Egg tart and coconut tart

Last weekend, Wai Yee asked us to join her and her kids to play snow in White river snow park at Government Camp.  This is the first snow play for both my son and Wai Yee's kids. I made some egg tarts and coconut tarts for snacks for this trip.

Here is the recipe I used:

Ingredient for crust:
225g plain flour
125g butter
55 g icing sugar
1 egg whicked
1 dash vanilla extract

Ingredient for custard:
3 egg
110g sugar
200g hot water
60g evaporated milk
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Ingredient for coconut filling:
80g dessicated coconut
1 egg
40ml evaporated milk
60g sugar
30g butter, soften
1/4 tsp salt

Direction:
Making crust:
1. Place butter at room temperature until softened. Cream the butter and sugar with mixer over medium speed until the mixture is smooth, fluffy and light in color.
2. add in whicked egg, half at a time and beat over low speed. Add vanilla extract and mix well.
3. Sift in flour in two batches, knead into dough.
4. Roll out the dough to 1/2cm thickness. Line dough in the middle of the tart tin. Since i don't have the tart tin, I used my muffin pan instead.

Making custard:
1. add sugar into hot water, mix until completely dissolved.
2. Whisk egg with evaporated milk. Pour in sugar water. Mix well.
3. Sift egg mixture to get rid of any foam into a tea pot. Carefully pour egg mixture into each egg tart shell.

Making coconut filling:
1. Mix all coconut fillings together. Scope mixture into tart shell.

Baking tarts:
1. Ptreheat oven 350F. Bake tart for 25-30 minutes or till the custard is set and tart edge is brown.

Basmati Rice

Last month, my hubby invited his colleagues for potluck in my house. One of his colleague brought basmati rice. It is so aromatic and taste good. She told me how to cook the rice and I can't wait to try it. She told me a lot of herb names which I never hear before. I google online for the list of herbs needed to get it in grocery store. Here is the recipe I used:

Serving of 4

Ingredient:
1 cup basmati rice
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 small onion, thinly slice
1 carrot, diced it
1 cup of frozen green pea
2 glove of garlic
2 pods green cardomom
1 tablespoon cumin seed
1 (2 inch) cinnamon stick
2 whole cloves
1/2 teaspoon garam masala
pint of ginger powder
1 3/4 cups water
salt to taste

Directions:
1. Place rice into a bowl with enough water to cover. Set aside to soak for 20 minutes.
2. heat the oil in a saucepan over medium heat. Add cinnamon stick, cardomom pods, cloves and cumin seed. Cook and stir for about 1 minute, then add onion and garlic to the pot. Add carrot and green pea. Saute for a few minutes.
3. Drain the water from rice and stir into the pot. Cook and stir the rice for a few minutes until lightly toasted.
4. Add salt and water, bring it to boil. Cover and reduce heat to low, simmer for about 15 minutes or till all the water has been absorbed. Don't stir it or the rice will break.
5. Let stand for 5 minutes before serve.

You can add more chicken or others vegetable to the rice.

here is the photo:

The rice is fluffy and aromatic. My hubby loves it so much.

Mooncake

Found this mooncake photo when copying photo from my camera. I made this last year for mooncake festival. I made the lotus paste from scratch. I like pandan flavored lotus paste instead of original taste. since the paste is homemade, it will not so oily like we bought outside.

pandan lotus paste recipe: http://kuali.com/recipes/view.aspx?r=3989

mooncake skin recipe: http://www.hongkitchen.com/2009/09/moon-biscuit.html

half bake before applying egg wash

closer look

Done baking

I love tempeh!

Many people doesn't know what tempeh is. Here is what i found in wikipedia:  a traditional soy product originally from Indonesia. It is made by a natural culturing and controlled fermentation process that binds soybeans into a cake form, similar to a very firm vegetarian burger patty.

I never  know about this till i tasted it in my university in Kuantan. Makcik in cafe always have this dish during lunch time. It was cooked with anchovies, peanut and sambal. Tasted a bit spicy, salty and sweet. Me and my house mates especially Sing Yee love it some much. We used to buy a bag of it and ate it like snack instead of with rice.

After we left Kuantan campus, I tried to find this in Klang wet market and manage to find it. But that time I wasn't sure how to cook it. Even my mum didn't know about this food and hence didn't know what to expect. I just told her fried with sambal. But the taste appeared to be different from I remembered. i think we forgot to fried it before cooking it with sambal.

A few week ago, I was browsing through some blogs and found recipes for tempeh. The blogger said she bought tempeh in groceries stall in US. That weekend I managed to find tempeh in New Seasons. I was so excited!

Tthere were 2 pack inside and 1 used each of them to cook differently. one for satay tempeh and another one is sambal goreng tempeh.

here is the link to satay tempeh recipe: http://kuali.com/recipes/view.aspx?r=2815

it tasted exactly like satay but vegetarian satay. here are some pictures i took:

after baking in oven

The 2nd time, i cooked it with sambal and peanut. Me and hubby like 2nd one better. it tasted like the one that i had in Kuantan. I cut tempeh into small pieces and fried it till brown color. I fried some peanut too. Set them aside and prepare the sambal.. We can't get chili boh in US, so i made the sambal from scratch. I blended onion, shallot, 1 red bell pepper, red chili, dried chili and garlic. Then add sugar and salt. sauteed the ingredients till it become dry. add in the tempeh and peanut. 

I love tempeh! it is a good source of protein.

Loke's development report

In my son's day care, teacher will give a development report for each students every quarter. This is for my son:

Mummy and daddy are so proud of you. I felt blessed watching you growing, learning and become independence!