Chocolate Banana Muffin

The whole house smells banana when I was baking these sinful muffins. I used the same banana muffin recipe but this time I added some chopped cooking chocolates into the muffin mix before baking them. I love these muffins! It’s so effortless to make and yet taste great and all your diet plan will be gone down into the drains when you smell them. Hahaha….

Lavender Chiffon Cake

I’ve always have this idea to bake “flower flavored” cakes and here’s the first one; lavender chiffon cake. So far, I have used only one chiffon cake recipe and I used the same here by just substituting the coffee granules with 1 tbsp of dried lavender (blend it into powder form first). The cake smells good and goes very well with a cup of tea. Perfect for afternoon tea break!

Chocolate Mayonaise Cake

Indeed I also couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw the recipe. Mayo in a chocolate cake?? Ew…are you kidding me?? OK, I definitely need to try this out!

This recipe is from: http://mycookingescapades.blogspot.com/2009/05/chocolate-cake-with-difference.html and the cake is as what the author said; it’s moist and soft. I love the texture of the cake and you won’t know even know it’s made of mayo as there is no more mayo taste in the cake. Best of all, it’s a cake that requires little effort as you just need to mix everything and pop it into the oven and it’s done within an hour.

Dinner 15May09 (Stir Fried Cabbage & Carrot with Egg, Turmeric Chicken and Beef in Black Pepper Sauce)

Yay!!! It’s Friday and to celebrate the coming weekend, what better to do than cook dinner! Not like there is anything special to celebrate, but I’d always welcome the weekend since it’s a time of rest. So, here's what we had for dinner and this time I tried cooking beef. I think I've overcooked it a little. Hhmm...don't have much experience in the beef department ;p

Stir Fried Cabbage and Carrot with Egg

Turmeric Chicken

Stir Fried Beef in Black Pepper Sauce

Stir Fried Cabbage and Carrot with Egg
Ingredients:
Cabbage
Carrot
Garlic
Egg (beat with some pepper)
Salt
Oyster Sauce
Oil


Method:
1. Heat oil and sauté garlic for 1min.
2. Add in cabbage and carrot. Stir fry for 1min.
3. Season with some oyster sauce and salt.
4. Pour in the beaten egg. Let the egg cook for a while before continue to stir fry for another 1min.
5. Once the egg is cooked, dish up.


Turmeric Chicken
Ingredients:
Chicken Meat
Garlic
Ginger
Sesame Oil
Salt
Sugar
Turmeric Powder
Light Soy Sauce
Water Oil

Method:
1. Marinate chicken with turmeric powder, light soy sauce, sesame oil and salt for ~30min.
2. Heat oil and sauté garlic and ginger till ginger turns a little crispy.
3. Add in the marinated chicken and stir fry for 1-2min.
4. Pour in some water and let it simmer for a while.
5. Season with salt and sugar. Cook till chicken is tender/cooked.
6. Serve with rice.

Stir Fried Beef Slices in Black Pepper Sauce
Ingredients:
Beef Slices
Green Bell Pepper
Onion
Ginger
Salt
Black Pepper Sauce (mix with some water)
Water
Oil

Method:
1. Heat oil and sauté ginger for 1min.
2. Add in onion and bell pepper. Stir fry for 1min.
3. Add in beef slices and black pepper sauce and salt.
4. Do a quick stir fry and it’s done.

Dinner 13May09 (Steamed Fish in Light Soy Sauce & Stir Fried Winged Bean)

I cooked dinner again today and am glad that I have the time to do it. As usual, I don’t cook complicated stuff especially during weekdays. Dinner for today includes steamed sutchi fillet in light soy sauce (very easy and yummy!), stir fried winged beans (one of my fav dish) with dried shrimp and chili and the idiot-proof onion omelet (since it’s idiot-proof, I am not going to jot down the recipe ;p).

Steamed Sutchi Fish Fillet

Stir Fried Winged Beans with Dried Shrimps and Chili

Steamed Sutchi Fillet in Light Soy Sauce
Ingredients:
Sutchi Fish Fillet
Ginger (sliced)
Light Soy Sauce
Spring Onion (take the white part near the root and cut into 2cm length)
Parsley
Oil
Sesame Oil

Method:
1. Steam fish fillet with ginger (I placed it on a steamer in the rice cooker while cooking rice- save time ma…). Drain any liquid from the steamed fish. Leave aside.
2. Heat a little oil in a wok and sauté the spring onion until it turns a little soft.
3. Pour in light soy sauce. You can add a little water if you do not want it to be too salty.
4. Cook for 1min then dish up and pour sauce over the steamed fish.
5. Drizzle a little sesame oil over it and garnish with a little parsley. Serve hot!


Stir Fried Winged Beans with Dried Shrimps and Chili
Ingredients:
Winged Beans
Garlic
Dried Shrimps
Chili
Salt
Water
Oil

Method:
1. Use a blender or food processor and blend together garlic, chili and dried shrimps.
2. Heat oil and sauté the blended ingredients until fragrant. Add a little bit of salt.
3. Add in winged beans and stir fry over medium to high heat for 1-2min.
4. Add a little water and stir fry till the water dries up a little.
5. Dish up and serve with rice.

Dinner 12May09

With the 2 dishes featured below, and a stir fried broccoli, that's our dinner tonight :)

Stir Fried Chicken with Dried Chili (Gong Bou Gai Ting)

This is my version of "gong bou gai ting" since I didn't add cashew nuts and spring onions which is common for this dish. I remembered learning this almost 10 years ago in a cooking class but have not really cooked it since then ;p So, I don't really remember the exact ingredients but agak-agak la. VIP said taste good wor....so, OK la ;p

Ingredients:
Chicken Meat
Onion
Garlic
Ginger
Dried Chili (soaked in hot water, then cut into 2cm length)
Chinese Cooking Wine
Dark Soy Sauce
Salt
Sugar
Pepper
Corn Flour
Oil
Water


Method:
1. Marinate chicken with dark soy sauce, sugar, salt, corn flour, pepper and cooking wine for at least 30min.
2. Heat oil and sauté garlic and ginger.
3. Add in onion and dried chili. Stir fry till onion is soft.
4. Add in chicken meat and stir fry for 1-2min.
5. Pour in some water and let it simmer until chicken is cooked.
6. Thicken the gravy with mixture of corn flour and water.
7. When it boils, dish up and serve hot with rice.

Stir Fried Asparagus with Sesame Seed

A very quick and easy stir fried dish and yet very tasty! The original recipe is from this website:
http://www.asparagusrecipes.net/sesame-asparagus.html
I modified it according to what I have in the kitchen ;p So, this is what I did....

Ingredients:
Baby Asparagus
Ginger (minced)
Garlic (minced)
Onion (minced)
Sesame Seed
Sesame oil
Light Soy Sauce


Method:
1. Heat the sesame oil and stir fry all the minced ingredients & the sesame seed till fragrant.
2. Add in the asparagus and stir fry for 1min or so.
3. Add in light soy sauce and do a quick stir fry and it's done!

Simple Dinner

Today’s simple dinner….stir fried “yau mak” vegetables with carrot, steamed herbal fish and pan fried Chinese sausage (“lap cheong”). Since it’s Sunday and tomorrow is a replacement for public holiday, I am in this lazy mode or maybe I am just saving some energy to bake a cake later….if I feel like it. ;p

Coffee Marble Cake

I have not met my friend Carmen for months and baked this for her for our girls outing. She likes butter and coffee, so I thought a coffee marble cake would be the perfect combination! This is a lovely cake and it smells great out of the oven too. I brought her the whole cake and it seems her hubby loves it too and the cake was finished in no time.
I couldn’t help but had a piece to myself too…;p


Ingredients:
Butter (130gm)
Self Raising Flour (200gm)
Sugar (130gm)
Egg (3)
Yoghurt (4 tbsp)
Coffee granules (2-3 tbsp)
Water (1-2tbsp)

Preheat oven at 170C

Method:
1. Beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
2. Add egg one by one and beat till well combined.
3. Mix in the yoghurt.
4. Fold in the flour.
5. Divide the mixture into 2 portions.
6. In a separate bowl, mix coffee granules with water. Add this coffee paste to one of the flour portion.
7. Grease a cake pan or layer it with baking paper. Pour in the plain mixture and alternate with the coffee mixture.
8. Use a chopstick and make a few swirls to create marble effects.
9. Bake for 40-50min or until cooked.

Salmon Steak in Ginger Sauce

As usual, I don’t really know what I’ll cook until I step into the kitchen and check out what I have in the kitchen. I bought this piece of salmon last weekend and felt like some fish for dinner tonight, so time to experiment!

Although most people like their salmon just cooked on the outside and still pink on the inside, I like all my fish to be fully cooked. So, I’ve decided to cook this Chinese style. Really easy to make and good to see VIP enjoyed it very much.

By the way, the deco on the side of the plate which looks like 2 green roses are the stem of “siew pak choy”. I was cutting the vegetables and thought they looked so pretty, so I kept 2 just to ‘accompany’ the salmon. :)

Ingredients:
Salmon
Garlic
Onion
Ginger
*Mince ginger, garlic and onion*
Oil
Salt
Sugar
Chinese Cooking Wine
Black Pepper
Dark Soy Sauce (optional)
Water


Method:
1. Sprinkle some black pepper on both sides of the salmon. Pan fry salmon on a non-stick pan until both sides are brown and fish is almost cooked.
2. Push fish to the side of the pan.
3. Mix minced ginger, garlic and onion with salt, sugar and oil. Pour this in the pan and stir fry until fragrant.
4. Add in cooking wine and dark soy sauce (optional).
5. Add in some water and cook the fish in the sauce.
6. Let it simmer until sauce thickens.
7. Dish up. Goes really well with white rice!

Banana Passionfruit Muffin

I went off early from the office yesterday since I started work real early and had the chance to join the housewives crowd in the wet market. Although we can get most of the foodstuff in the hypermarket, I still like buying from the wet market. It reminds me of my childhood when I used to pester my mum to let me follow her to the market. :)

So, I was strolling around the market and saw this auntie selling passion fruits. “Do you know how to eat this?” she asked. Er…actually I was thinking of using it to bake some muffins and it didn’t cross my mind at all that I want to eat it fresh like that. Haha…ah well, you’re supposed to cut the fruit into half and scoop the flesh if you want to eat it fresh or you can also make juice with it.
Anyway, I bought 3 and when I saw there still some bananas in the fridge, I thought I might as well combine them both! So, this is what you get; banana passion fruit muffins.
The passion fruit’s seeds gave it a crunchy bite and the 2 fruits made the muffins really flavorful! You might want to reduce the bananas as the taste easily overpowers the passion fruit.


Ingredients:
Plain Flour (2 cups)
Baking Powder (1 tsp)
Baking Soda (1 tsp)
Salt (1/2 tsp)
Egg (1)
Caster Sugar (2/3 cup)
Oil (1/3 cup)

Yoghurt (2 tbsp)
Banana- mashed (1-2pieces)
Passion fruit (3)

Preheat oven at 195-200C


Method:
1. Mix flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt together. Set aside.
2. Mix sugar, egg, oil, yoghurt, mashed banana and passion fruit until well combined.
3. Pour this mixture into the flour mixture.
4. Mix till just combined.
5. Bake for 25-30min.