Microwaved chocolate and banana cake with almonds

If there's one thing I'm impatient about, its waiting for your oven to heat up. I always thought it was such a waste of energy to heat up a whole oven to bake one small cake. So I wondered if I could do this in a microwave too and hence embarked on the journey of the microwaved cake. I think this cake is best eaten warm out of the microwave and if you like you could even make a ganache for it, but I'm lazy so a little sprinkling of icing sugar will do the trick for me. It turned out moist and quite flavorsome, slightly different from oven baked, but definitely something you should try just because its so easy and quick.

Ingredients:
-100g caster sugar (you can use brown, refined any type you like), I like the cake less sweet hence going with 100g, but I'm the type that drinks my bubble tea at 50% sugar, however, if you're the type that likes your cakes sweeter and richer, use 140g.
-150g flour (I used a combination of 75g plain flour and 75g normal flour, if you don't have self raising, just use a teaspoon of sodium bicarbonate with your plain flour)
- 2 eggs
- 1 large ripe banana, mashed
- 15-20 almonds/ peacans, chopped
- 50ml olive oil (or vegetable oil, I used olive as its healthier)
- 90ml fresh whole milk
- 2.5 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder

Directions:
First grease a microwavable receptacle with oil so the cake won't stick to the sides, or you could choose to line the bowl, plate, dish with baking paper.
Separate the eggs into yolks and whites, cream the yolk with the sugar and beat the whites in another bowl. This step is not strictly necessary but I just like my cake lighter. If you choose to skip this step, you can just mix whole eggs with the sugar.

Sift the flour and cocoa powder and add it in batches with milk and oil to the sugar and egg. Then add the mashed banana and chopped nuts till incorporated. If you have beaten egg whites, fold this into the mixture now. The transfer everything to your microwavable receptacle and place it the microwave and heat on high for 5-7 minutes. The timing depends on your microwave, you should check on it after 5-6 minutes by inserting a toothpick in the middle of the cake. If it comes out clear, your cake is done, otherwise, continue heating for a further minute, watching that it does not burn.
Remove receptacle from microwave and leave to cool for 5 minutes then invert onto a plate to serve.
Dust icing sugar as a finishing touch.

If you choose to make a ganache, heat 1 cup cream in the microwave until just bubbling and pour unto a bar of chocolate broken into pieces, mix until you get a smooth consistency then spread on fully cooled cake. Have fun (:

Big breakfast

Big breakfast can be anything you wish it to be. Here we have our favourite few ingredients from left to right: truss tomatoes, sautéed swiss mushrooms, grilled haloumi cheese and fried bacon. In the middle on toast we have J's favourite, poached eggs.

Although it looks daunting, this is relatively simple to whip up and, if you're skilful, you might not end up with many utensils to wash.

First, start with the bacon, frying them in their own fat. When they start to brown, you can then use the aromatic oil to fry other ingredients. This way, you use less oil and everything fried in bacon oil is nothing short of delicious.

While the bacon is frying, slice the haloumi cheese into 1cm thick slices. Remove the bacon from the heat and fry the haloumi cheese in the bacon fat. In the same pan. position the tomatoes to cook them in the bacon fat and when the skin looks slightly shrivelled, remove from heat. Haloumi cheese should be brown on both sides when you remove them.

Add a knob of butter to the remaining bacon fat to cook the mushrooms. Cook until the mushrooms darken in colour. Add a pinch of powdered chicken stock or just salt if you don't have this.

Cook the poached eggs last.
1. Bring a medium pot of water to a rolling boil and add a spoonful of vinegar (use white vinegar or mirin)
2. Crack an egg into a bowl. Do not crack the egg directly into the pot as you want to drop it gently in to keep the yolk in tact.
3. Swirl the water gently with a spatula and time 2.5-3 minutes. You will see the whites starting to coagulate and once you can safely turn the egg over in the pan with the precious yolks enveloped in the whites, you can take it out gently.
Note: you should cook eggs one at a time.

While the eggs are poaching, cut a generous slice of fresh bread and toast it. You can also butter your toast and fry it on a pan, but otherwise serve eggs on the toasted bread and top with freshly cracked black pepper. Bon appetite!

Banana pancakes with whipped cream

Brunch is a big thing in Melbourne. But what if you could recreate those delicious brunch dishes at a fraction of the price and in the comfort of your own home?

Ingredients:
1.5 ripe bananas, sliced
self raising flour, 1 cup
corn flour, 1 cup
Whole milk, 1.5 cup
25g butter melted
1 medium egg
2 tablespoons sugar

Method:
Combine ingredients and beat together until thoroughly combined, heat some oil/butter in a cooking pan to medium heat and using a soup ladle, dispense one ladle of batter and let it spread out. This helps to scoop just the right amount of mixture so you can flip it without breaking the pancake in half. Mixture can be left covered in the fridge for one day in the unlikely event you can't finish using it but be sure to use it up the next day.

Flip when brown to cook on the other side. Serve with homemade whipped cream and honey or nutella is J's absolute fav. Homemade whipped cream is as buying whipping cream and whipping it. I kid you not! Hope you have fun trying it out.

Crustless Quiche

One of my most versatile and favourite dishes to make which pretty much uses all the random items you have in your fridge. I make crust-less quiches because my waistline cannot afford too much puff pastry. But if you want a crust, you could simple buy the store bought crust and bake it separately before pouring in the filling as per the recipe. This dish is a close cousin of the frittata. http://yumexperiments.blogspot.com.au/2012_10_01_archive.html

Simple cheese and onion quiche

With the quiche, you can really be creative, it can be as elaborate and as simple as you wish.

You can have it alone for a light snack, with a salad for a more balanced meal or with some brown rice for a fuller meal. You could make quiches in advance and cut and freeze individual portions for convenience. 

Tomato, spinach and ham quiche served with broccolli and chickpea brown rice

The basic ingredients of a quiche are essentially:

- 4 eggs (makes 4 servings, I like this ratio because one egg per serving gives adequate nutrients and doesn't send your cholesterol sky-rocketing)

- 1 1/2 cups fresh whole milk/ cream (I like using milk as it's less fattening but you can always use a combination)

- 1/2 cup flour

- Salt and pepper to taste

- 50g melted butter

- 1 cup shredded cheese 

- 1 to 1 1/2cup favourite filling

with the fillings you can always add whatever rocks your boat like ham, mushroom, onion, spinach, the possibilities are endless. My favourite combinations are: mushroom, tomato and spinach. Ham, onion and mushroom. Bacon, tomato and onion. Bacon, spinach, pumpkin. However do note that onions and bacon should be browned before adding for extra flavour (or you can just throw it in as-is if you're really lazy) Mushrooms should be sautéed prior to adding so that they release the water in them.

Directions:

Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees celcius. Beat basic ingredients together and add your filling. Mix well. Bake for 40min until cooked and browning at the top. Note, to test if quiche is cooked, use a cake spatula and it should come out clean. Alternatively, give the receptacle holding the quiche a quick jerk. The contents should not wiggle in the receptacle too much as if it were still liquid inside. Let the quiche cool a little then cut into slices and enjoy. 

Wontons

It's been awhile since I made wontons owing to the work involved in making them. But, since I've more than one wonton fan in the house I decided to make some.

Ingredients:
450g minced pork
5 dried mushrooms, rehydrated
100g prawns
1 thumb sized knob of ginger, grated
3 cloves garlic, grated
4 sprigs of spring onion, chopped
4 tablespoons light soya sauce
1 tablespoon fish sauce
1.5 tablespoon oyster sauce
4 dashes of white pepper
3 tablespoons of chinese cooking wine
1.5 table spoons of corn flour mixed with water
1 tablespoon sugar
1 packet of 500g wonton skin

Method:
Mix all the ingredients together. If you're not sure of the taste, put a teaspoon size of filling into the microwave for 30s and taste from there. It is better to taste and adjust than make a big batch of wontons that you don't like. There are a few ways to wrap wontons, the simplest being just fold the square skin into triangles and pinch the end. But, I feel that this method allows the filling to escape easily. Hence, after folding it into a triangle and sealing the ends with water, I folded the two bottom corners of the triangle towards themselves and finally I folded the top of the triangle backwards. You will end up with a neat little rectangular parcel. The filling above makes about 40 plus wontons (sorry I can't get the exact number because the wontons were disappearing as I was cooking them, no prizes for guessing the culprit though...) You should put about a heaped teaspoon worth of filling into the wontons.

Wontons can be boiled in water till they float, or deep fried. Otherwise, you could also pan fry them. (Those in the picture were pan fried)

If you have left over skins, you might also want to try this american inspired filling to use them up:
5 tablespoons cream cheese
2 sprigs spring onion, chopped
salt and pepper to taste
Wrap the wontons and either pan fry or deep fry them.
The result is stunningly delicious. I kid you not.

Crispy pork belly (Shao rou)

Pork belly was on offer in Echuca when my husband was doing a rotation there so I thought might as well try to do this since the oven there had been quite awesome all this while. Due to a severe lack of ingredients, I managed to do this without the "must have" ingredients some people swear by. You can do this with 5 simple ingredients as follows:
Pork belly ~800g-1kg
Soya sauce
Freshly ground pepper
Salt
Olive oil

Directions:
First, serrate the skin with a sharp knife, cutting through the fat but not reaching the meat. Marinate the meat in a glass or ceramic dish by rubbing the soya sauce and some pepper into it. (Do not marinate the skin) If you have 5 spice powder you can marinate it in too at this stage. Leave it skin side up and uncovered in the fridge overnight. This will help dry out the skin and enable you to achieve the oh-so-yummy crackling.

Take out the meat to rest the next day and if the skin still looks wet, use a clean paper towel to dab up any visible moisture. Then rub salt and olive oil into the cuts on the skin.

Place into a convection oven preheated to 180 degrees celsius for 1 to 1.5 hours then turn the heat up to 220 degrees until you can hear the skin crackling and the crispiness of the pork is evident (should be around 20-30minutes) Enjoy!

CNY facai veg

I had to make this dish for Chinese New Year because my mother in law gave me these huge dried shitake mushrooms which her son loves and also the facai (black moss) which was my special request.

To make this dish, I first braised the mushrooms which you can do for quite a few and reserve the leftovers for vegetable dishes later. If prepared carefully, these should be able to keep for a few days in the fridge.

Ingredients:
(List A)
- 15 dried mushrooms, rehydrated.
- 2 tablespoons of light soya
- half a tablespoon oyster sauce
- 1 teaspoon dark soya sauce
- 2 tablespoons chinese wine
- salt and sugar to taste

(List B)
- 1 carrot
- Facai, 50g soaked
- straw mushrooms 80g, blanched
- baby chinese cabbage or bok choy, blanched

Combine ingredients in list A and simmer under low heat in the mushroom water (water from the soaked mushrooms), until mushrooms are tender and fragrant, just before serving, put in the facai. Arrange ingredients in list B on a plate and dish the brasied mushrooms with facai over it.

Braised mushroom is very versatile and can be served with blanched vegetables for a fancy vegetable dish.

How to make epic eggs

I call these eggs epic because they taste great just on their own, and they are so easy to do. For the longest time, I've been wondering how to make eggs that are just right, with the yolk not runny and yet yet not hard with an unsightly grey tinge.

While talking to one of the scientist in the hostel today, I learnt by reperformance how to make it. Here's what you do.

1) Take an egg out of the fridge. There's no need to wait till it reaches room temperature. Just straight out, it's that simple.

2) Put it in room temperature water. It does not matter if you're experiencing summer or winter as this would just mean you have to wait for a shorter or longer time respectively for the water to boil. (Note do not put egg in hot/boiling water as this would cause the egg shell to crack)

3) Bring the water with the egg in it to boil on medium heat.

4) When the water has come to a full boil (bubbling vigorously, but not so vigorously that it splashes out of the pot) time exactly 5 minutes. Use a timer to help you. Then remove from heat and cool. Eat immediately or put in the fridge for another day's use.

5) Enjoy.

Note that eggs that are cook this way might be slightly harder to peel than hard boil eggs as the whites tend to be softer, but they should be firm and coagulated.

Prawn Mee

I was craving for this dish the other day and I thought to myself I should be able to do this. Google-ed a few recipes and then decided to mix and match some of them depending on what I had available. The ingredients needed are mainly as below:

- 800g of pork ribs, blanched
- 200g ikan bilis
- 500g prawns, shelled and deveined but retain the shells
- 5 dried scallops
- Star anise and cinnamon bark about 10g
- 10 peppercorns
- Spring onion
- half a garlic, chopped
- Ginger, thinly sliced
- Yellow noodles
- bean sprouts, blanched
- sugar
- salt
- 1/2 a cup of fish sauce or more as desired
- dark soya and light soya sauces

Directions:

First, blanch the pork ribs with hot water to get rid of oil and surface dirt. Then peel and devein the prawns. Fry the prawn shells with ginger and spring onion until they are pink then add the ikan bilis and about 1 tablespoon of sugar. Slow cook the prawn shells and ikan bilis together with the pork ribs, dried scallops, star anise, peppercorns, cinnamon bark and 10 cups of water for 6-8 hours. Add sugar, salt, fish sauce, dark and light soya and bring to a boil, the resulting broth should be clear, dark and flavourful. If there the taste is not intense enough, slow cook further.

When it is time to eat, bring the soup to a boil and cook the prawn meat quickly in the boiling broth. Do not overcook the prawns so that they remain succulent and sweet. Serve the noodles with prawns, pork ribs, bean sprouts and the aromatic broth and garnish with chopped spring onion and fried shallots.

Curry Chicken

So my sister brought me curry powder when she visited me about 3 weeks ago, but prior to this I had never used curry powder, neither did I know how to use it. Called home to ask, but no one could give me clear directions so I decided to try it my way anyway. Also, I did not have lemongrass, nor candlenuts, nor shallots so I was really skeptical about how this was going to turn out.

I remember thinking to myself in the kitchen that if this turned out good, its gonna be sheer luck and a lot of good guessing. Thankfully, it did! As usual, I used my 5-in-1 magic pot and that made the cooking and cleaning time so much shorter.

Ingredients: please note that ingredients are an estimate
- 600g of boneless chicken thighs (you can use other parts as well and with bones but as my husband is lazy with bone picking, this is his favourite option)
-1 tomato, cut in quarters
- half a clove of garlic and about a finger size of ginger, blended into a paste
- a handful of toasted pecan nuts, powdered (according to recipes online, cashew nuts were required but I did not have those so pecans were a substitute for me, they worked fine all the same)
- 1 medium sized brown onion thinly sliced (most asian recipes call for shallots, but this worked fine anyhow)
- a small packet of spices, 5g containing of star anise, cinnamon bark and fennel seeds
- 80g of curry powder (add another 5-10g if you prefer a spicier curry)
- 250g of coconut milk
- 5 potatoes cut into slices
- 4 hard boiled eggs, shelled
- 4-5 heaped table spoons of full cream milk, dissolved in 1.5 cup water
- salt and sugar to taste
- 2 carrots (if you prefer to have them in your curry, i usually don't but have found that there is no harm adding anyway)

Directions:
Using the brown function of my 5-in-1 cooker, I fried the spices in about 3-4 tablespoons of olive oil until fragrant. Alternatively, do this in a wok. Then add onions until brown and add the blended paste of garlic and ginger, by now, your kitchen should smell quite wonderful. Add in the tomatoes, potatoes and chicken and cover with 900ml of water and leave to simmer until chicken pieces are cooked. For me, I just put on high pressure cooking function for 6 minutes in the same pot.

Then add the curry powder, the powdered nut, both the coconut milk and full cream milk and stir to combine evenly. If you prefer to have carrots in your curry add it in at this stage too. Simmer again for around 5 minutes until potato is soft. (For me, I just turned the 5-in-1 cooker on low pressure mode and cooked for another 6 minutes). Then add sugar and salt to taste and finally add in the boiled eggs. Serve with rice or toasted french bread. Enjoy!

Corn, mushroom and tuna frittatas

Tried this for lunch at the work canteen the other day and just had to make my own version. I love how you can throw in any leftovers from the fridge and it makes such a fuss free meal. Made it in my happy call pan so minimum oil was needed for frying this. Would definitely be making this again!

Ingredients: (you can pretty much add any leftover COOKED items from your fridge)
2/3 cup self raising flour
1/2 cup milk
1 can tuna
1 can sweet corn, drained
a handful of brown mushrooms, sauteed in butter and garlic
2 medium eggs
1 cup shredded cheese
salt and pepper to taste
20g melted butter


Directions
Mix the flour, milk, eggs and butter until smooth then add all the cooked ingredients and mix again. Spoon into pan and just wait for it to set, when it has set, flip it and brown on other side. Voila! Serve with fresh blanched vegetables.

Pork and Conpoy Congee

Ate this at cell the other day and wanted to replicate it. It used to be a staple on weekend dinners for the husband so was quite pleased when he told me that the consistency is the same as what he used to have.

Ingredients:
2 chicken carcasses
8 bowls of water
3 carrots
cracked black pepper
3.5 cups rice
500g minced meat marinated with 3 tbps light soy, 5 tbps chinese cooking wine, 1.5 tbps seseme oil, pepper and 1 tbps sugar
7 whole dried scallops
2 tablespoons chicken rice mix (I used this as I forgot to buy ginger, and it was the only thing in my fridge that had ginger in it. if you do have ginger, just chop into slices and add while boiling the broth)

Directions:
First, I used my magic pot to slow cook the chicken carcasses with cracked black pepper and carrots for around 5 hours. If you have ginger on hand, throw it in at this stage. After 5 hours, remove excess oil from the broth and add a teaspoon of salt.

After that, take out the bones and the carrots and scoop out about 3 bowls of broth before putting in the rice and the scallops. Bring to a boil and then leave to simmer, stirring constantly. When the rice has soaked up all the broth, add the mince meat in chunks and stir porridge slowly. Add water/ broth to your desired consistency. The porridge should be left to simmer for about 1 hour as your cook the mince meat. When all the mince meat is added, bring to gentle boil and it is ready to serve.

Serve hot porridge over a raw egg(if you so desire) and with sliced preserved vegetables, fried shallots, seseme oil and light soy. Enjoy!

Prawn and mushroom risotto

For my first attempt at making risotto, I must say that it tastes almost as good as "kiam peng". The husband will beg to differ although this earned a "very tasty" from him, he still says that he prefers its asian friend. Nevertheless, this took like half the time to make, once again thanks to my magic pot.

Ingredients:
10 large banana prawns, deveined and shelled
Marinate for prawns:
2 tspn corn flour
1 tspn cracked pepper and soya sauce
a dash of fish sauce, salt, sugar and dried chilli flakes (for a spicy kick)

for rice:
1 brown onion, sliced
4 medium size mushroom, sliced
1 clove garlic
300g arborio rice
200ml white wine
600ml chicken stock
200g grated cheese

Directions:
Marinate the prawns and fry with garlic until pink. Leave aside.

In my "magic pot", I put the onions on brown function together with a combination of butter and olive oil. As the onions begin to brown, I put in the garlic. Add the rice and white wine and chicken stock, then the mushroom. I then put it on pressure cook function for 7 minutes and then stir in the grated cheese. I also added in some herbs and freshly cracked black pepper and its ready to serve. So easy and yet yummy at the same time!

Pan seared scallops with balsamic vinegar reduction

Note: top picture only.

Was in footscray market the other day and chanced upon a shop selling japanese frozen scallops for quite a reasonable price. As a lover of seafood, I simply had to take it home, unfortunately, I've never cooked scallops before, so this was a first try for me.

The trick in searing the scallops is to achieve a browning crust on the top and bottom while delicately cooking the scallop such that it is just slightly undercooked in the centre, thus preserving the sweetness of the dish.

To do this, use a combination of butter and olive oil in a pan, you can use it in the ratio 1:1. Make sure your room temperature scallops are washed and dried on kitchen towel before putting them in a pan. Season both sides of the scallop with a dash of salt. When the pan is really hot, place the scallops gently in the pan, if it sizzles, your pan is hot enough. Do not disturb the scallops but let them cook about 2-3 minutes on one side before flipping them over and cooking for another 1-2 minutes.

To make the balsamic vinegar reduction, combine 5 tablespoons of good quality 4 leaf graded balsamic vinegar with a knob of butter the size of your thumb. Bubble on medium heat and then drizzle on the scallops. bon appetit!

Green tea cheesecake

I love all things green tea. But my favourite has to be the matcha powder that goes so well with ice cream, cream cheese and milk. I didn't have matcha powder on hand, so I substituted it with greenmax matcha latte mix instead. The mix contains good quality matcha from Japan and a milky base that is not too sweet.

Ingredients:
- 250g cream cheese
- half cup vanilla yoghurt
- gelatin 2 tablespoons mixed in warm water
- 2 egg whites, beaten till stiff
- sugar, 90g
- Greenmax green tea mix, 2 packets (if you have green tea powder on hand, use 1 flat tablespoon
- digestive biscuits, 18 pieces
- 1 tsp vanilla essence

Directions:
For base
Crush biscuits finely in a plastic bag with the back of a tomato bottle. Put crush biscuits on a tray and mix melted butter into it. Press evenly into the base of a springform tin, then put in the fridge while you work on the rest of the ingredients.

Blend cream cheese, sugar, cooled gelatin, vanilla essence, yoghurt and green tea until smooth. In a seperate bowl, whisk egg whites until stiff and then fold the cream cheese mixture into the egg whites.

Pour the cheese topping on the base and chill in fridge until set. Decorate with green tea powder and enjoy!

Hoisin pepper pork ribs

This ribs are so easy to do and doesn't involve pre-marination. Plus, it does not require many ingredients and you could serve the sauce with a healthy serving of greens as shown in the picture.

Ingredients:

- Hoisin sauce, 3 tbsps

- Light soy sauce, 3 tbps

- 1/2 cup runny honey

- Chinese cooking wine, 4 tbsps

- 1kg pork ribs, cut into pieces

- Garlic, 6-7 cloves, peeled and chopped

- Freshly cracked black pepper, 1 tsp

- Dash of salt to taste, if needed

Directions:

First, score the meat with boiling water to remove surface dirt and oil, then in mix hoisin sauce, light soy sauce and honey. In a pan, heat with some oil and saute the garlic till fragrant, then throw in the meat, when the surface of the meat is cooked, add the pepper and the cooking wine and then simmer on the stove until the meat is tender. How easy is that! Reduce the sauce in the pan prior to serving to glaze the meat with a thicker sauce just before serving.

For me thanks to my magic pot, I could brown the garlic and the meat in the same pot before pressing the pressure cooking function for 30 minutes. The result is delicious fall-off-the-bones ribs, delish when served with fragrant white rice.

Kiam Peng (Savoury rice)

Kiam peng, literally translated as salty rice in hokkien, is a savoury rice dish that I've loved since I was little. Perhaps its because its such an easy dish to eat, or the fact that its an all in one meal in itself with balanced portions of vegetables and meat, whatever the case is, it fills the kitchen with delicious smells of a welcoming meal.

The trick to cooking kiam peng well is being able to achieve distinct grains after cooking. (i.e. the rice grains are not all mushed up when it is too soggy, or undercooked where some grains are still hard.) Kiam peng may be a little tedious as there are numerous ingredients to cut up and prepared but it is healthy and an all-in-one tasty meal. What you wish to add to the dish is really up to you, it is a versatile dish in that the ingredients may vary.

Ingredients:
(optional)
- Shallots (small red onions), finely sliced
- Sweet chinese sausage, diced
- Snake/long beans, segmented
- Fresh prawns, peeled and deveined, chopped
- Chicken/ vegetable broth

(basic)
- White rice, 2 cups, washed and left to dry.
- 6 large chinese mushrooms, rehydrated and sliced
- 300g pork belly/loin (cut into bits and marinated with 3 tbsp light soya sauce, 1 tbsp sugar, 2 tbsp chinese cooking wine, 1/2 tbps sesame oil)
- 1 medium carrot, cut into strips
- 5 leaves of cabbage, chopped
- 5 segments of garlic chopped
- a handful of dried shrimp (hay-bi), rehydrated and chopped

Directions:
Note: As usual, do not throw away the water used to rehydrate the mushrooms and dried shrimp. This will be added to cook the rice later.

Making shallot oil
If you are using shallots, first make shallot oil by frying the shallots until brown in a generous amount of oil. Remove the shallots from heat when they are just about turning brown into a glass/ceramic bowl. Do not use plastic containers as hot oil may have interactions will the plastic causing harmful substances to be released. Do not wait until the shallots are very brown as they do continue cooking in the hot oil after you have removed from them from heat and will turn black if you keep them on the stove for too long.

Part A
Using the residual oil in the pan, saute half a portion of the garlic with the dried shrimp bits until fragrant then fry the meat with the mushroom, chinese sausage and fresh prawns(if applicable). When the meat is cooked, adjust taste with sugar/salt and then remove from heat.

Taking some shallot oil, fry the other half of the portion of garlic and add carrots cabbage, long beans and adjust the taste with sugar and salt. Return Part A to the pan and add the dried rice and fry together until the rice takes on a light brown colour from the ingredients.

Part B
Put all the rice and ingredients into a rice cooker and add the water saved from rehydrating the mushrooms and dried shrimp. When compressing the rice and ingredients with a spoon in the rice cooker, the liquid should only rise to about an inch above the contents. Top up with chicken/vegetable broth if available, if not just add water. Continue cooking as per normal in the rice cooker. Serve with the fried shallots, chopped coriander and red chili for extra colour.

Baked eggs with roasted chicken

Decided to make a trip to safeway after visiting friends last night and got a half priced roasted chicken. While lazing in bed this morning, I thought of having baked eggs but realized I didn't have chorizos nor spinach. However, I did have some choy sum( please refer http://blogs.smh.com.au/lifestyle/chewonthis/archives/2008/03/post_6.html if you don't know what it is) and roasted chicken.

Then I started googling, "baked eggs with roasted chicken recipe" but there were none! So I decided to make it up. First, I partially cooked a handful of leaves of choy sum in the microwave after washing them then I drizzled them with a little of my garlic infused olive oil and also scooped up some garlic bits just so that they would give more flavour. Next, I peeled some chicken and laid them on the vegetable as and crumbled some of the filling from the chicken among the shreds of chicken as well. The filling seems to consist of breadcrumbs soaked in chicken oil with herbs but after they were baked they were flavourful all the same. Then, I took a slice of cheese from the fridge and tore them into pieces before cracking 3 large eggs over them. Finish with a dash of salt and freshly ground pepper, then bake in a 180 degrees preheated oven till the egg while has set and the cheese starts browning.

I served with garlic bread and hot matcha latte and coffee. The husband said "no need to go out for brunch anymore!"

Chicken pot pie

One of the ultimate comfort foods during winter is this, the humble chicken pie. The best part is, its so easy to make! You could bake them in individual ramkins like those shown above (if you're based down under, you could get ramkins cheap from the dfo at 1.25 each), or bake it as a huge pie that a couple could dig into.

The original recipe was taken from here: http://www.mycookinghut.com/2011/11/21/chicken-pot-pie/ and yes, I know she has way prettier pictures than me, but its just me and my galaxy camera with limited ingredients, cooking space and utensils, but my point is: its easy enough for any amateur.

Ingredients:

- 300g skinless chicken breast, cut into cubes

- 1.5 cup mixed frozen vegetables (I used corn, carrot and peas)

- 1 cup cream

- 3 stalks tarragon, chopped

- 1 brown onion, chopped

- 2 potatoes, chopped (optional, if you would like a fuller meal)

- 1 medium sized carrot, cut into cubes

- Pepper and salt to taste

- 1 tbps butter

- 1 egg, beaten

- Frozen puff pastry sheets

Directions:

Melt butter, and saute onions together with carrots, this is to give your carrots time to get soft. If like me you have a stock of home-made garlic infused olive oil sitting around, it definitely wouldn't hurt to add a splash of it during cooking. While the onions are browning, marinate the chicken pieces with salt, pepper, soy and a some corn flour (this is optional but doing so will actually give you a chance to "velvet" the chicken pieces when cooking. Alternatively, you may just use them as-is)

When the onions are brown, toss the chicken pieces in with the mixed vegetables (and potatoes if you've decided to have some) and add the cream. As the cream is bubbling, add the chopped tarragon, mix and adjust taste with salt and pepper. Fill your pyrex bowl or any oven safe vessel with your mixture and then top it off with the pastry. Seal the sides of your pastry with a fork by pressing it around the perimeter, this will leave pretty fork marks. Egg wash the pastry with a pastry brush, or if you don't own one like me, use your fingers. It will be baked so just make sure your finger is clean (: Bake it in a preheated oven at 180 degrees celsius until the pastry is brown and its read to eat!

I always have a problem of left over egg so you could do one of the following: add it to any other dish you are cooking, make another batch of pot pie the next day and use it up, pour some into your pie filling while its still cooking, or just add fresh milk, salt and pepper and stick it in the microwave for a mini serving of scrambled eggs. 

Garlic prawns with asparagus pasta in a cream sauce

Awhile back, I was at Coles when I saw these huge banana prawns. I remembered that someone told me that they were pretty tasty before and the guy over the counter just sealed the deal when he told me they had "come in fresh". At first, I was skeptical of fresh because it seems all prawns sold in Australia are frozen, but I guess he meant "freshly frozen".

Ingredients:
- Pasta for 2 people (you can use any type you like but do note the timings as different types of pasta take different amounts of time to reach al dente status)
- 10 large banana prawns, peeled and de-veined, saving the shells and head
- Asparagus, peeled and sliced
- Light soya sauce
- Chinese wine
- Dried italian herbs, or fresh parsley if you have some on hand
- Butter
- Cream
- Fish sauce (optional)
- Pepper and salt to taste

Directions:
Cook pasta as per directions on packet, then drain. Marinate prawns in pepper, soy, chinese wine and fish sauce. Pan fry the shells in oil and then add water to extract the prawn stock, discard shells and cook sliced asparagus in prawn stock then remove from heat.
Heat butter and sauté garlic with a pinch of salt until fragrant, then add prawns, when prawns are just turning pink, return asparagus and pasta to the pan and add cream and herbs. (You may choose to add some full cream fresh milk in a 1:1 ratio as a healthier option but do note this will affect the consistency of the resulting sauce, i.e. it may not coat the pasta as well). Finish with a pinch of pepper.

Modifications:
If extracting the prawn stock is too much trouble for you, you may omit and cook the asparagus directly in the cream instead. If you like a white cream sauce, omit the prawn stock and fry bacon bits before adding cream. Of course, you can purely use cream but bacon bits would definitely up the taste levels by quite a bit. If you like things spicy, add some dried chili flakes.