Flashback Friday

Here we go again, another Friday- last Friday of the month. It's hard to believe we are already end of February. Everything seems to go so fast lately. It is quite hard to find a routine and stick to it since there are always something else happening. 

As per usual, this is an overview of this weeks' meals. 

Creamy fettuccine with smoked salmon, green pea, carrots and served with some avo

Veggie burger, chicken,  deep fried calamari, cherry tomato, avo, spinach and quinoa salad

Chicken zucchini stir fry with lentil soup

Veggie burger, quinoa salad, cherry tomato and spinach

BBQ pork fried rice and soup

Chicken rice soup

Steak with sweet potato mash, leek and mushroom saute and avo

Quinoa, four bean, tuna  and carrot rice paper roll

Creamy zucchini, mushroom and corn spaghetti

Sweet treats/ Dessert

It's been a long time since my last post. Here are some photos of sweet treats that I have made: macarons with matcha green tea buttercream and chocolate ganache, cheesecake brownie and a pandan chiffon cake. My current favourite snack is roasted chestnuts, really enjoy the nutty and slightly sweet flavour and soft texture of the nut. I cannot wait to write about my new journey. I will need some time to combine and organise everything into one. 

  

Flashback Friday

Another busy week. I shall post about the reasons and what I am up to in a few week's time.

As per usual, this is a brief recap of this week's meals.

Pan fried pork medaillon, sauteed spinach, and baked sweet potato fries

Bread, BBQ pork, pumpkin soup, avo and bread

Cauliflower, chicken and carrot curry

Corned beef spaghetti

Gyoza (from frozen section), edamame, and spinach 

Leek and mushroom risotto 

Smoked salmon fettucine

Quinoa, corn, four bean mix salad with some avo

Honey soy sauce chicken

Birthday celebration for my brother

We celebrated my brother's birthday about 2 weeks ago. I originally planned to make a genoise (sponge cake filled with cream) but thought it might not turned really well. So, I decided to go for a more simple cake, and made 2 swiss rolls, thereby having two flavours instead of one. I picked on a matcha green tea flavoured cake (with strawberries) and a black forest one (with glace cherries). I wanted to try and do the roll decor cakes (having prints on the cake itself, but it didn't turned out quite right, so I piped some more whipped cream to cover the patches). The cakes were nice and fluffy. The decorations were not too bad after all. I think it was a success. 

For the dinner celebration, we had herbal chicken soup (with white fungus and mushroom), cabbage steamed balls, barbeque pork, bagels with smoked trout and parsley cream cheese. It was indeed a feast.

  

Happy Chinese New Year (Year of Monkey)

新年快乐 ! We are officially in the year of Monkey. Wish everyone good health, prosperity, happiness, peace, and success. Hope it is a delicious one as well.

Traditionally, we eat nian gao (sticky sweet rice cake) during the day, since it is vegetarian. I tried making it first time this year. It tasted alright, not like the one in Mauritius obviously, but getting there. 

Here is a round of Chinese New Year dinner on Saturday at my uncle's place.

Chicken, stuffed fish tofu, and green veg

Lotus seed, red date and white fungus dessert 

My 'nian gao'

Biscuits

Pineapple tarts (Recipe)

Happy Chinese New Year. We are going into the year of Monkey. It is officially tomorrow, but celebrations have already begun. Normally, we have family dinner and get-together the day before the new year and fast on the day itself. We try to keep to the tradition as close as possible, but it is harder nowadays with everyone's busy schedule. 

This year I decided to make pineapple tarts (open ones) for the occasion. I have been busy looking for recipes and ingredients since last month. Fortunately I had Thursday off, so I decided to go for it. It took me about 3 hours to bake the whole batch (I got 75 cookies in total). After the tarts came out of the oven, the pastry base was crunchy and the pineapple filling was melt-in-the-mouth. I really enjoyed the sourness from the pineapple, and the sweetness was just to my liking. It is a very nice cookie, very well-balanced. I was very happy with my first batch. It is not difficult to make, but you do need some patience.

Recipe for Pineapple tarts

Makes about 75 cookies 

Ingredients:

Pastry dough:

250g plain flour

125g cold butter

25g icing sugar

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla essence

Pinch salt

1-2 tbs iced water

Pineapple jam filling

2 cans (880g) of crushed pineapple in juice, drained

1/4 cup brown sugar

1/3 cup white sugar (to taste)

1 tsp lemon juice

1 tsp cinnamon powder

Egg wash:

1 egg, slightly beaten

Method:

For the pastry:

1. In a food processor, blend flour, butter and sugar and pinch of salt

2. Once ressembles crumbs, add in egg and vanilla essence

3. If too crumbly, add 1 tbs of water at a time, until dough is formed.

4. Place in cling wrap and rest in the fridge for about 30 minutes.

Make pineapple filling in the meantime

For the pineapple filling:

1. In a blender. crush the pineapples to fine consistency

2. Place a saucepan on the stove on medium high heat and place processed pineapple, both sugars, lemon juice and cinnamon powder.

3. Stir occasionally and heat until the filling become sticky and there is no juices left. It should change to a brownish colour. It took me just under an hour.

4. Let to cool. Roll pastry in the meantime.

For the tarts:

1. Preheat oven to 170 degrees, fan-forced.

2. Roll pastry about 1/4 inch thick and then stamp your flower mold.

3. Place on baking tray.

4. Once pineapple filling is cooled, roll balls of 5g each.

5. Place each ball in the middle of each cut.

6. Brush with egg wash.

7. Bake in the oven for about 10-15 minutes. If browning too fast, reduce temperature to 150 degrees. 

Note:

The tart is best eaten on the day, if you want so crunchiness. The pastry becomes a little soft the day after, but still very tasty. 

Pandan Swiss Roll

After some measurement adjustments and trials, I finally reached the 'perfect' (to my liking) recipe for a Pandan swiss roll. This is light and fluffy. This is definitely a quick replacement for a Pandan chiffon cake. It is much easier and less time consuming to make, which is very convenient for me. Besides, it needs less ingredients and less people to finish it. You can also alternate the filling as per your own taste. I personally like to go for coconut filling.

Click here for the recipe.

This is my first attempt, where I went slightly overboard with the pandan extract. I really liked the texture of the cake, and the taste was very nice and flavoursome. Mysecond attempt was to cut down the pandan extract by 1/4 tsp and it turned out pale green as it should be.

Flashback Friday

It has been a very busy week. In fact, every day is a busy day if you make most out of it. It's been a learning curve for me and whilst there were challenging moments, I think they are what makes the journey most meaningful.

This is a simple overview of this week's meals- not a lot since I did not have much time to cook.

Lentil soup, spam and cabbage stir fry, served with rice

Pan-fried salmon, baked sweet potato, mixed beans salad and spinach

Veggie burger with avo and spinach

...and some cherry tomatoes

More of my mini zucchini bites

Fish, tofu and bok choy stir fry

...served with rice