Sometimes coming home after work is a little surprise especially when hubby is not working.

Returning home tired, stressed out and all I just wish for is to grab a shower and rest. Walking into the house… opening the front door wishing it was just a swipe of thumb away instead of needing to search for my keys in my already messy compartment of the bag. Oh I don’t carry a handbag by the way, I carry a sling bag. Kind of prefer them over handbags because it is much more convenient haha.

So finally found the keys, removing my shoes after a long day… my feet deserve a good rest. Anticipating every minute of the day for the weekends to come faster so, that I can get my break for the week.
Walking towards the room, I hear sounds… sounds that make me wonder… what hubby is doing. Opening the room door, the air-condition breeze flows out to chill me, what a good feeling. The sight of what hubby is doing…

Playing game (what were you all thinking? Haha).

Went into the room drop my things, and grab my shower and the time to fill up the hungry stomach with simple dishes and rice for dinner cooked by hubs. Hubs made some special side dish.

I love the cup color. Looks cute. Time to open up and see the content.

Ta-da! It is chawanmushi! Amazingly, hubs made this… I totally don’t know how he does it, but it was delicious. I want more! Had two cups of that.

Thinking about it, I think I will have him make again soon haha!

The egg was smooth, the taste was yummy! When I put a spoon of the steamed egg into my mouth… hmmm it just melts away. Egg, shiitake mushroom, chicken meat, crabstick and bonito sauce are the basic ingredient in the making of chawanmushi.

Hubs is waaay better cook than me. Always best to make him cook instead of me cooking haha! Can the man in your house cook? Can the woman in your house cook? Can you cook? :p

You say Po-tah-to, I say Po-tay-to

I have been at home a lot lately and it does get to me that I end up bored. So I have been trying to learn on my cooking.

I always love potato salad, of course I never get enough of it and always wonder how people make them.

So I decided to try to make my own after surfing for recipes.

Ingredients (this amount serves 1-2 (for a meal) 2-3 (as a meal side dish)):

500gm Red Skin Potatoes

1 cup Mayonaise

1 tbs Djion Mustard

1 tbs Distilled White Vinegar

1 Whole Yellow Onion - finely chopped (more onions if you like)

2 Eggs

Wash the potatoes of its any dirt on the skin. Bring a pot to put in the potatoes and fill in water to cover the potatoes ans bring to boil for about 15-20minutes. Use a fork to test the potatoes for you want the potatoes to be soft but yet still firm. Set the potatoes aside and let it cool. Once it is cool, cut the potatoes in halves or quarters (up to your liking) leaving the skin on.

Another smaller pot, put the eggs in the water, enough to cover the eggs. Cover the pot, let the water come to a boil and remove from heat immediately. With the pot still cover, leave the eggs in the pot for 15-20minutes. Peel and mash / chop / dice the eggs.

In a bowl mix the Mayonaise, Djion Mustard, Distilled White Vinegar, the chopped onions and the eggs together. Test the sauce and see how you want it to taste. I liked it with more onions so I eventually added another half yellow onion.

Once you are satisfied with the sauce taste, pour it over the now cooled potatoes, mix it and refrigerate the whole thing for about 2-3hours.

Then your potato salad is ready to be serve.

So do you say po-tay-to or po-tah-to?

Hope you enjoy this :).

My Sick Meal

During the period when I was sick, I ate a lot of bread

picture from the web

and Marie Biscuits with milk.

picture from the web

Got to love the Marie Biscuits when soaked in milk and slightly soft, yet not too soft… I should learn how to make this into a dessert thingy. Anyone got any idea how? Or maybe a good link to lead me to it? I saw a lot of pudding things, but I want something that has no pudding thingy… nor chocolate too haha! Anyone? Anyone?

Anyway, eventually my diet from the time I am sick became just white porridge and an egg dish.

My personal favourite the minced meat fried egg.

Ingredients:
200gsm of minced meat
3 eggs
1 tbs of dark soya sauce
2 tbs of soya sauce
2 tbs of oil

Mix the egg with the soya sauce and dark soya sauce. Don’t have to beat the egg too hard, we do not need it too bubbly :p.

Put in the minced meat, mix.

Put the oil in a non-stick frying pan, heat it up, pour in the egg mixture and start frying. You can try to make it in an omelette shape or even without breaking it. But I can never do that, so I find it way easier to just break into pieces haha.

With this, and a bowl of plain white porridge I am good for a meal.

Do you have a simple meal to share? Anyone can lead me to make dessert with Marie Biscuits?

Learning Mom's Recipe...

Hi All,

Sorry for my disappearance; eventually falling sick was definitely a no fun. I am still coughing now, and it somehow seems that my fever would come back anytime which is no good if it does. So I am feeling up to the weather today, so I decided to drop by and see what’s going on in the blogosphere and of course post as well ^_^v.

Today I will be posting of food! Yes you hear me right foooood :p.

Before proceeding to the food, I would like to apologize to any Malay readers of my blog as this will be “non-halal”.

I always loved my mom’s braised pig’s heart but never knew how to cook it. So when I went back to Malaysia I asked my mom and only to find out it was easy peasy! Geeez! Haha. So I tried to cook it (lets hope I don’t poison hubs haha!)

Ingredients: 1 whole Pig’s Heart

100gm Sliced Pork 3-4 Cloves of diced Garlic

4 diced Shallots
4 tbs Soya Sauce
2 tbs Dark Soya Sauce
1 tbs Chinese Cooking Wine.

Marinade the sliced pig’s heart & sliced pork with soya sauce, dark soya sauce and chinese cooking wine. Put it in the refrigerator to let the marinating sit in for about 15minutes.

Then heat up the frying pan with some oil (I used pork lard oil). Put in the garlic and shallots, fry until slightly brown, then put in the marinated pig’s heart and sliced pork. Stir fry for about 15minutes and if you like more sauce just add more water soya sauce to make sure the saltiness remains.

Then your pig’s hearts is ready to be served with rice.

I always love this dish with only rice.
I am a really saucy person for this dish so technically I would definitely have more of it haha!

Hope you enjoy this :).

Brainstorming...

Hubs and I sometimes would have this massive brainstorm just to think of what to eat. To the extend we give up sometimes haha.

But when we are not too tired, we will cook.

My favourite easy dish to make;

Ingredients (serves 2-3 person)
5 shitake mushrooms (you can more if you a real mushroomy person), sliced
200grams minced meat (pork, chicken, beef either is fine… I don’t know about fish don’t ask :P)
5-6 cloves, diced (add more if you are a garlic fan)
1 whole yellow onion, diced
200grams spaghetti
Optional ingredient
4 pieces crabstick

1) Cook the pasta in a pot;

2) Soak the sliced mushroom into the water, add some salt in to make the mushroom slightly salty.

3) Marinate the minced meat with corn flour and soya sauce.

4) (optional step) Stir-fry the minced meat, until slightly brown (cook) put aside.

5) Fry the crabstick in the pan with the minced meat juices, put aside cook.

6) (still don’t have to clean the pan) throw in the garlic and onion, fry until slightly brown,

7) Put in the minced meat and fry for about 1minute or until the minced meat is cook if step 3 was skipped.

8) Put in the sliced shitake mushrooms don’t pour the mushroom water away!

9) Pour in the mushroom water, simmer and let it boil a little until mushroom is soft.

10) Add some salt if it isn’t salty enough for you liking.

The sauce is ready to be served. The pasta should be ready by now too.

Ta-dah!

Home-made Shanghai Styled Pasta (the name derived from a pasta menu I used to eat from Shakey’s Pizza, sadly can’t find it anymore now).

It should take about 30-35minutes, to prepare this but can be shorter if you have the ingredients ready way before (like in the morning) you start cooking. Hope you enjoy the meal.

And I tried again...

I remember there was this one time that I tried to make Carbonara Pasta but failed miserably. This time I tried again and of course with hubs helping;

The ingredients (serves two person):
200gm of Spaghetti
1 whole garlic
1 Yellow Onion
1 ½ cup cream
Ingredients of your desire choice of quantity:
White Mushrooms
Sausages
Bacon (you can replace this with ham or do without)

Ingredients are to be cut to desire size. Garlic and yellow onions are to be diced.

I begin with putting in some butter to a ready hot frying pan and another pot of boiling water to cook the pasta make sure to add a pinch of salt to have the water boil faster.

That is to fry the bacons to brown, to be crispy.

Remove the bacon after reaching desire taste, throw in the garlic and yellow onions to fry.

By now the water should be boiled, put in the pasta to be cook.

Then add in the mushrooms with the frying garlic and onions.

Put in the sausages when the mushrooms are slightly browned.

Pour the cream in gradually and stir it.

Cook it some, boil it some and it should look about like this.



Add some grinded peppercorns for taste.

Pasta should be cooked by now.

Drain the water out of the pasta and pour on the plate with some butter for taste.

The sauce is ready to b pour onto the pasta as well.

Pasta with Cream Sauce.

Topped with bacon.

Oh this was a success. Hubs and I enjoyed it and will cook it again soon.

So you going to try your own carbonara?

Suituapui

Home Cooked : Macaroni Fruit Salad

Well, other than my fried rice from my previous post; I also made hubby Macaroni Fruit Salad.

The ingredients:

A can of Fruit Cocktails
A pack of Nata De Coco
A bowl of Macaroni
Mayonnaise
(all ingredient amount is up to your liking)

A pot of water to boil the macaroni to cook.

Add a teaspoon or two of salt into the water for taste, (also to let the water boil up faster saving us time to wait for it :D) then pour the macaroni into the boiling water. Boil macaroni for 10-15mins or when you think it is right for your liking. Some people prefer it still slightly hard, some prefer it softer, some prefer it slightly harder like myself :).

While the macaroni are cooking in the pot, drain the syrup out of the fruit cocktail and the nata de coco, this is to make sure the salad won’t end up too sweet (leaving some of the syrup is your choice for taste). Pour the fruits and nata de coco out of the packaging into a plastic container / ice cream tub.

After the macaroni are cooked, put it together with the fruits and nata de coco. Add in the amount of mayonnaise to your liking. I put in about 4-5 tablespoons of mayo for that portion I made. I am a mayonnaise lover :P.

Mix them well.

Keep it in the refrigerator to chill and serve cold. Did this make you drool? :P If it didn't I am sure the next post will! Yes it is about food! But it is Japanese food :). Yet another 3-days weekend for me and you (those who are having a holiday). Hope you have a great weekend!

lina