Eat. Pray. Love

I love my pizza so much that, in fact, I have come to the belief in my delirium that my pizza might actually love me in return. I am having a relationship with this pizza, almost an affair..............Holy of holies! Thin, doughy,strong, gummy, yummy, chewy, salty pizza paradise. On top, there is a sweet tomato sauce that foams up all bubbly and creamy when it melts the fresh buffalo mozzarella, and the one sprig of basil in the middle of the whole deal somehow infuses the entire pizza with herbal radiance......... It's technically impossible to eat this thing, of course. You try to take a bite off your slice and the gummy crust folds, and the hot cheese runs away like topsoil in a landslide, makes a mess of you and your surroundings, but just deal with it.

~ Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat. Pray. Love ~

When Pizza like THIS exist out there, WHAT ON EARTH DO WE NEED MEN FOR??? This is just a small part of a passage that made me want to hop on a plane to Naples and head over to Pizzeria da Michele for their Pizza Margherita with double mozzarella. Unfortunately, plane tickets to Rome are reputed to cost quite a bit, so I did the next best thing, make my own pizza. I'm pretty sure it didn't come anywhere close, but it still was pretty good, so it'll have to do for now.

Pizza, makes 2 pies

(yes, I do notice it's been ever so slightly burnt)

~Dough~
~125 g all purpose flour
~125 g high protein flour
~1 heaped tsp instant dry yeast
~1 tsp salt
~1/2 tsp sugar
~approx. 150 ml warm water
~2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil/ unsalted butter, melted

~Topping~
~4 heaped tbsp tomato sauce
(out of a bottle, or use my tomato salsa recipe here)
~ Shredded mozzarella cheese
~Whatever floats your boat baby.

Mix together all the ingredients in blue in a large mixing bowl. Set aside. Mix together ingredients in pink in a measuring cup for ease. Gradually pour the wet ingredients into the dry, constantly mixing with your hands. You might not need all the water, so proceed cautiously. Knead the dough till it forms a smooth ball. Expect it to be a wee sticky. Take the dough out, oil the bowl, lightly oil the dough too, then leave to rise in the oiled bowl for about an hour, or until doubled in size.

Preheat your oven to 240'C.
Knock the air out of your dough, and shape it onto a baking sheet. Round, rectangular, abstract, whatever strikes your fancy. Spread 4 tbsp of the tomato sauce onto your now flattened dough. Let it prove for 20 minutes.

Bake the dough for 20 minutes, or until the bottom sounds hollow when tapped. Top of with your trimmings of choice, as well as the mozzarella. Bake again until cheese is ooey, gooey and golden brown in places.

Potato Birthday Wishes.

Ok, ok.. I know I haven't updated for a while. but I'm here now!! Better late than never, right?
So first of...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY KBB!!!!!
You're legal to drink........but may you not get drunk.
;)

To a bat I've known my entire life (or at least it feels that way), This is a lil' late, but thanks for having me over. It was really good seeing you lot, and I had a great time.
Hope you liked your present, despite the fact it was devoured in 15 minutes.
Love you to bits, and hope you had a good birthday.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Now, I have a confession to make, with homework, studies, and the Forensics coming up, I'll admit I haven't been eating as regularly as I should. On average, i think I would have a meal a day, usually in school. Sometimes, nothing at all. So, now that the CNY holidays have started, I'm gonna try getting my eating schedule back in track over the next week. So, to start off, we have,

Potato Cheese Bake, makes 2 ramekins.~5 medium potatoes
~1 carrot
~2 cloves garlic, crushed
~3 tbsp butter
~3/4 cup milk
~1/2 tsp flour
~salt, pepper, oregano (to taste)
~1 tbsp sized dollop of
KRAFT cheese spread, cream cheese
~Mozzarella cheese, shredded for topping.

1. Peel and cube the potatoes. Rinse under cold water. Set aside.
2. Peel and finely chop the carrot. Rinse under cold water. Set aside.
3. Boil enough water to cook the potatoes and carrots. Heavily salt the water and throw in the crushed garlic. When boiling, throw in the cubed potatoes.
4. When the potatoes are just about done, give or take 10 minutes, throw in the carrots and boil for another 2 minutes. Drain the lot and get rid of the garlic. Set aside.
5. For the sauce, melt the butter. When that's melted, gradually pour in the milk and stir. Whisk the flour, salt, pepper and oregano. Let it simmer.
6. When it simmers, dollop in the cheese spread, whisking to mix.
7. When the sauce is smooth, pour in your carrots and potatoes. Let it simmer for a while, until the sauce is as thick as you wold like it to be.
8. Take off the heat and divide the mixture into 2 ramekins. Top with shredded cheese.
9. Bake at 180'C until cheese topping is melted and golden in places. Enjoy.

And to all my Chinese friends out there,

GONG XI FA CHAI!!!!!!!!!

Bun in the oven...

So, yeah, I've finished my first week of school, and come to the conclusion that our teachers are attempting to kill us. It' s a new record really, I only got as far as the fourth day of school before I was behind on my homework. Anyways, it's Friday night, and since I've got the weekend ahead, I thought I might as well release some stress. So, Here's the recipe for my
White Bread Loaf. It's not hard, and has just enough physical activity to make you feel like you're worth something. Oh, and the upside? Your house will smell like freshly baked bread for hours afterwards. ;-D

~500g of flour
~11g instant yeast
~1 tbsp salt
~1 and 1/2 tsp sugar
~approx, 300ml warm water
~1 and 1/2 tbsp butter, softened

makes 2 loaves.

1) measure out flour, yeast, salt, and sugar and tip into a large mixing bowl.
2) Clean your hands, then start mixing in a little water at a time till most of the mixture is clumping together It will feel rather coarse at this stage.
3) For want of a better word, massage the butter into the dough. Slowly build up your momentum and knead the dough. You don't have to turn it out, just knead it in the bowl itself.As for kneading, it's kinda like.... weighing down the middle of the dough with the heel of your palm, while pushing whatever dough that's in front of you forward, and then bringing it back in to the center. Give the dough a quarter turn, then repeat. Splash water in sparingly, you don't want this to be sticky. Just knead until it feels.....right. It'll stop being tired and kinda spring up a little.
4) Take out the dough, then wash and oil the big bowl. Plonk your dough in, turn around once to oil it, cover with a tea towel and forget about it for and hour.
5) Come back, punch it down, tear it into two portions. Line your baking pans or loaf pans with something, parchment, butter, flour.... whatever floats your boat.
6) Mold each portion ( I braided mine), chuck into vessel and cover with teacloth. Preheat oven to 200'C-220'C. Forget about the lot for 20 minutes.
7) Come back, brush your now proven dough with melted butter and chuck in oven for 30-35 minutes. To see it cooked, tap underside. If it sounds hollow, then Bob's your uncle.

Eat warm with whatever you fancy.

Introducing

SUNNY!!!!
My new egg yolk yellow Tivoli saucepan. Ain't he darling? Got him over the holidays. The same holidays which are about to end in, like, one days time.
*sulk*
Although, it will be my last first day of school,
My first day as a senior too.

dumdadididoo....

ANYWAYS,
today we're making Chocolate Marmalade cake.Recipe from Nigella Lawson's,
'How to be A Domestic Goddess'
under
'Store-Cupboard Chocolate-Orange Cake'

~125g butter
~100g dark chocolate
~300g marmalade
~150g caster sugar
~pinch of salt
~2 eggs
~150 self-raising flour*
~1 tbsp cocoa powder*
* sifted together

+Preheat the oven to 180'C
+Melt the butter and chocolate together in a heavy-bottomed saucepan.
+Take off the heat and whisk in the marmalade.
+Beat in the sugar, salt and eggs.
+Fold in the flour mixture. Pour into a 9 inch round pan.
+Bake for 45 minutes, or until cake tester inserted in middle of cake comes out clean.

Love Muffins

"What are you doing?" my father said one Saturday morning, lured out by the sweet smell of lemons and butter and golden batter rising in pans.
"Making muffins" Grandma Lynn said.
My father did a sanity check,staring at her. He was still in his robe and it was almost ninety degrees at ten in the morning,but she had pantyhose and makeup on. Then he noticed Hal in an undershirt out in the yard.
"My God Lynn," he said. "That boy is young enough..."
"But he's de-lec-ta-ble!"
My father shook his head and sat down at the kitchen table.
"When will the love muffins be done, Mata Hari?"

~ The Lovely Bones, Alice Sebold~

Citrus raisin muffins

~1/2 cup golden raisins
~ 200g plain flour
~1 tbsp baking powder
~zest of 2 limes, grated
~150g castor sugar
~pinch of salt

~225ml yogurt
~100ml vegetable oil
~juice of 1 lime
~1 egg.

+Preheat the oven to 200'C. Soak the raisins in hot water, leave aside.
+In a medium bowl, sift flour and baking powder together. Stir in lime zest, sugar and salt. Set aside.
+In a large bowl, beat yogurt, oil, juice and egg together. Drain the raisins. Mix in flour mixture and raisins into wet ingredients. DON'T OVERMIX.
+Divide mixture into muffin cups, fill halfway.
+Bake for 15 minutes, or until cake tester inserted in middle comes out clean.

New Year's Eve cookout.

~Clockwise,
Mashed potatoes, Bee hoon and sambal belacan (for laksa) Mutton chops topped with sauteed onions and mushrooms, fried eggs (for laksa), cheesy pasta, mutton vaaruval. Laksa soup is on the stove in kitchen.

Bro and I went over to our Aunt’s place on New Year's eve to hold our much awaited cookout session with our cousin and uncle. Went a little crazy in the kitchen, had a total blast throughout. The participants of the cookout are as follows:

Uncle D
~made mutton chops and mutton vaaruval.
~Encourages consummation and usage of imported beer and butter in his cooking.

Left: Aunty Sunthari
Right: Akka Vijaya
~provider of cooking premises
~helper of hopeless cooks

Rueben Dass (the Cousin)
~Made Cheese pasta and mashed potatoes
~The first person (I know) to play football while cooking.

Arun Kannan (the Brother)
~wielder of knives
~master pealler
~favours precision slicing and dicing, thus uses a small blade.


My contribution you ask? Well, I prepared:

Tiramisu
~I usually make this for very special functions. Prepared it the night before at home, so it could take its own sweet time to chill. Sorry folks, no instructions for this one. It yeilds REALLY good results and is well on it's way to becoming my signature dish, so I'm keeping this recipe in the vault.

Curry mee.
~This turned out pretty darn well, for the recipe I direct you to Journal of a girl who love's to cook (in my link list). It'll be under the Malaysian section.

We started cooking at around 10-ish and ate at 2.30. ;-P

~ At this point I'm stirring BOTH woks at once. As well as taking care of the laksa soup, I'm 'jaga-ing' my cousin's pasta sauce. Looked like a pro, had no bl***y idea what I was doing.

~I think Uncle D is frying potatoes for his AWESOME mutton vaaruval.

~Rueben's tending to his pasta sauce. From what I remember, onions, red chilli, mushrooms, butter, and cheddar cheese got thrown in. yUm.....

~My brother cooking the mutton chops that Uncle D pre marinated. After the chops were done, bro fried up some onions and mushrooms in the same pan and proceeded to flambee the whole lot witha splash of German beer. Very Cool.

And as you can see above, boy did we put out a spread. We ate, and ate, and ate, and then ate somemore. Anyone who would’ve seen us after we finished eating and washing up would have thought we were drugged. Rueben, and I were basically lolling about the living room, while Uncle D took a quick cat nap upstairs. The only one who looked reasonably dignified was my brother, reading his paper.

Aunt got home (she was in temple along with akka throughout the madness) and exclaimed at the spotless kitchen we had left behind, so she proceded to take us out to KAYU for ice-kacang.




Went home, ate MORE dinner, went to Sunway to watch the fire works and ended up on the wrong side of the building.

Not a bad way to send off 2008 I should think. Happy 2009 everyone!!

MERRY CHRISTMAS

Oh the weather outside is frightful,
But the fire is so delightful,
And since we've no place to go,
Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!

It doesn't show signs of Stoping,
And I've bought some corn for popping,
The lights are turned way down low,
Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!

When we finally kiss goodnight,
How I'll hate going out in the storm!
But if you'll really hold me tight,
All the way home I'll be warm.

The fire is slowly dying,
And, my dear, we're still good-bying,
But as long as you love me so,
Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!

Have

a

Merry Christmas

and

a

Blessed New Year.