Spicy Fried Rice with Winged Beans

Feels like eating winged beans but just want to cook one dish for dinner??? Fried rice is the answer! Here’s our dinner for today. This spicy fried rice is very appetizing and I love the crunchy bite that comes from the winged beans. Nice!


Ingredients:
Rice (cooked and cooled)
Chicken Meat
Winged Beans
Carrot
Onion
Dried Shrimps (soaked and chopped)
Light Soy Sauce
Pepper
Ground chili paste
Salt
Oil


Method:
1. Marinate chicken and light soy sauce and pepper for 30min and leave aside.
2. Heat oil in a wok and sauté the onion for 1min.
3. Add in carrot and stir fry for another min.
4. Put in dried shrimps, winged beans and chili paste. Stir fry for 1 min.
5. Add in chicken meat and stir fry till chicken meat is cooked.
6. Season with salt.
7. Add in rice and stir fry well for 1min. Dinner is ready!

Castella/ Kasutera

It has a very nice top layer :)

I made this last week and the cake has such a cool name; castella. Does it sound like a person’s name??? Anyway, it’s a Japanese sponge cake that’s really light and moist despite the simple ingredients used to make the cake. Check out the recipe used from this link: http://www.justhungry.com/2006/08/oyatsu_and_kasutera_castella_a.html

Can you believe it that the cake is made without any oil or butter? I read the recipe once and thought er….no la, maybe I missed it out, so I read it again….and again…and er, yeah, no oil/butter needed. OK….really don’t need one loh. Just do it and see how la. If you’re the lazy type or couldn’t spare much time preparing a cake, this is not for you. The beating process takes at least 15min and because you need you need to keep the mixture warm, you might end up beating the mixture over a pot of hot/boiling water.


The final product? I find it a little too sweet to my tastebud but I like the light and very soft texture of the cake. It’s not dry at all despite no oil/butter used. The only problem I had was with the sugar on the bottom of the cake pan. The sugar didn’t melt as it should be. Maybe I should use another kind of sugar (I used caster sugar). The cake will shrink a little during the cooling process but that’s normal. If you enjoy the process of baking, like I do, give it a go!

Stir Fried Ginger Chicken

I think this can qualify as one of those confinement dishes...;p It’s just ginger, chicken and some flavoring. Maybe I’ll make sandwiches with these too when I am bored of the usual tuna sandwich.


Ingredients:
Chicken Meat (de-boned and cut into small/bite size pieces)
Ginger (shred finely)
Dark Soy Sauce
Light Soy Sauce
Sesame Oil
Pepper
Sugar
Oil
Water
Corn Flour (optional- to thicken sauce)


Method:
1. Marinate chicken with dark and light soy sauce, sugar, pepper and sesame oil for at least 30min.
2. Heat some oil in a wok and stir fry the ginger till fragrant.
3. Add in chicken meat (drain it first and leave leftover marinate in bowl).
4. Stir fry for 1min.
5. Add some water to the leftover marinate, mix it with a little corn flour and pour over chicken meat.
6. Cook till sauce thickens/dry.

Mine looks dry as I didn’t add a lot of water to it plus I cut the chicken in small pieces so I don’t want to overcook it. I just did a quick stir fry and it was done.

It’s delicious with white rice or porridge.

Watercress Soup

If I could have it my way, I’d want to have soup for every meal. My mum is a Cantonese and they’re known for heart warming soup and it usually accompanies our meals at home. Watercress soup is one of my favourites and I cooked this for lunch last Saturday. The Chinese believe the vegetables has a cooling effect (I’m not too sure about that ;p).


Ingredients:
Watercress
Chicken
Dried Figs
Red Dates
Water
Salt

Method:
1. Bring a pot of water to boil.
2. Put in all the ingredients and let it boil for 2-3 hours. Season with salt.

I used a slow cooker, so I cooked it for 3 hours.

Normally, whenever I use a slow cooker, I’ll boil the water using the kettle first then pour it into the cooker and let it cook at high heat.

Chicken & Black Fungus in Spicy Dark Soy Sauce

I have a few outdated posts since last week and yet the lazy worm has been with me for some time, so I’m only updating this now. ;p
This is my mum’s dish; it’s something that I learnt from her by seeing how she cooked this although hers is a ‘sotong” version but I used chicken for a lower cholesterol version. Although the meat is the main thing is in this, I love the black fungus most! This recipe uses the thin black fungus. I think it works well for me because my hubby would be happy finishing the meat while I get the black fungus and onions (yeah, I love onions too!).


Ingredients:
Chicken Meat
Black Fungus (soaked in hot water until soft, then cut into bite size)
Dried Chili (soaked in hot water, then cut into 1-2cm in length)
Onion (cut into wedges)
Ginger (2-3 slices)
Spring Onions (cut into 2cm in length)
Dark Soy Sauce
Light Soy Sauce
Sesame Oil
Chinese Cooking Wine
Sugar
Salt
Oil
Corn Flour
Water


Method:
1. Marinate chicken meat with dark and light soy sauce, sesame oil and cooking wine for at least 30min. Set aside.
2. Heat oil in wok and sauté the ginger till fragrant.
3. Add onions and stir fry for 1min.
4. Add in dried chili and spring onion (pick only the hard/whitish part and leave the remaining for later use). Do a quick stir fry.
5. Put in black fungus and stir fry for 1min.
6. Add in chicken meat.
7. Season with salt, sugar and add more dark soy sauce if you want it darker.
8. Pour in some water and let it simmer till it boils.
9. Put in the remaining spring onion.
10. Mix corn flour with water and pour this mixture over to thicken the sauce.
11. Dish up when it boils and sauce thickens.
12. Serve with rice. Yummy! Very appetizing….

Note: For added flavor, add some oyster sauce as part of the seasoning.

Banana Muffins with Chocolate Chips and Raisins

I made these for my friends and they all liked it! YT said her daughter prefers it to the ones she made. Oops…

Initially, I didn't want to add any raisins as I was afraid it might be too sweet but at the request of my #1 Helpdesk, I added some. It turned out OK and I don't think it's too sweet; just right :)

Ingredients:
Bananas (4 medium size- mashed)
Sugar (1/2 cup) – I used brown sugar or I think it’s called “gula merah”
Egg (1)

Oil (1/3 cup)
Plain yoghurt (2 tbsp)
Baking soda (1 tsp)
Baking powder (1 tsp)
Salt (1/2 tsp)
Plain Flour (1 ½ cup)
Cinnamon powder (1/4 tsp)
Chocolate chips (handful)
Raisins (handful)

Preheat oven at 190C

Method:
1. Mix bananas, sugar, egg, oil and yoghurt together.
2. In another bowl, sift baking soda, baking powder, salt, flour and cinnamon powder.
3. Pour the wet ingredients in no.1 into the dry ingredients.
4. Mix in chocolate chips and raisins.
5. Spoon into muffin paper cups and bake for 20min.

By now, your kitchen would smell so nice and you just can’t wait to get a bite of that muffin! It’s moist even if you keep it for another day or two.

Carrot Walnut Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

This is probably the best cake I’ve ever baked! I’ve had people asking for the recipe after tasting, ate 3 pieces at one go and packed some for their kids too. The killer recipe is available here: http://smittenkitchen.com/2008/12/carrot-cake-with-maple-cream-cheese-frosting/

As usual, I added some yoghurt to it (2 tbsp) and since I didn’t have any maple syrup, I substituted it with golden syrup. I can imagine it’ll taste more heavenly with maple syrup, but well, I usually try to make do with whatever I can find in the fridge.

If you want a cake that’s simple to make and yet impressive (I don’t know who you want to impress but I think anyone would love it except for people who hate carrot, I guess)!

The whole cake enough to feed one 'kampung'...it's really huge.

Yummy....

Whole Wheat Soba in Miso Soup

I usually cook in this way when I am feeling lazy to cook and yet don’t feel like eating out. Just dump everything into the pot and let it cook. Such is this recipe.

This packet of whole wheat soba is from Daiso and I have this phobia of cooking anything whole wheat be it soba or pasta. The texture of whole wheat noodles is tougher than the normal non whole wheat ones, so I wasn’t sure if this would turn out nice. To my surprise, this is delicious and best of all, it takes little effort in the preparation and cooking. Good for lazy people like me.

Ingredients:
Whole wheat soba (washed and soaked for 5min before cooking)
Carrot
Tomato
Onion
Chicken
Miso Bean Paste
Water
Sugar
Chinese Parsley


Method:
1. Bring water to boil in a pot.
2. Add in miso paste, chicken, carrot, tomato and onion.
3. Simmer for 20-30min. Season with a little sugar.
4. Add in soba and cook till noodles is soft/cooked.
5. Pour into a bowl and sprinkle some parsley before serving.

Wheatgerm and Pumpkin Seeds Muffins

I am finally back and have some free time to update this journal. Yeah, I have been pretty busy in the past 2 weeks attending my own wedding dinners ;p I am married (some of you may say, “Finally….”)! Haha….

Praise the Lord for all things went well and I am really grateful to all the wedding helpers, my 2 KL friends for going all the way to SG for my wedding, my sis who gave us a surprise photo slide show and those who made it for the dinner despite it being a held on a Friday.

Now, back to ,y fav topic; food and baking, of course! Amidst all the busyness with the wedding and coupled with my failing memory, I forgot Cindy’s birthday. Terrible me…
I passed her one of the muffins and was very glad that she loved it! Seems it’s better than the birthday cakes she had. Wow! That made my day :)


Ingredients:
Plain Flour (1 1/2 cups)
Wheatgerm (1/2 cup)
Baking Powder (3 tsp)
Salt (1/2 tsp)
Sugar (3/4 cup)
Yoghurt (2 tbsp)
Egg (1)
Milk (1 cup)
Oil (1/4 cup)
Pumpkin Seeds (didn’t measure this, I think I used a handful)

*I forgot to mention that I added a dash of cinnamon powder into the flour mixture.

Preheat oven at 190-200C

Method:
1. Mix flour, wheatgerm, baking powder, salt and sugar in a bowl. Set aside.
2. In a separate bowl, mix egg, yoghurt, milk and oil.
3. Pour this into the dry ingredients in no. 1.
4. Mix well. Add in pumpkin seeds and mix.
5. Pour into muffin tray/pan and bake for 20-25min.