Recipe Book

Hooray… this is my first collection of recipe books. I like to see those recipes with lot photos. When I go to the bookstore, first thing that I will do is look at the baking section but I’ve never bought the books.

This recipe book caught my attention because it shows “Homestyle Low Fat” in the cover page, nutrition per piece as well as step-by-step photographs showing the techniques. Therefore, you can know how many you can eat if you’re on diet.

This recipe book contents 8 sections:
- Soup and starters
- Salads
- Meat
- Chicken
- Seafood
- Vegetarian
- Desserts & Sweet Things

All in one… isn’t it fantastic! Ok, let me flick through and shown you what they have!!! :D

Baked Tuna Pasta

Tuna + pasta is just perfect! The first time I had this meal was few months after I started work in Australia. There’s a food court near the company and there is a cafe selling varieties of salad and pasta. You can mix the salad with pasta and it costs only $6.00.

They have cold and hot tuna pasta. I tried both of them before and they were good. I prefer the hot one which is baked tuna pasta because I love to eat the cheese.

Baked tuna pasta was always on my mind but somehow I never got a round to do it. Therefore I decided to bake this for yesterday’s lunch.

The result was good but the bottom of the pasta was a bit watery. I think it is because of the tomato sauce (too much water there). Well, it was a bit wet but I enjoyed the pasta though. (**;)

Ingredients

1 can Tuna (chunk) in brie water
250g macaroni
4-5 medium button mushrooms, sliced into small pieces
50g peas
Pepper and salt
1 can of whole peel tomato
80g grated mozzarella cheesedried parsley, to sprinkle on top of the pasta


What to do

(1) Boil half a sauce pan of water, add some salt and oil to cook the macaroni.
(2) Pour the can of tuna (drain away brie) into a bowl, smash them up.
(3) In heatproof baking dish, add in macaroni, sliced button mushrooms, peas, tuna, salt and pepper and mix well.
(4) Add in tomato sauce and cover top with grated cheese.
(5) Bake in a pre-heated oven at 200 degC, till the cheese turns golden brown. Sprinkle with some dried parsley. Serve immediately.

Egg Tart

My cousin sent me couple of pie moulds. With these moulds, I’ve been thinking of two recipes in my “to do list”. They are fruit pie and egg tart! I decided to make egg tart first as it is easier than fruit pie! :P Definitely I will keep my promise to bake the fruit tart soon…

There are 2 types of egg tart, the normal egg tart and Portuguese egg tart. I like both of them. Today I will try on normal egg tart first. Well, the outlook of the egg tarts were good BUT sad to say, the taste is not really good. I don’t think I’ve succeeded this time. The filling was too thin and there was not much taste. I wasn’t sure if I had added too much milk into the filling or ???. In addition, the pastry was too dry. I think I shouldn’t have substituted the butter with olive oil.

I baked 2 batches of egg tarts because there were too much leftovers of the fillings, bringing the total of my baking to 26 pieces. For the first batch, I used olive oil for the pastry (failure). For the second batch I used olive spread instead. Well, the pastry turned out better than the first batch. The egg filling was still the same though. Frankly, they were not the best egg tarts but I think they were good enough for my first trial! “ah hem” (*o*)

By the way, Gim Theng, thank you so much for the moulds and those paper cups that you sent to me. I really enjoy having them for my baking.

First batch


Second batch

Ingredients (pastry)

150g of flour
2 tbsp of corn flour

2 tsp of sugar

1 egg yolk

100g of butter1

1/4 tsp of salt

What to do

1) Put flour, corn flour, salt and sugar in a bowl and mix well.

2) Rub butter lightly into the flour until mixture resembles bread crumbs

3) Add in egg yolk to form a dough. Chill the dough for an hour

4) Press dough thinly into tarts mould and leave it aside to prepare the custard

Ingredients (Egg filling)

4 eggs

100g of sugar

280ml of fresh milk

2 tsp of custard flour or corn flour

1/2 tsp of vanilla

What to do

1) Pre-heat oven to 325 degree

2) Mix all the filling ingredients in a bowl until well blended

3) Strain it and set a side

4) Stir the mixture again and pour into tart shells about 95% full

5) Bake the tarts for 20 min or until custard is set

Tuna Onigiri

I remembered my brother sent me some sushi mould that I haven’t used. Hence, I decided to make some Japanese rice balls. I also had a pack of sushi seasoning in my pantry. It was just a perfect time to make my onigiri.

It is very simple. You only need to cook some Japanese rice (short grain rice) and put some filling into the rice. The filling is up to your choice. After washing the rice, drain away the water, and set the rice aside for 30 minutes. Cook it with a rice cooker by using the ratio of 1 cup of rice to 1 cup of water.

For the filling, I used a can tuna in brine. Pour the tuna in a bowl, flaked it with fork and mix with some mayonnaise. I used half of the sushi rice to mix with black and white sesames and wrap with tuna. I mixed the rest of the rice with the sushi seasoning and shape them with the set of onigiri rice mould.

I found that I didn’t put enough tuna in the rice ball. It tastes a little plain on its own so I dipped them with some Japanese soy sauce.

This website is so creative which allowed you to create some nice photo effect. See, my sushi is in the photo frame.

I also shared some of the onigiri with Maggie and Chai Hoong. I’m gonna give these to them to try.

Almond and Raspberry Slice

I have been busy for the last 2 weeks and somehow never got the chance for baking. At last everything is back to normal and I can continue my baking as usual.

This week I will use the recipe from the Good Food and Wine show that I attended couple of weeks back. There were a few recipes and I had a hard time to choose one but finally I made up my mind and I chose the Almond and Raspberry Slice from Bill Granger.

The original recipe was for 20 pieces but I had reduced the ingredients to half as 20 pieces were too many for us.

Ingredients (makes 20 pieces)

210g unsalted butter, softened
165g caster sugar
2tsp vanilla extract
200g flaked almonds
40ml milk
225g plain flour
40g corn flour
160g raspberry jam

What to do

(1) Preheat oven to 180degree. Lightly grease and line with paper a 24x20cm tin.
(2) Please 60g butter, 55g sugar, 1tsp vanilla extract, almonds and milk in medium saucepan.
(3) Cook over low heat until the butter has melted, leave to cool.
(4) Beat the remaining butter, sugar and vanilla extract until pale and creamy.
(5) Sift the flour and corn flour and add in two batches, beat on lower speed until just mixed.
(6) Press the dough into the baking tine and bake for 12 minutes or until light golden. Cool for 10 minutes.
(7) Spread the jam over the pastry base, then spread the cooled almond topping over the jam.
(8) Bake for further 25 minutes or until golden brown.

Yummy! ^_^

Potato Pancake with Crumbled Mince

I love all kinds of potato especially sweet potato. I steam one medium size sweet potato once a week for my lunch. I happened to come across this recipe from last week’s newspaper which is about potato. The method is very simple and the ingredients are easy to get from the market.

I decided to bake this for my afternoon tea. The original recipe used some pine nuts, sumac, cumin seed and preserved lemon which I don’t have. Therefore I had made some modifications to my convenience. I replaced them curry powder instead.

Out of my expectation, the combination of the curry powder with the potato was excellent! The potato was crispy and the mince was a little bit spicy. Hmm… they were so yummy and healthy too. Isn’t it perfect?

People who love potato will like this recipe! Enjoy! ^_^

Ingredients

250g beef mince
5tbsp olive oil
1 small onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1tsp curry powder
Salt and pepper
4 potatoes
2tbsp plain flour
2 handfuls baby spinach
3tbsp lemon juice


What to do

(1) Put mince in a hot non-stick pan with 2tbsp of olive oil and add onion, garlic, curry powder, salt and pepper.
(2) Stir fry until mince is brown and crumbly.
(3) Peel and coarsely grate potatoes and squeeze out excess moisture.
(4) Add in flour, salt and pepper and mix well.
(5) In another non-stick pan heat 2tbsp of olive oil, add in potatoes, press into a large pancake and cook over hot heat until brown and crisp on both side.
(6) Top with beef mixture and put in oven for 10 minutes.
(7) Put spinach in a bowl with remaining oil and lemon juice and toss. Arrange over mince and serve.

Peanut Butter Cookies

Yes! It is peanut butter which is loved by everyone, including myself… I love peanut butter! It is best to spread with sliced white bread. Hmmm… it is yummy! ^_^

Besides the peanut butter, I added some peanuts into the cookie batter. These peanut butter cookies were excellent! The aroma of the peanut butter was nice and they were so crunchy! I couldn’t stop myself and ate nearly 10 pieces at a go. I gotta work out harder later on… :P

Here you go, the recipe… **“Peanut Butter Cookies”**

Ingredients (24 pieces)

50ml olive oil
80g brown sugar
20g egg (about half an egg)
140g self raising flour
30g peanut butter (chucky / smooth)
1/4 tsp baking soda
20g peanuts


What to do

1. Line baking tray with parchment or baking paper. Preheat oven to 170C.

2. Whisk egg and sugar together. Add in olive oil.
3. Fold in sifted flour, peanut butter and baking soda till just combined.

4. Mix in peanuts. Cover with cling wrap, and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

5. Measure out leveled 1/2 tablespoonfuls of dough, roll them into a ball and place on baking tray. Use a fork and flatten the cookies.6. Bake for 13-15 min.

A Simple Beef Burger + Chips

This is a very simple and yummy meal that I prepared for lunch yesterday.

Ingredients

1/2 small red onion, thinly sliced
2 tsp olive oil
2 hamburger bun, split
2 slices cheese
Tomato sauce
Baby spinach, washed, dried

(Beef patty)

125g beef mince
1/2 small red onion, chopped into pieces
1 egg white, lightly whisked
1 tbs chopped fresh continental parsley
2 tablespoons tomato sauce
1 tablespoon barbecue sauce
1 tablespoon oil

Shape the mince mixture

What to do

(1) To make the beef patty, place the mince, onion, egg white, parsley, tomato sauce, barbecue sauce and oil in a bowl. Season with salt and pepper. Mix until well combined.

(2) Shape the mince mixture and place on a plate. Cover and place in the fridge for 30 minutes to chill.

(3)Place the onion and half the oil in a small saucepan over medium heat. Cook for 15 minutes or until light golden and tender.

(4) Meanwhile, heat remaining oil in small non-stick frying pan over medium-high heat. Add the beef patty and reduce heat to medium. Cook for 4 minutes each side or until cooked through.

(5) Preheat grill on high. Place the bun, cut-side up, on a baking tray and cook under grill for 2 minutes or until toasted.

(6) Remove the bun from the tray. Place the beef patty on the tray and top with the cheese. Cook under grill for 2-3 minutes or until the cheese melts. Place the bun base on a serving plate. Top with tomato, beef patty, tomato sauce, baby spinach and onion. Top with the remaining bun. Serve with chips!

Give it a go as it is very simple and delicious! I loved it!