Cooking Adventures

I don't claim to be a good cook. To me, success is when I'm able to whip up something delicious and nutricious for my family without too much fuss.

Since moving here, the biggest change for me is in having to cook all meals for my family. Actually I'm enjoying it. I've been experimenting and trying out new recipes in an attempt to perfect my cooking skills and increase the variety of food that I can bring to the table. The abundance and freshness of the ingredients here is a great source of inspiration. Usually, I go for "all-in-one" kind of dishes which is faster and yet fulfill nutritions from all the different food categories.


It's an adventure as I eagerly sample the output and think of how I can cook it better. Part of the fun is also in looking for the right ingredients. Recently I was so delighted to find my chinese herbs, dried mushrooms and red dates in Footscray, I think I'll be going there quite often.


Here're some results:


Minced Pork with Enoki mushrooms and Tofu

Evaluation: My mother used to make something like this. A simple and delicious dish with meat and veg plus proteins/calcium from tofu. Quite successful on my first attempt. Hubby loves it because it's got his favourite mince pork and enoki. I think the mince pork here taste very good. I fried the tofu first and put it aside, then I cook the marinated pork with garlic, adding the enoki mushrooms later. Season it simply with oyster sauce and abit of dark soya sauce, sugar. The 2nd time, I mixed the tofu in without frying and it's also not bad.







Beef Steak with Roast Potatoes and Capsicums


valuation: Well balanced meal with meat, veg and starch all in. The beef was simply marinated with some salt, black pepper and red wine. Taste good but the beef was too thick and the center of the beef was still quite rare. We had to return it to the grill again. I cooked the roast potatoes following a recipe I found on a website. It was quite good except that I need to give it more salt next time. It was a lot of work though (for my standard). Had to peel and cut all the potatoes, boil it, then shake it with salt, lastly bake it in olive oil, turning them regularly. That's why I don't really like to cook potatoes but once you buy a whole bag, you've got to think of ways to consume them. I actually cooked alot and froze half for next time.

Glutinous Rice (Chu Bee Peng)

Evaluation: I followed this recipe on "cookbakelegacy.blogspot.com" which my sis in-law sent me. But because I didn't cook as much, I modified the seasoning quantity and end up, it's not salty enough. Also, I missed out on the dried shrimp. However I added 'lap cheong' instead. End results is still very edible but next time, it'll be perfect when I:

1) Add more salt/soya sauce.

2) Add dried shrimp. Although both me and hubby don't really fancy them, I think it makes a difference to the taste.

3) Try not to burn the peanuts while roasting them :-)

4) Steam it instead of cooking in rice cooker. The glutinous rice is still soft and fluffy but the bottom was burnt and stuck to the cooker.