Pork Stew & Pocket Monster Pasta Bento (122)

Cooked a big pot of pork on Wed nite with lots of tofu, konnyaku jelly, mushrooms and quail eggs. The preparation of this bento was rather fast, just cook the pasta, flavored it with the sauce from pork stew and assembled everything into the box. I used most of the time on crafting the apple, took me 10 minutes, I know, I'm pretty slow on this, sigh!

Pocket monster pasta flavored with sauce from pork stew & a bit of soya sauce

Little girl has been crazy with pocket monster lately, when I saw this at Carrefour, couldn't hold myself back to give her a little surprise. She was so delighted to see the pasta and asked me to cook it right away, ;)

From top left: 2 quail eggs, 1 tofu, 3 mushrooms and tiny cubes of cut pork

Didn't include the konnyaku as little girl prefers the noodle version than this jelly/tofu type.

Checkered apple slices

Bought a big Washington apple on Tue for RM2.50, as I like the redness of the apple and it looked so juicy and crunchy too. However, during the crafting process, I was rather disappointed with the texture, not as crunchy as I tot, not nice!

Little girl leftover quite a lot again, half of the pasta, half of the stew assortments and totally forgot of the apple, :(

Drunken Chicken

This is a back dated dish I made a few weeks ago. I gotta recipe from a cook book namely "all about chicken". This is a easy recipe, just need to cook it a day b4 to get strong flavor. If u like alcohol drink or alcohol added to ur meal, then this is a superb dish.

Ingredients

2 pieces chicken thigh meat

1 tbsp wolfberries

5-6 slices huang qi (I omitted it)

Seasonings

6 tbsps fish sauce

1 cup shaoxing wine (I used 2 tbsp Hennessy & top the cup with home-made ginger wine)

Direction:

1. Cut away the bone from the thigh meat, then slit the meat halfway through the thickness, without cutting through. Add 3 tbsps of fish sauce and 1/4 cup of water, leave to marinate for 1 - 2 hours.
2. Roll up the chicken and wrap with aluminum foil, twisting the ends to seal. Make 2 rolls.
3. Bring water in the steamer to a boil, steam chicken rolls over medium heat for 45 - 50 minutes.
4. In a deep dish, pour in 3 tbsps of fish sauce, shaoxing wine and 1 cup of cold water and combine well. Add wolfberries and huang qi.
5. Once the chicken rolls are completely cooled, remove from the foil and soak chicken in the wine mixture together with the juice resulted from steaming the chicken.
6. Cover with cling wrap or a lid, refrigereate for 2 3 hours. Cut into slices to serve.

I'd say I had this 2 pieces of chicken thigh almost all by myself, as I didn't give it to little girl (as it contains alcohol) and hubby is one dislike the taste of alcohol, ;p ooh... yum...

Bacon Carbonara (121)

This is another simple and consider fast to make bento, I used about 20 minutes to get it done.

Crispy bacons & a fried quail egg r placed on top of creste pasta in creamy carbonara sauce

Hami melon balls and edamame

Little girl didn't eat much again today, ate only half of everything, :( The remaining went into my tummy as lunch, don wanna waste food.

Moist Chocolate Cake

I bought a Kenwood stand mixer last Tue, (thanks 2 Yew & Gene for the Jusco vouchers), in order to try out the new mixer, I got little girl to choose the type of cake to bake on Fri, and she chose this - Moist chocolate cake.

I went to Cold Storage during little girl's school time, thinking of buying a box of Hershey's coco powder and chocolate bar, however, I didn't see the brand, thus briefly took a tin of the trade mark Van houten coco powder from the shelf, paid and went home. Once home, while unpacking, to my horror that the said tin was not Van houten's at all, it was a brand called "Tudor" (it looks so close to the Van houten's)! What a careless me, didn't open my eye big enough, sigh! Gotta go back to Cold Storage to get it changed, what an incident!

I found the moist chocolate cake from My Kitchen, the cake is really moist and so full of chocolate flavor, this recipe is definitely a keep, little girl oledi reminded me again & again to bake her the cake next time, ;)

Moist Chocolate Cake

Ingredients (5' x 8' loaf pan)

1 cup cake flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 cup caster sugar (I cut down this by 2 tbsp)

2 large eggs

125g unsalted butter

1 tsp vanilla essence

Chocolate Paste:
½ cup cocoa powder
½ tsp instant coffee (I excluded this)
¼ cup sugar (again cut it down by 2 tbsp)
½ cup hot water
¼ cup fresh milk
Pinch of salt
Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degree C. Grease the loaf pan and line the bottom with baking paper.
2. Chocolate Paste: Combine cocoa powder, instant coffee, sugar, hot water and salt in a medium mixing bowl. Whisk the mixture until the sugar is melted, then add in milk and mix well. Set aside for later use.
3. Sift together flour with baking powder for 2-3 times. Set aside.
4. In a large mixing bowl, beat butter together with sugar until creamy. Add in vanilla essence, and eggs one at a time. Beat until light and fluffy.
5. Fold in sifted flour in batches, alternate with chocolate paste. Start with flour and end with flour.
6. Bake for 45-50 minutes.
   
   
   

While the cake was baking, the hse was infused with chocolate aroma, it was pretty difficult for me not to eat a piece after it came out from the oven, ;p I cut the cake half (of course I did steal a slice, too tempting!) after cooling off and got each placed on a container cover (used the container upside down, as the following pic), this not only was easier for me to fill the cake with ganache, also to store it neatly and keep it away from the ants to party b4 little girl gotta see it in the morning (don have to buy any cake board or box).

Ganache

Ingredients

8 ounces (227 grams) semisweet or bittersweet chocolate, cut into small pieces

3/4 cup (180 ml) heavy whipping cream

2 tablespoons (28 grams) unsalted butter

1 tablespoons cognac or brandy (optional, I omitted)

Direction:

1. Place the chopped chocolate in a medium sized stainless steel bowl. Set aside.
2. Heat the cream and butter in a medium sized saucepan over medium heat. Bring just to a boil.
3. Immediately pour the boiling cream over the chocolate and allow to stand for 5 minutes. Stir with a whisk until smooth.
4. If desired, add the liqueur.

Read here for more details & tips.

As the ganache recipe makes enough to cover a 9 inch cake, I had plenty leftover, spooned it to little cups to make some sinful chocolate cups.

Chocolate anyone?

Bunnies Bento (120)

I received the quail egg mold and a multi expression seaweed puncher I bought from Bento Craft last Fri, didn't get to open up the package til Tue nite. Little girl told me she wanna have some quail eggs in her bento and chose the bunny this morning.

I didn't really time my bento today, just know that I was in kitchen for about an hour to prepare breakfast (will show the pic later) and bento at the same time.

The bunnies - made from quail eggs, ham and seaweed

Korean sesame seaweed onigiri

Little girl always ask me to make her this onigiri whenever we visited Jusco, cos the one auntie (the promoter) made was very delicious

Leftover chicken nuggets (from breakfast) bits and baby green peas with a dash of mayo

Hami melon balls

Bought a big hami melon from market yesterday, very sweet & juicy!

Mini plum tomatoes

Little girl didn't finish up the bento today, left quite a lot :( Could it be the breakfast again (she had a nugget pita melt, 1 onigiri and 1 cup of honey)? She gave 1 of the bunny to her best friend R, ate 2 onigiri, 1/2 of the green peas salad, left 4 hami melon balls and a tomato. I asked her to keep the remaining for her snack later, hope she will clean it up.

My breakfast bento, nugget pita melt and some plum tomatoes

Didn't have time for breakfast this morning, gotta tapao (pack) & munch while waiting for little girl in the school canteen.

Palmiers (Easy version) & a Blog Award

1st of all, would like to thank javapot 4 this award, I'm more than happy to put it up since it doesn't require me to answer any questions, ;p I love reading ur blog too, javapot!

These palmiers were baked a week ago, was inspired after reading posting from Baking Bites and Carol's. I used the store bought roti prata dough to made do these palmiers, ;p It was so simple & easy...

even little girl can do it with little guidance :)

Used a piece of original & a piece of wholemeal roti prata, made 3 different palmiers.

1. With brown sugar - they r very very crispy & addictive, is little girl's favorite among all

2. With chocolate rice - it turns very hard, not as yummy as I tot

3. With toffee bits - the toffee part is chewy, I like these version more.

Creamy Loaf

Baked a batch of sausage buns (requested by picky eater Y) + cheese buns + sambal dried prawn buns on Sun noon, luckily I kept a few of the sausage buns (to bring home) as they were all gone after tea time!

Well, I didn't bake the buns only, I baked this creamy loaf as well, as we like to eat sandwiches 4 breakfast, b it spreading with nutella, marmite & butter, peanut butter, or stuff with ham, bacon ... etc

I adapted the Japanese Cream Bread recipe from Alex Goh's Magic Bread, but, I added more dairy cream (almost double) into it and omitted the milk.

The outcome of the bread is so marvelous => soft, spongy and creamy

Added some raisin (soaked in rum!) into the 2nd loaf, yum!

Creepy Peeper & Witch Fingers Bento (119)

Remember I made a similar bento last year? I saw the Cold Storage brochure with some creepy peeper sweets promotion last nite, it inspired me into making this bento again.

Used only 20 minutes to complete the bento, made 2 extra creepy peeper for little girl & me as brunch and used most time on skinning & deseeding the grapes.

The creepy peeper - salmon flake & fish roe onigiri as the white eye balls, cucumber slices as pupils and ketchup as those tiny blood vessels

Witch fingers - pork frankfurter as fingers and edamame as nails

Magic beans (left, edamame) and lizard eggs (right, red globe grapes) in bone skewer

Little girl ate very little today, left with an onigiri, 1/2 sausage and 2 grapes, :( Could it be the cheese bun & onigiri she had this morning that stuffed her up?

P/s This is the salmon flake & fish roe filling I put into the onigiri, I bought it from 100 Yen shop SS2.

P/s 2: And the following is the okonomiyaki sauce I used in my bento 118, pic as promised to javapot, I got it from Jusco.

Vegetarian Chocolate Chips Muffin and Rainbow & Saltana Muffin

Little girl requested a batch of muffins yesterday b4 she left to school, promised her with this muffins:

Chocolate Chips Muffin

Rainbow Sprinkle & Saltana Muffin

Recipe was adapted from Wendy Kor's Cakes' Talk. I divided the batter half to get the 2 batches of muffins.

They r eggless but still yummy, little girl ate plenty after school, even asking 4 few just after dinner for an early supper, ;)

A sad encountered - my hand mixer called 4 retirement during the preparation, * sob sob sob *

P/s Kept 1/2 of the muffins for Eve & her sons, they'll b delivered to u later, girl!

Noodle Omelette Bento (118)

Little girl has a wiggling tooth since Sun, she can't use her front teeth now therefore has to make something either soft or smaller in size to be easier for her. I used about 1/2 hour to prepare this bento.

2 layers of noodle omelette

Fried the noodle omelette with some julienned cabbage & cocktail sausages, spread with okonomiyaki sauce, mayo and sprinkled with lots of katsuobushi and nori flakes

Skinned & seeded red globe grapes

Cucumber slices

Little girl had 1/3 of the omelette b4 leaving to school, thus during her lunch she declared full after eating half of the omelette, cucumber and all of the grapes.