If she can do it, so can you.

Oven-roast Potato Wedges September 30, 2006

These potato wedges are a very healthy alternative to deep fried french fries and its really easy peasy! Healthy olive oil is used and you don’t have to worry about oil splattering all over the place! I first got this easy recipe on KC, from purplegirl. And I made this quite a number of times when I was in States during my exchange program. Its a fantastic side dish for my grilled chicken or any western style food you have…

And the guys whom I stay with, never fail to finish up all these wedges! Everytime I make it, I increase the quantity(as compared to the previous times) but they will definately finish up everything! haha…

This wedges are best eaten when fresh from oven as it is crispy on the outside and hot and fluffy in the inside. And it doesn’t taste that good once it’s cool. So it is very important to time your main meal appropriately when the potato is almost finish roasting. With this recipe, you can forget about buying all those frozen fries and deep frying it in all that oil. 
Whip up your own healthy version! 😀(This is more than enough for 2 person’s side dish)What you’ll need:
1. About 500g Russet potatoes, peeled & cut lengthwise into 1/2 inch thick sticks
2. salt
3. Extra virgin olive oil

1) Cut the potato sticks, and put them into a pot of water(tap water will do) to get rid of extra starch in the potatoes.

2) After soaking for a while, rinse the potatoes & drain well. Return them to the pot with enough water. Add 1/2 tsp salt. Put on stove and bring them to a boil.  As soon as it boils, reduce heat & boil for 3 mins. Drain the potatoes well & spread them on a kitchen paper towel to dry. 3) Preheat your oven to 220 degrees celcius. Place the potatoes strips on a large baking sheet. Make sure you do not overcrowd. Sprinkle olive oil generously over them. Gently toss it to mix well with the oil.

Steamed Pumpkin Rice Flour Cake September 22, 2006

Okay… This is supposed to be Steamed Pumpkin Kueh, but I decided to give it an English name… 🙂 (“Ang-moh-fy” it…!!)

For those who don’t know, this is a typical Chinese savoury snack. It is often eaten during breakfast or as a tea-time snack… And it goes very well with spicy chilli sauce. There are several variants to it, where the pumpkin can be substituted with carrots or yam.

My parents have been into pumpkins recently(wonder if it’s because Halloween is approaching?) and my mother bought a lovely Japanese pumpkin and asked if I could create a dish out of it…

So I searched around for a recipe that used pumpkin as its main ingredient, and I found this lovely recipe from Kitchencapers and it is by Gina, the kind and lovely owner of the forum. I adapted her recipe slightly though, since my family wanted chinese sausages in the cake.

Verdict?

Grandma(whose makes delicious steamed pumpkin, carrot or yam cakes) gave me the thumbs up! So… it was a good achievement! 😀

Mummy, Daddy and brother loves it too that within 3 days, we finished 1kg of this! (I made 2kg, gave 1/4kg to neighbour, another 1/4kg to grandma and the remaining to the bf…)

This recipe’s process is rather tedious(for someone so lazy like me!) but the results are worth it! So, since Halloween is coming, give this pumpkin treat a try!

Ingredients:
800 g pumpkin(remove seeds, hard skin then slice into thin pieces) 
(My pumpkin was 1.2kg with skin, and after removing all the skin and seeds, I had about 750g of pumpkin flesh…)

Batter mix:
500 g rice flour
1 tbsp sugar
1 tsp salt
6 cups hot water

Fillings: 
80 g dried shrimps(soften with water, minced)
2 chinese sausages(diced)
70g of preserved waxed chinese ham(optional)
15 chinese preserved mushrooms(soften, sliced thinly)
1 tbsp salt
1 tsp pepper

(Credits: Gina from KC)

Nonya Kaya September 2, 2006

I have made kaya a couple of times…

Simply because my family lovesss kaya. And it is SO simple to make!

I use my trusty breadmaker when it comes to making kaya(I use the ‘jam’ function which only takes 1 hour!), but if you don’t have a breadmaker, you can cook it over the stove(though you may have to stand there and stir constantly as you don’t want it to burn!) or you may use a slowcooker(but you have to stir often too and this is definately a longer process- taking almost 5-7 hours)

This time round, I made kaya for my mum’s friend. She mentioned to my mum that she loves kaya, but doesn’t like the kinds that you can buy from Ya Kun or Killiney Kopitiam because they were too sweet for her liking. And my mum told her that I make kaya for the family and often use lesser sugar for a healthier kaya(well, actually, kaya is pretty unhealthy with all the eggs and coconut milk, but every thing in moderation is fine…)

And so, my mum went out and bought lots of eggs, pandan leaves and coconut milk and commissioned me to make a big batch of kaya for her friend… haha…

It’s actually very very simple.

Ingredients you need:

1 cup Coconut milk
1 cup Eggs(about 3-4 medium to large size eggs)
1 cup sugar(already reduced from 2 cups)
10-15 pieces of pandan leaves, washed and wiped dry.

(This recipe makes roughly about 1 and 1/2 cups of kaya)

1. Wash, dry and tie up bundles of about 5 pandan leaves in each bundle(like in the pic above)
2. Measure out eggs, then beat lightly till yolk and white mixed.
3. Pour all(as in sugar, coconut milk and eggs) into breadmaker tin(like in picture above) and throw in bundles of pandan leaves.
4. Set on ‘Jam’ function.
5. Check on kaya after some time and make sure sides are mixed too.
6. When the breadmaker completes the function, take it out and cool for a while, remove all the pandan leaves, then put into a blender and blend lightly till it is smooth.

Notes:

*edited* The kaya will look like lumpy curdy chunks in a watery substance once the breadmaker has completed its cycle. This is NORMAL. You are supposed to blend it to acheive the smooth texture, ie, what we buy off the shelves. You may find that there might be quite a bit of water(this is just sugar water), so drain out some of this water and blend the remainder. You may add in more sugar water if you find your kaya too thick while blending. I hope this will iron out any misunderstandings about the product!

1. You may blend it till it is completely smooth too. I like my kaya with a bit of bits in it, so that you can taste the kaya bits rather than a smooth paste.
2. If you prefer a little sweeter, add another 1/4 to 1/2 cup more sugar.
3. If you cook this over the stove, you may not need to blend it since you are constantly stirring the kaya.
4. You may put in more pandan leaves if you want it to be greener… Alternatively, you may pound or blend a portion of the pandan leaves and strain it for the pandan juice and put it into the mixture before cooking.
5. If you’re cooking over the stove, the pot you’re using should NOT be warm/hot when you place the ingredients in to mix. If the pot is hot, the eggs would cook immediately, resulting in scrambled eggs!

*Ask questions if you need help! Just leave me a comment and I’ll try to help!