When the going gets tough....

"Blessed is the person who sees the need, recognizes the responsibility, and actively becomes the answer."

- William Arthur Ward

Home Made Chocolate Ice Cream(!!!)

Really Rich and Sinful Chocolate Ice Cream
I actually halved Nigella's recipe and added a couple more things, so this makes a really teeny batch. But really, it's so rich you probably can't eat a lot anyways. Or so I thought :)

2 egg yolks
70 grams sugar
1 tsp instant coffee granules (my trusty Nescafe)
50g bittersweet chocolate
2 tbsps cocoa

Whisk yolks and sugar till pale and creamy and it forms thick ribbons when you lift the whisk.

Meanwhile, put the milk to boil on the lowest heat in a thick-based saucepan. Process the (still cold from the fridge or you'll end up with sludge and that makes so much more difficult to handle) chocolate in a food processor.

Once you see a few bubbles on the surface of the milk, add the processed chocolate and cocoa to the saucepan, and, stirring/whisking all the time, tip the entire contents of the pan into your bowl of yolks. It's important not to reverse and put the eggs into the milk or you'll get scrambled eggs in milk. Now add the coffee and whisk everything till combined.

Now pour back the mixture into the pan and place back over the low heat. Whisk and whisk and whisk away (I took about 15 minutes) till the mixture thickens visibly and coats the back of a spoon. Now we got custard!

Strain the custard into a bowl, cool for 10 minutes at room temp then for another 20 minutes in the fridge. Actually it's so good that you could just eat it chilled from the fridge, which would make it Chocolate Crema or something like that.

But of course, I intended to blow AK away and make ice cream. So this is where you decant into a Tupperware with a lid and place in the freezer. Every hour till you get bored of it, get your Tupperware out and whisk/stir, making sure you get all those icy crystals at the edge into the middle and blend everything. I actually just set my freezer to the lowest setting and did this every half hour. Sooner or later you'll find you can't whisk it anymore cos it's too stiff, that's when you bring out the spoon.

I'm not really sure what it is - the joy of making ice cream from scratch for the first time or really the smooth, creamy chocolatiness of the end product. Maybe it's both.

Now this is fun.

Nigella's Roast Potato Heaven & Breaking In the New Kitchen

From How to Eat, my bedside reading companion, the book I read while I am eating instant noodles while admiring the way she rambles about anointing free range chickens with butter (like expensive hand cream), about the trials of making sticky asian fried noodles for one and learning from her mistakes; about serving chocolate puddings at blood heat; about losing one's ice-cream virginity (which I will very soon). There is such beauty in her gastronomic prose, I could only wish I could speak about food like she could (so far I've watched many cooking shows and ownes many a cookbook, no one does it quite like she does)

This recipe produces, hands down, the bst roast potatoes I have ever tasted. Not only did I read about it, I watched her make this on her Christmas show and it was her declaration of heaven that intrigued me most.



It's a technique really, not a recipe. Cut potatoes into large chunks (6 chunks per potato?). Preheat your oven to 190degC. In your baking dish, pour in about half a cm of high-smoking-point oil, e.g. goose fat, beef dripping (neither of which I had, sadly) or as I used, canola oil.

Throw in a couple unpeeled cloves of garlic, put your tray in your hot oven. Parboil the potatoes for 5 minutes, then drain the pot and sprinkle in a couple tablespoons of flour or semolina (Nigella prefers the latter, but I used flour and it was still wonderful). Cover your pot and give it a couple of good shakes to slightly bash the potatoes and create those wonderful crispy edges later. It's imperative that you make sure your oil is super hot before you put the potatoes in. Roast for 45 minutes to an hour, check on the brownness.

The end result is crispy-on-the-outside, soft and fluffy on the inside, garlicky morsels that just need a little pinch of salt to render them perfect. As Nigella said, and you should trust her, it really is roast potato heaven.

I made dinner for the first time since revamping the kitchen. I tried to oven fry chicken, marinated in yogurt, garlic, basil and oregano, floured, egged and floured again, sprayed with oil and roasted in the oven with the potatoes. To accompany, sweetcorn soup, pureed and whole corn kernels from a can, simmered in a homemade chicken stock, an egg whisked in vigorously at the last minute and whisked and topped with crispy fried pork bits.

Breakfast for Two

Coddled eggs with sauteed onions in wanton wrappers:


From top: oven roasted oyster mushrooms in Lea & Perrins, basil and oregano; scrambled eggs with onions; pan fried pork fillets marinated in a combination if L & P, black pepper and honey.

Sago Gula Melaka

Gula melaka or palm sugar is like a sticky sweet, toffee-ish, caramelly sugar from the heart of the palm tree. Darker than caramel and with a taste that's so much more moreish. I, for one, love sticking a few tiny pieces into my mouth and letting them melt on my tongue. Just a little, or its sweetness makes it cloying.

One of AK's favourite desserts is Sago Gula Melaka, and luckily for me, it's really a fool proof recipe to make, something I can whip up when I get home from work and have it ready one or two hours after dinner.

Here's the recipe I use:

4 cups water
3 ounces pearl sago, rinsed and drained
3 ounces palm sugar (gula melaka)
3 tablespoons and 1/2 teaspoon water
3/4 cup and 2 teaspoons canned coconut milk + pinch of salt

DIRECTIONS
1) Bring 10 cups of water to a boil in a large pot.
2) Gradually stir in the sago so that it does not clump. Return to a boil, then reduce the heat to low.
3) Cook until the sago turns translucent, stirring occasionally, about 30 minutes. Pour the sago into jelly molds, and refrigerate for a couple of hours
4) When about to serve, melt the palm sugar in the microwave with a few teaspoons of water. Stir the salt through the cococnut milk.
5) Unmold the puddings, and serve with the coconut milk and palm sugar syrup (gula melaka). I like the combo of the cold sago and warm coconut milk+gula melaka.

Losses, Regrets and Recovery 101

Expensive lessons learnt:

1) Should have renovated the Alila house instead of mulling over it like I have so much money

2) Shoulda bought the investment books BEFORE plonking down 50k, not AFTER the Financial Crisis - but who knows, I coulda been more reckless

3) Shoulda not signed up for that stupid slimming treatment in 2005 out of sheer disillusionment and desperation. Stupid chill-wrap treatment when I know deep in my heart that only a sound state of mind, happiness, self-assurance and EXERCISE would restore my former glory

4) Shoulda bought a cheaper Dell instead of a top end Toshiba - lifespan, with my lugging it offshore, it made no difference to the duration I had it for...

Am super pissed at myself. Sigh. There, have vomited this out. Still don't really feel better.

But there is always a way out, with patience and effort and help from loved ones. Here's the bare bones of the recovery plan Rev0:

1) Call up every housing agent I can find on a PR blitz on the Alila
2) Read and understand the books before jumping anymore
3) Hold on to the PB and Nestle stocks I think

- Spend less, but with so many things I need to buy for both Miri and Alila homes..not sure if this is a realistic scenario. Sigh.

On the bright side, even with all the deductions from the housing loan and study loan, I'd save about 2k a month.

And I haven't lost everything to Bernie Madoff, like this guy who wrote in Time Magazine. His family and his wife's lost everything, a total of USD30 million. Crazy!! I really should learn a lesson or two from someone who lost her entire retirement savings to Mr. Madoff:

"If we have to live this way now, we will. Those who will make it through this are those that don't identify themselves with their bank accounts, they will transcend this. Those whose egos and self are wrapped up in their assets will be lost."

I still have my asset. Still have my income. It's not all that bad, and lessons have to be learnt after all, especially for a pighead like me.

And here's a really inspiring one:

"We are all connected whether we like it or not, and our collective energies can change things for the better, while our collective indifference can kill us.

Nobel Prize–winning author and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel knows this all too well. What must Wiesel be thinking right now? His Foundation for Humanity destroyed by a big-shot Jewish financier? Impossible. But the foundation had $15.2 million under management with Bernard Madoff Investment Securities. This represented substantially all of the foundation's assets. And the double hit for charities like Wiesel's is that there will be no tax recovery available.
Yet out of this ruin, Wiesel's foundation, in a statement of grace, found something inspiring: "The values we stand for are more needed than ever ... We shall not be deterred from our mission to combat indifference, intolerance and injustice around the world." They've been hit, but they are not down. Life and work go on. "

Another one, from Larry Leif, 58, a successful sporting goods and toy company entrepreneur in Delray Beach, Fla., his retirement is more than on hold, it's completely disconnected. Leif, who has been planning his golden years since the age of 19, lost his entire $8 million retirement account with Madoff. Now it's nothing more than a series of phony statements he thumbs through while shaking his head.

I'm blessed," he adds. "I'm healthy, I have great friends, and I have a new focus in my life, one I didn't expect three weeks ago. We can make this system better for everyone. This is now my mission."

This is one dividend that Madoff could not steal.

So who am I, really, to complain?

A Multi-Family Effort

When (ex)housemate moved out, she took her TV with her. We were debating whether to spend on an LCD TV or a cheaper, less-potential-for-break-ins CRT one.

Then it hit me that dad in Penang actually had an extra two sets of CRT TVs, thanks to his constant quest for the best in home entertainment and much to our chagrin. So we decided to take the smaller one.

We thought we were brilliant. So many relatives from KL were driving down to Penang and back, so there were plenty of cars to tumpang.

So the TV made its journey like this:

In Penang:-
- Mum and Dad picks the TV up from Grandma's house, where Dad put it since our house had no space and her own TV rosak.
- drive to Cousin K's house the night before she was supposed to drive down to KL. She can't lift the TV by herself, so the plan was to just place it in her car the night before
- Turns out Cousin K wasn't leaving till the next next morning and the TV wouldn't fit into her car boot, so Dad had to carry the TV home
- Drive down again and carry the TV again to Cousin K's house
- Cousin K drives down from Penang to KL with the TV in her back seat- AK and I were supposed to meet her in Subang, but the heavy rain and another overlapping appointment made us detour to Kelana Jaya - poor cousin, after waking up at 5 in the morning and driving for 6 hours was keeping her patience

In KL:-
- The box Ak's mum found was too big for the TV
- Then began the 3-hour marathon cut, trim, refit and tape the box sections to fit the TV better. AK's mum and Aunt chipped in
- The box is unable to fit into AK's family car, so we call a minivan to pick us up
- Thank goodness, not much drama at the airport, thanks to AK's Enrich Gold membership

In Miri;-
The box won't fit into the taxi at first. It takes 3 other taxi drives to fit it into the taxi, and a ten-ringgit tip to manage it.

So, thanks to our wonderful families, we now got a free TV in Miri. Tons of muscle power, craftsmanship and experts fitting it into the Proton Iswara :)