Chocolate Muffins

I'm a chocoholic..... I love hot chocolate that's really thick and creamy, chocolate ice-cream with chocolate chunks and fudge, even a simple block of dark chocolate. Some studies have shown that chocolate contains flavonoids, a type of polyphenol antioxidant. Dark chocolate is also thought to lower blood pressure in people with hypertension.

Now, for a simple fix for cravings for chocolate, try this recipe that makes about 4 medium sized muffins:

Ingredients:
4 tablespoons soft butter
55g sugar
1 egg
85g self-raising flour
1 tablespoon cocoa powder
small pieces of chocolate (to place in the centre of muffins)

1) Preheat the oven to 190 degree celcius
2) Place butter, sugar, egg, flour and cocoa powder into a large bowl. Beat these together until it's well-mixed.
3) Put paper baking cases in a muffin tin (or use muffin paper cases that won't flatten under the weight of it's contents). Spoon in half of the batter into the paper cases and add pieces of chocolate to the centre of each. Spoon in the rest of the batter to cover the chocolate pieces.
4) Bake for about 20 minutes and serve warm so that the chocolate centre is still runny.

Fried Rice

Fried rice is a simple all-in-one dish which is really easy to put together. If you have any leftover meat from last night's dinner, throw those into your fried rice, add some vegetables or egg etc and you'll get a complete meal! I started "scavenger cooking" when I was young and would search my mum's fridge for scraps of ingredients and would use whatever I could find to make this dish =p

Here's a rough guide on how I cooked fried rice:



Ingredients:
1 bowl cooked rice
ginger (cut into strips)
red onion (diced)
carrot (diced)
long beans (cut into small pieces)
fish cake (cut into strips)
1 egg (beaten)
light soya sauce
white pepper
cooking oil

1) Heat up some oil in the wok. Pour in beaten egg and fry an omelette. The omelette can be cut into small pieces.

2) Using the oil left over from frying the egg (add more if needed), fry the ginger strips, red onion for a few minutes until fragrant. Add in carrot, long beans, fish cake to the wok and fry for a few more minutes.

3) Add cooked rice and the pieces of omelette to the wok and mix with the other ingredients. Add light soya sauce and white pepper to taste.

Udon in Soup

For busy people out there, the everything-in-one-dish is real time saver. This udon in soup is simple to prepare and can be easily modified to suit your own tastes and preferences.

Serves 2 persons

Soup:
4 cups water
chicken bones
carrots
1 red onion
2 tablespoons miso paste (optional)
light soya sauce

Ingredients:
2 packets Udon
Lean pork
1 tube silken tofu
1 packet enoki mushroom
japanese fish cake
dark soya sauce
white pepper

1) To prepare the soup, put chicken bones, diced carrots and onion into boiling water and boil for about 1/2 hour. Add in miso paste if desired. Add light sauce. (This soup can be prepared before hand or ready-made soup bases can be used too)

2) Slice lean pork and season with light/dark sauce and white pepper. Cut tofu into cubes. Cut japanese fish cake into strips. Cut off the ends of the enoki mushroom.

3) To assemble the whole dish together, heat up the soup base until it starts to boil. Cook udon in the soup for about 3-5 minutes or according to the instructions. Remove from the soup and place into bowls. Add all remaining ingredients into the soup. When these ingredients are cooked, arrange them on top of the udon. Add soup to the udon and it's ready to be served!

Pear with White Fungus Dessert

Here's a simple thow-everything-into-the-pot-and-boil kind of dessert..... no joking!

Serves 2-3 persons

Ingredients:

2 1/2 cup water

1 China pear

1 pandan leaf

1 tablespoonful of wolfberries

1 small piece of white fungus

sugar to taste

Preparation:

1) Soak the white fungus in water until soft. Cut into small pieces

2) Peel and cut the china pear into small pieces

3) Boil the water and add in the pear, pandan leaf, wolfberries and white fungus into the boiling water. Let it boil on slow fire for about half an hour. Add sugar to taste, remove the pandan leaf and serve either hot or cold.