~Happy Valentine Day ~

Yesterday was Valentine Day. My hubby gave me a bonquet of flower. Looks good.... :-) I cooked lobster, sushi, sausage wrapped with bacon and vege for our dinner. We thought of having dinner out, but with two kids, it is quite challenging. Plus, restaurants would be very crowded. Oh, there was wine too! I did not include in the picture!!

My son's day care was exchanging valentine. He was excited and kept on asking if i brought his valentine so he can gave to his classmates. My younger son's class also exhcanging valentine, and he is just 17 months.. oh my.. cannot believe that!! He cannot even understand what is valentine.... all he knows is i got a candy and i am going to eat it !!! LOL ...



My son helped make the card and candy with his hand writting on it. He was given it to MrS. Benford, the owner of the day care which he has to shake hand with every morning and evening when we pick him up. While he was writting the note, he was like ..Oh..yea..the scary one!!! Apprently he does not like her that much!




These two are for his class's teachers- Ms Sarah and Ms. Angela... we bought chocolate for his bother's teacher and his enrichment class teacher. It just time consuming to make evreything at home.



Cake pop

This is a popular and easy to make dessert to bring to a party or as treat during holiday.

It is easy to make. I made it using the cake pop mold. For the cake recipe, please refer to roll cake or muffin post.

After the cake is baked, cool it down. Melt the chocolate chips in the microware. Dip the lollipop stick into the melt choclate and press it into the center of each cake ball. Repeat till all cake balls are done.Let it cool for a while so that  the cake can stick to the stick.

After that, dip the cake ball into the melting chocolate and coat it evenly. Repeat until finished. Let it cool down if you would like to decorate with other color of candy melt. Or else sprinkle it with color sprinkle.

Panettone Bread ( A sweet Italian bread)

Panettone bread is a type of bread come from Italy and it is normally served during Christmas and New Year.

This was the first time i made the bread, it smelled really good!

Ingredients:

Bread flour 350g

Milk powder 7g

Sugar 100g

salt 4g

Yeast 5g

Plain yogurt 20g

7 eggs

Unsalted butter 60g

Grape raising 220g

Rum 3 tablespoons

white grape raising 50g

Mixed dry fruit 110 g

 

Methods:

The day before you make the bread, soak the raising and mixed dry fruit with rum. Cover overnight so that the fruit can absord the liquid and taste mositure.

 

Put the baking paper into 4 bakings cups.

 

Put all the ingredients except butter into a mixing bowl. Use a stand mixer/ hand mixer to mix all the ingredients together. Wen all well  combine, put in the butter. Mix well. After that, put in the raisings and dry fruit gradually into the dough. Mix well, cover and let rise until double the size.

 

Flour the working surface. Transfer the dough to the working surface and divide into 4 portions. Roll each portion round. Cover and let stand for 10 minutes.

 

After 10 minutes, roll the dough round again. Put each one into the baking cup. Cover with parafilm and let rise again. After that,m brush with an egg. Use a knife to cut a cross shape on top of the dough, about 1cm depth. Put a melt butter at the center of the cross.

 

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Bake for about 40 minutes or until golden brown. Sprinkle some powdered sugar on top of each bread for decoration.

 

Recipe adopted from www.christinerecipes.com

Glutinous Rice Dumpling (粽子)

It is Dragon Boat Festival again!!! And i am making "zhong zi" too... i like to eat meat dumpling as it tastes real good..... i have pork, mushroom, green bean and egg in my dumpling. Yummy....don't you agree!??!

Christmas Lunch

This year christmas, we had a couple came over for lunch. Instead of turkey, i baked smoked ham. The ham is quite big. I cooked several dishes as well...

***First Formal Thanksgiving Dinner***

Hi all! This is my first formal thanksgiving dinner happened at my own home. It was a tiring day since i prepared TWELVE different dishes including drink and dessert just for the dinner.

Here are the lists of the meals that i had prepared on thanksgiving dinner.
1) Turkey with gravy and craberry sauce
2) Mash potato
3) Bake potato
4) Green bean casserole
5) Stir-fry onion
6) Corn
7) Vegetable soup
9) Blackberry cranberry mini pies
10) Crescent rolls
11) Cup cake with cream + cocoa powder
12) Lemonade

My sister in law brought home made sausage with two different flavors- spicy and non-spicy, pumpkin ball and apple pie.

The sausages tasted good. We did not manage to eat the apple pie since we were too full after that.

Now it is pictures time :-) The color of the turkey looked just right !!!