I love weekends like today, just resting at home and not doing anything in particular. Okay, maybe just being addicted to the Nat Geo People channel. Now, I just wanna go Italy and eat pastas everyday, cook extremely good-looking, colourful and healthy meals, as well as head to Australia to learn surfing.

Aaaaahhhhh, the world is so huge and amazing, it is such a pity that most or 99% of us will never be able to travel to ALL the cities on Earth in a lifetime.

So H and I decided to bring Portugal to our home tonight. We finally got down to trying a new recipe - Portuguese Codfish Cakes.

We tried it for the first time on our last trip to Macau in July and fell craaaazzzyyyy in love with this dish. I enjoyed it so much I googled for its recipe the moment I got back to Singapore 'cause I felt like I needed to eat it again right away haha. The ingredients are actually very simple and easy to find except for the dry salted codfish which isn't readily available on our island. And then I chanced upon it at Huber's Butchery located at Dempsey! *throws confetti* Otherwise, head to Fassler at Woodlands to get it! ;)

This is the recipe I followed but I amended the ingredients a little because we didn't have parsley and we weren't gonna cook for that many people. So we used:

- 2 large Russet potatoes (probably 450g)
- 1 piece of dried codfish (probably 350g)
- 2 garlic cloves
- 1 egg
- 1/2 onion
- 1/2 teaspoon salt

Which was still too much for 2 persons so we only used half of it and froze the other half for next week!

We soaked the dried codfish overnight for 18 hours and had a change of water once in the morning. It would be ideal to change the water twice in the day as it still tasted a little too salty for us.

Boil until super soft so it'll be easy to mash!

Put the codfish in room temperature water and bring to a boil. When the water has boiled, it is a good gauge the codfish is cooked.

Our blender decided not to work so H used 2 knives and chopped the codfish, onion and garlic into extremely fine bits and our mashed potato is ready!

After mixing everything together with an egg.

Sorry my quenelles don't look very authentic hahaha.

Anyway, I think our codfish cakes are a little over fried because the colour is supposed to be a beautiful orange instead of brown like ours lol (refer to the recipe link above!).

And dinner is served :)

My favourite aglio olio style pasta with broccoli and hot & spicy sausage!

YUMMEH!
I can see us making this again and again and again because they are so easy to cook and make a good snack. Yay to a successful first attempt!

Making French Toast

I honestly think cooking is much, much easier than baking and I enjoy cooking in the afternoons and especially when it's raining. I love the natural flavour of every ingredient and I try not to use seasoning unless it's really necessary. (I cannot eat overly salty food (I mean I can but I really hate to)).

Today I'll be sharing a reallyyyyy simple dish which is so easy to make, (almost idiot proof), french toast! It will make a quick breakfast/teatime option.

French Toast with Banana

Serves 1-2

- 2 slices of bread

- 2 eggs

- 1 banana (or strawberries/blueberries/etc)

- (unsalted) butter

- maple syrup (or kaya (Yakun's my fav!) or sugar or anything you fancy)

1. In a bowl, beat the eggs.

2. Soak the bread (triangle, square or rectangle) into the egg mixture.

3. Melt a piece of butter in the frying pan.

4. Put the soaked bread into pan, cook till bread is golden underneath (20~30 sec) then flip it over (low to medium heat).

Repeat till all bread and egg mixture are finished, and add more butter into the pan when necessary. French toast is a good idea for old, hard bread.

I garnished mine with a banana, sliced, and a generous amount of maple syrup.

More kitchen adventures

I'm not a bad cook, really. But with H being such an anal cook, he makes me look bad beside him. Recent case being, we were gonna have stir-fry mee tai mak with eggs, chicken, mushrooms, green veg and lup cheong for dinner. He insisted on cooking the mushrooms first because Masterchef said so. Apparently the smell/taste of mushroom is too strong. Hence, if cooked together with chicken, the chicken pieces will be tainted with mushroom's smell/taste.

Of course I beg to differ.

And with good reasons.

Just last week, I stir-fried a dish of broccoli + chicken + an assortment of mushrooms with oyster sauce AND there was no hint of mushroom in the gravy/chicken/broccoli so obviously I voiced it out.

He stubbornly refused the fact I presented him with and cooked his mushrooms first... followed by the lup cheong... and chicken... and left his famished girlfriend on the verge of fainting with hunger.

Oh well.

Some Sundays ago, we decided to make pancakes for brunch! We had all the ingredients available at home and pancakes are relatively easy to make (or so I read), so why not?

We haven't made pancakes prior to these and I would say they turned out not too bad!

The recipe we used was Jamie Oliver's.

Ingredients:

1 cup (135g) plain flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoon caster sugar

2/3 cup (135ml) milk

1 egg, beaten

2 tablespoon melted butter, and then some for cooking

as many/little blueberries (or anything else you like your pancakes with!)

maple syrup!!

You can follow the instructions on his webpage. One thing not mentioned was, after every one batch of pancakes in the frying pan, you need to melt butter before you pour the batter else your pancakes will get burnt!

We didn't measure the amount of batter we poured into the pan, we went by... feeling. Hahaha!

When you're done, garnish with MORE blueberries and drench in maple syrup, the way I like it!

Andddd, updated SHOPTIPPYTAPP!

Cooking lessons (haha)

This new year, 

I don't have many lengthy or hard to follow resolutions - just two simple ones:

- Cook more often (less salt, less oil), eat healthily

- Include some form of exercise in our daily lives (jogging, cycling, badminton)

Basically, just overall well-being because H and I are not not young anymore, 

we can't be gorging ourselves silly on fatty food 

and expect our bodies to remain young and healthy. 

Oh, the horrors of aging >:(

Anyway, I've gotten two Gordon Ramsay's cookbooks for my Christmas presents 

and I loveeee my gifts! 

His recipes are easy to follow and it's pretty idiot proof.

I'd make sure I make full use of them this year!

I mean, please, just take a look at this:

Pork burger!

Pork patty

Ingredients: minced pork, bacon, shallots, salt and pepper

Fry the chopped bacon and shallots, 

mix them with seasoned (salt & pepper) minced pork, 

roll the mixture into a ball and flatten it to make it a patty.

Fry with little olive oil.

Baked chips

Ingredients: potatoes, salt, pepper, mushrooms, garlic, olive oil

Boil the potatoes in salt water till the softness you prefer,

dry them and arrange them on a tray to be baked in oven.

Sprinkle some salt & pepper on the tray, drizzle with olive oil.

Bake till golden brown!

I added in mushrooms (only because I love mushrooms haha) 

when the baked chips were almost done 

else they become dried too quickly.

Add BBQ sauce and lettuce between the buns and it's time to dig in!

Verdict: 

Everyone in my family finished their share!!

It was really yummy, and the patty was so juicy!

I would definitely do this again when I crave for burgers ;)

And here's a reallyyyyy simple noodle dish H whipped up in minutes after our run!

Boil chicken bones with onions to get chicken stock.

When the chicken stock is ready, throw in whatever ingredients you like!

We had some greens, chicken, pork balls and fish with thick bee hoon.

Add salt to taste and that's a meal! :)

Verdict:

The soup was very sweet because we added onions and there was no oil at all.

It tasted so healthy with the greens, and with the cut chili and fragrance of the shallots, 

it was a great meal to me.

I actually really like cooking as long as I'm the ONLY ONE in the kitchen.

H and I never failed to argue whenever we tried to cook a meal together 

because we do not approve of each other's preparation and cooking methods.

So now, we try to stay out of each other's way in the kitchen as much as possible haha.

Fortunately, we are both pretty decent cooks in our own ways :)

To a healthier, happier and more fulfilling year ahead!

p/s: TIPPYJESS has just launched a new collection!

And don't forget to 'LIKE' our newly created Facebook page 

for the latest updates and promotions! 

<3

14th February

For Valentine's Day this year, I decided to surprise H with a home-cooked meal! It was my virgin attempt and am I glad to say it turned out a success?! The meal wasn't only edible, it actually tasted GOOD! All thanks to Google and watching my parents/grandmothers when they cooked and picked up a tip or two hehehe. Cooking must be in my Cantonese blood, I've found my natural talent (hahahaha). I'm absolutely proud of myself! :)

By the time I finally dragged myself out to buy groceries, it was already late noon and wet markets would've closed so I went to Cold Storage. Didn't know what kinda fish is good for steaming and the fish seller recommended the most expensive catch of the day... The red snapper. No regrets, the meat was really fresh and smooth!

It was my first time touching a raw fish...and it was kinda gross. So soft and scaly and wet...eeeeww
Need to wear gloves the next time I touch raw meat.

My favourite kailan with garlic and oyster sauce, cooked to perfection, just the way I like it! Crunchy!

Chicken meat and potatoes
Chicken was marinated with salt, pepper, light soya sauce and sesame oil

2 eggs, 1 century egg and 1 salted egg
Add 6 1/2 eggshells of water, steam.
Add light soya sauce, sesame oil when done.

Steamed red snapper
The fish seller must have knew I was a noob at cooking he washed and dug out the innards for me.
All I had to do was garnish it with ginger and chilli inside and on the fish, add some light soya sauce and I was done! Steam for exactly 10minutes and it was absolutely yummy! Healthy too!

And I bought durian puffs from Emicakes for desserts.

I will definitely cook again after realising how easy it actually is to whip up a meal!
Much healthier to eat at home too :)

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 Dress from Seoul

 Crochet dress from H&M

All my favourite colours together :)

 Bustier dress from long ago

Blazer from H&M

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Oh yes, we saw Emma Watson at Selfridges in London the other day!

Spot her!

 I was surprised she's really petite in person.

And that's all for my starstruck moment.

It lasted all of 5 seconds haha.