Peanut butter. There are few things in life that peanut butter can’t fix, and when it comes as an ice cream, it is pretty much the most indestructible form of cheer-me-up goodness on this planet.

And I have been needing some cheering up lately, but that’s for another post.

For this post, I am going to once [...]]]>

Peanut butter. There are few things in life that peanut butter can’t fix, and when it comes as an ice cream, it is pretty much the most indestructible form of cheer-me-up goodness on this planet.

And I have been needing some cheering up lately, but that’s for another post.

For this post, I am going to once again say… seriously, if you don’t have an ice cream maker, what the hell are you living for? Having my little green machine has made making ice cream a breeze. And I’m not sure if it’s a good thing or a bad thing, but it’s not even about the making of the ice cream any more, it’s about how damn quickly I can eat it all so I can make my next batch

Which, incidentally, is going to be lychee sorbet. YUM.

Chinese New Years are definitely not what they used to be. Sometimes, I really wished that I could get it all back; the anticipation, the excitement, the noise, the sounds, the smell – but I can’t. I don’t even think it really has anything to do with being in a western country. I [...]]]>

Chinese New Years are definitely not what they used to be. Sometimes, I really wished that I could get it all back; the anticipation, the excitement, the noise, the sounds, the smell – but I can’t. I don’t even think it really has anything to do with being in a western country. I think for me (for us, for my extended family) the magic of Chinese New Year ended when my grandfather passed away.

These days, it’s all I can do to drag myself out of bed and bake some peanut cookies. Well, at least I still do that, I suppose.

Although, what I wish I really could do is roast a giant suckling pig. Maybe next year

Panu and I always talk about spending Chinese New Year in an Asian country – maybe Hong Kong or KL or Singapore – not so much to re-capture what I remember, but to experience the excitement, festivities and most importantly, the food. I’m looking forward to that, whenever it may be.

For now, we celebrated Chinese New Year eve with an impromptu and very quickly tossed together yee sang (made a big mess, which is still fun)…

… and these delicious peanut cookies.

Gong xi fa chai, everyone!

Firstly, let me address those who don’t have an ice cream maker. I feel sorry for you. Ok not really. In all seriousness, if you don’t have an ice cream maker, don’t fret. Check out my non-ice cream maker matcha ice cream recipe. It’s just as easy, I promise.

Now for the rest of [...]]]>

Firstly, let me address those who don’t have an ice cream maker. I feel sorry for you. Ok not really. In all seriousness, if you don’t have an ice cream maker, don’t fret. Check out my non-ice cream maker matcha ice cream recipe. It’s just as easy, I promise.

Now for the rest of you blessed with ice cream makers? You rock!!! I am so goddamn proud to be one of y’all and I owe thanks to Ms Rita for running this competition on her blog. I now totally understand when someone says that it is entirely possible to lose yourself in the mesmerising churn of an ice cream maker. I get that now. I’m in the club.

Booyah.

So without further adieu, meet my little Martian of a Cuisineart ice cream maker. He’s gloriously green.

And he matches my matcha! *nerd moment*

It doesn’t take a genius to work out what flavour ice cream I was going to make first. The ice cream maker comes with a bunch of recipes, but I didn’t even look. I headed straight for the kill – matcha. And maybe this is a rookie mistake, and though I love my first 1.5L batch of matcha ice cream, I wish I added more matcha powder because when it comes to matcha, bitter is definitely better.

But hey, I did add crushed tea leaves from a couple of green tea teabags just for kicks (and texture) and that works brilliantly!

So here goes: the easiest matcha ice cream recipe ever.

I feel completely spoiled because I’ve just had not one, but two of the best weekends in a row. This weekend just gone, I had the pleasure of spending all of my waking hours with my niece, who is just the best thing since Luke’s lobster rolls, and I know you think I’m [...]]]>

I feel completely spoiled because I’ve just had not one, but two of the best weekends in a row. This weekend just gone, I had the pleasure of spending all of my waking hours with my niece, who is just the best thing since Luke’s lobster rolls, and I know you think I’m being biased and all that but dude, who’s blog is this? Yeah. YEAH.

We hung out and ate and napped and ate and hung out and though I still have a couple of days with her (they leave on Wednesday morning), I am already heaving big sighs of wistful sadness because I always miss her so badly when we part I suppose that makes this weekend the best and worst ever.

But last weekend was definitely just awesome. Aside from finding this delicious cheeseburger, I also felt the urge to bake peanut butter cookies and so I did! About 50 of them, to be precise.

I got this recipe off the genius of the twitterverse and it’s brilliant for those of you, who like me, love a soft cookie. The choc chips and peanuts from the chunky spread add a great texture to this crumbly cookie and I loved it. Definitely a winning recipe, and I think I’ve found a new favourite hobby: rolling little dough balls

It’s so zen. You should try it!

I try to eat healthy. Don’t laugh, I really do! I mean, granted I live and breathe burgers and ice cream (and too much other deliciousness) but give a girl a break all right? I also have healthy salads and snacks every day. For example, my in-between-meal snacks generally involve fresh and dried [...]]]>

I try to eat healthy. Don’t laugh, I really do! I mean, granted I live and breathe burgers and ice cream (and too much other deliciousness) but give a girl a break all right? I also have healthy salads and snacks every day. For example, my in-between-meal snacks generally involve fresh and dried fruit and lots of mixed nuts. The fruits I love, but the nuts can be challenging sometimes, especially when I’ve eaten all the macadamias and cashews. Because they are totally way better than all the other nuts.

Hi, my name is Cat and I’m a nuttist.

I can and will weasel my way to the bottom of a pack of mixed nuts to find the very last morsel of macadamia or cashew and I know this behaviour sounds crazy and absolutely begs the question why don’t I just buy macadamias and cashew only, but that would make life far too dull wouldn’t it? To not have to work for that last delicious piece of nut?

Hi, my name is Cat and I’m a nutty nuttist.

Yep.

Anyway, after I’ve vacuumed out the last minuscule pieces of macadamias and cashews, I’ll give the pack to Panu and be all like, hey look! I bought you a pack of mixed nuts This worked for a little while, until he realised that it wasn’t that the manufacturers weren’t filling each pack to the brim, it was that I’d been ferreting around and stealing all the most awesome nuts.

So he suggested that I try and make the other nuts yummy too. Like, maybe roast them? Maybe spice them?

Genius.

So here’s a super easy spiced nuts recipe which is guaranteed to make any boring nut you have far more appealing that it’s ever been. And really, the recipe is a sham because you can add any spice you want, for example here’s how Maria from Scandi Foodie has done hers. She also “activates” her nuts but you know me. Patience? What patience.

Enjoy!

Saturday was a bit of a crappy day. It started off well with a mammoth sleep in until about 11am, but it all started turning pear-shaped when I got a hankering for a good bowl of har mee (Malaysian prawn noodles). I’d heard that Shiok in Chinatown’s Eating World did a good one, [...]]]>

Saturday was a bit of a crappy day. It started off well with a mammoth sleep in until about 11am, but it all started turning pear-shaped when I got a hankering for a good bowl of har mee (Malaysian prawn noodles). I’d heard that Shiok in Chinatown’s Eating World did a good one, so I got up and headed out on a mission.

Apparently, everyone else was also going to Chinatown.

After trying to find parking for an hour, I was starving, and despite Panu’s suggestions to go elsewhere, I was on a mission, and if there’s one thing I’m damn good at, it’s staying on the mission. I don’t give up easily, not when food is concerned, and so with a huge relinquishing sigh, I decided to park in crazy-expensive-Market-City just so I could get my har mee.

We parked and dashed over to Eating World, my mouth literally salivating and I couldn’t wait to get my face in a huge bowl of that broth, a heady mix of pork bones and prawn shells (only an Asian person would be excited by that combination). I dashed to the counter and ordered two. Because no way am I sharing with Panu.

“We don’t have har mee today,” the nice lady said. I decided she wasn’t nice after all, purely by her association with my lack of har mee.

What?

“We don’t have it, and probably none for the next two or three months.”

WHAT?!

This cannot be real. I mean, ok, get a grip Cat, ever heard of first world problems? No har mee but a foodhall full of other good food? Yeah, I don’t really care because honestly, I’m not usually a princess but when you mess with my cravings, I Get The Shits.

So, the shits I got. I ordered some other crap and really, it could have been a Shake Shack burger but the mood I was in, everything tasted like cardboard. Ok maybe not a Shake Shack burger, cos that would have been gooooooooooooood. But you know what I mean.

We managed to survive lunch and then had to do battle at Broadway to get parking again. FFS when is someone going to invent teleportation? Anyway, I knew I needed to chill me the fuck out, so I went around collecting ingredients to bake something, because that always chills me out… and so Saturday afternoon saw me baking a blueberry yoghurt cheesecake.

This cheesecake recipe is actually a combination of a handful of recipes. I wanted to use yoghurt to substitute some cream cheese, and also wanted it light and fluffy, thus the eggs and the baking. The result was very light, definitely not a heavy cheesecake so if that’s what you’re after, this is not for you.

In fact it was so light – almost airy – that I didn’t even feel guilty serving it for breakfast

Speaking of breakfast, we had some people over for breakfast yesterday. One of our guests, Lisa, has awesome baking skills and she brought a real (full cream, guilt-ridden) cheesecake… this enormous raspberry beauty, which I still have 3/4 of sitting in my fridge.

Anyways, I still have my har mee craving. Let’s hope my next mission goes a little better.