farewell cookies

I do hate goodbyes but to make it less painful I decided to inject a little sweetness for my dearest kiddies. Hope you all liked it and do keep it touch! :)

Success:
It was really easy to make and I love the cinnamon, raisins and oats. Reminds me so much of Subway cookies. Oh and I also got to use this lovely dessert dish that was given to me by my dearest friends.

Failure:
Too much tears in the dough :(

zone meal

I read a bit about this Zone diet and thought it might be good to create a meal with the concept. No carbo. Think healthy. I baked chicken breast with lemon and tomatoes. Made a salad with balsamic vinegar and basil.

Success:
It sure did taste healthy! Aka a little bland.
Salad was yummy!

Failure:
Probably only repeat it if I really wanted to lose A LOT of weight!

tomato and spinach quiche

Success:
It looks so pretty(yes like the bacon and mushroom quiche), but would it be salty and terrible? Anyway, what's my rationale for making this? It's just that while I was buying the ingredients to make the B&M quiche, I was getting extremely stressed out by the amount of fat that goes into the quiche, so much so that I convinced myself to compensate with a vegetable quiche! Haha... I added the same amount of salt as the failed B&M quiche but the salt level was barely noticeable. In place, was the nice sourness of the tomatoes and aroma of rosemary that I added. Oh did I add that this one had no recipe too? Maybe I really can't follow plans... is God telling me that I need more faith and to eat more vegetables? Haha...

Failure:
I made this together with the B&M quiche, so am not too thrilled with making quiches.

bacon and mushroom quiche

Success:
Looks good only :(

Failure:
It was EXTREMELY salty *sigh* I need to remember next time when I am cooking bacon and I do NOT need salt. Oh yeah and remember to use unsalted butter too.

rice cooker bread

Sometime ago, LR and myself were hooked on watching this Japanese Anime about bread and this was a recipe incorporated into the show. We told ourselves that we would try it and we finally did after LR mustered enough energy to download the episode, copy the recipe and got his hands dirty!

Success:
I love it! Maybe it's because LR made it, I could be biased but there was really this subtle sweet butter and milk taste that was really quite addictive. I ate a huge slice with cheddar chesse. YUM! Good Job LR! And the best part... he's going to make it again.

Failure:
LR started making the bread at 9pm and after weighing all the flour, butter etc, he discovered that he would need about 4-6 hours for the bread to be ready for consumption. He went ahead anyway, I think in the process of the 'experiment' he got too excited with the yeast and added too much water with it. The dough became quite sticky and we had to add quite a lot of flour. But really, it was the closest to a baby's bum I've ever encountered in my laboratory. Finally after much proving and waiting we put the dough into the rice cooker. It was almost 12midnight and I was too sleepy so I decided to go home.

The next morning, LR confessed he went to bed too! Haha... so he continued cooking the bread only this morning. We took out the bread, it looked burnt! And LR forbade me to take any pictures. However, after we both took a slice (see success) I sensed that there would be no issues with displaying LR's first experiment on the blog. The next time, LR vowed to start making the bread much earlier and put in a lot less water :) I'm so proud of him!

sweet and sour chicken

Success:
It filled the whole house with the fiesty flavours of roasted peppers, chillis and onions and sweet fragrance of the pineapple. The chicken was juicy and succulent coupled with the good massage of the ginger and basil to create this amazing twist (think roasted chicken, chicken rice chicken). Blending half of the veg and pineapple with balsamic vinegar and sugar as a complementing sauce wasn't overpowering and was light enough to have the meal with rice or noodles. Fantastic! LR loved it and said he would pay $15 for the meal! Haha... I spent barely $10 including a big bottle of balsamic vinegar.

Failure:
More like room for improvement, I might try to add in some corriander to blend the sauce in future and if I wanted a fuller meal could have whipped up some mash potatoes :)

basil with minced pork

I went to the nursery on Sunday and bought a Thai basil plant for only $5! I figured even if the plant dies after a week and I cooked at least 2 dishes with the leaves I would definitely still have been justified buying the plant (as cold storage sells a small packet for about $2 ). So of course I had to put my new plant to good use and decided to try making this dish. I tried it the last time with chicken and without fish sauce ( I know that's bad... Thai food without fish sauce is like bangkok without shopping!)

Success:
It was fabulous! The funny thing was, I really didn't have a recipe to follow and I cooked with 'natural talent'? Haha... and it was so yummy... So I reflected on this and thought about how sometimes in life we have a plan and we hope that it turns out well, but sometimes things go wrong and we go back to the plan and try to troubleshoot. The problem is we can get so caught up with our mistakes that we don't move on. For me, life is the same, we try to control life with plans and yet we get disappointed when it doesn't go according to plan. And when we don't have a plan, it can turn out fabulous and more often than not way beyond out expectations. What I'm trying to say is, maybe we don't know everything and we often don't plan for the best. Let's trust someone who knows.

"For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future"

Jeremiah 29:11


I thank God that my plan is not always the best but His plans are and trusting in Him I will ever be satisfied :)

Failure:
none... Yippeeee

thai pomelo salad

My mom left me with a huge pomelo after her mid-autumn party on Sunday and warned me that it is going to be too ripe to eat after Monday, so I decided to use it as a dish for dinner!

Success:
It looks so Thai! Swadeeka.... It was really refreshing and I liked the added crunch that the peanuts gave to the salad.

Failure:
I couldn't find Thai lime and had to use big limes instead, and it was really a compromise on the taste. LR and myself did think that it wasn't sour enough. Also the pomelo was indeed ripe and very juicy, so after tossing the salad, there was swimming pool of 'soup' which I honestly didn't mind as I was happily slurping it down.

banana honey bread

Success:
The bread rose and I did not kill the yeast! Was initially very worried and because I used up ALL the yeast I had at home, I almost made my LR run down to the stores to get me more.

Failure:
For some reason, bread recipes and me have not connected yet! Soldier on I tell myself. Firstly, after kneading the dough, it's not smooth like a baby's bum...hmmm.... I really don't know why but I know that hinders in the proving process as the cracks lets out the air early. Secondly, I couldn't divide the dough up equally and the result is very uneven looking bread rolls! Should I weigh them individually like BreadTalk? Way to much work.. leave it looking 'homemade' is probably the lazy option! Haha... Lastly, I need to flour my baking sheet A LOT more, as when I drizzle the honey over the bread, they streak down by the sides and stick to the sheet after being baked. So my LR had to manually peel of the paper, very unprofessional! Haha.... so definitely needs more tweaking once again :)

chocolate orange pudding

Success :
Looks as pretty as the picture in Jamie's Happy Days cook book and tastes extremely sinful and very much like a brownie. I was initially surprised that I had to steam it for 2 hours and gave my oven an off day :)

Failure:
It was a little damp for my liking and the butter did overpower the taste of the orange. I would definitely prick my 'boiled' orange a lot less times and ease up on the butter. But when I asked my LR(lab rat) the verdict, he said :" more tweaking".