Katherine's Crumbs

A simple bowl of shredded chicken noodles loaded with bok choy, enoki mushrooms and egg tofu. Very light, easy to throw together and did the job. This has been dinner for 2 nights now all thanks to that fateful roast chicken from last weekend. Silver linings! ☁️

I’ve been thinking about cinnamon buns for weeks as it’s been years since I’ve made one. So last weekend I thought I could try this recipe I saw on IG and get the dough going while I went out to get dinner. But fate has other ideas so baking did not get done until 2 days later. Still, it was actually a fairly decent recipe and enjoyed with neighbours.

No one is sick this time but it’s one of those nights where I just wanted a bowl of something warm and healing. I recently found a way of making chicken soup in a way that I like and so I thought I’d try making it again but with barley instead of small pastas this time. So nourishing, and so good with a good squeeze of lemon and fresh green chilies. I’d imagine the normal population would prefer a good grinding of black pepper instead 🍲

Made another round of bamboo rice dumplings ‘Ba zhang’ as I still had some rice leftover from the last round. This round I chopped up the filling (pork, mushrooms, dried shrimp and chestnuts) finer than usual and added some sambal for some extra flavor🌶️ Felt lazy to pull out my huge steamer so took a leap of faith to boil them like how my mom did. I was so scared that i’ll be met with a giant pot of ba zhang congee as they can burst during cooking if wrapped poorly, but thank god everyone stayed intact and survived. My mom and ancestors would be proud i think 😂😅

Another dinner of keeping things mellow and basically behaving to get well. I made watercress and pork rib soup which was believed to help with detox of the lungs, inflammation and to rid off heat that causes fever in the body. Soups like this help to balance the various humours of the body apparently. A side of choy sum was had as well as I feel like extra nutrients and fibre can’t hurt. Here’s to hoping for a good weekend ahead 🤞🏻🫢

The baking bug has been striking since last week and I’ve been craving for cake like crazy. So bit of mid-week baking was had last night with this marbled loaf cake and I’m so pleased with how it turned out. OH also made himself a nice little after-work treat with a slice of cake, drizzled with maple syrup and a scope of ice cream. The man sure knows how to live🤴🏻

Beef stroganoff for dinner the other night when we were off. Thought it’ll help with the throat and fever but I suppose it was wishful thinking when I did had some wine with it😅

This last week was kept mellow coz I’m sick yet again! Meals have not been exciting until I made myself a nice bowl of sliced fish soup using some of OH’s catch as I got better the other night. This was a warming bowl of comfort using dried scallop for the broth base with mushrooms and vegetables, bit different from what hawkers in Singapore typically do. I then got a bit over-confident with my sickness last night by making stir-fried noodles with pork and ate it with a dollop of sambal (and a few sneaky glasses of red🫢). So much for staying mellow coz my throat is back to being all sketchy today!😅🤧

It’s always good having family around for company. Lunch was had earlier at a pub, so dinner was a simple one with a couple of lamb cutlets and greens. These were crumbed with homemade breadcrumbs with Parmesan and they were just juicy and sweet. Yum! 😋😋

It’s that time of the year again when the fragrance of bamboo leaves will fill many Chinese households. I grew up with my mother wrapping rice dumplings for us and extended family every single year and it’s been so long since I had one of them. So this year I decided to give it a shot and make some. These were made with a mix of white and black glutinous rice, pork belly, dried shrimp, mushrooms and chestnuts. I was planning to make my own salted eggs too but couldn’t find any fresh duck eggs to make my own, so this will do for now. The flavours pretty good if I may say so myself, but of course they’ll never be as good as my mom’s 🥲🤍

Curry was absolutely on the menu with all that abundance of fish 🎣 I brought back over 3kg of fish curry paste from my last trip back home so the more I need to get through them all. This was dinner on weeknight that fed us for another 4 more meals. Would be great if I could serve it in a proper claypot like we usually do back home next time 🥰

Winter is here finally!! It’s not blistering cold just yet here in Melbourne but you can imagine my excitement when I saw fresh lotus roots being sold at my asian supermarket. Boy do I love them. So dinner last night was a warming pot of pork ribs and lotus root soup. Simple, clean and hearty 😋😋

It was another fantastic cake club meeting last Saturday where we had a theme of rice. Members brought a rice dish that could be sweet or savoury and everyone outshined themselves yet again. We had Korean rice cake and beef soup, Indian Kichdee using rice and lentils, porcupine meatball and rice tteoboki in a vodka tomato sauce, and Singaporean fried radish cake that used rice flour. No prize for who made the last dish 😁

Sweet wise of course we had rice puddings, one Aussie and one french. There was also a Taro and black rice ice cream and the ever awesome childhood classic, chocolate rice krispy treats. Everything was so amazing and delicious, people got to make things they never tried before and express their flavour creatively. God I so love this awesome club 🥰😋

It’s been another week of just getting on with life and dinners for the last few nights were mainly about clearing leftovers. Last night however I decided to indulge in my beloved minced pork noodles with the last bit of fresh noodles I’ve brought back from the homeland. I have fresh livers and meatballs in the soup, loaded with lots of greens, spring onions and coriander. Perhaps not as authentically Singaporean but for now it’ll do 😋

Sunday roast with Snoop Doggs’s Mack and Cheese and greens. Gotta love a good meat and 3 veg with plenty of leftovers for the week 😋

That gigantic piece of jewfish continues to bless us (it’s the other half of the same piece from the last post). This time round OH made them into fishfingers, cut across the grain, hand crumbed and fried till golden and delicious. They were so light, and meaty it was absolutely yummy! The other highlight of the dish were the greens, so full of flavour and I could eat just that tbh. OH also made a tartare sauce using some pickles I made a while back. We are gonna be eating real well for the next few weeks 😋😋

The OH spent the last week up north in Darwin having THE fishing trip of a lifetime with his dad, his brother and with their childhood mates who lives there. During his time away I was amused with updates of their trip and OH freaking caught a 2m shark 🦈 You can imagine my delight when he came home yesterday with 10kg of fish, all filleted and vacuum packed. So for dinner last night I roasted one of the (gigantic) Jewfish fillets and served it with a garlic and lemon pasta. Gosh was it delicious and such an interesting tasting fish. And of course the furchild got to have some as well. I’ll never say no to him going on a fishing trip if it’s a haul like this everytime 😁😋

It’s been a while since I’ve done any baking and last night this felt like a real treat. We got given a heap of lemons that I’m trying to go through, so I’ve made some Lemon friands using leftover egg whites I’ve got frozen from making lemon curd a while back. These were ‘heavenly’ as a lovely neighbour I’ve shared some with described them🥰🍋

Bit of a hiatus on the homecooking front due to ongoing travels and what not. But I’m home now and with the weather getting colder, this was what I really felt like for dinner last night. A simple but hearty meal of pork chops with onion and mushroom gravy, served with mash and broccoli. It’s so good to be home 🥰🍽️🏠

Food is absolutely splendid in Vietnam. I never had a bad meal whenever I’m here and even though most of the dishes are easily accessible for me back in Melbourne, it’s the freshness and a better sense of balance you get here in Saigon. This trip was a short one and made even shorter due to bouts of tummy issue (no thanks to the Australian immunity) so I’ll have to be back and recoup my losses soon 😋

We love having family over because that means it’s time for good homecooked meals like that. I made RecipeTin’s beef and mushroom stew pie with a potato mash topping and it was soooooo good. Think nice cold weather with a piping hot bowl of tender beef chunks braised in a red wine and porcini mushroom gravy🤤For dessert, I made a limoncello tiramisu which was a nice lift of flavours to balance the pie. We also had a snack of sprat in chilli oil with some cheese and homemade pickles on crackers as it was a long night catching up and merry making. Love it when family comes!😋🥰

Autumn is truly here in Melbourne. It’s been grey and rainy the last couple of weeks and nothing screams comfort like a nice hot bowl of Bak K*t Teh. I used the spice packs my nieces got for me from Singapore, added extra garlic coz they become so sweet and soft in the peppery broth. I didn’t have the usual fixings like fried dough, pork livers, kidneys etc as I usually would when I’m eating this with my dad at his favorite BKT spots. But it’s okay, warms the heart nonetheless to be eating this while thinking of home 🥰

This isn’t pretty but it was so good that I had it twice for lunch this week. Leftover dahl curry made by the OH last week, a crispy fried egg, Aldi’s prata (that is so wonderfully flaky and light) with a dollop of lao gan ma crispy chilli oil. So scrumptious and totally a very yummy belly warmer 😋

Finally another day off where we could both be home, catch a breather and indulge in a home cooked meal together. We had homemade pork and shrimp wanton with fresh noodles that I had brought back from Singapore and some delicious char siew OH bought from our nearby hong kong roast joint. The noodles were dressed in scallion oil + soy + char siew juice which was so delicious, and I had some extra wanton fillings too that I made them into meatballs and poached in dried scallop broth with some shimeiji mushrooms for extra flavour. Such an amazing meal and we got some leftover wantons and char siew to snack on for the rest of the week 😋

Throwback to the recent Easter weekend where we were surrounded by family love, lots of chocolate and candy eggs and a really yummy fish pie. This is the same pie that I made last year except that I’ve added in fresh scallops and smoked prawns too. Might be a new tradition as we do enjoy this pie very much!😋🐣

Been a real long time since OH made dinner, and when he did of course he set off the smoking alarm 😂🔥The lamb chops were absolutely crispy on the edges and delicious though 😋

It’s pickles for the theme of my cake club meeting this month. We get to meet on this lovely Sunday and I started the morning by making french Gougeres. These were so glorious, so cheesy with gruyère through it, light and crispy. I then filled them up with a russian salad filling using potatoes, eggs, dill, the last of our own parsley and a wicked batch of homemade bread and butter pickles. I’m gonna serve these beautiful choux treats with smoked trout. I’m so chuffed by how well these turned out! Sunday morning bakings are the best😁😁🥣

Last weekend I decided to make fish and chips from scratch coz #1 I got a lot of tempura flour from my Aunt to use up and #2 I feel like the more I make Singaporean food the more homesick I am gonna get. It was quite an effort but look what I’ve got! I’ve got enoki mushrooms, onion rings, zucchini (my real favorite atm), and of course actual seafood like ling, prawns and a couple of crab sticks. Ordering from a local business is great but sometimes doing something like this at home is really nice too. This was a great snack / dinner for the last few days, and not to mention the variety of vegetables I got to make into tempura too😋🍤

Needless to say, heaps and heaps of green tea were throughout the whole week 😅💆🏻‍♀️🍵

It’s always nice to indulge in a bit of homebaking for comfort and de-stress. So I made this banana and chocolate loaf cake as I have some frozen bananas sitting in the freezer, and the smell of chocolate baking in the oven is always therapeutic. It was also nice to be able to share this with my lovely neighbours as there is no way I could finish this on my own. They seemed to enjoy it immensely, and I couldn’t be more happy about that 😋🍫