Christmas Cookies???

Well Christmas its defintely not around the coner but i just had to make these christmas cookies for fun due to all the remaining icing and chocolate i had from some cake experiment i was trying out.

Well was not very careful with the temperature thus it was on a brown side. It still tasted good with all the chocolate coating and icing.

Its cookies that even kids can help to decorate it. (Well i guess everyone must have heard alot and i do mean alot if this sentence when it comes to making cookies and using icing to deco it.)

Even my younger brother gave a helping hand by decorating one or 2 of it for fun but he ain't a kid.

Well as i was not careful with one of the cookie, the head broke and my brother being naughty deco the 'Headless and Naughty' cookie as seen on the slide. Din even notice it till my mum pointed it out while i was taking a picture the cookies. We both had a gd time laughing.

See!!! another bonding time together by having a good laugh. Baking really bring people together. Everytime i bake my brothers will be my critics. Though they are not very good coz i have higher expectations but its good to know that they enjoy eating wat i bake.

Ice Monster

Mango, my favorite fruit beside watermelon and honeydew. I'm always on the look out for anything that contains mango or are mango flavoured.









Ice Monster was featured this show "Da Xiao Tong Chi"aka 'Food Glorious Food'. Finally i was at Plaza Singapura thus decided to go try it out. Well I was satisfied after eating it. The mango was fresh and juicy and best of all sweet. It was really worth eating.



The mango sorbet was good too. It was not too sweet and if i'm not wrong its self made. Overall it was really good. Only problem was that they serve it with some milk poured over it. Well somehow it seems to affect the end taste of the whole dessert. The finishing taste was just milk and ice and somehow the end taste did not leave the taste of mango lingering in my mouth. Guess there should take a leaf out of a book from MOF where their mango dessert is served with mango sauce.

Jurong Hilltop Resturant

As the title says, its a resturant in Jurong at the Hilltop. Well went there on my 3rd day at work with my collegues coz they wanted to treat the Yvonne whose attachment is ending. My luck i was treated too. Din have to pay for it.

Well this resturant is located next to Jurong Birdpark further up.They have jap,western,indo and korean food. Actually they are more famous for their teppanyaki. Heard its being around for a long long long time.

Well having to offer so many kind of crusine, it really ambitious of them. Well i had the tempura udon and sad to say the soup was rather salty. Its really just a simple dish and all i was looking at was to have a great tasting soup but it was a disappointment. Maybe the cook din bring his tougue out that day.

Well other dishes that were order was the Redang which was tough, the korean sets-the spicy chicken and prawn well there was no complain bout it, another korean set the stir fry beef which was not too bad and a salmon set which took forever to come.

For side dishes, we had chicken wings, california maki and satay. Well the sides were not too bad but not great. No speciality/originality that differ that from other restuarant or food stalls.

Well the next time maybe I should go try the teppanyaki instead. Since that is wat they are famous for to recomfirm my decision that its a place to go once in a long while since its at a out of the way place and the food there is average with an average price.

The only thing i enjoy most was the view they had. Its really breathtaking.

The building where the resturant is at

The View

Entrance

Tempura Udon

Korean Spicy Prawn Set

Korean Beef Set

Well din take pictures of the rest cause we were all hungry..................

Diamond Crips

Is it call a cookie or biscuit. This has been rather confusing for me. How do we actually define whether this piece of snack is a cookie or biscuit? Well some say its the same while some may refer biscuits as a savoury snack and cookies as a sweet snack. So what is the real deal?

For me,if it is cripsy and cut out from a dough its a biscuit and if its soft and full of fillings like chocolate chunks in it, its a cookie. How bout you?

A few days ago did this chocolate biscuit and it tastes not too bad. Well my brother did complain there was too much oats in it. I guess he just got the one that happens to have too much oats in it. The rest was ok. The problem was that it was rather dry guess i sprinkle too much flour when rolling out the dough and use white chocolate instead for better presentation.

Chocolate Almond Bun

Original recipe was Chocolate and Hazelnut Bun. Well could not find the Hazelnut in store thus change the ingredient to almond. It has been a long time since i last made bread. Dun really have the time to wait for it to rise but since i'm on holiday,its a totally different story.

Despite having a bread maker at home, i have not use it for about 4 years.Wondering if its still working? Well i personally love to just knead the dough and well homemade bread are the best.The freshness and captivating aroma of just out of the oven bread its just simply the best.

Well for this recipe the chocolate flavouring was lacking. Guess i should have used another brand of cocoa powder and added more chocolate buttons in it but i like the crunch of the almonds in each bite.

Its a great teatime snack beside breakfast.Well it can also be food on go. Good for someone like me we likes to eat breakfast and rush out of the house for my appointment in the morning.




Awaiting for the dough to rise










An individual shot




Group Shot

Cafe 18

There has been alot of Hong Kong Cafe booming around in singapore but i've only been to Xing Wang Hong Kong Cafe coz it sells my fav food. Recently went to this HongKong Cafe located at 15 Cheong Chin Nam Road opposite Beauty World Shopping center.

Cafe 18 is owned by this HongKonger as far as i heard. There were discounts going on for students,special set meals and a 15% off the bill.

Nothing much to boast about as the wait of food was long despite it was after lunch hour and there was only 3 customers beside my parents and me. The taste of food was average. What we ordered - Fish Head with black bean sauce,fried rice and a pork chop baked rice.

Fish head was not too bad but the baked rice was a disappointment. Under the sauce and pork chop was fried rice with egg. The combination was totally out and it was too oily. Guess their speciality is not baked rice. Should have tried something out of their special menu.

Potatoes

Below quotes are from http://www.all-about-potatoes.com/

'The United Nations have officially declared the year 2008 the International Year of the Potato in order to “increase awareness of the importance of the potato as a food in developing nations”

Take a look at this five facts about potatoes:
- a potato has only between 70 to 100 calories
- a potato is about 80 % water- a potato has potassium, vitamin C, iron, and fiber, protein, carbohydrates, calcium, and magnesium
- the potato was the first vegetable to be grown in space in 1995
- There are about 5,000 potato varieties in the world

Can you believe all these??

These are all new to me. Never knew so much in a potato beside the fact it taste great in anyway you cook them. Boil, stew, bake, deep fry juz to name a few.

My fav way is baking them and below are 2 different ways of making them. Baked Potato and chicken pie and extra cripsy potatoes.

Baked Potato and Chicken Pie, a recipe learned during Secondary School days. How i miss those days....








Extra Cripsy Potatoes, it really came up cripsy!!