Banana Chia Power Smoothie

So you’re all pooped from the festivities. 

Need an energy booster? 

Or a cure for a hangover? (Do I sound like an ad?)

This was something I picked up from my travels. An instant energy booster. Yummy to boot.

Just the other day, I’d found it on our local grocer’s chiller and wait …. how much was that? You gotta be kidding me?! Forget it, I’ll make my own ….. 

It makes a great breakfast on the go as well. For someone (me) who isn’t into the whole shebang of slicing, toasting, pan frying, buttering, eat, wash and wash some more … this is just brilliant. 

Make it the night before and you’re all set to take on the world the next day!

INGREDIENTS

(Note: measurements are per 250 - 300 ml bottle / mason jars)

1 - 2 small bananas, sliced (this depends on how thick you want your smoothie to be)

1 cup apple juice

1 tbs chia seeds (too much of this and you’ll get pudding)

1/4 tsp ground cinnamon

honey / sugar (optional)

METHOD

Puree bananas and 1/2 cup of the apple juice in a blender or food processor until smooth.

Put 1 tbs chia seeds and ground cinnamon into bottle / jars. 

Pour in puree and top up with remaining apple juice, cap and shake to mix it up.

Leave overnight in the fridge.

Glug the next day … watch out, world!

Merry Quiet Christmas

Christmas Wreath Bread

Click for recipe

Merry Christmas everyone!

Wishing all you happy people more happy times, to those who have lost their loved ones, wishing you acceptance and closure and happier times ahead. It'll be a mellow Christmas for us who have sad memories but we still need to keep our strength .... so...we EAT!!

Like I told a fellow friend and blogger .... Food is always a good solution. Eat too much and you can't move to do any damage to anything... not enough and you'd be searching and too busy foraging to bother about what's happening around you. 
So my message to close off the end of a relatively non-eventful (thank goodness) year .... EAT.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN !

The Great Pumpkin is gonna be so sore at me. I seem to have eaten all of my pumpkins and left none to carve and welcome halloween in. 

Shhh…don’t tell him what this is …. it’s a pumpkin in its halloween costume…yeah…that’s it.

They’re getting really good at make-up and their costumes these days, don’t ya think? Great disguise!

Anyway…have a Happy Halloween y’all !!

Enjoy the season with it’s wonderful gorgeous colours which we (in this part of the world) can only visualise unless somebody forgets to water their garden.

Chocolate Chips Pumpkin Cake

It’s pumpkin season again. 

I love pumpkins. I used to go crazy thinking of unconventional things to make, cook, bake with pumpkins. 

Crazy moments: 

~ Fried Pumpkin Indian Style

~ Pumpkin Roasted Duck Steamed Kuih

~ Pumpkin Tomato Soup Chicken

~ Pseudo-Chinese Pastry

There must be over a hundred varieties out there. We get a good variety from the local grocers. And to mess about with, I wouldn’t even bother getting expensive imported ones. Our local variety is good enough …. similar to the winter squash, Linus’ pumpkin patch types, the one Cinderella took to the ball and forgot to come back before her curfew and lost her shoe (definitely pretty ill-fitting shoe, I must say, and probably had one too many margaritas … you really have to read between the lines of those fairy tales to get the gist of the saucy substance of what the author is actually trying to say but could not due to childrens’ story books bylaws or whatnots).

Anyway, enjoy this while pumpkin is still in season or just freeze mashed pumpkin and you can have it all year through! 

Oh …. before I go mess about some more ….

For those who do not want to use canned pumpkin puree, you can prepare your own very easily.

Just get rid of the hard skin and seeds. Cut into large chunks and steam them for a few minutes (you can tell when they’re soft. The colour turns a darker orange). 

And, in this recipe, I did not mash the pumpkin too fine (I did call it mash and not puree). It’s good either way. I kinda like the speckled orange look.

(This cake is a combination of recipes. So if anyone feels that this originated from yours, please let me know. I’ll add a link and your cake pic to this). 

INGREDIENTS

1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg
1 cup mashed pumpkin
1/2 cup (4oz) butter, melted
2 eggs
1/4 cup milk
1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

METHOD

Preheat oven to 170ºC.
Generously butter a 9”X5”X3” loaf pan or three 6”X3”X2” mini loaf pans.
Combine flour, salt, sugar, baking soda, cinnamon and nutmeg.  Mix well.
In a separate mixing bowl, beat eggs.
Add pumpkin, melted butter, and milk. Mix well.
Combine wet ingredients with the dry and mix.

Fold in chocolate chips.
Pour batter into prepared loaf pan/pans. 

Bake for 40-50 minutes or until a cake tester inserted in the middle comes out clean.
Remove cake from pan and cool on a wire rack.

Guest Post: Little Miss Sunshine

Here I was, thinking I wasn't going to be able to come up with a post until the end of the year with all that's been going on, when a little ray of sunshine popped out of the darkest clouds that were looming over my head ... in the form of my niece. Such a great support. Thank you, dear girl, for carting away my cake pans, messing up my kitchen., and "trying" to clear my fridge. That would take many visits, *hint*.  

How can this not cheer anyone up? And if the looks alone doesn't get you, those little sour bursts from the cranberries will! I loved the tartness of the fruit in this and the crunch of the almonds with the caramelization from the sprinkling of sugar. 

Everyone, I'm sharing with you today .... my personal ray of sunshine with her Cranberry Bottom Cake.


My aunt's pantry is a bajillion times better stocked than my own bare-bones, gotta-cart-it-to-a-new-apartment-every-few-months one. Every time I come over I'm itching to bake or cook and take advantage of her ridiculous supply. I've already got several ideas for my next trip so she better be prepared to do some serious eating!


I love the tart explosiveness of cranberries, but I haven't had any of the fruit since my last Thanksgiving in the States 3 years ago (I've been working abroad since). When my aunt mentioned that she had some in the freezer I jumped at the opportunity to bake something with it and promptly found this recipe from the Beantown Baker that I had to adapt a bit (not fully melted butter and coarse sugar), resulting in a thicker batter and thus more of a cake-y-ness than the pie/macaron-ish texture she described. It's fast and easy and the sugar/cranberry/almond bottom resulted in a caramelized coating. The cake itself was just light enough and not too sweet, letting the cranberry's flavor and zest shine through. 



CRANBERRY BOTTOM CAKE

INGREDIENTS

2 cups raw cranberries (fresh or frozen)

zest of half an orange

1/2 cup sliced almonds

1 & 1/2 cups white sugar

2 eggs

3/4 cup (~170g) butter, melted

1 teaspoon almond extract

1 cup all-purpose flour



METHOD


1. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F (160 C). Grease a 10-inch pie plate or 8-inch square pan.

2. Wash the cranberries, leaving some water on them (thaw first if frozen). Combine the cranberries with the almonds in the pie plate. Sprinkle with 1/2 cup of the sugar. It was basically enough for a layer of almonds and then a layer of cranberries.

3. Cream the remaining 1 cup sugar with the eggs and butter. Stir in the almond extract and zest. Add the flour and mix well. Pour/spread over the cranberries.

4. Bake for 35 to 45 minutes or until a tester inserted near the center of the crust comes out clean. Let cool slightly before serving warm, or serve completely cooled. This would go well with some whipped cream or ice cream.





Happy holidays everyone, enjoy the cranberry cake!

Thanksgiving Roasted Duck & Sundried Tomatoes Pasta

Okay, so I cheated, and used a store bought roasted duck. 
Hey, Thanksgiving isn't even celebrated big time here. It should, if not just to remind everyone to be thankful and doesn't have to be about any country's traditions and shmaditions if you don't want it to be. Gratitude is the keyword, not stuffing, yams or turkeys .... or even pasta ... well, it can be, but gratitude comes first, and then stuffing, yams and turkeys ... even pasta.

I'm thankful, even after several months of sadness, mishaps and not-nice whatnots, I still have some sanity and strength left in me. Thankful that I still have some time to make and post this. Thankful that you are reading this. Thankful to be here. 
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

I've never had to roast a duck (I'm thankful for that too, altho I'd like to try do so one fine day). People seem to like giving me roast duck. I get this quite often. I love roast duck ... any which way. I'm happy.
I was given this, I said thanks. Thanks-given. Thanksgiving ... get it? Oh well ...
This one was roasted in the Cantonese style, with a strong flavor of five spice. You can use any kind of roasted duck meat.
The usual way we enjoy this is with fluffy steamed rice and perhaps some vegetable side dish. 
I like teasing off the meat and using them in all sorts of concoctions. This is one of our favorites.

Notice I don't have any measurements. It's up to you how much you stuff you want in your pasta. Just toss everything in.


INGREDIENTS

Roasted duck meat, sliced
Garlic, finely chopped
Sun-dried tomatoes, sliced (if not using those already packed in oil, soak dried ones in hot water until soft)
sweet basil leaves
salt, to taste
chilly flakes, optional

prepared pasta (I used Vermicelli, the finer spaghetti)


METHOD

Saute chopped garlic in a little oil until fragrant but not burnt. (If you have duck fat, it would be awesome!)
Stir in chilly flakes, if using.
Add in duck meat. 
And then the tomatoes.
Stir fry for a couple of minutes.
Toss the prepared pasta to mix evenly with everything.
Season with salt to taste.
Finally add in the sweet basil leaves just before serving.


Sounds simple? I can tell you, the sun-dried tomatoes, basil and the roasted duck goes perfect with each other! 
This is actually similar in method to the shrimp/seafood pasta recipe, just a twist to the ingredients.



                         ~ Thank you for being you ~

Happy Halloween !

Have a happy halloween, everyone! 

Do you like my carved pumpkin? No, seriously, that really is a pumpkin, all decked out in its halloween pepper costume! 

It's hard to get into the halloween mood these days. Parents are terrified of their kids getting kidnapped. Grownups are getting fearful of muggings. I guess if you live in a gated community, there would be a lot more fun going on. That's how it is with the world today ... a new kind of halloween, where the spooks and ghouls are scared of the new world evils. People should now dress up as computer viruses, kidnappers, muggers and politicians.

We cope. 
We can only be safe, be aware and be smart.

Happy Horrorday!

In case you have too much pumpkin leftover than you know what to do with, here's a couple of not-so-usual suggestions that might interest you:

~ Pumpkin Roasted Duck Meat Steamed Kuih
~ Pseudo Chinese Mid-Autumn Pastry
~ Spiced Pumpkin & Tomato Soup Chicken
~ Fried Pumpkin Indian Style

Otherwise, just steam the flesh, mash it up and store it in the freezer. Very useful during non-pumpkin season.

Repost: Happy Eid & Seeing Green (again)

I was just looking through some old posts and came across this which I'd totally forgotten I'd written about. This would be appropriate since it's around the same time last year when we decided to find our inner country bumpkins and cleanse our over-polluted lungs. 
It was so quiet and peaceful due to the Eid season. Some of us who did not return to hometowns or go off on vacations, benefited from this very short but sweet moment of nature appreciation and friendship. 
Happy Eid ul Fitr to all my Muslim friends out there. Travel safe, eat safe and come home safe.

16th September was Malaysia Day. And to celebrate, a bunch of us very city folks with a couple of city-but-a-little-more-experienced-in-jungle-trekking folks headed off to Janda Baik. This is located just below Genting Highlands, our own homegrown Las Vegas, started by Mr/Datuk/I don't-know-how-many-titles-he-has, Lim Goh Tong, bless his Chinaman soul. I watched a tv interview of him a long time ago and I really liked the guy, even though what he created brings out the devil in so many people and causes so many heartaches due to some peoples' gambling addictions and an incurable need to make money the quick and easy way. On the other hand, he's helped the country's economy and workforce. But that's another story.

Greens are good for you. It's been proven, gastronomically and visually. We all know about the benefits from eating vegetables, so we won't get into that. Looking at green things apparently relaxes the eyes and calms the mind and soul ... so I read ... somewhere.

Janda Baik, which means "Good Widow", is filled with lush greens, especially since it's been raining almost daily for the last month. The secondary tropical jungle surrounds small fruit farms scattered around the area. And if you look carefully, you might see some pretty fancy getaway homes among them. These farms produce a good supply of local fruits for sale at the surrounding village shops and also the scalp-the-tourist shops below the entrance to and at Genting Highlands.

The morning started out like all groggy mornings. Fortunately it wasn't raining and was quite a lovely day. 10 of us left in 3 cars and convoyed to a good Malaysian breakfast in the hopes of having lots of energy for the trek. Unfortunately and predictably, after stuffing our faces, we were all pretty warm and woozy. Cups of hot teh tarik (hot milk tea) and coffee didn't seem to work. The drive took another half hour before we got to the little township of Janda Baik. Meanwhile, folks who weren't driving were nodding off in the back seats.

We left our nice, air conditioned cars (hey, we're city folks, remember?) at the car park of a quaint little place called Hawa Resort.They have a good facility for training, leadership and fellowship building purposes. It was quiet at this time of the year due to Ramadan and Eid and most folks are off to their kampungs (hometowns), so we have the whole place to ourselves...

...except for 2 of the most ferocious geese I've ever met. Hmmm... Christmas is coming, and we haven't had roast goose for a long while. Ok, ok, just kidding ...

They make excellent watchdogs.. umm.. i mean, watchgeese.

The air was fresh and clean, the earlier couple of rainy days helped, lack of noise pollution (except for the occasional jabbering from some individuals of our group), breathe in, breathe out, inhale, exhale ....

We started our trek going through a "langsat" (botanic name: Lansium Domesticum) fruit orchard. And thus, our trek was delayed by a good half hour :)

After having been satisfied with taking pics and some mouthfuls of the sweetest, freshest langsats I've ever had, we finally set off on the trail that our so-called guide and friend claimed he knew like the back of his hand.

You know something's about to go wrong, right?

It wasn't quite so bad. After much slipping and sliding, cuts and bruises, bugs and leeches and crashing our way through some denser undergrowth due to non-traffic during Ramadan season, we landed up at a place we were not supposed to be...in other words, we got lost.

Wild boar foraging grounds. You can see the upturned earth where they dig for edible roots. Thank goodness we didn't meet with any of them oinkers. Those things are fierce! and

dangerous! and you think just because they're big and fat they can't run? Think again. I've seen the pygmy ones in Africa and they were scary little round things with upright tails, running and nipping at our heels with sharp toothpick tusks trying to puncture the truck tires ... dumb things. I'm certain I wouldn't want to meet up with their Malaysian, 10x-bigger-in-size cousins!

I think some people in the group probably didn't realize this. Maybe it's just as well.

Nah, it's not quite as exciting as it sounds. It happened to be the backyard of one of those holiday homes and we just had to trespass (sshhh) and cut through the massive garden to the river where we had our picnic.

It was a lovely place to picnic. Some of us were frolicking in the river while others were enjoying the greenery and tranquility of the whole situation. And some were trying to stop the bleeding from leech bites with a forest herb called "Senduduk Hutan" (botanic name: Melastoma Polyanthum), a Rhododendron-like shrub, by crushing the leaves and rubbing it on the wound. It worked for some but not for all. Apparently, you need the ones that grow deep within the jungle.

(A word of advice: rub bug repellant around ankles to prevent leeches from crawling up your legs and into your socks and who knows where else.)

Things went really quiet after that. No more of the excited chatter at the beginning, no more screechings from discovering leech bites, no more shrieks from falling on one's butt into the mud (that was me...ahem).... just calm and peace with a hint of tiredness in the air. How do I explain it? A satisfying tiredness? Ah, yes,...... Contentment. Absoverylutely zen.

Pearl of the Orient : Diet Buster

I had a great weekend in Penang, aka Pearl of the Orient. Short as it was, the visit was well spent with good friends and good food! And that, my friends, was the end of my very short-lived diet. Nobody goes to Penang and goes on a diet. 
Do you hear a complaint? Heck, no.
I'm blissfully contented, and I shall just have to start another diet soon.... did I say soon? I meant, now.


In the meantime, may I tickle your tastebuds with pics of some of the popular local dishes on the island? 
These are some of the stuff I crave for. I live in the big city now, where things are modern, fancy, expensive, the city where you can get cuisines from all over the world. Great chefs have graced our 5-star hotel kitchens. Well known celebrity chefs have bothered to visit our not-so-humble country and cooked for the country's rich and famous. And yet, nobody here can make a decent plate of fried koay teow (fried rice noodles), mee goreng (indian fried noodles), just to name a couple. Yes, of course, there are those who claim they come from Penang and that the dishes are authentic. You can't fool a real Penangite's tastebuds. Pffft.


I can't believe I've only 6 dishes to show you. I know we ate more than that in one sitting. (Told you my diet's busted). We must have eaten them so quickly there wasn't even time to take a pic. 


Anyway, ogle and drool time .... (I'm speaking for myself)

Top row, left to right:
charcoal baked crab with roe, salt baked prawns and baked crabs before they got massacred (peeking out from top right corner: stir fried littleneck clams)


These were from a ramshackled restaurant, very old but famous for the Chinese temple next to it. (You think it's good feng shui?). It's also by the beach. Sitting in the outdoors, praying hard that the grey clouds above don't decide to turn on their faucets. There was a lovely cool breeze blowing, was there a good sunset? Too busy eating, laughing and chatting to notice. 
There were also grilled fish, chicken and mutton satay, fried noodles ... pictures we forgot to take.  


Bottom row, left to right:
fried oysters omelet, fried koay teow and kerabu meehoon (nyonya rice vermicelli salad)


These were from another old but popular place where the locals like to hang out and load up on their favorite hawker fare. A place we Penangites fondly call "padang", which means "field". Aptly named, as there is a huge padang beyond these stalls, where kids and adults from around come to have their walkies and whatever form of exercise and play. And as usual, we were so engrossed in stuffing our faces, we forgot to take photographs of some of the things we had ..... pasembur (Chinese style salad, consisting of shredded jicama and cucumber, crispy fritters and tofu, all drenched in a sweet potato sauce), nyonya kuihs and fresh coconut to drink.


And this is where I hibernated after each meal.

sigh ...... definition of Contentment: Ping.

Happy Easter!

Have a Happy Easter, everyone!

I must apologize for this being a repost of my past Easter stuff. I'm in a bit of a family medical crisis and not have much time nor enthusiasm (and "glowing" at the same time) to cook or bake or write much ... definitely not good company. And to top it all off, I have the flu. Yup, a case of over-glowing. Why do they say "catch a cold" when it's the heat that causes it? Why not catch the hots? :D

English is so strange, it's no wonder us Asians (some non Asians too) find it so confusing and keep getting the wrong message all the time ... not too good when it comes to business ... I suppose it could get worse during world peace negotiations .... Hooboy!

I remember my late uncle who couldn't even get his tongue around the simplest English word and had to deal with an overseas call when all the English-speaking staff were out to lunch ... he told the poor confused guy, "I am Missy Lao" ... actually meaning to say "I am busy now". Luckily they didn't lose that business contract.

My train is going off-track again, isn't it? I tend to do that a lot.

Easter ... that's right.

Just sharing some stuff I'd made last year. Easter isn't celebrated in a huge way here (perhaps in the expat community and the good Christians going to church).

Here ya go:

Hot Cross Buns for breakfast

Hot Cross Buns

and a bit of variation

Getting Cross-Eyed

Something for tea

Easter Tea Ring

For dessert

Hot Cross Macs

or maybe I should call them "first-aid" macs?

Cocktail hour!

Carrot Cocktail

What do folks eat for a meal at Easter? Educate me, please.

Note:

There will be a bit of a slow down here as well as blog love and visits but that doesn't mean I've forgotten about you. Will be back full blast once this medical crisis bit (and I don't mean my itty-bitty flu) gets settled (might take a while tho). ♥♥♥

I've Been Tagged!

I've Been Tagged!

I haven't played tag since my school days and today, I'd got tagged by Elisabeth from Food and Thrift Finds :D Oooo, I feel like a kid again!

And she'd got tagged by someone from Hungary! Boy! Talk about the long arm of the .... um, blog.

Anyway, this tag game is all about Easter and to come up with a suggested menu of 5 - 10 items. You'll have to upload these recipes from your previous posts with photos and link them back for the recipe.

After all that, link it to 10 bloggers for the invitation to do the same!

(Check out Elisabeth's yummy menu! The goat's cheese thingy is to die for!)

As I've explained to Elisabeth, I haven't been blogging very long and hope that this short list of suggested recipes whets some appetites.

Also, here's the 10 other bloggers I've tagged and hope you'll join in this nostalgic game but with a different twist.

1. Boulder Locavore

2. Frugal Antics of a Harried Homemaker

3. Kimba's Kitchen

4. Pass the Sushi

5. Pretend Chef

6. Quay Po Cooks

7. Russian Season

8. Something Good

9. Three Cookies

10. Turkey's For Life

Come on people! Join in the fun!

Lemongrass Ginger Ale

Quickie Quiche

Spiced Pumpkin Tomato Chicken

Easter Tea Ring

Hot Cross Buns

Tiramisu