Father's Day Dinner

Father's day just passed and it was another wonderful opportunity to put the mindand a hungry stomach to the test. JJ, LL, KK, and I combined our efforts together and created a Father's Dinner for all the fathers and church members that were over at our place. According to my mom, it "turned out better than [she] thought". I'll take it as a compliment. =) JJ had made a chicken noodle minus the noodle soup, which was absolutely delicious but unfortunately didn't get a picture taken. The Line up is as follows:

Appetizer - Cucumber and marinated red bell pepper spring rolls with an asian peanut sauce

Soup - Chicken noodle minus the noodle

Meat dishes - Shanghai Drunken Drumsticks (thanks to Yaya) and steamed ribs with garlic and fermented beans

Veggie Dish - Mushrooms in rice wine with green onions

with a side of rice of course!

Dessert - Strawberry yogurt jello with canned peaches

ENJOY!

A Year and some Later...

Today, JJ and I collabo'ed and created a dinner for my mom's birthday. we had creamy mash potatoes, grilled lamb shanks with 3 types of mushrooms, and prosciutto with cantaloupe for appetizer - all paid for by LL. Believe me when i say, IT WAS HELLA GOOD and followed by, last, but nonetheless, tiramisu cake from Sheng Kee (gift from KK). it was unbelievably pleasant working with someone else in the kitchen. It made me realize how great the results of team work can be. I hope I get more opportunities like this.

weeeeeee

it's been a while! life's been very busy. however, in all that crazy madness i managed to come up with something: 

Baklava!- A sweet and crunchy dessert that originated somewhere in central asia; something I've made before but have improved since then. I used one day's time to make this two inch tall goodness and man, was it worth it! if you would like to have the recipe, here it is:

Ingredients:

• 1lb phyllo dough (14x18 sheets, 20+ count)
• 1 lb chopped walnuts
• 1 c butter, melted
• 1 ts cinnamon

      Syrup:

• 1 c water
• 1 c white sugar
• 1 ts vanilla extract
• 1/2 c honey
• 1/2 ts lemon juice

Procedure:

1. Mix together nuts and cinnamon in a bowl
2. apply butter to a 13x9 in pan
3. lay down one sheet of phyllo dough and apply butter. repeat until you've got 5 layers
4. spread some nut mix on top of the 5 layers
5. repeat steps 3-4 until you've made at least 6 layers of phyllo + nut mix
6. layer at least 10 sheets of phyllo dough on top of the whole thing
7. preheat oven to 350F
8. cut into diamond or rectangular shapes 
9. bake in oven for 50 min
10. meanwhile, mix sugar, water, lemon juice until homogenous and add vanilla and honey and simmer 20 min. let cool.
11. spoon sauce over hot baklava
12. let sit for at least a day (that's when it's real good. but if you can't wait, at least 4 hrs is enough... i guess)

V-Day Lunch

V-Day Lunch was supposed to be a picnic but since it was raining, that didn't happen. So instead, a quick change of menu got me thus far:

Chocolate Pudding with Brownies and Eclair

Breakfast Quesadilla

Hot Dogs and Grilled Veggies (Sloppy!!)

1st of the Year of the Ox

Happy Chinese New Year! Happy year of the ox! I had the honor of cooking the very first dinner of the year. Udon noodle in Soy sauce base soup with fish cake, meat cake, mushrooms, and fish cake, garnished with some seaweed. Oo! So Good.

Banana Sago Dessert

So today I had a craving for some Sago and luckily, I found I still had some left over. So then while I was looking up how to cook this stuff (because I've only done it once before), I landed on another blogger's page, which inspired me to both make the dessert the way I did and to start this blog. 

The dessert kinda came out the way I hoped since I was just experimenting with it. I was going to make it a liquidy dessert with milk and slices of banana to compliment, but instead decided to test Sago's gelatinous charatcteristic. The mold that I had poured out came from a larger ramekin with less dessert, hence why the heap is quite small. The liquid around the gelatinous hill is milk and banana puree that didn't solidify as well as the Sago itself. I ended up pouring more milk into the dish and mixing it up, making it less viscous, and I found that the Sago has a flavor of its own, which I didn't particularly enjoy. From this I learned that the Sago will solidify and so I will be using it in future desserts. 

Ingredients:

1/4 cup Sago pearls

1.25 cups water

couple sprinkles of sugar

Milk + 1 banana (ripe with brown spots)

Makes: 2 small + 1 big ramekins

New Year... New Blog... New Things... New....

Since it is the new year, I figured why not start a new blog, where I can post all my exciting food adventures and food creations. Are you as excited as I am? kekeke...