#23 - Claypot Chicken Rice (Rice Cooker)

When you are sick and tired of packing food from food courts or even kopitiams for dinner, you will seriously be craving for something that is warm & comforting, something simple like a home cooked meal, something just like this.

If you know me, you will know that I'm pretty much a fuss-free person. Though I adore cooking and baking, I have never really get myself done to experimenting with complicated recipes, let alone cooking meals involving 101 ingredients. I am more of a less-is-more kind of person! I love following and trying out simple yet yummy recipes and when I'm in the right mood, I give it my own twist!

This Claypot Chicken Rice is simple enough and if you have a pan and a rice-cooker, you can make this.

For the cooking of the main ingredients, original recipe actually call for the raw ingredients to be added to the rice when the rice is half-cooked. However, since hubby and I prefer the rice to be slightly dryer, I did it slightly different. I allowed the rice to be fully-cooked while I stir fry all the ingredients (chicken, mushrooms, sausages) with some garlic in a separate pan until the chicken is semi-cooked. When rice was cooked, I poured all the ingredients onto the rice in the rice cooker and cook the rice again. It turned out that the rice was nice and dry and the it tasted really yummy!

So, give it a try and enjoy some warm and nice comfort food from home :)

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Recipe: Adapted and modified from here

Servings

4 persons

Ingredients

3 cups Rice (to be cooked with 3 cups Water)
2 Chinese Sausages
50 - 60 grams Dried Chinese Mushrooms
100 grams Button Mushrooms
2 Deboned Chicken Thigh Meat (diced)

Seasonings

2 tbsp Oyster Sauce

2 tbsp Light Soya Sauce

1 tbsp Dark Soya Sauce

5 tbsp Chinese Cooking Wine (花雕酒)

2 tsp Sugar

White Pepper

Directions

1. Rinse and drain the uncooked rice. Cook the rice in rice cooker using 3 cups of water. 

2. Soak the chinese sausages and dried chinese mushrooms in hot water for 2-3 mins. 

3. Remove the casing of the sausages and sliced it. Once the chinese mushrooms are soft, removed the centre stalk before slicing it. 

4. In a large bowl, marinate all the ingredients (chicken, both types of mushrooms, sausages) with oyster sauce, light soya sauce sauce, dark soya sauce, chinese cooking wine, sugar and white pepper. 

5. In a saucepan (with some garlic), stir fry the marinated ingredients over medium heat until the chicken is semi-cooked. Do not over cook the chicken. 

6.  When the rice is cooked, transfer the semi-cooked ingredient to the top of the rice and let the rice cook for a second time. 

7. Before serving, stir and mix the rice and ingredient together. Make sure that the contents are well-stirred. You may add some additional dark soya sauce upon stirring to achieve your desired colour preference. 

#22 - Bak Kwa (Barbecued Pork Jerky) Sandwich

I know that I ought to be kicked for totally neglecting this site of mine. To be totally honest, I have not been doing much baking / cooking for the past 4 months at all. Yes, I am aware of that. As much as I would like to, I just can't seem to find the right time / mood recently (excuses!). I guess I am displaying my talent for procrastination to my best ability, once again. This is really a bad habit that I must kick (soon).

Anyway, I met up with Mum last week for a short lunch and as usual, she came with loads of goodies for her am-very-fat-daughter, Your Truly. Out of the many goodies, this has got to my hubby's favourite - Bak Kwa! I am not such a great fan for Bak Kwa since it is more like a CNY treat for my family. But rather than having Mr. Lim munching on the Bak Kwa plainly (not to mention, after dinner!), I decided to save them for making some breakfast sandwich for the man instead.

These are the two versions which I am sharing today. One slightly more elaborated than the other, but both as tasty!

This is what Mrs. Lim (That's me!) had for breakfast this morning! Healthy and Yummy! 

And this is what Mr. Lim brought to work as his breakfast! 

Extra Bak Kwa at the side for his to munch on! 

I just could not resist and had to take two (not one)  HUGE bites!

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Servings

3 Sandwiches

Ingredients

6 slices of Wholemeal White Bread 

2 eggs 

Butterhead Lettuce

2 slices of Cheddar Cheese

Japanese Mayonnaise 

Directions

1. Using a saucepan over medium heat, fry the eggs (sunny side up or over-easy, according to your desired preference). 

2. When the egg is almost done, place the slices of lightly-buttered bread on the hot saucepan. Toast it for 2-3 minutes and you will get a lightly brown crisp bread. 

3. Wash and pat dry the Butterhead Lettuce. Place the lettuce on one slice of bread before adding a slice of Bak Kwa on top of the lettuce. If you would like to, you may heat up the Bak Kwa slightly before assembling the sandwich.

4. Add the fry egg and a slice of cheddar cheese on top. The heat from the egg will ensure the cheese melts a little before serving. 

5. Top with more lettuce, Japanese Mayonnaise and lastly, a slice of bread. 

And then, you have it! A perfectly simply and yummy sandwich to be packed for breakfast or even a on-the-go lunch! Add in some fruits and MORE Bak Kwa and you have it!

#P/S: For the simplified version, simply omit the use of egg and cheese in Step 4 and you have it! Equally tasty! 

#21 - Salted Oatmeal Scotchies with Chocolate Chips

Happy New Year to one and all!! It is the start of a brand new year for all of us and I'm pretty sure it is going to be a splendid year ahead. Other than growing a year older, I am pretty excited to get the year started! 

Personally, 2013 has been a really great year for me. I finally took a step towards my own vision of how I wanted my life to be like (personal as well as work wise) and with the support of my love ones, everything has turned out just right! 2013 has also allowed me to spend more time with my family and friends. This is so important to me now, especially when my brother is out of the country. In terms of work, I have found the stability I needed and I am loving every minute of my teaching time now. The past year has also allowed me to bond with these new students of mine on a different level and I'm so proud to say that I have done my very best to coach each and everyone of them at their differing learning levels and to add on to my pride, all my students did well for their examinations. Kudos to them for their hard work and perseverance. They have proven to me that I have made the right choice and it is all worth it. 

Carrying forward the positive energy from 2013, I hope 2014 is going to be filled with good health, sweet happiness and so much love from your love ones! Let us all count our blessings from 2013 and welcome the joy that 2014 will be bringing us. 

At Mrs Minty Cream, what better way is there than to start off our 2014 with a lovely post on my latest baked goodies, Salted Oatmeal Scotchies with Chocolate Chips. For those of you who are familiar with oatmeal cookies, you will know that many of the recipes involved the addition of raisins. While I agree that the texture of the oatmeal and raisins do complement each other very well, I did not want to do that as both my hubby and myself aren't great fans of raisins. Furthermore, since I have some butterscotch morsels left over from making my Butterscotch Molten Lava Cake with Chantilly Cream last week, I decided to make these Oatmeal Scotchies. I have also added in some chocolate chips to make the cookies more flavourful and at the same time, I added a touch of sea salt to the cookies which in my opinion, was the icing on the cake! The contracting flavour in the salt and the sweetness from the morsels/chips was a great combination. Hubby and I love these cookies so much! Trust me, you will have to make these to share with your family to show them some love today. You just have to do it! 

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Recipe: Adapted and modified from here

Servings

Make approximately 4 dozen cookies

Ingredients

1 and 1/4 Cup All Purpose Flour

1 Tsp Baking Soda

3/4 Tsp Cinnamon

198g Unsalted Butter

1/2 Cup Fine Sugar

1/2 Cup Brown Sugar

2 Eggs

1 Tsp Vanilla Extract

3 Cups Oats

1 Cup Butterscotch morsels

1 Cup Chocolate Chips

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 190C.

2. Prepare 2 large baking trays and line them with baking paper. Set aside for later use.

3. Combined the flour, baking soda and cinnamon in a mixing bowl. Sift this flour mixture and set it aside. 

4. In a bowl, cream together butter with both sugar until light and fluffy. Do this for at least 2 to 3 minutes to ensure a good mix.

5. Add egg and vanilla extract into the mixture and beat until smooth. 

6. Add in the flour mixture (in Step 3) 1/3 portion at a time and mix well to combine.

7. Add the oats, butterscotch morsels and chocolate chips to the batter and use a spatula to mix well. Ensure that all the ingredients are well-incorporated.

8. Use a small ice-cream scoop to divide the dough into small portions (ball-shaped) and place them on the baking trays. Ensure that they are at least 3 cm apart from one another. Flatten the top of each small cookie dough with the back of a teaspoon lightly. 

9. Bake for 8-10 minutes, until the edges of the cookies start to turn light golden brown. Allows the cookies to cool on the baking trays for about 5 minutes before transferring them to a cooling rack to cool completely. Before serving, sprinkle the top of each cookie with a few flakes of salt.