Dainty Bites

I am totally stepping out of my comfort zone with this recipe. I have never ever made steamed buns before in my life. Talking about steamed buns, I remember too well the one time I tried to steam those commercial frozen char-siu buns for breakfast. Instead of feeding my stomach, I fed the thrash bin. Long story short: I placed the buns directly on the perforated layer of the steamer with too much water boiling below. I ended up with soggy buns. My mom didn't know whether to shout at me or laugh when she saw the soggy mess in my hands. She did neither, perhaps too distraught by the thought of having produced such bird-brained daughter. That was two decades ago and many char-siu buns later. But it still make me want to slap my forehead whenever I think about it. I don't know for sure what is the proper way to use those steamer but I know my best protection against my own stupidity is to put whatever I am steaming in a plate first and then place it onto the perforated laye

It all started when I saw the Short Ribs in Tomato Sauce on Pioneer Woman . I was drooling all over when I saw her cooking it. I knew I needed beef on my plate ASAP. More precisely, I needed short ribs on my plate. For some strange reasons, I found myself driving out at 7.30pm to Carrefour @ Plaza Singapura. Usually if I wanted to get anything, it would have been Great World City. It felt strange to be driving out during the evening peak hour, but since I was on the opposite direction of the jam, I guess I could afford to wear that gleefuly smirk on my face. I picked up a few cuts of beef cos they were quite cheap and also tons of dried pasta in so many shapes and sizes that I lost count. And amongst them was two huge rectangular blocks of short ribs. Initially, I hesistated. It wasn't exactly in the cut as you would see in Pioneer Woman. It was a whole slab of short ribs that is as long as your Starhub cable tv remote controller with a single bone running length-wise. But it i

My life with a young child is about routine, routine and routine. And I am glad to say that we have come to some sort of routine which we (little princess and me) both agree that will work for us during the weekdays. We are still in the process of fine tuning, but I think we should be on the right track. Our little princess is now more receptive to sitting down in the afternoons to do some homework. She breezes through a 6-page piece (in font size 24) less than 20 minutes. I have also found a way to do her school spelling with her which has so far worked well. The trick I observed after a few run-ins seems to be that so long as I wrap all these up in 30 minutes, she is happy to do this on a daily basis. After this 30-minute stint, she goes back to do what she usually does everyday after school - couch potato with eyes glued on the tv. Since our little princess has dropped her afternoon naps, it leaves me lesser time to cook/photograph/blog. I found that whenever I am going through a

Just yesterday I had mentioned on this space that I am planning on picking up the book Battle Hymn Of The Tiger Mother and this morning the newspaper ran an article about the backlash that the author, Amy Chua, has been receiving since the much talked about article on The Wall Street Journal on Jan. 8 (presumably a promotional tie-in for the book release) and the subsequent release of the book on Jan. 11. Even without opening up a page of her book, which I can't wait to do, I would say to anyone who hates the book to remember that this is a memoir. Here's the definition of a memoir: "an account of the author's personal experiences". No doubt that parenting is a debatable topic, much like immigration policy, it amazes me that people go to such lengths to show their disagreement on her methods. By the way, are all these people who disagreed so vehemently parenting experts? Is there such thing as a parenting expert? Can someone be an expert at parenting? If there

Since our little princess started Kindergarten 2, her folder is always packed when I picked her up on Friday. We will usually hop into the car and open her folder to weed out the homework from work that she had done in school. Doing this helps me plan our afternoon and let me go through with her in the car what she needs to get done when we are home. On top of this, she now has weekly spelling lists for both English and Chinese. Most of our afternoons now are spent going through her school work. Yesterday, we did telling time. I was told by the teachers that this is actually part of her school work which they will go through in a few months' time, but she is having problems telling time to watch her favourite cartoons and was growing frustrated. So I risked pulling out all my hair and went through some basics with her. As a result of all these, I haven't had much time to hang around in the kitchen. Our meals are just some one-pot dinners. Quick but fall short of being blog m