KookyCulinary

We had another unexpected snowfall at the beginning of the week. Since we live on the hills, we were stuck at home. The roads were too slippery to drive anywhere.
Anyway, I made these mini vanilla cupcakes with cream cheese icing to entertain the little one. The recipe for the vanilla cupcakes can be found here.

Edited to add:
This is what I used for the cream cheese icing.

8 oz cream cheese
1/4 cup butter
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 cup powdered sugar

Just cream the cream cheese and butter together till smooth. Add sugar & vanilla. Beat till light and fluffy. Leave in the fridge for about an hour before using. Usually cream cheese icing is softer than buttercream because I don’t add as much sugar. So it may necessary to put your icing back into the fridge if you find it too soft or you can just add more sugar.

I confess I have been so lazy lately!! I have been cooking a lot of one-dish meals or cooking instant food. This is one of them. Using Brahim’s Satay Sauce, I pan fried the chicken first before coating it with the Brahim Satay Sauce. Then just served with peanuts and cucumber. Delicious & easy!

My first bread of the year! I have been neglecting my breadmaker for a while, so I decided to dust it off and started baking breads again. This is just a simple braided cranberry bread using the sweet bun recipe. The recipe can be found here. I will need to practise my braiding skill a little more since the braids are not very prominent.

When I was young, there were 2 dishes that I really love in my hometown. It’s the sweet & sour pork & sweet & sour fish.  I think everytime I go to the restaurant, I would definitely order either one of them. I’m not sure how they cook it but the pork or fish is always very crunchy and coupled with the sweet & sour sauce, it was so delicious.

So the other day, I had a craving for the fish and came up with this

It turned out pretty good except that the fish didn’t stay crispy for long. I really wonder how the restaurants make it stay crispy for a long time. Anyone know the secret?

Look at my latest collection!

During my vacation, I visited (actually, I forced my sister to take me there! ) 2 Daiso stores. Went a little crazy in the stores. The Bento supplies were all so cute. The best part is that they are only 1.50 each. Yes, even the lunch boxes! I even managed to find the elusive egg mold. This photo only shows half of what I bought! Hopefully, with all my new toys, I’ll be able to come up with more nice Bento lunches this year.

Happy New Year everyone! I’m back from my vacation but haven’t been cooking much this week. I need to get over my lazy spell and start cooking next week! In the meantime, just sharing a favorite snack of mine.

• Place a single layer of nachos in a baking sheet.
• Top the nachos with shredded cheese (I usually mix a blend of cheese but mozzarella cheese will be fine) and bake in the oven till the cheese is all melted.  
• Serve with salsa & green onion

It’s very simple, delicious and a great snack or appetizer.