Lamb Stew with Spring Vegetables

It's not very easy finding recipes demonstrated on screen that work well in the kitchen. Well ok, I'll still have to admit that whatever cooking knowledge I've acquired in my life are from cooking programmes. I found this one from the Little Paris Kitchen hosted by Rachel Khoo and decided to try it. Yes it's true that little or no seasoning is required at all which makes this all the more pure and healthy.

The Convenient Carb

I love couscous and I think it should be one of those items in the kitchen all the time. First, it's healthy. Second, there's nothing else more convenient to cook than this. All you need to do to 'cook' your couscous is to add boiling liquid to it and let it soak up and double in size. That's as convenient as cup noodles! There's so much one can do with couscous. Mix them with different herbs to make different flavours. I tried a version with lime, mint, curry leaves, dried shrimp, fresh chili, ikan bilis with fish sauce. That was inspired by a rice salad I ate at Bollywood veggies. Maybe the next round I'll try a Mediterranean version with olives, peppers, feta cheese, tomatoes, some basil and wild rocket. That's the next awesome thing about eating couscous: I can eat it with anything I want!

Not so chocolaty shortbread

This was the second variation of shortbread I tried for Christmas. Perhaps there wasn't enough cocoa powder added so the chocolate didn't come across strong.



I find somehow that baking can be therapeutic and a hassle at the same time. But good results are always satisfying. I'm beginning to master a bit of the art of modifying baking recipes which can be a real headache because baking requires precision mostly.

But definitely, we'll see more cookies. It is my current baking obsession.

Cranberry Cookies

For some reason, I wasn't so particularly keen on Christmas this year. But the hymns and carols sort of brought the spirit back a bit. So here's a little sneak of what I decided to give for Christmas.

It's my first attempt at slice and bake cookies and thankfully it didn't turn out disastrous. But neither was it fantastically, awesomely delicious. Personally I think its fine, but many may not think it sweet enough. The sugar needs to be balanced according to how sweet the dried cranberries are.

Berry Muffin

I'm beginning to see the usefulness of baking in providing for breakfast. Blueberry muffins are one of the most common. Having some leftover strawberries and blackberries, I decided this would be the best way to use them.



The muffins turn out to taste similar to pancakes which is a good thing I reckon. The best way to eat it is with milk in the morning or with tea in the afternoon.

Simple Shortbread

The toil of the semester is ending soon. Really, 8 whole weeks of staring at the computer editing and doing audio post is no joke. The frequent headaches have fueled a determination to stay away from the computer when I'm home, such that I bake in order to keep myself occupied.



I've always wanted to try making shortbread but cupcakes have always been in my comfort zone. Furthermore, I've had a failed cookie attempt once, some years back. And that has kept me away from doing cookies. Nevertheless, I felt compelled to try making something different, partly because of complains that I've been baking the same stuff.

I have no idea what shortbread is, or what makes a shortbread, shortbread. But when I stumbled on to this at allrecipes.com, I couldn't find much of an excuse not to try it.

Shortbread recipes vary with ingredients and this is the simplest of it all, with just 4 ingredients. But I'm not betting on this to make variations although I might experiment on that later on.

Chili Con Carne

It's been a while since I blog about any of my success in the kitchen. Not that I've been failing >.> just that it takes some excitement over the success to motivate me to write about it. Anyway I just made this a couple of hours ago and it turned out right.

Recently, I had developed a taste for South American food, much of which is spanish influenced. Chili con Carne translates to "chili and meat" literally and that is the base of this dish. It is a stew made from chili peppers, meat, garlic, onions and cumin and believed to have been invented in Mexico. I was incredulous about the cumin because its known to be an Indian spice. Then I realised some Mexicans were of Indian origin. Perhaps thats where the cumin came into the Chili con Carne. Originally, the stew contains only peppers and meat but as it travelled people made variations by adding tomatoes and beans and substituted beef for other kinds of meat.



I had thought of making it last week and bought for myself beef and went to search for various recipes. And this would be my own concoction partly because some recipes demand different kinds of chilies which I find unnecessary.

Double Chocolate Brownie

And I’ve ventured far enough to make a batch of brownies, double chocolate brownies at that. A large part of this motivation comes from wanting to make nice sweet comfort food for those I love. Surprisingly, they don’t take as much work as I had thought.
Brownies are really pretty easy to make. My first attempt didn't go wrong. That usually says something about it.

Bacon and Mushroom Cabonara

Carbonara is a traditional Italian pasta dish. It’s name is derived from the word carbone which means charcoal. It is believed that this dish was popular among the charcoal makers. Some suggest that the bits of charred bacon and freshly grounded black pepper made it look like a dish with charcoal. However, the true origins of this dish remain obscure.



The varieties of Carbonara are aplenty. That's one of those good things about pasta, having the freedom to use whatever ingredients. I think that's what makes it so popular. So because bacon and mushrooms are 2 of my favourite foods, bacon and mushroom it is.