Spaghetti Vongole- Jaime's Style!

Wanted to cook something nice for WC before his Army Half Marathon.
Obviously I will be the last person to run and since he requested for pasta, I decided to cook him something he love best!

Googled and I decided to use Jamie's recipe.
It turned out to be a really fun cooking session for us and WC had a great time doing all the chopping and cooking so I just gave instruction like the head chef heehee.

It was surprisingly easy and it took us less than 15 minutes to whip up a really delicious meal! :)

Can you guess what we are having??

 Look at my happy chef!

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Our final product! So satisfied! :))

Just in case you are interested, we got the recipe from here.

Recipe: Glutinous Rice

I was bored on a Friday night and decided to make something for the family to eat.
Wanted it fuss- free and fast, glutinous rice it shall be!

The ingredients were really simple, just quite some effort to dice all of them. The amount and type of ingredients pretty much depends on your personal preference. I just put what I can find at home.

For a rough guide:

• 2 cup of glutinous rice ( I soaked them overnight)
• 2 Chinese sausages
• 6 Shitake mushrooms
• Shallots
• Dried shrimps
• 2 caps of light soya sauce
• 2 tablespoon of oyster sauce

1. Heat up the wok and add in about 2 tablespoon of oil. Add in the shallots and dried shrimps first. (Remember not to use too a fire cos the shallot burns really easily).
   
2. Add in the rest of the ingredients after you smell the fragrance of the fried shallots.
   
3. Stir in the rice with the rest of the seasonings. It should look something like this.
   
   
   
4. Transfer the rice over to the steamer and steam for about an hour or till the rice soften. (Tip: Sprinkle some water over the rice as and when to prevent the rice from drying up). The colour will darken and the grains will look a little translucent and glossy like this and you are ready to tuck in!

The whole week has been spent mostly with the dearest sis hanging around in town. Finally the mugger has finished her As and it's time to let loose!

I love shopping with the sister though it can get really tiring despite our constant breaks for food. LOL.

I think age is really catching up, the younger sis can shop and blabber NON STOP for her prom stuff and I just asked to go home after getting all the stuff! haha.

We headed to Far East for our manicure session cos my cousin is getting married this Sunday! 

Sis introduced me to Nana Thai for lunch. 

The whole place feels like we are dining in Malaysia and it's rather old school so I added some retro effect to my photo. Pretty apt rite? :p

It's pretty funny they wrote Thai Seafood Restaurant on their signboard but I didn't find my Phad Thai or Tom Yum soup in their menu.

The noodles were really good! Especially my beef kway teow!

Sis' first time doing her nails and they were really pretty! :)

Can't wait for cousin's wedding tomorrow! It's like my first family's wedding after 20 years! Hahahaha.

Bak Kwa Muffins

Copied this from my other blog so that I can close down the other blog. Keep everything here.. Who knows? I might decided to make some bak kwa muffins again someday! :)

Decided to make use of what's left in my fridge to bake something today.

And guess what I found? BAK KWA!

This is really easy to make and not much ingredient is needed.

My favourite bak kwa cut into strips.

 Then into mini cubes!

Whisk the eggs and the sugar together.

Till bubble starts to form like this.

 Gradually add in the rest of the ingredient. Fold gently till all the ingredients are mixed evenly.

Put them into muffin cups till about two-third full.

Send into the oven!

Bake for about twenty minutes at 200 Degree Celsius.

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T-A-D-A!!

These muffins taste rather good in my opinion. Surprisingly not too oily. 

I am not really a fan of muffin cos it usually taste a little too oily and dense, but this is rather light :)

Shall experiment with other ingredients the next time round!

BAK KWA MUFFINS
Serving size: 8         Preparation time: 25 minutes          

• 3 eggs
• 150 grams sugar
• 150 grams Cake Flour
• 120 grams butter (melted)
• 0.5 tsp salt
• 1 tsp Vanilla extract
• 1.5 tsp Baking powder (Double acting)
• 50 ml cooking oil
• 2 pieces of bak kwa

Happy Birthday Danjakk!

Finally my rainbow cupcakes are done!

A trial with the super duper tedious rainbow cake and two rounds of experimenting with rainbow cupcakes, I can say I am quite proud of my final product *beam with pride*.

So far, those who have tasted it likes it.. Soft and spongy and not too oily (shall share a little revision I did to the recipe later on)

For the cupcakes (I changed the proportion cos I only needed to make 12):

Rainbow Cupcake:

Serving size: 12 

I was lazy to use my usual cupcake recipe so decided to go instant this time round. The instant mix requires just oil, water and eggs, but I changed the propotion and it tasted even better :)

For the cake:

1 yellow cake mixture
3 eggs
1 cup Meiji yoghurt (I chose the strawberry flavour)
50 ml vegetable oil
125 ml water
Food colourings

Frosting (adapted from Selene Zhang ):

150ml fresh milk
1 tbsp plain flour
150 g butter, leave it at room temperature
120 g sugar

It is pretty similar to how I made the rainbow cake. Divide the batter into 5 portions and add in food colouring to achieve the desired colour.

Starting with the blue batter, add in about 1 tablespoon into the muffin cups. Repeat the procedure with the green, yellow, orange and red batter. Allow the batter to spread on their own in case it breaks into other coloured layers.

Set to bake at 175 degree celcius. It is done when a toothpick is able to come out cleanly when we poke it through the cupcake.

While the cupcakes are baking in the oven, we can start preparing the frosting for the cupcake.

 Whisk the flour and milk until well combined in a non-stick pan. Place over medium-high heat and cook the mixture until it starts to bubble and turns into a thick paste. Stir occasionally and make sure the mixture does not burn. Leave it to cool to room temperature.

Cream the butter until it is smooth and creamy. Gradually add in the sugar and beat till light and fluffy. Add in the vanilla extract and mix well. 

Reduce the speed of your mixer to low and add in the milk/flour mixture. Increase the speed to medium high and beat the frosting until you see that it is gradually turning whiter and well combined. Refrigerate the frosting for 15mins (no more, no less!) and use immediately. 

I used the piper I got a piper from Daiso and it works perfectly well!

Anyways, the cupcakes is for the best friend who is getting married next year:)

Wanted to make something special yet meaningful so rainbow cupcake it shall be! And it turned out that it was her wish to get a rainbow cupcake for birthday! What a coincidence!    

A close- up shot of the cake            

Love the bright colours! :) 

Surprise visit to her house on the Saturday morning and she was all dressed up to go out! Luckily we liaised with Cornelius before that!

 Happy Birthday danjakk! Hope you love your surprise! <3<3

Rainbow cake

How can anyone not feel happy looking at these pretty colours?

I decided to make a rainbow cake for danjakk as a surprise gift to celebrate her last single's birthday. WC and I started on our little baking experiment and I would say it is the most tiring and challenging recipe I had attempted so far!

It sounds simple while researching for recipes on the internet. Basically make a sponge cake, split it into 6 portion and mix your desired colours (this has got to be our favourite part) and send it into the oven for baking. Slap some buttercream in between the layers of cakes and then spread a thick layer on the exterior before sprinkling some colourful rice balls!

(Take note: You really have to make sure your cakes are leveled to prevent your sponge cakes from splitting into two!)

And after 4 hours of baking, it is finally done! :D

Followed the recipe on the ladyironchef's blog. I personally do not really fancy the buttercream cos I find it too buttery for my liking. However the satisfaction from this cake definitely comes from the responses of your friends.

"What's this?"

*cut the cake*

"Woo , WAHHHH RAINBOW LEH! So pretty!" 

See what I mean? :)

I also found an alternative to the rainbow cake and thought this looks prettier and more unique. Don't you think so?

Not going to to try a rainbow cake again this week so I am going to attempt some mini rainbow cupcakes for my colleagues and friends instead! Hope it works out better and less tiring than baking a rainbow cake! Till then :)

Share some love!

We had some Korean food to celebrate our monthsary last Friday. We make it a point to make time for each other on this day every month for a nice meal together :) I had a serious craving for Korean food that day (actually it is just craving for some Korean side dishes). So my sweet boy brought me to Seoul Yummy!

 My Myulchi Bokkeum craving! <3

Very engrossed in my budae jjigae *slurps*

Our set meal comes with a not very nice potato pancake :(

A happy me with my food :)

Love their Budae Jiggae! I like how they infuse the "Korean feel" by playing K Pop in the restaurant, plus two thumbs up for the good service and yummy food! :)

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Decided to make our own Budae Jigge the next day. Thought it was a little crazy to do Korean food two days in a row, but we all loved it!

It was a really simple and cost- friendly dish to prepare. Cost us less than $15 to prepare a pot for 3!

Budae Jiggae (Korean Stew)

Serving size: 2-3 pax         Preparation time: 20 minutes          

• 1 small pack of kimchi (optional-but it did add to the flavour in my opinion)
• 4 sausages
• 5 crabsticks
• 200g of thinly sliced pork from the supermarket
• 1 packet fishcake
• 1 packet Enoki mushroom
• 1 packet instant noodle
• 1 pack of toufu
• 1 onion
• 1 clove chopped garlic
• 1 can of Chicken Stock 
• 250ml of water
• 2 tbsp Gochujang (hot pepper paste)
• 1 tbsp sesame oil

We improvised by adding ingredients that we like and it still turned out pretty yummy! Just  lay the ingredients nicely in layers before adding the stock and water and it's ready!

Doesn't it look good? I am salivating just looking at it.

Just in case you do not know what Gochujang is...  I got this from the supermarket at about $2 per box.

                                                      (credits to oneforkonespoon.wordpress.com)

Till the next! :)