remind me of this love

with my stomach on a constant gastric strike, it's kind of difficult for me to recall the pleasure of eating without fear of bloatedness and acidic reflux. yet. i treasure all the times when i was able to cook for my friends or enjoy a good dine-out.

and in dedication of my celebration and love of good food, here's a post of pictures, set as a timely reminder for those of us who have a love-hate affair with food; this glorious luxury of enjoyment for cooking, baking and eating...

-birthday cake for jazi: japanese cotton cheesecake topped with strawberries and cream-filled mini profiteroles and a "love-poem" on top:



-simple home-baked pizza for my friends during one of our project work meetings: freestyle toppings consisted of roast chicken, capsicum, portobello mushrooms, thinly sliced new potatoes and some sprinkles of finely minced garlic, rosemary and sweet paprika:



-an attempt to emulate the japanese way of home-made bento for a colleague's birthday during my last placement, consisting of mixed onigiri filled with mayo tuna and roasted pumpkin, tamago rolls in seaweed and a terayaki sauce-glazed meatballs packaged in a re-used bento box:



-teochew braised duck that i've made over the december hols of which i'm still owing serene and estee for! oh dear but i can't recall what exactly i've did because i've combined a total of 3 recipes to concoct this particular one...let me try my hands on it again and will get back to you with the new recipe...better than the one i've posted 2 years ago!



- a simple lazy way of having a wholesome meal on a tiring day...couscous salad! for some, couscous may be the most distasteful thing ever but the secret is not to overcook your couscous! add a slab of butter with some parmesan cheese and herbs and spices...as well as sundried tomatoes, dried raisins, fresh iceberg lettuce, roasted pumpkin and aubergines...and not forgetting some roasted chicken or fried bacon and fetta cheese...plus a drizzle of some balsamic italian dressing...there you have it! a yummy quick fix for dinner!


- one of my favourite orders from the viet restaurant at westend...grilled pork chop rice even though i don't quite fancy rice as much as i love noodles...



but cooking is not the same now without you guys...i really miss all of you and my little bear family...i love you all!

much love,
granny bear

star-shaped quiches for a renewed start

it's easy to forget the simple pleasures of cooking when one is back in the comfort of home, with dear mum-sy being there to tend to my every meals. and what's cooking in my hometown of Singapore, where good food comes in abundance and may even be cheaper than cooking at home?

but just when i thought of letting this old blog die on its own with the demise of my cooking days, the appearance of a follower and comment for this blog sparked off a new desire to maintain this blog alive to some extent(thanks abby even though i don't know you!)...and perhaps in keeping up with this, continue to hone my culinary skills so that i may continue to be a blessing for my friends and family in this area.

and since i haven't been cooking of late...i thought i would share this simple veggie quiche that i've made for jadey's hen's party last december...and the portions might not be accurate since this was such a long time ago and i hadn't followed a true recipe in making this...so i do advise: GO WITH YOUR INSTINCTS and TASTEBUDS!



Ingredients:

Veggy filling
-1 sweet potato, cubed
-1/2 red capsicum, cubed
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 medium onion, cubed
-1/4 pumpkin (about 200g), cubed
-1 small eggplant, cut into large wedges
- some sundried tomatoes, striped

Egg filling
-1/4 cream
-150g fetta/ other cheese of your preference
-4 eggs, beaten

Pastry:
- use either short crust/ puff pastry according to preference

Steps:
1) Rub all the chopped veggy filling ingredients with salt, pepper, mixed herbs and sweet paprika powder. Drizzle over olive oil to cover.

2) Roast the veggy filling in preheated oven of about 200 degree celcius for about 15 minutes? or till fragrant smell comes out from oven and veggy is softer but not burnt:)

3) Meanwhile, cut out each sheet of the pre-made pastry into 9 squares of equal sizes and line them on greased muffin cups/ other small cute baking devices you might possess.

4) Blind bake the pastry cases in the oven for about 5 minutes.

5) beat the 4 eggs, cream and fetta cheese tog. add some more paprika and mixed herbs and very small sprinkle of chicken/veg stock seasoning

6) distribute the veggy filling amongst all your pastry cases. add in egg mixture. careful not to overspill!

7) bake the mini quiches in preheated oven of 170 degrees till the egg mixture is solid (about 10 to 15 minutes)

P.S: i've made use of the awesome star shaped silicon mould that jadey gave me in baking this to get the unique shape! thankful for just-because presents!:)

Easy Peasy Mini Bread Cups

This is something I've created on one of my lazy days when I wanted to make something for my journalling group without having to go through the extent of starting my pastry from scratch...hahaha...it's strange what can come out from a pair of lazy hands result in more brain power used!

Ingredients:

12 slices of white/wholemeal bread, buttered thinly on both sides,

200g of roasted pumpkin cubes (seasoned with olive oil, salt, mixed herbs, paprika and coarse black pepper),

2 turkey sausages (or any other meat of choice, toasted and sliced thinly with skins removed for health reasons),

2 large portobello mushrooms (sliced) ,

sundried tomato strips according to your liking,

3 eggs (with some mixed herbs, sprinkle of salt, paprika, cream and parmesan cheese added to it)

* note: can add any other roasted veggies of choice too if you like: eg. onions, capsicum, aubergines (eggplant)

* note: use cayenne pepper or hot paprika instead of sweet paprika for a spicier kick!

1) Use egg ring or cookie cutter to cut slices of bread into 12 rounds. Place them in oiled muffin pans.

2) Place the sliced turkey sausages, followed by the roasted pumpkin cubes and mushroom slices.

3) Pour in egg/cream mixture into each bread cup till 3/4 from brim ( as bread soaks up the egg mixture too, the final product will be more like a french toast taste than a quiche)

4) Sprinke some tasty cheese shreds on top / fetta cheese if desired (i didn't have it that time)

5) Bake for about 5-7 minutes in preheated oven of 170 degree celcius.

Serve warm! Cos it won't be toasty after being left out in the cold for too long!

Hope you guys will enjoy this easy treat as much as i did!

much love, granny bear

same thing, different feel

for those who know me well, balance of colours and food groups are really important in a meal. the above tri-coloured beef soboro don is the proof of my belief in food:

the hues of green come from the lovely crisp butterhead lettuce and sweet green peas, the yellow from mirin-flavoured jap style scrambled eggs, the reds from the capsicum and the brown from a mixture of tofu, beef and onion mince soaked up in a rich and well-seasoned sauce of red wine, mirin, soy sauce and honey

these colours not only make the food more presentable visually, it also makes it alot more palatable because every single bite consists of substance and taste:)

but before i blow my own trumpet any further, let's take a look at how the same ingredients can be made into a more compact form for convenience as a bento/ take-away lunch. every single thing that you have seen on top in the beef soboro don can be converted into a mini-beef rice burger!

want to learn how to do it? the directions are simple:



MUST-HAVE Ingredients: beef mince, hard firm tofu (crushed), 1/2 red capsicum (finely diced), 1/2 onion ( finely diced), 2 cloves of garlic (finely minced), 2 TB soy sauce, 1 TB mirin, 1 TB sesame oil, salt and pepper to taste, 1-2 TB flour or polento (depending on how mushy your mince mixture is)

TOPPINGS: 1/2 red capsicum (sliced thinly), 1/2 onion (sliced thinly), mushrooms (sliced), shredded iceberg lettuce or any other greens of your preference

OPTIONAL Ingredients: 1 carrot (finely diced), a few mushrooms (finely diced), 1 egg (beaten and mixed into mince mixture to bing ingredients but can be omitted to reduce calories)

1. Mix all ingredients together in a large mixing bowl.

2. Set aside ( with cling wrap on for germs protection!!!) in refrigerator for at least 30 minutes.

3. Form mince mixture into patties of desired size. Coat surface with polento and pan- fry till surface is golden brown.

BURGER SAUCE: 2 TB soy sauce, 2 TB mirin, 2 TB red wine, 1 TB honey, 2 TB brown sugar (adjust quantity of sauces according to taste and number of patties you are cooking)

4. Heat sauce ingredients in a saucepan over medium heat and keep stirring to avoid sugar and honey burning at bottom of pan.

5. Add in sliced capsicum, onion and mushroom and stir till softened so that they can soak up the sauce.

6. At the same time, add beef patties that has been pan-fried on the surface. Turn fire to low heat.

6. Flip beef patties to other side after cooking for about 5-10 minutes (depending on size of yr patty).

7. Cook other side for about 5 minutes. Flip over and keep doing so till patty is cooked to desired done-ness and colour is deep brown with a reddish glow. (hard to describe! i cook alot based on intuition!)

And tada! Bento beef burgers to go!

P.S: at the end of writing this extremely long post, i realised that i've blogged about these burgers before! ahhh! silly forgetful me...oh wells...hahaha

much love,

granny bear

cell social night in foursomes

5 weeks ago, the beginning of the holidays sparked off an inspiration for an impromptu cell social dinner in me. so tired as i was from my last day of placement, i trudged through the rain to purchase some ingredients for a night of food and fiesta...

unfortunately, i should have been warned that last minute plans usually don't work out well. we had all the food in the world...but only 2 people( eunice and i being the original 2 people around) to enjoy it! oh dear! how disappointing! look at the spread prepared:
eunice's mixed vegetables salad: look at the royal hues of red and purple and green!

my sweet and sour grilled chicken wings with a spicy kick! this recipe was borrowed from another food blogger's website but i made some modifications to the ingredients to suit my own tastebuds...hehehe

eunice's carrot walnut cakes for dessert! YUM YUM! we always love her cakes:)

my stir-fried bee hoon with curry sauce on the side!

and just as i was lamenting the abundance of food and lack of people to eunice, guess who should turn up??? alison and dave! HURRAY! and dave made some kind of asian pork belly dish which i failed to take a picture of...so in the end, we had a cosy sort of gathering in our foursomes and spent a lovely night discussing cultural and gender differences...hahaha dave and alison always have so many interesting thoughts to impart!

so there ends a night of laughter and fun...with an abundance of leftovers to eat for the next few meals!

Mei's Birthday Cake

hmm...i know that this is a way overdue post but i haven't been satisfied enough with my food photography so far to put up any pictures. and seriously, the mind is lacking in inspiration for food write-ups due to more involvement in the area of food creation and experiments:)

yet, i owe zoe a promise for mei's birthday cake recipe and so...here is it:

Berry Delightful Birthday Sponge Cake!

Ingredients for lemon sponge cake:

follow this link:http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Lemon-Sponge-Cake-I/Detail.aspx

Ingredients for cream cheese filling and frosting :

WARNING: this was an impromptu trial-and-error filling that i came up with at the last minute so i didn't have exact quantities to follow. With the days that have passed since the birth of this cake, i must WARN that quantities might be a bit messed up! sorry!

250g tub of ricotta, 125g Philly cream cheese (softened at room temp and chopped up), 2/3 cup cream, 1/4 cup castor sugar, 100g melted white chocolcate, 1/3 cup mixed berries (frozen) 1 packet of 10g gelatin (melted under instructions of packet), 1 tsp of lemon zest for extra zang!

10 or more strawberries, thinly sliced for placing in between layers of cake

1) Whisk cream and castor sugar together till form soft peaks.
2) Add in ricotta and Philly cream cheese and whisk till smooth and creamy
3) Melt white chocolate in heatproof bowl over pot of boiling water. Stir in slightly cooled white chocolate into cream mixture from above.
3) Stir in mixed berries and beat for about 1 minute with electric whisk to break up berries.
4) Stir in slightly cooled gelatin and lemon zest till all well blended
5) Set in fridge for about 10 minutes till mixture is creamy and not liquiid-like.

Assembly of cake:

1) Place first layer of sponge on plate.
2) Spread a layer of cream cheese filling over. Place 1 layer of sliced strawberries over.
3) Cover with another layer of cream cheese.
4) Place sponge cake over.
5) Repeat and finally cover outter parts of cake with cream cheese filling, grated dark chocolate on sides and mixed berries on top.
6) Sprinkle some vanilla icing sugar over.

All done! Decoration for cakes is much more fun if you leave it up to your own creativity! so please don't be stifled by the massive list of to-dos here! you can choose to decorate your cake in any way that you think might please the cake-eaters and yourself of course!

much love,
granny bear

happy birthday june!

being the granny i am, the best way i express love to my friends is by cooking/baking for them. and the best time to do so would be when they are stressed/busy/having birthdays in the midst of exams!

and that was the case for dearest june, who always seem to be stuck in the middle of exams whenever her birthday happens! knowing that june prefers healthier meals with lighter taste, i decided to go jap-style for her birthday dinner, which when quite well i hope! the only sad part is that i made the meatball grill sauce a bit too salty as my tastebuds were horrendously affected by the nasty flu bug:(

but dearest june was so sweet that she didn't complain at all. and she obliged in posing for my food shots below:) i love you heaps, junie! hahaha...i was so busy laughing at june's expression that i couldn't keep still with the picture taking, try as i might:)

for side dishes: she had boiled tofu in dashi sauce sprinkled with chopped spring onion and seaweed strips. and at the background is just a simple steamed bokchoy with sesame oil sauce (not jap though!)

the main dish: grilled meatballs with japanese pumpkin braised in sweet mirin sauce, served on a bed of moist japanese rice with pink ginger and spring onion as decoration

the colourful layout of the birthday dinner:)

if you think this cake looks store bought, then you are wrong! teehee...this is a green tea mousse sponge cake with berry filling in it. quite decadent i must say given the amount of eggs and cream and cream cheese to make this cake. for the full recipe, go to this amazing website by aunty yochana!

that's all the updates for now folks!

happy birthday june! you are one of the gentlest, most patient and talented person i've ever known!