yummy.yam.cake

you couldn't woke up this morning, your head is bouncing as if you were in a constant dream.... perhaps it's a sign of flu, but you really hope you can escape from it. thankfully there's no call today so you manage to sleep till a colleague call to discuss about something, it is then already 2.30pm... it seems you have slept for a long time but you just feel tired and the headache is constant.

 thankfully you made the steamed yam cake yesterday, and you have something to eat today.  this is a taste of childhood and from home.  it's eaten more as snack, as afternoon tea than as main meal. 

you quickly compose the garnish by frying more dried shrimps, pickled radish, spring onion and red chili and add them to the top of the steamed yam cake.and it is done....

you had it with a little sambal, but somehow something is missing... hmmm... may be you have not use any meat (chicken or pork) in the yam cake itself... it's your first attempt but this snack is not new to you, your mum made this so often in your childhood and you have used a recipe that make most sense to you based on your gut feeling. well, you don't know, may be your taste bud is just different today due to the headache and you just ate less than half of the portion above.

anyway, keeping this short, your body ask you to dive to your bed again... you hope the discomfort and headache will go away tomorrow, Jesus heals!

weekday.menu

weekday menu re-engineered!

when both of us are working, it is just hard to coordinate what to eat for dinner, who is in-charge of cooking and because we are always so last minute, sometime we just run out of idea what to eat, who to cook and it caused us a lot of stress and unnecessary trips to the supermarket just to get the right ingredients.

we are now trying something new, we now plan our weekday dinner in advance, well not with great details but at least with a guideline such as dutch monday, indonesia tuesday, italian wednesday, japanese thursday  and so forth .  this will at least steer us to plan a little in advance as to what to eat and hence buy the ingredients in an organized manner.

we had our dutch monday yesterday, dutch food is not my favorite but it's okay for a quick and easy weekday menu when i have to work and also need to find time to go to gym in between.  we had the typical dutch boerenkool stamppot (mashed potato with kale), it was swift and easy to compose, effortless so to say, yet i have time for evening gym and return home for a decent meal.  

i had mine with a smoked chicken fillet and he had his with sausage.

we are putting this menu thingy on trial this week, let's see how it works out by end of the week. if the overall organization improved, i think the menu card will be the way to go...

p/s: the quality of the photos are not sharp as they are taken by my super giant camera - ipad.

chocolate.malteser.cake

when you know that he is inviting friends over for dinner, you insisted to bake a chocolate cake.  you know it well that if it's only the two of you, you hardly had the opportunity to bake anything chocolaty because he is just not a big fan for chocolate.

you bought a few recipe books from endinbrugh last december, and you have been eyeing on this chocolate malteser cake that you have been wanting to try.  now is the good moment to do so, the only challenge is lowland is not ex-british colony and the main ingredient horlicks is not easy to come by... after much searching you finally found it in a chinese grocery store and it's a product from your home country.

this cake is rustic, definitely not elegant but yet very homely and comfortable to look at....

you modified the recipe for the frosting. instead of butter cream (which you dislike), you substitute with whipped cream with heaps of horlicks and chocolate, the taste is good, that you keep licking the leftover cream...

this is how it is presented n the recipe book, you have extra whipped cream and so you cover the side and add more malteser chocolate balls ^^...

 

recipe is from this book by the famous domestic goddess. 

the cake is yummy, although the chocolate sponge cake itself has no malteser in it, malteser balls are used as exterior decoration but yet the horlicks somehow work out the magic and bring everything together in harmony. 

have a blessed monday and new week!

saturday.dinner

he invited some friends over for dinner on saturday and hence the opportunity cooking up a storm in the kitchen...

most of the dishes are regular re-occurrence on your dining table whenever he host a dinner for friends. his cuisine is mainly cantonese...

 roasted pork belly, a signature dish of his and he did it again in smaller portion.

shrimp paste steamed beef with broccoli - a new kid on the table, the combination of salty beef and broccoli green is quite a nice match...

soy chicken cooked slowly in low heat and in a pot of marinate sauce. this used to be your mil's dish, but recently he discovered the art to master this dish and from now on, it's his!

spicy chili radish - a tad too bland for you but nonetheless the crunchiness and the spiciness are evidence...

bak kut teh, again using the secret recipe with herbs that compiled by your brother. you prepared this soup.  it looks a little greasy here in the photo but this was well received by the guys, most of them had two helpings.

you opened two bottles of sparkling german reisling, the wine compliment the food and most of you just refilling your glass without hesitation.  german sparking reisling is your new found and discovery after trips to your client's place.  it's not widely available in the lowland and even if you could find one, it's usually quite pricey and the bottles you picked up from the local airport duty free are usually reasonably priced and of good quality - good sparks and dry!

to end, you served this cake (another post will come), coffee and tea, the conversation continued well into midnight early sunday morning.

it's a fun night to have friends over in casual setting over a meal, with lots of giggles, updates, chats and chow down.   you feel particular relaxed to have real human contact again after two weeks of working from home...

the consequences are you both were extremely tired today.  you struggled to get up even it's already past the noon hour, but you were glad to be at the church, the sermon is encouraging, the anointing of the Holy Spirit present strongly, you are refreshed once again.

dim.sum

an impromptu dinner in rotterdam. this was not planned. the conversation evolved on whether you should have your hair cut on friday night or saturday morning but it ended up on friday night. you drove to the city, had your hair done and then off for a dinner. it wasn't your idea to have dim sum but you are going to have a feast on saturday, so dim sum seems to be right.

most dim sum dishes were fine or meet the expectation except this singapore style char keuh which is a total disappointment, a plate of greasy, oily bunch of tasteless flour cake. each of you had a spoonful and never touch it again....

set the food aside, it was a nice night out, impromptu and something different to start the weekend.

tarte.tatin

after a few hectic days this week, things suddenly slow down today, it's normally the case on friday but this started yesterday. with that you finally got sometime to bake something and make good use of some tarty apples...

turning the apples into tarte tatin - a french version upside down apple tart but you did it the short cut way, using store bought puff pastry.

 you had it warm, freshly out from the oven, with a dollop of vanilla ice cream and generous sprinkle of cinnamon powder, you love the sensation of warm and cold, yum! the look failed big time but the taste is appealing to you. you just like the bitterness of cinnamon in combination with the sweetness of vanilla ice cream and the tartness of apples...

 and you are really quite excited about these spanish tulips at home. they are already in their full bloom

and simple flowers accentuated and brighten up the atmosphere of your home.... or it must be spring!
you started to be excited about the changing season, from a dull, cold, gray winter to bright, warmer and colorful spring...
happy friday everyone!

everyone.has.a.secret.place

i think spring is in the air ^^, it's been a few days that i start feeling and thinking spring.  one of my favorite season that fills with colorful flowers and a more temperament outdoor temperature in the lowland at least.  i found this in my archive in draft and thought it would be nice to post this today in thinking spring.

===

all the way back in may 2011, while tokyo was already warm, you had a short escape to the northern kingdom where the spring just started.  the air was crisp and fresh.  you chanced across this building in hakodate on your first night of arrival. it was dark but the church is rather pleasant to look at in the night. so you told yourself you are going to be here again the next day.

the next morning, you hike up all the way to this place again, only thrilled to find out more pleasant details of the compound that almost glued you here for the entire morning.

you visited the russian orthodox church prior to this. there's a holy communion going on and is conducted in a very old fashion and solemn way. many people came just to receive the holy communion and gone, what a ritual, where is the real relationship with God? walking away pondering with what you just saw, you came back here

 

you walked on to the hakodate episcopal church. you love this church the most! super love the compound that gives you the urge to lie down on the grass together with the wild spring flowers that popping freely on the ground. 

the benches and the perfect weather just make the moment so "hokkaido".  what a bliss, you really wish you could slow down and soak in the fairytale like romantic ambiance.

and right here you feel that God is so closed to you. He spoke to you through the flowers on the field, through the freshness of the sky and the beauty that He had revealed in front of your eyes....

and most importantly you had the whole place for yourself in solitude, just you and God and that was such a wonderful moments that you ever had with God in awhile.

and the sakura were still blooming here in the northern kingdom, whilst in the honshu, all sakura already faded a week after the full bloom in april.

for you, this place is like a fairytale, a place that has a special touch in your heart that you will remember for a long long time.

 

for you, this is your secret place. found and kept ^^.

a.taste.from.home

chai kueh (菜粿) a sort of malaysian steamed vegetable pastry.  the pastry skin is made from wheat, tapioca and glutinous rice flour. while the innards  usually consists of shredded jicama, carrot, tofu and other ingredients.

 you had this for brunch the next day after you received them....

 it's yummy delicious... very thin and not so greasy pastry skin combine with the yummy innards, perfect brunch. nothing you could ask for more!

 you also had a pulut panggang, glutinous rice covered by a layer of spicy dried shrimp and coconut, wrapped in banana leaf.

 it's quite similar to the indonesian version that is widely available here but the taste is never the same.  this is the unique taste of home that you really missed!

 you  love the fragrant that fills the house....

while you chomp down the pulut panggang. and you are totally, completely satisfied.

a taste from home is made possible by a talented girlfriend here in lowland.  thank you.

R.O.S.E

it's already a week after the valentine's day, your single red rose is still blooming strong. the rose was given to you when you left sazanka last tuesday after the teppanyaki dinner.

 a week later, it still blooming and glowing in its own way.  there is no sign of wither...

today you finally got the time to pause and appreciate this rose, a symbol of beauty and love,  you feel really blessed because you feel loved and found the everlasting love in Jesus.

have a blessed and lovely day!

vitality.fruits

although you love the european fruits more than the tropical fruits but you must admit you are thrilled with joy when some of these fruits show up at your sight, in the tamu (market) or in the street side stalls or simply found them in the supermarkets back in asia.

buah ciku, round in brown color, honey sweet, delicious!

you give no second thought whenever you see some of these fruits and knowing there are so much to see, to do and to eat, you have to seize your best moments to indulge in these vitality fruits and often in the early morning at pre-breakfast. you use the word pre-breakfast because you usually have a hearty heavy breakfast in the late morning.

your favorite fruits are no other than the local red dragon fruits. 

you only know this fruit as buah ciku (sapodilla) and you remember the buah ciku so well that it takes you to another ride down the memory lane.

star fruit which got its name from the shape of the star, another favorite fruit of yours.

guava and a couple more that you didn't even have time to capture and it's gone ...

fruits starting to pop up now in the european supermarket, you got a feeling that spring is almost in the air...hopefully very soon you will enjoy your favorite european spring/summer fruits .

you were expecting a very busy monday but monday seems to end in a quiet way. you got time to cook your meal for the first time after more than a week and now you feel like you are back to the normal routine again. gym is your next destination.