Apple Sponge Dessert

I made this Apple Sponge Dessert the other day, and it was quite tasty. Louis liked it too, as did some mysterious being. Every day i’d come home from work, and some more would be missing. Might be ghosts.

Ingredients:

  • 4 Green Apples
  • 6 Tablespoons of Sugar
  • 1/4 cup of Water
  • 60g (2 oz.) Butter
  • 1/4 cup Castor Sugar
  • 1 Egg
  • 1 teaspoon of Vanilla
  • 1 cup of Self Raising Flour
  • 1/3 Cup of Milk

Method:

Peel, core and slice apples, place in saucepan with sugar and water.
Cover and cook over medium heat until apples are just tender.
Pour into a greased 20cm cake tin. (NOT a spring tin, the juice will leak out)

Cream butter and castor sugar, then add vanilla and egg; beat well.
Stir in sifted flour alternately with the milk.
Spoon mixture into the cake tin, over the hot stewed apple.
Bake in moderate (180 *C) oven for 25 - 30 minutes, or until golden brown.

Remove from oven, and sprinkle with fine brown sugar and cinnamon.

Serve with cream or custard whilst warm.

    

38 Days to go..

22.Jan.07 Food, Random, Recipes Comments (5) 

Delicious fattening Laksa!

I made laksa for Louis and myself tonight, with an old recipe I got off a friend ages ago. (Never trust a thin cook!) I scribbled it on a scrap of notepaper at the time, and I haven’t lost it yet. But now that i’ve said that, I probably will.


I brought out the special ’stix for this one.


Up close and personal.

Ingredients:

Method:

Chop the chicken thigh into bite size pieces.
Mix the egg white and rice wine with the cornflour. Combine with the chicken, then cover and chill for a few hours.

Dice the onion fine, then add to heated peanut oil. Add dried prawns, lap cheong and laksa paste, and fry for 2 min.

Add stock, bring to boil, add coconut cream and simmer for 15 min.

Heat a pot of salted water, and boil the chicken pieces, a small amount at a time.

Add chicken, fishcake, fishballs and some of the coriander, simmer an extra 10 min.

Add beancurd, simmer another 10 min.

In boiling water, quickly blanch the bok choy.

Then heat the hokkien noodles in the water, and get bowls to assemble.

Put some of the hokkien noodles in each bowl, then the bok choy, then the laksa.

Add garnish (the shallots and coriander).

Serve. (and eat.)

Get hubby to do the dishes, with a promise of some hanky panky later on.

22.Oct.06 Food, Home, Recipes Comments (2) 

Baby’s makin me fat.

Another weekend, another curry. But that’s ok, because there’ll just be more of me to love.

This is what we cooked tonight, it’s Beef curry in Sweet Peanut Sauce.

It was super-nummy.

Screw copyright, if you want to know the ingredients, here they are:

Ingredients:

Method:

Put half the coconut milk into a wok or large pan. Heat the milk gently, stirring constantly, until it begins to boil and separate.

Add the red curry paste and cook over a medium heat until fragrant. Add fish sauce, sugar, and lemongrass.

Continue to cook until the colour of the curry sauce deepens.

Add the remaining coconut milk and bring back to the boil. Add the beef and ground peanuts. Cook for 10 - 12 minutes.

Add the sliced chillies and torn kaffir lime leaves and adjust seasoning. Simmer 2 min, then transfer to a serving dish, and garnish with the basil leaves and salted eggs.

Serve with rice, duh.

(Oh, and roti, nyumnums)

23.Sep.06 Food, Home, Recipes Comments (0) 

Sweet ‘n Sour Goldfish!

Dinner was HOME MADE Sweet and Sour Goldfish. Ok, maybe not Goldfishes, but it was golden, and it was fish. Dory, I think. $2.15 worth.

Here’s a picture.

The lighting on this picture is better than previous attempts, mainly because I bought a daylight bulb for my lamp. And some white material for a backdrop. So professional, eh? Yay me. Enquiries for nude photography sessions welcomed. Ok, now back to the fish.

This isn’t your ordinary sweet ‘n sour, this was home-made. Not that red asian sweet n sour, and definitely not a jar of Kan-Tong.

And if you’re wondering what that brown stuff is, it’s rice - the healthy kind. Not the 98% carb kind (white). Not that you skinny bastards have to worry about carbs. :P

Here’s the recipe:

Ingredients:

  • 500g (2 fillets) White fish (Dory is cheap) cut into 1 1/2 inch strips
  • 1/2 tsp Salt
  • 1/4 tsp White pepper
  • 1/2 cup Water
  • 1/2 cup White vinegar
  • 1/4 cup Brown sugar
  • 3 tbsp Tomato Sauce
  • 1/4 tsp Salt
  • 3 tbsp Pineapple juice
  • 2 rings of Pineapple, cut into 8ths
  • 2 tbsp Sambal Pedas
  • 1 pinch White pepper
  • Oil for deep-frying
  • 1/2 small Carrot cut into match-stick -pieces
  • 1/2 Onion - halved, and sliced
  • 1 Spring Onions - cut into 2-inch slivers
  • 1 tbsp Cornstarch mixed with 1 tbsp water
  • 1 packet of Mrs Macks Batter Mix (beats pissfarting around with egg, milk, flour and cornflour)

Cooking:
Sprinkle fish with salt and pepper and set aside.

Combine sweet and sour sauce ingredients in a pot and bring sauce to a boil over medium-high heat.
Add carrot and onion and simmer for 5 minutes.
Add cornstarch solution and cook stirring until sauce boils and thickens. Set aside.

Set wok in a ring stand and add oil to a depth of about 2 inches.
Over high heat bring oil to 360 deg.F.
Add fish a few pieces at a time and cook for 4 minutes or until golden brown.
Lift out and drain on paper towels. Keep warm in a 200 deg.F oven while cooking remaining fish.

Arrange fish on a platter.
Pour sauce over fish and serve immediately.

You can increase the amount of Sambal Pedas you put in, if you prefer it more spicy. I reduced the amount from 4 tbsp to 2 tbsp, because I thought it was a little bit too ‘ring of fire’ as a friend phrased it. (And no, it’s not because i’m a white boy.)

03.Jun.06 Food, Home, Recipes Comments (2) 

320 grams of Meaty Goodness - and more meat later on..

Last night I cooked Roast Vegies and Steak with Jack Daniels Sauce.

Yum!

Here’s the recipe for the sauce, just to stop you salivating all over the keyboard, ok?

4 cloves garlic - peeled
1 tsp. olive oil
2/3 cup water
1 cup pineapple juice
3 Tbls. teriyaki sauce
2 Tbls. soy sauce
1 1/3 cups packed dark brown sugar
1/2 lemon - juice of
1/2 sm. onion - minced
1 Tbls. Jack Daniel’s® whiskey
1 Tbls. crushed pineapple
1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper

-Slowly sauté garlic cloves in olive oil over low heat until tender; set aside.
-Bring water, pineapple juice, teriyaki sauce, soy sauce, and brown sugar to a boil, stirring constantly, then reduce heat to low.
-Press sautéed garlic with the flat edge of a knife to create a paste; stir into sauce along with remaining ingredients.
-Simmer sauce for 45 minutes, stirring occasionally.

After finishing all that and resting awhile, we decided to go clubbing at Peel. Louis’ exams start this week, so it’s the last chance to kick our heels up before he needs to concentrate. Also a whole bunch of his friends seemed to be going.

We got there about 12.30, and after parking we braved the cold night air and made a beeline for the entrance.

Once inside it was the usual, so wandered around to try and find Louis’ friends.
First person I see? Jason. (My ex, Vernon’s friend.) He’s just gotten back from yet another overseas backpacking adventure, this time from the US. I swear all that guy does is travel. And he’s no different to the last time I saw him… still talks the leg off an iron pot.

So most of my night was sorted, but I did manage to slip away a few times and Louis and i had some ‘us’ time, dancing and watching people dance.

Oh and I witnessed my first fight in a nightclub. Not surprisingly, it was between two lesbians, one of them about the height of my knee. Speaking of lesbians, there were HEAPS of them there. Honestly I don’t know why they’re not at their own clubs, instead of infiltrating ours. Anyone want to goto a lesbian bar? Ah, didn’t think so.

Whilst watching the people dance on the back dancefloor, some guy next to me started talking to me. Introduced himself, can’t remember his name, but it was all in aid of trying to hook his friend (Ugly ginger haired white boy) up with one of Louis’ friends. And it didn’t work. 10 points for having the courage to ask though.

Whilst that was happening and I was trying to shout into Louis’ ear, I saw Andrew (my ex) walk past, look at me and keep walking. A hello would have been nice, but i guess that would have been too much effort. Not like we dated for long or anything.. only 2 1/2 yrs.. pfft.

Anyway it was starting to get too crowded in there, so ended up back in the lounge area, and another conversation with Jason. This time complaining that I don’t know any other rice queens to hook him up with. I explained the last rice queen I was friends with hit on my then boyfriend, and the ones i’d met since weren’t worth knowing. I’m sure there are some nice white guys out there, he’ll find one eventually. Oh well. (If you’re one of those nice rice queens and want to meet an outgoing mid 20s top asian guy, lemme know. I might put you in touch. Sluts like S***n, D****l and A**m need not apply.)

13.May.06 Food, Home, Recipes Comments (2)