Japanese Curry Rice

It seems, it's all about Japanese today:) I didn't realise it until I'm typing this entry's title that the stuff that I made today are Japanese.

Japanese Curry is one real easy treat for dinner. I always thought that Japanese curry is as hard as other type of more commonly known curry like the South East Asian or the Indian curry until one day, a friend of us cooked us one big pot of boiling hot of Japanese curry with crisp chicken cutlet covered with golden breadcrumbs. Surprise surprise, it's made with Japanese Curry Block widely sold in the supermarkets. I love the S&B hot one. The curry taste is not too overwhelming and goes perfectly with plain rice.

As I couldn't find presliced-thin chicken breast fillet here, I replaced it with tempura prawns. Slicing chicken breast that thin is just beyond my skill. Hence, fast and easy, prawns!



1/2 pack of S&B Golden Curry sauce mix jumbo
2 Spanish Onion (sliced)
200 g of meat (beef/pork-cubed)
5-6 carrots (cut into bite size)
2 potato (cubed)
water

Stir fry onion with little bit of oil. Add in carrot and beef. Pour in 3 bowls of water. Lastly the potato cubes. Served with plain rice and fried prawns.

15 grey prawns, peel the skin and devein
1/2 tsp of salt
1/2 tsp of pepper
1/2 tsp of chilli flakes/sliced chilli
2 tbs of plain flour

Marinate the prawns with all the ingredients except the flour for 15 minutes. Add flour and mix it with the prawns well. Deep fry with hot oil until they are golden crisp.

Superb Japanese Cheesecake

Japanese Cheesecake is always in my list of "must try to bake" list. As I was really bored this afternoon, out of a sudden, I felt like making Japanese Cheesecake. I searched the net for recipes, looking carefully at each recipe and also the comments given. I finally decided that I'm going to use Irene Oon's recipe. Knowing that I didn't have some of the ingredients listed, I dragged myself to the supermarket. Lucky that it's kind of cloudy, so I didn't have to bare with the heat.

Waited for 2 hours for this cake to be ready, I am proudly very very satisfied with this 1st trial. Perhaps the cake should be ready after 1 hr and 10 minutes, but when I tested it with long sate stick, it didn't come out real clean. After 2 hours, the top had browned to the tone that is similar to those bakeries' kind. I tested it again with the stick, still not real clean. Sigh... I decided to give the tempting cake a try as if the cake was sreaming at me, "Try me, try me!". Took out the springform and I was a bit of disappointed as it doesn't look very done. Heck, I sliced a piece and put a spoonful into my mouth. Heavennnnnnnnnnn..... it melts in my mouth, just like those sold, hm... even better perhaps. I am all smiles as I aced it this time... Thank you Irene for sharing this marvelous recipe. Over here I changed the Irene's recipe a little.

250 g of Philladelphia Cream Cheese
50 g of butter
100 ml milk
6 egg yolks
40 g of cornflour
50 g of plain four
juice fr 1/4 of lemon
lemon zest

Heat cream cheese and butter under high heat in the microwave to soften the cream cheeese. Make sure that the cream cheese are well mixed. Some sites recommend to blend the cream cheese with the butter but I didn't. Add in milk. When cold, fold in egg yolks, flour, lemon juice and the zest. Put aside.

6 egg whites
1/2 tsp cream of tartar
140 g sugar

Beat egg whites and cream of tartar until foamy. Follow by sugar and keep mixing until soft peaks are formed.
Fold in the cream cheese mixture and continue beating with slow speed until the batter is well combine. Do not over mixed. Pour into a 20cm springform pan. Wrap the springform pan with really wet towel as recommended by Rachel. Bake with until toothpick comes out clean.

You could glaze the top with some jam as well
1 tbs of jam (any kind, I used strawberry)
1 tbs of water
Mix them well and glaze over the cake top when cake is cold.

Note: After reading Rachel's experiences in making japanese cheesecake, I decided to use the towel method instead. You could perhaps use bain marrie method, do tell me the result.

Try this, try this recipe! :)

Mie Ayam (Noodle with Chicken)

As I have written in the earlier post, it's hard to find authentic Indonesian restaurants here. Though there are some emerging in the town area, most only have fried/grilled chicken in their menu. Mie Ayam is still rare here in Singapore.

Back in Borneo, people are not very into Mie Ayam. There is only one store that I remembered selling this noodle. The reason that we ate there was because it's near to my school. It's opposite an old nostalgic cinema, which is now converted into a supermarket. The shop has a sate stall, mie ayam pangsit stall and a dessert/drink stall. We (young school kids) loved to order Mie Ayam Pangsit and some sticks of sate. To complete the meal, we always had"Es Shanghai", similar to S'pore "Ice Kachang" but a little more chocolatie. I am not sure if the shop is still there today, as I haven't gone back to my hometown for almost 6-7 years.

I had more of Mie Ayam only when I was in Sydney. The Indonesian students love this. Two restaurants that are famous for their Mie Ayam are Pinangsia at Kingsford and Cafe Joy at Chinatown. Personally, I prefer Pinangsia's. It's noodle is thinner and serving is smaller. My first attempt of making this was when I was at H's place. It's not that hard... Ok let's cook!



A. Braised chicken with mushroom

120 g chicken breast fillet, cubed
1 can of button mushroom, quartered
3 garlic cloves, minced finely
1 tbs of sweet soy sauce
1 tbs of oyster sauce
2 tbs of dark soy sauce
salt to taste
1/2 cup of water

Fry garlic until golden, add in chicken and mushroom. Followed by other ingredients, bring to boil.

B. For Noodle
1 pack of egg noodle, bring to boil until soft
2 tbs of minced fried garlic
1 tbs of fish sauce
1 tbs of corn oil--cooking oil
salt to taste
1/2 tsp of pepper

C. Garnish
fried shallot
1 small block of fish cake, boiled and sliced thinly
chinese celery, chopped
some green vegies eg. chai sym, boiled briefly
fried wonton

Dry noodle once it's soft. In a bowl, add in oil, minced fried garlic, fish sauce, salt and pepper. Mix well. Add in noodle and mix noodle well with the sauce.

Scoop in 3 tbs of A, the chicken onto the bowl of noodle. Garnish with fried shallot, fish cake slices, chopped chinese celery.

Kastengel

Kastengel is a type of Indonesian savoury cookies, popular during festive period. From the name itself, it doesn't sound and look like an Indonesian word. These cookies are apparently brought in by the Dutch, thus are known as this rather weird word. The real recipe calls for Dutch cheese: Edam Cheese.

It's an irony that though Kastengel is very popular in Indonesia, Mum never ever made this. As far as I remember, I had not had these cookies until I was in Sydney, when my flatmate offered me some. My family is not a big fan on cookies and cakes. We have them mostly during Chinese New Year. Our family "must have" are: Lapis Legit, Lapis Surabaya, Nastar and Cashew Cookies and Kastengel never appears in the list.

After that 1st testing, I tried to made Kastengel from the recipe I retrieved from the net. Argh.... it's way too much of work to roll the dough and to shape them into rectangular shape. Luckily, my other lovely flatmate A, helped me out a bit. The taste was fantastic.

Here in Singapore, I made some yesterday. To my surprised, my siblings don't like it a bit!!! Both complained that it tastes so weird, too flour-ie, and "why it's all salty but not sweet?", "what kind of cookies are these?"...the questions go on... So I must say, though my flatmates, my fellow Indonesians love these, but not my siblings... they are just not used to the taste, perhaps cookies for them are supposed to be sweet:) Perhaps the next time I am making Kastengel, I will add some sugar.

This recipe yields 2 medium containers. If you are new to Kastangel, I suggest that you try half of the recipe first to test your tastebud:)

(this is my style of shaping the Kastengel, I just pinched a small amount, and didn't bother to shape them into rectangular shapes:) )

500 g of butter
1/2 tsp salt
700 g of plain flour (more if needed)
2 egg yolks
250 g of Edam Cheese, I used White Cheddar (shredded)

2 egg yolks for brushing

Cream butter with salt until creamy. Add in yolk one by one. Mix flour and cheese. If it's still wet, add a little more flour. Shape into rectangular 8mmx25mmx6mm. Brush with yolk. Bake until it's golden.

Another Banana Cake (Better!!)

As the previous banana cake was dense though it tasted beautiful, today I made another banana cake with some moderation. The result was perfect, better than the one from the bakery. Perhaps because I added bicarbonate of soda in, the texture was lighter and there was an increase of height of the cake. To add to the texture, I mixed in half a cup of Post Maple Pecan Crunch Whole Grain Cereal. I am going to give Mum this recipe. She will love it.


This is the modified recipe:

300 g of flour
210 g sugar
125 g butter
3 banana (mashed), add in 1 tbs of lemon juice
1/2 cup dark chocolate chips
1 tsp of baking soda
1 tsp of baking powder
1 tsp of vanilla powder

Sift flour, baking powder, baking soda and vanilla powder. Keep aside.
Cream butter and sugar until white. Add in mashed banana. Finally stir in flour mix, cereal and choc chips. Time: 1 hr

Fried Wonton

While I was studying in Sydney, I had 2 Thai flatmates who cook very well. I learnt lots from them, especially O. I remember that she has a friend, B who cooks even better. They cooked us a nice spread of dinner once. One that I would never forget is the Curry Sauce Salmon Fish. It's not the typical curry which comes with soup. This one is slightly dry, with a touch of coconut cream on top. Very spicy and yummy.

Another dish that I learnt from O is the Tom Yum Goong aka Tom Yum Soup. Mind you this is real Tom Yum, made from scracth, no commercial Tom Yum paste. I would elaborate further on this next time when I have the chance to cook this dish.

Having to stay with 2 Thais, I found out they love to make fried wonton. From O, I heard that her mum would make this as little snack in the late afternoon. They would eat the crispy wonton with their favourite brand of Thai Sweet Chilli.

Anyway, enough said, here is my style of fried wonton.




25 pieces of wonton skin120 g of minced pork
5 tbs of chopped chinese celery or chinese parsley is ok too
5 fresh waterchestnut (skinned and chopped roughly)
1 tbs sesame oil
1 tsp pepper
1/2 salt

some mayonaise for dipping

Marinate the minced pork with sesame oil, pepper, salt, chopped chinese celery and waterchestnut. Leave for 15 minutes. Take a small teaspoon of the meat mixture and wrap it with wonton skin. Deep fry with hot oil.

Note: Use only fresh waterchestnut. I used the canned one once as it's hard to find the fresh one in Sydney, it tasted weird. Perhaps you could substitute that with Chinese turnip/yam bean/bengkuang.

Sambal Ikan Teri (Anchovies with Sambal)

This is another dish I learnt from Mum. Again, I modified a little bit by adding capsicum and kaffir lime leaves.

Everytime my mum comes over, she would make jars of sambal paste to be frozen. This helps to ease my process of cooking sambal dish when she's not around. I don't have to grind shallots, garlic and the chilli everytime I'm cooking chilli dish.

2/3 cup of ikan teri/anchovies, choose the small white type
1 capsicum, cut into bite size
4 tomato, quartered
1 onion, sliced thinly
4 kaffir lime leaves

Sambal:
4 big chilli
4 chilli paddi
5 shallot
3 garlic cloves

Blend all the sambal ingredients and then stir fry with some oil.


With 3 tbs of oil, fry the ikan teri. When they start to turn yellowie, put them aside. Add in onion, stir fried till for 2 minutes. Add in capsicum and kaffir lime leaves. Mix in ikan teri and the sambal paste. Lastly, add in tomato. Add 2/3 cup of water and and cook until tomato is soft.

Fried Chicken Bites with Spicy Sauce

What's dinner tonight?

I was really impressed by this tiny Asian restaurant somewhere inside a dodgy building at Melbourne Chinatown, it's fully packed when we visited the store one afternoon. Most of the customers were Asians (mostly Taiwanese and HongKongers) and a handful of white collar officers. They offer a wide variety of dishes, mainly rice or noodle dishes. My sis and I were confused by the number of choices, all looks fantastic. After few minutes, the no-nonsense young student waitress came to take order. If I am to open a restaurant tomorrow, I would definitely get them to work for me. They were quick. We were happy that the food came really fast to satisfy our hunger. We had fried squid with salt and spicy sauce, with rice, and braised beef with rice. Both were nicely presented and yes, they tasted way better than the price (bout A$8 each).

So today, I wanted to make something fried, with soy sauce and yes have to be spicy. No squid in the freezer, chicken will do:)

250 gr chicken breast fillet (you can use other part if you like, but i prefer drier meat), cut into bite size

salt

1 tsp of candlenut powder* (optional)

1 tbs pepper

Marinate the chicken with the above ingredients for 1/2 hr.

Add 2 tbs of plain flour, 1 tbs of rice flour, small pinch of baking powder and 1/3 cup cold water. Mix well.

Fry till golden brown. Set aside.

Sauce:

1/4 green capsicum

1 stalk of leek, sliced thinly

4 chilli padi

2 garlic cloves

salt

1 tbs sugar

3 tbs of dark soy sauce

1/2 cup of water

1 tbs of flour+ water for thickening

Stir fry garlic with oil till golden. Add in sliced leek and chilli padi. Follow by soy sauce and water, salt and sugar. Bring to boil. Add flour mixture.

Arrange fried chicken with a plate of plain rice. Spoon the sauce onto the rice and chicken.

I had omelette with prawn and leek too:)

*candlenut/kemiri is often used in Indonesian cuisine. Can be found in Asian groceries. I find powder form is more convenient.

Sweet & Sour Prawns

Not as you've imagined, this is not the typical Chinese sweet and sour prawn. This is my mum's style, perhaps with some Indonesian influences as well. It is heavily sauced with Indonesian sweet soy sauce and lime to give that tangy sour taste. Mum's style is straightly sweet and sour. Being adventurous, I added chilli, tomato juice with its seeds and worcestershire sauce. My sis agrees that this is a nicer version than Mum's.

So why not try it your self. Get the real Indonesian sweet soy sauce though. Others taste just not there... Once we couldn't get the Indonesian ABC brand in the local supermarket and heavy heartedly bought the Singapore brand. It just tasted funny. Conclusion is that we didn't like it:) The picture below is slightly blurry, arghhhh I need a proper photography lesson...

250 g grey prawn, peel shell and devein

2 tbs worcestershire sauce

3 tbs Indonesian sweet soy sauce

1 tsp pepper

salt

2 garlic cloves, chopped

1/4 onion, sliced

3-4 tbs lime/lemon juice

4 chilli, sliced thinly

tomato seeds and juice from 1 tomato, I used the rest for stir fried KangKung.

sesame seeds (optional)

Marinate prawns with all other ingredients. Mix well. Put aside for 1 hr.

Heat wok with 2-3 tbs of oil. Mum uses double of these, she says with more oil, the prawns are more crunchy. Pour all ingredients in. The sweet soy sauce will caramelise. Getting dry up? It's a sign that it's ready to be served.

Banana Cake

It has been ages that I want to make banana cake again. My first attempt was when I was still a little girl back in Indonesia. I remembered that the cake came out solid hard rock! The funny thing was that even our greedy German Shepherd didn't like it. He smelled and slowly walked away. Seeing this, my mum laughed out hard. Perhaps, due to that failure, I always wanted to proof that I could make a banana cake which is always said to be one of the easiest cakes to bake.

So today, I woke up a little earlier than usual, put the laundry to wash and ready to bake. The night before I had done my homework by researching through banana cake recipes. I find that most of them are quite similar. Finally I adapted Chubby Hubby's banana muffin recipe (not quite his, his mum to be exact), thinking that since he is now a popular food blogger, I should trust his recipe. Hmmm, but his recipe is in odd mesurement. Cups, and odd 295 g of flour. I couldn't bother to make it 295 g:) He asked for milk, but since I am running out of milk today, I didn't add that making sure that I put more bananas to compensate the moisture content. Same with baking soda, I do not have that, so ignored that too. And again, I don't have my muffin pan with me here, it's left somewhere in Sydney, don't throw it away please... , instead I used the 20cm springform pan. Good thing that my cake turned out delicious!

A little comment though. I half the ingredients as CH mentioned that the recipe is for 24 muffins. I thought that's a lot! Well next time I won't half the ingredients to produce a thicker cake.

300 g flour

2 tbs baking powder

210 g/1 cup sugar

250 g/ 1 stick butter

4 eggs, beaten

4 big bananas, mashed. Add 1 tbs of lemon juice to prevent it to turn dark.

1 tsp vanilla powder

1/2 cup dark chocolate chips (if you have been reading my blog, you know that I'm just trying to finish up my dark chocolate) :)

Shift flour, baking powder and vanilla. Beat butter with sugar until white. Add beated eggs slowly. Mix well. Stir in mashec banana. Combine shifted dry ingredients to the cream. Bake for 1 hr.

Happy trying.

Bak Kut Teh

Bak Kut Teh (BKT) = Pork Ribs Tea. This soup concoction is believed to be originated from Singapore and Malaysia. It was first created by the Chinese immigrants in the earlier days. The readings that I done show that there are 3 types of BKT, the TeoChew style, the Hokkien style and the Cantonese style. Teochew style comes with peppery clear soup. Hokkien style is slightly darker as more soy sauce is being added. I am not too sure if there is really a Cantonese style as I always heard either TeoChew or Hokkien style. Well today my readings proof me wrong. Apparently, Cantonese BKT is one with strong medicinal taste. BKT is normally served with a bowl of rice and Chinese Breakfast Fried Dough (yiu tiao). Some stores offer some side dishes eg. braised pig trotters, salted vegetables, braised tau gua (fried tofu), and a small pot of Chinese tea.

Anyway, I prefer the TeoChew style. There is one popular store at Balestier Road - Founder Bak Kut Teh. The soup is very peppery. You will never have enough with one bowl. Understanding how good is his soup, the store owner is nice enough to allow "soup refill". One day mum bought a packe of A1 BKT spice from the supermarket. Gosh, it's almost as good as Founder's. What she needs to do is to add extra pepper into the soup. This is becoming our favourite dish. It's one of the easiest "cheating" recipe we have:) I guess making Bak Kut Teh would be really a hassle as there are so many spices to make the perfect concoction.



1 pack of A1 BKT spice
1 tbs of pepper (We love to put more, but I'm afraid it might be too hot for some people:) )
1 kg of pork ribs (cut along the bones)
2 bulbs of garlic
2 lit of water

As Singapore pork does give a distinct "porkie" smell, we always wash the meat thoroughly. Scald the pork twice. This is to ensure that pork is really clean. Chuck all ingredients into a pressure cooker. Cook for 15 minutes. Scoop out the fat if it's too oily. Easy?

Chocolate Covered Marie

Today is kind of slow. We aren't going out and there isn't any worth watching show on the TV. I was just surfing the net, looking at people's blog, trying to get new inspirations. Well, was really bored until I saw a pack of Marie biscuit left in the kitchen. I bought it for the crust of the cheesecake I made 2 weeks ago. Looking thought my fridge, I found half packed of dark chocolate sitting there untouched for 2 weeks too. Ahha.... one idea came into my head!

Seen those commercial chocolate covered biscuits? Here is the result of my experiment...

This is a simple, 10 minutes project:)

40 gr of dark chocolate

6 marie biscuits

Melt chocolate in the microwave for 1 minute. Spread the melted choc onto one side of the biskuit. Chill for 30 minutes. Tralaaa.... yum!

Cooking or baking, people?

I would say, I prefer cooking much better than baking. Everytime I bake something new, there is always a thought; will it come out nice? Wuih... I would say, most of the time the bakings were ok, and a sad handful times, they were left untouched after the 1st testing for several days until they ended up in the bin. Perhaps, I over mixed, perhaps, the eggs are not fluffy enough... Perhaps, Perhaps and Perhaps... Baking is too unforgiving.

This is so different from cooking. Out of 20 times, only once or twice that my cookings would be considered as "not that good". Cooking is a flexible journey. You could add more salt, more pepper, more vinegar to suit your taste even at the end of whole processes. Could you add more flour at the end of the baking process, definitely not! I see cooking as a fast adventure, some dishes could be done in less than half an hour.

Baking on the other hand, needs a little more patience than I could offer:) Most of the time is spent waiting for the cake/cookies to be done in the oven. It's not a surprise that I would be standing curiously in front of the oven, trying to peep at the stuff inside. I guess my confidence level for baking is somewhat not up there yet. Perhaps, as time goes, my baking skill will be on par with cooking skill:)

Meatloaf ala Indonesia

While flipping through Femina (an Indonesian female magazine), I found a meatloaf recipe. This morning, I adapted the basic recipe with coconut powder, sweet soy sauce, pandan leaves and lemon grass added. The pandan leaves give sweet flavour to the meat. Definitely an easy meal to prepare.

500 g of minced beef
1 slice of white bread without the crust, soaked in 50 ml of milk or coconut milk until soft (omit the coconut powder if using coconut milk here)
2 eggs
1 stalk of celery (minced)


3 garlic cloves (minced)
1/2 onion (minced)
1.5 tbs of coconut powder
pepper
salt
a pinch of nutmeg powder
6 tbs sweet soy sauce
2 lemon grass stalk
pandan leaves/banana leaves (optional)

Beat the eggs with coconut powder, sweet soy sauce, nutmeg powder, pepper, salt. Mix into the meat. Add crushed bread. Add garlic, onion and celery. Mix well. Lay pandan leaves/banana leaves on the bottom of heat proof dish. Press in the meat mixture, making sure it's packed. Lay the lemon grass stalks on the top. Again lay the leaves. Steam for 15-20 minutes. Let cool.

Cut into thin slices. Make sure that they are dry before frying. You can pat dry with kitchen towel. Pan fry with some oil. Serve with plain rice.

Cheesecake Madness 2

@ 10.30 pm

I couldn't wait for the next day to cut and try my cheesecake. So here it is with nice marble pattern. I am happy with my 1st trial:)

11 July @ 11 pm

My bro just ate 2 slices of the cheesecake together with some mango slices! I can't believe he asked for another slice after the 1st serve. He gave me a 9.5/10...:)

Indonesian Spicy Potato Crisp (Kering Kentang)

I wanted to make a kind of dish that could keep for a week or two so I don't have to cook too often. After some thoughts, I came up with the idea of making Kering Kentang. Hm... I would say it's not worth making, there were too many washing and cleaning to be done. I hate the greasiness on my kitchen floor whenever I deep fry. This was particularly bad as to make Kering Kentang, I had to fry the potatos in batches, the 'ikan teri'--anchovies and not to mention the steps of making the sambal. I'm glad that it turned out nice, otherwise I would be really disappointed after all the efforts:) I don't think I would make this anymore in the future, unless there is someone helping me to do the washing and cleaning.

Ingredients:

2 potatoes julienned the thinner the crispier

1/2 cup ikan teri--anchovies

1/2 cup pre-fried peanuts (get from the supermarket)

Fried the julienned potato batch by batch, followed by anchovies.

Sambal:

6 shallots

4 garlic cloves

some chilli

1 cm of galangga (lengkuas)

1 lemon grass

1.5 tbs of palm sugar

2 tbs of tamarind juice (lime juice is okay too)

1 tbs of sugar

salt to taste

Blender chilli, garlics and shallots. Add 3 spoon of oil and fried the blendered ingredients with galangga and lemon grass. Once it's dry, add palm sugar, sugar and salt. Make sure the sugar has melted and the sambal looks dry, not runny. Add the fried potato crisp, anchovies and peanuts. Mix well. Nice to be eaten with "Nasi Uduk/Nasi Kuning".

Cheesecake Madness

For the past 2 weeks, I have been trying lots of cheesecakes. I made it a point to have a slice of cheesecake whenever I was in a cafe or a restaurant. Two days ago, I was with A at Marche. Everything else was okay except the cheesecake. What a shame. Having a nice dining concept, Marche is a truely disappointment with a below average cheesecake. It was somehow very floury. Besides, it's not fresh, my fault for not looking at the cake carefully before ordering. I prefer the cheesecake I had at Baker's Inn.

Anyway, as my madness for cheesecake is still going, I just made my very first baked cheesecake. Back in Sydney, I have made non baked cheesecake (chocolate cheesecake) which was pretty easy. Today, after getting some inspirations for Dessertcomesfirst by Jori, I wanted to make her Bull's eye cheesecake. Perhaps, as I am a novice in baking a cheesecake, mine didn't come out as a bull's eye. Knowing it is nowhere bull's eye, I quickly transformed mine into a kind of magic swirl. It looks ok besides the little crack. I wonder how do people make those really flat top cheesecakes. Mine is a little puffy. I can't wait for tomorrow so I can cut and try "Swirly



Cheesecake" :)

Swirly Cheesecake

Ingredients (adapted from dessertcomesfirst.blogspot.com)

14 pieces of Marie
1/2 block for butter (@250g)
1/8 cup sugar

Blend/crush Marie. Add melted butter and sugar. Compact the crush into the base of 8" springform pan. Bake for 15 minutes

2 blocks Philladelphia Cream Cheese/other brand is ok I guess @250g--room temperature
1 can of MilkMaid/Carnation condensed milk
3 eggs
1/4 of lemon-juice only
125 gr of dark chocolate - melted

Beat cream cheese until fluffy. Add in milk until smooth. Add egg one by one and subsequently the lemon juice. Divide the mixture into 2. Add in melted dark chocolate into one part of the mixture.

Spoon in a cup of plain mixture followed by a cup the chocolate mixture. Make sure that you pour into the middle of the pan. Use sharp ends of a fork to get the swirl & yes a little of your creativity will help too:)
Bake at high temperature for 1/2 hr and then at moderate temperature until the cake is jiggly in the middle but set at the perimeter. I still need to work on the temperature.... hopefully my next baked cheesecake will be with a nice smooth top without cracks.

Cakes Temptation

Today I met up with my college friends for dinner. HJ is posted to Melbourne, so we wouldnt know when we are seeing each other again. Dinner was light as I ordered Wasabi Prawn Salad. It's more of an appetizer than a meal. However I should praise the chef for the smart combination of wasabi and mayonaise. After the meal, we walked up to Bakers Inn somewhere at Fullerton Hotel. We have Mango Mousse, Milk Chocolate Mousse and Straberry Cheesecake. Mango Mousse is my favourite. Very light and fresh, not too sweet. For sure will come back for this cake...

Chinese Rock Melon & Orange Smoothie

Just after I posted the earlier entry, I was thirsty... the weather is getting hotter these days. Searched the fridge and found 1 orange that aged bout 2 weeks:) and some Chinese Melon that I just bought yesterday. The Chinese Rock Melon is not sweet enought to be eaten by itself tho it looks ripe before I cut it. So, within 10 mins, the refreshing drink was done.. Slurp slurp... ah.....



2 slices of Chinese Rock Melon
1 orange, peel
5 ice cubes
1 scoop of vanila ice cream for garnishing

Blend the 3 items and plunk a scoop of ice cream on the top...

Getting bored...

I wanted to go to the library today to borrow "Publishing with Blogger". I was too lazy and sleepy to take my sis' library card from her wallet, thinking that I could wake up the next morning just before she leave house. As usual, I overslept and forgot bout the card. Knowing that I do not have any plan today, I want to go the library sooo much today. Especially, the desire to redecorate this blog template was soo great....

At 11.15 am I called my bro to ask if I could meet up with him to borrow the card at his lunch hour (his office is closer to home than sis'). He said okay. Quickly got ready and alas, I just found out that I just on my washing mashine and it would be done in 2 hours. If I was to go to the library, I would like to browse tro lots of cooking magazines and maybe some blog related books. That would take up more than 2 hours. By the time I reach home, clothes would have been in the washing machine for too long, and fraid they would be smelly if I don;t dry it immediately. So, heavy-heartedly I had to cancel my plan to the library. I am still thinking, perhaps, I should meet up with my sis after she finishes work. We could meet at Toa Payoh and go to the T.P Library. Argh... let's see....

I recieved 2 parcels from the very special people in my life. One is from Mr C and the other is from my gd friend, Miss Jangcric. Mr C bought me a few pieces of Bijoux jewellery which I personally think are tooo expesive. I mean I love some of them (not all, sorry :)), but I won't spend AUS400 on those jewellery. Ehm, Mr C's taste is a little weird this time. The parcel is nicely packed, each piece was wrapped in a nice white box, tied with purplish ribbon. 2 of the necklaces are made of big semi precious stones. Very big. I haven't worn such a big jewellery before. However, I would wear them:) I wore the pink stoned necklace with the matching colour silver earrings when I met up with my college friends yesterday. One commended that they are nice:)

Jangcric on the other hand sent me a lipstick red knit top and a box of Korean VCDs--Beautiful Days. I love her! She always knows what I would love. I have been telling her to watch this VCD ages ago until her sis from Singapore brought it over to her in LA. Due to my love to this serial, I want to get it so I could keep it. To bad, I couldnt find it anywhere, Jangcric knows bout this. And it's really nice of her to send me hers! So touched....

So these few days, I am would have the VCDs to entertain me... perhaps with some chips as well...:)