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.

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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?