Photos: I Eat Five Major Food Groups

Regular readers know that my folks took a trip to the far away land of sand, anti-USA and “there are no gays” (as quoted by the government’s Top G-Man). Regular readers would also know that my female parental unit is also the sous chef in the house kitchen.

I had a chat the other day with Kavilan on MSN chat. He’s going through a vegetarian period at the moment and how there’s no really nice veggie restaurant that can trumps what his mom can make.

Like him, I pretty much eat whatever Mak cooks. Almost.

Yes, I miss her cooking (more so when I read YozoraNiteSky's new blog). Even more so as I sure use some good hot food while doing the study cramps. My busy-ness notwithstanding, I’m only allocated a small currency for the 2 weeks they went MIA (not including petrol money).

Nonetheless, I made sure I’ve been eating all five major food groups.
Canned, frozen, instant, delivery and take-out.

Mee goreng’s a failure. There was too much of it, seasoning’s all wrong and I think it was a bit under cooked. Then again, I used Mamee instead of the old favourite Maggi. Like this also, can-ah? ... maybe not.


Frozen. I thought of experimenting something like a veggie soup by using steamed mixed veggies. Call me crazy but I thought it might work.


Experiment failed. I ate two mugs of orange mush. It was a hot meal and that was good enough for me during those rainy days. Maybe I needed to add more olive oil and veggie stock?


Okay, so I don’t always cook badly. I’m really good with eggs. Omelette, mata kerbau, hard-boiled, soft-boiled, you name it. Made myself some meat and toast.


Aaaah, Campbell’s chicken and mushroom soup. I thought to make it more filling by chopping some whole mushrooms, also caaaaaaanned (pun intended).


Watch it wiggle, see it jiggle. I swear it was like jelly when it so neatly slid out of the tin can. Imagine that if it gets into some guy’s gut, it still wiggles and jiggles.


Ooooo, sunk like quicksand. I think I’ll use the excess mushrooms from the can to make some grilled cheese-and-mushroom burger (update on that later).


To be more realistic, most of what I had were just instant coffee. It’s quick and uplifting. Okay so in the long-term we all still need to eat. I still got some of that really bad mee goreng I couldn’t stomach.


Ooooo, hello there? It’s the neighbour’s cat.


Hey sweetie. You want a snack?

Haha, so I’ve only been eating 3 of the 5 food groups. Only yesterday I spend some money on a large Burger King set (damn you 2heroes and simonso!) and some of their cheesy sticks. Right, I’ve done take out. I’ve still yet to get something under ‘delivery’.


Oh gee, let me think...

To Me, From Mak, With Tandoori Chickens

Some of you asked what’s my mother’s inspiration for being quite the chef in the kitchen. I would say the AFC Food Channel on Astro TV but she’s been stuffing the family faces long before cable TV became the vogue.

I supposed it had to do with being the eldest daughter of 9 siblings and miscellaneous relations and friendly neighbours. The entire community knew the Jailani family very well. Anybody had a problem, refer to the freakishly huge noisy family. Country-mice aren’t like town-mice after all.

I can see why my dad, being a very quiet and private person, had to gather some 5 years of courage after meeting Mak before he could formally ask Yayi for her hand.

But I’m wandering here. Mak likes to cook because she grew up pretty much next to the kitchen stove. There’s always mouths to feed and even today, I got uncles and aunties coming in for no reason every other week or so.

But this time, my folks are taking on a long trip, more than 2 weeks. They’re going to fly to Iran to ski on mountain snow and see the springtime flowers. Then they’re crossing the border to Turkey to shop and eat and shop s’more and eat s’more.

So they’ll be nobody to feed me.

Hey, I’m cool actually. I can live on mamak food. I was planning to buy a nice tandoori chicken with naan bread from this restaurant called Fazila Maju. I told that to Mak and was budgeting my finances (secretly, I still want to buy a paperback novel!).

Soooo, as usual before she flies to a land far, far, jet-plane-trip away, she made a feast big enough so I can make myself some sandwiches for the next day. Tandoori chickens.

Red hot from the oven!


Did Mak roast a whole bird? Yup, she did.

Her excuse was that tandoori chickens are much, much healthier than me making pies (can’t argue with that). Mak’s first tandoori chicken cooking was a melting failure and so I guess she’s trying to improve where she did wrong.

I’d say this one was great! It’s not as dry and flaky as the mamak tandoori chickens; quite juicy on the inside and meaty-chewy on the outside. She used a better tandoori mix too, great colour, spicy but not overly tongue-burning hot.

You should have seen the cooking pan under the metal bar-trays thingy used to cook the chicken on it. All the bird fat dripped on it was black and brown to a crisp. I should have taken a photo but it was ugly and I was too distracted by the chicken itself (I’ll have to scrap it clean later too, urg...)..


Yummy setting.


Mm-mmm, better than KFC...

Ayah went out to buy freshly baked naan bread from the mamak. Hehe, I guess I’ll know what Mak will be trying to make next!

Too bad we don’t have instant spicy mint sauce mix so the meal would have been perfect. MySis came for dinner too, since she and I were going to send Mak and Ayah to KL International Airport after evening prayers. And she came early after work too, since she heard that Mak was making tandooris.

So there you have it. Mak may not cook for an extensive family anymore; instead she emulated new food and styles of cooking. MySis inherited her baking skills (once she finds a really good oven for her small kitchen, she’ll be making chocolate-smothered brownies and fruity pavlovas again) and I guess I’ll more into casseroles and meat dishes.

Note2self: Must learn to cook this and get it right before next family reunion/meeting open house at Batu Arang. I now got married cousins to impress.
*hehehe!*


Oh yeeeeeeaaahh! Did I mention that she also made some home-brewed pineapple juice? Of course, she’s anak Pontian...

Recipe: Chicken Tartlets

Yeah, this one’s an overdue recipe of the damn yummy chicken tartlets I’ve had ages and ages ago. One of it being was that the white sauce recipe was a kill to make and so I needed to substitute something that’s equally creamy but less time-consuming to boil and stir.

Here goes nothing...

Ingredients:
(The filling)
3 Potatoes
One packet of Ramly mince chicken (defrosted to room temperature)
Finely chopped onions and garlic
Some canned mushrooms (all chopped)
One can of Campbell mushroom soup
Frozen mixed veggies (defrosted)
(Spices)
One dried basil leaf
Some dried rosemary

Instant frozen pastry roll (defrosted to room temperature)
Some foil pie cups for the tarts (I got mine at Tesco hypermarkets)

Serves: A lot

1. Firstly, to the potatoes! Peel all 3 of them and cut them into tiny square chucks, each no bigger than the nail of your little finger.

2. Next, fry the chucks of potatoes into hot oil until they’re half cooked (more yellow golden than golden-brown).

3. Remove all the potatoes from the pan and then start frying the chopped onions and garlic until they’re soft and fragrant.

4. Add in all the mince chicken to the pan and fry the meat. When the chicken is half-cooked, add in about a cup of the mixed veggies and keep on frying. Once the meat and mixed veggies are well mixed-in and soft, add in the half-cooked potato chucks and the chopped canned mushrooms.

5. Reduce the pan to low heat. Open up your can of mushroom soup and dump the whole can into the pan. Add water to only about a third of the soup can and pour it into the mix. The filling should be soft and gooey. You can decide how thick you want the filling by adding water or letting it cook longer to dry the water.

6. For some fragrance and taste to the filling, add the dried basil leaf and scatter some dried rosemary. Mix everything well.

6. After the filling is cooked, leave it to cool in the pan and start on making the tartlet pastries. Use the foil cups to determine how big you want to cut circles in your pastry dough roll. Make sure the dough circles are larger than the foil cups.

7. Mix some egg white with a little bit of water. Use this mix to coat the foil pie cups so that the pastry won’t get stuck to the foil cups when you want to eat.

8. Arrange the pastry dough into the cups. You may have to pinch the pastry on its side walls to make it fit into the cups.

9. Pour in the filling into the cups, as much as you think the foil cups can handle.

10. Next, pull some long strips of pastry and place them cross-sectioned on the pies. Usually about 4 strips each. This is to prevent the pie from getting too dry during baking and keep the pie in one piece when you want to take it out of the foil pie cups.

11. Okay, now set your baking oven to about 190’C. Place the pies on an oven tray and bake them until the pastries are nice golden brown. Serve while still hot, but it’s also great as a picnic food.

Original Link: Invaded by Chicken Tartlets!

More Weirdness from that Photo Folder

I’m feeling so freaking drained. A couple hundred of blog-hops ago, Raising Mercury complimented me on my consistently reliable posting habits. TQVM, but she woo-hoo’d me at a brick-wall time.

So what do I do? Here’s a trick.

I get most of my ideas while being outside the PC region. Tiny little idea pop into my head and I file them for storage into a little mental hat-box. Whenever I get a slow day, I pick up a random idea and work from there.

On this fine Saturday, I present to you readers some completely absurd pictures (because I don’t want to write too long... sort of).

Arachnophobias beware!

I didn’t take this picture. Courtesy of my lil’ brother Genius, he takes his class trips all around the UniMalaya campus. This picture is of a friend’s artistic, simplistic (still creepy!) waste of excess plastic ties.

I kind of liked it. Maybe if I have some black marker pen, some shiny black plastic and some white thread and patiently wait for April 1st ... *hehehe*


Real locally sprouted mushrooms.

Check it out! Real wild mushrooms!

Ayah was on a hardware-store trip (again...) when he spotted a senior with an open car booth selling freshly picked wild mushrooms. You don’t see stuff like these in supermarkets (always too fat, too short, to uniformed, too clean, too un-fresh...).

But then again, those are them SUPER-marketed, overly concentrated imported mushrooms.


Malay Mushroom Soup

My dad grew up with these species of mushrooms back at the kampung. His hometown was known as a ‘black area’ (during the 1960s Emergency, communists against the formation of Malaysia hide in Perak state’s jungles). Food was scarce.

But there were plenty of mushrooms. They sprout like durians fruits falling, bloomed 2 or 3 times a year, sheltered in some rotten, nutritious, worm-infested hardwood tree stumps.

Apparently, arwah NekWan made real good but simple clear soup with chopped mushrooms and spices. Mak is still trying to recreate the recipe though, but this one’s not bad at all (yum!). Must be all that earthly, rotting freshness.


Can you believe these at growing in the garden?

Mak cooks, Ayah gardens. You can take the farmboy out of the farm but you can’t take the farm out of the former farmboy.

I have completely no idea where he gets these raspberries but they grow, really, really well. In fact, there’s a small harvest every 3 or so months. We have a bowl of sweet yogurt to share at dessert by then.


This is my youngest uncle and his daughter.

I won’t say their names, mainly because I don’t think my uncle would want his subordinates to know that he snores like a bullhorn. And so does his youngest daughter (actually, her nose whistles when she naps).

These two almost always fall asleep on the couches during the major holidays. PakYong’s job includes a lot of traveling so if we feed him a meal big enough during the Raya Aidilfitri, he snores in less than 30 minutes.

I think my little cousin misses him the most when PakYong travels. This photo is a very regular scene.


I iz Protezin’ Ur Feesh Pond Konstruktion

I was inspired by the blogsite, ICanHasCheezBurger, playing around with cats and their antics. This is the big and beautiful half-Persian with the unfortunate name of Dusty (I named him).

Ever since we moved to Kt. D’sara, he took over the title of ‘HouseCat’ from my older cat, Patchy. We were fixing up the garden, building our own koi fish pond when this fat ball of hidden claw refuse to get up from the cement barrow.

In retrospect, maybe if we just dump the quick-drying cement on him, he’ll probably make a great garden statue for the birds.


MUSHROOMS!!

Hahaha, not really. But as mentioned, two things come after a rainstorm; mushrooms in the kampung and umbrellas in Kuala Lumpur. This is taken at the main library of UniMalay campus, courtesy of yours truly’s lil brother. It must have been some real wet weather that day.


My jaw froze in the cold Genting Highland wind.

Credits to this blog entry goes to Genius Not-Real-Name. This was on a trip to Genting Highlands... last year me thinks. I was the one who wanted to ride the boat around the lake ride but it seems that he here had the most fun anyway.

I’m putting this picture up because it’s not often he’s in photos, seeing that he prefers taking them. Now I see why. The good little brother just can’t pose.

Note2self: Add MySis’s embarrassing photos into the Hat-Box of Ideas for future blog entries.

Invaded by Chicken Tartlets!

Do you guys watch Astro’s AFC (Asian Food Channel)? My mom does. My mom and all her 5 sisters as well. Not to mention her Al-Quran reading class and her SPPUM club as well. There’s always some kind of verbal cook-off between them every time there’s a kenduri or an open house or... well, senior housewives after all.

Mak’s favourite area of makes-family-fat expertise are pies and tarts. In fact, anything that can be dumped onto a bread/pastry/carbohydrate-swollen base and baked in the microwave is what Mak loves to do.

Something they work and sometimes they don’t *cough*seafood quiche*cough*.

But her chicken tartlets definitely works.

What I woke up to breakfast this morning.

I guess it had something to do with watching that show a few details about making pies, like egg wash instead of butter to coat the pans. So the night before, Mak made some creamy white sauce and fried some chicken mince meat with mixed veggies and then mixed them together to become the pie filling.


Hey, these look great!

Too bad MySis wasn’t around to learn the pie-making, now that AbangHuzir is back from overseas and their family is at their home (my sister needs to be around people, in case her pregnancy get complicated). She would have swiped them to oblivion (me and MySis are like evil witches. Between us, pies disappear like magic! *hehehe!*).


Creamy insides.


The filling consists of minced chicken, mixed veggies, white sauce, tiny cubed potatoes and chopped mushrooms.

Mak really goes free with the white sauce this time. When eaten hot, it’s like biting into a pastry cupcake of thick chicken and mushroom soup. I hope she remembers to re-heat it before she serves them to her reading class but it’s nice when eaten cold as well. Kind of like a picnic food.

Speaking of picnics, I hope Mak doesn’t mind me sneaking a couple of these for my lunch! *hehehe!*


Aiyo, better remember not to open my bag during class. Their nicely-baked smell is kind of strong.

BabyNabil's Day Out at Ikano Mall

Most people would be sleeping in on a holiday’s Tuesday as I should have been but I was really looking forward to get this piece of Flash programming DIY book from Popular bookstore in Ikano Power Centre. Ayah declared he was free for the hours after helping Genius take care of his apartment rental so we made plans for an excursion.

Then enter MySis and the homicidal two-year-old, BabyNabil.

Don’t get me wrong. I love my one and only nephew and I think he’s smart enough to know of my evil plans to turn into the embarrassing ‘Auntie Liza’ with him in front of his friends when he turns 16 years old.

Both mother and son loved any and all shopping mall trips, one of the few things MySis and me have in common. So what the heck, let’s bring a five-person joy ride to Ikano. Gives us reason to park in the family parking space too.

Early morning we took our breakfast at the local mamak restaurant.


Ayah forgot to bring his reading glasses. Again.

At breakfast, everybody ordered... almost the same thing; roti kosong, roti telur, roti canai and roti pisang. We didn’t plan on going to any fancy breakfast area in case BabyNabil might order everything on the menu. Restaurants need to feed other customers too, you know.

We then went home to get ready a few pertinent things, such as breakfast take-away for Mak (roti sardin, of course), collecting discount cards and BabyNabil needs his bath.

“Nabil, mandi ye?” (Nabil go take a bath, yes?)
“Tak nak.” (Don’t want.)

My nephew is pretty smart and very vocal. We taught him young to communicate verbally. His pronunciations are bad but he can speak full sentences for as long as 7 words, though you got to listen carefully. He can’t pronounce his own name properly (he calls himself, ‘Ami’).

“Mandi-lah! Nak keluar nanti.” (Go take a bath. We want to go out soon).
“No mandi.” (No bath.)
“Kenapa?” (Why.)
“Tak nak mandi.” (Don’t want bath.)
“Okay, then tak boleh pergi Ikano.” (Alright, then you won’t go to Ikano.)
“Auntie, Ami nak pegi, nak pegi!” (Auntie, Nabil wants to go!)
“Okay, mandi dulu.” (Okay, but bath first).

Silence.

“Tak nak mandi.” (Don’t want bath.)
“Tak nak mandi? Duduk rumah aje. Auntie, PakSu, Atuk dan Mama keluar pergi Ikano” (No bath? Sit at home. Auntie, PakSu, Atuk and Mama will go to Ikano).
“Nak pegi! Nak pegi!” (Iwant to go! I want to go!)
“Kena mandi dulu!” (Bath first!)
“Ami tak nak mandi!” (Nabil don’t want bath!)
“Okay, tinggal rumah, aje.” (Okay, just sit at home.)
“Nak pegi, nak peeeeeeeeeeeegggieeeeee!!”

Stalemate. Thank goodness he’s never got the knack for throwing tantrums. Yet. He doesn’t kick on the floor and scream and shout uselessly but he’s incredibly vocal and specific on what he wants. But he knows with an aunt and a mother against him, he’ll be overruled.

So what did the kid does? Negotiate.

“Okay, tapi Ami mandi babel-babel.” (Okay, but Nabil want a bubble bath.)

Damn pampered brat. He hates showers but likes to play with the shampoo bottle. Even I don’t get a bubble bath. In the end, we threaten to let the big cat have shower with him before he finally conceded.

We didn’t bring a stroller as he’s too big for it now. But enjoys getting carried around. In fact he insists. Even before we left the car park, he insists on being carried. We tried to get him to walk on his own chubby legs but he just lies down on the floor - on the road! - on his back until somebody picks him up.

Heh. Being 2 years old and under 3 feet tall gives him right to make a fool of his folks.

Since MySis is too pregnant to carry BabyNabil, Ayah-the-Atuk is mindful of his arthritis and PakSu-Genius is carrying... baby utility stuff (diaper bag, milk bottle, etc), it looks like I’ll have to be the pack-mule.


Up and down the escalators.


Took a scenic route through the Pet Store. This isn’t a mouse display case, by the way. This was a lizard display case. The mouse, still alive, was probably its lunch. Wherever the lizard was.

All in all, we had fun. BabyNabil had 4 pairs of eyes looking out for him as he ran all over the place like a rat on steroids (3 pairs, when I excused buying textbooks in Popular Book Store and again when we pass by the Bread Story bakery). At the Pet Store, he barks at cats, meows at the mice and bangs bird cages.

There was a large grey parrot which fascinated BabyNabil, mainly because the large parrot wasn’t in a cage. The bird then flapped its wings vigorously and BabyNabil got so scared, he ran straight for his Mama.

Typical.

Not to self; get BabyNabil to go for One Utama’s Exotic Animals Exhibition soon. He’ll be firm friends with the monkeys.


Mm-mmm, I can never resist chocolate. Neither does BabyNabil, which I had to eat it behind his back or else he’ll grab hold of it.



Had lunch at Ikea Restaurant. We always choose the big sofa seats at the entrance of the restaurant because the tables were low enough for BabyNabil.


Going home! You can see that he’s getting damned sleepy.

Gift Food in My Mouth

School’s out this week due so my dependency to the virtual world hangs on RM$2.50 an hour at the littlest cyber café. I got me a couple of really nice books for Thesis Project homework but I’m going to need most of my time doing online researches.

So it’s only a picture-filled quickie post today. Plus, I’m getting a little suspicious about my mother these days. She’s a good cook but she only cooks well during the weekends. On other days, she just buys lauk from the street market and take-outs from nearby restaurants.

Starting with what’s she’s been cooking in the kitchen.

Breakfast 2 days ago: Pepper Mix.

Mak doesn’t usually cook breakfast. Seeing that we kids are old enough to fix meals ourselves. But she made a Pepper Mix. I called it that for lack of a better name. It’s a fried jumble of all sorts of pretty good stuff. Buttered bread, potato slices, burger meat chunks, sausage pieces, carrots and other marinated vegetables fried with strong pepper seasoning.


Dinner 2 days ago: Shepard’s Pie.

It was me who taught Mak how to make the best mashed potatoes from original potatoes. It made her Shepard’s Pie even better. Baked layer of mashed potatoes with a thin centre of freshly shredded carrots and a thick base of spicy taco meat. We never made any gravy with the Pie by compensating with creamier mashed potatoes.


Lunch yesterday: Carrot rice with Roast Chicken.

This is when I was beginning to suspect a hidden plot. Mak makes nasi minyak lobak merah very, veeeeeeeery rarely. It’s not hard to do but it’s one of her best cooking, especially delicious when made with her signature roast chicken with soy-sauce gravy.

She’s up to something and then I’m beginning to suspect what it is.


Dinner tonight?: Bread base, pasta sauce, white mushrooms, etc

And now she’s planning a pizza. But... Mak has never made pizza with these mushrooms before. They’re not our usual canned mushrooms.

It wasn’t until later in the afternoon that I knew something was up with my mother. It was while my father was watching the Al-Jazeera news on TV. Usually he’ll want to discuss current events with Mak, like US elections or Middle East conflict or the bad ice storm China is having for Chinese New Year.

As usual, Mak was sitting next to him but she’s not paying attention to the news or to Ayah this time - and Ayah, despite all the extra good cooking, was a bit sour that his wife wasn’t paying attention to him. Mak, oblivious, was reading a new book.



Mak has a crush on a new guy.

Recipe: Taco Bake with Corn Chips

This is a pretty easy recipe to make and doesn’t take an hour to cook; but there’s a whole lot of activity going on. You got to fry the meat, boil the pasta and then bake the casserole. But I tell ya it’s delicious! If you’re on a diet, stay away from this picture-filled message.

This is a warning; you’ll gain kilograms while you’re reading this.

Ingredients:
1 whole large onion, finely chopped
A few cloves of garlic, also chopped
Some paprika powder or chili powder (optional)
1 bottle of salsa
1 brick of cheddar cheese, shredded
Some Sunglo sour cream (I got mine at Giant hypermarket)
1 packet of Ramly brand frozen minced meat (400grams, beef or chicken)
1 packet of Old El Paso Taco Seasoning mix (found at Giant hypermarket or Cold Storage)
1 Kraft’s Deluxe Macaroni n’ Cheese dinner (bought at Cold Storage)
1 medium-sized bag of Chachos corn chips

*Note: make sure the frozen minced meat had defrosted into room temperature; otherwise you’ll get meat lumps when you fry ‘em.


Heat a pot of water until it boils. Then add the macaroni pasta as this one takes the longest to cook.


Fry those chopped onions and garlic until soft and fragrant, then add the minced meat.


When the meat is half cooked, add in the Old El Paso Taco Seasoning mix. Keep frying until the meat is cooked, then take it off the heat and let it cool in the wok.
*Note: You can also add a little bit of chili powder or paprika powder as well to make it spicier.


The pasta would have been cooked right about then. It should be white and soft but firm, not mushy because otherwise they’ll break to pieces after baking.
*Note: Now you should preheat your microwave oven to 180’Celcius to get ready for baking.


Drain the pasta and while still steaming, pour ‘em into a mixing bowl. Add all the Kraft’s cheese sauce and about a cup of the sour cream.


After mixing them well, add ONLY HALF (yes, just half) of the macaroni mix into a casserole dish. Then add a layer of the spicy minced meat. Using ONLY HALF of the shredded cheddar cheese, add a layer of it OVER that meat layer.


Add all the remaining macaroni mix over all that. Add a thin layer of salsa sauce over the casserole for taste. With the remaining shredded cheese, divide it into HALF and use just one half to spread a layer over the casserole.


Bake the casserole for just 15 minutes. Add the rest of the cheddar cheese, then bake a little while longer for only 5 minutes.


You can lick the cheesy mixing spoon while you wait. Mm-mmm...


Once done, crush the Chachos corn chips and spread ‘em all over the casserole.

Now eaaaaaaaaaaaaattt!! This recipe feeds 6 people; it’s very filling. I really wish you could smell the spicy taco mince meat cos it's really great. The touch of the salsa sauce alongside the saltiness of the cheese sauce melting on your mouth is just soooooo good. Chewy macaroni pasta and crunchy corn chips-, not saying anything more.

My folks always have this dish with a side of fresh, tossed salad drenched in thousand-island sauce. Other having a nutritional, balanced diet (Mak’s a food pyramid freak), the mix of tomatoes and lettuce leaves just seem to work superbly, sort-of like, it refreshes your taste buds as you eat.

Why am I writing this? Because I’ve decided that it was absolutely futile to stick to my New Year’s Resolution, that’s why.

Spread the cheesy love...