Autumn 2012

The Autumn finally hits me now. The leaves are falling and the streets are full of leaves. The trees are all burning red and yellow.
Preparing for the worst winter this year. Currently it is mostly raining, windy, cold and dark at this time of the year. Have started going out with my winter jacket and winter gloves now especially when its a windy day.
Some morning, car windows started to be frosted as it has been minus for few hrs during the night.
Have a lovely Autumn everyone!!

Thai Red Chicken Curry

5 tablespoons oil

1 large onion—finely chopped

3 tablespoon Thai red curry paste

2 cloves garlic—finely chopped

1 can coconut milk

1 cup chicken stock

2 tablespoons fish sauce

1 tablespoon brown sugar

½ teaspoon salt

1kg uncooked skinless chicken breast fillets—cut into bite-sized pieces

2 tablespoons cornstarch (cornflour) mixed to a paste with 2 tablespoons water

2 tablespoons lemon juice

4 large fresh basil leaves—finely sliced

HEAT the oil in a large saucepan over a medium heat and cook the onion for 5 minutes, 

stirring occasionally. ADD the curry paste and garlic and cook, stirring, for a minute. 

ADD the coconut milk, stock, fish sauce, sugar and salt, then bring to the boil. 

ADD the chicken to the curry and simmer, for a further 8 minutes.

ADD any kind of your preferred vegetables, then reduce the heat to medium and simmer for 5 minutes.  

stir in the lemon juice and basil. 

SERVE with rice.

Potluck & karaoke Night

Saturday 13th October a friend from Stockholm, Irene invited me to her house for a gathering with the other Malaysian who are living here in Sweden. It was the first time for me to join this kind of potluck gathering as I have never been to one before.

Mike, Irene husband picked us up by car at the train station as I have not clue of how to get to her place.

The only person I knew there and have met couple of time is Irene, her husband Mike and Johnny. I have not met the rest of the other couples there.  Somehow they were very friendly and it was indeed very nice day spending my saturday.

This is the ladies and children table. Very comfortable, nice and the steamboat cooks faster than the men side. The men has a special sitting place out in a little colder place at the balcony.

There were so much food and really yummylicious. Amazingly 2 of their Swedish husband really enjoyed the steamboat and the chilli dip too. It is not easy to find Swedish enjoying steamboat.

We started eating around 4. When we done, we went over to the living room for some Karaoke time. Almost everyone sang and it was fun.

Then we had very typical asian desert. Before the night end we ate again for the 2nd round. It is truthfully amazing, I never thought we could eat again after we had so much for the first round.

The host Irene.

Thank you for a lovely good dinner and quality fun time with you and everyone there.

Will human being ever learnt?

Some people never learnt what is the meaning of making promises. One thing for certain, promises are meant to be kept. People always take thing for granted until its too late.

On the other hand some people never remember what is it like to lose the one you love. It is certainly a horrible and hurtful feeling. If you are given a chance to get back again that someone you love, would you treasure it or take it for granted? Once again if he/she's alive and you got her back, you are considered lucky, but if she's dead, you will regret it for the rest of your life.

Somehow if you have that mentality, of taking her for granted again that she's afterall all yours now and thinking that you will not lose her ever again, then you for sure don't deserve to be love. Not from her, not from anyone either.

I knew a friend who's name will have to be anonymous, as I do not want to paint the picture name story openly but an idiot to say that he cheated on her. When she found out, things were not as beautiful as it look like anymore. It hurts, it hurts so deep down inside her to know that she was being cheated. The trust she had for him is obviously gone. It hurts to know someone that she trusted and had built a life with all her life had ruin her.

Took a while for her to grasp that it had happened, until one day she finally decided to move on. She started meeting other people and had a lot of friends supporting her. It was really a moment of her rebuilding and see life again.

She finally met someone again but the relationship could never be the same anymore as she is so afraid of being hurt in a relationship again. She was very cautious in her relationship but she was indeed very happy. She got the treatment of respect and cared by her new partner.

The things that pull her forward and back is her child. She adores her child dearly. She would do anything for her child. She felt that her child is not happy seeing the parents seperated. Since then she decided to have a friendly seperation with her husband so her child would feel better.

The story begin, her husband treated her with so much respect, give her so much attention and show her how much he really love her whenever he could. He knew he have to be the nicest guy in the world after what he had done to her.
Finally she fall for his sweet talk trap and take him back and thinking that it will be fine now after seeing her child was very happy too.

For few months everything was painted beautifully. Then finally the respect, attention and love was then taken back to his own selfish, uncaring, stubborn, self centered person again.
She question him again, what is the reason they went back together again if its going to be like this? It is better they get divorce?
Knowingly the change of his other side has re appeared again so he uncaringly replied, if you want to, go ahead.!!

Does this person deserve to be love? No...
Does this person will ever be happy?
I doubtly think so, he will have a temporary happiness all his life but will never ever find any true love who will die for him through good and bad time.

Absent sharpen the love, presence routine it.
The story continue...

Fried Noodle (Mee Goreng)

Craving for Mee Goreng. Did it for lunch today.

Ingredients:

Yellow Noodle

2 onion slice 

2 garlic chop finely  

(stir fried both onion and garlic with little oil.)

3 tbs Chilli paste

1 tbs tomato paste 

(add in both chilli and tomato paste and fry for another 5 mins)

3tbs Oyster sauce

2tbs Sweet Soy Sauce (Kicap Manis)

2tbs Light Soy Sauce

(Come in those 3 sauce after)

1 egg

Yellow Noodle

(Add in Egg and yellow noodle)

At this stage you can add in any kind off green vegetables.

Salt and Pepper

Thinly slice spring onion

Chopped chilli padi

Slices of hot dog which you fried them first separately.

(optional, I added this as I have to use it before the due date) 

Taco Lasagne with Bechamel sauce

There are so many different ways of making Lasagne  I have tried several different ways of making them during the past years but somehow the one and only type my family love is the one I did with Taco Seasoning Spice, especially my husband and my son. They could really eat a lot. Lasagne is pretty simple to do. My Lasagne with Bechamel sauce is part of my own invention of playing around with the food.

600 gram of minced meat

2 large onion chopped

2 garlic chopped

1pkt Taco seasoning

1 can of peeled tomatoes

Salt and pepper to taste

Cheese

Bechamel sauce

Preparation of the mince meat first:

In a large skillet, cook the beef, onion, garlic over medium heat until meat is no longer pink; drain.
Add water and taco seasoning; bring to a boil. Reduce heat; simmer, uncovered, for 2 minutes. Stir in tomatoes. Simmer, uncovered, for 10 minutes.

Once meat is done, I started preparing for the Bechamel sauce. This is the basic recipe of Bechamel sauce.

3 tbs butter

3 tbs flour

2 cup milk

A pinch of salt

Dash of grounded nutmeg

In a saucepan, melt the butter on low heat. As soon as it melts, add the flour and stir until there are no lumps, and increase the heat to medium-low. Add the milk slowly, stirring constantly with a whisk, and continue stirring until the sauce begins to thicken - creamy without being too thick. Remove from the heat and stir in salt and nutmeg. Remove from heat and set aside.

Arrange one layer of lasagna plate onto a baking dish. Pour and spread evenly the Bechamel sauce onto the lasagna plate. Then followed by spreading a thin layer of the mince meat.
Repeat this layer again by starting with the Lasagna plate, bechamel sauce and mince meat.

Top with your own favourite tasty cheese. You can even mixed different types of cheese for much cheesier taste.

Cover and bake at 350° for 25-30 minutes or until heated through and cheese is melted.

 I always love the sprinkling over of an additional parmesan cheese before serving.

Fried Anchovy with sweet soy sauce

Very typical Singaporean, Malaysian and Indonesian dish. Simple and easy to make. In Asia we ate this as a snacks or together with other main dish.

100g Dried Anchovy (Ikan Bilis)

1 large Onion slice

2 Garlic chop

10 Thai chilli 

10 tbs Sweet Soy Sauce (Kicap Manis)

3 tbs Tamarind (Optional)

Pepper and Salt to taste

Instruction:

Wash clean the dried anchovy. Pat with paper towel to dry.

Fried them in a frying pan with some oil.

Once they are crispy, set them aside on a plate.

Stir in slice onion and garlic,

Next Thai chilli,

Put back in the fried anchovy and pour in sweet soy sauce.

Add in a small amount of tamarind if you prefer to have it a bit sour and sweet taste. (I prefer without)

A few dash of Salt and pepper to taste.