Wei, wei, wei, Chinese New Year is just one week away from now. Have you stock up your cookies? This year, I am quite lazy to bake. But because I have few orders from a dear friend of mine, I decided to make just enough for her and also a few for my relatives.

I tried to bake simple cookies this time. To me, the cornflakes cookies is kinda easy to bake.

Just cream the butter, sugar, eggs and flour. Coat them with cornflakes before sending them to the oven. Let me know if you want the proportion for the ingredients.

I find them more presentable and faster if you bake the cookies in mini paper cups but the texture is not completely crunchy especially at the base of the cookies.

I think something is wrong with my recipes. Good for the kids tho as they get to eat the something-is-wrong cookies. *snigger* I remember during my childhood days when my mom make Kuih Kapit for CNY. We only get to get the chau tah (burned) or cacat (distorted) looking ones. The curse has been passed down to this generation as kids STILL get to eat only chau tah cookies but Mom will yell if they ever touch the nice looking piece.

To finish up the cornflakes that I have, I coat them with melted chocolates and deco with some colourful sprinkles.

My Children finished up the whole container of this. By the time I found out, they left only 3 pieces behind. By night time, Baby Princess is crocking! Now I have no more cookies to chia my guest.

At the same time, I baked the pineapple cookies too. This time I’ve replace the pineapple with Buah Kurma (Dates) cos I really want to keep it a simple baking session.

You can find the pineapple cookies recipe here. All you need to do is replaced the pineapple jam with Buah Kurma. Very simple task.

This is how it looks like inside.

I’ve done baking for CNY and earned myself a back pain from the 5 hours of baking. *ouch*

Short Talk - Leaving for a cruise vacation is so exciting that one might forget a lot of important chores like booking for car rental in advance. Everyone remembers getting the cheap flights, but people often forget the airline tickets at home or the hotel when traveling in large groups.

With the Chinese New Year drawing nearer, I find myself getting more lazy to cook. Blame it on the lazy bugs in me. But what do you expect after a tiring days spring cleaning for the oncoming festive season? Thus, no cooking means no update in my ‘Mouthful Monday’ category too. So, I thought of this quick, delicious and yet healthy meals for the family.

The proportion shown here is enough to feed a family of 2 adults and 3 children.

Ingredients for the porridge:

• 3/4 cup of fragrant rice
• Water

Method:

Clean rice and soak them in water preferably overnight. In the morning, rub soaked rice with your palm. Discard water and replace with clean water. Simmer rice for about an hour on slow fire till your porridge gets very soft. Add more water if it dries up. The texture should be a runny.

Now, we are ready for the steamboat!

I prepared my children’s favourite dishes, that is the fish noodles. They are basically fish paste that was shaped longish like noodles. So, no rules as what you should or should not have. Here are some ideas for you - fish balls, squid, shrimps, chicken fillet, fish fillet, pigs intestine, mince pork, bean curd sheets (foo chok), tau pok, yong tau foo, chinese cabbage, baby corn, button mushrooms… Well, just to named a few here. It is up to your preference and availability from the market.

Since I don’t have a steamboat pot, I substitute them by using the electric rice cooker. They work the same. Filled half of the pot with porridge.

Food that required longer cooking like red meat should go in first.

Replaced cover and bring porridge to a boil again. Well, if you really want a more perfect steamboat, you may add some ginger shred, sesame oil, spring onions or fragrant shallots.

Baby Princess was curious why food was cook on the dining table. Well, I have not done this for ages! I’m pretty excited about it too.

Oh, and she is planning to mess them up too. “Daddy, quick! She took the soya sauce!”

Well, the next time I’m going to make it a big feast so that I can have all the dishes mentioned earlier. The  fish balls, squid, shrimps, chicken fillet, fish fillet, pigs intestine, mince pork, bean curd sheets (foo chok), tau pok, yong tau foo, chinese cabbage, baby corn, button mushrooms, ginger shred, sesame oil, spring onions, fragrant shallots…. Bon appetite

I have not been cooking for the past few weekends. The reason is very simple. I.Am.Just.Plain.Lazy. *insert evil laugh*

Another reason could be the new opening of Jaya Jusco in Bandar Bukit Tinggi. They are situated just a stone throw away from where we live. So tell me, what makes us not going there every weekend be it window shopping, indulging their glorious food or even acting like an Ah Soh buying 10 packets of Tops Detergent priced at RM9.90 just because other Ah Soh is doing the same thing? (you must be crazy to think that I’ve actually done that)

Ok, back to me being lazy to cook. So far, the craziest things we had (or maybe not that crazy but my Mom think it is!) for dinner is 12 pieces of donuts from Big Apple. My Mom freaked when she heard that.

Hmm… what is the best way to make my Hubby freak then? Bill from Häagen-Dazs®!

The fondue set is as expensive as my dinner but we deserved a pampering once in a while.

The thick, creamy and rich chocolate. Such a sinful meal, I would called it. Fruits platter on one side, and…

… ice-creams and cakes on the other side.

Dunk the ice-cream in the hot chocolate *drooling*

or if you favour…

coat them in crunchy almond nibs.

Chocolate chips cookies is sinful enough, but when you dunk them in the melted hot chocolate…

… start counting the calories. Gotta watch that waistline la, Dude!

I’m lost for caption. Can anyone suggest something catchy or hillarious for the bubble speech?

Well, if I like your bubble speech, you are in for the next fondue *treat with the Queen. How does that sound?

* Terms and condition applied.

The original recipe of coconut shake called for coconut milk (santan) and milk. I am somewhat sitting on the balancing scale - watching the calories, modifying the recipe and you get a rating of 7.5 out of 10 of result here. This is my version of coconut shake for health freak people like me.

Ingredients:
The oldest ‘young’ coconut you can get. Avoid using too ‘young’ coconut as the flesh hasn’t produce any milk. Yet!

Method:

Freeze the coconut juice and coconut flesh in ice cube tray for approximately 3 hours. I dare not over freeze it in case my 9 years old blender can’t take the pressure and it might break the blade. Blend the freezed coconut cube for about 2 minutes.

A cool drink to quench your thirst.

You can get the chinese herbs from chinese medical hall. Double boiled them with spring chicken for 3 to 4 hours.  However, I don’t quite like the sweet taste from honey dates.  Maybe I should replace them with red dates instead. Hmm….

Ingredients:

• 400gm Glutinous rice
• 1 tsp turmeric powder
• Salt
• 20 white peppercorn
• 2 cinnamon sticks
• 6 cloves
• 2 pandan leaves, knotted
• 100ml thick coconut milk

Method:

1. Wash and soak glutinous rice in water. Mixed turmeric powder, cinnamon sticks and 1 tablespoon of salt for five hours or more.
2. Drain well the soaked rice, then place in a steamer with peppercorns and pandan leaves and steam for 15 minutes.
3. Remove the steamer and add 1 teaspoon of salt to the coconut milk before mixing it to the rice. Mix well then steam for another 15-20 minutes. Fluff up the rice and continue steaming for another 15 minutes.
4. Remove rice from steamer and set aside to cool.

The result? Mine failed cos I cook them in the rice cooker. Note in mind: STEAM them! No finishing picture too as the photographs turned out VERY unpleasant looking it deem unfit to be posted in jessielingdotcom! At least not to my standard la.

Being a Foochow, I am ashamed of myself as I speak very little of my mother’s tongue. But if you tell me “nehrekong”, I will be “hui ya ruah”. That’s all I know. *rofl*

Ok. Don’t learn that. Those are very bad! *wipe tears away*

I adhered foochow cooking from my Dad. Mind you, he is a very good cook. During Chinese New Year, he is the one storming up in the kitchen. When I was young, I used to be my Dad’s little kitchen slave helper. I can’t deny I’m a good observer. I observed him all the time especially the ingredients and substitution that he used. It benefits from there. Without A, you can go for B and came out with C

One of the simplier dishes that most Foochow love is smashed tofu soup or tau-hu rong (tau-hu = tofu, rong = soup).

Ingredients:

2 soup bowl of water
4 pieces of Tofu
3 cloves of garlic
Minced chicken/pork
Crab meat/tiny lala (optional)
Chicken granule/stock for seasoning
Tapioca flour
Chives & corriander leaves for garnishing
1 Egg

Method:

Heat oil and saute your garlic till brown. Measure 2 soup bowl of water into wok. Close wok with lid. At the meantime while waiting for the water to boil, smashed tofu using the back of a fork.

Depending on individual. I like mine smashed into very small pieces. If you prefer chunky or bite size tofu, work your way out then.

Washed your tiny lala using a sieves under running water. If you are using crab meat, break them into fine strand.

However, this two are optional ingredients. You may obsolete them if you want.

Marinate your minced chicken/pork with a dash of pepper and soy sauce. Add a tablespoon of tapioca floor to meat before cooking.

Your water should come to a boil by now. Dump in your smashed tofu, tiny lala/crab meat and marinated meat. Stir them so that the meat will break up into tiny pieces again. Cover wok with lid again and bring them to a boiled.

On the other hand, stir approximately 6 tablespoons of tapioca flour into 1/2 bowl of water. Once your soup came to a boil, thickens soup with tapioca mixture. Stop at the consistency that you want. Season with chicken stock/granule. Switch off fire and drizzle egg. Stir soup quickly.

Garnish with chives and corriander leaves before serving.

I cook this soup for my Hokkien in-law to try. The first thing that came out from my Sil’s mouth is, “What happen to the tofu? Why all smashed up?” They love it eventually but I never cook this soup for them again.

I made about 25 cups of dessert for our Alumni’s Pot-luck makan-makan over the weekend.

Ingredients:

2 litres water
250gm sugar
1 packet of Swallow jelly powder
1 can of evaporate milk
1 can of soya milk (using the evaporate milk can as measurement)
1 can of longan in syrup

Method:

1. Mix one packet of Swallow jelly powder and sugar into cooking pot.
2. Pour 2 litres of water into the mixture and boil over low heat. Oh don’t forget to add pandan leaves for the fragrant.
3. Stir occasionally till mixture dissolve and boiled. Turn heat off.
4. Empty 1 can of evaporate milk and 1 can of soya milk into solution.
5. Mix well and pour mixture into cups. Cool them in refigerator if you want to shorten the waiting time.
6. Once the jelly has set, scoop longan over jellies and distribute the syrup evenly. You may find some jellies has only one longan. lol.

Don’t worry if you added too much or too little water. This dessert is meant to eat from the spoon. I love mine very very soft. Almost like taufoo fah.

Excuse the camwhore. We had so much fun during the makan-makan and our dear photographer keep on tempting me with his SLR. Gosh!

Remember a month ago I’ve blogged about the choy sum seed that Leah gave them to me that is sprouting in my garden?

Now I have home grown veges.  Not totally organic.  At least I know it is free from pesticide and chemical fertilizer.

So far, I have them (choy sam) in my fried noodles and last weekend, I have them as a dish itself.

Check out this year virtual Merdeka Open house. I can assured you, it is better than last year’s with different and more variety of food. And dare yourself in Fear Factor! Those sago worms does look fat and juicy. *icks!*

*Mee - Noodle

I hate the hassle of big wok, burnt wok and messy stove so I always go for the easy way out if I wanted fried noodle. Yea, cook the hokkien style then. This is my way of doing it.

Method:

1. Prepare sauces in a bowl by adding 3/4 bowl of water to it.
2. Stir-fry all your veges. Dish out and set aside.
3. Pour sauces in wok and add your yellow noodle. Coat them evenly. Simmer till gravy thicken. However, if you wish to have wetter noodle, add desire amount of water.
4. Lastly, return veges to noodle and coat evenly. Try not to over cook them as the veges is already cook as in step 2.

I prefer not to fry veges in sauces to avoid over cooking and immersion of dark soy sauce makes veges not attractive.

… and I forgot something here. THE scramble EGGS! DUHH!