My favorite year end school holiday is approaching.
There are so many things that I want to do with my children.
Time for me to start planning.
Do you need a planner? I always need one.
I created these for November and December this year:
The easiest spiced biryani rice recipe I have come across.
For days when the other plain boiling and simmering version just won’t do.
On a side note, I always do the following before cooking most variety of rice:
1. Wash and rinse the basmati rice till water runs relatively clear. This step removes the unwanted starch coating that could stick the cooked rice together, leading to bleh biryani.
2. Soak rice in water for about 30 minutes before a final drain. Cook according to instructions on package.
- 3 cups basmati rice - 1/2 small onion, julienned - 3 whole cloves - 2 cardamom pods, cracked - 1 bay leaf - 2 tablespoons ghee - 5.5 cups of water - pinch of salt
01. Get a pot that is big enough to cook 3 cups of rice. Saute julienned onions, cloves, cardamom pods, bay leaf and ghee in the pot for a few minutes, or until the onions turn soft.
02. Add basmati rice, mix evenly with the sauteed spices. Continue to fry the rice for a few minutes.
03. Stir in water and salt, cover the pot and let the rice cook over a small-medium fire.
04. Turn off the heat when all the water has been absorbed by the rice. Let the pot of rice sit undisturbed in the covered pot for another 10 minutes before serving.
++ Notes To Self ++
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Soak basmati rice in water for at least 30 minutes before cooking.
This will prevent the rice from breaking during the cooking process.
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Try not to run of ghee, if no choice, substitute with butter.
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Ratio to make plain basmati rice, 1 cup of rice to 1 & 3/4 cups water.
A meat free dish packed with powerful umami punch. I cooked this with two of my favorite mushrooms : Oyster and Bai Ling mushrooms.
- 1 packet of fresh oyster mushrooms - 1 large head of canned Bai Ling mushrooms, sliced - 2 tablespoons of cooking oil - 1 tablespoon of butter - 2 large cloves of garlic, minced - 2 heap tablespoons of miso paste - 3 tablespoons of water - For garnish: spring onions, chopped
01. In a heated wok, add oil and butter.
02. Add garlic and fry till fragrant.
03. Add miso paste, flatten the miso paste with a spatula to mix it well with the garlic and oil.
04. Add in both types of mushrooms.
05. Toss around, allowing the miso paste to coat the mushrooms evenly.
06. Add water, one tablespoon at a time, with just enough water to produce a steaming effect to cook the mushrooms, but not too much to dilute the gravy.
07. Once the mushrooms are cooked, transfer them to a serving dish and garnish with chopped spring onions.
++ Notes to Self ++
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Butter can be salted or non salted, I find that it doesn’t really matter after adding miso paste.
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Some miso paste can taste saltier than others, I use the white+low sodium version of miso paste, adjust amount of miso according to one’s taste preference and the type of miso used.
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These cherry tomatoes are roasted in my humble toaster oven. For small serving recipes that don’t require much precision in the temperature, my toaster oven is more than adequate to do the job. It takes a shorter time to heat up, and if it gets too hot before the timer goes off, I simply be my own “manual temperature control” and turn off the main switch to cool things down a bit.
But for ingredients as juicy as these tomatoes, there’s really no need to worry about them getting burnt even when I turn the timer dial to 20 minutes at one go.
Usually I will use these roasted tomatoes for my pasta dishes. On this particular day, I made bruschetta to clear out some old bread.
- 1 small bag of cherry tomatoes - olive oil - salt - black pepper - 1 sprig of fresh rosemary - 4 cloves of garlic, bruised with skin intact - 2 cloves of garlic, minced
01. Toss all the ingredients in an oven-proof dish or toaster pan.
02. Spread the tomatoes out on the dish.
03. Pop the dish into the toaster oven
04. Set the timer dial to 20 minutes, or cook until the tomatoes turn soft.
++ NOTES TO SELF ++
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Drizzle just enough olive oil to coat the tomatoes.
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The small amount of garlic + herb infused olive oil that settles at the bottom of the dish after cooking is great for drizzling on single serve salads or pasta too.
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In a grease cutting mood today, because I just bought a simple-looking 150ml spray bottle. The smaller bottle is handier, and I am hoping to make the chore of cutting kitchen grease looking/feeling more effortless.
… yup, anything that motivates me to clean.
I have been using vinegar as the main ingredient for a number of DIY household cleaning products; it’s cheap, effective, and toxic free. First, dilute white vinegar with water. The vinegar/water ratio will depend on the purpose of the diy cleaner, for kitchen grease, I use 1 part vinegar to 2 parts water. Then, finish off with a favorite scent or two using essential oils. Some essential oils have additional benefit of being antiseptic (note : different from anti-bacterial), though vinegar alone disinfects pretty well. Finally, shake the mixture up a bit, and you are ready to go.
- A Spray Bottle - 1 Part White Vinegar - 2 Parts Water - 10 drops of Tea Tree Oil (for 150ml spray bottle)
01. Combine white vinegar and water in the spray bottle.
02. Add tea tree oil.
03. Close the spray bottle and shake to mix the ingredients well.
++ Notes to self ++
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Shake the bottle for the content to mix well before using.
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Spray on the surface to be cleaned, wait for a few seconds, before wiping off with a clean cloth.
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Get translucent containers instead of clear ones as homemade cleaners tend to have a “foggy” or slight discoloration appearance depending on the ingredients used. Reason is purely for aesthetic. I prefer something that looks/feels clean to clean my house with.
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My version of chicken stew has more vegetables than meat. Actually, it is more of a potato stew. The kids love their potatoes. If preparing for serious carnivores, top up more meat. I honestly think that the amount of meat here is pathetic, but I also hate to have leftovers.
Stews are particularly great to make for Friday dinners; using whatever is left in the fridge, empty it out and start a brand new week with fresh stock of groceries. The base ingredients are carrots, potatoes and chicken meat. I have also tried clearing celery, firm tofu, zucchini and lotus roots with this dish, they tweak the taste of the finished product slightly, but all in a nice way.
On this particular day, I happened to have some shitake mushrooms. So into the stew they go.
- 1 chicken breast, chopped into bite size - 4 medium potatoes, peel + cut into cubes - 1/2 small carrot, peel + cut into cubes - 4 shitake mushrooms, wash + chop into quarters - 3 cloves garlic, chopped finely - 2 tablespoons cooking oil - 2 cup hot water - 1.5 tablespoon light soy sauce - 2 tablespoon oyster sauce - dash of pepper + sesame oil, to taste - for garnish: green portion of spring onion, chopped
01. Heat up a french oven over medium fire, pour in the oil and fry chopped garlic until fragrant.
02. Add in the chicken breast meat, and cook until they turn white and opaque.
03. Add in chopped potatoes and carrots, stir fry for about 1 minute.
04. Pour in the soy sauce and oyster sauce, and mix the sauce with the ingredients well with a large spoon.
05. Add in the hot water, and bring to a rolling boil.
06. Reduce heat to low, cover the french oven and let simmer for about 30 minutes, or until the water is reduced to a thick gravy.
07. 5 minutes before turning off the fire, sprinkle the shitake mushrooms on top and let the steam cook the mushroom.*
08. Turn off heat, add a dash of pepper and sesame oil, garnish with chopped spring onions, serve immediately.
++ NOTES TO SELF ++
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Fresh shitake mushrooms shrink to an impossible size during simmering. So I only add them towards the end of cooking, usually 5 minutes before the stew is done.
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The pantry drawer is getting a little crowded with 4 different types of noodles. And so my little noodle project started, just to clear them all before getting new stocks.
This is another one of my favorite “almost-instant” noodle. Takes me less than 20 minutes to get everything ready.
I braised these E-Fu noodles with sliced canned button mushrooms in the pot, but sauteed the the asparagus and carrots separately. The vegetables are then topped on the noodles upon serving. Final step : just toss and eat.
- 2 balls of dried E-Fu noodles, about 50g each - 4 button mushrooms (canned type), sliced thinly - 1 tablespoon oyster sauce - 200ml water - 15-20 stalks of thin asparagus, wash + trim off end - 1/2 carrot, julienned - 1 tablespoon of cooking oil - pepper, to taste - sesame oil, to taste - For garnish : chopped spring onions
01. Mix oyster sauce with water in a small pot and bring to boil.
02. Add in the noodles, and stir occasionally to loosen it up. The water level should just cover the noodles.
03. Add in the sliced mushrooms, turn down the fire and simmer.
04. Stir occasionally to prevent the noodles from burning at the bottom of the pot.
05. Turn off the fire when almost all the liquid is absorbed by the noodles.
06. In a skillet, heat up half a tablespoon of oil over medium fire. Add asparagus and cook for about 30 seconds. Add 1 teaspoon of water into the skillet and give it a stir.*
05. Transfer the cooked asparagus onto a plate, set aside.
06. Wipe off any remaining gravy/liquid from the skillet with a clean dry rag / paper towel. Repeat cooking with the julienned carrots.
07. Arrange the asparagus and carrots on the noodles.
08. Add a dash of pepper and sesame oil, garnish with chopped spring onions.
09. Serve immediately.
++ NOTES TO SELF ++
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* The steam from the water will cook through the asparagus nicely leaving a crunchy bite, instead of turning soggy from over cooking.
I use this method all the time to prevent my vegetables from over cooking, while retaining their bright colors.
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The brand of E-fu noodles i used is salty enough for my taste, so I did not add any salt or soy sauce.
Adjust to taste with soy sauce if other brands are more bland.
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These were made about 2 months back on the spur of the moment, when I found all the ingredients ready in my kitchen. Once done, I made no efforts whatsoever to note the recipe source, except that it was a cooking blog that I follow. Big mistake, I follow like 1000+ cooking blogs plus mine.
Within a week, the webpage link to the recipe on my internet browser was taken over many times by other delicious links. I finally realized that I had lost the source, when the “back” button on my browser never landed me correctly on the recipe page. I am suspecting that the browser had probably crashed during one of the days, and the link disappeared, along with many others that I never had the chance to try out.
I vaguely remembered that I made it with banana, coconut and blueberries. Turned out the original recipe called for strawberries. No wonder google could not help.
The hero this time? My Pinterest account. Unknowingly, I had saved the page all along; the surf and pin action has become so natural that I am unaware of it. This episode of the information/recipe overload is bound to repeat itself. And as I am typing this, I have 9 other tabs opened : wondering what to cook for dinner tonight and next week, where to visit over the coming long weekend, which chocolate cake look more enticing : this or this?
In the meantime, I am just glad that I have started this little digital journal for my projects and recipes. Now if only I spend more time typing them out. I still have some photos of a simple roast potato dish and a DIY staycation idea in my SD card. The potato recipe is still somewhere to be dug out, while long weekends that would have suited the staycation article I have in mind, have come and gone. Maybe I should make a note on these 2 first, before I start surfing for more inspirations.
And here’s the ice cream recipe that was lost and found.
- 1/2 cup frozen blueberries - 1 large banana, ripe - 1 - 2 tablespoon honey, depending on the sweetness of the banana - 1 tablespoon lemon juice - 1 can coconut cream (13oz/384ml), chilled overnight - 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
01. Puree the blueberries, banana, honey and lemon juice in a blender till smooth.
02. Scoop out chilled coconut cream into a large bowl, and whisk till fluffy.
03. Mix in vanilla extract.
04. Fold in the fruit puree. It doesn’t need to be well mixed.
05. Pour into a container, cover with foil, and freeze till set.
Unlike most home bread makers I know, my bread making routine did not take off well with a bread making machine. The model I bought produced bread with a synthetic aroma that I couldn’t quite figure out what it was even till now. As it was a discontinued model that went for a song, I had no after sales service to rely on.
For a while, I thought my recipes were wrong. Yeast was not a familiar ingredient then. I figured I had probably put in too much yeast, cos I could not pinpoint what other ingredient could attribute to that strange smell the whole time when the bread was in the machine. After throwing about 5 loaves away, I gave up troubleshooting the recipe, and decided that yeast was just not my kind of ingredient. And along the way, concluded that bread making machines make strange smelling bread.
It was not until I got a mixer which came with the dough hook, that eventually turn me into an avid bread maker. The breads I kneaded with the mixer and baked in the oven no longer emit that strange smell, so I could safely conclude that there was indeed something wrong with my bread machine. Although I wished I could handle a dough from start to finish like this, the mixer made the task too easy, plus my hands are too warm to handle the dough. A half machine homemade bread is still better than a factory produced one anyway. No E-some-number ingredients. No Preservatives. Just flour, salt, water and yeast. Plus any ingredients that I like.
I am beginning to get too comfortable with this Champion’s Milk Toast recipe, so I started adapting it to bake a healthier wholemeal version. My first not-so-successful attempt, to replace the bread flour completely with wholemeal flour, ended up with a super dense loaf. So this time I tried with a plain flour and wholemeal flour mixture.
The first proof went well enough to encourage me to added some chopped walnuts into the dough during final shaping stage. I decided not to use my usual “swiss roll” shaping method to create a neat looking loaf, but with this folding and sealing method instead. The end result is a pretty rustic looking loaf of bread, that still maintains the fluffy texture of the original Champion’s Milk Toast.
- 150g plain flour or bread flour - 150g wholemeal flour - 24g fine sugar - 1/2 teaspoon sea salt - 135g water - 69g fresh milk - 3/4 teaspoon instant yeast - 15g unsalted butter, cubed - 30g walnut, roughly chopped
01. Put all ingredients, EXCEPT BUTTER & WALNUTS, in the mixing bowl.
02. With a flat beater attachment, mix all ingredients at low speed (1 on my kitchenaid)
03. Change to a dough hook, and continue to knead the dough, adding cubed butter gradually. Keep kneading till dough reached window pane stage. You may increase the speed of the mixer to level 2 halfway when the dough starts to look stretchy and pulls away from the sides of the bowl.
04. Remove the bowl from the mixer, grease working hand slightly with butter so that the dough won’t stick to fingers, loosely shape the dough into a ball*.
05. Cover the bowl with a clean damp tea towel, and let it proof for at least 60 minutes (or until it double in size).
06. After the dough has double in size, punch the dough down, and move it to a clean work top.
07. Roll loosely into a ball, leave it on the counter covered with towel for 15 minutes.
08. After 15 minutes, the dough will rise again. Flatten the dough and add chopped walnuts to the dough. Knead to mix the walnut well into the dough.
09. Shape the dough into a loaf shape and place it in the bread tin.
10. Covered the bread tin with towel, and let it have a final rise.
11. Once dough has risen to fill up the bread tin, bake it for 30minutes in a preheated oven at 170C / 240F.
12. When the baking time is over, remove the bread from the bread tin immediately, and let it cool down completely on a rack.
++ NOTES TO SELF ++
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this dough will be sticky, almost impossible not to stick to fingers when touched, so I had to use the tucking method (using greased fingers to tuck/fold the sides of the dough to its base) to roughly shape it into a neat ball for its first proof. See second photo, it’s not all smooth and perfect, but good enough.
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my bread tin measures 20x10x10 inches.
MONO and CO 