Noodles :Menu for the day (Part 1) ---Lunch

Lunch
I went to Isetan at Shaw on Saturday to buy soba, udon, seaweed and also tsuyu to test out for my family X'mas gathering. Was thinking of having some Japanese dishes on that day.

You can see my virgin attempt of zaru soba below, which I had for lunch today. Wasn't too bad but I felt that the brand of soba that I bought wasn't as springy as I liked. However, the sauce was pretty good. I give a thumbs UP for that.

I shall try the udon soon.

Makan Places :Incredibly busy day

1st part of the day
Yesterday was really a hectic day for me and Marky. We went to meet Cheryl, Pearl and Fang for lunch at IKEA (tampines). Gosh it a very wrong choice. We had to squeeze with so many people and even queue to just get in!

We actually intended to have the delicious swedish meatballs.
But we gave up upon looking at the neverending queue =(




We then dragged ourselves to the next alternative
--> Sausage buns and vanilla ice-cream!! But, just look at the number of hungry souls waiting to have the cheap & yummy sausages...

In the end, we left IKEA with these 2 hearts which was some sort of door gifts and...

a $2.50 colander...At least it wasn't a wasted trip. I told the guys that I don't think I'll visit Tampines IKEA within the next few months...I hope.. =)

2nd part of the day
After all the squeezing at IKEA, we then proceeded on to SITEX for more squeezing. All because of my spoilt camera which impeded me from taking more pics. So I bought a new PENTAX Optio S7, which is really a good deal @ $499! $100 below my budget!!!

It came with all the freebies like leather casing, tripod etc. And because it was the last day of SITEX, I was given a 2GB memory instead of the initial 1GB.

Marky also bought his LG flatron widescreen LCD monitor.

3rd part of the day
Knowing that there's a new fish shop at Macpherson Rd, my fish-lover Marky wanted to visit there. And so we went.. The fishes there weren't to my liking so we crossed the road to 1 of my family's fav 煮炒 place. Couldn't take pictures of the food as my cam's batteries are flat. But, the food there is really good.



4th part of the day
After dinner, we went back to my home to do aquascaping of my tank. We had to catch all the fishes and redo everything. By the time we are done, It's already past midnight. Totally dead beat by then.

Veggies : Noodles :Tofu Galoreeeee

Tofu aka 'Cheese of Asia' is really a wonderful invention and I can't live without it. It is full of benefits and we should all eat more of this insignificant but nutritious food. I've just cooked thes 1st recipe yesterday for my family and it was great! I also used the remaining marinated minced meat to cook the 2nd dish today.
Just to share with you 2 simple yet delicious tofu recipes that you can try at home...Cheers!

Steamed Prawns on Tofu with Minced Meat
(Adapted from FOOD & travel Volume II Issue 10)

Ingredients:
300g of fresh prawns, shelled and deveined
1 box of silky tofu
1 egg white, lightly beaten
Salt & pepper to taste
100g of pre-marinated minced meat (Salt, pepper, sugar, light soy sauce, sesame oil)
A splash of Shaoxing cooking wine

Oyster sauce to taste
1 bunch of spring onions, chopped
1 bunch of parsley, chopped
1 red chilli, chopped

Method:
1) Chop prawns into small pieces
2) Place tofu in a bowl with beaten egg white and seasoning. Mash into a rough paste
3) Add chopped prawns and lightly mix
4) Steam over high heat for 10mins

5) Add minced meat to the cooked tofu

6) Garnish with spring onions, parsley and red chilli

Minced Meat

1) Fry minced meat on high heat until almost cooked
2) Add Shaoxing cooking wine

3) Next, add oyster sauce to taste and a little water to make the sauce

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Golden Tofu with Minced Meat Sauce on Rice Noodles

Ingredients:

1 portion of rice noodles
A dash of sesame oil
1 tube of egg tofu, cut into thick slices
3 crab sticks (Optional), cut into small pieces

100g of pre-marinated minced meat (Salt, pepper, sugar, light soy sauce, sesame oil)
A splash of Shaoxing cooking wine

Oyster sauce to taste

Method:
1) Boil rice noodles until al dente

2) Put rice noodles under cold water and drain the water

3) Add a dash of sesame oil to rice noodles to prevent sticking together
1) Dry tofu properly with kitchen towel
2) Fry tofu until golden brown
1) Fry minced meat and pieces of crab sticks on high heat until almost cooked
2) Add Shaoxing cooking wine
3) Next, add oyster sauce to taste and a little water to make the sauce
1) Pour the minced meat sauce onto your rice noodles
2) Add tofu and garnishes if needed

Rice :Bibimbap

As I've said before that I love rice, I'm gonna post my fav food - Bibimbap. I think it literally means mixed rice in Korean.
Another reason why I love bibimbap is because I can put all my favourite ingredients in it and mixed them all up to eat. I kinda like mixing everything to eat and that's why Marky is always saying that I eat rubbish...lol
Anw, here's the recipe for bibimbap lovers.

Bibimbap

*This is my 2nd attempt while the below pics are my 1st. Pardon my pics below as they were taken with my hp*

Ingredients:
- 100g Chopped beef (I prefer to use chicken)
- 50g of bean sprouts
- 3 shitake mushrooms
- 1/3 carrot, julienned
- 1/2 bell pepper, julienned
- Corn bits (Amount depends on preference)
- 1 japanese cucumber, julienned
- Turnip (Amount depends on preference), julienned
- 1 egg
- Cooked rice (Amount depends on preference)

Sauce
- 4 tbsp Kochujang (I bought mine from *Shine Korean supermarket*)
- 1 tsp sugar
- 1 tbsp sesame oil
- 1 tbsp roasted sesame seeds

Marinate for beef
- A pinch of salt
- 1/2 tbsp Sesame oil
- A sprinkle of pepper
- 1 tbsp corn starch
- 1 tbsp light soy sauce
- 1 tsp sugar

**Marinate beef beforehand for 2hr or overnight**

Method:
1. Stir fry beef until lightly cooked

2. Drain and squeeze out all excess water from all vegetables and sprinkle salt on them

3. Add 1 tsp of sesame oil and stir-fry all vegetables individually (Adding another tsp of sesame oil after each vegetable)

4. Place rice in a deep bowl and add the prepared ingredients on the top of the rice
**For stone bowls, place the bowl on your stove to heat it up, adding 2 tsp of sesame oil to coat the bowl
before adding rice to it**


5. Fry a sunny side up egg and place it on top of the dish
**For stone bowls, you may place the raw egg on the side of the bowl to cook it slightly**


6. To make the sauce, mix the kochujang, sugar, sesame seeds and sesame oil together

7. Lastly, add the sauce to taste and mix everything together before eating


___________________________________________________________________

*Shine Korean supermarket* (This is where I bought my kochujang and my black bowl. )
Address: 175, Bencoolen Street, #01-10/11, Burlington Square, Telephone:62388897

You can also try the places below for Korean products:

- Koreana Trading Pte Ltd (Address: 163, Tras Street, #01-01, Lian Huat Building, Telephone: 63245016)

- Sin Korea Supermarket (511 Guillemard Road, #01-30, Telephone: 6844372)

Interruption to my foodblog :I'm a driftwood...

Oh no.. I've been drifting and drifting away from the main aim of this blog, which is to talk all about food. I'm finding excuses not to cook nowadays...

1. I'm getting fat
2. Marky's getting fat
3. I'm lazy
4. I have PMS??

and the list goes on.. This is very bad..I'm just too fickle minded. Someone please helpppppp me!

Interruption to my foodblog :Busy with what???

Met up with Angeline yesterday. Been 2 years since I've seen her. We had so much to talk about that we took the wrong train twice and the originally 5 mins train ride from Dhoby Ghaut to Orchard turned out to be a 20mins ride...This is the result of 2 blur people going out together =)

Went for express mani and pedi with her at Good Earth Nail Spa. It's nice to pamper myself once in a while. My feet is too ugly with blisters to show here.. so I shall spare all your eyes from it.

Later at night, we went to watch the movie "Step Up" and the dancing and cool moves are really nice! I know it has been out for quite some time already. But I really haven't watched a movie for quite long already. **Suaku

Thailand - Shoppers' paradise!

I've finally finished shifting my blog from mindsay to blogspot...Haven't really had the time to beautify my blog but I'll do that soon.

Another excuse for not blogging is because I had an appointment for retail therapy in Thailand. It's really great, being able to buy whatever I want as everything is CHEAP, CHEAP, CHEAP! Although me and my friends were dead beat at the end of every night, but I never regret going.

I know this is supposed to be a foodblog, but let me just let you have a peek at my 'buys' from Thailand...

Meat : Noodles : Veggies :What the baked chicken should have looked like...

In my 4th post, I mentioned about baked chicken and how disappointingly hard they were, here are some pics of what baked chicken should look like, although these are chicken drumsticks while the previous post's one is chicken breast.



Actually the marinate for both chicken is the same, but I have no idea why the outcome is so different.. Haha
Anyway, you may want to try this marinate next time when you are baking chicken.

Baked Chicken
Chinese Style (1 large drumstick ) **Amount is based on rough estimates**
+ Salt (A pinch)
+ Pepper (A pinch)
+ Sugar (1 teaspoon)
+ Honey ( I like to add more honey in my marinate, but it's up to personal preference)
+ Light soy sauce (2 teaspoon)
+ Dark soy sauce (1 teaspoon)
+ Sesame seed oil (2 teaspoons) *I like the taste of this, so I usually add quite abit*
+ ShaoXing Hua Diao Cooking Wine (绍兴花雕酒) (A dash of this if you like)

Easy Style (This is not in the picture)
+ Singlong Black Pepper sauce (Available in supermarkets)
~ This is our fav brand of black pepper sauce and is highly versatile. You can use it as marinate for meats & fish, fry spaghetti, crabs and button mushrooms with this.

Method:
Just preheat your oven before baking (Medium heat)
Make slits on chicken for faster cooking
Spread a little honey on chicken
Place chicken on a lightly greased tray
Bake for 10-20 mins for chicken breast meat and up to 30 minutes for a thick piece of chicken drumstick. (Always check your chicken every now & then as cooking time varies for different ovens)
When chicken is almost cooked, you may increase the temperature by a bit to achieve a nice golden brown colour.

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Crispy Baked Wedges

(Amount is based on rough estimate)
+ Salt
+ Black Pepper
+ Dried basil leaves
+ Paprika powder

Method:
Just preheat your oven before baking (Medium heat)
Place cut potato wedges onto a lightly greased tray
Sprinkle the above ingredients onto potato wedges
Bake until golden brown (Estimated timing: 30mins)

Makan Places :Feeling better...

I think I felt better after typing out all the bad things that happened to me.. so now I'm going to do what I should do...POST pictures of food!!

But before that, I feel that I should introduce this superb seafood (restaurant) in JB for those of you who loves to go JB for seafood...I must do justice to this place... It is both DELICIOUS and CHEAP!

I'm not too sure of the road name, but will find out from my dad soon.
Anyway, this places faces the causeway.




**My dad thought so hard about what to order as everything is nice**

Food that we've tried on Sunday was:
1) Smooth Egg Hor Fun (It was finished sooo fast that I forgot to take a pic of it)
2) Salted egg crab (First time trying but the taste was great too!)

3) Herbal chicken (Soup is nice, but they used Kampung chicken or 山芭鸡, so the meat tends to be tougher)

4) Dried shrimps fried with long beans (Highlight of the day! It's so fresh and crisp on the outside and juicy on the inside)

Other must try:
1) Black beer pork ribs (啤酒排骨)

Interruption to my foodblog: Bad Day!

Today is really a super duper bad day...This is the 2nd time I'm typing this post because my dumb fingers went to click on the links on my taskbar and *poof* all the things that I've typed and saved went missing..

Here's a list of BAD things that happened today in chronological order:

1) Nagged by my mum in the morning until I was super angry and screamed at her.

2) Felt bad after that.

3) Had a super hard time trying to debone 4 chicken thighs (Almost gave up due to the "very sharp" knives I have at home).

4) First attempt at baking cupcakes was a total failure.. I think it was more like a joke..My good fren, Val even gave it a Chinese name, "有起有落" which means if it goes up, it will come down (literally). The cupcakes kinda rose nicely at first, but later overflowed until nothing was left inside the cups.

5) Went swimming and sauna with Val until we were late to prepare dinner. I found my mum baking the chicken in the oven when we reached home. The chicken breast was too tough as the time taken was too long..All the chicken didn't achieve the usual standards.

6) Realised that I didn't trim my asparagus shorter and the bottom part turned out to be too tough.

7) The potato wedges that I made also didn't achieve the previous standard (Very disappointing! )

8) Didn't enjoy dinner as a result. (Only the sauteed brown button mushrooms were nice)

9) Went out to buy Rochor Tau Huey (Soybean curd) and the texture is totally not as smooth as last time and it's not sweet.. Waste of money =(

10) Lastly, knocked myself on almost everything no less than 3 times today.

Interruption to my foodblog: It's a record breaker! My 4th post!!!

I knew I can make it! 4 posts are nothing! I can do it in 2 days time..
MARKY.. I told ya I can do it!

Anyway, here are some background info on the food that I cook:

1. There are usually no fixed amount of ingredients to add. Everything is "agak agak" (Singlish for estimation)
2. Some of the recipes are made up by myself (Some may sound/taste weird to you)
3. You may not enjoy my food as much as I do (Taste differs from taste buds to taste buds)
4. But don't worry as you won't die from eating the food that I've invented/adapted from someone else
5. Most food are tried and tested by my dearest guinea pig

Desserts: Tiramisu for the holidays!

I'm currently enjoying my holidays, so I have plenty of time to write my blog and to prove myself wrong...I know I can upkeep my own blog! I will persevere!

Anyway, my first few posts in this blog is to update on some of food that I've cooked over the past years. I really regret not taking pictures of the food that I've cooked last time and now I can't even remember what I've done before.

Now, let me share with you a very easy tiramisu recipe given to me by my dear women, Charlene. This is really idiot proof and doesn't take long to make. The only bad thing about this is the amount of calories it will pile on me...But, whatever..I donch care!

Easy Tiramisu

Ingredients:
-Mascarpone cheese
-Whip cream (Those in a spray can)
-Lady fingers (Not the vegetable kind of lady finger)
-Any coffee drinks (Mocha, Cappuccino etc.)
-Cocoa powder

Method:
1) Mix Mascarpone cheese and whip cream together until smooth. (The proportion is up to you, the best results is for the cheese to be lesser than the cream so that the end product is smooth)

2) Lay the lady fingers at the bottom of your container until it covers the base

3) Use a teaspoon to gently pour your coffee drink on top of the lady fingers until it is soaked (Make sure it is just nice, not too wet or dry)

4) Next, spread the cream and cheese mixture evenly over the coffee-soaked lady fingers

5) Sprinkle cocoa powder on the cream and cheese mixture until it covers the entire surface

6) Repeat Steps 2 – 5 until it reaches the top of your container (Don’t sprinkle the cocoa powder for the last layer)

7) Refrigerate. (Sprinkle cocoa powder at the top of your tiramisu only when you want to consume it)

Voila, here you have your easy to make Tiramisu!

Rice: Our staple food - RICE

I loveeeeeee eating rice!
I guess I'm a 饭桶 (Rice Bucket?) - It basically refers to people who eats alot of rice. But I am quite fussy when it comes to eating rice as I hate hard rice. I only like it when my rice is soft and fluffy.
There are many types of rice, short grain, long grain etc. Different types to suit different taste buds. We used to eat normal white rice at home, but now there's a gradual change to brown rice.

Why gradual?
Because brown rice doesn't taste as good as white rice and it is alot harder (which doesn't appeal to me). However, it does have higher nutritional values.

How do you change gradually?
My mum mixes white rice with brown rice. She usually has 1 portion of white rice to 2 portions of brown rice.
But, as I still prefer softer rice, I changed that to 2 portions of white rice to 1 portion of brown rice. Here's my first attempt at cooking the mixed rice. **Note that you can add a tiny bit of cooking oil when cooking for better textured rice**

Interruption to my foodblog: Inner conversation between Food Junkie and herself

Me: I'm soooo happy...
Inner-self: Why?
Me: Because I've finally created my very own food blog!!!
Inner-self: Why create a food blog? Why not a blog that is all on ME? You'll have so much to talk about! Hehe..
Me: Cause I LOVE to eat! As you can see from my size.. muahahahah
Inner-self: But..Are you sure this is going to last? All your previous blogs didn't last more than 3 posts.
Me: Ermmm... I hope so...I'll try my best this time to break my record of 3 posts!