North, East & South

“Reaching Up” Mural, Cannon Street, George Town, Penang

Travelling has never feel any safer.

Ben's Vintage Toy Museum, Penang

Old mosque in Pekan, Pahang

Teluk Chempedak, Kuantan, Pahang. 

Early-July. And the new school term has finally begun. We were finally home after three weeks escape to the North, East, and South of Malaysia. It was merely a vacation, more like a tag-along trip (visiting relatives, husband's client's meeting plus, etc) with my parents, but boy I/we had a whole lot of FUN with them. I believed that was one of the longest time I managed to spend with my parents, this year alone. Yep, the bitter part of married life- living away from parents. But then, two weeks of vacation is a par for me, else I would die of ecstasy aka pure laziness of doing nothing. I guess routine-life has finally engulfed me after years of being SAHM.

Like always, a week after my return from a so called 'vacation' would turned me into something that I, up until now, don't understand it. A post-vacation syndrome is what some people labelled it. I'm nor bored neither angry, nothing interests me, and I'm at loss over what to do next. Sleep is just a short-term solution. But slowly, it fades away like nothing ever happened. No remedy needed. 

Anyway, there's only a week left for Ramadan and I feel slightly panicky for not being aware of it earlier. I was so occupied with nothing (read: pure leisure) for the past 3 weeks, and I always felt I still got a month before Ramadan. I. was. wrong. Sigh. Time is sprinting across our life rather than tick-tocking like a normal clock does now. 

Adam will turn 4 in the next 10 days. Gubra. I dont care bout the celebration party whatsover. It make me slightly gabra to know that my son is going to be four. I got a four yrs old in my pocket people!! I feel rojak inside. Partly proud of myself for raising him this far, sad for he's not going to be my little guy anymore, happy as he is what he is now, and excited for what else can he put in his plate in the near future. I love him. My little man has got his own mind and saying nowadays, so I have to be very careful on how am I behaving towards other people around me, and not to forget the way I talk- bottom-line, the way I live my life. There were lot of things I wished I didn't do back then, but we would not be in this state of life if it's not for those mistakes we made on the past. Kan?

So these are some of the photos which I've captured with my iPhone during our trip to Penang, Kuantan, KL and Melaka. :) Cheers! 

Cannon Street, Penang.

“Boy on a Bike” Mural, Ah Quee Street, George Town, Penang

Little India, Penang

Ben's Vintage Toy Museum, Penang

Telok Chempedak, Kuantan, Pahang.

Jam as usual in KL.

I love this pic even-though it's a bit blur. (Little India, Penang)

Dead Hearts

My favorite track at the moment.

Have you guys watch this movie yet? 

Spinach-Basil Pesto Penne

Pesto, as a rule, can be made from anything that consists of leafy greens, nuts, cheese, garlic, and olive oil. It is something I would  have on days when bolognese, carbonara even olio suddenly sound complicated or on days when I could not be bothered to cook at all. Of course, there are thousand of different ways to substitute the ingredients. It all depends on your creativity in the kitchen. The leafy green, nuts and cheese are the variables. However, if you are a first timer, sticking to a classic pesto ingredients is a must: basil, pine nuts, parmesan, salt, pepper, olive oil. 

All you need is a pestle and mortar.  Optionally, you may need a pan to toast the nuts. This is only if you want to preserve the oil from nuts, which gives you the creaminess rather than the nuttiness* taste. 

You can opt for a food processor, which by the way  does not make you a cheater. From what I have read, different techniques (chopping, bruising, crushing, etc) would produce different pesto-taste. Or if you are not in any particular rush, try chopping. It is said that it will single out each taste of every ingredient in the sauce. I'd love to try this method one of these days. Lastly, whichever method  you choose, please avoid using a blender. You do not want to end up with a smoothie. #ggs lol

Spinach-Basil Pesto Pasta

Adapted from Jamie Oliver's Pesto recipe*.

1 handful of basil

2 handfuls of spinach

1 handful of pine nuts-slightly toasted

1 garlic or more if you like it to be garlicky

Salt & Pepper

Lemon juice (optional)

1 handful of Parmesan cheese, freshly grated

Extra virgin olive oil

*Start by slightly toast the nuts in the pans or oven.
Pound the garlic with a little pinch of salt and the basil leaves in a pestle and mortar.
Add the pine nuts to the mixture and pound again. Turn out into a bowl and add half the Parmesan. Stir gently and add olive oil – you need just enough to bind the sauce and get it to an oozy consistency.
Season to taste, then add most of the remaining cheese. Pour in some more oil and taste again. Keep adding a bit more cheese or oil until you are happy with the taste and consistency. You may like to add a squeeze of lemon juice at the end to give it a little twang, but it's not essential. 

Custard Chiffon Cake

Happy happy Friday peeps. I sincerely apologise for the silence. The whirlwind aftermaths of the general election had me hooked on all sorts of medias; FB, Twitter, TV, and so on. I'm no more near the election news now. The outcomes of the election, to me, showed how much the other half of the voters want that change to happen. No matter which party governs the country, let's just open up your eyes, mind and heart and make that change happen. The support will always be given to those who walk the talk. So walk the talk. Frankly, I'm a bit unpleased with some of the election outcomes, but life goes on. 

I went Malacca on Friday, and arrived home on Monday, the day after the general election. It was my first time travelling without both Adam & Husband. Nope, my second one. But that was several years ago. It felt different this time. A whole lot of different. The journey felt... weird without his voice asking me this and that. Without his big voice singing and zikir-ing. A very quiet journey I'd say. And to make it weirder, I managed to finish the whole book "An Old Palace in the Village" in few hours time. I rarely finish any book these days- But most of that time goes to Adam and I'm indeed lucky. ;)

Next, photos in this entry. Honestly, I am a bit unhappy with it. Well, you know how the weather behaves lately. Sunny in the morning, and in just a blink of an eye, it changes! I took the "prep" photo (before the baking happened) at 11 am in the morning, and the cake was ready to be shoot at 2pm, you know, this kind of cake needs some time to cool down. The prep photos look good to me. But by the time I wanted to shoot the cake, the weather had turned gloomy. I wanted to use the flash but the thought of setting it up stopped me. Plus, I have no idea where my husband keep it. And that brought me to the ISO, my last resort. Sigh. Darling husband, where did you keep that flash? 

Now, to the cake. The recipe is from "Monday Morning Cooking Club" cookbook. I first discovered this cake almost a year ago through my Facebook timeline. It directed me to this touching video of Merelyn, making her mom's recipe, Custard Chiffon Cake. I was totally moved by Merelyn's story, and the cake... it was lovely. It's JUST a simple yellow cake, with a nice custardy scent. I don't know what, but the simplicity of this cake kindda WOW-ed me. It ranked right on top in my favorite cake list, to date. It's a big cake for the three of us, but poof, it's gone easily in less than a day. We had it for tea and keep the half chunk of it for breakfast. My picky Adam had more than two big slices, and that is enough to show you guys how great this cake is. :)

The recipe, adapted from MMCC cookbook. 

175g self raising flour

1 teaspoon cream of tartar

35g (1/4 teaspoon) custard powder

6 large eggs, separated

345g (11/2 cup) caster sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

80ml (1/3 cup) extra light olive oil or vegetable oil

170ml (2/3 cup) warm water

1. Preheat oven to 180C. You will need an ungreased chiffon cake tin (not a non stick one as well). Do NOT grease it.

2. Sift the flour,1 teaspoon of cream of tartar and custard powder three times to ensure they are fully combined.

3. In an electric mixer, whisk egg yolks with 230g( 1 cup) of sugar until pale and creamy, then add the vanilla extract.Pour the oil and warm water into a jug. While the yolks are still whisking on low speed, add the flour mixture and the oil & water at the same time, whisking until just incorporated.

4. In a separate bowl, whisk the egg whites until soft peaks form, then add the remaining sugar & remaining cream of tartar and continue to whisk until the egg whites are stiff but not dry. Very carefully fold the batter into the egg whites with a metal spoon until just incorporated.

5.Pour mixture into the cake tin. Bake for 1hour or until a skewer comes out clean when inserted into cake.- I baked it for 1 hour and 10 mins. (Note to self, reduce the oven temp to avoid the cracks)

6. After removing the cake from the oven, immediately invert it to cool by balancing the middle funnel onto a bottle neck. It is important for the cake to be inverted and suspended upside down until it is cool to stop it from collapsing.

P/s: The comment box is not working and I'm doing my best to fix it- FIXED! :)

Raspberry Vanilla Ice-Cream Cake

This is dessert at its very best. It is so simple, you could whip it with a blindfold on. Seriously, why use your oven during this unbearable hot days. Try this and you'll agree with me. 

You could switch raspberry to strawberry, or any other berries, if you want. Frozen raspberries are so scarce we don't even have one at our local store here. I was looking for them since last Dec. But thankfully, the fresh ones seem to be breeding in the shopping rack again. The cheapest I could get is at 5.99 dollar a punnet. Isk.

Anyway, this dessert definitely has a winning taste. It's unbelievably less sweet than I thought it would be. The raspberry's tangy flavour has acted brilliantly. Love, love, love it. 

I can't help it...it's a perfect dessert..  :) 

Raspberry Vanilla Ice-Cream Cake

(Resource: Martha Stewart)

Ingredients

1 loaf pound cake, sliced horizontally into thirds- I sliced them thinly. 

1 1/2 cups raspberries (6 ounces)-

1 pint vanilla ice cream, softened

Confectioners' sugar, for serving

Directions

1. Place bottom layer of cake on a large piece of foil or in a loaf pan of equal size. Sprinkle half the raspberries over cake, spread evenly with half the ice cream, and top with another cake layer. Repeat with remaining raspberries, ice cream, and cake.

2. Wrap with foil and freeze at least 4 hours (or up to overnight). Remove cake from freezer about 30 minutes before serving. Serve dusted with confectioners' sugar.

RC Note: It's important to bring the cake out of freezer half an hour before you serve it. Or you gonna end up like my cake in above pics. See how messy it was. It takes some times for it to soften enough to cut. Trust me, it's definitely well worth the wait. ;)

Happy voting to all Malaysian! :) 

The Soup Story

Have you read this book, "For One More Day"? It is one of Mitch Albom's best sellers. I bought it several years ago and I read it again this week coz... I felt like it. Don't ask me why, but I love to reread some books again and again. Go read this book if you fancy some good old weep. 

Anyway, a few lines caught my attention and it went like this. 

"It was as delicious as it was familiar. I don't know what it is about food your mother makes for you, especially when it's something that anyone can make-pancake, meat loaf, and tuna salad-but it carries a certain taste of memory."

How true is that. 

I remember my mom used to cook this soup a lot when I was in primary years. The fish was quite smaller than the one I had today, which is a little trickier for my sister and I, at that age, to eat. Thus, she'd make sure she sit right next to us so nobody is choking on the fishbones. She never asked how my school stuff was going that day, but it didn't bothered me that much coz I have my father for that. Our conversations were always around the same talks; the neighbours, her side-income business, my father's office-politic issues, with some extra nagging in between. My mom is quite a talkative person and she really loves to talk. I'm totally the opposite though. I would only listen and reply to her, necessarily. Up to the point where I learned to pretend 'listening' to her. Idiot old self. Anyway, she always scooped us more rice, add some kuah to our plates and offer us more fish whenever our plates were nearly empty. Once done, she would asked us to help her clear the table and made sure we eat our dessert. Oh yes, dessert always comes in fruit form. No fancy wancy dessert back then. 

And that was yesterday.

The lunch-'talk'-routine stopped once the boarding school life took over at 13. I didn't realised how much I missed it until yesterday. After I read that small excerpt. Which brought me to the soup. And the soup dragged my thoughts to her. On how she cares for me. Nobody cares about me like she did. Nobody has ever been so close to me like her. I should have been more grateful. I should have been ashamed on how I treat her in certain way, and how I'd turned my back on her a certain point of life. 

Eating the soup made me fell back into being her daughter again. The same daughter who sat next to her during lunch decades ago. A matured one tho. I miss her. I can't want to go home next week and hug her. :)

*****

“You have one family, Charley. For good or bad. You have one family. You can’t trade them in. You can’t lie to them. You can’t run two at once, substituting back and forth.

“Sticking with your family is what makes it a family.”

Beef Kuay Teow

This was supposed to be a Char Kuay Teow, but I had no shrimps in hands. I used beef instead, hence it becomes a Beef Kuay Teow. I basically threw everything from what I had in the fridge in it. Rojak. Recipe is loosely from my previous char kuay teow recipe here. 

My first Rainbow Cake and etc.

Ya, pinggan hijau tu sumbing sket. Dah ambik gambar baru perasan. Kih kih :P

The recipe is based on the original Hummingbird Bakery's Vanilla cupcake, where the recipe said that it would yield 12 cupcakes, but in my case it gave me enough batter to make 2 layers (8x8 pan) of the rainbow cake-Yerp, I made a squarish rainbow cake. I had to re-double the recipe to get the cake done. 

I believed this is the best vanilla cake I've ever made, so far. The intensity of the vanilla is unbelievably amazing, texture-wise-moist and fluffy. Everything is perfect but I think the frosting could use a little less sugar and orange zest than the recipe calls for. The zesty taste is covering the whole vanilla taste, what's the point kan? 

It took me 2 days to finish the whole cake- I'm still in packing, labelling, and throwing mode, remember? Husband is currently away for another business trip and I'm doing all the packing. Yeay, I got to throw his old stuffs. Karang guni betul. And just an hour to assemble the layers and turn it into a beautiful rainbow cake. I can't believe my dream of making this cake have finally come true...

okay, I better get back to my boxes..they are screaming for me..argh.

PS: . We're going to be so busy next couple of month, with renovation works, blah2..so I think this would probably be my last post for this year. La Kitchen will be continued as usual on January. Apologize for that. No internet connection, while mobile blogging is so not me. Tak best. 

....and I'm taking order for this rainbow cake too.. sms/whatsapp me at 965-818-69 :D

The Rainbow Cake 

(based on HUmmingbird Bakery's Vanilla cupcake recipe via here)
19/6/2014: I have update the original recipe by doubling it. You don't have to double it coz below recipe is enough to make a 7" rainbow cake. This is the easiest cake ever!

All you need is:

5- 7"x7" baking pan (don't worry if yo only have two pans, you can bake the first two layer, then continue doing so until the batter finish)

2 cup all-purpose flour

11/2 cup sugar (I reduced it to 11/4cup)

3 tsp baking powder (I had to double the original recipe and end with that number)

1/4 pinch salt

6 tbsp butter

1 cup milk

2 egg

2 tsp vanilla extract

Put the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and butter in a mixing bowl and beat on slow speed until everything is combined and you have a crumb mixture with a sandy consistency. Gradually pour in half the milk and beat just until the milk is incorporated.

Whisk together the remaining milk, egg and vanilla. Pour into the flour mixture and beat until all ingredients are just incorporated. Beat for another 30 seconds until batter is smooth. Do not overmix.

Divide batter into 5 cups, or 7 (I've done it before), and put your desired food colouring in each bowl. 

Divide batter amongst 5 7"x7" baking pans and bake at 325F (163 C) for about 15 to 20 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out mostly clean. Cool before frosting.

Creamy Cream Cheese Frosting
I love this recipe for frosting. It never failed me. It's creamy, not too sweet and a bit salty :D 

250g salted butter -I used SCS
225g unsalted butter- "
1/4 fine sugar
2 blocks of Philadelphia Cream Cheese
1/4 confectioners sugar
1 tsp of milk

Beat butter and sugar until it doubles its size and creamy.
Cut the cheese into small cubes and add them one by one the butter mixture while beating them in medium speed.
Add the confectioners sugar and milk. Mix well. Taste. Add more confectioners sugar if you like it sweeter. :)

Cream of Mushroom Soup

Hello. I'm so sorry for the prolonged absence, but here I am now, with a bowl of mushroom soup for you :) Honestly, it was Instagram..Yep, apparently, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+ are not enough for me T_T. Plus, the season of all sickness was here as well, fever and the gang, stomach flu, followed by episodes of throwing up..phew~ but we are okay now.. 

But, again, most of the blame goes to Instagram. It has that on the go thing, which is more convenient than blogging. I don't have to set up my tripod and camera, and spent hours doing the clicking, editing and writing. 

But naah...don't get me wrong, I love spending hours doing all the said jobs, it's just that time is not on my side..and I always have more important jobs to tend to. i.e. laundry, cooking, 'drama class' with Adam and other endless domestic tasks that doesn't deserved any highlight. Nyah kau.

We are starting to get busy with our house renovation and everything needs to be finalized by this month. Lots of stuff to be boxed, labeled, and thrown away... yikes Honestly, I haven't start on anything yet except throwing out some unwanted old make up stuffs from my dresser...he he Well, that's a good start, right... 

The renovation will starts as soon as Husband takes off for Germany next month. Another business trip for him. We are supposed to follow, but the trip had to be postpone until next summer :( It's the renovation works. I need to be here to supervise them.

The other main reason is the weather. The last time we went to Europe was 2 year ago, and it was super cold. The predicted temps for Germany and Paris are about +/-5 degrees C. November in Paris is going to be rainy and chilly. Did you remember our Korea trip last year? The one where Adam refused to wear his coldwear. Scary kalau dia buat hal macam tu lagi. T_T So with that, I think it's better for us to postpone it to next summer. 6-7 months away je pun. :P 

Okay, let's move on to the soup. This is the best mushroom soup I've ever made. Period. The soup is a perfect balance of velvety creamy and intensely mushroomy taste, with subtle hint of herbs at the end. Everybody in the house digged it. I paired it with garlic bread and it was epic! The recipe is from Smitten Kitchen's Balthazar's Cream of Mushroom Soup. So here's my version of it.

Cream of Mushroom

Adapted from Smitten Kitchen

What you'll need:

30 g of dried mushroom -I used dried premium shiitake

3 cups of hot water

1/4 cup of olive oil

Instead of using fresh herb, I chose to use a teaspoon of Tuscan dried herbs (consists of rosemary and parsley)

1 medium onion, diced

2 cloves of garlic, minced

500g of fresh shiitake, sliced or diced.

2 cups of chicken stock + 1 cup of hot water + knorr chicken cube

1 cup heavy cream

2 tablespoon butter

Salt and ground pepper to taste

Way of doing it: 

Soak the dry mushrooms in 3 cup of warm water for 20 to 30 minutes, until plump. Strain the soaking liquid through a coffee filter to remove grit and reserve, along with the reconstituted mushrooms, until needed.

Heat the olive oil in a large pot over a medium flame. When the oil is hot, add the onion, garlic, salt and pepper and cook for 5 minutes, until the onion is soft and translucent but not brown. then add in the dried herbs.

Turn the flame to high and add shiitakes Cook for 10 minutes, during which the mushrooms will give off their liquid (which should evaporate quickly due to the high heat) and deflate significantly. Stir occasionally.

Add the chicken stock and the dried mushrooms along with the soaking water.Simmer for 30 minutes. Then add the cream and butter. Working in batches, puree the soup in a blender until smooth. Return to the pot and keep at a very low simmer until ready to serve.

Oh btw, I'm in the mid of renovating this blog as well.. and as you can see, the disqus comment area is invisible right now, due to its font color. I'm trying to fix it right now. You can leave comment as usual. :)