Baked Potato

There were some days that I could not think of what to eat, simply because my desire for food can be absurd due to my condition with the Barrett esophagus.  Simple food like baked potato and some accompanying dishes do help in this situation.  Sharing herewith my super easy baked potato.

 Russet potato, cleaned, rubbed with some salt and pepper and olive oil, wrapped in aluminium foil and bake in the oven for 40 to 60 minutes at 320 degree. 

 Served the ready baked potato with some Emmental cheese and fried sausages with yellow onion and butter

Yummy................ Alhamdulillah

Crystal Ware Get Together

I was invited to a crystal ware get together recently, which reminded me of a get together back home but for tupperware. The prices of the crystal ware of course outweigh the prices of tupperware by far, however, the ladies who attended the get together do not have a care about grabbing what they wanted, albeit my surprised. 

The crystal ware was from Hungary and the owner of the shop and her daughter specially drove all the way for this occasion.  To say the least, I'm actually enjoying it.

 

  

 

  

 

To All My Children

Lamb Shank Tagine

Hubby had a get together of his team at our crib recently, our main course for the late lunch was lamb shank tagine.  It is so easy to cook using the tagine and I'm getting so addicted to this.  Actually, you can create and be creative with your recipe, but in my opinion the right spices got to be incorporated, and another important ingredient for my tagine will always be dried apricot as well as good grade raisins.

7 pieces of local cut lamb (the butcher specially cut them for me) marinated with some black pepper and salt

Ingredients:  the spices: coriander, fennel seeds, cumin (roast them and pound to powder form) then add them together with 7 spices (as it is known here or all spices else where).  Shallots (not onions), garlic, ginger to be pounded together.  7 pieces of tomato (to be roughly blended).  10 pieces of dried apricot (blend). 1/2 cup of raisins.  Some fresh thyme and rosemary. Some potatoes. Salt to taste.

Method: in a very hot pan, quickly brown the lamb shank on all sides. Once done, use the same remaining oil with the lamb dripping to fry all the pounded and blended ingredients for 8 minutes, add in the tomatoes, the apricot as well as the raisins.

Arrange lamb shank in the tagine, pour all the combine ingredients on the lamb shank together with salt. Add the potatoes (skin on).  Please do not add any water at all. Put the lid of the tagine on and put in the oven at 150 degree for 3 hours. Do not be curious and try to open the tagine during the cooking time, it is really not necessary.

I got my Emile Henry Tagine at a close down shop. It was the best present that I got for me for a long long time.

The lamb shank ready for the oven.

Let's Make Some Murukku

Murukku has always been my all time favorite snacks.  It's very difficult to get them here, and like many food that I like and could not get them easily here, I have learned to cook them myself.  This is my trying at making the murukku.  It is really very simple, and I.m sharing here the recipe too if you would like to give it a go. 

1kg of chcikpea flour, some curry leaves (chopped into tiny pieces), a table spoon of chili powder, a table spoon of curry powder, half cup of sesame seeds, two table spoon of ajwain seeds (you can get this from the Indian grocery shops), some salt to taste and enough vegetable oil for deep frying.

 Mix all of the ingredients together to form a firm paste, be careful not to add to much water as you do not want the mixture to be watery.  Leave the mixture to stand for at least half an hour.

 Use a murukku mould (this I borrowed from a friend here), put enough of the mixture into the mould

 Heat enough vegetable oil in a deep wok or heavy bottom frying pan

Once the oil is very hot, press out the mixture into the oil (since I'm too weak to do this, hubby was on hand)

 Let it fry 4-5 minutes on both sides

 

Yes, the finish product.................

Ending of 2013

 We had some guests in our little crib on 31/12/2013, it was unplanned and impromptu and it was beautiful.  

The setting while waiting for the arrival

 Shrimp cocktail as starters

 Salmon fish head curry as main dish, served with stem rice and brown bread

 Stir fried as side dishes

 "Teh tarik" all through the night, I think I had more than 5 rerun of this act

 The whole serving

 The after food, calamantine and "goreng pisang"

The after dinner table.............................