How To Make Easy No Bake Chocolate Pots de Creme with Fresh Berries And Fruit Compote

A super duper easy dessert to make. Totally right up my alley.

Luscious chocolate, a kick of tartness from the compote and fresh summer berries.

Perfect.
Recipe
(adapted from May's recipes Chocolate Pot De Creme)
Serves 6 (but I made this into 4 bigger portions)
The chocolate
- 100g dark chocolate
- 1/2 tsp instant coffee
- 250 ml cream
- 30g white sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla essence
- 1 tsp whiskey (omit if making for kids)
- a pinch of sea salt

Chop chocolate, place into mixing bowl.
Put cream and sugar into saucepan, add vanilla and salt. Bring to almost boil.
Pour into chopped chocolate, add instant coffee & whiskey. Set for 1 minute, beat until smooth and shiny.
Pour into ramekins, let cool, chill for at least 5 hours.

The fruit compote (optional)
- a handful of berries (I used 3 strawberries and 7 blueberries)
- a tbsp of water
- 1 tsp sugar
Chop berries, place in sauce pan, cook using low heat. Keep cooking until fruit became softened and produced some liquid. Add a bit of water if needed. Add sugar bit by bit until you achieve balance between tartness and sweetness. Let cool, add into chocolate pot de creme with fresh fruits...

...or eat with toasts, or croissants, or bacon... the sky is the limit really.

Now... dig into that luscious pot of chocolatey fruity goodness.

Happy summer!

Creamy Sweet Corn & Bacon Pasta Recipe

Sweetness of corn & saltiness of bacon. I always love such a combo. Initially I made this for my toddler (OMG, feeding my son bacon - that makes me a bad mom, right? Oh well... just once in a while... and mommy wants some too!). So here goes.

Recipe
(serves 2)
- pasta for 2 (measure using those pasta measuring rings), I used spaghetti
- 2 fresh sweet corn kernels
- 2 strips of bacon per person (I used lean back bacon and removed the fat)
- 2 cloves garlic, crushed
- butter, cream, salt, pepper

Cook pasta according to the instruction on the packet - do not overcook. If pasta's done before sauce is done, drain and set it aside. Meanwhile, melt about a tbsp butter, add garlic, saute until fragrant, add bacon, add corn, cook until there's a bit of brownage going. Add cream to your liking (I added about 120 ml), season with salt and pepper. Toss the pasta with the sauce and serve hot.

Add some fresh herbs if you like. I didn't since I'd have to pick them out one by one as my big boss (the toddler) demanded. Oh man, I'm such a loser mom.

Anyway, enjoy the pasta!

Coffee Cream Soda Granita

You guys can probably smell my desperation to beat the heat this summer. I've been freezing everything I can get my hands on, including my caffeine :D

Back home in Indonesia, I used to love F&N's coffee cream soda, and it's too bad I can't get it here in Hong Kong. I am trying to recreate it and of course, transform it into a frozen form ^_^

It's super easy and I am very pleased with the result.
Some bitterness from the coffee, enough sweetness and a tinge of tang from the cream soda...in the form of ice!

Frozen coffee.

Oh yeah. My caffeine of choice.

Recipe
- 4 heaping tsp of instant coffee (you can use your preferred coffee)
- 4 heaping tsp of caster sugar
- 1/4 cup hot water
- about 1 - 1&1/2 cup of cold cream soda (it's not creamy at all, it's just sweet)

Dissolve instant coffee and sugar in hot water, pour into a 24oz/3cups/700ml freezer friendly container, top with cold cream soda until about 3/4 full or add bit by bit to make sure that you don't lose the coffee flavor from adding too much soda. Place in freezer for two hours, stir well, put it back into the freezer and simply scrape the ice with fork before serving. After scraping with fork, you can keep the leftover in the freezer, ready for next consumption.

You can serve it topped with a bit of cream or whipped cream, but I prefer mine as is.

Creamy Mushroom Pie Party - Our Very First Pie

I am sure than in each and every one of us, there is a thin person bitch cook party animal waiting to be unleashed. I am a bit of a party animal myself...well, as long as the party involves a lot of alcoh food, doesn't require me to wear anything I can't eat a lot be comfortable in, and do not need me to pretend laugh at jokes which aren't funny...I'm in.

This is why I like organizing cooking parties with my big eater dearest friends. Cook something delish, or learn and experiment how to cook something together, dress in whatever you like (except anything showing butt cheeks), with or without make up, and with maximum stomach capacity. This time, we learnt how to make our very first pie.

Creamy Mushroom Pie

We love savoury over sweet, and we all love mushrooms (who doesn't?), so mushroom pie it was. This experiment actually scared the crap outta me, I remember Jamie Oliver said something like we're bound to fail a few times before we can produce a decent pie...and failure is not only my middle name, it is pretty much my surname. So I was sure I was gonna screw up, big time. But hey, at least I had some people with me, just in case I needed to blame somebody. ;)

I adapted the pie crust recipe from Culinary Cafe's Basic Pie Crust and I made up the creamy mushroom filling.

Basic Pie Crust
(Yields: Enough for two 9-inch, I used the two batches separately, with an oval baking dish)
Ingredients
- 2 & 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon sugar
- I added a dash of mixed dry italian herbs (oregano, thyme, sage and rosemary)
- 1 cup (2 sticks) cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
- 1/4 to 1/2 cup water
Combine the flour, salt, and sugar in food processor. Add butter; process until mixture resembles coarse meal, about 8 to 10 seconds. Add ice water in a slow steady stream through feed tube of food processor with machine running, until the dough holds together for no longer than 30 seconds. Turn dough onto piece of plastic wrap. Press into flat circle, or rectangle depending on what shape you intend to roll out pastry to. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate at least 1 hour. May be frozen, double wrapped in plastic, for several months. I did freeze the other half, and used it two months later, after defrosting it in the fridge for 1 day. It was still as good as the fresh one.

Spend the one hour refrigeration time chit chatting, playing mah jong, video games, or whatever you fancied, as long as it doesn't involve nibbling on the pie filling (at least leave some for the pie, dammit!). Roll two parts of dough (for top and bottom)...

Look at the way we rolled our first pie crust...I bet it was wrong from every angle. I tried minimizing all the mess by placing the dough in between two baking paper. If you have some parchment paper, that would work even better.

After grueling with the crust....place the crust and gently press to fit the baking dish/pie dish, leaving some excess on the outside of the dish.

Ta daaaa....my very first pie crust!

Creamy Mushroom Filling
- 2 or more kinds of mushrooms (you can make more and keep the rest to be eaten with rice/bread/pasta)
- a bit of butter and olive oil
- 1 clove of garlic, finely chopped
- heavy cream
- salt, black pepper, sugar, mixed dry italian herbs (oregano, sage, rosemary, thyme)
Saute garlic in butter and a bit of olive oil, add mushrooms, cook until wilted, add cream until you achieve the desired thickness (not runny), season, let cool while playing with the pie crust. Once the crust is done and the filling is cool, pour filling into the crust...

Brush some beaten egg on the edges, cover with the top of the crust, gently shape it (mine was ugly, you can do better than this)

My friend suggested pressing fork on the edges to make it prettier.

I decided to place a giant nipple circle in the middle just for fun, poked a few hole, brushing it with egg again...

...and stroke some fierce poses before dumping the pie into the preheated oven.

We peeped at our pie impatiently every few minutes, witnessing all the butter running down on the baking sheet, the savoury scent of butter made my flat smelt absolutely heavenly...and before we knew it, the pie was ready.

It may look kinda ugly, but in my eyes, they are the most beautiful looking pie there was (maybe this was how my mum felt when she looked at me as a baby. No matter how many times she heard the comments, she just wouldn't believe that I was an ugly baby *cough* denial)

Savoury, buttery, flaky crust with creamy mushroom filling...perfect with hot lemon tea. Party animals, get your ingredients ready and see you at the next party!

I easily forget most of my firsts (first crush, first kiss, first love...ew!) as they generally were bad, but I won't forget my first pie.

Creamy Mushrooms, Ham & Italian Herbs Fusili plus Hong Kong CBD Lunch Tale

Everybody has their restaurant horror stories. Susan from Sticky, Gooey, Creamy, Chewy and Cathy from Noble Pig have shared theirs....and now I wanna bitch about my recent endeavour.

It was...
- not much of a horror (although if there were ghosts there, they probably had fun watching us)
- barely a drama (no one got reunited with their birth parents, cried or died)
- can't be considered a romantic comedy (unless I suddenly realised that my every day lunch pal is my soul mate and decided to seduce him LOL, only to find out that he is gay - I can assure you he is NOT LOL)
but it could be an action flick if I threw in some kung fu moves juggling my BBQ pork rice tray while shashaying to grab a seat at a lunch joint in Hong Kong's Central Business District hehe

Finding a seat at lunch time in Hong Kong CBD is a BITCHHHHH. I am impatient (yeah, tell me something I don't know). I hate hate hate waiting and queueing of any kind especially for food which are just so not worth waiting for (Hollywood could probably make a whole drama series based on waiting and queueing in restaurants hehe). But, you don't have a choice. If you wanna dine at any eateries in Hong Kong CBD at lunch time, be prepared to wait and fight for a seat. Good food, bad food, cheap, expensive...it doesn't matter. Fight your battle, and wait.

Certain places have hostesses who will organize the queue, but not fast food and self service joints. Thanks to Hong Kong's higher than high rent costs and population density, there is NO SEAT and OH SO MANY PEOPLE!

I went out with my lunch buddy and we crave BBQ pork rice from a fast food joint. He said he will order and I was in charge of looking for a seat (cue music: mission impossible theme song). So I roamed around and tried to find an empty seat, which of course was NOT available :) (the chance of finding a miraculously available seat is almost as slim as winning mark 6 hehe). The normal practice is...to wait for the earlier lunchtime people to clear off by standing near their table. I know it is annoying and obnoxious, but when you are here, be prepare to finish your last spoonful of food under a pair of hopeful eyes, waiting eagerly to take your seat as soon as you lift up your butt off your chair, don't expect to have a nice and lengthly conversation after your meal, of the hopeful eyes will turn dagger sharp hehe.

So, I stood and waited by a table with two uncles, one reading his newspaper and another picking his teeth (they weren't together), with my BBQ pork rice tray with hot tea on hand. I expected the newspaper reading uncle to stay put (he did not seem like a considerate person), but if he has any considerate bone at all in his body, he will probably leave after the tooth picking uncle left....here's the illustration

Apparently, I expected too much from newspaper reading uncle. He did not leave even after tooth picking uncle has left. I was not going to start from scratch and wait by another table. So, after apologizing profusely to the guy at the next table (bless him for his kindness), I took another chair and squeezed into the one person space (this is Hong Kong, so I can assure you the one person space is NOT big), while of course shooting numerous bitchy stares at newspaper uncle. Even after seeing this, he still stayed...and only left when we almost finish our meals.

I know, I know...he bought his space at that table by drinking that cup of hot tea (duh!). There are plenty of seats outside the restaurant in this air conditioned building where he could sit and read his newspaper comfortably. This is why I prefer to pack my lunch from home, and for today...I'll have...

Creamy Mixed Mushrooms, Ham and Italian Herbs Fusili

Recipe
- 1 pack of fresh shiitake mushrooms, each sliced into a few pieces
- 1 pack of oyster mushrooms, slice big ones into a few pieces
- 4 slices of ham, cut into strips
- 4 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
- dried Italian mixed herbs
- black pepper
- half cup of cream
- 3 handfuls of fusili
- water for boiling, olive oil, butter
- salt, sugar

Boil pasta according to the instructions on the packet. Brown the hams, set aside. Saute garlic, add mushrooms until slightly browned, add ham strips, add herbs, black pepper, season with salt. Drain pasta, add into the mushroom and ham mix, add cream, adjust seasoning with salt and sugar if necessary.

Sharing this recipe with Presto Pasta Night's Gang! Enjoy!

Every time, I'd say I'll never have lunch at that fastfood joint ever again. But, hey!...Never say never, right? They do a really bitchin' BBQ pork rice there :)

Crunchy Fish & Creamy Spinach

I've playing Popeye lately, eating loads of spinach. This time I want 'em with crunchy fish and creamy sauce for contrast. ^_* Oh, I conveniently forgot that I am not supposed to eat anything crunchy yet...but what the heck, just another secret to keep from my doc.

I bet people keep naughty secrets from their docs all the time:
- I exercise daily (Doc: your heart rate doesn't say so)
- I only eat healthy stuff, lots of greens, no cheeseburgers, no fish and chips (Doc: your blood pressure surely disagreed with you)
- I haven't been near any spicy food for weeks now (Doc: I bet that's why your sore throat never got better)
Latest one I heard from my friend:
- I didn't eat anything wrong (her Chinese doctor: whatever you've eaten or done, YOU, yourself know best *or something to this effect* with very VERY skeptic tone)
--------------
So, on my recent visit to the doc:

Doc: So, what have you been eating after the surgery?
Me: *pretended I didn't hear anything*...
Doc: So, what have you been eating after the surgery?
Me: *mumbled something incomprehensible* mmmfffghhhrrggh...mmm?
Doc: So, what have you been eating after the surgery?
Me: errr...stuff?
Doc: what stuff?
Me: hmm meat...rice...veggie...
Doc: Good, keep it soft, ok?
Me: *staring at my toes*
-------------
Ingredients
- Boneless fish fillets
- Juice of 1 lime
- bread crumbs, salt, pepper, sugar
- finely chopped garlic
- spinach
- cream
- olive oil

Marinate fish fillets with lime juice. Mix bread crumbs with some salt, pepper, sugar. Dip fish fillets into bread crumbs mix, brown it on hot pan with a bit of olive oil, set aside on paper towel. Saute garlic, add spinach, add salt, pepper sugar, add cream. Serve together.

*Boys and girls, please do not try this at home* (the keeping secrets from the doc ^_^ the fish and spinach combo is ok)