Bread Cups!

I saw these cute little bread cups in my friend, Sheryl Ting's post and decided to make them too. But as I was googling from the internet for more ideas for what I can use with it, I thought of adding more of other American Breakfast ingredients in it.

So, Breadcups with white button mushrooms and shredded cheddar cheese.

Ingredients:

6 slices of white bread, with the sides of the toast trimmed

Butter (for buttering one side of the bread)

White button mushrooms, washed, stems removed and diced coarsely. Sauteed it lightly with garlic.

2 cloves of minced garlic

Shredded cheddar cheese (or any that you like)

1. With the butter toast on one side of the bread (face down), stuff it neatly into a muffin tins to take the shape of the up.

2. Fill the bread cups with sauteed white button mushrooms. Sprinkle some of the shredded cheese on it before popping it into the oven to bake.

3. Bake for about 15 minutes at 180 degrees.

Ta-da!

You can also alternatively prepare the bread cups and prepare the following suggested fillings to pair with it:

1. Sardines with Onion and Lime

2. Tuna/Chicken Mayonaise

3. Muar Otah

4. Bacon, white mushrooms and cheese

And the list goes on with your imagination!

Bittergourd soup

Hubby and I love our bittergourd. Some people find that it has an acquired taste. I make quite abit of bittergourd dishes (recorded in this blog). And here is another with the wonderful vegetable-fruit.

All you need (Serves 2)

1 Medium size bittergourd, remove the seeds in the centre and slice thinly

250g of spare ribs

6 - 8 red dates

1 medium carrot, with outer side peeled and cubed (optional)

1. Wash and blanch the spare ribs in a pot of hot water for about 5 minutes.

2. Prepare a fresh pot of hot water (about 6 bowls) and add all the above ingredients to the pot.

3. Boil for about an hour before turning off the heat.

4. Alternatively, you can also place in the therma to stew overnight. I would usually just boil for about half hour before placing in the therma overnight. Bring to boil again for about 40 minutes before serving.

Steam pork with water chestnuts

This is actually a rather simple dish. You can replace it with chicken minced if you like. I remembered this was also one of the dishes that my grandmother used to make for us. Yes, she was a very good cook. So that is the reason why I cook at home all the time now. I cherish homecooked meals.

Here is what you need (serves two):

About 250g of minced meat (pork or chicken your choice), pre marinate with some soy sauce, chinese cooking wine, sesame oil and pepper

5 to 6 water chestnuts, washed, peeled and diced coarsely

1. Mix the above together.

2. Level it on a shallow deep dish and steam for about 20 minutes.

Good with rice. And yes it is so simple!

Old Cucumber and Spare Ribs Soup

Another chinese soup! Making old cucumber and spare ribs soup. Really getting into making all the different types of soups I drank when I was young.

Basically the equation is the same for most of the soups.

Here's what you need (Serves 2):

250g of spare ribs

1 medium size old cucumber, washed, seeds removed and cut into small pieces

1 medium carrot, peeled, washed and cut to cubes

6 - 8 red dates

1/2 teaspoon of ikan bilis powder (optional)

1. Blanch the spare ribs in hot water for about 5 minutes till all the scum are floating on the top.

2. Change to a fresh pot of hot water (about 4 - 5 bowls).

3. Add in the spare ribs, old cucumber, red dates and carrot.

4. For me, I will boil the soup for about 45 minutes, place in the therma flask overnight and then bring to boil again for another 45 minutes before serving.

Watercress soup with spareribs

Time to be working on improving my soups. Not that I am a cantonese but I also love my soups. Trying to recollect all the different types of soup broth that my grandmother used to make for us. When you know that you are struggling to get the right taste as before, you know that you have taken things for granted in the past.

Well, time to work on getting the right touch! Today, watercress soup with ribs!

All you need:

1 packet of spare ribs (about 250g)

6 - 8 red dates

1 carrot, peeled off outer skin, washed and diced into small cubes

1/2 teaspoon of ikan bilis powder

1 packet of watercress

1. Wash spare ribs and blanch for about 5 mins over a stove of hot water

2. Change a new pot of hot water. About 6 bowls.

3. Put all the ingredients above and bring to boil. For me, I boil the soup for about an hour and leave it in the therma cooker to stew. Bring to boil for another half hour or so and add the watercress before you serve.

Pandan Chicken

Quite strange that I actually would do this at home. But I bought a packet of pandan leaves from the supermarket and decided to google on what I can do with it.

Extracted the recipe from this website: http://rasamalaysia.com/pandan-screwpine-leave-chicken/2/

Pandan Chicken! So I decided to just try my hand on this dish since I have all the ingredients at home.

What you need

1 piece of chicken fillet or thigh (remove the skin and cut them in smaller pieces)

Pandan Leaves

Marinate with:

Fish Sauce

Pepper

Soy Sauce

Oyster Sauce

Sesame Oil

Ginger juice (You can grate about one thumbsize)

Sugar

1. Marinate the chicken chunks with the above. Ideally if you can, leave it overnight in the fridge.

2. Put a piece of the chicken chunk at one end of the pandan leave and roll it up.

3. Fasten it with a toothpick.

4. Panfry it until golden brown. ( Panfry it with butter instead)

Ta-da!

Yummy Moist Banana Cake

Starting my hands on baking cakes. The first one I did was the no bake strawberry cheesecake and oreo cheesecake.

Inspired by my colleague, I decided to try my hands on this. Goggled on this recipe from the internet and made some changes to it.

Here is the recipe that I have adapted from: http://bakericious.blogspot.sg/2010/08/soft-and-moist-banana-cake.html

Ingredients: (1 normal sized cake loaf tin and 6 muffins tray)
250g salted butter
1 1/2 cups castor sugar (Instead I used 1/2 cup sugar) 
4 eggs
1 tsp vanilla essence (and I added 1 tsp of banana essence as well)
4 tbsp milk
About 3 del monte bananas
2 cups plain flour (sift together with 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda and 1 tsp baking powder)

Method:
1. Cream butter and sugar in a mixing bowl.
2. Add in eggs, vanilla essence and milk and mix well.
3. Add mashed banana into the mixture and mix well.
4. Finally add in sifted flour and mix well and pour into a cake tin.
5. Bake in preheated oven at 160 deg C for 1 hour or until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean. If the top layer turns brown after 15 minutes, cover it with a piece of aluminium foil.
6. Cool cakes in the pan then remove. Use a sharp knife to slice and serve


You can also place it in the fridge and serve it cold. Yummy! 

Corn, potato and carrot soup

Well it is time that I start making soup at home! After my paternal grandmother passed away, it was hard to make soup. Partly because we always thought that it means standing by the pot and waiting for it to stew.

Times have changed. With the invention of thermal pot, it has helped many of us, especially where we are working full-time. I, am one of them.

And so I attempt at one of the soups at home. An easy, corn, potato and carrot soup.

Ingredients (serves 2)

1 cob of corn, washed and cut into smaller chunks

1 Medium carrot, peel of the skin and cut in cubes

1 Potato, peel of the skin and cut in cubes

1 Packet of spare ribs / soup bones

6 red dates

1. Wash the spare ribs / soup bones before boiling it in hot water for about 3 to 5 mins.

2. Drain the water away and then refill the pot with hot water again.

3. Just put all of the above in the pot and set to boil for about 30 minutes.

4. Place in the thermal pot and let it stew overnight.

There you have it, sweet corn soup!