Jan-chan’s Tidbits

So last night, after about two months away from the oven, I’ve decided to get my lazy butt back into the kitchen to whip up some goodies for the brownie monster (aka, WuWu). While I was preparing the brownies, I remembered I “borrowed” a bag of espresso coffee from the twins and thought it’d be interesting to add some “bam” to the old recipe. It actually turned out quite nicely and my taste tester (my mom) said it’s pretty good except I might have added a bit too much espresso since it covered the chocolate flavor. Read More

I’m still trying to perfect this bao (bun) recipe as every time I make it, it turns too brown at the bottom. I’ve tried lowering the heat, reduce the time and both but I still end up with a slightly darker, more crispy bottom than I’d like it to be. Anyways, if you try it, let me know how it turned out. Read More

In preparation for Valentine’s Day dinner (we decided to eat at home this year), I’m trying to make a yummy lasagna for Al. My brother loves lasagna but my mom never makes it at home. The only time we get it is when we have dinner at my Aunt Kit’s place because it’s always part of the Christmas menu. Last year, however, we didn’t go to her place for Christmas dinner so Dave was starved of his favourite pasta dish.

Anyways, I didn’t expect to get the barista job so quickly so instead of having all day today to make the sauce, I had to go in for training. Thank god lasagna is a lovely make ahead dish, so I did all the work for it on Saturday night. Read More

So after that wok incident (remember my dad burned it…), I took a slight turn and made baked char siu baos instead. As you can see from the picture, they looked pretty good don’t they? ~^__^~ Read More

Alright I mentioned that I’ll be doing some bread baking this weekend with Nelson in my last post. Well, the bread turned out really well! I’m so glad because it’s my first time making “real” bread. I’ve made homemade pizza dough but it’s not the same. Anyways, we made it with wheat flour, rosemary and fennel seeds so it’s really “herby” [lol]. It smells so nice! Nelson took me and Allan to an Italian store on Hastings Street to buy some prosciutto and harvati so we can make sandwiches with the fresh baked bread. Oh we also bought the live yeast from there. Usually in recipes it calls for active dry yeast but Nelson said live yeast makes the bread taste better. The problem is, it comes in this brick from, similar to a brick of butter and you only use about a tablespoon size each time so…I have a feeling I’ll be making a lot of breads to finish this brick of live yeast. I hope Chu’s reading right now and conjuring up images of worms when she sees the words “live yeasts” [lol]. Ok, enough about breads for now, on to the photos!