Life After the Covid-19 Pandemic

When I stopped cooking after we started the bike shop in 2012, we used to go out as a family for breakfast and dinner.  It was a great time to bond and the children enjoyed eating out.  I started cooking again when the Covid-19 Pandemic was reported in 2020.

To avoid the crowd I started buying my groceries online from Tesco.  I continue to shop there after it was taken over by Lotus. My family members like thier coffee buns (Roti Kopi) and Cheese Onion Buns. So I buy them on a weekly basis for breakfast.  They are available in packs of 4. 

Since last November I have not been able to buy their Cheese Onion Buns online. I found out from Hafiz, a very friendly Store Manager at its Kajang branch where I collect my orders, that not all outlets sell this bun.  That is why it is no longer listed online. Most of the time the Cheese Onion Buns will have been sold out when I get there to collect my order.

So, that started my quest to look for Cheese Onion Bun recipe to bake in my breadmaker.  I bought it from Cosway during the pandemic, when they had a promotion running.

My favourite bread to make is the Milky Loaf.  

This is the recipe for it. 

As you can see, I can choose the "dough setting" on my breadmaker to make the dinner rolls with the same ingredients.  If I make dinner rolls, I can top them with onion and cheese to bake in the oven.  But I prefer the lazy way.  Once my loaf is baked, I cut it in half horizontally.  I then slice the top half of it 3/4 way through so that I can slip in my fried sliced onion and cheese to airfry.  If you watch this video, you will get an idea of what I did.  You will also discover from it other ingredients you can shove into the cuts to flavour your bread or buns.

Did that but I still prefer the ones from Lotus as it did not turn out cheesy enough.  

Then I found this Cheese Bread recipe. 

It requires 1 cup of sredded cheese which is 120g.  I used a 200g pack of Emborg Shredded Mozzarella Cheese to bake it.   But I am still not happy at how it turned out and decided to modify the recipe. I used the ingredients for the Milky Loaf and added 125g pack of shredded Parmesan cheese, as it was on offer at Lotus. I like it better baked this way as it tasted cheesier.  

However, eating it with peanut butter, which I like eating, will kill the cheese flavour.

After all my trouble, I found out recently from Hafiz that if I call Lotus with the number he gave me, the staff at their "Self Collect" counter will keep the Cheese Onion Buns for my next collection.

The other bakery that I will buy from Lotus is their Croissant which is also available in packs of 4 pieces.

I usually serve it with sardine which I have cooked and stored in the fridge.  This is the recipe for cooking it:

I am usually wary about buying house brand food item but I am happy with the canned Sardine with Tomato supplied by Lotus.  

Other than the airfryer, bread and sardine kept in the fridge can also be heated up with a sandwich toaster.

I have a reason for cutting my loaf in half horizontally. The containers I have, large enough to store my bread are shallow. After I cut it up horizontally, I will slice it to store in the fridge. This is the top half section of my Milky Cheese Loaf with 2 peices of Milky Loaf leftover from an earlier bake.

This is the bottom half section of my Milky Cheese Loaf.  Though I chose "light" colour setting, it turned out darker than my Milky Loaf baked at "medium" colour setting.