Wake Up and Smell the Cake

I have wanted to try a pasta alternative for my packed breakfast cum lunches, and I've always wanted to try couscous cos it looks so intriguing - grainy yet looks like mashed potatoes. Another reason for cooking couscous is my leftover chicken stock from the Hainanese Chicken Rice. I need a reason to use it since I have painstakingly strained it (though not all) and it's not easy to get homemade healthy halal chicken stock. I hate those chicken cubes urgh. Also my chicken stock has pandan flavour huahuahua. I didn't realise couscous is so easy to prepare! Way faster than pasta. Boil 1/2 cup of stock, turn it off, add 1/2 cup of couscous and wait for 2 minutes. Add lil bit of butter and fluff it up and it's done! 1/2 cup can make both my breakfast and lunch, cos after adding stuff to it like chicken, vegetables etc, it really becomes a big portion. If only The Husband would like to eat such things hahaha. Yesterday I did couscous with shredded black pepper chicken

We spent the whole of Saturday at home, just us. So I decided to cook chicken rice after being inspired by my friend who attempted it the weekend before. I followed the recipe from Steamy Kitchen because of the very detailed method and pictures. I didn't have sesame oil though, but drizzling the cooked chicken with light soy sauce gave the chicken rice effect! Haha Chicken rice flatlay! For the Chicken: 1 whole chicken Salt 4 inches ginger, cut into 1/4 inch slices 2 stalks green onions, cut into 1 inch sections (both the green and white parts) 1 teaspoon sesame oil (I used light soy sauce instead) Pandan leaves Rub salt all over and in the chicken. I bought a whole chicken, with most spare parts already taken out and skin on. The chicken was pretty clean, but if it's not then exfoliate it with the salt rub.  Stuff the chicken with the spring onions and ginger. Completely submerge the chicken in a deep pot of room temperature water. Turn on high heat u

So today is Day 2 of Junior's K1. His session is 4 hours, with a break for snacks i.e. breakfast since he doesn't want to eat before leaving the house. My parents will nag at me for not giving him breakfast but he doesn't want to eat! Yesterday I gave him nutella sandwiches, a little extra than what he gets during nursery. He finished all 4, which is about 2 slices of bread. Today I packed for him fish finger burgers. Airfried fish fingers sandwiched between white bread, no edges. Gave him 2 slices of bread and 3 fish fingers in total. I added a teeny bit of light mayonnaise and thai chili sauce for some flavour. My mum said he didn't finish it, only ate 1 set. Sigh. Not sure what to give him tomorrow. Maybe nutella sandwiches and fish fingers without bread? It's so hard when children are picky! And especially when they don't eat eggs! Oh wells I'll see what other ideas I can come up with. 

Yes I finally made them! I thought I'd take about 2 days but I finished them in the morning. That's pretty quick! Got up early to do the pandan cupcakes first, no one to disturb me. Decided to make the frosting before storing the cakes since I had the time. Recipe adapted from here . Pandan Cupcake 125g butter 2 eggs 150g sugar 200g self raising flour 3 tbsp homemade pandan extract 80g coconut milk +20g water Coconut cream cheese frosting (aka experiment) 250g cream cheese 120g butter Finished off my icing sugar, probably 3/4 cup Splashes of coconut milk Grated coconut Some gula melaka syrup Cream the butter and sugar like the normal cake method. Add eggs one by one until batter incorporated. Add in the flour and milk mixture in a flour - milk - flour sequence. Since I didn't use any green colouring, my cupcakes turned out pale green. The top is more brown that green too. Made holes using a knife and ate all those cut out pieces huahuahua. That