30th June 2008 - Re-creation of Recipes

Was thinking what to cook for dinner and came across this recipe of Stew Ribs with Bitter Gourd. Think Sean would luv it. Would also want to try the fish slice recipe I did on Saturday's cooking class.

So did both. Couldn't find Kale in Marche so used broccoli instead. Saw some fresh prawns and since Sean hasn't had prawns for quite some time, decided to add this into the fish dish.

The stew was pretty good. Good thing I didn't add 1000ml of water as mentioned in the recipe cos it's watery enough. Added tomato for that extra vitamins :)

I was 'unknowingly' heavy on the salt content on this dish. It was way too salty and I had to rinse this dish four times. Sean said when he tasted the fish before I pour in the gravy, it was just nice. It must be the oyster sauce and come to think of it, I added way more than I remembered the instructor added. That must be the reason.

But overall, both dishes were good.

And we watched THAT sitcom over dinner again.

29th June 2008 - Watermelon Feta Cheese Salad, Guinness restuarant

Sean had to go for a seminar in the morning. Supposed to end at 5pm but actually it ended by 1pm. He called me at 11.30am to meet up for lunch and woke me up in the process. Was having body aches and a slight sore throat. Better drink more water.

Picked him up from S&T MRT station. Discovered a newly opened Irish Pub restuarant in Thumb Plaza. The unit used to be an antique shop. We had a very filling lunch on fish & chips, deep fried mushroom with salmon stuffing, chicken with bacon/mashed potata stuffing and more french fries. Luv the greenish dip for the fish but cant really tell what is it. Anyway, asked for extra dip for the fries.

And I had a sore throat that morning??!! Oops!

Pity din bring camera cos the presentation was quite good. Very professionally run, staff speaks good english, english papers...feels like Singapore!! And they have a pool table inside the restuarant. Next time can get Sean to teach me.

Oh, Subway just opened a joint here too. :)

Sean said he had too much meat for the day, so wanted only veggie for dinner. Thought of preparing watermelon feta cheese salad. There are so many different sizes of watermelon in Carrefour. We bought one that was the size of a small melon. Got some oranges and lettuce for the salad as well.

Had this together with some pastrami on toast. Feel so healthy. And we had many good laughs watching Two and a Half Men while having dinner. Again!!

28th June 2008 - Cooking Lessons

Went for cooking lessons yesterday from 10 - 12nn and 2 - 4pm. Very reluctant to wake up after all the rain on Friday. ;p

Did 6 dishes in total but took only photos of 3 dishes. Learned a few simple stir frying / deep frying techniques.

1) Fish slices with Kale. This was delish but a tad salty. Can try this at home if I can find some good white fish around. Now, know how to cook without the dish being too watery and how to prevent the fish slices from disintegrating.

2) Seafood medley. Similar cooking style to item 1.

3) Deep Fry Lychees in Strawberry Sauce. Finally, know how to do the batter. Saw a show last year where the chef did fried fig in batter and after than eat it with ice cream. Looked delish then. Tried the fried lychee hot off the cooking pan and quite liked it. Pity the lychee i tried wasn't very sweet.

The recipe called for strawberry puree sauce but saw the instructor using strawberry jam instead. Anyway, the sauce was good.

Since i wld be coming back in the afternoon for the 2nd session, I left the lychees in the frig. Surprisingly, it tasted even better when chilled.

4) Pan Fried Pork Chops in Tomato Sauce. The tomato sauce can doubled as pasta sauce as well. Next time, dun have to buy bottled pasta sauce. :) We just marinaded the pork with salt and pepper and fried it. It tasted very delish and juicy without any other seasoning.

5) Pan Fried Beef Steak Salad. This was easy to do with same marinade as pork chop.

6) Lime Cream Dessert. This was suppose to be dessert but it was whipped cream with lime juice,grated lime skin, sugar, corn starch! Can be a topping for fruits etc but not consume it alone.

These were our yummy dinner last night.

Anyway, signed up for another three sessions in July and Aug to learn choc cake, blueberry cheese tart and ham/seafood pizza. Can't wait. :))

27th June 2008 - Two And a Half Men

The weather has been as such since last night. Actually, its was quite cooling this past week. Maybe it's due to the typhoon in Hongkong, Shenzhen now.

We bought two fans last week in anticipation of the hot weather but only used it a couple of times.

Staying in countries with seasonal changes makes one feels that time flies. I dun keep track of dates now only except when I blog. But i can feel the weather changed since I came over in March and felt that the months just flew by.

Two and a Half Men.

Saw this sitcom on cable last mth and luv it. Charlie Sheen and the other two actors are hilarious. I dun remember which cable and timing of the sitcom, so had not been watching it on cable since.

While shopping for DVDs, i chanced upon the whole series of Two and a Half Men. Told Sean abt it and got him to buy it for me.

It has been a good buy cos we are hooked on it now. Almost every night, we will watch it during dinner. It's hilarious and sometimes we laughed til our tummies ache.

Thought of googling this sitcom to find out more about this show but Sean beat me to it. heheh..never thot he would do that.

26th June 2008 - Oven Baked Ribs & Beef Pastrami Salad

Was watching Tyra Banks show the other nite and they demonstrated this ribs recipe on the show. What's interesting was that cola is one of the ingredient. So for tonight, I decided to try this.

Since I wanted to buy cinnamon powder, might as well go to City Supermarket at LuJiaZui. This supermarket would have all the ingredients i need for this ribs recipe and cinnamon powder. I can't imagine why Walmart and Carrefour dun stock cinnamon powder.

Anyway, so happy to be there. But not before some shopping at the nearby Superbrand Mall. hehehe..;p The supermarket reminds me of Cold Storage or the Market Place back home, that's why it feels so comfy here. Got most of the ingredients i need and as I walked past the meat section, I dun see any ribs. Oh no! So I walked the whole length again. Asked the staff and was told that they were sold out. 'duh'

So had to go all the way to Carrefour at Thumb Plaza to get those long ribs which they definitely will have.

Here you go. This was the finger licking good dinner we had last nite.

Beef Pastrami Salad.

Ribs

It was yum yum and we finished everything. The ribs were quite salty though. Should hold back on the ??? Well, let's see next time what ingredients I want to hold back. Cos most of the ingredients have high salt content.

Better record this down so that I can try again in future.

a) Rub ribs with all purpose rub and let it rest.

b) Prepare the coating sauce by combining chilli sauce, worcestershire sauce, steak sauce and cola together. Original recipe calls for liquid smoke but I dun wan to buy it. And when i checked out Tyra Banks webpage, a secret sauce was mentioned. Of cos they wouldn't tell unless you buy the chef's book. Understandable.

c) Put ribs into oven for 30min-1hr. Original recipe calls for it to be under grill for 2-3 hours. I dun have so much time.

d) Take out ribs from oven and coat the ribs with the sauce thoroughly before putting into oven again.

e) Bast and turn the ribs a few times for the next hour or more. I din do so much of these cos was afraid the alum foil would tear. Can't remember how much time I spent on this but it looked ready to me. :)

I have been using aluminium foil to oven bake everything and its stated that its max temperature is 220 deg. So to play it safe, i will only have a max temp of 200 deg. I suppose the ribs shld be put in a higher temp in the beginning but i can't. That's also why my previous chicken dish not so crispy...sigh..Anyway, using foil is so convenient. Use and throw. But back in my mind, I am always thinking how long will the foil stays in the environment. Not so environmental friendly, i suppose.

21st June 2008 - Chicken Soup for our Soul

We used the ready packed spices for our chicken soup again! :) It's convenient and delicious. What more could we asked?

Anyway, bought a copy of the local soup recipes recently for reference. Cannot always cooked using the ready packed spices, rite? Gotta have some variety.

Read somewhere that black rice is healthier than white rice, so bought some to try. It's purple actually. Smell like the black glutineous dessert. :)

I'm getting to like spinach. They are so soft to eat. But so far, I'd only tried cooking with spinach, 'chicken feather', kailan. And it's always the same cooking style. I boiled the veg, set it aside, used a little of the boiled water to cook the gravy with oyster sauce & garlic and lastly, pour the gravy over the veg. Is this the only way to cook veg?? No rite? Hm..

Not sure how to handle the other veggies that i saw in the supermarket. Gotta do some research.

15th June 2008 - Emperor Chicken

I am so glad that ready-packed spices exist!! We have more than 20 packets of emperor baked chicken spices/ ginseng chicken spices etc in our kitchen. It's good to have ppl coming over for a visit so that they can help to bring some Singapore stuff over.

Sean & I were telling each other that in future, wherever we are in the world, we shld bring along large quantities of such ready-packed spices. It's so convenient. Anyway, we bought chicken pieces instead of the whole chicken cos I still dun really like/know to handle whole chicken. Oso smaller pieces are easier to handle and eat.

Got this packet of corn/carrots/peas and steamed them. It's good to have some variety in our diet. When we dug in for dinner, we had such happy faces. The emperor chicken just reminds us of home.

:)

I realised that after coming over to China and reading their books/articles, they are actually quite health conscious. I am starting to incorporate some of their health tips in my cooking oredy.

12th June 2008 - Pasta Dayz

Bought some pastas recently. Saw this interesting pasta called rigatoni..something like macaroni but bigger and straighter. Was thinking of what to do with it for dinner and was inspired by a TV programme to do 'macaroni & cheese' style. Since we have most of the ingredients in the refrig, why not?

Sean said that the meat taste something like the meat mum used for niang dou foo. So this dish is a keeper but can't do it often..very high in fat/calories etc

Hm...this sets me thinking to attempt to do the niang dou foo. Good thing I saw how mum do the NDF at home. I can still remember 60-70% of it. But must find the Tau Pok first.

Next day, I had the spag/rigatoni from yesterday's lunch/dinner leftover and cooked myself a milky pasta dish for lunch. Taste quite yummy with all the wheat/calcium/protein/pepper..very healthy.

5th June 2008 - Stewed pear for cough

Went BuXingJie today to buy Chuan Bei powder and almonds from the traditional chinese medical shop called Beijing Tong Ren Tang. So traditional. Another store at the 3rd level even has a TCM doctor and sells chinese herbs stored in multiple drawers occupying the whole wall.

Bought this cute little stew pot from the shop as well. Just nice for 1 person. Later, Sean jokingly commented that I am creating more work for myself by getting such a small stew pot. Anyway, it's cute and handy. The other pots were quite big. Maybe, I go buy another of this mini pot??!

This taste good. Going to cook another mini pot for myself. :)

8th June 2008 - Our 8th Anniversary & Duan Wu Jie (Dragonboat festival)

It's our 8th anniversary today!! It's been 8 years since Sean & I are together. That seems so long ago yet there is still so much more to know of each other. :)) We had so much fun together, going places, doing mundane stuff, doing silly stuff and getting to know each other in the process.

Did we know we will be here in Shanghai 8 years ago? Nope and we won't know where we will be 8 yrs down the road. But we know God has already prepared whatever places that we are supposed to go.

Its Duan Wu Jie today and Monday would be a public holiday. Went Xintiandi for a stroll. Very much like our Clark Quay. Alot of angmoh here, sitting alfresco and sipping coffee. Very laid back place but abit crowded. Maybe cos its a sunday and monday's a holiday. It's near HuangPiNan Road, something like our Orchard road. Did some shopping along this road. :))

That's us in XTD. Luv the architecture and the cleanliness of this place.

There is a musuem within XTD that marks the 1st meeting of the GongChanDang. Got to see the young Mao Zedong instead of the older picture we are used to see.

That's us in Coffee Bean within XTD. Only indoors cos dun wan to be under the UV rays. Next time, would luv to eat alfresco here but only at nite. Sean ordered Coconut Delight cake..hmmm..it's so light and yum.

We were at this lake opposite XTD. Nice place to sit and chit chat..

7th June 2008 - Xiao Long Bao again

What a rainy afternoon! Preparing to go for an interview at 5pm this afternoon and it started to rain very heavily.

On the way for the interview, we saw that at some stretch of the pedestrain way of Century Avenue was flooded! Should have brought a camera along to take this scene. So unexpected as Century Avenue was supposed to be an important road in Pudong.

Had quite long an interview and there will be another 2nd interview coming. Very good language school but need to settle on the working hours. See how it goes.

After the interview, we walked to ZhengDa for dinner. We tried XiaoLongBao at Din Tai Feng. I wanted to taste the difference between DTF and JiaJia (JJ). Well, after trying DTF's, i realised that sometimes, what they put up in the webpage are just personal preferences.

There are some webpages that recommeds JJ. Well, what I can say is that, its value for money whereas DTF's is more refined and has more broth. But it seems like they add more broth into the XLB separately in DTF before steaming cos its unlikely that little amount of meat can produced so much broth.

It depends on what one prefers. Gotta try NanXiang's at ChengHuang Temple one of these days to see which one I like best.