Banana Walnuts Cake

This banana walnuts cake was baked last Friday night... I have not realized that my last bake of banana cake was about a year ago. I used the same recipe which I did in last October.

Matcha & Adzuki Butter Cake

I have neglected my oven and baking for a long time! I kept telling myself that I should start baking again ...and I stumbled into this wonderful recipe which I am so tempted to try especially I have both the main ingredients on hand.

My first green tea cake is a great success and thanks to the blogger - Happy Home Baking for sharing the recipe!

The aroma of this matcha cake was great during baking! I cut down the sugar used - it turned out to be a nice and yummy cake; moist in the inside and most important, non-oily at all! ^^

This recipe is from Happy Home Baking blog!

Matcha & Adzuki Butter Cake

Ingredients

250g cake flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 tbsp matcha powder

70g butter, soften at room temperature

150g sugar (I cut down to 125g)

2 eggs, lightly beaten

1 cup (250ml) plain, non-fat yogurt

3 tbsp adzuki paste (red bean)

Method

1. Preheat oven at 180 degC (I baked at 175 degC). Lightly grease the side of loaf pan with butter and dust it evenly with flour. Tap away any excess flour and line the base with parchment paper.
2. Sift together cake flour, baking powder, baking soda, green tea powder and salt. Set aside.
3. With an electric mixer, beat butter for about 1 min. Gradually add in sugar and beat until light and creamy.
4. Dribble in eggs gradually, about 1 tbsp at a time, beat constantly for about 2 mins.
5. With a spatula, fold in 1/3 of the flour mixture. Then fold in 1/2 of the yogurt, followed by half of the remaing flour mixture. Stir well after each addition.
6. Stir in the red bean paste, mix well.
7. Pour into prepared pan and bake for 35-45 mins or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.
8. Remove from oven and let cool in pan for 5 mins. Unmould and cool completely.

Stir Fried Noodles

Today is my last day of being "Home Alone". I stir-fried this noodles with lots of vegetables which had been left in the fridge from husband stocked-up for my home alone 'food supply'.

A relatively easy fried noodles with lots of beansprouts, cabbage, french beans, carrot and shitake mushrooms.... and a good jaw exercise too! ^^

How To Make Soy Rolls

I promised to post how to make the soy bean rolls which I have posted on my earlier vegetarian post. These are the steps which I had taken during my recent making of another batch of the rolls.

1. Purchase a pack of the soy bean milk sheet (they are approx. 500g/pack). The above shows how it look when you open up the plastic wrap.

2. Loosen them and marinate with some light soy sauce, a little vegetarian mushroom essence, some sesame oil and lastly, about 2 tablespoon of alkaline water. Be careful while marinating and mixing the sheets, don't break them up into smaller sheets.

3. After about 10 mins, take a portion enough to be roll into a 3cm dimension into plastic sheets which are meant for high temperature heating. Wrap the soy sheets with the plastic slowly, remember to pull tightly and also use a fork to pierce some holes on the plastic for releasing the 'air' trapped during wrapping. Use one hand to hold down the roll with plastic wrap and get ready a piece of white cloth to wrap the roll with the same method. Tie the roll as tightly as possible with a string.

4. Now put all the rolls into a steaming basket (the packet should be sufficient for 4 rolls of the same dimensions).

5. Steam them in medium heat for approximately 50-60 mins.

6. The above shows how the soy rolls looked after steam! If you wish to use them for frying, you may wrap the roll in a piece of nori seaweed with a little corn starch for sticking.

7. Soy roll wrapped with nori seaweed.

8. All rolls are ready for cooking after a day. You can even store them in the freezer for weeks before cooking.

Genmai Tea

I bought few packets of Genmai Tea (五谷玄米茶) from my recent trip to Hong Kong. These tea is slightly different from the Genmai tea which I used to have! They not just contained roasted brown rice; it also included roasted black beans, roasted soy beans and roasted barley etc.

We enjoyed this tea very much, you can also consume the roasted rice, black beans and soy beans etc after you completed the several brews of the tea! A very healthy drink after your meals. Cheers! ^^

My Miso Ramen

I came across the frozen Ramen at the local supermarket and decided to hands-on my very first home cook Ramen.

I cooked mine with the instant dashi stock with miso as the base soup. As for the ingredients added; they were based on memory of my last ramen which I had at the Japanese restaurant, which was long time ago.

Add a little Japanese seven spices powder to make it 'Hot'!

Okonomiyaki

I stumbled into two very nice blogs which teaches how to make Okonomiyaki (aka Japanese Pizza), as I was searching for it!

The ingredients of my Okonomiyaki were a simple version as there were no meat nor seafood. I tried two versions; one is the simple Okonomiyaki with only cabbage and oyster mushrooms and other version was with added Kimchi. The methods of how to prepare my Okonomiyaki were adopted from here and here.

Verdict: Husband and I loves the Kimchi added version. ^^

I don't have any bonito flakes which was recommended as the topping! Nevertheless, it's still very delicious!

Green Radish And Carrot Soup

Seashell Macaroni

I have a packet of seashell macaroni which I kept for quite sometime and was wondering what to do with it! Finally... I decided to use my existing ingredients in the fridge to cook the similar ABC soup base and add in the cooked macaroni!

This time, except that I did not add in the fresh fig, I added some oyster mushrooms instead.... and it taste really good! Yum...yum...

Vegetarian Sweet & Sour Pork Ribs

Hmmm... appearance wise - this is the lookalike 'pork ribs' made using the Yu Char Kway (Crispy Chinese Cruller) stuffed with a thin slice of cut lotus roots! Hahhaa... one can be easily be deceived viewing from a distance!

Curry Vegetarian Chicken

We had our last lesson of our vegetarian cooking class; of the three dishes which were taught today, here's the vegetarian curry chicken using soy milk beancurd sheet to roll and form the 'chicken chunk' lookalike.

ABC Soup

This is my version of ABC soup! I don't know why it derived in calling ABC; I reckon it may as simple as ABC!! Nothing new in this soup ingredients... just carrots, figs, potatoes, celery, onions and tomatoes.... nourishing soup with lots of vitamins. This soup is with all the natural sweetness from all ingredients!

Kou Pa With Mushrooms

Our 2nd dish - Kou Pa with Mushrooms (双菇锅巴).