Walnut Chocolate Chip Cookies

Just got a book on cookies from the library recently and was inspired to try making some of them inside the book. What is great about this book is that it has a pictorial step by step section showing how to go about doing all the steps so for an amateur like me who seldom make cookies, this book really motivated me to give those cookies a try....:) although it is in chinese so I had some problem understanding what are some of the ingredients on the recipes....:(

Anyhow, I decided to try my hand at the walnut chocolate cookies which looks simple enough. I was quite happy with the end results since most of the cookies turn out almost the same size. It would seem that the effort to roll them into small little balls before placing them on the baking sheet does help to ensure the size does not differ too much. Don't forget to ensure there is sufficient space in between as the biscuit does expand quite a fair bit. My nieces and nephew are the happy recipients of these cookies and they immediately polish off 8 pieces at one go......I am glad they turn out well enough and it does gives me some additional confidence to try more cookies in the days to come....:)

Fruit cake

I had always wanted to bake a whole cake but never had the opportunity or the motivation till I came across the cake recipe book from the library [think it's called Alex Goh Baking Class]. The cakes inside the book are really beautiful and since I am most confident in baking butter cake, I decide to bake a fruit cake which also is a favourite cake for my parents at home.

It's a pretty simple cake yet great for everyone old and young, big and small...:) I made some adaptions to the recipe though...instead of adding the glazed cherries, dried apricots etc, I bought a batch of mixed fruits instead (had raisins, mixed peel, green red glazed cherries) and use that in the fruit cake and I added almonds and walnuts instead of macadamia nuts. But I felt that the cake is a bit dry and in my next attempt, I will definitely add in some milk to make a smoother texture cake.


Fruit cake
Ingredients
200g butter
150g brown sugar
3 eggs
2 tblsps golden syrup
180g plain flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
100g almonds
100g macadamia nuts (I did not add this)
100g walnuts
150g dried apricots
50g glazed red cherries
150g raisins
4 tblsp orange juice

Method
1. Mix all the dried fruits with orange juice and set aside for 1 hour.
2. Cream butter and sugar till light. Add eggs (1 at a time) and golden syrup and continue to cream till smooth and creamy.
3. Sieve in flour and baking powder and mix until well blended.
4. Add the fruits and nuts and mix until well incorporated with the batter.
5. Pour into a oiled and lined loaf tin and bake at 170C for 1 hour.

Moist Walnut Banana Cake

Cake recipe dug up from old recipe file kept by my sister...apparently it has been a tried and tested recipe many years back by my sister so I am pretty confident it will take out well. :) The cake is really simple to bake and the cake is really soft and yummy. I already had an order to bake this cake....:) this recipe is definitely a keeper.

Banana Walnut Cake
Ingredients
250g butter
1 cup caster sugar
2 cups self raising flour
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla essence
3 large ripened banana, mashed
100g walnuts, chopped

Method
1. Cream butter and sugar till light. Add eggs one at a time and continue to cream till light and creamy.
2. Sieve in flour and mix until it is well incorporated.
3. Add in mashed banana and milk till a dropping consistency is obtained.
4. Pour the batter into a bundt cake tin (or any cake tin of your choice). Smooth the top with a scrapper and top with chopped walnuts.
5. Bake at 180C for 50 minutes.

Yakitori Chicken Bento Lunch

Have been busy at work lately and with all the hectic travelling on the job, I did not have the time and energy to go groceries shopping and cooking. However, after having canteen food for the past few days, I am really really quite sick of it and was wondering if I could put together a simple lunch for tomorrow. A quick glance at what is in my fridge "uncovered" my "withering" broccoli and baby carrots which is growing "old".....thought I better "finished" them off rather than to see them ended up in my rubbish chute....:p

Just had a very nice yakitori chicken don yesterday at Sushi Teh and was wondering if I could put together the same item.....:) A quick stir-fry of the onion, chicken slices, a few tablespoons of yakitori sauce, soy sauce and black soy sauce and my yakitori chicken bento is completed!

Yakitori Chicken Bento
Ingredients
100g chicken, diced (my mother sliced the chicken instead!)
1/2 onion, sliced
3 tblsp yakitori sauce (available in Japanese section of any major supermkt)
1/2 tblsp soy sauce (to marinate the diced chicken at least 15 minutes before)
1/2 tblsp black soy sauce
1 tblsp water
1/2 tsp Cornflour (to be dissolved with some water to form a cornstarch solution)
Blanched broccoli and baby carrots

Method
1. Heat some oil in a pan and stir fry onions till its fragrant and soft.
2. Add the marinated chicken and quickly stir fry till its almost cooked.
3. Add all the sauces and water and continue to stir fry till chicken is cooked.
4. Stir in 1 tblsp of cornstarch solution to thicken the sauce.
5. Remove chicken from heat and top on white rice after it has cooled off.
6. Add blanched broccoli and baby carrots (or vegetables of your choice)by the side.

Teriyaki Meat Balls Bento

I am back into making and packing bento again! This is the two bento I brought to office today. This one is for me (I love the cutie bunny bento belt).....


And this is lunch box I prepared for my lunch kaki.



This is two of my new bento box from my bento collection. Over the past 1 and a half year, I have accumulated more bento boxes than I can imagine in the course of my travelling. Ever since I started bento-ing, I just couldn't resist buying new bento box each time I see one although I will usually use the regular 2 - 3 boxes. However, I have decided to put most if not all of the boxes to good use instead of allowing them to accumulate dust in my kitchen cabinet. So here they are.

The boxes are actually pretty small in size (only about 470ml each) so it's quite amazing I managed to "squeeze" everything into the tiny box! Sure can help to control my food intake if I consistently stick to using these bento boxes :) The contents of the 2 bento lunches are the same. Teriyaki meat balls and stir fried broccoli, carrot and bamboo shoots.


I shall have to chew slowly to make my lunch last longer given that the proportion is smaller than my usual lunch....hahaha......

Stir fried broccoli and cauliflowers with carrots and tofu

This is the dish I cooked to complement the sweet and sour fish. Not only is broccoli and cauliflower low carbo food, they are also great fat burning food! Of course not forgetting that they provide lots of fibre too. This is one of the dish I like to cook when I want lots of fibre.

Stir Fried Broccoli Cauliflowers with Carrot and Tofu
Ingredients
Broccoli flowerets (about 200g), separated into small clusters
Cauliflower flowerets (about 200g), separated into small clusters
1 carrot, sliced
1 tube of tofu, sliced
Handful of cashew nuts
2 tsp soy sauce
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup water/broth
cornstarch mixture

Method
1. Blanched broccoli, cauliflowers and carrots in hot boiling water for 3 to 5 minutes. Drain and set aside for use later.
2. Heat some oil in wok. Pan fried tofu on both sides till crispy on the surface. Remove and set aside.
3. Heat oil in wok, adding broccoli, cauliflowers and carrots, salt, soy sauce and water. Bring to a boil, cooking for about 2 to 3 minutes. Add tofu.
4. Stir in cornflour mixture till sauce is thickened.
5. Sprinkle cashew nuts on vegetables before serving it with white rice.

Sweet and Sour Fish

My nephew is a very picky eater. It is pretty hard to get him to eat anything unless they are his favourite food. However, he is a big fan of the sweet and sour fish at Jumbo seafood restaurant and can easily polish off a plate of white rice with just the fish. This being the case, I decided to give it a try so that I could cook it for him next round and save my sis loads of money. :)

Overall, I think the sweet and sour fish tastes alright although there is definitely room for improvement. The fish is not coated with sufficient batter and I think I did not add enough ketchup and vinegar. The sauce did not taste sourish enough and was also slightly diluted as I have added too much water at my mum's cajoling. :( Still, I like it pretty well enough and for those who are "courageous" enough to give this a try, here are the ingredients.

Sweet and Sour Fish
Ingredients
2 pcs of white fish fillet, sliced
2 - 3 tblsp plain flour
1 tomato, diced
1 onion, diced
chives, cut into 3-4cm length
8 tblsp tomato ketchup
2 tblsp sugar
2 tblsp apple cider vinegar
1 tsp salt
4 tblsp water or broth
cornflour mixture

Method
1. Mix ketchup, sugar, vinegar, salt and water in a bowl. Stir till it is well mixed. Set aside for use later.
2. Coat fish with plain flour.
3. Heat oil in a wok. When oil is hot, deep fry fish slices till they are golden brown. Drain and set aside for use later.
4. Drain oil and stir fry onions till they are fragant. Add tomatoes and sweet and sour solution. When solution starts to boil, add the fish slices and chives. Give it a quick stir to coat the fish with the sauce.
5. Stir in cornflour mixture till the sauce thickens.
6. Serve sweet and sour fish immediately with white rice.

I will definitely be refining this receipe again, so do keep a lookout.

Is J Co donuts in Spore as good as those in Jakarta?

I finally got a chance to make my way down to J Co outlet in Raffles City this week to get a feel of the donuts selling in Singapore. There were about 5 to 6 people in front of me when I join the queue. Queue management is bad as there is only 1 active server who is taking the orders. This is partly due to space constraint at the counter as there is insufficient space for another server to move behind the 1st server. As such, the box gets pass on from 1 server to another when the customer has done his or her selection of donuts that is within the reach of the 1st server. Donuts that is out of the reach of 1st server will be added to the box by the 2nd server. This arrangement is alright but if the customer decided to buy more than 1 box (i.e more than a dozen), that is when the problem arises. After donuts selection for the 1st box is done, customer will proceed to place order for the 2nd box and 3rd box for donuts that is within the vicnity of the 1st server. All the while, the 2nd server is actually not doing anything as the customer has not moved down to her section as yet. This is actually the main reason for the build up in the queue.

On top of this, I have to say that the donuts are not as impressive as those I saw in Jakarta. The donuts I saw on display are not of standard size. You can see from the picture I posted that 2 different donuts I ordered looks different. One is round shape while the other one strangely is oval in shape. The donut topping is also not as nicely or professionally done. Fork is remotely missing from the counter and I saw many people ended up using their bare hands to eat the donuts. We also placed orders for 2 cappucino and it took 3 visit to the drinks counter before we got them. Weirdly, my friend's cappucino look whitish and tasted like latte while mine is brownish and tasted more like the genuine cappucino. Menu does not offer orange juice and nope, all transactions must be paid in cash, no NETS or VISA available at the outlet.

Overall, I would say the visit is quite disappointing and would definitely hope that J Co in Singapore would iron out the initial teething problems soon to ensure a more seamless and enjoyable experience at their outlet.

For now, I would still flex my hand muscle and lug home as many donuts as I can from Jakarta.

High Protein Bento Lunch

My high protein low carbo lunch. :)

Consists of the following:
1. Teriyaki Chicken Wings
2. Blanched tofu, endamame and baby carrots
3. Bacon roll with enoki mushrooms

Quite easy to put the items together although the bacon roll will take slightly a bit more time. But then they are so yummy, it makes the time spent all worth it. :) So if you keen to try, here it is.

Bacon Roll with Enoki Mushroom
Ingredient
Streaky Bacon, 4 slices
Half a batch of enoki mushroom, stems/roots cut and washed thoroughly
Yakitori sauce (available in Japanese section of any supermarket)

Method
1. Place streaky bacon on chopping board or flat surface.
2. Place 10-15 strands of enoki mushroom on bacon.
3. Roll up till bacon is fully used up, pressing down on the ends.
4. Brush yakiniku sauce on both sides of the bacon roll.
5. Heat some oil in a non-stick pan and place bacon (ends down) on the pan.
6. Pan fry bacon roll till slightly crispy.
7. Remove from heat. Packed into bento box with teriyaki chicken wings, tofu and blanched vegetables of your choice.

Enjoy!

J Co Donuts has finallly arrived in Singapore!!

Hip hip hooray! That's my reaction when I learnt that J Co has finally make its way to Singapore. Due to my work nature, I travel to Jakarta occasionally for business and each time I am in Jakarta, I never fail to "gorge" myself on J Co donuts and of course not forgetting to "lug" home as many donuts as my hands could carry. Although there are many donut chain in Jakarta like Crispy Creme, Dunkin Donuts, I-crave just to name a few, I still think that J Co donuts are the best cos of their texture. It is really soft and springy and of course the multitude of choices is also another reason why I am crazy over J Co donuts. The picture above is donuts from J Co Jakarta. I couldn't resist taking a photo of the donuts so that I could look at them (yup even though they have ended up in my stomach). :p

I used to lament why it is that there is no J Co in Singapore. I was even more upset when I learnt that J Co has "landed" in KL during my trip to Jakarta in Jan 08. Why in KL and not in Singapore, I thought. Why did J Co not thought of setting up operations in Singapore as well since we are so near to each other? So you can imagine my excitement and happiness when finally finally J Co donuts are available in Singapore.

I have not yet had the chance to "chiong" down to the one and only branch in Singapore to lay my hands on any of the donuts yet, so I can't tell for now if the donuts are as good as the ones I had in Jakarta. Hopefully, I can find the time this weekend. And hopefully I will not have to contend with long snaking queues found in other donut chains around Singapore. Well, guess I don't have to fear cos J Co is expected to open 13 branches island wide in Singapore with the 2nd branch opening in Bugis in May. So for now, I shall keep my fingers crossed and dream of sinking my teeth into J Co donuts every weekend! :)

Soba with Oriental Mushrooms

Today's lunch recipe is courtesy of Jan 08 Shape magazine. I had always wonder what I can do with soba besides making it into cold noodles. They taste great but after a whole morning "soaking" in the cold dry air-con in office, I am not that keen to have cold noodles for lunch. So when I saw this recipe, I was very keen to give it a try. After all, the ingredients are pretty simple to buy and prepare and the cooking does not require lots of complicated steps. And so here it is!

Soba with oriental mushrooms (Serves 2)
Ingredients
70g soba
50g shimeji mushrooms
50g oyster mushrooms, sliced
4 big shiitake mushrooms, sliced
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
100ml vegetable/chicken stock (I used chicken stock cubes and dissolve them in hot water instead)
1 tbsp sake
2 tbsp olive oil
Splash of soy sauce
Chilli powder

Garnishing
1 tomato, diced
Black sesame seeds
Parsley or chives, chopped

Method
1. Cook soba until al dente, then drain and set aside for use later.
2. Heat up olive oil in non-stick pan and saute the garlic and mushrooms.
3. When the mushrooms starts to wither, add sake, soy sauce and vegetable stock. Let the mushrooms continue to cook till it's fairly dry.
4. Add soba, chilli powder and toss together.
5. Top with chopped tomato, black sesame seed and parsley.

I really like this recipe. It is a very light dish with nice mushroom fragrance as you eat the soba. Great for those vegetarians as there is no meat in it. For those who is not a fan of mushrooms, this might not be the dish you want to cook though. I will definitely cook this again although I will reduce the cooking time for the soba. They were a bit too soft for my liking. And I will not toss all the garnishing into the soba the next round. Just sprinkle them on top and I am sure it will improve the visual effect of this dish. :)

Fried Rice Bento Lunch 080108

Fried rice paradise!! It's been a while since I cooked fried rice and it's such a easy lunch to prepare for the lazy me. Fried rice is such a versatile dish and you can add anything you want to leftover rice and voila! A new dish instantly. For this, I added imitation crabstick, luncheon meat, garden peas and eggs. I also added 2 teriyaki chicken wings to add some protein to the lunch. And isn't it luckily I had this ready today cos it was raining heavily at 12noon. I was really glad I don't have to brave the wind and rain and it make me appreciate the fried rice even more!!!*lol*

Tri-Colour Bento Lunch 03 Jan 08

A new year, a new beginning! I am back to packing my lunch to office and for a start, I make a very simple lunch for today - which I called it tri-colour cos it has 3 different ingredients piled on a bed of white rice. Added 2 chicken wings for extra oomph.....! Today's lunch is really very easy to prepare. So for those who thinks it looks interesting, do give it a try.

Green
Garden peas, blanched in salt water and drained. Set aside for use later.

Yellow
1 egg, beaten
1 tsp sugar
Salt
Add the ingredients to beaten egg. Heat oil in a pan over high fire.
Pour in egg mixture and stir it with 3-5 chopsticks till egg resembles pieces of bread crumbs.
Remove and set aside for use later.

Brown
50g minced pork (can be substituted for beef or chicken)
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp cooking sake
1 tsp mirin
3/4 tsp sugar
2 tbsp water
Heat oil in a pan and stir fry pork till almost cooked.
Add the other remaining ingredients and continue to stir fry.
Turn down the heat and let it simmer till it is fairly dry.
Remove from pan and set aside for use later.

Glazed Chicken Wings
2 mid joint chicken wings
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp cooking sake
1 tsp mirin
1 tsp sugar
1/4 cup water
Place the chicken wing in a non-stick pan and cook till it's brown on both side.
Add water and cook for another 10 minutes.
Add other remaining ingredients and let it simmer till chicken wings are glazed.
Remove from pan.

Top the individual ingredients on the white rice. Pack chicken wings by the side. Enjoy!