Lettuce Dumplings

There was some leftover lettuce from making salads, thus the idea of making these -- lettuce dumplings. These do require a bit of preparation work but it's a healthy dish with meat and vegetables all in one!

Ingredients:

a few whole lettuce leaves

carrot shreds (for decoration)

minced pork

dried chinese mushrooms (soaked and sliced)

light soya sauce

black pepper

1) To start, steam the lettuce leaves for a few minutes until soft enough to wrap the meat

2) Season the minced pork with some light soya sauce and black pepper. You may like to add in the mushrooms (or any other ingredients, like prawns) to this mixture too.

3) Once the lettuce is ready and have cooled down sufficiently to handle, wrap little parcels of meat mixture in each lettuce leaf, much like wrapping a popiah

4) Arrange the lettuce dumplings on a plate and top each one with some shredded carrot for decoration. I added a little of the water used to soak the chinese mushrooms to the plate, then steamed for about 15 minutes until the dumplings are cooked. (timing depends on the size of the dumplings)

Simple Fried Pasta

This fried pasta dish is sort of a "rojak" kind of dish...... not really western, not really eastern, and is one of the scavanger dishes I put together most often. Basically put in whatever you like or whatever's in the fridge :p

Ingredients:

3 small handfuls of uncooked pasta

minced garlic

onion, diced

carrot, cut into small cubes

tomato, diced

minced meat

light soya sauce

tomato sauce

chili sauce

black pepper

dried oregano (optional)

cooking oil

1) Cook pasta in boiling water for about 14 minutes, or as instructions on packet. Drain and put aside

2) Season minced meat with some light soya sauce and black pepper

3) To prepare the sauce, add tomato sauce, chili sauce, light soya sauce, black pepper, dried oregano and some water to a bowl. Mix well.

4) Heat up some oil in a wok/pan. Add in garlic and onions and fry until fragrant. Add in tomato, carrots and the seasoned minced meat, fry until meat is cooked. Pour in the prepared sauce from step 3 and let simmer for a while. Add more water if necessary.

5) Add pasta to the wok/pan and toss until well coated/mixed with the other ingredients and it's ready to be served!

Walnut Muffins

What I like about how these muffins turned out is that it rises really nicely (but not too much) and the top are a little crusty..... mmmmmmm...... best eaten when warm....

Ingredients:

375g self-raising flour

125g brown sugar

a pinch of salt

1 teaspoon baking powder

115g butter, melted

250ml milk

1 egg

walnuts, roughly chopped

1) Preheat oven to 200 degrees celsius and line a 12-cup muffin tray with paper muffin cups.

2) Combine flour, sugar, salt and baking powder in a bowl.

3) Beat melted butter, milk and egg together

4) Add dry ingredients and chopped walnuts to egg mixture and mix until just combined. Spoon batter into prepared muffin cups and bake for about 20 minutes or until tops are golden brown.

Wholemeal Peach Muffins

There was a feature in the newspaper about online bakers some time back. The cupcakes/muffins/cakes featured were sooooo pretty...... some with colourful icing, others shaped like mice or even handbags!! So I thought I'd make an attempt to decorate my muffins a little.

The recipe I chose was in the healthy section of the book...... wholemeal flour, low-fat milk, low-fat cream cheese (for the topping) etc etc etc. I must have missed out something or got some of the measurements wrong.... because my muffins turned out rather dense.... and when it was eaten cold from the fridge, it didn't taste good at all...... yucks :p

However, it's my 1st attempt to top muffins with a little "extra", and it looked ok in the photo, so..... this post is for my failed attempt at wholemeal muffins...... I'll see if there's a chance to retry this recipe and make it work :)

Chocolate Chip Muffins

This is the first time I've tried a muffin recipe which doesn't use any butter, sunflower oil is used instead. The muffins turned out fine, but think I still prefer the buttery kind.
Ingredients:
300g plain flour
225g sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
2 tablespoon cocoa powder
2 eggs
115ml sunflower oil
175ml milk
chocolate chips
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
1)Preheat oven to 180 degree celsius
2) Mix all dry ingredients, except chocolate chips, together (flour, sugar, baking powder, cocoa powder)
3) Combine all wet ingredients in a bowl and beat with an electric whisk until combined.
4) Add dry mixture and chocolate chips to wet mixture and stir until just combined.
5) Spoon batter into 12 muffin cups placed in a muffin tin and sprinkle some chocolate chips on top of each one. Bake for about 20 minutes.