Bee’s Kitchen

Adding fibre into the diet has many benefits, and its supposed to be great for a healthy body. These are pretty good to have with a cup of tea or coffee for afternoon tea. I’ll be bringing this batch to work tomorrow, lets see how they go.

Preparation Time – 15 minutes
Cooking Time – 20 minutes

Makes – 30

Ingredients

1 cup rolled oats
1/4 cup bran
1 cup plain flour
1 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup desiccated coconut
80g butter, chopped
2 tbsp golden syrup
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
4 tbsp hot water

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 140 degrees C.
2. Combine the oats, bran, sifted flour, sugar and coconut in a large bowl. Combine the butter and golden syrup in a microwave safe measuring jug and heat for 30 seconds or until the butter is melted.
3. Combine the bicarbonate soda and warm water, add to the butter mixture. Then stir into the dry ingredients.
4. Scoop one teaspoon for mixture for each biscuit, using another spoon to push the dough onto the tray; or you can roll one teaspoon of dough into ball; repeat with remaining mixture, placing them about 4cm apart on greased oven trays.
5. Flatten balls slightly and bake in a slow oven for about 20 minutes or until golden brown. Cool on baking rack and store in air tight container for up to a week.

Had yum cha today and they didn’t have one of my favourites, banana crepe parcels, they only had mango ones today.

So for dessert tonight i decided to make my own. I started with a basic crepe batter then added the yummy banana and cream filling.

2 eggs
1 cup plain flour
1 1/2 cup full cream milk
1 tbsp butter (melted)
2 tbsp caster sugar
Pinch salt

Filling
1 banana (warmed)
1/2 cup thickened cream
2 tbsp caster sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla essence

Lightly beat eggs, combine with sifted flour, sugar and salt, adding gradually till combined, like a gooey dough, then whisk in milk and butter. Stir till smooth, if lumpy use a strainer, pour batter through to produce a lump free batter. The batter is pretty easy to pour and not thick at all, so don’t worry if it appears really watery

Heat small non stick frying pan, use a 1/4 cup batter for each crepe. Tilt the pan around to spread evenly across. One the top of crepe looks dry, flip the crepe and lightly brown the other side. Repeat with remaining crepes.

Beat thickened cream till it thickens, adding in sugar and vanilla, continue beating till stiff peaks form.

For each crepe fill with banana slices and whipped cream in the centre, fold in sides, then roll up the crepe. These are terrific served as is or topped with ice cream.

Mushrooms are great for your health and so tasty to eat. Containing more protein then most vegetables. They don’t take long to cook either and absorb flavours easily.

Preparation Time – 10 minutes
Cooking Time – 10 minutes

Serves – 2

Ingredients

1/4 cup button mushrooms
1/4 cup oyster mushrooms
1/4 cup shiitake mushrooms
1/4 cup enoki mushrooms
1/4 cup straw mushrooms (canned)
1/4 cup champignon mushrooms (canned)
5 lettuce leaves
1 tbsp oyster sauce
1 c water
1 tbsp cornflour
1 tbsp water
Salt & Pepper to taste

Method

1. Slice mushrooms to bite size pieces, leaving some whole to create a more visually interesting product. In a medium saucepan add in water and cook lettuce till softened, drain, then line lettuce leaves across serving bowl.
2. Next add in all mushrooms and cook for 5 minutes or until mushrooms are hot, then pour in oyster sauce and mix through. The liquid level should be three quarters up from the mushrooms, if not, add in more water. Simmer for 3 minutes.
3. In a small bowl add cornflour and 2 tbsp water, mix well. Bring saucepan to the boil then add in cornflour and stir briskly till fully incorporated. This will thicken the sauce, add more cornflour if you like a more thicker sauce.

Preparation Time – 10 minutes
Cooking Time – 15 minutes

Serves – 4

Ingredients

1 kg meaty pork spare ribs
Oil for deep frying
2 tbsp salt
2 tbsp ground black pepper
1 tsp five spice powder
4 tablespoons corn flour
2 tbsp shallots (sliced)
Sweet chilli sauce for dipping

Method

1. Stir fry the salt and pepper in fry pan, adding five spice powder. Add to corn flour. Coat spare ribs with flour mixture and pat off excess.
2. Cook spare ribs in oil till golden brown. Drain on paper towel. Slice spare ribs into bite side pieces. Garnish with shallots and serve with sweet chilli sauce.

Preparation Time – 15 minutes
Cooking Time – 1 hour 30 minutes

Serves – 6

Ingredients

1.5 kg skinless chicken wings / drumsticks
2 brown onions (sliced)
1 green capsicum (sliced)
500 g button mushrooms (sliced)
4 slices bacon mid rashes (sliced)
2 tbsp Maggie seasoning
1 tbsp mixed herbs
1 tsp course ground pepper
2 chicken stock cubes
1 tbsp corn flour
2 cups hot water

Method

1. Pre heat fan forced oven to 180 degrees.
2. In a large fry pan cook chicken till browned, then transfer into casserole pot. Cook onions till caramelized then add capsicum, mushrooms and bacon, cook till fragrant then add to casserole pot.
3. In medium saucepan, combine hot water and stock cubes on medium heat, stir till dissolved, adding cornflour, stirring till smooth, then combine Maggie seasoning, mixed herbs and ground pepper. Pour into casserole pot then close lid.
4. Place casserole pot into oven for 30 minutes, then check liquid level, adding water to bring three quarter way up in pot. Cook for further 1 hour.
5. Serve hot with rice and vegetables.

While grocery shopping I came across the magazine isle, and had a quick flick through the different cook books available. Woman’s Weekly Cakes , Biscuits & Slices caught my eye, the lemon meringue slice recipe inside looked easy and pretty straight forward, I had all the ingredients already at home so quickly went to the checkout to pay for my purchases.

I forgot my darling new camera at work today, so had to settle with my old one, already i found it awkward taking photo’s, it’s so out with the old in with the new.

Preparation Time – 20 minutes
Cooking Time – 1 hour

Makes – 16

Ingredients

90g butter, softened
2 tablespoons caster sugar
1 egg
1 cup plain flour
1/4 cup apricot jam
Lemon topping
2 eggs
2 egg yolks
1/2 cup caster sugar
300ml cream
1 tablespoon finely grated lemon rind
2 tablespoons lemon juice
Meringue
3 egg whites
3/4 cup caster sugar

Method

1. Preheat oven to moderately hot (200 degrees C/180 degrees C fan-forced). Grease base of 19cm by 29cm slice pan, line base and two long sides with baking paper, extending paper 2cm over long sides.
2. Beat butter, sugar and egg in small bowl with electric mixer until pale in colour, stir in sifted flour, in two batches. Press dough over base of pan, prick several times with fork. Bake about 15 minutes or until golden brown. Cool 20 minutes then spread base with jam.
3. Reduce oven temp to 170 degrees C (150 degrees C fan-forced).
4. Place lemon topping ingredients in medium bowl, whisk until combined. Pour lemon topping over base. Bake about 35 minutes or until set, then cool 20 minutes. Roughen surface of topping with a fork.
5. Increase oven temp to 220 degrees C (200 degrees C fan-forced).
6. To make meringue, beat egg whites in small bowl with electric mixer until soft peaks form, gradually add sugar, beating until dissolved between additions.
7. Spread meringue evenly over topping, bake about three minutes or until browned lightly. Cool in pan 20 minutes before cutting.
8. The only thing with making lemon meringue slice is that it is very time consuming in that the base needs to be cooked then cooled, same with the lemon filling, luckily the meringue only takes a few minutes! Make sure the slice is cooled in the pan before you start cutting into it, this ensures everything stays together and sets.

I bought some banana’s while grocery shopping tonight, and used one for dessert and saving the rest to make banana bread! I used my regular recipe and mashed up one banana into the mixture.

After a long day at work, i like to unwind in front of the tv and veg out a bit, or even go for a game of chess! I am currently in the lead!!

Bee-1 | The Man-0

So a quick one pot dinner would be the choice for me. ‘The Man’ gave me a great idea for tonight’s meal, instead of adding potatoes to my chicken curry, leave that out, add some green beans and serve with a side of mashed potatoes. I couldn’t help myself i used my wizz mixer to mash my potatoes!! Adding to the potatoes, full cream milk, butter, salt and pepper to taste.

The Chicken Curry turned out perfectly, i actually prefer it. The colour of the curry turned out more intense and the green beans added a bit of life to the dish.

Normally we have this with steamed rice, but creamy mashed potatoes work so well as a substitute.

Funny: Instead of asking what’s for dessert after the meal, ‘The Man’ gives me the rather creative statement of, ‘the chicken and potato have travelled all the way down into my stomach now, but my dessert stomach is still empty’.

While at work the other day i was emailing with ET, and she was telling me about her super duper Paper Wrapped Sponge Cakes that she will be making with her mum tonight. The thought of eating one of those delicious parcels of soft soft goodness was all too much for me. So i do what comes naturally and asked to borrow her recipe. Ahhh, Asians are Asians, working with feel rather then recipes!!florences-paper-lined-sponge-cake

That wouldn’t do for me, so onto google i went and did a search, it was pretty challenging too i was typing things in like paper wrapped sponge cakes, cakes wrapped in paper, little bucket shaped cakes in paper, chinese cupcakes, Zee Bao Darn Gao, paper wrapped chinese cupcakes and the list went on, finally i came across a recipe from Florence’s site. She’s my type of gal, on her site she says “I love to bake and cook snacks”, which i’m also a big fan of doing.

Like a lot of people that commented on the post for Paper Lined Sponge Cake on Florence’s site, i too grew up munching on these little parcels of goodness when my parents went to Chinatown or the local Chinese Bakery. For detailed recipe of this yummy cake go visit Florence’s Do What I Like blog.