Of Purple Flowers and All in them Pots

One of my all time favourite thing to eat is chicken. My 2nd all time favourite thing to eat is rice. I can eat a lot of rice. One of my sister thinks i am crazy to eat so much rice... and the chicken. I can have chicken rice every other day. Rice is the staple food of most Malaysian folks. We do eat a lot of rice.

As my nephew is home this week for his one week break, i'll have to cook dinner else my dad will give me the stinky eye. Some days i don't cook at all for a whole week because i am lazy because i do not really know what to cook. *LOL* My dad is quite a picky eater. He only eat a little... and if the food is not to his liking, he'll eat less. It doesn't help that my mom was a most wonderful cook.

Sometimes i don't have much time to cook as some of my workmates tend to be more annoying and send work late at about 5pm or 6pm and tells me that she needs it now. Doing those stuffs is not like frying an egg. It takes a while to get it done. My dad also prefers to eat his dinner by 7pm. Which don't really leave me much time to cook.

I rely a lot on my oven and steamer. I have parcel Tuesdays and all-in-the-pot Wednesday.. sometimes we do parcels the whole week. If i pace myself properly, i can get some stuffs ready during my lunch break and dinner can be ready by 6.30pm.

Today i decided to cook salty chicken. Salty chicken is easy to cook as i just have to clean the drumsticks... cut a few lines in the chicken thigh and marinate with salt. Then i'll dump them in a thick based pot and cook it without any oil over low fire. This is like the easiest thing to cook as i don't need to stir it or fry anything.

Then i decided to add mushrooms into the chicken as i still have a bag of fresh shitake mushrooms. These fresh mushrooms don't keep very long. Then i decided to dump some potatoes in... and since i needed some color... i added a whole carrot in.

I had some red spinach which is almost dying and wilted because its really cold in the fridge ^.^. So in goes the red spinach too.

What started as salty chicken became a pot of mismashed stew. *LOL* This is my all-in-the-pot Thursday.

I added some chili flakes and onions in the end. Its is considered a healthy meal as there was no oil involved... and we ate it with rice of course :) I was supposed to stir fry the spinach. But everything ended up in the pot. This happens sometimes. *LOL*

So far my dad hasn't complained much yet. One day he's gonna yell at me and say that he has had enough of the all-in-the-pot meals and parcel food from the oven. I think i might have to learn to refine my cooking and cook like a normal person soon.

Do you all cook like this? Do you follow a certain set of rules/recipes or improvise as you go along? I can't bake very well as i cannot follow the recipe properly. My cakes always end up weird and never quite the same.

I wanna show you what we have in our garden and why them kitteh kats love our garden.

 

This is our row of weeds in pots *LOL* They hold only weeds now. When my beautiful mom was still alive, these pots hold her very treasured bougainvilleas in many colors. Our city here is famed for Bougainvilleas. Ipoh is known as the Bougainvillea City.

This pot of weed flowers. Its a beautiful purple. The birds here do a lot of work transporting the seeds. Sometimes we do get a flower or two among the weeds.

I tried hard to have green fingers but its not happening. *LOL* The only other solution is painting them green with my paints :) When you are not good with planting, you get ready flowered pots of flowers.

do not know her name purple flowers

I got these at Tescos last week for 8 bucks. They are so pretty and still alive :) I got a pot of bird's eye chili plant too. It was full of bird's eye chili. I don't know how long these two will survive under my painted green fingers care. *LOL* Maybe over time, my painted green fingers will become green one day. We can hope :)

bird's eye chili

This is Charlie. He's the only kitteh kat here with a name. He's the one with the big mouth from yesterday's WW post which kinda got some of you spooked. *LOL* He was yawning in that picture. He's really a sweet lil kitteh kat. See.. he has a very small mouth when its closed.

Dommy doesn't have that big a mouth.. hehhehehe.. He still have a beautiful smile even with bad toofies. He had a very long shower today as he's beginning to really stink because of the heat. *LOL* He's not too happy about the long shower and the extra long blow drying thingy. But he's light as a feather now and smelling like a million buckaroos.

My mom loves purple flowers. Her anniversary is coming up next week. Dad's been extremely quiet these few days. Its gonna be five years since my mom left us.

The Salty Experience

Here's a recipe to share with you guys... from my best buddy :) The dish has a special name to remind me of my own folly with this dish.

Ikan Tauchu ala Jab

Ingredients you need:

1. 3 mackerels (ikan kembung)
   One tablespoon tumeric powder + half tablespoon salt. Mix them and rub a dub them fishes. Don't forget to make vertical cuts in the fish so that the tumeric can get in.
2.  Four tablespoon tauchu (fermented soybeans)
3. One tablespoon sweet soya sauce
4. One big onion cut into rings
5. One half cucumber, cut into long quarters
6. Two cloves garlic, chopped
7. Four shallots chopped
8. Three red chillies cut into large pieces
9. One inch ginger cut into matchsticks
10. One level tablespoon sugar
11. Half cup water
12. Half teaspoon tamarind paste to soak in a small bowl of water
13. One teaspoon cornflour mixed with three tablespoon water

Instructions:

• Deep fry fish until its crispy (to prevent the hot oil from dancing and jumping on to you, put some slices of onions in oil first). Set aside.
• In a pan, put some oil and fry the shallot, chillies, ginger and garlic.
• Put in the tauchu, water, cucumber, sugar, sweet soya sauce (no need salt as the tauchu is already salty). Put in the tamarind paste water. Then put in the large onion slices.
• Let the cucumber be soft To thicken the sauce, put in the cornflour mix if u want.
• Pour the sauce on the ikan and eat with lots of hot rice.

If you follow the instructions and ingredients closely, you will get something like this.

If you do not read instructions before you cook and leave out some key ingredients, you will get something like this... (don't laugh so loud la)

Do you see the vast difference and the follies you will get them fishes into if you don't read instructions BEFORE you cook. And not WHILE you are cooking :)

Anyways.. the darkkkkkkkkkkkk one was mine. It was pretty salty because i didn't add the cucumbers and i didn't follow the measurements properly. (I won't make a good baker). Tauchu and tamarind paste are salties, so cucumbers are important here to soak up them saltiness a little. We forgot about them cucumbers.

While dad and i were having that with rice, i had to hang my head in shame and told dad... urmm urmm.. you might need to go easy with the sauce.. scrape the sauce aside and just eat the fish *LOL*

Well... my dad loves to have his food pretty salty. Sometimes he will even have a small bowl of light soya sauce and chillies to dip his chicken or meat. His sodium intake is no good for someone his age. I am not quite helping much for coming up with such saltiness for dinner.

I bet his BP and his PSA levels went sky rocket high that night.

For the sake of my dad's health... i think its best that i stick to steaming fish or chicken for dinner :) Steaming dishes are the safest :)

Thanks to my buddy for the lovely recipe. If you are adventurous enough, you might want to try this dish. Its pretty good :) Just follow them ingredients and instructions. Its a tried and tested dish. Not by me because i don't do instructions well :)

As for dinner tonight, i'm just going to go to the Pasar Ramadhan stalls and get some real delicious food :) Its the fasting month for our muslim friends. Every evening, we have quite a big selection of things to buy to eat. I am gonna get some mini murtabaks :D I'll catch some pictures for you if it doesn't rain this evening.

We might be going on the road this weekend :) I promised someone i'll check out her exhibition before it ends... and its gonna end soon. The little one above misses home too. Probably we'll be away.

Now we got to go back to looking at some crummie codes. I am not even a programmer. I do not understand basic logic for codes. *LOL* Some people do ask for the moon.

Escapades With the Oven

A black little fella called Oben came to our home with Piper a forthnight ago. I shouted with glee and welcome him with a mighty big grin. Next is finding a place for Oben to sleep.

Clearing some stuffs from the counter, we finally found a big empty space for him to be hot.

Tadaaa! This is Oben. Say hi to Oben.

Lately we have not been posting much as we were pretty busy with this black fella :) Since most of my trays and stuffs are still in my sister's storeroom in Kuala Lumpur, i just went out to get some basic trays as i don't really have much patience to let an oven wait in vain.

The chinese have a saying that goes... "San See Hang" means New Toilet. When there's a new toilet around, everyone is out to check it out to take a leak. Same goes for the oven. When there's a new toy/cooking thingy in the house, everyone is pretty excited to cook/bake/do something with it. Even Dommy keeps reminding me about the bone & dog shape cookie cutters that i got a while back. Bake something for us lazy bum. He seems to be telling me. *LOL*

When all the bruhaha is passed, will this Oben be a white elephant shoved in the corner? Naw! I love ovens. I have a deep love for ovens since i was a little kid. I fell in love with the first oven way when i was barely 8. Even way back then, i had a dream to own that oven. Yea.. i am a pretty weird kid.

Thanks to my baby sister, i am back to my baking days :) This house will smell of cinnamon and cakes and more burnt stuffs :) My sister does love me a lot.

Disaster No 1 - Banana Cinnamon Cake
My tray was way too big (i only had one tray at that time) and the dough portion was too small *LOL* The cake was barely even 1 cm thick.. hehehhee.. but the cinnamon saved the day. So it was edible. I don't usually read instructions properly especially when i am baking.

Disaster No 2 - Baked Lemon Chicken
Tray size is correct this time. But too much lemon. It leaves a *twaaaaaannng* taste in the mouth.. hahahahahaha Still edible as both dad and i were hungry and we only had chicken and a salad for dinner.

Disaster No 3 - Blueberry Muffins for Nessa's Birthday
In honour of Nessa's birthday last Saturday, we baked some blueberry muffins. This time it was better. How wrong can you go with pre-mix. *LOL* My colleague says that i am cheating when i use pre-mix *LOL* But premix also have some measurements that need to be measured too... like the oil and the water. Since i bought a small crummy plastic measuring cup (for temporary use) which don't have all measurements, i had to google to convert the measurements while stirring the mixture halfway. Ya ya.. read the instructions first before you start baking. I know i know. I don't do instructions properly. But hey.. this turn out pretty okay except for the few in the center which got burnt pretty fast in the top *LOL*
Note to self: Read the oven instructions before attempting to bake anything.

Disaster No 4 - Beef Lasagna
This was just yesterday. My dad's been wanting to make lasagna since he came home from his holiday at Jaiboo's home. My sister taught him how to make lasagna when he was over there. And he wrote the recipe in his book. I have never made lasagna before but since dad had a recipe all written nicely, we decided to do it. He was pretty excited about it and kept asking me what time can he start layering the stuffs. Being the smart ass and just looking at his recipe, we both grinned and said.. this should be easy enough. How did it turn out? hehehehhehee.. It was quite like eating cardboard. *LOL* Rule of thumb: With Google and Youtube... we should always check.. How to Make a Simple Lasagna before attempting to make lasagna without a few key ingredients. *LOL* Still edible because we were both hungry. Cardboard still taste good :) Oh.. we were too busy trying to munch on the cardboard that we forgot to take pictures of it :)

Hopefully we will post more about successes with the Oben than more failures. But hey... with each failure, we learn a new thing :) Failure Breeds Success! (that is if you learn from each failure and read instructions next time)

These two below are still waiting for their turn with the oven. Poor guys.

To Tease

Turmeric and i go a looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong way. Lately, i've been using a wee bit of turmeric in some of the things that i cook. Turmeric is actually quite good for us. Its quite a common spice in Asian cooking.

My favourite is marinating chicken with turmeric and salt. After a while, just fry it and add a dash of light soya sauce. A simple dish which has a very aromatic smell to it. I love its simplicity and the aroma that turmeric adds to the chicken.

Mom used to make it too. Her chicken are cut in small pieces. Dainty dishes. My stuffs are cut never daintly.. hahahhahaha.. I am always in a rush for time. Sis will always complain about the size of the carrots and potatoes in my dishes *LOL* She will complain that i am trying to choke them all.

I remember my yoga master telling me that he bathes with turmeric. I didn't really have a chance to ask him properly on the benefits. Circumstances that surround the very life of mine... and i had to stop classes and go home. He's still the best yoga teacher i had. I haven't found one quite like him here. He has charisma.

Stormy gave me a recipe last week which i didn't follow properly as usual. Its quite hard for a cook to teach me as i don't follow instructions properly. *LOL* It was just another simple dish. But as usual, i did it my way.. and it tasted yucky.. hahahhahahaa.. It was also because i didn't have a certain dark sweet sauce.

Last weekend i got a big huge bottle of the dark sauce as i couldn't find the smaller bottle on the shelves. This time i was a little bit smarter and cook in smaller portions :)

And because of the dark sauce... it was a helluva of a success. Stormy was blinking proud of me and the master chef could only salivate over the pics *LOL*

nice or not? it was a bit sweet... but the sauce made it really nice. Now this sauce is kinda like my besty sauce.. hahhahahahhaa

Oh ya.. i marinated the chicken with turmeric too.. hehehhe.. and a tad of chili powder and salt. The end good results went to the "secret sauce".

Guess what is the secret sauce... :)

I kinda stumbled upon this 20 Health Benefits of Tumeric a while ago. Go check it out if you wanna find out more about turmeric.

Comfort

Comfort food. A familiar scent. Simple easy inexpensive food which are usually comforting to one. A reminder of a happy childhood perhaps.

The most comforting food are usually cooked by a loved one. Usually a mom or grandma. Well.. sometimes daddy or grandpa.

When i was staying on my own in KL, the one thing that i missed most is my mom's cooking and of course her beautiful self. Each time i come home, she'll cook many things for me. Even an egg that she fried would be like heaven in my mouth.

I live for simple food. There are hundreds of things that my mom has cooked that still live in my memory because they are my comfort food. The scent.. the taste... the yumminess.. i can remember them like i've just eaten them yesterday.

Basically, i am not a very good cook myself. I meet more disasters than successes while cooking. Poor dad and Boy are my guinea pigs now. Dommy is not complaining much.

It used to be my younger sister when i was in KL. I'll come up with funny stuffs for her to eat for dinner. Sometimes it could be just 2 slices of bread with some tuna in them.. with a touch of grilling in the oven (i miss my oven).

My colleagues were my other guinea pigs. I would make muffins that are as hard as rocks.. but they will still eat them.. and try not to choke. *LOL* Sometimes when i get lucky, they will get to taste a better cake... but i hardly get lucky when it comes to cooking because i never follow instructions.

Never a stickler for regularities.. i don't know why i keep buying recipe books and never do follow one properly. I will choose the shortest recipe... with the least ingredients. Don't even try to tell me about making rendang tok. When i saw the list of ingredients, i just ran the other way.

When you don't really know how to cook very well like me, you must at least know how to make a good soup. Chinese basically drink lotta soups. Soups are good. Comforting on a rainy day and good on the tummy too if you are not feeling too well.

Since i work from home and am just a few steps from the kitchen, i usually boil my soups at 3pm in time for dinner. The soups takes about 3 hours to boil in slow fire. And i double-steam my soups like some gungho cook *LOL*

Double steaming soups the old way like how my mom used to do. Double steaming is good if you are at home to keep at eye on the stove. Double steaming seals in the liquids and the essence of the soup. Nothing gets lost and the soup is super delicious :) It is called "dan tong" (in Cantonese) meaning steam soup.

I'll share some nice soupy soup recipes with you if you like.. soon. But the recipes will not have exact measurements. *LOL* Look out for it ya :)

Maybe.. just maybe i should try cooking the rendang tok one of these days. How wrong can i go right? But my aunt says it took her four hours to cook it the last time. And she was at the stove stirring it all the time. She did mention it was tiring. *LOL*

I think i'll just stick with simple comfort food. Below is the double steaming soup. Its called The Old Cucumber Soup.

pekaboo pot.. i see you ^.^

the old one

Thanks for following my long windy story today. Boy is going to bed. Time for me to sleep too. Goodnite.

Bak Chang Day

Today is Bak Chang Day. (Bak Chang means Pork Dumpling in Hokkien).

Duanwu Festival. The Dragon Boat Festival (or Tuen Ng Festival (in Cantonese pronunciation) is a Chinese traditional and statutory holiday. It is a public holiday in China and Taiwan, where it is called the "Duānwǔ Jié" and a public holiday in Hong Kong and Macau, where it is called the "Tuen Ng Jit". In English it is also referred to as "Dragon Boat Festival", after one of the traditional activities for the holiday. (info from Wikipedia)

I call it Bak Chang Day because the festival is associated with Bak Chang. You see a lot of Bak Changs hanging around in households and many will make the Bak Chang yesterday itself or much earlier. Lots of exchanging Bak Changs too from one household to another.

Lots of auntie auntie were buying last minute stuffs at the market yesterday to make the bak chang. It was like Chinese New Year. They were excited and chattering about like little birds. *lol* As clueless as i am always, i didn't know it was going to be Bak Chang day today. (i wasn't called a banana for nothing)

My mom used to make one of the nicest sweet smelling Bak Chang's ever. I never did find any other Bak Chang close enough to hers. She used to make a lot of Bak Changs when we were little. We'll have it for breakfast, lunch, tea, dinner and supper. After a few days of eating Bak Changs, you'll even start dreaming of Bak Changs falling on you. *lol*

It is a very tedious affair. She'll wake up real early and get all the stuffs ready. Lay all the stuffs on the floor in bowls, plates and the glutinous rice in a big tub. She needed to sit on the floor because the strings to tie the Bak Changs were hanging on the door handle. hehehehe

When we woke up, we all all surround her like a surround sound system... and play with the stuffs. I never like the black eye peas (not the band Black Eye Peas) so i'll always have special orders. I'll tell her i want this and that.. and no black eye peas. Mom will wrap it up and tie a small string to indicate that is my order. After a while, we will start to disturb her to let us try to make our own Bak Changs. She'll give in and let us try. Usually we get too greedy and pack too much in the leaves. When we try and fold it back, it will burst! *LOL* Then she'll shoo us away.

I never did learn how to make Bak Chang when i grew older. Mom stopped making Bak Changs when we were older. It was way too tedious. And there's not so many of us around to eat it too.

Since today is Bak Chang Day or Duānwǔ Jié, i'll share with you what we have for dinner. Its not a feast but its our usual stuffs plus the Bak Changs i bought from the auntie in the market. That is me trying hard to keep up with traditions. Maybe i'll even attempt to make Bak Changs next year if i hear the aunties chirping a bit earlier about Bak Chang Day *LOL* I got to go consult an expert cook of an aunt first :D

Tadaaaa...

fried fishes

stir fried ladies fingers and kacang botol

old cucumber soup

bought Bak Chang to substitute rice

Mundane stuffs but its already a feast for the three of us. I think one of my sisters will be salivating over this food. *LOL*

Happy Duānwǔ Jié to those that are celebrating :)

Ops! I almost forgot.. i found this on Youtube this morning from The Star. If anyone is attempting to do this Bak Chang... here's how...