Foodelicious!

This is an all time favorite with kids and adults since beginning of time! This dish is good with hot weather, rainy weather, no appetite days, fussy kids days or simply a lazy to cook days. Yup, take your pick as to what day it's today for me.. hehehehehe...

Originally, this recipe calls for Pork but since I dont eat pork, I substitute it with chicken fillet. Season the chicken fillet, chop up some onions, tomatoes, cucumbers and pineapples. Heat up the wok with oil till very hot, fry the chicken fillet, scoop up! Fry the onions, garlic, tomatoes, cucumber, pineapple and add in the sauce.. tomato sauce, a dash of vinegar, salt, sugar, plum sauce, worchestire sauce. Throw in the fried chicken fillet and toss it around a bit and dish up! Serve with hot rice and that will make a bad day seem bearable! Hehehe..

Tuesday started cloudy and dark with wind blowing and the many wind chimes around my house were happily dancing to the tune they make. My favorite weather.. aaaahhh... with such weather, it never fail to incite me to make something different.. today is something spicy and contrasting...

Yes, got everything together.. Yes, I always have most ingredients in my house.. either in the garden or in the fridge and slave away! Hahahaha.. yes, making this dish has a bit of slaving away work to do.. Gotta clean the serai, lengkuas, kunyit and a tiny bit of ginger which I yank out from my garden, pluck the chilies from my garden, peel the onions, toast the belacan a bit, put everything into the mortar and pastel and pound away. Yup, with all your might and anger.. very good for anger management! Hehehee... Once that is done, heat up the oil, fry the ingredients with a few pieces of kafir lime leaves, Vietnamese mint and if you have, torch flower till fragrant and oil floats up. Add in some cut up tomatoes and for today, I add in fresh pineapples. Add in tamarind water and once it starts to boil, add in fish, cut up brinjal and ladies finger. I like to season my dish with a twist of lime, sugar and salt and garnish with mint from my garden... My lunch is ready...

For me, it's always easier to cook than to go out to eat. Many a times, I stand and stare around at food court, restaurants, shopping malls not knowing what to eat.. Sad! Such incidents have taught me that it's always easier to cook... hehehe.. a simple meal of steamed 3 types of eggs and blanched vegetables with oyster sauce is just as yummy and satisfying as a meal in the most expensive restaurant cooked by the most renowned chef. Life can be great with simple things....

When I was in London, I noticed that people in London make use of every available plot of land around their housing area. Even tiny strips of land next to the road are used to cultivate something or another.. I even saw a chicken coop with a few chicken clucking away! Oh.. how I wish we are able to do just that here. Sigh.. this is the difference between a developed country and a non developed one like KL!!

Anyway, back to my stories, I was very inspired and motivated to start my farming again especially after a visit to Kew Gardens, London and with the many packets of seeds, I came back and planted some of them. After 2 months, I now have 2 very healthy zucchini plants in my mini vegetable farm.. a few cabbages are in progress, bell peppers fruiting.. oh.. the sight is simply very pleasing. It's such sights that give me tremendous happiness.. hehehe..

From my 2 healthy zucchini plants, I am able to harvest some zucchinis.. not big though but they are chemical free, organically grown with everyday produce as fertilizers.. grounded and used coffee beans, heads and ends and peels of vegetables that I use everyday, orange skin, lemon skin after having their juices, fruits and vegetable pulps from my daily juicing.. I dont need commercial fertilizer do I?? Hehehe...

With my harvest, I made this today for my monster's lunch. A very simple but deliciously appetizing dish.. zucchini and chicken in oyster sauce. Fry lots of chopped garlic, throw in cut up chicken fillet seasoned with a dash of pepper, salt, corn flour and sesame oil. Stir them up quickly, add in the sliced up zucchini, add a dash of oyster sauce, stirring all the time and lastly, a bit of water to give it a bit of sauce. When ready, dish up and serve with hot steaming rice. My monster can wallop 2 big bowls of rice with this dish! And my! the zucchini slices are so succulent and sweet!! I wish I could have more zucchinis in my garden! Hehehe...

With this, Monday dont seem so bad afterall.... Have a great week everyone!

When I was young, I wasnt much of a Curry Laksa fan..I still am not because very simply, my stomach has never been good and such rich and spicy dish dont sit well . This was always the case until years ago when I was in Penang. I had a spoonful of Penang Curry Mee from my uncle's bowl and I was bowled over!!

Penang Curry Mee is very light.. not thick with coconut. Infact, it's the opposite! It's light but fragrant and the taste is very pleasing. The broth is lightly flavored with a few simple spices balance off with enough coconut to please the tastebud. Where else, the condiments that went along with Penang Curry Mee is simple ingredients... a bit of bean sprout and long beans, a generous helping of freshly steamed prawns, slices of tender cuttlefish, a good heap of freshly peeled cockles garnished with mint and lots of taufoo puffs. For those who enjoy a more spicer kick, a spoonful of home made chili sambal will transform this Penang Curry Mee to another level of excitement!

Recently, I was craving for a good bowl of Penang Curry mee but couldnt find any in KL, so, I decided to make! Hehehe... read thru a few so called authentic Penang nyonya recipes but didnt quite find a good enough recipe to entice me.. so, decided to pick my aunt's brain on this. hehehe.. my aunt grew up in Penang and is a great cook.. So, with her information.. I set out to create this new excitement!

And yes! it was indeed great excitement to see my guests tucking into their bowls of Penang Curry Mee. Yes, it was bowls. They had a few rounds of it and was happily enjoying every single mouthfuls of it. Even the kids had a go at it! Hehehehe.. With that, I consider this a complete success! My Penang Curry Mee party at my secret garden was served with refreshingly chilled konikyaku jellies and a Roselle sangria drink. And yes, Roselle syrup are made from my secret garden too.... Life cannot be any better... great friends, good food and perfect weather are hard to come by these days...

This is a triple marbled cake... I remember the first time I had this cake was when I was a very small girl. Hehehe.. I am not that small anymore but this cake always has been my favorite. The 3 colors all crisscrossing each other and the flavor.. Hmmm.. lovely! This is extremely lovely with a good cup of tea...

Anyway, when I recommended this to Charlise's mom, she was instantly enticed. Hehehehe.. she got to know about my cake from a party that had my cake and after 2 slices of that cake, she was game for anything. So, with Winnie the pooh and Tiger in mind, Charlise's mom left it to me to come up with a design on a number 1 cake and I came up with this..

This cake was sold for RM280 ad it weigh in 2.75kg

Sean cannot decide between Buzz light years or ultraman and I suggested why not both? We can have Buzz meeting with Ultraman in space in the presence of the little alien. You should hear Sean's "Oooooo....." hahahahaha.. kids always brightens my day.

So, I came up with this.. A lemon buttercake weighing in at 2.4kg and was sold for RM260. A terribly yummy tangy lemon buttercake is Sean's mama's favorite cake..

Another variant I came up with using my Roselle jam. I got this idea from those traditional slices of cookies using shortcrust pastry at the bottom and a layer of jam with sweet coconut topping. However, funky me decided to change the shortcrust pastry slightly to give it a more melt in the mouth texture that will blow your mind off with a generous layer of tangy roselle jam. As for the top, instead of using coconut and sugar and what have you as topping, I decided to top this with another layer of pastry and a generous handful of almond flakes. The result??

Awesome!! Addictive!! Dont say I didnt warn you..