would take her for the day and the girls could have fun together. So it was settled, and while they were on the way, like only 15mins away, I ran around doing all the little things to get the house tidied up a bit. By the time they arrived, it was slightly more presentable.

The girls played very well together and not a quarrel between them (phew). They made crafts with Hama beads, played on the PSP and DS, and made more crafts. Meanwhile, in the kitchen I had some ready cupcake mix which I made up real quickly and after frosting them, gave two little bowls of decoration for them to decorate the tops with. Here's what they did...

I fried some fish fillet with breadcrumbs, which I had picked up a couple of days earlier. Love the crispiness on them when freshly fried.

This is what they had for dinner. Hey Al, do those plastic containers look familiar? ;) Ooops, yes, I also made some blueberry konnyaku jelly with my new moulds but they are mostly gone now so this is all that is left. Can you spy the heart, flower, pineapple and cat?

For lovers of Hello Kitty, Daiso has new stocks of HK merchandise just on the shelves on Tuesday this week. Don't miss them.

Brownies & lunch

I seem to be in a baking frenzy. :D I guess I've been inspired by the few of you with all your yummy-licious bakes. Just couldn't stay away from my oven for long. Thanks gals for inspiring me. My next bake will be the sesame and wheat biscuits once I get hold of some wholemeal flour. ;)

I've been itching to bake these brownies ever since I laid eyes on them and here they are. I didn't do a ganache to go over the top but they were delicious on their own. I would have liked them to be a little more chewy and more chocolatey so will make some adjustments to the original recipe the next time I bake them.

For lunch yesterday, my only day at home this week (thanks to cleaner coming), I prepared a noodle dish for lunch. I usually like these noodles done in dark soya sauce but my little one does not like 'black' food. That is the opposite of me. I love black food myself. Ingredients included fishcakes, crabsticks, thinly-sliced pork fillet, bean sprouts, egg, sliced carrots and yellow noodles. I made a stock with dried anchovies to 'sweeten' the dish.

Oh dear, got to go... Michael's calling. More about that later... ;)

Lunches and Jelly

With leftover rice, I made a simple fried rice, together with some chicken bak kwa and a little cup of jelly, assembled a bento to take to a committee meeting over the weekend. Princess was accompanying me and I knew that the food they were bringing would not suit her. We are in the midst of preparing for a funfair (organised by her ballet school), and these committee meetings are also an excuse to have potluck parties. Hehe. At the first meeting, there was a mountain of foodstuff and too much leftover so the teacher said not to bring any more food the next time, that she'd pick stuff up instead. But bear in mind, this Mrs loves to feed people so we still have loads of leftovers each time. Haha!

The weather is driving me nuts. So these few days I've been making jelly: both the jell-o kind and konnyaku. I didn't realize that I don't have any konnyaku moulds so made do with the agar agar ones. Here is a bear and a rabbit. The bear is obvious but can you make out the rabbit? There is also the carp.

Ham & lettuce sandwiches, with grapes, tomatoes and milk for a healthy lunch. Plus a cup of lime jell-o and sliced golden kiwi. :)