ayonecan-cook

Despite the success of my dulce de leche I have never considered cosy-ing down into a couch to shovel dollops of dulce de leche from a jar into my face. HO no. The completion of the dulce de leche was no more than a stage in a journey that I had begun when I swiped that can of condensed milk off the shelf.  So you might think I've had sleepless nights thinking "waht do hi do? waht do hi do?" . Ahh ~ truth is ...Hi had known what Hi was to do. HO yes. Hi had plans. This is plan number one : Chocolate Shortbread Thumbprint Dulce De Leche Cookies with a Pistachio Filigree. Long  Cool no? The Chocolate Shortbread recipe came from Oven Haven . A beautiful blog. She on the other hand got it from Nostalgia. It's rich, it's chocolatey and it's short. Add your thumbprint, roll in crumbled pistachios and flourish with a dollop of dulce de leche.  Wooooo...what a twist! I'll let you into a little secret. These cookies are SO chocolatey!! mmm-hmmm   The Recipe ~ 2 cu...

The only thing that contained my impatience was fear. The fear of being scarred for life and of the kitchen turning into a battleground. So I had to let the can sit like a little tin queen while I threw sidelong glances its way each time I crossed the threshold into the kitchen.  Then it was payback time. I opened it and all that waiting had returned to me a deep, glorious, golden dollop named Dulce le leche (DOOL-seh deh LEH-chey). I called her name and she came. I must have looked surprised because Dulce le leche was divine and regal. I would never have guessed that she had once been a simple little milkmaid. A 'Milkmaid Condensed Milk'. This is all thanks to Quinn of Quinn's Baking Diary . The young Quinn who bakes like a pro ( you must see her  lovely blog) and who made dulce de leche here . I had met sweet Quinn briefly w hen she returned home for the Chinese New Year holidays earlier this year.  She had given me a set of these bright and cheery pumpkin coloured bak...

I suppose when one has sucked, slurped and savoured a piping hot Char Kuay Teow from a road side stall no other noodle dish can ever quite make it into your book of heavenly noodles.  I made Pad Thai today. I used rice vermicelli instead of flat rice noodles because I wasn't feeling animated enough to make home made flat rice noodles (I never use commercially made ones).  All in all the Pad Thai was good. This is my second attempt at Pad Thai because I thought I did not quite get it right the first time. What made it different from other local fried noodles is the fact that it had the slight sourness of tamarind to it . I had also added extra chillie powder to the tamarind/fish sauce sauce because I like it hot. This was a noodle dish that did not blow me away but it was not bad. It was good. I'll give it a 7. I'll give Char Kuay Teow a 12 ~ no matter which competent person fries it. Pad Thai lovers please don't hit me. But you know, maybe it's just me. Maybe I...

There is a first time for everything. A first time for mistakenly attending a wedding reception of complete strangers on a sweltering afternoon and a first time for making a pretty cherry pie. The one gets you feeling hot, sweaty and silly while the other one gets you feeling warm, fuzzy and cheery. I did both this day Sunday. I don't have to tell you which was the better one. I've had a few questions on how I attended the wrong wedding reception. Well folks, my husband had misread the date of the invitation. (Next time I'll read the invitations). So we went on the wrong day but at the correct place. I got all dressed up just so I could sweat in my nice fancy clothes. Unnecessarily. At the least we provided plenty of amusement for our boys...ho ho ho. Cherries are so expensive at 56 ringgit per kilo. I had bought a box which was 250 grams at 13.99 ringgit. So I had some adjusting to do for the filling when I decided to do Shirley's of Kokken69 cherry pie recipe from h...

  Afternoon tea is history. It went out of fashion some 30 odd years ago. What a pity because that is, to me, the most fun meal. It is a dessert meal or a snack meal. It was a sit down meal. It was either cakes, fritters or simple fried noodles. Nowadays it's packaged biscuits ~ Khong Guan cream crackers, Marie Biscuits ~ all dunked in hot milk tea or Milo or commercial buns from the nearest bakery eaten 'on the go'.. No one has the time to sit down as a family to enjoy afternoon tea anymore. No family is smiling and conversing at 4 o'clock anymore. I doubt my children have any idea that afternoon tea was an actual sit down family meal. Yes I'm guilty of it's extinction too. But I'm not alone. Tuition got in the way. Traffic got in the way. Malls got in the way. Businesses got in the way. TV got in the way. Why, afternoon tea got in the way of the British too. Life had to go on. And so it did. It's no wonder that our tea time kuih(s) have become an all...

At 2.30 am this morning it was Brazil vs Korea ~ Brazil 2, Korea 1. (My boys were relatively satisfied) At 12.30 pm this afternoon it was Pineapple Fried Rice vs Left overs ~ Pineapple fried rice 2, Left overs 2. (Everyone was satisfied) That's basically how it went. Allow me to elaborate. R and I had freshly cooked pineapple fried rice while N and Z had last night's left overs. I was not being a mean mom. N and Z do not like pineapple. R and I like pineapple. And the left overs were yummy too. But I love pineapple fried rice only if, in 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil, one sautes......... 3 pips of crushed garlic, 1/2 a cup of sweet pineapple pulp along with the  Fresh prawns,  Sliced squid,  Diced long beans and red peppers,  Splashes of fish sauce,  Splashes of soy sauce,  Sprinkles of salt and crackled black pepper,  Wicked bits of fiery bird chillies Scramble in an egg or 2 Tumble in 2 Chinese bowls of plain white rice, freshly cooked Give an en...

Drowned in oil and fiery. The whole fireworks. This is a dish originating from Padang in Indonesia.  It's hard to tear one's self away from one's ancestors when it comes to food. But I have done so. Because I'm married to someone who's ancestors come from a totally different part of South East Asia.  Someone who prefers soupy food as opposed to oily. And someone who had decided a long time ago, for some reason, that there's not much point in eating fiery food when it burns/numbs your tastebuds.  So it has been a long time since I've cooked anything remotely Minang, Padang-ish or numbingly fiery. But today when the cat was away I played. Crispy fried fish slathered in crushed hot chillie peppers. It was hardly numbing because I did not have little bird chillies. Bummer. But there's always another day. The recipe ~ 2 servings 2 pieces of fish, whole or sliced, any firm oily fish 1/4 cup plain flour 1/8 cup rice flour 1/4 tsp tumeric powder a pinch of b...

Two of the most harrowing events happened within the past week.  Where fear and gratefulness merged.  ~ Our cat Sweetie went missing.  Thank God, at 2 am 2 nights later, she returned. A little scruffy, damp and hungry but complete and safe. The home was whole and warm again, hearts were lifted, joy was etched on faces, Sweetie tailed closely behind N, later to morph into aloofness and surely promises were made to selves to cherish her more than ever before. ~ I could not sign in to my blogger account. It was an agonizing night, repeated re-setting of passwords, punching of unnecessary keys, head waggings, head aches, furrowing eyebrows, deep breaths, even deeper frustrated sighs and when by a mere miracle I succeeded it was a feeling of release and humbleness that I felt ~ after a long, solitary confinement in that black hole of Blogland that had, for hours, not a crack of light in sight. And then the final sense of complete charge and control over this little area of m...

I've made a lot of mistakes in my life and this is one of them. I over beat and over baked this pound cake and Martha Stewart would not have been pleased. Look at that fissure. I do wonder if it was supposed to be like that. Look at those sugar spots. Look at those holes. Yes I'm guilty. But at least I've used up the cream cheese that I've had in my fridge since forever. This recipe used no baking powder. So it was heavy and dense but it had a lightness and moistness to it when sliced. Six eggs must have done that. It cuts very well. Very few at home got excited. But many reviewers raved over this. So it must be me. I'm not too happy with the photographs either so I'm not saying much.  Click here for the recipe ~ Yes .....I'm so unexcited and feel so guilty that I don't even have the desire to type out the recipe. BUT it's almost gone though. H liked it ^o^. Phew! I've been acquitted. *Taking off the leg irons*

When a gurl gets going the going gets gurrrly. I was in the mood for something purrrrty so I made some 'oysters', filled it with nutella, inserted a silver dragee inside, pulled out my string of pearls, did everything up, around it, in pink and snapped a picture. It looked purrrty guurrrrly. When a gurl gets going the going gets purrrrty gurrrrly. Shells are so pretty. So when I came across a cookie mould that would yield pretty dainty shell shaped cookies I did not overwork my brain. I bought it and these are what came out of it. Shortbread shells with a drop of silver in each purrrty purse. Precious! They are made from Mary Berry's shortbread recipe. They are quite delicious although  I do think it could do with an ounce more of butter. As with a typical shortbread recipe this had a little rice flour in it which provided  those teeny bits of crunch as you bite into it. And it held its shape quite well as it baked. Unless you're moulding them into a fancy shape like I...