Agar agar Mooncake 1

This agar moonie was my first attempt. It had a durian agar filling with a pandan agar skin. The recipe used too much agar powder and the agar skin was not sweet enough. I will have to tweek the recipe if I do this again. But the pic looks good doesn't it ? LOL.

Chocolate Orange Jelly Cheesecake

Ds B loves to eat cheesecakes. I did this for him for his birthday. I used the same basic recipe for the jelly cheesecake and just added about 50 gm of melted tolberone chocolate into the cheese layer before setting it with the gelatine.
Ds B loved it to bits.

Lovely Macarons

I got to know a lady from IK and she is J. J was generous to share her successful experience in making the lovely macs below using the sugar syrup method. I witnessed the whole process from the making of the sugar syrup, to getting the meringue ready, feeling and tasting the creamy and viscous meringue right up to the baking .... the appearance of those dainty little feets (babble) was such a joy and finally the sandwiching of those lovely macaron shells with the pistachio custard filling. The greatest moment was putting the whole experience into the mouth and savouring every moment biting into those lovely macs.
Oh J ...thank-you for allowing me to share the experience with you :-)
Here are the lovely macs J and they will be gone before the day is over :-)

Orange Almond Olive Oil Cake (Flourless)

I saw this recipe of a cake some years ago from the Straits Times and had made it once before. I was curious about the cake cos' it didn't use any flour in the ingredients. Instead it used almond meal. I made it again this time using a
10 inch glass pie dish and had enough batter to make another cake for a friend.

Since the cake uses almond meal, the texture of the cake is sort of nutty and smooth. It's pretty moist too due to the amount of olive oil used. This is indeed a flourless cake and it tastes great when eaten cold too.

Ingredients:

Grated peel from 2 oranges
Juice from 2 oranges
1/2 cup sugar
3 whole eggs
3 egg whites
3/4 cup olive oil
250 gm almond meal
1 tsp baking powder
a pinch of salt

Method:

Pre-heat oven to 190 degree C.

Grease and flour a 10 inch glass pie dish.

Beat egg whites till they form stiff peaks and leave a side.

In another bowl beat whole eggs with sugar till mixture thickens.

Add in the grated orange peel, almond meal, baking powder, salt, orange juice and olive oil.

Fold the egg whites into the mixture above till well blended.

Pour batter into the glass pie dish and another cake dish.

Bake for about 30 minutes or till skewer comes out clean.

Remove from oven and cool.

Store in air-tight container.

Strawberry Jelly Cheesecake

My dear brother invited my family to celebrate SIL's birthday on Sunday. However we won't be able to go cos' it's MIL's birthday celebration too.
I did promise to make a cake for her though and since she loves cheesecake, this was what I made for her. I hope she likes it :-)

Kinda think of it ....the colour combination of this jelly cheesecake is like our National Day Colors. I will adopt this jelly cheesecake officially as the August jelly cheesecake of the month :-)

Fireworks

Dh, dd and I made the trip down to the Padang on Saturday night to watch the fireworks created by the team from China. This was the last of the fireworks displays organised to celebrate Singapore's National Day.
By the lights of the Parliament House, we were watching the fireworks displayed right in front of us in the dark ebony sky. I believe these fireworks displays evoke a sense of wonder and amazement to all who were present.
Enjoy these lovely sights ......

Mini Portobello Mushrooms Grilled

This was what I did with the mini portobellos I bought ......
Put a dollop of the garlic butter spread on each of the mushrooms and then grill them in the oven toaster for about 20 minutes. After they are done, put some mixed veges on top and squeeze some japanese mayonaise over the veges.
When eating, you just need to put the whole mushroom into your mouth and bite down hard and all the lovely juices will ooze out of the mushroom and the veges will give a refreshing and crunchy texture to the whole eating experience.

HRT Loaf

Some years ago I kept an article from the Straits Times regarding Menopause.

This article highlighted the dangers of HRT and encouraged the ladies to use diet and nutrition to help cope with menopausal symptoms. The article also came with a recipe to bake the Menopausal Cake which was rich in HRT foods. These are foods rich in phyto-oestrogens that help to relieve menopausal symptoms.

So out of curiosity I tried baking it too. I adapted the recipe and discovered the loaf to be quite a dense loaf and it's best eaten when it's cold. With all the nuts and fruits in this loaf and the wonderful aroma of cinnamon, I really liked eating a slice of this everyday with a cup of hot coffee for lunch.

Maybe you would like to bake a loaf for your mother ?
If not, what about for yourself too :-)

Ingredients:

100 gm soya flour
100 gm plain flour
100 gm quick cooking oats
2 tsp baking powder
50 gm sunflower seeds
50 gm pumpkin seeds
50 gm sesame seeds
50 gm almond slices
30 gm diced orange peel
100 gm dried raisins
100 gm dried cranberries
50 gm brown sugar
2 tbsp cinnamon powder
2 tbsp ginger juice
2 tbsp vegetable oil
1 no. egg, beaten
700 mls soya bean milk

Method:

Prepare two loaf tins, greased and powdered with flour.

Add the soya bean milk into all the dry ingredients and soak for about 30 minutes.

Pour batter into the loaf tins and bake in a pre-heated oven at 190 degree C for about 40 minutes or till skewer comes out clean.

Turn out the loaf and leave on the wire rack to cool.

Refrigerate the loaf in an air-tight container.

Loaf slices are best eaten when cold.

Lime Jelly Cheesecake

Finally a lime flavour jelly cheesecake without any fruits on the top layer. Following my previous recipe of the Kiwi Jelly Cheesecake the only difference was I left out the fruits and used 2 tsp of gelatine to firm up the jelly layer cos' I didn't want the jelly layer to wobble when I cut it. I definitely have a working recipe here and my ds B simply loved eating it.

Japanese Crispy Seaweed

From a forum which I frequent, a mom introduced this snack to us members telling us how she loved snacking on this. I happened to chance upon this at Giant Tampines and the packet was banded with another snack. This was selling at $5.60 and has two flavours. The packet you see is the Tom Yum flavour while the other is the Wasabi flavour.

Actually seaweed is not my kind of snack . I bought this just to satisfy my curiousity. I remember eating the other kind of seaweed snack which my ds B loved when he was younger but I didn't particularly liked the taste because it tasted fishy and 'greeny'. However after eating this crispy seaweed, I liked it.

This seaweed tasted spicy and crispy and I supposed the clever use of tom yum spice has masked the fishy and 'greeny' taste and smell which I didn't like.
This is a new product in the market and I suppose I'm game to try the wasabi flavour too. How about you?

Life Forms on Chek Jawa

We were there when the tide was high so we couldn't see the typical seabed creatures. However we managed to see the ones here .....
Mangrove Roots

Giant Beetle

Nipah Palms ...fruits and flowers . This is the plant from where we get the ice kacang atap chee.

Fidler crabs .... when surveying the mud flats, we could see tiny movements all over the ground and noticed numerous holes there. These movements were made by the tiny crabs that were living on the mud flats and they come out to feed and interact during the time when the water receeded from the mud flats.

The familiar mudskipper of the mangrove swamps.

The next time I visit the place I'll make sure it's low tide before I go visit the sea creatures.

Chek Jawa Boardwalk on Pulau Ubin

That's how I spent our National Day .... 9th August 2007
It's best to go when the tides are real low (0.5m).
We were there but the tide was still high and couldn't really take in the real beauty of the place but we still managed to bring back some lovely memories.Transport on the island was expensive ... They charge $12 on the minivan for a 15 minute one way trip to chek jawa. The boat trip to ubin is $2 per person. If you want to cycle to chek jawa....the dirt tracks are pretty rough going.
Sharing with you all the sights of this lovely Singapore wetlands.




Here is the Coastal Boardwalk. On one side of the boardwalk at certain sections are steel gratings where you can peer below to look at the sealife during lowtide.

Here the boardwalk leads to a floating platform. You see the glass panels there will allow you to look at life on the sandbed without feeling the sand at all.

The Jejawi Tower...the highest point on the boardwalk. You can feel the vibrations of the wind when you are on top. Good for birdwatchers.


Along the boardwalk you can see these shelters for rest or relief from the rains.


The visitor centre ... a refurbished house built in the 1930's. Here houses the permanent exhibition of how the conservation of chek jawa began and the natural life habitats. It was built in the style of Tudor architecture period.

Pumpkin Chocolate Brownie

This is the first time I'm taking part in the "Browniebabe Challenge" organised by Once Upon A Tart. When I chanced upon her blog and saw the numerous brownies fellow food bloggers had created in the other previous challenges, I told myself that it would be fun to take this on and so here it is my creation from marrying two recipes.

It's a pumpkin brownie with pumpkin seeds and sunflower seeds and a chocolate brownie with pecan nuts. I placed the two batters together at different spots in the baking tray and the result is a lovely golden brown collage.

The texture of the creation is a soft and moist brownie coming from both the pumpkin and chocolate base. The pecan nuts, sunflower seeds and pumpkin seeds give the brownie a chewy and crunchy texture. The taste of sweet pumpkin and dark chocolate is just right without being too heavy. When eating a piece with some cinnamon sugar sprinkled on top .... gosh .....there's another dimension added on the taste scale. You must try this.
It's simply awesome :-)

The two brownie recipes that I used are basically a 'mix and dump' kind of recipe. Mix all the ingredients together till they are well blended and then pour the respective batters into different spots in the baking pan. I used a greased 9" square pan. Bake in a pre-heated oven at 180 degree C for 30 mins.

Pumpkin Brownie
Ingredients:
112 gm butter, melted
180 gm brown sugar
2 nos eggs, beaten
1 tsp vanilla essence
112 gm plain flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
3/4 cup pumpkin puree
1/4 cup pumpkin seeds
1/4 cup sunflower seeds

Chocolate Brownie
Ingredients:
60 gm butter, melted
110 gm sugar
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 egg
40 gm plain flour
20 gm cocoa powder
20 gm dark chocolate chips
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 cup chopped pecans
1/4 cup pumpkin puree
1/4 cup water

Triple Mushrooms

When I visited the Extra Fairprice supermarket at AMK I saw the promoter cooking up mushrooms and they gave off a heavenly aroma. At the section where the mushrooms were placed there were so many kinds of mushrooms that I was literally staring at the whole section of them in awe. I went back to the mushroom promoter's counter and saw him using the two kinds of mushrooms here ...the Swiss Brown mushrooms and the Buna Shimeiji mushrooms. On his table where he was cooking the mushrooms, I noted that there was a jar of chopped garlic, a bottle of oyster sauce, a bottle of chinese wine and a bottle of sesame oil. Finally after waiting for about a minute I got a chance to taste the mushroom dish and the verdict was that I was game to try cooking up the two kinds of mushrooms at home. So here I try to recreate what I ate .....

Ingredients:

1 packet Swiss Brown mushrooms
1 packet Buna Shimeiji mushrooms
1/2 can button mushrooms (my leftovers)
1 tomato, quartered
1 chilli, sliced
3 slices of ginger, juliened
3 cloves of garlic, chopped
1 cup water
1 tbsp oyster sauce
1 tbsp chinese wine
1 tbsp rice vinegar
1 tbsp sesame oil
salt and sugar to taste

Corn flour mixture ( 2 tbsp hot water and 2 tsp corn flour mix together.)

Method:

Heat up 3 tbsp of oil in a frying pan and fry ginger slices and chopped garlic till fragrant.

Add in the chilli slices and the tomato together with the mushrooms.

Stir fry for about a minute and then add in the water.

Cover the pan and let the ingredients simmer for about 3-5 minutes.

Under cover the pan and add in the oyster sauce, chinese wine, sesame oil and rice vinegar. Stir well for another 2 minutes.

Add in the corn flour mixture to thicken the gravy.

Mushroom is ready and serve hot with white rice.