Black Forest for Naomi

Yaay, out of nowhere, three days ago I've got an order for making a birthday cake for Naomi, a 4 years old girl living next door. She will celebrating her birthday in her school this afternoon. Request from the birthday girl, the cake must be a chocolate cake, heart shaped, and topped with looots of chocolate. So, I made a blackforest cake, filled and covered with whip cream and decorated with grated chocolate. Hope she'll like it.

By the way, last night when I was about to decorate the cake, suddenly, the electricity went off. Hiks, I was panic since I covered the cake already with whipcream, and afraid that it will melt and ruin everything. But, with all the optimistic I have in the middle of a dark night, I continue to decorate while wishing the electricity will be recover soon. Decorating cake with only aided by a candle light in the middle of silent night was sooo romantic :P, I put piece by piece of cake while wondering would the birthday girl love the cake, I hope she will, crossing my finger now. Everything were still dark even after I finished decorating. I put the cake back in refrigerator, hoping that the cake will still look as nice as when I finished at the time I wake up the next morning. And, voila, as you see in the picture above it is still looks OK and ready to deliver.

Moral of story, when there is a will there will be a way... never give up no matter what happened. :)

Will deliver the cake to the birthday girl soon... wish me luck!!!

Cheesy Tuna Pasta

Hi Saturday,
It's weekend already, and I am extremely happy. I was quite sad on few last days, and so happy after had a short chat with my dearest mate Mutiara this morning. Thanks Muti for encouraging me and keeping my feet on the ground.
Ok, enough for the prologue now let's go to the cooking matter. Again, I've got a magazine from Myrna when she came home last week from Australia, and it really makes me happy because beside getting a lot of recipes I can get lots of inspiration by seeing nice unique food photos from it. I browse the magazine fastly and look at this healthy pasta and cheese recipe. I believe that my daughter, K, would love it too. So after the lovely chatting with Mutiara I then prepared this food for breakfast on a rainy happy Saturday. By the way, sorry for the bad picture. Later on I will try to take a better picture if I remake this food (and I know I will).

Cheesy Tuna Pasta Bake
Source : Australian Good Food Magazine with some modification by me

Ingredients
250g macaroni
60g butter
35g plain flour
1 tsp curry powder (I skipped this)
625 ml low fat milk (any kind milk will do)
120g of frozen peas (I used frozen peas, carrot and corn)
90g grated reduced fat-cheddar (I used regular cheddar)
pinch of grated nutmeg
425 g can tuna in water, drained, flaked
2 slices white bread, roughly torn
2 tbsp chopped flat leaf parsley (I skipped this)
200g salad greens, to serve (I skipped this)

How To

1. Preheat oven to 230C, grease a 6 cup capacity ovenproof dish.
2. Cook macaroni, according to package directions. Drain.
3. Meanwhile, melt butter in a pan on meium heat. Add flour, and curry powder if using and cook. Stirring for 1 minute until colour lightens. Gradually stir in milk and cook, stirring for 2-3 minutes until sauce boils and thicken (I turned off the fire, until all portion of milk were added, to reduce heat).
4. Add frozen vegetables, 1/2 cup of cheddar cheese and nutmeg. Season and stir for 1 minute until cheese melts.
5. Add macaroni and tuna and stir to combine. Pour into prepared dish. Combine bread pieces, remaining cheddar and parsley and scatter over pasta mixture. Bake for 15 mintues, until golden. Serve with salad. 

This was a "tongue spoiling" breakfast for us. The taste is just right in our mouth.


It is easy to make, only half an hour preparation time and 20 minutes baking time. Will give you sufficient calory to start the day, and yet, really healthy for our lil daughter K and also for you, yes you.... so why don't you try it and have a perfect morning as we had. 
 

Sambal Tempeh

Have you ever been in a day, when any food in front of you looks "yuck" instead of "yummy". I mean, do you often had a bad appetite day which make you refuse any food that offered to you? I (seldom) did, :).
During those appetite problem, I would prefer an easy and spicy food to eat. This type of food would be something that is reaaally hard to refuse. Hot food will cover all the miscomposition of spices which usually would make the food taste bad, too salty, too sweet, and etc.
I have a favourite sambal that I and my dear husband love during those bad bad day. It is Sambal Tempeh. Really easy to make, fast, and surprisingly healthy.

Here is the recipe :

Sambal Tempeh
Original Recipe of Kirana

Ingredients
5 sliced of tempe (100 grams)
2 chili
2 clove of garlic
1 tsp cooking oil (vegetable/palm oil)
pinch of salt

How to :

1. Season tempe with pinch of salt, and fry in a hot palm oil to brown. 
2. In a mortar, crush garlic and chili using pestle until smooth. 
3. Add pinch of salt and mix.
4. Put tempe inside mortar, mash tempe but do not over mash.
5. Mix tempe and spices with the aid of spoon.
6. Voila, sambal tempe ready to serve.

I have a story on serving this sambal for eat.  My mom usually serve sambal tempeh over dining table on the mortar.... :), and we scooped directly from the mortar. But nowadays I always move it to a cuter plate, as my husband kind of see it as something strange to have a mortar over a dining table. Though if I may say, I personally love to scoop it directly from the mortar on originality reason... :).

I hope today is not your "bad appetite" day but if it does, then you may give this recipe a try, and enjoy.

Mayo Risol

Risol filled with smoked beef, egss and mayonaise used to be my favourite snack during the.... CUSTOMER AUDIT. Yep, you do not read it wrong, I said, customer audit. This snack is one of the thing that could make me, at least, felt more relax in the middle of full of tension faces. :P
Now, no nightmare such that anymore, but still I love this type of risol. I sometimes sneaked out and went to Tanjung, a small bakery which have the best mayo risol in the town. But during those lazy walking time, I prefer to make it by myself at home. Though, I admit, I still need to learn how to make a really thinny wrapper as they have.

As always, I have got the recipe from NCC website. I write it down for you below :

Mayo Risol
(American Risoles)
Source : Fatmah Bahalwan, NCC

Wrapper

• 100 gr flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 3 pcs eggs
• 250 ml milk
• 1 tbs butter, melt
• margarine to spread

How to

1. Shieve flour, put inside a bowl with salt. Make a hole in the middle, break eggs in it and stir uni directionally.
2. Add milk gradually, to create a smooth batter
3. Add melted butter and mix thoroughly
4. Close batter with plastic, set aside for 30 minutes
5. Grease 12 cm omelette pan with margarine and heat up
6. Pour 1/2 cup of batter on pan, spread batter evenly. Cook for 2-3 minutes. 

Filling

• 4 pcs of smoked beef, cut 1x3 cm
• 100 gr of grated cheddar cheese
• 4 pcs of boiled egg, cut into small pieces
• 1 pcs egg beaten
• 250 gr of bread crumb
• 1/2 kg of palm oil

Finishing

1. Lay one skin/wrapper on a flat plate.
2. Put smoked beef, cheese and egg on top of it as much as you like... :P
3. Fold wrapper to make an envelope shape
4. Set aside
5. Repeat with remaining wrapper and filling
6. Dip risol in beaten eggs, then roll over on bread crumbs. 
7. Cool in refrigerator for an hour
8. Heat oil for deep-frying . 
9. Add risol in small batches and fry, turning occasionally, about 2 minutes or until golden brown. 
10. Remove with a slotted spoon and drain on paper towels.

Serve warm with tomato or chili ketchup. Yummy....

So go get the ingredients, fill, fry, and enjoy them with a sip of sweet lemon tea on a warm afternoon. Trust me, you will never regret.
Enjoy........ :)