Best Ever Pumpkin Cake

Like many others, I don't really like my pumpkin cake with a lot of spices. But I do like the fragrant of cinnamon powder but not too much. So, I created this recipe to suit my personal taste. This pumpkin cake is moist and soft and totally delicious. My keeper pumpkin cake recipe thus far. Bonus is very easy to make and absolutely divine.



Ingredients:

(A)
3 eggs
1 cup canola oil (or vegetable oil)
1 (15 ounce) can pumpkin puree
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
(B)
2 cups white sugar
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 tsp. baking soda

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 350'F. Spray a 10-inch bundt pan with non-stick cooking spray with flour for baking.

2. In a big mixing bowl, whisk together (A).

3. Then, add in (B) and stir together with a spatula until smooth and well blended.

4. Pour into the bundt pan and bake for one hour. Cool in pan for 10 minutes before inverted to cool completely on a wire rack. Best enjoy the next day.

Nikon ATB Promotion

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Seafood Veggies Curry

On lazy day, I love to cook easy, throw everything in one pot meal. I love to add a lot of vegetable in my seafood curry because I love veggies. With Claypot curry mix, I don't even have to worry about preparing coconut powder or coconut milk because it has been included in the packet. However, I don't really like this Claypot fish curry mix as compared to it's rendang beef. I preferred Delimas vegetable curry paste better. That's solely my own opinion okay. This big pot lasted us for three meals!

Ingredients:

1 packet of Claypot Nyonya Fish Curry Mix (also available at mytasteofasia.com)
3 fish fillets, cut
1 bowl of shrimps
8 fish balls, cut into half
1 bowl of fried beancurds (taufu pok), cut into half
2 carrots, sliced
1 cup of frozen green beans
1/4 of head cabbage, cut

Method:

In a big pot, add in oil in medium heat, fry the spice mix until fragrant. Add in the recommended coconut milk and all the vegetable. Simmer until the cabbage has soften, add in the seafood and fish balls, simmer for 10 minutes. Serve with white rice.

Cheap Sushi Lunch

Want to eat some sushi but too lazy to make your own? Want to save some money instead of going to the restaurant? Well, you can buy this at Cosco for $5.65 each at my area. It is definitely double the amount that we found at other supermarket. Furthermore, it is very fresh. If you look closely at the picture, my hubby already stole a piece of the sushi before I could take a picture. LOL! Beachlover, told you you made me want to eat some sushi the cheap and lazy way. :P

Instead of eating out, sometimes we just buy this prepared meal at Cosco, like sushi, pizza or rotisserie chicken. It is way cheaper than dining out in a restaurant these days.

Healthy Cookies

Twin towers



A glimpse of the healthy cookies I submitted for the Home Food and Garden magazine March, 2009 contest. I can't publish the recipe now but will share this wonderful cookies recipe with you all next year. One of my best cookie recipes yet, bonus is very healthy and crispy and delicious! Can't wait to share this recipe with my readers.

I will be off this weekend to spend a night at my friend's house. She organized a little get-together "makan" (eating) session with my fellow friends living up north since we haven't met for quite some time. I was thrilled and really looking forward to meet all my friends again. I baked her some of this cookies to show my gratitude, hope she and her husband like it. (^.^)

Stir-fried Bay Scallops in Thai Green Curry Paste

I bought some bay scallops when it was on sales for buy one gets one free. I loved to buy it to substitute for chicken breasts. I was thinking hard on how to cook the bay scallops and came out with this dish. The deep-fried tofu was a great addition in this dish as it soaked up the flavor and sauce of green curry and went very well with rice. Now I am curious, how do you normally prepare the bay scallops since it's so small?



Ingredients:

1 cup Bay Scallops
8-10 Deep-fried Tofu (taufu pok), sliced like above picture (get it at Asian Store)
1/2 cup Frozen peas and carrots, thawed or frozen
2-3 Tbsp. Thai green curry paste
1 tsp. sugar
Cooking oil
About 1/2 cup of water

Method:

In a wok, heat up oil. When heated, add in bay scallops. Stir-fry until almost cooked, add in deep-fried tofu, peas & carrots. Stir-fry for a little while and then add in the green curry paste, a little water and sugar. Stir-well to mix. Serve hot.

Homebrew Wines or Beers

I once went to a friend's house and discovered that her husband actually brewed his own beer in the basement. That was really impressive because I had no idea that you could actually make your own beer or wine at home. Making your own wine and beer are actually pretty easy and not a lot of kits required. Not only the homebrew beer was impressive, it actually tasted great. Of course we had to ask him why he decided to make his own beer and his reason was simple, he has the interest, somewhat like his hobby and it saved cost and he said everyone can make their own homebrew if they wanted to. How great was that right?

So, are you interested in reading more about homebrew? Visit this homebrew website to learn more about homebrew resources, starter kits, homebrew shop and even an advise forum for you. Why homebrew is for you? Because not only homebrewing save you money, homebrew also produced superb quality wine and beer with a huge selection of choice that you can produce a flavor that satisfies your unique taste. It is also very easy and convenient to make your own wine, for example you can make 30 bottles of high quality homebrews wine in 7 days with easy instruction and equipment. Homebrew wine or beer, sure to impress your friends!

Green Tea Flavored Baked Donuts

Adding green tea powder for a change. You can add cocoa powder for a chocolate flavored donuts as well (recipe won't be the same as you will need more cocoa powder to bring out the flavor).


I split it open to share the texture of this donuts. It's still soft the second day.

Ingredients :

(A)
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup sugar
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon green tea powder

(B)
1 egg
1/2 cup plain yogurt
1 tablespoon canola oil
2 tablespoons milk (I used whole milk)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Toppings: sweeten coconut flakes & semi-sweet chocolate chips (optional). You can glaze it with green tea icing or coated it powder sugar before serving.

Method :

1. In a big bowl, combine (A). Whisk to mix well.

2. Push the flour to the side and in the center, add in (B). Mix (B) well with a whisk and mix the flour in to blend well. Set aside.

3. Spray the donut pan with nonstick cooking spray and divide the sweeten coconut flakes and chocolate chips at the bottom of each of the donut tube pans. Divide batter among pans. Place the batter only half full so that you will see donut hole when baked. 3/4 full will not be able to see any donut hole when baked.

4. Bake at 400°F for 10 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Cool for 5 minutes before removing from pans to wire rack.

~Yield 12-14 baked donuts

Check out my other baked donuts:
1. Healthy baked donuts
2. Assorted baked donuts

I am sharing this dish with Culinarty's Original Recipe blog event. Check it out every month on the week of 15th for the round up. Thanks!

Butterfly Award

I would love to thanks Family First for awarding me this Butterfly award. I am happy to know that you think my blog is one of the coolest blogs out there. *smile* Congrats on your blog as well.

As per the rules of accepting this award, I wish to now award my fellow bloggers which I think have one of the coolest blogs!

More than Words

Noob Cook

Kedai Hamburg
The Adventure of my cooking diary

Beachlover's Kitchen

Soy and Pepper

I sincerely hope you will accept this award from me, so, please :-

1. Put the logo on your blog;
2. Add a link to the person who awarded you;
3. Nominate 10 other blogs; (or only to those deserving ones???)
4. Add links to those blogs on yours;
5. Leave a message for your nominees on their blogs.

Congratulations!

Curry Chicken

Curry chicken, a very common dish in Malaysia. In Malaysia, every where you go, coffee house, night market, street food, restaurant, you will see curry chicken, weather it's Indian, Malay or Chinese, we hardly go without curry. As you see my curry chicken has no potatoes in it because none of my family members like it. And since potatoes are mostly starch, I prefer not to buy it as well. My lazy way of preparing curry these days is to use the drumsticks. I hate to chop chicken into smaller pieces, drumstick is cheaper than breast meat and I don't have to cut it. So, why not? A delicious curry chicken is super easy to cook with a premix.

Ingredients:

8 chicken drumsticks
1 ChanHong instant rendang mix. (available at mytasteofasia.com)
1 packet of dried coconut powder (available at mytasteofasia.com)
Cooking oil

Method:

In a big pot, add in oil. Turn to medium heat, when heated, stir-fry the rendang mix until fragrant, add in drumsticks. Stir to coat well and add in the coconut milk. How diluted the coconut milk is depended on you. More coconut milk used like me, you will end out with a curry chicken (we love the gravy for rice), less coconut milk used, you will have your rendang (dried chicken curry). Simmer for 2 hours.

Stir-fried Whole Wheat Spaghetti

Friday night is noodle night for us. I will cook rice with two dishes sometimes plus soup on Monday-Thursday. On weekends, we eat out or takeaway/to go. What meal I cook depends on what grocery I buy, so sometimes we will have something different, most time we will have something familiar. One can't be creative all the times right? What happen if I ran out of creative idea to prepare dishes and I have nothing interesting to post in my blog? I saw a Chinese cooking show before where he was asked the same question and he said a cook will never run out of ideas to cook, if you give him the ingredients, he will cook the dish for you. If you are a cook, when you step into someone else kitchen, you will still be able to come out with a delicious dish with the ingredients at hands. Right or not? Anyway, above is my Friday noodle dish: Stir-fry whole wheat spaghetti with asparagus and chicken.

Ingredients:

1 box of whole wheat spaghetti, cook and drain as package instruction
1 boneless and skinless chicken breast, sliced and marinated with salt, Japanese rice wine, sesame oil and cornstarch
1 carrot, sliced
About 10 stalks of asparagus, cut
2 cloves of garlic, chopped
Oyster sauce
Dark soy sauce
1 tsp. sugar

Method:

1. In a flying pan, add oil. When heated, add chicken, stir for a little while, add garlic and then carrot and asparagus. Stir until cooked.

2. Add in oyster sauce and dark soy sauce, add a little water if needed. Add in drained spaghetti and stir to blend well. Add in sugar and stir to coat well. Season to taste, serve hot.

I would love to share this noodle dish with the Presto Pasta Night Gang. The host will be Judith of Think On It. Sorry I haven't been taking picture of my noodle dish lately because most of the times they were the same. :P

Asparagus with Chicken

Oh mine, how lazy I am getting these days! I didn't even bother to place it on a plate before taking picture. After this picture then I realized that it will definitely looks better if I serve it on a plate first before taking picture instead of taking it straight from a wok.

Another of my home cook dish: Stir-fry asparagus with chicken in shrimp paste sauce. You can add chili sauce (sambal) and season with fish sauce and a little sugar. I didn't bother to add chili sauce here because of my kids, even though they can eat spicy food but still not too spicy.

I started watching Korean drama recently. Just finished Full House and Goong, they were nice and very cute. Next K-drama would be Coffee Prince (lots of recommendation), but before that I want to watch the Taiwan drama first, so that I don't have to concentrate real hard to read the subtitle. LOL! Sometimes I missed it because I didn't read the subtitle fast enough. Adoi!

I started on Ying Ye 3 + 1, I found this drama very funny and with the exaggerated Kung Fu scene, very funny indeed (of course I like Ming Dao too)! Gigi, if you haven't watched this, this is another of my recommendation. (^.*)

Online Dating

Never look down or not believe in online dating because it works. It happened to my friends and my very own sister. I know a lots of people do not believe in this because who knows whether if there is any predator out there looking for innocent victim to con right? You just never know. Online dating comes with precaution and your own judgment. With that in mind, you can certainly meet some wonderful people online and find your one true love or the one to spend the rest of your live with.

My sister was an introvert person and we were worried that she would not find the one and get married one day. We went to college and university together and I never seen her with anyone, so of course we were worried. But after she graduated and started working, suddenly we heard that she had a boyfriend and she met him online. So, that was the power of online dating, it linked my sister to her husband in an otherwise unknown world. They were chatting online, finally met each others, started dating and now happily married. And I have heard a lot of successful online dating stories, not just my sister but my friends as well.

So, if you are looking for your prince charming or princess, go search for free at True.com. Sign up is free so what are you waiting for? Just let yourself believe in the magic of cyberspace, it might comes true to you like so many others did.

Green Tea Yogurt Cupcakes/Muffins

Looks like I am addicted in baking yogurt cake right? Actually it is also I bought a big tub of plain yogurt so I have to finish it. This time I tried adding green tea powder into the yogurt cake. This cake has a slight fragrant of green tea and not too sweet.

Ingredients:

(A)
1 1/2 cup all purpose flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
1 cup sugar
1 tsp. green tea powder
(B)
1 cup plain yogurt
3 large eggs, whisk
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1/2 cup canola oil

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 350'F. Place paper cups in the muffin pan.

2. In a big bowl, add in (A). Whisk to combine.

3. Then, add in (B). Whisk and blend until incorporated.

4. Lastly, scoop the batter into each papercups until 3/4 full.

5. Bake for 25 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool on wire rack.

*For the paper cups above, it yields 17 cupcakes for me*

Check out my other yogurt cake recipes:
-Dark Chocolate Yogurt Cake
-Pandan Yogurt Cake

Orange Cookies

Actually I wanted to make my favorite Crisp Lemon Cookies but I didn't have enough lemon extract so I changed it to Orange cookies instead. We were given a packet of Lemon cookies by a friend and it was coated with powder sugar and tasted really yummy. Thus, it had given me an idea for my next cookies.



I made this orange cookies using my Crisp Lemon Cookies recipe with one modification. These cookies were really crispy and all of us loved them and it tasted great with the added powder sugar.

Ingredients:

(A)
1 1/2 cup self-raising flour
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 cup powdered sugar
(B)
1/2 cup or 1 stick of butter, softened
2 tsp. orange extract
1/2 tsp. Pure vanilla extract
1 Tbsp. milk
(C)
Powder sugar for coating

Method:

1. In a food processor, add in (A). Pulse to combine.

2. Then, add in (B) and process until a dough is formed. Take it out on a lightly flour surface and give it a few kneads. Roll to 1/4 inch thickness and cut with a cookie cutter.

3. Place on a parchment lined baking pan and bake in preheated 350'F oven for 15 minutes or until lightly brown on edges.

4. Place cookies on wire rack to cool completely and then coated each cookie with powder sugar.

International Mail Forwarding

I know a lot of you from Singapore who love to shop in the U.S. like buying branded clothes, handbags, bakewares online or simply buying from Ebay or Amazon. The weakening dollar and U.S. competitiveness make the U.S. products so much cheaper and appealing. However, you face with the shipping problem because a lot of these retailers and Ebay or Amazon do not ship overseas. But worry no more, I found a solution to your problem with this international mail forwarding service. With this, you just make your purchase online and ship it to their warehouse in California and they will forward your package to you anywhere overseas with a low shipping rate. They can also assist in purchases and arrange payment if you do not own a credit card. They offer two easy programs, one is for one time shipment, the other is for consolidate shipment (ship 10 packages at once, they repack into one big package) and thus you save more on postage. If you are living overseas and love to shop in the U.S., it is worth to check out the link.

Eggs Zucchini

Another of my newly created eggs dish with zucchini. I never cooked this dish before because this version of the eggs were more soggy and soft. But I wanted to try something different again. I think I really converted my hubby from not eating zucchini to eat zucchini because he never liked it before. Now I used it to stir-fry and even in cooking curry and he ate it all. This simple dish turned out to be surprisingly delicious. I will sure to cook it again.

Ingredients:

1 zucchini, thinly sliced like above picture
2 Tbsp. of Chinese dried shrimps, soaked until soften, drained
2 cloves of garlic, chopped
3 eggs, beaten and seasoned with salt
1 tsp. chicken stock granules
Salt to taste
Canola oil for cooking

Method:

1. In a wok, heat up the oil. When heated, add in the dried shrimps and garlic. Stir-fry until fragrant, add in the zucchini. Stir-fry until the zucchini is cooked, add in beaten eggs.

2. Stir until eggs are cooked and season with salt and chicken granules. Dish out and serve.

Save Green, Go Green Giveaway

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Car Details:
Polished Metal Metallic
Up to 45 mpg highway
Fabric interior
USB Audio Interface
110-hp, 8 valve, SOHC i-VTEC® 4-cylider engine
Continuously variable transmission
MP3 Auxiliary Input Jack

Dark Chocolate Yogurt Cake

Because I liked this healthier version of yogurt cake so I decided to play with the recipe. So, I created this chocolate yogurt cake. Mine turned out to be black in color like a black cake, hahaha.... Reason being I was using the Special Dark cocoa powder and thus created this specially dark cake. :)



The texture of this cake looked different than my Pandan yogurt cake. It looked spongy but in reality it was soft and moist and packed with chocolate flavor. My daughters loved it and asked me to make it again.

Ingredients:

1 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup cocoa powder (I used Hershey's Special Dark Cocoa)
2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
1 cup white sugar
1 cup plain yogurt
3 large eggs, lightly whisk
1 Tbsp. strong brew coffee
1/2 cup canola oil

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 350'F. Grease a 8.5x3.5 loaf pan.

2. In a large bowl, sift in flour, cocoa powder and baking powder. Add in salt, sugar. Stir to mix well.

3. Then, add in all the wet ingredients: yogurt, eggs, coffee and oil. Use a whisk and whisk everything together until blended.

4. Pour into the prepared loaf pan and bake for 50 minutes or until toothpick inserted in middle comes out clean. Cool in pan for 5 minutes before taking it out to cool completely on wire rack.

Check out my other yogurt cake recipes:
-Pandan Yogurt Cake
-Green Tea Yogurt Cake

Blood Pressure Monitor

Have you heard about the "white coat hypertension"? It is caused by the anxiety you feel while in a clinical or medical environment and temporary raised your blood pressure. It can be the busy or noisy environment or simply surrounded by nurses or doctors. In this case, the blood pressure readings taken at home are often lower than those taken at a doctor's office, whether a doctor or a nurse takes them. Readings taken away from the clinic by using a blood pressure monitor are now seen to give a more accurate result of your normal blood pressure.

My mom has high blood pressure and while she visited me two years ago, I bought her a Omron M10 Blood Pressure Monitor so that she could still monitor her blood pressure at my home. I also had the intention of her bringing it back to Malaysia because I heard that it was more expensive if she is to buy it there. This Omron monitor provides an accurate readings and gives us the ease and comfort of measuring our blood pressure at home and my mom loved it.