Lava Queen

Crispy on the outside with a hint of coconut scent. Ingredients: 1 small Japanese sweet potato, steamed and mashed (Approx 60g) 1 1/2 tbsp all purpose flour  1/2 tbsp potato starch  1/2 tbsp VCO (virgin coconut oil) Mix everything together to form a soft dough. Divide dough into 6 equal portions. Roll into sticks and connect the ends to form a ring.  Divide into 6 equal portions. Roll and connect the ends to form a ring. Heat up a non-stick pan with low fire. Place doughnuts into the pan (without oil) and cover with lid. Turn to the other side after 1-2 mins and pan fry for another 1-2 mins or til golden brown.

Succulent and tender. Ingredients: 4-6 pieces pork prime ribs, 3-4 inch in length Marinade 2 tbsp oyster sauce 2 tbsp HP BBQ sauce 2 tbsp Chinese cooking wine 2 tsp light soya sauce 1/4 tsp dark soya sauce 1 tbsp brown sugar 4 cloves garlic, lightly crushed with skin on 1 red onion, finely chopped Some pepper Some dried rosemary Glazing 2 tbsp honey 1/4 tsp dark soya sauce 1 tbsp oil Marinate pork ribs for at least 2 hours or overnight. Pork ribs marinated with light n dark soy sauce, oyster sauce, HP bbq sauce, Chinese cooking wine, sugar, garlic, shallots, some pepper and dried rosemary. Preheat oven at 160°C. Line a baking tray with aluminium foil. Place marinated pork ribs on it and bake for 45 mins, or until tender. 45 mins later, glaze it with honey, dark soy sauce n oil. Brush with glazing and grill for another 5 mins, or til brown. Garnish with some spring onion and serve.

Many people around us are falling sick recently due to the extreme hot weather (affected by the El Niño phenomenon) and haze. Hubby is having a mild cold and LO is starting to cough a little bit too. So today I decided to boil this watercress with dried figs and almonds soup. Watercress, which is cool in nature, helps to clear heat, moisten lungs and expel phlegm. The almonds too help to moisten lungs and relieve coughs.  Helps to clear heat and relieve coughs. Ingredients: Approx 375g watercress, thoroughly rinsed 8 dried figs 1 carrot 3 maces (approx 11.3g) sweet almond 2 maces (approx 7.6g) bitter almond Approx 300g pork bones Scald pork bones in boiling water for 5 mins. Peel carrot, cut into pieces and rinse with other ingredients. Place all ingredients and 3000ml of water into a pot. Bring to a boil over high heat. Turn to low heat and simmer for 3 hours. Serve. 

As the name suggested, this is totally a simplified version without sake, salt and sugar. I used homemade stock in place of dashi stock as well, for a healthier option (in my opinion) and my LO absolutely loved it! Am very pleased with the results as they were silky smooth! Ingredients: 1 egg 3/4 cup of homemade stock (This measurement is for reference only. Ratio of egg to stock is 1:3) 1 large prawn, cut into 2 (You can add small chicken pieces too) 1 shiitake mushroom, soaked, thinly sliced and stem removed 4 thin slices of carrot Some soya sauce (2 drops to be exact lol!), for marinade  Marinade the prawn pieces, mushroom and carrot slices for about 10 mins and put them to steam til cooked. Set aside. Beat the egg in a bowl gently. Try to make sure that the egg doesn't froth up at all. Add the stock to the egg while stirring constantly to get a good mix. Once well combined, strain through a sieve to make sure the mixture is smooth. Bring a steamer ...

So, the journey continues... From Kyoto, we took the JR Tokaido shinkansen to Shin-Osaka and then transferred to subway to get to our Airbnb apartment. In the email correspondence, the host, C.G Minami, told us that his place was only about 7 mins' walk from Namba station and that he would wait for us at the apartment. BUT he never told us which exit and that there were a FEW stations with the name 'Namba'. It took us more than half an hour to get to his place from the NAMBA station that we came out from, using map, GPS and asking for directions from passerby. Apparently Nankai Namba station was the nearest one. That was what he told us when we finally met up -_-. Could have told us earlier to save us the trouble of walking in rounds while dragging our luggage bags. T his host speaks very good Mandarin though.  Btw, we discovered a shorter and easier route to Namba station, which cuts through the underground of Namba Parks shopping mall  after that . The apartment was o...

This is more of a 'family-oriented' trip.  Super excited as this time round we're able to arrive in time to see the sakuras in full bloom (Checked the predictions from https://www.jnto.go.jp/sakura/eng/index.php ). We missed that during our trip to Korea.  Though we've a full itinerary planned out for this trip, we still adopted the 'play it by ear' strategy, depending on our LO's mood and our condition (Well, carrying a 10kg toddler around together with the diapers bag and camera bag IS a huge challenge after all!) I've also explained why we chose Airbnb over hotels and shared some of my experiences/tips in my previous post: ' How we survived the 10-day Japan trip v our LO '.  Flew with AirAsia and the timing of the flights were just nice. We didn't get priority during check in. The ground staff explained that there were too many people, so we had to line up like everyone else, but we did get priority going through custom scanning like ...