Spaghetti with Cream Sauce

Made something simple for lunch. The kids used to love spaghetti with tomato based sauce, but they have come to appreciate creamy sauce now. Added brocolli which G complained about.

Creamy Sauce Spaghetti

300g spaghetti--boiled in salted water until al dente.
100g bacon--sliced
100g fresh button mushrooms--sliced
200g brocolli--chopped roughly
4 cloves garlic
2 Tbsp butter
2 Tbsp flour
1 cup milk
Salt and pepper to taste.

1. Fry bacon until crispy.
2. Fry garlic, add brocolli and mushrooms and set aside.
3. Heat up butter and add in flour. Stir quickly over a low fire. Add in milk and stir until mixture is creamy.
4. Add salt and pepper to taste.
5. If desired, can add in a can of mushroom soup and add half a can of water.

Banana Chocolate Chip Cake

Will be celebrating birthdays of boys from 3N1--so everyone will have a cupcake each. Bought 3 bunches of bananas and decided to try a new recipe for banana cakes. Have always used my Banana Nut Bread recipe (a foolproof one!), but thought will try out this one for a change. This recipe calls for only butter and lots more milk. The rest of the ingredients are more or less the same. I added chocolate chips as the boys would like that. Cake turned out to be soft and moist.

Banana Cake

3 cups flour
2.5 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
150g butter
1 cup fine sugar
3 eggs
1.5 tsp vanilla essence
1 cup milk and 1 Tbsp lemon juice
2 cups mashed bananas
1 cup chocolate chips

Method
1. Sift dry ingredients.
2. Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add in eggs one at a time. Add in vanilla essence.
3. Fold in flour mixture and alternate with milk.
4. Add in mashed bananas and choc chips and mix well.
5. Bake at 180C for 20 minutes (for cupcakes) and 175C for 35 minutes (for loaf pan)

Snowskin Mooncake

Made my first snow skin mooncakes finally! My friend CT told me that it's very easy to do as her twins are making the mooncakes to raise funds for their Chiangmai trip. I decided to have a go at making the mooncakes. So I googled for the recipe and found this recipe on one of the food blogs(she bakes and she cooks). I tweaked the recipe a little--added less sugar and more water.

Snowskin Mooncakes

Ingredients
115 Hong Kong Flour (steam for 15 mintues, leave to cool)
115 koufen
100g icing sugar (can reduce to 80g)
4 Tbsp shortening
7 Tbsp cold water
1/2 tsp pandan paste
2 Tbsp Hong Kong Flour (mixed with 2 Tbsp hot water to form hot dough)

Fillings
1.5 kg white lotus paste
100g melon seeds (baked)
salted egg yolks (steamed)

Method
Sieve Hong Kong flour, koufen and icing sugar. Mix pandan essence with the cold water. Make a well in the centre, add shortening, pandan paste, water and hot dough, and knead until smooth. Roll the dough and wrap lotus paste, melon seeds & egg yol. Press into moon cake mould.
Knock mooncake out from mould and serve. Refrigerate if kept overnight.

Js' Birthday!

Js is very happy today. He invited 4 of his friends--Nicholas, Sean, Brandon and Brenan over to our place. They had a good time playing and they enjoyed the lunch too. Some of them had not tried laksa before. I coaxed them to try and all were gungho about it--except for Brenan who didn't like it. But they all particularly enjoyed the shepherd's pie.

What made Js birthday extra special is not the presents and the makan...or the fact that he shares the same birthday as the Minister Mentor LKY, but the Akela Award which he received yesterday. This is the highest Scouts award and Js is extremely happy that he has received this award. He is displaying the trophy proudly in the living room. I thank God that He has given Js this wonderful blessing. It means a lot to him.

HOME--Here we come!

We FINALLY decided to move back home!(on 6 Sep) The renovations of the kitchen, toilets and foyer in the living room started in June. So during the June holidays, we moved to mummy's place. The place is sooo comfortable. The boys love Ah Bu's room (they get to watch TV on the bed!) G loves the exercise room too. She relaxes on the massage chair every night before she sleeps to read her book. She really knows how to enjoy life! Even the maid is happy--the kitchen gets the morning sun and the clothes dry in a jiffy! I also get to bake and grill--in a built-in oven. My previous oven is a table-top one--so it's very limited in use. That's one of the reasons why my kitchen is renovated--so that I will have a built-in oven! We really enjoyed our stay there, so much so that the kids whined about having to move back so fast!??
So we're really thankful for this wonderful place to stay. Thanks Mummy and Ah Bu!

Sambal Kangkong

J loves sambal kangkong and would always order this dish whenever we eat at a rastaurant or zhi czar stall. This is also a must-have whenver we cook nasi lemak at home.

400g kangkong
3 Tbsp dried shrimps--soaked in water
4 cloves garlic -- chopped
6 shallots -- chopped
1/2 Tbsp belachan
1 Tbsp pounded chilli / dried chilli
dash of salt

Fry garlic and shallots until fragrant.
Add dried shrimps and fry.
Add chilli paste and belachan.
Add in the kangkong and fry quickly.
If mixture is dry, add the water from soaking the dried shrimps.
Do not overcook.

Fried Tofu Japanese Style

My kids love Japanese food. Whenever we decide to go Japanese for dinner, we would inevitably have fried tofu. They would not eat tofu in any other form except this. My parents-in-law came for dinner and they like it too. Since their house is under renovation, they have been coming for dinner every night. So I'll definitely cook this again. It is easy to prepare and delicious too...crispy outside and soft inside.

2 blocks of tofu
8 Tbsp Potato flour
Salt and pepper
Chicken seasoning powder (optional)

Dry tofu with paper towel. Cut into big cubes.
Mix seasoning with flour.
Coat tofu with flour and deep fry.

Potato Salad

G loves potato salad so much that she says she can have it for breakfast, lunch and dinner. To go with roast chicken the other sunday night, I made potato salad since there are so many potatoes sitting around. G kept some of it in the fridge and indeed she wanted to have it for the next day's breakfast.

1 kg potatoes -- boiled and cubed
3 hard boiled eggs -- roughly chopped
2 sprigs of spring onion -- finely chopped
1 onion -- finely chopped
5 Tbsp mayonnaise
3 Tbsp fresh milk
Pinch of salt and pepper

Mix everything together and put it in the fridge for at least half an hour before serving.

Refreshing Salad

Whenever we go western for dinner, we would have a baked dish--either roast chicken, baked rice or pasta, soup, toasted baguette and of course a refreshing salad.

The first pic shows a mainly fruit salad--super sweet pineapples(Philippine Dole), cherry honey tomatoes, grapes,lettuce and topped with toasted sunflower seeds. For the dressing, I used some italian dressing, a bit of japanese mayo and a teaspoon of honey. The salad would taste great without the dressing too.

The second pic included kiwi fruit, mango, apples, cherry tomatoes, raisins and japanese cucumbers. No dressing this time...all natural sweetness.

Pumpkin Soup

Pumpkin is full of vitamin A and anti-oxidants. We should be eating more of it but we seldom cook it. At the market the other day, the pumpkins looked really fresh and plump. So I decided to make pumpkin soup.

It's really quite simple. Just skin the pumpkin, cut into smaller chunks, add in 1 or 2 potatoes, 1 chopped onion and throw everything in chicken stock to boil until pumpkin and potatoes are soft. Blend everything to get a smooth gooey mixture. Put to boil again and season with salt and black pepper. Add some cream and fresh milk and stir. Turn off fire 1 minute after cream and milk are added. Serve with toasted baguette and butter. We also had it with roast chicken and a salad. A rather easy-to-prepare dinner for 11 people--mummy, parents-in-law, brother and sis-in-law and my family.

Roast Chicken

Roasting a chicken takes very little effort--no need to slave over the stove. Just season the chicken a few hours before roasting, pop the chicken in the oven, set at high temperature (220 degrees)for 10 to 15 minutes, then lower the temperature to 180 degrees (for about half an hour). And there you have it, a no-fuss dinner!

I also added a few potatoes, chop it, season with salt, pepper and herbs, and placed the potatoes in the same baking dish. The juice from the chicken further enhances the taste of the potatoes. My hubby loves the potatoes baked this way.