Miso Udon Soup

Before Baby Crustabakes, supermarket trips were often and regular.

With her arrival, these visits however, became sporadic and infrequent.

So when i did get to a supermarket last weekend, i felt the urge to buy the store out. I stuffed our cart with things that are usually not in my grocery list.

Things that include fresh udon noodles.

I combined the fresh udon noodles with things that are in my usual grocery list.

Prawns,

Corn,

Crabsticks, and

Egg

I poured some miso broth over the whole party. And thus, was my miso udon.

Miso Udon

• 2 packets of udon
• 3 fresh prawns
• 2 Imitation Crabsticks
• 1 egg – hard boiled
• Boiled corn
• Dried seaweed

For soup:

• 1cup water
• 1 stalk spring onion – chopped
• 1 tbs (or more) miso paste
• 1/4 tsp Hon-dashi seafood flavour seasoning
• 1/2 tbs mirin

Directions:

• Bring the cup of water and dried seaweed to boil.
• Mix in the miso paste the hondashi and the mirin
• Turn the heat off (I used the residual heat to cook the rest of the items on the list) and add the prawn and the imitation crab stick

• In another pot, boil the fresh udon. Drain and place into a bowl.
• Pour miso soup over udon.
• Garnish with spring onion.

Chocolate Chocolate Chocolate Chip Muffins

Chocolate Chocolate Chocolate Chip Muffins.

Who could resist a muffin with a name like that?

One moment, I was in bed reading a blog post off the Food Librarian,

And the next thing i knew, I was in the kitchen taking butter out of my fridge.

Chocolate Chocolate Chocolate Chip Muffins
From: Joy the Baker Cookbook (Via the Food Librarian)
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
5 ounces semisweet chocolate, coarsely chopped (I used Nestle semi-sweet chocolate chips)
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (or 1 teaspoon instant espresso powder)
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
2 large eggs
2/3 cup buttermilk
1 cup (6 ounces) semi-sweet chocolate chunks (I used Nestle semi-sweet chocolate chips)
1/2 cup white chocolate chips (I used 96 grams of Nestle white chocolate chips)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prep a muffin pan. Joy’s recipe says it yields 12 muffins, but I must have made mine a bit smaller and got 16 muffins.

Create a double boiler (place some water in a saucepan and bring to a simmer) and place the butter (chopped into about 8 pieces) and 5 ounces of chocolate into a heatproof bowl over the simmering water. Don’t let the bowl touch the water. Melt the butter and chocolate together, stirring together. Once melted, remove and set aside to cool a bit while you mix the rest of the ingredients.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients: flour, baking powder, soda, salt.

Whisk the brown sugar into the chocolate mixture. Follow with the eggs, buttermilk, vanilla. Add the flour mixture all at once and fold together. Don’t overmix. Add the chocolate chunks.

Dish into muffin tin. Bake for 18-20 minutes – until a toothpick comes out clean. Remove from pan after 5 minutes and place muffins on wire rack to cool completely.

When the muffins are cool (or as long as you can wait), melt the white chocolate like you did the semi-sweet chocolate. Note that white chocolate melts at a lower temperature. Once melted, have fun drizzling it over the muffins.

 

 

 

Of Pancakes and Waffles

I was feeding Baby Crustabakes last Sunday morning, when i received a phone call from my dad.

“Make pancake batter” he said. ” I am going over.”

Assuming he was coming over for breakfast, i did as i was told. And soon enough he arrived. He had a huge brown box in his arms.

The box had the words “waffle maker”.

I narrowed my eyes with suspicion. “Waffle maker?” I inquired. “I thought we were making pancakes!”

“Oh, they are from the same batter” he said simply.

Feeling highly doubtful of his “same batter” theory, but knowing better than to argue, i busied myself with cleaning the huge contraption called the “waffle maker”.

We decided to skip reading the instruction manual and proceeded to lowering MY pancake batter onto it. We fiddled with some knobs and switches, and used whatever common sense we had.

And what do you know! A Waffle was made!

From A PANCAKE batter indeed!

So if i were to have a lesson learnt from this. I guess that maybe, just maybe, life shouldn’t be that complicated after all. So toss that instruction manual. Use your common sense, sit back, relax and enjoy the some waffles!

 

Fluffy American pancakes (Or waffles)

Taken from Junglefrog Cooking

 

 

Ingredients:

135 gr plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

2 tbsp caster sugar

130ml milk

1 large egg, lightly beaten

2 tbsp of melted butter (allowed to cool slightly) or olive oil, plus extra for cooking

Directions:

Sift the flour, baking powder, salt and caster sugar into a large bowl. In a separate bowl or jug, lightly whisk together the milk and egg, then whisk in the melted butter.

Pour the milk mixture into the flour mixture and, using a fork, beat until you have a smooth batter. Any lumps will soon disappear with a little mixing. Let the batter stand for a few minutes.

Heat a non-stick frying pan over a medium heat and add a knob of butter. When it’s melted, add a ladle of batter (or two if you frying pan is big enough to cook two pancakes at the same time) It will seem very thick but this is how it should be. Wait until the top of the pancake begins to bubble, then turn it over and cook until both sides are golden brown and the pancake has risen to about 1 cm thick.

Repeat until all the batter is used up. You can keep the pancakes warm in a low oven, but they taste best fresh out of the pan.

Serve with lashings of maple syrup and extra butter if you like.

 

Indonesian Steamed Cakes (Bolu Kukus)

I remember i didnt like this kind of steamed cakes growing up.

Their subtle sweetness just didn’t cut it for my then junk-food trained tongue. I crave for soft baked chocolate chip cookies, or fudgy thick brownies.

I am not saying i dont crave for such rich, sinful dessert now. I just learnt to accept food that are milder in flavour…Grown up food.

Because life is not all about Ben and Jerry’s or McDs. There are other stuffs too. Like Broccoli, and delicate Indonesian steamed cakes.

 

 

Garlic Cream Cheese Sandwich Bread in Bacon

Here’s a peak of breakfast at the Crustabakes household

There’s baked beans, scrambled egg, and…. what in the world is that?!

Those, my dear readers, are garlic cream cheese sandwich breads rolled in bacon?

Ok, that’s a pretty long name. Let me try to break it up.

I chopped some garlic and mixed it with cream cheese right?

Then, i spread this garlic cream cheese mixture onto a sandwich bread.

I halved the bread, took a piece of bacon and rolled it around the bread halves.

Then i popped them in the mini toaster to let the bacon cook.

And there you have it. I believe i just wrote a recipe.

Dorayaki

My curiosity for the Dorayaki started from years upon years of reading the Doraemon comics. Growing up, i had volumes of the comics strewn all over my house, be it in the living room, kitchen, dining room, etc.

To me, they provided mini reliefs from mundane everyday tasks. I could just conveniently pick them up while waiting for the commercial to be over on the TV. Or while waiting for my food to heat up in the microwave.

If you are familiar with the comics. you would know of Doraemon’s love affair with Dorayaki. Having a dorayaki in your hands is like a golden ticket. Because you can pretty much bribe Doraemon to cater to your whims and fancy with the dorayaki.

While in the Crustabakes household dorayakis dont have that kind of influential power, it does have the power to fill our bellies andkickstart our mornings with its sugar rush!

Dorayaki

Taken from Just One Cookbook

(I halved the recipe)

• 2 eggs
• 70g  sugar
• 1 Tbsp. honey
• 80g all-purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp. baking powder
• 1 Tbsp. water
• Some Sweetened Red bean Paste

Instructions:

1. In a large bowl, combine eggs, sugar, and honey and whisk well until the mixture gets fluffy.
2. Sift flour and baking powder into the bowl and mix. Keep in the fridge to rest for 15 minutes.
3. Stir in ½ Tbsp of water at a time to get the right consistency. It should be a little bit thicker than pancake batter. If the batter is too thin, Dorayaki buns will be too flat and not fluffy.
4. Heat a large non-stick frying pan on medium-low to medium heat. Dip the paper towel in oil and coat the bottom of the pan with the oil. The pan should be slightly oiled but shouldn’t be visible. That’s the secret to get nice texture on the surface of Dorayaki. With a ladle, drop the batter from 1 foot above the pan to create 3 inch diameter “pancake”. When you see the surface of batter starts to bubble, flip over and cook the other side. Transfer to a plate and cover up with damp towel to prevent from drying. Continue making pancakes.
5. Make sandwich with red bean paste. Put more red bean paste in the center so the shape of Dorayaki will be curved (middle part should be higher). Quickly wrap them with saran wrap until you ready to serve.

Chocolate Chip Muffins

I’ve always had an attitude towards muffins. It’s not a good one.

To me, muffins are just effortless, dry, tasteless mini cakes.

But when you’ve had a baby and your world goes crazy, effortless doesnt sound like such a bad idea after all. Plus i could always overdose on the chocolate chips. There is almost nothing that an overdose of chocolate chips couldn’t right. Not even effortless, dry, tasteless mini cakes.

So early this morning, my fingers were manouvering the familiar set of measuring cups and spoons while my toes were crossed in the hope that Baby Crustabakes doesn’t wake up. Not before the batter goes into the oven anyway.

And that’s the beauty of muffins. It is THAT quick together.

And another beauty?

Definitely the “Muffin Method” of barely mixing wet and dry ingredients. No need for the racuous handheld mixer to startle the baby!

So, here’s a toast to muffins!

Chocolate Chip Muffins

Taken from My Baking Addiction

 

2 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup light brown sugar, packed
1/3 cup sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted and cooled
2 eggs, lightly beaten
2/3 cup whole milk
1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups milk chocolate chips

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Line 12 muffin cups with paper liners or spray the wells of the pan with non-stick cooking spray.

2. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, sugars, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.

3. In medium bowl, whisk together melted butter, eggs, milk, and vanilla, mixing until well combined.

4. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and pour the liquid ingredients into the well. Stir until ingredients are just combined – do not over mix the batter. Fold in the chocolate chips.

5. Evenly divide the batter into the prepared muffin pan wells. Bake for 17-20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean.

6. Remove muffins to a wire rack and cool for at least 5 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature

Chicken Teriyak Burger

I can’t believe I am finally dusting this old blog of mine from its inch deep of dust.

I apologize for the lack of activity around here. But hey, I think i might have a good excuse for it.

Over the past few months, I have had a baby!

Yes, my very own little bundle of Joy. And i couldn’t be any happier!

And i guess I am not like the SuperMoms out there who are able to juggle their babies in one hand while flipping pancakes with the other.

I am a Total mess.

and I am awful with time management.

Between feeding my baby girl (Yes, it’s a girl!) and burping her. I barely have enough time to wipe the spit up across my shoulder before my little one wails out for another request. Be it a diaper change, or a soothing hug. I am not complaining. I am more than happy to attend to her needs.

It just means that i won’t be posting as often.

And i will have to make do with lackluster blog posts and photos like so:

This is really a raw picture. I didn’t have time to take out my lights or assemble my props the way i usually did way back when.

Nevertheless, I am happy i was able to put up this post. Even when i had to stop about four times doing so. 🙂

Chicken Teriyaki Burger

(Recipe taken from To Food with Love)

Ingredients

5 chicken thighs with skin-on, deboned

Teriyaki sauce:

1/2 cup Kikkoman soy sauce

1/2 cup sake

2/3 cup mirin

3 tbsp sugar

Method

Place ingredients for sauce in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Stir to dissolve the sugar and simmer for 10-15 minutes or until the sauce is reduced to less than half. Transfer to a bowl and let it cool. It will continue to thicken a little during cooling.

Season chicken thigh fillets with black pepper and pour about 4 tbsp of the teriyaki sauce onto the chicken. Mix well and leave in the fridge to marinate for 1 hour. Reserve the rest for later.

Preheat oven to 210C (400F). Place the chicken in a baking dish or a tray lined with foil. Bake on the upper rack of the oven for 25-30 minutes, turning the chicken once halfway and baste with remaining marinade. When cooked, remove and transfer to a chopping board. Slice into 3/4 inch strips.

* To serve, I seared burger buns facedown in a pan with a bit of garlic butter.

I assembled the lettuce and tomatoes on the seared buns and placed the teriyaki chicken in between.