Home of the Happy Bears

remind me of this love

2010-03-06T06:41:00.001-08:00

with my stomach on a constant gastric strike, it's kind of difficult for me to recall the pleasure of eating without fear of bloatedness and acidic reflux. yet. i treasure all the times when i was able to cook for my friends or enjoy a good dine-out.

and in dedication of my celebration and love of good food, here's a post of pictures, set as a timely reminder for those of us who have a love-hate affair with food; this glorious luxury of enjoyment for cooking, baking and eating...

-birthday cake for jazi: japanese cotton cheesecake topped with strawberries and cream-filled mini profiteroles and a "love-poem" on top:

-simple home-baked pizza for my friends during one of our project work meetings: freestyle toppings consisted of roast chicken, capsicum, portobello mushrooms, thinly sliced new potatoes and some sprinkles of finely minced garlic, rosemary and sweet paprika:

-an attempt to emulate the japanese way of home-made bento for a colleague's birthday during my last placement, consisting of mixed onigiri filled with mayo tuna and roasted pumpkin, tamago rolls in seaweed and a terayaki sauce-glazed meatballs packaged in a re-used bento box:

-teochew braised duck that i've made over the december hols of which i'm still owing serene and estee for! oh dear but i can't recall what exactly i've did because i've combined a total of 3 recipes to concoct this particular one...let me try my hands on it again and will get back to you with the new recipe...better than the one i've posted 2 years ago!

- a simple lazy way of having a wholesome meal on a tiring day...couscous salad! for some, couscous may be the most distasteful thing ever but the secret is not to overcook your couscous! add a slab of butter with some parmesan cheese and herbs and spices...as well as sundried tomatoes, dried raisins, fresh iceberg lettuce, roasted pumpkin and aubergines...and not forgetting some roasted chicken or fried bacon and fetta cheese...plus a drizzle of some balsamic italian dressing...there you have it! a yummy quick fix for dinner!

- one of my favourite orders from the viet restaurant at westend...grilled pork chop rice even though i don't quite fancy rice as much as i love noodles...

but cooking is not the same now without you guys...i really miss all of you and my little bear family...i love you all!

much love,
granny bear

star-shaped quiches for a renewed start

2010-03-06T06:20:00.000-08:00

it's easy to forget the simple pleasures of cooking when one is back in the comfort of home, with dear mum-sy being there to tend to my every meals. and what's cooking in my hometown of Singapore, where good food comes in abundance and may even be cheaper than cooking at home?

but just when i thought of letting this old blog die on its own with the demise of my cooking days, the appearance of a follower and comment for this blog sparked off a new desire to maintain this blog alive to some extent(thanks abby even though i don't know you!)...and perhaps in keeping up with this, continue to hone my culinary skills so that i may continue to be a blessing for my friends and family in this area.

and since i haven't been cooking of late...i thought i would share this simple veggie quiche that i've made for jadey's hen's party last december...and the portions might not be accurate since this was such a long time ago and i hadn't followed a true recipe in making this...so i do advise: GO WITH YOUR INSTINCTS and TASTEBUDS!

Ingredients:

Veggy filling
-1 sweet potato, cubed
-1/2 red capsicum, cubed
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 medium onion, cubed
-1/4 pumpkin (about 200g), cubed
-1 small eggplant, cut into large wedges
- some sundried tomatoes, striped

Egg filling
-1/4 cream
-150g fetta/ other cheese of your preference
-4 eggs, beaten

Pastry:
- use either short crust/ puff pastry according to preference

Steps:
1) Rub all the chopped veggy filling ingredients with salt, pepper, mixed herbs and sweet paprika powder. Drizzle over olive oil to cover.

2) Roast the veggy filling in preheated oven of about 200 degree celcius for about 15 minutes? or till fragrant smell comes out from oven and veggy is softer but not burnt:)

3) Meanwhile, cut out each sheet of the pre-made pastry into 9 squares of equal sizes and line them on greased muffin cups/ other small cute baking devices you might possess.

4) Blind bake the pastry cases in the oven for about 5 minutes.

5) beat the 4 eggs, cream and fetta cheese tog. add some more paprika and mixed herbs and very small sprinkle of chicken/veg stock seasoning

6) distribute the veggy filling amongst all your pastry cases. add in egg mixture. careful not to overspill!

7) bake the mini quiches in preheated oven of 170 degrees till the egg mixture is solid (about 10 to 15 minutes)

P.S: i've made use of the awesome star shaped silicon mould that jadey gave me in baking this to get the unique shape! thankful for just-because presents!:)

Easy Peasy Mini Bread Cups

2009-08-22T23:22:00.000-07:00

This is something I've created on one of my lazy days when I wanted to make something for my journalling group without having to go through the extent of starting my pastry from scratch...hahaha...it's strange what can come out from a pair of lazy hands result in more brain power used!

Ingredients:

12 slices of white/wholemeal bread, buttered thinly on both sides,

200g of roasted pumpkin cubes (seasoned with olive oil, salt, mixed herbs, paprika and coarse black pepper),

2 turkey sausages (or any other meat of choice, toasted and sliced thinly with skins removed for health reasons),

2 large portobello mushrooms (sliced) ,

sundried tomato strips according to your liking,

3 eggs (with some mixed herbs, sprinkle of salt, paprika, cream and parmesan cheese added to it)

* note: can add any other roasted veggies of choice too if you like: eg. onions, capsicum, aubergines (eggplant)

* note: use cayenne pepper or hot paprika instead of sweet paprika for a spicier kick!

1) Use egg ring or cookie cutter to cut slices of bread into 12 rounds. Place them in oiled muffin pans.

2) Place the sliced turkey sausages, followed by the roasted pumpkin cubes and mushroom slices.

3) Pour in egg/cream mixture into each bread cup till 3/4 from brim ( as bread soaks up the egg mixture too, the final product will be more like a french toast taste than a quiche)

4) Sprinke some tasty cheese shreds on top / fetta cheese if desired (i didn't have it that time)

5) Bake for about 5-7 minutes in preheated oven of 170 degree celcius.

Serve warm! Cos it won't be toasty after being left out in the cold for too long!

Hope you guys will enjoy this easy treat as much as i did!

much love, granny bear

same thing, different feel

2009-08-06T23:24:00.000-07:00

for those who know me well, balance of colours and food groups are really important in a meal. the above tri-coloured beef soboro don is the proof of my belief in food:

the hues of green come from the lovely crisp butterhead lettuce and sweet green peas, the yellow from mirin-flavoured jap style scrambled eggs, the reds from the capsicum and the brown from a mixture of tofu, beef and onion mince soaked up in a rich and well-seasoned sauce of red wine, mirin, soy sauce and honey

these colours not only make the food more presentable visually, it also makes it alot more palatable because every single bite consists of substance and taste:)

but before i blow my own trumpet any further, let's take a look at how the same ingredients can be made into a more compact form for convenience as a bento/ take-away lunch. every single thing that you have seen on top in the beef soboro don can be converted into a mini-beef rice burger!

want to learn how to do it? the directions are simple:

MUST-HAVE Ingredients: beef mince, hard firm tofu (crushed), 1/2 red capsicum (finely diced), 1/2 onion ( finely diced), 2 cloves of garlic (finely minced), 2 TB soy sauce, 1 TB mirin, 1 TB sesame oil, salt and pepper to taste, 1-2 TB flour or polento (depending on how mushy your mince mixture is)

TOPPINGS: 1/2 red capsicum (sliced thinly), 1/2 onion (sliced thinly), mushrooms (sliced), shredded iceberg lettuce or any other greens of your preference

OPTIONAL Ingredients: 1 carrot (finely diced), a few mushrooms (finely diced), 1 egg (beaten and mixed into mince mixture to bing ingredients but can be omitted to reduce calories)

1. Mix all ingredients together in a large mixing bowl.

2. Set aside ( with cling wrap on for germs protection!!!) in refrigerator for at least 30 minutes.

3. Form mince mixture into patties of desired size. Coat surface with polento and pan- fry till surface is golden brown.

BURGER SAUCE: 2 TB soy sauce, 2 TB mirin, 2 TB red wine, 1 TB honey, 2 TB brown sugar (adjust quantity of sauces according to taste and number of patties you are cooking)

4. Heat sauce ingredients in a saucepan over medium heat and keep stirring to avoid sugar and honey burning at bottom of pan.

5. Add in sliced capsicum, onion and mushroom and stir till softened so that they can soak up the sauce.

6. At the same time, add beef patties that has been pan-fried on the surface. Turn fire to low heat.

6. Flip beef patties to other side after cooking for about 5-10 minutes (depending on size of yr patty).

7. Cook other side for about 5 minutes. Flip over and keep doing so till patty is cooked to desired done-ness and colour is deep brown with a reddish glow. (hard to describe! i cook alot based on intuition!)

And tada! Bento beef burgers to go!

P.S: at the end of writing this extremely long post, i realised that i've blogged about these burgers before! ahhh! silly forgetful me...oh wells...hahaha

much love,

granny bear

cell social night in foursomes

2009-07-23T17:09:00.000-07:00

5 weeks ago, the beginning of the holidays sparked off an inspiration for an impromptu cell social dinner in me. so tired as i was from my last day of placement, i trudged through the rain to purchase some ingredients for a night of food and fiesta...

unfortunately, i should have been warned that last minute plans usually don't work out well. we had all the food in the world...but only 2 people( eunice and i being the original 2 people around) to enjoy it! oh dear! how disappointing! look at the spread prepared:
eunice's mixed vegetables salad: look at the royal hues of red and purple and green!

my sweet and sour grilled chicken wings with a spicy kick! this recipe was borrowed from another food blogger's website but i made some modifications to the ingredients to suit my own tastebuds...hehehe

eunice's carrot walnut cakes for dessert! YUM YUM! we always love her cakes:)

my stir-fried bee hoon with curry sauce on the side!

and just as i was lamenting the abundance of food and lack of people to eunice, guess who should turn up??? alison and dave! HURRAY! and dave made some kind of asian pork belly dish which i failed to take a picture of...so in the end, we had a cosy sort of gathering in our foursomes and spent a lovely night discussing cultural and gender differences...hahaha dave and alison always have so many interesting thoughts to impart!

so there ends a night of laughter and fun...with an abundance of leftovers to eat for the next few meals!

Mei's Birthday Cake

2009-07-08T18:52:00.000-07:00

hmm...i know that this is a way overdue post but i haven't been satisfied enough with my food photography so far to put up any pictures. and seriously, the mind is lacking in inspiration for food write-ups due to more involvement in the area of food creation and experiments:)

yet, i owe zoe a promise for mei's birthday cake recipe and so...here is it:

Berry Delightful Birthday Sponge Cake!

Ingredients for lemon sponge cake:

follow this link:http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Lemon-Sponge-Cake-I/Detail.aspx

Ingredients for cream cheese filling and frosting :

WARNING: this was an impromptu trial-and-error filling that i came up with at the last minute so i didn't have exact quantities to follow. With the days that have passed since the birth of this cake, i must WARN that quantities might be a bit messed up! sorry!

250g tub of ricotta, 125g Philly cream cheese (softened at room temp and chopped up), 2/3 cup cream, 1/4 cup castor sugar, 100g melted white chocolcate, 1/3 cup mixed berries (frozen) 1 packet of 10g gelatin (melted under instructions of packet), 1 tsp of lemon zest for extra zang!

10 or more strawberries, thinly sliced for placing in between layers of cake

1) Whisk cream and castor sugar together till form soft peaks.
2) Add in ricotta and Philly cream cheese and whisk till smooth and creamy
3) Melt white chocolate in heatproof bowl over pot of boiling water. Stir in slightly cooled white chocolate into cream mixture from above.
3) Stir in mixed berries and beat for about 1 minute with electric whisk to break up berries.
4) Stir in slightly cooled gelatin and lemon zest till all well blended
5) Set in fridge for about 10 minutes till mixture is creamy and not liquiid-like.

Assembly of cake:

1) Place first layer of sponge on plate.
2) Spread a layer of cream cheese filling over. Place 1 layer of sliced strawberries over.
3) Cover with another layer of cream cheese.
4) Place sponge cake over.
5) Repeat and finally cover outter parts of cake with cream cheese filling, grated dark chocolate on sides and mixed berries on top.
6) Sprinkle some vanilla icing sugar over.

All done! Decoration for cakes is much more fun if you leave it up to your own creativity! so please don't be stifled by the massive list of to-dos here! you can choose to decorate your cake in any way that you think might please the cake-eaters and yourself of course!

much love,
granny bear

happy birthday june!

2009-06-26T23:20:00.000-07:00

being the granny i am, the best way i express love to my friends is by cooking/baking for them. and the best time to do so would be when they are stressed/busy/having birthdays in the midst of exams!

and that was the case for dearest june, who always seem to be stuck in the middle of exams whenever her birthday happens! knowing that june prefers healthier meals with lighter taste, i decided to go jap-style for her birthday dinner, which when quite well i hope! the only sad part is that i made the meatball grill sauce a bit too salty as my tastebuds were horrendously affected by the nasty flu bug:(

but dearest june was so sweet that she didn't complain at all. and she obliged in posing for my food shots below:) i love you heaps, junie! hahaha...i was so busy laughing at june's expression that i couldn't keep still with the picture taking, try as i might:)

for side dishes: she had boiled tofu in dashi sauce sprinkled with chopped spring onion and seaweed strips. and at the background is just a simple steamed bokchoy with sesame oil sauce (not jap though!)

the main dish: grilled meatballs with japanese pumpkin braised in sweet mirin sauce, served on a bed of moist japanese rice with pink ginger and spring onion as decoration

the colourful layout of the birthday dinner:)

if you think this cake looks store bought, then you are wrong! teehee...this is a green tea mousse sponge cake with berry filling in it. quite decadent i must say given the amount of eggs and cream and cream cheese to make this cake. for the full recipe, go to this amazing website by aunty yochana!

that's all the updates for now folks!

happy birthday june! you are one of the gentlest, most patient and talented person i've ever known!

no better rice dish than this for me!

2009-06-19T21:06:00.000-07:00

From the spin-off of the previous bulgogi adventure comes another Korean creation: BiBimBap! Sorry for the blurry pictures, I really need a course on food photography to improve things, to say the least.

Anyways, getting on to this food creation, I have selected a mixture of :

julienned zuchinni, carrots, enoki mushrooms, shredded shitake mushrooms, thinly-sliced onion, spinach strips, seaweed, pink pickled ginger and shredded korean kimchi. All of these veggies were sauteed individually with soy sauce, sesame oil and for the shitake mushroom, an added sprinkle of mirin and sugar.

A simple but tedious task. But definitely well worth the effort when you see the lovely blend of colours coming together as you assemble your dish.

Topping off the vegetables would be the same marinated bulgogi from the previous post, followed by either (A) sunny side up with runny yolk so that you can burst the yolk to let your rice soak up the rich taste of it OR (B) shredded egg omelettle in jap style-shoyu and mirin.

And finally for the BibimBap sauce, I can't recall the proportions of ingredients used as I used trial and error to get the right taste but I do have: gochujang, corn syrup/honey, soy sauce and sesame oil mixed together for the unique blend of taste. maybe i'll jot down what i used the next time i make this dish!

try this recipe and tell me if you like it!

much love,

granny bear

Bento to heart of korea: bulgogi set

2009-06-11T03:22:00.000-07:00

how many colours can you pack into a bento?

as many as the colours of the rainbow, and beyond that more, if the heart is permitting. of this bulgogi set, it took 2 nights for completion. one night for marination and chopping of ingredients, the next night for the cooking and assembly of the bento.

and here you have it, the recipe for the bulgogi modified from what i got from kitchen wrench's blog!

Ingredients (i used 850g sliced beef pack from korean supermarket):

850g thinly sliced beef sirloin (sliced to about 2-3mm thick) *

5 cloves garlic, crushed (use the flat part of knife to smash it!!!)

1 medium-sized brown onion, peeled

1 nashi/Asian pear, peeled

1 sweet apple, such as fuji, grated

2/3 cup light soy sauce

2 tbsp toasted sesame seed oil

2-4 tbsp caster sugar (this will depend on the sweetness of your pear)

2 spring onions, washed and finely sliced (i omitted)

Freshly cracked black pepper, to taste

1. Use your hands to squeeze the juice from the apple over the sliced beef and set aside.

2.Using an extremely fine grater, turn the onion and pear into pulp then mix together with the soy sauce and crushed garlic, then taste for sweetness.

3.If it’s not quite sweet enough for your tastes, add all the sugar, but if it’s close, just add 1-2 tbsp of sugar, mix and taste again.

4. Add the sliced meat to the bowl, then pour the marinade over the top, then add the sesame seed oil, sliced spring onion and cracked pepper and massage all the marinade into the meat for about 1-2 minutes, making sure none of the slices of beef are stuck together and that the marinade has been distributed evenly throughout.

5. Pour into an airtight container and store in the fridge for at least a few hours, ideally overnight, and cook over a griddle or in an unoiled non-stick frying pan.

6. Add on veggies of your choice! For me, i added sliced green and red capsicum, enoki mushroom, butter lettuce (sliced), thinly sliced onions, julienned carrot and zucchini strips. Cook these veggies in the meat juices that come out from cooking your bulgogi beef. It's really YUM!

5. For bento decoration, i also added star-shaped and heart-shaped japanese omelette and cherry tomatoes:)

6. Lastly, for your own pleasure of a slight spicy kick, add in a tablespoon of samjaang (korean hot pepper plus soy bean paste) mixed with 2 tsp of honey!

ALL DONE!

much love,
granny bear

Bento Osaka-a japanese reminiscence

2009-06-06T23:40:00.000-07:00

it's hard to get words to write about food under 2 scenarios:

A) you are too busy eating them

B) you are too busy making them

for me, i think it's a case of both. but to be faithful to my dearest readers, here's a winning homemade meal/ bento that you would definitely want your loved ones to enjoy:

roasted sweet potato and pumpkin onigiri and tsukune + toriyaki chicken skewers

to be honest, has been a while since i last made these, mainly because it's so time-consuming. so recalling the recipe is difficult. but i'll try the best with my goldfish memory:

Onigiri

Ingredients:

short/med grain japanese rice (cooked and mixed with sushi vinegar and roasted black sesame seed)

seaweed pieces

roasted pumpkin and sweet potato ( cubed and roasted with olive oil and 2TB brown sugar, 1 tsp black pepper mixed- or replace olive oil with sesame oil for more asian taste)

1) Using a plastic bag, scoop out warm and moist cooked rice and press in palms (gloved)

2) place piece of roasted pumpkin/ sweet potato in centre of pressed rice

3) form into triangular shaped balls

4) place a piece of roasted seaweed over

Tsukune Skewers

Ingredients for meat balls: 300g miced chicken/pork, 1/4 onion, 2 eggs, 1/2 tsp salt, 1 TB cornflour, 7 TB bread crumbs, 1 inch ginger (grated and extract juice)

Ingredients for sauce: 4TB sake, 5 TB shoyu, 2TB mirin, 2 TB sugar (i used brown sugar), 1 tsp dark soy sauce, 1 tsp cornflour, 2 tsp water

1) Mix all ingredients for meatballs and set aside for 20 min

2) Bring 2 cups water to boil in a pot. Wet hands and shape balls into desired size and drop into boiling water (shunz' s note: 1 TB spoon size is good measurement for amt of pork mince to use for 1 ball)

3) Cook till meat balls float. Remove and drain.

4) Preheat oven to 200 degree celcius and skewer alternate roasted pumpkin/ sweet potato/ zuchinni with meatballs ( you'll get the idea from the picture above!)

5) Grill for 4 to 5 minutes and keep brushing with sauce. Repeat process for at least 3 times for lovely flavour! You can't play cheat with effort when making jap food!

Terayaki Skewers

Ingredients: 300g chicken thigh/ breast meat (for breast meat, watch the temperature of your grill or oven because they dry out faster), 2TB sakae, 2TB sugar, 1 TB miso paste, 4TB shoyu, sprinkle of pepper

1) Marinate bite-site chicken pieces with the above sauces and leave for at least 30 min or overnight

2) Skewer them and alternate with green spring onion/ cucumber

3) Brush excess marinate as sauce during grilling at temperture of 200 degrees ( i trialed 180 degrees for breast meat)

ok i'm tired from blogging now. till then!

garden bento-thank you thank you!

2009-05-02T04:17:00.000-07:00

omurice with steamed veggies and grilled miso chicken specially for jazi cos she's always so nice to give us lifts. after that, decorated the veggies with cheesesauce to make out the flower and heart shape designs!

mental note to self: make more in future to bless other people with no dinner! i am falling in love with bento making!

everyone heart muffins

2009-05-02T04:11:00.000-07:00

apple oats struesel muffins...verdict?

"moist and substantial..."

"yumm"

"crumbly"

will defintely make them again! i love walnuts!

for serene, with love

2009-05-02T03:48:00.000-07:00

serene and her funny expressions are always a source of laughter for me! it was my first tme making chilled lemon cheesecake. june bear makes this cheesecake too!

this is simpler than it looks...there are only 4 ingredents required in this cookie...peanut butter, egg and chocolate chips and sugar...

smells heavenly! just like serene!

korean dinner night-miss u jessie!

2009-04-30T03:39:00.000-07:00

june with jessie at gammy, this isolated treasure of a korean restaurant on myer centre. under her recommendations, we ordered all-time favourite bibimbap and korean champong. we miss you jessie!

For the love of cream ^^

2009-04-15T02:35:00.000-07:00

Due to the long 4 days public holiday and running around. I havent had a chance to grocery shop..which is good for my pocket, but not that effective in enlarging my food choices for the week. In addition, now that dear papa bear is away and wont be back till friday, grocery shopping is not on the top of my convenience list unless I choose to cycle there and back. With the sun setting too early each day..I dont think that's going to be an option any time soon. =)

So, I was figuring what to have for dinner today and lunch tomorrow and decided to rummage through the fridge. And there I came across a packet of cream I bought awhile back to bake a tart which I never got round to due to the lack of time. Cream doesnt last very long, and I didnt want to throw it away either. So I decided what to cook for dinner around the main ingredient...cream!

So here's introducing : Lydia's Modified Creamy Mushroom Pasta!

Its my first time cooking creamy pasta and it came out much yummier and better than I had expected. Here's the reciepe. =D

Makes about 3 servings

Ingredients:
-Half a big bunch of broccoli (cut away most of the thick stalk then chop it into small pieces)
-2 tablespoons butter
-1 tablespoon olive oil (its a healthier choice)
-200g sliced button mushrooms
-300ml cream (light cream for a healthier choice) ( the amount doesnt have to be accurate)
-1.5 tablespoons chicken stock powder(or to taste)
-pasta (of your choice)
-sprinkle of parsley flakes or mixed herbs
-3 tablespoons mozerella cheese
- Smoked Salmon

Method:
1) Wash and boil and broccoli until tender
2)Heat oil and butter, saute the mushrooms in a large frying pan until soft
3)Cook the pasta according to the packet's instructions
4)Gently stir in the broccoli into the mushroom mixture
5)Stir in the cream, stock powder and herbs (adjust the sauce to taste by the adding of chicken stock powder)
6)Add in mozerella cheese and stir until it homogeniously melted and mixed in
7)Simmer for a awhile.
8) Drain pasta and mix with a bit of olive oil to prevent them from sticking together.
9) Divide pasta onto plates, pour gravy over.
10) Garnish with smoked salmon and more mozerella cheese.

*You can also add in chili flakes in step 5 for a slightly spicy flavour.

Yep. Thats's the dish. try it out and tell me how it turns out! oh ya. and feel free to substitute mozerella for parmasan cheese. I just have a personal obsession with mozerella. =D=D =D

much love,
Baby bear

get-well-soon bento

2009-04-12T18:19:00.000-07:00

i'm sure any of you who have been sick before would agree that falling sick is one of those times when you feel the most vulnerable and helpless and most in need of some T.L.C (tender loving care) from mummy.

but unfortunately for us overseas people who are staying without our family here, receiving T.L.C treatment can be rare. so it's nice when we can extend abit of our time and effort to care for those around us. here's a get-well-soon bento that i've prepared for a friend of mine to cheer her up and to whet up her lost appetite when she fell sick recently:)

what's in the bento: stir fried miso vegetables, portobello mushroom omelette, honey soy chicken and star-shaped rice. it's all simple home-cooked food and sigh...it was supposed to look more appetising than this...i wanted to create a lunchbox full of rainbow colours and exciting visuals but the limited space in the lunchbox forced me to squeeze everything within a small box:(
adding on to the sides were grilled miso tofu. it was supposed to be golden brown but ended up looking slightly burnt because i had to tend to the chicken in the oven at the same time. it was chaotic madness trying to stop the timer and the grizzling pan both at the same time!
last but not least, a portion of freshly baked banana, walnut and choc chip bread for them as dessert:)

and tada! get-well-soon bento (and a hello bento for her housemate, another dear friend of mine) all ready to go >_O !!!yay!

oh and not to forget, always covering our friends and family in prayers to make sure they are in the pink of health!

much love,

granny bear

pancakes breakfast treat-加油 bento:)

2009-04-10T17:31:00.000-07:00

i woke up one morning at 6am with this need to pray. and usually, i would begin to pray in tongues or in English, which is often urgent and rushed. yet, for some strange reason, i felt led to pray in mandarin that morning. this slowed me down alot because i was not as proficient in praying in mandarin. but somehow, the slowness of my prayers calmed down my soul alot and i was not as anxious to start off the day with all of my plans as compared to other days.

and when i opened my Bible to read, these few verses from James4:13-14 struck me:

13 Now listen, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money."
14 Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.

now, i have been making plans since my holidays to do some nice breakfast treat for my housemates, who have been working so hard in comparison to me. but day after day, i have pressed on the snooze button of my handphone to sleep a little longer, thinking 'oh maybe i'll try harder to wake up tomorrow to make breakfast' or 'hmm...i have too many things to be done for today already' :( naughty me right?

but the message of my temporal existence through those Bible verses indicated to me that i ought to make full use of my free time now(before it's all gone) to bless the people around me! so i got up in a minute or two after my quiet time and started to cook up a 'storm' in the kitchen!

and below are pictures of the surprise breakfast bento for my dearest junejune n lyds!fresh from the pan...banana, choc chips and walnut pancakes with dusting of cinnamon and nutmeg powder with vanilla icing...
for a closer look... the black parts are the melted choc chips and not burnt pancakes!LOL

in the end, the 2 girls were both in a rush to get to their classes that i decided to transfer the pancakes to paper plates in plastic bags so that they can eat on the way to school! and below is the simple recipe for sharing:

Pancakes In a Go

Ingredients: 1 cup AP flour, 1 tsp baking powder, 1/2 tsp bicarb of soda, 1/2 tsp salt, 2.5 TB sugar, sprinkle of cinnamon and nutmeg powder, 1 cup buttermilk/ milk with 1 TB lemon juice, 2 eggs (beaten), 1 large banana (sliced thinly), choc chips and walnuts

Steps:
1) Sift flour, baking powder, bicarb of soda, salt, sugar and spices into a large bowl.

2) Add in beaten eggs and buttermilk and stir till well combined ( ensure no clumps!)

3) Heat the pan in high heat and add small amount of olive oil. Wait till sizzling sound of oil can be heard and add in one ladle spoonful of batter.

4) Place sliced banana, choc chops and sprinkle of nutmeg and cinnamon powder gently on cooking batter. Wait till bubbles form and sides harden before flipping to the other side

5) Pancakes can be removed once golden brown. Serve warm with toasted walnuts and some choc or maple syrup for a decadent treat.

and there you have it! a high energy breakfast for a busy day ahead. 加油 guys!

much love,
granny bear

care and share bento- 爱心便当:)

2009-04-07T18:48:00.000-07:00

after all the pigging out at fraser island last week, i was determined to lead a healthy lifestyle this week. so it's full on gym junkie mode for me and thankfully, i have the lovely companionship of jazi to get me started:)

since i've resolved to be healthy, i decided to encourage my friends to be so by making them a healthy bento dinner for tuesday (which is good timing since we are usually rushing to church for worship practice on tue:P)...and here's what i've made: rice burger with broiled beef , veggy and tofu patties in sweet red wine sauce!

bearing in mind the different preferences of the recipients, i came up with the following combinations for the burgers:

here's the picture of jazi's pre-assembled HIGH FIBRE and LOW CARB burger...hahaha tried to stack as much veggy as i could on hers but they kept falling down:(

and tada! the above is the final product for jazi! monster veggy burger!next burger! for ron who also joins the body attack class (really tough!) is the HIGH PROTEIN and HIGH CARBS burger...not sure if i should add in lettuce in case i couldn't close up the burger after all the huge stash below!hmm...decided to add in more greens after all! more veggy is more fibre and vitamins!hahaha...last but not least...an ALL BALANCED burger for wins, our beautiful and dedicated choir mistress! she's so funny because she sometimes don't eat dinner till late on tuesday even though she has the day off! but that shows how committed she is to being on time for music pract and she deserves a little care and share package too:)

and in case you're thinking that all 3 burgers look the same, here's proof that there were indeed, 3 of them!

now...drumroll for the recipe, proudly concocted by myself after assembling a mixture of recipes from previous experiences:

ingredients: 500g beef mince, 150g firm tofu (make sure well drained), 1/2 red capsicum (diced), 1 large portobello mushroom (diced), 1 medium sized onion (diced), 2 TB coriander or chopped spring onion, 1 TB garlic (minced)

seasonings (mainly by my estimation and by memory, maybe wrong): 2TB soy sauce, sprinkling of salt, sprinkling of coarse black pepper according to taste, 1 TB sugar, 2TB red wine, 1 TB dashi/beef stock powder/ terayaki sauce (whichever available), 2TB sesame oil, 1TB cornflour or some breadcrumbs to bind

burger: 2 cups medium grain rice makes 6 rice patties and some small leftovers, season with japanese rice sprinkles (comes in small packages of wakame, sesame seed etc), sprinkle of sesame oil and rice vinegar (white vinegar will do too)

sauce:3 TB light soy sauce, 1TB dashi stock/use soba noodle sauce for convenience, 3TB red wine, 1 TB honey, 1 TB brown sugar

Steps:

1) Mix all ingredients for beef patties together with the stated seasonings till well combined.

2) Shape the beef mixture into patties according to preferences and add some cornflour or breadcrumbs (can use day-old bread and crumble in blender if unavailable at home) if not too solid.

3) Prepare sauce: Simmer sauce ingredients over low heat and stir well and consistently ( this IMPORTANT! the honey can cause yr sauce to burn if u r not careful!). turn off heat once well combined.

4) Preheat frying pan. Add oil (use olive oil for healthier options) and wait till bubbles form. place meat patties gently onto frying pan and let it brown on both sides. be careful not to burn your patties! carbon is NOT GOOD! but a little carbon is TASTY!hahaha

5) once both sides of patties have browned, add in warm sauce and let the meat patties broil in the sauce for about 10 min on one side (depends on your stove and the size of your patties) and 5 minutes on the other. turn down fire abit if sauce is burning ( you want a thick sauce, not a burnt sauce!)

6) when sushi rice cooks, keep moist in rice cooker and add in seasoning as stated. using clean and wetted hands, shape the sushi rice into balls, press down and compact on sides to make a patty ( need some skill here! wear food handling gloves if u can't take the heat! the hot rice burnt my hands quite a bit yesterday)

7) now...pretty pretty time...shred some carrots and lettuce and start assembling the burger! add thickened sauce on top of patties/ veggy for extra taste!

don't be daunted by my long instructions! it's not as tedious as you think! try it and tell me you love it! or wait till i open my own restaurant (Gramps Kitchen) to have a taste! hahaha

oh can't wait to make more of such bentos! it feels good to care and share!

much love
granny bear

happy weekend bakes

2009-04-07T15:39:00.000-07:00

the best thing about having a break so far is that time is pretty much in my hands. and this gives me alot more time to bake for people etc. on last saturday, i decided to make some breakfast treats for my friends and after cracking my head abit, i decided on egg tarts!

truth be told, i hate making sweet shortcrust pastry because they are so difficult to make! without a proper kitchen scale, the quantities of flour, sugar and butter used can be inaccurate and this leads to pastry that is either too tough, too sweet or too oily! and oh my, the time taken to make the pastry from scratch and blind bake them before baking them again with the egg custard is enough to drive me crazy! hahaha...

but then again, egg tarts are a rare treat for most people and since i have the time, why not?

the flies seem to be attracted to my bakes and i have to always keep a watchful eye for them after baking. in the end, i brought a total of 21 egg tarts upstairs to my room whilst they were cooling. or else i'll be in trouble when someone comes complaining to me about a tummyache!!!

mmm...my room smelt heavenly after that! although i do have to admit that my egg tarts look quite ugly and un-pro. but thankfully, everyone liked the egg tarts:)

recipe can be found from previous post. it's not my recipe but from cher in http://thebakerwhocooks.blogspot.com/. but i tweaked the ingredients abit and added more vanilla essence, more eggs and used light cream instead of evaporated milk for one batch of my egg tarts.

whilst meddling with my egg tarts, i tried to make my own unique blend of matcha powder.

as most of my friends know, i am a hopeless addict to all matcha products. but baking green tea powder is difficult to find here so what i did was to blend green tea leaves, icing sugar and milk powder together and hey! something quite original came out from it! can't remember the proportions though because i did everything by taste and smell:)

after making the matcha powder, i wanted to make some matcha cupcakes as well even though i have no recipes for that at all. so i fiddled around with things a bit and ended up with matcha cookies instead! that was a bit of a sweet surprise to me because i was expecting to throw the batter away...here's my trial and error recipe for you to try out if you are a green-tea fan like me:

EASY GREEN TEA COOKIES

Ingredients: 100g softened butter, 1/4 cup caster sugar, 1 tsp vanilla essence, 1 egg, 2 tsp baking powder, approx 1 cup AP flour (sifted), 1 TB matcha powder (or 1.5 TB for stronger flavour but not too much cos i think it will give the cookie a bitter taste)

some sugar for dusting

Steps:
1) Preheat oven to 160 degree celcius (if u want a softer cookie) or 180 degree celcius (if you want a crispier cookie)

2) Cream softened butter and sugar with electric mixer. Add in beaten egg and vanilla essence and mix well till well combined.

3) Sift flour and baking powder and matcha powder together. slowly stir in flour misture into creamed butter and sugar mixture. (caution: flour quantity given may not be accurate as i did it based on judgement of sight)

4) you'll end up with some sticky, googey mass that should still be solid enough for u to spoon out.

5) spoon out one rounded teaspoon of that final mixture and roll it in sugar (more if u have a sweet tooth and like a crunchier taste to yr cookie). place the cookie dough/ ball thingy on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.

6) Bake for 10 to 15 minutes till cookie is light brown and solid to touch.

and there you go! simply delicious matcha cookie! it is crunchy outside and soft inside!

ah...i love my friends! they are such wonderful guinea pigs! hehehe just kidding!

much love,

shunz

dinner at caxton

2009-03-29T18:03:00.000-07:00

last tuesday, winnie, our lovely choir mistress, proposed a social dinner for choir at caxton grill bar in milton. and a total of 16 of us went, happily anticipating a scrumptious but relatively affordable dinner of steak for the 2 for 1 tuesday specials....here are some photos for the people who missed it:)
due to space constraints, we were spilt into 2 groups of 8. on my side of the table we had winnie, lorie, william, sam, june, serene, eunice and i. on the other table, we had regina, vanessa, jazi, charmaine, johann, tobitha, da qian and oh dear... i can't remember the last person's name!but he's a newcomer at choir. oops...i better try to remember his name next time:P
serene and eunice waiting eagerly for dinner to arrive. but oh my, it took such a long time that we gulped down many glasses of water before the actual food arrived!

hmm but not any pictures of the people from the other end of the table because their food arrived way before ours and it's rude to take pictures of people eating! hahaha i don't want to be taking some paparazzi who can't even let people eat in peace!

serene got a shock when her food arrived!it was veal schitzel with one whole bed of chips at the bottom!hmmm...but truth be told, the yummiest bit of the meal was the tangy hot salsa but not the meat nor chips unfortunately:(

funny shot of serene with a lonesome chip from her HUMONGOUS bed of chips!

june and i shared this...chicken breast stuffed with pistachio and brie on bed of snow peas and broadbeans. the chicken was a tact too dry due to lack of sauce but overall, the nutty flavour of the pistachio complimented the subtle creamy taste of the brie very well:)

oh this was the other dish that june and i shared. oh...don't be deceived! the steak was not as tasty as it seemed! it was a bit rubbery and hard to chew and once again too dry! we demand our mushroom sauce!!!haha but i do love the sides of idaho potato and salad that came with it!

after the dinner, we all had a nice little walk to the neighbouring street where all our cars were parked. hahaha exercise after meals always feels good! till next time folks!hope to have another lovely outing with wonderful companions such as this!

much love,

granny bear

incredible eats!

2009-03-24T17:38:00.000-07:00

i haven't been cooking much ever since i came back to brissy. truth be told, it's part laziness and part recovery from the overwhelming amount of yummy food that i got to eat whilst i was in singapore:) hehe

and just to prove my point that i can have a hu-mongous appetite sometimes (and hence, definitely not anorexic or bulimic), here are some incredible eats that got me hooked whilst i was in singapore!

there was this yummy japanese icecream from a shop in bugis. i was out shopping when i saw this huge sign that says "3 scoops of icecream for $3" and i went like O_O!!! i must have some of that even though there was no one to share the ice cream with!hahaha...so you guys can see, i am really quite a greedy girl sometimes:)

and here are the flavours i'd ordered: red bean, black sesame and green tea! when i recounted them to serene, she commented that i ordered all the lao ren flavours= elderly people's flavours! hahaha...i'm not called granny bear for nothing you see! but i do so adore quirky asian tasting icecream over rich indulgent chocolate ones...and my all-time favourite? green tea ice cream!!!oooo...it's the best! YUM!

another favourite food in singapore would be the pancakes and soy bean milk in this shop called mr bean. their pancakes are soft and fluffy, a bit like the japanese dorayaki pancakes and i love it best in either cream cheese or red bean filling. and their soy milk is so thick and fresh that it tastes delicious even without any syrup added! hahaha...i would often pester my brother to buy back for me from his school and though he complains about it all the time, he never fails to respond to my request! oh how i love my brother! hahaha...

ok that's all for now.coming back with more yummy finds and maybe some bakes when i get pictures!hahaha...

much love,

granny bear

We Ate a Rainbow:)

2009-03-10T15:34:00.000-07:00

my dearest korean friend, ellie unni, has been staying at our place for the past few days before she leaves for sydney-indefinitely! so sad. but we had heaps of fun together these past few days that she has been staying with us. on monday night, both of us decided to combine effort to make this simple korean dish that i've been dying to try out and the results were yummilicious!!!

the dish is called Bibim Guksu in korean, which means mixed spicy and sweet noodle salad, or something to the like of it. here's the recipe:

Ingredients:

Soba noodles/ Angelhair Sphaghetti, Shredded Cabbage, Shredded Lettuce, Shredded Kimchi (2 TB), Shredded Cucumber or Zuchinni, Shredded Carrot

Hardboiled Egg X 2

Sauce: 2 TB Gochujang (Korean Hot Pepper Paste), 2 TB Honey, 1 TB Brown Sugar, 1 TB Sesame Oil, 1 TB Soy Sauce, 1 TB Rice/White Vinegar

Addition:

Korean Veggie Dumplings in Miso Soup with Seaweed

so the steps are really easy peasy. just shred all the ingredients as mentioned above.

hardboil the eggs and slice it.

mix up the sauce and mix into the noodle and veggie mixture.

and that's it! you get to eat a healthy concoction of rainbow coloured food!

much love,

granny bear

crazy afternoon at laobeijing

2009-03-07T00:14:00.000-08:00

one of the nicest thing i did when i was holidaying in Singapore was to go out with my cousins, yan and maxie (whom we affectionately call mass-mass). and where else to better connect with one another than an afternoon high tea buffet? that day, we chose to go to this place called lao beijing that serves chinese-shanghainese style dim sums after some ravings from my housemate, mr papa bear, who had went there before.

i had been lazy to post up the pictures ever since but since mass mass has requested, here is it my dearest!

a fancy shot of the menu and assorted dishes on the overexposed afternoon.
my 2 dear cousins, yan and mass mass, who took a nice advertisement shot for lao beijing:)

on little miss greedy's plate (aka me): siew mai, spring rolls, spring onion pancakes, sweet and spicy marinated cucumber.

on mass's plate: stir-fried dried beancurd skin, spring onion pancake, siew mai and spring rolls (the assortment of dishes were pretty limited actually but nonetheless, worth it for the relatively low price we paid)

i love this shot of you yan! you are so photogenic with your gua-zi lian (oval face)! and posing with her is mr xiaolongbaos! many many of them! i ordered 12 in total! hahaha...it's my favourite dim sum, nevermind the pork fat or jelly that was used to make the soup inside!

a close-up shot of mr xiaolongbaos...yummy!!!!!!!!

and i drowned this particular xiaolongbao with ginger shreds and vinegar. take a small bite of the bao's skin, sip in the soup, and polish off the rest of the meat and skin! whoaaaaaaa!

a rare attempt at camwhoring...

more of it till so long farewell! thanks for the treat yanjiejie! i love you guys! muacks!

delicious singapore food

2009-01-18T19:09:00.000-08:00

hi fellow foodies...hahaha from the long break that i have taken, you might have guessed that i must be busy sampling the delicious fare in singapore and that's the truth...here are some of my favourites from the sunny shores of singapore!
this is called thunder tea rice, a traditional hakka dish made up of a unique blend of vegetables, beancurd, fried shrimps, ikan bilis and a sprinkling of roasted peanut to add an extra crunch to the taste. the dish is served with a green tea soup that adds an interesting dimension to the entire taste of the dish. some people find the idea of having green tea served with rice absolutely horrible but for an avid veggie and green tea fan like me, this is the best meal ever yet! and it is so healthy!

this is grilled chicken chop set with black pepper sauce from ashtons. the meal itself is ordinary but for $6.50 without any additional service charge or GST, this meal makes a very satisfying one for the wallet! unfortunately, it also means an extra long wait at the queue with the rest of the money-saving conscious people! next stop i should try botak jones instead! but that's without air-con of course!

this is steamed rice with egg and salmon in a bamboo skewer from shokuda, or the likes of it (can't recall the name). although i generally hate fish, salmon is one of those few exceptions of fish that i do enjoy. and that was why i ordered this dish on the two occasions i went to shokuda with my friends. the restaurant runs marche-style, allowing customers to chose their food from a variety of stalls in the open-market concept. rather refreshing i would say!

this is dry duck noodles from some random food court. not that fantastic as the sauce is too salty. and i guess i made the wrong choice for the type of noodles too...thick yellow noodles make my stomach uncomfortable after a while. but i guess the look of this photo still makes the food tempting afterall so there you go!

alright! preparing happy belly for more yummy eats in the upcoming cny!

happy chinese new year guys!

for tis a season to be jolly!

2008-12-07T20:42:00.000-08:00

the house of the happy bears has been a pretty busy one right after exams. a group of friends from sydney and melbourne came over to visit and this creates a wonderful excuse for a time of feasting at home. and the daunting task of cooking for 12 people was set and these are the dishes conjured up in 3 hours...

stir-fried bulgogi beef with shredded onions and carrots...the beef was thinly sliced from 4 pieces of sirloin steak (not all was cooked that night) and marinated overnight with light soy sauce, cooking wine, mashed garlic, sesame oil, sprinkle of sugar, pepper ( but the vital ingredient of nashi pear juice was left out because nashi pears were not in season back then)...

the rest of the spread includes steamed vegetarian chawanmushi-stewed egg with mashed pumpkin and a sprinkle of japanese seaweed...

sweet potatoes croquette coated with japanese bread crumbs which clarence happily mistook for prawn patties because of its golden brown shade...hahaha...i will ensure more promising ingredients in the future!

agedashi tofu made from firm japanese tofu which was drained before coating with egg white and cornflour for pan-frying. but alas, the sauce was a bit watery due to the lack of thickening agent on that night or it would have been so much nicer! :(

and last but not least, vietnamese wraps with grilled pork, shredded carrots, sprinkle of crushed peanut, lettuce, hoisin sauce and rice vermicelli as the appetiser which everyone happily took as part of the main course instead...sigh...what is a cook to do when the intentions of the dishes are poorly interpreted? hahaha

that's all for now folks!

as we all journey back home (except for our lovely june bear), i'm sure there'll be more yummy exploits to follow!

also stay tune for more of the yummy creations by other members of the house of the happy bears!

much love,

granny bear

sweet and spicy korean rice sticks!yumyum!

2008-11-26T14:48:00.000-08:00

after a long hiatus, it's time to reintroduce some food that has been cooked in the house of the happy bears. do not be deceived by the lack of postings that we have not been cooking or eating in this house because in the silence of our food blog, we have been feasting on yummy fares like laksa, chicken rice, sticky date pudding, cheesecake etc etc...it's just that the photos have been lacking and thus, there is not much to blog about since what's a food blog if there's no food pictures, right???

anyways, the above is one of my favourites from the wide range of korean food we have here, it's called doekbokki-stir-fried rice sticks.

the ingredients for this dish is pretty simple. i kind of concocted my own mixture of ingredients and call it "chap-ba-lan" doekbokki. here's the list:

THE ACCESSORIES:

shredded zucchinni/cabbage, shredded carrots, shredded chicken/ pork (marinated with light soy sauce, sesame oil, pinch of pepper and sugar), shredded capsicum

THE DRESSING:

light soy sauce, ketchup, gochujang (korean red hot pepper paste), onion juice, garlic(finely minced), sesame oil, sugar, corn syrup, rice wine/ mirin, black pepper and for an extra kick of spice, add red pepper powder

THE STAR:

rice cakes (boiled to soften then pan-fried till crisp)

now what you do is stir fry the accessory ingredients till soft, add prepared rice sticks and stir fry with the dressing

and there you have it...yumyum house's korean stir fried rice sticks!mmmmmmm......

food escapade part 1

2008-11-07T22:49:00.000-08:00

from the simple home-cooked meals, to delicious hawker food to "upclass" restaurant food, here is a record of my food escapades from the last 2 years:
look what i made for valentine's this year, honey corn muffins set in heart shape for my besties:) i heart you...

and i baked those lovely undressed profiterole pastries filled with luscious fresh cream...hehe...decadence!

oh and one random lunch date with my bro at the hong kong cafe in cineleisure. the yummy siew mai from the hong kong cafe.

the chicken chop asian-western fusion style sphaghetti that i had and i dumped the leftovers onto my bro's plate. ahaha...

the club sandwich that i had at one of the cafes in the versailles at paris early this jan...nothing fantastic except that the ambience of the cafe was lovely.

the wonderful range of delicate french pastries and cakes at one of the pastisseries i visited with carol...

carol's smoked salmon sandwich for lunch...

a whiff of the buttery fragrance of the french pastries at paul's bakery makes me :)

some lamb linguine thing that was the dish of the day at a small cozy cafe i visited with carol at lille...

i remembered this as the basil pesto linguine that carol couldn't finish and wanted to vomit over...

my pizza with an egg on top...unique but erm...too much for my appetite...

the seafood risotto that carol's housemate esther had kindly cooked for us...

the lobster chinese noodles that i shared with qinyi and some of her friends in london which cost us 13 pounds PER person??!!!??and it's not even that fantastic!rather salty!

this was the sashimi salad that came in a set with carol's grilled cod fish at sun and moon.

the grilled cod fish that was the main dish for carol's lunch set

my grilled teriyaki chicken on a hotplate was fantastic...

this was the california roll that came as a side dish in my set...

this was a tofu and veg casserole dish that we had for my cousin, maxie's birthday dinner last year...

the zi-char (stir fry) fare that is common and unique to the south-east countries...fried rice, hor fun, char mein...

the oatmeal cranberry cookie that i baked as a gift to my friends over the last hols...

heart-shaped raisin scones that i baked...:)

my ideal style of a satisfying lunch...yong tau foo, which is tofu stuffed with meat or fish paste and a spicy and sour tom yam soup i had with it...

mini quiche with garlic bread that i used to prepare for my lunch or dinner when i'm feeling lazy...

omurice that i cooked for june...it's nothing more than chicken fried rice wrapped up in an omelette with cheese sauce and tomato sauce overlaying it...

this was a yummy stir-fried pork hotplate dish that i had in a korean place at cairns last year...tried to replicate it afterwards but nothing beats having food served piping hot in a hotplate!

the grilled salmon lunch i had for my trip to cairns last year was yummy...

this was the first dish esther and i had in cairns...some tuna egg bowl which wasn't as nice as it looks... the cookies and cream icecream cake i made for rach's farewell last year with all the faces of our cell members drawn in....

the shepherd's pie which alison made for one of our social cell dinner in june last year...

i love this dish...daniel's famous spicy and sweet rice cake sticks...

ellie's korean style sweet and sour pork prior to the sauce pouring ceremony...

the korean kimbap (sushi) that i made...smoked ham, omelette, pickled cucumber, crabstick, carrot and pickled radish...

the banana loaf i used to bake lots when banana prices went down last year...

the pikelets breakfast i prepared for june's birthday breakfast last year...

the famous yatala pie...not so nice because this was a sweet pie with a sickly berry taste that resemble that of the sticky cough syrup i used to eat as a child...urgh:(

the strawberry boat?

some chicken puff pastry thing that i made...haha...pardon me for the burnt puff pastry...should have used the proper oven instead of the toaster...

well that's all for now folks. more to follow next time when i'm bored...haha

of pizza, birthday and farewell

2008-11-07T22:26:00.000-08:00

for the lack of posts lately, here's a random entry on the "highly acclaimed" one metre long pizza from arrivederci at milton and our farewell dinner for david yap and birthday celebration for jessie last friday. photos are courtesy of eunice's camera:

here's the famous one metre long pizza. there were 4 flavours on our side of the table: italian, mediteranea, chicken and pineapple and lastly, marinara. my favourite was the mediteranea, the sundried tomatoes are so yum, i won't mind eating them everyday:)

after an extremely filling meal, we all tried to get rid of the extra pizza by playing a game where a person choses a number from the range of 1-100 and the rest of the group has to say a number each such that the range gets smaller and smaller. the person who says the chosen number eventually ends up as the loser and has to eat the leftover pizza!

after celebrating jessie's birthday with a lovely passionfruit cheesecake, we all had a group shot under the directions of our bubbly eunice. here's our group shots, can you spot any differences in the 2 pictures? no prizes for guessing correctly! haha...

fiddling with my heritage dish

2008-08-17T01:54:00.000-07:00

my mum being a true-breed teochew has always prided herself with her most acclaimed dish of teochew lor ark=teochew braised duck back in singapore. as her daughter, i have never managed to learn this recipe from her though because she felt that it was too much effort to prepare. but then came a time when i am tempted to explore my heritage dish because of a promise i have made to uncle edward about cooking a duck dish for him.

it took lots of cajoling from me to get my mum to share her secret recipe with me. and even so, i was not quite sure of the ingredients and steps to it because she always estimated the quantities for her ingredients and mastered them by heart. so i could only take a guess and the above was what i came up with after marrying her recipe with some other recipes i found online.

i can't quite recall the exact quantities of the ingredients that i have added too because i was so exhausted from plucking the remnants of the duck hair, cleaning and washing it, cutting the 2 disgusting oily glands off from its butt (sorry can't find a more poilite term for this:P), marinating it and finally trying to taste the sauce to check if it was anywhere close to my mum's. chopping up the duck was quite a laugh because the chopper wasn't that sharp so i had a few hits and misses here and there.

and the final verdict of my little experiment? i don't know! let those who have tasted it decide!

hehehe...and one secret thing is this sauce, yes, that black and dubious looking thing up there can be used to braise pork belly, boiled eggs, bean curd and chinese mushroom and it is definitely going to be one wonderful delight!

till then, wait for me folks!

much love,

granny bear

a dish of dedication and skills

2008-08-17T01:46:00.000-07:00

aha! for those of you who enjoy noodles with thick gravy, here's one dish that will definitely bring some new excitement to your tastebud! it is a common dish in the southeast asian hawker centre-lor mee, which goes around 2 to 3 dollars in singapore.

unfortunately, we don't get the luxury of having such yummy food at a cheap price here in aussie. hence, papa bear decided to concoct our own lor mee feast at home. it is definitely a dish that requires dedication and skills because each component such as the soup stock, the braised pork, the braised egg and the blanched prawns and beansprouts took much time to prepare!

we absolutely enjoyed every single bite of it! oh the gravy can be quite heavy on the stomach and difficult to digest, so it is important to take it with lots of black vinegar like i do! haha...as for the recipe, ask for yl's singapore hawker food if you are willing to take the pains to create this dish!hehehe...

much love

granny bear

For the love of Cupcakes

2008-08-14T01:30:00.000-07:00

Baking cupcakes has been a personal passion for me(baby bear) for a period of time. Though it involes struggling with the unruly mixer and tempermental oven, nothing with taint the prettiness of my end product cupcakes!!! The cupcake experiment this time took off with Papa bear wanting to feed his medical tutorial group some cupcakes.. This resulted in the creation of

Blue Paradise-A fruity cupcake with blue mascarpone icing

The heart of a kid-A peanut butter, jelly cupcake with peanut butter frosting *this one has been a favourite since it was made for Jade's birthday a couple of months back.

So here are some colourful pictures of the process.

The initial beating process

Mixing it in...yum.

The baking of Blue paradise:

The completed product! Pretty-ness accomplished!

The baking of The heart of a kid:

Completed with silver sugar balls to give it 'bling' and abit of a crunch!

The completed collection of 48 cupcakes!

Now that Ive(baby bear) has started baking.. you may look forward to more creations in the near future when I get my paws dominating the kitchen! =D.

Much love, Baby Bear. =D

The Satay project-101

2008-08-12T21:14:00.000-07:00

This Satay Project was started off as an effort by Lydia (Baby Bear) to "appease" our dearest Uncle Edward at church, who is such a wonderful bundle of joy and who loves teasing us about not inviting him to places...erms...such as YL's (Papa bear) birthday party in July.

The House of the Happy Bear had half a week of trialing different satay recipes that were researched by our dedicated Baby Bear. On Monday, we had Thai style satay which i loved because of my penchant for sweetish sourish food. On Tuesday, we had honey type satay which was yum as well. But Papa Bear who wanted to help Baby Bear find the best Satay recipe that will satisfy Uncle Edward's tastebuds went to do his own little research and tada! He found the authentic Singaporean/ Malaysian style Satay recipe online!

It was an awesome blend of spices and flavours, which included tumeric, lemongrass and a whole long list of ingredients that i can't recall! and thanks to the couple's efforts, the chicken meat (it has to be thigh meat definitely!) turned out to be tender and flavoursome! an immensely gratifying food tasting experience!

here's an account of the process from the "i-spy" lens of granny bear:

the thick and delightful satay sauce filled with crunchy peanuts delight. not recommended for people with nuts allergy!

grilling the satay with the compliments of ellie unni's grill (co-owned by daniel oppa who left us! boo hoo...)
the accomplished masterchef number 1 -papa bear
the sweet masterchef number 2-baby bear! she spent the whole morning preparing the meat!

alright, that's all for now on my "i-spy" lens. see you guys again folks!

much love,

granny bear

if you must name decadence as such...

2008-08-02T00:51:00.000-07:00

cakes are so rich and decadent that my growing belly is the evidence of it. and here's one cake gone haywire when i tried to pile too much chocolatey goodness on it that it led to a suicide of my poor throat...and probably that of many others too!

the ultra fudgey chocolote brownie ice cream profiteroles cake for estee's birthday about 1 month ago...

would you want a slice even after warning about its potency level? hahaha...

the queen's delight (and ours too!)

2008-08-01T19:29:00.000-07:00

the cheesecake shop is obviously famous because of its cheesecake, right? but for us happy bears, things changed after we have tasted this lovely slice of the strawberry torte that yl (papa bear) bought for lyd (baby bear) when she had a craving for cakes.

this cake has got to be the best ever. its sponge layer is so soft and smooth that it practically slides down your throat, and the strawberry jam and cream layer adds a delightful touch of sweetness to the cake without being cloying. the chocolate bits are a wonderful treat for those who MUST have chocolate in their cake regardless of the occasion as they melt so readily in the mouth after creating bright sparks in the taste history of your tongue.

hmmm...even the thought of it now after 2 weeks can make me salivate because it was simply so lovely!

and such a cake must be even more memorable for our dear lyd, the queen of yl's eyes. and a salute of thanks to her here, as it was indirectly due to her that we, as her cronies, got to have a slice of this wonderful cake bought by her doting boyfriend...hehehe...

that's all for now, dear foodie!

eggy improvements!

2008-07-25T00:25:00.000-07:00

egg tarts are one of the must-haves for dim sum outings but unfortunately, supplies here in aussie are much less than demands.

as such, it is always handy to have a simple egg tart recipe to create your own especially when your craving for them kicks in. but to be honest, cravings won't ever be the incentive for me to make egg tarts because the tedious process of making the pastry is enough to drive me nuts. for some reason or other, i never had much luck with shaping pastry nicely in the way professional bakers do. hence, explaining the ugly appearance of my egg tarts even though taste-wise they are quite ok.

but since people love egg tarts, there's no harm trying to make this rare treat occasionally, right? hahaha...so here it is jon poh, the egg tarts recipe that you have requested for! i hope that you'll have much better results than me!

Ingredients (makes ~20):
Pastry- 200 g butter, 80g icing sugar (sifted), 360g (about 3 and 1/4 cups) superfine flour/ AP flour will do (sifted), 1 beaten egg, 1/2 tsp vanilla essence

Filling-6 eggs (lightly beaten and put through sieve to remove lumpy egg white)/ 8 egg yolks (if you don't want slightly whitish appearance for your filling), 480ml water, 160g sugar, 80ml evaporated milk (creamier so produce nicer egg tarts), 1/2 tsp vanilla essence

Steps:
Pastry making
1) Beat softened butter and icing sugar in small mixing bowl till light and fluffy
2) Add in beaten egg and vanilla essence
3) Beat till egg is incoraporated
4) Add in flour and mix till non-sticky dough is formed
5) Chill dough for about 2 hours

Making the filling
1) Dissolve sugar in boiling water.Set aside to cool
2) When syrup has cooled, add in beaten eggs, evaporated milk and vanilla essence. Mix well

Baking the final product!:
1) Divide pastry into 20 portions.
2) Press each portion into greased tart moulds and trim excess
3) Prick base of each tart with fork
4) Fill in egg mixture to about 90% full
5) Bake in preheated oven at 180 degree celcius for 25-30 minutes (careful not to overcook or burn the top or you'll get Portuguese egg tarts instead!)
6) Leave tarts in moulds for 10 minutes to cool before turning out to prevent pastry from cracking

AND THIS IS WHAT YOU SHOULD ASPIRE TO ACHIEVE: RESTAURANT STYLE EGG TARTS!!!

all the best!

oleh oleh!chai tao kway!!!

2008-07-09T20:51:00.000-07:00

to the westerners, carrot cake comes almost invariably in the form of a light/dark brown cake filled with shredded (orange) carrot, roasted walnuts and a thick sugary icing. that's why confusion arises when we speak about the asian carrot cake to them. this carrot cake that we south-east asians are more familiar with is otherwise known as lo bo gao/ white radish cake/ cai tao kway and it is one of the most popular hawker centre food around.

being ever so eager to re-enact memories of home, an "arduous" attempt was made to create the dish last tuesday. here is an account of how things went:

mixture of rice flour, oil, water and salt, stirred well to form a thickening glaze
minced garlic and shredded dried shrimps to add to the fragrance of the original steamed radish cake

shredded white radish which took a massive amount of arm power to create. hahaha... it did help to train up my iron arms...NO? lol

after getting all these ingredients ready, stir fry the garlic and dried shrimps, followed by the shredded radish. add in seasoning of salt, sugar and pepper ( for me i cheated by adding a bit of cooking wine and light soy sauce too) then add in water

when water boils, add in thickening glaze and stir quickly to form a paste

then put the paste into an oiled round tin and steam for 45 minutes or till set.

allow radish cake to cook and set. cut into cubes (large ones if you like)

TO SERVE STIR FRIED CARROT CAKE:
heat oil in wok. stir fry minced garlic and cubes of the previously steamed radish cake.

add dash of sesame oil, fish sauce, hoisin sauce/ sweet sauce, small amount of light soy sauce and sweet chilli (as you deem fit)

pour 2 eggs (beaten) over and allow eggs to set over mod to high heat. add dash of white pepper and some chopped spring onion for taste.

so there you have it! home-made chai tao kway!

pork belly party!

2008-07-06T21:16:00.000-07:00

one fine saturday afternoon, a group of friends (ellie, jessie, jade, wally, yong liang and estee) decided to hold a pork belly party at the house of the happy bears. it was a rainy day and so the idea of having a hot barbeque grill in our midst was more than perfect and we absolutely enjoyed stuffing ourselves with all that meat, lettuce, seaweed, mushrooms, onions, sweet potato, garlic, shallots and sauce!

ah ha!catch that expression of absolute satisfaction on jade's face? that's the look of one happy girl eagerly anticipating the meat that her dear bf will deliver onto her plate! hahaha...and the look of serious concentration on wally's and ellie's faces are such a hilarious contrast to jade's expression! mmm...look at the glorious layers of fats on the pork meat before grilling? and the yummy looking char-grilled bits after grilling? oh my, i can't fully emphasize how decadent it is because in my freako-fat-conscious enthusiasm, i peeled off all visible fats that i could see before eating. but those who love burnt fats will tell you that the taste of it is absolutely sensational because it simply melts in your mouth, leaving behind a lucious aftertaste of sweet meaty fragrance???
ooo...jade seems to be enjoying her usual favourite, dried seaweed seasoned with salt. do look out for the ones with an old man's face on its packaging in the korean supermarket because those are the best tasting ones according to jade! and i can't dispute that so far!hehehe

poor ellie was constantly burnt by hot sizzling pork oil from the grill. but having such a dedicated chef amongst us really made our day.thank you ellie! and she went through a step-by-step guide of how we should eat korean pork belly barbeque that day:

step 1: get a piece of lettuce
step 2: lay grilled pork belly on top
step 3: add some seasoned shallots, grilled onions and garlic and samjeon (salty spiced sauce)
step 4: put a small amount of rice on top
step 5: roll it up and pop into mouth

yummy!

and this was the leftovers of the seasoned shallots that ellie made. the sauce was made from sugar, light soy sauce, vinegar and sesame oil. it added an extra kick to the flavours that effused from the lettuce fillings we put into our mouths!

hahaha...that's all for now! i hope there will be more pork belly parties to come! and thank you to you wonderful people who made this simple party possible!

much love,

granny bear

estee's birthday dinner!

2008-07-06T04:37:00.000-07:00

4th of july is a day of significance to america because it's her independence day. but in the house of the happy bears, there's a whole new meaning to this day because it is the birthday of our dear friend, estee. she is a really loyal and good friend who is fun to talk to and be with. so in honour of her, granny bear decided to hold a small dinner party at our place so that she can enjoy the love from a home-cooked meal.

here's what was cooked that night...but alas! no picture of the birthday girl because the camera died before anymore pictures could be taken...but a birthday cake picture with estee in it will soon follow i hope....
mmm...sweet and sour pork! i pre-marinated the pork cubes a night before with sugar, soy sauce, salt, some cooking wine, white pepper and 5-spice powder for the extra bit of fragrance in the meat. the 5-spice powder really works wonder with pork as i i have discovered! mapo tofu! this is estee's favourite and therefore a must-have at the dinner! it may look spicy but i can assure you that it's bearable spiciness! even wally who is known for his non-tolerance of spicy food could take it! the trick to it is to add a little cooking wine and small amount of sugar whilst cooking. and if you want a nicer presentation of the food, do cube the tofu before cooking instead of chopping it up with the spatula whilst cooking! haha...i did that only because i was hard-pressed for time!
and my very own creation! treasures in a blanket! the filling is made from minced fish fillet with ginger, mashed hard tofu, fried shredded dried scallops, shredded chinese mushrooms and carrots and after that wrapped within softened cabbage leaves tied up with garlic chives stalks! following that, steam the parcel for about 30 minutes. make egg drop sauce with minced garlic, "juice" from steaming, beaten egg, oyster sauce and cornstarch water then drizzle over!

and the most versatile thing about this dish is that the leftover fillings can be used to make fried tofu balls. just shape the remaining fillings into small little balls, coat with potato flour and pan-fry/deep-fry for about 10minutes (thoroughly!!!) it's really yum! do try it!

i hope that you have enjoyed your birthday dinner estee! i love you lots!

much love
granny bear

you can make oishii jap food too!

2008-07-04T18:26:00.000-07:00

many people are familiar with the dish called "katsudon" in the jap restaurants, which usually comprises of a piece of fried panko-coated chicken or pork cutlet, covered by sweet japanese sauce and a thin layer of egg and caramelised onions. however, not many have heard of or tried its sister dish called "oyakodon"(Chicken and Egg Rice Bowl), which is a much healthier version of "katsudon" since the chicken pieces are simmered in the sweet sauce and not deep-fried.

in this house of the happy bears, "oyakodon" is one hot favourite because it is healthy, delicious and very easy to prepare. here's the winning recipe for those of you who are adventurous enough to try out your own jap cuisine at home: Ingredients to serve 4 people:
Jap sweet sauce: 2 cups of dashi soup (Japanese bonito stock-you can make from instant bonito stock powder), 7 TB soy sauce (approx quantity, i usually adjust according to taste and add slightly less if the stock is sweet enough), 5 TB mirin (sweet sakae), 5 TB sugar
Rice: 4 cups of cooked Jap rice
Others: 4 medium chicken thigh fillet (sliced into chunks) or 2 large chicken breasts (you can half the quantity of meat if you are not a self-proclaimed carnivore!), 4 eggs (beaten), thinly sliced onions and shredded carrot (about 1 small carrot) for extra taste and colour

Steps:
1) Prepare Jap sweet sauce:
-Put dashi soup in pan on medium heat
-Add soy sauce, mirin and sugar in pan
-Stir and mix well

2) Prepare "gu" or fillings for rice bowl:
-Put chicken chunks into the sweet sauce in pan and simmer on low heat for a few minutes
-Add in onions and carrots and simmer futher till chicken is no longer pink
-Add in beaten eggs when the dashi stock is boiling
-Turn heat down to low and put on lid till eggs have settled and cooked (you have to make your own judgement here!)

3) Presentation:
-Place the cooked fillings over the rice prepared earlier
-Sprinkle on some shredded seaweed to add some sparks to the taste and appearance of your food!

granny bear's cooking tips:
- use chicken thigh instead of chicken breast if you want a more tender and juicy taste to your meat because chicken breast tends to dry out very fast if heat is not controlled properly
- divide the "gu" ingredients into 4 sets and prepare each rice bowl individually (it may be more time consuming but it definitely gives more satisfactory results!)

another popular myth that most people believe in is that agedashi tofu is tedious to prepare and that you can only get good agedashi tofu in the restaurants. but the truth is, agedashi tofu is a very simple dish that most Jap households cook on a regular basis as a side dish or appetiser! here's my trial-and-hit recipe of agedashi tofu at home:

Ingredients:
1 box of silken tofu (250g or more if you like) cut into bite size blocks (see picture above), cornflour or potato flour for coating tofu before frying, Jap agedashi tofu stock (i am not sure of the quantity here because i made up my own sauce-Jap dashi soup, soy sauce, mirin, shredded ginger and squeeze a bit of juice in, sugar, cornflour water)

Steps:
1) Drain silken tofu of any water and wrap it with kitchen towel and place a bowl over to help absorb the moisture for at least 1 hour (this is to prevent the oil from splattering onto you later when you deep fry it)
2) Prepare the Jap sauce in a similar manner to that for the "oyakodon" but add ginger to it. When the sauce boils, add in cornflour water and stir quickly to thicken the sauce slightly
3) Cut tofu into blocks of your desired size and coat it with cornflour
4) Deep fry in hot oil till surface of tofu turns light golden brown (be careful not to overfry!)
5) Sprinkle some shredded ginger/ white radish/ chopped spring onion for presentation if you like

Ah ha! there you have it! simple home-cooked Jap meal! i hope that you will be successful in preparing it!

much love
granny bear

the triple celebration berry berry cheesecake!

2008-06-29T06:53:00.000-07:00

in the aftermath of the exams storm, the household of the four happy bears was in for a many lovely surprises and joyous occassions. to mark these memories, granny bear decided to bake a cheesecake for:

A) june's belated birthday celebration

B) olivia and su's farewell

C) jon poh's welcome "party" (though he brought a cheesecake himself, which has a lovely music note on it to say hello to june bear and baby bear!)

and so here it is, the recipe for the cheesecake that took 3 hours to bake all because granny bear was lazy and used the electric blender instead of the electric mixer! sigh!

1) firstly, prepare the biscuit crust with 250g of digestive biscuits (or any other sweet biscuits to your liking) and 125g of melted butter. Mix the crushed biscuit with the melted butter. Press the crumbs into a 8 or 9 inch springform cake tin and cover the sides if you desire.
2) use either 2 packages of softened Philly cream cheese (250g each) or 1 package of softened Philly cream cheese and 1 tub of berry flavoured ricotta cheese (250g each). Mix the softened cream cheese, 1.5 cups of sugar and 1/2 tsp of vanilla essence at medium speed using an electric mixer till smooth (note: DO NOT use electric blender or the thing will liquefy!)

3) Add in 2 eggs and mix till blended. Stir in 300g of blueberries (for those who prefer sweet berries) or mixed berries (only for those who like the tart sweetness of berries)

4) Pour mixture into the prepared crust and bake for 175 degree celcius for 40 minutes till centre is almost set.

5) Cool with oven door kept slightly ajar for about 30 minutes to 1 hour.

6) Refrigerate. Decorate with fresh fruits before serving. Go crazy with decadence by melting some white or dark chocolate over a water bath and drizzle over the top of the cake!

haha...those berries may look delicious from here but to be truthful, they are a little too sour for many's liking. only granny bear adored those berries in their tart sweetness.

would you like to have a slice of this cake too? haha...go on...try baking it and tell us how you went!

from cinderella's carriage came the yummy pumpkin scones!

2008-06-25T07:09:00.001-07:00

hmmm...sorry for the lack of updates my lovely friends!the home of the happy bears has been really busy lately with the entertaining of guests from faraway land amidst er-hem...other important issues too...*wink wink* (some of you will know what i'm referring to but for those of you who are clueless...eh?too bad!hahaha...just kidding!) and so as you can guess, we haven't really had time to cook or bake much...

but since the next few days will be even more packed with activities, granny bear thought that it's time to put up a way overdue post about the "unforgettable" pumpkin scones that she had promised to a friend( haha... i hope you are taking notes of the recipe now johann!)

PUMPKIN SCONES

INGREDIENTS:
-30g butter chopped
-2 TB castor sugar
-1/2 cup mashed cooked pumpkin
-1 egg (lightly beaten)
-1/2 cup milk
-2 and 1/2 cup self-raising flour
-pinch of salt
-milk to glaze

STEPS:
1) Preheat oven to 210 degree celcius

2) Using electric beaters, beat butter (work on it when softened to make things easier!) and sugar in a SMALL mixing bowl ( don't use big bowls!you won't get fluffy scones if you use the big bowls!!!) until mixture is light and creamy

3) Add mashed pumpkin, beaten egg and milk. Stir/ mix till well combined.

4) Sift flour and salt into large mixing bowl ( don't be lazy about sifting!it helps to remove lumps from the flour!)

5) Make a well in the centre and add almost all the mashed pumpkin mixture from 3)

6) Mix LIGHTLY using a flat bladed knife to form a soft dough (add more liquid if necessary)

7) Knead dough briefly on a lightly floured surface and roll dough out to about 2cm thick

8) Separate dough into smaller rounds/ portions in the size and shape according to your heart's desire! (note that dough might be super soft and sticky so you would need to flour your hands thoroughly before working on dough so that there won't be more dough on your fingers than on the baking tray!!!) oh and also! granny bear's advice is to make heart shaped scones if you can so that people will feel the LOVE when they eat the scones! hahaha...granny's number one obsession is heart shaped items!

9) Next place separated dough portions on greased/lined baking tray and glaze with milk. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes and remember to watch your oven closely so that the scones will be soft and fluffy and not rock hard! if you can't afford time to watch over your oven, turn the temperature down abit to say around 190 degrees celcius...though it takes longer time to cook, it will buy you more time to do other stuff before your scones get burnt!

OK???good luck with scones baking!hope they turn up to be yum so that poor cinderella who donated her pumpkin carriage for them won't feel too sad!

oh and sorry for the lack of pictures to entice you all into baking the scones! if you happen to make them, do remember to take a picture of it so that i can post it up on the blog!

mmm...what a delicious fare!

2008-06-19T15:48:00.000-07:00

as was mentioned before, papa bear is an excellent chef and he cookes really yummy asian-singaporean food(haha...it sounds alot like we are blowing our own trumpets here but you can't deny the truth, can you?lol)...and so there was this night when he experimented with the fine art of hor fun making. alas, we forgot to take a photo of the chef at work so all we have here is the finished product:

thick but chewy hor fun noodles stir fried with dark soy sauce, light soy sauce and sesame oil
accompanied by succulent pork strips, the fresh "oceany" sweetness of prawns and crabstick (albeit the fact that they are imitation crabsticks...lol) and healthy greens!

oh but wait a minute, did we forget something? ah...here is it! the delicious must-have egg drop sauce made from chicken stock, oyster sauce, garlic and eggs!

and the spoils of this meal for four? around 12 dollars or so if i don't recall wrongly! see how restaurant fare can be made more affordable when you decide to cook at home? haha...so remember to watch out for more of our yummy posts because we might just decide to set up a hawker centre here one day!

let food be the expression of our love!

2008-06-17T02:36:00.000-07:00

at the stroke of 12 midnight on 17 June 2008, june bear was fast asleep in her room (or so it was thought), missing that exact magical moment that began her very special day! but thankfully for that, granny bear was able to go sneakily into the kitchen to start a very special mission: operation june birthday breakfast!
and guess who's also up at this unearthly hour? yes, none other than our adorable and pretty baby bear, who also happened to be the handy guinea pig to test the muffins that were about to be created! can you guess what muffins i am about to create?wink wink...
mmm...it's golden brown honey oatie muffins with raisins and cinnamon spice! moist and dense on the inside like honeycomb cake! yay! hope june bear will find this muffin healthy and yum!

decorated muffins using candy alphabets left over from jade's cupcake creations! yawns...granny bear is tired. let's all go to sleep!the next morning, another surprise was added!heart-shaped french toast with healthy honey muffins!the beautiful birthday girl with her breakfast!poor june bear was about to go for an exam that starts at 8am this morning and thus, explains the slightly tired look. but you still glow from within my dear!an additional flower breakfast set for the dearest baby bear! isn't the flower shape cute?haha...wacky granny with an obsession for heart shaped food! and yay to decadent french toasts drizzled with maple syrup!

and we celebrated the rest of the day with more food as you can see!but they are all store bought due to exams and the lack of ingredients at home! we all joked that the household of durham street will become starving africa when papa bear left us for his holidays with 3 pretty friends.hahaha.but looks like we are going to become affluent america instead!

anyways, that's all for now folks! and to the dearest june bear, if love be the food for our soul, let food be the expression of our love for you! you are a fantastic, talented, wonderful and lovely friend and sister!hope you had a great birthday celebration despite the exams!muacks!

You say Rata, I Say Prata!!!

2008-06-11T18:19:00.000-07:00

one fine afternoon last week, yewlim(papa bear) and lyddie( baby bear) decided to make prata to get rid of some exam stress. here's a post covering their little adventure together under the supervision of junebay (june bear since she doesn't want to be subjected to the dominion of the granny bear aka shunz...lol)...

the creators of this prata will share more of their painstaking and hilarious experience of prata making when they are free to do so. meanwhile, allow granny bear to act on their behalf as the commentator!

A Simple Dinner

2008-06-11T18:00:00.000-07:00

the kids of this house have not been eating well since exams revision began. yesterday night before prayer meeting, granny bear decided that everyone should eat a decent dinner. so these were the dishes served: Granny's Golden Coins (aka sweet potato croquettes), steamed pork mince, stir-fried bok choy with dried shrimps and egg sauce.

recipe for sweet potato croquette to follow...

boil cubes of sweet potato

mash it up when boiled till soft

add salt and coarse black pepper

mix it up, shape into balls/ patties

dip in beaten egg, coat with plain flour followed by japanese bread crumbs (panko)

deep fry/ pan fry in hot oil.

and there you have it! golden croquettes that is soft on the inside and crunchy on the outside!

really simple to make. just be careful with the temperature of the oil when frying it. make sure oil is not too hot or the croquettes will not be a beautiful golden brown! and next time, i'm going to experiment with wrapping gravy filled beef mince inside.hahaha!

in the midst of creation

2008-06-06T18:16:00.001-07:00

the little masterminds of heavenly food creations are now stuck in a storm called "exams". please be patient with us as we try to find our way to your hearts with our food creations!

much love,
shunz