Low Cholesterol Diet

My hubby finally went for a health check to monitor his cholesterol levels. Although he is stick-thin, he has slightly high cholesterol. It could be due to his lifestyle or maybe inherited in his genes. The night before, I decided to cook some low cholesterol dishes for him.

It consists of celery soup, steamed fish, steamed tofu and red rice. For the celery soup, I used chicken breast (least fat content), celery, corn, carrots. For the steamed fish, I prepared it Cantonese-style i.e. steamed the fish plain, drain the fish then add hot oil, fried garlic, spring onions and soy sauce. For the steamed tofu, I steamed it, then add the black soya sauce fried together with the minced chicken breast, dried mushrooms and frozen vegetables.

When Vin came home that night, I told him about the low cholesterol dishes and he asked “Why must we cheat?!”… Hmmm… It got me thinking... Is this considered as cheating? Well, I guess it’s natural human behaviour to eat more healthy food before a health check. What do you think?

The celery soup, together with chicken breast, corn, carrot, celery. You will notice that I have removed the corn from the cobs as my hubby will only eat the corn like this...

The steamed tofu... I made too much sauce, so you can't see the tofu from this picture :p

Steamed fish with garlic... Really tastes yummy :)

According to the instructions, the red rice is to be soaked in water for 6 hours. I guess it is to soften it. But somehow, I feel that white rice is still the best. The rice rice doesn't absorb the gravy of the dishes.

Well... Healthy food often does not taste good.

House Warming - Mini Quiches

I had a series of 3 house warming parties the last two weekends. I think there is one more to go... It was tiring but really fun :) I would bake some mini quiches, chicken wings and mango puffs for the guests. The chicken wings that were really popular were the tangy wings from Wokking Mum. They are sour in flavour and taste really special. However, once the chicken wings are cold, they do not taste as nice.

The mini quiches turned out well and still taste good even when they are slightly cold. The following is the recipe for making 8 muffin-size quiches.

Ingredients

Pastry:

125g plain flour

10g icing sugar

50g unsalted butter

Pinch of salt

4-5 teaspoons cold water

Filling:

3 slices of bacon

6 pieces of chopped brown mushrooms

1/2 finely chopped onion

1/2 cup milk

1/3 cup cream

2 eggs

Finely grated cheddar cheese (I use one slice of cheese, cut into pieces)

Steps:

1. To make the pastry, combine the flour, sugar, salt and butter in a bowl.

2. Rub the butter into the flour by lifting and pressing with fingertips to break the butter into tiny pieces. continue until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.

3. Add the cold water and mix the mixture to form a ball.

4. Knead lightly on a lightly floured surface then chill, wrapped in clingfilm for 15 mins.

5. Divide the pastry into 8 equal portions and roll them out to form thin circles.

6. Grease the muffin tray.

7. Place the pastry into the muffin tray and prick the base with a fork.

8. Fry the bacon and chopped them into tiny pieces.

9. Using a bit of oil, fry the onions and the mushrooms. Finally, combine the bacon bits into the ingredients.

10. Whisk the milk, cream and 2 eggs in a jug.

11. Divide the ingredients into the muffin cases and pour the milk mixture in.

12. Sprinkle with the cheddar cheese.

13. Preheat the oven to 190 degrees celsius.

14. Bake the quiches for about 30 mins.

I spent a great amount of time fitting the pastry into the muffin cases. Instead of using a lightly floured surface, I used 2 pieces of baking paper. 1 to lay on the surface and the other wrapped around the rolling pin. It is easier to handle the dough and it will not be stuck onto the pin :)

Prima Taste - Hainanese Chicken Rice

This is another of Prima Taste's pastes. I like it as they have 3 different sauces - black soya sauce, ginger sauce and chilli sauce. However, the chilli sauce is not as nice as the one you can find commonly in hawker centers. Every Singaporean must have at least one favourite chicken rice stall. For me it's either Boon Tong Kee or the one at Queenstown Hawker Center. How about you?

This is my first attempt at chopping up a chicken... Not too bad for first attempt right? :)

This is the rice. Prima Taste has special fragrant oil for you to cook the rice. It is not too bad...

I find the soup a bit too oily and bland. But come to think of it, most of the chicken rice soup is quite bland.

These are the 3 different sauces... Looks nice right? :)

New House - Kitchen

My kitchen is a small L-shaped kitchen. We initially wanted to redo the whole kitchen but found out that since the cabinets are still in good condition, we can save some money. It used to only have a sink and cooking area, with no workspace. Hence, we took out the refrigerator and built another tabletop and put the oven below.

In order for it to appear bigger, we also knocked down a section of the wall so that we can put slightly tinted sliding doors. There is also insufficient space for storage. Therefore, we used those IKEA clear boxes to try and organise the things and stacked them up.

We went to IKEA and found out that we can save a lot of worktop space by hanging things. Over here, you can see that the kitchen roll and some of the spices are hanging from a bar. My Zwilling knife set is also at the corner. The knives are of really good quality. I'm glad I bought them :)

This is the stove area. The microwave oven is in a box above the counter. I asked to place a black glass against the wall. It used to be a sheet of aluminium. I think black glass looks nicer and it gives the kitchen the black and white feel.

This is my Siemens oven and the Siemens washer-dryer. A built-in oven is really much much better. However, as I bought the cheapest model, it doesn't come with self-cleaning functions. Hence, the stains are quite difficult to remove.

Lastly, this is the washing area. We have a hanging dish rack on top of the sink to save space. As it is a small area, I will normally put them back in the cupboards once they are dried.

New House - Bedrooms

It's been awhile since I have blogged... Reason being I was on holidays. Will blog about my holidays later on :)

The houses in Hong Kong are well known for being tiny. Before we found this new house, I can never understand how people can squeeze generations of people into a less than 600 sq ft home. Well... We found a house that is less than 600 sq ft. It is cosy enough for 2. However, we can only at most accommodate 1 guest. And the mattress can only be laid in the guest bedroom after the door is closed! Hee... This means that my whole family will not be able to stay with us when they come visiting.

One advantage is it takes much faster to clean and tidy the house :)

This is the master bedroom. It can only accomodate a double bed and a wardrobe. We have windows on both sides of the room. I have boldly asked to have black day curtains (the thin ones) and white night curtains (the thicker ones). I didn't want it the other way as I think black curtains would make the room look smaller. I think the curtains turned out better than I thought. What do you think? The wardrobe is of the same wood as the bed frame, with frosted green glass.

Again, we have a ceiling fan in the master bedroom for energy saving.

This is the wardrobe for the guest bedroom. It is a much bigger one, exclusively for me :p

Steamed Chicken with Black Fungus

Now that I'm a housewife, I will take special care in preparing food for my hubby. He is very thin, however, he has slight cholestrol problems. So, all you thin guys out there, don't think that you won't have a cholestrol problem... It's better to run some tests.

I was browsing through all the food blogs and considering what to cook. I came across one of my favourite bloggers - Lily's Wai Sek Hong and found this wonderful recipe: Country-Style Steamed Chicken.

I followed her recipe, but added more shallots and garlic as garnishing. I have also added some chilli slices and chopped spring onion.

It really tastes great! However, my hubby complained that the chicken pieces have bones... So, for my next try, I will use boneless chicken thighs.

New House - Living Room

Today marks the start of my housewife days… again… Hopefully, I can be kept busy playing with facebook, chatting and blogging :) I have been occupied tidying up the new place. Here are some of the photos I promised…

The theme of the living room is modern black and white. I love the picture of the leaning Eiffel Tower in the background.

We spent a long time seaching for a black leather sofa bed but couldn't find it. Hence, settled for a non-sofa bed.

The black bar counter is very high, to cater for 2 door refrigerator below. In order to fit an oven in the kitchen, the refrigerator has to be in the living room. And my hubby refused to put it in the open, hence, we have to put in below the bar counter.

A clearer view of the Eiffel Tower.

We have a fan in the living room. My hubby said that it can save energy if you on the fan and set the air con to be at 29 degrees at the same time.

This is our new LCD TV, and we have a "remote control" box :)

Did you see the cute white umbrella stand we have?