Category: Homemade Recipes

The refreshing and delicious watermelon salad recipe.

I met my brother’s girlfriend for the first time last night. I made pasta with stuffed pork meatballs and watermelon salad for dinner, followed by lemon almond sandwich cookies for dessert. It was a nice dinner, that’s all I’m letting out :)

My first experience with watermelon salad was at a BBQ-Addicts party and it has become one of my favourite salads in the world. Unbeknownst to the folks at BBQ-Addicts, the other reason I love their parties is the watermelon salad! So this recipe was very much inspired by it.

I was a bit worried about it at first, because I’ve never made it before and it might turned out nasty. Then there was the hurdle of buying a watermelon. I’ve never bought a watermelon alone. I was SCARED T_T

I must have done something good though because as I was cluelessly checking out watermelons in Tesco, a total stranger started tapping on all the watermelons and suddenly, he pointed at one and told me in mandarin, “That’s a good one” and just nonchalantly walked away. Of course, I bought the one he pointed at and he was right, it was sweet and juicy!

Thank you watermelon angel!!

This recipe serves 4 and requires no cooking (yay!!!).

# – Watermelon salad.

The ingredients:

  • 1.5 kg of seedless watermelon (weight with rind on), rind discarded and cut into cubes
  • 100 grams of mature cheddar, cut into cubes (you can use feta cheese or goat’s cheese too!)
  • 15 black olives, sliced
  • 1 small red onion, sliced thinly
  • 8 cherry tomatoes, halved
  • 1 bunch of Italian parsley, roughly chopped

The dressing:

  • 100 ml of olive oil
  • 50 ml of balsamic vinegar
  • A dash of coarse sea salt

# – First, cut the watermelon flesh into cubes and dump into a large mixing bowl.

# – Then, throw in the sliced olives.

# – Followed by the thinly sliced red onion.

# – Okay, lets cut to the chase….throw in the parsley, cherry tomatoes as well as mature cheddar cubes!

# – In a measuring jug, pour in the olive oil, balsamic vinegar and a dash of coarse sea salt. Whisk till combined. Dressing is now done.

# – Pour the dressing all over the salad.

# – Toss the salad…

# – Watermelon salad, DONE!

Thankfully, in spite of my first time making it, the salad turned out delicious! So much so, the BF was stealing salad from my plate!

I love this salad because it’s so refreshing and tasty! The crisp & juicy texture of the watermelon goes amazingly well with flavours of savoury cheese and olives. The dressing holds everything together as though they are meant to be.

Well, they are MEANT TO BE! I’ll be having dinner alone tonight and guess what I’m making :)

Lemon almond sandwich cookies.

I have a confession to make. This was supposed to be an attempt to make lemon macarons :P

However, instead of macarons, these turned out instead. I decided to call them lemon almond sandwich cookies because no macaron feet appeared. I didn’t want to file this under “Cooking Failures” either, because they are DELICIOUS!

# – Lemon almond sandwich cookies.

Crispy on the outside, chewy in the middle with a decadent lemon flavoured cream cheese filling.

For the cookies:

  • 300 grams of finely ground almond, sifted
  • 220 grams of icing sugar, sifted
  • 4 egg whites
  • 100 grams of caster sugar
  • Juice of 1 whole lemon
  • Zest of 1 whole lemon


For the filling:

  • 150 grams of cream cheese
  • 50 grams of butter
  • 2 tablespoons of icing sugar
  • 2 tablespoons of lemon juice
  • Some yellow colouring

# – First, sift icing sugar into the sifted finely ground almond (sifting store bought ground almond is time consuming…please armed yourself with some patience)

# – Then, mix them up till combined, like this. Set aside.

# – In another bowl, beat the egg whites till stiff. Add in the lemon zest.

# – Followed by 1/2 of the lemon juice.

# – Lastly, add in the caster sugar and beat everything till mixture looks shiny and glossy. You now have a meringue mixture.

# – Next, gradually add the almond/icing sugar mixture into the meringue.

# – Gently fold to combine, then stir in the remaining 1/2 of lemon juice.

# – Spoon mixture into a piping bag.

# – Pipe out evenly sized disc on your non-stick baking mat/paper.

# – Leave this out for a minimum of 30 minutes to form shells.

# – Stick it in oven that has been preheated at 160 degree celcius. Once the cookies are in, turn the temperature down to 150 degrees celcius. Bake for 25 minutes.

# – Leave the cookies are to cool completely (I cheated by sticking them into the fridge :P)

# – In the meantime, allow the cream cheese and butter to soften in a bowl.

# – When they have softened, beat till smooth then add the icing sugar, lemon juice and yellow colouring. Beat again to combine. The lemony cream cheese filling is now done.

# – Scoop filling into a piping bag.

# – Pipe it onto one cookie and the rest is self explanatory…

# – Lemon almond sandwich cookies, DONE.

# – Refreshingly lemony and creamy.

# – Couldn’t resist having a bite while taking pictures.

Macarons, what macarons? Hehe.

The brownie pudding cake recipe.

It’s called brownie pudding cake because it’s basically 2 desserts in one. How? During baking, it separates into brownie on top of a silky chocolate pudding.

# – The brownie pudding cake.

This took me about 5 minutes to prepare. I’m serious. 5 MINUTES! Just mix everything up and then stick it in the oven for 30 minutes.

Ingredients A:

  • 120 grams of flour
  • 60 grams of cocoa powder
  • 60 grams of granulated sugar
  • 2 teaspoon of baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon of salt

Ingredients B:

  • 100 ml of olive oil
  • 100 ml of milk
  • 1 teaspoon of vanilla essence

Ingredients C:

  • 60 grams of brown sugar
  • 20 grams of cocoa powder

Ingredient D:

  • 200 ml of boiling water

# – First, mix Ingredients A together in a mixing bowl.

# – Next, mix together Ingredients B in a pitcher.

# – Next, pour Ingredients B into Ingredients A.

# – Mix it up till just combined with a wooden spoon.

# – Like this…

# – Pour the mixture into an 8″ cake tin. Combine Ingredients C and sprinkle it all over the top.

# – Then, pour the boiling hot water over.

# – Stick it into a preheated oven at 180 degrees celcius for 30 minutes.

# – Serve immediately with a dollop of vanilla ice cream :)

Sticky, chocolatey and moist with it’s own sauce! It’s crazy how fast it took me to make this!

I whipped it up right after setting the dinner table, stuck it in the oven and had a pleasant dinner while it baked. Absolutely perfect if you’re pressed for time and don’t know what to make for dessert.

I admit, it’s not the most beautiful thing to look at…but hey, if your guests asked, just say you’re going for a rustic look :D