I am learning to take food pictures properly. And this is my second trial.
My friend – Noobcook has given me some useful pointers, and has even shared with me her home setup for taking a perfect food picture. I don’t have a white board nor an external flash. So I have to make do with experimenting the aperture mode on my DSLR, lots of daylight and photoshop.

For my first trial, I made chrysanthemum and wolfberry jellies. But the jellies have collapsed to a horrifying mess after I left them standing in the heat for more than half an hour, while trying to take the “best angle”. *cries*

I decided to give up my chrysanthemum jellies. The pictures were too unsavoury to be posted. You are going to get nightmares looking at them.

My second trial is a simplied version of the 炖奶 (“steamed milk pudding”) – minus the steaming.
It’s not that I don’t want to steam it. But steaming milk puddings take a lot of experience to get the proportion and constituency right. I have not found the mastery to steaming edible milk puddings.

My recipe of the steamless milk pudding:

And top up with cooked red beans and maple syrup (optional).

P/S: If you have a recipe for steamed milk pudding, please let me know. I’d love to try it.

The sphagetti – a dish easy to whip up and serve for dinner anytime. I have copious amounts of food pictures parked in my camera which I have no time to edit.

There was nothing spectacular about this picture. As a matter-of-fact, it was taken in poor kitchen lighting and under hasty circumstances because the cook (me) and her customer (Mr Croaky) were hungry.

I have always marvelled her food pictures and admired at the amount of time and effort invested in her editing and presentation.

1. Her composition would be just right – enough noodles, enough prawns and enough gravy. Every single strand of food is meaningfully positioned and never out of place. If it was out of place, it was done for good and artistic reasons.
2. The lighting for each picture is well thought of – enough shadows, enough focus and taken in good daylight. Arrgh… I only cook at night!
3. Interesting utensils or purposeful vessels would be used in a deliberate attempt to match and complement the dishes for presentation. Lucky she is not in my home economics class.
4. The right corners would be sharpened or blurred either with the use of professional camera settings (shutter speed, aperture size) or through the use of PhotoShop.
5. Her pictures are impressive. Maybe she works as a photographer for magazines or recipe books?

I have the intention to purchase a DSL camera but it would be rather useless if I keep on taking short-cuts due to a lack of time or enthusiasm to read up and experiment. Croaky is no photography fan. He yawns at every single mention of cameras, gadgets and related stuff. He likes to gawk at cars, aeroplanes and follows his “Air-crash investigation” and tells me tales of how aeroplanes collide and rebukes me for the lack of similar morbid curiosity.

We have such diverse interests. It makes me wonder how in the world did we end up together?

This is one of my favourite soup! And it is very easy to prepare.

Ingredients:

Just put all the ingredients in 1 litre of water and switch on the slow cooker for 8 hours.
The soup base tastes a bit like chicken feet peanut soup.
It’s always nice to add soup to the table, after a long tiring day at work.

Recently, we have decided to eat sandwich for dinner once a week. This is much to the delight of Mr Croaky, who is a Subway sandwich fan and one who dreads washing the dishes. The preparation of sandwiches does not involve any oily pots or pans and no messy sinks. Only the oven, chopping board and a pot of water will be used (for boiling eggs).

It takes only 15 minutes to prepare the dinner.
Ingredients:

Slice the baguette into halves, then stuff the ham, cheese and mushroom into it.
Then baked in oven at 220 degrees for 5 mins.
Remove from oven, stuff in the vegetables and eggs.
Serve with pepper!

p/s: I am experimenting the above picture with photoshop… hehe

This pound cake recipe is taken from my betty crocker recipe book with slight modifications.
I replaced shortening with cooking oil and used plain flour for all purpose flour. The end result was a fluffy texture which crumbled rather easily, quite suitable for cup cakes.

Ingredients:

Heat oven to 150 degrees. Grease 9 x 5 inch bread-loaf baking tin.
Beat all ingredients at medium speed x 30 seconds then high speed for 2 mins.
Bake for 45 minutes until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.
Cool for 1 hour before serve.
// If you want to keep it in the fridge, microwave on high for 1 min before sinking in your teeth, otherwise your teeth will break (Croaky can assure you that).

I did not manage to understand why home-baked cakes hardened so easily in the fridge until I met a baking guru recently…

Me: Do you know why my cakes become stone-hard after I keep them in the fridge? This doesn’t happen for commercially baked cakes.

Me: Makes sense. I didn’t think of that. I thought there was something wrong with my cakes.

Isn’t it a blessing to bake your own cake and eat it?

These banana nut muffins are my favourite baking delight. They smell real nice in the kitchen and make good tasty treats for everyone. The recipe – Betty Crocker Banana Nut Muffin Mix.

I know all those baking fanatics like to bake things from scratch. I am one of those as well. But sometimes it doesn’t hurt to take some short-cut and get the same things done with less mess and guaranteed results, right?

And the muffin mix (esp the banana nut ones) runs out pretty fast in supermarts and phoon huat. I got them at a steal at Sheng Siong!

Recently, I bought a set of anionized pots and along with the set came a recipe for baking pandan chiffon cake. The recipe is special because you will “bake” the cake in the frying pan instead of an oven.

Ingredients

Well, before you start, heat your frying pan at high setting for 10 minutes.

Whisk egg whites until stiff. Add in sugar and cream of tartar.
Add in the egg yolks, oil, milk, pandan paste and vanilla essence.
Mix slowly and evenly to get a smooth batter.
Sieve and fold in the flour slowly. Pour into a mould.

Place the mould in the frying pan, cover and bake at medium heat for 15 minutes.
When water droplets form on the lid, the cake is ready.

It’s green and puffy, like a mega doughnut in the mould.

And a piece of cake to go along with your tea.

Simple?

The big feast for CNY was prepared way in advance as I drafted out the menu for Croaky’s approval. He, being a no-fuss man, agreed to everything that I have included in the menu. His only concern was the crab-killing session which was supposed to precede the feast.

The ingredients for the feast. The jumbo crabs took the two of us 1/2 hour to kill, and me 1/2 hour to dissect. Croaky freaked and jumped out of the kitchen while the two crabs were being assasinated by Woolly. Where do you see such a timid man?

The chilli crabs! Drenched in mouth-watering gravvy and spicy sauce. Our delight for the night.

Croaky deep fried these buns, which were a bit chao-da. Makes a great complement to the chilli sauce.

Braised sea cucumber, mushrooms and bamboo shoot. I love the fatt choy (black moss) best.

Abalone with mixed vegetables. The carrots are neatly cut into flower shapes for prosperity.

And winter melon soup with spare ribs to go with the rest of the meal. What a feast, yeah?

Croaky tucking into the meal, with a gluttony look. All is happy with the food.

Happy New Year

Last Christmas, I have renewed my interest in baking, thanks to a dear friend who has given me a book on “Baking”.
My first baking attempt was the Cashew Nuts Brownie!
And Croaky was endearing to escort me to Phoon Huat to purchase all the ingredients and gungho enough to be my first sampler.

The ingredients – all sprawled and neatly arranged before the whole mess began…
All purpose flour, dark chocolate chunks, cashew nuts, cream, icing sugar and my baking equipment.

As I melted the chocolate and butter over my electric stove. This method is double boiling and is essential if you do not want to burn your chocolate over direct heat.

Then it is the sugar and the eggs. I love this metal mixing bowl from Ikea – its spacious and very sleek looking.

Then I whipped the sugar-egg mixture with an electric beater until frothy.

The chocolatey batter as I scrapped them nicely off with my rubber scrapper.

And there, the batter in my 9 inch squarish aluminium baking tray – specially bought for the occasion.

My recipe book, cropped up on my table-top, as I go through each step with close precision.

The chocolate icing on my ready-baked brownie.

The finished product! After 3 hours of hard work and sweat in my kitchen.

Verdict: Croaky loves it, and so does my colleagues.
My next endeavour – Banana Nut Muffins