Birthday Cupcakes

Made some cupcakes for hubby's birthday. Since using cupcakes as a birthday cake is so trendy these days, so why not right? It's pretty fun to make since I didn't make it too difficult. I used the vanilla cupcakes as the base and the butter cream frosting to frost the cupcakes. Oh man, it was really hard to do a good job with a little one crying and the other one kept asking for this and that! What a day!

I was really stingy with my butter cream as in I only spread a thin layer of cream on top because thinking it will all go into our body, so the less the better. Thus, left with lots of butter cream, next time will half the recipe, don't want to be wasteful. But if it's for a party of course the more the merrier as I know people do love to eat frosting. It also make a prettier presentation too.

Close up of my heart cupcake, signified the love we have for him. Not very good at piping so just "chin chai chin chai kao dim". Evy made him a birthday card, sang birthday song and even helped him to blow the candles. Oh, Evy helped in making the cupcakes too (mixing and stirring, her favorite part!).

Blog of The Month Award

I would like to thanks Singarishgirl for passing me this "Your Blog of The Month Award". Just happy that I can increase my collection of awards to be put on my front page. :D

Now, without further ado and joy I would like to pass it on to Big Boys Oven, Baking Mum, Precious Moment and KookyCulinary.

Easy Thanksgiving Meal 2007

Definitely not a traditional meal at all because we had our Thanksgiving meal a day after. Yup! You heard it right. Why? My hubby lor! Everything was prepared for me to cook for dinner. We were planning to go out for lunch just some where close to our house (Denny's or IHOP) as we did every year. But last second hubby decided to drive to Denver to eat some Chinese food (hoping that nobody called him during that time, oh yeah, he was on-called), so off we went. When we reached Denver, it was like 2+pm and we were served dinner menu. We ordered salt & pepper crab (hubby said less messy to eat), salt and pepper pork ribs and HK kailan in garlic sauce. And we were served with free dessert, green beans sago sweet soup! (Oh wow, like this one I cooked before!). After that, we went to buy some "Ham Chin Pengs" and Fried Glutinous Rice Balls with mung beans filling, large BoBa Yam Milk Drink and headed home. Got home around 5pm and we were still soooo fulled that we decided to skip dinner. So the "Ham Chin Pengs" and Fried Glutinous Rice Balls became our quick dinner. And thus resulted in Thanksgiving meal served on Friday. I can only do this because I didn't have to bake a turkey and no guests to expect. If not, how can? Sharing with you what I intended to cook on Thanksgiving day.


Clockwise from left: Maple Glazed Carrot with Toasted Walnuts, Cut Green Beans with Crispy Shallots, Pan-sealed Chicken Breasts in Sage, Mashed Potatoes.


Serve with yummy Gravy and Toasts spread with toasted garlic in EVOO.



Oh man, this turned out to be so good! Even the two little ones wiped their plates cleaned. I was really surprised at little Edda, she even asked for second helping of carrots and green beans!! Not very traditional without the Turkey but hubby said no turkey, I guess he wouldn't want to eat the leftover for days.

I cooked my carrots, green beans and potatoes in Swanson 100% fat free and zero MSG chicken stock before adding other stuff to it, thus making it more flavorful. I didn't want to make my usual Sweet Potatoes Pie because I still have cupcakes and Tiramisu in the fridge. Really don't want to overeat my sweet so decided to postpone it.

Vanilla Cupcakes

I have been eyeing this recipe for a while. It has been popping up at a few food blogs I frequent and I have been wanting to try it. Finally did it today using the recipe posted by Hugbear here. I followed her recipe by using the brown sugar and white sugar and the exact reduced amount. It turned out just sweet enough for me. Thanks LeeLee for sharing. :)
Note: For those who had tried the original recipe all stated it was too sweet.



This cupcake is really a winner because it is so soft and fluffy! Even days later, it is still soft. This modified version of Hugbear's cupcakes are infused with the fragrant of brown sugar. Next time just remember to cut the recipe into half because the original recipe yields 24 cupcakes!! I forgot to cut the recipe into half (she didn't say how much this recipe yields) and kept looking for baking pans to fill the batter. Thus, the 6 cupcakes pan and mini bundt pan were used. Have to ask my hubby to bring some to work because I don't want to eat sooooo many cupcakes!

Spicy Hot & Sour Chicken

I saw this Beachlover's Spicy Hot and Sour Tilapia Fish and decided to give it a try. I like her idea of the sauce, incorporating Tom Yam paste instead of tomato sauce in her sweet and sour sauce. As you know, I also use Tom Yam paste in my stir-fry as this post here. So, let's get cooking! Instead of the fish, I stir-fry some chicken breasts to cook with the sauce. It's indeed a very good sauce, not only good for fish and chicken, but pork as well. Do give it a try! This sauce is slightly spicy, sweet and sour with hint of Tom Yam flavor.

Delimas Assam Seafood Paste (Assam Fish)

I wanted to try this Delimas Assam Seafood Paste for awhile but just never really gotten a chance to do so. Perhaps I was thinking of getting the similar fish like those shown in the picture of the packet before I cooked it. But, months went by and I just didn't see it (or I never walked on the fish aisle when I was in the Asian Market). Anyway, long story short, I decided not to wait anymore and took out my frozen Tilapia fillets and started cooking.

I coated my fish fillets with rice flour and pan-fried until golden brown, set aside. Then, I followed the instruction at the back of the packet, mixed 350ml of water with the paste and let boiled, then added in the frozen okras (fresh ones are best of course) and let it simmered for 10 minutes. Pour the sauce and okras on a plate and placed the fried fish fillets on top and top with more Assam sauce before serving. (Sorrylah, no tomato!)

This is how the packet looks like. For those who lives in the U.S., you can buy it online at mytasteofasia.com. If you like Assam Fish, you will like this! If you have tried this paste, how you cooked yours and what fish did you use?