Nostalgia

I missed my previous blog...I don't know why I opened my old blog, and enjoyed them. I just want to put their links here as a reminiscence.

All recipes in these links are in Indonesian language.

Recipes at It's Coffee time with Jane

Recipes at Reviresco Life's Corner

When the word "nostalgia" popped up in my mind...I remember this song.

This song is about people who is remembering and reminiscing high school season in their life. When she met her beloved one at school.

Arugula Salad with Red Beans & Mandarin Orange

Summer is almost ended. If I may choose, I want warm/hot weather as summer time with foliage like autumn season has. I still feel like to eat fresh veggie and fruit...Don't want to end this summer.

I made simple salad with arugula, red beans, mandarin orange and tomato. I made simple dressing for this salad. Combination of spicy arugula with nutty taste from the beans and some sweetness from the orange are so lovely. Love it...

Ingredients :

Baby Arugula (about 2 handfuls )

Canned Red beans ( drain, wash, rinse) -- about 3-4 tbsp

Canned Mandarin Orange ( drain the syrup)

Crouton (crushed to add some crunchy texture)

Shredded Parmesan Cheese --- 1 -2 tbsp

Plum tomato - sliced

Dressing :

2 tbsp olive oil

1 tbsp honey balsamic vinaigrette

1 tbsp lemon juice

salt & pepper to taste

(whisk all the ingredients of the dressing)

Put all the veggie and beans in a bowl, pour the dressing over them. Toss them. Sprinkle with parmesan cheese and crushed crouton.

Ready to enjoy...

Baking Cake with Rice Cooker

I bought a new rice cooker. After reading lots of reviews, I decided to buy Sanyo brand rice cooker. Instead of buying $200 rice cooker from leading brand, I got micro-computerized rice cooker with reasonable price.

One of reviewer at Amazon.com said that she made a cake using baking function from this rice cooker. I tried the same thing, from manual book I read that it can be used for any cake mix box. This is a short cut for making my son's 2nd birthday cake.

I was worry after pouring out the batter to the inner pan and push baking button on the rice cooker. After waiting for about 55 minutes...voila..a nice thick cake was produced by this rice cooker. So happy I got multifunctions rice cooker...

My son and I had a great time decorating the cake. My son was so excited to put all the M&M chocolate milk over the ganache frosting I made. Love you son....

Encouraging Myself to Cook

My previous post was about my kitchen blues last August.

At the end of August, I really needed to motivate my self to cook again.

My son would have his birthday on August 25th....I wanted to make something for him.

Sometimes to increase my mood of cooking, I love to see something cute, crafty and lovely.

Just to give some treat for my eyes :-)

I opened my pics when I went to a food bazaar at the end of July, and I saw some cute stuff from a Bostonian student. Her name is Abe. She made mini painting with clay creations and also she made a lovely bottle art, she called it "Say It with a bottle".

You can see it more detail on her blog , just click HERE.

Finally I find my spirit of cooking again...yay I was making tapioca layer steam cake (lapis sagu). It was time consuming (more than 1 hour making time, and we have to do it layer by layer). But after seeing the beautiful colorful layer of this cake I just felt happy.

I got this recipe from Ibu Estherlita, from her multiply blog (www.estherlita.multiply.com).

750 mL thick coconut milk
200 mL thin coconut milk
100 mL condensed milk
500 gr tapioca flour
2 tbsp sweet rice flour
400 gr sugar
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp vanilla
food coloring and food essence according to our preference (usually Pandan paste)



Directions:

Warm the milk and coconut milk, add sugar and salt.
Put the milk mixture into the flour, stir and mix until smooth. Prepare the steamer. Grease the pan that we will use to steam, with some vegetable oil. Cook every layer, about 10 minutes. I was using mini loaf silicon pan. And I just made half of the amount of the recipe. We need to cook every layer perfectly so we can pull layer by layer when we eat them. After all the layer done, steam again about 20 minutes.

Kitchen Blues

Is that really a term to describe how lazy I am to cook.

I don't know why August was so blue....I just cook ordinary dishes and simple.

One of them was tom yum soup with udon noodle.

I just used instant tom yum soup in a jar. I scoped and put it into the boiling water.

Added some fish ball and fish cake, lastly added some shrimp.

I also prepared a bowl of cooked udon noodle. Pour out the soup into the noodle, garnish with some cilantro and it's ready to enjoy.

Simple dishes for my kitchen blue days...

I also asked my husband to be my model...just want to try new style of taking food picture.