Home made strawberry jam

I had two punnets of strawberries in the fridge which I had forgotten about. So I decided to make strawberry jam. I've not made them before but heard that it's real easy, so I googled some recipes.

Some recipes called for pectin sugar, which I obviously don't have. So I found some non pectin recipes. Basically that would require lemon and normal sugar.

So here are the proportions I used:

2 punnets of strawberries
Juice from half a lemon
Half cup of sugar

Half the strawberries,  stir in the lemon juice and stir under low heat on the stove. Mash the strawberries with a potato masher as you go along. Once its bubbling,  add the sugar and stir until its all melted. And thats it.

I used an old jam jar that I had at home to store the jam. But first I rinsed the insides and the cover with boiling water to sterilise it.

It turned out quite yummy! Do try it!

Raya cookout!

Every year I will definitely try to cook something and bake something. This year I surprise myself by baking 2 types of cookies, making rendang tok, rendang ayam and kuah kacang!

And I don't have a maid!

*pat myself on back*

How do I do it? I spread it out.

I made rendang tok and choc chip cookies a week back. I split the 1.5kg rendang into several small containers and put them in the freezer.

I worked on the kuah kacang and chicken rendang today. This time I had help. My sister came to kupas bawang.

Last and not least I wouldn't have been able to do it without my dishwasher. No way I can muster the strength  (and fasting ) to cook AND wash. No maid remember!

So here are some photos. Unfortunately I did not manage to take photos of the rendang tok and biskut semperit that I made last week. Was too busy with the cooking and hands were too messy to snap a photo.

But do check out my spanking new Le Creuset pot! It really does make the food taste better (trying to justify my hefty purchase) (there was a 60% discount! )

Beef Shaksuka and Sweet Corn Salad Recipe

Weekends are hectic for me. Who won’t with three kids under 4! Cooking has to be quick and easy. And not rice as we have that during the week day almost everyday. So I have to come up with something creative.

I have been making a few rounds of Shaksuka over the last few months. There are lots of recipes on the internet and I had been trying the vegetarian version. I find it a little bit too sour and bland for my liking. I like my sauce to be beefy and hearty.

So I incorporated beef into the recipe.

So here’s a home version type of recipe. Not exactly to the gram or inches but you get the picture *wink*

Beef Shaksuka Recipe

About 200gm mince beef. Or whatever is ideal for the size  of your family.

One large Spanish onion chopped.

1 or 2 cloves of garlic, chopped.

Some chopped red, yellow and green peppers.

One chopped tomato. Or more if you like.

One small can of tomato puree, or where I live they come in 160gm size.

4 eggs. Or more if you have more to feed. Ideally one person per egg.

A pinch of cumin

Salt and pepper to taste

I cheat with a little bit of tomato sauce sometimes, just to add on if I feel the taste is not quite there.

Method

Sautee the onion and garlic until fragrant. Add in the beef. Cook it through before adding the chopped red, yellow and green peppers. Add in the chopped tomatoes after that.

Sautee until the peppers are soft. Add in the tomato puree.

Season with salt, pepper and some tomato sauce cheat if you feel the taste is not quite there.

The sauce should be a little watery. I like it this way, so I can dip my bread in it. Some recipe calls for it to be quite dry.

Make little indentations in the sauce and crack your egg over it. Cover and let it cook until you get the consistency that you like for your egg. I like mine runny. Again all the better to dip the bread into!

And that’s it.

I really like the crab and sweet corn salad from Bens. I was suddenly craving for it one day. So I decided to do a real cincai one.

Sweet Corn Recipe

One can of sweet corn

Some cole slaw dressing

Some greens.

Method.

Lay some greens at the bottom of a salad dish

Get your sweet corn on top of that.

Squirt some slaw dressing over it.

That’s it!! I suppose if you have some crab sticks that would go great with it too.

A quick and easy well balanced meal. Not the cheapest. But will do.

Selamat Hari Raya

It's not too late to wish is it? Better late than never.

So how was my Hari Raya?

It was pretty good. I had a pleasant long break. the week before Raya I way ill so doctor gave me a 3 day MC towards the end of the week. I was not that ill. But one never turn down good mc. Especially when it is issued by a very credible hospital. So in other words my tony holiday started a good lot earlier!

But it was not all nice and relaxing. Although the best part is not waking up early for work. The twins were taken ill. They had diarrhea and were vomiting. so most of the line was spent taking cane of them. Alto, although I had been ill as well, I grabbed the chance to see a few head hunters. Details of this I will save for another post.

So coming up to the weekend of Raya, I did what I do every year. Make rendang! I wanted the festive feel, so I make it a point to make my own rendang every year. We usually buy our kuah kacang. But because the kids were ill, hubby did not manage to get it at the market. And from previous bad experience purchasing it from the many overnight Raya businesses, I decided to brave it and make my own.  And it turned out to be easy Peasy! Will never pay a fortune and a half again for purchased kuah kacang.

Of course Ayden was not left out in the whole Raya preparation. We made brownies together so we can give his grandparents on Raya Day.

So with the very fun Raya preparations done we were ready to Beraya.

As a tradition, the first day is usually spent at both our parents houses. We take turns which house eo go first every year. And of course offer we had put on our Baju Raya, We would take our customary family photo. This year we managed a pretty decent one.

After we were done with visiting both houses, Hannah took the turn for worst as she was still ill. Her diarrhea came back and she was refusing food and liquids. So we decided to get her admitted at the hospital to be put on drips. So we spent a good two nights at the hospital. She recovered well and guess what, we headed directly to Cameron Highlands which was where we were originally suppose to so for a holiday, armed with a whole lot of her medicine of course. The boys were definitely thrilled that they get to go for their holiday after all.

So we spent two nights at Cameron and had a blast. The weather was actually pretty cold. Traffic to and back from Camerons was not too bad. Infact it was pretty smooth.

So that was my Raya pretty much. We were at meant to Balik kampung but because Hannah was admitted to hospital we had to cancel those plans. We will try again Raya Haji!

I really do try

I try to learn something new every now and then. Something different to put on the table. When I am not too busy, I will search the internet, get ideas from friends or TV and of course recipe books. Somehow the latter seems least popular.

So here's what I whipped up this weekend. The recipe came from a friend in FB. I never thought quiche was so easy to make! And thankfully I could find ready made pie crust at the supermarket near my house!

Its basically spinach and turkey ham quiche. Great dish to make when you've forgotten to defrost things from the freezer for dinner!

I made Chicken Fajitas for dinner!

Note: Picture not taken by me but from Google Images

Yesterday for dinner I made chicken Fajitas! I thought of doing something simple but different. I wanted to explore more varieties in my cooking so my poor hubby does not get bored with my usual non creative dishes.

So I set out to look for some ideas and the most obvious is the internet. I thought I try chicken Fajitas. After much googling and researching for the simplest recipe, I made some modifications and came up with my very own simple recipe:

Chicken breast (marinated in salt, pepper and Lee and Perrin sauce)
Red and yellow bell peppers (sliced)
One large onion (sliced)

Pan fry the chicken breast whole. Then remove it from the pan and slice it thinly. On the same pan sauté the onions and bell peppers. I would sauté the onions until they are slightly caramelized and soft. Then add the sliced chicken breast. Add salt, pepper, a little sugar and herbs to taste.

That's it! Of course it goes great with warm burritos, sour cream, some grated cheddar and guacamole if any.

Cooking at Lazat

As promised, a write up on Lazat.

The menu at my cooking lesson at Lazat was:

Cucur udang

Acar timun

Rendang daging

Kuih Cara

Price: RM180 for hands on class.

 

 

I arrived nice and early that morning, all excited with great anticipation on what I would experience. Nervous at the same time as I was apprehensive if I could actually catch up with the class. I am pretty useless with malay style cooking as my mum is Chinese and most of the stuff I cook at home is Chinese style. Its important to note that cooking’s styles are different and therefore would affect tastes and flavor.

While waiting for my other classmates to arrive, I had a chat with the owner, Ana. Or Kak Ana as I called her. She was a pleasant lady and explained how she came about opening a cooking school. She related that she used to live in Bangkok where there were plenty of cooking schools, while there were hardly any in Malaysia. As she loved to cook, she thought she open one in PJ as soon as she came home.

Lazat caters mainly for expats and tourists. I was surprised that tourists actually took time from their holiday to come and learn to cook malay food. They usually find Lazat on the internet and booked online.

In my class, I was the only Malaysian. There were 3 Australians and one from England. They were all on holiday in Malaysia.

We began with the cucur udang.

Kak Ana explained what should be done while Kak Saadiah demonstrates. 

We were given our ingredients in small little dishes like in cooking programmes! Everything measured to the required amount.

So we mixed the batter, heated the oil and deep fried the ingredients. And there you have it, very authentic cucur udang.

 

We took a break and ate our cucur udang before we began on the rendang. I was reliefed because I did not have breakfast and was very hungry!

In the picture: Kak Ana chatting with Shari, from Australia and Rachel from England. 

After out short break, we began on the rendang. The rendang takes a long time as it needs to get soft and tender. In the meantime, we worked on the acar timun.

This acar timun is the cooked typed. Timun (or cucumber) is sliced thinly, together with carrots, red and green chilli. A whole lot of onion and garlic and other condiments were fried in a wok together with the vegetables. The end results was surprisingly delicious! Its the stuff you get at kenduri kahwin (wedding dinners). Absolutely delicious!

Finally we began on the dessert. I’ve always bought kuih cara at the pasar malam and always wondered how it was made, and how they got the syrup into the center. Well now I know!

As you can see in the picture, they did not turn out too great! Its not as simple as it seems. First, the iron mould has to be oiled but not too much. Then you have to carefully pour the batter into the mould without spilling or dribbling any on the sides. Sugar is then spooned carefully into the center of the kuih without spilling on the sides or the sugar will be burnt resulting the kuih to get burnt too! Somehow I liked the burnt taste on the kuih. Tastes great with the sugary centre :)

The end results! My second batch of kuih cara turned out better. 

At the end of the class we all ate what we made together. Kak Ana gave us white rice to go with the rendang and acar. It tasted fantastic! And I am not blowing my own horn here, cos her recipe's got a lot to do with it! Apparently its her family's rendang recipe and she is happy sharing it with everyone.

Thanks Lazat for a very fun class! 

The Undomestic Goddess shall strike again

Yet again trying her best to be the perfect housewife she has signed to another cooking class to learn how to cook rendang. With Ramadhan around the corner, this skill should come in useful.

This time at Lazat, Saturday 30th, she shall once again whip out that apron and brave the odds and unknown.

Wish me luck.