Dainty Bites

Last Saturday was my birthday.  I had initially put an exclamation mark after the word birthday , but I just couldn't muster up that much enthusiasm as I am grimly reminded that I am a year older. I have always joked with my friends that I stopped counting my age after I turned 21. Seriously, every time I had to fill up a form I need to perform some calculations before penning in my age. That's also a sign of aging, by the way. Anyway, my sister suggested that we visit our favourite dim sum place for lunch and I gladly agreed. I love this place. The food quality is great, the pricing is reasonable and most important of all - it is quiet. The last factor seem increasingly important to me these days. Perhaps it is some eccentricity that I am developing as I age.   Their lunch starts at 11am but we had agreed to meet my family there at 11.30 am instead. When we sat down, the wait staff promptly placed the dim sum menu on the table with little plates of candied cas

Something happened to me the past 2-3 weeks. I found many sweet potatoes in my shopping trolley. I can't help it. The sweet potatoes in the crates were just begging to be bought, which I gladly obliged. Unfortunately, my stomach is not the size of the crates where I first saw them. Needless to say, I had plenty of leftover oven-baked sweet potatoes. What is one suppose to do when one has that many sweet potatoes sitting on prime fridge real estate? As much as I would like to make candied sweet potatoes, such as these , I do not think it wise (or safe) to have that much sugar within my reach. Did I mention to you that I have no self control? So I settled for sweet potato bread instead. I must admit that I didn't have very high hopes for my first try, as  my track record has shown, but the bread came out surprisingly good. Very tender crumb and slightly sweet. The colour was not as intense as I had imagine it to be with merely a tinge of yellow. Come to think of it, m

I just remembered that I had actually taken a photo of the whole cast of ingredients for the Classic Granola. I am forgetful like that. I like to think that it is part of growing old and not person specific. As I have mentioned in my earlier post , this sweet granola found no favours with my patrons but that does not mean that the recipe was worthless. Friends who received these granola finished it within days. The main reason that I was able to pull out all the ingredients and lay them all nicely on the table was because everyone was still asleep (at 10am!) and I had the whole house to myself. Peaceful and nice morning. For the full recipe, please visit Dinner & Dessert . Although I have never taste store bought granola, I would say that this granola taste good. Except for the walnuts. I. Just. Don't. Like. Nuts! Will I be making this again? Definitely! Especially now that I am trying to incorporate more whole grains into our diet. But I would change th

The September term break is finally almost here. I can feel it already!  By feeling it, I meant that I am feeling the heat from all the preparation for the end of the term tests.  So far we are done with 3 of the 5 tests and we are still keeping the grind going for the last 2. I can't remember studying so hard ever in Primary 1! Perhaps cos I just didn't study at all. Honestly! Okay, enough of study-mama talk. Let's get down to today's post - granola. I have to admit that granola is not something that most people on these streets eat everyday. They don't even eat it every month or every half a year. I even willing to bet that some lived their lives never to have eaten it at all. I know, because I just fed some to my mother-in-law whose eyebrows shot right into her hair line when she heard about granola. Or should I have said that when she heard about my granola. The week before I made a batch of Classic Granola from Cook's Illustrate