Skinny Red Velvet Cupcake

Gong Xi Fa Cai, Happy Chinese new year to all! We celebrated the long 4 day weekend with lots food and moviesJ

 With Valentine’s day around the corner let me share a skinny version of the all time favorite Red velvet cupcake with a hint of chocolate flavour  You can always cheat a bit and add the classic cream cheese frosting which is the classic combo. The recipe is adapted from the Cookbook Sweet and skinny by Marisa Churchill, so far I tried about 4 of her recipes and came out splendid! Most of the recipes are low fat and whole wheat and you can toss down it down with no guilt feelings.

So wait no more..lets whip up some red velvet cupcakes for the Valentine’s day!

Coconut Cake

It’s a pretty long weekend for us here as the Chinese new year is around the corner. As always I have a big to-do list..and the item on top was to update my discarded blog..!

So here is a Coconut cake from my all time favourite Chef Donna Hay. Now when I follow cook book recipes many a  times I end up with a totally different stuff from the lovely picture they put up to make u drool ! But never with Donna Hay, her recipes are just fool proof. I bet you just follow her recipes blind folded and you will be amazed with the results!

Ginger Glazed Walnuts

Let me warn you..you are going to see a lot more of Pecan and walnut recipes in coming days!

What can I say..I am surrounded by a bunch of generous people, I mean literally very generous ! My parents recently went to US to spend the holidays with my sis and I asked them to get me some Pecans and walnuts back as they r pretty expensive in Singapore.[Please note the word someJ]And a month later I go back home for Christmas holidays . My mom is happily flaunting all the stuff they shopped from US and there comes the gifts and things for me! Two big bags of stuff..I am like what ???you got me two bag full of pecans and walnuts!! Yeah just 2.5 KG each of Pecans and walnuts!!! Seeing  my expression my mom asks me..Ops so is this not enough for you? should I have brought more:-) So thatz the extend of my mom’s generosity!

Bottom line I am going nuts over the 5 KG nuts starring at me in my pantry!

Poppy seed Cake

No sneaking around for low fat .. no guilt this time around.. its poppy seed cake for the weekend! Was planning to treat myself with a rich cake with succulent cream cheese  icing before I get back to my routine. Unfortunately it raining cats and dogs here in Singapore for last two days . So the laziness got the best of me and I chose to keep it simple. Nevertheless it’s a fluffy soft cake with the wicked poppy seeds. I am loving it.

Nutella Cupcake with Caramel sauce topping

Its 12 days into 2013..Better later than never !!.Let me wish all my dear readers a very happy new year.

December of 2012 was mad..Sleepless nights , a trip to US followed by 5 days neck deep work and to close it all a 2 week vacation in my hometown!

I got back to Singapore few days back and still struggling hard to get back to routine.I missed hell lot of posts from you all and almost forgot about my blog. Mostly because I haven’t been doing much cooking in the last couple of months. Things are a bit settled now and I hope to get back to ride soonJ .

Homemade Nutella/ Hazelnut Spread

Phewwwwww..I am back, after a month loonng break.

I am soo sorry to have left this place without a wordL in fact I didn’t even intent to take a break from blogging you know…just that there were soo many things happening in life that I just had to put this off to later, later and ended up with this loonng break …

Now the last few months has been a roller coaster ride..Ups and downs and up again. Letz now go flash back into the last few months Arrghhhh.

Bottom line I am at a very happy space now..enjoying my long break..little over 2 long weeks. First few days I just slept it all off, just getting in time to eat.And now busy shopping Christmas gifts and packing my bags for my 10 day break in my Hometown, yippppieeee. 

Lamingtons

Lately blogging and even cooking have become an weekend affair for me.After my last post, I don’t think I have visited this space more than twiceL That too not more than few minutes..

I am caught up in the midst of a whirlpool at work and I can say that  I am virtually living in my office and coming home just for sleeping. Needless to say my kitchen and oven have been idle for weeks..The craziest part is I am even dreaming of work, slides, and even colleagues..to be specific bossesL. Every morning when I wake up, I feel like I just came out of  a long exhausting meeting.

To keep myself sane, I am making some time for some fun activities as well. DH and I have started going to mandarin classes..which turned out to be 2 hrs of sit-up comedy. 4 classes down and I can’t even remember 4 phrases. And even those 4 , when I tried on my colleagues, I got weird looks, stares and one even said never ever say that loud again. So I am absolutely sure I haven’t even nailed down a single phrase yet.The most difficult part for me is the tones..Oo man , no wonder why Chinese people are way smarter. If they can master such a difficult language they ought to be smart !

And yes, we started Salsa classes too, thatz was weird at start ..but turning out just like the mandarin classes...Two classes down and our dance doesn’t look even look a teeny tiny bit close to Real salsa dance.