More fried rice

Today I'm blogging about more variations of fried rice. The joy of fried rice is the way how many different variety of ingredients can be used to create something that tastes YUM :3

In the first photograph, the ingredients used:
Corn
Baby pea shoots
Garlic
Cooked Rice
Soy Sauce
Cooking Oil


In the second photograph, the ingredients used:
Eggplant
Pearl Mushroom
Olives
Garlic
Cooked Rice
Soy Sauce
Cooking Oil/Sesame Oil


I know it's a little weird to be using olives in fried rice dish, but it adds a nice texture and flavour to the dish :)

I apologise for not having updated this blog in a while but uni and work have been taking up most of my time. I'll try my best to upload more recipes, but I can't promise anything. Till the next recipe, ta ta for now~

Hugs for everyone~ Have fun coming up with your own fried rice!

Creamy Pumpkin Pasta Sauce

I bought pumpkin the other day and I was wondering what to do with it. Should I make a pie, or a nice pot of soup... and I decided why not try making a nice pasta sauce?

I was looking online and all I really saw was how there were only chunks of pumpkin added and not really a pumpkin sauce. So I decided to give it a go. So pumpkin lovers rejoice, this sauce could essentially remind you of a pumpkin pie... just that it's not sweet and instead it's more savoury and flavourful.

Ingredients:

Pumpkin 

Brown Onion

Thyme

Rosemary

Thicken Cream

Cooking Oil

(Nutmeg) 

(Cumin)

 

This is just the sauce recipe since I'm pretty sure many would already know how to cook the pasta :p Just boil it!

• Step 1, heat up water in a pot 
• Step 2, while waiting for the water to boil, cut up the pumpkin and onion
• Step 3, add the pumpkin to the boiling water
• Step 4, when the pumpkin has soften, place it in a bowl and give it a good mash
• Step 5, add in the herbs and thicken cream and give it a good mix till uniform
• Step 6, in a saucepan, add in a little cooking oil and sautee the onions
• Step 7, when the onions have caramalised, add in the pumpkin mixture.
• Step 8, taste test and alter the recipe to your liking :) And you're done!!

This is a nice recipe to try if you don't know what you want to do with your pumpkin. I usually run out of ideas with pumpkins and usually if it's used in cooking, it's not the main star of the dish. So if you're a pumpkin lover, I'm sure you'd like that the pumpkin is the absolute main focus of this dish :D 

 

You can use a potato masher for the pumpkins as well :) It makes life so much easier if you own a potato masher. No more using the back of the spoon or fork and tediously trying to mash everything evenly! 

Hugs for everyone~ Have a smashing time!

Sitr fried potato noodles

I love the chewy texture that potato noodles give. They just bring an extra element into the dish. They can generally be purchased in most asian super markets.

This recipe can be used with any other kind of noodle like vermicelli, rice noodles, etc. You can also choose the ingredients that you like to use. So this is just my own variation of what I did for lunch the other day.

Ingredients:

Potato noodles

Brown Onion

Corn (fresh or frozen)

Prawns (`100g)

White button Mushrooms

Soy Sauce

Cooking Oil

(Sesame Oil)

• Step 1, boil water in a pot
• Step 2, while the water is heating up, cut up the onion, mushrooms (and prawns)
• Step 3, when the water has boiled, add in the potato noodles

Take note that the potato noodles will generally take longer to cook

• Step 4,  as the noodles are being boiled, heat up the cooking oil in a suacepan
• Step 5, when the oil has heated, add in the onion
• Step 6, when the onion has turned soft and translucent, add in the corn and mushrooms.
• Step 7, after the mushrooms have soften, add in the prawns. 
• Step 8, by now the noodles should have soften. Add in the noodles and add in the soy sauce (and sesame oil). Mix well.
• Step 9, ensure that everything has been cooked thoroughly and the flavour is to your liking. Serve.

This recipe is very similar to the Stir fried rice vermicelli just that it uses different noodles and ingredients. Hope you have fun making up your own variations!

Hugs for everyone! Think of your own variation :D

Rose Syrup Icing

So I was suppose to make a batch of bandung cupcakes for a friend to show my appreciation of him and his housemates for taking care of me while I was locked out of my house (I forgot my keys :\ ).

Due to carelessness, I botched up the measurements and the entire batter. Really really badly. My cupcakes were more of vanilla than bandung. Because I promised him a batch of bandung, I decided that I might as well make the best of it and try making a good rose icing to complement the cupcake as well as give the good rose flavour you would get from eating a good bandung cupcake.

So after trying for a while... I managed to get the flavour that I really like. The only problem was texture. It just wasn't thick enough. That was a major problem since the icing would just seep all over. I couldn't thicken it more due to the lack of icing sugar. So I just had to make do. But I think it went well :)

Since I have left over icing, I think the next thing I'm going to do is basically make mini vanilla cupcakes and frost them. Or get more sugar to thicken up the icing before I try again.

Pizza

Anyone up for a nice pizza? I was casually asking my friend how much he eats and he compared it to eating a whole pizza. It sparked inspiration for me to actually make pizza since I haven't had it in ages, plus I never got the chance to make pizza from scratch when I was in Secondary School.

Because I've been so busy at work, this is a super simple recipe. It's not quick because it does take some time for the dough to rise.
This recipe would be great with children as well! Because they get to choose their toppings and place them on the pizza, so it's like a personal yay!

So ingredients are all up to your imagination. I used olives, parmigiano-reggiano cheese, cheddar cheese, white button mushrooms and tomato paste. I love to buy Leggo's tomato paste. You don't have to worry about how you're going to use leftover paste because you can always dilute it with milk or thicken cream to make pasta sauce.

So this post will basically be how to make the dough and the toppings are all up to your creativity!

Ingredients:

Plain Flour (200g)

Yeast (slightly less than 1 tsp)

Lukewarm water (125ml)

Salt and sugar (pinch) 

• Step 1, preheat oven to 180-200 degrees celcius.
• Step 2, combine the water, sugar and yeast together in a small bowl. 
• Step 3, combine flour and salt in a larger bowl and make a well
• Step 4, after 5 minutes when the small bowl mixture is foamy, add it into the well of the bigger bowl
• Step 5, mix well and knead the dough on a lightly floured surface till smooth and elastic
• Step 6, place it back in the bowl and place a damp cloth to cover the bowl. Leave it to double in size ( in warm room temperature)
• Step 7, when the dough has doubled, roll it out into a circle trying to make the surface even 
• Step 8, place them on a baking tray/aluminium (ensure surface has been oiled so the dough doesn't stick). 
• Step 9, into the oven they go!! For around 10-15 minutes

My family used to let my brother and I pretend to make pizzas using bread slices. I really wish they knew how to make pizza dough then. Bread slices just doesn't really hit the spot. 

I hope you have fun making pizzas :D 

Hugs for everyone! Pizza anyone?

Buttermilk Pancakes!

I'm pretty sure that there's no need for a photograph because everyone knows what pancakes look like. Plus the reason why I don't have a photo is also because I rushed out of the house with them and forgot to take a photograph. So you'd have to use your imagination :p

My sister likes to make these into small mini pancakes that you can snack on because we fin that they taste awesome without butter and syrup already.

Ingredients:

Self-rising flour (1 cup)

Milk (3/4 cup)

White Vinegar (2 tbs)

Baking Soda (1/2 tsp)

Sugar (1 tbs)

Egg (1)

Butter (melted... 2 tbs + if you're using them instead of cooking oil)

Salt 

• Step 1, in a small bowl, mix the milk and vinegar together and leave it for around 5 minutes 
• Step 2, in a bigger bowl, add the flour, baking soda, salt and sugar together. 
• Step 3, smell the small bowl for a sour smell and if present, add in the butter and egg into the small bowl.
• Step 4, make a well/hole in the middle of the bigger bowl.
• Step 5, pour the wet ingredients (small bowl) into the well/hole
• Step 6, mix well
• Step 7, in a saucepan, heat up cooking oil/butter
• Step 8, using a ladle (well I like to use a ladle instead of a spoon), pour out a little bit of the batter
• Step 9, when bubbles appear on the surface of the pancake, wait for a while and then use a spatula to flip them over.
• Step 10, when both sides are nice and brown, place on a plate and serve :)

The use of a ladle will allow you to pour out somewhat equal amounts of batter so your pancakes are of similar size. Plus it also prevents you from dripping batter everywhere. If you don't have vinegar to make buttermilk, you could use vanilla essence instead. The flavour is different but it still tastes awesome ^^

Hugs for everyone!! Nom nom nom~

Small little tips

The recipes in this posts are simple and mainly everyone can do them. So instead of making posts about the steps, I decided to just talk about little tips that I do.

MASH POTATOES

So the first tip is about mash potatoes. Whenever I make them, I like to mix in carrots. Why? Simply because I like that there are little spots of orange :p But it's also because I want to make myself feel less guilty that all I'm eating are carbs. The best way I love my mash is with a little milk. It just gives that little hint of creaminess in it. I know that many recipes also ask for butter, but I like to go healthier and just avoid the butter. To me, it tastes great with or without butter. 

BATTER

I learnt this from my mother. I believe that every cook should have a simple batter recipe that is versatile enough to go with almost anything. I use this batter for a number of different things.

All this requires, is self rising flour, water and oil. For those who bake, the batter would probably remind you of something similar to a more watery cupcake batter. Just ensure that it's still liquidy and you can draw patterns that stay when you lift the spoon. Just a small amount of oil is used to give the end product a nice shine.

The biggest trick to make sure that your batter stays crispy and doesn't start to turn soggy after a while is... temperature. Ensure that your batter is as cold as possible by leaving in the fridge in a while. My mother does this with ice cubes, but since I don't really want to risk watering down my batter, I use a metal bowl and leave it in the fridge for around 5 minutes. Your batter should be far away from your fire. You want the batter to remain cold throughout. I usually throw in the ingredients in the batter, leave them in the fridge and only bring them out when I am frying them. So my fridge door opens and shuts quite often when I do this. 

STEAK

When marinating steaks, be it beef or salmon or any kind of meat, the best way to make sure that you have spread the salt evenly is through the use of your hands. Pour the salt on the palm of one hand, rub both hands together and just gently grab and 'apply' the salt on the meat ensuring that you have rubbed every part of the steak. Do the same if you want pepper. 

I'm not a fan of steak sauce. The best way to enjoy a steak is just with a little salt (and .... to many others, pepper. Yep, I'm still not a pepper fan)

And of course the most obvious thing to look out for is the amount of heat and the time. It's always hard to grasp the time so keep your eyes on the steak. If it's undercook you can always cook it longer, but if it's overcooked, you're stuck with dry and tough meat. 

So here are three tips when you're making mash, a flour batter or steak :) Hope you found these helpful! Oh yes, if you're in Sydney and you're an absolute fan of good meat. One of the best places I always go to get roasts and steaks is at Meat Emporium (Establishment 218). You get to choose a big piece of meat and they will help cut it up if you want to. I usually only get the big ones if I have gatherings or if I'm sharing the piece with someone else. They have a good variety of lamb, chicken, pork, beef and I love their sausages. I rarely go to this place because it's a little further off and since it's meat, I only go when someone's available to drive me over. If you want beef bones, smoked beef bones, or even double smoked, they have them there.  So if you're a meat lover, check out their website and see if you find it to your liking :) 

Hugs for everyone~ Share handy tips if you have any!