Peanut Butter French Toast

It's going to be weekend and I still have 3 pieces of bread, I don wanna store them in fridge, decided to make little girl some french toasts for her after school snack.

I'd make 2 types of french toasts here:

the normal french toast

filled with peanut butter

I didn't use any measurement when making these french toast, all agak-agak (rough estimation) only. The ingredients I used up are:

3 breads

2 eggs

melted butter

3 tsp sugar

milk

peanut butter

1.  Cut breads into small bite size, 9 pieces cube size of each bread

2.  Spread peanut butter on 1 piece of bread and cover with another bread

3.  Mix melted butter, sugar, then egg and milk, whisk them well

4.  place breads into egg mixture, let them soak longer to absorb more egg mixture

5.  Heat pan, fry the breads with butter til golden brown

Other than peanut butter, I think we can experiment with more flavors in the french toast, like, fruits, fruit jam, cream cheese, nutella spread, etc or for savory type with bacon, cheese, ham, etc.  Ooh! This is going to be endless of experimenting....

Cha Soba Sushi Bento

This is a vegetarian bento and best eating cold too!  It is also following the theme for this week at Bento Challenge.

Top tier: pear, orange, pineapple, cucumber, red and yellow grape tomatoes.

Bottom tier: cha soba sushi with cucumber filling, blanched french beans n hon shimeji mushrooms, cold tofu with chopped spring onions in penguin silicon dish and lastly a packet of kikkoman soy sauce.

Little girl left 5 of the cha soba sushi, think due to the packet of chip she ate in the car, filled up her little tummy oledi.

She had the bento with yakult, the yogurt drink.  As for the blue container, it kept a ice cold wet hanky to wipe her hands and to chill up the bento too.

This is little girl's snack box contains only fruits today: pear, orange and pineapple.

Braised Chicken Wings

I had cooked this dish a few times when hubby was at home, we just love braised stuffs.  Got 4 wings from SS3 pasar malam last nite and decided to cook this again.

Where I get the recipe from?  See below:

Yeah!  From manga, "妙廚老爹".  I got the recipe photocopied and pasted in my recipe bible. :)

Fyi, I'd cut down my portion of ingredients as compared with the original above cos I had 4 wings only.  Ok ok, the translated recipe is below.  

Ingredients:

12 - 15         chicken wings

1 cup           soya sauce

1 cup           cooking wine

1/2 - 1 cup  sugar

a few           sliced ginger

little            cooking oil for frying

Method:

1. Put a little of cooking oil to heated pan, shallow fry wings til slightly brown.  (wings don have to be cook now)

2. Place soya sauce in pot, heat with medium fire

3. Once soya sauce is boiled, put in ginger, sugar.  Pour in cooking wine once boil again.

4. When mixture is boiled, throw in all the wings

5. Cover wings with a wooden lid or aluminum foil, and put on the pot cover (just like (6) of manga), let it simmer for 30 - 40 minutes in low fire.  Remember to turn the wings during simmering.

6. Let the wings cook thru til looking shinny (In my case, I let them simmered til the sauce became less and thicken)

Another closer look of the wing, yummy huh!  Little girl likes the sauce, mixture of salty and sweet.

Rice Cracker 仙貝

Have any left over rice (cooked) at fridge?  Good, u r able to make this rice cracker within 30 minutes. Got recipe from "Good Idea" (生活智慧王).

The ingredients are simply some cooked rice, a splash of soya sauce and sugar.  You may need rolling pin, sling film, cute molds, grease paper and a microwavable plate.

1. Preheat rice in microwave on High for 1 minute

2. Mash rice in between 2 sling film (best usuing hand)

3. Use rolling pin to roll mashed rice to very flat and thin, about 0.1 cm (still in between the sling film)

4. Mold out small pieces of mashed rice

5. Place mashed rice on oiled grease paper (the rice is very sticky)

6. Microwave for 3 minutes on High

7. Turn rice over, microwave for another 3 minutes

8. While rice cooking in microwave, mix soya sauce and sugar until sugar dissolve

9. Brush sauce mixture over rice, microwave for 1 minute

10. Turn rice over, brush sauce, microwave for another 1 minute.  Let cool, done

Be careful over (8) and (9), u may need to stand guard in front of the microwave oven, use less time if rice cracker turning dark.

Little girl let me had a piece only, she loves it, though she said it was very hard before that.

P/s   Hm....  U need very strong teeth to chew these cracker, be careful of your teeth ya!  

Hot and Sour Soup 酸辣湯

I got the recipe from Sin Chew Daily (星洲日報) a few months ago.  The recipe:

Ingredients:

6 mushrooms, shredded (substituted with hijiki)

1/2 carrot, julienned

1/2 box tofu, shredded

200g pork, shredded (substituted with steamed shredded chicken)

1 packet preserved mustard (榨菜)

Corn starch, mixed with water

(1 egg, I added before scooping to bowl)

Seasoning:

1/2 tsp salt

1 tbsp sugar

soya sauce to taste

Cooking method:

1. Boil a pot of water, put in preserved mustard, simmer for a while

2. Gradually put in pork (i put in chicken last in my case as it was precooked), tofu, mushroom (hijiki in my case) and carrot

3. Stir in seasoning, then follow with corn starch water to thicken the soup

4. Scoop soup to bowl, put in bit of black vinegar, sesame oil and chili oil, served

This was my bowl of hot and sour soup, with spring onion?  No no, look closer, they r chili padi cos I don have chili oil at home :)

This was little girl's, with 4 pieces of Hello Kitty fish cake I bought at Jusco Midvalley this afternoon. Little girl said the hijiki looked like tadpoles, she was happy fishing the "tadpoles" from the soup!

Talking of soup, I'd a silly encounter with little girl, it happened last friday after her pre-school while driving to mum's place  She was savoring her left-over piece of pizza ....

LG:  We had red strawberry soap at school today, mummy!

Me:  Ooh!  Is it nice?  Did u eat it?

LG:  Mummy, it is strawberry soap, soap ah!

Me:  Ok, ok!  Did u drink the soup?

LG:  No, I didn't, mummy, it is strawberry soap!  * showing a funny look *

Me:  Why?  Why don u try the soup?

LG:  Mummy, it is strawberry soap!  * rubbing her hands *

Me:  * Slapped forehead *  Sorry, sorry!  What a silly mummy!

So, it's the red strawberry soap for washing hands!

Ham n Cheese Melt

We had Ham n cheese melt for breakfast this morning.  Very simple, just stuffed ham and lot of cheddar and mozzarella cheese into pita bread, spread butter on outer layer of bread and put on heated non-stick pan for about 3 minutes each side.

Ooh...  The pita bread turned very crusty outside and still soft inside with the gooey melted cheese, hm... 

This is little girl's snack box, a quarter of ham n cheese melt, 3 red grape tomatoes, 3 yellow grape tomatoes, 5 grapes, 1 Ferrero Rocher chocolate ball, and 8 flowery candy (from Bento Pet's bento competition).  

Little girl reminded me that teacher don allow candy and choc in school, and I told her "Sh...  Don tell your teacher huh!"  Isn't this mummy bad?

Simple Pizza made with Kid

This morning, little girl was eating her favorite kitty cake (bought from SS2 pasar malam) and I was busy in front of macbook.

LG:  Mummy, I finished my cake, I want bread now.

Me:  But I don have bread, I have pita bread only.

LG:  I want bread!

Me:  Hm....  Why don we make pizza, what do u think?

LG:  Now, mummy?

Me:  Only after u bom-bong (shower).

LG:  Mummy, bom-bong now pls!

Me:  Ok, good!

I usually have to beg/drag/yell little girl to get her shower in the morning, she'd give me tons of reasons for delaying it, then would play in the bathroom for so long til I gotta beg/drag/yell her out.  So, it's so easy for me this morning to lure her into an early shower!

I prepared very simple ingredients, like:

top left: sliced red n yellow grape tomatoes, pineapple

top right: sliced ham and frankfurter

bottom left: cheddar cheese and mozzarella cheese

bottom right: green peas and corns

Tomato sauce, mayo and pita bread.

Let little girl made the the pizza herself, started with spreading tomato sauce on half of pita bread ....

... squeezed in mayo, sprinkled on the ingredients ....

She made the 1st one for me!

And this was hers.  

Let's look at the end result after placing each at oven toaster for 5 minutes.

This one belong to me, yummy n crusty!  Had with a cup of coffee.

Little girl's, she had it with more tomates and a glass of pineapple juice.

She made this for her snack in school along with more grape tomatoes.

Me:  Baby, this is the best lunch I ever had, do u know why?

LG:  Why, mummy?

Me:  Because u make this pizza for me, it's so delicious!

Little girl grinned and said she'll make it again for daddy when he return.  Isn't she lovely?

Hide-n-seek in Flower Bed Bento

I made this bento with a very cute theme, little rabbit and doggie are playing hide-n-seek at the flower bed.  Also, this bento is following this week's theme - Flowers in Bento Challenge.

For the top tier, there are orange wedges, grape tomatoes and mayo in heart-shaped silicon cup.  

As for the bottom tier, there are pink roses (ham), beige flowers (sausage), yellow roses (fried egg), red n white flowers (crab sticks), a pink rabbit onigiri (rice mixed with fish roe furikake) stuffed with Char Siu (roast pork made by mum last nite) and yellow dog onigiri (rice mixed with egg furikake) stuffed with fried fish (also leftover from last nite).  I used snow peas for the leafs of crab-stick flowers and coral lettuce for the bushes.

Little girl likes this bento very much.  She ate everything except the ham, she said was a bit dry. I let little girl had the bento with a small bottle of yakult too.  Do u think this is a lot for a 5 year old?  I forced her to finish the lettuce til she puked a bit, luckily not all, hope she won't again after I left.

I used some of the left over for little girls snack box, which she'll be eating along with school's meal during her snack time in pre-school.

As of the remaining char siew, fried fish and lettuce were all stuffed in a pita bread, squeezed in bit of mayo and yellow mustard, became my lunch.  Sorry for the mess, cos I was too hungry to place it nicely for photo taking.

Potato Chips

Potato chips, anyone?  This is oil-free, non-fried, microwaved potato chips!  Yeah!  U read it right, microwaved!  Does this look like those store bought chips?  Hehehe....

I did 1 batch 2 months ago, the traditional way, freezed and deep-fried it, and failed, it turned out soft, soggy, and little girl don wanna touched it at all.

I found this method last week, thought must try since I don wanna try the deep-frying method again. So, ta-dah!  I did it today n it was a big success!  I didn't use any oil at all although the recipe said spray bit of oil when microwaving the 1st batch, I used grease-proof paper, a few chips sticked to the paper but able to remove it easily.  I sprinkled some white cheddar popcorn seasoning over to enhance its yumminess!

The verdict:  crispy, crunchy and yum yum!  Little girl passed back a clean empty container, and a happy smile!

Pasta Omelette / Simple version of Okonomiyaki

Sorry I didn't have any posting for more than a week, it was the Muslim's celebration week - Hari Raya Aidilfitri and little girl don have to go to her pre-school for 6 days (inclusive of the weekend).  We were having fun at my mum's and MIL's place, didn't return home for the whole week, thus I don have to cook at all.

Today, it's the back to school day, after lazying for the whole week, both of us waked up very late this morning.  Thus, we didn't have breakfast, I made us a quick and simple lunch, which was my own version of okonomiyaki.

I used the ingredients I found in my fridge, which was:

1 handful of cooked angel hair

1 tomato

2 streaky bacons

3 leafs of cabbage, shredded thinly

3 eggs, beaten, seasoned with pinch of salt and pepper

some chopped garlic

Cooking method:

1. Cut tomato into small cube pieces

2. Slice bacon to thin strips

3. Fry bacon in pan til turning slight golden brown

4. Put in garlic

5. Throw in cabbage, cook til slightly soft

6. Put in the pasta and tomato cubes, mix well

7. Pour in egg, cover the pan, turn fire to medium, cook til the egg set, about 10 minutes or more

8. Place cooked omelette on plate, sprinkle some aonori (seaweed flakes), squeeze on okonomiyaki sauce, mayo and put on lots of katsuobushi (fish flakes), done.

"Mummy, look!  They are dancing!"  Little girl got excited to see the katsuobushi which were dancing in the hot steam.  She likes this dish very much, ate a big piece and kept some for her snack at school.

Me too, satisfied with the full tummy and the happy look on little girl's face!