Salmon Teriyaki Set Dinner

Western food is really not my favourite kind of food but since VIP likes to have meat with his meal, I've decided to try cook something western. With red meat being one of the "blacklisted" food for me, I can cook either chicken or fish. I settled for fish since we both love fish and it's also healthier compared to chicken. As usual, I like to try something which I have never cooked before.

I really don't know how I end up cooking this "set dinner" but as I was shopping in Jusco this afternoon I saw some nice salmon fillet and I thought "Why not?". So, I bought 2 pieces of salmon which have been marinated with teriyaki sauce. Of course vegetables is a MUST, so I picked lettuce since it looked fresh. Walk some more and then saw very nice ripe tomatoes and immediately thought of making soup out of them!

OK, here are all the work I did before we can enjoy the dinner:

Mashed Potatoes
1. Peel potatoes, poke holes with a fork and boil in hot water until soft.
2. Mash the potatoes in a bowl, add a dash of black pepper, pinch of salt, mixed herbs, little butter and some chopped onions. Mix well.

Tomatoes Vegetable Soup
1. Cut a cross on the bottom of each tomato, boil for 1 minute in boiling water. Take them out and remove the skin.
2. Chop tomatoes into very small pieces.
3. Chop some carrots, onions and celery.
4. Put all the vegetables in a pot of boiling water. Cook for ~1 hour.
5. Add salt, sugar and black pepper to taste.

Vegetables
1. Cut lettuce into bite size and slice some carrot.
2. Add a little olive oil and lemon juice.
3. Keep in the fridge to chill it until serving time.

Salmon Teriyaki Fillet
1. In a bowl, put 1 tablespoon of soya sauce, a little pepper, a little water and some onion pieces. Mix well.
2. Heat wok and pour in the mixture. Put in the salmon fillet and cook over low heat for ~4-5min depending how you like your fish (fully cooked or half cooked, etc).

For serving, just arrange all the above nicely in a plate :)

Chocolate Chips Muffin

VIP is just back from the States this Tuesday and bought some cute baking moulds for me. See the heart-shaped ones? I just love them and because they're non-stick ones, the cake falls off easily after baking. Anyway, VIP has not tried any of the muffins/pie which I made last week so I baked some chocolate chips muffins for him.

I adopted this recipe from Peony. She used this to make blueberries muffins but I've done blueberries before, so I just put chocolate chips instead of the berries. Apart from that, I added 1 tsp of vanilla essense too. Here's the link to her original recipe: http://myculinaryjournal.blogspot.com/2008/05/blueberry-muffins.html

The muffins are definitely a healthier version since it uses corn oil instead of butter but we all know better than if it's healthy, it doesn't taste as nice (compared to the more fattening version ;p). I find these muffins a little dry compared to the ones I made using butter.
Nevertheless, they look lovely in golden brown :)

Chicken Pie (Upside Down)

Do these look yummy? :)

Yes, baking fever is still on, so today Carmen and I decided to bake chicken pie!!!

Yeah, it's kind of ambitious for 2 of us who doesn't know much about baking but as always, even if we fail, we'd still have some fun trying.

When it comes to baking, I have got to folllow someone's recipe and this one is also from Peony.

Here's the link to her recipe: http://myculinaryjournal.blogspot.com/2007/10/chicken-pies.html

The only thing which I have changed is the way I cooked the filling. Instead of mix vegetables, I just used diced carrots though I did use up the leftover mix vegetables which I have which is less than a handful. I also added some mixed herbs and soya sauce. The whole mixture smells amazing after adding the mixed herbs and I must say the taste is absolutely delicious.

Oh....why do I call it upside down chicken pie? You know this is the very first time I bake chicken pies (never baked any pies in my life) so I still do not know what went wrong but we found that after baking the pies for 30minutes, the pastry at the base and sides are still uncooked!

So, to save the pies, we took them out of the moulds and put them back on the baking try upside down and bake again for another 15minutes! Hahaha...It turned out great after that. Phew....

Carmen concluded that I am still better with the wok doing my usual stir fry. Haha...Anyway, I am going to find out what went wrong and try again! Next, we're thinking of trying to bake some egg tarts!

Cranberries Cupcake

Yes, I am now really into baking or should I say learning how to bake?? Haha...Anyway, this is the 2nd time I bake muffins (I don't know if I should call them muffins or cupcake, so same la...) and I must say they look much better than the 1st batch! Why? Because I did not use any muffin cups or tray since I did not have any so the cakes were a little bit out of shape. So, today I went to Jusco and bought some jelly moulds. The moulds are made of aluminium, so they can be used for baking. Who says jelly moulds must be used to make jelly only??

These are the muffins which I baked with Carmen after we had the macaroni dinner :)

They turned out lovely and we had such great satisfaction just looking at them during the baking process. The recipe is the same as the one which I used for blueberries cupcake only this time I used cranberries and I remembered to put vanilla essence!

Well, I did not eat any since I am now determined to shed some kilos and lower my cholesterol level. So, Carmen brought back some to impress her hubby (She said he would most probably think she bought them from night market or bakery. Hahaha...) and I gave some to my nurse friend who stays nearby.

Overall, we had a great time baking and planning to do this more often!

Stir Fried Macaroni

Today Carmen and I played "masak-masak" as she wanted to learn how to cook while I've always welcome any cooking session! Haha... Cooking is such a fabulous way to enjoy some time cathing up with each other while creating something delicious to fill our stomachs. Since my cholesterol level is sky high, I've decided to cook a simple dish loaded with vegetables. Here's stir fried macaroni version 2 which is better than the 1st one I did some time ago.

Ingredients:
Macaroni (cooked till soft per packet instruction)
Green bell pepper
Yellow bell pepper
Carrot
Mini corn
Celery
*Cut all vegetables into small pieces
Chicken meat (cut into small pieces and marinate with soya sauce and pepper)
Garlic (chopped)
Shallots (sliced)

Black pepper

Mixed herbs

Oyster sauce

Soya sauce

Salt

Oil

Water

Method:
1. Heat oil in work and put in garlic and shallots. Stri fry till fragrant.
2. Put in all the vegetables and stir fry for ~3min over medium-high heat.
3. Add in the chicken meat and stir fry over medium heat for 1min.
4. Put in a little bit of oyster sauce and 1 tbsp of soya sauce and stir fry with the vegetables.
5. Add in the cooked macaroni and mix well.
6. Add a dash of pepper and put some mixed herbs. Put a little bit of salt. If it's too dry, add some water so that the macaroni do not stick to the wok.
7. Stir fry till water is dried up and serve.

This is a very simple dish but it taste great with all the crunchy vegetables. I couldn't find tomatoes in the supermarket the other day otherwise would have added some chopped tomatoes too. Some red bell pepper would make the colour really nice!

Blueberry Cupcakes

This is my first attempt in baking cupcakes and thankfully they turned out to be yummy and nice. It’s definitely not my recipe since I am just learning how to bake now. This easy-to-do and lovely recipe if from Peony. I ‘found’ her blog while searching for a chicken pie recipe and have been a fan of her blog ever since.

For this recipe, I just replaced the cranberries with blueberries and omitted the orange oil as I thought blueberries might not go well with something orangy ;p Haha…
I had wanted to put in vanilla essence instead, but being the forgetful one, I totally forgot about it until I put the mixture into the cups for baking and thought “how come the vanilla essence is still unopened??”

I never knew we can use yoghurt in baking but I love yoghurt so this is a good way to experiment with what yoghurt can do. The yoghurt somehow makes me feel this is a healthy cupcake (never mind the butter and eggs ;p).

Anyway, it’s delicious and perfect for afternoon tea!

Here’s the link to the original recipe. :)

http://myculinaryjournal.blogspot.com/2008/08/mini-cranberry-yogurt-loaves.html

Cucumber & Carrot Salad

I wanted to bring some food over to a friend's BBQ dinner and I thought salad would be the perfect choice since I don't have much time to prepare anything complicated on a weekday. This is another trial and error recipe as I just used whatever I have in my fridge ;p
The taste is quite good and the dinner host said it's a good combination of vegetables. :)


Ingredients:
Cucumbers
Carrots
Tomatoes
Lettuce
Raisins
Dried cranberries
Mayonaise
Thousand Island salad dressing
Lemon


Method:
1. Cut all the vegetables in slides.
2. Put all the vegetables in a bowl and mix in the mayonaise, thousand island and squeeze in some lemon juice. 3. Add in the raisins and dried cranberries. Mix well.
4. Serve chilled.

*I named it cucumber and carrot salad because these 2 are the main ingredients but you can change the amount of each vegetables used according to your preference.

Almond Dessert

This colourful creation came from Tracy's idea. It's very simple to make and the best is, everyone loves it! For those who do not like almond, you can still eat the rest of the fruits in the dessert or you can substitute the almond jelly with konnyaku jelly or the normal jelly.

Ingredients:
Canned longan in syrup
canned peach slices in syrup
Fresh stawberries
Almond jelly mix
Ice cubes


Method:
1. Cook the almond jelly per packet instruction. Let it cool and cut into squares.
2. Put the longan and syrup in a big bowl.
3. Add the cut strawberries and peaches.
4. Let it chill in the fridge and add some ice cubes upon serving.

Yam in Red Bean Curd Sauce

Here's one of the dishes I cooked for lunch on Saturday back in Taiping. It's very easy to cook and goes well with white rice.

Ingredients:
Yam (cut into slices)
Pork (cut into thin/thick slices - up to your preference)
Red bean curd (1 cube, mash it and mix with some water)
Garlic (chopped)
Shallots (cut into thin slices)
Oil
Water

Method:
1. Heat oil in wok and stir fry garlic and shallots till fragrant.
2. Add in the yam and stir fry for ~10minutes.
Note: If you cut the yam into thick pieces, it might be better to fry the yam first.
3. Put in the pork and stir fry it for ~2minutes.
4. Pour in the red bean curd sauce and mix well.
5. Cook with low heat till yam is soft.
6. Serve hot.

Stir Fried Straw Mushroom

This is another weekend back to my hometown and since I wanted more vege for dinner, I cooked whatever we have in the fridge. So, this is what I came up with :)

Ingredients:
Straw mushrooms (1 can)
Carrot (cut into pieces)
Baby corns
Prawns
Garlic (chopped)
Shallots (cut into thin slices)
Light soya sauce
Salt
Water
Oil

Method:
1. Heat oil in a wok and stir fry the garlic and shallots till golden brown.
2. Add in carrots and baby corns. Stir fry for ~5 minutes.
3. Put in the prawns and straw mushrooms and stir fry for ~2 minutes.
4. Add some light soya sauce and a pinch of salt.
5. Stir fry all the ingredients well and add some water.
6. Cook till gravy boils and carrots are soft (individual preference).

Yam Rice

Yeap....I am finally back to the kitchen after being away in SG for the last 2 weekends.
I miss cooking already and so, thought I'd just do a one -dish meal for dinner. This is what I had yesterday (and today's breakfast as a result of cooking too much ;p).

Ingredients:
Yam (cut into cubes)
Dried shrimps (soaked and chopped)
Dried Chinese mushroom (soaked and cut into squares)
Chicken meat (debone, cut into bite size pieces)
Cucumber
Tomatoes
Shallots a.k.a. small onions (cut into slices)
Garlic (chopped)
Light soya sauce
Dark soya sauce
Oyster sauce
Chinese wine
Sugar
Salt
Pepper
Oil
Water


Method:
1. Cut the cucumber and tomatoes and let it chill in the fridge.
2. Marinate the chicken meat with oyster sauce, chinese wine, light soya sauce, sugar, salt and pepper for at least 30min.
3. Heat wok with oil and stir fry the garlic and shallots till fragrant.
4. Add in the dried shrimps and mushrooms and stir fry for a few minutes.
5. Stir in the marinated chicken meat and cook for 1-2minutes.
6. Put in the yam cubes and mix well the other ingredients. Add in salt to taste and dark soya sauce. You also add in some chinese wine (optional). Stir fry for ~5minutes.
7. Add water and cook till yam is soft (this will take a while...probably like 20min over medium low heat).
8. Dish up in a bowl first (the gravy should be quite thick).
9. Cook rice in a rice cooker till it's 80% done (almost right before the switch jumps from "cook" to "keep warm".)
10. Add in the cooked yam and mix well with the rice.
11. You need to control the amount of water (this is quite tricky) so that it's enough to cook the rice and yet not too much else the rice will be too soft.
12. Let it cook in the rice cooker (like you normally do when cooking rice).
13. If you find it's not salty to your tastebud, you can still mix in some salt or soya sauce.
14. Serve hot with the cooling cucumber and tomatoes (lettuce is also a good option).

Note:
If you want the rice to look dark, you can still mix in some dark soya sauce during step no. 10.

Since I cooked too much, while eating during dinner, I've got this crazy idea of eating the yam rice the Korean way! Wrap the rice with seaweed! I didn't try it since I don't have seaweed at home.
I think it'll be nice too. If you try it, let me know how it taste :)