Grapefruit Ice Cream Cake

Caleb's Passionfruit Ice-cream Cake

We like Free Range Beef

... and non free-range too! LOL!
The MOTH is nuts about the Macdonald's Monopoly Game, so we have endless cups of corn (better alternative to the fries!) that I have to put in everything!

More Ice Cream Cakes!

It hasn't been easy to take pictures of ice-cream, they melt and get eaten up before I can get my camera focused. The cakes are frozen solid so it's given me more time! Shown here are chocolate orange and durian (super popular!)

Here are the flavours I've made so far:

1. Durian (D13 +D24 Blend)
2. Salted Egg Yolk
3. Yuzu
4. Dark Cherry Chocolate
5. Dark Chocolate
6. Banana Walnut Caramel
7. Wasabi
8. Mango
9. Peach Yogurt
10. Strawberry
11. Passionfruit
12. Mango & Passionfruit
13. Lemongrass
14. Gula Melaka
15. Shiraz
16. Cherry & Vanilla
17. Chocolate-orange
18. Sheridan's Coffee Liqueur
19. Vanilla Bean & Raspberry
20. Lavender
21. Lemon Basil (I grow my own)
22. Cardamon
23. Ginger
24. Red Tea

My personal favorites are Passionfruit, Wasabi & Shiraz (of course!)

Lavender & Dark Chocolate
Peppermint
Lemon Balm & Basil
Reisling and Grape
Lychee Martini Sorbet
All kinds of liqueur flavours! (Haven't been able to make all that much as my guinea pigs have always included kids and nursing mothers)



Lussekatter

I saw this being made on a kid's TV show and it looked so easy! I had some safron sitting in the fridge so I though it'd be fun to try it out. Little Missy helped place the raisins, she was spot on every time!

Ice Cream Cake!

I've been making so many different flavours of ice-cream lately... I thought I'd try to make a cake! Ice-cream cake is my absolute favourite. I made this with a layer of chocolate cake at the bottom, topped with vanilla bean and very light raspberry ice-cream. Didn't have a chance to add half a bottle of cream liquer in it, as half of the "customers" were kids. Haha!

Crispy Lemon Yogurt Waffles

I can never understand what's the fuss over those waffles sold at neighbourhood bakeries. They are usually green with an overpowering scent of artifical flavouring, and most of all they are soft and floppy. I much prefer the frozen ones that I like to put in my toaster.

These I made from scratch with a waffle iron borrowed from a dear friend. Super yumms! I added some plain yogurt and lemon rind in my batter (milk, butter, flour, baking soda and salt), and I tried adding some dried blueberries to the last few... What a great way to start the morning! Well, Except that I've had to slave over the waffle iron for 45 minutes just to get a decent sized stack going. And real maple syrup for me thanks!

Decadent Chocolate Fudge Cake

This is my favourite cake to make as it is easy, and no one seems to mind a slice of it. I'm never totally satisfied with the way my frosting turns out tho... I like the pretty blue pearls!

Beef and Pork Rissoles (with tons of veggies)

We love to rissoles for our picnic dinners as they are fun to eat without any mess. I like to throw in lots of veges. The usual suspects are leeks, garlic, tomatoes, shredded carrot, cabbage, celery, bell peppers, peas etc. etc. To add some flavour, I like to add some fresh herbs like basil, oregano and rosemary, or corriander powder, tumeric and cumin. The veges should be browned in a little oil first and cooled before you add the meat.

A great way to hide veges for kids (and adults) who won't eat their greens!

Chocolate Orange Pudding

This is a super easy pudding you can make in a jiffy, no baking and very little mess!

1) Dice up some white / vanilla cake (you can use store-bought) and lay in a jelly mould.
2) Heat about 2 cups of milk and 1 cup of heavy cream, then stir in about 250g dark chocolate.
3) Sprinkle 1 sachet of gelatin and whisk till dissolved.
4) Toss in the grated rind of an orange.
5) Pour into the mould, and chill!

Yumm!

Cardamom Pancakes

I like to make my pancakes from scratch, and add some ground cardamom for that extra kick!



Atta Hot Cross Bun Recipe

I've been teaching my daughter to sing the nursery rhyme "Hot Cross Buns... Hot Cross Buns...". She sings "Hot hot buns... hot hot buns!". LOL

Here is my own recipe for making hot cross buns using Atta. I did without the icing glaze this time, but next week I will make them with icing!

Ingredients:

650g atta flour
2 teaspoon instant yeast (or use 1 sachet)
1 tablespoon milk powder
2 tablespoon brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 cup warm water
1 egg
150g mixed dried fruit
egg + a dash of milk for glazing

Combine all the dry ingredients (leave out the dried fruit) and mix well, then add the water and egg.
Knead for about 10 minutes (I use the dough hook on my kitchen mixer)
Combine in the dried fruit until evenly mixed.
Leave to rise for 1 hour.
Shape the dough into balls (about 5cm in diameter) and leave to rise for another 30 minutes.
Preheat the oven to about 210 degrees.
Use a knife to cut a cross on each bun and glaze.
Bake for about 15 minutes.

Yummy Icing:

3 tablespoons icing sugar
1 tablespoon milk
1 teaspoon grated lemon zest
Place in a piping bag and draw a cross on the buns :)

"Don't take my hot hot bun!"

Creamy Roast Pumpkin Soup (Dairy and Gluten Free)

We often have soups for lunch, and one of our favourites is roast pumpkin. I used to frequent a popular soup chain here in Singapore, but their roast pumpkin does not taste "roasty" at all.

Here's how I make mine...

Whole wheat caraway seed buns

I sensed that the store-bought sliced wholemeal bread (as well as other fruit loaves and "multi-grain" loaves) that we usually buy, are laden with preservatives. After leaving them out at room temperature for days at a time, no mould appears. I've always disliked what I call "wussy bread" from the local supermarkets anyway... even the whole grains ones are so light and airy, and the fruit ones taste like they have been perfumed. So decided that I would bake bread again. The first batch being whole wheat caraway seed buns, followed by onion bread. Yumm! Nice heavy buns! :p

How to grow sunflower greens

I love sunflower greens but they are not readily available. So I've been sprouting and growing my own, it's much easier than I thought!

Here's a step by step guide on how to grow your own:

1) Wash and soak about 2 heaped tablespoons of sunflower seeds in a glass jar, after about 24 hours, they will begin to sprout, with  little roots jutting out from the seeds. Drain.

2) Prepare a container (with holes at the bottom for drainage) by filling it about 3 inches deep with potting soil. I use a recycled clear plastic container which nectarines and plums are sold in. Spread the seeds on the top.

3) Pour some water all over till a small amount begins to drain from the bottom.

4) Sprinkle a thin layer of potting soil over the top.

5) Spray with a little water daily. In about 36 hours, you will begin to see the shoots poking out from the soil.

6) The sunflower greens will be ready to harvest in 3-5 days!

7) To harvest, just snip off the taller ones just above the soil with a pair of scissors. I prefer to harvest them in 3 stages as some seeds take a bit longer to sprout than others.

Doesn't this look fresh?

I seldom buy a whole fish coz' I'll be the only one eating it after scrapping off bits for Little Missy. But this red fish (I can't remember the name) looked so fresh I couldn't resist. I like to fry bits of garlic, ginger and corriander root (and some stems) to add to the soy sauce and sugar mixture before I send poor fishy to the steam room.

Top off with corriander leaves and sliced chilli

Cream of broccoli and cauliflower soup

We love soups and broths of all sorts! They are so quick and easy to make. Roast all your veges in a pot with olive oil, top off with water or stock and simmer. Then stick in your hand blender, and viola!

Served with potato bread and lots of love :)

Sakura Chicken -- a disappointment this time

Whenever I get a whole chicken from the supermarket, I would get "kampong" for soups or Sakura Chicken for roasts. Sakura chicken is really more tender (esp the breast), but this one time, I was very disappointed with what I got. It was quite tough, and worst of all, the feet had "burn marks". From what I saw on Jamie Oliver's Fowl Dinners, birds with such burn marks on their feet indicate that they have been bred in an overly crowded farm where the ammonia levels in their waste actually cause their feet to burn. :( I really hope that the welfare of the chickens isn't declining, coz' I'd imagine that it affects the consumers' health.

Cekur Manis (a.k.a. Sabah Vegetable?)

I have used this vege a few times for soups but it's always a hassle removing the leaves from the stems. And I've never known what it's called until I saw it in Cold Storage in a pack like this!



Only $2.80 for a pack (at least 6 servings) and organic too! It says Cekur Manis on the pack. And as I was reading a book entitled "Handy Pocket Guide to Asian Vegetables", I found out that it is commonly known as Sabah Vegetable, Phak Waan Baan (Thai); Sayur Manis (Malay); Katuk (Indonesian); and Binahian (Filipino). I'm a bit curious to find out if there are other ways to cook it. Little Missy loves this, picking every piece of it from her soup!

Grow Great Grub

I've been reading this book by Gayla Trail, and it has been so inspiring! She writes about how to grow edibles from small spaces. I never knew about worm poo and worm tea before that! Previously I have tried growing some herbs in my "garden", I've never been serious about learning how to maintain them. Most of them have perished. Although, the kaffir lime I grew from seed has been thriving (Mum gave me a fruit from her enormous kaffir lime tree). I now have pandan, rosemary, baby thai basil and some baby mustard greens. I'm hoping that my purple shiso and purple ruffly basil would germinate... not much happening in 2 weeks :( I'm looking for saw-tooth corriander seeds, but I haven't found any yet.

Kaffir Lime

Baby Thai Basil

Fun with Nian Gao

I had a sweet potato lying around which looked a bit sad, so I thought of combining it with the nian gao which has also been lying around. I sliced up the sweet potato, and pasted a spoonful on nian gao on each slice, it was fun like play-doh! Then I beat up a couple of eggs with salt and dipped each piece in before pan frying!  I couldn't stop eating them while I was frying up the next batch :p

Quick Chicken Curry (under 10 min prep)

Agar agar Cake...?

It's Little Missy's birthday, so mum thought that it would be nice to surprise her fellow tots at playgroup with a big blue teddy bear "cake". Poor kiddies, they were probably expecting a real cake... until their first bite.
This is actually much more time consuming to produce than a conventional cake, but it has far fewer calories per serving (we hope!), and it's fun to look at. ;)

Ben looks on suspiciously at the Yu Sheng

"Do I have to eat THAT?"

New Year's Eve Yu Sheng

No artificial colouring :)

Growing sunflower sprouts

My sunflower sprouts have been incredibly proliferic, much to my surprise. When I transferred them to this recycled tub, I didn't keep my hopes high. Now over a week later, they just keep coming. I've harvested the "crop" 4 times for my yu sheng, and there are still more coming along. Seems like they germinate at different times. I'm not complaining!

A recipe for Yu Sheng dressing

A somewhat more traditional dressing for Yu Sheng...
1) 300g plum sauce
2) 1/3 cup toasted sesame seeds
3) juice and rind of 1 lemon
4) about 6-7 kaffir lime leaves (limau purut)
5) 1/3 cup macadamia oil (or any salad oil)
Whiz it all up in a blender or food processor, easy!

More keep warm chow... Nabe

Pile the ingredients in, add some stock and bring to boil. Spinach, prawns, mushrooms, carrot, scallops, konnyaku noodles, tofu and belly pork! Not quite enough for 3 hungry hippos so we tossed in more.

I like mushrooms!

A variety of fungi has been mushrooming in supermarkets. I got some from a local grower, Mycofarm. Looked fresher than the imported ones. The Chinese shitake I've gotten in vacuum packs have a very strong chemical-like taste. I've been wondering if it's just the flavour perculiar to those mushrooms or if they have been processed. These ones were great! I love king oyster mushrooms!

Mutton Biryani to warm things up

Little Miss J has always appreciated spice... but now she won't even eat plain biryani and meat without a generous portion of that curry sauce!

Yu Sheng thanks to the Benriner Cook's Help

Mum was very curious about the Benriner turning slicer we got, so she paid a visit and I did a demo yu sheng, this time without the konnyaku, and with jellyfish and wakame. I showed her the long noodlely strands that spewed forth from the gadget's bottom and she was really impressed. I did warn her that the Benriner Cook's Help has it's quirks and takes some getting used to. There were times that the hunk of veg did not catch on and the teeth blades got bent! But it seems like from the reviews I've read, it is one of the better turning slicers around. She vowed to buy the contraption this Saturday.

I am not happy about the pictures taken with my mobile phone! But my digicam is so power-hungry, never satisfied with any kind of rechargeables I put in it.

Yu Sheng

We just bought a turning slicer over the weekend and I've been very eager to try it out. It was fun cranking out all those oodles of vegetables, but it wasn't incredibly easy to use.

Here is the cobbled together Yu Sheng with carrots, cucumber, radish, konnyaku noodles and my home-grown alfalfa and sunflower sprouts. I made the dressing with equal parts of lemon juice, yuzu jelly, tsuyu, sesame paste and macadamia oil. With a sprinkling of bonito (which made up for the yu). Super yummy!















More about the turning slicer later...

Frozen Tiramisu... oh so decadent

I've learnt that half a kilo of Marscapone and another half a litre of double cream makes quite a lot of Tiramisu. After taking the bulk of it to a party, I decided to freeze the rest to see how it would turn out. Only to have hubby say "Better eat it up!" only 4 days later when I mentioned that we had some left over.

I was quite eager to try it frozen, so we sank our spoons right in, and couldn't stop! This batch was made with a whopping amount of Sheridan's Coffee Liqueur (the only thing that we had in the fridge). I've developed a sensitivity to caffeine so my sponges weren't soaked in as much expresso as I would've liked. More liqueur did the job! Little Miss J enjoyed it almost as much as her Papa did. "More pease.. pease..." Hmm... wonder why she was dancing around in circles while watching China's Got Talent. She must have liked the peacock man!

Can Alfalfa sprout in Singapore's climate?

Now that hubbs is quite well again, and baby is almost 2, I can get back to tornado-ing about in the kitchen, and in the "garden".

I've caught the sprouting bug... my first attempt in sprouting alfalfa was very successful, much to my surprise. I ate the whole lot at one go after I greened them up!

Instructions:-

1) Soak about 2 tablespoons of seeds in a glass jar overnight (use a jar which holds about 800ml of liquid)

2) Drain the water the next morning and leave in dark place

3) Wash and drain the seeds on the same evening; repeat the rinsing and washing every 12 hours until the sprouts are about 1 inch in length

4) Put them near the window to green the leaves

5) Shake off the hulls and store in the fridge

I didn't quite get to the last step coz' I was too eager to try my sprouts and they tasted great!

Dredful pics taken with my mobile phone. I made a bigger batch of sprouts, now sitting in the fridge coz' they taste better chilled. I alfalfa in my sandwiches!




















Day 2
















Day 5 -- All done!

I'm now sprouting sunflower, even yummier! I haven't managed to get the black seeds for sprouting and growing sunflowers, so I'm trying with birdseed from the pet shop... hope it works! Getting them to a grow to a crunchy green is quite tricky, requires soil and all. I managed to get mustard, lettuce, tung o and corriander seeds today! Time for more experimentation! :D