Very simple sushi rolls

One night after visiting the TCM the boys wanted to buy a snack. With one having cough and the other having blocked nose it's hard to find a friendly snack. Luckily we went past a sushi restaurant. And so today the boys asked for sushi for dinner again. 

I thought it shouldn't be difficult. It's just rice and some filling right? Haha... Well not too far off but without the recipes online and the easy sushi rice seasoning from Fairprice I would never have made a decent sushi roll. 

I referred very much to this website:

http://www.food.com/recipe/minados-perfect-sushi-rice-119373

Makes 6 rolls.

INGREDIENTS

- 2 cups of uncooked sushi rice (from Fairprice)

- 2 cups of water

- 10 tablespoons of sushi rice seasoning (also from Fairprice)

- 6 pieces of seaweed (where else but Fairprice)

- Filings of your choice

I used egg, cucumber, sweet corn, pork floss

Note to myself: 

Egg: for next time, 3-4 eggs would be enough to fill 2 rolls. Try 1 tablespoon of light soya sauce and 1 tablespoon of sugar. 

(I used 6 eggs, 1 tbsp light soya sauce and 1 tbsp sugar and There was no savoury nor sweet taste)

- Lastly, bamboo for rolling your sushi from Daiso)

HOW:

1) Rinse the rice 3-4 times under tap water. 

2) Transfer the rice to a strainer and drain for 30 minutes. 

3) Put the rice and water into a pot on the stove. 

4) Turn on high heat to bring it to a boil, then turn to lowest and cover the pot. Let it simmer for 15 min. 

The original author was very specific about no lifting of the lid to peek. 

5) Turn off the fire and remove from heat to let it rest for 10 minutes. Still no peeking! 

The rice grains will look like they are undercooked but it was ok when we ate them. 

6) Finally you can open the cover. Transfer the rice to a non-metal bowl. Using a non-metal spoon, add 2 tablespoons of sushi rice seasoning and mix thoroughly. Repeat till you hit 10 tablespoons. 

You can taste the rice as you mix and decrease/increase the seasoning according to your preference. 

7) Now you are ready to roll. On your bamboo, place the seaweed and spread the rice on top. The author also advised spreading but do not flatten the rice as you spread. Very good advice. 

For the end further from you, leave 2cm so it can stick on the sushi roll later. 

8) As you roll, press on the bamboo to exert some pressure on the sushi so the rice can be packed firmly together. But again do not flatten it. 

9) To cut, make sure you have a sharp knife. Before each cut make sure there's no rice stuck on the knife,  dip the knife in  water and then cut it. 

And there you have it. Customise according to what you like. We made a luncheon meat roll once and it was the
most popular 😉. 

No-bake Oreo cheesecake

I love this cheesecake. It's fragrant and tasty, that's something for someone who doesn't like cheese. That said, it also means it's not too cheesy. I think the credit goes to Philadelphia Cheese. You can't really go wrong with this cheese. I have put lychee in this one, it's also great with pineapple and it's also versatile for you to experiment with what you want. 

Check out the creamy yummy ice-cream like cheesecake:

Makes 2 x 6-inch round containers. 

INGREDIENTS

For the base:

- 2 to 2.5 tubes Oreo biscuit, minus the cream (I like to use 2.5 tubes so you can't miss the Oreo taste)

- Slightly more than 1/2 cup melted butter 

For the filling:

- 2 x 8oz Philadelphia cheese (let it soften at room temperature)

- 1 x 200ml whipping cream (keep in fridge till you need to whip it)

- Cream separated from the Oreo biscuits

- 1/2 cup icing sugar

- 4 tablespoons of lemon juice (1/2 lemon)

- 1/2 tablespoon of vanilla essence

- 2 cans of lychee

HOW

1) Separate the Oreo biscuits from the cream. 

2) Blend the Oreo biscuits till fine. If you do not have a blender, put the biscuits in a ziplock bag and use something heavy to crush the biscuits. 

3) Melt your butter till its liquid. You can do this by putting your butter in a bowl and put the bowl in another bowl of hot water. 

4) Divide the Oreo crumbs equally into the containers. Divide the liquid butter equally too. Mix the crumbs and butter evenly. Flatten the crumbs with a spoon.  Then place the containers into the freezer to harden. 

5) Put the softened Philadelphia cheese in a big and deep mixing bowl for blending. Make sure it's deep else you will have cheese flying out when you blend. Use the whisk, stop when it's soft, like below. 

6) Add the cream from the Oreo biscuits and blend some more.

7) Addthe icing sugar and continue blending. 

8) Now for the lychee. Drain away the syrup and then cut up the lychee. Lightly squeeze dry the lychee of the liquid. 

9) Mix the lychee into the cheese with a spoon. 

10) Now the whipping cream. Pour it into a deep bowl and use the whisk to whip it stop when the cream stays in place when you invert the bowl. Seriously!

11) Add the lemon juice and vanilla essence into the cheese mixture. 

12) Add the whipped cream to the cheese mixture. Fold in with a spoon. 

13) Steal a lick and add more lemon juice or vanilla essence if you feel it's not enough ;)

14) Take out your Oreo base containers from the freezer and divide the cheese mixture evenly. Flatten the mixture with a spoon. 

15) Return it to the freezer and freeze for 3-4 hours at least. 

When you want to eat it, take it out to room temperature to defrost for 20-30min. 

Note: like Tiramisu it can be difficult to take the whole cake out at once. Either you line your container with cling wrap so you can easily lift the whole cake out or you just take each piece out as you cut it. 

Fluffy pancakes

Children go through food phases. At first they don't like pancakes then they like it. This is totally not my recipe, I found it from the below website. I'm so impressed with how fluffy the pancakes are that I have to document it for future uses. I did substitute the butter with oil as I didn't have any butter on hand. Perhaps it will be more fragrant with butter.  Can consider adding Vanilla Essence too for fragrance. 

Original recipe:

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/162760/fluffy-pancakes/

Makes 5 pancakes (think McD pancake size)

In my house I had to double it for my family of four. 

INGREDIENTS

A

- 3/4 cup of milk

- 2 tablespoons of vinegar (if you don't have then use lemon. Or just don't add, it simply loses the fluffiness)

B

- 1 cup flour

- 2 tablespoons of sugar

- 1 teaspoon of baking powder 

- 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda

- 1/2 teaspoon of salt

C

- 1 egg

- 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil OR melted butter

METHOD

1) Mix A together and set aside. It's normal to see curdling. 

2) Mix B together and set aside

3) Whisk C into A in a big mixing bowl. Do this just for a few seconds until they are well mixed. You will see some bubbles in your mixture. 

4) Whisk B into (3), either pouring and whisking at the same time or pour all at once, it doesn't matter. Whisk till there are no lumps. More bubbles. 

5) You can choose to cook with oil or no oil. With oil it's more fragrant and has nice crisp at the sides but the browning is not even and you really need to watch the pancake closely as it can burn easily. If you choose not to use oil then you get even browning and it's easier to cook. 

On a flat non-stick pan with low heat, spoon a ladle of the batter and pour into the middle of the pan. 

6) When you see the batter bubble up like this, flip it over. Alternatively you can do 15 squats. By the time you finish cooking your pancakes you would have pre-burnt the calories!

7) This is how it looks after flipping, no oil version. 

With oil version:

8) Serve with honey and butter!

Airfryer vegan lychee muffin

My niece is a vegan and I tried a couple of times unsuccessfully to make vegan tasty muffins for her. They tasted either too dry or too oily. But finally I found a winning recipe. It's moist and fragrant and is not at all inferior to usual muffins.  Not only that, it's super easy!

I have added lychee and I find it's really fragrant. I don't taste the banana (the egg replacement). But you can add what you want and try out. Here goes, it's so healthy and easy, you don't have to be vegan to try it. 

Makes 6 medium sized muffins. 

INGREDIENTS

Dry ingredients:

1.5 cups plain flour

1/4 cup sugar

2 teaspoons baking powder

0.5 teaspoon salt

Wet ingredients:

1/3 cup vegetable oil

1/3 cup mashed banana

1/3 cup soya milk

1-2 teaspoon vanilla essence (optional, but really fragrant if you are using chocolate chips filling)

Filling:

1 cup lychee 

HOW

1) In a big bowl mix all dry ingredients together

2) In a cup pour all wet ingredients together. Stir enough just to roughly mix it all up. Do this in a separate bowl if the cup is too full. 

3) Create a well in the middle of the flour mixture. Pour the wet ingredients into the well. Fold in with around 14 strokes maximum. It doesn't matter if you can still see bits of flour. 

4) Add the lychee and fold in. Don't worry that the mixture is quite wet. 

5) Preheat Airfryer to 180 deg C. 

6) Spoon muffin mixture into silicon cups and bake at 180 deg C for 9-10 minutes. 

There you have it!

A Saturday in 2015 December

5th December 2015, Saturday:


Lucas: 5 years 4 months old
Luis: 1 more month to 3 years old


Saturday morning
Both children wake up around 7.30am as usual. This week the Para Asean Games is taking place in Singapore. We decided to go watch the swimming event together with Bee Leng. 


Ate peanut butter and jam bread at home, left the house around 9am. Bee Leng was not ready so we went to the coffee shop near our house for KP's breakfast. The children drank Milo while we were there.


Picked Bee Leng up from the bus-stop and then drove to OCBC Aquatic Centre. It was the medal-giving ceremony when we arrived, Luis kept asking me "Where are the persons swimming?". We stood up for a few national anthems and then finally the competition resumed. Watched for about 30min and then KP wanted to leave for lunch.


Saturday afternoon
Drove to Chinatown because I seemed to have hurt my back since 2 weeks ago. First stop was the dessert shop because KP is currently obsessed with steamed milk pudding. We ordered a few desserts. Surprisingly Lucas likes the steamed egg with ginger. Luis started with the gingko nut but quickly changed his favourite to the 杨枝甘露.


Walked to People's Park and I had my back massage. Smelling full of ointment, headed to the hawker with 永祥興豆腐 that KP likes. He queued for that for 30minutes I think, Bee Leng went to get carrot cake and I ordered 3 large coconuts. But the boys did not eat the food, so I went to buy Bunny Bread for them. Lucas devoured 4 small chocolate buns and Luis ate 2. After lunch KP bought a thermos flask at the pasar malam and then we headed back to the car to go home.


While in the car Lucas said he wanted to swim when we reached home but (luckily) it was raining. So upon reaching home, I put Luis to bed (our maid was on her off day) and KP put Lucas to bed. After Luis slept I went to the living room and made myself a peanut butter and jam sandwich and watched TV, a little hungry since I did not eat much for lunch. Lucas did not fall asleep and came out. After some TV watching he went to our bedroom and we 'forced' him to sleep.


Evening
Nearing dinner time and I was not in the mood to cook. Texted Bee Leng and we decided to eat dinner outside. Settled on Junction 10. As it was Christmas season, there was a teacup carousel outside and the boys were interested in it. Found out that I need to spend $50 to redeem one ride. Reached Junction 10, the boys had one zoomoov ride together, went for dinner and then I went to Giant to purchase $50 worth so as to get another $50 spend to redeem the teacup ride.


After Giant, we enjoyed two more rides. Bee Leng with Luis first. Lucas was very happy to follow them on foot and 'guided' where to go.
Then Lucas and me. At first Luis didn't want to join us but he was disappointed when we went far and so he and Bee Leng chased after us. Hit me on my back because he was angry. Quickly put him behind Lucas and the three of us rode together. Super fun. After the ride we sent Bee Leng back and then went home.


Upon reaching home, did the usual shower, milk, brush teeth. Luis said "I want mummy let me sleep", so I put him to bed. He fell asleep rather fast and then I went to sleep with Lucas. After that, nearly 11pm, I went back to my room, surfed Qoo10 and facebook for a while and then went to sleep too.

Lucas' 5-year old birthday

15 September 2015, Wednesday 10.07pm

I didn't realise that I did not document it. I should still remember. 

It started a few weeks ago with Lucas choosing his cake. He has moved into a Superhero fad stage and he is all about Iron man. I almost ordered a fondant cake from a freelancer with average design and above average price. Luckily my colleague told me that Bengawan Solo offers Avengers cake though 2D. Anyhow I let Lucas choose and he liked the designs. But he wanted to have it for his indoor playground and school celebration! 2 cakes, total damage $170. Heart pain. But ok... Once a year ... a little bit of pain is ok as long as the little boy is happy. 

We celebrated the first one at Happy Willow, same as last year. Lucas chose it. I was happy, because last year it was not very ideal. He was scared off because of the loud whistle and then he didn't get to place his cars on the cake. This year we get a chance to make it good! He even wore the same Captain America costume!

Saturday morning KP and I set off to get the food from Lot One. No catered food this time. 

Then off to Happy Willow at Fusionopolis.   And then as usual the children eat and play, the adults eat and chitchat. Luis was in good spirits too, past the moody phase. He had a super good time!

Then a very successful birthday song singing and cake cutting! Lucas was so happy, after the song he politely turned to me and asked if he can blow out the candles now. I find this moment very special. 

As usual we stayed till late afternoon. 

2nd birthday celebration was at mil's house along with BH. The usual dinner and then cake. It was usual, but I have come not to take such usual things for granted. It's lucky that there is a family who cares enough to do such usual things.

3rd birthday celebration was in school. As one of Lucas' birthday presents, he received an IronMan suit. On the actual birthday he went to school. In the afternoon we brought his suit and the cake and goodie bags to school. Luis came out from his class too to celebrate.

After that we left and went for dinner at Swensens with mil, fil and BL. It has become a tradition because the birthday kid gets a free firehouse ice-cream.

All in all, a happy birthday for the little boy this year :)

What can I pray for you?

5th October 2015, Monday, 9.17am:


This morning after the boys went off in the school bus, I was sitting in the car at the stadium doing my makeup as usual. A man came near to look at the car and I was wondering is it because he thought I was parked in the disabled lot and wanted to give me a piece of his mind.


He came to my window with a smile, I wound down the window and he said something unexpected. He introduced himself and then asked if there's anything he can pray for me. He said God sometimes gives him vision and two days ago he had one, where he saw a woman in a white car and short hair. I was skeptical of course and I said no, there's nothing that I am asking for. He stayed outside the window and said a prayer to God to keep me safe.


I don't know if this is true of course. The first reaction was to be skeptical. But then I wanted it to be true. I got out of my car and thanked him. I can choose to think it's a scam or I can choose to think it's true. I choose the latter. It made my day, what this man did. I am this kind of person, naïve. And I like to think the better of situations.


When the man asked me the question, two things came to mind. My next career move, and my mother. I want to know if she is happy. But I didn't ask for it because it was very abrupt. Now there is a teeny tinge of regret. But just so teeny tiny. Because my Buddhism belief tells me to be grateful, that someone prays for me to be safe is already a very generous act. How can I ask for more.


So thank you, Dylan (I think that's his name). You made my day.