How do you like the simple, velvety, melt in your mouth nama chocolate? If you love it like I do, you might consider trying the variation here - green tea nama chocolate.

The main ingredient of green tea nama chocolate is white chocolate. From my experience, white chocolate tends to be very sweet. Whereas green tea nama chocolate is best served bitter sweet. Hence, I am still on my quest looking for a reduced sugar version of white chocolate. If you happen to know one, please let me know too!

Green Tea Nama Chocolate

Ingredients

• 150g white chocolate (use a good quality chocolate), chopped into small pieces for easy melting
• 50g whipping cream
• 1 tablespoon green tea powder, more for dusting

Cooking Directions

1. Line a 4.5" x 4.5" baking dish with parchment paper (the height of your chocolate will depend on the size of your baking dish).
2. In a pan (make sure the pan is completely dry), add whipping cream, white chocolate, and a tablespoon of green tea powder.
3. Cook over low heat (the chocolate may separate from oil under high heat) and keep stirring until the chocolate chips dissolved and well combined.
4. Pour the mixture into the baking dish.
5. Keep refrigerate until firm for about 4-5 hours.
6. Remove the chocolate from baking dish. Warm a knife (can warm it with hot water, but make sure to dry the knife completely before cutting) and cut the chocolate into cubes.
   
7. Sprinkle green tea powder on top of the chocolate.
   

Notes and Troubleshoot
The measurement that I have is based on Cadbury white chocolate, and Emborg whipping cream. A different brand of ingredient might result in slightly different consistency. After refrigerated, if the end product became too soft, melt it again and add more chocolate. Likewise, if the product became too hard, cracky, or lumpy, melt it again and add more whipping cream.

In the case where your chocolate seize (happens if the bowl or pan not completely dry), or separate (when the chocolate overheated, the oil separated from the chocolate), don't be dismay yet, read here to find out how to salvage it.

Egg drop soup is a very basic Chinese dish with only few ingredients required. The ingredients are very common and easily found, but the key to make a successful one lies on the silky smooth, soft and thin egg threads that floating all over the soup. If the egg drops form thick lumps and dive down like rocks to the bottom of the bowl, then you might just need a few more practices to get it right.

If you are tired of the MSG laden soup in the restaurant, try this at home. This hearty warm soup can be ready within just few minutes, if you have chicken broth on hand.

This recipe serves 2

Egg Drop Soup

Ingredients

• 2 cups chicken broth
• 1 egg, beaten
• 4 cherry tomatoes, cut into 4
• 2 tablespoons  corn starch
• salt and pepper, to taste

Cooking Directions

1. In a pot, bring chicken broth to boil
2. In a small bowl, mix corn starch with 4 tablespoon of broth, stir to blend well.
3. Add the corn starch mixture, tomatoes, salt and pepper into the soup.
4. Turn off the heat, add beaten egg into the soup slowly in a thin stream. Keep stirring while adding the egg. The egg should form thin and silky thread.
5. Serve immediately.

If you like light and thin cookies, this cookie is for you. It is crunchy, light, and easily crumble away in your mouth. This is the perfect cookie to go with your coffee or tea for a lazy afternoon tea. Langue de Chat is actually a French cookie, which is originally made into long curve shape (like a tongue) and baked to crisp at the edge but remain soft in the middle. However, I prefer a crispy throughout version, hence I spent some time and found this recipe. The recipe is written in Japanese, found here.

Langue de Chat (Cat Tongue Cookies)

Ingredients

• 50g cake flour
• 10g almond powder
• 1 egg white
• 50g powdered sugar
• 50g butter

Cooking Directions

1. Cream the butter with powdered sugar together
2. Divide egg white into 3 portion, add in 1/3 at a time. Whisk until pale yellow in color.
3. Add in flour and almond powder, mix until well combined.
4. Preheat the oven to 180 degree Celsius
5. Line the baking sheet with baking paper.
6. Transfer the batter into a piping bag, snip off the end.
7. Pipe the batter to your desire shape, leaving at least 1/2 inch in between as the batter will spread during baking.
8. Bake the cookie for 8 minutes.
9. Remove the cookies from baking paper, air the cookies on a wire rack.

Note: The cookie will be soft when fresh out of the oven, it will harden in a while. Keep the cookies into a airtight container once it harden.

Yam, or more commonly known as taro in United States, is a root vegetable with black porous skin, and purple stripe embedded white flesh. It is a robust ingredient which can be either made into savoury dishes such as yam and coconut chicken, or sweet desserts such as Orh Nee (yam paste dessert).

Yam rice is a very simple dish. After a long and tiring day, the last thing you want to do is to spend hours making a meal. This yam rice is my go to meal whenever I feel exhausted but craving for homecook food. If you have a rice cooker, you can make this almost effortlessly. In Singapore, yam rice is usually served with soup, yong tau foo, or simply on its own. 

This recipe serves 4

Yam Rice (Taro Rice)

Ingredients

• 250g yam, cut into small cubes
• 5 pcs dried mushroom, soaked and sliced thinly
• 1.5 tablespoon dried shrimps, washed and chopped
• 2 cup rice, uncooked
• 1 tablespoon fried shallot crisps (for garnishing)
• 1 spring onion, chopped (for garnishing)
• 1 tablespoon cooking oil

Seasoning

• 8 tablespoons sweet soy sauce (kecap manis)
• 2 tablespoons soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon oyster sauce
• 4 tablespoons Shao Xing Cooking Wine

Cooking Directions

1. Wash the rice. Transfer the rice to a rice cooker and add water as per usual. Set aside.
2. Heat up 1 tablespoon of cooking oil in a wok and stir-fry dried shrimp until fragrant. Add mushroom and yam.
3. Add all seasonings and bring it to boil. Stir to coat the yam and mushroom evenly.
4. Transfer to rice cooker and cook the rice as per usual.
5. When the rice is cooked, stir the rice to loosen it up and mix up the ingredients. Serve hot with fried shallot and chopped spring onions.

Are you having trouble getting the kids eating vegetable? This simple trick here get your little ones drink up the whole cup without realising what is actually hidden inside - the greens! 

Mixed Berries Smoothie With Spinach

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cup mixed berries (cranberries, raspberries, blueberries or any berries of your choice)
• 30g spinach, washed
• 1 cup fresh milk
• 150g yoghurt

Directions

1. Combine all ingredients together in a blender and blend until smooth.