Dates a plenty

It is the Ramadan season of the year where Muslims here will carry out the practise of fasting for a month till the day they celebrate Hari Raya Puasa.

During this this time of the year the supermarket I usually visit is stocked up with all kinds of dates.

This kind of dried fruit has never been in my diet but I'm game to try them. I have no idea how to cook them but I know a lady from a forum board used them to bake her Korma cake. I guessed that they are just like the dried figs where I can just pop them into my mouth and ruminate them LOL.

So here's my choice ...dates from the Jordan River ... they look pretty plum up. I've tasted them and really liked eating them whole. Looking at the nutritional facts .... the energy value for the whole pack is equivalent to eating 4 slices of bread. In addition it has quite a bit of fibre and is also rich in potassium the chemical which helps to prevent muscular cramps.

I bought another pack of dates this morning from Cold Storage. It's the
Amary dates and this is even more fibrous than theMedjoul dates that I ate earlier.
Thumbs up for the Medjoul dates ... and I'm going to eat this for some weight loss for the coming weeks LOL

Tajiejie gathering

Over the September hols, these four elder sisters got together in R's house for a simple meal to do some catching up. It's always a nice feeling to see old friends again.Come to think of it ... three of us in the group are first borns in our family. Among us we have altogether 14 children. Three of us already have teenagers, another three still have pre-teens, two of us still have pre-schoolers and one of us has a toddler. LOL Here's to all of you R, B and M. Cheers to us as wives and mothers and .....a whole lot more :-)


And of course what's a gathering without yummylicious food ......
R's Spanish chicken, Japanese bean, Prawn cocktail and mixed vegetables.
B's Babi Pongteh
M's Oreo Cheesecake and Otah
C's Baked chicken wings and red wine snowskin mooncake

Quinns in Chocochip Cookies

These cookies are for Children's Day Celebration in dd's school and also in church. As I have no more mini M&Ms left, I used these quinns to decorate them. I actually got the idea from a blog that I usually frequent and thanks to E who posted her pic there. The quinns on the cookie make the cookie rather attractive. At least the color didn't bleed into the cookie surface like the mini M&Ms that I usually used. And ds said that they also gave the cookie a crunchy bite .

Stash of Quinns

It was one of the fastest shopping trip I've done in my life.
Dh drove towards Seah Street and I told him to stop the car near Sun Lik so that I can get some quinns to decorate the cookies I was to make for Children's Day Celebration in dd's school and church. He asked how long would I take cos' there were no parking lots. I said to him to give me five minutes. As soon as he stopped the car , I walked quickly towards the shop, opened the door and smiled at the lady at the counter. I saw the entire collection of quinns and more and my heart was pounding. How was I to make my selection in less than 5 minutes? I just grabbed what I fancied and paid $11 for the whole lot here.
If I had more time, I will definitely be buying more LOL!

3 Kinds of Moonies

During the course of the week, my friend M came to visit me and we made snowskin moonies and baked some too. Presenting them here ....

Red wine snowskin with red wine cranberry lotus paste and macademia nut. I like eating this best of all.

Orange zest snowskin with nuts and seeds in white lotus paste.

Baked mooncake with nuts and seeds in white lotus paste. The skin has yet to soften as it's only the second day....

Rolling Puff Pastry Demo

IK gathering in September 07 had a member demonstrating to us how to roll puff pastry. I have not attempted to do this cos' it's quite a complicated task.
I was definitely enlightened when I saw how it was rolled and tasted the final product .... cinnamon puffs. Thanks L for showing us how it's done.

Recipe for the puff pastry ....
300 g plain flour
150 g water , chilled
50 g butter, melted

Mix altogether into a dough and rest dough in the fridge for about half an hour.

For folding the pastry you need 200 g butter. If butter starts to melt in the process of folding, place the folded pastry in the freezer or chiller for about 15 mins.

Roll pastry using the single fold method and do it for at least three times. You may want to roll it up to six times for a puffier puff.
After the final roll, cut out the pastry using a circular cutter and egg wash with egg yolk. Sprinkle with cinnamon sugar and baked at 160 degree C for 15 mins.

The final product is here .......

Brush over the puff with sugar syrup ( 2 parts sugar to 1 part water) to get the shiny top.

Breakfast

Breakfast on Sunday morning in my home is a very simple affair.
Usually it's a slice of bread with a spread or a slice of cheese.
Since it's the last Sunday before school starts, I had the luxury of preparing breakfast as the family decided to attend the 11 am Mass and there was no catechism duty.
So here I managed to fry pancakes and beef patties .... ate the pancakes with maple syrup and chilli sauce and down them in a cup of hot Nescafe coffee.
The whole family enjoyed this rare luxury of mummy preparing breakfast for them :-)

Lemon Jelly Cheesecake with Peaches

Another version of the jelly cheesecake. Made this for a Catechist gathering and it had very good comments on it. Some of them even asked if I take orders for it.
This is another plus point for building my self esteem :-)

Mango Lotus Paste Snowskin Moonie

Bought the paste from Kwong Cheong Thye and just added the toasted melon seeds. For the skin I added some mango konnyku essence and yellow coloring lemon paste. Brought this to a gathering for a group of church friends to taste and they all had good comments on it.

Red Wine Cranberry Lotus Paste Snowskin Moonie

Using the same basic recipe for snowskin moonie, I added a teaspoon of red coloring and rose essence into the skin ingredient to come up with the pink skin. As for the filling ...it's red wine cranberry lotus paste ...bought ready made from the famous Kwong Cheong Thye. The combination of red wine and dried cranberries give a unique taste to the lotus paste. There is the aroma of red wine but I can hardly taste the red wine. There is the sweetness of the cranberries and the fruits give the chewy bite to the paste texture.

Dh tasted it and said that the taste is sort of queer .... but I know he is a person who only likes the traditional types of moonies.

Boon Tong Kee Chicken Rice

This chicken rice stall at MacPherson is the current family's favourite. Fluffy white rice and smooth and juicy chicken .... the pack also comes with a tangy radish salad and I love this to bits. We used to eat quite often at the eatery when the family was smaller but now it's more economical to ta pao home for the children.

MacPherson Lor Ar

This is the soya braised duck that I have been eating since childhood. During my teenage years my dad would bring the whole family here to eat out and he would order the large intestines for himself while we would savour the braised duck together with the soya eggs, tau pok, tau kwa, kiam chye and peanuts.
Sometimes he would order the yam rice and at other times we would have the kway chap.
During these years, the owner of the stall was the father and now the stall has been passed down to the son. Somehow the taste of the Lor Ar doesn't seem to be the same anymore. When it was the father who was maning the stall the Lor Ar seemed more tasty and the yam rice was more fluffy with big cubes of yam too.
The stall is still well patronised and there was a good crowd when we were there. The stall is also quite popular with some the of people I know.

Pandan Snowskin Lotus Paste Moonie

This is my children's favourite. The snowskin moonie is one of easier moonie to make and I've been making this eversince I learned how to make moonies.
The recipe was shared by a blogger (gan55) at one of the food forums I frequent.
Thanks J for this :-)

Here's sharing the recipe with you .....
(lotus paste 20 gm, skin 20 gm ....makes about 20 moonies)

Ingredients:
200 gm icing sugar
150 gm kao fen (fried glutinous rice flour)
65 gm shortening
150 ml boiled water, cool
1 tsp condensed milk
1 tsp pandan paste

Method:
Sieve kao fen and icing sugar together.

Add in the shortening and condensed milk and rub the ingredients together till you get a crumbly texture.

Mix in the pandan paste to the water and add them to the crumbly texture and knead till a smooth dough is formed.(You need not add in all the water).

Allow the dough to stand for 30 minutes covered before moulding.

Weigh out 20 gm dough skin and 20 gm lotus paste and wrap the paste with the skin and then roll it into a ball.

Transfer the dough ball to the moonie mould to make the moonie print.

Dust the mould with kao fen if you find the dough is sticking to the mould.

Put them in the fridge for about 2 hours before serving.

A Teachers' Day Gift

This simple gift (several packets of them)was the gift my dd and ds brought to school to wish their form teacher a Happy Teachers' Day. Dd actually was bugging me to make chocolate chip cookies for her and her teacher to eat. So I got her to do the decorations placing the M&Ms and the cherry bits on the cookie batter before baking and then packing them in the plastic bag.