Random: My coffee corner

Just some random entry which is not food related :)  I always enjoy a good cup of coffee and feels that it would be a shame to hide this cute pixie in the kitchen.  So I decided to dedicate a small corner of my flat for my coffee machine so that I can serve my guests with good quality coffee.  Nothing fancy really, just that I got a good friend to do one framework for me to hang above the coffee cart as it was pretty bare.  So yesterday I got my father-in-law to drill my wall so that I can hang this up... Cosy isn't it?

Work Lunch #1

I have been bringing lunch to office quite often now as I am trying to eat healthy :-D  I usually share my lunch photo with my friends at FB and decided maybe I should share them in this blog.  So this post is my first lunch photo and here it is :D



This is chicken in soya sauce and steamed broccoli.  I was just too lazy to do a stir-fry this morning hence the simple steamed vege.  The soya sauce chicken is a simple malay style, I will be sharing the recipe in my next post.  Keep a lookout !

New kitchen appliance .. not all

Being a full time working mom and the need to cook for the family requires a lot of planning and time management.  In order to get all these done without going crazy, I am always in a lookout for applicances that can help me work more efficiently.  So this post is about my latest addition to my kitchen that I got for myself, well except for the happy call pan which is really not new though :)   I love the happy call pan (do a search and you find loads of infor about it) and it is currently very very popular in this part of the world.   It is generally a flip pan where you can cook both sides.  What you see in the picture is korean chicken stew that I made using this pan.  It is non-stick (not teflon) and works like a pressure cooker too.  So cooking dishes like potatoes, carrots and meat is a breeze.   I use this almost everyday as I like to do my omelette and reheating my patties with it.  Oh, I do potatoes with it too :) 

Another one which I just purchased yesterday night as it was on offer.  I have been holding back in getting

Harry Potter cupcakes

A friend ordered a HarryPotter cupcakes for her son who is a big fan of the series.  12 pieces of chocolate fudge cupcakes with chocolate ganache.  It was my first theme cupcakes and actually had great time making them.  Let see what I can do with the balance coloured fondant :)

Cake projects to close 2011

The 2 cakes that I made end of last year.  The first was my youngest daughter's birthday cake and the second was for my aunt.  Jump to my other blog to read at http://mybakingadventure.blogspot.com/ :)

Happy New Year !

I would like to wish all my readers a good 2012 .. May all your wishes come true. Thank you for all your support and reading my blog. I know I have not been updating this regularly especially after my dearest mom passed away in June last year. Now I will try to update as much as I possibly can try to stick to quick n easy recipes as per my blog title :-D

Thank you again :)

Butter+Olive Oil Spread

My family especially my kids love to eat bread. Eversince my eldest goes home straight from school, the olive oil spread consumption has gone up ! One tub of bertolli olive oil spread can only last slightly over a week and one tub costs me $7+ :-( So decided to be 'frugal' since butter and olive oil are the house's staple to make my own. The good thing about this is that I can control the quality of butter that I use. For this, the recipe is really simple.

What you need:
250g (9 oz) salted butter, softened
1 C olive oil

What you do:
1. Use a mixer and blend the butter till creamy
2. Slowly add oil little by litte and mix till well combined, it will look somewhat soupy
3. Pour butter+oil mixture into a clean container and refrigerate it till it reaches the spreadable consistency

Note: You can add a little bit of salt if you using unsalted butter

Review: CP 5-Spice Roasted Chicken

I have been wanting to try this out for quite some time. Although I roast chicken at home quite regularly, i want to find out it this off the freezer chicken is good enough for days when I do not have the time to bake one from scratch. At a glance, the packaging does not look huge but the chicken is actually pretty big. Definitely bigger than those spring chicken. You can use either the microwave or regular oven to reheat the chicken. I should you can also preheat it on the stove with a covered wok.

In terms of flavour, I find it not too bad although it is on a slightly salty side. So what did I have this with? I had it with buttered rice and a simple salad. This is good for days when you do not have time to cook or simply too tired/lazy to cook up a storm *LOL* I took me at least 40mins to reheat it in the oven. Maybe the temp I set was too low but the chicken was still pretty frozen before I chucked it in the oven. As long as you don't overheat it, the meat will still stay moist.

I would say that this is pretty versatile. You can have it with your wraps or have gravy on it with mash potatoes etc. Will I buy this again? Yes, I will :)

Digital Measuring Spoon revisited

I know that some readers were asking me where I purchased my digital spoon. I got mine from Amazon but now you can get it here locally in Singapore. You can purchase it at Kitchencapers priced at $35. However I have been told that this item runs out fast, so you may want to call up and book a set for yourself.

Hope this helps :)

Father's day cake inspiration ...

I have yet to decide what kind of cake I will be making for Father's day. Especially now with the World Cup going on .. it's between soccer and tie maybe .. hmm Anyways, if anyone of you need some inspiration for a tie themed cake, do check this out - http://www.tiepedia.com/tie-blog/49-crafts/155-tie-cake

My kitchen and baking corner

Ok, I know I am lagging .. been busy with ramadhan and eid. Only now I managed to get some space to update this blog. This post has nothing to do with food but just sharing with you my space in the kitchen where all the cooking and baking are done.

This is my kitchen long and narrow. Sometimes can be a little dark which is not a good thing but otherwise it is alright.

And this is where most of the baking/kneading/decorating action happens :-) Sorry about the mess, baked a chocolate cake yesterday night and the place looks a little bit messy.

I do have a couple of things which I have done over the months and I will update them pretty much soon .. !!!

Thank you for your patience =)

Curry-in-a-hurry

Being a FTWM and having to prepare dinner on weekdays can be a real challenge sometimes. I am always open to recipes that are easy to prepare and fast. So by the recommendation from friends, I decided to get Rachael Ray's 365 book and this was the first dish that I made. To me it tasted very much like Japanese curry and very kids' friendly.

I used my trusty thermal pot and cooked this in the morning before I left for work and by the time I reached home, I had a piping hot dish waiting to be served ;-) I still have another 362 to try out ..(actually I have done some other dishes but didn't get a chance to take a picture of them) :-P and pretty happy that my kids are eating them with no complains !

First fondant cakes ...

I finally took up a challenge to do a large fondant cake (large as in anything bigger than 6inch in size :-P) for my baby brother's engagement. Time is always an issue for me, after coming back from the holidays, I had very little time to prepare - either I was bogged down with work or simply too tired. Initially, I was very sure that I will have enough time to prepare marshmallow fondant, but deep inside I know I need some contingency plan and true enough the store bought fondant saved me. Another issue was with the flowers that I ordered for one of the cake. Unfortunately, I underestimated the time and was not able to get them in time, so took out my backup design and came out with this. This cake was a gift from the guy side to the girl. Pretty couple aren't they :-)

And another one, which the girl ordered for me *LOL* Where's the surprise huh ..

Personally, I like the lilies better :-) On top of the cakes, he also requested for a cuppy set .. well this was easy to make. I used my usually American Chocolate Cake for the cuppies and vanilla frosting .. the flowers again were store bought.

Overall, I enjoyed making them although the rolling and covering the cake with fondant was full of stress .. I was soo scared that the fondant will tear during the transfer, but fortunately that didn't happen. I am now more confident handling it and maybe who knows, I will be a bit more adventurous with it.

Happy viewing !

Hot hot dish .. from Urumqi

These are some old food photos that I took during my work trip to Xinjiang. That time, my photo taking skill was still in infancy stage and I managed to took some photos of the food I had. This is only like half of it. There were alot of other stuffs that I did not take because I was just too shy *LOL* The best thing about the food there is the hot pepper that they use, man ..it's hot hot hot but best thing is that it doesn't burn your tummy but more of your lips. The red pepper if I am not wrong is know as 'mala' it is a bit like sichuan pepper but the taste is not exactly the sichuan pepper that I get here. It's different.

We had the pilaf, hand made noodles and kebab for one of our lunch in a local food stall. This is very middle eastern influenced as the owners are khasgar descendants. Loaded with lamb.

This is delicious and spicy. It's fish and we get to choose fresh from the restaurant.

these were taken from street eating place. It's clean of course and they have a fantastic array of food

Grilled sotong

I love this chicken dish. This is hardcore mala peppers. It's just shredded steamed chicken with the hot sauce. Yummy but have to bear with the heat for awhile *LOL* Any kind soul out there who knows how to make this??
This is at a restaurant. My lychee dish in my earlier entry was actually inspired from this place.

I love xinjiang. There are soo many places that I can eat because majority of them are Muslims. I also had a chance to eat Peking duck there. It was really lovely. If you are a fruit lover, there are soo many lovely fruits like donut peach, hami melons, watermelons .. lots and lots of them. I wish that I day I can bring my family there for a holiday but I have to pick up speaking Mandarin first *LOL*

The 'perfect' vanilla sponge cake - finally !!

Don't call me crazy but I have been on a mission to find a perfect vanilla sponge cake for creamed cakes for a couple of years already. I have tried many many recipes, not that they are not good but it didn't taste right for me. I know some of the people I know will ask why would I want my cake tastes like those from bakeries? Well, of course I admit that it can be difficult to replicate the taste of those lovelies from bakeries but to me it is a challenge - to be able to make something that is as good as those from known bakeries and not having to rely on sponge mixes *LOL* (simply because they have the closest taste). Neways, back to the topic of sponge cake, I finally found the perfect recipe and I am soo happy that I made it yesterday although I was pretty tired.

Recipe can be found here

The outcome is moist and soft cake. Yummy !!! I frost it with buttercream because I wanted to finish it off and of course, free some space in my fridge .. heh

At the same time, I used the opportunity to use my new gadget, which I actually purchased last year but never had the chance to use it until yesterday *LOL* Don't ask me how much I paid for it because you will tell me that I am crazy :-P But hey, you can grab it at Amazon at a price definitely cheaper than what I paid :-)

This is extremely useful especially weighing small grain items like gelatine powder, yeast, baking powder etc. .. lovely isn't it? (I can't help it, I am a gadget freak *LOL*)

Mother' Day

I would like to wish all mothers Happy Mothers Day. For me, mother's day is just like any other days but I do get cards and self-made gifts from my daughters. However, every year, since a few years ago, I will bake a cake for both my mom and mother-in-law. Usually it is something simple and both will have the same design *LOL* This year, I decided to make something different ie. to have their faces on the cake.

This is the cake I made for my mom. It is just a simple chocolate sponge with fresh cream.

I hope that she enjoyed the cake as much as I enjoyed baking and decorating it :-)

Another year .. another book

I know I am totally behind in updating my blog. I have some photos but no mojo as yet :-( . The daily routine is catching up on me since the last couple of weeks as the girls started school. I am still struggling to get use to it but getting there *LOL*. I hope it is not too late for me to wish everyone a Happy New Year.

Kinokuniya, one of my favourite book store is currently having a 20% storewide discount till end of this month for it's members. I usually do my stocking of recommended books during such sales. One of my very recent purchase which happened to be yesterday is this book. It was sitting pretty alone on one of the shelves and what caught my eye was the simple cover and illustrations. I like the recipes as it uses lots of whole wheat flour and honey - seems very healthy and wholesome. I am very happy as I just found out that it has very high review ratings at amazon. I can't wait to try some of the recipes and will update them in this blog (soon I hope) *LOL*

Simple castle cake for my Sofia

My second daughter turned 6 last weekend and I promised her that I will make her a castle cake. My initial plan was to make a fondant covered cake but changed my mind at the last minute because I wasn't sure whether the kids will like the marshmallow fondant and dense cake. So I stick the usual standard chocolate sponge cake with fresh cream. The birthday girl was ecstatic when she saw it and I am happy that the kids finished it up.

Happy birthday Sofia !

Eid Mubarak :-)

I know it's a way overdue wishes but better be late than never *LOL* My schedule has been pretty hectic eversince I transferred my helper to my mom. Now it's back to my old routine plus with a toddler is very much challenging than before. Now I have to cook more often on weekdays but unfortunately I am not able to upload or even snap a picture of what I prepared :-( I am now slowly getting used to the routine, so I will try to find time to update this blog (I know, it's the same old story *LOL*)

Well, deepavali is round the corner, so I would like to wish all Hindus Happy Deepavali ;-)

Ramadan Mubarak

This is for all muslims and may this holy month brings joy and happiness to all both spiritually & phyiscally.