Rice Krispies Squares

A good breakfast cannot take the place of the evening meal.
~ Chinese Proverb

This week, Nanzaro wanted to make something for his brother’s birthday party and decided to make Rice Krispies Squares for him. We bought some “Christmas Special” package of Rice Krispies which comes with red and green rice krispies last Christmas and did not use it until now. Anyway, it makes very pretty Rice Krispies Squares, much better than the single brownish rice krispies.

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Ingredients
  • 1/4 cup margarine or butter
  • 1 250g package regular marshmallows
  • 1/2 tsp vanilla extract (optional)
  • 6 cups Rice Krispies cereal

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Frosted Cupcakes

Words are sweet but they can never replace food.
~ Nigerian Proverb

Arkensen’s birthday coincidentally fell on spring break. He invited a few friends over to celebrate his birthday with him. So, instead of buying a cake from the bakery as we normally do in the past, I baked him some cupcakes instead. Cupcakes go very well with kids celebration like birthday parties or classroom celebrations. Because they are baked in a paper cup container, they do not require plates or utensils for serving — no dishes to wash!

BTW, do you know that cupcake is also known as fairy cake?

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Ingredients
  • 2.5 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp baking soda
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 3 large eggs
  • 2 cups sugar
  • 1 cup canola or corn oil
  • 2 tsps vanilla extract
  • 1 cup sour cream

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Nachos

Man is like pepper — you only know him when you’ve ground him.
~ Nigerian Proverb

I’ve never paid much attention to Mexican food. Maybe it’s because the names are so hard to remember and pronounce — or maybe there are too many syllables to those Mexican names! Maybe too, it’s because that I don’t really care much about dishes with beans. Beans makes the guys at home fart a lot!

I learn a little bit about Mexican food the past week when the Richmond Cooking Club featured simple Mexican food — salsa, guacomole, tortilla, enchiladas and nachos. This piqued my interests now on Mexican food and will try to learn more about it.

Today, I am going to blog on a very simple snack which I believe is a favourite with almost everyone. Nanchos in its simplest form is tortilla chips covered in melted cheese. You can add additional toppings such as salsa, sour cream, olives, jalapeno and what nots.

Here is an interesting story I found out about Nachos in Wikipedia:

Nachos were created in Coahuila, Mexico by Ignacio “Nacho” Anaya in 1943. The story goes that the wives of American airmen came to his restaurant after the kitchen had closed. Anaya quickly prepared the dish and later added it to his menu. The term “nachos” came from Anaya’s original name for the dish, which was “Nacho’s Especiales,” or “Nacho’s Special Dish.” Nacho Anaya’s original nachos consisted of fried tortilla chips covered with melted cheese and jalape?o peppers.

BIG_IMG_3685_edited-1Ingredients

  • A bag of Tostitos tortilla chips
  • Shredded cheese
  • A bottle of salsa, we prefer the hot and chunky type
  • Pickle pepper, optional

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Cinnamon Buns

Make bread while the oven is hot.
~ Iranian Proverb

I love cinnamon buns with cream cheese frosting, so does the others in the family. Everytime I walk past the bakeries or the bakery section in grocery stores I can’t help eyeing the yummy looking cinnamon buns (WITH CREAM CHEESE FROSTING) on the shelves. They are too expensive and costs a dollar or more each. Naw, I can make it much cheaper and tastes just equally as good.

This is my masterpiece — looks good? 🙂

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It’s very simple to make … provided you have a bread machine to make the dough. If you do that manually, there is so many factors that contributes to a perfect dough — kneading, water temperature, proofing the yeast, etc. With the machine, you just need to throw in all the ingredients and let the machine spin it’s magic — all done and prep’ed in two hours. Invest in a bread machine if you don’t have one.

I make this at least once a month. Nothing beats freshly made cinnamon buns when it comes out smelling nice and the soft, fluffy insides that nearly melts in your mouth. Perfect with a cup of fresh brewed coffee.

Ingredients

The ingredients below is used to make 12 cinnamon buns:

  • 1/2 cup milk
  • 2 eggs
  • 1/4 cup butter or margarine, cut up
  • 3 cups bread flour
  • 3 tablespoons sugar
  • 3/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1.25 teaspoons active dry yeast or bread machine yeast
  • 2 tablespoons butter or margarine, melted

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Bah Kut Teh (Pork Rib Tea)

No matter if you eat a little or a lot of garlic, the smell is just as strong.
~ Tibetan Proverb

Bah Kut Teh (Hokkien for “pork rib tea”) is a soup served in Malaysia and Singapore. Story has it that it originated from a town in Malaysia called Port Klang. Generally it is cooked in a clay pot with various parts of the pig, varieties of mushroom, lettuce, and dried tofu sheets or tofu puff. The soup itself is a broth which consists of several herbs and spices (including star anise, cinnamon, cloves and garlic) which have been boiled together with meat for many hours. Light and dark soy sauce are also added to the soup during cooking, with varying amounts depending on the variant.

Bah Kut Teh is commonly eaten with rice, and particularly in Malaysia, often served with strips of fried dough called Yau Char Kwai (or Youtiao in Mandarin). Dark soy sauce is used as a condiment, sometimes accompanied with chopped chilli padi, which is ultra hot that it can kill your taste buds! Tea is also usually served in the belief that it dilutes or dissolves the copious amounts of fat which are consumed in the eating of this dish.

This dish is normally served as breakfast or brunch but over time has gained acceptance as a dinner dish.

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Ingredients
  • 1 kg of pork meat
  • 1 package of fried tofu puff
  • 1 package of dried bean curd stick
  • 8 pieces of dried shiitake mushroom
  • 1 bulb of garlic
  • 1 package of Bah Kut Teh seasoning mix

The ingredients above is sufficient to make 8 servings. Be warned, this is a lot of food. We normally make it once and eat them over two days. You can use chicken to substitute the pork but not beef. For this time, I use pork shoulder meat but if you prefer something leaner, you can use pork ribs instead.

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Condiments
  1. 1 pair of fried dough (you may find this in Chinese Bakery)
  2. Garlic
  3. Thai chilli

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Glutinous Rice Ball (Tangyuan) with Sesame Peanuts

Words that come from the heart stay warm three winters long.
~ Chinese Proverb

Today’s blog is about Winnie’s recipe which she shared on our Cooking Club. There are many steps to making this but are pretty simple. We took 1 hour to make this including cooking time.

Tangyuan can be unfilled or filled, fillings can include red bean paste, chopped peanuts and sugar, sesame paste (ground black sesame seeds mixed with lard), rock sugar (which would create a hot, melting caramel-like filling), etc. We used peanut butter and instant sesame powder which gives a strong peanut butter taste.

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To the Chinese, Glutinous rice ball (tangyuan) is eaten all year round, although it is commonly associated with the Chinese New Year, and the Lantern Festival. Glutinous rice ball is made by mixing glutinous rice flour with a small amount of water and form into balls and is then cooked in boiling water and served in syrup water.

Ingredients

These ingredients is sufficient to make about 20 rice balls — good enough serving for 4-5 people.

For the glutinous rice balls:

  • Peanut Butter: 3 tablespoon
  • Instant Sesame Powder: 2 tablespoon (buy them from Asian stores)
  • Icing Sugar: 2 tablespoon
  • Roasted Sesame Seeds: 3 tablespoon
  • Glutinous Rice Flour: 400g

For the syrup:

  • Ginger: 1 piece
  • Brown Sugar: 150g
  • Mandarin Orange Peel: 1 piece

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Toasted Sesame Seed Bagel with Kaya Spread

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Where there is smoke, there is toast
~ Unknown

Before we had our bread machine, we usually buy bread and bagels from the Buns Master Bakery. Although there are several Buns Master outlets around the city, we normally go to the one on SW Marine Drive just off the Knight Street Bridge.

We love their sesame seed bagel. We have tried the sesame seed bagel from the other Buns Master outlet but they do not taste the same. The owner of this one particular outlet is a very nice Chinese looking man who always were very polite and humble. The shop opens seven days a week!! There was this one time when he told us that he is closing the shop for a week because his daughter was getting married … other than that he had been working seven days a week for a long time. Gosh, what a life!

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We almost always buy the Sesame Seed Bagel, not Poppy Seed, Plain or others. And we like to toast it — toasting it brings out the full fragrance and crunchiness of the sesame seeds. Being raised as Malaysians we love to use kaya jam as a spread.

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The bagel (or sometimes beigel) is a bread product traditionally made of yeasted wheat dough in the form of a roughly hand-sized ring which is boiled in water and then baked. The result is a dense, chewy, doughy interior with a browned and sometimes crisp exterior.

The dough may also be flavored to produce many varieties: salt, onion, garlic, egg, pumpernickel, rye, sourdough, whole wheat, multigrain, cinnamon-raisin, cheese, caraway, blueberry, and muesli among others. Bagels may be topped with seeds such as poppy or sesame, which are baked onto the outer crust. (more…)

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Egg Custard Tarts

Better an egg this year than a chicken next year.
~ Ethiopian Proverb

I made a small batch of Egg Custard Tarts. The boys love the tarts and can eat three at a go. This is a sure-fire way to get them snacking frequently. It takes about 35 minutes to make a small batch of eight tarts.

If you like this recipe, you should also check out the recipe on Kuejadas (Portuguese Tart).

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Ingredients:

Here are the ingredients to make 8 tarts:

  • 1 egg, beaten
  • 1 tablespoon + 2 teaspoon superfine (castor) sugar
  • 1/2 cup milk
  • 8 tart shell

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