ayonecan-cook

I craned my neck to look at the translucent sheet of rice paper rain that H had pointed out to me. It was pummeling the ground, before us, a few meters away. Within seconds I heard it drench our black Hyundai as we entered its realm. I ducked. It sounded like a Niagara. But I felt the eerie-ness of a clenched fist, at first knocking then spreading its fingers, softly, on top of my head. Have you ever felt that? Juxtapositions of weather never fail to fascinate me ....nature's abrupt seperateness of downpour and clearness existing within meters of each other...side by side, face to face, meeting up, merging, yet apart, clear on one side, grey on the other, dry over here and wet over there. How cool is that? That happened a few days ago. And it has nothing to do with these spring rolls. I just had to tell you. Because the past month has been a sort of tropical winter. Wet and gloomy most times yet smouldering in between. And my enthusiasm towards cooking or baking have shifted accord...

Dragon fruits are flamboyant with their shocking pink skins and their even more shocking purple-pink insides. However they are, in flavour, not such the drama queen that they appear to be (its more elegant twin is white inside).  It is not an overwhelming fruit. It is mildly sweet, soft and quite refreshing and the seeds somewhat nutty in texture. It is native to South America and today it is cultivated widely in Vietnam for commerce.  I stared at it sitting in my fridge in all its pink and purple glory. I had bought it skinned and sliced. I thought it would make an outrageous looking jam. I had originally bought it because I had wanted to make a natural food colouring. But I realised after checking at Tes's lovely blog that it is not the flesh that is used to make a pink/red food colour but the inside of the skin. Experiment abandoned. So I made jam ~  It turned out looking beautifully purple pink. And because it does not have an overwhelming flavour I quite liked it....

It's at Daiso where my little insignificant, pointless, niggling and  piddling dreams come true. Thus these tartlets were born. We all know that there are mama melon ballers but dare we dream that there baby melon ballers? I did. And my melon baller dream came true. Now....dare you tell me that that baby isn't cute! Because fresh fruit tartlets are prettiest when topped with small dainty fruits like berries (in my book), but which are ridiculously priced if you're living right smack on the equator, I have never bothered to make fresh fruit tartlets. Until I found this baby melon baller. Now I can make my own tropical 'berries' for tartlets anytime. From baby mango balls , baby bright red water melons balls to baby jade honey dew melon balls.  Angie from Angie's recipe had this Fresh Fruit Tartlets recipe that had a filling of a ground hazelnuts-butter-sugar paste instead of custard. I thought the moist, rich, nutty paste was a brilliant change from the usua...

You could say I started the new year off with a big slump. Not in a bad way. Just a lazy way. Too many New Years too fast makes me wonder whether I'm coming or going. New Years  seem to be standing around every corner and jumping out at you these days. And before you've had time to be done with the old one you find yourself standing and talking to a new one. And wonder where the old one went. Nevertheless, I made some of Jamie's pizza dough yesterday, rolled them out in discs, half baked them and stacked them in the freezer in plastic bags so that FMs could make their own pizzas when they're hungry. But this morning I made a sweet pizza. A quick apple pie pizza. Apple slices cooked in a skillet with a knob of butter and some brown sugar, topped the pizza discs with them and gave them a quick basking in the oven.  In what has seemed a long time I had a quick, guilt free, crusty apple pie for breakfast. It wasn't bad at all. The recipe ~ Pizza crust reci...

Good evening boys and girls ! A tart is shallow, frivolous, fancy, dressed up with an open top. Usually baked in a shallow tin with a removable bottom and served on a pretty serving plate. A pie is down to earth, covered up, substantial and deep. Usually baked in a deep pie dish or bowl and served in it. But both may be sweet or savoury. And both are to be eaten. And I'm happy to report that in today's unisexual world the word tart is used not only to disparage women but also men who are considered promiscuous and flamboyant .. ... "with a fruity lisp and tight clothing"  Fruithy lispth?  F ruithy listhpth? Gasthp. That soundths adorable. Clathh dithmithed. This is a tart recipe I saw a picture of in GoodFood magazine. (I love GoodFood magazine). These tarts could be made ahead, frozen and re-heated when guests arrive. Extremely easy to put together and like all tarts are fancy and playful. And cute. I had a grand time with them. They are such dear little thing...

I wish this house was constructed of grilled meat, roast chicken , steamed red snappers, cemented with s ambal belacan , furnished with rice and it's roof tiled with pop tarts. So that Starvers wil l be distracted while The Starvee photo shoots. Pop tarts are what I made. And as a Malaysian , tarts only make sense when paired with pineapple jam. These........they were very good. The crust was crusty and buttery. And the jam.... it was obligingly sticky and subtly sweet. And the whole...it was out of this world.  This just cannot be a breakfast food. I refuse to serve it for breakfast. I would probably refuse to share these next time too. I checked out the recipe for the pop tart crust on Smitten Kitchen and then at Joy the Baker and realized that they were exactly the same. So the credits go to two of my favourite blogs. Because I live in a green house it was very difficult to keep the dough cool and firm while rolling, filling and sealing it with jam. Constant refrigeration ...

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...

Some things find you even when you're not looking for them. Like a little tart press.  The little tart press worked like a charm. It stamped out smart little crimped tart shells that looked like they were about to march off the baking tray in a fine little procession. And the depressions..... they were simply waiting to be sat on by sticky ole pineapple jam. My little pineapple tart press, the love of my life. And the pastry..ahhhh that's yet another joy in my tart life. I had used a combination of plain flour and custard powder and a little more than half the proportion of butter to the flour mixture. It produced the most light, the most buttery and the most crumbly pastry when baked yet it remained an obliging and workable dough in its raw form. Without a doubt the magic ingredient was the custard powder which provided the lightness and gave that gorgeous golden glow to the finished tarts. It abolished the need for an egg wash. Magic ~ yes?  I almost shrieked uereka. And I ...

Here are some not so pretty pies that I made. Hunks. But they taste so good that I had to post. (The one in the picture above is one of the better ones). An odd thing about this pie is that it has a front and a rear end. It's twice the size of a curry puff, is not quite a semi circle, is not a round, is not a square nor is it a rectangle. It has an unname-able odd shape. And they're not exactly dainty either. I used to see these gorgeous hunks whenever the Chinese roti man in a van came honking around in the evenings in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah. They were handsomer than mine. The pies. These are pies or turnovers made with a particular Chinese pastry recipe that I had scribbled down in haste from a tv show while pacifying my year old daughter at the time. A precious layered crust as delicate and as flaky and soft as a thousand year old stack of parchments newly dug from an archeological site Somewhere. I went through 2 trials to get the crust and shape to look somewhat presentable....