Waking up in the morning, peeping through the window and I saw the beautiful sun. I dashed off to grab my camera, pushed the window opened and starting snapping a few photos. Picture perfect~! A bright morning sun on a Monday morning, with a plane which just left the airport and a bird in flight. I grew up listening to the roaring sound of the plane engine landing and taking off. The plane was so huge outside the house but now that I'm staying further a little bit from the airport, that's the tiny view of the plane that I could see.
All of a sudden I was in a rush to prepare lunch so I just simply prepared a very simple meal. I'm such a big eater, I didn't feel anything going into the stomach at all. After having a big plate, I was so hungry but I had to leave the house already. Mi mama got both of us a new toy which we're going to spend our time using it~!!
I only have one thing in mind for the Chinese New Year - sleep. I want to sleep. This afternoon I was undecided whether to do the weekly grocery shopping in Tesco after church or to leave it until tomorrow. I wouldn't want to rub elbows with other shoppers. There will definitely be so many people which makes me wonder, don't they eat on other days? They only eat during Chinese New Year? Then what happen to the rest of the days throughout the year? The wet market outside the house is really crazy... these people are buying meat and vegetables like there's no tomorrow. I refuse to follow the crowd so I don't go to the market as well. I sleep the whole afternoon away and woke up to see what I have to cook for dinner.
Lack of chicken thighs so chop them into pieces. When you chop then into small pieces, it's like playing tricks to your eyes. Those small pieces makes you think like there's a lot of chicken meat. A person can chomp on the whole thigh yet feel like it's not enough, but the same person might not able to finish 3 pieces of chicken that has been cut even though it's only three-quarter of a piece of the same thigh. Weird how our mind perceive....
Chinese cabbage... can't be found in the refrigerator... but leftover half of a whole cabbage, yes... still around... Pork belly, available... everything else yes so I made this...
Whole fish, no tienen *Spanish*... white tilapia, yes.... Pork slices, yes.... no problemo in making this then. Spring onion can be found aplenty. My kitchen looks very complete but the freezer is almost empty. I need to go grocery shopping for tomorrow's lunch. *roar*... I want to sleep...
Mi mama's bakkwa is here~! The thickness is more than it should be but I still like it~!!! *woots woots* I want to sleep.... should I buy those abalones or not? Should I or should I not? Undecided.... If I have the time tomorrow then maybe I'll drag myself to the supplier and lug them abalones home...
Last Thursday I decided to make a loaf of bread to go with my kaya. But after not making a bread for months, I don't remember which button to press. Thus, I pressed the wrong button and instead of setting the program 3 hours 25 minutes, it went to 58 minutes. I was wondering what went wrong with the bread maker. Whatever happened to the 3 long hours and how did the time become shorten by so much. I didn't know what to do and I let the bread maker walked its way. After 58 minutes, obviously there's nothing much to rejoice.
Oh, other than spoiling the bread, I destroyed my first batch of kaya also using the bread maker. It's suppose to be able to make kaya but I think I might have pressed the wrong button again to fast forward baking. So, hubby rescued both the bread and the kaya. The bread as you can see was loaded with 200g of raisins, madness me poured everything in to make raisin bread but I ended up with a perfect white loaf. Hubby baked the premature loaf of raisin bread in the oven then it became some sort of a bread and cake. Then that kaya was rescued and it tasted so much like banana yogurt, and I wonder how did that happen. Both became extremely delicious and my kitchen crew highlighted that all our spoiled food turned out to be the best of all.
Today is Valentine's Day or should I say yesterday was Valentine's Day... with the huge loaf left cut in slices, I wanted to have bull's eyes on the toasted loaf but I became lazy after going for a shopping spree with hubby. I was thinking of digging a hole on the toast and make a heart shape for hubby but I didn't offer my thoughts to him. Somehow or other, he could still read my mind. He gave me this for my lunch... and I love him so. He's definitely more creative than I am.
The biggest love of all with two small Bombay toast small hearts and my Babitto's signature design of a rabbit head. That's cheese slice.
We couldn't finish this so left this for my precious as her lunch as well. She can survive with eggs only while I can survive on bread alone. Hubby could survive on air... hahhahaha
I love you... thank you for your creative surprise~! I'm more surprise that you could read my mind...
I have a plate of eggplant with sliced muscle meat stir-fried with a mix of green and red chillies waiting for the hubby. Another method in dishing out great platter would be to marinade the meat with seasoning then while cooking, you can totally forget about the seasoning completely. Add some water and all the acquired and required taste would sizzle out in no time at all. That's the best method to cook. That's a statement that requires no experiment. It's no a hypothesis. It's a conclusion after I cooked that way for more than a decade. No, it's not a lazy person's way of cooking. It's a smart way of cooking as the taste would all go directly into the meat.
You've heard of Coca-Cola chicken and Root Beer chicken. This is my Ice Cream Soda chicken mixed with sake. The taste was awesome. That's all I can say. I'm a fan of chicken.
My first time cooking with sour mustard. I bought only one fish which I used up on Monday. I totally forget about today. There's extra white fish in the freezer drawer. So, used them directly as I do not have any extra time in hand to rush to the market. Yesterday when I went to the market, I ran to and fro like I'm going for a marathon. I ended up two minutes late to work. And I drive like F-1 racer every morning. *sigh*
I wanted to bake a nice loaf of bread. But I think I just make a terrible mistake with the bread maker. Looks like I have to wait for hubby to come back and rescue my loaf. Maybe he will turn it into something wonderful :D
When hubby mentioned that he wanted to surprise me with pulut tatai, I have other things in mind. Yesterday's sambal tumis pulut was one of the ideas I had. Today, hubby made the nangka seri muka that yellow pieces were not mango but honey jackfruit. It tasted just like the mango pudding of Thai-style.
That's how it looks like after left to cool. We had a few pieces only, while the neighbour came to grab some home and tomorrow we'll give everything away to hubby's workplace. I don't have any more storage left in the refrigerator and I'm going to cook something else for tomorrow. No room in the tummy to store so many other types of food, too.
When we first bought the breadmaker, I remembered very well that the salesman said that the breadmaker can be used to make kaya. Kaya in direct translation means rich. I don't know what is it in English. Don't have the strength to Google to check it out. You can go ahead and find out about it. There are only four things needed here. Eggs, sugar, fresh coconut milk and screw pine leaves. After an hour and 5 minutes, the bread maker destroyed all my hopes and dreams of making kaya. I ended up doing it the old-school style. I had been thinking for many years how come hubby never buy me a double boiler. We never had a double-boiler so how am I going to make kaya? While stacking up pots and more pots into a box, I realized that I DO HAVE A DOUBLE BOILER all these while~!!!! There... there... and I'm using them everyday separately. *sigh*
After stirring from the marble wok and straining the mixture, the stirring continues in the double-boiler. You need to keep on stirring in order to get such smooth texture. I will kill anyone who asks me to make kaya again. I planned to spend my night sitting in front of the computer, but I ended up standing in the kitchen. When I was beating the eggs and sugar, I got a really big amount of mixture. I thought I would make a big tub of kaya but since I lack in experience, after stirring, I got only one tiny bowl of kaya.
I wanted the kaya just because of my blue glutinous rice. It's really blue not because of blue dye. It's seriously natural from our blue pea flowers in our garden. You just need some skills to really get the colour out. The kaya was really delicious but all glutinous rice will leave the house early tomorrow morning. I will just keep the kaya for a few days. Will think of what to do with it... Maybe I need to start making bread.
For the first time, hubby bought fish paste from the market. Mi mama doesn't need to slave through to make fish paste anymore. It's only RM10 per kilo. Over here, I'm using 120g only. The dish above is just like otak-otak but instead of using white fish, I used salmon. Thank God I have a little bit of brain power, the recipe required me to mix the salmon meat together with the paste. I was looking at my raw salmon tail, wondering how to remove them raw. Then, I remembered all these while I pan fry the fish half-cooked before removing them. Aahhhh.... save by past experience.
I've reminded myself multiple times to remember to bring back the tool to make watermelon flesh into a perfect small round shape. The moment I reached my town house, I totally don't remember to look for the tool at all. Then, when I was holding the long radish in my hand, I wonder what can I use to make them round. Ice-cream scoop? That would be an avalanche of a ball. I found nothing that can make them round then I saw my rabbit-head cookie cutter. Okay, just be creative. I cut them into slices then started cutting the rabbit-head out from the radish slices. That went very well with steamed scallops. I'm one very stingy person so I bought China scallops which cost RM16 for a hundred grams. The Japanese dried scallops cost RM46 for a 100 grams. Can I dry my own scallops? Sunlight outside the house is free. Fresh scallops are way cheaper. Okay, I'll consider drying my own scallops~!!!! China dried scallops are almost tasteless.
Braised pork belly. I really love braised dishes especially braised with rock sugar. Mix with my expensive brewed soy sauce from Guangzhou, it makes the day a perfect one. I think I cook too little today. So, I'm waiting for tea break later. Waiting for hubby to be home with my mung bean flour. Waiting for my class to start. Waiting for this and that...
This is the best chicken dish I've ever made and tasted. The chicken was part braised and partly it was the caramel melting from the rock sugar. Then, the mushrooms were thrown in and braised for a bit. By the smell of the dish, I was already satisfied to the max~! For the first time in my life, I skinned the red apple, simply cut them into small pieces and threw them into the wok as well. The orange was sliced when everything else was done. Red apple was sweet and orange was also very sweet. No, I did not know how to choose apples and oranges. I just went to the fruit stall at the market, got a lemon, an apple and an orange. The fruit seller asked me why I never choose, I told him it makes no difference to me. As long as I'm a happy buyer, the fruits will be happy to follow me home.
Omelette with leek and Chinese sausage. The omelette looked dry but do not be fooled by what you see. The taste was superb except that I dislike the taste of leek. Actually I wanted to substitute leek with the spring onion growing in abundance, but I also wanted to try out the taste of this recipe. The verdict was, it was good but I did not like it.
The red snapper went for a dive with broccoli, carrots and cabbages. Soft tofu went in as well for a swim. The taste was already okay until I decided to throw in the wood ear fungus. The wood ear fungus totally destroyed the taste. I have no liking for wood ear fungus but I still have half a packet in the drawer.
Hubby bought bitter gourd and planned to cook it on his own. But since he did not have the time to do it, me being a good temporary housewife decided to cook up something nice using his bitter gourd. Don't ask me how's the taste of the dish. I refused to even try out the taste. According to hubby, it was good.
Yesterday, hubby said he wanted to surprise me by making pulut inti. I think hubby did not realize that I don't eat pulut inti. I love pulut tatai the one with kaya. So, instead of pulut inti, I made sambal tumis with kerisik. In the end, I still don't like it. So, I will make my own kaya tomorrow. I hope I don't spoil the kaya as it would be my first time making kaya. *sigh* Cooking is tough and taking up many hours of my life in a day. No wonder people are willing to pay for outside food. I'm still not willing to pay for others to earn. I'm terrible this way...
Chinese cabbage... can't be found in the refrigerator... but leftover half of a whole cabbage, yes... still around... Pork belly, available... everything else yes so I made this...
Whole fish, no tienen *Spanish*... white tilapia, yes.... Pork slices, yes.... no problemo in making this then. Spring onion can be found aplenty. My kitchen looks very complete but the freezer is almost empty. I need to go grocery shopping for tomorrow's lunch. *roar*... I want to sleep...
Mi mama's bakkwa is here~! The thickness is more than it should be but I still like it~!!! *woots woots* I want to sleep.... should I buy those abalones or not? Should I or should I not? Undecided.... If I have the time tomorrow then maybe I'll drag myself to the supplier and lug them abalones home...
