Must Have Second

The holiday was the only time family got together. And it is only fitting to have a special dish cooked during the days. In our house, one menu that always fits the bill is the Arab Rice a.k.a Nasi Maqlubah. 

It is a one pot meal or rice dish that serves with a side of refreshing salsa. 

Rice, meat and vegetables mix with savory herbs completing the comfort food description for our family. It's the fragrant smell of the dish that always remind us of home.

Tea Time: Sweet and Savory Pancakes

These pancakes has became our favorite munchies during tea time. This time we made two fillings; the usual red bean and chopped scallions. 

Kitchen Invaders 6: The Rolling Part

Hello???

Oh my, the blog was covered with cobwebs already! Those who have visited probably has to dodge through the sticky webs. Sorry folks, my bad...

So today I am with yet another adventure of my sisters. We are trying our hands on making the  famous Japanese food, SUSHI. Oh yeah, you read that right. For first timers, we kind of doing okay. A little bit of sticky business but the result were quite good though. The handling need to be improve more I think since certain slices looks crumbly. Not enough pressure while rolling maybe?

It  started with my sister bought a sushi-making kit and brought it home for us to get our hands on it. The kit comes in complete package of a bamboo rolling mat, a pack of seaweed, a tube of wasabi, a bottle each of soy sauce and vinegar. Good enough for a starter kit don't you think? The thing was, she and her housemates each bought a kit to bring home for the short break! I guess they'll be making a lot of sushi in the future. 

I have to say, after so many of how-to-make-sushi videos we've watched on you tube finally we got to try it ourselves. One more thing to cross from our too long what-should-we-make list! The simple ingredients wouldn't hurt either. Only half of a cucumber, one omelette, a few nuggets and mayonnaise. 

Hazy Day

Good morning, rise and shine everyone! Though we can barely see the sunshine this morning, it doesn't mean we can stay in bed all day. 

It's been in the news. We had a bad case of haze in Bangi. So folks, it's better to stay inside. Due to the hot weather, best to drink a lot of water and please refrain from being out in direct sunlight if you have no business to do so. Another thing, you might want to stock up on premix Lai Chi Kang. This drink contains ingredients that help cooling off high body temperature. Or if you have no access to it, barley drink will do the trick. 

Now, you'll probably have eaten your breakfast. If it not being the case, you might want to try this out. It will brighten your day somehow... ^_^

From Middle East with Love

Hi, it's me! ^_^

Finally I'm able to make an appearance on the site after M.I.A last week. You might think that I was lazying around the house *because of the disappearance act* but that's not it. Actually, last week was pretty hectic in the house. My sister was home for college break and also there was my dad's birthday on Monday. Naturally, we put together a little feast to celebrate. Ever since my dad had his first taste of Nasi Maqlubah or better known as Arab Rice, he specifically requested the dish to be made on special day such as this.

With a middle eastern dish on the menu, we had to do the prepping early on or else the rice could not be serve on time for lunch. It wasn't hard to cook the rice at all. You just need to the cooking ahead than usual for there are a few deep frying to do before mixing it all together.

I Love My Pockets!

Good morning! It's bright and sunny here, hopefully until the evening. The past few days were a bit cold and damp so this change of weather is very welcome! And this glorious day calls for a glorious breakfast. Are you up for it? ^_^

I've Done It, Finally

We can't always have sweets all the time. Bad for health. Bad for teeth. That was always drummed into me when I was little. Okay, I get it. We should change course every now and then, just to broaden our mind (in this case our taste?)!

But I seem to have a problem straying from bread. Really, it has a thing to do with bread again. Can't stay away from it. Only this time it won't be sweet. I promise.

Full of Starch

Following the previous post, I've mentioned the superb crusty dinner rolls that we've had on the AJL 26 night. Warm from the oven, the crispy crust and and chewy inside made perfect for soaking up broth or soup *goes so well with potato soup!*. I even dip the rolls alone in tomato sauce! Wickedly good!! ^__^

The dough doesn't need to be knead. Can't believe that right? Me too. I was a bit skeptical with this no-knead bread thing. But the oh-so-good picture from this foodie blog encouraged me. Since the only step was mixing all the ingredients then leave it to rise, why not give it a try? This bread is FOOL-PROOF! You won't be disappointed. ;)

The Good Green

One thing that I love about pasta is how easy and quick a meal can be prepared. Like this one. Seriously when you don't feel like cooking but still have to, a quick pasta dish is perfect for you. It takes no more than 20 minutes. 

This is a basic pasta recipe that can be easily modified. You can add any protein you like while cooking the sauce though it won't be necessary. Just so you know, the sauce was really green! You might be turn-off by the color of the sauce if you have anything against green. But trust me, the dish was more than meet the eyes. 

Don't Go Green On Me!

Herbs are not just essential for adding flavor into food but also given their medicinal properties are good for our body too. For that, I've been trying to include more herbs into everything I made these days. 

Starting the campaign, I tried a pretty simple pesto recipe from Simply Recipes. It used the least favorite herb in our home. So I wanted see how this will fare with the picky-eater in the house. Can they handle it? 

Simple Feast

Salam 'Aidil Adha to all Muslims!

It feels so good to be back. ^_^ Seems like ages ago since the last post!

So, how do we spent the day off?!

Let see...

 We had Mee Jawa (Javanese Noodle) for breakfast and lunch:

Acik tried to concentrate on doing her Math assignment between Facebooking, chatting and Googling:

Shin-kun having a personal time sun bathing on the balcony:

And my dad was totally fixed on telemovie Qurban Tak Jadi:

Having said that, the fever was taking turn on everybody in the house and lucky for me I'm all better. Alhamdulillah... ^_^  Does the Mee Jawa above made you salivate? If so, lets get to the recipe!

It's Mine!

We fought over these. 

It was silly, really.

But we had to stand guard on what ours...

A Plateful of Comfort

There are times when people just don't feel like doing anything. They rather sit quietly by themselves and do nothing. Staring into space, contemplating their circumstances, calculating their actions... Or whatever that was passing by before them or popping up in their mind. I think it's possible that nothing could get a reaction from those who choose to ignore their surrounding. 

Except, maybe for food. 

Yes, you might disagree but it is a wonder what food could do to your senses.

Slow Heat

We are still in raya mood. Just yesterday, we entertained a group of my little brother's friends. Not exactly doing an open house because I don't think I can manage cooking up for so many people even with the help of others. But to be able serving the kids with a new dish that they've never tried before and they actually like it, felt like an accomplishment to me. *A little pat on the back for me!  ^_^*

The cooking took only an hour including the preparations. Quite a fast food we made yesterday. Black pepper fried noodle and luscious chocolate cake. And simple, cool red syrup rose with lime drink to wash it off.

We Called It 'Lempeng'!

I think it's safe to say that almost everyone likes pancake. It's hard to imagine not to like a pancake. A simple yet can be fulfilling and so very versatile in the making. With a basic batter, you can make it into thousands different flavor with a slight addition of different ingredient. The key is to experiment.

Breakfast Matters

I like the topic for Hot Fm's hot-chat this morning. The importance of breakfast and why skipping it can relate to gastric. As long as I remember, my siblings and I have been trained to eat our breakfast since we're at a very young age *more or less when we could get more food inside our mouth instead of on the table* I guessed since we were 4 or 5. 

The Art of Alfredo

Any type of pasta in a white, cheesy, creamy sauce is forever the comfort food. Known all over the globe as alfredo sauce, the taste is widely varied. There are so many version of alfredo sauce out there, each one has been improvised by the cooks to suit their palates. 

Dance Moves: Soup to Recover

Watching the hottest dance show on 8TV *Showdown 2011, what else?!* could make you go hungry. As if your energy was spent along with the dancers on stage. The show has some very promising dance crews with their own style of choreography. 

My favorite crews *notice the plural...^_^*, have to be the two strongest crews in the show. HMC Phlow and Elecoldxhot. 

See them move... 

Of Pizza "Pie"

When you're so damn hungry, it helps if your fridge is always stuffed with frozen or make-ahead food. Like this very appetizing dish that looks like forever to make can be done within an hour. You can use anything you've got in the fridge to make it. Trust me, it was as easy as a pie!

Asian Style Beef Stew

Our lunch today was absolute-finger-licking-goodness. I wanted to try a Chinese recipe for a change and came up with this dish that uses beef and daikon as the main ingredients. As there aren't any daikon in my fridge, I took the liberty to use sweet potato instead.

The result was so damn good! Everyone loved it. The beef was sweet and so tender, I'm practically drooling now just thinking about it. It needs only simple flavoring but the result was spectacular! I am not kidding. O_o

You may think I'm just exaggerating things. Well, give it a try. Then you tell me... It was easy to prepare, you'll just leave them to cook *but don't forget to check on it!* As I promised, here is the the recipe of the dish I mentioned in "Something Is Boiling".