Dainty Bites

I spotted this recipe from Gourmet Today, and I wished that I haven't. The dish was utter horrid. I didn't imagine that any of Gourmet's recipe would go down to that standard. 1/4 cup white wine vinegar was overpowering and the recipe calls for 170g of butter! The recipe can be found here . Gourmet Today is not going to find a spot on my cookbook shelf, despite what I had said earlier about getting a memorabilia . Perhaps I haven't graduated to that sort of cooking yet. But I doubt that I would go there anytime soon. What I spent yesterday for the dish: $10.90 - crab meat $1.95 - tarragon $1.95 - chives $1.95 - Italian parsley $7.95 - white wine vinegar Total: $24.70 On the lookout for the next recipe to try ...

I always find it amazing to learn how a kid percieve the world. During one of her drawing sprees, she came up with this. By the way, that triangluar thingy, it was suppose to be a yatch/cruise ship. Why she included that in? She said that she wanted to go for a ride on a ship.(-.-)

Since the last time I made Baked Chicken with Fennel, Tomatoes and Olives , I had been hankering for another serving of it. Unfortunately, my nearest Cold Storage ran out of the two important ingredients: fennel and olives. Not to be undone, I still went ahead to buy 4 slabs of the chicken breasts and dragged out my The New Best Recipe to fish out a recipe for it. And this recipe turned up and I had all the ingredients! A quick check on my rosemary plant, who seems very obliging to provide a few sprigs for my dinner experiment. After brining for an hour in the fridge, the baked chicken was moist and tender. Although the dish was not as visually attractive as the Baked Chicken with Fennel, the taste was equally satisfying. We mopped up all the juices with lots of bread. (^.^) Wonderful dish for entertaining.

While packing my home office table, I found a copy of the Fine Cooking magazine lying around. It was bought by my sis when she was in L.A. last year. Flipping through the magazine, I got a glimpse of the photo of this recipe . A quick read of the ingredient list and realised that all was good to go. This is really a nice alternative to mayonnaise base potato salad. Recipe of the salad can be found here .

Butternut squash has been appearing in bigger and bigger quantities recently at the supermarket and I can't help but slip one half of the fleshy orange halves into my trolley. By baking the whole squash, I didn't have to figure out a way to peel the skin which is one tricky task. Another easy way to include fiber in the meal. Unfortunately, our little princess didn't quite like it.

Thinking of what to cook for dinner on the way out of the office is the surest way to get yourself walking into a pillar. And that happened to me last Friday. Duh! Actually I wasn't thinking of what to cook per se, but whether I still that that piece of crumpled paper containing some recipes that I would like to try and rummaging through my handbag (yes, I have lots of such pieces of paper in my bag). It was suppose to be a salad but I guess I added too much noodle and made it into a dry beef noodle dish instead. But it was delicious. Spicy, light and filling. My only complain was that the fragrance of the lemongrass didn't really come through in the meat. Perhaps it would be a good idea to up the amount in future. The recipe can be found here .

In a recent book sale near my office, I picked up the novelised version of Ratatouille produced by Disney in 2007. I can't remember when I first watched it, but when Hubby rented the DVD, I was just too happy to watch it again. But then came the question: "Mommy, what is Ratatouille? Is that the name of the rat?" The obivious reply was that the rat already has a name -Remy, but the not so obivious answer to the first part of the question: "What is ratatouille?" was mind boggling. Even the spelling looks foreign to me. The only was way to find that out is to cook it. A flip of my JOC, and it is in there. The ingredient list looked simple but I had to make a substitution as I know the taste of red pepper would be too overwhelming for our little princess to try. Once the cutting and chopping was done, the cooking was straight forward. It is easy to see why this was known as a pheasant's dish. Lots of textured vegetables to make up for the absence of mea

Look at the clear blue sky. Only if those dreadry ugly tankers could park some where else! When the heat gets too strong, you could always reach for an umbrella and strike a pose as this. But when all else fails, just kick off your shoes and stand under the shade and then jiggle around to look busy. Note to self: Don't ever picnic at East Coast Park again, unless sand is a required condiment with the food.

After my too-sweet-to-be-curry dinner, I felt obligated to redeem myself. So I chose this Baked Chicken with Fennel as my saving grace. I was quite hesistant initially as it featured a new-to-me ingredient. Heard of fennel? I can't say that I am 100% certain of what it is, but now I do. Here's what it looks like: They look quite ordinary, but when I slice into them, there was a mild lemony perfume. I bought 2 pieces for about $5.25, quite pricey but worth it. Marinating the chicken seemed to take forever, but it was worth it as it chicken turned out flavourful and juicy after baking. We ended up having dinner only at 9pm! This is a really good dish that can be prep ahead of time to feed a crowd. There are a few other variation to this basic recipe which I am dying to try. Hope that my family won't be sick of eating chicken anytime soon.

For me cooking curry can never be done in a hurry. The long ingredient list for making the curry paste is already mind-boggling and simmering of the coconut/evaporated milk cannot be done over high heat. But despite all the above, I made a curry in a hurry yesterday. But did it taste good? I would say yes and no. Yes, because all the essential flavours were there (too sweet for my taste though) but no because my evaporated milk curddled due to the high heat. It didn't look pretty. Well, I still have some of the curry paste left and will attempt this recipe again. Just too good to let go. A hot simmering curry on a rainy day is the best thing to return home to.

I just got hold of a cookbook that promises put food on the table within 30 minutes . And then I realised that I hate it. Why? It is not a lousy book per se. It came from my favourite cookbook producers, America's Test Kitchen. So what's the problem with it then? 2 things that get on my nerve. First off, such books mocks at anyone who claims that they can't spare time to do cooking. I read from another good book ( The End of Food ) that as it stands now, the average family in US spends about 30 minutes a day cooking. So you can see why there are so many of such quick-fix cookbooks in the market. But over here, the economics are slightly different. When one can feed a family of four at an average cost of $3.50 (a decent plate of rice with 2 vegetable dishes and a meat dish) per head, we are looking at $14 a meal. So now tell me if your per hour rate is worth $28, assuming that you can produce the same meal in 30 minutes? The per hour rate gets worse when the family o

Haven't got the chance to re-stock my fridge. So I am going on JIT (just-in-time) mode. This dish is so easy to throw together that I felt confident enough not to bother with a recipe. Just head to the nearest decent grocer and pick up a S&B curry premix. They should have the English translation affixed at the back of the box for those sold here. Mine was from Japan, so I would be just guessing if I read the directions, which I didn't. Although this curry is tasty, but I still very much prefer our Asian versions. Speaking of which, I have found a few curry recipes worth trying. *rubbing hands together in anticipation*