SerenityBakes&Cooks

I made Kinoko Gohan for dinner yesterday. This is cooked in a rice cooker, and so simple to make. Kinoko Gohan means Mushroom Rice in Japanese, and simple seasonings: light soya sauce, mirin and cooking sake, are added to the rice for flavor. About once or twice a week, I add a multi grain mix to white rice or substitute 1/4 cup of white rice with unpolished rice, since the Health Promotion Board has been encouraging Singaporeans to eat more unpolished or brown rice, to combat the rising numbers of Diabetes. If you are thinking of doing the same, this recipe is a great way to get started as you can hardly taste the nutty grains in it.  I served the Kinoko Gohan with oven baked salmon teriyaki and pan fried gyoza and it complimented the rice perfectly. :)  Kinoko Gohan (serves 4) Ingredients: 1 pack of Shimeiji mushrooms 1/2 carrot (peeled, and thinly sliced) 2 cups Japanese rice (washed and soaked in enough water to cover the rice for 1/2 hour) 2...

When I am pressed for time, making a one dish meal is the best option for me. This cabbage rice recipe requires frying of the ingredients, before putting everything into the rice cooker to cook. I then go off to do the chauffeuring duties while the rice cooks away. When we get back home, we are greeted with the delicious smell of cabbage rice the moment we open the door and step into the house. Mmmmmm! And voila, we have a savoury and piping hot dish of rice that is full of protein and vitamins, great for the old and young. Another plus point to this dish is that because the family dines at different times, with the Hubby coming back later, the rice can be kept warm in the rice cooker until he eats. I used the recipe from  Domestic Goddess Cabbage Rice  and adapted to what I had in the fridge, this time with leftover roast pork belly. Cabbage Rice in Rice Cooker (serves 5) Ingredients 300g roasted pork belly (sliced thinly) 1 small cabbage (round and cu...

My first post of the year at last! After guiding my older boy through the SA2 last year, I have been on holiday mode and didn't have any energy to take photos of the cooking processes. To get myself started off, here is a one bowl recipe for Lemon Drizzle Cupcakes! I usually do a whole cake and this time last year, I made one to wish my dear gal pal a happy birthday but due to high stress level (this happens whenever I bake for others apart from my own family =p), the cake was a little undercooked. To right that wrong, I decided to try again but I made them into cupcakes instead for the pal who loves lemon bakes. The chance of undercooking them is much lower! Ha Ha! This is a very moist and fragrant cupcake. With the lemon drizzle topping, it will add a nice sugary crunch when you sink your teeth into the cake. I hope you will like it. Lemon Drizzle Cupcakes (adapted from BBC Good Food) Makes 18-20 cupcakes Ingredients: 250g unsalted butter (softened) 230g ca...

I love making miso soup because it can be done in a jiffy. Apart from the commonly served tofu and seaweed version, a few additions of what you have in your fridge can make it a lot more tasty and wholesome. There are so many ingredients you can add to miso soup - salmon, clam meat, little cubes of chicken thigh marinated with sake and a little salt, carrots, daikon (radish), mushrooms, tofu just to name a few. 2 weeks ago, I learnt a very interesting combination of pork belly, carrots, burdock root, yam and konjac at a Japanese cooking class. It was certainly OIISHII! This recipe is very versatile, you can try different combinations of meat and vegetables. Or go meatless, like this! :) Miso Soup with Vegetables (serves 4) Ingredients: 1 litre of water 1 packet of dashi stock powder (see below image for reference) 1-2 tablespoons of white miso paste 1 small potato (washed, peeled, cut into quarters and then slice thinly) 1 small carrot (washed, peeled, cut into half ...

What is there not to love about SPAM? You can have it straight from the can, or bake thin slices of it in the oven till it turns crisp, fry slices of it and then coat it with egg (which is what I grew up eating at my maternal grandma's place, and also a regular dish at my late MIL's table).  Or you can make SPAM fried rice! This is a easy one dish meal to prepare. If you are pressed for time, you can cook it and then keep it warm in the rice cooker till it's ready to be served.  SPAM fried rice (serves 6 or 4 large appetites) Ingredients: 3 cups(420g) of rice to be cooked with slightly less than 3 cups (400g) of water (cooled) 1 can of SPAM (cut into cubes) - I use 25% less sodium SPAM 4 eggs (beaten and seasoned with a little light soya sauce and white pepper) - 3 eggs to be scrambled  in step 2 below and 1 egg to be poured over 1 cup of frozen mix vegetables (defrosted) Note about rice: I find that it is not necessary to use overnight rice a...

It's been a long time since I baked a Banana Bread and this went to the top of my bake list when I saw this recipe from Just One Cookbook! I loved the slices of banana on top and just had to bake this Banana Bread. ( Not sure why banana bread is not called banana cake though! ) This is a very moist cake that is not too sweet so there is no need to adjust the sugar amount. The recipe calls for 4 large bananas (3 for the cake and 1 for the topping). The monkeys at home left me with only 3 bananas to do the bake, but it was still good and moist although one more would certainly have upped the banana flavor ;) Try not to skimp on the amount of bananas ok? You do not need any special equipment such as a mixer for this recipe. Just a hand whisk and wooden spoon/spatula is fine. I did use a mixer to cream the butter and sugar from habit, and sifted the flour + baking powder though. I hope you enjoy this delicious Banana Bread! Please refer to  Banana Bread Recipe

Bottled pasta sauces have always been my preferred choice. It is cheap, convenient and delicious. I used to make packed lunches of pasta for hubby and myself when we were newly weds almost 13 years ago. I love brands like Ragu, Prego and Leggo! ;)  Fast forward to the present - My 2 sons, prefer cream based pasta, in particular Carbonara! Whenever I made tomato based pasta with bottled sauces, they ate very little of it and would tell me that the sauce is too sour, has a strong taste of herbs etc =( I searched for home made bolognese recipes but was a little apprehensive of trying them out as they usually had red wine as part of the ingredient list. You see, I had made beef stew with red wine and the family did not like it because the taste of the wine was overpowering. Hence I was a little worried about what a bolognese sauce with red wine would taste like!  I have many cookbooks at home and love to read them over and over again. I perused this bolognese recip...