Thursday, January 03, 2008

Happy 2008!!!!





Hah! My camera went MIA on me a few days before my trip to KL. I've only managed a few pictures using the handphone. One of it is the template grafitti we saw while spending our times on the KL streets at 5am. Yup! 5am. And then there was the advneture with F's missing hp.

We kinda guessed that his hp was stolen from him while we were having supper before catching our midnight bus to KL. We didn't realised it till we board the bus & was trying to place the hp on silent mode. To cut the story short, a guy sms me and informed that he bought the phone from someone for RM250. The guy saw the many sms that I sent to F that he still kept.. some dating years back when we were still dating (ain't he sweet..? F...not the guy who found the hp). He req that we pay him SGD 100 to have our hp back. Of course there were alot of speculations abt the integrity of this fella. But at the end of the day, I would still believe in the fact that there are still genuine kindness in this world. We paid and got the hp back.

Other than that... been trying my hand on a few recipes... some successful, one flopped, literally.

The second pix is the Pizza Pie:

Dough
500g Plain Flour
1 egg
1 tbs milk powder
1/2 tps salt
1/2 tbs sugar
6g instant yeast (abt 1/2 tbs)
1/4 cup corn oil, olive oil... or any veg oil
Water

1. Mix bit of water with the instant yeast and sugar
2. Mix everything else except the oil and water
3. Pour in the yeast mixture
4. Slowly work the water in until it becomes a dough
5. Pour in the oil and knead the dough until it becomes nice and smooth
6. Let dough rise a bit (I saw in one of Jamie's cooking show that for making pizza, you dun have to let the dough rise at all.. let it rise in the oven... I am yet to try this)
7. Roll out dough into a pie tin....add in the yummy fillings (see below)
8. Cover the top with a very thin layer of the dough
9. Bake until golden brown

Fillings
1. Mozarella cheese, grated
2. Mince beef - pre fried with garlic, onions, salt and pepper until it turns nice and firm
3. Eggplants (eggplant and cheese is sooooo yummy)
4. Mushrooms (any kind... it works well with cheese.. but i'm allergic to mushroom...but oh well, once in a while, I'll live with abit of rash on my arms... go ahead judge!)

The third pix to the right of the pizza pie is the flopped flourless choc cake. I was trying to be super super super experimental. I used the Flourless Cake Recipe from Martha and try to incorporate it into a tart, cos I have one more tart case wating to be filled in the freezer. I dunno where I went wrong.. still trying to study the recipe.

Then I decided to be a good girl and follow the book. So I used Jamie's recipe:
From Jamie Oliver, The Naked Chef (it is his very very first book, I think)

Baked Choc Tart
1 Tart shell, baked blind

140g unsalted butter
150g best quality cooking choc (70% cocoa solids) - I used my Tulip brand ;-)
8 tbs cocoa powder, sifted (I used Hershey's....and have to buy a sifter just for this recipe...)
small pinch of salt
4 eggs (Singapore's eggs are small, I used 6)
200g caster sugar
3 tbs golden syrup
3 medium heaped tbs sour cream or cream fraiche

1. Place butter, choc, cocoa and salt into a bowl over a simmering pot of simmering water.
(double boil....??)
2. In a seperate bowl (duh!) beat the eggs and sugar until light and well creamed
3. Add the golden syrup and sour cream
4. Mix the melted stuff to the eggs mixture.. or vice versa....
5. Pour into the tart case and bake for 40- 45mins

According to Jamie, during the cooking, a beautifoool crust will form on top.
Once done, you have to remove it from the tin and let it cool for at least 45mins before cutting it.
Of course I didn't wait THAT long. It was yummy.. But i supp I didn't bake long enough to have a real crusty crust on top. But it sure taste yummy. Though a tad bit on the sweeter side. Maybe...maybe.. My cooking chocs is alrdy sweet enuf and with all the added sugar and golden syrup. It gave quite a sugar rush. Next time, i'll skip on the golden syrup... anyways I am proud to announce that I've used up allllll the golden syrup I had in the fridge. I think it had almost been a year. heheh