Guiness Shepherd's Pie

This is a back dated recipe I cooked for our X'mas party. I found the recipe here, a not so difficult or troublesome recipe, I altered the recipe slightly to best suit our taste buds, however, it still tasted too Guiness to us :p

Ingredients

1 tsp black pepper

500g ground lamb

1 large onion, finely diced

1 cup frozen baby peas

3-4 sprigs fresh rosemary

2 tbsp flour

1 tbsp butter

1 can Guiness stout

3 tbsp ketchup

3 tbsp Worcestershire sauce

2 tbsp Maggi's concentrated liquid chicken stock

6 (about 200g each) Russet potatoes, cooked, peeled

40g butter

125 milk + dairy cream

grated parmesan cheese

1. Preheat oven to 200C
2. Saute onions in the olive oil for a minute or 2, then add the meat
3. Season with black pepper and rosemary
4. Cook until brown then drain fat
5. Add the butter and peas
6. Sprinkle with flour and stir through
7. Add ketchup, Guiness, Worcestershire sauce and chicken stock
8. Let simmer til stock thicken. Season and remove from heat
9. Mash cooked potatoes until smooth, add butter and milk (and cream), stir until combined. Taste and season with salt and pepper
10. Grease a 9" x 13" dish with butter and add the lamb mixture
11. Spoon in mashed potatoes over top. Sprinkle with cheese
12. Bake for 20 minutes or til the potato is browned on top.

Fun Fried Loh Shi Fan Bento (129)

In order to encourage little girl eating more in school, I told her I will only make her kyaraben or cute bento for the next day if she clean the bento. Thus there is no cute stuff today, only a simple word FUN.

I cooked the fried loh shi fan as our lunch, assembled the bento in about 10 minutes.

Fried loh shi fan with julienned chinese cabbage and mushrooms

Skewers of sliced pineapple & grapes

Ready to pack into bento bag and off to school

Today's note for little girl

I used a piece of recycled paper cut from the unwanted envelop, as little girl said that I was wasting paper yesterday, gotta listen to her & save more trees :)

Kippy & Friends Bento (128)

Since little girl had Rabbita (her pet in Pet Society) for her bento yesterday, she asked for Kippy (my pet) today, and again, the Kippy in this bento does not have any similarity with my pet, other than the bear shaped face, however, little girl still approved it with a happy smile ;p

Bento was ready in 20 minutes, slightly longer as I had to blanch the crab stick, fish balls and broccoli, Also took a bit more time on molding the rice as my fingers were not cooperative enough to make it fast :p

Kippy onigiri (center) was made with rice, colored with sakura denbu and stuffed with pork floss. It is surrounded by broccoli bushes and crab stick flowers. There r 2 little fishball friends joining her in the bottom of the bento.

Fan shaped kiwifruits for dessert

Little girl DIDN'T CRY in school today!! She announced it happily when I picked her up from school, oh, I was so glad to hear that!

Actually, she gave a little drama when I sent her to the school hall, she stopped, hugged me again & again, repeating wanna me to pick her up fast after school (which I was a bit annoyed as she has repeated for the whole morning), I promised her again and let her walked over to the queue of her class by herself. I left after seeing her entered her classroom.

I didn't babysit her during recess, thus I secretly left this note along with her bento box. She told me (after school) she was thrilled to see the note and wanna keep it, hehehe....

Back to the bento, little girl ate only a wee bit from the bento, may be a bite or 2 of Kippy, 2 crab stick flowers, and a piece of kiwifruit! She told me she couldn't finish it in time, but when I pressed her further, she said she was busy talking to her new friends in stead of eating her food. Also, she didn't drink her water at all as she forgot to bring the tumbler to canteen and teacher don allow them to drink in class! Oh dear, I'd made her promised me to polish her bento and remember to bring her tumbler to canteen.

Hope she'll remember 2moro....

1st Day in P1 and Rabbita Going to School Bento (127)

It is an official school opening today and little girl reports to her new primary school. I was in the school with her til recess, she was fine thru out the day, only with a minor cry. I quickly walked to the canteen the moment I saw her pout her lips, acted as if I didn't notice ;p When I came back to her class, I was hiding from her, seeing her friends from ex-preschool comforting her. After a while, when the BM teacher started the class, she was ok again.

She asked for bento instead of the catering food in canteen, thus today is my official day to start bento again for 2010.

I had no idea on what to prepare her nor able to think of any theme yesterday, think the brain has been idle for too long, turned rusty, or is it the sign of aging? Sigh...

Used about 15 minutes to prepare this bento. The idea was popping only while I was preparing it, it just flowed in by itself, phew!

Rabbita is the name of little girl's pet in Pet Society, of course her pet looks much prettier than this. In the bento, Rabbita is laying on top of a thin layer of chicken and it was made of ham sandwich, it is wearing the nori school uniform (couldn't find any dark blue to match the uniform color). At the side of Rabitta are some balloons (cherry tomatoes) and tulips (cheese sausage) celebrating the school opening.

A container of mayo for the sausage & chicken and some fan shaped kiwifruit.

Little girl enjoyed her bento with a new friend (a girl who cried a bit too after her mum left). She almost cleaned the bento today, with only some chicken left in the box.

The Eve of New Year (2010)'s Eve Dinner

Hahaha... I like the title of this posting!

We had our New Year's eve dinner a day early as I had my yoga class on the New Year's eve. Little girl had requested for the cheesy chicken chop again for the dinner (just like last year), and so with limited ingredients left in fridge, made do this simple dinner:

This was my plate of chicken chop (without cheese) with onion brown sauce, aglio olio topped with a packet of dried chili (from Domino's) and some cucumber slices. Hubby had a similar plate but omitted the dried chili.

Little girl's plate of cheese stuffed chicken chop, oglio olio and cucumber.

Change of Plan

Due to some complications, sis & I had decided to close the Happiness Cookies website from public, however it'll be opened thru invitation. Email me at yeokel@gmail.com or give me a call if you are interested to order CNY cookies from us, we'll send an invitation email to u soonest possible.

Happy New 2010 Year!

Happy

New

2010

Year !

Loves from Kel & family

3 Flavors Sponge Cake

I adapted the French sponge cake recipe from Alex Goh's 'Creative making of cakes', with some additions.

Ingredients

(A)

5 egg yolks

20g sugar

(B)

5 egg whites

(C)

130g sugar

1/4 tsp cream of tartar

(D)

120g flour

1 tsp baking powder

(E)

80g melted butter

(F)

3 tsp strawberry syrup

1 tsp green tea powder

1. Put (A) into a mixing bowl, whisk until light and fluffy. Set aside
2. Pour (B) into another mixing bowl, whip until soft peak, add in (C) and continue whipping until stiff
3. Mix a small portion of egg white mixture into (A) mixture, then pour the remaining (A) mixture into egg white mixture, lightly fold til well blended
4. Fold in (D) til well combined
5. Stir in (E) slowly and mix well
6. Divide batter into 3 portions, mix in strawberry syrup and green tea respectively into 2 different portions
7. Spoon 3 colors batters alternately into a 9" round cake mould
8. Bake at 180C for 30 minutes
9. Remove the cake from mould immediately after it was out from oven.

The 3 colors in the cake

Kept telling guests the cake has 3 flavors and tested them, most of them got the answer right ;)

Chocolate Cookies

Decorated chocolate cookies group 1

Ingredients

250g plain flour

1/2 tsp soda bicarbonate

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp cinnamon powder

75g castor sugar

60ml water

100g chocolate

90g butter

1. Sift flour, soda, baking powder and cinnamon powder
2. Combine sugar, water and rum in a saucepan. Cook with low heat to form syrup
3. Melt chocolate and butter. Add into flour mixture, mix well. Add in syrup to form smooth dough. Cover and refigerated for 30 minutes.
4. Preheat oven to 175C. Roll out dough between 2 sheets of cling film, about 5mm. Use mould to mold out desired shapes.
5. Bake for 12 - 15 minutes. Leave to cool. Decorate with ornamental icing.

Decorated cookies group 2

X'mas trees chocolate cookies

Ginger bread man chocolate cookies

Ginger bread lady chocolate cookies

Assorted colors ornamental icing (clockwise): strawberry, cocoa, plain, and green tea

The cookies were very crunchy after baking (even after a day), kids kept asking for more, in fact, I was addicted too ;p However, after decorated them and kept for another day, they turned soft, were rather disappointing during the X'mas day party, lesson learned, do not keep them for long.

X'mas Party 2009

Parent threw a big party on X'mas day, not that they were Christian, but more to hold a 'grand-opening' for their 2 newly renovated toilets 新屎坑 (joked by SIL) and a bigger kitchen , hahaha.... :p

Actually it was for the 2 birthday girls, SIL (birthday on X'mas eve) and little girl. We had planned our menu 2 to 3 weeks ago, every families (about 7 families) would bring in some food to cater the big group of relatives.

Our buffet line

With about 15 delicious dishes (I lost count, just so many of them), from Western to Chinese, and local

The main actor for this show - roast turkey

Had decorated it for fun while resting it

Mum roast this beautiful turkey, and it was so, so, so succulent!

Another of mum's must cook dish for party - roast lamb leg

Dad contributed this local salad - pickle chopped onions, cucumbers and pineapple

Aunt came early to help mum preparing this dish - fried prawn and a big pot of fried meehoon (rice vermicelli, may find at photo of buffet line)

Aunt's must cook item for every party - kau zhi

SIL's mum came early to cook this dish too, the stuffed yau char kuai

and she brought some cute jelly for dessert (may see at photo of buffet line)

God mum cooked this yummy sticky rice (loh mai fan)

It was so good that hubby requested to tapao (pack away) home!

Chicken curry from god mum

Have u ever see purple potatoes? No, not sweet potatoes, but potatoes, sis & me found them at Cold Storage, Jaya One, we were so surprised to see potatoes as black as charcoal (the outer layer)!

Sis made this beautiful 2 tones potato salad

The super crunchy cocktail sausages from Euro deli, sponsored by sis

It is now presenting dishes prepared by yours truely:

Guinness stout shepherd pie

A dish cooked to ease dad's crave but I poured in the whole can of Guinness stout which resulting a strong flavor pie, which was not accepted by most people ;p (will post the recipe soon)

Baked mac & cheese

An easy dish, used the Kraft's pokemon cheese mix and added some chopped smoked sausages, baked a small quantity (not very confident with the cheese mix) and it was fast wiped out by the kids

The 3 flavors cake (strawberry, green tea and plain) I baked for little girl (recipe will be up soon)

And moist chocolate cake for SIL

The kids prepared this too - chocolate cookies (will post recipe soon)

Cookie dough was helped prepare by me, molded by HT (god bro's eldest son), picky eater Y and little girl, whereas the decorations was done by SWM, SKS, SKY (niece & nephews), little girl, me & mum, ok, I know, we r not artistic at all ;p

I think there were a few dishes that we didn't capture the photo, like mum's sago pudding, neighbor auntie's pot stickers, god bro's ice creams, etc, there was so many of dishes flowing in.

Although there were about 50 peoples in the party, there was still plenty of food leftover by the end of the nite, but every family was happy tapaoing (packing) home. I believe all of us were home with full belly and boxes of goodies.

The most fun moment of the party was during the present exchange time, SIL had placed number on each present kids brought over and had each of them to pick their lucky number from a box. I was almost drown by the kids while distributing the presents, gotta keep asking them to sit still ;) Once all the kids had their present on hand, I called out 'u may open your present now!', all the kids gave a loud cheer & started tearing off the wrapper at the same time! It was so fun to see those happy, excited faces, really priceless!