Lured by the Amazon monster

I finally succumbed and made my first Amazon book purchase

In the guise of buying baby books, I slipped in two baking books for my own pleasure.

So far based on my purchases, the baby would have books to read, some cooking books if she’s interested, I don’t mind sharing. And some clothes to wear but no place to sleep and no pram to be pushed in. I figured our arms will do? Other than that milk would be made by nature and bumwear looks nature friendly too though a little bewildering with all the terminology involved. I’ve doodled black and white animals to entertain her, really easy even without much talent copied from here, just dot and stripe as you wish. Flashed them at H and he was very entertained. I’ve made some homemade toys and rattles from stuff around the house and things I’ve pulled out from the craft box. Get loads of ideas here. Again I’ve tested them on H and he liked them. I’ve delved into books bought in 1982, the year that I was born, yellow and torn from my parents’ use, and realise that pasting red dots from the stationary shop onto white cards is a great cure for pregnancy insomnia. The other thing I realize about being pregnant is your mind runs like a bullet train but the body is determined to go in the opposite direction, I’m physically exhausted from vivid dreams and light sleeping patterns and many many sleep wake cycles throughout the night. Before you say it, I KNOW, ITS good practice before the baby comes!

 

On a little side note, this looks amazing. One of my new favourite blogs. Amazing photography and amazing bread, its won my heart!

More inexpensive gift boxes

Old boxes recycled with sheets of scrapbooking paper. Good for giving food gifts like rows of golden madelines.  Wrap with clear cellophane and a gift tag and you’re good to go.

Box with a handy handle, less than 50 cents from Phoon Huat.

That handy white tag again, this time on a brown faux leather cord used to secure a box wrapped with paper from Prints.

More clear containers. I’m thinking cookies. Linzers in particular. I’m haunted by the combination of hazelnuts, cinnamon and rasberry jam.

Tiny cinnamon rolls

I use Pampas sheet puff pastry because there’s no rolling involved, its neat and easy and I’m really not up to making puff pastry from scratch!

For the left over sheet of pastry, I brushed it with leftover egg wash and sprinkled cinnamon sugar over. Make your own, about 3 teaspoons of cinnamon to a cup of brown sugar is good. Roll it up tightly and cut into 1cm thick rolls. Brush all over with egg wash and bake at 220C for 10-12 mins

Important note: Use silicon sheets as the filling tends to caramelize and leak out creating crunchy bases that will stick to an unlined baking pan like crazy. Its also going to burn the roof of your mouth, think scorching caramel, so its wise to let them cool a bit.

Mini morsels of something

Figured out a way to use up leftover puff pastry. Leftover from the hen’s party at Farah’s which was great, more subdued this time with the main activity being manicures and pedicures. I drove after a really long time and it was really challenging due to the distance I had to remain in a sitting position with a full stomach. I popped by my grandma’s who was in the opposite block after the party and she fed me a full dinner of chilli crabs! On top of the English tea party(that was the Hen’s party theme) menu items that was already in my tummy, my stomach, lungs and uterus were competing for limited space in my torso. Needless to say besides fidgeting like crazy in the car seat and trying hard just to breathe thru the 45 min drive alone, there were valuable lessons learnt. (which i suspect too may be forgotten at the next party)

 

Tell you bout these mini morsels soon.

lasagne

Recipe from the back of the San Remo lasagne box. I always add a pinch of grated nutmeg into the bechamel sauce, it adds a nice aromatic flavor. This was frozen for H’s weekday lunchbox.

Another cheap gift wrap idea: paper napkins and a twist of red yarn. I wrapped lemongrass massage oil and a box of something else as a hen’s night gift.. SOmeone’s wedding is coming up!

Chocolate fix

I’ve been having terrible salty chocolate cravings. I need salt in my chocolate. I’ve been eating lots of these:

Bakerzin Sweet Pleasures: Layers of hazelnut praline dacquoise, Jivara milk chocolate ganache with fleur de sel, topped with chocolate mousse. There’s a super salty layer somewhere in there.

Beard Papa’s Chocolate Fondant: Valrhona chocolate molten chocolate cake on a biscuit base. And its salty!

And you know how much I love awfully chocolate’s ice cream

 

On a separate note, I think I’m addicted to Mt Sapola’s lemongrass range. Picked up a tube of lemongrass handcream and bought mom a whole hamper for her birthday.

Hazelnut shortbread and food gift packaging ideas

Gordon Ramsay’s Hazelnut Shortbread is a recipe I revisit often. Its wonderfully crunchy with no hint of moistness or chewiness and it has a wonderful hazelnutty taste from ground hazelnuts. I usually sandwich these cookies with nutella and they go really quickly at home or when brought to H’s office. I followed the recipe as it is only I baked them for 14mins at 180C as I was too impatient to wait 20 mins at 160C which yields a less coloured cookie too.

I decided to shape them like fingers as I was too lazy to roll them on parchment then slice and bake like the recipe suggests. Instead, I used a trick I first read about in Dorie Greenspan’s book Baking from My Home to Yours. I double the recipe then put the soft dough in a gallon sized Ziploc bag. I then sealed the bag and used my rolling pin to roll the dough flat. Occasionally you’ll have to unseal the bag to get rid of air pockets. After rolling the sealed dough into a nice flat sheet, slide it on an inverted baking sheet and leave to chill in the freezer for at least 2 hours. Slide it out of the freezer and you have a neat frozen sheet of cookie dough. Use a scissors to cut open the bag and feel free to stamp out shapes with a cookie cutter or simply cut into squares or fingers or whatever shape takes your fancy. Doubling my recipe resulted in a really thick sheet of cookie dough, it was about 1 cm thick. I cut the square dough into 6 long rectangular blocks then sliced the blocks really thin, about 4 mm then lay then cut side down to create these little rectangles. I hope you get what I mean, I didn’t take any pictures so this is the best explaination I can come up with, hope it doesn’t sound too confusing! These cookies do expand while baking so they turned out a good size, about 2-bite cookies.

Since this was for someone who doesn’t have a sweet tooth, I skipped the sandwiching with nutella and gave them away plain.

I bought the box from Phoon Huat, it was going for S$1.90 each. They have a wide range: square, round, tall and shallow all for less than S$3, the price depending on the size of the container. With some scotch tape around the cover, they make great air tight containers to protect your crispy cookies from the wilting humid Singapore weather. They’re much more attractive that your usual red topped festive cookie containers too!

The square containers had this bejewelled patterned cover. I was looking for plain tops but they don’t have it in this size.

I bought the little white tags from a shop in the basement of Tampines 1 called Urban Write. They carry a wide range of Japanese stationary as well as gift wrap items and scrapbooking materials. 30 tags sold are sold in a small pack for less than S$2. It comes with twist wires to attach to your gift, really handy to have around for an instant personalized gift!

 

I usually buy ribbon in large rolls as they’re expensive in small quatities. This pretty grosgrain ribbon came in a roll 20 yards long. Its lasted me for years! I bought it at a small ribbon shop along Arab street for S$4. Phoon Huat is a great place to buy cheap gift boxes for food or any gift item, not just for baking supplies. I spruced up a few boxes recently at almost no cost. More gift wrapping ideas soon..

Last Sunday’s breakfast was..

..clockwise from top left, baked feta and corriander stuffed tomatoes, hash browns with sliced pepperoni, wholemeal baguette, scrambled eggs on a leaf of lettuce for some semblence of a balanced meal!

The tomatoes shared a tray with the roasting pumpkin.

Sunday roast..

..was pumpkin. Tossed in a little salt and olive oil and dried rosemary.

Remember how I clear my fridge of leftover vegetables every Sunday? This Sunday while preparing breakfast I did the usual dig and roast routine. This time out came half a pumpkin. I love pumpkin. The sweetness in savoury dishes and desserts with sort of a rooty earthiness is something I really love. I don’t think I grew up eating pumpkin, its not something that stars much in Malay or Asian cuisine. Eventhough it isn’t a root vegetable, I feel its taste is really similar to the root vegetables I grew up eating. My late great grandmother used to eat a lot of tapioca. It was probably an abundant and convenient item to eat since tapioca plants grew like weeds all around her old kampung (malay for village) house.

 

She made so many different dishes out of tapioca, the leaves and the roots. The leaves were usually enjoyed as a savoury vegetable while the root often used to make tea time snacks. She used to chip them, rub them in salt and fry them like potato chips. Often she would simply steam them with a little salt and it would be eaten soft and starchy and hot just on its own. When she felt like mucking around a little, she grated fresh coconut and tapioca and patted them into little cakes then pan fry them. Occasionally she would cube them and boil them in a coconut and palm sugar soup. She didn’t have a sweet tooth though, so she wasn’t big on dessert. Whenever she made something sweet it would be at my request. I loved her cooking and would often ask her to make me tapioca desserts. Sometimes she would substitute yam or sweet potato for the tapioca. She used to make me these sweet potato donuts which were deep fried rings of mashed cooked sweet potato bound with a little flour. After they were drained of oil she drizzled palm sugar syrup over the hot “donuts”. I used to always ask her to make them and always be brushed off with a grizzly angry retort that they were too difficult to make. She was a gruff old thing, tough and shrivelled. I think Asian grandmothers tend to be that way, not very kissy or hugable with rather hot tempers. (At least mine are!!)But she would always make them anyway. Love shows itself in strange ways doesn’t it? Somehow when I ate these slices of pumpkin throughout the week, I thought a lot of her.

Now for a preview of what’s to come:

 

PS: thanks for all the back pain tips, I’m happy to report that its sooo much better now!

baby clothes for sale

I’m helping a friend sell off baby clothes she bought for her newborn which she did not use as her baby was big and could not fit into the newborn clothes she had bought. They are brand new and there are 2 sets available:

All the clothes are 100% cotton and have never been used before. Each set are basic tops that are great for everyday wear with easy wrap around styles and little cotton ties for easy changing. Each piece would also make great additions to baby hampers if you are a friend with a few mommy-to-be friends needing gifts. The sets are going for S$38 for the whole bundle. Its a bargain that isn’t available in shops!  

Set A is brand new and still comes in its packaging. It consits of 16 pieces:

-2 white long sleeve wrap tops

-8 white short sleeve wrap tops

-6 white sleeveless wrap tops

 

This is how the long sleeve top looks

All the tops are still in the packaging, including the long sleeve top seen in the first picture

A closer look

 

 

Set B is brand new but does not come in packaging as my friend had washed the clothes in anticipation of the baby. The clothes have not been used though and it consists of 16 pieces which are

- 3 sleeveless white wrap tops

-4 short sleeved white wrap tops

-2 long sleeved white wrap tops

-3 coloured long sleeved wrap tops: 1 yellow, 1 mint and 1 blue

-2 blue short sleeved front buttoned tops

-2 long sleeved white front buttoned tops

These are the short and sleeveless white wrap around tops

These are the front buttoned tops

And the long sleeved coloured and white wrap tops

 

Email me at nfarhan29@yahoo.com.sg if you are interested. Payment can be made by transfer into my bank account and I will post out  the items to any Singaporean address within a week.

Unfortunately this sale is open to my Singaporean readers only!