What I Had For Lunch

As a Foodiva, I get to eat rich, ultralicious food on a pretty regular basis and without a bit of exercise and detox drinks here and there, there's a great likelihood of unpleasant consequences to my tummy area (both inside and outside!)

Well, yesterday I actually made an effort to go out specially to buy some ingredients for a fresh salad. What I got were iceberg lettuce, radishes, green pepper, Japanese cucumbers (those tiny green ones), tomatoes baby carrots and bunga kantan. Whattt?? Yes, below is a bunch of bunga kantans or Ginger Torch flowers, which is actually a wild plant - I saw it in the middle of the Temburong rainforest where we went hiking last year. It gives a citrusy flavour to the salad and is great for digestion.

This is how much you'll need for a small salad.

Any more and you'll get the runs for a day... hahaha!

So, after I've chopped everything up the way I wanted it, I tossed everything into my brand new salad spinner. It's the 3rd one we have, but it's my favourite one because 1. it's collapsible and can be stored easily, and 2. it's from the Martha Stewart range and we just lurrrrve Martha, don't we?

See what I tell you? Collapsible is the 'in' thing...

After the salad's been spun, they looked a little bit like terrified people who'd just been on a centrifugal ride at the amusement park. They're all stuck to the sides... terrorised. 

Healthy stuff. Just turn a blind eye to the garlic bread and pasta on the side.

Quick Banana Cake

This banana cake recipe was given by my mother and it's so easy, I can make it with my eyes closed (figuratively speaking, of course). Just get a few over-ripe, squishy bananas and squish them a bit more until they look like... ok, never mind what they look like, this is a food blog and we only like yummy images.

Mix the mashed bananas into a flour batter (sugar, butter, eggs, vanilla essence, milk, pinch of salt, flour and baking soda) and spoon the whole mixture into a 10X10 inch pan. Bake for 1 hour 15 mins (yes, exactly) and watch a whole episode of Glee or CSI while waiting.

There's mashed bananas in there somewhere.

A pinch of banana cake with fresh mango and cream.

This is how I keep my figure, folks!

Jammin' in my Kitchen

This morning, I put an end to all our excess fruits (for today) before they all turn south and rot. What a waste and crime that would be, hey? So I tried to extend their shelf life a bit longer and performed some sort of kitchen magic on them, a bit like me trying to extend my youth a little by visiting a beautician to undergo various extraordinary skin-lifting facials now and then. Haha... well, we try what we can, don't we?

Ok, back to the kitchen. The extra apples and mangoes have now all been turned into jams and stored in jars in my fridge. The cooking process was not without some pain, especially when bits of  boiling hot jam spurted out of the pot and onto my arms.... ouch! Plus, the slow-cooking process took so L-O-N-G, I think I actually fell asleep in the middle of all that stirring. Yes, making jam is real boring, in case you want to try it someday.

Take one last look at these because they will all be turned into mush soon..

I thought this was a lovely shot of the jams, until I realised that the fruits on top were the wrong way round!

 

Ok, this is correct. Apple jam on left, mango jam on right.

Yummy, I can't wait to have these on my toast for brekkie tomorrow!

Root Beer in a Cupcake!

Sooooo.... I finally got round to making these root beer treats this morning. It was quite easy to do, and I thought I'd better use up that root beer in the pantry before it disappears down someone's throat! In this house live thirsty little creatures affectionately called "the little sprogs". Juices and drinks just don't last that long around here because the sprogs get thirsty quickly on hot days and after running all over the place the whole day.

Anyway, I digress. Here are the ingredients, people:

There was no cocoa powder left in the cupboard so I improvised and used MILO... Yeahhhhh!!!

My Root Beer of choice

The delicious bubbling mess that is boiling root beer, milo and butter. Ahhh.... absolute heaven!

This consistency is about right.

Oven ready

Cooked!

The fun, kiddies version topped with mint candy. Looks like root beer float, dunnit?

The adult version with dried cranberries. Sad :-(

Black Velvet - Buah Keranji

Do you know what these black, round babies are?

I remember snacking on these fruits called Keranji or Velvet Tamarind as a child, but now it's hard to find them sold anywhere (I bought these in Kuching). When I handed them out in my palms the kiddies in the house, their immediate reaction was to recoil like they had seen tiny aliens from Mars or something! After a bit of persuasion, they cautiously ate several and their verdicts were mixed, from "Urrgh, it tastes hairy!" (meaning velvety, I think) to "Is it normal for a Keranji to have two seeds?"

Velvet tamarind or Dialium indum, is a tall, tropical, fruit-bearing tree, native to southern Thailand and Malaysia. It belongs to the Leguminosae family, and has small, typically grape-sized edible fruits with brown hard inedible shells. Due to its valued hard and compact wood, it is a threatened species, with its habitat being encroached upon by logging and human settlement. No reports of cultivation exist, information on propagation is limited.

The flavour of the fruit is similar to tamarind, where it derives its English name.

This is what it looks like on the inside...

                                     ... and once we were done eating them!

Lastly, no Keranji story would be complete without this classic Malay rhyme. Remember this?
 
Sorong papan tarik papan
Buah keranji di dalam perahu
Suruh makan engkau makan
Suruh mengaji engkau tak mahu

Those were the good old days!

Kueh Pau

Diva D decided to make some Paus (or white bread buns) this afternoon, her first time ever. I think she had a fascination for Kueh Pau and had always wanted to make them. Here are her efforts, in pictures:

These hands are made for baking

The red bean filling on the right. The orange thing is a new bath sponge that looks a bit like pau. 

Ready to go

Steamy session in the kitchen

The done deal.

I forgot to tell Diva D that the rolled, scrunched up side is supposed to be facing the greaseproof paper! Oh well...

Apple of my eye

Someone was saying this morning that we had an apple overload in the house and would I please do something about it? Funny thing is, she's the main grocery shopper around here, so I'm really not sure how we ended up with as many apples as the number of residents in my neighborhood!

Anyway, to cut a short story even shorter, I decided it's been a while since we had our yummilish German apple cake. It's so easy to make and I wonder why I don't make this more often....

I used a mix of Granny Smiths and Golden Delicious

I LOVE my apple corer!! It just makes my Diva life so much more easier.

The aftermath of the Apple Massacre!

This is how it ended up in the pan. Granny Smiths sandwiched between the Golden Deliciouses. (hmm... that sounds so wrong! hahaha..)

A pinch of cinnamon and it's ready to pop into the oven.

The cooked cake. Yumms....can you smell the cinnamon?

I suppose a tiny slice with a blob of vanilla icecream and raspberry never hurt anyone...hehe.