17 posts tagged “food”

Made a lasagna to host a friend last night. Surfed the Internet for recipe ideas as my stash of cook books doesn't provide a suitable recipe. I don't usually follow a recipe to a T and would adapt from about 2 recipes to make my own. Lasagna is tasty, but it requires many ingredients. I didn't know about it! Since it's my first try, I simplified whatever I could so that we would all have a dinner. Well, the taste was quite good, but hopefully I can improve the look next time. :)

Easy Lasagna
Serves 3

Ingredients:
150gm of lean beef, minced and seasoned
3 garlic sausages (you can use minced pork), thinly sliced
4pc of ham, sliced
1 big onion, minced
5 cloves of garlic, minced
100gm of tomato puree
200ml of Italian pasta sauce
30ml of water
6 pc of Non-boiled Lasagna (should use 9pc)
2/3 a tub of low fat Ricotta cheese
100gm of fresh mozzarella cheese , thinly sliced
250gm of mozzarella cheese
1 egg
Parsley
Black pepper
Olive oil

Steps:

1. Cook the meat, sausages, ham, onion and garlic till browned
2. Add Puree, pasta sauce, water and season according to taste
   
3. Bring mixture to boil and simmer till the mixture is moist
   
4. Mix the Ricotta cheese, egg, parsley
   
5. Pre-heat oven to 190°c
6. Spread a thin layer of meat mixture on a baking dish, add ricotta cheese mixture, fresh mozzarella cheese. Lay lasagna noodle on top. Repeat this step.
   
7. Cover the dish with aluminium foil and put into oven to bake for 20 mins
8. Take out the dish, uncover, check whether the top layer of noodle has absorbed the moisture. Spread the packet of mozzarella cheese on top. Put back into oven.
   
9. Bake till cheese turned brown.
   

CNY
The CNY holidays are over. Though we cut back on the visitings this year, we still have yet to visit some relatives on the hubb's side. I had steamboat twice. My mom made her kickass ngoh hiong (five spice meat roll). I had satisfied my taste bud by sampling pineapple tarts (my fave) wherever I go. I still prefer homemade tarts compare to the commercial ones, but Bengawan Solo is rather good too IMO.
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Pregnancy
I am into my 34th week now. Gosh, the big day is drawing nearer and nearer. Have drafted a list of things to be done and yet to do a stock take of the stuff we have on hand and what else that needs to be purchased. Some March mummies that I know are starting to pop... very soon it will be my turn. :S 12kg of weight gain. Sigh, I couldn't keep it at the 10kg point. They said the last month of the pregnancy, weight gain will slow down. I am 8 1/2 mths now and yet to see it actualise on me. The CNY feastings (& the tarts that I so adore) have taken its effect on me first though! *gulp* I also get tired easily. Standing 2 hrs on my feet yesterday gave me a back ache. Hubb was sweet to give me nightly massages which he learnt at the antenatal class. Ha! At least it's not a waste of money for the classes then.
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Cooking
Yesterday I cooked giam peng which was mildly successful. Giam peng or the cabbage rice is a home made Hokkien dish which is not quite as famous as fried Hokkien mee or Kong ba bao. My mom cooked hers with yam which I LOVE. Then instead of cabbage, I added long beans and carrots... and the salted fish was pretty wicked tasting too. The seasoning was alright except that I cooked with brown rice and overall was a tad mushy. I love this dish and ate up most of it. To give you an idea... I cooked 2 cups of rice. :X Hubb called the dish, claypot rice, coz he's Cantonese and I presume any dark soy sauce flavoured rice to Cantonese is claypot rice?! I think I am slowly becoming a better cook. In the very least I passed the "look bad n taste bad" stage to the "look bad but taste good" stage. :D
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Friends
If anyone wants to meet me, better meet me before end of month. I will be a hermit crab from March onwards.

This is a pointless update.

I made dinner last night and the result was rather satisfying. I took some pictures too... (i hate my camera now!) tho in the first place, my dishes dun look that appetising...

Cream of mushroom

Cream of mushroom
Serves 2

Ingredients
6 bown mushroom, sliced
6 shitake mushroom, sliced
1 red onion, sliced
100ml of light sour cream
1 1/2 cup of chicken stock
1 tspn of Thyme
Olive oil
Grounded black pepper
Salt (opt)

Steps

1. Sauté the onion till soft (about 5 mins)
2. Add the mushroom & thyme, and continue to sauté for 10-15 mins
3. Add chicken stock into the pan and bring to boil
4. Using a food processor, purée the mixture
5. Pour back the mixture into the pan and add cream, use low fire to bring to simmer

Seafood baked rice

White sauce
Ingredients
50gm of unsalted butter
50gm of plain flour
300gm of milk

Elevator

Elevator. Someone said you can tell the pace of the city from its elevators. This elevator is very, very slow. I wanted to move on faster but I realised that I have nothing to rush for. Long and steep.

My first solo day without Annie. Somehow my alarm clock which is my mobile was set to 9pm instead of 9am... so by the time I left the house, it was already noon. Winter days are shorted and sun sets around 5:30pm... Shops close early and there is not much to do during night time.

Annie and I tried to look for live band performances around Fitzroy and the city, but there wasn't any on a rainy Monday night!

From L to R: Power Street, Creepy house, Pond near Melbourne Museum, Melbourne Museum, Leaving the Museum

From L to R: Fossil 1 to 5

Kimchi soup

I cooked us dinner! Here is the recipe for a kimchi soup. I added whatever ingredients we have. It is a lovely dish for cold weather!

Shanghai people got to be the closest I will get to sample Shanghai food without visiting Shanghai or China. I came across recommendation of this restaurant in the ieat blog, one of the local foodie blog that I frequent and we tried this place last week.

The xiao long bao was good and comparable with Ding Tai Feng or Crystal Jade. I love its sweet broth. I tend to nip off a small part of the skin and allows the juice to flow out unto the soup spoon which then I can savour the broth. Then I dip the xlb into the vinegar and top it off with the accompanying julienned ginger slices. Wah, thinking about it made me wish that I can have some xlb <3 now. :D~~ Yes, I am ok from the food poisoning!

The other dishes were great too. We particularly liked meicai kourou (stewed meat with presrved vege) and the sheng jian bao (fried bun). I liked the friend noodles, and hubb preferred the pork chop noodles. Hope you can try the food too.

Hainanese chicken rice is not one of my favourite dish, but occasionally I find a place which I like. Anthony Bourdain loves this dish too but I prefer Sin Kee stall over the other places and have had its chicken rice more than a couple of times.

There are multiple factors to success in this seemingly simple dish. The oil rice which must be fragrant, succulent chicken and good dips which comprise of dark soy sauce, ginger and chilli. Sin Kee passed all these criterias.

We won't be ordering the beansprouts dish next time, coz the cost price probably cost a tenth of the 5 bucks they charge us. Atrocious. It never occur to me why the vege dishes here in Singapore cost about the same as meat dishes. I don't pay attention to vege dish much probably, but common sense tells a person that the cost of vege is much lesser than meat. Much lesser. :X

Chicken rice

Sin Kee Famous Chicken Rice

Commonwealth avenue food centre

Blk 40A Margaret Dr #02-548

S140040

Phone: 64710355

(They do delivery)

We had a gathering cum birthday cum farewell last night at No Signboard last evening. Needless to say, everyone was overdosed on food. Me particularly and I am sick of eating! How is that possible?! I will be a vegetarian for the next 2 weeks or so. :X

Must try its white pepper crab (their signature dish), chilli crab (most well known dish in Singapore) and their cereal prawn. Simple and good food served. Let the picture do the talking...

No Signboard Seafood
414 Geylang Road
Tel: 6842 3415

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