Baked Macaroni with Campbell Soup and Cheese

Life is hectic, but that doesn’t mean I can’t have hearty home cooked meals. Pasta dishes, seem to me, are one of those comfort foods. You can't get it wrong with a few simple steps.

You can add any extra vegetables to this pasta, but I didn't. Just serve with a simple green salad will do.
Ingredients
220g macaroni
2 tbs. olive oil
1 can of Campbell soup – celery flavour
1 cup of mixed vegetables
1/2 cup of water
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 tsp of fresh thyme, leaves only
1 cup of shredded mozzarella
¼ cup grated Parmesan cheese

Methods

Preheat oven to 250°c.
Add macaroni to the boiling water, and cook according to package directions. Once cooked, drain the macaroni. Set aside.
Over medium heat, fry garlic with oil for about 30 seconds, then add the soup and mixed vegetables. Add 1/2 cup of water, season with freshly ground black pepper, cook for 10 mins. Then lower heat, stir in macaroni, add fresh thyme.
Pour into a baking ware, cover with shredded mozzarella, finish with grated Parmesan cheese. Bake for 20 mins or until golden brown.

Curry On! @ 7th Mile Coffee Shop

Today, CY and I went to Curry On. We were not paid for this review and hence this is our genuine opinion about the curry.

The fair was simple: 3 curries (chicken, mutton or mutton ribs) to choose from with either nasi bryani or bread to go along. We ordered the chicken and mutton curries; the rib curry was not ready yet.

Portion was sizeable, with lots of gravy. My opinion is that just skip the curry chicken. It is milder in taste compared to the mutton curry; not too spicy. I think most people would prefer the mutton curry. The mutton curry tastes stronger, with sticky chunks of mutton attached to bones. We were lucky to get a piece of bone with soft tendons at the tip, which got CY sucking away in satisfaction.

Chicken Curry

Both the curries have different flavours, but share some common characteristics. Their gravies are thick, accentuating the smells of individual spices. Good news for the health-conscious, the chicken and mutton curries do not contain coconut milk! It is substituted by spring onions, ginger and yoghurt as curry bases. Nonetheless, the potatoes were too bland, not to my liking.

Mutton Curry
The basmati rice was not too strong in flavour, giving a home-cooked feel. CY only complaint was the strong crosswinds from the coffeeshop fans (not the human version) which almost sent our papadums to the next table! Price is reasonable, $12 for 2 sets of curries, 2 bryani sets and a serving of bread. A place to go for your healthy curry fix.

On a side note, the coffee from the drink stall is really good. Just make sure you get it from the uncle! (See picture)

Will I be coming back again? Certainly. Nowadays, not many stalls sell healthy and tasty curry that won’t send you to the toilet right away.

This is one of them.

Overall score: 7/10

Curry on! @ 7th Mile Coffee Shop

18 Toh Yi Drive #01-97

Droolicious Ribeye Steak

Tonight, we had ribeye steak for dinner.

Quoted from bbq. about.com:

The ribeye is cut from the roast that sits at the top of the rib primal. As a roast is known as a standing rib roast or, more commonly, Prime Rib (though technically only if it is prime grade beef). The Rib-Eye is a boneless cut. When the bone is attached it is called a Rib Steak.

Because of excellent marbling in the meat of this cut it is loaded with flavor and remains tender during cooking. This steak is best grilled (ask anyone) and will remain tender up to medium, though it is still good at medium well.

This is THE steak. At least once in your life you need to go to the most expensive restaurant you can find and order a prime grade Rib-Eye steak, medium rare. When you go to take that first bite, close your eyes and roll back in your seat. Yeah, it's like that.
That’s quite true. When we were eating, “hmmm…!” “argh…!” “So tender…!” These expressive sounds bursted out from our mouths. I am sorry my vocabulary is simply too limited to describe the feeling to you. You have to sink your teeth into the steak yourself.

With just salt and pepper, the magic of grilling has just turned it into succulently juicy and tasty ribeye steak. Weighing at 350g per piece, this steak costs at least S$50 in the restaurants each; we had it less than half of the cost, i.e. S$46 net for two, which means we saved more than S$50! That’s why I think people like us should learn how to cook to save money.

Ingredients

350g, roughly 2 inches thick ribeye
Salt & pepper
Some canola oil for brushing (do not use olive oil because of its low smoking point)
Thyme (optional)

some unsalted butter

Method

Heat the grill pan using maximum heat, until real hot, brush some canola oil onto the steak, season the steak with salt and freshly ground pepper, be generous with pepper, it will be more flavourful if you put more.

Using tongs, put the steak into the pan, you will hear satisfying and sizzling sounds, grill it for 2 mins and shift it sideway to create the nice grill grid mark on the steak, grill another 1 min.

Flip the steak and grill for another 2 mins, lower the heat down to medium high heat, put 1 or 2 tbsp of unsalted butter, shift it again to create the grid mark on the steak. Tong it vertical to sear the sides of the steak to seal in the meat juice.

Let it sit for at least 5 mins before serving, so that the steak can 'relax' its muscle before you sink your teeth onto it.

Optional sauce: mushroom sauce, red wine sauce, black pepper sauce. You can buy those readily available sauce in the market.

Tonight, our rendition was using red wine, worcester sauce, some sugar, chicken stock cubes and oyster sauce. We created it using our perference as guide.

Tips:

1. Choose the correct steak. Its thickness should be at least 1.5 inches. We use 2 inches this time.
2. Do not flip more than 1 time, the steak will be cooked more than necessary and the grid mark on the steak will be gone.
3. Season with salt and pepper just before going into the grill pan because the salt will draw out its moisture and it will turn hard.
4. Can grill with some vegetable to go along.
5. Each side of the steak normally takes about 2-4 mins to cook, depends on the thickness. For medium rare steak, it will take not more than 3 mins per side.

The outcome:

Charred on the ouside but still retain its juiciness on the inside. Slightly red in colour. Yum Yum!

Droolicious Steak!

Mushroom Fish Bladder & Scallop Soup

女人吾补好易老!

Can be translated into:
Nourishing supplements are crucial in slowing down the effects of ageing.

This is another simple soup suitable for those who don't like too much trouble in cooking, yet would like to enjoy the nutritional values of a soup.

Ingredients:
Dried Shitake mushroom, soaked
6 pieces of fish bladder
dried scallop, don't bother to soak
Shao Xing wine (I forget to add here! But please do so)
4 big pork bone
3 bowls of water

Method:
Blanch the bone, then put everything into a big pot, boil and return to low heat over 2 hours.
Lastly, season with salt & some wine (about 1 tbsp).

ABC Soup with Pork Ribs - A Nutritious Soup

Recently, I don't have much time for cooking, let alone blogging about food. We were busying for a lot of things, but most of the things we did were not as important as eating.

Tonight, I managed to rush home to cook for this soup. As CY has been sick for the past few days, I wanted him to get enough nutrients to boost his immune system, hence this soup.

ABC, as you would have known by now, it's as simple as A, B and C, or it's called this way because it contains a spectrum of vitamin A, B and C.

Serve 2

Ingredients:

1. 2 carrot, cut into chunks
2. 1 onion, quartered
3. 300g ribs
4. fresh shitake mushroom
5. 1 corn, cut into chunks
6. 4 red dates, washed
7. 3 tomatoes, halfed

Method

Prepare 3-4 cups of water, about 1 litre, bring to bowl. Blanch ribs, pour everything inside the pot except tomatoes, boil for 10 mins, then simmer over low heat for another 40-50 mins. Then add in tomatoes and cook together for the last 10 mins. Season with salt & 1/2 chicken stocl cube. Serve with warm rice and enjoy.

This nutritious and hearty, yet simple meal will certainly blow you away! (as it did to CY... ;)

Hong Lim Food Centre - Cantonese Curry Mee & Feng Zao Noodle

Saw the recommendation from ieat, so there we went.

We have visited this place sooo... MANY times but skipped the food centre, other than the Barcode Bakery which is too visible to be missed (on the ground floor opposite this food centre). We didn't know that there are sooo... MANY foods to eat! So next time if you are to visit Singapore, do come here for local delicacies with a cheap tag that won't burn a hole in your wallet. ;)

Nice curry noodle, as you can see here, S$3 per plate. Cheap and good. I suppose the gravy is homemade as I can taste a gamut of spices in there. The curry chicken wing is succulent and tasty. The noodle is also al dente.
CY has chicken feet noodle (Feng Zao noodle) with lots of sambal chili (he can't live without). With also S$3 per plate, I like the fact that they give us a good number of chicken feet, which is really value for money. Hehe... The chicken feet is really flavourful and almost melts in my mouth. :) The shitake mushroom is umami-ly great! Simply delish!

Cantonese Delights
Hong Lim Food Centre
#02-03
9am to 3pm
Closed on Sat and Sun

Other than this stall, I would certainly go back for other foods as well, such as crayfish hor fun (rice noodle), chicken rice, fish soup, bah kut teh (herbal pork ribs), wonton mee, curry puff, prawn noodle, etc. The list can go on and on. There is also a number of stalls that sell the same thing, and I can't list all their names down here. The rule of thumb is to order from where the long queues are.

Another review here.

Henderson Waves & Prawn Noodle

Woke up early at 6.30am, we went to this place for exercise. CY said that he had never woke up so early before, unless going for incamp training.

Arrived there around 7.30am. The sun was rising from the horizon, reflected warm rays onto the waves, as well as CY's hair. Reached the other side - Mount Faber Park around 8.15am. Shot some nice photos along the way.

Climbing up the stair. Me too. A bit slow....hey hey chuan (panting heavily) may be.

Reach near the top of Mount Faber, saw this little version of Merlion.

Henderson Waves on our way back. Some uncles look damn fit! 优大虾排骨面. Blk 94 Henderson Rd #01-276

Really yummy: full of flavours, rich body, al dente noodle. Total: 8.5/10

A nice bowl of this + 1 hour exercise, sweetened my afternoon dream.

Stir-fry Spinach

Popeye the sailor man!

I'm Popeye the Sailor Man, I'm Popeye the Sailor Man. I'm strong to the finich Cause I eats me spinach. I'm Popeye the Sailor Man!

I am giggling when writing this.

When I was in my primary school, I love to hear this song because it meant the Popeye show was on air then! I would drop and stop doing ALL things and glue in front of the TV. This was in fact one of my favourite cartoons at ALL time. Popeye is my superidol. Hehe....

Then again, I never had the chance to eat the Ever-Powerful-Popeye food until I moved to Seremban, where I had my secondary education. I guess the main reason was that my kampung people didn’t grow spinach, which meant no supply. I also misunderstood that this Popeye food MUST come out from a can, like the way Popeye poured it into his mouth. You know?

So until I met CY, he told me the Popeye food was actually just Spinach. After knowing that, we used to have Popeye food with instant noodle, stir-fry, pasta, etc...Because I need POWER!

Ingredients:

Spinach, garlic, soy sauce and some salt.

Method, please click Here .

Braised Pork Ribs (卤小排)

Today’s menu is braised porb ribs (卤小排). Notice that the photo is getting bigger now? Aha! I have just realised how to upload photo through flikr. My goodness, it’s so easy and yet, I didn’t know about it.

Nevermind, late better than never.

Today I followed my mood, put in ingredients and amount according to my Agar-logy aka anyhow. I need to clear some of my spices anyway. CY graded it to be NICE. But…. It could be better if it was cooked over a longer period, more than 2 hours if possible. All right! Next time I will.

Ingredients:
2 star anise & 1 cinnamon stick
some dark soy sauce
some rock sugar
some Shao Xing wine
some salt
some soy sauce
some ribs
some water

Method
Just pour everything inside, fill with water until cover the ribs, simmer over low heat till sauce thicken, about 3 hours.

Point to note:
I should have simmered it under ultra-low heat because the ribs seem to be a bit hard. Also, may be one or two spring onion (just the white part) to enhance its flavour?

Pasir Ris Park Outing - Pictorial