Recipe for Butter Cake

Ingredients:

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 (171g) cup butter, softened
1 1/4 cups sugar
2 eggs
3/4 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Method:

Put all ingredients into a big bowl and use an electric hand mixer to blend all ingredients until smooth. Grease and flour a 9 x 5 inch loaf pan and transfer the batter into the baking pan. Bake at 177°C for 50 – 60 minutes or until golden brown and a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean.










Very easy cake to bake. Just mix everything together. Wanted to bake something but was too lazy...so went online to find this easy recipe :)

Recipe for Fried Chicken Wing

Ingredients

8 chicken wings
2 chicken stock cubes (鸡精块), crushed
2 tablespoon of oyster sauce
1 tablespoon of Hua Diao rice wine (花雕酒)
4 tablespoon of cornstarch

Cooking oil for frying

Method
1) Wash chicken wings with salt water. Halves the wings at joints. Discard wing tips, or keep it, as desired.

2) Place wings in bowl, add in oyster sauce, rice wine and crushed chicken stock cubes. Combine well. Dredge each wing with seasoning mixture, using hand to ensure whole wing is well covered with the seasoning.

3) Cover wings in bowl with cling wrap, and marinate in refrigerator for at least 4 hours, or overnight, like I did.

4) Drizzle cornstarch to briefly coat marinated wings. Heat wok with oil over high fire. When oil is hot, bring down heat to medium fire. Fry drumlets and mid-joints separately, for about 5 minutes each time, or until golden browned.

5) Remove wings from wok, and drain on kitchen towel. Serve.

Healthier method - I used shallow-frying instead of deep frying method. Simply fry one side of the chicken, and then turn over to the other side. Fry both sides till well done!



The chicken wings are really yums. I like!

Recipe for Mee Rebus

Ingredients:

1 kg yellow noodles (scalded)

500 g beansprout (scalded)

Garnishes:

sliced green chillies

6 hard boiled eggs

4 pieces fried beancurd

fried sliced shallots

Ingredients for gravy:

1 cup fermented bean paste (washed and drained)(I used spicy bean paste)

1 cup dried shrimps (geragau)

1 cup peanuts

6 buah keras

1 piece blachan (toasted and pounded)

1 cup water

4 tbsp flour

1/2 cup cooking oil

Ingredients to ground:

1 inch ginger

1 inch blue ginger (lengkuas)

5 cloves garlic

2 stalks lemon grass (serai)

30 shallots

20 dried red chillies

Method for gravy:

1) Fry peanuts and buah keras in a little oil and blend together with fermented bean paste, dried shrimps and blachan.

2) Heat 1/2 cup cooking oil and fry grounded ingredients until aromatic and well cooked.

3) Add in blended ingredients from (1) and fry for a few minutes more.

4) Add in 80 oz water or stock and let it boil.

5) Thicken stock with 1 cup water mixed with 4 tbsp flour and stir until gravy is thick (dilute according to thickness).

6) Add salt and sugar to taste.

To serve:

Mix scalded noodles with some beansprouts and pour some gravy over it. Garnish with egg slices, sliced green chillies, a cut lime, some taupok and fried shallots. Add a dash of black soya sauce.

- I only added about 2 tablespoons of oil. Healthy!!

More longchamps!

New tries

Have been attending the other classes conducted by Calvin.

Abs and Tone - this one is a killer for the abs. Incoporate weights and resistant ropes for strength and toning for arms and legs. I like. Got cramps after my first class. The only down side is that the pace of the class is rather slow as it focuses on strength and tone and not cardio.

Cardio Sculpt - something like body step for the cardio, incoporating weights for sculpt. I like! Pace is fast, no drink breaks in between! The music just goes on and on and on!

Sculpt and Stretch - Class divided into half of cardio sculpt and half stretching. I like too. Pace is fast during the sculpt part of the class. No drinks break! Just that I felt the stretch part of the class could be shortened so that can have more time for sculpting. I must also mention that the stretching exercises are not easy, something like body balance. OMG!

Fat Burning Circuit Training - Different exercises at different stations. Do not really like this class as it feels very individual and hence gets bored at times. Calvin just goes around each station to correct us. But, do not undermine the various exercises. Short period of time at each station, but enough to kill.

Have yet to try Total Body Sculpt.

Chwee Kuay again!

Chwee Kuay again! Yumz! :)

Recipe for Sukiyaki Beef Soup

Cooked this yesterday, inspired by lunch at Sakae Sushi on Thursday! :)

Self-improvised recipe and I must say that it is very successful! :)

Ingredients:
- Sukiyaki beef
- Dashi paste
- Sukiyaki sauce
- Mushrooms (eg: golden, shitake, chinese etc etc)
- Japanese fishcake
- Crab stick
- Egg
- Toufu
- Carrot
- Shallots

Methods:
1. Soak the chinese mushroom to soften it if using. Keep the water for use later.
2. I used the hotpot to cook this. Add a little oil and fry the shallots until golden and fragrant.
3. Add 2 cups of water. Add in the mushrooms, carrots, fishcake, crab stick and carrot.
4. Add 2 tablespoon of dashi paste. Add some mushroom water. Add Sukiyaki sauce. Taste to ensure that soup it tasty enough. Cover to boil for 1 to 2 minutes or until carrot is soft.
5. Add sukiyaki beef slices. Crack in egg.
6. Serve immediately.

Receipe for Shortbread Fingers

Baked this last week. Very successful attempt :)

Ingredients:

- 3/4 cup cornflour
- 1/3 cup rice flour
- 2/3 cup plain flour
- 1/3 cup icing sugar
- 200g unsalted butter, chopped

1. Sift flour and sugar into large mixing bowl, add butter. Use fingertips, rub butter into the flour for 3 minutes or until the mixture is fine and crumbly. Press mixture together to form a soft dough.
2. Press mixture to form 18 x 27cm rectangle. Rough up surface with a grater or mark with fork.
3. Cut into half lengthways, then into 2cm strips.
4. Arranged on tray, 3cm apart.
5. Bake in pre-heat oven, 180 degrees, for 20 mintues or until firm and lightly golden.

Recipe for Chwee Kuay

Made this last week. The chai bor was a too salty as I did not read the packing properly and hence did not know that it needed to be soaked first :P!

Rice Cake Mixture

200g Rice Flour
2T Tapioca Flour
31/2 cups Water
2T Vegetable Oil
2t Salt

1.Mix the flours together in a large bowl, pour in 1 1/2 cups cold water and mix well.
2.To this mixture, add 2 cups of boiling water followed by the oil.
3.Season.
4.Heat the moulds in the steamer. This is done so they mixture doesn’t stick.

Preserved Radish Topping (Chai Po)

100g Preserved Radish
2 Chinese Sausages
5 or 6 Shitake Mushrooms
2 Fresh Red Chillies
1 Head of Garlic
Light Soy Sauce
Sesame Oil

1.Finely dice all the ingredients. If you are using dried shitake mushrooms, a quicker way to reconstitute them is to simply boil them for around 10 to 15 minutes.
2.Heat some (read A LOT) of cooking oil in a wok until smoky. The amount of oil may alarm you but this topping calls for a lot of it.
3.Add in the chinese sausage first and fry until fragrant, push to one side and add in the garlic.
4.Turn down the heat and add the rest of the ingredients. The topping is done when it has reduced in size, is beautifully crispy and the oil that was absorbed has been released again. This process takes about 20 minutes. Just before it is done, season with the soy sauce and sesame oil to taste – keeping in mind that the radishes themselves are already pretty salty.

Highlights from BKK

DIRTY!!!














Cleaned my nose and that was the result after 1 day and 1 tut tut ride.














My slipper in the morning.














My slipper at the end of the day!














My slipper after scrub every night.

FOOD!!














Swensen there is cheap!














Durian with sticky rice.











Mango with sticky rice.














Used to be Mango King. But I think Mango King closed down and was replaced by this brand instead. Healthier as they do not add coconut.














Krispy Kreme donut! Outlet at Siam Paragon and the queue was madness. There were queues at all times of the day..until closing! Illegal hawkers would queue then sell it out on the streets. They were as bold as selling it right at the doorstep of Krispy Kreme! One illegal hawker offered us 400 baht a piece! And it cost only 27 baht to buy it from the store!!

But I must say that the donut is nice! Very soft even if we ate it the next day!














Road side roti prata. I would only go as far as eating road side food without raw food like meat, seafood as they have no proper storage like freezer...














Yums...but very fattening....oil, butter, condensed milk and sugar!!











Authentic thai dinner at a small restuarant at Siam Square...

Not to mention that the beers and breezers are very very cheap....

PAIN!!














The big fat blister...did not notice when exactly it developed...but I think it was on the second last day..or third last night....My left ankle was also slightly swollen :P

DATE!!














It's year 2553 in Thailand!

SHOPPING!!














Paul Derek jumper at the top left corner was the most expensive buy in this pic. About S$25. The rest were bought at Platinum Mall, Chatuchak Market and other road side night markets! Range from 100baht to 300 baht. (S$4.40 to S$13)














Buys from Platinum Mall, Siam Sqaure and road side night markets. Range from 100 baht to 300 baht.














Buys from Pratunum Market, whole sale centre near Pratunum Market, Chatuchak Market, MBK, Isetan at Central World and road side night markets. Range from 80 baht to 4300 baht. Of course the Longchamp was the most expensive buy. $190 (after credit card conversion rate) from BKK airport.














Food stuff and gifts. From MBK, supermarkets, Platinum Mall, Sampeng and Central World.














Dad's 'old man' singlet from Pratunum Market.














Food stuff, bedroom slipper, pillow cases from night markets, Suan Lum Night Bazaar, supermarkets, Chinatown, Sampeng and Platinum Mall.

HOTEL!!

Stayed at Tango Vibrant Living Place. More like a small motel or boutique hotel. Place is clean with room safe. But definately not a high class place. Free 1 hour wi-fi everyday. Comes with simple free breakfast everyday too. Location is not too bad, less than 3 minutes walk to Pratunum Market. Across Pratunum Market is Platinum Mall and Baiyoke Hotels area.

First home cooked meal after BKK

Simple dark soya sauce grill chicken wings and Tom Yum Soup.

Used the ready made packet paste bought from BKK. Had to add a cube of Tom Yum cube as I wanted more soup. Also added fish sauce, cut chilli padi and lime juice. Yums!!

Treatment 11 Oct 2010

It's pink this time. Later realised it was so apt since it was the breast cancer awareness month.

Treatment is getting more painful. But the pain was instantly gone after the tightening was done.