Deep Fried Oyster Mushrooms

Busy is the word to describe me now.  The kids started their 5 weeks long school holiday and I dread the thought of going to the supermarket with them.  And to make matters worse, my fridge konked out on me last week and I went into a frenzy.

Anyway, to cut things short, here's sharing what I've cooked weeks ago, deep fried oyster mushroom.  I was first introduced to this by my mother.  She visited Malaysia on a 1 day tour and they were brought to a Chinese restaurant for dinner.  When this dish was served, it was wiped up almost instantly, everyone at the table love this!  She bought a few premix packs from them and whenever she cooks this at home, it's always the first dish to disappear from our dinning table.  Yes, it is that good.

As far as I'm concern, I try to avoid premix as I do not know what goes into the pack.  My kids love this so I try to replicate it at home.  Well, it didn't turn out like my mom's but good enough for my kids.

Deep Fried Oyster Mushrooms
Ingredients
1 punnet oyster mushroom
6 tbsp rice flour
6 tbsp corn flour
1/2 tsp curry powder
1/2 tsp salt
pepper to taste
oil for deep frying

Method

1. Clean oyster mushroom and tear length-wise into smaller pieces, do not wash.
2. Mix rice flour, corn flour, curry powder, salt and pepper in a bowl, mix well.
3. Heat up your wok or deep-fryer with cooking oil.  When the oil is hot, turn to medium heat.
4. Coat mushroom with flour mixture and fry till golden brown.
5. Drain on paper towel and serve immediately.

Fried Bee Hoon

DH is basically not an outdoor person, he very much prefers to stay at home or bring the kids to the mall.  I remember my childhood days, when I was young, my father used to bring us to East Coast Park for a swim.  I love family outings and always looking forward to it.

Now that I have started my own family, I like to them to be near nature, to learn to appreciate the tiny little things in life, and not simply be attracted to electronic games/TV programs.  I'm glad to say that I've successfully "converted" DH to be more outdoor going :-)

For our weekends, we usually spend our days at the Singapore Zoo or at the beach.  Thanks to DS2's swimming lesson, we now spend most of our afternoon at the beach after his lessons :-)

DD1 enjoying herself, didn't even realised I was taking a picture of her.  Don't ask me why her hands are up, I asked, she said she just felt good doing that.

The siblings cooperated and dug a big hole, hoping to fill it up when the tide comes in.

My dainty little girl, initially whining about the sand in her shoes, but soon got used to it and decided to join in the fun.

My boring old man, playing iPad at the beach :'-|

Have to be fair to DH, don't want to do an injustice to him, he "dumped" his iPad and played frisbee with the kids :-) 

That's my dog's frisbee by the way, we bought a few from Australia when DH was studying there.  We've tried many different types of frisbee, from "branded" (with much rave and great reviews) to simply no brands, and we found that this suit us best.  It is light weight and easy on the grip (for both dog and human).  As it wears and tears relatively fast, I got brother K to buy as many as he could when he visits Australia.  And when we travelled to Australia for our own holiday again, we will wipe up whatever we can find at the store.  Over the years, we bought over 2 dozens (4 more left in our storeroom now).

Not much food variety at the beach so I always try to prepare some simple food for our lunch/dinner there.  It is usually fried bee hoon as I find it very versatile, adding whatever ingredients I have sitting in my fridge.  Whenever I cook a one pot dish, I prefer to add in more veggies but DH prefers his been hoon "plain".  And I think I've been cooking this too regularly, so much so that DH is requesting that I stop cooking this for a while :P

Honestly speaking, I don't think there are too much ingredients, I'll very much prefer to add more but I was left with just some cabbage and a small carrot.  Anyway, food is secondary.  Most importantly, the family had a great time bonding together :-)

Oatmeal, Currant and Chocolate Chip Cookie

Exams are finally over and it's time to face reality - results!

During the exam period, we had been having packed dinner from nearby foodcourts/coffeeshops.  Nope, I didn't take time off to sit down with DD1 to do extra revisions but instead, during my "free" time, I prefer to bring them outdoors instead of being cooped up at home doing extra assessments or exam papers from other schools.  My belief is, they learn through play and with a relaxed mind, they can learn better.  But when the results came back, I start to ponder if my thinking was wrong.  She didn't get lousy results, but just disappointing as after going through the exam papers with her, we know that she can do better.  There were simply too many careless mistakes, and some questions were even taken for granted.  I wonder, if I had spent at least an hour with her on revision, will I see a different result? 

Nevertheless, I must compliment her for doing fairly well.  I mean, what can I expect, no extra tuition/assessments/exam papers, strictly practice papers from the school (and she did it all by herself with minimal supervision) and she scored 2 Band 1 and 1 Band 2.  Though her same age cousin did so much better, I prefer not to compare.  I do not want her to feel inferior or lousy.  Upon finding out her cousin's results, she wasn't affected, simply couldn't be bothered.  That's my girl, forever in her bo chap (don't care) attitude, never knew what competition is all about.  Some parents may think that if the child feels some peer pressure, he will improve and try to excel.  We appreciate her character though, and I've been inculcating that she doesn't need to win anyone, her opponent is herself.  I hope she gets the message and will do better next year, not in terms of results but at least, lesser careless mistakes.

Anyway, I haven't been cooking or baking a lot lately.  Thanks to Edith, I was reminded of this cookie which I've bookmarked when I first saw it in Joy of Baking.  I'm basically not a cookie person but if I really have to take my pick, my choice will be a chewy cookie over the crispy version.  And since it was during the exam period, I decided to make some cookies for DD1 to destress (eh... there wasn't any stress in the first place, duh).

Lovey DD3 wanted to have her picture taken again, but this time round, she requested to feature her pair of hands only.  She does have a mind of her own, without much external influences.  Good or bad?  I don't know yet.

I used my smallest cookie scoop and made only 1/2 recipe, yields around 50 cookies. Being a non raisin lover, I replaced it with currants.  And like Edith, I added some chocolate chips but reduced the sugar, still find them too sweet.

This is exactly the kind of cookies I like, crispy on the outside, soft and chewy inside.  However, I gave some to my best pals and their family thought the cookies had turned soft :-|

DD3 got impatient and wanted to pinch some off the bowl.

Oatmeal, Currant and Chocolate Chip Cookie

Ingredients

110g unsalted butter

100g light brown sugar

20g caster sugar
1 large egg
1/2 tsp vanilla extract (I omit)
90g all purpose flour
10g cocoa powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
130g rolled oats
60g currants/raisins
40g chocolate chips

Method

1. Preheat oven to 175 degrees C.
2. Cream together the softened butter, brown sugar and white sugar until smooth and creamy.
3. Add the egg and beat well (if you are making full recipe, add egg one at a time).
4. Add in vanilla extract.
5. In a separate bowl, mix flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, salt, and ground cinnamon.
6. Add the flour mixture to the creamed mixture and beat until incorporated.
7. Stir in the rolled oats, currants and chocolate chips by hand using a wooden spoon.
8. Using a cookie scoop, drop cookie dough onto the prepared baking tray.
9. Flatten the cookies slightly and bake the cookies for about 15 - 20 minutes.  The cookies are done when golden brown around the edges but still a little soft in the centers. (The longer the cookies bake the more crispy they will be.) Remove from oven and let the cookies cool a few minutes on the baking sheet before transferring them to a wire rack to finish cooling. These cookies will keep several days at room temperature.

发糕

Not giving up despite so many "failures" here and here.  The texture is good, just that the 发糕 refused to "huat"/bloom.  I'm still home alone with the kids so no long posting, will just let the pictures do the "talking".