Want A Change In Mood? Eat Some Toffee.

There are many reason for me to be stressed or unhappy.

The work at the office is piling up and I went home feeling exhausted everyday. I wanted to do at least a bit of a reading but even before getting to the next page I was already fast asleep.

There are many things and plans I wanted to get started but I don't have enough moolah to do anything about it now.

I'm still stuck at this office. Scanning my card at 8 in the morning and spent 10hours of my precious time doing things I don't really care about.

And I haven't heard a thing from the hundreds of resume I sent applying for a job somewhere else. Maybe because all the time I was only halfhearted and blindly applying for 'the job' because I know deep down that it's not what I really wanted to do. So I guess I haven't been sending out the right signal to the universe so they are a bit confuse as to what I was attracting and they don't want me to get what I don't want. Does that make any sense to you? Pfft.

Well, that is exactly everything that I can choose to feel and think every five minutes if I let my mind to dwell about it long enough to affect my emotions. However, I choose to simply change what I was thinking to something good and I don't think I'm unhappy anymore. Just like that.

Rather than replaying and analyzing all those bad and sad thoughts, I push my mind to think of grabbing some chocolate mint toffee which I saw at my colleague's desk this morning. Now I'm typing this to you while helping myself with one. He wouldn't mind a few missing.

Remember my post about having a plan? That also helps you to move forward and have a sense of purpose no matter how small it may be. Get you excited and help setting a new priority to think about. Mine would be to decide what to cook before April ends in about 1 and a half day left.

Good luck to me! :-D


08:48pm Update
Just had dinner. Guess what? Nasi Lemak. So, that's the recipe for April. Barely made it eh. It's my first time cooking Nasi Lemak so there's still a room for improvement. Plus, the ingredients was not really complete since I couldn't find it all at the nearby market and I was kind of tired after a long day at the office but I did try my best. The sambal was a bit too spicy and oily but the rice was yummy. I couldn't find any Pandan  at the shop (although I did take a peek at the neighbour's lawn and saw a bunch of it planted there but I was too shy to ask for one) so I just put some lemon grass and slices of onion into the rice mixed with coconut milk. It was actually quite good for first timer. I'm going to try cooking it again and i'll make sure it's a finger-lickin'-good one this time. :)

Deliciously Authentic

After last weekend trip to Danok Thailand, I thought it's only appropriate to cook a Tom Yam dish for March.

Bought quite a lot of the Tom Yam paste and cube during the short stay at the place best known for providing pleasure in so many ways I'm sure you can think of one and I have tasted a delicious Tom Yam Soup made by a Thai cook during the visit to the Water View Restaurant where they deliver the food you have ordered via boats.

Try reading that in one breath. Anyway, the place sound interesting kan? Very.

Having cooked the recipe quite a few times with acceptable standard, this time I only have to improve it to another level.

Deliciously authentic. Seh~

I'm sure it will come in handy when there's a need for me to meet someone's mother in not-so near future. [giggles]

Will share the ingredients here once I found out the best recipe I can create on my own with the help of the many existing one you can find anywhere in this virtual world.

Stay tune darlings.

Resepi Di Bulan Febuari

Ahad lalu, saya masak lagi. Daging masak merah. Makanan yang selalu saya pesan tiap kali makan di kedai Melayu. Ada dalam senarai masakan dalam entri dulu.


Sebenarnya saya agak risau untuk masak masakan ini sebab saya cuma tahu pesan dan makan selama ini. Setelah guna taktik pencarian google saya yang agak hebat, begitu banyak rupanya resepi daging masak merah di merata laman web. Nasib saya baik.

Ia sepatutnya agak mudah. Tapi di sini saya mahu beritahu anda supaya tidak percaya sesuatu tanpa cuba terlebih dulu. Lebih-lebih lagi jika melibatkan masakan. Sesuatu yang agak lucu terjadi setelah saya bercadang untuk ikut kata salah seorang pemberi resepi. Daging masak merah yang saya masak ada rasa sirap merah. Si pemberi resepi cuba berkongsi cara selain dari mengunakan pewarna merah atas sebab-sebab kesihatan.

Selain dari rasa sirap, masakan saya kira ok juga lah. :-D
Saya akan cuba sekali lagi tanpa sirap sebelum Febuari berakhir.

Kalau berani cuba lah. Resepi seperti di bawah:

Bahan
300g daging (hiris nipis)
3-4 sudu besar sos tomato dan cili
3 sudu sos tiram

Bahan Hiris
1 labu bawang besar/merah
3 ulas bawang putih
3 cm halia
2 biji cili merah
2 biji cili hijau
2-3 lada kering (hiris besar atau dikisar)
3 keping daun limau purut

Cara
1. Rebus daging hingga lembut. Tos dan gaul dgn pewarna merah (jangan guna sirap).
2. Panaskan minyak dan masukkan daging. Goreng sehingga lembut.
3. Masukkan sos tomato, sos cili dan sos tiram.
4. Masukkan pula bahan hiris. Kacau dan gaul sebati.
5. Angkat dan hidangkan.

Air rebusan daging digunakan semula untuk kuah masakan.

Agak mudah kan. Mungkin untuk cubaan kali kedua saya hanya akan goreng daging hingga lembut dengan api perlahan. Saya akan fikir dulu sama ada akan mengunakan pewarna atau biar kan saja daging dalam keadaan perawan. Hi hi hi

What's In For February?

I'm cooking again.

Thinking of going to the supermarket later. Still unsure of what recipe should it be for February.

Any suggestion?

Hmm.

Calling The Pot Black?

Nope.

Just that i tried the recipe again this evening. It's not really the greatest but at least it was better than the first time. Presenting my Chicken In A Pot cooking.....

Tadaa!

One for you...

and one for me...

p/s I know it's up quite late. Blame it on the flu. Need to do something to boost the immune system. Hmm.

Don't Mess With The Chicks!

Remember my previous post about cooking? I tried a new recipe last week.
And it was quite a disaster.

That particular day was one of those time when you feel so lucky and grateful having someone that will still think you're adorable no matter how bad you screwed up. We were anticipating a delicious and nice set of meal for dinner but instead what comes out was an overcooked, over-taste and over-ingredients kind of dish. Regardless of what happened, KC still finishes his portion diligently. I know it might be that you were just hungry dear, but I really appreciate the thoughtfulness.

It was that bloody Chicken In A Pot recipe.
The only one missing was the pot.


I tried everything from throwing half of the broth mixture to adding other ingredients so that the sauce tasted better but I did not come close to getting it right. In the end, i just let it be and serve it up at the table. I never cooked dishes with all the chicken broth mixed with tomato paste, bread crumbs and dried oregano before so maybe that's why I failed at it the first time. Excuses aside, I am not letting January ends with a fail recipe. Now that i know at what step that I did wrong, I'm going to try that recipe again before the month ends. Saturday maybe?

Here's the recipe if you feel like poisoning someone this weekend.

Hell Yeah!

It was suppose to be a very simple recipe so good luck! :-)

Do you smell what The Rock is cookin'?

I have been thinking about finding one thing to focus before the end of this month so i can have something which i start from January and hopefully for every month till December.

Inspired from the movie Julie & Julia, i think i want to learn to cook every favorite dish i love to eat. This literally means the exact taste of the best recipe which is in my liking. Julie's idea was to cook every recipe in Julia's cooking book and to finish it within 365days. Mine would be much simpler. One recipe each month which means 12 recipes in 12 months. Whoa!

Even typing this now makes me nervous. I am really going to do this and the challenge of learning something that i may have no idea about is kind of exciting and scary at the same time. I know it's just cooking but imagine the consequences of one's cooking error can do to oneself! Well just hope i won't burn the kitchen at least.

Let's start by listing all my favorite dishes here and i'll sort it out later on which i want to do first.

1) Steak (thinking of a flat iron steak with some red wine)
2) Pasta (spaghetti and meatballs maybe?)
3) Daging/ayam masak merah
4) Nasi goreng belacan
5) Tom Yam Kung
6) Hokkien Mee
7) Jawa Mee
8) Nasi Lemak

I'll leave that to 8 dishes first in case i found a new favorite dish after this and decide to learn to cook it. There's a few more cookings that i am fond of but i don't really need to list it out here because i'm already very good at cooking it. [grin]

So. January. If it's you, which one do you think you want to try your hand at first?