easy fish stew

I wish I had clearer photographs of the fish stew that I cooked on 24 May 2014.  Unfortunately, by the time I got home late from a work meeting, there were no leftovers for me.  Da said that the dish was good and he is very easy-going with his palate so if he said it was good, it would have been pretty good, I guess.... haha...

This is a cheater-bug recipe.  It is so easy that I do not even know where to begin insofar as typing the recipe is concerned.

So here goes...

INGREDIENTS

1 can Campbell cream of mushroom

200g salmon fillet (cut into large slices - like in the photograph above)

4 cherry tomatoes

6 baby carrots (halved)

1 bay leaf

2 baby corn (halved)

1 stick celery (cut into large pieces)

1 potato (cut into large cubes)

1 medium red onion (quartered)

METHOD

1. Mix all the ingredients together.

2. Refrigerate for at least an hour (preferably overnight).

3. Cook in a slowcooker.

4. Serve hot with steamed rice.

braised chicken drumsticks

I have good news and bad news.

The good news is that these braised chicken drumsticks were so yummy that there were no leftovers for me when I got home late from a work meeting today.  

The bad news is that I had not had dinner yet when I got home.

I did not get the opportunity to take more photographs other than the above photograph that I took when I was cooking the drumsticks.  Sob, sob....

So this recipe is a keeper.  In fact, I'm toying with the idea of making variations of this.  Let's see how things progress... So far, I am more adventurous in varying baking recipes as compared to cooking recipes but there's always a first time.

INGREDIENTS (marinade)

2 tbsp honey

1/2 tbsp oyster sauce

1 tsp sesame oil

1/2 tsp light soya sauce
4 cloves of garlic (whole)

OTHER INGREDIENTS

6 chicken drumsticks

1 bay leaf

1 carrot (cut into chunks)

1 stick celery (cut into big pieces)

1 carrot (cut into large cubes)

4 dried mushrooms

1 red onion (quartered)

4 cherry tomatoes

METHOD

1. In a large bowl, mix the marinade well.

2. Add the other ingredients and mix with the marinade.

3. Refrigerate for at least an hour (preferably overnight).

4. Cook in a slow cooker or a rice cooker with soup function (select the soup function).

5. Serve piping hot with steamed white rice.

red velvet cupcake

I have heard about "red velvet cake" for some time.  The lovely looking cake has always intrigued me although I have not gotten around to baking it.

The Chickadees' childcare centre is closed today for the school move. Baby Chickadee has gone to her ex-babysitter's home for the day. In fact, my niece will be joining Baby Chickadee at the sitter's home, at least for several hours. What fun the two little munchkins will have today!

As for Princess Chickdee, her classmate's mother has very kindly offered to let Princess Chickadee hang out at her home today for a playdate with Princess Chickadee's classmate.

This is the first time that Princess Chickadee has gone on a playdate without me. Would she shed tears when I leave for work? Well, as it turned out, she was so happy to arrive at her buddy's home that she promptly forgot about me. Instead, it was I who kept lingering on at the doorway, trying to say "bye" yet another time to my beloved girl.

It is customary in our culture that when you go to another person's home, you do not turn up empty-handed. However, I worked late yesterday and as such, I did not have time to buy anything for Princess Chickadee to bring to her friend's home. As such, after I got home from work, I decided to bake some cupcakes. Princess Chickadee just had a playdate with some of her schoolmates at Gardens By The Bay on 13 May 2014 and as such, I did not want to bake butter cupcakes again. At this juncture, red velvet cupcakes came to mind. It was time to give this a try!

The verdict? I am pleased with this first attempt at red velvet cupcakes. As you can see from the photograph above, the cupcake turned out lovely.

This is an easy recipe, so do give it a try!

INGREDIENTS

2 1/2 cups cake flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 tbsp cocoa powder
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup buttermilk (or 1 cup milk + 1 tbsp lemon juice)
2 tbsp liquid red colouring
125g butter (softened)
1 1/2 cups castor sugar
1 tsp apple cider vinegar
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

METHOD

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees celsius.

2. Line the cupcake pans with paper cases.  Set aside.

3. Sift the cake flour, baking powder, salt and cocoa powder in a bowl.  Set aside.

4. Mix the eggs, vanilla extract, buttermilk and liquid red colouring in a bowl.  Set aside.

5. Cream the butter with the sugar in a mixing bowl until light and fluffy.

6. Add the dry ingredients alternately with the wet ingredients into the butter/sugar mixture, mixing well with each addition.

7. Mix the vinegar with bicarbonate of soda in a small bowl before quickly mixing it into the cake mixture.

8. Scoop into the prepared cupcake pans.

9. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle of the cupcake comes out clean.

moist apple cupcake

Have you ever heard of a recipe so easy that you enjoy baking the item again and again and again?

Well, on 17 May 2014 (Saturday), my baking hands were "itchy" and I rummaged through my refrigerator to see what ingredients I had available.  I chanced upon 2 red apples in the refrigerator.  Now... what can I bake with 2 red apples.

As I tell the juniors in my office that I mentor (jokingly, of course!), "let's ask Mr Google".  And so out came my ipad and I googled "apple cake".  Many links came up and I browsed through them, mindful of the fact that Baby Chickadee would wake up from her nap soon and I wanted a recipe that was "chop chop".

After browsing several links, I came across a recipe for an apple cake that claimed to be the easiest apple cake recipe in the world. Intrigued, I looked at the recipe and the steps were tremendously easy.  Although the recipe called for green apples, well... I only had red apples in the refrigerator and they would have to do.

And so I gave the recipe a try.  It was super duper easy.  PIL came over for dinner that day and MIL (who has discerning tastebuds when it comes to my bakes) gave it the thumbs up.

I had lunch with a colleague on 19 May 2014 (Monday) and I raved about the recipe to her.  We talked about baking a cupcake version of the apple cake.  It just so happened that in the morning of 19 May 2014, I bought green apples, red apples, pears and bananas from a fruit shop near my office.  And throughout the work meeting that I had that night, as I was furiously taking down meeting notes, my mind was concurrently wandering and thinking about baking green apple cupcakes, so much so that when I got home (late!), I packed the Chickadees' schoolbags as quickly as I could, did a bit of housework and then I determinedly took out my baking tools.  Da entered into the kitchen and asked me what I was doing.  I replied that I was going to bake green apple cupcakes.  He gave me one of those "at this hour?  sigh..." look and left me alone.

And I got down to business.

The recipe that you see in this post is modified from the apple cake recipe that I used on 17 May 2014.

INGREDIENTS

1 cup self-raising flour

1 tsp baking powder

dash of ground cinnamon

1/2 cup castor sugar

1 egg

125 butter (melted)

2 green apples (diced)

METHOD

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees celsius.

2. Line the cupcake pans with the paper cases.

3. Mix all the ingredients together.

4. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle of the cupcake comes out clean.

TIPS

1. The original recipe called for double the amount of sugar that you see in the recipe above.  I cut down the sugar by half and it was sweet enough for my tastebuds.

2. You can also add a dash of ground nutmeg.

3. The apples need not be peeled but if you prefer not to eat the skin of the apple, by all means, do peel them.

4. You can substitute the green apples with red apples.

NOTES

This recipe yields a very moist cupcake.  Be forewarned that you may find yourself reaching for a second cupcake!