Month: June 2011

Heart my Daddy!

Although I’m 26 (okay, 27 in a month) and living outside with another man not related to me, the first person I’d call whenever I land myself into trouble is my Dad. In fact, I have my Dad on speed dial.

Yes, I’m a daddy’s girl. Here’s a pretty funny story on how my Dad owned me when I got into a car accident :P

This year, we decided to celebrate Father’s Day a week earlier as daddy would be in Langkawi while I in Malacca on the actual day. I conspired with both my brothers to surprise him.

We decorated the house with balloons and my brothers designed a poster. We even wore funny masks! The expression on his face when he walked through the door was priceless :D

# – Dad with his kids and furkids.

Of course, I had to make a cake. My dad has very similar tastebuds to mine and he enjoys cakes!

Particularly cheesecake. I was in fact going to make cheesecake but n00bed it by assuming I had enough cream cheese at home, which I of course didn’t -_-

# – Cake making in progress.

So instead of his favourite, I decided to make lemon coconut layer cake, a 3 layer sponge flavoured by lemon juice and dessicated coconut sandwiched together with lemon curd and frosted in lemon buttercream.

# – Cake in a box!

# – Cake coming out of a box!

The first question my dad asked when he saw the cake was, “Is it a cheesecake?”. FML.

# – Daddy cutting cake under Sisi’s watchful eyes.

Nevertheless, he had 3 helpings so I guess he liked it :)

# – Cake, half eaten.

# – With my favourite man in the world!

Love you Daddy!

Water cut :(

Urgh! There will be water disruption in my area from 8am Wednesday to 8am Friday. It seems like almost the entire Petaling Jaya and most parts of Kuala Lumpur would be affected.

You can check if your area’s involved here: https://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=229138477099369

By the way, you’ve got to like the Facebook Page before you could view anything. And uhhh, you have to know how to read Malay. My dogsitter, who lives in the neighbourhood across from mine had totally no inkling about the water cut until I asked her.

I didn’t receive any notice in the post box (although I had in the past for water cuts of much shorter periods), so I imagine SYABAS (the private corporation that owns our water supply and hence our asses too) did not even bother to notify anybody off the Internet.

Since we have the privilege of knowing about the water cut before it happens, last night, we went to Tesco to hunt for water containers.

Unfortunately, only puny buckets that were neither big nor small and very space wasting were available. In the end, we ditch the idea of buying new water containers and decided we would have better luck using whatever that was available at home.

# – 2 tumblers of water for brushing teeth and washing face.

# – 51 litres of water for short showers. No hair washing, thankfully I’m wearing my hair short and the BF has none, teehee.

# – Two pails of water for the main toilet. Honestly, I don’t mind being slightly constipated in the next few days :P

# – Some drinking water. Not so worried about this because we could always buy bottled drinking water.

# – Another pail of water in the less used toilet, just in case…

# – And finally, general hand washing water because we’ve got a furkid and all, gotta keep it pretty clean.

Yeap, that’s all. No cooking. No washing dishes. We’ve stocked up two days’ worth of microwaveable food that can be nuked and eaten from its own containers.

# – Frozen, processed food. Yums.

Why? Because there wouldn’t be any food establishment within 30km radius of our home that wouldn’t affected by the water cut. And the last thing we want is bouts of diarrhoea during this time…

And ya, food posts would probably be published intermittently during this period :(

Good luck to everyone in the Klang Valley!

Recipe for my version of palak paneer.

Remember when I made my own cheese/paneer? It was actually for this Indian dish called “Palak Paneer“.

Contrary to my earlier belief, it’s really not difficult to cook palak paneer. It’s probably easier to cook than a creamy western soup. A handheld blender would be most useful in the making of this dish, otherwise just stick to a good old blender or food processor.

# – Palak paneer.

I didn’t realise how much the BF loves palak paneer until we were in Hyderabad, India, where EVERY meal must be accompanied by palak paneer. I don’t blame him though…it is a truly delicious dish.

Of course, it’s only a matter of time before he plonked a big bunch of spinach into our shopping trolley. The time has come…

The ingredients:

  • 2 cloves of garlic, chopped
  • 1 tablespoon of ginger, chopped
  • 2 dried chillies, seeded
  • 1/2 cup of onion, finely chopped
  • 2 teaspoons of ground cumin
  • 1 teaspoon of ground coriander
  • 1 teaspoon of ground turmeric
  • 3/4 cup of yogurt
  • 500 grammes of fresh spinach, torn
  • 4 sprigs fresh cilantro leaves
  • 300 grams of homemade cheese or paneer (you can use cottage cheese)
  • sea salt to taste

# – First, cut the paneer or homemade cheese into cubes and brown them in a pan.

# – When browned, set the cheese aside.

# – Now, stir fry the garlic, dried chillies, ginger and onions until fragrant (sorry I n00bed it and forgot the onion picture).

# – Add in the ground coriander, ground cumin and ground tumeric.

# – Followed by the yogurt. Stir to combine.

# – Now add in the spinach, a handful at a time. Cook till all spinach are wilted. If you like to make a really green palak paneer, don’t cook the spinach for too long as they will lose the vibrant green colour.

# – When spinach have wilted, chuck everything into a blender and blitz into a fine paste.

# – Pour the paste back into the pan and heat it up on the lowest flame.

# – Season with some salt.

# – Then add all but a few browned cheese cubes into it. Simmer for another 10 minutes.

# – Pour into a plate and decorate with the remaining cheese and a few spoons of yogurt.

# – Palak Paneer, DONE!

# – Serve with biryani rice and apple raita (chopped apples and indian spices mixed into yogurt)

It is creamy but not cloying, the spinach paste is perfect with the browned cheese.

Every palak paneer is unique to its cook so you just have to eat many versions to find your favourite (this is by no means a complaint). As for those of you who are hoping to cook it from scratch, just tweak the seasonings to your taste.