Mooncakes Making

Last week, we went to Stehpanie house to make some Snowskin Mooncakes. Ingredients were provided by Dawn who just came back from Singapore few weeks ago. It was successful this time as we had the right ingredients and most importantly there was Meizhen Shifu to guide us along this time. :P

Rice Dumpling

I went to Serene's place to learn to make rice dumpling from her mum. I only wrapped 4 of them which took me about 45 minutes and I gave up....I even brought the 4 of them back to cook at my home in case all the ingredient drop out from the leaves during the cooking. Hehehe...luckily, all were "well-wrapped" and the end result looks like ....



Hahaha.. I guessed I really don't have the talent to do it. However, the rice dumplings still taste very yummy despite of the look.

Kudos to Serene's Mum!! ^^

Making Mooncake

is TOUGH!

We happily bought the lotus paste and mooncake mould from Singapore in May and realised that we didn't get all other ingredients like fried glutinious rice flour, alkaline water, shortening flour, golden/mooncake syrup, Hong Kong flour etc etc!! I simply thought it was easy.. silly me!!

When I was going to turn the mooncake into Lotus Pau, J and some friends helped to get some alkaline water, shortening flour and Hong Kong Flour from some Singaporeans who were selling Mooncake here.

Last Thursday, I got some of my friends to my house to make some Traditional mooncake. We got ambitious and tried to do the Snowskin Mooncake even without the correct flour..


The biggest problem we had was wrapping the BIG portion of lotus paste into a very small dough. In the end, we just ignore what the recipe instructed and tried our best to squeeze the lotus paste into a bigger portion of dough.

To cut the story short, I will just show how our mooncakes looked like.

Verdict is - ...Traditional Mooncake is Edible... Snowskin Mooncake was kind of failed project cos we still can taste the flour in the snowskin.

Hmm.. I think I will just go and buy from those Singaporean who are selling one for $5-7 euros/mooncake.

Making Pizza

We brought some ready made Pizza dough last week and Daddy decided to do it with Shannon last Saturday.

VERDICT - Nice but TOO SALTISH.. hmmm.. maybe too much of pizza sauce, lardons and ham.. we will improve next time! ;p

Dinner @ Oncle Sam Saloon

Last Thursday, we went to Oncle Sam Saloon for dinner with a big group of friends. If I am not wrong, it was an American Restaurant selling their famous Ribs and Jack Daniel's Steak. We visited this restuarant a few times when we stayed here few years ago. Actually we did tried to visit the place again few months ago but couldn't find the exact location. Anyway, J checked the PagesJeune.com for the address and telephone this time.



As usual, it was very crowded. We ordered 2 sets of BBQ Spare Ribs for ourselves and a set of Chicken Nugget for Shannon. Shannon didn't touched her Chicken Nugget at all. She simply don't like it. As for myself, I still prefer the BBQ Ribs at Buffalo Grills Restaurant. Most of them ordered the Famous Jack Daniel Steak and said that it was good.

Making O-Ni

Some of my friends asked me for the recipe of the O-Ni. I don't have the exact info of the required amount for each ingredients. But trust me, it is easy!!! Of cos the taste is not as good as what you ate in the Teochew Restaurant but it is satisfying enough when you are overseas.


Ingredients -

2-3 Yam (cut into small piece)
Sugar (Add to taste)
Oil (if you wan it to be more fragrant, you can use the pork oil)
Pandan Leave (2-3 leaves)
Gingko Nuts (1 can)
Coconut milk (lightly boil a bowl of it)

Step 1

Steam the Yam till it is very soft (usually I will use pressure cooker because it is faster)

Step 2

Blend the yam with some water with blender till it is smooth. Too little water will be difficult to make the paste smooth. But the paste would be too dilute if too much water is added. So.. good luck.. Hahahahaha

Step 3

Heat the oil, and pour the paste in and stir for 5-10min.
Add pandan leaves and continuing stiring till fragrant.
Add sugar to taste
Lastly, add the Gingko Nuts and stir awhile more

VOILA!!!



Add desired coconut milk to individual bowl of O-Ni!!!

Happy Chinese New Year - 祝大家新年快乐

Life has to go on even with another failed IVF. Moreover, Chinese New Year is just around the corner. We do not want it to affect our mood or rather we would like to make ourselves more busy to avoid thinking about the IVF failure.




After making the Pineapple Tarts, Kueh Bangkit and Kuih Kapit, we made Fa Gao 发糕 and Nian Gao 年糕 on Sunday to welcome the Chinese New Year. CNY Tradition said that eating 发糕 during the CNY will help you HUAT HUAT HUAT and eating 年糕 symbolizing that one gets higher achievement during the NEW year.

To make our CNY celebration more "special & interesting" in a foreign country, I followed my friend, Mai to buy everthing that are needed during the CNY <办年货>. We bought Pineapple for 旺来, flowers for 花开富贵，Leek - 葱蒜 for 年年有得算，Fish for 年年有余 etc etc etc...





After the gym class this afternoon, I rushed home to do some last minute Spring Cleanning and get J to put up all the CNY decoration. We will be having a small steamboat gathering on the eve of CNY, I will be busy preparing the food and may not have time to blog again.

Hereby, I would like to wish all of you --

一年四季季季平平安安

一年12个月月月健健康康

一年52周周周精精彩彩

一年365天天天快快乐乐




Gif image by ChinaZ.com

Love Letters

I know Valentine Day is approaching but I am refering to Kuih Kapit aka love letters. LOL... We brought over the Kueh Kapit Maker (given by my 3rd sis)from Singapore and J was dying to try it few weeks ago.

Thus, when J was on leave on Monday after my Egg Retrieval, he started to make Kuih Kapit himself while I was resting and Shannon was taking her nap.

Well, I must say it tastes good!

More Pineapple Tarts

Last week, we decided to make more pineapple tarts! Thus I "jio" 3 of my friends to make them together as most of our kids were all in Creche till 430pm. Luckily, we cooked the pineapple jam a day before. We only managed to finish everything at about 8pm and ended up with about 500pcs of pineapple tarts to distribute.

This time, the cookies were soft and buttery and the pineapple jam is not sticky at all. Delicious! :D

Chee Cheong Fun Recipe

Here is the recipe for Chee Cheong Fun requested by some friends. :P

Servings for 4-5 pax.
Ingredients
2 cups rice flour
1/2 cup wheat starch
1 tbsp corn flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp sesame oil
2 tbsp oil
5 cups of water (2 cup normal, 3 cup boiling water)

Directions:

1. Mix all the ingredients above in a container bowl with 2 cups of water till all the flour disolves. Then, continue to pour in 3 cups of boiling water slowly with constant stirring of the mixture.
2. Graze a thin layer of oil on a flat tray (You may use a microwaveable tupperware).
3. Pour a thin film of the mixture into the tray until all the "holes" are covered.
4. Microwave for 1 min.
5. Let it set for 1 minute before rolling it.

(You may consider using around 3 trays/tupperware to quicken the process of making)

Ingredient for Sauce:
1/2 bottle Lee Kum Kee Hosin Sauce
3-4 tbsp sugar (depending on your sweetness preference)
3 tsp sesame oil
2 tbsp oyster sauce
water
*******************
Some roasted sesame seeds (used only when serving)

Directions

1. Mix all the ingredients and bring it to a boil.

Serving

1. Cut the Chee Cheong Fun into slices.
2. Pour some sauce over the Chee Cheong Fun.
3. Sprinkle some sesame seeds over the Chee Cheong Fun.