Barley Rice Spinach Bread

Finally, I'd hand-kneaded a loaf of bread, hooray!

As I mentioned over the previous post, I didn't get to bake bread since parent's house started renovation, I was so yearning for a loaf of home baked bread. After browsing thru Carol's blog again, I found her brown rice & spinach bread very interesting, but since I don have brown rice, I used barley rice to replace it.

When I was measuring the ingredients, I was surprised to find out that there was no liquid in her recipe, I double checked her blog and was confirmed, as it comes from the spinach. With feelings of half trusting half doubting (半信半疑), unsure and worried, I started hand-kneading the bread dough, in front of the TV! Hahaha.... make full use of time mah....

At the beginning, the mixture was very dried, I was really worried... but after kneaded for about 10 minutes, ok, a dough started to form, but once I added the butter, it became very very wet, til it sticked all over my hand... Oh o... should I add more flour now... better not, just continue kneading more... after kneaded for another 20 minutes or more, it slowly forming a ok looking dough and turned non sticky, phew! See, u really need some patients to hand knead the bread dough.

Ingredients

100g barley and rice, mashed

200g high protein flour

100g whole meal flour

3/4 tsp instant yeast

40g sugar

5g salt

40g butter

150g spinach leaves, finely chopped

I think I didn't knead enough as it didn't raise fully, not that spongy. Also, I didn't mashed the barley properly, thus those barley near the crust part had turned hard, but little girl found it interesting to nibble on the barley in her bread

Tasty on its own or with cheese

Verdict: 3 satisfied tummies and a pair of tiring arms. I think Popeye the sailor will be glad to have a loaf of this bread, po poo.... ;)

Honey Soda Bread

I didn't get to bake bread since last Thu as my parent's house is under renovation, and I don have a proper mixer at home to knead the bread dough (lazy to hand-knead it myself).

I came upon this honey soda bread from another blog that I had been hopping to often - Angie's Recipes. The soda bread neither need a long kneading process nor proofing time which really interest the lazy me.

I measured everything up last nite, so that I'd be able to start right away after I waked up (purposely waked up early to bake this). During the measuring, I realized that I had very few raisins (50g) left in the pantry, think-think-think, dig out the chocolate chips, aiyoh, after adding to the raisins, they weighted 100g only, still have 80g to meet, dig further, found some toffee bits, no choice, threw it in to accomplished the total 180g. Have to be creative sometimes. =)

Also, I had cut down the honey to 1/4 cup as the toffee bits are very sweet, but added another 10g extra of the yogurt.

While it was having 'sun-bathing' in the oven, it gave the similar aroma as baking bread, I was enjoying sniffing on the aroma while FBing with a mug of warm honey, what a great morning!

Now, coming to the taste of the bread, good & very filling, of course the texture have no similarity to the spongy type, it is closer to scone or shortcake, in between of cake & cookie. I ate the 2 pieces above with a mug of coffee (at about 9.30am) and it has lasted me til now (about 2pm), filling-huh!

Little girl ate a piece, she dislike the crust (just as always), and declared that she don wanna have it for breakfast 2moro, think she prefer those soft & spongy bread more. Aiyoh! I really have to hand-knead some soft bread for her now...

Crunchy Potato Crackers

Didn't get to bake for a few days, and my hands were so so so itchy.... ;p

I had been frequented Carol's blog (it is in Chinese), love all her recipes and the detailed steps she posted. I browsed thru her archives few days ago and found this interesting potato biscuits, since I had the ingredients (almost), and I just love crunchy savory biscuit, must go all in to try out the recipe ;).

The ingredients are simple:

200g mashed potato

60g potato starch

30g vegetable oil

1 1/2 tsp pop-corn white cheddar cheese seasoning

a pinch of dried parsley flakes

The problem I faced in this recipe was I didn't have enough potato starch (though it required only a wee bit), I looked into my pantry, found the leftover joshinko flour, I smartly top it to the remaining potato starch. Moreover, I didn't have a proper measurement cup to measure the small quantity of oil (the smallest measurement in the cup is 100ml), thus I just wildly guessing the quantity.

The potato mixture dough turned out on the oily side, quite difficult to transfer it to the baking tray after flatten and molding.

Then came to the baking time, after the 1st batch were out from the oven (according to the suggested time stated in Carol's blog), I found most of the biscuits still soft at the center. Therefore, after the 2nd batch was out, I send both batches to the oven again for another 10 minutes. That was why my biscuits came out so tan comparing with Carol's :(

The verdict: Though they were too tan/dark, they were very very crunchy. Also, as I didn't add in the salt as suggested by Carol, thought that the cheddar cheese seasoning would be salty enough, but I was wrong, it just added a hint of saltiness only, well, overall, it still tasted fine, just as tasty ;p

I let little girl ate it after her school, she just couldn't stop herself from stealing it from the the jar, and by the time she stopped, it was left with about 5 pieces only! Can u imagine how tasty it was?

Fish Ball Twin Bento (112)

After having holiday (1st, off 1 week for H1N1, then 1 week school holiday, after returning to school for 2 weeks, off for 1 week of Hari Raya holiday again) weeks after weeks, my brain had turned rusty and couldn't work properly. Well, basically I really turn idle & lazy during little girl's school holidays ;p.

I cooked the low shi fan for little girl's bento and for my lunch, as everything was cooked from scratch, thus it took me a longer time to get things done. This bento was ready in about 45 minutes.

The twin sister (seaweed fish balls) on a bed of fried low shi fan.

Watermelon balls, grapes and strawberry flavored sago jelly

Again, the sister on the left...

the one on the right.

As little girl came to canteen quite late after her yoga, she had only about 10 minutes to finish up her lunch. However, my little slow eater just couldn't eat fast, therefore she left a bit of the fried low shi fan, finished the watermelon and decided to keep the rest of the grapes and sago jelly for her snack later.

Potato Bread

Have u ever eaten the potato bread from Carrefour? It used to be very popular, everybody would grab 1 or 2 bags whenever they visited Carrefour, I did, didn't u? Is it still that popular now?

I gotta recipe from sifu Wendy Kor's Bread Code (my 1st bread recipe book). As I still have plenty of russet potato sitting in the pantry, I was more than happy to use it up for the recipe.

20 buns in 1 big cake pan

15 buns in a medium cake pan (for SIL's family) and 5 buns in a tiny chiffon cake pan

I just love this tiny loaf, looks so adorable, baked this specially for cousin B

... and now the texture, it didn't disappoint me, super soft & spongy!

I am glad that I tried the recipe

Happy Birthday, Ah Ba!

We celebrated my dad's birthday yesterday, it was a day full of Hainanese delicacies.

We started off with making the Hainanese steamed cakes 'hi bua' (in Hainanese), which is one of my dad's old time favorite. I gotta recipe from Yum Yum magazine recently. This steamed cake is very difficult to get nowadays as very few peoples making or selling it. After making the cakes, I found it not only delicious but easy too.

Made 24 of the 'hi bua'

It is wrapped in banana leave

The filling: cooked coconut floss with sugar & chopped peanuts

We had the 'hi bua' with ginko & barley sweet soup (白果薏米糖水) cooked by mum, yummy!

At the evening, bro suggested to goto the Kheng Heong Restaurant which is situated at Brickfield.

It is owned by Hainanese, the food r superdelicious!

We started with this tofu soup

Fish head with chilies (red chilies, green chilies, bird eyes chilies and dried chilies)

I love this dish, almost down the whole plate of rice with its gravy.

Fried squids

I like this too, it was not like those ordinary fried squids but with a little surprise => it was filled with mayo

Boxing chicken

This was a hit among the kids, little girl ate 3!

Marmite pork ribs

I didn't try this, as they were all in big pieces, however, the marmite gravy was tasty.

What a wonderful day, all tummies were full & filled with satisfactions.

Happy Monster Bento (111)

Do u see a cheery monster from this bento?

Little girl asked to have both baked pasta & baked rice for her bento last nite. The preparation was fast this morning, used most of the time on baking, total used about half an hour.

Left eye: baked pasta with squids in carbonara sauce

Nose: blanched brocooli

Right eye: baked rice with artificial crab stick in carbonara sauce

Mustache: Tompson seedless

Cheery smile: Chinese pear

Little girl was happy with this bento, left with 5 grapes, 1 slice of pear & a few pieces of broccoli, not bad-ya!

Thief Onigiri Bento (110)

Don know what to make for little girl even until the morning, I simply opened the fridge to see what I had inside, found a container of leftover rice, hm... didn't make her onigiri for a long time, why not.

I cooked 2 quail eggs, mashed them with mayo for the filling inside the onigiri. I think due to the softness of the filling and the hardness of the leftover rice, it was so difficult for me to press them into shape. I pan fried (without oil) the onigiri for a minute and lightly brushed some soya sauce on each side, then wrapped a strip of nori around the onigiri. It took me 1/2 an hour to complete this simple bento, ooh... think I really need to plan well ahead to shorten the time.

Little girl peeped into her bento when it was ready, to find this 2 onigiri.

LG: Ma! Who is this guys?

Me: I don know, I made them up, what do u think? Can u use ur imagination to suggest?

LG: They look like bad guys...

Me: Ok, they r thief then, good imagination.

Apple cubes with beautiful food picks

Little girl left with 2 pieces of cucumber and 1 onigiri. Those onigiri must be too big, should make it smaller next time.

Tuna, Potato and Egg Whole Meal Buns

Some of u may be surprised to see me baking such many bread/buns on Sat, and wondered how could I finished all. Well, my family, my god-bro's family & a few friends went to picnic at the Taman Rekreasi Lembah Kiara near TTDI on Sun morning. There were only a few buns left after the picnic, mostly being 'tapao' back by 'fans', hahaha...

After picnic, my god-mama wanna see me making the bread too, thus we made 2 batches of bread dough today. God-mama made a batch of sausage buns and me this:

Tuna, potato and egg with mayo whole meal buns (such a long name ya ;p)

A few plain whole meal buns (which my uncle adore)

The inside

Brought half of the batch to Puchong uncle's house, heard from cousin B that they were gone in the morning b4 she could try it out. Poor girl, will bake a batch for u next time and call u in to devour it.

A Day Full of Bread Making Fun

It was a very busy, tiring but fun day for me yesterday, I'd started making doughs for bread/ buns from about 2pm and finished baking the last batch at about 9pm!

Eve (she has made a few comments at my chat box, & met her personally for the 1st time on last Mon) dropped by at 3pm to join me with the bread making fun. We made 4 batches of bread doughs, inclusive 1 of Eve's.

The 1st batch we made was whole meal sausage buns + about 6 dried prawn sambal buns:

The 1 at top right is the dried prawn sambal bun (in round shape), the rest r sausage buns in different shapes

Common looking sausage roll, the sausage was totally hidden by the dough after proofing & baking

The sausage was rolled with a long strip of bread dough

Sausage in braided dough

Dried prawn sambal bun

After folding in all the sausages, I still have 6 bread doughs left, found the sambal dried prawn (cooked by Serdang aunt) in fridge, decided to fill it into the remaining doughs

The 2nd batch was ham & cheese bread loaf:

It was very tall, spongy & creamy

The inner look

I made the 1st & 2nd batches of dough b4 Eve arrived, as she wanna look see the process of it, I showed her with the 3rd batch. We turned the dough into bacon & cheese swirls.

So yummilicous!

Eve handled the 4th batch, which turned into more sausage buns and bacon & cheese swirls.

I was glad that I didn't make any mistakes during the bread making process, was extremely satisfied with those buns & a bit hyper too at the end of the day, think was due to the tiredness. Also, felt a bit paiseh (sorry) to let Eve (and her son GV) for staying til so late (about 9+pm), hope it was a fun & fruitful day for both of u too, Eve.

Potato Croquette Snack Bento (109)

Since there was plenty of mashed potato left after making bento (108), I decided to fried the remaining for the girls as snack after school.

I added chopped ham into the mashed potato, prepared some flour, an egg and finely chopped a piece of bread into bread crumb. After coating a few shaped mashed potatoes with flour, egg then bread crumb, the bread crumb was not enough for the rest (was lazy to chopped 4 more), therefore I decided to experiment the rest with flour, egg coating and flour, egg, flour coating.

This was without bread crumb. The crust turned soft immediately after frying. The flour and egg coating even build out air pocket after cooking, making the croquette wrinkly :(

No doubt the flour, egg & bread crumb coating is the best combination, no wonder all chefs recommended this method. The crust stay crunch & hard even when it was cool off, it's tasty & easy for little hands to hold too

I tell u, the girls gobbled these croquette up so fast, either those croquettes were tasty or they just wanna go to playground faster ;)

Other than sharing the croquettes with the 2 sisters little girl usually shared with, she even offered 2 to R a classmate (& buddy) who goes to day care after school and another 1 to H who is her best friend in the modern dance class.