Clara's Chocolate Chips Cupcakes.

First thing after exam: BAKING TIME!

It has been quite some time since I last baked.

This year's Chinese New Year (CNY), I skipped baking because of being so tired after working in Ernst & Young, and I must spend some time catching up with my girls. CNY cookies recipes will be up in the upcoming CNY.

Since it's my granny's 80th birthday, I had to come up with something special for her. She has been the nice granny you read in fairy tales. Always kind to kids, patient and doesn't grumble.

This chocolate chips cupcakes are based on butter cupcakes, and fairly easy to bake.

Baking in the process!

*For recipe please scroll down*

It was my first time piping words.

Usually I just decorate with:

icing and chocolate flakes, marshmallows, rainbow rice, etc.

In the end, my granny had a happy and wonderful birthday celebration! It's my first time celebrating with her. All the while, I grew up without experiencing love from grandparents. Now that I visit her very often, our bonds are closer, and I feel blessed to have a granny like her.

Ingredients:

125 g salted butter

4 oz of castor sugar

5 oz of self-raising flour (sieved)

3 eggs

1/2 tsp vanilla essence

1/3 cup Milk

1 cup Chocolate chips (to your preference)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven at 180°c.

2. Put butter out in room temperature until it softens.

3. Mix butter and sugar, stirring in one direction on high for 3 minutes.

4. Fold in egg, vanilla essence and sieve flour.

5. Add in milk and chocolate chips then continue folding.

6. Fill cups with batter until 1/2 or 3/4 full.

7. Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until cupcakes turns golden.

8. Wait until cupcakes cool down, then decorate the cupcakes with icing.

Icing:

250g icing sugar

125g margarine

Sieve in icing sugar and mix.

For colours, add in drop of food colouring.

Hope you'll enjoy baking!

xoxo.

Salmon with Thai Herb Salad & Lime Dressing.

Personally, I enjoy eating fish alot! There are many benefits in eating fish. Firstly and most importantly, fish is high in protein and low in fats. Fish is an excellent source of omega-3, which is good for our brain, eyes and heart.

Staying/studying overseas, it isn't easy to get fresh fish unless you go to the market such as Victoria Market, Preston Market and the market in Footscray. At my place, they don't have markets here, not that I know of.

In my blog, I will only introduce food that I feel is nice and easy to prepare/make as I understand that as students we do not have much time to prepare our meals, or sometimes we feel lazy. And for this, I will advice my readers that this is a fairly easy dish. Not much cooking involed =)

Ingredients:
1/3 cup freshly squeezed lime juice
2 tbs palm sugar, grated (brown sugar)
2 tbs fish sauce
200g fish fillets (salmon)

Salad:
1 cup loosely packed fresh mint leaves
1/2 cup loosely packed fresh coriander leaves
1/2 cup Thai basil leaves
2 spring onions, sliced thinly
2 medium red chillies, sliced (red capsicums)

Directions:
1. Oil pan, preheat to medium.
2. Make lime dressing by combining lime juice, sugar and fish sauce in a small jug.
3. For Thai Herb Salad, combine mint, coriander, basil, spring onions and capsicums in a big bowl. Set aside.
4. Cook fish on preheated pan until lightly browned on both sides until well done.
5. Serve at once topped with salad and drizzled with lime dressing.

Honestly, as I prepared this dish, alot of my friends did not enjoy the Thai salad as it had a strong smell. In addition, I believe alot of youngsters are not used to eating raw mint, basil and coriander leaves.

Dear readers, this recipe is just for your referral. You guys can just skip the Thai Herb salad. Try the fish with lime dressing. It is really very nice and scrumptious.

Clara's Paratha.

I am sure alot of Malaysians (peninsular especially) have tried this nice and tasty Hot & Roll.

I used to buy this alot in Monash Sunway, especially where there isn't alot of choice of food in the Monash cafeteria.

Well, I was suddenly craving for Paratha wrap, so I decided to treat myself to something tasty and delicious in the middle of the exam preparation night.

All you need:

1. Paratha wrap (you can easily get this from Coles/Woolworths)

2. Cheese

3. BBQ Sauce/Mayonnaise

4. Ham/Bacon

Directions:

1. Heat paratha on a frying pan on medium high. When colour changes to very light brown, flip to the other side and continue heating.

2. Turn to medium-low heat and add toppings ham, then cheese. This is because you wouldn't want your paratha to be burnt.

3. When cheese melts, add in mayonnaise/BBQ sauce. Fold into desired shape and serve

Tips:

Ham tastes fantastic with mayonnaise, and bacon and BBQ sauce are perfect match.

However, these are only suggestions and you can alter to your preference.

Taa-daa~ Freshly made.

Can you see the cheese oozing out?

Clara's Fried Spaghetti

As university students, we tend to have a lot of leftovers. Rice, noodles, spaghetti, etc. If we are to eat them again, we would probably feel bored of eating the same food we had the day before. But, we can't just throw them away! It's just wasting - bad habit.

So me as a university student, I totally understand how it feels to see leftovers in the refrigerator. So, here are 5 easy steps to leftover food.

I found this recipe in the internet and altered and customised it abit to suit my taste buds! In this recipe, I use leftover spaghetti.

Ingredients:
- olive oil
- 1 tbs of butter
- chicken breast meat (optional: leftover sausages, ham, etc)
- 2 small onions, chopped
- mixed vegetables
- half packet of spaghetti
- pinch of salt and pepper
- 1 tsp of sugar (optional)
- 4 tbs tomato puree
- BBQ sauce

Serves: 4 person

Directions:

1. In a large pan, heat oil and butter over medium high heat.
2. Add onions and meat and saute until meat is cooked. Add mixed vegetables.
3. Add in tomato puree and sugar.
(Reason to adding sugar is that tomato puree tends to be a little bit sour)
4. Add in spaghetti and mix until the tomato puree evens out. Add salt and pepper to taste.
5. Serve immediately.
6. Squeeze in some BBQ sauce for additional taste.

Kikkoman Salmon.

...and I tried making the Salmon fish that Hui Sin thought me!

Ingredients:

Salmon fish

Kikkoman Soy Sauce

Now people, this is a very simple yet delicious dish.

1. Slice the salmon into desired size/chunks.

2. Marinate them with the Kikkoman Soy Sauce. Pour enough to cover the salmon, you don't want your salmon to get too salty. Marinate time: overnight.

*Next day*

3. Take your salmon and fry it!

Easy peasy!

Best match: Plain rice/Soup noodle.

End up??
Burning myself...
Pain!! ='(

Definitely need to sharpen up my cooking skills.

All About Food.

RThis is my dinner for today, Assam Laksa Maggi.

Nice or not?

(I arranged everything myself ^^)

and a few days ago, I went to eat Kajang Sate!! Its very delicious...

and lastly, Homemade patties...
Double Patty burger with cheese and egg...Minus the burger pls!

Btw, Yai made the patties.