Beef Stew

Beef Stew---the perfect comfort food, especially on rainy days or nights, or just when you're famished! This is a modification of my Mom's own recipe. It takes hours to soften the beef (you could use a pressure cooker to shortcut this), but the rich, full flavour after that more than makes up for the wait!

Beer & Cheddar Spicy Pull Apart Bread

(This post is part of an ongoing series on the 2014 Singapore Blog Awards, sponsored by Panasonic.)

This is a savoury, delicious and impressive looking bread that is good enough to eat at home, or serve at parties. I've made this a few times by making the dough by hand and it is always a conversation piece. The kids love to participate in shaping, stuffing and baking it, as it is quite fun to make, and half the fun is waiting for the bread to "bloom" and transform into something really beautiful.

The bread itself has the taste of stout beer, accentuated by the spicy, cheesy, herb filled filling.

This time, instead of doing the bread by electric mixer and hand kneading like I usually do, I used the Panasonic Bread Maker and it not only saved me at least 2 hours, but also resulted in a smooth, perfectly kneaded dough, which gave way to a bigger, puffier loaf! From now on, I am going to use a bread maker to make this bread. (I never thought I would ever say that....my Le Cordon Bleu Boulangerie teacher will kill me! Shhhh!)

Gnocchetti with Pistachio Pesto, Chorizo & Mushroom

As you may have noticed, I have been posting a lot about bread lately, due to the requirements of Panasonic Singapore (sponsor of the Best Cooking Blog category in the 2014 Singapore Blog Awards) to produce 3 recipes using their Bread Maker. Please don't forget to vote! You can do so EVERYDAY, till JULY 31! Please click on the links below to do so.

BEST NEW BLOG
BEST COOKING BLOG

But contest or no contest, life goes on for MySuit&Apron, and my weekly recipe posts shall continue.  So what shall it be this week? I consulted the whole family last night and showed them my 20 draft posts, and they voted for this pasta. I'm the official "pasta chef" in the family and it's one of my most favourite things to cook. This time it's Gnocchetti with Pistachio Pesto, Chorizo & Mushroom. Of course, if you don't have gnocchetti, you can substitute with any pasta you have at hand.

The recipe is a twist on the usual pesto which is made from basil leaves, pine nuts, parmesan, garlic and oil. Pine nuts are sooo expensive here in Singapore, that I feel guilty just grinding them and "hiding" them in the sauce. Thus, I substituted that with pistachio nuts but still used whole, toasted pine nuts to mix with the pasta. This way, you can really taste the pine nuts with every bite. The combination with chorizo (and that delicious, orange lard that goes with it) makes this dish so flavourful. A little sinful, but hey, live a little, right?

Polenta Dough: for Extra Crispy Pizza & Flatbread Canapes

(This post is part of an ongoing series on the 2014 Singapore Blog Awards, sponsored by Panasonic.)

Homemade Flatbread with with Cheese & Horseradish Cream, Dill & Roe 

My family makes pizza dough from scratch, and we usually make it by hand. Homemade pizza is much healthier than commercially available ones (whether from a fast food restaurant or the frozen food section of the supermarket.). In addition, it challenges the family's creativity in using different ingredients versus your run-of-the-mill ham and pineapple or pepperoni and cheese.

I make the dough in advance and if the kids don't devour it right there and then, I store the extra dough in the freezer, oiled, wrapped in plastic wrap in a plastic container, so it doesn't dry out. Then we just take it out a few hours before we want to eat pizza. What makes this dough different is that it makes for extra crispy pizza (see tips below).

This time, I tried using the Panasonic Bread Maker, instead of making the dough by hand. It turned out well and saved me a lot of time! What would've taken me 2 hours to make took only 45 minutes with the bread maker.

So in this post, I'm going to share 2 recipes using the same dough. I will share some very different pizza flavours, and another recipe to show how you can use the very same dough to make some mini flatbread, topped with a mix of cream cheese and horseradish sauce, fish roe and dill. It really looks impressive and fancy, and makes for good hors d'oeuvres, but it's actually easy to make! My kids actually  helped to cut the dough into squares and once baked, top them with the cheese mix, the cut fresh dill and the roe. Too beautiful to eat and definitely more than presentable enough to serve at parties. But we didn't have a party this weekend, so the kids just devoured them for their afternoon snack!

QUINOA, FLAXSEED & CRANBERRY LOAF

(This post is part of an ongoing series on the 2014 Singapore Blog Awards, sponsored by Panasonic.)

Quinoa, Cranberry and Flaxseed Loaf

For the past year, my husband and I have been baking our own bread for the family, because commercially sold bread is simply not healthy, what with the high amount of sugar in it, and chemicals like dough conditioners and preservatives.

Cauliflower Risotto with Mushrooms, Celery & Bacon

It's been a pretty exciting week after I found out that MySuit&Apron is one of the finalists in TWO categories of the 2014 Singapore Blog Awards! Thanks to all of you out there who have voted! And please note that you can still vote EVERYDAY for BOTH categories, until July 31. And here again are the links to vote:

BEST NEW BLOG: Find MySuit&Apron under "Best New Blog" category (This requires a FB log on the first time)

BEST COOKING BLOG: Find MySuit&Apron under Best Cooking Blog (This is under the Panasonic Singapore page; you will be asked for personal particulars at the first time and for those of you not living in SG, for the NRIC field, just type in any letter, any 7 digits, ending with any letter).

Thanks again for the support. So on to the task of the day, which is posting this week's recipe...

Here's a different and  healthier way to make risotto: substitute grated cauliflower for the alborio rice, and add celery, mushrooms, bacon and cheese. So delicious and healthy! Omit the bacon if you'd like to make it purely veg.

MySuit&Apron: A CONTENDER IN TWO CATEGORIES OF THE 2014 SINGAPORE BLOG AWARDS!

(This post is part of an ongoing series on the 2014 Singapore Blog Awards, sponsored by Panasonic.)

Last Thursday evening, July 3, I was surprised when I got a call from Singapore Press Holdings, informing me that my blog was a finalist in the 2014 Singapore Blog Awards for the Best Cooking Blog! The contest is sponsored by omy.sg, Singapore Press Holding's leading bilingual news and entertainment portal.

In addition, I also found out that MySuit&Apron is also a contender in the Best New Blog. So my new, little blog is competing in two categories!  Winners are chosen by an independent panel of judges (70%) and the public (30%). So followers, may I request that you kindly vote for MySuit&Apron? You can vote once per day (a Facebook log on is required the first time).

BEST NEW BLOG:  Vote under Editors'/Judges' Choice

BEST COOKING BLOG: Vote under Advertisers' Choice