Banana Pancake

Woke up from an afternoon nap and wanted to eat something sweet and most importantly easy and quick to prepare. I came across this banana pancake recipe last night when I was going through some old recipe books that have been sitting on my bookshelf for quite some time. This was from a recipe book published by Nutrition Society of Malaysia in 1999. Not sure where this recipe book came from.

My daughter said she is not keen in eating banana but nevertheless, would like to help me in preparing it. As usual, sifting the flour is her favorite part and she ended with arranging the sliced banana on the pancake. Turnout both hubby and son especially, love it. I like it too but prefer the pancake to be fluffier. For my daughter, she just took a bite but it was a good short activity and time spent with my daughter.

Ingredients:
125g wheat flour
250g fresh milk
3 tbsp sugar
3-4 pcs banana (sliced)

Method:
1. Combine the wheat flour, milk and sugar to become a smooth batter. Strain to remove lumps.
2. Slice banana and mix into batter.
3. Lightly grease and heat a non-stick pan. Pour enough batter into the pan to form a thin layer.
4. Cook over low heat until lightly brown, turn and brown the other side.
5. Remove and place pancake on a dish. Repeat with remaining batter.
6. Arrange few slices of banana on the pancake. Serve hot.

Love honey, so poured some on the pancake before serving. The recipe mentioned that an egg can be added to increase the aroma and mouth feel but skipped that.

Happy Chinese New Year 2010

1 more day to go ......

This little tiger was from a gift hamper from client. Doesn't he look prosperous?

Cashewnut Cookies

This is the fourth and will be the last recipe tried before celebrating CNY this Sunday, 14 February 2010. Baked this last weekend. The cookies are not as tasty and crispy as expected. Among all the recipes tried this year, the cornflake crunchies are still my favourite but still lack of consistency among all the batches made :-) Anyway, yesterday night was my last day of baking by making the final round of cornflake crunchies, the sixth and seventh batch, for my family and friends.

Chocolate cookies

Daughter loves colourful sprinkles so decided to search for recipe that uses it but can't find it though. This is another recipe adapted from the Biscuit Code by Florence Tan called Bourbon Biscuits and made variation to it. Instead of using the mashed chocolate, top it with colourful sprinkles. My daughter helped out with most of the sprinkling. When she ran out of the sprinkles, she can't wait to sprinkle them with colourful stars. It's nice to see her enjoy doing it. The cookies turned out not bad after all ..... sweet cocoa taste.

Almond Crisps

After baking the cornflake crunchies which uses 2 egg yolks, made these almond crisps where only egg whites are required. Thanks to Blessed Homemaker for sharing the recipe. During the first trial, had difficuities removing the cookies from the baking paper so decided to use greased aluminum foil instead for the second time and here's the result. The children love these very much.


Recipe adapted from Blessed Homemaker (made slight changes):

Ingredients
2 egg whites
50 g castor sugar
50 g plain flour, sifted
Almond flakes

Method
1. Line a baking tray with greased aluminum foil.
2. Add sugar to egg white, stir to mix and dissolve sugar.
3. Add sifted flour to mix. Mixture should be creamy.
4. Pour the mixture onto the prepared tray and using the back of a spoon, spread it out thinly.
5. Lay almond flakes in a single layer onto the mixture.
6. Bake in preheated oven 180 C for 12 - 15 mins or golden brown.
7. Remove to cool slightly outside the oven before removing cookie from the aluminum foil.
8. Break the cookies into random pieces.

Cornflake Crunchies

Baked these the third time and am much happier with the results. The cornflakes are coarsely crushed which makes the biscuit crunchier. Also placed cherry bit on each biscuit to add color to it. To show my satisfaction, took a picture of the biscuits with these origami goldfish which I have just learned from here.


Cornflake Crunchies (21 Jan 2010)

First time baking this and first biscuit baked for the upcoming Chinese New Year. A little challenging as haven't been baking biscuit for such a long time. The first tray was slightly overbaked. The second and third tray turnout good and crispy but think it would be better if the cornflakes were not too fine. The recipe did said crushed coarsely (mistake... mistake...). Will give it a second try and see how it goes. This is the third recipe tried from Biscuit Code by Florence Tan and am looking forward to try more recipes from this book.

Simple Pizza Bread

Did simple pizza bread for the family for breakfast and made each one uniquely for them. The ingredients used were tomato sauce, ham (shredded), capsicum (red pepper), shredded cheddar cheese and bread.

Blue - Hubby's pizza was with sliced ham (instead of shredded) and cheese. Capsicum is a no-no for him. Later, hubby requested for another one without the tomato sauce. He just love it simple.

Pink - Daughter's favourite color. For her, tomato sauce is a must and added the ham and cheese. Just like her father, capsicum is a no-no too.

Green - My son eats everything but only place a few slices of capsicum for him. There you see his little hand ......

Yellow - For myself, everything and lots of capsicum.

Simple breakfast but eveyone enjoyed it.

Black Pepper Chicken Chop

Ingredients
2 whole chicken legs, deboned

Seasoning ingredients
1 tbsp Lea & Perrins Worcestershire sauce
1 tbsp premium oyster sauce
1 tbsp sugar
1/8 tsp pepper
4 shallots, blended and squeezed for juice
¼ tsp chicken stock granules

Sauce ingredients
2 tbsp black pepper sauce
2 tbsp Lea & Perrins Worcestershire sauce
1 tsp sugar
¼ tsp coarsely ground black pepper
4-5 tbsp water

Method:
Marinate chicken with seasoning ingredients for several hours, preferably overnight in the refrigerator. Heat up oil and place the chicken on the pan. When the chicken is cooked, remove and place on individual serving plates. Add the remaining seasoning ingredients and the sauce ingredients to the pan and cook briefly to a boil. Dish up or pour on the chicken.

Steamed red wine chicken

Family members have been continuously blessed with babies particularly this year and my mom has been making the Chinese red wine for them to be consumed during their confinement. My mum, as usual would keep few bottles of the red wine for me to cook one of my favourite dish…. the red wine chicken.

Ingredients
400 gm of chicken (cut into pieces)
5 slices of Tong Kuai (Anglelica)
1 tablespoon Kei Chi (Wolfberry)
1 cup of home made Chinese red wine
1 tsp of tapioca flour
1 tsp of salt

Method
1. Rub the tapioca flour and salt onto the chicken.
2. Place the Tong Kuai (at the bottom) and the chicken on a steam plate.
3. Pour the red wine into the steam plate and sprinkle the Kei Chi on the chicken.Steam at high heat for 15 minutes. Serve hot.

Hokkien Mee

Ingredients:
600g mee
200g pork (sliced)
200g prawn
150g fish cake (sliced)
200g choy sum
5 cloves garlic (chopped)

Sauce:
3 tbsp light soya sauce
2 tbsp thick soya sauce
Dash of pepper
1 litre broth

Methods:
1. Stir-fry garlic until fragrant.
2. Add the pork, prawn and fish cake and stir-fry until cooked.
3. Add the sauce until let it boiled.
4. Add in the mee and choy sum and let it simmer until the mee is soft and the sauce is thick. Serve hot.