curry

Made Thai Curry dish during the weekend.
I had all the basic ingredients, and I wanted to use up the coconut milk that I bought weeks ago.
I was contemplating either Thai Curry or our normal Curry with coconut milk.

At the end, I decided to make Thai Curry.
I skipped a few ingredients and it turned out pretty ok. Well, at least the 'mr' said it was good.
I didn't have any tomato ketchup but I substitute it with a whole tomato. Same with the ground coriander, I replace it with fresh ones.
I wasn't too sure if the thai chili paste is the same as the thai chili sauce at that point of time. At the end, i found out it's different. LOL...

photo by melmok

photo by melmok

photo by melmok

I was having trouble with the blender, at the end I didn't manage to blend the whole lot to a paste.
My patiences ran out, so I just fried the whole lot and added my veggies and fish in the end before serving.

photo by melmok

photo by melmok

Here's the recipe from thaifood.about.com


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chickpeas

I've bought a can of chickpeas ages ago after the India trip. I wanted to recreate the chickpea salad that we had in India, but I couldn't find the recipe in the internet.

So I left it in the cabinet and totally forgotten about it until recently.
Since the 'mr' is still in the state of phobia with the Indian taste, I made the refreshing chickpea cold salad without the Indian spices.


Yummy...

chinese radish with pork bone soup

I've been browsing thru a lot of recipes and most of the recipes that look and sounds delicious
takes up 1-2 hrs of cooking time.

You see, I waste a lot time on the road. By the time I reach back home, it would be between 7.20pm (earliest) - 7.55pm (latest). I would be in a hungry mode by then and I don't want to waste another
1-2 hrs to braise or stew anything.

So I've been stir frying or sautéing veggies and meat.
(I intend to stew a dish or 2 during the weekend and keep it in the freezer for our weekday meals)

photo by melmok

Being chinese, soup is a part of our daily food intake.
To cook a good soup, you need at least 3-4 hrs of cooking time. (which i do not have)
So I went to the oldest trick that I've known since young, cook it in the slow cooker.
What I did was, I dumped all the ingredients to the slow cooker before heading off to work.

Lucky me, I get off work a little bit early on Wednesdays and the 'Mr.", he gets off work super early on Fridays. Yay!!... warm yummy soup with 1 or 2 stir fried dishes depending on the time that we have and our level of 'hungry mode'.


Made our first soup with slow cooker....
White Chinese Radish with Pork Bone and Dried Oyster.

photo by melmok on Flickr.

2 1/2 big bowl of water
1 large white chinese radish (cut to chucks)
5-6 dry oyster
1 large pork bone


I should blanch the pork bone before dumping it in the slow cooker to get a clearer soup, but because of the 'lack of time'. I skipped that process.
Because of that,.... the top layer was covers with pork fat and dark lumps of 'stuffs'
(which is the blood from what I found out).
Anyway, I don't think it's a big deal. All I had to do was just skimmed the top part away.

By the time I reach home, only 1-2 inch of the water level has evaporated. I was expecting the level of water to be reduce to half!...

So ever since the first successful attempt, I've been using the same amount of water for the other soup.

more soup to come...

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lala

I love clams... I love mussels.... I love sea shells..

If only the hypermarkets around my area sells fresh clams.... I would buy and eat it everyday... (well..almost everyday)...

spicyness

I'm craving for something spicy!! Darn this cough and I can't stop thinking bout the Tom Yam noodles....

The last time I had my Tom Yam fix was a month ago and I loved it. A huge improvement from the previous batch.

dumplings + lost holiday

I hate being sick, especially during a long holiday.
chills, body ache, headache, fever, sore throat, cough... the whole package.

Just when I think I'm feeling better, I feel 'sickly' again...

Anyway during the long holiday, I was sick of feeling 'sickly'.
So I tried to mentally psycho myself by making some dumplings.
I can't remember where I got the recipe from, but most of the dumpling recipe is more or less the same.
After looking throu, I remembered that I got the recipe from Jennifer Yu. Love the way she writes and her photos are really inspiring.

photo by melmok

photo by melmok

photo by melmok

photo by melmok

photo by melmok

photo by melmok

I particularly enjoyed making the dumpling wrapper/skin in the beginning but as I was half way filling it up with the meat, my mental psycho power ran out and I was feeling all 'sickly' again.

At that point in time, I just wanted to finish wrapping it so I could eat my lunch and get back to bed to rest....

photo by melmok

After boiling it.

photo by melmok

It's been more then week now, and i'm still having the whole sick package.
It still doesn't want to go awayyyy...!!
Well, the bright side is that I haven't been coughing green phlegm since yesterday, it's just dry cough now..
*cough * cough * cough *

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cny

The chinese new year celebration is almost half way through.
The past few weeks has been tiring. The accumulation of activities from weeks before till the 2nd day of CNY was a very good physical exercise.

Was suppose to join my parents and uncle for the chinese new year reunion dinner at a local restaurant in town. After some thoughts, I decided to cook at home.
Pass some invitations out and only my parents excepted it. less men more share then....

Started my food preparation 3 days before!!...
LOL..... Only for the sea cucumber.
Had to soak the dried sea cucumber days before it can be cook.
This little sea creatures double it's size from 2.5 inch to a 4.5 inch long spongy weird looking creature.

Before

a photo by melmok

After

a photo by melmok

I don't like how it looks but i love eating them, especially since I found out that sea cucumber help with thyroid cases as well.




All the dishes came out good. It wasn't perfect, but good.

a photo by melmok

• braised mushroom with sea cucumber, fish maw, abalone and gingko
• steam pomfret fish
• stir fried veg
• steam prawns with dong quai and wolf berries
• lotus pork bone soup

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cost has risen

What a bummer...
I just found out that my fav cleanser from Suki skincare has increase its price. *sigh...*

Lucky me, I still have 8-9 months of supply. :D

another year end?

I've meant to blog since ages ago but I was too distracted with other activities around me. 

This whole 2011 has been filled with ups and downs....

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I finally got myself a compact camera to replace my old, dying faithful camera Canon A95.

My dear old camera has served me well for the last 6-7 years...  Yes! It was that long. 
My very first camera and I've fully utilized it. It finally said goodbye at the beginning of this year. 

Got myself a Canon S95 with some sponsor from KY. I was eyeing on the new S100 but at the end, 
my emotional (impulsive buying + lack of patiences) got control of my brain. 
I got persuaded by the sales guy and my patiences of waiting for the launch of S100 was running low. 

My enthusiasm of using my own DSLR is extremely low this year. I think I'm hook to my department's DSLR. Who can blame me huh?

own = Canon 350D 

office = Canon EOS 5D Mark2

like .... *duhhh*

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Been cooking more this year. Been trying to bake with the small toaster over as well. 
Can't wait to get my hands on an oven or a convection oven. 
Guess with the lack of space and $$, I would be getting a convection oven. 

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This year, I got to experience cheap snow, green white mountains, hills and survive the COLDNESS at Manali, Himachal Pradesh. See the magnificent Taj Mahal, Agra and experience diarrhea at Delhi all in India. The whole journey was immortalize in a book.

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Went au naturel in a pool. IT WAS NICE!. As usual I couldn't stand the cold and the weather was cold... 
The sun did not come out as it should have!

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After talking about it for years and delaying it due to timing and worrying about the effect on her after the operation. We finally brought Brandy (the dog) to spay. It's been 2 weeks now, and she's back to her old self. 
In fact, she was back to own self on the 3rd day after the operation. 

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I've discovered natural ways to clean and scrub the house and myself. :)

I've been using all natural skin care product for a year now and I'm feeling good about it! 

Even tried DIY my own shampoo.

Once a while, I would use the off the rack sheet mask. 

That's when I realize that I would have break outs here and there the next day.

*need to pass the unopen sheet mask to friends*

The whole year has been filled with turmoil of emotions... good..... bad..... happy..... sad..... 

There are times when my 'chill pill' works and there are times when it doesn't.

Am grateful for all the things that I have now and like people always say, there is always HOPE.

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crackers

Made another round of cheese cracker with a proper oven during my stay at Subang.  It came out perfect at the beginning...  Then me and my itchy fingers, left it 'slightly' longer in the oven.  So some turned out a bit over burned.  I think I didn't leave it to chill in the fridge long enough. This round, the crackers was oiler then before.  The "mister" said that he prefers the new batch.

photo by melmok on Flickr.

After finishing with the baking of the cheese cracker, I did the rosemary cracker.
It smells wonderful, and I love it too! Didn't add the sesame seed and the dried onions flakes. But I'll definitely add it in the next round.  I'm going cracker crazy.....


I can't wait to try out the rest of Ellie's cracker recipe!
While I was hunting for some cracker recipes, I stumble to her Cheese Cracker recipe.
Then I got excited with her Rosemary Cracker cos i loovveee..... rosemary...

note to self: need to cut my crackers nicer and evenly.

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cheese cracker

photo by melmok on Flickr.

Made some cheese crackers with the little toaster oven. It's a real challenge, trying to bake with the little toaster oven. The crackers was suppose to puff up but as you can see from the picture, it's either over bake or really flat. Of all the crackers, only '2' puffed up....

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Homemade chicken pot pie

** Oh my... I just realise that I still have this post with me in my phone.

I was suppose to post this up last weekend but I was over excited with pot pie and the "un appealing" image taken with my phone. **

Attempt #1 : chicken pot pie with a few strings of spaghetti.

crispy bacon

Last weekend, I stumble upon Lisa's blog and I couldn't help by trying out some of her recipes. Since I have a bag of bacon chips in the freezer, I did a trial batch of Spicy Brown Sugar Bacon (without the spice).

I added more sugar before I placed it in the toaster oven.

photo by melmok on Flickr.

photo by melmok on Flickr.

Made more with the idea of storing it for snacks but in the end.....

hubby and I finish it less then an hour. It was addictive...!!

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Vom Fass Aceto Maletti

I'm saying bye bye to commercial vinegar and H.E.L.L.O to VomFass's vinegar.

photo by melmok on Flickr

Who would have thought that I would get all excited about vinegar.

I've never tried a vinegar that tasted so delicious before. I wanted to get all types if $$ was not an issue. So I got the 16 year old balsamic vinegar. With the price i could have gotten at least 3-4 bottles of the commercial balsamic vinegar.

Money well spend for good quality vinegar!

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semi braised seafood/chicken

I love this dish. Once a year, during chinese new year I'll get a chance to eat this. It will be pack with all the expensive ingredients like, sea cucumber (yum yum), abalone, fish maw, scallops and oysters.

I find that this dish is the one of the easiest dish to cook since it does not take much of cutting,cleaning or frying. 

What I did was, I soaked the dried mushrooms, oysters, scallops the night before and left it in the fridge. I wanted to do just one dish for that night, so I substitute the sea cucumber with chicken drumsticks. 

In this dish I have :-

an inch of ginger (julienne)

a clove of garlic

dried mushroom

dried scallop

dried oyster

chicken drumstick

straw mushroom

asparagus mushroom

frozen scallops

1/4 can of abalone clams and liquid

gingko

green beans

black moss / fat choy (hubby wants it, i don't know why....)

photo by melmok on Flickr.

photo by melmok on Flickr

Julienne an inch of ginger, fry it with 1 tbsp of oil. 

When you can smell the aromatic of the ginger, put in the chicken drumsticks.

Fry it for a couple of minutes, then pour about half a cup of water and the rest of the dried ingredients (which has already soaked overnight) + gingko + garlic.

Simmer it till every thing is cook and soft. I waited till the garlic was soft before putting the rest of the ingredients. I use the garlic as a guide... :) Of course the chicken has to be well cook as well. Lastly add the black moss.

Initially, I was using the slow cooker pot. But then the sky was getting dark and our stomach was growling louder...

So I transfered everything in a pot to cook the rest of the ingredients.

photo by melmok on Flickr.

Hubby and I was really hungry by then. So food presentation was out the window. lol....

photo by melmok on Flickr.

Testing from my phone

Just downloaded the app for my phone. Lets See how this works... Then I can ramble stuffs from where ever I go...

sambal prawns

Two weeks ago, I had the craving for the Ikan Bakar at Petaling Street. 
It's been a while since we went there for food. 

Usually, we had to wait for about 30-45 mins just for our food. To our surprise this time around it only took 25 mins. I guess it was our lucky day cos as we started eating, the crowd at the place grew.

The pics does not do justify to the how good the food is. 

We ordered clams (non spicy) and stingray fish (normal spicy).

3 plates of rice and the bill came up to RM 23.00

Then the other day, I attempt to recreate the dish without the foil and the grilling.

I think it turned out almost similar but something was missing though.
I should have grind the ingredients longer (my patiences was running low).

It was also less watery cos i did not wrap it up with foil.

Next trial would be with banana leaves and more patiences with the grinding...

photo by melmok on Flickr.

photo by melmok on Flickr.

photo by melmok on Flickr.

photo by melmok on Flickr.

stir fry leeks with prawns

I respect the patience of a food blogger!
I never thought that taking pictures and cooking at the same time could be so stressful.

Last weekend I tried to juggle the camera and cooking at the same time.
Making sure I got some 'nice' shots and that camera is oil 'free' from my hands.
That itself was stressful. I gave up after 1 dish.

photo by melmok on Flickr.

photo by melmok on Flickr.

photo by melmok on Flickr.

I haven't eaten a leek dish for ages so when i got hold of some of leeks,
I decided to stir fry some prawns with it.

heat up some oil, fry 1 tbsp of chopped garlic.
add in the prawns , add in 1 tbsp of oyster sauce and a bit of water.
then the chopped leeks.

The last time when I ate this dish was years back....

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Sunday's homemade chicken rice

photo by melmok on Flickr.

Had craving for chicken rice last weekend and I wanted to fine tune the previous chicken rice that I have made a month back.

This time around I added some chinese dried mushroom and yellow ginger.

photo by melmok on Flickr.

Well, the yellow ginger was by mistaken. I accidentally slice the whole yellow ginger and didn't want to waste it. So I decided to julienne the whole piece and add t to the pot.

photo by melmok on Flickr.

It turned out well....  I should have added more ginger to it though. Then I would have been superb. :)

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using soapnuts

photo by melmok

I was at Tropicana Mall recently and stumble upon to another alternative for natural detergent.
I can use it while waiting for my fruit enzyme to ferment.
It's soapnut / soapberries!!
These little things are from berries grown in india and nepal. (i could have walked pass these little things without realizing it in india.. argh..)

I was told that it has been used for centuries ago. the soapiness or the saponin is from the shell of the berries.
So far i've been using it for my laundry and as hand wash liquid as well.
I just put 6-8 berries in a muslin bag. (my 500pc of muslin bags have a purpose now....) i do 2 rounds of laundry with it. After that i soak them to use as hand wash.
Once the soapberries turn into pale colour i just put it in the garden for it to compose.
Easy Peasy...

i was told by the lady who sold this berries that if you have sensitive skin, doing laundry with these berries can help as these soapnuts have anti-inflammatory and anti-microbia properties.
Basically what the fruit enzyme cleaner can do, these little soapnuts can do as well.

The difference is just the $$$...
Fruit enzyme cleaner = FREE = 3 months to ferment
Soapnuts / soapberries = 200gm/RM12 = on the spot

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