The husband was watching something on YouTube the other day and I happened to look over his shoulder and saw this video about Korean strawberry milk and thought, hey the kids would love that.

It was simply a kind of strawberry jam (mashed strawberries cooked with sugar then cooled), and milk, also, some small diced strawberries. I’ve also seen recipes which macerate the sugar and strawberries for an hour. There are other recipes which blitz the strawberries into a puree. But the one I tried was just a simple mashed and cooked strawberry jam, and an additional chopped fresh strawberries.

The kids loved it! They’ve never had fresh strawberry milk – and really, the commercial strawberry milk is quite disgusting and is just pink-coloured sweetened milk.

And since it was Father’s Day, I made a Gula Melaka Pandan chiffon cake. I’ve made quite a few pandan cakes before – and wrote a detailed post here. 

But if those ingredients are new to you, pandan is a fragrant leaf that is used in Southeast Asian foods and sweets – you can use it to flavour rice, curries, make refreshing drinks, it’s also added to cakes and kuehs. It’s very aromatic and somewhat floral despite the fact that it’s just a long thin leaf.

Gula Melaka is palm sugar popular in Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore. It usually comes in a small cylinder block as it is traditionally formed using bamboo moulds. They are usually dark brown in colour and has hints of toffee, caramel. In Singapore, Gula Melaka is in the form of a syrup in many desserts like Ondeh-ondeh, Sago Gula Melaka, Chendol.

This Gula Melaka Pandan cake (recipe here) uses Gula Melaka in place of the sugar, except for the sugar in the whisked egg whites. It wasn’t the easiest thing to do, whisking the egg yolks and the Gula Melaka together, as the Gula Melaka tends to clump together and doesn’t fully dissolve into the whisked yolks as caster sugar would. The recipe does suggest that the egg and Gula Melaka batter can be sieved, to remove the lumps, but I felt that would be such a waste of Gula Melaka (which my parents had brought over from Singapore for me, as it’s not the easiest thing to find in the US). So I left it in, lumps and all.

Usually, lumps would not be a welcome sight in chiffon cakes, but I think this one, with its little bits of undissolved Gula Melaka, was quite unique and delicious. (You can see a small Gula Melaka bit in the cut cake)

Weekend Cooking was started by Beth Fish Reads and is now hosted by The Intrepid Reader and is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, beer, wine, photographs

Hi! It’s the weekend again, and I have missed out on posting these Weekend Cooking ones for a bit. So this is a kind of a round up on what we’ve been cooking and eating over the past couple of weeks.

One of our local ramen places opened up again last weekend and we were quick to place our order – when my husband went in to pick up, he said the owner looked really happy.

And they had my kids’ favourite – the lychee slush with lychee jelly. I later tried some of that with a shot of gin – delicious!

Another takeout dish that’s becoming a favourite of ours is Indian-style pizza. The last time we tried a tikka paneer one (which has a spicy garlic sauce, lots of coriander, peppers, onions and chilli, along with the paneer). And this time we did a half-tikka paneer and a half-malai chicken. The malai sauce is a kind of curry sauce so it had more spices in it. And both were really tasty. We also ordered a half-combination, half-Hawaiian for the kids. Both the husband and I preferred the Indian-style pizzas.

In terms of cooking, here’s what we recently made.

My kids’ favourite – Japanese curry. I made it with chicken, cabbage, carrots, and broccoli stems.

The kids made a brownie, pretty much by themselves. I helped chop the chocolate, put things in and take them out of the microwave and the oven, but the rest was on them. They declared it the best brownie ever.

I made my usual tangzhong bread – one Hokkaido milk bread and one raisin bread. I wrote about the tangzhong method in a previous post. 

A very veggie risotto – so I have been hesitating about making risotto recently as I haven’t managed to get my hands on Parmesan! And on all previous risotto cooks, I have always used Parmesan. So I wasn’t sure if this was a good idea, Parmesan-free risotto. But I had this craving for it. And we had a big box of mushrooms to eat up, and I decided to mix it up and add more vegetables with a lot of broccoli and carrots too.

I parboiled the broccoli (chopped into small pieces) and carrots in the stock that was simmering on the stove, removing them after a few minutes so it didn’t overcook. And while that was happening, I panfried the sliced mushrooms. Then removed them. After that, I continued with the risotto in the usual risotto fashion – adding in some chopped shallots, garlic, before adding the risotto to the pot. I didn’t have white wine (horrors) but I did have gin. Haha, so I tried adding in a bit of gin, not sure if that did anything to it. The stock I used was a Better than Bouillon chicken stock. And in the end, instead of the Parmesan, I added in some small torn-up pieces of fresh Mozzarella that I did have. It was delicious!

The risotto was served with Asian-style bone-in pork chops (marinated in black bean sauce, honey, soy sauce, five-spice powder, minced garlic, ginger, and shallots).

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It was my younger son’s birthday yesterday and his request was for a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting.

So on Thursday morning, in between working with the two kids on their school work, managing their screen time, various Zoom sessions etc, I made this Fudge Birthday Cake from King Arthur Flour. (If you’re a regular-ish reader, you may know that I’ve used a lot of King Arthur Flour recipes!). And I made the mistake of letting him sample a small bit of the cake.

He was not a fan.

I thought it was fine. It had that chocolate fudge cake quality where the chocolate taste comes from cocoa powder. I don’t know, maybe he was expecting a more chocolate-y cake?

I did not want an unhappy birthday boy so I wrapped it up, set it aside in our freezer for another day (Mother’s Day perhaps? hahaha). And went ahead with a funfetti cake, as I know he always loves that one.

Just last month, I made one for the 9yo’s birthday with a deliciously strawberry buttercream. This time I went with this rainbow sprinkle cake recipe from the New York Times, and this chocolate frosting recipe from KAF. 

Luckily, I had added in an order of rainbow sprinkles to our delivery from Target the weekend before (which included toiletries, lots of snacks, and a new bicycle helmet for the birthday boy – he also got a new bike not from Target).

And since baking two cakes wasn’t enough for one day, I also tried making bagels for the first time. I used this recipe from King Arthur Flour. The article on how to shape bagels was helpful too, but from my not quite regular looking bagels, I definitely need more practice!

For my first attempt, they were not too bad, I reckon! They may look a little mishapened but they tasted great and the boiling was easier than I thought it would be – not sure why I was apprehensive about that now…I thought it might deflate after boiling and popping it onto the baking tray but it was actually ok.

We had them for breakfast next day, slightly toasted. Delicious!

Weekend Cooking at Beth Fish Reads is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, beer, wine, photographs

I’ve been thinking recently of how the shelter-in-place has affected our relationship with food. Like many others, we are trying to keep our grocery store visits to the minimum. Last week, we had our first ever somewhat successful Whole Foods delivery. We are not really Whole Foods shoppers, partly because the parking lot is always terrible, and partly because I tend to shop at Asian supermarkets. So it was a learning curve, ordering groceries online from a store we don’t usually patronise. There were items that went out of stock when the delivery times were available, and when we went back to add them in, no more delivery times. But the husband was lucky on Sunday morning and we received our first delivery a few hours later, missing quite a few things, and getting far less chicken drumsticks than I wanted (just over 1 pound instead of 3!). And also the limitations on staples like flour.

I’ve been focusing more on produce that keeps better, like broccoli, cauliflower, cucumbers, carrots. Surprisingly, the asparagus has kept well too.

Generally, dinners are ok. I am fine cooking dinners, as that is something I always do. I am glad the family is ok with all the random things that I come up with. Sometimes it’s noodles, sometimes rice and dishes like one meat, a vegetable, a soup (which is what I grew up on in Singapore although my mum cooked fish a lot more often than I do), a lot of pasta dishes, some casserole type things like shepherd’s pie.

But it’s the lunches I find harder. Maybe because I typically like to eat sandwiches for lunch. Or soup. I would be happy having a sandwich every day, except that it’s not exactly a good idea to have processed meat so often. Especially when it comes to the kids. So we’ve been trying to mix it up a little bit, egg salad one day, ham sandwich another day, clam chowder, tomato soup. Some days the kids might have chicken nuggets.

The other day, I decided to try making flatbread, something new. The 6yo was eager to try kneading the dough.

I used this recipe from Recipe Tin Eats and it was super easy, just flour, butter, milk, and salt. It rests for just half an hour and cooks on the cast iron pan on the stovetop. I made just the amount that the recipe calls for (4 flatbreads), but next time I may make another batch or two to keep in the fridge. The flatbread actually tastes a little like roti prata, which is a popular South Asian dish in Singapore, eaten with curry. After this successful run, I’ve got my eye on this recipe for Spiced beef flatbread, Chinese-style. And this one for Gozleme, a Turkish flatbread.

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I wasn’t sure if I wanted to post this at first, as I have made a version of this cake last year (see not just once but twice)

But in times like these, perhaps there is nothing better to post about than a colourful sprinkles-filled (and topped) birthday cake. I used this recipe from Salt and Baker.

Also I must say that I love this strawberry frosting, which is so easy to make if you can find freeze dried strawberries. I first made it two years ago (also for a birthday cake). And this time reduced the icing sugar even further, mostly because I didn’t have enough (haha!). I used about 1 1/4 cups of unsalted butter, about 1 3/4 cups of icing sugar (possibly less – do note that the original recipe calls for 4 cups of icing sugar to 1 cup of butter ), 1 cup of freeze-dried strawberries, also quite a bit of salt as I really didn’t want it to be that sweet. And the kids still loved it!

Despite the unusual circumstances, the birthday boy said he had a great day anyway!

I also made burger buns for the first time, as the birthday boy loves cheeseburgers. I used this King Arthur Flour recipe and they turned out great!

Weekend Cooking at Beth Fish Reads is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, beer, wine, photographs

And so yes, I went on a panic buy. Just for a few extra things after I heard that our county in the Bay Area was one of the six announcing “shelter in place” that would begin 1201am Tuesday. I learnt of the news just after lunch on Monday (the schools had announced closure the Friday before) and immediately the husband went to Trader Joe’s to grab milk, more fruits, bread. When he returned, I popped into our closest Asian supermarket for noodles, some frozen bao, fresh vegetables. I was hoping to also get some tofu and chicken but none was to be found. I was worried about the lines getting longer – and also staying out too long with possible COVID-19 carriers – so I didn’t want to wait at the seafood or fresh meat counter.

Anyway, we do have supplies at home like rice, flour and other staples. It’s more like the fresh produce that may require a trip to the supermarket next week. But for now we are doing ok. Hope you are too.

But with four people at home for all meals plus snacks, I am thankful that my kids are the kind who are happy to have sandwiches for lunch several days in a row!

Here are some of the meals I’ve made over the lockdown week so far:

Noodles with chicken, bean sprouts, prawns and enoki mushrooms.

Pizza with asparagus and bacon

Oatmeal chocolate chip cookies

Over the weekend, I’m thinking of making a baked Mac and cheese to freeze. Maybe make some more pizza dough to pop into the freezer. I don’t have any tortillas at the moment, but I was thinking of making some freezer burritos, either breakfast style with scrambled eggs, bacon and potatoes, or regular with black beans, rice, and cheese.

Another thought I had was to make some wonton or dumplings to freeze.

What meals do you make ahead to freeze? I always make extra bolognese sauce to freeze, and whenever I make waffles at home, I always triple the batch to have extra to freeze. I also like to have homemade pizza rolls in the freezer which are a quick school lunch idea. And when I make bread, I tend to make two loaves at a time, and stick one in the freezer. Otherwise, I’m not quite sure that the Chinese-style food that we cook is all that freezer-friendly.

Weekend Cooking at Beth Fish Reads is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, beer, wine, photographs