week of tanks, planes, fireworks and flags

It's our nation's birthday this week. But the only thing I appreciated outta the whole celebrations was the long weekend break hehe! Anyhow, since it's national day week, I decided to go Asian this week for dinner. Except for Tuesday, the rest of this week's dinners are Asian-inspired.



Monday - Red, White & Wow Fried Rice (in theme with this year's NDP)



Wednesday - Thai Grilled Chicken

spice up your weak-days — part 2

A trick to preparing fast weekday dinners is pre-preparation. You can either prepare all the ingredients or pre-cook some stuff, so that day itself, all you have to do is simply put it into the oven or over the stove and dinner will be ready in a matter of minutes! Planning ahead is equally important as you can save money by buying ingredients that stretches your dollar, meaning to use the same ingredients for various dishes throughout the week. That way no food is wasted. Here's what we had last week.



Monday - Grilled Beef Sandwich with Carmelised Onions and Cheddar



Tuesday - Crispy Salmon with Potato Gratin



Wednesday - Baked Fish Pie

P/S: Drop me a note if you are keen to try out any of these dishes yeah.

spice up your weak-days — part 1

Weekday dinners can be a chore if you have to eat out everyday. So why not prepare simple, easy to cook, yet yummy dinners to look forward to at the end of a hectic work day. As you all know I'm a sucker for food mags, especially Donna Hay. I can't believe I have so many mags and there are so many quick-fix dinner recipes in there waiting for me to try. So as of 2 weeks ago, I planned the week's menu in advance, went grocery shopping and whipped up exciting new dishes for our weekday dinners. Here's what we had 2 weeks ago.



Monday - Chicken Caesar Sandwich



Tuesday - Baked Pork Chops with Cheddar and Onions



Wednesday - Bacon and Crab Quiche

Forgot to mention no cooking on Thursdays cos' the hubs eats out with his soccer pals after his game, as well as Fridays as it's my day out with my pals :)

dessert fetish

Recently I have been fascinated with desserts, despite the fact that I don't really like desserts. Don't you agree that desserts always look so pretty and enticingly delicious? I find myself attracted to good looking desserts, whether it is the actual thing or on covers of magazines.



At my last visit to Kino, I bought this new food mag called "Yummy" purely becos' it had this super pretty berry panacotta photo on the cover! Of course I just had to try my hands at it. It's not the easiest to make but it's oh-soooo pretty!! Won't your guests be impressed with you kitchen skills with this one?!



Another crowd-pleaser is of course chocolate based desserts. I tried this chocolate cherry fondant cake recipe from Donnay Hay's 50th anniversary issue for a dinner party lately. And oh it's such a rich soft choc bundle with cherries in the centre, served warm with vanilla ice cream and brandy-glazed* cherries and sauce. Mmmmmm.....



* There's a funny story behind this. Was about to make the brandy-glazed cherries when I realised that the bottle of brandy was missing from the liquor counter. "Where's the brandy" - I exclaimed! "Eh I finished it" - said the hubs sheepishly. So had to substitute with tia maria which was ok too :)

P/S: Watch this space for more desserts to come!

what do u wake up to?

We are all aware that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Some days we wake up and feel like we can eat a cow but other days all you want is a slice of toast, muffin or bagel. Whatever it is, brekkie is my fav because it sets my mood for the rest of the day.



I made some banana muffins with toasted almonds once cos' we had quite a few over-ripe bananas sitting around and it was a waste to throw them away. So wahla turned them into yummy muffins for brekkie! And boy did the house smell soooo lovely that morning!



The all time fav choice of brekkie is the fry-up. The best remedy for a hang-over I'll say! The fry-up is the easiest to prepare. All you do is look into the fridge and throw whatever you can find into a frying pan, together with eggs of your choice. The hubs loves his eggs scrambled, while I prefer mine sunny-side up with the prefect runny yolk. Yums!!



So do share what do you wake up to? Any interesting breakfast recipes to share?

Here's the recipe for my banana muffins:

1 1/2 cups plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/8 tsp ground cinnamon
3/4 cup white sugar
1/3 cup unsalted butter, melted
1/4 cup milk
1 large egg
3 ripened mashed bananas
1/2 cup of almond flakes

Preheat oven to 180 degrees. Line 12 muffin tray with paper. Sieve flour, baking powder, soda and salt together in a bowl. In a separate bowl, combine the butter, sugar, milk, egg and banana. Then stir in wet mixture into dry. Divide into 12 prepared muffin cups and top with almond flakes. Bake for about 20mins till stick comes out clean and enjoy!