lavender cupcakes

why?
To use the lavender I bought from the States of course! It was so exciting to see lavender sold at the herbs section in the supermarket in the midst of all the other usual suspects like thyme, basil etc. I wished lavender was as common in the States as it was in Singapore!

Success:
I had to store my lavender with sugar days in advance to use the sugar to make the cupcakes. The recipe only requires lavender sugar and it is optional to use the actual herbs for decorations. So honestly, if I wanted to 'milk' the lavender, I would just keep making lavender sugar! A marvelous investment. The fragrance from the herbs infused into the sugar so easily and I insisted that visitors to my kitchen must not leave without getting a whiff of the subtle aroma. The taste of lavender in cupcakes really draws you away from the thought of eating the sinful cupcakes and convince you that you've entered into an aromatherapy and health nut zone.

Failure:
I got too excited with mixing in my icing colour. So instead of a pale lilac for my frosting, I ended up with a Barney looking colour! Hahaa... Ok, ALOT less colouring in future.

stuff baked onions

why?:

I asked myself the same question as to why I want to make this dish when I totally detest onions! The thing is, I do use them quite extensively in my cooking, but I would only eat the the onions when are out of sight or cooked so long that they have become almost transparent and have already lost their taste. I know... the taste was just transfered into the dish right? I don't know, that's just me and onions. Yeah, it's a complicated relationship. I would definitely call it a love-hate relationship with onions. But anyway back to the dish..I made it because simply because LR loves onions and so does his mom. I was really happy that I could actually get excited making it because it just shows that my love for cooking is greater than eating. That revelation was important as if cooking is a huge part of my life, it should be align to my values. I believe in a community and we don't exist just for ourselves. And cooking doesn't just involve me! It includes the people I'm cooking for as well. If the focus was just eating, it would be too much of a self activity and where's the joy there?

Success:

I had to rely on LR on the taste and he loved it! Of course it's onions, bacon and cheese. We can't really go wrong with that combo :)

Failure:

It looks like such a simply dish but it was tough to prepare. After boiling the onions, I had to remove the centre to stuff them with cheese and onions. However, the onions were quite soft and perhaps my knife wasn't sharp enough, but it was madness trying to remove the centre without yanking out the core of the onion to leave a hole at the bottom! I had 4 onions and it took me 10mins on each one! Wonder if I could remove the centre before boiling them? Oh the other thing was, I was too generous with my cheese and it looked like onion gratin.

what's left salad

why? :

The birth of this salad is the consequence of making the chocolate brulee (see last post). I had to use 16 egg yolks for the dessert and I didn't want to throw away all the egg white. So I decided to scramble the egg whites on top of the salad. The strips of meat were left over from yesterday's roast chicken dinner. Ok, least you start to think that the greens are left overs too and cheapen the dish through and through. I better qualify that the greens are bought the morning itself and it's a mix of spinach and rocket.

Success:

I didn't waste food!! You can't go wrong with salad and the thought of eating egg whites in such a huge quantity put me in this Hollywood mood. For those who don't know, many many celebs eat egg whites and swear by it in their diet :) So much for left overs!

Failures:

Can't think of any!

chocolate brulee

Why? : (decided that this is important too)

I'm not a fan of cream brulee, but after watching Jamie teach the kids how to make this dessert on one of his school dinners episode and how it made every child in the room laugh and smile to themselves and licking every bit of the dessert, I told myself 'I want to make people smile too!'

Success:

Looks like a giant cream brulee!

Failure:

I forgot to buy small individual glasses or containers and had to settle for a big Pyrex dish. So what happened was that while serving the dessert the middle part didn't firm up enough so it flowed... sigh. But thank God for microwaves as a few minutes in the amazing machine did it! Whew... However with this dish I'm not so sure if I want to make it again. Firstly, it's got gigantic amounts of sugar and egg yolks(16 in total). Secondly, if anything is chocolate, it has to be dark, but it's probably not possible with this dish as heart-stopping amount of double cream and yolks would make the darkest chocolate undark ...

flour crusted chicken

Success:

I love surprises! And watching people being surprised too.. LR and myself invited some guest over for dinner and what better way to begin the evening than with a surprise? To be honest, I was quite worried myself when the ugly block of baked flour sat in the middle of the table. Even though I knew what was inside, the anxiety of what it would actually look like and whether it would be cooked developed into a suspense building surprise for me too. When the chicken was let loose..my sense of smell was gently tickled by the steamy aroma of sage and lemon. The meat was so tender and I loved the texture of the meat which reminded me of stewed chicken without the thick gravy.

Failure:

The taste was very subtle and I actually did enjoy the change of not having flavours robbing of the natural taste of chicken meat. If I do decide to make this dish again, I would definitely season the bird with more salt or whip up a complementary gravy.