Spinach Soup with Minced Meat Balls

Today is my home alone with my 2 girls. Hubby's off to work today, Nic had went off to stay with her grandma, my helper had gone out for her off day... So we had a lazy day at home. The weather is so hot...and we stayed in our air-conditioned room...so cool & nice. I had to cook dinner for my 2 girls... Wondering what's best, quick & easy to whip up at 5pm... So what I had left was spinach, and I had bought some minced meat from the market this morning.

I had minced the meat with some prawns, made them into meat balls. Adding some dried clams, wolfberries, red dates and an egg will make a very sweet spinach soup.

 There, dinner's ready for the gals:))

Spinach Soup with Minced Meat Balls

(This soup ingredients will be on my own cooking method.)

Good for 2-3 pax

1 bag of spinach

100-150g of minced meat

4-5 prawns, minced together with the minced meat

some red dates

some wolfberries

10 dried clams

1 egg

1.5L of water

pinch of salt

Method:

 Boil the pot of water. Put in the dried ingredients, boil for about 15mins. Add in the minced meat balls, followed by the spinach. When the soup is about to be ready, crack in the egg and stir. Continue to cook for another 15-30minutes for the sweetness.

Sweet & Sour Pork

For sure my hubby & Nat are great fans of the Sweet & Sour Pork. Nat had always wanted to eat her sweet sweet meat rice on every weekend without fail. As for hubby, he is a "pork-lover", so anything about pork, he will love it. He was just telling me that I hadn't made the charsiew meat for quite awhile, and that maybe I should make some for him... hahahaha...

I got this Sweet & Sour Pork recipe from my GoodFood magazine. It was a foolproof recipe that nobody will failed in it... Taste will, we all thought it was simply fantastic. Hubby loves it very much for sure:))

A very simple method to cook this using a ready-made sweet & sour sauce. This is really a cheat's recipe for this all time favourite dish...

 For the Sweet & Sour Pork fans like mine, do try out this dish:)

Recipe adapted from GoodFood Magazine, July Issue (with my own modifications)

Ingredients:

250g pork, cubed (I told the butcher I need pork for Sweet & Sour Pork, but I forgot what it was called:-p)

2 eggs (1 is actually enough)

40g potato starch

Oil for deep-frying

2 garlice cloves, chopped coarsely

2 stalks of spring onions, chopped

1/4 yellow capsicum, cubed

1/4 red capsicum, cubed

60g "Woh Hup" sweet & sour sauce

3 slices of canned pineapple, cutted into chunks

Method:

1. Place pork in a bowl with the eggs & 1 tsp of salt. Mix to coar the pork & set aside for 1 min.

2. Tip the potato starch into a large, shallow dish. Toss the pork cubes in the starch, dusting off any excess.

3. Heat up oil to a depth of 3cm in a wok & deep fry the pork cubes on low heat for 6-8 mins, until the are golden brown & float to the surface. Remove from oil & drain on kichen towels.

4. Fry garlic, capsicums & spring onions with 2 tbsps of oil in another wok on medium heat until frangrant. Add in the sweet & sour sauce. Give a good stir and add the fried pork, along with the pineapples. Giving them a good toss for about 2 mins. Serve hot.

Chicken Day - Cold Shredded Chicken in Sichuan Style & Hainanese Chicken Rice(Revisited)

I have been baking for the past one week, almost everyday, trying out the scones & the mini donuts. All those were such fun, I really enjoyed my baking moments... But school had just started not too long ago, so I had to spend lesser time in baking as Nic will be having her semester tests real soon starting from 2nd week of July onwards...

I decided to cook instead, but of course only during the weekends... hehehe... I made these dishes last Sunday. Nat had requested me to make chicken rice for her. So besides the chicken rice, I had almost made the Cold Shredded Chicken in Sichuan Style ( but not really in Sichuan Style as I do not have the chilli oil, vinegar & chicken seasoning powder. So I omitted the chilli oil & chciken seasoning powder, replace the vinegar with lemon juice. Next time perhaps... hehehehe.....)

COLD SHREDDED CHICKEN IN SICHUAN STYLE

 Nevertheless, these cold shredded chicken tasted delicious in my own seasoning... With the japanese cucumbers, red capsicums & ginger, make it very crunchy & refreshing.

 

Ingredients for the Cold Shreded Chicken in Sichuan Style:

1 shredded chicken breast

1 shredded cucumber

1 tbsp shredded young ginger

1 shredded spring onion

1 shredded red capsicum

Seasoning:

2 tbsps toasted white sesame seeds

1 tsp sesame oil

1/2 tbsp light soya sauce

some chilli oil

1/2 tsp white vinegar

1/2 tsp white sugar

1/2 tsp chicken seasoning powder

Method:

* Put all shredded chicken & vegetables in a mixing bowl. Add in seasoning. Toss well & serve.

Hainanese Chicken Rice

This time round, I had added more ingredients when I was boiling the chicken stock.

Add in 1 more sweet corn, chicken bones & feet to make the stock sweeter.

As for the rice, I had added more lemon grass, mashed garlic, shallots, ginger in order to make the rice more frangrance. The 1st time when I attempted the chicken rice, the rice wasn't that tasty. So this time, with all the "extra/more" ingredients, it made the rice more tasty & frangant.

 All done, really to be cooked...:))

 Yummy, all are ready, and here is our chicken feast for that Sunday!!!

 Bon Apetite!!!

And of course, not forgetting our dessert.... 20 sticks of Magnum Almond sticks that my friend bought for me from JB... hehehehe....

After our early dinner, we headed out... Cos mummy wanted to go to the bookshop to buy some food magzines... hehehehe....



Hainanese Chicken Rice Recipe:

Ingredient
Stock

3 liter water

1 large chicken

many stalks of spring onion

1 large onion, sliced

few head garlic, smashed
30-50gm ginger, sliced

2-3 leek, chopped
2 carrots, chopped

1 sweet corn, chopped

2-3 lemongrass, chopped & smashed

Method
1. In a large pot, bring water to boil. Add garlic, onion, leek, lemongrass, swetcorn and carrots. Boil about 20mins.

2. Add chicken (stuffed with ginger & spring onion-I will opt for more ginger & more spring onions). Bring to boil. Turn down heat to simmer for 35mins. Meanwhile prepare a large bowl of iced cold water. It must cover the whole chicken. This is to keep the meat tender and moist as it stops cooking immediately.

3. Remove chicken and drain excess water from cavity. Place the chicken into the cold water for 10 mins. Drain and rub some sesame oil over and let the chicken cool to room temperature.

4. Reserve stock to cook rice.

5. Cut chicken into pieces. Arrange with sliced cucumber and tomatoes on a plate. Mix together 2 tbsp light soya sauce and 1 tsp sesame oil. Drizzle over chicken.

Rice

500gm raw rice (abt 3 cups of rice)

3 tbsp oil

50gm shallots, finely chopped

6-10 or more cloves garlic
50gm ginger

2- 3pandan leaves bundle, tied in a bunch (put more for the fragrant)

2 lemongrass, chopped & mashed

750ml chicken stock

1 tsp salt

Method

1. Wash rice 2-3 times and drained dry.

2. Heat oil in wok, fry shallot, ginger, garlic & lemongrass, fry until ingredient turn light brown and fragrance. Add raw rice and stir-fry for 5 mins to bring out the fragrance.

3. Transfer fried rice into rice cooker. Add chicken stock, pandan leaves and salt to taste.

Balance stock can be used as soup or refreezed them for future used:)

Hainanese Chicken Rice

Updated 21 June 2012

Ok Zoe, the ingredients are all loaded up today:-p

As I had mentioned, I hadn't been able to post up using my office PC... (hope my boss doesn't see this, else she will knows that I have been blogging.... hahahaha)

I was just trying out my luck today to see if I was able to post the recipe up using my office PC. A couple of times when I had keyed in everything, and tried to publish my post, the whole screen just gone blank. I told it was just my office PC that I can't blog anymore... that puts me off, as I can only blog when I am in the office, otherwise back home, it is totally impossible to do so with my 3 kiddos... hahaha... that is where I can find PEACE when I am in the office... ooopsie... hehehehe.....

Here is the Hainanese Chicken Rice, a very long to-cook-dish... finally, tried, tested and tasted... Yummy indeed...

My mum made very delicious chicken rice too, but everytime when she cooked them, I had never really pay attention to what she was telling me, how to cook it, how to prepare and what were the ingredients... hahaha.. Lazy me, well thinking, after all mum makes the best chicken rice, so I won't need to know anyway... kekeke... Eventually, now at my own comfty nest, buying my small tiny oven, I had started to bake last year and started to cook eventually during the weekends when the mood comes...

OkOk, back to the chicken rice topic... I just trial & error on this chicken rice, getting back of what my mum had used when she cook hers and asking my friend of how she cooked. My mum used the steaming method while my friend used boiling method. So i have 2 options, but the options lies beneath my pots... hahahaha!!! As my pots aint too big, so I had opted for boiling method. It was a tough one too as I couldn't decide what size of chicken I should buy... gosh... typical blur aunty. :-p
So off I went to the market to buy a kampong chicken as it is supposed to be more tender and juicier, price range of course slightly more expensive than the normal chicken. Finally went back home with all the ingredients, ready to start my battle with the chicken...!!!

Here are the ingreients that I had used:

(Gathering all the ingredients from Peng's Kitchen, my mum's and my friend's)

Ingredient
Stock

3 liter water

1 large chicken

(I had forgotten to ask the chicken seller how heavy the kampong chicken was, but a big kampong chicken)

few stalks spring onion

1 large onion, sliced

1 head garlic, smashed
30-50gm ginger, sliced

2-3 leek, chopped
2 carrots, chopped

2-3 lemongrass, chopped & smashed

Method
1. In a large pot, bring water to boil. Add garlic, onion, leek, lemongrass and carrots. Boil about 20mins.

2. Add chicken (stuffed with ginger & spring onion-I will opt for more ginger & more spring onions). Bring to boil. Turn down heat to simmer for 35mins. Meanwhile prepare a large bowl of iced cold water. It must cover the whole chicken. This is to keep the meat tender and moist as it stops cooking immediately.

3. Remove chicken and drain excess water from cavity. Place the chicken into the cold water for 10 mins. Drain and rub some sesame oil over and let the chicken cool to room temperature.

4. Reserve stock to cook rice.

5. Cut chicken into pieces. Arrange with sliced cucumber and tomatoes on a plate. Mix together 2 tbsp light soya sauce and 1 tsp sesame oil. Drizzle over chicken.

Rice

500gm raw rice (abt 3 cups of rice)

3 tbsp oil

30-50gm shallots, finely chopped

6-10 cloves garlic
35-50gm ginger

pandan leaves, tied in a bunch (put more for the fragrant)

1-2 lemongrass, chopped & mashed

750ml chicken stock

1 tsp salt

Method1. Wash rice 2-3 times and drained dry.

2. Heat oil in wok, fry shallot, ginger, garlic & lemongrass, fry until ingredient turn light brown and fragrance. Add raw rice and stir-fry for 5 mins to bring out the fragrance.

3. Transfer fried rice into rice cooker. Add chicken stock, pandan leaves and salt to taste.

Balance stock can be used as soup or refreezed them for future used:)

Prawns & Spare Ribs Noodle Soup

I had been putting this dish on my KIV list for quite a while. I had wanted to try it out but I was just palain lazy sometimes... Probably just need the mood on that particular day. I was talking to my house mate on Saturday, and I mentioned to him that I intend to make prawn noodles, so he had requested me to make for him on the following Saturday. Well, I thought, alright, I shall make on the following Saturday, so that everyone can try it...

My hubby loves prawns & spare ribs noodles very much. Yesterday he asked me , "Ain't you gonna cook prawn noodles today???" Hmmm, I guess hubby comes 1st, so there I was, making my 1st attempt in this dish.

What do you think of my noodles?

This is my soup base. I have slow-boiled it for a few hours. Using the dried cuttlefish, dried oysters, garlice cloves, red dates, wolfberries, spare ribs and prawn heads to cook the soup base... Very delicious...!!! Adding some bean sprouts & kang kong vegetables make it even more tempting. Of course, it will be even better if you have fried shallots:))

I am unable to give you the amount of ingredients used, as I had based on my own estimation... Unlike baking where there are specific weights for each item, but for my dishes, I usually cooked according to my own taste & liking. The ingredients for the soup base will be the ones that I had mentioned in my earlier lines.

HCP: Kong Bah Bao

I am definitely not a meat lover... I had never fancy meat since young, and I prefer fish & chicken... My hubby, on the other hand prefers meat... One of his favorite is Kong Bah Bao...
I had never fancy Kong Bah Bao as I personally felt that it is very oily and fatty because of the fats in the pork belly, until one day, I went to Ming Xiang. An authentic chinese restuarant at Amoy Street that serves very delicious Kong Bah Bao. I had to try this when I was there, and it was really fantastic. The meat was smooth & tender, the sauce was appetizing... Great one!!! And the price is very reasonable too.
So why not let me try making my own Kong Bah Bao this time, since hubby also loves it sooooo much... And of course, the happy call pan comes along... hehehehe!!!

Kong Bah Bao

I marinated the meat for about 2 hours, with some ginger slices, garlic, shallots, wolfberries, star anise, cinnamon stick and the spring onions.

Here, the "just" cooked look and the "after" cooked look...

Glad the pork belly turns out well, smooth and tender...

Good and yummy enough, hubby told me:-D

But, I didn't make the bun, and I am hopeless in making bao myself. So I bought it from the supermarket... And this bao didn't taste as good... :-p I will continue to search for the perfect bao... hehehe....

Ingredient:
500g pork belly (1 strip of pork belly)

2 tbsp light soya sauce

5 tbsp dark soya sauce (up individual's preference of color)

1 tbsp sugar

1 tbsp sesame oil

few slices of ginger

4-5 pcs of garlic

4-5 pcs of shallot

1-2 star anise

1 cinnamon stick

1 tbsp hua tiao

1 stalk spring onion

Method:
1. Marinate pork belly with all the ingredients for 2 hours or more.

2. Heat HCP, pick out the garlic, shallot, ginger, star anise and cinnamon, fry lightly till fragrant.

3. Pot in the pork belly with marinate and cook on med heat for 5 mins.

4. Remove from pan, slice the pork belly into slices of about 1.5-2cm thick.

5. Add in 2 cups of water and simmer on low heat for 1.5 hours

(Take note: the water must cover the pork belly in order to have a smooth & soft texture)

6. Flip the pork belly and then to ensure even cooking, check on water level and add more if necessary

7. Add in 2 tbsp of hua tiao jiu 5-10 mins before serving.

HCP: Charsiew

Now that I have this Happy Call Pan, I find myself wanting to cook dishes... New gadget, new toy, so must try , play & test with it, so that I get the hang of it...hehehe...

So let me try making the charsiew...

I remembered my friend's mum used to make very delicious charsiew, but I had never gotten a chance to get the recipe from her... As I was in my younger twenties then, and cooking nor baking was in my itinerary yet... hahaha!!!

And here I have today.... homemade charsiew....

Marinated the meat for at least 4 hours or more before I cooked them....
Here, a simple plate of charsiew rice.... But not for the kids though... They don't really fancy charsiew...:((
On the other hand, hubby was the one who finished up all the charsiew! He likes them very much.
As for me, I enjoyed these charsiew too... I reminded me of the charsiew my friend's mum had made in those years... Those sweet sweet taste, with the charred bits... yummy indeed:-D

Ingredients:

500-600g Pork (wu hua ruo)

2 tbsp Oyster Sauce

1tbsp Hua Diao Jiu

1tsp Light soya sauce

1tbsp Dark soya sauce

1tbsp honey (I added a big tbsp)

5 tbsp sugar

1tsp Sesame oil

Dash of pepper

Method:

1. Marinate the pork for at least 4 hours

2. Heat up the pan for 1 min, place in the pork and some marinate

3. Cook the pork with lid close for about 5 mins

4. Open the lid to manually flip the pork and continue to let it cook with lid close not tight

5. Slowly cook the charsiew and check now and then, till the sauce dries up and meat starts to charred. Can add in more sauce to hasten the browning process

*For me, I realy like the charred sauce... so I used up all the marinate..:-p

Enjoy & have fun:))

My March Holidays

14-16 Mar 2012

This is quite a lengthy post... As my maid is actually away for her 1-month leave back home to Philippines, my hubby and I have to take leave to look after the 3 children. So in between this period of time, we went for a short trip to Genting Highlands for 3D2N stay.

Well, seriously, I have never really been to Genting Highlands... :-p Maybe I did, but that was many many years back in my early 20s, when my friends and I drove up there, but due to exhaustion, we just slept n rested in the room.... hahahah!!!!

Ok, here we are, our nice cosy room in Genting, but of course, I booked the highest room category as I need to have a bath tub in the room for my children... They are simply fascinated with the bath tub whenever we go for holiday... They just LOVED it!!! So this World Club room I booked was huge as you can see, and the bath tub was put into great use...:-D

Here is our great mountain view from our room, the clear and the misty cloudy view. The children enjoyed the view and the "breeze" too...Not much of rides for the children as some rides had a minimim height restrictions... well, too bad, next time perhaps... Overall, Genting Highlands is just simply filled with millions of people... We might go there again in September though... We will go to the mushroom farm and strawberry farm in our next Genting trip:-D

18 Mar 2012

My eldest daughter turns 7 years old on 21st Mar, so this year, we decided to let her have a small little birthday celebrations with her friends at home. We had hired an entertainer who does balloon sculpting and games for 1.5hrs. But it was more of games, which I prefer more balloon sculpting...^-^
I had made a black forest filling cake for Nic's birthday, plus about 20 chocolate cupcakes.

Hello Kitty Cake & Cupcakes

Nic wanted to have a Hello Kitty theme, and so, a very simple black forest cake. I bought those icing templates and I just piped the cream around the icing. Cute, isn't it. I bought these icing template online and it cost me 24pcs for S$12.00.

Hope Nic likes her birthday cake & cupcakes.

I guess my friend and I were more excited in the cake than the children as they were too engrossed with the balloons and games... :-p

There, time to sing a birthday song and cut the cake....

Her birthday presents from her friends...:-D

It had been a really noisy and messy day, especially without my maid around... hahahaha... Hubby and I had to clean up, luckily my girlfriend also helped out. Lesson learnt, it's better to have a party outside the home as I don't have to clean up the mess after the party... hmmm....

19 Mar 2012

This week start, hubby and myself are on a alternate day rotation to look after the girls. I haven't had time to go marketing as we just got back from Genting last Friday. And we headed off to Johor Bahru to do our nails while hubby when for his massage... And Sunday was Nic's birthday party.... So that's what I can dig out from my fridge....

This is my 1st decent "cooked" meal since 1 year ago when my maid had also went back during the same period last year.

Steamed fish with salted bean, fried eggs with sausages and stir-fried xiao bai cai with prawns.

Not too bad, Nat & Mimi finished their fair share of dinner:-D

21 Mar 2012

So today after I send Nat to school, I wanted to make cookies using my cute cookie cutter which I had bought last year. Yet to use and tried them out. So finally, today I get a chance to put them in good use... Cute right... Mimi was very interested with these Hello Kitty and Miffy cookies. She had also poked her tiny finger on the Miffy and said, "rabbit cry cry"....

Hello Kitty, Miffy & Doremon Cookies

I was trying to get Mimi's attention in the photo shots, but I guessed she was too restless and bored as I told her to let me take a picture of her before she ate her Hello Kitty cookie... :-p But I did managed to make her laughed in the end:-D

I made some cookies for my girlfriend's kids as well, all of them were very happy and finished the cookies in no time...!!!

For cookie recipe, please click HERE.

Hehehe.... I made steamed cake too... Using the sponge mix, and the previous recipe I tried. This time I use pomengrate tea syrup I got from Korea. Hmmm, I think I should had used more of the syrup as it wasn't that fruity as I had wanted it to be... But so far the testers had said it was good though...???

Pomengrate Steamed Cake

Texture of the steamed cake was smooth and yummy though:-D

For Steamed Cake recipe, please click HERE.

Dinner time...

We had planned to go for dinner outside as it was Nic's actual birthday today. But it started raining so heavily and plus Nic was still napping, so I decided not to go out for dinner. Luckily I had cooked the chicken soup in the afternoon... I quickly whipped up the broccoli and the seafood with salted fish fried rice. Mimi loves the fried rice very much and she had a big bowl of it...

What have I been up to this Weekend???

Ta-da... This is what I had been up to last weekend... For a change, I decided to make Ngoh Hiang on Saturday. You might probably find this dish a weird one in my blog as I hardly cook.... hahahaha!!!

FRIED NGOH HIANG

I had been wanting to make Ngoh Hiang for a very long time. I remembered the last time I wanted to make, I bought the "skin", but the "skin" ended up wrinkled up in the fridge as I had left it there for a sper long time... Until last Friday, I was chatiing with my friend and she told me she made "mei cai kou rou". So then we talked about the ngoh hiang, that when I decided to try it out... hehehehe!!!
I bought 1/2 kg of lean minced meat and 1kg of prawns from the wet market. I haven't had enuogh money so I only bought 1/2kg of meat:-p. As you can see from the cut ngoh hiang, you can see more prawns in it...

With the 1/2kg of meat and about 3/4kg of the prawns, mixed with minced chestnuts, spring onions, I made about 8 big rolls & 2 mini rolls.

The Ngoh Hiang are ready... I fried the mini ones, and I had to try one, so one of the mini was eatedn by me... Hubby came out of the room, and said the smell of ngoh hiang made him drooled... So he ate 1 big roll and the other mini roll...:-D

It was really delicious..... But it will be better to use the normal minced meat instead of the lean minced meat as the lean meat is slightly drier... With a little fats, it will make the ngoh hiang even more juicy:))

Oh, of course, our dessert.... Mango Pudding....

Eeeermm, I did not made this though... It was a premix mango pudding I bought from Phoon Huat... hehehehe....

Yummy too, additional fresh mangoes added..!!!