No-Frills Recipes ... cooking, baking & excerpts on travel

This has been on my to-do list for ages but I have been procrastinating.  Lately, this seems to be the rage amongst my neighbours and when one of them asked whether I've ever made 'Roast Pork' before, I said 'no'.  So I made it a point to get up early one morning, went to my regular butcher, picked up a piece of pork belly for this purpose and along the way picked up a few tips from him as well ..........

These Chicken Pastries are often available in dim sum joints but many a time they're referred to as 'Char Siew Sou' as in the fillings are of BBQ pork.  I chose to make mine  with chicken, hence the name 'Chicken Pastry'.  This serves as a wonderful snack or even for breakfast, accompanied by a hot cup of Chinese tea or black coffee.

This choc-chip tea bread is not too sweet and is suitable for tea as the name suggests.  Added in some orange rind for more flavour, not forgetting the walnuts that made it nutty .... munch, munch!

I made this chicken dish with a packet of herbal tea spices which I used to make  Herbal Tea Eggs , added in some sauces, garlic and some tofu ......... yes, another two-in-one dish.  Easy and simple and no greasy kitchen to clean up!

This is a flourless nutty choco cake but it's baked this time.  The substitute for flour is hazelnut meal or ground hazelnut and this cake is indeed delicious, full of nutty flavour and light.  Half the cake was finished after it was baked and I kept the remaining portion in an airtight container in the fridge.  I had to as the weather is super hot these days.  It stayed fresh even after two days.

I cooked this vegetarian dish yesterday as our household observed a vegetarian diet on Wesak Day .  The deepfried gluten puffs is one of my favourites whenever we have vegetarian food.  On its own, they're quite bland but once  cooked with some sauce, they are very tasty as they're very absorbent.

   Wishing all Buddhists a Happy Wesak Day!

I have bookmarked Anncoo's  Blueberry Pound Cake for quite some time and was thrilled when I stumbled upon this mini Bundt pan.  I was eager both to try out the recipe as well as the mini pan and was indeed pleased with the result. Mixed Berries mini Bundt Cake (Recipe from Anncoo's Bluberry Pound Cake with slight modification) Ingredients 125 gm butter/margarine 180 gm plain flour 1/2  tsp salt 150 gm caster sugar (orig. 180 gm) 3 eggs 1 tsp vanilla 1 cup plain yoghurt (orig. heavy whipping cream) 250 gm frozen mixed berries Method Grease the mini bundt pan with butter and dust with flour, set aside. Sift the flour with salt and set aside. Mix 1 Tbsp of the above flour into the mixed berries. Cream the butter and sugar till light, creamy and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, mix well. Mix in the vanilla. Add 1/4 of the sifted flour, alternating with the yoghurt, starting and ending with flour.  (Do not overmix). Fold in...

This is a very simple home-cooked stir-fry dish which I'm sure most of you will know how to prepare.  I fried the cauliflower and red capsicum to just three quarters cooked as I prefer them to be crunchy ..... pairs well with a bowl of hot white rice.

Made this yummy choco biscuit cake over the weekend.  To me, it can be referred to as a non-bake cake and also a biscuit as part of the ingredients is biscuits.  For some people, chocolate can be a delicious obession and this easy-to-make biscuit cake is just lovely to enjoy!

This is another chicken dish with preserved bean curd ~ Foo Yue.  A country style chicken dish, simple to prepare which I'm sure most of you would have made this in one way or another.  You can click  here   to view the other chicken post  using foo yue as well.

I'm so  happy and touched to receive this lovely bouquet of flowers from my three musketeers.    Hope I'm not too late to share this with you! Happy Mother's Day to All you Lovely Mums out there and Have a Great Fun-Filled Day!

This quickie noodle dish works well as a one-dish meal.  I used fresh flat egg noodles, added a bit of mushrooms, meat, beans,  Chinese sausage and tadaa.....a meal is ready for a hungry soul!

I steamed this  piece of Garoupa fish fillet on a bed of soft silky beancurd and came up with a two-in-one dish.  Sprinkled on some fresh basil leaves to garnish along with chopped spring onions and garlic crisps.   This dish is light and refreshing and goes very well with white rice.

I notice that recently there are quite a number of posts on glutinous rice from fellow bloggers.  As I too have a soft spot for this sticky rice, I made this ..........'Steamed savoury glutinous rice'.