Dainty Bites

I don't know what hit me on the head. Something must have short circuited up there. Wacko enough to make these! I hated sweet peppers. Especially green ones. I don't know why. Maybe it is the smell. Not too sure. I just hated them. But some time ago, my brains got re-wired. It was roughly about the time when I tasted roasted sweet peppers on pizzas and then again on sandwiches. It was entirely a new experience for me in eating sweet peppers. Why wasn't I fed these in the first place! Well, over at this side of the world, the only way to cook sweet peppers is usually a quick stir-fry which would leave the peppers tasting raw. While flipping my The New Best Recipe , I remembered seeing this recipe and thought that this would be something that I won't ever try in my lifetime. Well, never say never. Preparing the rice stuffing was somewhat like making fried rice and then stir in the shredded cheese. I forgot to get parsley, which was listed in the recipe to be stirred i

Alright, alright ... It wasn't my turkey. I didn't cook it. It was precooked. Hey, heating up is not small task, okay? I picked up the turkey along with a leg of ham and roast beef from Cold Storage and they all came cold. So I offered to heat up the larger items (ie. the turkey and ham). This was the first time I put a whole turkey in my oven and having read some cookbooks certainly helps. At least I know how to tear the whole turkey up. This was before it went into the oven. I added the veggies to the bottom of the pan to soak up the juices given up by the turkey during heating. And they were delicious! I was so shocked that even just heating, the bird requires 1 hour and 45 mins in the oven. Well, now I know. Here's the finished product. Happy holidays to my readers!

Every alternate month or so, our little princess would have the sniffles and cough. Cough seems to be the bane of the very existence. She hates it because she can't have candies, chocolates, gummy and whatnots-kids-eat-these-days-to-make-themselves-hyper. So, when she finally cleared her cough last Sunday, I made a little "just-gotten-well" treat. It was kinda impromtu, so I didn't have many fruits for her to dip with. But bananas ... they are good with anything ... even peanut butter! Needless to say, our little princess was completely over the moon.

Sometimes flipping through cookbooks, scouring through the internet and shortlisting what you are going to cook doesn't necessarily equate to what ends up on the dining table. Either the market/supermarket doesn't have the crucial ingredients or the ingredients got hijacked for some other dish. Well, I did say that I was flipping my cookbooks, but it didn't turn up anything interesting. So instead, I kept my options open and see what's fresh and available from the market/supermarket. When I got to the beef section of NTUC Fairprice Xtra @ AMK Hub, I knew right away that I am grabbing those short ribs and brisket even though I have no idea how I was going to cook them! They look so fresh and beaconing me to bring them home. So when back to flipping my cookbooks again, I spotted something interesting in my Eating Korean and I made Grilled Beef Short Ribs (Gal-bi) and Spicy Beef Soup (Yookgaejang). The beef short ribs was quite delicious but it was on the sweet side. M

For friends who know what's keeping me away from my kitchen, I would like them to know that I passed the test and would be zipping right back to the kitchen soon. It will be another good 8 weeks before my next test. Please excuse me while I go back to flip my cookbooks and surf the net for inspirations. By the way, if you missed the advertisment by Kinokuniya, they are having 20% discount storewide from now until 29th Dec. I am always happiest when the store is having such promotion. Weird isn't it?