Cookbooks Have Arrrived!!!!

My terribly belated Valentine's gifts...well, actually, not so much as gifts. I had them in my wish list and my husband thought it would be a good time to get me these books (erm, actually just joined this discount book club and to make himself feel less guilty for buying HIS books, he bought some for me as well...*sigh* so to kill two birds with one stone!!). As for me, I'm happy that I got them.....regardless the intentions....hehehe..

My favourite is the Boulevard: The Cookbook. It's fantastic and I'm dying to try out of the recipes. I can't wait to go to the store to get all my ingredients. It will be interesting since some of these recipes takes a little skill and TIME!! LOL!

I think the "simplest" book to follow is Jamie Oliver's Jamie's Dinners. It's easy and looks soooo tasty and so family friendly!! I love it!! I had tried out 2 of the recipes there (both desserts) and both hubby and son loved it. Plus the fact that the desserts were sweet (too sweet for me). I can't wait to try out more of them!! I had the whole book so laddened with tags that Ed asked why I even bother, I might as well just save the tags and use them to mark those that I wouldn't be trying out sooner!!! WHATEVER!!

The other two books were just as amazing, I just didn't have enough time to scrutinize them enough! hehehe.. My next book would be Batali's books....I think it would be interesting espeically now that I'm into making my own pasta. I think his book would be helpful...

For now I'm seriously contented with these wonderful "gifts" even though they were given under a different motive!!! ;)

Glazed Meyer Lemon Bread

I had to buy some Meyer Lemons the other day. They were still in season and I was inspired to try out some other recipes other than a Meyer Lemons and Ginger Gelato that I'd made some time last year. Meyer Lemons are more like oranges with lemony tones than "pure" lemons. I like it! It's different! And since it's late in the season (I think), the Meyer Lemons looked more like oranges rather than lemons too! It was weird, I had to keep looking at the tags to make sure that I was getting the right thing.

Brought them home and started looking around for some easy to do recipes. Decided on a Lemon Bread(which I made into Meyer Lemon Bread instead) that I had previously gotten from a website. The recipe sounded good and easy to make. The recipe made two mini loaves which I gave one away to a family friend (whom I hope likes lemons!! coz it was rather lemony). Overall, I love the result and I think I'm gonna to twist the recipe a little to see how it goes. :)

Glazed Meyer Lemon Bread recipe

Ingredients
1 2/3 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons (packed) grated lemon peel
1/2 cup whole milk
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice

Method
Preheat oven to 350°F. Lightly butter 8 1/2x4 1/2x2 1/2-inch loaf pan. Stir flour, baking powder and salt in medium bowl to blend. Using electric mixer, beat 1 cup sugar and butter in large bowl until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs 1 at a time. Add grated lemon peel. Mix in dry ingredients alternately with milk. Pour batter into prepared loaf pan. Bake until tester inserted into center of bread comes out clean, about 1 hour.

Meanwhile, combine remaining 1/2 cup sugar and fresh lemon juice in small heavy saucepan and stir over low heat until sugar dissolves.

Transfer lemon bread to rack. Gradually spoon lemon glaze over hot bread, adding more as glaze is absorbed. Cool lemon bread completely in pan on rack. (Can be prepared 1 day ahead. Turn bread out onto rack. Cover with plastic wrap and let stand at room temperature.)

Note: I increased the amount of zest used as I like mine to have more of the lemon flavor, the original was rather weak. I used the total of 4 medium Meyer Lemon zest instead. Also I added some lemon juice in the batter as well.
I also decreased the 1 cup of sugar for the batter to 3/4 cup of sugar since I was going to glaze the bread, I didn't want it to be too sweet and kill the whole lemon flavor.
And as for the glaze, I used powdered sugar and lemon juice and simply stir them to the right consistency and taste as I went along so make sure that it's not too tart nor too sweet. The glaze after mixing should be able to coat the back of a spoon but still have excess glaze running off it. I also poke some holes in the bread so that the glaze would be able to run through the whole thing instead of just remaining on the top of it. Finally I also added extra zest in the glaze before glazing the bread.

Verdict: The bread had the texture like that of the pound cake without all the pound of butter in it. It wasn't too sweet either which was good. I think I would have reduced the amount of glaze used, I thought it was a little too much. It was defnitely zesty!! If you don't want it to be too "lemony", don't use the zest in the glaze, my husband thought it was a little of an overkill! Oh well.....:D

Char Tau Kway

I think I got the name spelled right(hopefully...). In any case, I'm sure most people who had this would know what it it(even if I can't get the spelling right..) Was a little nostalgic while flipping pages of some Singapore cookbooks and wanted to eat something familiar. Of course, being my greedy self, I HAD to make it immediately. So I dropped everything and started on my quest. I chose this dish coz (I thought it would be easy and quick.......WRONG!)I just wanted a one dish meal. It turned out to be a two step recipe!

First I went to the KC site to get a quick white radish "cake" recipe. Then I had to wait a little for the hot steaming "cake" to cool so that I can cut it to cubes to be fried. Overall result, it was pretty similar to that back home but of course, it's not home.

Note: Oh yah...DON'T feeze leftovers, make whatever you need or cook everything. I freezed mine and thought I could just thaw and make some more Char Tau Kway.....WRONG!!! It turned out soggy, mushy and even though the taste was there...the "cake" was a disaster and had the texture of soggy mushy mash! Not that great! I guess there was too much liquid in the cake when it defrosted and it couldn't hold its shape once it hit the hot wok! My husband didn't mind, but as usual, being the "anal" person that I am, I gave myself -1 out of 10 for the second defrosted batch!! Gross....



Char Tau Kway Recipe (the Dark and Sweet Version)
Servings: 6-8 (depending on how much each wants)

1st Step
Steamed White Radish Cake from KC

Ingredients
1 kg white radish
600 g Chinese Rice flour
6 cups hot water
1 tsp Alkaline Water
1 tsp salt

Method:
1. Shred radish and steam on high heat for 30 mins.
2. Add flour and water, salt and alkaline water to mix.
3. Put it over low heat to boil.
4. Stir continously till dry and sticky.
5. Turn off the stove and pour mix into a large square pan lined with glass paper.
6. Steam on high heat for 45 mins.
7. Wait for it to cool completely before slicing it.

2nd Step
Frying the cake

Ingredients
Salted preserved radish, washed (soaked it for a while if it's a little too salted)
Garlic, minced
Eggs, lightly beaten
Spring Onions, diced
Sambal (optional)

Method
Heat a little oil in the wok, add garlic and radish and fried till fragrant. Scoop them out.
Heat some more oil in the wok again; add the cubed radish cake and let them fry till the edges are a litte crisp and browned. Scoop them out again.
Heat some more oil again and this time, drop the beaten eggs into the wok and when fried it as you would with a scramble. When it's about 80% cooked, put the fried radish and radish cake into the wok and mix it up.
Add your seasonings; salt, sugar, kecap manis (Indonesian sweet dark soy sauce), dash of dark soya sauce and if you want it spicy, add some sambal(optional).
Finally, add the green onions and give a quick stir, dish it out, serve it with a side of sambal.

Note: For the steamed white radish cake, I added the alkaline water which I didn't think it made any difference (yes, I divided the recipe into 2 batches to see the difference). Besides it was a little too stiff to stir in the alkaline water into the mixture.
Also I thought it would have been a little more flavorful if I had added some pre-soaked dried shrimps into the mixture (of course, I didn't...*sigh*)and would have given it an extra "oomph" in the whole dish.
And since my husband was such a "purist", I didn't add any prawns in the final frying which I thought would have been great (I know the ones they sell at hawker centers don't have it).
For the amount of ingredients in the 2nd potion of the recipe; like that of preserved radish, eggs, spring onions and seasoning, they are all dependent on personal taste. Add more or less of each varies with your taste buds. Have Fun!!

Chinese New Year Cookies

Supposed to have made 6 different chinese new year cookies...yah right. I was sick and pathetic!! It was a miracle that I made any but I was determined and delusional from all the cold meds that I was taking that day. Soooo...to make a long story short, I made 2 types of cookies out of the planned 6. Oh well...so much for ambitions. My consolation, at least I did something...hehehe...even when I'm not thinking straight! And since it was close to Valentine's when I made these cookies, I decided to kill two birds with one stone and made one of them heart shape. In any case, for the Cooking Light readers, the heart shaped cookies are of the same recipe as that of the Windowpane Raspberry Linzer cookies in their Dec 2005 issue. It was a real easy cookie to make, just had to tweak the cooking time a little.

And come on, you HAVE to make something chocolatey....it's just the rule of thumb!! The first cookie was a recipe from an old cookbook given to me as present. And I thought that it was an easy yet elegant cookie to make, besides it uses chocolate...who am I to complain!:) It's called Biskut Lemak, it's a malay name but what it really means I really don't know but it uses cinnamon powder and I LOVE CINNAMON!! With the two lovely combinations, it's a no-brainer! The recipe calls for quite an amount of butter, one which I've never seen in any cookie recipes. I was skeptical and hence used less WHICH was good coz the cookie wouldn't have hold up with that amount of butter in it. The overall texture of the cookie was that of the melt in your mouth kind (well, with that obscene amount of butter, it would have melted by just looking at it!)and not very sweet at all, in fact rather bland if you didn't take it the decorative chocolate factor. And although I'm not a cookie person (the fact that I'm don't have a sweet tooth), I have to admit that this is a rather bland tasting cookie, solution, add more sugar! But it's real fragrant cookie with that cinnamon-y smell to it!! Love that...yah, I also added a little more cinnamon powder than called for...hehe...

Verdict: Both great cookies, passed the son and husband test but it would be a little while before I re-make them again, they are rather labor intensive due to the decorative nature of those cookies!! And I've also make up my mind to finish up the other 4 planned CNY cookies (even when CNY is over!!) once my little boy gets over his cold. :D





Biskut Lemak

Ingredients
450g plain flour
540g melted butter
1/4 tsp vanilla powder
1/2 tsp cinnamon powder
1/2 pkt chocolate, melted

Method
Mix melted butter with vanilla powder and cinnamon powder till white and fluffy. Add flour and knead dough till soft.
Shape dough into a long or round shape. Bake for 15-20 mins.
When cool, decorate with piped melted chocolate.

Note: I've posted the ORIGINAL recipe but in my modified recipe, I decreased the butter by half the quantity and also it's softened buter (room temp) and not melted butter coz it wouldn't knead.
And I also increased both the vanilla and cinnamon powder to twice of their called for amount respectively.
Also I'm a great believer that if you're gonna use chocolate, use top quality chocolate, there's nothing worse than doing all the hard work if you're gonna ruin it all by having lousy quality. I used Valrhona bittersweet chocolate and melted it down.
I also added an extra cup of sugar. As you noticed, there's no sugar added to this recipe which I thought was a little bland. It was a little too dependent on the "fragrance" of both the vanilla and cinnamon powder(I used the sticks and grind them fine, try not to use the ready made powdered version, it gives a better taste of cinnamon to it)
Lastly, try and make the cookies a little smaller so it would be easier to just pop all into one bite coz the cookies a little crumbly to keep on biting on it.

Raspberry Linzer Windowpane cookies from Cooking Light Issue Dec 2005

Ingredients
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup butter, softened
1/4 cup egg substitute
1/4 cup seedless raspberry jam
2 tsp powdered sugar

Method
Lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups; level with a knife. Combine flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon, stirring well with a whisk.
Place granulated sugar and butter in a large bowl; beat with a mixer at high speed until light and fluffly. Add egg substitute; beat until well blended. Beating at low speed, graduallyadd flour mixture; beat just until a soft dough forms. Divide dough into 2 equal portions and wrap each dough portion in plastic wrap. Chill at least 1 hour
Preheat oven to 375
Roll each dough portion into a 1/8 inch thickness on a lightly floured surface; cut with a 2 inch square cookie cutter with fluted edges to form 32 cookies. repeat procedure with the remaining dough portion. Place cookies 1 inch apart on parchment-lined baking sheets. Cut out centers of the 32 cookis with a 1 inch square cookie cutter with fluted edges. Bake cookies at 375 for 10 minutes or unti ledges are lightly browned. Cool on pans for 5 minutes. Remove from pans; cool completely on wire racks.
Spread center of each whole cookie with about 1/2 tsp jam. Sprinkle cut-out cookies with powdered sugar. Place 1 cut-out cookie on top to make one whole cookie.

Laksa Lemak

Made some Laksa last weekend. It was a really cold weekend and something soupy and spicy sounds seriously appealing! Made the paste myself, and simply put in whatever "seafoody" ingredients you want in the spicy seafood broth. I used prawns, sliced fried fish cake and some fish balls made in shapes of tofu, interesting huh...hehe.. I also added some fried tofu skins and of course, most importantly, laksa leaves as garnish and in the soup stock. Laksa Leaves is sometimes called Vietnamese Mint and it's a herb; finely chopped them and used them as such in this dish. This herb gives this dish its unique flavor and fragrance. It has a very distinct taste which is tough to explain, the best I can say it's that it gives a refreshing and "clean" flavor to any dish. To complete this superb one dish meal, add some spicy sambal on side to make it even spicier......Yyyyuuuuuuummmmyyyyy! And if anyone's interested in the recipe, you can always drop me a note...I'm just too lazy to post the entire recipe on this post.

On another note, I recieved some cookbooks for Valentine's!!! WHOOOO HOOOOO!!! Those were books on my wish list and I'm finally recieving them!!! Bad thing is that they haven't arrive, good thing is, they have been shipped and will be here in a few more days.....CAN'T WAIT!! Will blog on those wonderful books in a later post....ohhh...I'm getting the goosebumpbs thinking about them!!!

Peanut Butter and Banana Sandwich

One of Ethan's favourite food!! I made this from pure inspiration one day and it turned out that he really enjoyed it!! Heheheh...he's one weird kid! I know he loves bananas and he enjoys peanut butter (I hardly give it to him in fear of potential all-in-my-head allergic reaction to peanuts OR nuts in general). But I figure that he's a real hardy kid and so far no allergic reaction to any foods I'd given him that giving him peanut butter would be A-OK.

First I got some freshly grounded smooth peanut butter(some place offers you the option to grind the peanuts so you have just pure peanut butter instead of the other additives like sugar and sugar and more sugar...). So anyway, slap a thin layer of that on a whole wheat bread, top it with some thinly sliced bananas ( I used one whole banana) and closed the sammy with another peanut buttered slice of whole wheat bread. Then use a cookie cutter or simply a knife to cut it up to smaller pieces.

It's a pretty healthy meal (ermm....at least I'd like to convince myself...hehe)and Ethan would INHALE that sammy in a heart beat!! He loves it. I try not to bore him by giving it to him too often...I guess I make it more like a treat for him...so that he would enjoy it more...:)

Panna Cotta: A taste of heaven

I had this dessert at an italian restaurant gazillion years ago, I fell in love on the first bite. It was the most heavenly taste and not something I would forget. Unfortunately that was my first and the last time I had it, I never came across another restaurant that has Panna Cotta on their menu.



While internet surfing for something else, I came across this panna cotta recipe and the memories of that wonderful evening that I chanced upon this scrumptiouslicious dessert came back. I looked over the recipe, it was EASY!!!! I mean, it was too easy that I had to look over it again AND AGAIN, just to make sure that it's THAT easy!! On top of that, I actually had all the ingredients in my fridge...no kidding right! I used the Molto Mario recipe and had to make it low-fat.....:( I know, I know, I should have stuck to the actual recipe and it would have been the real deal...but know what...it was just as wonderful when done...Oh yah...I also used half and half instead of heavy whipping cream. Figure that it was interchangeable...:D



So was thinking that since I'm making an italian dessert that I might as well make something italian for entree as well...hehehe.. So...... ended up making this, clam linguine with white wine sauce. The white wine being a Pinot Grigio and also our drinking wine..hehehe...the "experts" always say to use the wine you drink to cook...so there you go...




The wine was great and the dessert....even better....although I did think that putting black pepper on the dessert was a little too weird for me, so I omitted that out...the topping on the panna cotta was as it, strawberries marinated in balsamic vinegar. In regards with balsamic vinegar, I'm a true believer that you get what you pay, which is also the reason that I always pay a little more and get a better quality then pay a little less and get a seriously lesser quality balsamic vinegar. Although my husband would argue that a vinegar is a vinegar is a vinegar...NOTE: this is also a comment coming from a person who used to think that a mudpie is baked in the oven!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Lil' Architect

We had bought him this box of Legos some time back but all Ethan did (back then) was throw them around and left them all over the place. Ed and I decided that we just need to keep it away and give it back to him at an "appropriate" time. Meaning when we get over tripping at every corner of the house!!!! So anyway, one day Ed left the child's gate unlocked in the dining room (there's where we had "hidden" the box of Legos), Ethan went in, saw the box, brought it to the living room, tipped the box upside down, and poured every single piece of Legos out of the box!!!! By the time we had "discovered" his discovery, Ethan was happily sitting on the floor, constructing with his Legos blocks!! He was so contented, intent, peaceful and happy that we thought it was better to just live him as it is....he was just too adorable.

Now this Legos obsession took on a life of its own. Day in, day out, all Ethan did was sit there with his Legos, "building", thing is, he would only build one direction, upwards. Now we all know that these infant Legos are not the most secure things in the world!! It was "stick" till a certain extent but he was building it so high that it would keep toppling down!! And Ethan would get frustrated and smack the rest of his "skyscrappers" down as well!! So to discourage his frustration and encourage his "patience" (or lack thereof!), I had to make sure that his buildings don't fall down by looking for loose placements and holding them in place, so inadvertably, I had become his "foundation".

Here's my little architect trying the build the "tallest" legos block possible!! Meanwhile I'm trying to take pictures and PRAYING that those blocks don't collapse!!!! But he was so adorable when he's so intent that I had to take his pics!! LOL

Steak

I love herbs, especially rosemary. I love rosemary mainly because it's such a hardy plant AND it smells so good!!!! It's especially good if you want a "meaty" taste to your food. I grow some herbs in my garden, rosemary being one of them, and I've to say that it's the best kinda plant for the lazy gardener in me!!! I have so much of it that I don't really know what else to do, so sometimes I would cut off a sprig and steep it in hot water...it's supposed to soothe headaches....hmmm....



Well, Ed decided that he had a craving for some steak. *Sigh* I'm not a big steak fan. But anyway, I decided to make some using some rosemary(anytime I get!!) for the marinade. I marinaded the steak with some crushed garlic, 1 sprig rosemary, pounded, and olive oil for about 30 mins. Broiled it to medium rare, topped it on some smashed cauliflower and potatoes with roasted garlic and deglazed the pan with sweet vermouth and mushrooms and top that on the steak. All ready to chow down!



Ed likes the steak but not too keen with the mash...hehehe..he was never a fan of cauliflower....LOL...or vegetable....And know what, Ethan's the same way with cauliflower...he's ok with vegetable on the whole, but he wouldn't eat cualiflower nor broccoli. Thank heavens he loves his peas!! Phew! :D

Weather wise, winter's not really winter....it's 20F above the norm temperature for a Texas winter. All the trees are sprouting buds!!! And I've yet to plant my tulip bulbs!!! Ok......I think I better start getting these lazy bones out in the yard...hehehe...