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

A n 'East meets West' straightforward one-dish meal  ~  Spaghetti cooked 'al dente', laced with King crustacean cooked in Asian oyster sauce with baby asparagus on the side.  This is a three-in-one dish of carbohydrates, protein, dietary fiber cum vitamins from the greens ~ asparagus. Asparagus , low in saturated fat and very low in cholesterol comes from the edible stem of a plant.  It is also related to  onions, garlic and leeks.  Although there is a wide variety of asparagus, surprisingly, only a handful of them are edible and provide health benefits.  They can be harvested in three colours, mainly, white, purple and green.  Nutrients ...... yes, they are a good source of vitamin K, folate and vitamin C.

This crispy sour plum chicken dish is another family favourite and in this instance I've used boneless chicken leg.  Easy to prepare ~ just marinate the chicken with some seasoning, dip it in some cornflour to coat, deepfry, ladle on the sauce and is ready to be enjoyed.

K ugelhopf, a raisin filled part bread part cake has been on my to-do list for a long, long time.  So, when I was presented with a Kugelhopf  bundt pan, a gift from my niece who hails from Aloha land, I wasted no time in making this.  Kugelhoph is best eaten on the day it's made.  Any leftovers are best lighlty toasted ~ laced with a bit of butter and jam.

W alnut Sesame sweet soup ~ Hup Toh Chee Ma Wu  is a much enjoyed sweet soup or 'tong sui' amonst the Chinese.  But of  late, I don't seem to be able to get this particular dessert from the tong sui stalls.  They do come in pre-mix form but the taste is not so authentic as when it's freshly made with black sesame seeds.  I surfed the net and managed to find this recipe but had to do a lot of modifications to achieve what I had in mind and also to suit my taste buds. Now for some info regarding sesame seeds. The sesame plant thrives well in sandy soil and tropical climatic conditions.  It can grow to a height of 5 ft and bears plenty of pink-white fox-glove type of flowers.  Pods will appear containing white, brown or black seeds and a pod may contain up to 100 or more seeds.  When the sesame seeds ripen, they burst off with a shattering explosion, hence we have 'Open Sesame'!  Black and golden sesame seeds are the un-hulled seeds which may be black or golde

I've never baked with white chocolate before and when I saw some leftover white chocolate in the fridge, thought it best to mix in with my muffins.  I was curious as to how they would turn out, especially the colour.

I spotted these mini scallops from a seafood wholesale outlet near my house and was surprised when the  proprietress told me that these were local.  The source ..... from Kelantan , a northern east coast state  of peninsular Malaysia.  They ended up in my dish of noodles and weren't too bad, tastewise, sweet and a bit chewy.

B aklava is a Middle-Eastern sweet pastry which is made only with thin dough pastry and loaded with nuts and then soaked with honey or syrup.  It is widely believed that  Baklava   is of Assyrian origin, dated back to around the 8th Century B.C.  They, the Assyrians baked this sumptuous treat only on special occasions and at that time only the rich could afford this luxury. But not anymore.  Nowadays, this sweet dessert is readily available and is found in the Middle-Eastern and Mediterranean cuisines, Greece, Iran, Turkey and Lebanon.  However, each culture has its own distinct way of preparing this decadent dessert.

The moment I set eyes on Christine's post on Pumpkin Chiffon cake , I can't help admiring the vibrant natural orange-red colour of her cake.  It was just lovely.  Then not long later, Lena of Frozen Wings posted hers and added pumpkin bits to her cake.  Another beautiful creation.  The temptation is just too irresistible and I just had to try and bake one myself.

Made these Banana almond slice with some leftovers that I salvaged from my fridge .... near expiry Digestive biscuits and slivered almonds.  I adopted the recipe from  The Australian Women's weekly, Biscuits and Slices but had to modify the recipe to suit my 9" x 13" pan.