Blueberry Cupcakes 蓝莓小蛋糕

Noobcook had her first successful bake, Blueberry Muffin and it didn't look like it was her first at all. Bluff! ;P Blueberries are very expensive here. I never thought I would try them till I saw a local supermarket was having them for sale, organic some more and it was a mere S$2.30 a punnet!! I grabbed 3 and went back to check out Noobcook's recipe. She's using imperial measurement whilst I'm more comfortable with metric measurement and I was too lazy to do the conversion. I had to abandon the idea of using her recipe and used one of the regular cupcake recipe I had instead. The next time blueberries are on sale again, I shan't be lazy and do the conversion because her muffins look too darn good! Here's my recipe if you prefer meteric measurement and especially blueberries. They are yummy! Ingredients:

• 220g Butter, soften
• 200g Caster Sugar
• 4 Eggs
• 220g Self Rasing Flour
• 2 punnet Blueberries

How to do it:

1. Cream butter and suger till light and fluffy.
2. Add one egg at a time and continue beating.
3. Add in flour and beat well till mixture is smooth and pale.
4. Fold in the blueberries till combined.
5. Spoon batter into muffin cup.
6. Bake for 20 minutes in preheat oven at 170C.
7. Cool on rack.

One of a kind, Tangy Wings

My late grandmother-in-law used to do this but in the deep frying version. She used black vinegar and the moment you sink your teeth into one, you'll start to salivate.

I like it except for the smell. I find vinegar too pungent. And so I have tweak it a little. You might find it weird because usually chicken wings are either sweet or saltish. I doubt you have seen or tried sourish wing before. But who knows you might love it at first bite! ;)

I used to make this for my sister and her classmates. That was before I got married. It was the only (deep fried) chicken wings I know how to do then. Probably the only thing I know how to cook too. :P

My sister is 8 years my junior so she was still in school when I started working. Her classmates would come over to our place to study and she would ask me to prepare this for them as snack. It was their favourite and the only place to have it was our place, by ... me. ;)

Now, this is my son's favourite. :) But I bake it instead so it's less oily.

If you game for something different, try this.

You will need to marinate your wings with 4 part lime or lemon juice, though I prefer lime, with 1 part light soy sauce. I add in 1 tablespoon of (white) pepper powder too. It won't be hot but it gives the wings a light pepper smell. You can omit that if you wish. You don't have to marinade this over-night. 4 to 5 hours should be enough.

I used to just drain the wings and deep fried them till golden brown. Yeah, no flour required but do remember to put a lid on when you deep fried. Don't come asking me to clean your kitchen if you don't. ;) That was when I don't have an oven.

You can bake it instead, if you have an oven or grill it. Spread some oil on the wings before you bake them. I would not suggest using butter here. You have to repeat spreading oil sparingly on the wings a couple more time. Till they are done. Like the Sweet Honey BBQ Wings, I bake this at 180C for 30 minutes or till thoroughly cooked and a further 7 minutes at 200c to get it brown.

Seriously, deep frying them taste a lot nicer. Ooo ... The super crispy skin! Fried or baked? You decide. ;)

Roasted Sweet Garlic Ribs

This is one of my many favourites. In fact, my kids and friends too. This is like 'char siew' (sweet roasted lean meat). Maybe if you use lean meat, it will look more like 'char siew'. I prefer to use ribs ... because I like to eat with my hands. :P Yeah! Hold the rib by the bone and clean the meat off. It's especially nice with a little fat on the meat. ;) You can leave the garlic if you don't like it but me and the kids love garlic. Did I say my daughter loves to eat fried (minced) garlic on its own? ;) Ingredients:

• 500g Ribs
• 3 tablespoon Minced Garlic (optional)
• 2 tablespoon sugar
• 1 tablespoon Cooking Wine
• 1/2 tsp Salt
• 500ml Chicken Broth
• 1 tablespoon Honey

How to do it:

1. Blanch the ribs.
2. In a new pot, add ribs and all the other ingredients except honey.
3. Bring to a boil.
4. Reduce heat to low fire and simmer for 45 to 60 minutes, till the ribs are tender.
5. Remove the ribs and place on foil and retain the sauce.
6. Add honey to the sauce to be used for basting.
7. Bast ribs with sauce and roast in oven at 170C for 10 minutes.
8. Repeat for a few times or till ribs are brown.

Note: If you don't have an oven, you can shallow fry the ribs till brown. Bring the sauce with the honey to a boil and then coat the ribs evenly with it.

Baked Portabello Mushroom with Ham and Cheese

I started blogging in mid June 2006. No, it's not my Blog's aniversary post. It all started when I make friends with some mummies in a parenting forum and continued to chatting on MSN. We are still in contact and had recently met-up with one of them all the way from Dubai. :)

Anyway, I was just learning how to cook then and we often exchange pointers, err ... maybe me getting more cooking pointers out from them. :P I was tried replicating the particular dish I had from the Cafe from Borders I had years ago and was chatting about it with my friends.

It occurred to me that it would be so much easier if I had it record down (somewhere) so anyone who is interested can see it. ( I didn't know it's blogging then. hehehe ...) Then one of friends told me to try MSN Space which was giving me lots of problems after 3 months and I decided to move 'house' to Multiply and I got all my friends to start blogging there too. And that started the blogging craze in my little circle of online friends. I moved 'house' 3 months later to Blogger and settled down here in December 2006.

Well, that's my (food) blogging history and that dish that started all these is ... Baked Portabello Mushroom with Ham and Cheese. I'm posting this dish and some of the other 'older' dishes later with the little changes I made in cooking them. If you have not been cooking a particular dish you once loved, maybe it's time to heat up your wok and surprise your family with the familiar taste.  

Ingredients:

• 1 Portabello Mushroom (I'm using medium sized here)
• 2 teaspoon Butter
• 1/2 slice Ham, cut into 3 or able to fit mushroom
• 1/2 slice Cheese
• Parsley Flakes (optional)

How to do it:

1. Remove stalk from mushroom and clean it with a damp cloth.
2. Spread some butter on the cap of the mushroom abd put the rest on the underside. If you have butter spray, use that instead.
3. Put the mushroom with underside up.
4. Bake in preheated oven at 180C for 2 minutes.
5. Turn the mushroom around and continue bake for another 1 minutes.
6. Turn the mushroom underside up again and place ham on it and spread a little butter on the top ham. If the mushroom is to dry add more butter.
7. Bake for a 1 minute.
8. Top with cheese and continue baking till cheese melts.
9. Remove and top with parsley flakes if you like.
10. Serve immediately.

Stir Fry Pork with Mushroom in Miso

This is one of my many cooking experiment. I was trying to finish my low salt miso paste. :P The kids hates it when I use that to make miso soup. So I had to use it on other cooking. I kinda like it. My husband said it's nice. I guess if you like miso, you might like this.

Ingredients:

• 200g Lean meat, sliced
• 6 Fresh Shitake Mushroom, cut into quarters
• a handful of (Brown) Shimeiji mushroom, stems removed (optional)
• 1 teaspoon Minced Garlic
• 1 teaspoon Light Soya Sauce
• 1 teaspoon Corn Flour
• 1/2 tablespoon Oil

Seasoning to be mixed together:

• 1/2 tablespoon Miso Paste
• 1 tablespoon Water

How to do it:

1. Marinate pork with light soy sauce for 30 minutes.
2. Add in corn flour to pork prior cooking and mix well.
3. Heat wok with oil.
4. Saute garlic till fragrant.
5. Add in pork and stir fry for half a minute.
6. Add in the mushroom and continue stir frying for 20 seconds.
7. Stir in the seasoning.
8. Continue cooking till pork is completely cook and sauce has thicken.
9. Dish and serve.

Corn and Celery Soup 玉米西芹清汤

Half a year ago, my husband when for his regular check-up and was told that his cholesterol was rather high.

Now, if you can recall, I did many fish dishes as that was what he was advised to eat more. Well except for promfet and ikan bilis WITH heads on, as both will bring up the cholesterol level especially the later which is extreme high on cholesterol. Don't even think of using it to make stock. So next time, buy those without the head on.

Anyway, back to my husband's little 'diet'. He took very little meat and seafood. His dinner is mostly fish, vegetables and soup. This is one of the regular soup I made for him. Celery soup. Do you know celery can help lower cholesterol?

The bad thing is, he hates celery. So in order to bring down the taste of celery. I added onion and corn together with celery to had it sweeter. Sometimes with carrots. It's very much like the 'ABC' Soup except this has more celery in it. It's really not that bad. Maybe, I like celery. ;)

Although, his cholesterol is back to normal now, I still make this regular. Maybe I should try my luck and make him eat salad with lots of celery - raw. ;P

Bacon Nuggets

Wow! It's has been more than a month since my last update. I had been busy for the past few weeks. Had lots of activities - gatherings (at my place, so lots of cleaning and cooking), birthday celebrations, get-together with relatives coming back to Singapore to visit, kids' school activities, then the kids were sick and now I'm sick. But anyway, this update shows that I'm still very much alive. Did anyone miss me? :P Just a quick post 'cause I'm still not very well. I have been coughing my lungs out. :( This is a kid's favourite and I bet it will be a great finger food for parties. The basic ingredients are streaky bacon and fish paste. I have added grated carrot here though you can't really see it. Shorten the streaky bacon by cutting it in half. Spread some fish paste on it and roll it. The ends of the bacon should be touching or overlapping each other a little. If you would like to add in some chopped or shredded veggies or mince meat, mix them in the fish paste first before spreading on the bacon. Do not put it too much fish paste as it will expand and the bacon will shrink a little when cooked, then the bacon may burst open - not very nice visually. ;) After that, pan fry it with the ends of the bacon facing down on low to medium fire and don't add oil. Once the ends of the bacon had 'stick' together, turn to other sides and continue cooking till the fish paste is cooked. Alternatively, you may want to steam it first before pan frying it. It's faster to cook and healthier too. But do remember to use toothpick to hold the bacon together. Before serving, dab the bacon nuggets with paper towels to remove excess oil. And there you have it, Bacon Nuggets. Enjoy!