Risotto and Italiannies

Let me talk about Italiannies first.

Trifoli? Trofili? I can't remember the name.

 This is the new dessert which I cannot remember the name. Basically it's made from ladies finger. No, not the okra, Ladies finger as in the Italian biscuit usually used in making Tiramisu. I think they used cream cheese, or maybe it was cream?I am not sure. Besides that, it was abundantly filled with chocolate chips. With a side of refrigerated seedless grapes, this dessert is not bad. I would have preferred if the cream was colder. They should have chilled it longer.

 This trifle dessert cost us RM16.90. A bit pricey for something quite small.

I ordered the calamari salad as I was craving for calamari since God knows when. It was delicious! I feel that this salad is worth the RM32.90 that I paid. Scrumptious. Tossed in some sauce that remains unknown to me, olives, artichokes, lettuce, mushrooms, tomatoes and the star of the night, my delicious succulent calamari. Well tossed in the sauce, I gobbled this up as if it was my last meal.

Italiannies serves one of the best Italian food in town. I must say their standard and quality in food has not failed me so far.

We also ordered the usual. The spaghetti carbonara. As usual, thick with the cream sauce and quite a generous amount of beef bacon. I said quite a generous amount because, no matter how much bacon you give me, it is never enough. Didn't get a picture of it as I was too busy stuffing my face with food.

So, the other day I decided to be adventurous and make risotto. Pumpkin risotto to be exact. I am not sure how risotto is suppose to taste like as I have only eaten it once and it seemed like it was a bit undercooked as the rice was chewy?

I put on a brave front and started cutting the pumpkin. And, I cut my finger, pretty deep. At first, I did not notice how deep the cut was till it started to bleed like there's no tomorrow. The very next day, I obtained another cut, paper cut I think, pretty deep as well. All on one finger, I have no idea how I managed to accomplish such a thing.

Yup, take a whole pumpkin and cut it in half. Toast/bake half of them and the rest, diced em and cook em in lots of butter. Need I say more?

Dicing em pumpkins that lead to bleeding. =S

Baking em. They tasted really good toasted,plain without anything. The natural sweetness of the pumpkin really stood out.

This kinda spoiled my dish. I followed the recipe straight to the dot. The cheese was a little to overpowering.

 Making risotto, is tiring. The constant stirring really wears you down. First, the white wine, let the rice absorb it, stir continuously, then the stock, repeat stirring, then add some more stock, then stir continuously, and on and on.

 

It tasted quite nice before the addition of the pumpkin and cheese. With the pumpkin puree added to the rice, it was pretty good. The rice still looked like it wasn't cooked enough. I had to keep on adding water, trying to soften it and at the same time, trying to figure out if risotto is suppose to be like that.

Question of the day: Does risotto taste a bit like uncooked rice? Chewy and a bit hard in the middle? Coz I'm pretty sure I cooked it long enough.

After the addition of the cheese. Ugh, it was real cheesy. Not to be bias or anything (I'm not a cheese lover) but even my family that loves cheese felt that it was a tad bit too cheesy.

ARBORIO RICE!

YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW HARD IT IS TO FIND IMPORTED STUFF SUCH AS ARBORIO RICE!

After buying all the ingredients for making risotto, except the rice, I realized I could not find any supermarket/hypermarket that sells arborio rice. You name it, Carrefour, Aeon, Cold storage and another hypermarket-that-supposedly-sells-imported-stuff-but-not-risotto-rice-and-therefore-I-can't-remember-the-name-hypermarket.

 Almost panicked but thought of Jaya Grocer. Even though the nearest Jaya Groces is quite far from where I live, I drove all the way to Jaya Grocer in hope to find Arborio rice.You cannot imagine how immense my joy was to finally see a packet of vacuum packed arborio rice on the shelves of Jaya Grocer.

So yeah, Risotto was alright. Since I still have some left over arboria rice, I might be making, mushroom and bacon risotto soon. This time, Imma omit the cheese.

Till then. Adios!

Food, life and love.

Good bye young carefree life and hello working world.
First, lets talk about food.

1.Chili's

Well, I was looking really pale,anemic, as I had been working out a lot, doing weights and endurance training and I had not looked into the diet of an athlete. When doing extreme exercises like the ones I do, the diet of the person has to change or so I read. More iron rich food and what nots, and I have been maintaining the diet that I always have. Veg, meat, lil or no carbs. So I wasn't surprise that I was looking like I just donated blood to several banks. After doing some reading on the internet, beef was listed as one of the food that has the most source of iron. So, as my sister and mum were in Midvalley, we decided to have our dinner at Chili's.

I ordered their New York steak and I have to say, I am very disappointed. As shown in the picture below, that is the FATS. That is almost 40% of my steak. Mash was good as usual, veg tasteless. I had my fill of meat but was really put off by the amount of fats in my steak and for such an exorbitant price of RM59 ++ I could have gone to Tony Roma's instead.

2. Garden (Sunway Pyramid)

Had my dinner here with Pip. One word, awful.Ordered the pumpkin soup, the one I made at home tasted way better, the toasted "garlic" bread tasted like plastic. Serious. It was that bad. The steak was alright, though the size was pitiful for such a price. Can't remember the price but I remember it being pricey.

 

 Mash potato was TASTELESS. Nuff said. Never stepping foot into this garden ever again.


3.Brotzeit (Mid Valley)
After a long experience of disappointing and horrible food, we went back to a place that we knew would not disappoint us. Pricey yes but it is worth it, the quality AND quantity will speak for themselves.
 Bill came up to Rm180+ for 3 persons. Ordered the pork knuckle and the beef steak. DELICIOUS. The pork was to die for. The extra crunchy texture of the skin, you can literally hear the crunch in every bite. The meat was tender and succulent, chewy and soft.

Came with two sides of mash potato and sauerkraut. Mash potato was flavorful, every bite was a delight. The sauerkraut was delish, with the acidic and sour taste, it complemented the pork knuckle very well.

 Next is the beef steak. Heart stopping at first sight, the beef was drenched in brown mushroom gravy with a round slab of herb butter melting. But the item on the plate that really won my heart was the side of potatoes. Grilled? Fried? I had no idea, but it was achingly delicious. It was crispy on the outside and yet soft inside. This is the first time I had something like this. Do try this, I highly recommend this dish.

Well, I finally came to the part where a part of my life has ended and a new one has begun. Took a picture to commemorate my first day as an intern. I have to say, I quite enjoyed the experience. Cheers, to the working life.

This, is Abigail. =) What's the point of being a girl when we do not dress up and look pretty? Attended a wedding dinner and this is what we wore.

Ok, hopefully, this post will be followed with more stories. Cheers to life!

Dream what you want to dream, go where you want to go,
be what you want to be. Because you have only one life and
one chance to do all the things you want to do.

Unknown

I whip my egg whites back and forth...

I whip my egg whites back and forth, I whip my egg whites back and forth(in the tune of Willow Smith's WHIP MY HAIR).

So, I decided to continue my journey to the undiscovered land of baking. Was browsing though the net for marble cake recipes when I stumbled across this blog with this recipe. Marble Cake Recipe

Even with my sniffles(runny nose), I was eager to continue my journey after the past few failures that set my confidence level back a few notches. This recipe called for 8 large eggs but thanks to my fondness for eggs, I only had 4 eggs in my fridge. My egg eating record is eating 9 eggs in a day. I know, cholesterol level should be shooting up the roof. So now, I have to content myself with a maximum of 4 eggs a day. Well, I do not  eat 4 eggs everyday but, just to be careful, I gave myself a limit.

Made this today, and like my mum would always say, "Dixie, you always do things in a rush, get everything prepared before you start", which I failed to listen time and time again. Rushed through, panicked, and almost had a mini break down. As I was whipping the egg whites, I had to whisk the egg yolks with the sugar before adding it into the creamed butter. With the two hands occupied with the whipping of egg whites, my brain instructed my right hand to pour the egg yolks and sugar into the creamed butter. 

My brain must have concluded that it would not make a difference in whisking the butter, yolks and sugar together. =p

As I mentioned earlier, I halved the recipe and when I managed to get the batter in one piece, the panic struck. My pan was to big for the batter that I halved. Thus the small bowl in the cake. Pictures below.

Heard of cake in a mug? Well, this is bowl in a cake. 

 Before the bowl idea came to me, I was searching for aluminium foil to kind of seal part of the pan so as to turn the pan into a smaller one but my home in S'ban is as empty as Old Mother Hubard's cupboard.

I was scared my egg whites would deflate so I quickly grabbed a bowl, stuck it into the side of the pan and threw the pan into the oven. There, job done.

Pardon the holey surface, tasted fantastic!

 While squatting in front of the oven, I was praying that it would turn out alright, but the bubbly surface added more fear to my already panicked stricken heart.

As the warm buttery smell wafted from the oven, my head set me thinking that even though it may not look as nice as it should be, I was hoping that it would taste as good as it smells.

Took it cake out,took the bowl out. Time for the taste test.

It was a... well... it may have looked like the surface of the moon but it tasted GREAT!

Texture was light, fluffy and crumbly. I have always wanted my cakes to turn out as fluffy as this but I have never succeeded. It must be the whipping of the egg whites.

Youngest sis scraping the cake stuck on the bowl.

I will definitely make this again and this time, PREPARE AND DO NOT RUSH!

This recipe is a keeper. XD Am a happy baker today.

Marble Cake SUCCESS!!!

Salted egg mee hoon.

My dad told me about this restaurant in Sri Petaling. A restaurant 83 if I am not mistaken. They dishes they offer are very different from what one usually expects from a Chinese restaurant

Since my dad was raving about this dish, I had to try it, so the other day, Pip and I went to this restaurant.
We ordered the salted egg mee hoon, a signature dish of the restaurant according to the friendly owner of the shop, a bowl of black bean soup and kang kung belacan. Sorry, I was too hungry and forgot to take a snapshot of the vege.

Salted Egg Mee Hoon for two.

Black Bean soup with generous amount of black beans, some pieces of chicken meat too.

The mee hoon wasn't too bad, it was quite nice actually. The mee hoon was a normal stir fry mee hoon with bits of chicken(or was it pork) meat, and a few prawns. The only special thing about it is the topping of aromatic salted egg with curry leaves. It gave off a wonderful scent. Mix the mee hoon with the toppings and we are good to go.

Even the kang kung belacan was different from what I expected kang kung belacan would be, it was dry but really tasty. Why I said it was dry because the usual belacan veggies that I have eaten are usually swimming in belacan sauce. 

Soup was delicious too. The mee hoon cost RM16 for a 2-person serving. Went back there the other day with my family and the shop owner had wanted to introduce us to another signature dish but we had already ordered rice and dishes, so I will definitely be going back there to try the other different and hopefully mouth watering signature dish.

Stay tuned!

Failed Crepe Cake. =(

Not sweet enough pastry cream. Fail #1.

 I was so excited. I really wanted to make this. The recipe looked so easy. Another lesson to learn, must at least try/taste the thing before attempting to make it. As I have never eaten a crepe cake before, I had not idea whether the crepes were suppose to be thick or thin. =(

So I was happily and excitedly frying the crepes one by one without an inkling of how it should be.

 The process of assembling the cake. I also did not know how much sugar to add in as it was not given in the recipe. I was afraid it would be too sweet as the recipe said that sugar was to be added at each layer of the crepes. So I just sprinkled a little sugar and cinnamon on each layer.

I know it looks good. Not to say that it tasted bad but, due to the lack of sugar, and the crepes were too thick, tasted more like salty pancakes. Salty because the crepe batter had salt in it and no sugar. Weird, I know right.

But my sis liked it when she toasted the crepes and added honey and a little sugar, she said it tasted like pancakes. Which thankfully, a little sugar and honey could fix this otherwise disastrous "crepe cake".

So, I would like to announce, that this would be last baking spree for this month, or maybe two. =( One can only take that many disappointments. Remember the cheesecake? Yeah, sisters may like it but it was a far cry from the blueberry one that I made eons ago. =(


Have I lost my baking touch? =( *sad*

Cheesecake and couple pics.

Made cheesecake without an electric beater. =(

 Made cheesecake using the recipe from SORTED, Pris and Chris liked it but Mum and Dad felt that it was a little hollow. Wasn't my best cheesecake. The best cheesecake that I've ever made cost me almost RM60++. The recipe called for sour cream, this cream that cream. It was expensive but it tasted heavenly according to those who ate it. This cake totaled to a mere RM20++.

Had to make everything using hand. Didn't have my trusty electronic beater with me. =( It was tiring.

Looks good but not my best cheesecake. =(

Some couple pictures  just in case. I just realized that we seldom take pictures together. Not much of a camwhore  couple we are.