New Year's Eve Dinner

Since most preparation for dinner was done b4 lunch, I started cooking dinner at about 6pm.  Cooking simultaneously, which was quite fun in the kitchen.  Dinner was ready in an hour, inclusive of time used on decorating the plates.

We started off with soup, ahem...  Campbell classic mushroom soup, but I added lots of fresh button mushrooms... and garnished with spring onions.

3 of us having different main course:

This belong to little girl.  She was having drumstick stuffed with cheddar cheese and spring onion (the only so call fresh herb I had in hand at that moment).  Little girl enjoyed the chicken very much, ate 1/2 of it and downed all the cucumber and grape tomatoes, not forgetting the soup too!  She really ate a lot today!

Hubby had deep-fried salmon, with stir-fried onion, garlic and button mushrooms.  For the sides were broccoli, egg n pasta salad on left and some blanched broccoli stem n baby corn on right.

As for me, I had mini steak, blanketed with button mushroom, garlic, onion in red wine sauce, and having same salad n veggies as hubby's.

Happy New 2009 Year!

Broccoli, Egg and Spiral Pasta Salad

We were home today, at the New Year's Eve, we'd decided to cook something different for dinner.  At about 11am, I'd interest little girl on helping me preparing lunch and some preparation for dinner.  I got her to skin off, cut and mash 3 hard boiled eggs, while I cut the broccoli, baby corns, blanched them and boiled the pasta.

Having fun mashing the egg yolks with her hands...

After working on the eggs, got her to play with this...

Crushing ginger, shallots and garlics for dinner preparation, she was having fun pounding it!

Little girl had the salad for lunch, tasted yummy, I like it too!

Kept a big bowl to chill out in the fridge for dinner

This salad was made base on instinct, thus most ingredients was agak-agak (base on rough estimation) only.

Ingredients

5 handful of spiral pasta 

1 broccoli

3 eggs, hard boiled

2 tbsp mayonnaise

1 tbsp honey mustard

1 tbsp olive oil

1/4 lemon, juiced

lemon zest

salt and pepper to taste

1. Cook pasta according to packet instructions, drain well
   
2. Cut broccoli to bite size, blanch and drain well
   
3. Separate the yolks from egg whites.  Dice egg whites and mash egg yolks finely.
   
4. Mixed pasta, broccoli, eggs into a big mixing bowl, add in all ingredients, mix well
   
5. Chill salad before serving.
   

A simple, yet delicious salad.

Happy New 2009 Year!

X'mas Day Bento and Happy Birthday!

It's X'mas day and it is little girl's 5th birthday!  

We brought her to Berjaya Hill at Bukit Tinggi, to check out the Colmar Tropicale and Rabbit Park.  It's not really an interesting place to me, ok, the Colmar Square is pretty, but it is just 2 rows of shops, nothing interesting at all.  Moreover, those shops and stalls are selling things or mostly toys that we may easily get in pasar malam or supermarket.  Whereas the restaurant are selling very expensive but simple food.

The only 2 rows of buildings u may see at Colmar Tropicale, with the entrance fee of RM10 each person!

The white swans

The black love birds

We were at Colmar Tropicale for about an hour, little girl got her interest at the black and white swans after we pulled her away from those toy stalls.  We went to the Rabbit Park then (entrance fee RM3 each person), this was no doubt a fun place for adults or children as ppl are allowed to go into the park, play, cuddle, hold, chase, feed, etc the rabbits.  There are even a donkey ride (RM6 for a 10-15 minutes ride), I was surprised little girl has requested for the ride, as I always thought she'd be afraid.  She was so happy on the donkey, only felt a bit tensed during the 1st few steps, I told her to relax and she did, she couldn't stop herself from smiling ear to ear during the entire ride.

Feeding the rabbit

Enjoying the donkey ride

Little girl said it looks like My Melody by pressing one of the ear down :)

We left rabbit park after about 2 hours later, went to had early dinner at Kampung Bukit Tinggi, very delicious dinner, we ate a lot there.

I made 2 bentos for our brunch which we ate during our car journey to Berjay Hill:

This belonged to little girl, contained pan-fried mold onion roti canai, quail eggs, frankfurters, grape tomatos, edamame and a container of soy sauce.

This was hubby and mine bento, having similar ingredients with an extra container of mayo.

Last but not least, here are the little cakes we had at home, to celebrate little girl's 5 years old birthday!

Pre-Birthday Celebration 4

Another little girl's 5 yrs old pre-birthday celebration, on X'mas Eve at mum's place.  Mum baked her the cake and I bought her the cute Tweety Bird cake topper as it'd be much easier to deco with it.

Little girl was so happy to see the cake when we arrived at mum's hse, couldn't wait to cut it and kept pestering us for the whole evening :p

Sausage rolls, crabstick buns and wholemeal pretzels

Little girl loves sausages, crabsticks and pretzel very much.  Thus I kneaded a basic wholemeal bread dough and rolled them into sausage rolls, crabstick buns and pretzels on Tuesday.

Make 12 sausage rolls:

Just after 2nd proofing...

...out from oven

Make 3 crabstick buns:

After 2nd proofing ready to go into oven...

...out from oven

3 plain pretzels:

Ready to go into oven

Out from oven, spread with butter and sprinkled lot and lot of cheese powder

Look at the end result, soft when they were warm, but a bit dense once cool down, I gotta warm them every time b4 eating.  Can someone give me some suggestions.

Packed into 3 batches, each containing of 3 sausage rolls, 1 crabstick bun and 1 pretzel, to mum, my friend MY, and us.

Fried Roast Pork, Vege and Egg Bento

Been idling from bentoing for a month plus, gotta catch up with the bentoing skills again!  So, start up with a simple adult bento brought back from mum's hse for hubby.

Just a single tier bento, cos hubby dislike those 2 tiers boxes, he claimed it was so ma-fan (troublesome) to wash.  It contains all food cooked by mum, packed or arranged by me :p

So from top right clockwise: shoyu fried roast pork, fried egg with onions, stir-fried choy sam, white rice with sauce (drew a heart shaped using the sauce from shoyu fried roast pork and mum was shaking her head when she saw me doing it ;p) and a half corn fished out from soup.

Snowing at The Curve!

Went to The Curve yesterday, little girl and me walked and look-seeing along The Piazza area (where the flea market located) and bumped into this!

Little girl (actually not only her, most kids and some adults too!) was so amused to see the snow (bubbles in actual fact) flying everywhere.  She walked herself over the flying bubbles and returned with a head and hands full of bubbles!

Look at the beautiful X'mas tree and its decoration, plus the flying snows during sunset, romantic-huh?

If u wanna play with snow at The Curve too, be quick, it'll last til 28 Dec, and remember, it'll snow at 7pm and 8.30pm only.  Check out their schedule here.  Have fun!

M&M Peanut Butter Tang Yuan 湯圓

My aunt introduced this recipe to me a few year ago, wrapping M&M chocolate in the glutinous dough.  This year, I tried it with M&M peanut butter chocolate.

It was pretty easy to roll M&M into the dough, even little girl was having fun doing it.

Here r some plain baby tang yuan without the M&M stuffing, rolled by little girl.

Verdict:  It was too delicious, QQ outer layer with a bit gooey sweet choc and slight salty peanut butter, we didn't even remember to snap a photo of it!  Little girl down lot of it, even complained that I should have left some for her to bring back home!

Happy Belated Winter Solstice Festival!

Pre-Birthday Celebration 3

Little girl woke up with this surprise, her uncle (my bro-in-law) made her this beautiful princess jelly and got her another small cake!

The same group of cousins came, played and partied with her again for the entire morning til 1pm, fun morning for the children.

Pre-Birthday Celebration 2

Little girl celebrated her birthday with her cousins in Seremban last Saturday after having our "dong zhi" 冬至 dinner at uncle-in-law's place.

She wanted another PPG cake, so we went ordered it at Bread Story SS2 again, brought it back to Seremban.  Quite similar with the one we ordered previously.

Eh, blowing candles in the dark?  Actually no-lah, the camera's flash light not fully ready yet, :)

She was extremely happy when everybody sang her the birthday song, we were glad too, to see the smile on her face - the enjoying this moment's smile.

Mexican Buns

My 2nd attempt on bread baking - Mexican buns, I'd say it's another success!  Yeah!  This recipe book - Bread Code of Ms Wendy Kor really worth buying, tried 2 of her recipes now, all didn't disappoint me, good buy!

A simple looking bun b4 going into oven...

a smiley face bun b4 going into oven...

they all came out looking similar, hahaha...

The outer layer of bun was crispy (but turned slightly soft after totally cold), and inner layer fluffy n soft and those raisins were sinfully yummy!

Sardine and Cheese Melt

Another round of cheese melt pita bread for breakfast this morning.

Ingredients:

2 pita bread

1 small can sardine in tomato sauce

lot of mozzarella cheese

3 kalamansi limes (limau kasturi), juiced

Butter

Salt and pepper to taste

1. Mashed sardine with sauce, fold in about 10g butter and kalamansi juice, put in pinch of salt n pepper then mix in mozzarella cheese
2. Halve pita bread, stuff sardine mixture into pita bread pocket, follow with more mozzarella cheese
3. Preheat non stick pan
4. Spread butter on both side of pita bread
5. Pan fry both side of pita bread til brown and crisp

Hmm....  Another warm gooey cheesy breakfast!

Tomato and Cheese Melt

Ingredients:

1 pita bread

1 tomato, diced

2 slices cheddar cheese, shredded

some shredded mozzarella cheese

butter

1. Halve pita bread, stuff some cheddar and mozzarella cheese deep into pita bread pocket, then follow with tomato, lastly with more cheddar and mozzarella cheese.  Be careful while stuffing, do not break the pita bread.
   
2. Preheat non stick pan.
3. Spread butter on both side of pita bread
4. Place pita bread into pan, fried til brown and crisp, flip over continue frying the other side til brown and crisp
5. Serve while hot

After one bite, little girl told me that she loved it and demanded it for breakfast again 2moro.

Kinpira Gobo and Tomato with Egg Soup

Tried out this kinpira gobo recipe which is a Japanese version of braised burdock root.  Yummy!  I like the crunchiness and taste of burdock root but don think hubby and little girl like it.

Just afraid little girl wouldn't wanna touch the burdock root, I cooked her this tomato with egg soup, so that she don have to eat plain rice only.  I added some flower shaped carrots and sliced baby corns to attract her more.

LG:  Mummy, what r we having for dinner?

Me:  I cooked tomato and egg soup.

LG:  Anymore?

Me:  White rice!

LG:  Yeah!  I wanna eat it with furakake!

And there she go, dug out her Hello Kitty furakake to go with her rice.

Fried Pad Thai Noodles

I bought this packet of Pad Thai noodles some times ago, it came with 2 packs of noodles and seasoning.  I'd used a pack of the noodles for this bento a month ago, decided to try out frying the remaining pack with its seasoning included.

I added sliced tao fu pok, chinese cabbage in the fried Pad Thai noodles.  Tasted it during cooking, eeh...  the seasoning was so sweet, I added some fish sauce to make the fried noodles more tasty.  Lastly, garnished the fried noodle with sliced egg omelette and spring onion.

Verdict:  Not so delicious, still quite sweet to my liking.

And the color, not so interesting, should have put in some colorful ingredients.

I think next time I will buy those plain noodle, instead of this, which was inclusive of seasoning, lesson learned.