Coleslaw

Thanks to Sri who shared her take HERE on the perfect coleslaw I managed to adapt the recipe keeping the all important sauces shown here.
I used half a medium cabbage and one carrot to make the vegetable base and I used sunflower seeds and melon seeds instead of almond bits. The resultant coleslaw actually had almost a similar taste to the KFC coleslaw which I love but it's even better according to dh's opinion. I am happy and this recipe is defintely a keeper.

Homemade Vanilla Ice Cream

I found the recipe HERE and it was really good. My boys couldn't stop eating. The recipe uses the egg custard method to make a smoother and softer ice-cream. And they are asking me to make more LOL.
Here you can see my scoop of vanilla ice-cream sitting on top of my piece of banana cake and it has started melting away even as I was snapping the photo. It has really been hot these few days here.

Beef Bulgogi with Buna Shimeiji Mushroom

I bought the frozen shabu-shabu beef slices from the supermarket and used the pre-mixed bulgogi sauce to cook this. Also added a packet of the buna shimeiji mushrooms to make the dish a little less meaty. It's a good and tasty dish which I would do again :-)

Banana Sourcream Cake

Since I had a couple of large bananas overripening, I baked this for teatime. Oh I really love this cos' it's so moist and soft. I adapted the recipe from HERE and used a tub of sourcream for the bake.

Ingredients:

180 g salted butter
180 g caster sugar
3 nos. medium eggs
250 g cake flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp soda bicarbonate
100 g mashed bananas
1 tub Bulla sourcream

Method:

Cream butter and sugar till light , fluffy and creamy.

Add beaten eggs, mashed bananas and sourcream till all blended.

Add in the cake flour mixture with the baking powder and soda bicarbonate.

Pour the batter into a lined 8" round cake pan.

Decorate with sliced bananas if you like.

Bake in a pre-heated oven at 180 degree C for about 60 minutes or till skewer comes out clean.

Homemade Yam Ice Cream

I came across a blog Mike's Table organising a Frozen Dessert Challenge and decided to submit this entry.

Since I spotted yam being sold in the supermarkets these days, I decided to make yam ice-cream. This is also my dh's favourite ice cream flavour.
I was looking through many ice -cream recipes at IK and KC and finally gathered enough information to come out with this recipe which uses glucose syrup. I understand that this ingredient would help to make the ice-cream smooth and less icy. The sweetness of this ice-cream was also reduced so that my dad , being mildly diabetic could have a chance to eat it.

Ingredients:

300 g steamed, mashed yam
300 ml UHT milk
150 ml diary whipping cream
50 g caster sugar
3 tbsp glucose syrup
2 tsp yam essence paste

Method:

Process the yam in a blender with the milk and the whipping cream.

Pour the mixture into the freezer bowl of the ice-cream maker with the paddle running.

Add in the glucose syrup, sugar and the yam essence paste.

Allow the mixture to churn for about 30 minutes or till the mixture thickens considerably.

Transfer mixture into container and freeze overnight.

Click HERE for the round-up at Mike's Table.

Kong Bak Yam

This is the week I bought 1 kg of yam and used one third of it to make this dish. The recipe was adapted from HERE at KC. I followed the recipe and did not use the spices knowing my family members are not fond of them. Dh, ds A and I enjoyed the dish as the yam made the fat pork belly less oily to taste.

Baked Shrimp Paste Chicken

This is a variation of the Grilled Shrimp Paste Chicken I had done previously. It tastes just as good without the Crispy Fry Mix.

Ingredients:

1 kg frozen chicken thighs
4 tbsp shrimp paste powder
2 tbsp sugar
1 tsp salt
2 tbsp chinese cooking wine
1 tbsp sesame oil

Method:

Mix all ingredients together and marinade chicken parts for an hour or more.
Lay out chicken parts on aluminium paper lined tray.
Bake in a pre-heated oven at 200 degree C for 35-40 mins. or until chicken parts turn golden brown.

Masak-Masak Challenge 2

This challenge came from the M4M Forum HERE

I've completed mine this evening for dinner ..... Cost of meal $ 14.70

Breakdown .....

Baked Shrimp Paste Chicken .... $ 6.00 (chicken $5 and Shrimp paste $1)
SF Green vege with garlic .. $ 1.30 (vege $1 and fresh garlic 0.30cts)
SF Ham and Eggs ..................... $ 3.90 (Ham $3 and 3 eggs $0.90cts)
Five bowls of white rice ............. $ 2.50 ($0.50cts per bowl)
2 Gala apples, sliced ................. $ 1.00 ($0.50cts each)
Total Cost of meal S$ 14.70

Flapjacks Again

I baked the flapjacks again using the recipe HERE.
This time I halved the sugar to 50 g and used chopped apricots instead of cranberries.
I'm addicted to them again :0)

Oreo Buttercake

This cake was baked for the Confirmation Camp participants to enjoy their supper with after their praying over. I used this RECIPE and then sprinkled into the batter half a packet of chopped oreos and another half a packet of chopped oreos for the decoration on the surface of the batter.

Homemade Chocolate Ice Cream

I've ever made chocolate ice-cream before but it turned out icy-like and different from those that we buy in the tubs. This time round I managed to find a recipe from HERE and adapted it a little to make the steps simpler. Also there was talk about how good tasting homemade ice- cream is at the forum which I frequent that I was encouraged to try making it again using a different recipe.

In the previous ice-cream making attempt the eggless recipe resulted in an icy ice-cream. However this time round, the recipe required eggs and the ice-cream turned out smooth and milky. And of course I also had some help from my Kenwood Ice Cream Maker :0)

Thesevi

This is one of our favourite haunt for roti prata. The roti prata has also shrunk considerably over the years but somehow we still patronise this place although not as often .
So on this night the whole family gathered here for dinner and surprisingly the crowd was thin and we had a breeze of a time ordering and enjoying our meal here.
We had the roti prata kosong with the curry chicken, chocolate prata, mee goreng, fried chicken, mutton ribs curry, bandung and milo dinosaur.

Bulgogi Chicken

Dh and I visited Square 2 at Novena and chanced upon a shop that sold Korean goods, food stuffs and seasonings. I was looking through the shelves when I saw this bottle of seasoning. The lady who was packing the shelf recomended me to buy this as I saw the label stating it as Bulgogi sauce for chicken and beef.

After asking the lady how to use the sauce, it seemed very easy to do.
For about 500 g of chicken thigh meat, I used two tablespoon of the sauce and half a teaspoon of salt and marinaded the meat for about an hour. After that I stir-fried the meat with some freshly chopped garlic. Added a little water to ingredients to make the gravy too. I garnished the dish with some green onions.

The boys tried it and said it was good. It was also not too spicy although the label did say it was Spicy Bulgogi Marinade.

Cedele

Dh and I spent my birthday treat at this place in Novena Square. Heard quite a bit about the walnut carrot cake and that all their cakes used raw and unrefined sugars as their ingredient.
So here I was with dh and we ordered the Spicy Moroccon Carrot soup and we had to take our bread from the bread bar. There was only the "focassia" looking one and half a bagel. The bread was hard and really nothing to shout about. As for the Walnut Carrot cake .... I must say it was good and I won't mind eating it again.

Hock Lam Beef

Dh, ds A and I visited the branch at Upper Serangoon one Sunday evening to have our dinner there. We ordered the dry beef noodles, the soup with beef balls and the noodles and another dish with the mixed beef noodles which had the tendons included.
I preferred the soup version to the dry version and also the lean meat to the mixed meat. On the whole, it was a good meal and of course we would go back there again. What made the evening meal special was that ds A joined us for the meal and it was one of those rare and special time with him alone without his siblings.

Flapjacks

I knew of this challenge at Sweet and Simple Bakes.

Since I have most of the ingredients ready in my cupboard I baked this without really knowing how it would turn out. I followed the recipe ... as close as possible. I used brown sugar instead of demerera sugar. Since I only had 200g of butter, I added in another 50 g of margarine as I ran out of butter. The result was a very sweet, chewy and oily kind of granola bar. I used a bitter chocolate ganache to offset the sweetness and also to decorate the top.

When cutting the flapjacks into squares, I had a terrible time trying to remove the pieces from the paper lining. I must have used the wrong paper for baking...sigh! As a result my flapjack pieces became distorted squares with the rolled oats practically falling out from the inside while I cut ... LOL.
Taste and texturewise, I need to eat a couple more pieces before I would really grow to like it LOL.

I've eaten a slice after the batch cooled down and refrigerated the rest to be eaten for the next couple of days. I must say now I like to eat them cold from the fridge because the slice gave a chewy texture without it being too oily. I must say they are addictive. I'm glad I took part in this challenge cos' now I'm into thinking of the number of variations I can use to bake flapjacks again :-)

Here's the ROUND-UP.

.