Stay At Home Moms

This week has been a challenge. Both my kids were unwell and that makes me a sleep-deprived mother. Aside from the porridge and quaker oats that I’ve been feeding the kids, my hubby and I need to fill our tummies. Lucky for me, hubby is not a fussy eater. For the next few recipes, I believe they will be the kind you can prepare with half-closed eyes and no need to measure the ingredients. What you must have is that last ounce of energy to help you stay awake long enough so that you can make sure nothing gets burnt on the stove! First up…fried sausage rolls or ‘roti hotdog’! You can’t go wrong with this one. When I’m in this state, it’s lunch, otherwise, it makes an easy snack when you’re on the go and my son loves this in his lunch box! Read the rest »

Let me first say that this is my favoritest - if there was such a word - dish! It’s a Malay rice dish which consists of rice cooked in coconut milk and pandan leaves, fried omelette, chili prawns (the bigger, the tastier!) or fried chicken or fried fish or fried sausages, with cucumber to kill the heat from the chili. An even simpler version of this dish which used to be sold wrapped in banana leaves for 50cents a packet (this was a loooonnnnggg time ago) had the rice, fried anchovies, one or two fried selar kuning (gold banded scad), some cucumbers and a huge dollop of sambal tumis. But nothing..and I mean NOTHING beats eating nasi lemak with sambal udang! So here’s a recipe taken from one of the cookbooks I have and turned out tasting yummylicious!

 Ingredients:

For the rice:
3 cups rice - long grain preferable - wash and drained
1 1/2 cans of coconut milk + 1/2 cup water
3 inch of fresh ginger - peeled and bruised
salt to taste
2 screwpine leaves - washed and tied into a knot

Method:

1. Combine all the ingredients above in the rice cooker and leave it to cook. To know if there is enough salt, the coconut milk should taste a little salty.
2. When the rice is cooked. Immediately open it, and stir the rice to fluff it. Turn off the rice cooker and keep it covered for about 10 minutes before serving.
3. Serve with sambal udang, cherry tomatoes, omelette and cucumber.

For the Sambal Udang:
1lb prawn - shell-on, deveined and washed
15 dried chili - cut slantwise, seeds removed and soaked in hot water for 10 minutes or until soft
1 large onion
1 clove garlic
1tbsp tamarind + 4 tbsp water - soaked for 5 minutes, mixed and strained
1/2 cup water
1tbsp sugar
salt to taste
3 tbsp canola oil

Method:

1. Grind the seeded and softened chili with the onion and garlic into a paste.
2. In a pot, heat the oil. When hot, fry the chili paste and fry till fragrant and the oil rises.
3. Combine tamarind juice and water in a bowl. Add it into the fragrant paste.
4. Add salt and sugar. Stir occasionally and continue cooking the gravy until it thickens.
5. Add the prawns and stir to coat completely with the paste.
6. When the prawns turn pink. Turn off the heat.
7. Leave it for 10 minutes to absorb the flavor before serving.

Tips:

• Here’s how I clean the prawn without removing the shells. Using a pair of kitchen scissors, cut off the the portion of the head where the eyes are. This will effectively remove the part of the head with the whiskers as well.
• Then, snip just a little bit of the tail. Snip the legs - you’ll probably be able to snip off all the legs in 2 snips.
• Then placing the scissors between the head and the body of the prawn, cut down the middle of the body abt 1/2 inch - 1inch depending on the size of the prawn. You can now remove the vein.
• Wash the prawns and you’re now ready to cook them.
• You can leave out the pandan leaf if you can’t find any. It just enhances the smell of the rice.
• To save time, you can prepare the chili beforehand and store it in a container in the refrigerator.
• To cut the cucumber as you see in the photo, cut the ends of the cucumber and remove the skin with a potato peeler. Using a fork, scrape down the sides of the cucumber lengthwise. Cut round thin slices.

Last weekend, my kids’ Islamic Sunday School had a celebration and I brought these along to contribute to the pot-luck spread. And since my kids loved these so much, I made extras for home as well…I believe they were the 4th batch since raya! As I look at my fast dissappearing honey cornflake cups - or better known in Malay - as cornflakes madu, it occured to me that it’s a recipe worth sharing. Especially since it was a BIG hit! Oh..and I didn’t mean only the kids

I suppose, this post should probably have been up the week when most people celebrating Eid would have been trawling the net and flipping recipe books and yellowed hand-me down recipes looking for yummy treats to serve their guests especially the kids who come visiting. But given that I was really strapped for time, I suppose it’s better late than never. Besides, who says you need to only bake these for Eid right? Anyway, I’m sure there are similar recipes elsewhere so one late entry can’t have done much damage either.

Ingredients:
5 cups cornflakes (lightly crushed - so that the pieces are not too big)
4oz stick + 1 tbsp unsalted butter
1/2 cup granulated/fine sugar
3 tbsp honey
sliced/crushed nuts (optional)
Sprinkles (optional)
About 50 small baking cups

Method:

1. In a large saucepan, combine butter, sugar and honey.
2. Place the pan on slow fire and stir until the sugar is completely dissolved.
3. Turn off the flame and immediately add the cornflakes (and nuts, if using) into the sugar mixture.
4. Stir to coat the cornflakes completely with the sugar mixture.
5. Place the cups onto a baking tray. Spoon tablespoonful of the mixture into the cups.
6. Decorate with whatever sprinkles you like.
7. Bake in pre-heated oven at 350F for abt 10 min.
8. Remove from oven, leave to cool completely before storing in an airtight container.

Tips:

• To cruch the cornflakes and not make a mess - measure the amount of cornflakes needed and put it in a ziploc bag. Lay the bag flat on the table and distribute the cornflakes evenly. Do not zip the bag completely. Leave a small hole so that air can escape when you put pressure on the bag. Use a rolling pin and gently roll over the cornflakes twice or until the desired size is obtained. Don’t crush it too much - it’s not honey cornflake POWDER cups!
• If using nuts, mix the nuts and the crushed cornflakes well before pouring the mixture into the sugar mixture.
• Do not over-bake the cornflakes. If it’s too hard or burnt, it’ll lose it’s charm and you don’t want to deal with chipped teeth!
• Do not wait for the sugar mixture to cool before adding the cornflake mixture - it’s difficult to mix when the syrup mixture thickens.

I’m normally in a hurry to get things from the Asian store and then hurry out to run more errands. So last week when I found I had a little more time than usual to spend at the Asian store, I decided to slowly look  through what they had at the noodle section.  I wasn’t looking for anything in particular so it was a nice surprise to find the narrow type of Kway Teow noodles. I also found Chow Funn noodles. Wanting to break the monotony of eating rice for quite a few days now, I decided to try out these noodles. What was even better was that the back of the package had a recipe. What can I say but it turned out quite nice. However, the next time I cook this dish, I’ll remember to throw in some fresh prawns! I’m sure it’ll taste even better!!

Ingredients:
Chicken marinate -
300g minced chicken
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 clove garlic, minced

Sauce -
2 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp oyster sauce
4 tsp cornstarch
1/3 cup water

1 package (20oz) Chow Funn Noodles
10 fishballs - halved
1 tbsp vegetable oil
3 green onions - cut into 1 inch strips
2 carrots - julienned
2 cups shredded cabbage
1 tsp sesame oil

Method:

1. Mix the chicken with the soy sauce and garlic. Let it stand for 20 minutes.
2. Combine the ingredients for the sauce and stir until the cornstarch dissolves completely.
3. Cook noodle according to package instructions.
4. In a pan, on high heat coat the base of the pan with vegetable oil.
5. Add the minced chicken and fry till it turns light brown. This will take about 2-3 minutes.
6. Add the vegetable and fishballs. Stir-fry until the fishball is cooked.
7. Add the sauce and the cooked noodles. Stir to mix all the ingredients completely.
8. Stir constantly until the sauce boils and thickens.
9. Turn off the fire. Drizzle the sesame oil over the noodles. Stir.
10. Serve hot.

This week has been particularly busy for me. Not that I’ve been visiting friends and relatives because of Eid. That is far from the reality of things. In fact, this is probably the first Eid I have not done as much visiting as I have always had, and should probably have had twice as much time available for me to use as I deem fit, but that is not the case. I have offered my help to be a parent volunteer at my son’s elementary school and have been assigned the role of a Read Naturally Parent. With the training that was conducted and the other things that I have chosen to add to my schedule, obviously believing that I am a supermom, time for me to blog about the food and books in my life has been sorely depleted. Anyway, the training as a Read Naturally Parent was very useful.

So what is a Read Naturally Parent? Thought you’d ask…
It’s main aim is to get children reading fluently. And by fluently there are mainly 4 areas that the child needs to be aware of. Let me not get into the details of this and jump right in to say that one very important idea I learnt during the training was that, a child who can read chapter books may not be considered a fluent reader! Why? Because, while he may be able to read fast, he may not be reading with the right inflexions, or comprehension or expression. Now…if you didn’t know that, you just learnt something as well!

With my awareness of fluency, and its importance, I charged into the library (of course this is me being melodramatic!) and looked for books that would be helpful for my developing readers. Besides, I thought it was about time to get them a book which would be different from the ones they’ve been reading recently. The Roly-Poly Rice Ball was the right find.

The story is set in ancient China, gleaned from the colorful illustration of cherry blossom trees, ladies, men and mice dressed in ancient Chinese robes, and tells of a poor sweeper, Li, who had only three rice balls left to last him the whole day. Magically, as he sat under a cherry tree to eat it, the rice balls rolled away into a hole under the tree. Even more magical is his experience as he rolls into the hole as well. The mice who live in the hole eats his rice balls. But Li never gets upset even though he was ravenous. In return, the emperor mice rewards him with precious items which to the mice are of little value.

It is obvious that the story has a moral behind it; that one should share and put others before self and the idea of delayed gratification for being patient. However, I find the story overly unrealistic. It is unrealistic, that Li while in hunger is able to accede to the emperor’s demands to do tasks even after he has lost the only meal he has.

Anyway, it is an easy read and one that will encourage the younger readers to enjoy reading because of the repetitive words as well as the sing-song magical chant that the mice uses to make things roll in and out of the hole.

What did we do?

• discussed how Li felt when he saw the balss rolling away
• tried to make sense of Li’s patience
• discuss if being a sweeper was a good job or not
• shared what we would have done if we were Li