reese's cookies

cranberry & apple pie

chicken goulash

why?

I have recently been converted into a paprika fanatic! Last week after lunch, I walked passed a shop selling spices by weight. You don't see that too often these days, I couldn't help but walk in and walk out with 50cents worth of paprika and after that is done, I'm definately going back to try the other spices. I looked up the internet and decided to make goulash since I had some baguette left over. However, LR's mom does not take beef which is the usual main ingredient. So I decided to 'improvise' :)

success?

I was yummy!! A little spicy but I like!

failure?

The taste isn't as robust as Hungarian Goulash, but I would think that not using beef would have that effect. The taste is more subtle and in fact using chicken brought the paprika from a supporting role in the dish to the lead role! So even in seeming failures something good does emerge!

2 all beef patties!

yam kueh

why?

LR's mom bought ALL the ingredients and if that isn't a hint that she wanted me to make it then I don't know what would :)

success?

Sigh...... continue reading!

failure?

It was rock hard!! The reason... I was multi-multi- MULTI tasking :( I was trying to marinate my meat for dinner, talking to my friend and assuring LR that I would be done soon so that the game sessions would began AND prepare this kueh at the same time, and I left out a transparent, odourless and costing next to nothing ingredient - water!! Almost a whole litre of it! What a disaster. The taste was ok, I guess how wrong can you go with mushrooms, lap cheong, yam and shallots. Two lessons I learnt today. Firstly, FOCUS and secondly, HUMILITY!

chicken fajitas dinner

braised chicken

F1 cookies

duck & chutney

traditional chocolate cake

why?
Well... the year is coming to an end, and there are many ingredients in my kitchen cabinet that I hope to use up and not to have to dump them away! I decided that yesterday was a good day to use up half of my cocoa powder and most of my icing sugar. I searched allrecipes.com for a recipe that would use these 2 ingredients A LOT and this came up!

success?
This is the first cake I made that I managed to replicate the "cake-frosting-cake" layers technique and was glad that the cake turned out moist and spongy but not too light as the chiffon cake texture might not hold all that frosting. The taste wasn't overly sweet because I reduced the amount of sugar from the original recipe and added coffee to give the cake a tinge of bitterness.

failure?
There was also too much frosting, I guess I could have not slapped on so much frosting, but I was trying to not waste anything! When LR ate the cake, he had to remove the frosting and he commented it looked like cement! Grrrrr...... and I told him to be grateful he had cake! Haha.... Somehow the taste wasn't as refined as I would like for it to be, perhaps it could be the use of vegetable oil instead of butter in the recipe? If I were to bake this cake again, I might use melted butter instead. The recipe was called Extreme Chocolate Cake, but I didn't think anything extreme about it, to me it was a good and safe cake to make for birthdays and would suit most people's palate. Hence, I would rename this recipe to Traditional Chocolate Cake instead.

Traditional Chocolate Cake (9 inch cake pan x 2)

INGREDIENTS

350 g white sugar
220 g all-purpose flour
65 g unsweetened cocoa powder
1.5 tsp baking soda
1.5 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
2 eggs
235 ml milk
120 ml vegetable oil
2 tsp ml vanilla extract
235 ml boiling water with 1 sachet of 3 in 1 coffee added


170 g butter
130 g unsweetened cocoa powder
640 g confectioners' sugar
155 ml milk
5 ml vanilla extract

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 175 degrees C. Grease and flour two 9 inch cake pans.
2. Use the first set of ingredients to room temperature.
   
3. In a medium bowl, stir together the sugar, flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder and salt.
   
4. Add the eggs, milk, oil and vanilla, mix for 3 minutes with an electric mixer.
   
5. Stir in the boiling water and coffee by hand.
   
6. Pour evenly into the two prepared pans.
7. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes in the preheated oven, until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.
   
8. Cool for 10 minutes before removing from pans to cool completely.
9. To make the frosting, use the second set of ingredients.
   
10. Cream butter until light and fluffy. Stir in the cocoa and confectioners' sugar alternately with the milk and vanilla. Beat to a spreading consistency.
11. Split the layers of cooled cake horizontally, cover the top of each layer with frosting, then stack them onto a serving plate. Frost the outside of the cake.

Fried Viet Spring Rolls

dinosaur cookies

just look at that!?!

all things colourful and Brit...

pork & apples (after)

pork & apples (before)

mint peas

penang laksa

dutifully cooking...

a trinity of pizza

before they head into the oven...ouch!

toppings included...

tomatoes and mushrooms

chicken and pineapple

why?

I had some left over cheese and tomato salsa from the mexican dinner I made on Sunday. And pizzas came to mind. However, despite the fact that even when I always wanted to make pizzas from scratch, the concern that I do not have a pizza pan or a granite stone or even a wood fire oven bugged me so much that I never got down to making them. But I guess a foodie like me would hate to let good food go to waste and my 'Just do it' Nike attitude found myself in the kitchen producing such fabulous results and my fears of not getting a crispy thin, wood fire oven base were totally unfounded!

success?

This is so easy, fun and cheap to make!! Totally would make this again and anytime. I do not need a pizza pan, wood-fire oven or a granite stone to achieve that crispy thin base. So what are you waiting for? Get down to Mama mia!!

failure?

I probably got a little too excited with the toppings, that made my pizza look like a hill! But I really do not care, the more the merrier. I say "Pile them on!"

beef stew

burritos

sangria

caramalising

dusting and rolling

downside

upside... pear tartin!

DIY sushi handroll