Kooky Love

It's the last weekend of November.

I've been in a nesting mode.

Dreaming. Plotting of homely stuff to do and get myself into.

I'm done with the Christmas shopping(!) Crazy I know since it's not even the end of the November but hey, I am planning to avoid the crazy crowd in the city nearing Christmas. I rather spend the days I have chilling at home, wrapping the gifts (oh, how I love having brown kraft paper, red and white wrapping papers, ribbons, baker's twin, tags etc all strewn on the floor of our study room as I dream up ways to package the little gifts I purchased for my friends).

Today, M indulged my crazy nesting mode and hoover-ed (or vacuumed, in local language) the entire apartment (upstairs and downstairs, thank you very much). Then I mopped the floors, and washed the kitchen washroom.

And I baked. Cookies. Neiman Marcus Chocolate Chip Cookies.

30 pieces. 30 minutes.

Mmmm . . . . 

Drawing a Cook

I have been having a ball this weekend (in between cleaning out our home in preparation for Eid ul-Fitr, popping into Ikea and spending time with Nad) going through all the illustrated recipes submitted by artists from around the globe.

They Draw and Cook even have a kids' (16 and under) version. Check it out here.

(All images are courtesy of (from top): Kaitlyn McCane; Wendy Edelson; Kajetana Fidler; James Gulliver Hancock all via They Draw and Cook)

OOOOreOOO

Staying home on a lovely Tuesday (it's pouring outside now), looking after a sick toddler is a full-time job.

I didn't manage to clean the study (which I had mentally prepared for) or cleaned the kitchen (which I had hoped) or even do anything remotely home-ly or wife-ly.

To save myself, I think I will do a quick bread and butter pudding later for after-dinner. It'll be simple chinese seafood (by seafood, I mean only prawns) fried rice later for dinner if you must know.

Anyways, whilst silicon exploring earlier for lemon cookies recipe, I came across this:

(Amazing delectable photo of One Girl Cookies "cake" courtesy of stylishy fab Camille Styles)

Just give me a glass of cold milk and an oreo - I'll sit in the corner. Happy.

Party Time!

Well . . . not in another week or so.

We are celebrating Nad's birthday.

Again.

For the 3rd time. This coming weekend.

This time in London.

With her dadi (grandma in Urdu) and Chachu (that's uncle in Urdu, I think) and almost all of M's family and friends in that part of the world.

We have not sorted out anything.

I'm hankering over these cute cookies in the meantime.

(Images courtesy of Eleni's)

Rainbow

Cake is always welcomed in our home.

Anytime of the day.

(Image courtesy of Whisk Kid)

For a while now, I've been obsessed with the rainbow cake. Almost dying to try a hand at baking sheet cakes and laying every single sheet atop a layer of buttercream frosting.

Purple. Blue. Red. Green. Yellow. All hues of the rainbow.

Then I got giddy (read : scared) from all that potentially (well, I know so) long patience-testing process. So, I kopped out and take to oggling pictures of rainbow cakes which other bloggers had a hand in baking.  

Cake will be had at Nad's party in 2 weeks. But of course!

But before I forget, happy belated birthday Exp!

And E, have a great birthday next week. :-)

I Dream of Cake

Back to dreaming.

This time, back to dreaming of . . . cakes.

Blame it on Nad's birthday party in a few weeks.

(Images courtesy of I Dream of Cake)

I love 'em all. Especially the ones with each tier of a different Marimekko pattern.

I envy Mini - she can gawk at the window display up close and personal.

Askinosie Chalklate

Please excuse me - I have a lot going on my plate the last few months.

This is long overdue.

See, my sweet most greatest and obliging boss (the same one who piles on me file after file and dodge client calls only to let me handle them and yet lets me take off to be home with kiddo) gave me a box of chocolate for Christmas last year.

I got excited.

Just look at the packaging:

The taste? I don't know.

You see - whilst sorting out and trying to empty out our fridge for the move, I forgot that I didn't pack it in to bring to my mom's (where we are putting up for the month) and M, thinking that it was expired, threw it away.

The unopened lovely box which chocolate taste I can now only imagine saw the bottom of the wastebin.

With the apartment renovations coming along nicely, I think I will buy a box in March as a pressie for myself. For surviving the renovations.

Psst . . . did you know that Askinosie Chocolate is started up by a criminal defense lawyer? Apt pressie, you think? :-P

Borough-ing at the Market

We traipsed down to somewhere near London Bridge last week on our epicurean hunt at Borough Market.

But because we ended up having an extra long fresh seafood lunch at Applebee's, most of the retailers have closed for the day at 3pm(!!)

But I managed to score these:

(More info here)

(Link yourself here for more info on cookies)

I may yet make my way back the week after when we are all back in London from Marrakech.

Apple of my eye

It seems to be the flu season.

Flu struck Nadine early last week. Then whilst staying home to care for the lil' bub, I fell ill. Somehow, while M showed symtoms of contracting it, he managed to keep it at bay. Good thing he's been in KL the last 2 nights.

Then today, my sister's maid got ill. Hmm . . . . a pattern is surfacing here.

So I stayed home today. At least I get to spend a bit more time with the lil' fella now that I'm back to work almost full time. Time flies and she's growing up ever so quickly!

Fast forward 7 hours and I finally have some time to myself to really unwind.

Did Nadine's laundry. Went on all fours and scrubbed the ensuite toilet. And then after a good cold shower (it's been a really hot and humid day!), I baked a batch of applesauce muffins.

Next on my agenda would be caramel ginger cake. Just the thought of it is making me salivate. :-P

Chocolate Dreams

It's been a l.o.n.g week.

Thankfully, I am taking the day off tomorrow.

We're going interior designer/general contractor "shopping". I'm not exactly sure why we are shopping for an interior designer considering we do have somewhat of a hazy picture in our heads of what the interior of our new home will be. Maybe it's because I needed a fresh perspective. I need to get all excited again about our future new home.

I also hope to have an hour or so at midday tomorrow to see my nieces perform a ballet at China Square Central. Not a proper ballet recital. More of a fun kindergarden/nursery performance. I'm so proud of them. And all of the rest of my nieces and nephews.

Anyways - this is sounding like a boring report card entry - got to sign off. Better start packing the diaper bag. Our day will start at 9am tomorrow.

Maybe, before then, a piece of brownie I baked a few days ago is in order . . .

Or maybe I will dream of the souffle I tried my hand on a week ago, which obviously didn't look appetising as the ones those men (and women) in aprons whip up in their kitchens!

Cha Cha

I have been rather adventurous.

Not sure why I am on this epicurean journey in our kitchen off late . . .

Just now, I had a bowl of delicious bubur cha cha which I whipped up in the kitchen a while ago. Sweet Potato, yam and tapico flour, all in a bowl of coconut cream sweetened with light muscovado sugar (my sugar switch from what the recipe usually calls for).

I have a pan of flourless chocolate brownie in the oven but I don't think that's panning (pardon the pun) out, seeing how I don't see any "baking action". I swear I am swearing off any baking recipe which screams "flourless".

Back to the books - I am determined to get a recipe for kick-arse chocolate brownie (the kind that's almost gooey) else M is going to be harping and pining for it forever.

I can take a month old baby wailing for milk. I don't think I can stomach a grown man pining for chocolate brownie.

Mmmmuffins

After Nadine's morning feeds, I usually have a couple of hours to get everything organised. Laundry, cleaning, etc.

This morning, I thought I would give baking a whirl.

Nothing too complicated. Muffins are perfect, in this case. And today, cinnamon blueberry muffins was on the menu. 10 minutes to get the batter all ready and 35 minutes in the oven.

When the timer went off, it was time for Nadine's feed.

Easy peasy.

Let's eat cake!

After watching Chef Michael Smith whip up a cake (amongst other yummy treats for a birthday), I am tempted to bake one.

Better yet. Cut them up into slices and place them onto these beautifully mismatched cake-tier stands:

(Images courtesy of Let Them Eat Cake)

Maybe for Cookie's 1-month party . . . . hmmmm.......

sweet dreams are made of these

ah, i've been day-dreaming of sweets and vacations. the blogworld has been kind enough to quench my thirst with the following recipes ....

1. Creamy Cream Cheese Cheesecake For Passover by the Dorie.
2. 25 Romantic Things to Do in the City of Love by who else(?) - the lovely Dorie.
3. cinnamon apple dutch baby by everybody likes sandwiches (curiously, i like food that bears the namesake of my dog.)
4. macarons (!) by inside a black apple.
5. and ever since this, i've been all about chartreuse. Profiteroles with Chartreuse Ice Cream by Tartelette.

And this and this have become my bedtime reading...

cheers, and here's to sweet dreams to me and baby.

Re(living)

Exp and I are currently discussing living an eco-friendly way of life.

Married to a fiercely eco guy and almost 27 weeks pregnant, I have been thinking alot about doing more towards improving my way of life. Doing my bit towards improving this planet's "health" for Cookie's future, if not for ours.

And trust me, living in a high-rise building on this island is not really the most ideal of places to start but everyone has to start somewhere. And I would like to think we have. Every little action counts.

For starters, we go grocery-shopping with our own bags. I actually use my bag with no regrets.

We dump our empty plastic and glass bottles into our own recycling bin (and do our weekly clean out into the recycling bins our town council provides in our estate - the "garment" is starting to sit up and do something!).

We use eco-friendly/biodegradable floor cleaner and 2-ply-recycled paper toilet paper that don't cost an arm and a leg to purchase from neighbourhood-friendly supermarket near our home.

My Japanese bambo plants are almost dying. I think. That or they've got some kind of bug. There's an old malay wives' saying to water plants with water used to wash rice to keep them healthy. Why not? I'm recyling. And my plants are now getting a bit better. Maybe there's a truth in the old malay wives' saying.

Of course, our old statements and bills are now meeting our non-confidential printing needs at home.

Best of all, today, I get to recycle our week old bread --> I finally got round to baking bread and butter pudding. And it turned out delicious, if I do say so myself. :-)

Every little bit counts.

stolen

I know this is a dry post.

It's dry because it has no pictures.

So, I offer two stolen stories: one about Cinnamon and the other from the latest donna hay magazine (issue 42, Dec/Jan 2009) which is chockful of goodies and wonderful pictures... i pilfered two recipes to make the christmas bird:

Cranberry Relish (tweaked)

350g fresh cranberries
150g red-globe grapes
2 cups of caster sugar
1/4 cup water
2 tablespoon sherry vinegar
1/4 cup dry white wine
1 tbsp ginger liqueur

1. Place cranberries, grapes, sugar and water in a small saucepan over low heat and stir until sugar dissolved.

2. Add the vinegar, wine and liqueur and cook for 20 mins or until sauce thickens.

3. Spoon into jars and store in the fridge. Serve with turkey. {Was good with ham too!}

{The original recipe asks for 500 g frozen cranberries and 1/4 cup Port instead of white wine and the liqueur. Ginger liqueur is available at Eu Yan Sang}

The turkey recipe was Martha Stewart's {I skipped the cheesecloth part, I simply baste with Donna Hay's Orange-Tarragon Butter and dry white wine+ freshly-squeezed orange juice mixture}

Orange-Tarragon Butter

Combine 150g softened butter, 1 tablespoon finely grated orange rind, chopped tarragon (3 sprigs), 2 crushed cloves garlic, salt and pepper.

Saturday Night Life

M and I had a day out today.

Just us. Hanging out. No real destination. No real agenda. It's nice to just chill.

Holding hands. Seemingly in our own worlds in the bustling street downtown.

We meandered into the supermarket and left, amongst other grocery, 5 succulent scallops.

The scallops would make beautiful starters at dinner tonight.

M prepared them beautifully. They were explosive and melted in my mouth.

An hour later, I made dessert for 2 under 15 minutes.

Sauteed peaches with home-made caramel. Infused with fresh basil. Topped with vanilla ice-cream. ~ Inspira

Ps. I love you

It's almost time for me to head home.

Amidst the towering boxes (our office is moving, you see), piling work on my desk, deafening telephone rings, I'm determined to find the perfect ginger pudding recipe.

This recent "goal" largely due to the recent spread I had at PS Cafe.

(Image courtesy of moi)

Anyone with good, fool-proof recipe for ginger pudding? I'd be eternally grateful. :-) ~ Inspira

Not to be trifled with

I love playing with our kitchen gadgets.

Especially so, they allow me to be as creative as I can be with our desserts.

My version of the raspberry trifle was a hit at our Sunday brunch a few weeks ago thanks largely to the idiot-proof custard cream layers which I whipped up with my trusty mixer.

I'm on a hunt for a good-sized pot for stove and oven use. Any recommendations anyone? ~ Inspira

nigella lawson

it's time, i should think (and i do <--sounds like a marital covenant) that i get out my fat wad of clipped (and oft-times) hurry-scurried handwritten recipes and start cooking and innovating.

lately, i've been seen toting my prebirthday present around - from the bedroom, to the kitchen, to the study (sing this to the tune of the 70's corningware advertisement.)

if, through some cosmic coincidence, you are {also} hard up for nigella during the work week and have a set of headphones in the office, these may provide some reprieve:

1. Valentine's Chocolate Indulgence
2. New Year's Food Traditions
3. Time-saving holiday tips
4. Spring Holiday Recipes
5. Eat and Run Breakfast Ideas
6. 'Feast' with Nigella Lawson
7. Summer Flavors

~exp~