During my long break from the working life... one of the things i really enjoy doing was COOOKING...
Below are just picture for my attempts... mostly a spur of the moment... involving suddenly printing out recipes from the net and rushing out to the supermart to grab the ingredients...
Usually occuring during periods of time when my parents are overseas... so no one freaks out when i mess up the kitchen... But i always clean it up okay!
So in chronical order...
1) A simple dinner of saute mushrooms and bbq meatballs...


Mushrooms were a little salty, a little too much oyster sauce... but good on rice. The meat balls were made from scratch, with a little punch of charred flavors.... u get wat i mean... but still i get thumbs up from my bf and brothers... (with persuasion of course) hahaha
2) My Glorious Cheesecake and Rasberry sauce!

Made from scratch... cookie base, sauce and all... found a fabulous recipe... though i had to bake double the instructed time because my oven was not hot enuff... The center was too wet at first but soon set after sitting in the fridge for half a day... dun worry, its common. End result a really good cheezcake i must say... I will sure make it again. Erm.. maybe when i quit the next time.. hahha...
And i really LURVE the rasberry sauce... So simple.. just frozen berries... sugar, cornstarch and water.. boil and simmer.. It will go well with yogurt or icecream... sara lee pound cake... shortbread, scones, endless combi...
3) Cupcakes

Rolling along with my momentum on desserts, i decided to make golden butter cupcake with buttercream frosting... No quick mixes... but still it was fairly simple. The hard part was the decorating without proper tools...
Everything turned out ok.. taste a little sweet but really depends on if you like sweet... (its a dessert for godsake... so fuck diabetes...) Next time i will really want to improve on the looks though...
4) Ja-pa-nees Ka-ri & Sweet Potato Croquette

Actually this is my second attempt on this dish... Well i use the packet jap curry u can find in supermart... U can't go wrong with tt.. just follow the instructions on the box. But i kinda jazzed it up. I use Chicken Thigh meat (coz i think they are the best!), I cut out the meat to put in the curry. Use chicken stock made from the thigh bones instead of plain water. Added onions to make it sweeter. Pre-seasoned the fresh ingredients to add more floavours... Sauteed the ingredients separately for diff duration instead of all at the same time.. coz they do cook at diff time...
The 1st time i kinda messed up the jap rice by adding too little water... this time it was nice and fluffy... the trick is after ur rice cooker is done cooking open it up and air the rice for a while... it will seem really soggy at 1st sight... but after ard 10~15 mins... it will it just nice to serve!

The Sweet Potato Croquette is something i thought of... not from any recipe.. well fine... ok i adapted from the original Potato Croquette, only i made it with japanese purple skin sweet potatoes... (the best!). But i actually adopted the preparation steps from the DS game Cooking Mama... haha.. its too simple... so u can't to wrong.. It takes quite a while to prepare... esp when i was particular to make each of them the same size.. and perfectly circular hahhaa.. They were a hit with my brothers and fq's gf... it happens to go really well with the curry... Yippie for me... Will sure make them again someday...
Well.. so much for my cooking adventures... I really enjoyed them... esp when they all turned out so well... :) Good for a glutton like me.. at least i can feed myself hohoho...
BTW, anyone interested in the recipe I am glad to post them out upon request! hehe....