Dainty Bites

After a week of frenzy working, cooking, driving and cleaning, I felt I need a weekend to veg out completely. Slinking away from the world of concret jungle. To a place where the only source of food looks like this ... And to escape this incarceration, one must be prepared to jump from this heights where the route of escape perilously lies. But if one is content with the greenery and so decide to stay forever, there are nice seats and wide angle view of the surrounding. With these to munch on instead of salted peanuts. So when I declared that we are staying on indefinitely, I had a revolt on hand to deal with immediately. She wasn't content with eating those green munchies.

I have just been presented with the best opportunity to show off my cooking! Well, I shouldn't be so happy actually. Cos the reason I have this oppportunity is that my mom sprained her hand. So it feels wrong to be happy in the first place. Anyway, because she has been with us for the past two weeks, I got to try out some new recipes. Yipee!! Oh, right, yes. ... I need to tone it down. The above corn muffins was taken with my iPhone, so pls execuse the poor poor quality. They do look like some devious man-eating plants from some cartoon. The last time I made these corn muffins was a looooooong time ago. The recipe is like the worst kept secret and it seems like every site has a smiliar recipe. Makes really delicious muffins. But please use FROZEN corn kernels. My frozen corn were used as ice pack for my mom's hand and they turned slightly swishy when I finally put them into the muffins. -.-'

Last Saturday evening was our little princess' first ever concert performance! And it was great to see her dancing and enjoying herself. Though I won't say the same thing about all the time I spent camping out in her dancing school during her rehearsals, I would definitely say that it was a wonderful memory for her look back on growing up.

I don't know what possessed me to make these. But all I know is that Hubby bought back a couple of mega chocolate cookies from Subway a few nights ago and we are hooked. By we, I meant our princess and me. Hubby is a savoury person. Making cookies is not really as challenging as bread, but still the process feels slightly foreign to me. While creaming the butter, I started to worry if I am doing the right way. Yes, I am a worrier. I worry about almost everything. Just like how one would feel driving again after a long break away from the wheels. Perhaps I haven't baked cookies for too long. If you are considering making this cookies, don't expect a dough. It is more like a fudge that is scoop-able. And that's how you portion the cookies, scooping it onto the baking sheets as you would scoop ice cream. While sticking the chocolate chips and cranberries onto the cookies, I kinda feel festive. Maybe I should churn a batch of this out for Christmas or Chinese New Year

Every time I mention bread making to my sister, she would always remind me of that freakish but talented bread maker from Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential who phoned in and screamed: " Feed the b***h ...". If you haven't read that book yet, go get it now! Your life as a foodie will be changed forever. I came close to experiencing that kind of anxiety a couple of times when making this Rustic Italian Bread. The process is sooooooo looooooong that I wouldn't recommend it to anyone except the bread making fanatics. The recipe can be found here from Teri's Kitchen . The first time was when I had to wait for the preferment to rise and fall. We had to leave the house for dance practice and I wondered if the dough needed a baby-sitter. What if it over-rise? What if it over-deflat? What if ... ? Nothing of that sort happened while I was gone. The dough had risen but yet to fall so I even left it out overnight on the kitchen counter. The second time was af