favourite recipes for everyday cooking and baking

  I made this cake for the first time as part of the Australia's Biggest Morning Tea fund-raising event at work. It's rather stressful cooking or baking for other people whom you know are going to judge you and your food. I tried to think of what cake would appeal to most people, and the magic ingredient is *drumroll*.... coconut! Australians love coconut (the shredded type) which is probably why lamingtons are so...Aussie.. though not as Aussie as Tim Tams and Vegemite. Coconut is also widely used in Asian cuisine. In fact, some of the people at work commented that it was a Filipino cake, and I said no. This was a Danish Dream Cake. Totally different continents. (I think they might have confused it with Biko, a Filipino dessert made with sticky rice and coconut, though sounds delicious too).   The word "Drømmekage" literally means "dream cake", and is apparently a traditional Danish cake consisting of a genoise sponge with a coconut caramel toppi...

Costco is one of my favourite places to shop at (well, okay, most of my favourite shopping places revolve around food and groceries). I remember watching a documentary about Costco and how they source for only popular or quality that are tried and tested by them, and they carry a limited number of brands for each product line. This makes it easier for the consumer when deciding which brand to choose (as too many brands may confuse the consumer who might end up not buying anything!). I saw a couple of brands for BBQ sauce and decided on Sweet Baby Ray's  (after all, there's only a fifty-fifty chance I bought the wrong one!) mainly because the label stated "Award-winning", dotted with four red stars (not only my kids love stars on their homework, I have an affinity for stars too when it comes to food and product reviews). The other brand had some Japanese sounding name to it which I can't remember, plus there was a mad picture of a Japanes...

  Hainanese Chicken Rice makes a regular appearance on our dinner table almost every Sunday evening. We would make a big batch of it so that it will last for the next couple of dinners. It's easy, simple and the kids hardly complain about it (unless it stretches out to the third or forth time in a row, then there'd be the occasional whining "Chicken rice? Again....?"). And so, I decided to try out a different version of chicken rice which is more Malay style, with the addition of spices like cinnamon and star anise. The chicken is rubbed with kecap manis before roasting it in the oven, which gives the skin a touch of sweetness.    Nasi Ayam (Chicken Rice) Recipe Ingredients 1.8 kg chicken marylands (drumstick and thigh) - reserve the chicken fat for the rice 1-2 tbsp margarine/butter Marinade: 3 tbsp kecap manis (sweet soy sauce) 1 1/2 tsp salt 1/2 tsp pepper Broth: 2 litres water 2 cloves garlic 2 slices ginger 500g chicken bones/wing tips 1 medium onion, quartered...