INSOMNIA

I have been having extreme difficulties falling asleep lately. Last night was of no difference and I asked myself, what should I do to tire myself out and not to waste any time.

I decided to bake a cake, a choc moist cake as my contribution towards a birthday party at Cock & Bull tonight. It took me less than 20 mins before I popped the cake mixture into the oven. Whilst waiting for the cake to be ready, I put on a DVD to watch. That certainly got my attention for the next 30 to 40 mins. The cake was left to cool for a good 10 mins before I cover a generous dollop of chocolate over it.

My hands were shaking, so there goes writing the word Happy Birthday over it. I placed strawberries and a greeting stand on it instead.

The result of insomnia looks like this. What do you think?

INGREDIENTS :-

200 gms Choc Moist Mixture
200 gms melted butter
200 gms eggs
100 gms water

Put all ingredients in mixing bowl and beat using speed no 1 for 5 mins.  Followed by another 10 mins on speed no 2.  Bake in oven for 30 to 40 minutes at temperature of 180 deg C.

The mixture is enough to bake two 8" cakes.

STRICTLY HOME COOKED FOOD

It is back to my weekly cooking cum fellowship session with my group of buddies.  I took a break last week as I did not have enough quorum.  For last night's dinner, it was home cooked all the way.  One of the attendees, 'Panda' called in the evening and volunteered to 'tapau' additional food.  I replied 'strictly home cooked food only'. 

The menu consist of the 'must' soup which was chicken boiled with chinese herbs such as yuk chuk, kei chee (wolfberries), red dates, cordyceps (which has slight resemblance to maggots) and dried longans.  There was chicken stew with potatoes, onions and carrots.  The chinese cabbage was stir fried with anchovies and sabotaged by 2 mini chillies just enough to add some 'excitement' to the palate.  Another dish was attempted pan fried garlic prawns but I did not fancy the idea of pan fried after I did the pan frying.  So I decided to add some soy sauce to it.  It tasted good.  Ken made his famous fish curry and Reena made soft shell crabs.

Dinner was good.  Some were glued to the TV watching Sun Tzu, The Art of War.  One was sleeping after dinner due to happy hour sessions before dinner.  The night was complete with a game of mahjong which ended at 1am. 

All in, it was a mildly sedated evening without booze.  My objective was achieved.

MID YEAR RESOLUTION 2011

Here I go again!  Me and my resolutions.  I even came up with a title for it this time, mid year resolution, what's next right?

I have been very bad at writing lately.  Never seem to find the time or catch the mood to do so.  Hence the mid year resolution, to blog more and to cook more.

I am pushing myself to cook with feelings, a hobby which I hope will develop into a full blown passion.  I hang out with a bunch of friends daily and they have earned a nick name from  me, 'THE NEEDIES'.  They will kill me of course if they ever find out I call them that.  These are a bunch of my friends who are deprived of home cooked food and deprived of  places to hang out and chill.  As I love all  my friends, I took it upon myself that they should at least have a decent meal a week which must consist of soup.

We started this weekly routine about 4 weeks ago.  Last night was what I called the Teochew Porridge Nite.  There were only 5 persons last night but the table was laden with food enough for 10, as usual thanks to Dar Dar who is ever so afraid there is not enough food to go around or either that he thinks that I will poison the rest with my cooking one day.

So, there were dishes of minced pork meat and braised chicken purchased from Sam Moon Chuk in Uptown, I fried choy poh omelette and luncheon meat, black bean fish from the can, salted egg, salted veg, salted fish (hahaha... everything salted), fried fish topped with sliced salted veg and chillies cooked by Ken.  and my soup of the week, some herbal chicken soup for clearing the lungs (all of them are smokers!!)

I, of course had rice!

BUTTER CAKE RESOLUTION

My last post was... gosh.. November 22, 2009.  That seems like many moons ago. Christmas came and gone.  New Year 2010 passed by in a wink.  And so did the Chinese New Year.  I made many resolutions to myself and I wonder just how many of them would I fulfill this year.  Let's see.. I shall start with one the very simple ones.

1.  To bake an 8" diameter butter cake instead of cup cakes which I did in 2009.  From a whole butter cake, I hope I will graduate to icing the cake.:-).  I bought a book on how to decorate cupcakes from my friend, Veron last year and I have yet to even attempt on the simplest recipes.

Therefore, I woke up at 6 am last Saturday (27 February 2010) to take the butter and eggs from the refrigerator so that it will be at room temperature by the time I am ready to bake.   Went back to sleep and finally woke up at 930 am.  With certain amount of enthusiasm, I started my cake baking routine and this is the result.  A whole cake and 8 cupcakes.

 

Hmmm.. rather proud of myself as I was actually playing around the measurements of ingredients.  This is the result from:-

227g butter

180g sugar

3 medium eggs

250g self raising flour, sifted

1 tsp vanilla essence

Bake for 1 hour.

Will make some more soon.  Mike took the cupcakes home and I gave the whole cake to my parents as my dad loves butter cake.

CHRISTMAS IS BUT A MONTH AWAY

Christmas is but a month away.  Each year I ask myself what is the true essence of Christmas.  Somehow we cant escape from the commercialism or the pagan way of Christmas celebrations which involves new clothes, gift giving,  lots of alcohol drinking, rich food, meeting up with friends etc..  I myself am guilty of all mentioned.  I do go for midnight mass which I would have preferred not to as it does not hold any true meaning for me anymore.  I embrace Christmas which marks the birth of Christ in solitude. 

I had brunch with a girlfriend today at a restaurant which is popular for their Ipoh Hor Fun with steamed chicken.  The restaurant was crowded and business was brisk.  I ordered my chicken rice just as my friend predicted and was going through the motion; eating and catching up on the latest gossips.  I noticed an old man whom I guessed is from the PRC walking into the restaurant holding on to a transparent plastic cup. filled with RM1 notes.    He started begging from the 1st table which was nearest to the entrance.  As he approached I looked away and continued talking to my friend.  I always maintained a policy of not encouraging such 'donations' to beggars.

But my eyes could not help following his  movement and one thought came to mind.  Should I have given him something?  After all,  RM1 would not have caused a dent to my wallet.  My Mike would have done so.  As he approached the last table where a family of 7 or 8 people who consisted of a father, mother , children and grandparents were seated, the head of the family (father) asked if the old man was hungry.  The beggar nodded his head and the man promptly ordered a bowl of hor fun soup for him.  This family was leaving and they made sure that the beggar had his fill. 

The old man ate his food hungrily and continued about with his business of begging, smiling.  I am not sure how many people who would have set out to make such a difference.  I didnt... I was overcome with mixed emotions, mainly guilt.

Such a scene reminds me of one of those forwarded emails telling us that The Lord appears to us in many forms and ways.  Perhaps he appeared in the form of that beggar today and I cast him aside.

Christmas is about giving NOT receiving. 

'POON CHOI'

Literally translated means basin dish.  No joke!  The word 'poon' means basin and 'choi' is dish/vegetable.  Enough to feed a table of 14, we had this dish on Thursday, 08/10/09 to celebrate Noel's birthday.  Well, there wasn't 14 of us, only 11.  The dish consists of half a chicken, half a duck, a fish, loads of vegetables, pork knuckles, 12 big prawns, fish maw, mushrooms etc.  All layered up in one big basin and served as seen in the image attached.

The restaurant goes by the name of LYJ, very popular judging from the photos of famous celebraties posted on the walls at the main entrance. Besides this 'poon choi', the restaurant serves many other interesting and I suspect delicious dishes.  Although it was a Thursday, being a weekday it was packed with patrons but by 9.45 pm, it was almost deserted.  The restaurant is situated in Sungai Buluh new village and is well known amongst Rahman Putra golfers.

For the price of not more than RM250, the 11 of us had a scrumptious and very filling dinner.  Dinner was accompanied by our Mr Lee's XO Supreme brandy but alas, he was not able to join due to a sore tongue or so he claims.  Just as Mike commented, where did he put his tongue into?? :P

090909

9 September 2009... 09/09/09...

How often does this happen?  I must post something, anything.  I thought of taking pics of my new shocking pink wedges which I am wearing now but darn.. my camera is out of battery.  Something on fashion I thought but forget it since I am already wearing them today.

I met up with my ex-colleagues/best friends/confidantes yesterday evening for buka puasa at Delicious, Bangsar Village 2.  I have skipped many meet ups and I could not afford to miss this one. I had a great time catching up on the latest gossips and happenings with everyone.

I was in such a hurry to buka (like I fasted la.. but I was hungry ma..) puasa and was hanging on to every word, I totally forgot to take pics of my food, of everyone... Sigh!

Mawar brought along Didi and Yaya, Nora and Hamidah came solo, Priya could not make it.. Too bad, no pics of the yummy Green curry Chicken or the Assam Garoupa or the Thai steamed Sea Bass or the gooey chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream.

We ended our session at 930pm.. wonder when will we meet again.  Hopefully during Hari Raya. :)