Assorted Ravings of the Slightly-Weird

Father's Day 2010

This is my menu for Father's Day this weekend. We recently went to Jaan Par Andre for lunch, on the very last day that Andre Chiang was there. While my food is light years removed, this menu is a tongue-in-cheek tribute to Andre's magic, especially the dessert.

Appetiser
SUPER SLAW
Julienne of cabbage with peanut butter dressing

Main Event
WALDORF IN A BUN
Pork ribeye burger, recommended with blue cheese mayonnaise and pear slices

or

BEDDAR CHEDDAR BEEFY BURGER
Cheddar-stuffed Rosemary Beef Burger, recommended with garlic aioli

or

FILET-O-FISH, ALL GROWN UP
Grilled fishcakes, recommended with tartar sauce

Accompaniments: sauteed mushrooms, grilled onions, eggs sunny side up

Dessert
SAGO GULA MELAKA
Sago Gula Melaka version 2010

Of all the dishes mentioned above, only the dessert (assuming it's successful) will push the envelope. We've all had sago gula melaka with the wobbly semi-solid sago and the delicious gula melaka and coconut cream sauce. My version (hopefully!) is an inversion, where the gula melaka and coconut becomes the solid and the sago the liquid. So, I'm going to make a log consisting of a layer of coconut ice cream and a layer of gula melaka ice cream and drizzle sticky sloppy sago just before serving.

FINGERS CROSSED!

Carbo Loading, Japanese Style

My (crazy) BIL took part in the half Ironman yesterday and had to carbo-load for the race the past few days. So I decided to chip in with a pasta dish.

My offering: Sakura Ebi Linguine with Mentaiko

I <3 mentaiko pasta. It's easy to make, tastes divine and is *hopefully* a bit healthier without a cream-based sauce. This time around, I decided to add sakura ebi to give it some crunch. I think the whole ebis give it some visual oomph, but next time I'll probably chop some up and mix them into the pasta.

My sis and I also made dessert: Milk Chocolate Hazelnut Panna Cotta courtesy of the NYTimes. It was a breeze to make but I think I'll amp up the chocolate/nutella flavour the next time I make it.

Sakura Ebi Pasta with Mentaiko

Milk Chocolate Hazelnut Panna Cotta, and a home-style fried rice courtesy of Martha Wannabe

Tis The Season...

... for baking, baking and more baking.

This past weekend, I marshalled up the forces (a skeleton force indeed due to attrition over the years) and spent 2 days making peanut almond cookies and pineapple tarts, with our own home-made pineapple jam.

5 people in 10+ hours over 2 days = 8 1/2 recipes of peanut almond cookies and 2 1/2 recipes of pineapple tarts. And it's not close to being enough! I'm facing the prospect of having to work the next few nights making more pineapple tarts. We normally make open-faced tarts so I thought I would try making the closed version with some store-bought jam, just to fill up the bottles and make it look more 'presentable'.

If there's time I'm also going to make love letters aka egg rolls. We did that once, a long time ago. We set up the barbecue, thinking that after we made bottles and bottles of love letters we could feed the army of helpers with some good ol' BBQ.

HA. HA. HA. Oh ye of over-abundant faith. Who knew that love letters would be so damn tedious. After one afternoon of grilling and rolling and much swearing (due to burnt fingers) we ended up with one bottle. Albeit one big bottle but still, just one bottle. The helpers were so wiped out, we just ordered takeout instead.

So, it's probably just a pipe dream of mine to make love letters on my own this year. But I have to say, the home-made ones taste so much better than the ones you get commercially. Yum.

I leave you now with some pictures of our spoils. A lucky few will get to see these in person! :)

Pineapple tarts and peanut almond cookies waiting to be packed


The loot

Kitchen Capers

Baseball season is upon us again! So far the Yankees are 3-3, the A's are 3-4 and the Giants are 1-5. Hmmmmmm. Not a promising start, and I've been so out of MLB that the teams are barely recognisable to me now. Sigh. (And Des, you can stop snickering now...)

The weekend was pretty uneventful, except that I "taught" my first cooking class ever. Haha. A couple of my teammates came over to learn how to make carrot cake, which is about the best cake that I can make with the highest percentage of success. I've blogged about it before, I recall. Anyhow, I decided to teach my teammates how to make this cake for the simple reason that this recipe is one where a mixer is optional. All in all, I think the lesson went pretty well, and I'm looking forward to teaching more lessons!

Other notables of the week: I made a roasted pork belly roll stuffed with mushrooms and apples, served with roast vegetables and mashed potatoes for dinner early in the week. That one turned out pretty good as well, so I'm pretty happy with it. I took some photos on my phone and will put them up the first chance I get. I was particularly pleased with the stuffing where I sauteed some minced garlic and diced onions in butter, then I added a mixture of diced shitake and button mushrooms and cooked them till soft. Then I added in the cubed apples and some prunes as well, and enhanced the flavour with (get ready for this) instant chicken stock powder. Hahaha.

I'm not a purist cook. Given the constraints of time, if there is a shortcut that doesn't compromise too much on taste, I'll take it. So, sometimes I'll use instant chicken stock powder to up the taste factor; sometimes I'll use canned soup to help make a quick gravy base. If a recipe calls for a pinch of something that I don't have lying around, then I'll either substitute it or omit it. I know, Martha Wannabe is having a minor heart attack reading this as she is a) anal and b) a consummate cook. But in my defense, if I do use instant mixes I'll punch it up with something else so that the end result still comes out looking and tasting fairly original. The one thing that I will never ever use is instant mashed potato mix because I make damn good mashed potatoes and it doesn't take that much effort! :)

Hmmm. All this talk about cooking is making me think of new stuff to try :) Maybe this week I'll try making beef carpaccio and revisit my anchovy pasta! Yum yum!

Oh, and I really want to throw a pizza party. Who wants in??!

60 is the new 50!

Hi all!

It's been crazy since I got back from my monster trip, hence the lack of updates. First there was my dad's 60th birthday party, then I had to deal with gastric flu where I had stuff coming out from both ends (TMI I know but I like to gross people out) and then I had to host a 2nd-degree friend from Argentina. And at work, I had to deal with accumulated work that had piled up while I was away and this week I have to work on not one, not two but THREE listings. SIAO.

So, first things first. The party was a huge success although my dad, who is smarter than he looks (haha), did smell a rat, and we knew he was suspicious because on the big day he was suspiciously acquiesent to our requests and volunteered to bring some friends to Sentosa. That was when I knew he knew something was up, cos if you know my dad, he's most happy when sedentary. But, he was pleasantly surprised at how big the rat turned out to be because we had about 100 people at the party. Martha Wannabe did a great job with the cake and cupcakes - my contribution was to be the courier for the molds for the golfballs and the golfer dude which we ordered from some site in the US, and I helped with the grass icing and did all the decor.

Selected photos:

MW's cupcakes

MW's cake with the golfer dude

My floral balls

Centerpiece for the tables

Food, Food and More Food

Sorry folks,I know it's been a while but somehow I haven't been feeling the mood to write.

Anyway I was reading the NYTimes online and I saw this article about Ikea-hackers. Sounds like a new hobby for me :) given that I am a total sucker when it comes to Ikea and I never walk out empty-handed. NEVER. Check out this blog for some tips on Ikea-hacking.

Otherwise, I haven't been up to much. Just work and some softball and some cooking. I made a pretty yummy dinner two Sundays ago - pork chops with a honey mustard and thyme dressing, a vegetable tart and a peach cobbler for dessert. And then last night it was beef karubi (just a fancy-schmancy name for short ribs) with a sugar-soy marinade and angelhair pasta with shitake mushrooms and seaweed. Obviously I was trying to go for the fusion angle, haha.

I'm not sure if the pasta was successful (I prefer the mentaiko pasta and the anchovy pasta that I made previously) but the pork chops, the vegetable tart and the beef are definite keepers. The vegetable tart is especially easy even for those without an oven; you just need one of those toaster ovens. The peach cobbler I'm going to trade in for a crumble recipe since I realised that it's crumble that I was trying to make and not cobbler - crumble has a crispy topping whereas cobbler has a chewier, cake-like topping. I'd put up photos if not for the fact that the ones I took didn't look very appetising! Recipes available on request.

Next thing on my to-cook list is jjim tak. It's a spicy chicken stew with tang hoon that I had in Korea and it's super delicious. An acquaintance in Seoul was kind enough to email me a recipe for it so hopefully it works out well :)

Off to run errands!

National Day Dinner

Whenever it's a holiday or when I'm home on a workday, I like to cook. So, since it was National Day on Thursday I decided to make dinner for the folks.

The menu: mushroom soup, pork burgers topped with blue cheese and a simple salad with roasted peaches and a tarragon mustard dressing (donated by my sis since salad dressing is something that I suck at). The pork burger is something I'm especially happy with - I top it with pear slices to add some sweetness and some crunch to the burger. This time around however, I forgot to get pears during the grocery run. Oops.

Photos are here, courtesy of Martha Wannabe. No pictures of the soup cos honestly it looks just like any other mushroom soup :) It's quite yummy though...

Pork burger with sunny side up as requested by my very fussy dad

Salad with roasted peaches

BTW Martha Wannabe is now here. Check out her blog - her cupcakes and cakes are delish and so pretty to boot!

Carrot Cake!

Another food-related post.

If there's one cake that I can make well, it's carrot cake. (And I'm talking about the angmoh version here, not the Chinese one, although I love that too.) I've been making this since I was in high school and I took the recipe from a Betty Crocker cookbook that my mom had lying around somewhere. If I recall correctly, I had eaten a delicious version during one family vacation to Whistler and wanted to recreate it. And the Betty Crocker version was so simple that I could do everything by hand. Saves a lot of cleaning up, which is a major plus point in my book.

There's only been one time that this cake turned out horribly and that was when I attempted to be health-conscious and substituted apple juice for vegetable oil. In my defence, I was told by a source (a very powerful source!) that this version was not only healthy but that you couldn't tell the difference.

Unfortunately, you could. Instead of being moist and light like the usual recipe, the apple-sauce version turned out to be very dense and very chewy. My sister said it was the worst carrot cake she'd ever eaten and that if she hadn't had carrot cake before she would never eat it again. So I guess the moral of the story is, don't skimp on the oil. It's there for a reason!

Last weekend, I decided to make a cake for my friend's birthday and went back to good ol' Betty. The only variation that I added to the recipe was lemon peel, which I found added more flavour to the mix. As for the cream cheese frosting, I chose a version with some butter and a lot more icing sugar to try and make the frosting stiffer. (Stiffer frosting enables easier decoration that's longer-lasting as well.)

Here are the pics. I had excess batter so we made cupcakes as well, and my sister made the carrots with coloured fondant. I made the leaves!

From this to...

this!

Side view: we had extra pistachios lying around so we made a border out of those

Carrot cupcakes

Close-up of the fondant carrot

Nothing Comes Between Me...

... and my bag of potato chips.

OH MAN! This article is totally making me hungry. Here's an excerpt: "The crunch of that first salty chip, crisp and unblemished by moisture and oxygen, is one of life's most underrated great food moments." I feel an instant kinship with this author, and I'm so grateful for people like Mr Herman Lay.

I tried making my own chips a few weeks ago, and they turned out pretty well. The trick is to fry them until the sizzling stops because that means that all the moisture's been cooked out of the chip. Good heat control is imperative, because you don't want the chips to burn, but you need to fry them until all the water's gone not just to get them crispy but to get them to stay crispy after the chips cool.

You can make chips out of most root vegetables, not just the plain ol' (but super yummy) potato. I made mine out of sweet potatoes since I had some on hand, and since I didn't have a mandolin to slice them very thinly, my chips turned out to be something like kettle chips: a bit thicker and as crispy and crunchy as regular potato chips. Just toss them with some seasoning (I did a simple salt and black pepper mix) and chow down on yummy, home-made chips.

So so so hungry now... And, isn't this one of the best sights ever?

And since this is a food-related post, I made peanut butter and chocolate chip ice cream over the weekend. Yummalicious! Thanks to Cheng for carting back peanut butter from the Netherlands, where the peanut butter is supposed to be world-best. I have to say, this is one of the best flavours I've done so far... Unfortunately it doesn't look like much, just a tan-coloured ice cream so I didn't bother to take any photos.

Next up, some kind of sorbet featuring lemongrass and mint or basil (I haven't yet decided) and then ice cream with gula melaka instead of sugar. Yippee :D

More Pasta, More Ice Cream, More Cooking

This blog is fast becoming all about food. Lately I just feel like cooking and cooking and cooking. Hopefully I'll get bitten by the cleaning bug soon and then my room can stop looking like some war-torn disaster area and more like, well, some place habitable. At this rate I'd settle for being able to see my floor again, or at least 50% of it.

I digress. This past week I made (in no particular order) coconut sago, onde-onde, strawberry and honey ice cream, angelhair pasta with mentaiko and udon. I was particularly pleased with the strawberry and honey ice cream, as it was my own concoction, and with the onde-onde as it was my first try.

Again, no pictures (yet). I promise I will get around to putting them up as soon as I download them from my phone. Which should be pretty soon since my SD card seems to be almost out of memory.

Next up: home-made ravioli. I've been playing around (in my head) with the combination of pork, ricotta and pears served with a blue cheese sauce. And, I have a hankering to throw a pizza party sometime soon. Aiyah, if only there wasn't the small matter of a 5-day, 9-6 job.

Mad About Pasta

I was in the mood to cook last night, so I decided to make dinner. The menu: angel hair pasta with anchovy and tomato sauce, steak with sauteed mushrooms and onions, and Nutella ice cream for dessert.

No pictures unfortunately, since we polished off the meal before I could think of taking any. The steak was ok but definitely a work in progress. The pasta was yummy - I like a little bit more salt in my food so the anchovies definitely tasted awesome. As for the ice cream, it was YUMMY! Next time I'm putting in more Nutella.

Just in case anyone's interested, here are the recipes for the pasta sauce and the ice cream.

Anchovy and Tomato Sauce
Time: 8 minutes

3 tbsp olive oil
5 cloves of garlic, minced
1 can of anchovy fillets
3 large tomatoes, pitted and chopped into bite-size pieces (if you want your sauce to be erm, well, more saucey, then don't bother to remove the pits)
Basil
Pepper to taste

Heat olive oil, toss in garlic and fry till lightly browned. Add in anchovy fillets and stir till anchovies dissolve, this could take up to 4 minutes. Add in tomatoes and basil and stir to coat. Toss with pasta (you could use angelhair or linguine).

Nice and simple!

Hazelnut Ice Cream with Nutella
Time: 20 minutes plus freezing time

2 eggs
1/2 cup sugar
2 cups heavy or whipping cream
1 cup milk
2 tsp hazelnut extract
Nutella chunks

Whisk the eggs till light and fluffy, add in sugar and whisk till pale yellow. Add in the cream, milk and hazelnut extract and whisk to blend. Pour into ice-cream machine. When the ice cream starts stiffening, add in the Nutella chunks

Note: It's important that all your ingredients be as cold as possible so put everything in the fridge for a bit before you start.

Hmmm. What to cook this week?? :D

10 Seconds And Counting...

Ah, the venerable 10 second rule. Hands up, all of you who have picked up food from the floor/table within 10 seconds of dropping it and popped it back into your mouths.

Ok, so maybe it's just my sister and myself then... But anyway, I thought this article was interesting. Turns out, bacteria sticks within 5 seconds and depending on how dirty the surface is, you might get an upset stomach.

Duh. No shit, Sherlock. Of course I'm not going to eat something that I've dropped on a dirty floor, but if it's on my dining table that I know is fairly clean, what's the biggie? A tummy always needs a bit of bacteria in it anyway! I can't believe researchers actually bothered to spend time and money counting the number of microbes that stick onto food. Three words: too much funding.

Continuing on this food-related post, lately I've been struck by the urge to cook. My family's probably suffering from indigestion brought about by being my guinea pigs, hehe. So far, over the past few weeks I've made pork chops, biscotti, chocolate chip cookies, mini vol-au-vents filled with scrambled eggs and caviar, peppermint ice-cream, chicken stew and a scaled-down version of tartiflette, which is something I read about in the NYTimes recently. (The link might not work anymore.) And on Mother's Day it was breakfast for the parents (eggs sunny side up, in toast and french toast) and some really pretty biscuits shaped like flowers and covered in icing which my sister and I made beforehand. I have pics but I'm too lazy to go get a card reader and download the photos from my phone. Haha.

I've still got the urge to make cupcakes and this pasta recipe that I've been wanting to try out with a sauce made of anchovies. Yummmmmm. And maybe some pineapple tarts as well. And chicken pie. And more ice-cream. And more cookies.

Who wants to help me eat???

CNY Goodies

Baking is therapeutic.

I've spent the better part of the weekend baking. And baking. And baking. The house is filled with the aroma of pineapple tarts and peanut-almond cookies. The kitchen's a mess, there's flour everywhere, we're all out of eggs and butter but we have at least 22 bottles of pineapple tarts and at least 25 bottles of peanut-almond cookies to show for our efforts.

It's really satisfying to see the fruits of your labour all piled up on the dining table. Tray upon tray of cookies waiting to go into the oven. Tray upon tray of tarts cooling on the racks. Row upon row of red bottle caps filled to the brim with either cookies or tarts.

And then you start divvying up the loot and you realise that once again, there's not nearly enough to go around. Somehow, every year, we go through the same calculations and every year it seems like we find more and more people to give the stuff away too. So from 50 odd bottles, we're down to just a couple for ourselves. The rest get given away to various relatives and friends so if you get a bottle or two, count yourself lucky. Delivery service starts on Monday :)

Okie dokie. Time for bed. Later, 'gators.

Childrens' Day

To celebrate Ms B's birthday, we had a potluck dinner party on Saturday night.

The Menu
Starters: Crab Bisque and Salad with Portobello Mushrooms
1st course: Linguine with tarako roe
Main course: Roast leg of lamb with tri-flavoured mash and tomatoes with pesto
Dessert: Tiramisu cake and gin & tonic jelly

I made the tri-flavoured mash which was basically mashed peas, roasted pumpkin, and potatoes with cheddar. All three tasted very different, and the colour was quite striking as well. So I was fairly satisfied with the way it turned out since the mashed peas and roasted pumpkin were experiments. Everything else was really yummy as well, so it was a successful potluck. We lingered over dinner for about 3 hours, giving us ample time to digest everything. There's really nothing better than spending a quiet evening with a group of good friends and family, just chatting away with some music in the background.

Photos are here.

After dinner a couple of us headed over to Mohd Sultan where I had the very novel experience of snorting tequila up my nose. I'd recommend it for anyone suffering from a blocked nose cos that will just clear it right up. It's like liquid wasabi.

All in all it was a fairly quiet weekend, compared to the last two weekends. Just drinks at Loof on Friday night, the dinner party and drinks on Saturday night, and some beers on Sunday night. Which probably explains why I haven't yet had to take my customary nap in the office :)

Highlight of the Day

Today's highlight: the office building's conducting some electrical exercises. So, that means we have to leave at 6pm on the dot! Whether we like it or not.

(Of course I like it. My colleague, not so much. He's a market spoiler, that one...)

Woohoo.

Of course, it's kinda sad that I'm so excited by the fact that I get to leave in 6 minutes' time. The idea of becoming a housewife (aside from the having kids part) is appealing to me more and more; everytime I'm home on leave or on MC, I grab the opportunity to cook something. Last night, I made a chicken quiche and a strawberry tart for dinner. The weekend before, I made 3 types of burgers in preparation for my upcoming burger party: garlic chicken stuffed with camembert and served with cranberry sauce, pork with oregano served with apple sauce, and beef stuffed with brie.

Yum.

BBQ

Over the weekend, my college pals came over for a BBQ. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures because a) I was busy bbq-ing and b) the food got devoured fairly fast.

The menu for Saturday:
Coca Cola ham
Grilled salmon, marinated in yogurt, honey and thyme with a garlic-dill butter dressing
Grilled stingray with chilli
Corn with butter
Corn with peanut butter
Sweet potatoes
Bread with anchovy butter and garlic-dill butter
Watermelon ice

All made by yours truly :D

Other contributions included otak, sotong balls and salad (with caramelised walnuts) by T.

Anyhow, given that most of the food was finished (and I have to say that I'm fairly proud of my budgeting because this is the first BBQ where we haven't ended up with tons of leftover food) I think/hope this was a success.

And, to "Immy", I hope you had a great time!

P.S.: Recipes available on demand.

Cinnamon And Spice And Everything Nice

It's been one of the crappiest weekends ever but I can say for sure that I did something most of you have never done and will never do in your lives.

And all you gutter brains can stop thinking whatever it is you're thinking.

On Friday night I had to make a carrot cake for my mom, who was attending a kindergarten reunion. (Side note: How cool is that? I can't even remember people from kindergarten!) Carrot cake is one of my specialties, probably because the recipe I use is so easy I can do everything by hand. Which means a big deal to me since I am such a lazy ass and hate cleaning up.

Anyway as I was gathering up the ingredients for the cake at 2230, I realised that there was no ground cinnamon in the house. Since the party wasn't till Saturday at noon, I figured it would be no biggie to just go to sleep, wake up early on Saturday and get everything done then. But no... my kancheong mom insisted that I do it there and then, so we embarked on a fairly frantic search for cinnamon.

Of course, I sat there and refused to go out to buy cinnamon (I mean, come on, who goes out at 2230 to buy cinnamon) so my mom dragged my dad out with her to the 24-hr minimart while I got the rest of the stuff ready. Finally she came back after 20 minutes, without the cinnamon and suggested that we substitute the cinnamon with kueh lapis spice. After a couple of minutes hotly debating the usage of spices, we decided to grind up cinnamon sticks instead, which she had in abundance.

Here's a tip: Those big blenders that claim to do everything? They can't grind cinnamon. Instead they just churn the cinnamon sticks around the plastic container, making a hell of a racket. So we had to bring out the mortar and pestle and pound the damn things into submission.

After all that work, the cake was finally done sometime past midnight. And then I had to wake up early on Saturday morning to frost the damn thing with cream cheese. I hate waking up early on Saturdays...

So, for those ladies that were in attendance, I hope they realised that they were eating a cake made by hand, with hand-shredded carrots, hand-chopped walnuts, hand-ground cinnamon and frosted with hand-made cream cheese frosting.

Oh and FYI, hand-grinding 1 1/2 teaspoons of cinnamon takes roughly about half an hour.

Cats and Caviar

Today's BQOTD comes from my boss, who was talking about someone she had met at a company meeting:

"You know, the kinda-Singaporean guy, slightly gay..."

And people still ask me why I'm single...

In other news, I made 2 types of vol-au-vents yesterday: cream cheese with chives and caviar, and crabmeat with sourcream and caviar. The objective of the exercise was to use up excess ingredients and help clear up the fridge. Vol-au-vents are basically puff pastry shells and they're pretty versatile cos you can fill them up with basically anything. I had made puff pastry a while back for a chicken potpie party so this was a good way to use up the rest.

Unfortunately my mom's digital camera was dead so the only photos I have are in my trusty, distinctly non-digital Canon. Again, if/when I get a scanner, I'll put the photos up. One comment that I got was "Yummy... Can consider doing it full-time..." so I guess the experiment was fairly successful.

R-R-R-ROAR!

Last Sunday night, we had a soccer party to catch the 2nd leg of the Tiger Cup final between Singapore and Indonesia. Dress code: red and white of course! Singapore won 2-1 and 5-2 on aggregate, so 3 cheers for the Lions! On to the SEA Games.

The menu for Sunday:
Salad (made by my mom)
Chilli topped with corn bread (made by my sis with help from us)
Meat raviolis with gorgonzola and vodka sauce (made by me, from scratch!)
Bread pudding (made by my sis with help from us)

Photos may be put up after Thursday when I am done with my project at work, if I am still inclined to do so. Next project: baking for CNY.

Yum yum!

Addendum: I am a happy puppy! I just went shopping while waiting for B to finish her class, and I stepped into Warehouse. Boy am I glad I did cos I bought 3 items for just under 40% of the total combined price. Yay! Hooray!

Kitchen Adventures

I just got back from dinner at my sis's. Nothing special about that, except that I cooked almost everything we had to eat :) I made the main dish the night before and kept it overnight to let the flavours develop. And yes, I jogged home to try and work off some of the dinner. It took me 21 minutes to run 2.9km and I shaved about a minute off my previous time. Still slow but hey, I'm improving at least!

The menu
Starter: Buttered Baby Carrots and Broccoli with Toasted Almond Flakes (own recipe)
Main: Coq au Riesling from the NYTimes
Dessert: Madelienes with Ice Cream (courtesy of Delifrance and Ben & Jerry's)

I felt the vegetables were pretty good, but they could have done with a tad more butter. The toasted almond flakes provided some crunch to the dish. (Good idea June!)

The main dish was quite yummy, but I would have preferred it to be of a thicker consistency; the end result was more watery than I anticipated. If I do make this dish again I would probably thicken it a little. Also, to save an extra step I may decide to just add vegetables into the chicken the next time.

Another tip: when browning meat, gloves are pretty handy to have around. As I was browning the chicken, the oil kept spattering onto my hands, making me yelp everytime it happened. I didn't think to put on the gloves (and my sister didn't remind me either) until I was browning the last batch...

Recipes are included below. Sadly, we forgot to take photos of the meal before we sat down to eat. It was only when we were cleaning up that I realised... I hope that in itself is a testament to the success of the recipe! All in all, I'd probably make this again.

Recipes:

Buttered Baby Carrots and Broccoli with Toasted Almond Flakes

Time: 20 minutes

1 packet baby carrots
1 head of broccoli, cut into bitesize chunks
50 g almond flakes, toasted
Small amount of chicken stock or white wine (I'd say about 200 ml)
50 g butter, cut into pieces
Salt and pepper to taste

Heat oven to 150C. Blanch the baby carrots and broccoli pieces in boiling water for about 2 minutes. Transfer the vegetables to a cooking pan, add in the chicken stock or white wine. Add in butter, salt and pepper to taste. Toss the vegetables in the mixture. Cover the cooking pan with aluminium foil and bake in the oven for about 15 minutes. Remove from oven, scatter on almond flakes.

As with homegrown recipes, you can adjust the proportions to your own desires. I'd go with adding a bit more butter before serving, to give some taste and sheen to the vegetables.

Coq au Riesling - serves 4 to 6 (taken from the NYTimes)

Time: 1 1/2 hours plus overnight refrigeration (optional)

8 ounces sliced bacon, sliced crosswise into 1-inch pieces
3 medium onions, peeled and roughly chopped
10 chicken thighs, with skin and bone (breast meat not recommended as it will be too dry)
8 ounces button mushrooms, halved
2 large or 3 small cloves garlic, peeled and minced
1/4 cup chopped Italian parsley (2 packets from Cold Storage is enough)
3 tablespoons chopped tarragon (1 packet)
1 bottle dry or off-dry riesling wine (I used Jacob's Creek)

1. Place large flameproof casserole or other heavy-bottomed pan over medium heat. Add bacon, and stir until it begins to release its fat. Add onions and sauté until softened, about 10 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, transfer mixture
to plate, leaving behind as much liquid fat as possible.

2. Place pan over medium-high heat. Working in batches (do not overcrowd pan), brown chicken pieces on both sides, transferring them to a plate after they are browned.

I found that extra oil was needed for this step as there was not much fat left in the pan after Step 1.

3. Reduce heat to medium-low. Add mushrooms, garlic, 3 tablespoons of parsley and 2 tablespoons of tarragon. Sauté until mushrooms are coated in fat, about 1 minute. Return chicken pieces, onions and bacon to pan. Add wine, and raise heat to bring to a boil. Partially cover, turn heat to low, and simmer for 1 hour.

Another option is to bake in the oven at 175C for about 1 1/2 hours. After taking it out, taste and season with salt and pepper if necessary.

4. To serve immediately, sprinkle with remaining parsley and tarragon. For best results, cool, and refrigerate overnight. The next day remove any chilled fat on surface with paper towels. Reheat gently, sprinkle with parsley and tarragon, and serve.

Weekend Update!

This time, I'm really just wasting time. My computer has apparently been infected with tons of spyware so the help desk has remoted into my regular PC to try and stem the infection. While waiting, I thought I'd blog about our weekend trip to JB.

For those not in the know, Singaporeans like to go to JB for 3 main reasons:
1) Golf
2) Cheap food
3) Get cheap petrol (petrol prices in M'sia are artificially low because of heavy subsidies by the government)

Cast of characters:
Me, my sister (J), my brother-in-law (K), sister's friend (C), another of sister's friend (L) and sister's friend's husband (L2).

On Saturday night, we went to JB for the second and third reasons. Right from the start, there was an ominous feeling hanging about when C, who had come up with the idea in the first place, revealed that she had a vague idea on where to go and no idea how to get to that vague destination. Luckily we had one map (a pretty crappy map but it did show our destination) so off we went.

When the convoy of 2 cars got to Woodlands at 1800 we were greeted with the mother of all jams. Ok I exaggerate. The jam coming back was the MOTHER of all jams. This one was like, the auntie. By the time we got to JB, which was probably about 4 km away, it was 1930. It took us one and a half hours to clear two checkpoints situated about 2.5km apart.

You see a lot of funny things on the bridge to the Woodlands checkpoint.
1) There's a river of motorbikes. I kid you not. The number of motorbikes on that bridge is astounding - on one single lane there are at least 5 motorbikes side by side. And the fumes, they're strong enough to knock you out. Or at least induce hysterical laughter. We were laughing so hard at inane jokes that all the motorcyclists were staring.

2) There's always one or two guys on motorbikes who either are trying to save petrol or have had their bikes conk out on them, because they're pushing their bikes all the way across.

3) People get off at the weirdest places and I don't know where they disappear to. There were people getting off motorbikes at various points along the bridge, and after that I didn't see any sign of them. I was reminded of the classic PC game Frogger, and maybe they were trying to leapfrog on to various motorbikes?

4) There's always a couple of idiot a-holes who try to cut the queue by using the motorbike lane on the bridge and then trying their darndest to cut back in. So, all the cars on the right lane always try to squeeze as close as possible to the car in front, to block off any such 'attacks'. Kudos to C and K for not letting anyone cut in front or in between us.

On another note, can someone please explain to me why there are two ways to get to the checkpoint at Woodlands? There's a bridge on the RHS and then another lane on the LHS. The LHS is supposed to be for trucks but we saw plenty of cars there as well. Which way is faster?

So finally we got past the SG immigration point, and then K's car started acting up. It stalled at least 5 times on the bridge and I had visions of us getting out to push the car across. Geez. The lesson here: Never try to drive a car that is older than you across to JB.

Finally, we arrived at our destination, Taman Sentosa. Having no idea where to go, we decided to eat at various roadside stalls. For those crazy/bored few who are inspired to go after reading this entry, from the main road you turn right into Jalan Sutera and on the LHS it's all Muslim food while on the RHS it's all Chinese food. We ate at both sides, but I think the Chinese food looked more yummy (plus there was no language barrier on the Chinese side).

Later checks with various friends revealed that we had unwittingly landed ourselves in one of the toughest neighbourhoods in JB. Apparently, we were extremely lucky not to have gotten car-jacked, robbed or pickpocketed.

After that, it was time to head back again and this time around it took us slightly over 2 hours to clear the checkpoints. Fender-benders abounded and people just kept trying to squeeze their cars into 3 lanes. (BTW the 2 lanes on the RHS head to Pusat Bandar, while the 3rd lane from the right is the fastest lane thanks to a design flaw at the M'sian checkpoint.) It was a relief to finally get back onto the BKE and head home.

Our journey probably was no longer than 30 km each way but here's a breakdown of the time we spent.
Getting to Woodlands: 20 minutes
Going from SG to JB: 1.5 hours
Getting to Taman Sentosa: 20 minutes
Eating: 2 hours
Getting back to the JB checkpoint: 40 minutes
Going from JB to SG: 2 hours
Going back home: 20 minutes

Priceless: NOT!

As for the food, I thought it was fairly ok. Probably not worth driving in all the way but it was quite yummy. We had barbecued stingray, cockles, mussels, squid, rojak, mee goreng, nasi goreng, otah and some porridge. That plus drinks came up to 70 ringgit for the 6 of us.

On the other side of the road we had some dimsum and dessert. The ice kacang was particularly yummy; really finely shaven ice and some additional ingredients like peanuts gave the ice kacang a nice crunch. There were also various stalls selling very yummy-looking laksa, prawn mee, BBQ chicken wings and fried mee hoon kuey. If I ever dredge up the enthusiasm to endure a 4+ hour journey I'd try all those out.

New Category!

I've decided to add a new category for food-related entries, since my sister and I enjoy experimenting in the kitchen. Last weekend, I tried out a recipe from the NYTimes dining section, and a dessert recipe from Martha Stewart.

The menu
Starter: Baby Spinach with Toasted Almonds, Feta Cheese and Peaches (my own recipe)
Main: Pasta with Braised Lamb Shank Ragu from the NYTimes
Dessert: Peach Cobbler from Martha Stewart

The sweetness of the peaches provided a counterpoint to the salty feta cheese, and the toasted almonds also added some fragrance. I just tossed the lot with some olive oil, vinegar, sea salt and pepper.

As for the pasta, I thought it was pretty yummy but it took a bit too much effort. I started cooking at 1630 and we only sat down to eat at 1930, so that was 3 hours of work. The lamb first had to be braised for 2.5 hours and then after that it had to simmer in the sauce for another hour. I guess there's quite a bit of downtime so you can prepare other dishes in between but my other dishes didn't need a ton of preparation so while the lamb was braising I didn't really have much else to do. Also the lamb taste is really very strong so you'll probably need to add more things to mask the taste. My sister added beef stock and some more herbs into the mix. The recipe suggests using spaghetti or penne pasta but I used shell pasta instead because I wanted something the thick sauce and meat chunks could cling to.

The cobbler was quite yummy, but I think a lot depends on the fruit you use. Cold Storage had peaches on offer last weekend, and the peaches were really really sweet. I'd also suggest spreading the topping out more rather than in 12 large balls of dough as Martha Stewart suggested.

Recipes are included below. Icon courtesy of my sister, who seems to have access to an amazing array of food-related pictures!

Recipes:
Baby Spinach with Toasted Almonds, Feta Cheese and Peaches

Time: 15 minutes

400 g baby spinach
50 g sliced almonds, toasted
100g feta cheese, crumbled
1-2 peaches, cut into chunks
Olive oil, vinegar, salt and pepper to taste

Toss the spinach, cheese and peaches together, add seasoning ingredients. Scatter on almond flakes.
You can change the proportions as you like - these are just estimates.

Pasta With Braised Lamb Shank Ragú - serves 4-6 (taken from NYTimes)

Time: 2 1/2 hours cooking time plus 45 minutes preparation

1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
2 ounces diced pancetta (can subst. with bacon bits or unsliced bacon)
2 lamb shanks, about 2 1/4 pounds

2 medium onions, diced
2 cloves garlic, sliced
2 branches fresh rosemary
1/2 cup dry white wine
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
2 pounds ripe plum tomatoes, peeled and chopped
Red pepper flakes to taste
1 pound spaghetti alla chitarra or penne
Freshly grated pecorino cheese (can subst. with parmesan)

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees (175 C). Heat oil in 4-quart ovenproof casserole. Add pancetta, lightly brown and remove. Add lamb shanks, brown on all sides and remove. Lower heat; add onions, garlic and rosemary. Sauté until soft. Add white wine. Scrape pan, return pancetta and lamb to casserole, season with salt and pepper, then cover and bake 90 minutes, turning lamb once.

2. Remove lamb from casserole. Cut meat from bones, trimming off fat and gristle. Finely dice meat and add to casserole. Add tomatoes and red pepper. Simmer on top of stove one hour. Check seasoning.

3. Boil pasta until al dente, drain, toss with sauce, and serve with pecorino for dusting.

Peach Cobbler - serves 8 (taken from Martha Stewart)
Time: 45 minutes cooking time plus 20 minutes preparation

10 ripe peaches, pitted and sliced (2 quarts or 8 cups)
1/4 cup cornstarch
2 tablespoons dark-brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons cold, unsalted butter, cut into small pieces (90g)
1 large egg
2/3 cup heavy cream
Vanilla ice cream or whipped cream, for serving

1. Preheat oven to 375° (190 C). Place peaches, cornstarch, dark-brown sugar, and cinnamon in a large bowl. Toss until well combined. Pour mixture into an 8 1/2-by-11 1/2-inch baking dish.

2. In a large bowl, combine flour, 1/4 cup granulated sugar, the baking powder, and salt. Using a fork, two knives, or a pastry blender, cut in the butter until the mixture resembles coarse meal.

3. Whisk together egg and cream in a liquid-measuring cup. Slowly add this mixture to dry ingredients; mix with a fork until dough just comes together. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured board, and roughly shape into a 12-inch log. Using a bench scraper, cut log into twelve equal portions.

4. Place rough balls of dough on top of peach mixture. Sprinkle with remaining 2 tablespoons granulated sugar. Bake until golden brown, about 45 minutes. Transfer pan to a rack, and let cool slightly. Serve with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream.
I suggest spreading out the dough more - just break off chunks of it and toss it over the peaches. Also, be careful when adding the egg-cream mixture to the flour; you may not need to use all of it.