Ramadan day 8

Dinner tonight was a simple take out, shrimp egg foo young and fried chicken. I was so hungry and finish the meal in no time.

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Ramadan 2015 Day 23 - French Fries, Fried Fish, Steak and Eggs

Another simple breaking fast dinner today. Mr. Big and I are not a big eater although we both are big. It was weird isn't it...but that's how life is. I am blessed with all the food I have, the health and the wealth.

Today's dinner was fries, fried fish, steak and eggs. Super easy to cook and super delicious. I got too hungry that I ate the fish and the fries...no picture today.

I did take a picture of the steak and eggs.

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Ramadan 2015 Day 14 - Fried Chicken and Shrimp Egg Foo Young

A special treat today. I had Chinese take out, shrimp egg foo young and fried chicken for dinner. They are super delicious.

 Shrimp egg foo young was made from shrimp mix with onion, bean sprouts and egg. The mixture is then fried in hot oil until golden brown. The shrimp egg foo young is then covered in brown gravy. Delicious!

The fried chicken was crispy and had been seasoned well. I could not ask for more. These dishes are tasty.

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Red Beet Pickled Egg

I grow a lot of beets this year. For this red beet pickled egg, I sliced about 4 small red beets. In a big pot, boil 1 cup white vinegar and 1 cup water. Dissolve 1/2 cup sugar and 1/2 teaspoon salt.

Let the vinegar cool. Pour the vinegar into the jar with peeled hard boiled egg and beets. Store the jar in the fridge.

After one day, I cut open 1 egg and I was lucky to get double yolk in one egg.
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Deviled Eggs

Today is a Veteran's day. I spent my time off at the doctor's office. It was not fun driving to her office in the cold and windy day. The leaves on the tree are turning orange and yellow and most of them are already on the ground. I was tempted to go shopping after the doctor's visit, but the cold weather make me turning my car around and heading home.

I received a speacial order for dinner today. Honey suddenly care for some deviled eggs. Thanksgiving is 2 weeks away and I guess he cannot wait for some deviled egg. I don't think I have ever cook deviled eggs before. My in laws usually prepare them for thanksgiving or christmas. Since honey loves mustard, I make sure this deviled eggs has mustard.

Ingredients:
6 hard boiled eggs
1/2 tablespoon yellow mustard
1 tablespoon creamy ranch salad dressing
2 tablespoons mayonaise
a crush of sea salt and black pepper
paprika for garnish

Method:
Peel the eggs.
Cut the egg into half on lengthwise.
Remove the yolk into a bowl.
Add yellow mustard, mayonaise, salad dressing, salt and ground black pepper to the egg yolk.
Mix until smooth.
Using a piping bag, pipe the mixture into the white egg.
Garnish with paprika.
Chill in the refrigerator for an hour before serving.

This deviled eggs turned out great. I am glad honey like it.
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Sunday Breakfast - Nasi Lemak

My breakfast today is a simple asian/Malaysian dish called Nasi Lemak.
The rice is cooked in 3 tablespoon coconut milk, water, salt and pandan leaves (screwpine leaf).
The anchovies is cook dry in little bit of olive oil until crunchy.
The egg is hard boiled.
The spicy sambal is cooked with belacan (dried shrimp paste), green and red cherry hot peppers, onion, salt,sugar and chopped lemongrass.

For my honey I cooked sunny side up with buttered toast. I find it more difficult to cook sunny side up egg than the scramble egg. I have to make sure that the white egg doesn't turn into hard and rubbery egg. Luckily, today his sunny side up turned out perfect. I use clean non stick or teflon pan with 3 tablespoon butter. The electric stove is turn on at medium high. I let the butter melted. Then gently I crack the 2 eggs in the pan. I then turn the heat to medium. I watched until the egg white turned opaque. Turn off the heat. Gently lift the egg into the serving plate.

This spicy sambal is cooked with belacan. I found belacan, made in Thailand packed in a closed tub or container and doesn't release too strong shrimp paste smell in my fridge.

Ingredients:

15 red and green cherry bomb hot peppers.

2 teaspoons belacan ( shrimp paste)

4 shallots

2 tablespoon chopped lemongrass

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon sugar

4 tablsepoon olive oil

Method:

Cut the cherry pepers into half. Remove the seed.

Dice shallots.

In a blender or food processor, blend peppers, shallots and lemongrass.

In a big pot, heat olive oil.

Add in the blended peppers, shallots and lemongrass and belacan.

Let it cook on low heat until oil start to come to the suface. Add salt and sugar.

Turn off the heat.

Remove the head and wash the anchovies. Pat dry. In non stick skillet, heat the pan and add anchovies. Use low heat and let the anchovies cook. Make sure you turn on the stove fan and open the window. The smell is very strong when cooking belacan or anchovies.

Hop on my other blog and see my activity at the Renaissance Faire yesterday.

Eleventh Day Ramadan - Meatloaf and Mashed Potato with Beef Gravy

I am a little behind in posting the recipe for my dinner tonight. Boy!This meatloaf is very filling. I had to take a long break before I can get back to the internet.
This is a very simple recipe that I put together. Unfortunately, honey didn't like it just because I put carrots in my meatloaf.
Yes, my loyal reader, honey is very fussy about having carrots in his meal. I tried to hide it by shredding it finely but somehow the taste is there for him to recognize it.
I told him that I have lots of carrots from my garden and didn't want to waste it.
Seriously, I personally think this meatloaf is delicious. It has a hint of hotness from the spices and sweetness from the carrots.
This meatloaf is loaded with the goodness from carrots and potato, bread, egg, milk and all kind of aromatic spices. Tonight meatloaf is a version where East meet West because I added some curry powder, cumin, coriander, ginger, paprika and cayenne pepper.

I dress both the mashed potato and meatloaf with beef gravy.

Ingredients for the meatloaf:
1/2 lb ground beef
1 cup shredded carrots(optional)
1/2 cup cooked potato(optional)
1 egg
1 cup milk
3 pieces wheat bread( you can use old bread, crouton or regular white bread)
Spices: 1 teaspoon of each - cumin, coriander, curry powder, cayenne pepper, paprika,ginger,sugar,ground black pepper and salt.
3 tablespoon tomato ketchup
1 tablespoon BBQ sauce

Method:
Cut bread into pieces.
Soak it in milk.
Add egg. Mix well.
In another bowl, add ground beef. Mix it with all the spices. Work it lightly.
Add shredded carrots and cooked potato.
Lastly add the bread mixture.
Combine well.
Using a square meatloaf pan, add mixture in and level it evenly.
In a small bowl, mix the tomato ketchup and BBQ sauce.
Spread this mixture on top of the meatloaf.
Preheat oven at 350 degree F.
Bake this meatloaf for 1 hour and 30 minutes.
Let it set for 30 minutes before serving.

In the mean time, you could start making the mashed potato. I am using my left over mashed potato. The full recipe is here.

Next we can start making the beef gravy.
This is the easiest gravy to make.
I am using 1 cup of low sodium beef broth.
Heat it on medium low.
Add 2 tablespoon salted butter.
In a small bowl, mix 1 tablespoon corn starch with some of the beef broth.
Whisk it smooth without lump.
Pour the corn starch into the rest of the beef broth.
Keep stirring and cook the gravy until desired consistency.

Enjoy!

Potato Salad - Part 2

The picture of my second time around potato salad is deceiving. It doesn't look good but the truth is it was the best potato salad I've ever made. Honey and I like to eat potato salad. Sometimes we buy potato salad from the market. But I would rather cook it at home. Honey said peeling and boiling the potato and the eggs take up lots of time. To me, I enjoy peeling the potato skins and the egg shells.

You may read the whole recipe of my Potato Salad from last year.
But today I am going to share with you my secret recipe for the most delicious potato salad.
I use the same ingredients as in my previous post however this time I did not use yellow onion.
Here is the ingredients:

5 potatoes - I boiled them with the skin on. Once cook and cool down, I remove the skin.
4 eggs - hard boiled
3 stalks of green onion/scallions - chop them finely (this is the secret)
1 center of the celery stalks - the young part with the green leaves. Chop this finely.
1/2 cup mayonnaise
2 tablespoon sweet relish
a pinch of salt and black pepper
a dash of paprika as garnish

Method:

Boil potatoes and eggs. Let it cool down and easier to handle. Remove the skin from the potatoes and dice them into bite size. Remove the egg shells. Chop the eggs finely.

In a small bowl mix the mayo, sweet relish, salt, black pepper.

Then add to the mayo mix the finely chopped celery and finely chopped green onions. Mix well.

Lastly, add the mayo mixture into the potatoes and eggs mix. Garnish with paprika and chill it in the fridge.

Yum!Yum!

Spicy Anchovies and Eggs - Sambal Udang dan Telur

Finally I get to reinvent my signature spicy anchovies. I added hardboiled eggs to this anchovies sambal.

I used the red cherry hot pepper for this anchovies and egg sambal. I find this hot pepper to be very tasty and the color remain bright red in my cooking. The taste is absolutely delicious and make me to want more.

Remove the seed and blend this together with garlic, onion, ginger, lemongrass and dried anchovies. Cook this blend with 2 tablespoon of olive oil until the oil come to the surface with medium heat. Let it cool down and store this in small container. Then freeze or fridge it until ready to use in your cooking.

Of course if your are from south east asia and you can get red chili, green chili, or chili boh then please use that.

Pickle Egg

Super easy to make the pickle egg. First thing first is to make sure you have some eggs, a jar or container and 2 cans of sliced beets.


Hard boiled the eggs.



Peel off the egg shells and placed a clean and smooth hard boil egg in the container. Once the egg cover the first layer in the container, pour in a can of beets.

Continue peeling the rest of the egg and put one by one of the egg in the jar. Once the jar is filled, pour in just the beets' juice from the second can until it fill up the container. Cover the container and keep it in refrigerator for at least 4 days before you can enjoy it.