Finally! I am so excited to say that my photo and recipe of prawn, mushroom & vegetable wraps are featured in Delicious magazine – one of the most read food magazine in the UK. I shared one of my family favourite dishes which is a great dish for Chinese New Year. As we are not far away from celebrating Chinese New Year, which falls on the 23 January this year, this is definitely an easy and yummy recipe to make.

Update: below is the PDF version of the article and recipe.

I would like to thank Susan Low, the deputy editor at Delicious magazine for giving me this fantastic opportunity to contribute an article and a recipe to the magazine. Also, thanks to Jocelyn Bowerman, the art director for featuring my  food photo  too!

So, what are you waiting for, please go to your nearest newsagents and grab yourself a copy delicious magazine, check out my recipe and also many other yummy recipes too!

My tired eyes had caused slight blurry vision. I lifted my head and looked at the bookshelves quite a distant away. My brain was struggling to think for a few seconds. My inner voice kept asking me to finish off what I had on my screen and hit the sack. The next morning, I switched on my computer, making sure the Outbox was empty with no more pending emails. I double checked my bag, the A4 size envelopes formed almost the thickness of 2 rims of A4 papers. I slowly dropped them in batches into the post box. I whispered to myself, ‘Good Luck!’

That was the scene of more than a year ago. Until today, it still seems like a dream.

‘Bing!’ Lazily, I touched the mail icon on my iPhone. It was a reply to an email that I sent. It read something like this “…… I’ve been looking for someone to write an Asian cookbook, would you be interested?” I paused. Trying to think if this could be the beginning of a journey that I had been waiting for?

It was unexpected, it happened. It was just before last year’s Christmas when verbal agreement was made. I was going to author a cookbook! It was a moment that seemed surreal. I couldn’t believe it was going to really happen! It has always been a dream of mine, one day, to author a cookbook. And it happened just at the right time, when I was looking out for opportunities, and landed one! I was really happy to have accepted the opportunity, so much so that I wanted to share my joy with you all. Finally, I can share it today!

I was on top of the world and found it hard to believe! At the same time, I was trying to figure out how I was going to juggle between the tight deadlines and my day job. Luckily enough, I managed to divide my time, working part-time and gave myself full concentration that I needed!

My role for this book deal is purely as an author, no photography assignment involved. Though, I gave my opinions on creative side of things – my views on how the dishes should look, ideas, advices and feedback to the creative team.

All the writing started in the beginning of January 2011 and lasted for about 3 months, to have all the recipes written and tested. It seemed like an impossible task, but with my determination and dedication, I made it! Of course, at one point, I had my family and friends that came to my rescue, helping me to test some of the recipes. Without them, I couldn’t have achieved this!

Throughout that period of time, I have had lots of supports, especially from Arnaud, who had put up with my late nights and being so very patient as I spent most of my time in front of the computer and constantly cooking in the kitchen. I don’t know if you guys remember or even notice that I wasn’t very active in the blogging scene for a little while. I did try my best to write some posts, though not very frequent. I want to apologise for my short disappearance as there were just too many things going on.

I know I have kept this very quiet. The publishing process is pretty long and I was waiting for the right time to mention about it, because I knew if I mentioned something you had to wait for more than a year sounds a bit crazy! So, the right time has come!

My cookbook – Lemongrass and Ginger Cookbook: Vibrant Asian Recipes, as it says on the title, contains a big handful of delicious Asian recipes and it is scheduled to be published in Spring 2012! It contains 224 pages, published by Duncan Baird. There are more than 100 clear, easy-to-follow recipes that are diverse, delicious and imaginative. Packed with inspiring, authentic dishes (many with a modern twist), this is a must-have book for the modern kitchen!

It is available for pre-order on several websites now!

I will provide more details in many posts to come. So, please stay tuned by following me on Twitter and Facebook. You will surely get the latest updates!

I really want to thank you, my dear readers, for your support and readership. Throughout these years, I have known a lot of like-minded people from different parts of the world (even have met some of you!). I dearly and truly appreciate the time we have shared through my blog. The passion I have in food has grown stronger each day and made me a very determined person. None of what I have achieved would have been possible without the support, love and sweet words of encouragement that you have been giving me since the first day I started to sow the seed of My Cooking Hut!

Thank you and God bless.

On the 31st October, I woke up and carried on with my daily routine. Somehow, I realised something was missing. I felt like I forgot to do something. Trust me, it was that intense that I stayed up late a few times to get my recipe done for the Royal Selangor - Get Your Jelly On– 30-day Challenge. There were also a few times that I woke up early to check if my jelly set ok and it was ok for me to take photos while the morning sun was shining.

For a few seconds, I felt a sense of relief as if someone just helped me to lift a big very big object off my hands. On the other hand, I kind of missed the buzz of making recipes and the daily blogging routine! Haha. We human beings are weird, we complain about certain things that we do, then we somehow miss them when we no longer have to.

Well, I have to admit that I do enjoy the moments when I don’t have to be so stressed out, making sure I publish a post on a daily basis. Now that my blogging scene is back to normal. I need to start thinking of what recipes to make and share with you all. Even better if you tell me what recipes you would like me to make. Please leave a comment, telling me if you have any specific dishes that you want me to make and post on my blog, that would be brilliant! I know that I have a few guest blogging invitations to attend to, so, please bear with me!

Of course, I haven’t forgotten to randomly pick the winner for the Olympus VG-110 camera! I am happy to announce that the randomly drawn number is 148, which is comment number 148 that goes to Katherine A! Congrats, Katherine!

Hello people! I am back to the blogging scene again! After slightly more than 1 week of holiday with my family, I am back to my daily routine, though unwillingly. Anyway, just before I went on holiday, I was contacted by Royal Selangor to take part in a “Get Your Jelly On – 30-day Challenge”. I thought it long and hard, then I decided to give it a go!

So, what is this ”Get Your Jelly On – 30-day Challenge”? In line with the Breast Cancer Awareness in October, Royal Selangor has set up a challenge for 10 bloggers from all over the world  to showcase one recipe each day using Royal Selangor Pewter Jelly mould. So, for the next 30 days, you will see new exciting way using Royal Selangor Pewter Jelly mould, which is designed by a British designer, Nick Munro. This challenge doesn’t sound easy at all! I hope to do my very best to come out with 30 ideas how to use the jelly mould!

To kick start my first day of challenge tomorrow, I am delighted to announce that I will be giving away an Olympus VG-110 camera to one of the lucky readers, worldwide! TO WIN, please read the following instructions. The 4 steps below can be done on a daily basis in October to MAXIMISE your chance to win! You have until 31 October 2011, Monday to leave your comments. Good luck!

1) Leave a comment on this post

2) Tweet this post using the tweet button below, then leave 1 extra comment.

3) Share on Facebook, then leave 1 extra comment.

4) Like my Facebook (if you are not a fan yet),  then leave 1 extra comment.

Wish me luck for next 30 days!

I don’t know if we have started to experience the effect of global warming. It seems to me that this year’s summer has been cut short or rather skipped. All I have experienced was a few days of sunshine in a week or not at all sometimes!

I was really hoping for that sort of heat wave that will made into news headline, saying something like “people flocking to the nearest beach due to the highest temperature seen for the past 20 years” or something like that. In fact, this year, we seem to experience more rain in the Summer than in Spring.

Anyway, I am not going to hold my breath, waiting for the weather to get warmer. I mean, let’s get real, it is almost end of August and the day will be shorter as we march into October. The thought of it is no fun at all as it means that soon I will have to wear thicker clothes.

As I was flicking through all my the photos on my iMac, I notice I have quite a lot of photos I haven’t had a chance to post on my blog. Since I didn’t do a lot this summer (apart from eating lots of strawberries, which I will be sharing a favourite recipe of mine soon!), I think it makes sense to share a memorable outing to Kew garden last year. The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, usually referred to as Kew Gardens, is 121 hectares of gardens and botanic glasshouses between Richmond and Kew in the Southwest London, England. To know more about Kew Gardens, please click here. I thought I would share some of the photos that I took, hope you guys will enjoy them!

By the way, I haven’t forgotten on the giveaways. The winners for the cookbooks are - Jenny H and JiLin G! Congrats both!! Please email me with your mailing address, thank you!

Hi all! Don’t worry, you are on the right blog, but just with a different look! I have been wanting to write this post for the longest time ever! Finally, the new design for my blog is ready to go live. I thought it’s time to give a little bit of face lift since the last upgrade was almost 3 years ago! I have been involving and working on this for the past few months – all the way from defining the requirements to implementation. Thanks to Lindsay from Purr Design for the coding and design! It has been a great experience.

Let me run through the new stuff with you:

1. New logo – I have always wanted to give My Cooking Hut a more personalised look, thus, I thought a nice header/logo would be proper. I have chosen the concept of having a wok with a modern look as I use wok a lot in my Asian kitchen, even cooking some western food! The tagline remains the same – “foods, travels, recipes”, as this is what My Cooking Hut is about.

2. Social links – On the top right, you can keep yourself updated with the latest posts by subscribing to RSS feed or email. Also, you can connect with me via Twitter and Facebook.

3. Weekly picks - These are the recipes that are chosen on a weekly basis, featuring some previous yummy posts.

4. Archives – you can search the recipes by year and date on the sidebar.

5. Search recipes - you can enter text to search for all the recipes.

6. Recipes by category – I have categorised the recipes with more creative phrases and each category is represented by an image. You can also search this on the sidebar.

7. Recipes by cuisine – You can browse the recipes by the type of cuisine. This is also available on the sidebar.

8. Recipes by technique – You can also search the recipes by the method of cooking.

9. Recipes by ingredients – This allows you to search the recipes by the main ingredient.

10. Everything else – This category is meant for anything else that are not recipes related such as food & travel, restaurant reviews, photography, giveaway and general announcement/topic. It is also available to browse at the bottom of the page.

11. Print recipe - You can print recipe by clicking on the printer icon on the recipe section of the post.

In line with the launch of My Cooking Hut’s new design, I have 2 cookbooks to give away!

Giveaway 1: Ginger Pig - This book is dedicated to meat lovers with yummy recipes and photos.

Giveaway 2: Annabel Langbein: The Free Range Cook – This book is aimed to get people into the kitchen with fun and no-stress recipes. Showcasing down-to-earth approach to cooking with freshest seasonal ingredients.

TO ENTER THIS GIVEAWAY:

• Leave a comment on this post.

To get 2 BONUS entries! Increase your odds of winning -  in addition to the main entry comment, leave a separate comment for each bonus entry once you have done the following:

• Like & Share on Facebook
• Tweet this post 

This is opened to everyone! You have until 16 August 2011, Tuesday, 23:59 GMT, to enter this giveaway! I will draw 2 winners at random and announce after the closing date! Good luck!

It would soon be one year since I last visited Japan. Just 3 days ago, I couldn’t believe of what I heard and saw about the earthquake and Tsunami that hit Japan. A lot of devastating images and videos, both online and on the TV showed how the angry black water uprooting houses and cars were washed away by strong currents as if they were toys.

This natural disaster has caused more than 2,000 people dead and some 2,000 are injured. The number of confirmed dead is expected to rise to around 10,000. Disheartened. Now, there’s a fear of a meltdown of the reactor of the quake-sticken Japanese nuclear plant in Fukushima. What I can do now is to pray and hope that nothing more major will happen.

Let’s just pray for Japan. Let’s do it if we can help in any way to make donation: Japanese Red Cross Society.

Today is the last day of 2010. Can’t believe that time has passed so fast and Christmas is over! Yes, I had a great Christmas celebration and just before life is back to normal, there’s New Year’s Eve, which is today! 2011 is ahead of us and hope that it will be a great year for everyone. Of course, I will share more yummy recipes in the future.

Over these years, I have blogged about various recipes. I thought that I would sum up Top 5 recipes for 2010. Hope you guys will like these. Let me take this opportunity to wish everyone of you a Happy & Prosperity 2011!

It was 2 weeks ago that I went to Masterchef Live & BCC Food Food Show in London. I would like to thank Lauren and Cherry from ForeverBetter for inviting me to this food event. It has been a great experience this time round to BBC Good Food Show in London. It was different and very interesting as one of the highlights was the MasterChef Live Invention Test, which I took part in! All the candidates were given 30 minutes to prepare a dish, using a selection of set ingredients chosen by the producer panel. During the Invention Test, this year’s winner of Professional MasterChef, Steve Groves and last year’s MasterChef winner, Matt Follas were the mentors. During the competition, they tasted the food prepared by each contestant and made notes to shortlist 3 lucky contestants who then went forward to be judged by John Torode and Gregg Wallace. John and Gregg then picked a winner amongst the 3.

Well, I was kind of nervous at first and wasn’t too sure if I had made the right choice to enter this competition. I had to cook a dish using the ‘secret’ ingredients provided. I thought I had to be convinced before I made my final decision of  ’Yes, I am up for it!’ I watched one of the Invention Tests. It was really fun to see the contestants cooking up a storm during a short 30 minutes! After watching the competition, I thought it was fun and for the experience of it, I accepted the challenge!

When it was near the time for me to be under the spotlight, I could feel butterflies in my stomach! All the contestants were given the same ingredients of pork, prawns, coconut milk, pear, chocolates, mint, parsley, raisins, and dried apricots. We were also provided with some commonly stored items in the larder. I made citrus grilled prawns served with mint and raisin couscous. Well, it wasn’t the best dish I had prepared but the pressure of getting one dish done in 30 minutes in front of so many people were kind of nerve wrecking. *LOL* During this competition, I had a chance to use Miele hob, which is a really great that I wish to be added to my kitchen!

It was a great outing and experience overall, and had a chance to see those cooking show celebrities that I have been seeing on the TV in real life was kind of unbelievable. Even though I wasn’t one of the winners of the Invention Test, I still think the experience of cooking in the public in 30 minutes was something that I will never forget!

I am glad that my site has been nominated for Appletiser Blog Awards in the UK sponsored by Appletiser. Do you remember Green Tea Soba Noodles with Seared Tuna recipe that I posted not too long ago? This article has been shortlisted amongst all others on my site to join other stories under Glam for the mentioned award.

This campaign will be run for the next 6 months. So, if you like this article and the scrumptious recipe Green Tea Soba Noodles with Seared Tuna, please, all you need to do is to vote for me by clicking on the link below, and look for Green Tea Soba Noodles with Seared Tuna recipe! Thank you very much in advance!