March 18, 2015
Few weeks ago, Sis brought our Dad for some shopping therapy and they ended with dinner at a Japanese restaurant in town. Ever since, Dad has been raving about this “salad with special sauce”, where he cleaned up two bowls of it at a go. Now, Dad has never been a fan of salad (In fact, who is? Unless we are on a diet...okok I speak for myself only) so I was really curious to what kind of sorcery the chef performed on that salad...
March 13, 2015
If there’s one cake I would bake over and over again, it would be this Dangerously Dark Chocolate Muffin. You really can’t go wrong with chocolate, not to mention the number of chocoholics we have in this household...
March 11, 2015
What is Choux au Craquelin (pronounce shoo-o-krat-ker-lan)? They are baked mini cream puffs with a sweet, crackly, crunchy topping. Tiger (aka hubby) just could not get the pronunciation right and I've given up correcting him. At least I had a good laugh every time he tried...
March 6, 2015
What is your idea of a perfect breakfast? For me, that would be a nice, crispy slice of buttery toast, smothered with a thick layer of jam on top. So when Tiger (aka the hubby) asked me to make something with all the countless mandarin oranges we have lying around after Chinese New Year, this homemade mandarin orange jam seemed to be the logical choice!...
March 4, 2015
Thanks to Chinese New Year, we always ended up with a lot of mandarin oranges lying around the house. I’ve also received several requests from BNF readers asking for ways to use them up. Hmm, first thought that came up to my mind was orange cake. But there’s only so many (which is not a lot) mandarin oranges you could use in a cake. I quickly strike it off from my mental checklist...
February 27, 2015
Chinese New Year is a major holiday for the Chinese. It is the most important festival for us and during this period, indulging in festival food is a MUST for many of us. But as Shakespeare’s wrote: “Too much of a good thing...”.
February 25, 2015
Mashed potatoes is a classic American side dish that is no stranger to anyone in this world. But the question is, could you differentiate between good and bad mash? I’d like to think so. The texture of a good mash should be smooth, velvety and almost instantly disintegrate into a sheer bliss of buttery goodness once it hits the back of your tongue. The additional use of garlic gives this dish an elevated oomph...
February 17, 2015
Chinese Sesame Cookie Balls (Siu Hao Zou in Cantonese) was one of the quintessential CNY goodies we had in our household during my childhood years. Sadly, I haven’t had the chance to savor them anymore in the recent years. Being brought up in a typical Cantonese household, the traditional CNY goodies we had were Kok Zai (Mini Peanut Puffs), Jien Duy (Glutinous Sesame Balls), Nien Gou (Sticky Pudding), etc. Most of them were handmade by either mom, Godma or neighbors but they turned up their aprons long ago...
February 13, 2015
Accordingly to Chinese Astrology, the lucky colors for people born in the year of Sheep/Goat this coming Lunar New Year are green, red and purple. Hmm, it’s kind of tricky for me to carry off any green outfit, unless I’m competing for a Grinch look-alike contest. If I can’t wear ‘em, I might as well eat ‘em! Haha, does that make any sense at all???...
