Of This and That - Some Musings

This will be my last post for 2016… It’s raining heavily outside, sitting down with my laptop on our dining table, occasionally I glance through my balcony doors to look far ahead, but the visibility is zero. I made a glass of chilled iced lemon tea for myself...Music playing in the back ground, you know those ageless and soul-soothing old Hindi songs – like one from film ‘Anupama’. December makes me feel cold inside, although the temperatures outside will defy all things winter has to offer here. There is nothing as such a typical ‘winter’ in Malaysia – rain and sun-shine all through the year. How I longed for the coldness, winter has to offer and the white snow clad houses and streets, is a forlorn story here.

But even in those scarcity of true feelings for winter, we created a space in our heart which made us believe, yes believe, that these last few days of 2016, this festive spirit will linger on. We have put up a Christmas tree just like we used to do in UK. 

Warming up our cold hearts, this tree reminded us to believe in everything about life- whatever the challenges, obstacles one may face, believe in yourself – this will pass through. We have made it so far, hopefully we will keep doing so in future as well. In all those challenges, we should not forget about all the blessings which god has bestowed us all. Pause for a moment, take out time from your busy schedules and please count all those blessings. The true spirit of festivals lies there.

The shopping malls are all decked up and busy here with beautiful Christmas decorations and huge Christmas trees and people shopping for their near and dear ones. We usually sit down on those numerous benches inside shopping malls and watch the world go by leisurely. 

There will be people shopping on the likes of Gucci/Prada/MK / Miss Selfridge/ Topshop/Zara and what not, in those numerous shopping malls, during these last few days before Christmas. But to me Christmas, or for that matter any festival, is all about togetherness of family and friends. Gifts are just add-on like cherry on top of an assembled black-forest cake.

Couple of days back, we had a long weekend, so, dear daughter called up her few friends from our residential-complex and had a mini-Christmas snack party. 

The home was filled with the warmth of their girlie-chat, laughter and fun. Time flies and even before I realize, these girls all in pre-teen age are ready to create their own stories, just like we did decades ago.

Since these are holiday time, I thought instead of doing a recipe post, a proper menu post will be more helpful.

The snack- menu had chocolate cupcakes, cucumber and mozzarella cheese sandwich, baked chicken drumsticks and roasted spiced potato wedges with plenty of cold drinks.

There was another platter which we had on Sunday - roasted potato and orange sweet potato, tofu fried rice, baked spicy salmon steak and California rolls (this one is a type of  'Sushi'- store-brought though)…And there was plenty of litchi mock tail as refreshments.

Recipe for Oven- Baked Salmon Steak

Requirements

Salmon steak pieces- 4-5

Spices

½ tsp of turmeric powder

2 tsp of red pepper powder

 2 tsp of coriander powder

1 tsp of cumin powder

½ tsp of cardamom powder

½ tsp of cinnamon powder

 1 tsp of black pepper powder

Salt as per taste

Method

Take all the spices in a big bowl and mix in well.

Now rub spices all over the salmon steak pieces.

Cover and keep it in fridge for about half an hour.

Now preheat an oven at 175 deg C.

Place the salmon steak pieces over a baking tray and put that in the middle rack.

Bake for 30-35 mints. Take out serve hot. These are absolutely delicious.

Roasted spiced potato wedges have the same spices as listed above. The only addition was mustard oil and chili flakes to marinate them well.Bake the potato wedges at 180 Deg C for 40 mints.

Cucumber Mozzarella sandwich- Layer thinly sliced cucumber over buttered sandwich bread and then top it up with grated fresh mozzarella cheese or cheese slices. Press the sandwich and viola ready in jiffy.You can use tomato as well.Tomato and Mozzarella is another great combination.

Tofu Fried Rice

Requirements

 3-4 cups of cooked rice- for 3-4 people
you can use brown rice as well

 200 Gms of extra firm tofu

2 tsp of thick soya sauce

1 tsp of oyster sauce

1 tsp of red pepper powder

1 tsp of black pepper powder

 3 tsp of grated fresh ginger
 1 stick lemon grass

 3-4 tsp of soybean oil/ or sesame oil

Method

In a big wok/fry pan, add in oil. Add in firm tofu pieces and fry them at high heat for about 3-4 mints.

Take out and keep in a separate plate.

Add in grated ginger, cut lemon grass  and any vegetables you would like to add- I have used carrots and tomato finely chopped. Toss well and cook at high heat for 3-4 mints.

Add in all the sauces and spices listed above. Adjust salt.

Add in fried tofu and coat well with spices and sauces.

Now add in cooked rice and mix well. Serve and enjoy.

These recipes can be found in archived posts here…

Nutella-and-chocolate-cupcakes

Baked Chicken - Kalmi Kabab style

Oven-baked chicken-tikka

Some other Christmas recipes

Couscous-and-dried-fruits-stuffed Chicken

Chocolate Swiss-roll-recipe

Apple fritters with toffee-sauce

Black forest cake

Cheesecake recipe

So, here is the end part for this post.

You all have a great festive time.

Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas and have a Happy new year …….

See you all in new year 2017…Welcome 2017....bye –bye 2016…..

Fettuccini with Tofu and Vegetables

It’s December and this means an entire year is wrapping up soon. In 2016, we re-located to Malaysia and which meant whole lot of adjustments. New school and friends for dear daughter and us trying to get a grip of new place. Leaving behind the familiarity of everything in UK and starting all over fresh again, is never an easy task. But so far so good, and yes, it has been a great learning for us. We have slowly started enjoying our weekend outings and this brings us to understand the cultural differences we have over here. In spite of being in the centre of constant changes, we have managed to make few friends over here.

All I can say, a year has made me realize that nothing in this world is permanent, people will come to our lives, impacting us, teaching us valuable things about life and then leave, leaving behind their memories. Life itself is a collage of all great memories- Experience it and treasure it.

I had fettuccini pasta, and thought of using it up with tofu and other vegetables. We like to add lots of veggies to our pasta dishes which gives nice colours and texture.  This can also be made ahead and can be served as cold salad.

Now to the recipe

 Fettuccini with tofu and vegetables 

Recipe requirements

400 gms of Fettuccini pasta

 400 gms of extra firm tofu

Vegetables of your choice

Carrots

Onions

Tomato

 2-3 tbs of pasta sauce

4 tbs of butter

¼ cup of sour cream

 ¼ cup of parmesan cheese

Salt as per taste

Black pepper as per taste

Method

Take a large pot with ample water. Add in salt to it. Let it come to one boil. Add in dried fettuccini and cook al dente (cooked but still firm).

In a separate fry pan, big enough to hold all the pasta and with vegetables. Add in butter, let it melt and then add chopped vegetables- like onion, carrots and tomato. Add in tofu pieces. Add in pasta sauce.

Stir/fry all for about 4-5 mints. Add in cooked fettuccini with the cooking water. Add in parmesan cheese and sour cream. Mix all the ingredients very well and coat well with sauce. Adjust salt and seasonings- black pepper etc.

Sprinkle some chilli flakes and enjoy.

Happy Cooking Friends and have lovely weekend

No- Bake Chocolate and Lemon cheesecake

I was never a fan of classical orchestra music, but don’t know what happens with Hans Zimmer, and I do really like what he creates- these past couple of days I have been listening to his masterpieces- and one is the sound-track of Inception- Time. The tune is so haunting and keeps lingering on. It gives you motivation and sadness at the same time. Another one is ‘A Way of life’. Those are real masterpieces. Any way music is to soul and so is the food. There are many soul satisfying foods as well.

We were carving for some cheesecake and my daughter was asking for a cheesecake for a long time. I was having some left-over crumbs from this recipe of – Chocolate mice, so wanted to use it and it ended up as the crust of the no-bake cheesecake. The slight hint of lemon was also an added bonus. So, the no bake cheesecake with lemon and chocolate flavour was born. The end product was very appetising and soul satisfying just like music by Hans Zimmer.

Now to the recipe

No-bake chocolate and lemon cheesecake

Recipe requirements

For the top

• 1 and half cup of mascarpone cheese
• 1 and half cup of cream cheese
• ½ can of condensed milk (optional)
• Roughly about 3-4 tbs of lemon juice
• ½ cup of chocolate powder
• For the base/crust
• 5-6 tbs of butter at room temperature
•  20-25 Chocolate biscuits -

Method

Crush chocolate biscuits in a mixer or you can use rolling pin as well. I have used oats and chocolate biscuit for this recipe (available here as Oats crunch biscuits). You can use crackers as well. The crust was delicious with chocolate flavour and sweet.

Now in a big mixing bowl, mix together biscuits crumbs and butter with your hands. The mixture will be like a moist crumbs.

Take a  round 9'' inch cake tin and put the mixture in to it and press gently to make it firm. This will be the base/crust of no-bake cheesecake.

In a separate mixing bowl mix in mascarpone cheese, cream cheese and condensed milk with lemon juice and about 1 tsp of fresh lemon zest. (You can skip condensed milk if you wish but then you have to increase the cream cheese and mascarpone content and also will have to add castor sugar to make it sweet.)

Now pour this mixture over the base. Tap the corner of the cake tin so that it evens out.

Now sprinkle chocolate powder all over it.I have used Caotina drinking chocolate powder. You can use any other brands as well. But for me it’s Caotina for sure.

Refrigerate the cheesecake overnight. Serve it next day.

Tip- You can use Oreo biscuits as crust as well.

Happy Cooking Friends and have a relaxing weekend

Instant Rava Idli - super easy

Sometimes I feel like I am living in a very wrong world. The world where views are biased, people have no morals to fall back and where people take things for granted. They mock or doubt you, if you wear your emotions on your sleeves. And then, even if you happen to tell your true inner feelings, people ridicule you for being over-sensitive. I really don’t know when caring or showing concern to fellow humans became being over sensitive. But this is a modern world we are talking about, someone told me and you should also act modern. I am like if these acts mean modernisation, then probably I am well off, without it.

Well this recipe has nothing to do with being over-sensitive, but yes it’s a very quick way of making idlis, when you are running short of time and patience.

 We were craving for some idlis but I had no time for doing the whole procedure of soaking, grinding and then fermenting. There are plenty of recipes for instant idlis out here in net.But all of them use ENO, I didn’t have at the time of making these idlis, so used baking soda and it still came out fine.

Instant Rava  idli  recipe

Recipe requirements

 2 large cups of semolina/rava

3/4  cup of yogurt

¾ tsp of baking soda

For tempering

2 tbs of chana dal

2 tbs of urid dal

 1 -2 twigs of curry patta

3-4 dry red pepper powder

1-2 tsp of brown mustard seeds

2 tbs of cooking oil

Method

Dry roast rava/semolina in a fry pan. Do not let it burn.

Now take the slightly roasted rava in a separate bowl.

Add in cooking oil to the fry pan.

Now add mustard seeds, urid dal, chana dal, dry red peppers and curry leaves.Let it splutter.

Add in the roasted rava to it and mix well.

Transfer the entire content in a big bowl.

Let it cool.

Now add in yogurt and mix well. Add about a cup of water to it. Adjust salt in the above. Leave it for about an hour.

Add in baking soda just before you will make instant idlis.

Prepare idli stand and scoop the rava mixture in to the slotted space for the idli in idli-stand.

Steam about 20-25 mints or till the idlis are cooked well in a pressure cooker.
take out once they are all done.

Serve with coconut chutney.These are always well recieved by my family whenever we feel like having it for breakfast or quick dinner with sambhar.Here is Lauki and bean sprouts sambhar.

Happy Cooking Friends

Langkawi- a hidden paradise

Langkawi is cluster of 99- 104 islands on Malaysia’s west coast. This is a great destination for beach lovers and the ones who wants to relax in nature’s lap. The very essence of Langkawi is its blue sea-water and paddy fields with some hilly region.

Our 4 days visit was a much relief from busy Kuala Lumpur life.

Although there are many things to see and do as per activity wise, for active people there is snorkelling, sea-sports etc. but we were more into spending time on beaches. The island is blessed to have three conservation areas Machincang Cambrian Geoforests park, Kilim Karst Geoforest park and Dayang Bunting Marble Geoforest park (which is island of Pregnant Maiden lake).One can take ferry transport from Penang, Kuala Kedah or by domestic flight from Kuala Lumpur.The touristy population is confided into southern part and the north-east is more secluded with little tourist. We based our selves in Kuah Town.

The views from our apartment balcony were breath-taking- each morning and every evening there was a different view to greet us.

Most popular beach is Chenang beach or Pantai Cenang.This white-sand beach is the most frequently visited place. 

The main road which lead to the beach is lined by street-side hawkers selling beach activities things and also clothes and accessories. Do visit them when you are in this area and buy couple of things from them. 

Although, I would say avoid the shopping malls, but if you are into chocolates and alcohol then you can try out duty-free shopping malls as well.

Langkawi cable car takes visitors up to the peak of Gunung Mat Chingchang. The entry is through Oriental village that includes various fast-food joints, fish spa and a 3-dimensional art museum known as Art in Paradise. We went for a quick fish spa session which was tickling and entertaining as well.

It’s better to have your own vehicle to roam around in the island. But we hired local taxi-drivers on two days and it was well worth it.Day 1 Hakkim- drove us around in the island, very cultured and experienced driver. He took us to Eagle square

and also to
Tanjug Rhu beach

 and Black sand beach

and dropped us at Cable car site in the afternoon.

We were mesmerized by the top view, the journey time from bottom of hill to the top is roughly 15 mints. 

The cable car takes to the top station and from there, is an inclined lift which takes people to the sky bridge. 

Although, there is another passage through steps which took us to the sky bridge. We were tired climbing up and down the steps, but we finally made it to the sky bridge. We started walking on the open sky bridge, once we reached the other end, weather started to deteriorate and wind started howling at us, and soon we were trapped in a heavy thunderstorm. 

While we waited holding our breath, the loud rumblings continued and then the outcome, heavy and lashing rain, and we were trapped in a sort of a trench. A care-taker luckily was there with us, guiding us through the whole situations. We waited there for about 15 -20 mints till the ferocity of the rain subsided. While still it was raining, we made our way back to the origin of Sky Bridge. And what an experience it was. We were planning a relaxed action-free holiday, lo behold we were facing a thrilling adventure of sort. So, when life gets tough have 'snickers', yes we snicked  snacked on snickers while waiting for the thunderstorm to subside, entrapped with fellow tourists under a sort of trench.

When Hakim came to pick us up, he seemed worried about us, and asked if we are fine or not. He dropped us back to our hotel. 
And this is how our day one was spent with an unplanned adventure.

Day two and three, we went to Pantai Cenang and spent entire days there, relaxing on beach. I was hooked on to reading book for a change, and yes I did finish ‘The Girl on the Train’ during this holiday, and what a good read this turned out to be.

We got nicely tanned even though we were siting under these large umbrellas.

We are blessed with more skin pigment melatonin and so you would know how things are for us.

 Last day we were not sure what to do, so, we picked up a local driver Abu and he showed us rest of the interesting places in Langkawi. 

He seemed very keen in sharing local stories or legends about Langkawi. The legend of pregnant maiden lake is based on a lady. The whole day he kept telling us very interesting facts about Langkawi and he told us, he preferred life over here rather than in Kuala Lumpur, and I couldn’t agree more.

The splendid waterfall of Telaga Tujuh or seven wells waterfall kept us feeling relaxed and mesmerized. 

Abu also happened to tell us stories about fairies who visit this place frequently (hmmm never meant to feel haunted, but he told us they are good spirits who take care of the waterfall area).We saw many tourists diving into the fresh waterfall water. Although, we didn’t make it up to the top of waterfall, but enthusiasts do that. We spent more time sitting there, soaking up the positive energy. Another pit-stop was Temuran waterfall , we had a quick visit there.

We called the day at Pantai Kok Beach and this is how our visit ended in Langkawi. We were returning back to the real life now- life at Kuala Lumpur.

‘’ It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.’’

 ---------------Ursula K Lee Guin.

See you all next week with a new blogpost ...till then take care and enjoy life....