Monday, July 4, 2011

Strawberry Jam Cupcakes


Strawberry Jam Cupcakes

I read up on a cupcake recipe recently and was very keen to try it. I was rather pleased that it turned out quite nicely. I modified the recipe a little and filled the cupcakes with strawberry jam and called them strawberry jam cupcakes.

The cupcakes could have turned out nicer if they were slightly more moist. However, my husband and one of my friends enjoyed them very much and it was such a joy to see them eating the cupcakes!




Freshly baked cupcakes!


Cupcakes decorated with icing sugar and strawberry jam.


A cross-sectional view of a cupcake.


Sunday, July 3, 2011

Inarizushi Bento

Bento - inarizushi with avacado and egg omelette rolls.

Inarizushi is a fried tofu pouch that is usually filled with sushi rice. I wanted to make my own inarizushi but I could not find the tofu pouches or inarizushi at the shops in Townsville. Undeterred, I bought a pack of the pre-seasoned tofu pouches from Singapore and had it shipped over to me in Townsville.


Pre-seasoned tofu pouches from a NTUC supermarket in Singapore.

Instead of just filling the tofu pouches with sushi rice, I made a mushroom and carrot mix with the sushi rice before stuffing the filling into the tofu pouches. It was quite a success and the inarizushi tasted really yum! I packed them nicely into a bento box for my husband’s afternoon tea and he really liked it.

To make the rice filling for the inarizushi, I stir-fried some diced carrots and dried shiitakae mushrooms and added the following seasoning: soy sauce; sugar; Chinese cooking wine (as a substitute for sake) and shiitake liquid (used to soak the mushrooms) while cooking it. After that, I mixed the mushroom mixture with the cooked sushi rice (mixed with sugar, salt and rice wine vinegar) and added toasted black sesame seeds and tiny cuts of nori sheets at the end. After the mushroom and rice mixture was well mixed, I shaped them into balls with the cling wrap and stuffed them into the tofu pouches.

 
Delicious inarizushi with mushrooms, carrots and sushi rice.

They tasted great especially with the toasted black sesame seeds which gave that added aromatic flavour in the inarizushi. They are healthy to eat and go very well as a bento boxed lunch or snack.