how to cook canned sardine

sardine recipe

hubs came home late and when he was eating, i sat on the dining table too.

"come, eat this" i encouraged.

i know he doesnt fancy sardine, but anyway....

Me: come...eat it...

Him: no thank you

Me: come..eat it...

(i was persistent..heh)

Him: no, i dont eat sardine

(duh like i dont know!)

Me: i know, just try it!

reluctantly dip into the gravy and put into his mouth

*****sparkles*****

Him: mmmm! yum! hurry tell me...what did u put?

i gave him a smug look...

Him: hurry...tell me...what did u put?

Me: .........

suspense......

Him: "mmmm! that is why i love indian food!
indian food is amazing yada yada..."

here goes the recipe before i forgot and fail to replicate in future :)

1 can of sardine

1 fresh tomato

garlic, 2 slices of ginger

1 onion

2 sprig curry leaves

1/4tsp fennel seed

1/4 tsp cumin seed

1/4 tsp coriander seed

salt

sugar

curry powder

turmeric powder

1. heat oil in skillet

2.sweat onion, garlic, ginger in the skillet until brown

3. add in the spices and continue to fry till fragrant

4. add in curry leaves and tomato

5. pour in can of sardine

6. add curry powder and turmeric powder and some water and simmer. add salt and sugar to taste

the way i cook is that i dont measure, unless im baking.

so i threw everything into the skillet without measuring hence im lucky this dish comes out delicious! ;)

thanks to my colleague (a guy!) for cooking this and bringing it to work.

it got me started googling for sardine recipe! *thumbs up*

sweet and sour pork recipe

it was raining so i came home from work and decided to cook something different!

sweet and sour pork!

recipe before i forget:

pork slices

1 tbs corn flour

1tbs rice flour

2 tbs plain flour

2 tbs plum sauce

1 tbs lea and perrins

1 tbs tomato sauce (ketchup)

1tbs soy sauce

2 tsp? sugar

2tbs water

1. coat meat with 3 types of flour

2. deep fry

3. discard cooking oil.

4. mix all the sauces and pour into skillet

5. throw in the fried meat and coat them with sauces

dish out

garnish!

burger pau and mushroom soup

thermomix mushroom soup recipe:

15g olive oil
300g mixed mushroom (fresh/ dried shitake, any mushrooms)
2 clove garlic
1 small onion
10g butter (estimate, means don't need to be accurate)
dried italian mixed herbs
500g water + 1 maggi chicken stock (or chicken broth)
cream (optional)
sea salt , pepper to taste

methods:
1. garlic, onion, mushroom, olive oil, butter. Varoma, Reverse, speed 2. sauté for 10 mins
2. speed 6 to puree it. add in water, chicken stock (or broth) , cook for 20 mins. 100 degrees. speed 4.
3. add cream, herbs, salt and pepper. serve.

OR traditional method (jamie oliver) :

• Olive Oil
• 300g mixed Fresh Mushrooms (shitake, oyster, portabello, button) - cleaned and sliced
• 2 cloves Garlic - peeled and finely sliced
• 1 small Red Onion - peeled and finely chopped
• ½ tablespoon Butter
• 1 teaspoon Dried Thyme (or a handful of fresh thyme leaves)
• 500ml chicken or vegetable stock, preferably organic
• Sea Salt and Freshly Ground Black Pepper to taste
• a handful of fresh Parsley - roughly chopped
• 2 tablespoon Cream
• 1 lemon - grate for zest & juice
• Truffle Oil (Optional)

Instructions

1. Heat up a medium pot, add about 2-3 tablespoon of olive oil and your fresh mushrooms. Stir around very quickly for a minute, then add your garlic, onion, butter and thyme. After 1 minute, you'll probably notice moisture cooking out of the mushrooms. Carry on cooking for about 10 minutes until most of the moisture disappears.
2. Season to taste, and add your stock. Bring to the boil and simmer for around 20 minutes. Remove half the soup into another pot and whiz it up to a purée with a hand blender (or pour into a blender to puree), then pour it back in.
3. Garnish with parsley & drizzle of cream
4. You can serve this soup as you like, or you can try Jamie's suggestion. Quickly stirfry some nice-looking mushrooms like oyster and sprinkle these on top of the soup with lemon zest and spoon some lemon juice. When you go to eat it, stir it in and it gives a wonderful flavour. If using truffle oil, a few drips on the top just before serving and leave out the lemon.

smooth homemade yogurt

I am proud to announce that i have mastered how to make yogurt, the no frills way!

and i will be sharing it here.

if you do not follow my instructions closely, u will sometimes succeed, or if you succeed, you will get gritty yogurt like i used to get :p

i never knew that i could make a completely smooth yogurt.

i thought homemade yogurt is ugly and gritty sometimes.

imagine what we have been consuming prior to this ;)

when it gets too gritty, we throw away sometimes. HEHE

 smooth aren't they?

pardon my lousy camera

soooo smooth and creamy! :D

let me rant a little but before i spill the methods :p

I've had a yogurt maker given by my dear friends, but i do not need to use it anymore now.

remember i said no-frill method?

i read that we can add some milk powder to thicken the yogurt. well, not anymore now, i don't need them.

i used to make them in the thermomix because it has temperature control, but not anymore, i don't need to make using the thermomix.

our thermomix is a heavy work horse in our kitchen so it is good if i can let it rest for a while ;P

ok,here goes!

how to make yogurt successfully!

1 tbs sugar

1L fresh milk/ UHT milk

1tbs yogurt starter (plain yogurt)

1. heat up the milk in a pot. make sure u stand there and wait till bubbles forming at the sides. once u see bubbles forming, and if bubbles begin to form in the middle of the pot. off the fire.

do not over boil.

2. cool the milk, until it is warm to dip your finger in. (takes about an hour? depending on the environment/weather)

3. transfer the milk into glass jar / high heat plastic container. Stir in the sugar (food for the microbes ) and yogurt starter.

4. set aside. put in a quiet corner, warmest part of the kitchen. or if my oven is not in-use, i'll put it inside the oven.

5. after 12 hours, or less if it is a hot day, check if it has set. store in fridge.

DONE!

i used to boil my yogurt on stove and do other things , busy mums like me need to multi-task :p but too bad, to get thick smooth yogurt, i need to hang around the stove and check on the milk ;)

best to make yogurt at night.

incubate at night where there is less activity in the kitchen.

okay, now if you want to make cheese yogurt, (yum! i add it into salads /make dips)

pour the yogurt into a cloth strainer before refrigerating,

position a bowl / container to collect the whey at the bottom.

you can still strain after refrigeration but maybe it would take a longer time to separate.

Note: utensils and containers must all be clean, without oil.

keep the whey in the fridge.

can use it to make cakes/cookies, add into smoothies and etc.

how to use whey, and this

yogurt whey nutrition

yogurt > greek yogurt > yogurt cheese (if you strain further)

i make my yogurt at night, next morning i strain it and go to work.

by lunch time i'll get yogurt cheese.

if u want greek yogurt, u can pour a little whey back into it and stir.

 never fails!

keep a few spoonfuls of the yogurt so that it could be used as a starter for the next batch.

some claim that u can't recycle too many times. some shared that we can. i don't know, I've recycled 3 times, will experiment further.

What we eat at home

despite being independent,

no moms or inlaws or relatives here,

we thrive to be on our own.

ever since we fired our part time maid a year ago,

we have been doing household chores ourselves.

we also cook whenever we can.

green tea ice cream with adzuki beans

mushroom bacon risotto

can prepare this in a jiffy!

doesnt look appealing but it tastes good! :p

hawaiian chicken pizza

all the above were cooked at home.

if u still dont know me,

i prefer to eat at home.

what more if you are living in Kota kinabalu.

there are not much choice really.

especially in the weekend when i have my children home with me,

all the more i'd want to serve them HEALTHY home cooked meals.

Green tea ice cream recipe:

ingredients

150g sugar

15-30g green tea powder (i use 15g)

50g unsalted butter

2tsp vanilla extract

100g milk

500g cream

4 eggs

method

1. mill sugar 15 secs/ speed 9

2. add butter and vanilla + sugar. 15 mins/ varoma/ speed 1

3. add cream, milk and whisk . 30 sec/ speed 5

4. add egg one by one through the hole , at speed 4. time? just keep the blade running

5. add green tea powder, also at speed 4. cook for 5 mins/ 80 degrees

6. pour into cold metal tin and freeze

7. after 8 hours when it is partially frozen, transfer into ™ bowl again and blitz at speed 10/ 1 min.

8. return to cold tin and continue freezing until ice cream is formed.

9. all done. thaw for few minutes before serving.

someone else loves pancake too!

the father's idea. obviously i wont have the urge to make pancake this way on a saturday morning!



u saw that dirty piece of pancake beside the stove?

the father couldnt be bothered to throw it and guess what happened after a while? it was gone! how magical!

our house rat ate it! *grhh*


his favorite triceratops!


montessori says to allow the children to do what they can do for themselves.




i will never be satisfied with the pancake recipes. there are so many variation out there and i failed to keep track of which that i have tried was good and which was not.

the pancakes above are Scotch Pancakes from Little Teochew. originally from Gordon Ramsay.

For the Scotch pancakes
- 100g plain flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- Pinch of salt
- 80ml buttermilk (pour 80ml of whole milk and add 2 tsp fresh lemon juice)
- 50ml cold water
- 2 large eggs, beaten
- Sunflower oil (or any neutral flavoured oil), for frying

i dont quite like it, maybe because of my ingredients? i estimated them however trying to stick as close to the measurements given.

i prefer my pancake to fluffy and thick, like american pancakes.



this was on another occasion. used simple recipe, one cup of each.

beginning to pose in front of the camera these days ;)

my oat adventure

this is steel cut oat. uncooked. they said this is not exactly raw, also cant refer to this as uncooked. but since i am still a noob in the raw world, i would just refer to this as uncooked. well, atleast it is uncooked from the packet.

do u know that we need to soak our grains and nuts before consuming/cooking?
i have shared in the previous post the links on why we need to do so.

after gaining this knowledge, i have since soaked my brown rice and now i am soaking my oats and eating them uncooked!

i have always soaked my oats before cooking ever since i was in UK. but now i am soaking them and eating them raw. ROARS!

this steel cut oat is too grainy though, maybe i am still not accustomed to it.

what i did was soaked them in warm water with a little apple cider vinegar and leave them in room temperature for about 24 hours. then i rinsed them and portion them before transferring into the fridge, soaked in milk and dried cranberries.

since i dont have the luxury of blueberries or strawberries sitting in my fridge, i usually eat my oats without fresh fruits. not much toppings as i love plain oats on its own. you can add agave nectar or raw honey or manuka molasses or even salt it. i dont add butter as well , which you can.

for my children, i WISH to make oats with butter and molasses and banana? that is my fantasy. because kj hates oats. well, he has not tasted them before, or maybe he did. but if he did, he sure as hell has good memory because i dont remember preparing oats for him (baby food does not count) and on sunday when he saw me preparing the oats for coming weekdays, he says "i dont like this". ouch.


anyway, back to oats, i went back to the store last night and bought Organic Rolled Oats by Country Farm. very limited choice here as compared to KL. u can practically get just anything under the stars in that urban city these days.
yes, i don't eat quick cooking oats. it has to be at least cooking oats, if not rolled. told you im a health conscious person, therefore the reason of me venturing into steel cut oats.

the rolled oats should be soft upon soaking and more palatable eaten uncooked hence i should make a gradual move from here before moving on to steel cut oats, which is more nutritious.

i cant find other brands here besides Bob's Red Mill. 

u can read here on how they freeze oats from New Nostalgia, or how to prepare steel cut oats in 2 minutes from here and here.

i hope i would be able to eat my oats uncooked like her.

Huai Shan Soup for the family

recipe for huai shan (chinese wild yam) soup


i used chicken to boil this soup. this is the second time i'm cooking it. i think both times i used chicken instead of pork.

we cook more chicken than pork, because i cant quite tell their parts and i dont know which part suits which cooking.
and i hate it, no, we both hate it when the pork smells!


well, people reckoned that huai shan has some beneficial properties so all the more i will purchase whenever i see it available in the market.

i love to go to the wet market. yes, im aunty just like that! :p although i do not look like an aunty at all! *hah*


this is how the huai shan looks like~
vacuum packed , from china


i only use this much for a pot, catering for a the 3 of us. dad,mom,toddler


u need to handle it like a lightning. it is slimy hence it is advisable to slice swiftly and wash and cut.



these are what i put into the soup.

huai shan + carrot + dried wolfberries + dried yu zhu (Solomon seal rhizome)

did not add red dates because the father shudders when he sees red dates in soups. ? whatever




chicken carcass. 2 whole-chicken-backbone. this is my usual USUAL chicken broth.

never really tried chicken feet or wings or anything else.

unless my mom buys me kampung chicken (i will make sure it is throughly cleaned before accepting it), we will then deskin the chicken and cook herbal soup in the slow cooker.

these are my sources :
1. annelicious food
2. food4tots
3.noobcook
4. mywoklife

kek batik or marie biscuit cake

there are many variations of this cake. seriously, u'll have a big headache contemplating which one to follow. so i follow my heart. i adapt from here and there.

recipe 1

recipe 2

recipe 3

INGREDIENTS:
100g milo
25g cocoa powder
125ml boiling water
190g butter
sweetened condensed milk (i do not measure, i pour until the sweetness level is to my liking)
5 eggs, lightly beaten
250g Marie biscuits ( 1 whole packet )

vanilla essence ( i don't remember if i put this )

some recipes stated sugar but i decided to omit it. our sweetness level is quite low ;)



small marie biscuit. RM 2.30/ packet



butter : wood dunn brand! I've never noticed this in the West. some blogs vouched for this butter!

err, we don't have much preference for this. somehow, i still prefer Anchor ;)




Steps:

1. melt the butter in the wok.

2. add in milo, cocoa powder, boiling water and egg into it. stir.

3. pour in sweetened condensed milk.




4. stir until the mixture becomes thick or custard-like.

5. turn off the heat. add in the biscuits. some recipes suggested to break the biscuits into smaller pieces/ halve them but i did not. i threw them in whole. Mix them until all the biscuits are coated.



6. transfer them to a mould and press/compress the batter.

7. cool it and refrigerate it, until like 4-5 hours or so? minimum.



8. bring out from the fridge, over turn the mould and u'll get the cake! slice it and voila!

truly simple eh?

i started goggling for this recipe because there was once when dh took home 6 cans of condensed milk! hence i have to think of ways to get rid of it before it hits the expiry date!

smart right? ;P

pancake recipe

AMERICAN PANCAKE

220 gram flour

1 tbsp baking powder

1 tsp sugar

¼ tsp salt

2 eggs

300ml milk

1 tbsp melted butter

this is a keeper

this is american because it uses baking powder, hence the pancake would fluff up! unlike the other type where it is very thin and flat

i must remind myself to look for this recipe HERE instead of kelam kabut and frantically goggling for recipes across the world wide web

u will doubt if the recipe works or the recipe uses measurement which u are not familiar with (such as ounce instead or mls)

or they use ingredients which u dont have, like buttermilk

it seems u can make buttermilk by adding vinegar/lemon juice to milk?

something like that

anyway, im very kampung styled, i dont use buttermilk

have never used buttermilk before

baking weekend

butter cookies

one of the best that i have tried so far.

this won't melt in your mouth, this is the crunchy, very basic type.

I'm still looking for that taste way back in primary school, when i baked with mom.

gonna ask mom to pass over her recipe book to me ;)

recipe taken from thesweetspot

Butter Cookie Recipe

180g butter
120g caster sugar
1 egg
2 tsp vanilla essence
250g All purpose flour
pinch of salt

Method

1. Cream butter and sugar in a mixing bowl with a beater till light in colour. It doesn’t need to bee too fluffy otherwise the cookie will be a little crumbly.
2. Add in the egg and vanilla essence and mix till well incorporated
3. Gradually add in flour and salt and mix with a slow speed (speed 1 or 2) with a beater. Scrap sides of bowl.
4. Fill in the batter into a piping bag with a star nozzle. In the pic, I’m using the Wilton tip 2D. Basically the pattern is up to you. Press batter onto pan lined with baking sheet. Add cut cherry bits or chocolate chips or sprinkles on top of the cookie before baking
5. Bake at 180 C for 15 minutes or until cookie becomes slightly golden brown.
6. Cool down for 15 minutes and keep them in an airtight container.

I'm using Amway Noxxa's Oven.

temperature for cookies should be 190-200 C for 12-14 mins.

Makes about 4.5 tray

too lazy to mould them

unlike this : they were made last year- 2011

baked this today

love the mini bite size

im reserving this for kayjay ;)

hb was lazy to shape them as well

i know i ought to put my cookie moulds into use.

when I'm in the mood,

whenever i start baking something,

be it a cake,

or cookies,

or muffins,

i would want to do them over and over again,

on the SAME day.

yes, that is my problem.

like this Saturday,

i baked 2 batches of cookies.

started off with butter, then decided to do nestum cookies.

wanted to proceed with oats cookies,

luckily i manage to come back to earth for a while,

so i have to put it on halt.

reason was who will be eating them?

we will be going back this Wednesday!

*dances around*

looks pretty okay right?

but a bit too sweet for my liking.

and lack of something...

anyway, not gonna share the recipe.

nevertheless,

I'm not giving up on nestum cookies yet.

will continue trying ;)

this is totally unrelated,

i think the eye lashes are satisfyingly long

no regrets for not trimming when he was a baby