Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Discipline

I tend to get out of control when I go to any supermarkets that have superb selection of food at reasonable price. Just over the weekend, without having any real need for groceries, I ended up with an exact $159 worth of foods, drinks and baking pans. Even, frozen pizzas and frozen raspberries were picked up as well. Now we have more than enough supplies for months, 'til after new year, I am confident of. Of course, with Christmas being well on its way, the need to go back to the supermarket will rise again. We will need to bake some Christmas cookies and cakes, early. Yes, early, since we'll be leaving on the third week of December to New Zealand. Celebrating Christmas there? Maybe. It is very likely that we will be spending Christmas Day by sightseeing around Queenstown after attending the morning mass. We might cook, because we will have a kitchen in our apartment over there.

I am "punishing" myself by not allowing myself to go to supermarket unless there is an extremely essential need to go. There's this recipe of fried ricotta flat bread that I came across last night and I am dying to try it, but I can't, because I don't have ricotta in my fridge. This is a punishment for me because I feel the suffering from it. I have to struggle and fight the urge to cross the street. The supermarket is right across from our place, I can see it from my window...... Definitely not easy. It's almost like dieting and having to go to a party where all the tempting foods are laid out.

No matter what, I feel this is appropriate. My fridge is stuffed with food. We have many types of cheese, prosciutto, salami, chicken ham. Packs of Lurpak, canned drinks, lemons, oranges, apples and zillions of mangoes. Yes, in the span of eight days, we received 37 mangoes from a couple of generous friends from Indonesia. We gave a half of the first batch to a friend and some parish priests, but before we could finish them, another delivery came. Hooorrrayyy for more mangoes!!! There are practically two souls that consume mangoes in this house, with me being the main peeler. We are kind of sick of them..... really....

So we have been eating fresh sliced mangoes, we baked mango cake and we made mango slush. On the pipeline will be mango ice cream and mango lassie. We'll see how they turn out.

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

At Wynn - Macau




A nice and spacious room indeed. Big door, big bathroom, not much of a view, but it's still cozy. Completely different atmosphere than the hectic lobby downstairs.

Rooms At Mission Hill



The lucky two got to share this room, a spacious room with gigantic beds. What a bummer! While my hubby and I had to share one king size. Not quite fair..... They are just little munchkins...., but they can eat quite a bit. No 3 meddled with us....., cramping further our king size bed. Look at it from the bright side: everyone felt warm.

Saturday, November 10, 2007

Mango Cake


So here's the mango cake that I baked yesterday and apparently almost nobody was interested in tasting them. We are having too much food, that could be one reason, because of the breakdown of our fridge. I cooked and baked and cooked and baked and we do not have enough people to consume them. Really should start passing them around....

We still have Buttermilk Coffee Cake, as my effort to finish up our buttermilk. We also had to work on our melting ice cream. Not only that, we also were served with Strawberry Slush as we do not want our strawberries to go wasted....



This is a glass of strawberry slush, not candle, ladies & gentlemen.

Friday, November 09, 2007

Misleading


Had you not known about it, you wouldn't have guessed that underneath its green skin, one can find bright yellow-orange sweet delicious flesh. We got a dozen of them from someone in Indonesia and we got ourselves a mango week this week. Mango everyday! Time to bake something with them.

Wednesday, November 07, 2007

Today's Special

I have been asked to prepare this dessert, sago with coconut milk, for quite a long time. I had to buy a new pack because I couldn't find the existing pack that I had bought earlier. As usual, only after I started cooking, I found the old one. How typical!!



Suddenly craving for this Pork Satay that mom used to make when I was small, I decided to go for it as well. I blended a couple of bird-eye chillis to spice the pork a little bit more. It's sweet, sour and spicy too.

Monday, November 05, 2007

Mini Borobudur


This Borubudur is in Shenzhen, Window of the World to be exact. Shenzhen is a sub-provincial city of Guangdong province in southern China, approximately an hour away from Hong Kong. Reportedly, Window of the World has around 130 reproductions of some famous structures, man-made or natural, around the world.

Niagara Falls and Eiffel Tower are there too.


Muar Wanton Mee



We were in Malaysia to attend a family matter last Sunday. Not having the satisfaction from our lunch in a restaurant nearby, Hg craved for his favorite wanton mee. Just our good fortune, a slot of car park was available immediately nearby the targeted stall.

Even though wanton mee is not exactly my thing, I was willing to give it a go. This is not bad at all for RM3.50 per bowl. The wanton soup was served in a different bowl.The stall seemed to be really popular over there. It was really crowded and the waiting time was probably 15-20 minutes or so, we were there around 2PM. They have many people working for the stall with one person does the main cooking and mixing. He prepared the noodles for maybe around 8 bowls at a time if necessary. The people sitting next to our table were no too happy that we got our food first as they arrived before us. Not our fault...... It could happen the other way around, it has happened many times before.

Simply Corn



Gorgeous.... couldn't resist the temptation to post this. I must post this. I got a couple of them from Carrefour.

In the Case of Ice Cream


Without any intention to have these many tubs of ice cream at one point in time, we still ended up with one shelf of the freezer, filled with loads of these tempting Ben & Jerry as well as Häagen-Dazs. We also finished a box of Nestle Crunch and left with one more box. We are well stocked indeed, I don't think we can clear them up within a month. But then again, with hungry teenagers being around, I will never know what exactly could happen....

Keep The Kitchen Smoking.....




It was an incredibly busy week indeed, somehow, I got so excited over preparing dishes after dishes on daily basis. I even attempted to broiled Black Cod with Miso Sauce ala Nobu and baked Ina Garten's Lemon Cake. I was quite pleased that both turned out pretty well.



In between, I also prepared Gado-gado, Indonesian vegetable salad with peanut sauce and shrimp crackers, it's always yummy.

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

A Busy Day In The Kitchen

English Toffee, with chocolate and almond.


Tea Eggs, Chinese Styled.


Swedish Meatballs with mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce. Yum.....

Always A Favorite

Suddenly, there was an urge to bake a cake that is well liked by everyone, just to make sure that the cake would be consumed before it got bad. Even at 8 PM, we got the oven running.



To minimize the baking time, I opted for wider pan instead of my usual favorite Bundt pan. I used the usual 4-egg recipe.

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Back to Routine

Back from the trip, back with muffins & coffee in the morning to start the day. The baking pan was bought in Hong Kong. I thought of giving it a try.

Friday, October 12, 2007

A Little Note From Tioman Trip



This baby turtle was one of those that were released to the ocean as part of the conservation program by students who were in Tioman on their study trip. Engaging in many exciting activities including kayaking and trekking, these students stayed in Tioman for six days.

Waroeng Betawi



An Indonesian food stall was set up at school last night, selling quite an extensive selection of local food, including nasi kuning (yellow rice) and bakso (meatballs soup served with noodles). The stall was named "Waroeng Betawi", loosely translated as old Jakarta foodstall. Business looked great, the money was for charity though!

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Soup of the Night

Very inviting soup (to some people), home-made pork balls with bamboo shoots, a modification of what my grandma used to make.

A Little Lunch Adventure

I am always interested in trying something new, going to places I have never been and trying out food at the restaurants that I have never gone to.

I had lunch at this place before, Corduroy & Finch, with a friend, Pat. It was a while back so this was not exactly my first time there. This restaurant is just around the corner, it only takes a couple of minutes to get there. There were some other restaurants in that block too, which include Shanghai Kitchen and an Italian restaurant, a cafe, etc. Didn't pay much attention, so I couldn't really tell exactly what's in there. It was after 1:30 PM, only three tables on the first floor were occupied. We had antipasti first and my main entree was the catch of the day, charcoal grilled sea bream on mashed potatoes. It was just good, just a little bit too much my my stomach. Shouldn't have the appetiser....????



And the sea bream is here:

Tuesday, October 09, 2007

Dinner Time - Green Curry Chicken

And now, for dinner - we have Thai green curry chicken. Spicy and delicious and it's just perfect for very hungry and tired teenagers, who have been out from 7:15 in the morning. That's almost 12 hours ago..... Anything at all should taste good, as long they are edible.

Freshly Baked Apricot & Cheese Muffins

I have been given some hints that someone in the house was longing for this apricot muffins. Knowing that half of the family members is not into this, I decided to please them with cheese...glorious cheese.



The apricot ones have moderate enough fillings. There was temptation to add more, but I do not want the jam to overflow the muffins. No flooding necessary.

From The Kitchen



I must admit, that the main reason that I fried prawn crackers yesterday was because I was craving to take picture of them. I had the concept in my head and I wouldn't be able to sleep until I execute it. I was quite pleased with the result.



I made my first attempt to cook Chinese style beef brisket, the key ingredients, I think, were anise seeds and sichuan peppercorn. Interestingly, I never prepared any dish with those two prior to this. The result was not too bad, but I know how to improve the taste next time, if I get the chance to make them again.

Monday, October 08, 2007

California Part 3

We love San Francisco. It's always a great place to visit, so much to see, so much to do, so much to shop for as well, just carry along your cash & plastic cards.

Golden Gate
is a must.




Palace of The Fine Arts
is a beautiful place to see too.




Pier 39
- Fisherman Wharf -not to be missed.



California Part 2

This is long overdue. California in July is all about hot sun, beautiful blue sky and traffic jam around LA. Palm trees here and there, find them outside Universal Studios.





San Diego was lovely, too bad we only stayed there for two nights and didn't manage to explore much of the city. The children certainly appreciated Sea World, after finding the crowds at Disneyland and its sister park were overwhelming. They had a blast, a different kind blast than the happiest place on earth Disneyland.





We also had a lovely dinner at the fish market nearby.