Cheng Teng Dessert

I invited some friends over to my place yesterday, for our annual cny gathering. Wanted to get them over for lunch and cooked a feast for them but they prefer high tea (they didnt want to give me too much hassle :p), so in the end fried some stuff and cooked this dessert for them :) This is one of my favourite dessert, got the recipe from my cantonese mother.

Finally, got a chance to display the picture of my food. Does it look appetising enough? hehe :)

Ingredients for 10pax share:

- 50 grams white fungus, washed and soaked overnight and break into small pieces (will taste better this way. too big a piece, you may find it hard to swallow)
- 50 grams dried lily bulbs, washed and soaked overnight
- 50 grams fresh gingko nuts, remove the shells and soaked overnight
- 30 grams dried LianZi,washed and soaked overnight
- 30 grams large sago, washed on the day you are going to cook and set aside
- 30 grams dried logan meat (the big fat round ones from thailand, can be purchased from ShopnSave),washed on the day you are going to cook and set aside
- about 14 red dates (of average size)
- some rock sugar (preferred to use rock sugar to cook dessert, smell and taste better)
- Pot of water, about 3/4 full (use a slightly bigger than average size pot)

How to cook:

- Boil the pot of water together with your red dates, lily bulbs, gingko nuts and LianZi
- When the water boils, add in the white fungus and logan meat
- When it boils again, turn the fire lower and let it boils slowly for 30-40mins
- Add in the rock sugar and large sago, let it boils for another 15mins (Dont add the large sago too early, it will 'melt')
- Once the gingko nuts and Lianzi (the hardest to soften of all) already soften and chewable, it is ready to be served. If you like it cold, you may add in ice and serve as a cold dessert

Notes:
1. The amount of ingredients serve as a general guide. You may add in more according to your preference.
2. All my ingredients purchased from ShopnSave, so you can go there and get all the stuff at one shopping.

My Apologies

My Apologies, I havent had any pictures of my dishes taken as I am still in the experimental stage so didnt spend much time to decorate the dish :P

Pls give me some time, I promise to return with nice pictures once I am more farmilar with cooking :p Yeah, kind of lost touch with cooking cos MIL cooks on all weekdays and we eat out on weekends *embarrassed*

Steamed Beancurd

I am cracking my brain to DIY some dishes convenient for my MIL to prepare for Trenyce when she returns from her CNY holiday. MIL normally prepares porridge for her and the little girl eats porridge day in day out except on days that MIL is not around as I like to cook rice for her instead of porridge. The troublesome part about preparing rice is that you will have to prepare the dishes separately, unlike porridge, you can just dump everything in.

So, today (duno if I have become smarter or what hahaha) I suddenly have an idea to prepare this steamed dish with meat, egg, tofu and broocoli for Trenyce and its yummy! :) Trenyce loves it and finshes her bowl of rice!

Simple and nutritious dish for the young ones at home! :)

Ingredients:

- one box of Silken Tofu (get the one for steamming, with red label)
- minced pork meat (If you go to wet mkt, its about $2 worth), mix it with some soya sauce and starch powder (note: starch powder is to soften the texture of the meat)
- 2 eggs (small), break and mix the eggs
- some broocoli, chopped (not too fine, about the size of a cube)

How to cook:
- Cut the tofu into large cubes and lay it on the metal plate
- Put the minced meat on top the tofu
- Pour the eggs over the meat
- Sprinkle the broocoli on top of the minced meat (if you like, you can add in some small carrot cubes)
- And finally, steam the tofu for 5-7mins

Apple Soup

This post backdated to 22nd Feb 2007.

I got a new recipe from my auntie recently while on my CNY visit to her place - Apple Soup. My little girl dislikes fruits eversince she recovers from an almost-2 weeks long illness. She refuses any fruits, even fruits that she has had tasted before she also rejected them all together. This is a real headache ah!

I am trying this new recipe from my auntie. I just cooked the soup and left it for hubby to feed her tmr as I got to "kai gong" (start work) tmr already. I tasted some and its yummy. I hope Trenyce will like it and slowly get back to eating apples at least...then slowly I can introduce other fruits to her. *cross my fingers*

Okay, here's the ingredients for 4 adults' share:

- about 300g spare ribs (with some meat, as those you bought from NTUC or other supermarket have packages that sell just the bones alone for cooking soup)
- 2 Fuji apples (of average size) cut into small mini cubes
- 1 red carrot (of average size) also cut into cubes
- some button mushrooms (big ones about 5-8, can add more if you like to have more mushrooms)
- some red dates (of average size, about 8-12, can add maybe 2-4 pieces more if you like it to be sweeter)
- some wolfberries (one small handful)

How to cook:

- Boil the water together with red dates and wolfberries
- When water is half boil, add in the spare ribs (remember to rinse the ribs with hot water twice before going into the soup so as to remove the pork smell)
- When the water boils again, add in the apples and carrots.
- When it boils again, let it simmer over the small fire for about 15mins.
- And finally add a pinch of salt (add according to your preference, usually 1 teaspoon will be enough)