Pound cake

It's finally beginning to look a lot like Christmas. As I eagerly await the coming of the special season, I begin to realise it's the preparation towards the festive day that makes it all so special; in fact, it is already that season now. The writing of Christmas cards, sending of gifts, having parties and dinners with friends and family, decorated streets and homes, and happy people - these are the reasons why I love Christmas.

It's my first Christmas with B. :) To "celebrate" his arrival in York, I baked him a pound cake! Traditionally, pound cake is made of a pound of each ingredients: butter, sugar, eggs and flour, hence its name. There have been quite some "modern alterations" of this old recipe, you can add berries, chocolate chip, banana and even peanut butter (eww...) to the basic pound cake recipe.

I wasn't gonna make a 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 pound pound cake, so I scaled it down, keeping the 1:1:1:1 ratio. I squeezed in some lemon and added some grated lemon skin as well. Itchy fingers despite wanting to stick to keeping it simple.

The lemons provided a little tart taste, and I like that it is so moist and dense. Gives a christmasy-cake feel. :p

Merry blessed Christmas to all. :) And a happy new beginning to the new year!

Tomato rice

Preparing meals for one has never really been the easiest thing to do. Having lived alone for almost 9 months now, I have been repeating my dinner menus so often I could easily count the number of variations with just my fingers. Yes yes it is the same old excuses of not having enough time to cook, being tired when I get back from school and just wanting quick relief to my gruelling hunger.

My friend, J, recently pasted me a link to a recipe for making tomato rice. I was absolutely delighted when I realised it was so simple to make - literally no effort at all. All you need is some pepper and salt, a teaspoon or two of olive oil, rice, water, a big tomato and a rice cooker. Put all of the mentioned ingredients into the rice cooker and cook as you would normally do.

When it is all done, stir everything up, popping the tomato as you do so. That's it!

The best part about this dish is that you can add anything you like. I flavour my rice with basil every time I make this (I loveeee basil! Shall have a pot of it in my own kitchen next time!), sometimes I added chilli flakes or mixed herbs. I added mixed vegetables once and some celery another time. The celery gave a very nice crunch to the dish *om nom nom*. To make it a "complete" meal, I top it off with cooked meat during the last few minutes of cooking in the rice cooker. You could add an egg too if you like! :)

This is really so easy to make, without the compromise of taste and flavour, plus the flexibility of adding almost any ingredient you like. This is for me a definite tried, tested and repeat.