matcha white chocolate chip shortbread

I remember the first time I ever put a piece of shortbread into my mouth. I was thirteen and visiting my mum in hospital after she'd had some pretty major surgery. She was still woozy from anaesthetic and as I sat there, watching her chest gently rise and fall, my eyes strayed to the gift laden table beside her.

chocolate and vanilla zebra cake (eggless)

Finally got up the nerve to sign in to my blog dashboard this morning.  Couldn't believe the vicious beating my visitor stats had taken since my last post about a month and a half ago. Still, it warmed the old cockles to see that a surprising number of you continued to visit, despite the lack of updates. Thank you for your loyalty or curiosity, and for the lovely notes some of you sent to find out where the dickens I've been hiding and what the devil I've been up to. You know how blogging can be a consuming passion, an addiction? Well, so can life, lived normally. My neck's on the block here, but it's true to some extent, that food bloggers are a breed apart. Our families will attest to how we're slightly batty about our food, table settings, garnishes, props, kitchens and all our related 'toys'.

tea brack (tea soaked fruit loaf)

You must be thinking, I've got an Irish fetish, this being the second Irish recipe I'm posting in barely two weeks. What I have is an indescriminate (in the best possible way) food fetish and as I see it, every community has culinary gems that await discovery by the hungry and the curious. You could though, blame part of it on the lingering after effects of St Patrick's Day and the fact that I stumbled on a fabulous deal too good to pass up, while killing time trawling a supermarket, waiting for a friend to show up for lunch.

guinness and cheddar soda bread

Can you tell where I'm going with this? I'll give you a hint. Leprechauns love green almost as much as they love gold. Ok, so I'm not Irish, not even Irish-descended, which is why I've refrained from calling this "Guinness and cheddar Irish soda bread". But maybe Scotland's close enough? No? Well I guess the only way I could make this even remotely Irish then, is by pouring one half of a Guinness into the mixing bowl, and the other down my gullet?

cashew milk

A huge bag of unroasted cashews landed in my lap a few days ago. They're expensive and I didn't want them to go to waste so, I've been putting them to every imaginable use in the kitchen. Nuts tend to go rancid quite quickly in warm, humid weather and if kept in the fridge, haphazardly packaged, they will absorb odours from other foods very easily.

chocolate swirl hearts (egg and dairy free)

Valentine's Day has come to be seen as a day for lovers but the truth is that it doesn't have very romantic origins. In fact, it's a day originally intended to commemorate the execution and sacrifice of a Christian priest named Valentine, (and possibly several other Christian priests so named) who was imprisoned for his spiritual convictions and the things he did, to uphold them, in the early days of the Christian church. It really wasn't so much about hearts and flowers as it was about martyrdom, back in the day.

dark chocolate prune muffins (vegan and wheat free)

Boy, did this post give me a headache. I sieved it repeatedly, hoping to filter out the acrimony and distil its essence into six short paragraphs. Didn't work. Headache notwithstanding, I'm ecstatic, in the wild eyed way only another obsessed foodie could be, or would understand. I didn't make a better wheel, or frying pan. I did hit pay dirt in my happy quest to bring you easy, delicious, healthier and accessible recipes that nourish body and soul, respect your wallet and trouble the conscience a little less, while continuing to showcase the foods I grew up eating and still love. At least, it started out happy.

I want to help you eat well, without discounting nutrition, pleasure or comfort, while avoiding the kind of culinary elitism and politicism and gratuitous foodie glamour that I keep painfully colliding into, when searching for viable alternatives to mainstream diets.

vegan gingerbread pancakes with pear compote

Pears have got me in their vice-like grip, and just won't let go. Not that I would want to be free of such delicious bondage. I just love me a juicy, fat bottomed pear, on the right side of squishy. Add ginger to the equation and you may as well shackle me and throw away the key. They're a fixture in my fruit bowl. The only Jelly Belly beans I eat are "Juicy Pear", miles ahead of apples or grapes, they're the one fruit I would eat with any and every cheese, in my wine glass, perry trumps Dom Perignon, and I don't care who's reading this.

Yesterday's breakfast was a plate of the pancakes above with stewed pears instead of the usual syrup. 

ginger roasted pear and chocolate cake

I felt sad, writing this. Things often don't work out the way you want them to. Whatever you do, however hard you try. You're never more than a link in a chain. You cannot solely determine any outcome. Most days, you know your tiny place in life's grand scheme. Some days, this simple truth is too hard to swallow.

Couldn't decide on my next post. One minute, jam... the next, cake. Pear, brandy and ginger jam? A deep, dark, damp and boozy chocolate cake??

cinnamon swirl biscuit waffles

You must have seen the recent rash of canned biscuit dough waffle, uh, recipes floating about the Internet  I've been wanting to try my hand at them, out of sheer and unbearable curiosity but after trawling more than a few supermarkets, failed to track down any kind of frozen, chilled, or packaged biscuit/scone dough.

Undaunted I made my own dough, with a generous, possibly too generous swirl of butter and cinnamon sugar.

vegan soft and chewy molasses cookies

Do you like your cookies crunchy or soft and chewy? I'm guessing cookie fans are pretty evenly divided over this, though I suspect soft cookies are gaining ground. No need to say which I like though, is there?

Know the one thing I can't forget about my trip to New York City two years ago? I saw the Flatiron, I saw the Chrysler Building, two of my three favourite architectural masterpieces in the whole world, I had a Papaya King hot dog (ohhhhhh) and a Fat Witch brownie (middling compared to my deep dark beauties, if you ask me), bought my dream boots at Neimann Marcus, lost one of my children (for a while) at Times Square *yikes* and learned about a teaspoon of Spanish, all while encountering some of the weirdest, and some of the nicest people I've ever met.

sweetcorn bread and ice cream sandwiches

Ever get the kind of craving that makes you do kinda stupid things? Like walking over an hour, covering seven grocery stores because you're hit with the most vicious longing for mint chocolate chip ice cream? Then sitting down on a park bench and dissolving into tears, because there wasn't a single tub in all the ice cream freezers within the two mile radius you just trudged on foot, while your cousin, (who's more like your sister, and sweet enough to trudge beside you when you suggest mint chocolate chip ice cream) looks at you like you've lost your mind, cos she doesn't know you're pregnant, because, heck, even you didn't know you were pregnant. 

Okay, so I'm not being hypothetical.... but you do get what I mean, yes? Of course you don't, because you, not afflicted with pregnancy brain, would have just gone, pronto, to an ice cream parlour and asked for a triple scoop *gaa-aaah* I'm now safely beyond the brain addling powers of pregnancy, though I've lately caught myself fantasising about grandbabies. Whaaaat??! 

vegan red velvet chocolate chip cupcakes

I do a lot of vegan baking, never intentionally, always because I'm an erratic shopper, and organising my fridge has never been at the top of my priority list. Consequently, I'm often with my head and shoulders in the old ice box, rummaging for just...... one ..... egg..... PLEASE! Just ONE egg!! Or, crossing my fingers as my eyes scan the ingredients list of a recipe, hoping that somehow, there will be one last carton of milk at the back of the pantry cupboard. You know what I mean? Yes, you do ;)

Many think eggs are indispensable in the kitchen and that eggless baking constitutes some sort of kitchen sorcery, only a chosen few can pull off.

easy chocolate rolls

I spent most of last week planning for and working out the logistics of a cooking demo cum recipe sampling organised by Touch Community Services as part of the activities for the Ultimate Hawker Festival, in aid of all its beneficiaries.

It was a busy week, punctuated by nightmares of forgetting what I wanted to say and stuttering on stage, and fantasies of waking up the day after, knowing I had not made a fool of myself in front of all the denizens of Millenia Walk... and their mothers.

stacked garlic biscuits

This is an unplanned post so it will be a short one, with just enough pictures to drive home the insane texture of these biscuits. It's been a while since I baked a loaf of bread and I'd forgotten to get any, for breakfast the night before, again. Faced with four hungry boys at breakfast, I turned once more to my flour jar because all were too bleary eyed and stiff to make an early bread run.

I decided to throw in the garlic salt that had been slowly calcifying on the spice rack before it was too far gone, in place of regular salt, and the baking powder tin was empty, so I used baking soda and cream of tartar instead.

sticky chocolate date loaf

Every year after Hari Raya (Eid) I will have at least 2 boxes of dates hanging around in the kitchen cupboard. This year I had a bumper fallout crop of four. They're candy for hubs, during Ramadan, and every evening during the entire month, he enjoys them at iftar, as a prelude to dinner.

I keep buying boxes of them for fear of running out and because extras are a good thing when we've all come to expect the date saturated British delight known as sticky toffee pudding, at the end of Ramadan, when hubs no longer needs their sweet, sticky sustenance to replenish depleted energy levels after each day's rigorous fast. Why wait till Ramadan's end?

flaky yoghurt biscuits & behind the scenes of a photoshoot

It's been over two weeks since my last post and I fully intended doing something special for Hari Raya (Eid) but between two bouts of flu (one gastric, the other regular), another niggling health issue and two photoshoots, one of which was the result of being commissioned to develop a bunch of recipes for a client, I just had no gas left in the tank to go another mile.

The upside of things is that I managed to unintentionally albeit a little uncomfortably, lose a nice bit of weight. It feels great to get back (comfortably) into my favourite form fitting skirt, but I'm still undecided on that now infamous quote, "nothing tastes as good as skinny (skinnier) feels".

ooey gooey brownies

I feel happy today because I can finally invite all of you, my lovely readers, to my OFFICIAL BOOK LAUNCH at one of the most breathtaking bookstores I have ever seen, KINOKUNIYA! It's the largest bookstore not just in Singapore, but south east Asia too and is the kind of place I'd like to get unwittingly locked in, when everyone else has left for the night!! 

cinnamon brown sugar muffins for mother's day

I am elated to announce that all the work it takes to get a manuscript off to the printing press is finally finished for my second cookbook and as you can see if you kindly turn your gaze to the right sidebar, it's called "Mum's Not Cooking". Many, many thanks to the wonderful team at Epigram Books, Singapore's coolest publisher, by far! I'll let you know all about it very soon and you don't want to miss it because it's an a-do-ra-ble little book, but more importantly, there'll be a....... GIVEAWAY!! Boy, where are the happy dance emoticons when you need them?!?

I'm feeling generous so, it will be really easy like a umm.. GIVEAWAY, no epic Iron Chef battle type cook-offs, to get your hot little hands on a copy  of Mum's Not Cooking and....there'll be not one, but THREE copies up for grabs! The giveaway will be open to all readers, local and international, (yes, you silent lurkers,

cheese and pepper scones

Amendment 10 May 2012 : My apologies to readers who may have tried out the cheese and pepper scone recipe and had unsatisfactory results. Apparently when I wrote the recipe, my brain was still in a slight fog. It should have read "2 tsp cream of tartar and 1 tsp baking soda" instead of "2 tsp baking soda and 1 tsp cream of tartar". The recipe below has been amended. 

We eat scones, a lot. Yes, we like them, but the real reason we eat them so frequently is that I forget to bake our daily bread, a lot. I make them so often, a scone post felt like giving a recipe for white rice. Even if you can't live without white rice, nobody wants to read a sonnet about it. Right. But, sometimes, serendipity steps in and turns unassuming, unremarkable little scones into a blog post.

Anyway, I was getting increasingly forgetful, much to the chagrin of my bread adoring youngest, to whom breakfast, if bacon is not on the table, should be slice of bread, kaya, slice of bread.