jt's food and thoughts

Trip to Genting

2008-08-30T23:53:00.000-07:00

On our recent trip to KL, we spent 2 nights at Genting where the kids really had a blast trying out all the games and activities on offer inside and outside. Zahra was at first quite upset they didn't have a small harness for her to go wall climbing, the others ofcourse had a go though didn't get up so high! Zahra also couldn't try the archery as all the bows were too big! Thank god she was tall enough to go on the roller coaster even braving the 15minutes queue for the 2 minutes ride!!and when the rain finally cleared she had more rides to go on outside!

Selamat Menyambut Bulan Ramadhan

2008-08-30T06:07:00.000-07:00

Amin's feet being cleaned and massaged by tiny fish

At the restaurant on the 39th floor of PNB Darby Park celebrating my 40th Birthday. Zahra upset waiting for her spaghetti!
In front of the F n N cans murial

Wow how time has flown, tomorrow it's the sighting of the moon for Ramadhan, we have been busy since setting up kitchenofjasmine.blogspot.com and alhamdulillah we have had a great response. In the midst of this I left Hanna to deal with the orders with Anita and went for our week long holiday to KL. As always we shopped our way all over the major shopping centers of KL and the kids also had a blast at Genting. Whilst in KL I celebrated my 40th birthday with the family, got lots of presents and we had a great dinner at the restaurant on top of PNB Darby park which specialises in Malay cuisine we were all quite impressed with the food although Zahra insisted on ordering spaghetti from another cafe in the Hotel!!. The view from the restaurant was overlooking KLCC so it was quite awesome! as Zahra and Fatin kept saying! We stayed at PNB Darby park and I really recommend this place to those of you looking for good, clean and spacious apartment style lodgings in KL. it is directly in front of the KLCC surau and a 10 minutes stroll into the KLCC park across the road from the PNB darby park will ofcourse get you to the KLCC shopping center. The apartments are well equiped with full kitchen utensils and our apartment even had a large ricecooker although we only utilised the kitchen to cook maggi and eggs! The laundry is quite large and there is huge pool and children playground too.

Outside the KLCC there was a huge murial made out of empty tin cans...another Awesome moment!! The kids ofcourse were impressed, maybe we should do somrthing like this with all the cans from HariRaya nanti?!!

Right now in KL there seems to be craze to let little fish clean your feet by sucking off all the dead cells. Amin, Fatin and Hazim had a go whilst we were in Genting and thoroughly enjoyed it although Fatin was very squeamish!!

We met up with Rizal and Nurul although we didn't take any photos, hopefully we'll see them again over Hari Raya depending on Rizal's work schedule ofcourse.

OK Selamat berpuasa everybody!

ASEAN Schools Tennis Championship

2008-08-13T04:06:00.000-07:00

Yesterday 12th August 2008, Amin left with his Tennis Squad to represent Brunei in the ASEAN Schools Tennis Championships. This competition is held once in every 2 years and this year Singapore is the host country. More importantly it is Amin's first tennis trip abroad! It was quite official with a flag handing over ceremony and a doa selamat before they left! Hopefully they wont come back empty handed. Good luck Team!

Kids in the kitchen

2008-08-11T19:58:00.000-07:00

Once in a while the kids from the compound converge at my house more accurately in my kitchen to try and come out with their own creations...albeit in the end not all seem edible to eat! Fatin being leader tried out my new alphabet cookie cutters which mum bought in the US. They used the cookie recipe from Nigella Lawson's book although the end products looked nothing like what Nigella had produced! Nevertheless it filled up an afternoon!

Soft Centered Chocolate cakes

2008-08-03T23:14:00.000-07:00

Amin my food Techie son/kitchen messer!! has been using up a lot of my good chocolate which I bought all the way back from Singapore to make us these...soft centered chocolate cake. Actually kan these cakes only take less than 10 minutes to bake and around 10 minutes to prepare, anyway they really are sooo yummy and in actual effect uncooked chocolate cakes!! Tapi nyaman and not eggy or weird tasting, I think some restaurants around town also do this dish but at times overcook it so you dont get the soft centered effect!! I was going to put up the site from which Amin got the recipe tapi he said he had tweeked it to make it easier and has not allowed me to reproduce it here so liat gambar saja lah! He has served it here with thickened cream and a dash of chocolate sauce hearts.

Zahra's trip to the musuem

2008-07-30T20:58:00.001-07:00

On our recent trip to Singapore we went to the Museum of Civilisation and History to check out the Mozart exhibition that Hariz went on and on about! The exhibition was a hands on one and Zahra got to see what life was like in the time of Mozart...actually i had to explain who Mozart was because the guide rambled on quite fast about Mozart and Zahra complained she didn't understand him!!! Anyway She got to make tooth paste by grinding chalk and mint I think! Then she got to make a paper wig. When it came to trying out a real wig and some mozart costumes, Zahra refused saying lots of people have worn the costume and she didn't want to!! That's Zahra for you! At the end of the tour we had a small picnic outside the hall and Zahra agreed to try on her own made paper wig!

Summer holidays ramblings..

2008-07-23T01:21:00.000-07:00

I've just realised that its almost half way through the children's summer school holidays and the last time I've posted something was in June!! We started out the holidays by going back to Singapore to collect my Anty Hj Sarimah as she finished her 6 weeks course of radiation therapy. Alhamdulillah she's doing ok now. Since then I've been busy with a few cake orders and my sister and I have now launched our on line bakery service which you all can access via my other blog- www.kitchenofjasmine.blogspot.com, the internet service at my house is really slow at the moment and it looks as if I have to buy a new and stronger router!! So posting of photos has been painfully slow and sometimes quite frustrating!! But do check out the site as we will post hopefully on a daily basis.
Other than that the kids have had their round of sore throats and cold and in a way I am glad its the school holidays as there seems to be some outbreaks of HFMD in some schools. Touch wood it will not infect any of our kids, we're staying away from the padang this year, not that my husband is interested in anyway to see the coloured lights this year! I guess it's almost the smae every year and the thought of having to mingle in the humid weather at night does not really appeal to us anyway!!
My mum had her birthday celebrations last week and I was extra busy with that baking and cooking. I think my sisters took photos because by the time I got back to my mum's house after helping to set up for the functions the ladies had already tucked into the prawn and chicken briyani that I had cooked as well as the Laksa Lemak, not to mention the chocolate eclairs, pavlove, marbe cheesecake and cupcakes!! Hopefully some of the pictures insyallah will be in the food blog.
Time just seems to be flying by so quicky there is only 4 weeks of school holidays left and soon my son Amin will be off for a 10 days tennis trip for the ASEAN Schools tournaments in Singapore before he joins us in KL. We've done all the essentials like going to the dentist, getting materials and baju's sorted for Hari Raya...what else do we have to do?....bbq's? days by the pool?..Ah roll on Summer holidays!

Amin's Silver Medal

2008-06-26T03:25:00.000-07:00

Amin won his first silver medal yesterday, with his team, the Sports school council competing in the Pesta Sukan 2008. We are really proud of him and glad that at last his tennis practice has earned him a medal! He's now competing in the Open category and so far it looks positive too. Zahra in the picture below did not want to be left out and wanted to show off the medal too!! Who knows in a couple of years time she might win a couple of medals herself for....? which sports.....time can only tell. Well done again Amin!

Chocolatey birthday cakes

2008-06-24T19:51:00.001-07:00

Last month my parents went to Switzerland and Suisse Maman very kindly bought me these two giant bars of cooking chocolate. I never got to thank her properly for them until now when I had the chance to use the dark chocolate to make chocolate cakes for my two nephews whose birthdays it was last week- Hariz and Hamdi or Awang as we know him! Thanks again Suisse Maman for these two giant bars as well as the other goodies you sent us..nanti if you come back for holiday we blanja ok!!

Hariz had very early on sat me down and went through my book of children birthday cakes and chose this simple design. Thank God!! The chin was slightly damaged by Jagabar who was carrying it from the car in the mini typhoon that occured prior to the cutting of the cake!!

As for Awang well I just made it simple and decorated using my M nMs. Zahra unfortunately has a great affectons for M n Ms and took two off before we even managed to cut the cake!! After another brief hiatus to Singapore at the end of the month I am hoping to be producing more of these cakes by the summer as well as others which we will put up pictures and prices of very shortly!

Middle Eastern Food Cooking Class

2008-06-18T23:25:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was really fun as I was invited by Zaena our Lebanese friend to a lebanese cooking class . It was interesting to meet the expat ladies - some new friends and and some familiar faces. Zaena went through 9 recipes and showed us how simple and healthy middle eastern food was- provided you have your trusted blender!!.

Preparing the Samboulik or minced beef in puff pastry The fried pine nuts were really yummy in this.There were several ways of doing this either in the open style or like a curry puff.

The Tabouleh with curly parsley, chopped tomatoes and fluffed up bulgur wheat. This is one of my favourite dishes as it is really refreshing.

The shish taouk or chicken kebabs were spactacular. Next to that is another dip made of aubergines and Zaena made capsicum cakes as well. Something different was the Hummus topped with the minced beef filling used in the Sambousik.

The bonus dish in the middle spoilt yoghurt- I know this sounds weird but this is just wonderful,and tastes in between yoghurt and cream cheese

The demonstrations all ended with a sumptious lunch ofcourse! Thanks Zaena for a great morning!

Day out at Vivo City

2008-05-25T19:24:00.000-07:00

We spent a day out at Vivo City where Usuh and I spent most of the time sitting in the shade while Zahra had a blast in the small play area with spurting fountains and some playground things! She went on the slide and burnt her bum cos it was too hot! Then she went on the animal rides which was fun she said although she got tired of jumping up and down on the seat to move the toy. She climbed vigariously on the plastic figures set around the play area for climbing. Then when she got tired and thirsty we had a quick and not so yummy lunch at Secret Recipe. After lunch Zahra continued with her day of play at the small paint shop where she filled in 3 pictures with the paints. Getting to Vivo City cost us $7 from Hyatt and overall I think its a good day out with the kids and if you get bored you could always hop on the sky train and go around Sentosa, but we'll leave that for another day.

Zahra on the slide which was hot !!

Zahra on the dog

Zahra on top of a plastic climbing figurine

Filling in the colours at the paint shop

Showing off her finished product at the deck overlooking Sentosa

Singapore Hiatus

2008-05-24T19:27:00.001-07:00

Hello from Singapore! We are here for the the next week to accompany usus to undergo Radiation Therapy at the National Cancer Center here. She is ok just a bit nervous I guess. The therapy starts this wednesday and the doctors have explained that there are no real side effects. In the meantime we are just taking it easy hanging out sometimes at the shops not really shopping just window shopping! Despite it being the Singapore Sales now. Zahra ofcourse has bought her stash of toys and by the afternoon we settle down to our comfy room at the Hyatt to watch her CDs on Usuh's mobile CD player. Unfortunately the pool at the Hyatt is undergoing renovations so we can only see from our room the rubble below! Anyway the photos are of our abode for the next 10 days. Zahra and her large TV!!

Will do another post later!

Happy Mother's Day!!

2008-05-12T05:01:00.000-07:00

Well it was a quiet mother's day really as I had one order of cucpcakes to do, for lunch we just had takeaways and in the evening amidst the mini hurricane in Gadong, we had to run around the mall looking for Fatin's school shoes! I swear she really eats through her shoes!

Still my kids were sweet enough to make chocolate chip cookies for me. I think Amin and Zahra raided my baking cupboard and found my stash of M n Ms.

In the evening Amin my aspiring cook did steak, mash potatoes and courgettes for us. He made this special pepper sauce which was not to my liking but as always he had his own style! My own mum is still overseas or else no doubt we would have had lunch or high tea at their house. Happy Mothers day to all you mums.

My e-mail account dissappeared!!

2008-04-24T05:56:00.000-07:00

What a weekend! From the start of thursday morning I was inundated with calls and smses from friends abroad and within Brunei that they had recieved a weird e-mail from my hotmail account! Then a kind friend told me that sadly my e-mail account was probably hacked into. Once I could get hold of a computer I checked and tried to open my account and lo and behold I couldn't. The hackers had changed my password and even changed my reminder question! At an instant I felt lost and so down because all the contacts I had in that account had disappeared and whatsmore they all had been duped into thinking that I was lost and stranded in Malaysia with no money and awaiting for their kind donations!!! Some friends actually thought I really was stranded and immediately called me to reconfirm I was ok..others were cautious in asking what was going on!! As if I would stoop so low so as to ask for donations via e-mail!!! Hello!!!

Anyway I have now set up another e-mail with g mail and this time I have be very vigilant with giving out personal info etc!! But I couldn't wallow in self pity too long there were a couple of orders for pavlovas and mini cupcakes to do. I would upload the photos but my naughty daughter has kidnapped my camera's battery. I am over all the self pity and feeling of annoyance and helplessness after all it was only an e-mail address adn ALL my contacts!!

weekend of birthday cakes

2008-04-19T18:33:00.000-07:00

Jack's little train.

Chocolate cupcakes made out of excess chocolate cake mix from Jack's cake

Fozia's order- the strawberries looked really yummy after being drizzled with chocolate.

Jack's pavlova.

Last weekend I was quite inundated with orders for 2 birthday cakes, one of which was for Jack who turned three earlier on in the week. On his actual birthday I made him a pavlova but came time for the party I made him a train shaped cake out of a mould I got in Singapore. Ofcourse his sister Iman was quick to point out it looks nothing like Thomas the tank Engine as Jack had requested but I thought I did ok as the cake took me about 1 hour to ice with a few mistakes here and there! The base was made of rich chocolate cake and it was ices in butter icing with lots of patience and cover ups here and there. So if anybody out there needs a train shaped cake let me know because I have this mould now!

My Sister in law Fozia also ordered a small chocolate cake for another birthday celebrant and as always you can never go wrong with strawberries and chocolate decorations!

My Little cupcakes

2008-03-26T23:11:00.000-07:00

Look at what I can do? I made these for Hazel who ordered them for her gathering of friends and the cupcakes below I did for Intan to share with her family who seem to love these little beauties. A box of 49 mini suspcakes cost $13 but the slightly bigger ones with chococlate ganache or M nMs cost $18 (36 pieces in a box) After a while they are quite fun to do although at first it was hard to conjur up nice designs.

The children ofcourse prefer the chocolate covered cupcakes and my little Zahra would ony pick the M n M's and lick off the icing!! E-mail me at jasminetaib@hotmail.com if you guys are interested. I also do Birthday cakes of different sizes and variety of styles with prices starting from $35 upwards. Another favourite are these mini pavlovas. They are available for $1.50 each. Really light and yummy. The large pavlova which is about 16 inches will cost $45.

The New GIANT Hypermarket

2008-03-26T02:14:00.000-07:00

The easter holidays are almost over, as usual the kids are eating their way through whatever is in the fridge, cupboards and the pantry! So much so that my normal once a week shopping routine has had to be broken and today we finally made it to the new hypermarket Giant at Tasek Rimba. After going past it for several days and waiting for all the long Queues of cars going in to die down, we finally made it and even found parking quite easily.

So what's the big deal? It's a new concept of shopping in Brunei everything on sale under one roof, although their range of shops could have been greater rather than just the normal selling hairstuff for girls, tudongs and kains. For kids there is one play area in the middle which is quite full right now because of the school holidays. The seating area for the foodcourt which hosts around 6 or 7 stalls seems quite limited. But there are other eateries such as KFC and Jollibee and another Malaysian Food Outlet selling roast chicken for $14 per chicken!!

Yes so the place is huge and some items are cheap and the range of goods on offer especially Malaysian made products is quite tremendous, but.. I don't think it will beat Supasave in any way for Australian or UK products. Even their vegetables and range of fruits at 2.30pm today were looking a quite sad and very layu! So Hua Ho and Pasar Burong will still be a necessity. From time to time their offers might be worth a visit, Their beef products did not impress me at all, Supasave still a winner in that area nor did their bakery were on par with that at Suapsave, obviously it caters for the masses being a hypermarket but I have seen better Hypermarkets overseas. For now it will be a novelty to most and parking will be scarce for the next week or so, but most of their prices are at the same range as those offered by the other supermarkets. Obviously for us the consumers it will be good as there is now more competition and better prices all round.

Air of Change?

2008-03-10T20:10:00.000-07:00

I have been mulling over how to change my blog as to whether I should commercialise it more to get proper (?- meaning other than family members) customers for my cakes or whether I should create 2 different blogs ie one for family news and general thoughts etc and another one for recipes and photos of cakes etc. But... at the end of the day my laziness has won over me and you know what, I think I should just improve this blog site instead so as not to confuse firends and create unnecassary waste of time for me also in updating 2 blogs ..eski banar jua kali tu ah kan ada 2 blog satu sudah payah-payah!!.

So I am in the midst of compiling my Blog Phlet as Ka Whiz calls them or a slide show of the cakes I have done and I will attach prices to the pictures. It's taking a while because I am not terribly good at downloading photos and arranging them if anybody is using a simpler method please do share your trick of the trade.

As for family news- the family all trouped down to the Empire Theatre last Saturday night to see Amin take part in the 10th Anniversary musical Gala. The show was very well put together and performed brilliantly with not just orchestra performances, but superb singing and entertaining dancers! It was nice to see familiar faces of friends of the children showing off their talents! Amin was part of the drum line and percussion team for the Orchestra and Jazz Band. He practiced real hard for the show and was so happy to be involved after all he is one of the original students of JIS having been there since the school was set up in 1997. It was particularly a proud moment Amin especially as his Grandpa was guest of Honour last Saturday. I could not get up close to take photos of Amin as we were quite high up and he was way at the back with the other percussionists. There have been some photos posted in http://www.ranoadidas.com/ though for those who missed the show though sadly there none of the drumline or percussionists!

I have also been following avidly the political developments in Malaysia considering my first thesis was on the disunity within BN and UMNO in the late 80's. It has taken 20 odd years for that disunity amongst party leaders and racial discontent to finally reach the grass roots level and cause such an upset in the elections. What an election! Despite what we see or hear on the general media, where everthing is ofcourse very pro BN,there were indeed rumblings of discontent on the internet via blogs etc for the last couple of years already, so you could say the oppostion had a head start in their campaigning!!..some views were indeed very radical and I myself did not really believe that the bloggers could have caused such an upset but maybe Malaysians were fed up and not contented with what was going on around them and their daily lives. It will be interesting to see now how things will develop in the opposition led states and how BN will reshape itself after this. Whatever it is I hope all goes well!!

More Chocolate Cakes

2008-02-24T03:53:00.001-08:00

Well the weekend just past being a long weekend I was hoping to get some time off to lounge about and read my new O magazine, but it was not to be as on Saturday I had to cook for Iqah's birthday tea party plus do her cake. Iqah's cake actually is filled with chocolate mousse and is not as dense as my normal rich chocolate cake. On Sunday I had to a large birthday cake for Norah for her to bring to school tomorrow as well as for a family friend Iyah who celebrated her birthday two weeks ago ! But I promised her a Rich Chocolate cake so voila! Happy birthday Iqah, Norah and a belated birthday to Iyah. I was going to make 3 blueberry cheesecakes for a few friends also since I was on a roll!! skali...my oven broke down!! Aaargh! This is soo annoying. Some people from Mayer came by today and said some parts needed replacing but they were not sure if they had them?!! Does this mean I need a new oven? We will just have to wait and see I guess. If I do need a new oven for sure I will a need a huge bake sale to support the move! By the way chocolate cakes the size for Norah which is 14 x14 will cost $60 to order and the size of Iqah's cake which is 12 inches and around 5 inches high will cost $50 to order, 10inches cake will cost you $40 to order. E-mail me at jasminetaib@hotmail.com for enquiries.

I have posted some photos which we took in Singapore recently. There was an exhibition on Formula One cars by Petronas at the front of Takashimaya. Amin I think was hoping to try out the simulators but the queue was too long. Zahra my little shopaholic had a blast at 2 Toys R Us stores - one at Paragon and a bigger one at Vivo City. No I diidn't let her buy the Hanny Manny or Dora doll btu she only wanted a picture of her favourite cartoon figures! I quite like Vivo City as it reminds a lot of shopping centres in Europe, although the information staff were not helpful in explaining where the restaurants were located. We ended up going to one of the food courts on the top floor which had limited choice of muslim food only one Indonesian stall and one Indian stall selling admitedly very yummy briyani. After lunch we went one floor down and found one whole row of restaurants which we could have gone to!! Still we had a good trip to Singapore as always! I managed to stock up on my baking needs but prices were exhorbitently high! As for classes in decorating, this will prove to be difficult in Singapore as they do not really cater to clients with tight time schedule in Singapore, so it looks like Kl might be the better choice as they are more friendly in organising classes for overseas clients.

Selamat Hari Kebangsaan Brunei!

2008-02-22T05:20:00.000-08:00

It's our 24th National Day tomorrow and there has been lots of flag raising and giving away of flags to put on your cars etc in th elead up to tomorrow's parade and presentation by youths and students on the Sultan Omar Ali field downtown BSB.
I still remember participating as one of the pom pom holders in the National Stadium on the first National Day celebration. Prince Charles was in attendance along with most of the Malysian Sultans and the Late King of Tonga! ( there was a rumour then that they had to make an extra big bed for him!)
Sadly I have no photo of the event though I am sure someone somewhere will post one up tomorrow! The field presentations and songs have not changed much and it really amuses my kids when I start belting out the patriotic songs! Still to most teachers it was a nuisance that we had to miss so many classes just to make sure we were perfect for the big day. I heard nowadays they only practice after school hours..rightly so tapi kalau miss class atu dulu-dulu siuk kan, and we still passed! Sadly as my kids are in JIS I don't think they will ever have the opportunity to take part in the National Day celebration unless someone in the board thinks otherwise!
Good luck to all those taking part and Selamat Hari Kebangsaan Brunei! Esok membuat cake bendera Brunei ku eh!....not! Sibuk ku kali ah membuat birthday cake Iqah. Besok malam tah menunjukkan gambar nya.

Hello from Singapore

2008-02-15T03:57:00.000-08:00

Hello from Singapore! It's Zahra's birthday today and yesterday we went to Toys R Us to get her toys for her. Actually she chose them all but still insisted we wrap them up to surprise her in the morning! That's Zahra's for you and she even made comments like " wow! I really wanted this toy!" So the very dramatic!
Well we've hit the shops and did some major damage to my wallet! But I managed to find some really good cake decorating books at Borders, also tomorrow morning I am hoping to go to this shop that actually runs decorating courses here in Singapore called "Bake it Yourself " shop in Bukit Timah. Really looking forward to it. Fatin and Zahra have got most of what they came for and now are asking if we can go to a museum!! Hmmm we'll see!
Foodwise we haven't really gone to anywhere exciting just the normal foodstalls to get the mee rebus and sushi etc! I had really yummy blueberry cheesecake at the little cafe on the 3rd floor of Tangs today. Unfortunately my bliss didn't last long when Zahra came up and asked me to get her a watch !!
Will post some photos next week when I get to Brunei or if I can find the right wires in Amin's really messy laptop case!

Sports day and Cakes galore!

2008-02-01T16:20:00.000-08:00

Hi people!

I know I am so lazy to update but I have been sooo busy with cake orders and now Chinese New Year is coming up I will be up to my neck with cakes orders for the next couple of days at least. Yesterday was Zahra's sports day and thank God it was indoors and not on the field. All the kids were cute running around doing the various races- egg spoon race, hula hoop race, sack race and 2 more races which I didn't have the patience to stay for! Everybody gets a ribbon after each race so there were no tears! just friendly competition! The PTCG asked if parents wanted to donate cakes for the occasion and I managed to whip up some blueberry yoghurt oatmeal muffins. Skali baru ku kan merasai satu habis tia! I lupa to gambar but my friends said it was nice and moist and ..very healthy one!

Anyway it's Adam's birthday today and his mum ordered chocolate cake and pavlova as well. Last week it was Serina's birthday party as well as Feisal's and Maria's birthday. We had a tea party to celebrate Feisal's birthday on the 27th with his side of the family, I made mee rebus tapi as usual my sis in law said it was not the same as the one she had tasted in Singapore! Maybe they use too much Aji No Moto in thier gravy that's all I can say!! Still I made Fiesal's favourite desert/cake a pavlova or baklava as he calls it!! Zahra insisted putting 6 candles on it for her! Andang nya anak ku ani tiap kali birthday mesti ingatkan birthday nya jua!

Anyway the next day we had a nother dinner birthday party to celebrate both Maria and Fiesal's birthday at my parent's house. Iman and Zahra performed a specially choreographed dance by Fatin for the celebrants and it was well recieved! For Maria and Feisal I tried doing a custard cream cake with mangoes and strawberries a bit like fruit flan, for them skali my amah liked ruined it when she angkat to mum's house so it ended up looking grosse partly because it was not set properly, tapi the rasa was quite nice. Next time mesti taruh overnight to avoid any mishaps barutah lawa macam bakerlyn stlye!

So anyway to my Chinese friends - Gong Xi Fa Chai!

Mari Memasak!

2008-01-23T01:20:00.000-08:00

Zahra had a big moan the other day after school that she did not get into the cooking After school activity class( yes I am guilty I sent in the form too late!!). So I promised her we can do cooking at home and I even promised that she could crack the eggs and do the mixing etc!!( God I must have been delirious that day!)

So I decided to do chocolate muffins as they are so easy to do and does not require much mixing so it's ideal for the kids. They had a ball putting the mix into the trays as you can see from thier happy picctures! I think a lot of the mix ended up in their mouths too! So I left the house to pick up Fatin when the muffins went in the oven and by the time I got home all the muffins were gone! All claimed by Zahra and Iman! I had to literally beg her for the finished product as she claimed all rights to them and only she could decide who could have one! Iman took home or had distributed all her muffins. They obviously have no entrepreunerial spirit yet if not they would have sat outside the house selling these cakes to everybody( Fatin and Hazim had a habit of doing this before every holiday to get extra money!) Anyway the muffins were quite yummy and Zahra even took some to school the next day to show off her culinary skills!

Today Maria and I took the cooking thing a step further and we did small fairy cakes and chocolate cupcakes for Iman's bake sale at school tomorrow. This time it was a bit more complicated as the recipes required the mix to be beaten using a cake mixer. Of course everybody wanted a go holding the machine! Even Jack was involved! Still they all turned out great and we experimented using left over icing that I had in the fridge. My sister said Ka Wiz would only faint looking at the disastrous designs!! Never mind pokok nya we had a fun afternoon doing them and no doubt they will be hit at the bake off sale tomorrow. For photos go to Maria's blog as mine turned out blurry!

Happy Birthday Iman

2008-01-18T16:36:00.000-08:00

It was Iman's birthday 2 days ago and yesterday she had a really huge birthday party. Well done Miah and Donncha for pulling it off..there were like 40 kids running in and around their house and all went well, all the games were played and best of all everybody got to hit the pinata. No doubt Miah will have full coverage of it on her blog. As always I was in charge of the cake and for the last few days I really didn't think it would work out but I tried and this was the best I could do considering the excruciating pain I have been getting from my bad back!

Iman's dad bought chocolate all the from Geneva to make his daughter's rich chocolate cake but I ended up using my own chocolate out fear that the chocolate that he bought was too bitter! I'll make you another one using the chocs you bought Donncha! Still everybody recognized the drawing as Dora although some compliments were better than others. The important thing was the cake was really yummy and most kids had 2 helpings which is a good sign! Happy birthday Iman!

Happy New Year!

2008-01-09T18:18:00.000-08:00

Greetings people!! Or have you all given up on me ever blogging again!! Merry Christmas! Happy New Year! and to all fellow muslims Selamat Menyambut Tahun Baru Hijrah!! I finally got off my lazy x@#*! and decided I must post something new on my blog as everybody else seems to have put lots of interesting photos and posts about their new year celebrations!

New resolution maybe, but for this year I have decided I will really get down to looking for more inspirations on cake decorations and perhaps go down to KL and do the Wilton decoration class... we'll see how this progresses. We have that flat in Datuk Keramat unutilised so maybe this year most holidays will be in Malaysia! Who knows maybe I will get to meet up with other fellow bloggers who so inspire me especially Ka Wiz! I didn't realize she posted a comment in my blog until today you can tell I am so baru at all this. Thanks Ka Whiz for dropping in and thanks for your advice on the cupcakes , will try it out probably this weekend. I also didn't realise another fellow blogger from Brunei, Sas who does not really know who I am, dropped me a note too. thanks Sas. Thanks also for linking me!!! So honoured lah tepaksa tah slalu-slalu me update blog ku ni! Your babu knows who I am just ask her ok! I love your blog your frank comments always make me laugh and that lamb you cooked for your friends in Melbourne looks really nyaman! Nanti minta recipe nya ah!

Well my son Haji Mohamed Fahamin finally came back from his month long Haj experience, tall, lean and arabic looking!! We were all happy to see him along with my parents who were full of praises for Amin! With his return the family is whole again and my number 1 critic and kitchen helper is back full of ideas as usual on how to cook things etc!! Oh and his mess is back too!

Well over the holiday period I did do a couple of cakes but recently I did these gems - mini pavlova and they were really light and yummy!! Normally I would do a huge pavlova with 9 egg whites (like the one in the other photo), but this time Mum had passed to me some whipped cream to use up quickly as it was near the expiration date so I didn't want to risk not having enough cream. So I did 6 egg whites and made 30 mini pavlovas. Unfortunately I ran out of strawberries and kiwi fruit so left about 7 pieces without any fruits but just cream... also kena whallop by Amin! You would think he would put on weight from eating all this sweet stuff but nooo! Anyway Pavlova recipes are all over the place and some call for the use of vinegar or lemon juice. Either is fine. But if you guys cannot be hassled to whip this up or give them a go let me know and I can do them for you at $1.50 each!! The big pavlova I sell for for $50.00 each!! Cheh! Tahun baru business mesti lah!!

Pavlova:

6 egg whites

12 oz caster sugar

2 teaspoons vinegar mixed 2 teaspoons cornflour

Fruits to garnish

whipped cream

Method:

Heat oven to 140C. Whip egg whites till soft peaks then add sugar 1 tabelspoon at a time. Laslty add cornflour mixed vinegar. Pipe or dollop onto well greased tray accordingly. Put into oven for 1 hour. Do not open door at any time or increase heat. Once done, leave to cool completely, then decorate accordingly!

My fussy eater!

2007-12-21T04:12:00.000-08:00

Do you have a child or children who are fussy eaters? My Zahra is such a fussy eater at the moment that dinner and lunch are getting to be really tedious for me! My problem or dilemma is having to cook dinner or lunch to satisfy everybody in the family. At the moment with Amin away things are not too complicated, but Fatin will always insist on having curry at least twice a week!! Once Amin comes back then "Mr sophisticated Jamie Oliver admirer" will either put up his nose at some dishes I have prepared and forces himself to eat them then he will proceed himself to whip something really fantastic to eat! Destroying my kitchen in the process!

Anyway for Zahra most of the time I have to have fried fish or fried chicken and stir fried brocolli on standby for as she will definately not touch the curry or even the soya chicken! Chips are one of her favourite and despite much cajoling when we serve it fish, she will not touch the fish and only eat the chips with tomato sauce and a bit of corn. Or if we are having roast chicken she would only eat 1 slice of chicken with 1 piece of potato!! Then later on she would insist on having her tuna sandwich!!! This is another favourite she loves Tuna sandwich and her most favourite food since she was a baby- Pasta - with or without sauce!!

My sister Maria has several Annabel Karmel books and I must admit the pictures and some recipes look really good. But I went through the book with Zahra just to get an idea what catches her eye and she was not impressed!! She simply said Ma I just want my pasta!!! That's Zahra for you I guess! Let's hope she will develop her taste buds soon and open up to try the other food served to the other members of the family!

Selamat Hari Raya Aidiladha

2007-12-19T22:24:00.000-08:00

Today we had a family lunch to celebrate together Eid Al Adha. I did my normal fish curry which Babu taught to me to do and I am kind of an expert on producing it now! (Cheh!)Have to lah as the family are all curry lovers! Usu brought over Briyani Ayam and Soleha did Rendang daging and Kelupis. I also fried some crabs with curry powder and curry leaves, tried to do bhindi masala only for it to be rejected as the bhindi was too hard!!Obviously sudah tua!

Babu came along also and brought some lontong and sayur lodeh with the usual condiments. Pipi brought stir fried vegetables and in addition to this Yati insisted on frying some fish for the little ones which was very much welcomed by Yayah and Hariz! We had Poppadums as well. For desert I made Apple crumble which we ate with the vanilla ice cream Pipi brought along and also I had made banana cake as I always have frozen mashed bananas in the freezer for such an occaision!

Ofcourse during times like this I miss my parents who would have insisted that more dishes be cooked and a takbir be done before eating! and ofcourse I miss my Amin who would have insisted doing the apple crumble his way! Crumbles are so easy to do and I have provided the recipe below for those who want an easy desert.

Selamat Hari Raya Aidil Adha!

Apple Crumble:

To fit in a 8 x 5 heat proof casserole dish

8 apples ( 4 red and 4 green), peeled and sliced thinly

1/4 cup apple juice

2 tablespoon brown sugar

1 teaspooon cinnamon powder

Mix all the above together and put into the dish.

14oz plain flour

7 oz butter

3 oz brown sugar

Pulse the above in a food processor until you get crumb like mixture

Pour crumb mix onto apples and put into oven for about 45 minutes. Serve warm with custard or Ice cream.

Haji Amin

2007-12-19T04:58:00.000-08:00

Curry puff, bingka susu and The girls at the buffet

agar-agar from ernie

Tuesday was the Ukuf for all pilgrims going on the Haj including ofcourse my parents and my eldest son Amin. So he is officially now Haji Mohamed Fahamin bin Hj Feisal !! I am so proud of him! He called this morning at around 9 am out time which is about 4am Mecca time to say he had just completed the Tawaf ( circling of the Kaabah) and the Sai( running 7 times between the 2 hills). He was ready to collapse into bed but wanted to share the good news with us! Well done Amin. For the next 3 days he will now have to perform the stoning of the 3 rocks depicting the devil. We all pray for their safety ofcourse.

This was why we had special prayers Tuesday night at my parents house along with my cousins Ernie whose parents have also gone on the Haj. We had pur Ustaz Ansari lead the prayers. It was also Babu and Nini Ben's birhtday! so we said special prayers for them too. Badly sweetly handed out sedekah to everybody partly for her birthday and partly for her beloved cucu Amin!

As always after the prayers came the good food! I was not responsible for any of the cooking that day( just supplying the raw ingredients!) and left it mostly to Soleha. She cooked spareribs masak assam kedayan with bamboo shoots, Sayur Nangka masak lemak, ikan goreng, Sayur kacang tumis and sambal belacan. Usuh cooked samabl telur and Pipi bought drinks for the occaision! Ernie brought desert- various types of kuih which were all yummy. my Sis in law made curried prawns and babu did her famous curry puffs!

We missed Maria and Donncha and their brood who went of for their end of year holiday to Bangkok, but had the other kids to contend with! I attach the self explanatory food photos!!

Sarah and Nick's wedding

2007-12-16T02:34:00.001-08:00

Today was the bersanding ceremony for Nick and Sarah at the Empire Hotel. The affair was really grand and was held at the Indera Kayangan Ballroom. We had the food which we tested and tried and commented on a few weeks earlier. The food was overall ok. The starter was a lot better and they did improve the dressing with the pomelo bits in the dressing. The soto ayam was nice too and not too heavy. I thought it was weird they had put sambal belacan on the table along with some sort of acar but no cucumbers on the side, plus this was not really on the menu. The fish was not as good as before I don't know why maybe because this time they cut it a bit too thin and fried it too long hence it was a bit dry and not as succulent. The curry was much better and thank god we saw no hairy bits of skin today! The rendang like before was excellent and beef was very tender, the prawn was nice although this is the first time I tasted buttermilk prawn which had mayo in it. The pakis I thought was a better substitute to the mixed veg we had last time but if I had my choice I would have preferred it as a sambal rather than with coconut milk, but our UK friends liked it and it tasted good. As for the desert - sago gula melaka and coconut cream was I thought better presented during the food testing session and they had more coconut cream , I couldn't finish it today as it was too sweet.

Nevertheless My sisters and I sat on the same table with 4 of Nick and Sarah's friends from the UK and we had a really good time in conversation with them and we didn't do too badly finishing off most of the dishes despite there being only 7 of us on the table!

Overall I was extremely proud of the lovely flower arrangements done by my staff of Reda Florist, so much so that I took pictures of the flowers and forgot to stand up and take pictures of the groom and bride when they came in to take their place on the dias..oh and even the cake had fresh flowers adorned on them too but since it was placed in the middle of the room I was too shy and felt awkward to go in front of it to take a shot! The hand bouquet was a bouquet of fresh orchids and Zimar also made some flower buttons using the same flowers for members of the same family.

Congratulations once again Sarah and Nick and here's wishing you both the best of luck for your ceremony in the UK this coming summer!

Steam boat

2007-12-15T23:23:00.000-08:00

Last night we had a steam boat dinner with my in laws and Hanna and Maria's family. Actually Iman, Jack and Ayden left before dinner started so Maria was for once able to enjoy dinner without anybody on her lap!

We haven't had steamboat for quite some time simply because to have steam boat for just 4 persons is not fun nor economically viable! Amin if you are reading this from Mecca don't worry we'll do it again when you get back. This time I decided to try 2 soup base - 1 Tom Yam and the 2nd a chicken broth. We had prawns, squid, chicken, various types of tofus, mushrooms and greens as well as tang hoon noodles. Oh and for Zahra especially we had lots and lots of Crab sticks! The condiments as always were lots of cut chilli padi and sweet soya sauce with minced shallots and lime juice. Always adds extra kick to the soup!

We used Mum's old steam boat which had one of the dials missong but was still workable! I also bought another new steam boat for the occaision and although at first it did not seem to work Maria saved the day by changing the plug points! Soon the soup was bubbling away. I love the taste of hot steaming soup with the fresh ingredients, so filling yet refreshing.

For those who wish to make the soup bases here are the recipes :

Chicken broth:

Carcass or Chicken bones from two pieces of chicken breasts

1 thumb sized piece of ginger - bruised

1 large onion sliced

Additional chicken broth powder for taste( about 2 tablespoons)

Salt and pepper

Water - about 4 to 5 litres

Simply boil everything for about 30 minutes and season to taste.

Tom Yam broth:

Prawn shell peelings

4 pieces lemongrass - bruised

1 thumb sized piece of ginger - bruised

1 thumb sized piece of galangal or lengkuas - bruised

Coriander leaves and coriander root- torn up roughly

7 pieces Kaffir Lime leaves -chopped up roughly

4 Tomatoes roughly chopped

4-5 tablespoons Tom Yam paste

Juice of about 8 green limes or 3 yellow lemons

Water - about 4-5 litres

Salt

Fish Sauce ( Optional ) - I left it out last night as I thought it might be too pungent for the steam boat.

Once again just boil everthing and allow to simmer for about 30 minutes. Season accordingly.

As for the stuff to put in the steam boat- you can put in anything from Chicken to beef, seafood and various vegetables and tofu.

The Joy of Baking

2007-12-09T23:20:00.000-08:00

Ok my apologies I thought I had downloaded the right photos of my profiteroles for my last post but obviously not!! So here goes again - I am downloading 2 photos - one of the profiteroles already stuffed with ice cream but without the chocolate sauce and the other with the choc sauce. Oh by the way the finger pointing to the profiteroles belongs to Tina!! Oh today on AFC my favourite channel ofcourse, I saw an ingenious way of mixing the eggs into the flour mixture-using a cake mixer!! Why bother with all the elbow grease when we have these contraptions! Anyway it is always a joy to see your finished products after toiling in the kitchen.

Holiday time is here!

2007-12-09T03:28:00.000-08:00

With the end of term comes concerts, class assemblies and with the start of the holiday season, at home it seems barbeque is gaining popularity! I am attaching pictures of Zahra she has complained that my blog is too full of food photos and not enough photos of herself like her Ma'Yah's blog! Yes anyway, before the end of term her class had a small class assembly and she ha to put on a chinese dress as they performed a chinese dance. She also performed with her tap class at the Studio Scene End of year party! Fatin performed a jazz ballet number too but Amin was holding the camera and we ended up not getting a single decent shot of her!

We had a barbeque last saturday night at Maria’s house and I did some chocolate covered profiteroles. I provided the recipe in my second blog. The last time I did this I forgot to take photos, any way I took load of photos of all the food that was on offer. Pipi brought the Fried Rice. Tina brought the baked Tuna Cheesy potatoes – which were really yummy! and I provided some chicken to BBQ and Fried noodles as well as the profiteroles. Oh and we had some really yummy beef sausages. Maria did Chicken and Lamb Kebabs but by the time they came to the table I forgot to take photos but I’m sure she will have photos on her blog!

Cute Cupcakes

2007-12-05T21:59:00.000-08:00

I know I really should be more consisitent with my entries but as usual my laziness coupled with writer's block (ya perasaan!) has got the better of me. Now Zahra is ill yet again with sore throat and poor thing had to miss her class end of year party today and will miss the music competition tomorrow, she has been practising so hard singing KC and the Sunshine band's " That's the way I like It"!!

Last weekend was Fatin's bithday and even though we had celebrated earlier in the week together with my dad (hence 2 birthday cake photos) we did another party cum cousin's sleepover, actually come to think of it she had a really stretched out weekend birthday! We had a swimming party with all cousins, then Barbeque on the same night, the girl cousins slept over, then the next day we had lunch at Escapade followed by watching Enchanted at the Empire. With Amin away the girls took over his room and watched TV almost till dawn!Sorry Amin they didn't thrash your room I promise!

So as Fatin did not celebrate with her friends like she has been doing for the past 10 years! I made some cupcakes for her to share amongst her friends at school,and I had fun doing it too. I got the recipe from Nigella Lawson's book and I must say even though I did the cupcakes the night before and decorated in the morning, the cakes were still moist and yummy. 1 recipe in accordance to Nigella gets her 12 cupcakes, but I managed to get 20 cupcakes! Maybe my muffin tray or paper cases are smaller!If you guys go on to one of my favourite blogs Inawhiz, she makes really beautiful cupcakes.. I need to go on a course to get this good! For now just main-main lah..bejabih-jabih style!

Anyway here's the recipe :

Fairy Cakes or Cupcakes

125g butter softened

125g caster sugar

2 large eggs

125 selfraising flour

1/2 tsp vanilla essence

2-3 tbsp milk

Butter icing -

150g softened butter

300g icing sugar sifted

3tbsp milk

colouring of your choice

Instructions: put all ingredients except for milk in a food processor and whiz. Then add milk and pulse until you get soft dropping consistency. Drop about 1 tabvlspoon into cup

cake case. Put into oven for about 15-20 minutes. Once cool, ice to your liking. (Sanang Kan?)

Carrot Cake

2007-11-27T21:02:00.000-08:00

Again it has been a busy few days for us as my son left for the Haj together with my parents today. The last few days we have had family dinners both at my parents house to celebrate my Dad's and Fatin's birthday albeit a litttle early. We had a lovely barbeque but again in the midst of my busy schedule I did not take photos... I know I have to be more prepared next time either that or employ one of my kids to take shots!

Last night my in laws came over for dinner at my house and my mum in law made a really nice fish curry, plus we had fried crabs - it must be in season there are so many at the market these days! and I did shepherds Pie for the kids. So there was a lot of cooking involved.

I did quite a few cakes to help cater for the many well wishers who came to mum's house to bid her farewell as well as for the small doa selamat we had this morning. Amongst one of the cakes I did was carrot cake. A close family friend today asked me how do I make my carrot cakes so nice and fluffy- Anty A this recipe is for you and it really is a tried and tested recipe that never fails for me - Selamat Mencoba!

Grease and line 10 inch tin, preheat oven to 150C.

For the cake:

6 oz plain flour

1.5 teaspoon baking powder

1.5 teaspoon bicarbonate powder

8 oz caster sugar

4 oz chopped almonds or walnuts

8 oz carrots grated ( About 2-3 medium sized carrots )

4 eggs

8 oz corn oil

0.5 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon cinnamon powder

1 teaspoon vanilla essence.

For the icing:

1 packet cream cheese (225g)- at room temperature

0.5 cup icing sugar

2 tablespoon or 1 oz soft butter

( Beat all of the above until light and fluffy)

Method:

1. Sift flour with baking powder, bicarbonate soda, cinnamon powder and salt.

2. Beat sugar with oil using mixer, add eggs one at a time and vanilla essence.

3. Fold in grated carrots and chopped almonds or walnuts.

4. Fold in flour.

5. Pour into prepared cake tin and bake in oven for 40-60 minutes until cake is done.

6. Once cake is cool ice with cream cheese icing.

Food Tasting at the Empire

2007-11-22T16:39:00.000-08:00

On Tuesday lunchtime, Maria and I joined Lisa and her mum - Aunty Ludwine, for a food tasting session at the Empire for Sarah's wedding in December. The food was mostly Ok and overall the started and the desert were the best dishes. I have upload all the photos so Sarah and Nick can see as they are in the UK at the moment.

Starter -The starter was like a prawn cocktail, the huge prawn was set on a bed of honeydew and rockmelon and there was a small or minute amount of lime dressing. Oh they put a breadstick on the top which was quite stale and soft! So we suggested that citrus fruits be included and the lime dressing needed a bit more oomph as it was quite bland. But I must say the prawn was very fresh.

Soup - the soup was Hot and sour soup but was very spicy and peppery as well as very sour. This would be ok for those who like spicy food and need to sweat! In the end the family decided to change the soup to a chicken noodle soup or soto ayam as this might be more palatable and not too spicy.

Main course - White rice, Rendang, Chicken curry, prawn masak tomato, Ikan masak tumis, mixed vegetables and mee mamak. This was all served in a huge hidang ( round foodwarmer).

Mee Mamak - I think this is Sarah's favourite dish and although I did not taste it as I am not into noodles, Maria and Lisa said it was excellent! So good choice Sarah!

The rendang - was excellent too as the beef pieces were very tender and spices just right and not too overbearing with that coconut taste.

The Chicken curry - I thought was a bit too bland and needed more curry powder and the sauce looked quite pale! We suggested that the skin of the chicken pieces be removed.

The fish dish - fish was very fresh and was quite succulent and meaty and had been fried prior to being sauteed with a spicy sauce that tasted more of turmeric. A decision was made to change this to sweet and sour fish instead.

The prawn dish - too tasted funny very sweet and tomato taste I suppose the name of the dish is tomato prawns. So I think in the end a decision was made to change the dish to buttermilk prawns instead.

Mixed Vegetables - this was the worst dish and I guess it always is at most weddings- the brocolli and cauliflower had been sitting in that hidang for probably an hour so were pretty soft when we ate them. There was also a burnt aftertaste- I cannot remeber what vegetable was chosen instead of this but I think it might have been Fiddlehead Ferns ( or Pakis!!!) masak lemak ( cooked in coconut milk). Hopefully this might turn out better on the day.

The desert was Sago Gula Melaka and this was excellent in terms of presentation as well as taste! Just enough gula melaka and coconut milk and the melon ball added that extra fresh taste to the dish. They also garnished the dish with a crunchy toffee cat's tongue ( I think it's called that!!) and that was very yummy indeed!

My involvement in this wedding is actually more to do with supplying the flowers but who can resist a free tasting meal!!I must admit I was rather full that afternoon and am not too akin to having such a heavy meal during the day.. still thanks Aunty Ludwine and Lisa for including me and Maria that day, I had a great time despite having to give marks for all the food! I am sure the food on the wedding day will turn out fantastic!

The Busy Weekend

2007-11-19T04:33:00.000-08:00

barbie chocolate cake. Banana chocolate chip muffins

Ayden's M nM first birthday cake. Strawberry chocolate cake.

The weekend has been such a busy one – On Friday I had to do one birthday cake to be sent into school but ended up being sent to the house as the poor girl was down with Fever. Then in the afternoon I had the pleasure of wathching my son performing in the drum line at the annual JIS International Day which was a blast. Then back home to do some muffins for my Sister in Law’s open house for Saturday afternoon and with Zahra down with fever for the past 6 days on and off, I was feeling quite exhausted come Sunday but..no real time to relax as I had yet another birthday cake to prepare, this time for a friend’s daughter. She wanted a Barbie doll cake. It was quite difficult at first to get the doll to stay upright after being wrapped up in foil but my son and I sellotaped 4 satay sticks onto the doll and stuck it through a piece of cardboard this in turn helped to stabilize the doll when I finally stuck it into the cake! The last time I did a barbie cake I stuck the barbie in an oval shaped ckae then put it onto the square chocolate base. But I could not be bothered to do that this time! We just stuck foil around the doll before icing it. Decorating the doll was quite fun although as usual I panicked when it came to adding the right amount of colouring to the icing!! Amin came to the rescue and I think we got quite close to the right colour! My new resolution is to attend a cake decorating class sometime to help improve future cake designs .I must say I was quite pleased with the outcome and the real pleasure is that the cake is pure chocolate, no additives and no spongy taste like what we normally get at most local bakeries which would charge an arm and a leg for a cake this size and style! Maybe I should start charging more!! Still decorating these cakes are quite fun although sometimes there are hits and misses..like running out of space when doing the writing or mispelling a word, but I guess that's part and parcel of decorating as a novice!! Happy Birthday again Maya and Shuih Lin and I hope you feel better Shuih Lin. I've uploaded the pictures of the various cakes I've had to do recently including the no 1 cake for Ayden's birthday that was last month. Also a picture of the chocolate chip banana muffins. Muffins are so easy to do and the only tedious part was putting the spoonfuls of mixture into the paper cases. Anyway lets hope next weekend will not be so busy, but I doubt it what with Amin's impending Haj trip coming up, I guess I'll be busy packing all his things!

Yummy Profiteroles

2007-11-16T03:17:00.000-08:00

Last night we had our normal Thursday night prayers and mum decided to have extra prayers for their upcoming Haj. So there were more people than usual. As always Soleha was doing all the cooking and she did quite an impressive spread of Nasi Briyani ayam, Dalca, Nangka masak lemak, ikan goreng and sambal telur. With Zahra still down with fever I could not really go down there to help out. So I brought along a chocolate cake and a long time favorite dish..(something which Hanna used to prepare a lot before she got married!!! along with her homemade chocolate ice cream!!) – profiteroles stuffed with vanilla ice cream covered in chocolate sauce. Unfortunately being the novice blogger I forgot to bring my camera with me to take a photo of the finished product and although I got Donncha to bring along their camera, we all forgot to take photos until most of the profiteroles were gone! Never mind…I might be doing another batch soon and will try to post the photo then. This recipe is so easy to do and only requires a bit of elbow grease when mixing in the egg which is the trickiest part as you must mix quickly or the mixture could end up looking like scrambled eggs! In which case you have no choice but to start all over again. Still the taste of hot chocolate sauce mixed with the cold ice cream in the crunchy profiteroles is quite decadent! So give the recipe a go..

Makes 15 small profiteroles
2 eggs beaten slightly
2 oz butter
2.5 oz plain flour
125ml water

1 Tub of chocolate or vanilla ice cream
1 packet thickened cream (250ml)
250 gm dark cooking chocolate

Method
Heat oven to 150°C, prepare baking tray by greasing and flouring pan.
Put butter in water and melt over slow heat and allow mixture to boil.
Switch of heat and pour in flour stirring in one direction.
Once mixture comes together and comes off the sides of the pan, pour in beaten eggs, beat vigorously until mixture is well glazed and eggs incorporated.
Spoon mixture into ping pong size balls onto tray and cook in oven for about 30 minutes. Leave to cool in oven for a further 30 minutes.
Once cool, slit profiteroles in half and spoon or pipe in vanilla or chocolate ice cream. Arrange in dish and freeze until ready to eat.
For sauce, heat cream till almost boiling, take off heat and stir in chocolate pieces. Stir until mixture thickens – when ready to eat pour over profiteroles.

First foodie thoughts! Bamia recipe

2007-11-05T23:59:00.000-08:00

Wow I finally get down to doing a blog at last!! About bloody time I can here my sisters shouting!! So I 'm going to base this blog on my thoughts and some recipes I want to share in the hope that you guys can enjoy the food that we eat on our family table from time to time.. Oh yeah there are times when we are really scraping the barrel for ideas of what shall we have for dinner today!!! But I guess that's every mummy's daily headache. It's hard to please everybody in my family especially my youngest Zahra, she has been getting better but is still a fussy eater. I always insist that she needs to eat her carbs(rice or potatoes) and Veg )normally limited to brocolli if she had her way), I also try to reduce on the chicken as I find that this meat is really a meat of convenience these days and god knows how much hormones are pumped into these birds!! So we have an alround menu throughout the weeks consisting of beef, fish, prawns, squid, crabs, veg, yes chicken. As for carbs we eat ofcourse mainly rice, potatoes occaisionally, noodles and we try and have pasta at least once a week. When it comes to family gathering ofcourse the food of choice for my beloved Mother In Law would be ambuyat but some of the kids don't really enjoy this..but that's another blog topic I guess.

However.... today we are having Lamb shanks bamia..sometimes Supasave has these lamb shanks but most of the times they are already marinated or chopped up..so it's best to ask and reserve I guess.

Bamia is the middle eastern name for Okra or Ladies Fingers and it is used to make stew with meat and vegetables. The Ladies Fingers help to thicken the stew's gravy hence the name of the dish Bamia. There are many varieties of how to cook this dish and you can substitute the lamb shanks for other lamb parts such as shoulder or cut up lamb leg. Alternatively beef can also be used. Whatever meat you are using, like in other stew recipes it is slow cooking to allow for the meat to tenderize. The dish is normally eaten with french bread but rice is fine too. If eating with mashed potatoes then omit potatoes and you can substitute with carrots instead. Or eat with couscous.

This was a real success for all in the family as the dish is not too spicy and not too bland. We all devoured it except for Zahra who did not have anything except for the potatoes!! Thank goodness for the vegetable soup we had prepared earlier. Ok hope you guys enjoy preparing this.

Bamia:

Serves 6 people (4 if you are hungry!!)

Ingredients:

1 large onion chopped

3 cloves of garlic smashed then chopped finely

2 shallots sliced

2 inches of ginger bruised

5-6 cardamom pods

1 cinnamon stick

1 star of anise

1 teaspoon fennel powder

1 teaspoon coriander powder

1 teaspoon turmeric powder

2 tablespoons tomato puree

3 lamb shanks ( about 1kg)

15pcs okra or ladies fingers - tops cut

3 -4 potatoes cut into 4

2-3 tablespoons ghee

Salt, sugar and pepper to taste

Enough water to cover lamb.

Method:

1.Melt Ghee in a large pot

2.Add spices, onions and powsered spice and fry till fragrant

3. Add tomato puree

4. Add Lamb pieces and fry just to brown

5. Pour water until lamb is totally submerged, and allow to come to the boil.

6. Lower down heat and let simmer for at least 2 hours until lamb is soft and comes off the bone when pricked with a fork. During the simmering stage if water has reduced keep adding more liquid.

7. Add potatoes and boil for a further 15 minutes till potatoes are soft.

8. Lastly add okra and allow to simmer for another 10 minutes until okra is soft and gravy has thickened. Season to your taste.