CoCo's Best Brownies

OK I've been having crazy cravings for brownies for months! But it's never easy to bake when you have a clingy 10 month old baby that always demand your attention. So I found a recipe at HERSHEY'S, took another week to gather my ingredients, and finally got down to do it!

Brownies are actually quite easy and quick to prepare, but it was a stressful 30mins with baby screaming at my background. The results? ABSOLUTELY 100% WORTH IT! Definitely a MUST TRY!

Basically I followed HERSHEY'S recipe, but they really like it SUPER SWEET, so I reduced the sugar by 1/4 cup. Trust me, it's sweet enough.

• 1 cup (2 sticks) butter or margarine (about 226 grams)
• 1 and 3/4 cups sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 4 eggs
• 3/4 cup HERSHEY'S Cocoa or HERSHEY'S SPECIAL DARK Cocoa
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt (I use salted butter, so I didn't add salt)
• 1 cup chopped nuts(I added walnuts, pecan or other 'soft' nuts will be fine)

Directions:
1. Heat oven to 350°F / 176°C Grease 13x9x2-inch baking pan.

(I laid 2 pieces of aluminium foil in a criss cross way on the pan, so when it's cooled, I just lift the whole thing up, place it on the chopping board and cut it. Easy and clean.)

2. Place butter in large microwave-safe bowl. Microwave at MEDIUM (50%) 2 to 2-1/2 minutes or until melted. Stir in sugar and vanilla. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well with spoon after each addition. Add cocoa; beat until well blended. Add flour, baking powder and salt; beat well. Stir in nuts, if desired. Pour batter into prepared pan.

3. Bake 30 to 35 minutes or until brownies begin to pull away from sides of pan. Cool completely in pan on wire rack. Frost if desired. Cut into bars. About 36 brownies.
(Duh~ how tiny is their brownie slices? I only got 12 cause I cut them pretty big. Haha~)

Really very good. No joke! You can store them in the fridge. When you need a little brownie therapy, pop one into the microwave for about 40 seconds and serve with a big scoop of ice cream! Instant happiness!

Stir fry long beans with beef and mushrooms

Beef - sliced
Long beans - cut
Brown mushrooms - cut
Minced garlic
Minced ginger
Oyster sauce
Sugar

Combo A:
Oyster sauce
Corn flour
Sesame oil
Pepper

For my beef, I bought a piece of steak and put it in a clean plastic bag. Then I smack the meat till it's flat! That would tenderise it and get rid of all that stress! Haha...

Slice the beef and marinate it with combo A, the longer the better!

Stir fry the mushrooms in hot oil till it's little soft, add in the ginger and garlic.

Add in the marinated meat - add in more oil if needed. (mushrooms usually soaks up all the oil!)

Add a little water, another teaspoon of oyster sauce, 2 teaspoons of sugar and long beans.

Mix well and cover up to let the long bean cook.

After about 2 minutes, thicken the sauce with a splash of corn flour mix with water.

Turn of the fire and serve! :)

Super Quick Spicy Long Beans

Experimented this dish for my own lunch yesterday (that's why the portion is so small) and it turned out delicious! Best thing is that it's SO SIMPLE. Must try!

3 Long Beans
1 teaspoon of bean paste
1 chilli padi
1 garlic, minced
1/4 bowl of water
2 teaspoon of water

Stir fry everything with a little oil for a minute, cover the pan for another minute, SERVE!

Great with a bowl of rice. YUMS~!

Pumpkin Soup

Half a pumpkin, skinned, seeded and chopped into big chuncks
1 stick of carrot
1 potato
1 big onion
1 clove of garlic
1 bowl of chicken stock
1 tsp of Oregano
Salt and Pepper

Dice onion finely and mince garlic
Fry them in oil with a pinch of salt till onion becomes soft
Add the rest of the vegetables, oregano and chicken stock
Boil in pressure cooker for 10 minutes (or about 30mins for a regular pot) till all vegetables turn soft.
Blend into a smooth and creamy soup.

For babies, serve with baby biscuits.
For adults, season with salt and pepper and serve with toasted bread.

Pumpkin Soup

Half a pumpkin, skinned, seeded and chopped into big chuncks
1 stick of carrot
1 potato
1 big onion
1 clove of garlic
1 bowl of chicken stock
1 tsp of Oregano
Salt and Pepper

Dice onion finely and mince garlic
Fry them in oil with a pinch of salt till onion becomes soft
Add the rest of the vegetables, oregano and chicken stock
Boil in pressure cooker for 10 minutes (or about 30mins for a regular pot) till all vegetables turn soft.
Blend into a smooth and creamy soup.

For babies, serve with baby biscuits.
For adults, season with salt and pepper and serve with toasted bread.

Fruit Paradise - Fruit Tart Shop

Located at Orchard Central, this shop sells, well, Fruit Tarts! We accidentally came across the shop while shopping and we were captivated by how pretty the tarts look in the fridge! It looked SO pretty, we wondered if they were even real! After staring at them for awhile, we were amazed that they are REAL... So we went in and tried them out!



I tell you, it was almost impossible to choose which one to order! Even after ordering, I was tempted to pull the waitress back to change my mind. But I stuck to my decision and got the Banana Caramel Tart.



It's a custard cream base tart with bananas and almond flakes, drizzled with caramel sauce.

My Hubby got the Blueberry Tart, which is the fresh cream base tart with blueberries and blueberry jelly cubes.



They look very rich, creamy and deadly. But surprisingly, they taste quite light. Personally, I would prefer it to be sweeter, but I guess many people are health conscious. Overall, it was a nice tea break. The tart was nice, the tea was a perfect complement to the tarts, the service was excellent and the prices was reasonable. My only complaint was that my tea was not hot enough. What a kill joy... -_-

Check them out

A1 Bak Ku Teh

Bought a packet of A1 Bak Ku Teh Spice to make Bak Ku Teh for dinner the other day. That was my first time trying this brand and I must say... IT'S DELICIOUS LOH~!!! One packet comes with 2 spice sachets, and according to the packaging, 1 sachet for about 500g of meat, so I only used 1 sachet.

So VERY SIMPLE, just follow the instructions on the packaging. (but no need to be so strict)
500g of meat (I used 2 packets of prime rib - BEST)
6 cloves of garlic (whole with skin on)
1 tablespoon of dark soya sauce
1 tablespoon of light soya sauce
1 tablespoon of oyster sauce
a pinch of msg
pepper (I use freshly grounded white pepper - you can use regular pepper)
1 big bowl of water

**For water, my Mom taught me to use your choice of serving bowl, plus another 1/2bowl. For example, the portion that I want to cook was about 1 big soup bowl, so I pour 1 bowl plus another 1/2 bowl, as the half would be evaporated during boiling.**

The instruction say add the seasoning AFTER the meat has been cooked. But I think the meat would be more flavourful if you boil it together with the seasoning. So I just pop EVERYTHING into the pot, and let it cook.

I used a pressure cooker to cook for about an hour, which is divine as the meat would be sooo tender, even the soft bone turns translucent and delicious and well, soft! For a regular pot, an hour would also be fine, just that you would have to keep an eye on your soup and make sure it doesn't dry up.

Serve with some simple blanched vegetables, steaming hot rice and most importantly, freshly cut chilli padi in dark soya sauce.

YUMS~!

Cheese Burger Pasta

The original recipe was from the Rachel Ray's Show, but I used the twisted pasta (I don't know what's the name) instead of macaroni and those Kraft sandwich cheese instead of Cheddar and Parmesan cheese. Well, basically I just used what I have, and that's the beauty of home cooking isn't it? But more importantly, it's that it really tasted like cheese burger and it's yummy! Definitely will do it again. :)

Let some minced beef and chopped onion brown in a frying pan while you boil some pasta according to the instruction on the packaging.

Hint: I always use a bowl to measure how much pasta to cook. For one serving, it's about one rice bowl of pasta.

When the meat is browned, add one tablespoon of ketchup, one teaspoon of mustard, about half a cup of chicken stock and stir fry it for awhile. When the pasta is cooked, add it onto the meat sauce and stir till incorporated.

Pour it into an oven proof dish, cover it with cheese and pop it into a preheated oven at 180 degrees for 10 mins, or till the cheese has melted and browned.

Serve with a nice crisp salad. Enjoy! :D

Steak Pasta

Cobby (My Hubby) made this dish, he was inspired by Jamie Oliver when he made those delicious looking steak sandwiches. But instead of sandwich, he used pasta, cause it's more filling for our dinner.

We used ribeye steak, added some salt, pepper and oil and pounded it flat. By pounding it, it cooks faster and it also tenderised it. Grill the steak on a VERY HOT grill, or frying pan. There's no need to add oil onto the pan as there's oil on your meat. Let it grill for about 1 and a half minutes on each side (for medium), remove from pan and let it rest.

Meanwhile, the pasta is boiling in the pot, cooking according to the packaging instructions.

While it's boiling, stir fry some anchovies with chopped onion till the onion is soft and brown. THEN you add the garlic, cause if you add too early, the garlic would be overcooked, turns brown and bitter!

Add in the cooked pasta and a little bit of the pasta water into your onion mix and add in a little chicken stock. Stir fry for awhile till there's a little bit of sauce left. (the pasta will continue to absorb in the liquid even after you dish it up)

Slice your rested steak and place it on top of the pasta, serve with a freah green salad on the side. Presto, perfect steak pasta. Enjoy.

Braised Chicken Wings

This is my Mummy's recipe and it's easy and delicious!

1. Marinate the chicken wings with a pinch of salt
2. Slice up some ginger and smack about 2 cloves of garlic
3. Stir fry the ginger and garlic with sesame seed oil and a splash of regular cooking oil
4. When the ginger is slightly brown, add in the chicken wings and stir fry it for a minute.
5. Add water till it almost cover the meat.
6. Pour in about 2-3 tablespoons of dark soya sauce and a tablespoon of sugar
7. Let it simmer in high heat for a few minutes before turning down the heat and let it braise slowly.
8. When the sauce has been reduced to about 1/3, check the flavour and add salt if necessary.

Done!

Variations:
1. Add mushrooms for added flavour
2. Use pork belly if you like!

For Braised Pork Belly...
Ginger - cut into bigger slices instead of sticks
At step 4,
-Add a stick of cinnamon (optional)
-Add hard boil eggs

Enjoy! :)

Hokkaido Fair 2009

We headed to Tampines Mall on Friday (3 July) to check out the Hokkaido Fair organised by Isetan.



We started our lunch with a bowl of Toro Toro Char Siew Ramen (Rich Pork Soup)$15.00. Its supposed to be some 2005 Ramen Winner, so we want to check it out.



Interestingly the ramen is quite thick, like hokkien mee, but it doesn't have the alkaline taste. The soup is very tasty and the char siew is very tender. Yummy!

Next we tried the Mori No Ikameshi(Seasoned squid with glutinous rice) $6.80. I saw this on a TV show so I wanted to try it for myself. The squid is very tender but the flavour is quite strong, so I don't really fancy it.



Next Cobby bought a box of Hotate yaki balls (scallop) $7.50. Honestly I didn't taste the scallop at all, maybe it was too small? Perhaps the octopus would taste better since it's texture is more firm.



By now we were a little full, but I wanted to try some desserts, so queued up to try out another recommended item, the Full Moon. $6.60 per piece!



Well it's expensive but so worth it! The pudding consist of three layers. The top is a layer of mashed Japanese sweet potato, the middle is pudding and the bottom is a thin layer of caramel cream. When I try to scoop the pudding with my spoon, I was surprised to find out that it's hard! I think it's because the staff put it in the fridge, so the layers had become firm, like ice cream! I wonder if it was supposed to be like this? Or was it suppose to be eaten warm? Anyway~ It was delicious! Money well spent!

Lastly was to stop by the Dango Stick stall. There were so many varieties! I love Japanese red bean paste, so I asked the auntie behind the counter to recommend!



Even though both have red bean filling, the auntie said both are very different. And it's true! The one on the left is has a jelly like texture while the one on the right is more chewy. But both are nice!

There were so many more food stalls but by then we were already quite full. I guess next time we can actually go to Hokkaido to try out the food! Hee hee...

Trattoria Lafiandra al Museo

Found a nice Italian restaurant next to the Singapore Arts Museum.

Here's the blog entry.

Trattoria Lafiandra Al Museo
171 Bras Basah Road
Singapore Art Museum
Tel: 68844035

Shanghainese Rice Cake

Also known as Shanhainese Nien Gou, this dish is very close to my heart as my mom would make this on the mornings of chinese new year. So it represents the best years of my childhood and my family. Interestingly, many only know this rice cake for stir-fry or pan-fried. For me, the best way and the only way is to cook it with soup.


1. Soak the nien gou and dried mushroom overnight
2. To make the soup, boil a chicken breast with 2 slices of ginger and mushrooms for 30mins
3. Add chicken wings and chinese cabbage and boil till cooked. Add some salt for seasoning.



4. Cook the nien gou in a seperate pot of water. When the nien gou float to the surface, it's cooked. Careful not to overcook, or it would become mushy!



5. Scoop out the nien gou and ladle the soup and ingredients over it.
6. Serve with a dash of pepper!

Hog's Breath Cafe

Natural Prime Rib ($34.00) My Favourite...

Other than the steak from West End, our 2nd favourite steak house has to be Hog's Breath Cafe at CHIJMES. Well, it used to be 2nd best, but now, Cobby and I are seriously considering to promote them to become our top favourite steak! Why??

Hog's Breath's Prime Rib main boast was it's juicy and tender meat, but it always lack that wonderful aromatic smoky char-grilled flavour that West End's Tenderlion Steak have.

But in the recent months, we noticed a change in Hog's Breath's steak. Not only is the meat as juicy and tender as ever, but now the steak has an enhanced char-grill flavour to it. (we suspect a change in chefs? :D) Also, even the sauce tasted different, better - so good, you don't need any ketchup or chilli sauce!

Of course, the side dishes are just as important. We always order our steak with their famous Hog's tail fries and salad. The fries are irresistably crispy and the salad is not your average boring iceberg lettuce. Perfect complements to the steak!

So you see lah, with the enhanced version of the steak and it's sauce, the unbeatable crispy curly fries and the refreshing salad, how can we not promote Hog's Breath Natural Prime Rib to be our favourite steak!?



HOG’S BREATH CAFE CHIJMES
Chijmes,
30 Victoria Street,
Block A, #01-26/27,
Singapore 187996
Tel: (65) 6338 1387
Fax: (65) 6338 6216
Email: hbchijmes@hogsbreath.com.sg
Open Daily 11.30am - Midnight (last order 10.30pm)
Bar Snacks and appetisers available till closing time

Dinner at Tung Lok Signatures

This year, we had our Chinese New Year Reunion Dinner at Tung Lok Signatures restaurant and it was absolutely divine!

Click here to see the full post...

Tung Lok Signatures @ The Central
6 Eu Tong Sen Street
#02-88 The Central
Singapore 059817

Tel : +65 6336 6022
Fax : +65 6339 6483

Jam Drops

I got this recipe from Donna Hay - Modern Classics Book 2. I was a little bored one evening, so I wanted to do something simple, fuss free. This is a sweet, buttery and crumbly cookie with jam in the middle. Very easy to do, and a nice snack to nibble on. :)

180g butter, softened
1 cup caster (superfine) sugar
1 egg
2 cups plain flour, sifted
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
Jam of your choice (I use rasberry)

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C.

2. Beat butter and sugar with electric mixer till its light and creamy.

3. Add egg and mix well.

4. Stir through the flour and baking powder and mix into a dough.

5. Roll into small balls with about 3cm in diameter. Place onto baking tray with non-stick baking paper, allowing room for the biscuits to spread a little during baking.

6. Flatten the dough slightly and make a little indent in the middle of the dough. Fill the hole with jam.

7. Bake for 10minutes or until golden brown.

8. Cool on wire racks.

Dad’s Pineapple Tarts

There’s 2 ways to make pineapple tarts. One way was to blend everything up using the mixer, and the other is the rubbing in method. Dad gave me this rubbing in method recipe for a more fluffy tart; basically you rub flour and chilled butter with your fingers to get a breadcrumb-like texture.

But if you have warm hands like me, you would probably end up with a overly wet dough due to the butter melting from the warmth of your hands. If that’s the case, you can use a pastry blender to cut the chilled butter into the flour. Works for me!



Warning! This dough is much more difficult to work with as it is SO SOFT!
Key points to remember:
1. Minimum hand contact – work quickly! The more you handle the dough, the softer it gets!
2. Dust! – Make sure your table, rolling pin and cookie cutter is well dusted with flour.
3. Plastic sheet – Cut out a clean plastic bag into a sheet and put it over your dough when you roll it, this would prevent the dough from sticking onto your rolling pin.

Tart pastry:
300g cake flour (sifted)
220g butter (cubed and chilled)
100g sugar
15g custard powder
1 egg yolk
Ice water

Method:
1. Roll pineapple jams into little balls and set aside.

2. Preheat oven at 180°C.

3. Mix the flour, sugar and custard powder together.

4. Using a pastry cutter, cut the chilled butter into the flour till it resembles breadcrumbs.

5. Mix in the egg yolk and gradually add in the iced water till the mixture forms a soft dough.

6. Cover up the dough and chill in the fridge for about 2 hours.

7. Dust the work area with flour before rolling out the dough till it's about 0.7 cm thick.

8. Dust the pineapple tart mould with flour and cut flour into shapes.

9. Brush sides of tarts with egg wash.

10. Bake in a greased, lined baking tin for 10 minutes.

11. Remove tarts from the oven. Fill centre of tarts with the pineapple jam balls.

12. Return tarts to oven to bake for a further 5 minutes, or until golden brown.

13. Cool the tarts on wire rack.

Pineapple Tarts

With the Chinese New Year coming, pineapple tarts are a MUST-HAVEs in every Chinese family. Being my favourite festive goodie ever, I never fail to buy some every year. This year, I've decided to take on the challange and learn how to make my favourite pineapple tart!

I got this recipe from Jo's Deli & Bakery, but I’ve reduced the quantity by half. As this is my virgin attempt in making pineapple tarts, I’ve decided to go easy on myself and use store bought pineapple jam for my tarts. :) (I bought from Phoon Huat)

Tart pastry:
150g butter
65g margarine
50g icing sugar
40g milk powder
½ egg
300g cake flour
15g custard powder

Method:
1. Roll pineapple jams into little balls and set aside.

2. Preheat oven at 180°C.

3. Cream butter and margarine in a large mixing bowl until light and fluffy.

4. Add egg and beat well.

5. Sift icing sugar, milk powder, flour and custard powder into the mixture. Fold to incorporate all ingredients to form a smooth pastry dough.

6. To make it easier to handle, wrap up the dough with cling wrap and let it chill in the fridge for a few hours.

7. Dust the work area with flour before rolling out the dough till it's about 0.7 cm thick.

8. Dust the pineapple tart mould with flour and cut flour into shapes.

9. Brush sides of tarts with egg wash.

10. Bake in a greased, lined baking tin for 10 minutes.

11. Remove tarts from the oven. Fill centre of tarts with the pineapple jam balls.

12. Return tarts to oven to bake for a further 10 minutes, or until golden brown.

13. Cool the tarts on wire rack.

Takes abit of effort, but it makes a great gift!