Ricecooker yam rice for dinner (26 Sep 2015)

YX wanted to watch 中国好声音4, so we were aiming to be home during dinnertime. It was a choice between buying dinner back from the zichar nearby or cooking at home. On the way back from Bugis at 4pm after a quick visit to the Central Public Library, YX said "I want mummy to cook". So that sealed the dinner decision.

On the bus, I was doing a quick google search on an easy ricecooker recipe and hubby suggested yam rice, so I found this recipe: http://www.thetummyescapades.com/mums-mothers-yam-rice/

We could only find baby yam from NTUC, so I used that instead.


My recipe:

5 cloves of garlic

1 waxed sausage

6 fresh shiitake mushrooms (cos I didn't have dried ones on hand)

500g bag of baby yam

240g pork belly, skin removed


For seasonings, I followed the recipe mostly. I wanted to use up my stock of brown rice, so I used 1 cup brown rice mixed with 2 cups of Calrose rice (so that YX wouldn't know the difference!!)


The smell was quite fragrant and we hurriedly gobbled down our respective shares. The picture below is what is being kept as leftovers for my lunch next week.

Japanese anime series -Nodame Cantabile

After we were cooped up at home on the hazy Hari Raya Haji public holiday, hubby and I decided to get around and walking in town while the PSI was not so bad. We visited HMV at Marina Square which was closing. 

As I was browsing the Kids section, I noticed this Japanese anime DVD titled "Nodame Cantabile" (See Wikipedia entry). No, I'm no Japanese anime fan, but this title caught my eye cos there is a Korean drama series starring Joo Won which is supposedly based on this Japanese manga story. Haha. It features some aspects of music making and orchestra, so I thought it could be something to engage YX in. However, there were only discs 3 and 4 with no copies of the earlier episodes. 

I made a mental note to search the web for streaming sites for this, and I found it! 

Here is episode 1 on animeram.

Boiled Barley Grains - Mushroom, carrots "porridge"

I cooked a cup of dry ‪#‎barley‬ with 4L water in my pressure cooker to make barley water in this horrid weather. 

After draining the barley water, I always felt it was such a waste to throw away the beans, but it was too plain tasting to eat on its own. So I've been looking at recipes to use them.

Today I added some diced carrots, mushrooms and garlic to some barley grains, together with stock (I crumbled a small chicken stock cube), wanting to make something like a ‪#‎risotto‬. But I guess the water didn't really dry up as much since I used an electric lunch box steamer. So it ended up tasting like porridge. Still very good, though. 

Im gonna try #barley ‪#‎pudding‬ next. 

"James and the Giant Peach" by Roald Dahl

A 45 minute silent reading session at Tampines Regional Library, while I was happily escaping from the haze.

Family birthday Sep 2015

Baked a chocolate Ogura cake for my niece, K's birthday. 

Airfryer Agedashi Tofu and Steamed pork mince with salted duck egg 咸蛋蒸肉饼

Last week's simple dinner for me, hubby and girl - Agedashi tofu and salted egg steamed minced meat 咸蛋蒸肉饼.

I learnt from method on http://www.justonecookbook.com/agedashi-tofu-2/. But used only tofu, potato starch, oil to cook tofu in my ‪#‎Philips‬ ‪#‎airfryer‬. Sauce was made from instant dashi, mirin n soya sauce, simmered briefly. When using airfryer instead of traditional oil deep fry, the potato starch continues looking whitish and may taste uncooked. You may wish to brush/spray a thin layer of oil on the tofu cubes instead.

Meat patty method - hand-minced pork with diced water chestnuts, spring onions, carrots. Season with (little) salt and pepper. Crack raw salted egg. Mix egg white with mince mixture, then flatten on steaming plate. I placed salted egg yolk in middle to steam, on low simmering water.
Ps: can skip salt cos the salted egg is already very salty.

Noodling around #2 Our first decent homemade noodles - Bah Chor Mee / minced meat noodles / 肉脞面

After the first failed attempt at homemade noodles, we learnt our lesson and stuck strictly to the instructions and measuring cups this time. We managed to get the noodles looking more like what we see on Youtube and everywhere else. 

I found a super informative blog post on how to prepare one of my favourite dishes, minced meat noodles from tummytroll. Thus, with other preparations (see how I airfry pork lard cubes and "mermaid fish" and prepare soup stock), we enjoyed a lunch of homemade bah chor mee, or "minced meat noodles". 

Silly me forgot to change the Philips noodle maker cutting disc to the thinner angel hair one, so we ended up with fatter noodles. I personally prefer thinner 幼面 for my noodles, but since it represented all our hard work, I slurped through the entire bowl for lunch, anyway. 

Airfryer mermaid fish

The first time I knew about this "mermaid fish" was in the lead-up to Chinese New Year, when my sister bought a whole bag of them and used my airfryer to fry them crisp. I can't stop snacking on them!

Today, I bought just a handful from Chinatown wet market for $1 (approx 30g), and airfried them as topping for my homemade bah chor mee 肉脞面

Airfried pork lard cubes

This needs little introduction. I was trying to prepare minced meat noodles/肉脞面, and wanted to make these as topping/seasonings.

So I dug some of the pork belly skin/fats that I had saved from previous meals and frozen. They were diced into approx 1cm cubes and thrown into my airfryer basket. 

This is how they look like after airfrying (sorry, cannot remember temperature and duration). Just have to keep an eye and check periodically.

Result: These oily morsels were crunchy when fresh from airfrying. After standing for about 30mins, they were softer. I guess they need to be prepared just RIGHT BEFORE serving. 

(I airfried my mermaid fish after these, so I did not need to add any oil)

Pressure cooking - pork rib carrot soup

I finally got down to buying a pressure cooker after eyeing one for the longest time ever! I was sick of pots of stock or beans or braising peanuts for hours on end over the gas stove, and still NOT getting the desired taste/texture I wanted. To be fair, I did try alternative methods of cooking like slow cooker and thermal cooker, but being the impatient me, I wanted something faster and more energy-efficient, without having the gas or electricity plugged in for hours. 

I was only familiar with the WMF brand as it was the one that my mother owned in her kitchen. I was shopping around the usual larger departmental stores (Metro, Takashimaya, OG, Robinsons) and came across an offer for a non-German/non-European brand. It was still quite costly but I decided to just get a cheaper one to use and experiment with recipes first. 

This is one of my first recipes on my "Pressure Cooker To-Cook list", a huge pot of soup stock for saving and freezing in batches. I wanted a pork and ikan bilis stock (according to the recipe shared by tummytroll), but did not have the exact ingredients on hand. 

My version below included Pork Ribs, carrots, onions, garlic, ikan bilis powder (whizzed in the grinder and scooped into DAISO empty tea pouches). It was sweet and flavourful after 30 minutes of cooking under the "High Pressure" setting. The vegetables were all soft and mushy, and the pork tough, but I didn't mind it as I was after only the stock.... Yay.... I am so happy that I can reduce my dependence on instant dashi granules and chicken stock cubes....

Unboxing Philips noodle maker

Finally got down to blowing the dust off the Philips noodle maker that hubby had bought during a Philips staff sale event in Dec 2014 (did I ever mention half my kitchen appliances are from Philips cos he has a friend working for Philips?)

The unit came with the basic cut moulds for 

A) Angel hair/ Mee Kia 

B) Penne
C) Spaghetti/ Yellow noodles
D) Fettuccine/ Ban Mian

Our first round was disastrous as I was happily admiring the machine at work after pouring in the flour and water, when hubs popped round and asked why I did not add an egg. I had quickly browsed through the instruction manual and only breezed thru the table showing the difference in ingredients for egg vs normal plain noodle. I remembered the liquid measure was different for egg, and ASSUMED it was simply the original amount for plain water, with an egg added in. So I just quickly beat up an egg and added it into the mix before the kneading cycle ended. 

THAT WAS THE MISTAKE!

What originally looked like breadcrumbs texture ended up like a thick sticky muffin batter. I tried adding in more flour but still couldn't salvage it. I had fitted the thinnest cut disc, and the extruded noodles looked like extra-strength electrical wires (you know, those that coil around each other, forming one thicker band of wires?). Hubby tried to manually knead the dough we dug out of the chamber, by hand. and tried extruding again, without much success. But we still managed to cook them anyhow, and ate them for lunch. They were pretty decent, and chewy....

And that is why this post is on "unboxing" rather than the final product. Haha.

Bye MBP, Hello Mac Mini

I had been using hubby's Macbook Pro for a while now, and it has been "degrading" somewhat. I was facing problems like slower speed (which was to be expected), unusually hot surface (the internal fan was probably broken), and a totally dead touchpad (which wasn't a problem since I was mainly using it as a desktop and used a separate USB mouse anyway).

Purchasing a new Mac-based system for use as a desktop had been on my mind for quite a while. I had put off the purchase for a couple of IT fairs/expos by now, and I was getting a bit more fed-up with the performance lately, as the surface was getting really hot, and it shuts down on me without warning.

I decided to just get a simple replacement, looking for size rather than portability, since I didn't have a real need for a portable machine. After some online (and store) research, I decided to get the Mac mini since I was still more accustomed to the Mac (rather than Windows) interface and programs.

It was the weekend of the quarterly IT fair, but there are usually not any good discounts offered for the Mac family machines. Thus I got the Mac mini from Challenger, where I could chalk up membership points and see what other discounts they could offer. We managed to get a good offer on software.

For the other hardware, it was all bought from COMEX 2015 at Suntec. YX followed us rather obediently (although she did grumble a bit about the walking and the crowds) as hubby helped me select and purchase a suitably-sized (and priced) monitor and keyboard.

Bye MacBook Pro (Top picture), Hello Mac Mini (bottom picture)

My buys - Cake turntable

I finally got my hands on a more proper cake turntable! 😋

I was using an improvised one for a couple of months, using a small/short plastic turntable from Daiso that was merely 1-2cm high, and slapped on a nonslip mat between that and the cake base cardboard. 

Airfryer grill pan

I had been getting quite frustrated with the splattering of oil when preparing stovetop shallow fry dishes, and was looking to make better use of the Philips Airfryer (at least cleaning up was easier!)

So I searched around the usual retail shops for the Airfryer grill pan (an optional/additional attachment for the airfryer) as well as online, and managed to find an online seller in qoo10. Together with the cart coupon and other discounts, this grill pan cost me S$40.40, including delivery.

It has been a good experience thus far, as cleanup is easier, compared to the airfryer basket. I also use this pan when cooking foods placed in ramekins and baking trays, so placing and removing is easier and safer (it is pretty hard to remove a hot ramekin from the AF basket, esp. with oven mitts)

 

German cookies for Teachers Day presents 2015

Hands getting itchy again, so I decided to be ambitious and bake some homemade cookies for YX's teachers. Decided on the german cookies that I had been thinking of making since Chinese New Year, but never got round to baking. I had to bake earlier as her centre is having a scheduled holiday the day before the MOE school holiday on Friday. 

I used the recipe shared in the Facebook group, Bakingscorner, and the original recipe is from bakingtaitai. I followed the ingredients list accordingly, and made two batches, one original and one green tea matcha flavour. 

My experience: 

1. I found the dough to be very soft and wet. It was suggested that if the dough was too soft to handle, we could chill it. I thought that would also help while waiting for the oven to be ready, so I placed a tray of shaped dough in the fridge. They ended up having tiny beads of condensation on them, which were visible after baking. 
2. Also, based on the recommendation size of 8g per piece, my cookies came out being quite big (after expanding in the baking process). For subsequent trays, I reduced the size to 6g each for a more manageable bite-sized portion. You can see the difference in size in the second photo. 
3. The picture below shows the matcha flavoured cookies sticking more to the baking paper. Perhaps I did not bake them long enough. (I used the lower end 12 min baking time as I was worried they would be burnt and take on a brownish hue.)

After the cookies cooled sufficiently, I packed them (VERY CAREFULLY) into disposable plastic boxes I had bought from Phoon Huat. I alternated the flavours by layer, and laid each layer on the only doileys I had on hand (5.5 inch round ones leftover from CNY baking). They fitted the boxes perfectly, as you can see in the picture below. 

I ended up having quite a lot extras since I made 2 batches. But I was worried about saving them until Sunday for her church school teachers, and next monday for her music class teacher, so I decided to just let her have all the boxes for her teachers in LifeJourniz. 

Original Recipe Source is http://bakingtaitai.blogspot.sg/2014/06/german-butter-cookies.html.