Typical Weekend Dinner

Dinner on a weekday at home is considered relatively simple compared to the efforts put into preparing for dinner on weekends when more people are home.

Yesterday, this was what we had for dinner:

Tofu-tomato-button mushroom-minced meat soup

And I actually tried to recreate this soup some time ago. It really looks like a watered-down version compared to my mom's. :(

Stir fried Spinach and Mushroom in Oyster Sauce

One of my favourite! But I don't recall the taste of those juicy mushrooms. Hey!

Steamed Fish

I have no idea what fish this was. I only know one type of fish - Garoupa. But this does not mean I know how a Garoupa looks like. All dead fishes look the same to me.

Sweet and Sour Pork

Yummy! However, there's some fatty meat on the pork, so I'm torn between satisfying my taste bud and the potential threat of having a few grams added to the scale. So for every piece of pork, I had a piece of pineapple. Don't know why I did it...I just felt better somehow.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

For the past few days, I had been mulling over how to best optimise the large quantities of mini chocolate chips in my fridge. And today, I finally decided to go back to one of the basic baking recipes -chocolate chip cookies. It has been some time since I last baked these cookies.

I found a recipe online and I tweaked it a little. Without realising, it can in fact be considered a vegan cookie if not for the addition of chocolate chips. Is chocolate chips considered vegetarian? I got the following extract from my Google search:

"Vegan baking requires particular attention to reading labels. Many chocolate chip brands contain dairy ingredients. There are several varieties of chocolate chips on the market that do not contain dairy, and natural food stores also stock chocolate chips made from grain-based sweeteners."

Nevertheless, it's easy to replace the chocolate chips by dried raisins or nuts to make vegan cookies.

I managed to 'mass produce' sufficient quantities for giveaways at Sausage Co. :)

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients:

1 cup all-purpose flour I added slightly more based on the consistency of the batter

3/4 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 cup canola oil

1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar I added slightly less

1/3 cup granulated sugar I added slightly less

1/2 tsp vanilla

chocolate chips

almond nuts, chopped

Method:

(1) Mix flour, baking soda and salt. Set aside.

(2) Mix canola oil, brown sugar, granulated sugar, 3tbs of water and vanilla essence well.

(3) Stir in flour mixture.

(4) Stir in chocolate chips and nuts.

(5) Drop batter in one tablespoon portions about 2" apart on baking sheet.

(6) Bake in a preheated 180°C oven for 10 - 15 mins or until golden brown.

Verdict:

(+) It is super fast to make the batter.

(-) Cookies can be too hard for some.

(=) If you like the cookies from Famous Amos, then you'll like this cookie too! The 'hardness' of the cookie is comparable.

Generation Gap - define Quick Dinner

My version of a quick dinner:
(i) instant noodles
(ii) get someone to buy take-away
(iii) bread with ham
(iv) Quaker oat meal
(v) grabbing any snacks within 3m radius
and the likes...

My mom's version of a quick dinner:
(i) a meal consisting of not more than 2 dishes
(ii) with preparation time of not more than 30 mins


See below for an example of my mom's version of a quick dinner we had last evening:

Fried Been Hoon

Dried Bean Curd Skin Dessert (my favourite!)

(though given more time, she would have added gingko nuts or barleys)

Duck Shred Porridge

I have been having too much good food since my mother came back. So today, I decided to 'detox' a little by cooking porridge with shreds of duck meat for lunch.

Duck Shred Porridge

Ingredients:

1/2 cup rice (using those rice cups)

1 egg

duck meat, shredded

pepper

1/4 chicken stock cube

Method:

(1) Wash the rice with water a couple of times before filling the pot with water. The quantity of water should cover the rice completely. I like my porridge to be more mashy so I added more water.

(2) Add the shredded duck meat.

(3) Add the chicken stock cube.

(4) Once the rice is soft to the consistency you want, beat an egg and stir it in.

(5) Add a dash of pepper and it is ready to be served.

Verdict:

(+) simple to cook

(+) no fat

(=) My all-time favourite!

Mid-Autumn Festival Dinner

Today is the 15th day of the 8th lunar month, also known as the Mid-Autumn Festival. From where I'm sitting with my laptop, the full moon is already highly perched on the cloudless sky.

I can still recall many years ago when I was half convinced that there was indeed a fairy, an old man and a hare living on the moon. Back then, I would gobble up my dinner quickly before joining the other children who were already parading their paper lanterns along the corridor.

The best part for the little boys would be to light up the candles in the lanterns and sometimes, by 'accident', the lantern would catch fire much to the shrills of the little girls. On the other hand, the girls would be precariously trying to balance and hold the lanterns to avoid it going up in flames.

This would be the one day when we were allowed to play with candles and fire other than the ocassional blackouts in the housing blocks. And very often, some parents would try to limit the number of matchsticks 'allocated' to their children so that whenever they had run out of matchsticks, it would also mean that it's time for the children to head back home.

Those were my idyllic childhood days...

Tonight, I would rather take my time to enjoy the spread my mother has prepared for the occasion.

Nutella Swiss Roll

Nutella Swiss Roll

Ingredients:

3 eggs

1/2 cup granulated sugar, plus extra for sprinkling

1/2 cup all-purpose flour, sifted

1/4 cup cocoa powder, sifted

nutella jam for spreading

icing sugar for dusting (optional)

Method:

(1) Preheat oven to 200°C. Line a 12" x 8" pan with parchment paper.

(2) Combine eggs and sugar in a bowl. Beat with a handheld electric mixer until thick and mousse-like. When the beaters are lifted, a trail should remain on the surfface of the mixture for at least 15 secs.

(3) Sift flour and cocoa powder in a bowl. Carefully fold the flour mixture into the egg mixture until incorporated.

(4) Spoon into the prepared pan, spread evenly to the edges and bake for 10 - 12 mins, or until the cake springs back when lightly pressed.

(5) Spread a sheet of baking paper on a flat surface, sprinkle it with granulated sugar, then invert the cake on it. Peel off the parchment paper. Roll up the cake while still warm. Let cool for 5 mins with seam side down.

(6) Unroll the cake. Neatly trim the edges of the cake. Spread the cake with nutella and roll it up again. Let cool completely.

Verdict:

(+) No butter is required for this recipe!

(+) Extremely fast to make!

(-) The swissroll taste a little dry and it sticks to the knife while I was trying to trim the edges.

(=) Nevertheless, it still tastes good especially with nutella as the filling!

Mid-Autumn Celebration at Lian Shan Shuang Lin Monastery

Besides the "official" Mid-Autumn festival celebration site at the Chinese Garden, this year, I got to know that the Lian Shan Shuang Lin Monastery (beside the PIE along Jalan Toa Payoh) is organising a similar one but on a smaller scale. So after dinner, I decided to check it out - hopefully to avoid the large crowd tomorrow evening.

The monastery was newly renovated and the compound is nicely decorated with both the traditional lantern displays as well as lanterns modelled after popular disney cartoon characters.


There is a booth selling lotus-shaped floating candles priced at $2 each where each candle will be lighted, a wish made and the candle set afloat on a small pond.


Nearby, there is another booth giving away free tea, mooncakes, mooncake cookies and pomelos. The mooncake cookies are my favourite and I got to bring home two of these!


Fortunately, the monastery is not too crowded tonight and it is very nice to stroll into the quiet sanctuaries housing the various buddhist statues without the squeezing and jostling of devotees.

East Meets West

Mother is finally back home last Sunday! And today, I decided to show off my pizza making skills to her - afterall, it's the one proud dish I have successfully re-created during her absence.

However, I did not have the required 600g of bread flour as stated in the recipe so I made do with a smaller quantity and kneaded the dough based on my "ah-gah-ration" skills. This time round, the dough yielded two small pizzas which I managed to roll thinner compared to my previous attempt. For one pizza, I used chicken shreds to replace the hams slices while for the other pizza, I used roasted duck shreds.

Mother prefers the duck shred pizza while I prefer the ham slices. Dad is simply satisfied that the pizza is filling.

In addition, mother stir-fried a plate of vegetables and together with another bowl of white lettuce soup, we had a "East Meets West" theme dinner tonight!

Duck Shred Pizza

Chicken Shred Pizza

Pretzel Cookies

I saw this recipe in a Chinese cookbook and it reminded me of the Danish pretzel cookies which I used to love eating from those big round cookie tin when I was a child.

However, even after refrigerating the cookie dough for an hour in the fridge, I still found it too soft to be rolled into a thin strip to be plaited into a pretzel - it kept breaking midway. In the end, I gave up and decided to whip out my pineapple cookie cutter to finish the job fast before rushing off to Alicia's party.

Pretzel Cookies

Ingredients:

160g butter

70g icing sugar

1 egg yolk

1/4 tsp vanilla essence

zest of 1 lemon, finely grated

260g flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp milk powder

some coarse sugar

Method:

(1) Blend the butter and icing sugar well.

(2) Mix in the egg yolk, vanilla essence and lemon zest.

(3) Sift in the flour, baking powder and milk powder.

(4) Refrigerate the cookie dough for an hour.

(5) To shape into a pretzel, roll some of the dough into a 9am strip, 8mm in diameter.

(6) Plait it into the shape of a pretzel, brush with water and sprinkle some coarse sugar on the pretzels.

(7) Bake in a pre-heated oven at 170°C for 15-20 mins.

Verdict:

(-) As mentioned above, it is difficult to roll the refrigerated dough into the thin strip for plaiting.

(=) This recipe yields very crumbly cookies - the type where it crumbles easily after a bite

(=) A bit dry. Need to have a mouth of water to wash the cookie crumbs down the throat

(=) Not too sweet

(=) I don't think I'll be repeating this recipe again

Alicia's First Month Party

According to Chinese tradition, the first month is an important milestone for a newborn. It is believed that during the first month, the newborn is most susceptible (in terms of their health). Therefore, it is a joyous occasion for the Chinese to celebrate the newborn's first month 'birthday'.

The must-have auspicious food item would be the red eggs - hard boiled eggs soaked in an edible red solution - which would then be distributed to friends, colleagues and relatives.

It's quite amazing to observe the fast growth rate of a baby. Just two weeks apart, and Alicia has grown so much! I guess before long, she'll be a toddler scrambling around the house with many people chasing after her. For now, I'm glad she's contented to have just anyone carry her in their arms.