29 July 2012 (Sun) - Strawberry & Blueberry Ice Cream, Strawberry & Blueberry Smoothie and Oreo Milkshake

Wanted to make mango and passion fruit ice cream but was unable to get either of the fruit. Saw an offer on strawberries and blueberries so bought a punnet of stawberries at S$4.50 and two punnets of blueberries at S$4.95. Didn't follow any recipe in specific and the result was a crumply texture ice cream with strong taste of strawberries and blueberries. Either because I added too much strawberries and blueberries or because I added some honey.

Nice Strawberries and Blueberries Final Product

After blending all ingredients A close-up

Ingredients:

1.5 cup strawberries and blueberries

200ml whipping cream

1 tbsp strawberry honey

35g castor sugar

Method:

1.  Cut strawberries into small pieces

2.  Put all ingredients into blender and blend till smooth

3.  Pour into a container of your choice and put into the freezer

4.  Take out the mixture from the freezer after 2 hours and churn using a spoon

5.  Repeat step 4 for 2-3 times and leave the mixture to freeze overnight

Took some leftover strawberries and blueberries to make smoothie and it was yummy! Then I went on to make oreo milkshake which turned out to be more like smoothie. I guess it was either because I left the vanilla ice cream out for a bit too long or I had over blended the mixture or I should not have added milk at all.

Overall, I had a very berry good weekend with lots of brain food.

Oreo Milkshake

Strawberry & Blueberry Smoothie

Oreo Milkshake Ingredients: 1 cup vanilla ice cream 30ml milk 2 oreo cookies Method: 1.  Break cookies into small pieces 2.  Put all ingredients into blender and blend till smooth 3.  Pour into a glass and serve immediately

Strawberry & Blueberry Smoothie           Ingredients:        3/4 cup strawberries and blueberries        100ml plain yogur        30ml milk        1 tbsp sugar        Method:        1.  Cut strawberries into small pieces        2.  Put all ingredients into blender and blend till smooth        3.  Pour into a glass and serve immediately

22 Jul 12 (Sun) - Jackfruit Smoothie

Saw a fruit stall selling jackfruits in the market so bought 500g at $2 and used some to make smoothie. Refreshing for a hot day.

Ingredients:
2-3 jackfruit seeds
100ml plain yogurt
50ml milk

Method:
1.  Pour all ingredients into a blender and blend for 1 minute till smooth
2.  Pour into a glass and serve immediately

21 Jul 12 (Sat) - Nectarine Smoothie and Passion Fruit Smoothie

Saw an article on milkshake last weekend and immediately I thought of oreo milkshake. Searched the Internet for recipes and it seems that the main ingredient for milkshakes is vanilla ice cream. Other variation that uses yogurt is more like smoothie. Since I wanted to drink the healthier version, I bought yogurt to make smoothie instead.

Some nice Malaysia passion fruits were on sale in NTUC and bought a pack of six. I was given a nectarine and so used that as well. Both smoothie tasted rather distinct with the nectarine tasted sweet even without sugar while the passion fruit tasted a bit tangy even though I added one tablespoon of sugar.

Nectarine before cut Malaysia passion fruits Nectarine Smoothie

Nectarine in small pieces Pulp and seeds of passion fruits Passion Fruit Smoothie

Nectarine Smoothie

Ingredients:
100ml plain yogurt
50ml milk
1 nectarine

Method:
1.  Cut the nectarine into small pieces and discard the pit
2.  Pour all ingredients into a blender and blend for 1 minute till smooth
3.  Pour into a glass and serve immediately

Passion Fruit Smoothie

Ingredients:
100ml plain yogurt
50ml milk
1 tbsp sugar
3 passion fruits' pulp and seeds

Method:
1.  Pour all ingredients into a blender and blend for 1 minute till smooth
2.  Pour into a glass and serve immediately

5 Jul 12 (Thu) - Kimchi Fried Rice

When you have leftover rice and kimchi in the fridge, the next logical thing to cook is kimchi fried rice. Added a sunny side up and these became my quick dinner fix.

1 Jul 12 (Sun) - Caramelized Apple Slice Pancakes

Have not made pancakes for quite a while and since I have an apple in the fridge so decided to do experimental cooking today. Bought a box of instant maccha pudding some time back from NTUC and decided to make that too. Since I still have two pieces of tuna steak in the freezer so cooked them as well.

Maccha Pudding Caramelized Apple Slices

Tuna Tataki Caramelized Apple Slice Pancakes

Caramelized Apple Slices

Ingredients:

1 red apple, washed, cored and sliced

2 tbsp white sugar

30g butter

Method:

1.  Heat Happycall pan over low heat for 1-2 minutes

2.  Melt butter in the pan and swirl it around to spread it and prevent it from burning

3.  Place apple slices in pan and stir them around till they are completely cover with butter

4.  Add sugar and continue to stir and cook for another 10 minutes or till apple slices begin to soften and brown slightly

5.  Remove apple slices and apple syrup separately from pan and set aside

Caramelized Apple Slice Pancakes (Makes 8 pieces)

Ingredients:

8 caramelized apple slices

1 cup self-rising flour

2 tbsp butter, melted

1 cup milk

1/2 tsp salt

1 egg

Method:

1.  Mix all ingredients except apple slices together till well combined

2.  Preheat Happycall pan for 2 minutes over low heat

3.  Place an apple slice in the pan and pour 3 tbsp batter around it

4.  Once the bubbles on top start to break, flip the pancake over and cook for another 1-2 minutes

5.  Repeat till batter is finished

6.  Serve with apple syrup and butter

Note: You can serve pancake with anything from fruit jams, honey, icing sugar to whipped cream

Recipe for Caramelized Apple Slice Pancakes submitted to Munch Ministry

17 Jun 12 (Sun) - Aglio Olio 4-Cheese Ravioli and Black Glutinious Rice Porridge Ice Cream [Bubur Pulut Hitam Es Krim] (黑糯米粥冰淇淋)

While doing marketing at Carrefour last Friday, I bought a pack of ravioli. The packaging was in French so I could not read how to prepare the ravioli. Therefore, I had to cook it my own way by just boiling them. Since I didn't get any cream sauce or tomato sauce, hence had to just make the ravioli the aglio olio way. Hrm... I still miss the one I had from "Lavelle Street Café" in Advancetown, Brisbane.

  

Yesterday made bubur pulut hitam ice cream so today took it out from the freezer to try. It was very hard and I had to thaw it for about 10 minutes before it can be scoop easily. Taste wise, the bubur pulut hitam taste was not intense and I think it would have been better if I had put less of the glutinous rice and added the syrup instead because texture wise, I think it is tiring for the jaw to have to chew the glutinous rice. Did try to blend the mixture yesterday hoping to breakdown the glutinous rice to smaller bits but wasn't very successful. Hrm... Maybe I should have made them into popsicle instead just like the red bean potong.

Ingredients:
1 cup black glutinous rice porridge*
140ml evaporated milk
200ml coconut milk
6 tsp icing sugar

Method:

1.  Mix all ingredients together in a blender and blend for 3 minutes
2.  Pour into a container of your choice and put into the freezer
3.  Take out after 2 hours to churn
4.  Repeat for another 2-3 times and leave in the freezer to freeze overnight

* About 50g of black glutinous rice yield one cup

16 Jun 12 (Sat) - Grapefruit Juice and Bubur Pulut Hitam Dango

Bought a Toyomi blender from Tangs last Saturday and wanted to try it out this weekend. Went marketing at Carrefour yesterday and saw some grapefruits. I remembered Dr. Oz mentioned something about drinking grapefruit juice to lose weight so bought two to try them on the blender. Grapefruit juice on its own doesn’t taste so good, therefore, I added one tablespoon of Happy Sheep strawberry honey to it. The result was yummy!

After the previous attempt at the coco nana ice cream and some reading up, it seems that instead of just using whipping cream to make ice cream, the alternative is to use evaporated milk and coconut milk. Using the coco nana ice cream recipe as a guide, I had this idea of creating the bubur pulut hitam ice cream. So soaked the black glutinous rice overnight and cooked them early this morning. Then measured about one cup of the cooked glutinous rice and added them to the evaporated milk and coconut milk and blended using the blender. True to what I read, the whisked evaporated milk increased in volume tremendously compared to my previous attempt of just whisking using a hand whisk. As the mixture wasn’t sweet enough, I added another six teaspoons of icing sugar before pouring into a container and chucking into the freezer. Will only know the taste tomorrow.

Since I still have some bubur pulut hitam left, I used the syrup to make dango. The uncooked dango were light purple in color and one thing I noticed was that using the syrup to form the dough, the dough wasn’t as sticky as the one formed using just hot water. I wonder why. Boiled the uncooked dango and once they floated, transferred them to cold water then drained them before skewering. Didn’t pan-fry them this time round and just pour some bubur pulut hitam over the skewered dango. The syrup gave a nice purple color to the dango after they were cooked; however, the bubur pulut hitam didn’t stick well to the dango like anko does.

The uncooked dango in white and light purple:

Some photos of the cooked dango with bubur pulut hitam on the newly acquired plates :

12 Jun 12 (Tue) - Mitarashi Kushi Dango

Last week I made song pyeon and I tried to heat them up the next day using the Happycall pan and some oil. Surprisingly, the slight crispy skin made them rather tasty. So yesterday I did a search on the Internet using "grilled rice balls". The results were grilled sushi rice balls which was not what I wanted. So did a more refined search and found that what I wanted was actually called dango.

Upon more searches, I realised that there are many different types of dango and most of the recipes found were on mitarashi dango. Saw one by Nami of Just One Cookbook but her recipe calls for both non-glutinous rice flour and glutinous rice flour. I only have the latter and so went on to post on her blog asking if I can just use glutinous rice flour and she said it is possible. Then I saw another recipe by Terri of Hunger Hunger which only uses glutinous rice flour and she said her sauce is better than most because she doesn't use cornflour to thicken the sauce.

Did a few more searches and found another recipe on hanami dango, I was attracted to the pretty colors of the dango so I began brainstorming. Thought I will try making the mitarashi kushi dango tomorrow evening then I can make use of today and tomorrow afternoon to source for nice plates for the photo shoot. However, my impatience got the better of me and so here we are.

After boiling and skewered After drizzling with mitarashi sauce

After pan frying A close-up

Ingredients (Make 12): 25g glutinous rice flour 1 tsp sugar hot water 1 tsp oil a drop of blue food coloring

Ingredients (Sauce): 1/2 tbsp light soya sauce 1/2 tbsp mirin 2/3 tbsp sugar 2 tbsp water

Method:
1.  Mix glutinous rice flour with sugar
2.  Divide the mixture into two portions
3.  Add hot water little by little to one portion of the mixture and knead the dough with hands
4.  Tear out some dough and roll it between the palms to make rice balls
5.  Add a drop of blue food coloring to the hot water to make a light blue solution
6.  Repeat step 3 and step 4
7.  Bring some water to a boil in a pot and add in the rice balls
8.  When the rice balls float, remove them from pot and place into a bowl of ice water for 5 minutes
9.  Drain the rice balls and skewer them three to a stick
10.   Heat up the oil in a non-stick pan over low heat and roll the skewered rice balls around for about 5-8 minutes
11.  Turn off the heat and arrange the skewered rice balls on a serving plate
12.  Boil all the sauce ingredients over low heat till thicken*
13.  Turn off the heat, drizzle the sauce over the rice balls and serve

* Amount of sugar and light soya sauce can be adjusted to taste

10 Jun 12 (Sun) - Rosti (Happycall Version #2)

About three months ago, I tried cooking rosti using the Happycall pan and commented that it was no difference from using normal non-stick pan coz I still had to put oil and flip the rosti using the usual method. Recently, while browsing the Munch Ministry website, I saw a rosti recipe cooked using the Happycall pan posted by a member. The recipe states that potatoes don't have to be cooked beforehand and no oil is added. So I tried it out today and the result?

The rosti was was very soft and there were a lot of water droplets on the cover of the pan when I opened it after four minutes. Tried to flip the rosti over by flipping the pan and the rosti was still stuck to the top side of the pan. So had to flip the pan back and try to unstick the rosti from the pan. Then drizzled some oil over the rosti before flipping the pan over and cooked with the cover open. It took quite a while for the rosti to be crispy and the end result was not the same as those from my own recipe.

Also after I was done with the first rosti,  when I wanted to add the rest of the shredded potatoes into the pan, I saw brown liquid collected at the base of the pot where I put the shredded potatoes. I wonder what has caused that to happen. Could it be due to the types of potatoes used or coz of the fact that they were raw? Overall, the method of cooking didn't differ much from my own. I would prefer to cook the potatoes beforehand coz I find that the resulted rostis have a lighter texture instead of being compact and dense.

Shredded Potatoes

First Rosti

Second Rosti

4 Jun 12 (Mon) - Song Pyeon

After serveral failed attempts at making song pyeon and yesterday's failure at making the sweet rice and pumpkin tteok, I decided to give song pyeon another try. Googled for recipes and I got confused because some recipes called for glutinous rice flour while some called for non-glutinous rice flour.

As I only have glutinous rice flour so had to use that instead. And since I still have some pumpkin paste left, so used that as the filling and even mixed a bit of it to make the dough. This time I used the boiling method, the result were not too ugly but still nowhere close to the actual song pyeon which has more shape and volume. Mine were more towards the flat side. I wonder if it has anything to do with the type of flour used or the method of cooking which should have been steaming.

Normal plain dough Uncook song pyeon

Dough with pumpkin paste added Cooked song pyeon

Close-up