Long awaited Lasagna

I have always wanted to make a good hearty lasagna. Last Sunday I gave it a try.

Mushroom Pasta

My favourite... yummy! (any food cooked with good and tasty mushrooms really)

homemade mushroom pasta

Antipodean

This is a great little place situated at Jalan Telawi 2, Bangsar. Antipodean - as it is called is a perfect place for your weekend morning breakfast/brunch. Although it is a little small, the place is cozy and friendly.

After being assigned a table, we were asked to choose our food from the menu on the wall."The Big Breakfast" immediately caught my eyes, and I knew I had to try it, I even ordered extra bacon as a side dish =P. For drinks, I wanted coffee, but which one? So I went through the list of coffees and suddenly two very special words stood out...... "KOPI LUWAK". In case you do not already know, it is the Rolls-Royce of the coffee world, RM40 for a plunger (that is two cups as the waiter puts it). I was going to order it until my "financial advisor" said : "maybe next time..." And so I had the cappuccino instead, which was also very good.

my perfect breakfast setting =)

Pei Yee ordered pancakes and tea. I commented on her choice of tea over coffee, seeing that they were famous for the coffee. Although I know she doesn't drink much coffee, but something tells me she regretted over her choice......

hmm... maybe I should have had coffee instead...

Oh yeah, did I mention we dropped by what must be my favorite shop in Bangsar - Pantry Magic. How did I even miss it during my shopping visits to Bangsar Village? Just look at the copper cookware... B-E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L!

Dinner at Chicago O'Hare

True enough, my first dinner in the US was a big serving of burgers and fries. It was HUGE, I could not even finish half of it. Tasty no doubt...... but HUGE...

Thick cut applewood smoked bacon burger

The United States of America

Having seen so many American food programs and being the foodie that I am, I always wanted to try the food myself. And you know how it is over there, all the portions are HUGE. So I will either need to exercise a lot more or control myself from over-eating.

burgers or fried chicken for anyone?

That's just so Cheesy!

It has been a while since I last cooked pasta, and recently I craved for pasta covered with thick creamy mushroom sauce. I also had a craving for mac & cheese, with over the top...melt in your mouth...cheesy gooeyness. So despite my "one-arm" condition, I knew I had to make pasta.

So I called upon Pei Yee to be my Chef de la journée (chef of the day). This was no ordinary task, this was a dish beyond the ordinary, it had to combine the two pasta dishes into one and somehow find a balance between the two. With the challenge set before us, we started off with a milk base infused with garlic, bay leaves and a tiny hint of curry/tumeric powder. To that base we mixed in not one, but two types cheeses to form the cheese sauce. Adding to that was a big handful of re-hydrated chanterelle mushrooms and thick chunks of pan-fried luncheon meat. All those ingredients were mixed together with the macaroni before it was topped with a generous sprinkling of parmesan and chives and baked in the oven for about 15 minutes to brown the top until crispy golden perfection.


WARNING!: The images below are not suitable for the faint hearted, lactose intolerant and weight watchers.

New Design

It is with great pleasure that I introduce the new header and design to my blog. I had the concept in my mind for quite some time, but to make it a reality I knew had to appoint someone with good graphic design skills, one who has experience in using Photoshop, one who could make a few lines of description into a piece of art. Naturally of course the name "Keller" came into my mind. Keller did not disappoint me, and as a result, a beautiful header for my blog that I am very proud of. Thank you so much Miss Designer-Keller =).

Brief description of the header:
Logo: It is a picture of a food scale. It is also deliberately drawn to look like the Chinese character for "weigh".
Name: I wanted "food prints" at first, but it was already taken by someone else. So I had to settle for "foodie prints",which in a way I find it a more suitable name.
Pictures: The round slices of ingredients making their way to the pizza gives the idea of "foot prints" leading the way into the final dish.

So with a new name and a new design, hopefully it will also be a new beginning to more new recipes and dishes!

Julie & Julia

I watched Julie & Julia yesterday, it was a good movie, partly due to my love for food. =) The movie "inspired" me to go on a cooking challenge on my own. I was thinking for doing a complete run through one of Jamie's cook book, but I am still considering if I will take on the challenge or not. My main concern is the cost of it, since the ingredients that will be used is not common in Malaysian markets and to scout for it will be a challenge in itself.

So as for now this "project" will be put on KIV status until I am equipped and ready to take on the culinary hike to the peak of utter deliciousness ... dream ... dream... drool.... =P.

Anyone offers to donate to the Tong How's food challenge fund? ;)

Cooking again

After leaving the UK for about two years now, I hardly ever keep myself updated with new food recipes. The only few times I stepped into the kitchen to cook was for fellowship dinner. Many time I do feel quite rusty in my cooking, so I decided to use up the mushrooms and pasta I bought from Italy from my last business trip to cook me and my mom some dinner.

Pasta used to be the easiest food for me to cook when I was in UK. For some reason, cooking it now seems to be much more of a challenge. Maybe a sign that I need to practice my cooking more... sigh... Anyway, after much effort, this is what came out of the pot.

Verdict:
Presentation - 40/100
Taste - 70/100

(as judged by myself and my mom =P)

Some yummies from Japan

I love Japanese packaging. Not only does their food taste great, even their packaging looks fantastic, that is why it is so hard to resist buying some back home to eat. This mocchi is supposed to be a high class mocchi brand with a variety of really nice flavours. The sales person at the counter even asked how long my flight was so that they could freeze it with dry ice to keep it fresh until I reached home =0. No wonder it is so expensive. The cake at the bottom is a green tea cake. I love green tea, and the cake looked really good, so I bought some home to try, It was really soft and tasty, not too sweet, just purrrrrrrrfect... Yummy!

 deliciously soft mocchi (best i have had)

green tea cake... gotta love it

And what do we have in Midvalley...

Pei Yee and I went to Midvalley last Saturday and guess what we saw ... wait... words just can't describe it, lets just see the photo:

- located just beside Pizza hut -

Yes... it is true, the nation wide domination has begun! =P

Return of the Kreme

we waited for its arrival...

This post is a few weeks too late. I was supposed to put up a post when I had my first taste of the Krispy Kreme invasion into Malaysia, which was the FIRST day the shop opened in Berjaya Times Square..hehe =) (imagine evil laugh with annoying grin).

Just in case you are wondering ... No I did not queue up the whole day on Monday just to eat it on the first day. Soo Aun was the kind brother who offered me a box that he bought on his way back from work. As you can see from the two "missing" doughnuts, I was obviously not patient enough to wait for the picture to be taken before I started digging in.

finally it has arrived...

So how was it? Was it as good as the first time I had it in London? ...... Well it wasn't AS GOOD, but it came pretty close, and it was delicious! The melt in your mouth texture of the doughnut is just so SEDAP, HO CHAK, OISHII NE!

It was so good that my parents went to Time Square the following Saturday and bought back another box. This time we finished it before I even got to take a picture of it =p.

Of course, I had to go to visit the place for myself, so this time I went for the Big Daddy of them all - the one dozen assorted variety deal.

sigh... it is almost impossible to take a photo with all the doughnuts untouched

Welcome to our country Krispy Kreme

I can't believe it... when Pei Yee told me that Krispy Kreme is actually coming to Malaysia, I was like ......... K ............ KR ......... KRIS ............ KRISPY ......... KRISPY KR ............ KRISPY KRE ..............

!!!!!! Krispy Kreme !!!!!!

- image from www.krispykremeaddicts.com -

Well all I can say is this:

Finally! Tan Sri Vincent Tan.

Prayer meeting

Whenever we have regional prayer meeting, there is always good food to look forward to. Why? Because KGC's very own Iron Chef is 'in-da-house'! Cooking up delicious meals is a matter of "white peanuts" for aunty Tan, just look at what we had for our last meeting... Yummy!


So on behalf of all who attend Uncle Hong Boon's house for prayer meeting, I would like to apologize for keeping aunty and her prayer meeting specialties exclusively to our side of the regional prayer meeting. =P

Morel

If you have never heard of morels, I suggest you that you should try it, because it is absolutely delicious. It has a very strong earthy mushroom flavour, almost nutty and with a sponge like texture that is just wonderful. The first time I came across this type of wild mushroom is from a comic book of all places. Ever since I was intrigued by this mysteriously weird shaped delicacy. I finally found it in a very small corner in the supermarket which is apparent since morels are considered to be quite expensive. As always I just cannot resist buying them and trying them for myself. The result, a fantastic mushroom fragrance not just on the plate, but the entire kitchen. YUMMY!

For those of you curious as to where the morels are in this dish, its at the left side of the plate, the brown textured thing. This was a chicken dish, the morels were used to make the sauce and since I dun like to waste such an expensive food, I served it as a side dish.

Pancakes

 Yet another adventure in the kitchen, This time just plain pancakes. To be honest I only made this dish because of its aesthetics of it rather than taste. I always wanted to make the HUGE pancakes that you see in comics and cartoons with beautiful big round brown fried marks on it. =P

Spanish feast

There is something about paella that just seem to put me of this dish. Maybe because I had a bad experience eating it for the first time in this spanish restaurant which really didn't cook it well. The only reason I decided to try my hand on this dish myself is because of a food program which just made it look so good. So for this dish I had two of my "firsts". My first time cooking a spanish paella and my first time cooking with the most expensive spice in the whole world - saffron. Why all the trouble and cost? Because I believe paella is a much better dish despite my initial impression of it.

粽子(Dumplings)

Ever since I saw my mom made these dumplings years ago, I knew I had to try to make some myself one day. A word of caution: Anyone who wishes to attempt this is in for some really hard work. It took two people a whole night just to make a few batches of small dumplings. Was it worth it? Well, after eating what you made yourself, it is always worth it.

"Kuk fan" version 2.0

Last year December, I wrote my first food post on a dish that I came up with myself. After 6 months, 1 day, 6 hours, and 27 minutes, I finally decided to improve on it to make it the updated version 2.0. =P

duck tales

Duck... a rather foreign word in my cooking journey. This is because duck meat is very gamelike and rich with thick layer of fat that is underneath its skin. If cooked properly it is the best absolutely delicious; cook it the wrong way and it might put you off duck meat for the rets of your life. I came across a recipe that was really interesting. It involved marinating the meat in fruit brine (orange juice + salt) for at least a few hours before cooking it. The cooking process was a two step approach. First steam the duck then "froast (fry + roast)" it in the oven. After that plate up the duck with side vegetables sautéd using the fat from the duck. As usual, I always fancy a little extra on my plate, so I made some mashed potatoes to go with it.