All shiny now

Then it was time for lunch. I used this Sharkfin melon to make spaghetti squash.

Oh yeah, sharkfin melon = spaghetti squash. You can find sharkfin squash at any supermarket.

Cook the sharfkin melon in preheated 375 F oven approximately 45 minutes or until flesh is tender.

Top with spaghetti sauce. Yum.

Me after last Friday’s visit to the hairdresser. Shorter hair, shorter bangs and more layers at the back. I like messy and non-straight hair.

***

Yesterday lunch was kept very light as I wasn’t feeling too well. I only grabbed a smoked chicken salad from a nearby cafe. Thank goodness my flu-like symptoms went away later that day!

Very light lunch = growling stomach by mid-afternoon. I had some homemade baked banana oatmeal cakes.

These banana oatmeal cakes were made using only 5 ingredients (excluding baking powder and baking soda). I enjoy very simple and easy-to-make food.

Ingredients

• 1 cup rolled oat
• 1/2 cup cornmeal (for crunchiness) – or 1/4 cup cornmeal + 1/4 cup dried quinoa
• 3 medium ripe bananas
• 3 tbsp peanut butter
• 2 tbsp raisins or cranberries
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda.

Method: Mix all ingredients in a bowl. Shape into balls and place onto a baking tray. Flatten lightly. Bake until brown and crispy on the outside.

Ingredients

• 2 very ripe medium bananas
• 1 cup toasted peanut
• 1/2 cup toasted walnut or cashew nut
• 3/4 cup ground almonds
• 1/2 cup rolled oats (plus more for coating at the end)
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 teaspoon vanilla

Method

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.. Process everything until it comes together in a sticky paste-like consistency. If too sticky, add more ground almonds. Form into mini balls and roll into rolled oats. Flatten them. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes or until crispy and golden.

Sticky paste-like consistency

Shape into balls, coat in rolled oat, flatten and pop into oven

After baking

Crispy on the outside

Corn thin + Marmite = new favourite bedtime snackie :)

Where did the weekend go?  I sure slept a lot. Oh I also baked these delicious flour-less and sugar-less naturally sweet cookies! Recipe to come soon.

Back to work tomorrow… Bleah. Goodnight!

So anyway, I came across this family photo, obviously taken during Christmas time. It was some time in 1983. Mama was holding me. Awww I miss being a kid. I miss our old christmas tree too.

I made some chocolate cookies for the colleagues.

I only used three icing colors

I think with practice I will be able to get more straight lines.

Each cookie was wrapped like this

At the Birthday Party ….

My adorable niece *muacks*

Here’s the recipe that I used

Vanilla Sugar Cookies

• 200 grams of caster sugar
• 2 large eggs.
• 1 tsp of vanilla.
• 450 grams of all-purpose flour, sifted.
• 200 grams of unsalted butter, diced.
• Extra flour for kneading and rolling.

1. In a bowl, mix sugar, vanilla and egg. Add the flour and the butter and keep mixing just until the dough comes together.
2. Knead the dough lightly by hand on your flour dusted kitchen counter and wrap it well in cling film and put it in a plastic bag. Chill the dough for 2 hours.
3. Preheat oven 170C.
4. Roll the dough on a sheet of parchment paper lightly dusted with flour.
5. Place the baking tray in the middle of the oven.
6. Bake cookies for 15-20 mins or till they are light golden brown.

Sugar Cookie Icing

• 1 cup confectioners’ sugar
• 2 teaspoons milk
• 2 teaspoons light corn syrup
• 1/4 teaspoon almond extract
• Assorted food coloring

1. In a small bowl, stir together confectioners’ sugar and milk until smooth. Beat in corn syrup and almond extract until icing is smooth and glossy. If icing is too thick, add more corn syrup.
2. Divide into separate bowls, and add food colorings to each to desired intensity. Dip cookies, or paint them with a brush.

My green monster consisted of:

• A handful of english spinach
• Frozen rasberries
• Vanilla milk (milk + vanilla essence)
• Sugar

I made it after my morning work out. It actually taste pretty good :)  You can’t taste the spinach at all!

Next time I will try using chinese baby spinach (instead of english baby spinach) because they are more readily available in supermarkets and they are super cheap — english baby spinach on the other hand costs $4.20 per 100g! Not cheap compared to other vegetables that cost around $1 per bunch –  But  I have a feeling chinese baby spinach is going to taste weird!  hmmm

Next …

On Monday I made Vietnamese Pan Fried Eggs. Very simple. I didn’t have all the ingredients that the recipe (from my latest recipe books) called for but it still tasted good with minced pork, chinese sausage, fish sauce, oyster sauce and 2 eggs.

On Tuesday night I baked about 70 chewy oatmeal chocolate chip cookies (the box above could only hold about 50 pieces)! When I made these the  first time, they were flat and runny. I managed to solve this problem by simply reducing the amount of sugar! I use 1/2 cups (instead of 3/4 cups) of caster sugar and 1/2 cups (instead of 3/4 cups) of brown sugar. They were still sweet but not overly sweet.

If you’re wondering what I did with those 70 cookies … well the kids ate them all during their school’s Track & Field camp! The husband’s primary school kids that is! Yes those little super active kids! Now, kids from another school where the husband also works, are asking me to bake cookies for them! :D  I am baking about 100 more cookies tonight!

I also made a reduced-fat version (above photo). Instead of 3/4 cups of margarine (or butter) which is rougly 170g, I used 70g of margarine + 100 g of applesauce. I had to flatten them before baking them because they wouldn’t drop. The reduced-fat version tasted good too and can satisfy a sweet craving. They were a little too soft though (like a flat muffin) — next time I will try to bake them longer.

Here’s the revised recipe for the oatmeal chocolate chip cookies

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup margarine, softened (for a reduced-fat version use 70g of margarine + 100 g of applesauce)
• 1/2 cup white caster sugar
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 3/4 cups rolled oats
• 3/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips (you can add raisins or nuts too)

Method

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).
2. In large bowl, cream together butter, white sugar, and brown sugar until smooth.
3. Add and beat in the eggs and vanilla until fluffy.
4. Stir together flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt.
5. Gradually beat into butter mixture.
6. Stir in oats and chocolate chips.
7. Drop by teaspoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets.
8. Bake 18 minutes in the preheated oven, or until golden brown.
9. Cool slightly, remove from sheet to wire rack. Cool completely.

Back to my cookies … So I followed both Oh She Glows and  Darlene’s recipe. Thanks for posting the recipe!  My cookies tasted great and were very soft and chewy — the most chewy cookies that I’ve ever baked. However, they were runny and flat.

Here they are, cookies Batch No 1. Runny and flat but tasty and chewy!!

It was so chewy and soft that it was hard to remove them from the pan. As a result, the cookies became really messy and ugly. So I decided to turn them into bars. I placed Batch No. 1 into a loaf pan and pressed them firmly till they stuck together. Then, I placed them into the fridge overnight.

The next morning …

This is how they looked like. They managed to hold together pretty well eh.

I present you my Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies Bars :)

After Batch No. 1 sorta failed, I thought it could be because I didn’t allow enough space in-between the cookies. So for my Batch No. 2, I allowed slightly more space in-between each cookie.

Unfortunately, Cookies Batch No. 2 turned out the same! They were easier to be removed from the pan though (I sprayed some cooking oil to the pan after Batch No. 1). I turned them into big and ugly cookies. I tried to make them into squarish cookies but it wasn’t really that easy.

Flat cookies hehe. You can’t tell  how chewy they are in these photos.

Well, I still love those chewy cookies despite being runny & flat. This recipe is definitely going into my recipe note book :)  Next time I will cut the brown sugar and white sugar to 1/2 cup each as the original ones are too sweet. I will also reduce the temperature to 325 F and add some extra flour to the batter to avoid the runny-and-flat problem, as were suggested by some reviewers.

Here is the recipe for the Chewy Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup margarine, softened
• 3/4 cup white sugar (I will cut down to 1/2 cups next time)
• 3/4 cup packed light brown sugar (I will cut down to 1/2 cups next time)
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 3/4 cups rolled oats
• 3/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips (you can add raisins or nuts too)

Method

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).
2. In large bowl, cream together butter, white sugar, and brown sugar until smooth.
3. Beat in the eggs and vanilla until fluffy.
4. Stir together flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt.
5. Gradually beat into butter mixture.
6. Stir in oats and chocolate chips.
7. Drop by teaspoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets.
8. Bake 18 minutes in the preheated oven, or until golden brown.
9. Cool slightly, remove from sheet to wire rack. Cool completely.

So …

I baked some Italian Orange Biscuits (with a little twist) on Sunday. The original recipe (from my baking book) uses orange zest only. My version has some extra fillings — chocolate chips and raisins! The combination of orange and chocolate is lovely! I also reduced the amount of butter and sugar a little bit. So the biscuits were not overly buttery and sweet.

This is yet another very easy recipe. Most of the time I look for  easy recipes that require minimal ingredients. So the biscuits consist of 80 – 90 grams of unsalted butter (original calls for 100  grams), 1 & 1/2 cups of plain flour, 1 & 2/3 cups of semolina, 2 eggs and 1/2 cups of caster sugar. I used less than that — maybe three-quarter of 1/2 cups. Just nice to my taste! So all these went into the food processor. How simple is that!

This is how I made each biscuit. A little time consuming but it’s all worth it.

Last step is to flatten the mini balls using your palm.

I made a few combinations:

• Original version i.e orange zest only.
• Original+ chocolate chips.
• Original + raisins.
• Original + chocolate chips + raisins.

My favourite is both the original and the original + chocolate chips :)  I’m not too fan of raisin fillings, unlike the husband. His favourite is original + raisins.

The taste?

They aren’t chewy cookies.  They are hard and crunchy (thanks to the semolina), like a biscoti but not as light as a biscotti. They are definitetly not too buttery. They are dry. I like my biscuits to be hard and dry. Well I also like chewy cookies.

Following is the recipe for Italian Orange Biscuits

Ingredients

• 100 grams unsalted butter, softened (I used only 80 – 90  grams)
• 1 & 1/2 cups of plain flour
• 1 & 2/3 cups of semolina
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cups of caster sugar (I used slightly less than 1/2 cups)

Method

Preheat oven 190 Celcius

Sift flour

Add all ingredients into a food processor

Process until all are combined. The original recipe says that the mixture is supposed to be soft but mine weren’t soft because I used less butter

Place in the fridge for 15 minutes

Shape into small balls and flatten each. Else place a tablespoon of the mixture onto a baking tray, then wet the palm of your hands and flatten them.

Bake for 15-20 minutes or until the edges are browned