Buddha Fruit Tongsui for General Wellbeing

This is a Goon family favourite (well at least Peter Goon's 3rd wife ~ my granny). She would make this pleasant sweet drink whenever the weather turns hot and cold like the current weird weather spell or whenever one of us shows symptoms of a flu bug.

This drink is believed to expel dry heat from one's body. What is dry heat? One of the symptoms would be a dry mouth and dry eyes. And its also present when you have dry cough. Lo Han Kuo assist in loosening the phelgm.

Albeit this drink is sweet, the sweetness comes from the fruit Lo Han Kuo which is naturally sweet. Its commonly used in many traditional soups.

The bitter sweet almond is also an excellent ingredient that is used to treat coughs.

Ingredients:

• 2 litres of water

• 2 lo han kuo (Buddha Fruit)

• 2 dried sweet dates (mat chou)

• 80g bitter sweet almonds (known as lam hang pak hang)

Instructions:

• Rinse all ingredients with water.

• Break the lo han kuo into half. Break the ball of seeds. Use the shell and the seeds inside.

• Place all in pot with water.

• Bring to boil.

• Then reduce fire to slow boil for an hour.

Serve warm although its equally delightful cold. The almonds are lightly crunchy and goes well with the soup.

And if one prefers savoury soup then you may add pork or chicken and boil following the above steps.

You may put in hard boiled eggs if you like. Granny used to put chicken eggs for the adults and quail eggs

for the kids. I opted not to put in eggs today as my tummy is still not keen on certain flavours ever since the viral fever.

Well there you go...an easy dessert good for the body and the soul.

Orange Poppy Seed Cakes

It was one of those weekends that I stayed home. While hubby napped, I decided I craved Orange Poppy Seed Cake and didn't have the heart to wake him up to head out for tea and cakes. So I opted to bake (for humans this time). Yes I baked my own orange poppy seed cake from scratch. Its quite simple except that I should have just monitored my cake a wee more during the baking session:P

Ingredients:

• 125ml milk

• 1/2 cup poppyseeds (original called for 1/3 but I love poppy seeds so I added more)

• 1/4 cup sunflower seed (I added this for some added bite and flavour)

• 180g unsalted butter

• 200g caster sugar

• 1 tsp vanilla extract

• 3 eggs

• 1 tablespoon finely grated orange zest (optional)

• 125ml freshly squeezed orange juice

• 375g plain flour

• 2 teaspoon baking powder

Method:

• Preheat oven to 180°C (depending on oven).

• Grease baking tray / pan. And if you're using a silicone pan, skip the greasing and merely sprinkle some flour on your silicone tray.

• Stir poppyseed into milk.

• Beat butter, sugar and vanilla in the bowl of an electric mixer until light.

• Add eggs one at a time. Beat well before you add in the next egg.

• Fold in orange zest, orange juice, sunflower seeds and poppyseed mixture.

• Add flour and baking powder to above ingredients. Fold well.

• Bake 45 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean.

I mentioned that I should have monitored my oven during baking. This cracked cake is due to me baking at too high temperature. Nevertheless it was yummy (well my parents and hubby loved it). I shared a little with furkid Shalom as I wasn't all too sure about poppyseeds and dogs.

Serve your cake with a dollop of good vanilla ice cream and tea or even eat it on its own. Its a brilliant tea time idea!

Recipe: Banana Carob Peanut Butter Cookies

We baked yet another lot of cookies for Shalom. Its also part of her Goodnight Cookies series. We have to vary the flavours or else the girl is going to frown at her cookies and leave crumbs all over the house when she plays with them instead of eating them.

Ingredients:

2 tablespoon of crunchy peanut butter (creamy works just as well)

200g bananas (that's about 3 pieces of Dole bananas)

1 tablespoon of carob

100ml olive oil

150ml cold water

1 egg beaten (for brushing)

400g flour

Method:

• Mix peanut butter, banana and carob well. It will look mushy.

• Add in oil to the mushy mixture.

• Add flour to the oily mushy mixture.

•Add water slowly as you knead the flour and mushy mixture into a firm dough. Break the carob bits as you knead.

• Flatten dough till 1.5cm or thinner if furkids don't have strong teeth. Cut to your choice shape.

• Glaze with egg.

• Place on lightly greased pan.

• Bake in oven at 160C for 20 minutes or until firm.

• Let cookie cool and harden before storing in air tight containers.

You'll notice that the recipe for Shalom's cookeies are pretty much similar. I just play around with different "flavoured"ingredient e.g. cod, peanut butter, pumpkin or even peanut butter. So have fun experimenting with what is good for your furkid or what your furkid likes best.

Carob is a safe alternative to chocolates. Chocolates are poisonous to dogs so I use Carob which is somewhat similar tasting but a wee bitter to replace chocolate. You can get Carob at good organic or baking shops.

#1 egg is more than sufficient to glaze the cookies. So I normally beat the egg and reserve only 1/3 of the mixture for glazing. The other 2/3 is added into the cookie mix.

Goodnight Cookies

Baked Shalom some of her fave "Goodnight Cookies". Some good home made goodness in her treats without any preservatives, colouring or artificial flavouring.

Simple and easy to make and it's quite yummy for humans too. A wee like our bread sticks.

Preparation time including baking is about 45 minutes.

Ingredients:

200g cod fish (or chicken meat)

125ml olive oil

170ml cold water (or meat broth if you're using meat)

1 egg beaten (for brushing)

300g gluten free flour

50g wheatgerm

5g of preferred herbs / spices (I use Italian herbs and cinnamon)

Method:

• Mix flour, wheatgerm, tuna, olive oil, half of egg mixture, herbs and spices well.

• Then add water bit by bit and knead till it becomes a firm dough

• Flatten dough (until approximately 1.5 cm high) on a lightly floured surface. Cut into desired shapes.

• Place cut out cookies on a greased baking pan.

• Brush with egg mixture

• Bake in 160C oven for 20 minutes or until firm.

• Let it cool and harden for about an hour before storing in bottles.

## If you're using meat, boil the meat to make the broth. Then separate meat from broth. Once the chicken is cool, tear it into slices.

## Gluten free flour is a bit harder to roll out. So use regular white flour if you need to.

The above keeps in the fridge for up to 4 weeks and a week in room temperature.

Carmel's Kitchen: Chicken Shepherd's Pie (you've to be kidding me)

I made my first Chicken Shepherds Pie for a potluck. I'll admit I was very apprehensive about it. Chicken Shepherd's Pie didn't sound right. Most of my pals also thought so. Afterall, I've always made them with either beef or lamb and would include bacon bits in it for that extra oomph. Plus chicken is really quite a flat tasting meat.

Why chicken then? Well I needed a neutral dish for my pals at the potluck who were one of the following:

(a) Muslims (pork is OUT)

(b) Hindu (beef is OUT)

(c) don't eat 4 legged animals (lamb is OUT)

I apologise that I forgot to make a small pan of vegetarian for my vegetarian pals like Krish (I'll make up to you one of these days).

Ingredients for an easy peasie Chicken Shepherd's Pie:

• 500g of chicken breast

• 1 can of button mushroom (approximately 420g)

• 2 sticks of celery

• 1 large carrots

• 1 large onion

• 500g of potatoes

• 1 bay leaf

• 1/2 cup chicken broth (I normally keep lil bags of these in my fridge so I don't have to waste extra time making these)

• 250ml of cream

• 120g of grated cheddar cheese

• 120ml of fresh milk

• Olive oil

• Garlic butter

• 1 tablespoon of Worcester sauce

• Pepper & Italian Spice for seasoning

Instructions:

(1) Steam or boil the potatoes. I prefer to steam them to retain the flavour and juices.

(2) While waiting for the potatoes to be ready, I slice the chicken and marinate it with 1 table spoon of Worcester sauce and a dash of pepper plus Italian spice.

(3) Dice the carrots, celery and onions.

(4) Saute bay leaf, carrots, celery, mushroom and onions in the garlic butter. Add pepper and Italian spice to your liking.

(5) While waiting for the items in (4) to cook, mash the potatoes and stir in milk. Add pepper to taste. Mix in grated cheddar cheese.

(6) Once the carrots have soften, add in the chicken.

(7) Lightly brown the chicken to seal in the juice.

(8) Pour in the cream. Add the chicken broth so that the cream envelopes the chicken, carrots, celery, onion and mushrooms.

(9) Place mixture (8) into baking dish.

(10) Distribute mashed potatoes on the top.

(11) Use fork to rough up the top of the mashed potatoes so that they can brown at certain peaks for some added "crunch".

(13) Bake in oven at 150C for 20 minutes or until the creamy mixture of chicken boils and the mashed potatoes brown a little.

I've added cheddar cheese into the mashed potato for some added flavour. And if you're adventurous, you may want to use Mozzarella to top the mashed potatoes for more extra zing (I wasn't too sure how adventurous my white mice pals were at the potluck so I omitted the Mozzarella).

Bon Appetit:D

-----> I think it tasted OK that night although I still prefer the ground beef version:D

Kitchen solutions from Samsung

I love eating as much as I love cooking. But have never been cooking as much as I like because:

• busy busy busy with work
• not having the most equipped kitchen
• cooking isn't as easy as eating:P

But really if one has a properly equipped kitchen and some basic know hows, cooking can be a breeze for any career woman. Samsung to the rescue. Aptly named Samsung Kitchen Solution "Designed for your extraordinary life" the line of hob, hood and oven as I saw in Harvey Norman at Ikano is simply a life saver.

Does it have to be expensive? Nope! For the offerings of a hood and ceramic / induction hob, the prices ranges from RM2999 (ceramic) (normal price RM3598) to RM5399 (induction) (normal price RM6498). The top up deals promo (when you purchase the above hood and hob packages) for the ovens are certainly too good to be resisted. Ovens range from RM2300 (normal price RM2799) to Rm3300 (normal price RM3999).
Now price sounds good, the features have to be good and also look good or else what's the point?
I've always hated cooking the conventional way mainly because of the fear that a lousy hood means the whole kitchen is going to be greasy and stinky. Samsung has launched 2 hoods which do not take up a lot of space (60cm and 90cm width that should fit easily into any kitchen). What is interesting is the aluminium filter which are easy to clean unlike the conventional carbon, paper and flease that cost more to change. And you can just imagine if you do not change it often enough, the hood certainly will not function at its optimum.

And the halogen light on the hood will ensure that you can see what you are cooking easily. Speaking from experience unless the hood has proper lighting, chances are your cooking are isn't going to be properly illuminated.

Induction and ceramic hobs are a God sent creation especially when you have kids lurking around in the house. With a fire stove, they either will set the house on fire or play with fire and burn themselves. Parents will be pleased and relieved that all Samsung hobs come with child safety locks to ensure kids don't get themselves burnt by the heat. And with the induction hobs, heat is only generated when the ceramic glass comes in contact with induction compatible cookware e.g. stainless steel, cast iron and enamel.

I've heard complains about ceramic or induction hobs. Amongst which are:
• water cannot boil
• uneven heating

Samsung has launched the induction hob that features heating via induction coils under the ceramic glass surface. With the ceramic hobs, it features four high tech zones with powerful radiant heater to ensure even and quick heating.

And the induction hob has me going in wows...I love using the grill pan and big pots (macamlah I cook for a big family:P). And my complain has always been ceramic hobs in the market doesn't cater to the grill pans simply because of the cooking area. With Samsung's induction hob, there is a huge square area that is huge enough for most grill pans. And Samsung ceramic hobs also feature a multipurpose cooking zone called the Anydish Zone to accomodate cookware of varying size. This unique feature is again to ensure even cooking!
And if you hate cleaning up gas stoves, ceramic hoods is the solution! Simply wipe of the grime with a soft cloth. No need to poke and squeeze the finger to try to clean up spills under the ring.

Ovens have been my favourite ever since I owned my very first convection microwave oven. I have thus progressed to ovens and they are a life saver because I can bake, roast and even grill in one little box:P And with modified dishes I no longer have to clean the whole kitchen after whipping out a meal.
I made up my mind that my next oven must come from Samsung. It features twin convection which means I can now cook 2 dishes at 2 different temperatures on 2 different levels. Amazing isn't it? Mind you this isn't Samsung saying it. I witnessed it with my own eye balls when Chef Ricky from Cilantro demonstrated when he whipped out a backed chicken teriyaki, mini pizza and chocolate walnut cookies to the amazement of the crowd at Harvey Noman recently.

And the Samsung ovens get extra brownie points from lazy people like me. Not because it has a scratch resistant ceramic interior that allows grease to be wiped off easily with a damp cloth. BUT beacuse it features pyrolytic cleaning. The pyrolytic cleaning means that lazy people like don't have to lift a finger to the oven. It is a self cleaning system that works by "superheating" the oven to 500C to burn off any deposits from our bake, roast or grill sessions. Brilliant isn't it?

They look good. And they work absolutely well as I witnessed. So for those who's looking to upgrade their kitchen or shop for a new kitchen, hurry up to Harvey Norman or selected Samsung outlets to grab the current promotion and of course the fabulous kitchen solutions.

A twist to pain perdu

Pain perdu is not pain in your joints or anything. It means "lost bread" in French. I must admit lost bread doesn't mean anything else except perhaps you lost your bread or did the bread lose its way?

Seriously pain perdu is french toast as we all know it. Originally pain perdu was designed to put stale bread to good use instead of throwing it away.

I've made a twist to the regular french toast for breakfast this morning. I wanted something filling, something for me to play around in one of my favourite playgrounds - Carmel's Kitchen. And I opted to bake so that I don't have to mop the floor again.

It took less than 10 minutes to prepare and while it sat in the oven for 10 minutes, I was cleaning up the kitchen.

Ingredient:
• 1 egg
• 30 ml of milk
• Cinnamon, Freshly ground black pepper and Italian herbs to taste
• 4 slices of thick cut bread (any bread will do...not necessarily stale bread but stale bread makes better pain perdu)
• Grated cheese (any cheese will do)
• 2 gourmet sausages

Instructions:
• Soak bread in milk thoroughly.
• Beat egg with cinnamon, freshly ground black pepper and Italian herbs.
• Soak bread in egg mixture.
• Place bread on baking tray.
• Arrange sliced sausages on the bread.
• Top with cheese.
• Sprinkle with a little Italian herbs for some extra flavour when you bite into the cheese.
• Bake in a preheated oven at 150C for 10 minutes till cheese melts.
Bake a little longer if you like the whole toast to be crispy. I prefer mine to be crisp on the outside and slightly soft inside.
By not mixing the egg and milk as most recipes suggest, you basically get the egg to coat the goodness and flavours of the milk inside. You can imagine that every bite into the toast is an explosion of flavours in layers.

I don't make french toast with stale bread though...never seem to have them at home. And would normally go for bread with a whole lot of grains, nuts and seeds in them for some extra ooomph.

You can actually make it sans cheese and sausage. Then you top it with maple syrup, yoghurt and some fresh fruits for a wholesome healthy breakfast.

Oh! Serve it with some salad on the side for a complete meal.

Working on a Sunday

Here I am. Working on a glorious Sunday. The skies are clear which means that I should be doing any of the following:

Touge somewhere randomly. Camerons sounds good. So does Genting.

OR

Running

OR

Checking out good food somewhere

OR

Cooking / Baking 

OR 

having a picnic somewhere with Shalom and her pals!

But...here I am in office working. LOL

Consolation, I had a hearty breakfast with hubby and Johnson. Bumped into Douglas and Natasha and caught up about our furkids. OK...its back to work:D

Which reminds me...if you missed the previous MACC shows, hurry up and grab your tickets from PJLA!

Carmel's Kitchen: hawaiian bacon pizza

Carmel's Kitchen is one of my favourite makan places.

Its homely, no MSG, no fuss...no worries about table manners.

And one of the all time favourite is the Hawaiian Bacon Pizza. Its crispy and oozing with flavour from the cheese and bacon. A 9" pizza packs layers of bacon all over. Its bacon under the pineapple. Bacon over the pineapple. Its bacon galore all the way!

The tangy sweet fresh pineapples are not canned ones.

All the above on a crisp thin pizza base.

If you like yours super cheesy just tell kitchen that and it'll be dribbling with cheese. Creamy on the inside and crunchy on the outside.

I asked for permission to peep into Carmel's Kitchen when they made the pizza...Here's how it goes:
• 9" Pizza base
• Tomato base
• 250g bacon
• Italian herbs
• Grated Mozarella and Cheddar Cheese
• Chopped pineapple

1 Spoon tomato base onto pizza base.
2 Place 1/2 of the bacon onto the pizza base.
3 Sprinkle pineapple
4 Place the remaining bacon over the pineapple and any other uncovered parts

5 Sprinkle cheese all over
6 Sprinkle the Italian herbs

7 Bake for 10 minutes at 200C

Now you can eat:D

Carmel's Kitchen is at:
www.3bittersweetlemon.blogspot.com

Or chat them at @missyblurkit OR @divashalom