Deep fried carrot cake sticks

What gorgeous fingers, but oh so unhealthy. I got these right off the wok this morning, before the hawker had time to even pack them up in bags. They were freshly fried and were still piping hot when I got home. A guilty indulgence for once in a blue moon is fine. :) Just look at all the artery-clogging oil on them. One must not think too much when enjoying once in a while unhealthy food. :P

Otah sandwich bento

Sis had a craving for the otah from this particular store in Joo Chiat Road. It's my favourite by far. There is the right amount of fish and spice and never fails to leave my tummy burning after consuming 2 pieces. It just has that oomph which I have failed to find in other otahs. The other reason I love this store is that they produce a non-spicy version similar to what we enjoy minus the chilli. It costs 10cents more than the $1 for the normal mackerel ones we like. Experience with most otah stalls is that the non-spicy version is almost always made with fishcakes, thus the princess likes this, although she likes the fishcake ones just as much.

As we were rushing to catch a movie, I decided to make otah sandwiches for everyone, and also as a surprise for sis. :D

Pretty sandwich bento boxes.

Address:

Nam San Fresh Mackerel Otah
267 Joo Chiat Road

Xia Bing & Glutinous rice

Quite pleased with the above photo taken with my iphone. ;) This is breakfast food - glutinous rice with peanuts for garnish. Nope, I didn't make it. I hope to one day, though. The part I dislike is that I have to pick out the peanuts. I wish they'd put them separately but they come pre-packed from the stall I frequent.

Xia bing or prawn pancake. I love this and you can consume the entire prawn - shell, heads and all. The batter is very good and creates a lovely crisp round the edges of the pancake.

Radish Cake (Lor Pak Gou)

I have been wanting to try out this recipe from My Kitchen Snippets since I spied it a long time ago. However, I never got round to it. I caught sight of some beautiful radish in Cold Storage last week and bought one in order not to have any excuse to procrastinate further. Please do not compare mine to hers as hers are more beautiful.

Having set my heart to it, I spent a long time that afternoon cutting, shredding, dicing all the ingredients.

Unfortunately even though I followed the recipe exactly, it didn't turn out well. I now question if the cups of flour were actually cups for measuring cake flour or rice cups because the recipe resulted in a very dry mixture and I had to add more water to it. In the end, the original flavour was dampened (literally) by the addition of excess fluid.

I just had to keep my fingers tightly crossed while steaming it and was feeling totally discouraged. But in the end, after leaving the cake to rest and cool, thus hardening it, I felt better with the end result.

Still lots of improvement needed but I do intend to attempt making this cake again.

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.

Rain rain go away, little princess wants to play...

Sorry for having gone missing. The exam is finally over!! Hurray!!! Now I can heave a sigh of relief. My Wednesdays are free again! Got some updates which have been accumulating...

I didn't send princess to school on Monday morning as I wanted her to get sufficient sleep and not be tired out by 4pm. She will not put on her best performance otherwise, if she'd been running around in school before that.

So we went to the supermarket near our place to pick up some stuff to bake with. My intention was to bake some brownies or little cakes for the girls, but in the end, spent too much time browsing the aisles that there wasn't a lot of time left to do so. Hehe.

Our first stop was 'Wang' for a breakfast of Mee Siam. I liked it much more than the one served at 'Toastbox'. I thought the taste was perfect as it had the right balance of sweet and sour, unlike Toastbox's one which is more on the sour side. It was a good portion for $2.90 too.

After the exam, we went together with mum, to Parkway and had a steamboat dinner in the basement food court. This was where I bought my chilli from during the CNY period. They only sell them once a year. I find that the prices have gone crazy sky high from the time when they first started this stall, way back when they were still a small stall facing the barber down in the old food court. I guess you get quality ingredients for the price you pay, such as 'live' jumping prawns, and meatballs made with real meat and not just flour. The wantons were great too, with big juicy pieces of prawns in them.

While we were at the supermarket on Monday, we came across a touch screen device which you can print recipes and tips out from. I read about it in the papers a week ago, I believe, and totally forgot about it. We had fun with it and princess came across the recipe for 'sausage pasta salad' which she wanted to try. So we went around looking for ingredients. Well, we left out the feta cheese and parsley and just made some adaptations to the original recipe. I had a packet of baby spinach and wasn't keen on getting the parsley so she said we didn't have to get that. Just use the baby spinach, so that's what I did. :)

I hadn't planned to cook at all last evening as we had a playdate lined up in the afternoon. I knew there was no way I could make it home in time to do anything. Unfortunately the weather had other plans. It was terrible, on and off rain and heavy as well. So, thankfully J gave us a lift home. She had even offered to pick us up because of the rain and she did. So kind of her, but I really do not like troubling people.

I had to think really fast and plan a menu right away and so we had 'sausage pasta salad'. I also had some cream of broccoli soup with the stock from the bbq chicken bones leftover from the chicken I bought a couple of days back to make the mango chicken wrap. I had stripped the chicken of all the flesh and the rest of the flesh was used for a pasta stir fry during the week which I had no time to take photos of. The worst part was I had run out of pasta, haha, and we had to use the Hello Kitty ones. Not sure if hubs realised. ;)

Cream of Broccoli

Sausage Pasta Salad


Recipe (serves 4) -

Ingredients :

6 thin beef sausage (I used chicken)
350g short pasta (e.g. shell, penne, fusilli)
1 red onion, peeled and sliced thickly
250g punnet cherry tomatoes, halved
1/3 cup parsley, roughly chopped
200g feta cheese, crumbled
4 tbsp olive oil

Method :

1. Cook the pasta according to the instructions on the pack. Drain. Set aside in a large bowl.

2. Mix 1 tbsp oil into the onions and place on the BBQ flat plate with the sausages. (I put them in the oven). BBQ or bake them for 10mins or until the onions are soft and caramelised and sausages are cooked through.

3. Cut the sausages into bite-sized pieces and toss together with all other ingredients in a pasta bowl. (I actually cut them before baking.)

Enjoy!