Smell the New Year ... Resolutions!

After 10 years of ... er ... sleeping, I've decided to make a "come back" to my few real passions in life - Baking.

One of my resolution for the new year was to document down all the yummy food I have been eating at my mother's house for all these years (my ma jie is the actual cook, and my mum is the actual baker). I want to keep an archive of both homemade dishes, as well as traditional dishes.

As for baking, I was searching for pineapple tarts recipe (just for fun actually) when I stumbled upon The Skinny Epicurean's blog (http://skinny-epicurean.blogspot.com/). It suddenly reminded me how much I used to love baking - taco breads for my late dad, prune butter cakes for my sister, crunchy gingerbreads and my notorious Black Death (chocolate) cookies.

In my early years, no one - NO ONE - ever wanted to eat the stuff i made, except for my loving dogs (and only one of them ate it). Along the way, I got better because I LEARNT how to read recipes. And I had more "willing" food testers. Now, I have a ready one at home, my hubby (the greedy one too), so I'm ready to start!

And the first smell for the new year - pineapple paste for pineapple tarts!

Spent 4 hours making the paste from 5.75 pineapples (2 batches) and so far so good. The taste is just what I like - tarty, not too sweet and a hint of spices (cinnamon, star anise and cloves). This tuesday I'll be making the actual tarts with my sister ... I can't wait!

Next on my list - almond cookies. Why? Because my mum loves them, and I used to make them for her (no artificial almond essence - they taste of cockroaches!).

Then maybe peanut cookes - we modified this recipe from a website and we love it! And it was my hubby who made the changes accidentally - I hope he remembers what he did!

and and ... chocolate cakes ... chocolate tarts ... and and ... oh! I should start making a list!