One of my New Year Resolutions was to cook once a week, so I thought it would be a brilliant idea to share what I’ve cooked at the end of each month! By doing so, I’ll be keeping myself accountable, and also giving you guys ideas on what to make.
I started off January with these really simple, and quick dishes. You know, just warming myself up. I’m still learning, and honestly, I have so much to learn, so do give me your feedback, tips, and recipe suggestions so that I can improve myself! (Contact me at foogo321@gmail.com for just about anything! Even if you just want to say hi.)
WEEK ONE
Simple Fried Rice
There isn’t a recipe for this, it’s so simple, you literally just add whatever you have at home. I kicked off the new year with the perennial classic home-cooked dish – Egg Fried Rice. All you have to do is cook rice (obviously) and dice up whatever ingredients you want to add in (frozen veggies, prawns, luncheon meat, anything!). Cook all the individual ingredients separately, and put them in small bowls so that you can toss them in easily. When you’ve cooked all the ingredients, add everything back into the wok, add the rice and stir to mix well. Add the eggs and stir, ensuring that all the rice is well coated in the yellow goodness. Season with soy sauce and salt and pepper to taste.
It’s really that simple! If you like it spicy, add some chilli flakes as well. I was considering adding charsiew sauce into the mix, for a sweetish charred flavour, but decided against it cause the rest of my family may not be accustomed to it. There’s always next time!
By the way, apologies for the atrocious lighting, I made this for dinner, and you know how the lighting is.
Mini-Chocolate Dipped Viennese Cookies
You’ve seen these babies before in my earlier post, when I shared the recipe. It was well worth the extra effort to pipe these cookies, cause they look so much prettier. The piped lines make the cookies look classier than normal round cookies. I would make these again! In fact, my family is already asking for these again, so looks like it is time to get down and dirty.
WEEK THREE
Weelicious Oatmeal-on-the-go Bars
I’m no stranger to this recipe, I’ve made it at least 3 times before, and I loved it every single time. I’m in the process of tweaking the recipe, to make it a little more Singaporean, so stay-tuned for a recipe 🙂 My favorite mix for this oatmeal bars is the blend with dried blueberries and dried cranberries. I love the sweetness and tartness that comes from those two dried fruits. Like the fried rice, you can really add any dried fruits and nuts that you love, and even add in extras like black sesame powder, if you’re a fan of black sesame, like I am.
WEEK FOUR
Honey Joys
I had no idea these were called Honey Joys. I always thought these were called honey cornflake cups or something simple like that. Haha. Apparently these treats were created in Australia? Well, I’m glad they have found their way to Sunny Singapore. I’ve made these time and time again, but this round, the sweetness level was perfect. Perhaps it was because not all the sugar dissolved fully. If you’re interested, I used this recipe, but reduced the sugar slightly. It made about 40 mini cups for me (although the recipe states that it makes 24)
Sheperd’s Pie
Honey joys aren’t exactly considered cooking, since you just need to melt stuff and stir them together. So, I made Sheperd’s Pie as well! I loosely followed this easy recipe from BBC GoodFood, but chose to add in an extra yellow zuchinni for colour. I also replaced the tomato puree with a fresh finely diced tomato.
I was quite pleased with how this dish turned out, even though mashing potatoes are a pain. If I had mushroom soup on hand, it would have made the perfect side dish. Imagine spooning some creamy mushroom soup on top of the Sheperd’s pie to create a flavor explosion. Mmmmm.
So far so good! I’ve managed to cook once a week for January. Fingers crossed that I’ll be able to keep this up in the coming months, even as I start working and go off to university in the later months.
HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR 😀
Ooh, I just thought of something fun. I should create a link party so that everyone can join in the fun and link up what they’ve cooked at the end of each month!
Do email me if you are interested 🙂
If I get enough interested folks, I’ll look into setting up a link party.
Foogo! 