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Banana & rolled oat muffins

Preparation Time: 10 minutes

Cooking Time: 20 minutes

Makes: 12

Ingredients
2 cups (260g) self-raising flour
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 cup (100g) rolled oats
1/2 cup (100g) brown sugar
2 eggs
3/4 cup (185g) plain low-fat yoghurt
1/4 cup (60ml) canola oil
2 bananas, mashed (250g)

Method
1. Preheat oven to 200°C. Line a 12 cup muffin pan with paper cases.
2. Sift flour, cinnamon and soda into a bowl. Empty the flour husks from the sifter back into the bowl along with the oats and brown sugar, and stir to combine.
3. Whisk eggs, yoghurt and oil together. Add banana and stir to combine. Pour into dry ingredients and mix together using a wooden spoon until just combined. Mixture may be lumpy and does not have to be evenly mixed.
4. Spoon mixture into paper cases. Bake for 20 minutes or until golden and cooked through. Cool for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

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Spaghetti Carbonara

Ingredients (serves 4)
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 200g button mushrooms, sliced
• 1 cup cream
• 2 eggs
• 125g parmesan cheese or Tasty cheese, grated
• 1/3 cup finely chopped chives
• 400g dried spaghetti, cooked
• 200g ham or bacon, chopped

Method
1. Melt butter in a non-stick frying pan over medium-high heat. Add mushrooms. Cook, stirring, for 5 minutes, or until tender. Remove and keep warm.
2. Combine cream, eggs, three quarters of the parmesan, chives, and salt and pepper.
3. Place pasta into a saucepan. Add egg mixture, mushrooms and ham. Toss over low heat until sauce thickens. Season. Serve with remaining parmesan.

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Chocolate Mud Cake

Preparation time: more than 20 minutes
Cooking time: 1 hour

A simple and delicious mud cake recipe.

Ingredients:

250 g butter
200 g dark chocolate
1⅓ cups caster sugar
1⅓ cups water
1 tsp instant coffee
1 cup plain flour
1 cup self-raising flour
¼ cup cocoa
3 eggs, lightly beaten

Method

In a large saucepan, add the first 5 ingredients.

Melt together over a low heat until sugar is dissolved and butter and chocolate are melted. Allow to cool for 10 minutes.

Sift plain flour, self raising flour and cocoa into a large mixing bowl.

Add the cooled liquid and beat gently.

Add the eggs and mix gently.

Pour mixture into a greased cake tin and bake at 150°C for 1 hour.

Recipe notes

My oven takes 1 hour, but some ovens could take 1½ hours to cook this recipe, so keep checking the cake.

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06/03/09








Gabe’s nearly 2.5 years old now. He’s a happy boy. We find parenting more and more challenging as he’s learning to be more independent but we enjoy it.

Gabe’s into spelling now and he’s able to spell and read everything! Yes, Ever-y THING!! Example: One Fee(Three) Zero Zero Six Five Six Five Nine Five=Grandpa’s Van!!! But he also knows how to read this b-a-b-y =baby c-o-l-o-u-r-s=colours(ca-ners)He still can’t say his “L” right, so when it’s his nap time, he’d say “but I don’t want to go to sneep.(sleep) Jesus noves Gabi.(loves) Turn off the night.(light) In the past he used to substitute “L” with an “R” but now he’s using “N”, which I find quite fascinating!

Favorite toy: Cowboy Woody
Second Favorites: Buzz and everything else
Every time he jumps off something, he’ll say: To infinity…and beyond!
Favorite movies: Toy Story, Toy story II not that we don’t allow him to watch anything else!
Counting Numbers: 0 to Forty, and if there are too many, it’ll be “nots and nots”(lots and lots)
Favorite things to do: Helping Mommy making cookies, playing with water, singing, dancing, spelling, recently being a photographer! Mommy’s the super model-haha not that he has many choices, loves going to church(kids’ program)
Favorite food: cookies, jelny(jelly) beans, cakes, cheese and nots and nots of juuuuuice.
When you ask him, “Are you alright?” when he hurts himself, he’d say,”Yeah, I’m fine cool, Mom!”
How I wish I could keep every detail of these precious moments on some sort of hard-drive, but I guess I won’t be doing much but keep watching them over and over again. God is good!

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Thai Meatballs

500 grams ground beef(with a bit of fat)
4 Tbs fish sauce
3 cloves of garlic
6 whole black peppers
3 stems of Coriander and leaves
8 coriander seeds
1 Tbs raw sugar
2 chillies(optional)
1 cup of rice flour
ginger(a little bit to taste/optional)

1. pound all ingredients(except for fish sauce and rice flour) in Mortar and Pestle then move to a mixing bowl.

2. Add flour and fish sauce and beef then mix together using fingers

3. make small meat balls then place in sprayed pan and cook in the oven 180 degree for 25 minutes

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Happy Birthday, Gabe <3





Our boy’s 2!!! Can’t believe how time flies! It has been an amazing 2 years being Mom and Dad for me and Dave. Hasn’t been easy but being parents really have helped us to understand God’s love a whole lot more. He has been so faithful in providing for us, teaching us and forgiving us when we make mistakes.

It was an interesting day! 15th September 2008 was Gabe’s birthday and it was also my birthday based on the Chinese calender. (1 day after the full moon festival) In fact I didn’t even realize until I got some phone calls from family in Thailand wishing me happy birthday and I was like…duh…?? thinking they made mistake only to find out what an interesting day it was!

Gabe’s so happy that Daddy got him a swing-set. The part he loves the most is the slide. But I think Buzz and Woody got to enjoy the swing set more cuz Gabe took them on with him and entertained them pretty much the whole afternoon on both the slide and swings.

I was a bit upset that he had a fall when he was running to catch me. As a result, you can see the mark on his face near his mouth and a little bruise on his forehead. I’ll get over it! Kids heal fast.

Can’t thank God enough for His provision and how He’s watching out for us. We thank everyone for your prayers for our little man. He’s such a blessing and we have learned so many things from just watching him grow. I’ll put more pictures on tomorrow.(if I get a chance) God bless you all.

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What happened in May?

Well, a super busy month is gone and left behind a lot of good memories:

-We met Darby and her cousin Kedra in the city. It was pretty awesome being able to catch up with Darby and getting to know Kedra. More than anything, I think Gabe loves these two ‘very’ tall aunties!

-My first Tupperware party- I was stressed out the whole time before I had the party. I didn’t know what to do, who to invite, whether people would wanna come and buy stuff…At the end, I helped Cheryl made over a thousand bucks worth of sell and as a result I got myself some free Tupperware stuff. The most important thing is I did try it, but I don’t think I’ll go there again. Love the Tupperware stuff though!

-Women’s church- Still studying Dr. Larry Crabb’s ‘Encouragement,’ led by a very wise lady called Ann R. I have learned how powerful words are and that we’re responsible to the words that go out from our mouth-so before saying anything…think hard: we should only say words that encourage one another. One very interesting point though is that: Words that are meant for good have equally potential for evil!

-Playgroup has been good. Gabe was sick so we didn’t missed out on the playgroup for 2 weeks. Last week we went back and it was Trinity and Matthew’s birthday. I really enjoyed it. Being able to catch up with all the moms is quite encouraging. I also got a chance to update the playgroup’s blog and am loving it.

What else happened in May? Oh! Congratulations to Nui, Matt and Julius for the safe arrival of gorgeous Casandra!

I think I’m gonna start teaching English again, just because Gabe’s grown up a lot and think I’ll be able to manage to do that. That’s about all that happened and will try to keep you all updated more often!