pandan cake

Why?
1.LR doesn't really like cupcakes or muffins. He prefers airy cakes like pandan cakes.
2.I spotted some un-used pandan leaves in my fridge.
3.Green is my favourite colour!

Any excuse to bake in my kitchen :)

Failure:
In the midst of weighing, mixing and stirring, I couldn't find my pandan essence. It was an optional item on the recipe, but it did say that it would result in a very pale green colour(mine came out just yellow, as seen from above). I also killed my food processor. I was blending my pandan leaves with the tool and it suddenly 'smoked' and died. Thank God it managed to cough up 2 pathetic tsp of pandan juice. Honestly in the end, the pandan in the cake was almost non-existent. I, in fact made a butter sponge cake.

P/S: My pandan essence was found in my mom's place. We did grocery shopping together and it was left in her bags.

Success:
It had an almost 'juicy' but not wet bite to the cake. Somehow, it was still air-y and light. I liked it alot. Most pandan cakes that are sold commercially tend to be very dry. So I was pleasantly surprised by the contrast.

mushroom soup with country rolls

Why?
A few weeks back, there was this Border's 40% discount voucher circulating and I managed to convince LR that it would be such a waste not to use it to extend the library in my kitchen :) I decided that if I do want to master the art of baking bread, I need a book JUST devoted to bread making and nothing else.
Of course, soups are the perfect complement to bread. I decided to try making mushroom soup(Jamie Oliver's book - Dinners).

Success:
Sigh... not much :( But it's a pretty picture eh?

Failure:
The soup was too oily. The problem is when I cook from Jamie's book, sometimes the ingredients measurements are too vague for my liking. Exactly what is a good knob of butter? So anyway, my version of 'a good knob of butter' resulted in the soup being too oily, I was also overly generous with the lemon juice to 'kick up the flavour' as quoted from the book. My soup ended up sour and oily. Miles from what a mushroom soup should be. I also couldn't puree my mushroom soup as my food processer 'died' on me :(

The country rolls were a tragedy too... hard and totally inedible. I discovered it was because my yeast 'died'. I came to that conclusion from a side experiment I performed. I took a little of yeast from the same bottle that I used and added tepid water and sugar. If the yeast was alive, it would bubble and look sponge-y. But it didn't!! I checked the expiry date, and there was still about a year left. Not trusting this brand anymore.... Also am totally dejected on bread making.

Medley of CNY goodies

Why?
I'm not young anymore, and I have to admit that I would eventually become an 'auntie'...Sigh. Yes, so a huge part of adopting that title, is to participate in the annual frenzy of Chinese New Year (CNY) by baking pineapple tarts, giving out ang pows and marketing for food early to avoid the ridiculous price increase of fresh produce etc. To prepare myself for 'auntie-hood', I should and MUST master the art of tackling CNY. My medley of CNY goodies included Chocolate Chip cookies( from She bakes and she cooks), pineapple tarts( from another blogger, but forgot whom) and finally Mars cornflakes( Nigella's FEAST book).

Success:
The Mars cornflakes were a huge hit with everyone and it was so easy to make. But making them really tested my speed in the kitchen. I had to spoon all the goo-ey cornflakes into the individual paper mouldings fast before it hardens up. These fabulous goodies had the most fantastic combination of chewy-ness and crunchy-ness. I would definitely be making these again.

Failure:
On a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being the easiest/fastest to make and 10 being insanely difficult/longest to make. Pineapple tarts registers with a score of 1 million!!! I am not joking! These goodies are just pure madness to craft. Making the homemade pineapple jam, requires leg and arm strength of an army. I am already exhausted recalling the hardwork in the kitchen to come up with them. Possibly the journey for pineapple tarts has ended in year 2007. I will gladly disqualify myself from 'auntie-hood' if making pineapple tarts is a major criterion.
Ok, moving on to the cookies. They came out rock hard!! Gosh..I don't know what happened! But I was just too tired to care after the pineapple tarts! Haha....

CNY or auntie-hood.... I am just not ready for it.

Angelhair pasta with Seafood in Prawn bisque

Why?
I had the most delicious Crayfish pasta at Miss Clarity Cafe, that greatly inspired me to whip up a similiar dish in my own kitchen. There was this distinct sweetness from the broth that the pasta was soaked in that really got me all excited. I just had to experiment as to whether the sweetness came from the prawn bisque or the cream or both!

Success:
I didn't use Crayfish, and bought huge scallops, prawns and fish fillet instead. I also opted to use Angelhair pasta, as it would be perfect to 'soak' up the flavours from the broth . I will include the receipe, since it's my very own and there would be absolutely no 'plagarism' here :) But I have to clarify, that I cook absolutely by instincts when I don't have a receipe. So you have to bear with me, if I just simply state - to taste!

Ingredients:
Garlic - 5 cloves
Onion - 1 medium
Bacon -2 streaks
Scallops
Prawns with shells on
Fish fillet
fresh tomotoes -2
canned whole tomatoes - 1 can
tomato paste - to taste
double cream - to taste
salt, pepper and sugar - to taste

Prepare some prawn bisque by de-shelling the prawns(including head) and boil in some water till reduced to this bright orange colour that usually at the same time fills my entire house with prawn vapour.

Fry the thinly sliced garlic, onion and bacon till fragrant. Add in the tomatoes(canned, paste and fresh) and prawn bisque to boil. Simmer for about 1/2hr and then add in the seafood with all the seasoning to taste with the double cream.

Only stir in the pasta when you are absolutely sure you're going to eat it within the next 5 min, or you would end up with mee sua pasta :)

Simply divine.........

Failure:
I tried this receipe twice. The first time, I added some herbs(basil) and it did snatch away the sweetness of the pasta. Maybe I'm a purist in my flavour. The 2nd time when I tried, I held back the herbs, and in my opinion, it was a more focused and distinct flavour of sweetness from the seafood...

Fresh Pasta

Why?
LR gave me a pasta machine as a Christmas present last year and of course I have to put it to good use :) And one of my occasional nothing-better-to-do-but-just-go-to-Phoon Huat- trips, I saw Semolina flour and bought a packet of it as I sort of remembered reading from somewhere that it makes yummy fresh pasta, so just bought it for an in- case- I-am -in-the-mood- to make pasta moment in the kitchen.

Success:
It was so much fun!!! I searched the internet for usage of Semolina flour and pasta, found a receipe for Ravioli, but I didn't have any stuffing, so decided to just make simple Fetcuccine. I am definitely getting my girfriends over to make some fresh pasta in future.

Failure:
I think the Semolina flour I bought was a quite coarse. I might need to stick to Italian 00 flour or hunt for a finer semolina flour.