Okay, I'm not a good cook like lots of other food bloggers out there, but it just so happened that these few recipes that I've tried out turned out rather good for me (& yummy too, I might add!), so I'm posting it here again as a reminder that cooking is fun (well, the process is sometimes not, but the finished product and the tasting afterwards is!) and I should look for more recipes to try out rather than just sit and wallow at home...hey, at least there's some comfort food to eat right? ;) These are photos already in my FB page, but since I'm bored and all...might as well talk more about it here. Heh!

This was my version of PW's Coffee Cake (recipe here)...made it last week for Father's Day, since Dad is an avid coffee drinker (don't know if I'd used the word 'avid' correctly, but it sounded okay, so meh...LOL!) I thought it would do very nicely! And thankfully, it did! I was very hesitant about frosting the cake since the first few times I ever frosted any cake turned out to be complete disasters! But thanks to the great buttercream frosting, it was VERY spreadable and easy to work with so at least this time around I didn't botch it too much...YAYY! 

Dad loved the cake, so kudos to the great recipe! I liked it too, even though I'm no coffee drinker...the coffee taste was good, although it left a little bit of a bitter aftertaste (I think due to the coffee flecks in the frosting) but it's dense and not too sweet...that I think was because I reduced the sugar content A LOT! Coming from a family history of diabetics (my Mom is one, and my Dad has a family history...so I have a very high chance of getting it) I was always told that high amounts of sugar = EVIL, and I can't tolerate too sweet of a dessert myself so I ALWAYS reduce sugar when I bake...some might not like it, but the cakes and all turn out to be in my tolerated 'range', so it's still good IMO. LOL!

This was on Sunday...to celebrate Kenji's birthday, Father's Day and to welcome Mom, Sis & Rachel home I promised to make dinner. And it took me a whole day to do it, but it's SOOO worth it! The cake was from the day before (that coffee cake above), but the rest were made on Sunday: Meat Cake Pops for the furkids (my own 'idea' of a Cake Pop for them...surprisingly, it turned out quite well! YAYY!); Cajun Chicken Pasta (recipe here) - I made this with shrimp instead of chicken though; Hot & Sweet Drumsticks (recipe here); some blanched vegetables & Brazilian Lemonade again. 

Pasta was good! I was a bit too spice happy with the Cayenne pepper, and added just a wee bit too much so it was quite spicy. Thank goodness my family has a high tolerance for spiciness (unlike me!) and they said it wasn't that spicy. In fact, Mom said it was good...high praise coming from a woman who doesn't really like pasta, especially creamy ones! She said the spiciness 'covered' the cream taste which she can take :) Elder Sis wanted more cream to the pasta since she's a huge fan of carbonara...LOL! Oh well, if I ever make this again, I'll try to strike out a balance :P Chicken was good too, but when it was cooking, they were swimming in not just the sauce, but the chicken drippings too! I felt the sauce was a bit too watery for my liking, so I took the chicken out and thickened the sauce...tasted better, but I think next time I wouldn't cook the sauce first before adding to the chicken. Instead, maybe letting it cook together with the chicken might be just the trick to getting the sauce just nice like PW's version :)

Due to my enthusiasm in getting the correct ingredients, I ended up with lots of stuff that we wouldn't normally use in Chinese cooking...so, I'm gearing up for another round of cooking this week (hopefully! *crosses fingers*) I still have quite a bit of buttermilk left...very pricey for Malaysia, so I didn't want to waste it. I went searching at PW's site and found recipes like Orange Mini Muffins with Brown Sugar Glaze & Homemade Chicken Strips which will use up the buttermilk quite nicely! I'm hankering to try that, and maybe this Coconut and Lemon Loaf recipe too to finish off my very nice (& quite pricey) shredded Hawaiian coconut that I got some time ago....who knew that we can only get shredded HAWAIIAN coconut when in Malaysia, we have an abundance of coconut trees?! Unfortunately the only kind of 'shredded' coconut that we have are dessicated, which are dry and too small for some of the coconut recipes that I found...hence the extra forking of moolah for coconut. Sad >.<"