Homemade food – HEALTH FREAK MOMMY

15 April 2022 ~ Random Updates

It’s finally Friyay! I can finally get an extra 2 hours of sleep for the next two days.

I’m going to make this post a short one coz I want to catch up on reading news that I’ve missed the past few days, do some online shopping and if I don’t doze off in front of my PC, I’ll start writing the first para of my next article, which I hope can be dished out for submission to my boss by Monday.

Sherilyn made Strawberry And Sweet Red Bean Mochi (Ichigo Daifuku).
It was her second attempt and a success. She failed in her first attempt and discarded the dough. She tried making the dough again the next day and this time, got it right.

Mochi filled with a huge sweet strawberry and homemade red bean paste. She used dental floss to slice the mochi for a neat cut.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is LC0lBRI.jpg — These Japanese mochi balls are almost perfect – soft and chewy; the red bean paste isn’t too sweet and the fresh strawberry gives the mochi a refreshing boost of flavor. It isn’t too difficult to make this dessert.
If you have a potluck party to attend and want a dessert that will knock off everyone’s socks, try this Japanese mochi. These truffle-like sweet treats are really indulgent.

Left – mochi coated with soy bean powder.

Haru sits on my fitball and looks out, people and bird watching. When her sisters are in school and there’s no one to annoy her, she’s at complete peace, just like me 😬.

No. of times viewed = 34

RMCO Day 107 ~ Thursday, 24 Sept 2020

Yesterday evening Cass gave me a scare. She told me that when she was in school, she had a sudden burning pain down there, momentarily. Just once. However, there were no other symptoms of a UTI. Rattled that another UTI is brewing, I told her to skip school today. I know all too well the bacteria’s modus operandi, having dealt with Cass’ UTI attacks since she was an infant more than 12 years ago. Many UTIs in the bladder return after treatment with antibiotics as some bacteria hide in cells lining the bladder, where they cannot be reached by antibiotics. The small number of bacteria that survive antibiotic treatment because they sneak into the lining of the bladder come out and start to multiply again when there’s an opportunity, i.e. when the condition is acidic, when one doesn’t pee frequently enough or when hygiene is lacking.

Since last night, Cass has been craving to eat pancakes. After my run this morning, I gave Cass a short tutorial on how to make pancakes. We made low-carb banana pancakes and regular pancakes using Organic Wave Japanese high quality cake flour – the only flour that I could find in the kitchen.

The low carb banana pancakes were so delish and reminded me of my favorite Apom Guan @ Lebuh Burma in Penang. Whenever we go to Penang, hubs would queue up for almost an hour to get 20 pieces of apom. I could chomp down 5 pieces at one go.

I used 4 bananas, 2 eggs and only 1.5 tablespoons of flour with a tinge of vanilla essence. Butter for greasing the pan. No sugar or salt is needed and the pancakes are naturally sweet from the bananas.

The regular pancakes are made using 2 eggs, 2 tablespoons of flour, some fresh milk and vanilla essence. Butter for greasing the pan.

Cass’ breakfast – a stack of pancakes, drizzled with maple syrup.

No. of times viewed = 48

RMCO Day 10 ~ Friday, 19 June 2020

After 4 days straight of eating delectable rich curried food from hubby’s shop this week, I had to run an extra mile today, in the glorious 10-ish a.m. sun. It feels absolutely satisfying to be drenched in sweat with rosy cheeks after a 40-minute jog 🏃‍♀️.

I had a light mid-morning breakfast of sugar-free yoghurt and added swirls of sugar-free crunchy peanut butter and homemade caramel, made by our baker daughter. Today’s breakfast is light and easy as we’re going to be digging into Nasi Kerabu from hubby’s shop for lunch, which is just an hour away!

Today our baking queen rolled out tangy and zesty lemon curd tarts. She split the baking into several days and started prepping the tart dough first earlier this week. Next day she baked the tart shells. And the following day she prepped the chocolate cream for the chocolate tarts. Yesterday she made the lemon curd and today she filled the tart shells with it. All these were done in between online classes and house chores (her duty this week is washing dirty dishes) with the OCD mother screaming at her to wipe away crumbs, flour, sugar and cream droppings on counter tops and floor before the ants feast on them and make her ballistic 🙃

Lemon curd that tastes like a hundred bucks! This jar comes from the juice and zest of 4 lemons. I eat it straight from the jar, like ice-cream, yumms!

When life gives you lemons, go make lemon curd and lemonade. Sherilyn made me a glass of super sour lemonade sans any sweetener or honey, which helped to melt away the beef rendang and Nasi Kerabu from hubby’s shop 😆

Sherilyn also cooked Japchae today and that’s for her breakfast tomorrow as she won’t have the time to cook anything tomorrow — she’s attending a Fighting Course for PT3 students conducted by teachers at her tuition center. I’d paid over RM500 for this 3-month revision program just before the Coronavirus pandemic. No one could have guessed that a month later, the Ministry announced that all government exams for this year will be scraped off due to the pandemic and partial lockdown, except for SPM, which will be postponed to the first quarter of next year. Since we’ve paid, the course will still proceed as planned. I think it’s still very beneficial that she attends this course (to be conducted online until the MCO is lifted) so that she gets to learn everything that she missed out in school throughout the MCO.

In the evening, Alycia toddled out of her room and sprang a surprise on all of us when she cooked! The girl who hates to be in the kitchen and hates greasy hands actually cooked a new recipe which she’s just watched on You Tube and couldn’t wait to try it out! It’s some kind of Korean tofu noodles pancake, using a little Japchae that her sister cooked, and added soft organic tofu, eggs and flour. Very impressively addictive, I must say, and it’s pretty healthy too as she used very little oil and didn’t add any salt to the batter 😁

No. of times viewed = 35

From Our Kitchen During MCO

This MCO, which is the longest school holidays in our education history, our baking queen gets to experiment baking and cooking almost everyday. It’s hurting our wallets as she whips up non-economical bakes and dishes most of the time. But then again, having good culinary and baking skills are essential survival skills. Heck, she could one day run a food production factory or cafe! 🤑 So I let the girl play masak-masak on condition that she has to churn out healthy eats and clean up the kitchen. But I still have to clean up after her all the time 😓

Two days ago, she churned out some Choux Au Craquelin (crispy cream puffs) and eclairs. It’s her second time baking them and her cream puffs taste just as good as Beard Papa’s. Years ago when Beard Papa’s first opened its outlet in KL, we went crazy over their cream puffs. We would buy a half dozen box each time. Now that our baking queen could bake these cream puffs, we don’t have to spend so much on Beard Papa’s anymore.

Baking these cream puffs is time consuming and involves many tedious steps but our baking queen finds the entire process enjoyable and fun. So much patience, time and passion are required to churn out these delicate babies. From whipping the cream to mixing the pastry dough to poking holes onto the puffs before piping fresh vanilla cream in, this girl thoroughly enjoys each step without a huff or puff.

This ambitious girl even made five different flavors for her cream puffs – original, matcha, organic black sesame paste, caramel (which she made from scratch) and coffee. On the same day too, she made a batch of Gochujang Korean sauce from scratch!

Sherilyn uses fresh vanilla pods in the cream, thus the cream tastes almost identical to the ones from Beard Papa’s.

Black sesame flavored vanilla cream:

Matcha flavored vanilla cream:

Caramel glazed eclairs filled with vanilla cream.

These cream puffs are so addictive that I couldn’t resist popping a few into my mouth, though it was already way past my window of eating time in the evening! Diet be damned. Thus, the reason why I need to workout so hard everyday or I won’t be able to look down after the lockdown! 🏃‍♀️

Choux Au Craquelins and Eclairs in the oven, waiting to be filled with fresh cream.

Side track a little – hubs won this Sharp oven as first prize in a lucky draw organized by RT Pastry recently. The oven came at such an opportune time as our 11-year old built-in Fotile oven expired for good.

Cream puff monster! If she adds a tinge of blue coloring to the dough, this would look like Cookie Monster!

The following day, Sherilyn made a fresh batch of Eclairs (with freshly made vanilla cream filling) to gift to her ertswhile Sunday School teachers, who have moved back to Malaysia. I sent the Eclairs to S & J by Grab delivery yesterday evening after Sherilyn spent the entire afternoon in the kitchen churning out these babies with a small drama which almost rendered the gift impossible.

Coffee vanilla cream and caramel glazed with vanilla cream filled Eclairs.

In between baking cream puffs, she made a batch of Gochujang sauce from scratch! In the morning, she slow-roasted some fresh red chilies in the toaster, which resulted in very aromatic toasted chilies. Then she pounded the toasted red chilies with a mortar and pestle before blending the ground chili with organic miso paste, fresh garlic, organic soy sauce and Gula Melaka syrup. The result is a a batch of lip-smacking Gochujang sauce, which she used to cook Sundubu jigae (Korean Spicy Soft Tofu Stew) for lunch the next day.

Sherilyn has inherited her love for cooking and baking from her granny, my mum. Till today at age 74, my mum still bakes and cooks all her meals, breads, cakes, kuih, healthy soups and much more. She even makes her own gluten-free noodles and gluten-free flours.

Blending the Gochujang ingredients in Sherilyn’s best kitchen aid – the Kenwood Major food mixer that comes with a mixer bowl, blender, noodle maker, etc.

Our lunch the next day – Sundubu jigae (Korean Spicy Soft Tofu Stew) which tastes just like the real deal! Tastes like something that you’d eat from an expensive Korean restaurant.

Ingredients used: Homemade Gojuchang, radish, tofu, big onions, dried wakame, sausages, ‘foo pei’, eggs, squids, anchovies seasoning, radish kimchi (can be any ingredient) and lots of love💓

No. of times viewed = 43

Best in the World Cream Puffs and Chocolate Eclairs

Our baking queen went on a sudden baking frenzy again. Just because her dad brought us to Lee’s Frozen to stock up on butter, UHT milk and whipping cream, her hands were itching to whip up a new recipe. And this is by far the yummiest bakes that she’d produced. Everyone including her very critical and fastidious dad (who could cook and bake and is in the food business) gave generous compliments on the cream puffs and chocolate eclairs which taste exactly like Beard Papa’s, I kid you not.

Alycia : Now we don’t have to go to Beard Papa’s anymore!

Cass : This is so good, the best ever cream puffs and eclairs I’ve tasted!
(she scarfed down most of the eclairs yesterday when both her sisters were at a dance workshop 😬)

Fussy king : Yes it’s good. Did she use premium ingredients? Surely they must be very expensive!
(of course premium la – organic flour, antibiotic and hormone free eggs, premium chocolate and premium vanilla beans that grandma bought from Hong Kong)

The moment Sherilyn shoved a small wedge of the choux pastry into my mouth to ask me for my opinion, I was sold. It was a winner. And I can’t believe that it tasted exactly like Beard Papa’s choux pastry!!

When the cream filling was ready and Sherilyn had finished pumping it into the choux shells, her sisters and I quickly sampled the cream puffs and we could not believe how much the taste is alike to Beard Papa’s. And Sherilyn kept commenting that baking them is a no-brainer!

The chocolate ganache was only ready later in the evening and we only managed to sample the chocolate eclairs the next morning. Again, they tasted exactly like Beard Papa’s eclairs! Munching on the eclairs put everyone, including moi into a very good mood. They were oh so comfortingly good. Everyone was munching and commenting how delightful they tasted while seriously pondering the possibility of grabbing another eclair and another, diet be damned! After all it’s the school holidays.

Cream filling consists of full cream UHT milk, sugar, vanilla pods, eggs and cream.

Fluffy eclair shells – delish eaten even on its own without any filling or chocolate coating.

Chocolate eclairs to die for. Creamy on the inside, fluffy yet slightly crispy choux pastry coated with a thick layer of oh so chocolaty ganache made from Lindt 85% cocoa dark chocolate (sugar-free) on the outside.

What a hearty temptation that even the strictest of health freak can succumb to. And now I declare that my daughter’s cream puffs and chocolate eclairs have now made a place on my Kryptonite List, after milk tea and kuih 🤫 🤭

No. of times viewed = 37

Christmas Pie By Chef Sher

Drama Queen was itching to bake a Christmas pie so that when our guests arrive on Christmas Eve, they could have it during tea time. She dragged me to bring her to the supermarket to buy the ingredients this afternoon and once back home, she got down to work immediately.

After spending many hours in the kitchen preparing the dough, resulting in a very messy and dirty kitchen, the dough was finally ready. Gosh dough making is SO tedious and time consuming. Next time, we’ll get ready-made frozen dough to save my delicate hands from having to wipe the kitchen tops and floor over and over again! Though our dear part-time helper was around to help, we had to do some of the cleaning too. With a kid playing ‘masak-masak’ making dough, I am sure you can imagine the mess! Oh I hate the buttery dough and flour everywhere on the kitchen top and floor! In fact, we have both just finished cleaning the kitchen and it’s almost midnight now!

All the hard work we all put in was worth it. The Christmas meat pie was perfect. It stacks up to overly charged gourmet pies at cafes and pie shops.

We’re going to save this pie for our VVIP guests tomorrow when they arrive from Singapore and Ipoh.

No. of times viewed = 12

Last Day Of School & Pie Baking

I received a little good news yesterday when Drama Queen came back from school. As she walked into the house, Drama Queen announced the news to me melodramatically, “and so the principal announced that we DON’T have to go back to school for UPSR tuition anymore during the holidays, YAY!!! Muahahahahahahahah!”

I was overjoyed to hear the news as that would mean a real holiday for me without having to wake up at 5am for 2 weeks during the school holiday. That being said, I wonder why her school has decided to cancel the originally scheduled extra classes. Other schools are still going ahead with the UPSR extra classes for the first 2 weeks of the school holiday. Could it be that the Government’s proposal to abolish the UPSR exam is now a step closer? Perhaps it would be abolished as early as next year? Oooh, I am feeling hopeful!!

After lunch of homecooked porridge, Drama Queen quickly helped to wash all the dirty dishes including the pots and pans. This dawdler ain’t a dawdler when she sets her mind to do something that she has passion in. She has planned to bake a pie yesterday. She always has the itch to bake in the kitchen and spends a lot of time watching baking tutorials on You Tube.

After clearing the dirty dishes, she started to prepare the dough for the pie. I did not supervise her at all in the measurement of the ingredients. While I went out with Cass for an hour, she stayed home alone to work on the pie crust. Her maiden pie. We have both never baked a pie before so I could not offer her any advice. I only advised her not to turn on the oven or the stove while I was away.

She attempted to use her grandma’s new cake mixer but I told her NO NO NO!! Coz we both have no clue on how to operate the machine. Her grandma will be back from Hong Kong this Sunday and coming home to find a spoilt new cake mixer is the last thing she wants to know. With lots of creative juices flowing in her, she found an alternative – by using an egg beater to mix the flour with the butter. Gawd, that is SO time consuming and I have zero patience for this. But this girl patiently mixed the flour and butter until a smooth dough was formed. All in, it took her over an hour to get the dough perfected.

When I came home with Cass, I cooked the pie filling, which is minced pork with tomatoes, julienned carrots, Bunashimeiji mushrooms and lots of chopped onions and garlic. I seasoned it with some leftover Baba’s rendang powder mix, some dried thyme, dried basil, ground black pepper and organic shoyu.

The ‘chaplang’ fried minced meat which turned out to be really delish.

Drama Queen putting the final touches on the pie with egg wash before it goes into the oven to be baked for 40 minutes at 180C.

Fresh out of the oven and baked to a tee!

After the pie was all done and all of us savouring the yummylicious pie, Drama Queen told me that she ‘simply tembak’ with the measurements of some ingredients and replaced several ingredients with what she could find in our kitchen and fridge. I am still amazed with how the pie could turn out so well despite her not following the recipes strictly. Cass commented that her 2che’s pie tastes better than those from some expensive cafes.

By observing intently each time both her grandmas bake, Drama Queen has picked up basic skills needed to execute simple baking. She’s pretty good with baking cakes and now she has learned how to bake a savoury pie.

Drama Queen and Cass loved the pie so much that we skipped having breakfast of pork noodles at our regular Saturday coffee shop this morning. Instead we noshed down the delicious leftover pie.

Alycia, if you are reading this post now from Penang, take heart that we have kept a slice of pie for you in the freezer! Can’t wait for you to come home to savour it 😉

No. of times viewed = 4

My Healthy Colorful Dishes

I love colors – bright, neon and happy colors. They make me happy. Naturally, I love colorful food too, natural colors that is. Most of my dishes are colorful, consisting of red, orange, green and yellow. I love adding tomatoes, carrots, sweet corn kernel, scallions, kafir lime leaves and loads of garlic and onions into my dishes. These are not only colorful, they are bursting with antioxidants and disease fighting phytochemicals. They are also natural sweeteners and flavor enhancers. No need to use oyster sauce (it contains MSG) and MSG which only cause insatiable thirst and are unhealthy.

Here’s one of my colorful dishes – Colorful Fried Rice with sides of green vegetables and braised pork ribs with radish and egg.

My fried rice always has more colorful vegetables than rice. It is often meat-less. Here, I used grated and julienned carrots, sweet corn kernel, baby garden peas, kafir lime leaves, scallions, onions and garlic.

And added 4 free-range chicken eggs for the protein.

I love my colorful healthy fried rice. I only use parboiled rice which is low in GI and starch, so I eat sans the guilt 🙂

Next is my colorful pork bolognese angel hair spaghetti. The sauce is cooked from scratch with organic tomatoes, carrots, cauliflower, onions, garlic, Portobello mushrooms and lots of herbs.

Since I don’t like spaghetti noodles, I added organic oats into the bolognese sauce. My oat pork bolognese was simply delish and guilt-free too!

I always cook an extra portion so that the girls can have them for lunch the next day. This was Alycia’s lunch last Saturday, after she got back from school. Fruits for her were orange, avocado and raw red capsicum. I love my colorful healthy meals 🙂

No. of times viewed = 5

Dinner on 27 November 2015 – Braised Spinach Noodles

Dinner for tonight…

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Braised curly spinach noodles with minced meat, julienned carrots, baby bok choy, lots of chopped garlic and onions, diced Chinese dried flower mushrooms and eggs.

Seasoning – pepper, organic soy sauce, dollop of dark sauce and premium abalone sauce.

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See the plant in a unique tone of matte green at the foreground? That’s the cotton plant that Sherilyn planted with cotton seeds that her Science teacher gave her a few months back. She showers this cotton plant with a lot of TLC every single day but the big problem that we are facing now is where do we transfer it to now? There is no way it can survive in a tiny flower pot on a squeezy balcony of our condo. How now brown cow??

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I cooked an extra portion so that lunch for tomorrow (Saturday) will be just a touch of the microwave button away! hehe…

Happy weekend world!

No. of times viewed = 6

Sherilyn Cooked Chicken Curry

My drama queen helped to dish up chicken curry one evening, just a few days before school reopened….

I would say she did 90% of the job! I helped to put the oil, poured in the curry paste and later poured in water. She did the rest! She was mighty proud of her achievement and so was I.

Later, she arranged her rice and all the dishes onto a plate and asked me to photograph it!

Apart from chicken curry, I also made a steamed minced pork with watercress, grilled saba fish and blanched some ladies fingers.

Having someone to lend a helping hand in the kitchen sure made my hectic weekday dinner preparation stress fly away. Besides, the yummy chicken curry tickled everyone’s fancy. The girls are big time fans of curry 🙂

No. of times viewed = 278

Mommy’s Simply Whack Pizza

This is my simply whack homemade pizza for lunch today…

I used Mission wholegrain wraps as the crust and it turned out to be very crrrrrrispy!

Sauce base is tomato paste for Alycia and homemade pesto sauce for Cass.

Toppings are fresh button mushrooms, sweet corn kernels, juicy sweet cherry tomatoes and Emborg Natural Cheddar Cheese Slices.

Preparation time = 15 minutes

Baking time in oven at 160 degrees Celsius = 15 minutes

Alycia and Cass loved this simply whack, cincai pizza. I think this is anytime better than store-bought pizzas! 😛

No. of times viewed = 492

Healthy & Yummy Tuna Sala / Bread Spread

The celebrity chef wannabe pleaded with me to let her make tuna salad for us last weekend. I have been working at full steam for the past 2 weeks (pre-CNY orders are normally high), so I said OK but she has to handle everything herself. What do I know? The girl spent about an hour in the wet kitchen peeling and chopping cucumbers, slicing cherry tomatoes and peeling and chopping onions (I was surprised that the onions did not make her tear, muahaha!)

After the girl was done with all the peeling and chopping, I helped her open the can of tuna. Then I toasted some pumpkin seeds in the oven and heated up the tuna in the oven as well. Then added ground pepper, mayo and chia seeds and tossed everything together. The salad was delish and tasted just like hotel ones 🙂

The girl then spread the tuna salad on bread to make sandwiches for everyone and that was our dinner last Sunday, after a heavy lunch.

Delish and healthy, yums! Will definitely prepare this salad / bread spread again, if I have volunteers in the kitchen 😀

No. of times viewed = 1848

Saturday Dinner – 30 November 2013

We had a very simple dinner of home-cooked fried rice at home today. The hubs has been busy this week, thus unable to have dinner with us this Saturday night. My kitchen is usually closed on Saturdays and Sundays. Five days of cooking is enough for me. I had wanted to bring the kids to the Japanese restaurant at our condo to have dinner today but the thought of eating the same old food again did not appeal to me. Plus the thought of paying 15% service tax totally put me off! So I made fried rice for the girls and they loved it!

My fried rice composed of Basmati rice, fresh sweet corn kernels, minced pork, a pack of fresh baby shrimps, sausages, eggs, scallions and loads of garlic and small onions. The only seasonings I put were a few shakes of soy sauce and pepper. I love putting generous amount of garlic and onions to cook my food as they impart flavor to my food, without the need to use much seasonings. Plus garlic and onions are potent roots known to have medicinal properties. As I used Basmati rice, which is low in GI, I ate a few spoonfuls of fried rice as well. My dinner is usually very light and I try to avoid carbs in the evening. I cook for my kids and I only nibble on the dishes.

I cooked a little extra fried rice tonight and kept a portion in the fridge, so that the girls’ dinner will be settled tomorrow. Sunday is my rest day and I ain’t going to slog in the kitchen and get oily all over 😛

The baby yau mak veggie was oil-blanched, which saved me the trouble of stir-frying. Veggies briefly blanched with oil and a pinch of salt in the pot of water are very palatable and my kids have no complaints eating them.

I am sure many of you are already on vacation or simply having a staycation. For us, we will stay put in KL for another 2 weeks, before our trip to Singapore.

Have a good weekend everyone!

No. of times viewed = 701

Char Siew Bread Pizza

Bread Pizza is one of the girls’ favorite home-prepared ‘fast food’. This is an excellent way to get the girls to eat capsicum, something which they do not normally fancy. I normally top my bread pizza with lots of chopped antioxidant-packed capsicum (red and yellow ones), vitamin-packed cherry tomatoes, power-packed big onions, super mushrooms, protein-packed roast chicken or char siew and calcium-packed cheese.

This time I used lean char siew and all those ingredients that I mentioned above. I cleared all the frozen wholemeal bread that the mil baked before she went to Hong Kong.

Pizza bread is so easy to prepare that my almost 10-YO Alycia can help me with it.

Once all the toppings are spread on the bread slices, I baked it in the oven for 7-8 minutes (pre heated).

This is our delish bread pizza. It is SO tasty and even yummier than Pizza Hut and Dominos, so said the girls! And way healthier too.

The crust/bread was pretty crispy too.

I will add in some fresh pineapples and fresh button mushrooms the time I prepare bread pizza, which will be next week!

No. of times viewed = 502

The Big Girl’s Meltdown

The big girl had a major meltdown this morning from 6am right through to lunch time! I had blogged that her fever had subsided yesterday but at around 6ish pm, her temperature shot up to 38.6 degrees Celsius again but she was not feeling uncomfortable. She felt pretty normal and had pretty good appetite. Only her body was very warm, which was partly aggravated by the melting hot weather with a temp. of 35 degrees yesterday. So the hubs forbade her from going to school.

This morning, when the hubs stopped Alycia from going to school, he unknowingly opened the Pandora’s Box! Alycia threw into a horrible fit of rage! She sobbed and wailed and pleaded for us to allow her to go to school. But the hubs said “NO” and no means no, period! The big girl bawled uncontrollably which made her daddy angrier. Thank goodness there is always the indulgent grandma to ‘sayang’ the big girl and pulled her back to her bedroom and tried to comfort her. The brouhaha this morning was something that is happening pretty often of late. I had blogged in one of my earlier posts that lately, this big girl is having a hard time managing her emotions and the manner in which she talks to us. Long story cut short, the big girl went back to bed and cried herself back to sleep. When she woke up, she was still angry with all of us and put on the longest, sulkiest face ever *facepalm*!!

After sending off rascal #2 this morning, I jogged to the mobile market to get a packet of yee mein and prawns to prepare the big girl’s favorite noodles dish for lunch.

A mother knows best. After this delish lunch of yee mein cooked with prawns, squids, fish balls, chicken fillet, veggie and egg sauce, the big girl’s mood was lifted up instantly!

They say that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach and I think this adage holds true for kids too! 😉

No. of times viewed = 370

Homemade Biscotti

The mil made some crunchy-licious Biscotti yesterday. After the Biscotti were removed from the oven and left to cool, the girls and I could stop laying our hands on the lip-smacking Biscotti. They were really delish and addictive. Best to savor these Biscotti with coffee or tea! I’ll bet the needle on my weighing machine will move to the right tomorrow, shucks!

The procedures are pretty simple from what I observed. The below picture shows the Biscotti after the first round of brief baking in the oven. After it has cooled down, the cutting begins… and that is the tricky part. The mil used a long and sharp bread knife to carefully and skillfully cut the chunk of half-hardened dough into thick strips for another round of baking.

The final product! A big tray of wholesome almond-pistachio-dried orange peel-dried cranberry Biscotti. Absolutely addictive!

No. of times viewed = 2242