Thursday, September 21, 2006

Of chicken rice, kaya pau and mango tree


Yummy chicken rice, complete with taugeh!

I know I haven't been blogging lately due to other commitments (other than stitching). So here I am back to bore anyone who has time to read... :)

The odd um cook shaped kaya pau... Beginners luck.

There are things that we tend to miss once in a blue moon. While I was home in KL, chicken rice, kaya pau and mango was not really one of the things I'd like to eat every other day. I mean come on, we've got assam laksa, char siew pau and rambutan, or any other food/fruits to replace them. But when we've got no choice, since that yours truly is living so damn far away from home, we either have to make them ourselves or substitute them with something else. For me finding subs aren't my thing when it comes to Malaysian food. I think its irreplaceable, the ingredients, the texture, the taste and the smell.


It turn out not bad no? At least got pau shape!

Yummy filling....

So one weekend I decided to make my own kaya pau and chicken rice! I didn't realise making pau and chicken rice was that easy! The only down side of it was the time it took me to make the kaya (about 2 and half hrs of stirring!!) and how oily my kitchen felt after cooking chicken rice. But after cleaning up the mess and finally sitting down to savour them, I can say that it was worth all the trouble to make them in the first place. All I need to do now is try to melt away some of the excess collected from the kaya pau....

A small sprout from a seed...


Growing stronger and taller by the day.... Shaping the young ones are easier than old!

As for the mango tree, well, hubs is into a phase called bonsaimania. So one fine day he decided to plant a mango tree from its seed and make turn it into a bonsai. I'm not sure how is he think he's going to do it but at least the mango seed did sprout an its now growing! I hope that he's not planning to grow it into a "real" tree otherwise, it'll be hell to move if ever we're moving off somewhere in the future. So now almost every weekend, he'll drag me to DIY stores, gardening centres and to IKEA several times just to either; "steal" a branch from the garden centers or the lakeside, or buy more pots and etc for plants. Seriously, I thought that us stitchers stash now and then, but I've never seen this type of stashing for gardening.... Or may be because I'm not really into bonsai and stuff.... hmmm... But I'm still glad that hubs found something that he enjoy doing. Now we have an understanding that he will not complain when I get too engrossed with my piece as he is with his "babies".