Thursday, September 27, 2007

Performing My Wifely Duties

Anyway, here's a super easy recipe (in case you haven't realised by now, I only cook easy stuff.

Spicy Tuna Pasta
Ingredients:

3 cups of twirly pasta
1 can of chili tuna chunks
1 can of tuna chunks
2 cups of pasta sauce
1 onion, diced

Instructions:
Boil the pasta till al dente, drain. In a frying pan, saute the onions in a bit of olive oil till translucent. Add the pasta sauce and tuna chunks, and mix in the pasta.

Ta da. Serve.

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

1 Part Veg to 3 Parts Sin

Ooooh just thinking about this makes my mouth water. Made a really simple and yummy spinach and artichoke dip last night with my sister. I'd post pictures but my notebook is dead and I'm updating this in the office, so we'll all just have to settle with using our imaginations. But trust me, this is something so sinful and so good.

Super Sinful Spinach & Artichoke Dip
Ingredients:

1 packet of frozen spinach, defrosted and drained
1 can of artichoke hearts, drained and quartered
1 jar of Alfredo sauce
1 block of cream cheese, at room temperature
1 packet of shredded mozerella cheese
1 packet of shredded parmesan cheese
1 can of nestle cream

Instructions:
Preheat oven to 180 degrees celcius. Mix everything together in a bowl and pour into a baking dish. Bake for 30 minutes. Enjoy with tortilla chips or bread sticks.

Personally I think this dish is rather salty to eat on its own because of all the cheese that goes in, but it tastes really good when you eat it as a dip. Easy to make and will be really popular as a party food.

*slurp*

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Vietnamese Beef Ball Pho

Wendy and I, we're culinary geniuses, I say. Each time we step into the kitchen, we whip up something that not only impresses because it tastes so deliciously good, but also because it's so *bleep*-ing easy to prepare. Not that we're admitting that cooking is easy, of course. It's easy to us, because we're geniuses. But we'll help you. Watch out for our upcoming cookbook: Ridiculously Easy Dishes That Will Impress Your First Date (Of course, second dates are a whole different ballgame. Watch out for our second cookbook.)

Anyway, enough self praise and patting ourselves on the back. Here's the latest masterpiece. The picture is blurry because we were quivering with excitement over how authentic this tasted, and while we're Asian, we're definately not Vietnamese. But eating this, you can't tell!

Vietnamese Beef Ball Pho
Ooh baby

Vietnamese Beef Ball Pho
Ingredients:

For the soup:
330 ml chicken stock
660 ml water
2 beef stock cubes
2 star anise
1 stalk lemongreaa
1 knob of ginger
1 stick cinnamon or some cinnamon powder
2 - 3 tablespoons fish sauce
3 cloves garlic
chilli powder to taste

For the beef balls:
200g mince beef
1 tbs fish sauce
2 tbs starch / flour
pinch of baking powder
1 tbs sesame oil
pepper and salt to taste

Toppings / Garnish:
2 pieces of fish cake, sliced
beansprouts (as much or as little as you like)
scallions chopped
cilantro chopped
basil
lime

Oh, and the rice noodles of course.

Instructions:
Boil all the ingredients for the soup in a medium pot for about 15 minutes. While boiling, mix all the ingredients for the beef balls and roll into tiny balls. Makes about 14 balls. Throw in the fish cake and beef balls and beansprouts and continue to boil to book the beef.

Soak rice noodles in hot water till soft (about 10 minutes). Drain, and add chopped scallions, chopped cilantro and basil on top of noodles in your serving bowl. Ladle soup, beef balls, fish cake and beansprouts on to noodles. Squeeze lime.

Enjoy and gloat.

Thursday, July 12, 2007

Ridiculously Easy, Utterly Sinful

You know how sometimes you come across a recipe that just sticks in your mind, and you keep thinking about it until you finally cave in and just decide to make it? Well, after reading about this, I kept talking about it till the HTB (and quite a few other friends as well) told me to just shut up and do it. *grin* I'm so glad I did. Only thing missing was the maple cream sauce or a nice cold scoop of ice cream.

Peach Crumble

Peach Crumble
Ingredients:

1 can of sliced peaches, drained (you can obviously use fresh)
1 cup of all purpose flour
1/2 cup of castor sugar
1/2 cup of brown sugar
1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon
1/2 cup of butter

Instructions:
Preheat oven to 180 degrees celcius.

Mix the flour, castor sugar, brown sugar and ground cinnamon in a medium bowl. Cut the butter into small squares and add to the flour mixture. Mix the flour mixture and butter together until it resembles wet sand.

Place the drained peach slices in the bottom of a baking dish. Cover peach slices with the flour and butter mixture and bake in the oven for 40 minutes.

Enjoy with a scoop of ice cream.

Saturday, July 7, 2007

Baked Chicken Pasta

Ohh I can't believe I forgot to post about the baked chicken pasta dish I made on Monday. It was something I just threw together. I don't have any measurements though, but it's really simple (I think I'll make something up haha).

Baked Chicken Pasta

Baked Chicken Pasta

Baked Chicken Pasta
Ingredients:

1 packet of pasta shells / pasta twirly things
2 boneless chicken breasts
1 carrot, cut into cubes
1 medium onion
1 punnet button mushrooms, quartered
2 cans of cream of chicken
1 can of water
salt and pepper to taste
vegetable oil
1 packet of shredded mozerella cheese
1 packet of shredded cheddar cheese

Instructions:
Boil a bot of water, add salt and some oil. Add the pasta and cook till al dente. Add the carrots and cook till soft.

Cut the chicken breasts into cubes and marinate with some salt and pepper. In a frying pan, heat up some oil and stir fry the onions. Add in the chicken and continue to stir fry till the sides are cooked.

Drain the pasta and carrots and add them to a baking dish. Add the onions and chicken, and throw in the mushrooms. Mix two cans of cream of chicken and one can of water. Stir it into the pasta mixture evenly. Cover with mozerella and cheddar cheese.

Bake at 180 degrees celcius for 30 minutes.

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Bean Salad

As requested, here is the recipe for the bean salad.

Healthy Bean Salad
Ingredients:

One can of garbanzo beans
One can of kidney beans
One can of corn kernels
One small onions, diced
2 cloves of garlic, diced
Juice of one lemon
salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:
Drain the beans and rinse them and throw them in a big bowl together with the onions, garlic and lemon juice. Mix. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Sunday, May 13, 2007

Risotto

Risotto

Risotto Topped With Chicken And Mushrooms
Ingredients:

2 cups of Arborio rice
6 cups of chicken stock
2 small onions, diced
olive oil
one knob butter

Instructions:
Drizzle some olive oil into a saucepan and add the butter. Saute the diced onions till translucent. Add the rice and saute with the onions for about 5 minutes. Add 1 cup of stock, stirring the rice until it is almost dry. Repeat, one cup at a time.

You can use anything for toppings, here we used some sauted mushrooms and diced chicken.

Saturday, May 12, 2007

Fresh Cherry Tomato Relish

I was reading / watching Food Wishes and came across a recipe that I just couldn't get out of my mind. Just like I made mayonnaise and kaya just to see if I could actually make it at home, this was one of those moments that have no actual reason other than simple curiosity. Plus, it felt easy enough to make. All I needed was to find out if it tasted as good as it sounded. And oh it was so yummy. I did tweak it a bit, using lemon juice instead of red wine vinegar, and added onions too. My version below, click on link for original.

Fresh Cherry Tomato Relish
Actually I'm not sure how this is different from salsa. Heehee.

Fresh Cherry Tomato Relish
Ingredients:

1 punnet of cherry tomatoes, quartered (about a bowl full)
1 clove of garlic
1 small red onion
Juice of half a lemon
3 tablespoons of olive oil (I think? I just winged it)
pinch of salt
pinch of pepper

Instructions:
Ha, so easy. Mix everything in a bowl. Put in fridge for half an hour to chill.

Cheesecake - It's Not That Hard To Make

Here's the recipe for the cheesecake that I was baking last night. By the time I was done, it was almost 3am! Earlier than I expected, but still very very late.

I've heard people say that once you know how to bake a cheesecake, you've attained a certain level of skill and know-how in the kitchen. I don't think this is true for this cheesecake, as long as you know how to measure and mix, and your oven is the right temperature, you're all set.

Cheesecake

Baked Cheesecake
Ingredients:

For the crust:
1 1/2 cups digestive biscuit crumbs
3 tablespoons sugar
1/3 cup melted butter

For the cheese:
4 blocks of cream cheese, softened at room temperature
4 eggs
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla essence

Instructions:
Preheat your oven to 160 degrees celcius.

Mix crumbs, sugar and melted butter together till it looks like wet sand. Place the mixture in a 9 inch springform pan and press down firmly.

Beat the cream cheese, eggs, sugar and vanilla essence together in a large bowl until smooth and creamy. Pour over crust.

Bake in the oven for 55 minutes until the center is set. Let it cool before putting it in the refrigerator for at least 4 hours or overnight.

Sunday, May 6, 2007

Dulce de Leche!

Woohoo! Success! I made my own dulce de leche this evening! Yes, if you can't already tell by the many exclaimation points that have appeared so far, I'm very excited about it!

Ooh making it yourself is so easy. And it tastes much better than the stuff you get in the supermarket, and probably cheaper as well! Yay!

All you need is to do is place a can of condensed milk in a pot of simmering water, making sure the water covers the cans entirely (or 2 or 3 or however many you can fit in your pot). Let simmer for three hours, topping up water every half an hour, let cans cool when the three hours are up. It's that simple!

There are warnings about exploding cans when you read about making dulche de leche, but so far no one has actually had a can explode on them and you should be safe if the water is gently bubbling and the tops of the cans are covered. It's ok to keep them on the sides, and what I did was roll them around because I figure, the heat was coming from the bottom so you don't want one side to be more cooked than the other, right?

Some sites suggest poking a hole in the can and standing it upright and filling the pot with just enough water to reach just below the top of the can. I didn't do it because I didn't read up about poking holes to release pressure until after my can of condensed milk had been in the water for over half an hour.

Anyway, I'm happy happy happy. :) :) :)

Thursday, March 15, 2007

Yummy Cheesy Mustardy Chicken

My sister cooked chicken for supper one night and I was going to write about it, but was too full. Anyway, she was thawing out some chicken breasts and wanted to try a new recipe. This dish was easy enough to prepare, and was very tasty. However, if you don't like mustard you might not like this as much.

Yummy Cheesy Mustardy Chicken
Ooh la la

Yummy Cheesy Mustardy Chicken
Ingredients:

2 skinless chicken breasts, sliced in half horizontally
100g grated cheddar cheese
1/2 tablespoon wholegrain mustard
3 tablespoons full cream milk
olive oil

Instructions:
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees celcius. Grease a baking dish with olive oil and lay the chicken breasts on it. In a bowl, mix the cheddar cheese, mustard and milk together and pour the mixture on top of the chicken, covering the chicken well. Bake for 25 minutes until the chicken is golden.

Monday, February 26, 2007

Because I Am Strange That Way

Conversation at half past eleven this evening.

scubabunny says:
sorry i'm back
Yummy says:
where'd you run to
scubabunny says:
baked a cake
Yummy says:
at this time???
scubabunny says:
well yeah

Red Velvet Cake
Red Velvet Cake That Is Not Red

Heehee. I've been meaning to try to bake a red velvet cake, ever since I saw it pop up on a couple of food blogs recently. One of the descriptions that I read was that it was supposed to have a tinge of chocolate taste, but not enough to make it an actual chocolate cake. Got the necessary ingredients and decided tonight that I might as well just do it. Searched online for a couple of recipes and tweaked them a bit.

The batter was surprisingly thick and very dense, and I almost regretted omitting the red food colouring from the recipe. I guess I didn't want to buy a bottle of food colouring and just use it once. So I ended up with a red velvet cake that was not red. *grin*

My sister helped with making the cream cheese frosting and she did a wonderful job of it. I don't think I've ever seen cream cheese frosting (or any frosting for that matter) look so smooth! There were hardly any lumps! *amazed* I usually give up once I get a fairly smooth frosting, and excuse myself by saying that the lumps of icing sugar will just give people happy surprises when they bite into it. Lol.

Cream Cheese Frosting
Smoothest Cream Cheese Frosting In The World

Red Velvet Cake That Is Not Red
Ingredients:

For the cake:
1/2 cup butter
1 1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
1 cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon distilled white vinegar
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 1/2 cups sifted all-purpose flour

For the frosting:
1/2 cup butter
1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese
4 cups confectioners' sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Instructions:
1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees celcius.
2. In a bowl, cream the butter, sugar, eggs and cocoa powder.
3. Add the salt, vinegar and baking soda to the buttermilk and stir.
4. Add buttermilk mixture to creamed butter mixture and mix.
5. Slowly add flour to the mixture and mix well.
6. Pour batter into greased pan and bake for 30 minutes.
7. While the cake is baking, mix butter and cream cheese well. Add the vanilla extract and confectioners' sugar and mix well until there are no lumps.
8. Wait till cake is cooled before frosting the cake.

Sunday, February 25, 2007

Food, Glorious, Food!

My sister made mac and cheese today for brunch. Yummy. Mac and cheese. *slurp* Unfortunately I had to rush off for class, and only managed to get a small slice. It was tasty, but somehow the cheese was a tad grainy. We only found out later that it was probably because the temperature in the oven got too hot and made the cheese separate. We also suspect that it could be because we used a low fat milk.

We'll watch the temperature more closely the next time we try it, but I'm also tempted to throw in some mozarella cheese so that it'll all nice and "elastic" when you pull it up.

Mac and Cheese
Cheesy goodness

Mac and Cheese
Ingredients and Instructions:

1. Cook 226g of macaroni until al dente, drain and rinse with cold water.
2. Fry 3 tbs flour in 3tbs butter until mix becomes blonde colour.
3. Add 1tbs dry mustard + 1/2 tbs paprika + 1/2 cup chopped onions + 1 bay leaf + 1 tsp salt to form a paste.
4. Slowly whisk in 3 cups of milk and simmer for about 10 mins whisking all the time.
5. Add a tbs of sauce to a beaten egg, then add egg mix back to sauce.
6. Take sauce off the heat and slowly add in 340g of cheese. Once sauce mix is ready, add the macaroni. Put into 350dF / 176dC oven for 30mins to bake.

Thursday, February 15, 2007

Cornflake Cookies!

I got this really simple recipe for cornflake cookies from Trina couple of days ago. The first time I remember eating cornflake cookies was some time ago, when I was visiting one of my Malay friends during Hari Raya (no, it wasn't the HTB). I've always wanted to try making them, but have never been very successful at locating a recipe. My friend's mom refused to share her recipe (sheesh!) and online websites didn't really seem to have anything that was similar to what I wanted to make.

Anyway, with this recipe in hand and me being back home early today, I decided to try it out so that the HTB can have some before his dental surgery tomorrow morning. As with all other yummy sinful recipes, once you know how much sugar etc goes into the mix, you don't really want to eat it anymore. Lol.

It's fairly easy, with only 4 ingredients, but rather tedious. Actually, I find making any types of cookies a hassle because you can't bake it all at one shot. Well, you could if you had a big enough oven and enough baking sheets, but my oven is a teeny tiny one, so I just have to keep baking and cooling and baking and cooling. Ick.

Cornflake Cookies
All ready and packed up

It's a very tasty cornflake cookie, but a tad too sweet for my liking. I'm not sure if it was because the recipe is too sweet, or whether my conversion from grams to tablespoons went wrong down the line. Or perhaps it's just my taste buds (I usually prefer baking stuff that doesn't have too much sugar so that my dad can try it. This is definitely too sweet for him.) I'll type out the original recipe here anyway. I didn't use any walnuts at all, I just replaced the amount of walnuts needed with more cornflakes. *grin*

Cornflake Cookies
Ingredients:

125 gm butter
250 gm conflakes (nestle)
80 gm sugar
50 gm honey
80 gm walnuts (wash, dry and chop)

Instructions:
1. Melt sugar & honey in butter
2. Add cornflakes and walnuts in mixture
3. Bake for about 5-7 mins, +/-175 degree until golden and yummy

..

I baked mine a little longer because I baked them in larger (muffin) cups than those normally used for baking these cornflake cookies. You've got to wait till they cool down 100% before packing so that they harden up somewhat and don't fall apart while handling.

Friday, February 9, 2007

Ridiculously Easy Dish

I have just discovered how ridiculously easy it is to make a tasty couscous dish, in less than 5 minutes! It's so easy that I don't think it counts as cooking! It's my new favourite instant-dish-to-make.

Ridiculously Easy Couscous
Ingredients:

1/2 cup chicken broth
2 sundried tomatoes (in oil)
1 tablespoon of oil from the sundried tomatoes
1/2 cup couscous

Instructions:
1. Pour the 1/2 cup of chicken broth in a microwave proof bowl. Chop up the sun dried tomatoes to small bits and throw them in the chicken broth together with 1 tablespoon of the oil.
2. Nuke chicken broth mixture for 2 minutes on high in the microwave oven till chicken broth is steaming hot.
3. Add in couscous, mix and cover for 2 minutes till light and fluffy.
4. Enjoy!

Thursday, January 4, 2007

Baguio City, Philippines

Baguio City

Baguio City

Sky On The Way To Baguio, Philippines

Baguio Sky

From The Garden

Flowers

Playing With Firecrackers on New Year's Eve 2006

Fireworks

Fireworks

View From Mount Luh, Boracay, Philippines

View from Mount Luh

Sunset at White Beach, Boracay, Philippines

Sunset at Boracay

Happy New Year!

Hi all,

Just making a quick post at the Manila Airport. Waiting for my flight back and hanging out at the lounge area. For S$10 you get access to unlimited internet, sleeping rooms, free flow of soft drinks and sandwiches. Considering our flight is in 2 hours, it's a pretty good deal!

Philippines was great, shall update more when I'm back home.

Cheers,

-bon