A Wonderful Dinner Date With Su & Family

Su is one of my silent reader and I only got to know her when she wrote to me one day and introduced herself as someone who loves to read my blog :)  She is from the States and we wrote to each other quite often since. One day , she told me she is coming back to Malaysia and will be back for her holidays in Ipoh sometime in July....this is great news to me. We met in blogosphere and here we are... gathered together in Ipoh. I could not wait to meet this wonderful lady and her sweet family.  Daddy and I gave them dinner and we had a wonderful time chatting and in a short ten minutes, we chatted as if we have known each other since birth......lol especially when the two Daddies talked about their ' four legged son and daughter '  of course I meant their love dogs while we ladies chatted about our two legged daughters and son :p  

Martha Stewart's Cupcakes

The brother came back from the States to do his annual prigrimage , that is to visit the old dad and I have been busy entertaining him the last few days . Thus for the lack in blog updates  :p He brought back a gift from NJ for me...guess what ? Yay!  Martha Stewart 's Cupcakes , which has 175 inspired ideas for every occasions...another year of cupcakes :p  Thank you , brother , for this wonderful book !

a lot of nice and yummy cuppies in this treasure book

lot of tips in this book too :)

flipped through a few pages and I know what I am going to try out soon :p

mmmmmm....lip smacking goodness all in this book !

this book has further stirred up my passion for cuppies :))

I love the frosting on cuppies...it makes the cake more

desirable and delectable  :p

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Kidneys In Sesame Oil And Chinese Wine

Kidney cooked in sesame oil , chinese wine with lots of fine ginger strips is a delicacy , that I will seldom get to eat. My Piggies will  'eeeeeewww ' over it and will give me a good lecture on it :p  but I will cook this once in a blue moon , when they are not around that is .  Maybe because of my chinese upbringing ( chinese are known to eat everything out of my ' relative pig ' and not waste anything ) I still tend to crave for this once in a while :p  The new generation of chinese will not touch this anymore or rather the organs of our relative pigs the pig ! Reason  is obvious....... lol! I think I will not put into words or I myself will not want to eat it.... when I crave for it , I will conveniently forget what part this is ! :p  Oh btw, Joanna bought a kidney pie from the one of the supermart in Sheffield and I was SURPRISED  !  Someone who once said ' Eeeeeewwww' to me :p

Leek Tomato And Fresh Shiitake Mushroom Omelette

I love leeks , tomatoes and fresh shiitake in my omelette. Simple , light and easy to prepare and a versatile egg dish .Omelette is commonly thought to have originated in the ancient near-east.  Before we  knew about cholesterol, eggs and omelet recipes were the 'perfect food.' Even now, eggs can save the day when extra people show up for brunch or lunch, provide a nutritious breakfast in minutes, or dress up sandwiches :) 

Egg provides protein and vits A, D, E, B6 and B12 along with calcium, iron and potassium . Unfortunately the egg yolk has the most nutrients in it and also has the most egg cholesterol there. So those on low cholesterol diet  , need to worry about the fat content here :)  I can only have omelette once every ten days that means three times in amonth  :(

(excerpt taken from wikipedia )

An omelette or omelet is a dish made from beaten eggs quickly cooked with butter or oil in a frying pan, sometimes folded around a filling such as cheese, vegetables, meat (often ham), or some combination of the above. To obtain a fluffy texture, whole eggs or sometimes egg whites only are beaten with a small amount of milk or cream, or even water, the idea being to have "bubbles" of water vapor trapped within the rapidly cooked egg. The bubbles are what make the omelette light and fluffy.Omelettes may be only partially cooked on the top side and not flipped, even prior to folding.

This dish is thought to have travelled to Western Europe via the Middle East and North Africa, with each country adapting the original recipe to produce Italian frittata, Spanish tortilla and the French omelette. 

A British Dish - ' Toad In The Hole '

After reading Joanna's post on how the British named their restuarant / cafe/ pubs after animals name , I was not surprised at all when I read a food article on the funny names that comes with the foods the Brits eat. One eg. is Toad In The Hole. And ' toad in the hole' is a visual metaphor as the sausages in the dish resemble a toad sticking its head out of a hole. It is actually a traditional English dish - comprising of sausages baked in Yorkshire pudding batter and served with vegetables and  onion gravy. It actually tastes better than its names suggests, and it is a common school dinner dish in England :)

Claypot Chicken Rice Made Easy

This is the modern , fast and easy to prepare " claypot rice "  that I cooked  in a electric rice pot that taste as good as the authentic ones.  A one dish meal that I would love to indulge in once in a while. The real claypot rice uses a clay pot and cooked under charcoal fire.  Of course the taste is slightly different, somehow charcoal cooking makes the rice taste better . But for lazy people like me, rice pot chicken rice is just as good.  I did the shortcut method and yet it tasted delicious :p   But if I wanted the authentic one I would eat out at the Gourmet Square...the true claypot rice cooked under charcoal fire.