Been baking and cooking a lot!

I love baking and cooking.I have to be honest that my love for cooking came first before baking.Funnily I am not a culinary student,no one in my family force me to cook,it just come naturally..this love for it.But my grandma on my mother's side always include when I was a kid until teen to help her in the kitchen when she's cooking.

I have been baking and cooking a lot these past few weeks.I thought I'd share some of the things that I have baked and cooked recently.
A favorite baking cookbook of mine is The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook.I have tried a lot of the recipes with success though I lower the sugar content because they use a lot in their recipes and became too sweet for my liking.I bought the book from Kinokuniya for RM 82.61.
Baked chocolate cupcakes.
Baked pandan cupcakes.The recipe for this cupcake isn't in the cookbook.I used the vanilla cupcake and frosting recipe and added pandan paste into it and it turned out lovely.My family and the boyfriend loved it.I just wanted to eat pandan cupcakes because I haven't tasted it before or saw it being sold anywhere.So I improvised on the recipe.
Baked carrot cake from the cookbook as well as requested by Razin's mum.I was glad that they loved it.It was very moist and at first I was a bit worried about the huge amount of grated carrots in the batter.But I followed the recipe to a T and it turned out great!

All three baked goods that I baked was my first attempt trying the recipes.Previously I have baked vanilla cupcake,strawberry cheesecake cupcake,hazelnut&chocolate cupcake,brooklyn blackout cake and lemon loaf from the cookbook.I have many more recipes to try out!

One of my favorite fried rice dishes is the pineapple fried rice.I love eating fresh sweet pineapple.But I can't eat it when it's "that time of the month" so whenever I find them,I will definitely eat them.I made pineapple fried rice twice in 2 weeks for me and my mum.

There's no recipe because I just added whatever.I love pineapple,raisins,carrots,prawns and birds eye chillies in the fried rice.I also add an egg to it.

Some of the other things I cooked and bake was sambal tempe,upside down peach cake and butter oat prawns.
The peach upside down cake was improvised from the pineapple upside down cake from Nigella Lawson's recipe.The recipe works with peaches too of course.

The oat butter prawns was delicious and smell so good with the addition of curry leaves.But it uses a lot of butter.I definitely won't eat butter prawns outside anymore.haha.I used butter,curry leaves,bird eye chillies,prawns and Nestum oat.
This dry sambal tempe is a fave of mine and it is simple.Just tempe,onions and birds eye chillies.All fry separately and then mixed together with a little bit of sweet soy sauce.Perfect to eat with rice.


Lots of weddings and other things!:)

I'm so sorry because I haven't blogged in quite some time.Been going places,watching movies,cooking and baking that I became too lazy to blog.I have quite a number of posts in draft mode.hahaha I will try to blog 2 posts tonight.

There's definitely a lot of weddings going on this September!Two of the boyfriend's friend got married.He was the best man for one of them.A friend of mine is getting married this month as well and another is getting engaged!

So I went to both of Razin's friends wedding.Went to Joe's akad nikah(pic above was taken before we went to the akad,near my house)and wedding.And also Shafiq's wedding where Razin was the best man.Razin was busy the whole 3 days for Shafiq's wedding..first day was the akad nikah,the wedding ceremony on the bride's side and then the last day was the ceremony for the groom's side.

I went to the groom's ceremony with my friend Adela.Then went to Razin's house after to let Adel meet baby Qarla,his niece.Pictures below!

The next weekend me and Razin went to Joe's wedding.We wore my fave color..purple!:)
Afterwards it was Razin's little sister Qeema's open house.I helped her make the colorful roti jala below.Their family's speciality.There was a lot of good food!Their mum made nasi lemak,pulut kuning,lontong and many more.
Oh before going to the wedding and Qeema's open house,in the morning I went to Razin's eldest sister Nana's house to help her with Qarla's swimming because everybody was busy that day preparing for the open house.It was fun seeing Qarla having fun in the pool.That's me in my fave ASOS watermelon shirt.:p
 


Redeemed my "coupon":Paranorman and dinner at Dancing Fish

On my 25th birthday on the 25th of June,the boyfriend not only gave me a necklace as a gift,but he also made my birthday cake on his own and also a card with a special coupon in it.I can redeem it for a fancy dinner and a movie.So I finally did so around 2 weeks back!:) Above is the picture of the coupon that he made.

I've been dying to try Dancing Fish because there have been so many great reviews about the food there.Also I want to watch Paranorman after seeing the great trailer.So the boyfriend picked me up and we went to my favorite mall..Setia City Mall(a snap of the mall by me below when we walk around the park after the movie!).

How was the movie?It was very enjoyable.I even cried a bit during the last part and even the boyfriend was moved by it.Definitely a movie that you should watch!Basically Norman can see the dead and unfortunately he doesn't know how to keep it from others so everybody thinks he is weird.The sad thing is his own dad thinks he is troubled as well.Not a movie to bring your little kids because there are some creepy scenes!

After the movie,we walked to the park in front of Setia City Mall and took some pictures.It is pretty but I think some of it is still incomplete yet.Pictures of me below in my fave ASOS Rainbow dress!:)

After walking around and working up an appetite..we went to Dancing Fish for dinner.I already knew what I wanted to order.I choose the Dancing Fish--rm39.90--(deep fried Nila fish..sooo good!)dish with sambal terasi and also Gulai Lemak Pucuk Paku--rm11.90.
Now I know you guys might think that why would you order a dish(gulai lemak pucuk paku)that you can get at any malaysian food restaurant?Well because I read online that theirs are different and very tasty.I was glad that it was true!The boyfriend ordered Bebek Goreng Bali--rm29.90--(crispy duck).Pictures of the dishes below.
Both the duck and fish came as a whole on the platter but they ask if we want them to cut it so they quickly took it back so I couldn't get a picture of them whole.The portions are huge!Definitely too much for two person that we had many leftovers and had to tapau them.

The food was so good!The fish was very crispy and the sambal terasi was delicious.The rice was fragrant as well.The gulai lemak pucuk paku was different than the normal ones and the ferns was fresh and wasn't wilted.I will definitely try to make gulai lemak pucuk paku the way they did,at home one day!

I took a bite of Razin's duck dish and it was good but I wasn't a fan of duck meat so he enjoyed the dish on his own.But we definitely couldn't finish our meal because of the portion but it was very worth the money.I'll definitely come back for the fish and to try the desserts!

Total bill for two person was around rm115-I had teh botol while he ordered sirap bandung for drinks,along with rice for our dishes.I don't remember the prices for the drinks but rice was rm3 each with free refills.My verdict:Go to Dancing Fish for a special occasion!The food will not disappoint you.:)

 


Documentary:The Cove..A MUST WATCH!!!!!

The boyfriend have been asking me to watch this documentary movie.He said he never thought that he would cry while watching a documentary about dolphins.Initially I was skeptical in watching it and was delaying it even though he kept asking me I have watched it or not.Because I thought it would be boring.Boy was I wrong!!!

It was an eye opener.To see that dolphins are being killed mercilessly so that these Japanese people(in the documentary it was set in Taiji,Japan) can make some money out of it.I have to say I did cry a few times while watching it.

I saw on the net how some people can justify these actions by saying that well,the Westerners kill cows for meat so the Easterners are killing doplhin/whales for their meats.But it is weird since most Japanese living in Tokyo and other cities doesn't consume dolphins at all.

Plus there's high levels of mercury in dolphin meats.It is worrying because obviously they(the Japanese government) is trying to cover it up.All of this can be seen in the movie.To me Ric O'Barry is a hero,championing a great cause that a lot of people might think is small or overlooked.

There's a lot of politics being played in order to keep whaling and killings of dolphins alive in Japan.This can been seen during IWC conference in the movie.A lot of the votes were bought.

You can download this movie from torrent because I think it's hard to get your hand on it here in Malaysia.But when you have downloaded it,pass it around and spread the message.If we can't do anything,atleast we can create an awareness about it.

And do go HERE to sign for the petition to help save Japan's dolphins.I have done my part.:)