Today Is That Day

There were days that you think everything could not go any more wrong than they already are. I don’t know what it is about me that I could smell or feel something was happening or had happened, and it will only be on these days that I do feel like making contact with whoever and wherever.

Today is one of those days, the news I got was shocking, but like I said before nothing could shake me any worse than what my own has done to me. I can only listen in disbelief as the news was being told to me. Each time my heart jumped a bit I will silently say a prayer.

A million questions asked, but no one answer could give a closure to what was being told. How can this be, how can it happen again, how come that no one was even aware of an ailment in the growing, how, and how and how?

Finally, I told me that it is beyond what I can reach, beyond what I can feel and beyond any truth that I could perceive. I have long accepted that I am the black sheep of the family, am I proud of this, no not at all, but nevertheless I don’t care.

But the Almighty warranted that I be informed so I was informed. I have closed all doors of communication, but that does not mean I don’t care, I do because at the end of the day blood is always thicker than water.

Please get well soon, I want you to know that when you have peace in yourself, you can let go a lot of miseries, a lot of pride, a lot of shame and a lot more of a lot more. I don’t know what I am rambling about now, but I am praying for you. And if our paths never ever cross again, I want you to know that you ain’t heavy, you are after all my brother.

It Was Polenta

In case you are wondering what we had for Iftar yesterday, let me tell you that Chef Diva was in the kitchen and that can only mean a western meal. For the first time she cooked Polenta for us.

Polenta is actually a corn meal mush, made from dried ground maize, and supposedly it is the staple food of northern Italy. Some people do prefer Polenta to pasta. I can say that it is a good substitute for bread, mash potatoes or rice.

We had our Polenta with sauté mushrooms, tomato sauce and roast chicken. It was very nice for a first timer. Everyone emptied their plates in no time, before attacking the brownie with white chocolate that Chef Diva had made for dessert.

Semmering Waiting For You Schnappi

This is Semmering which is located about 100km from where we are living. In the summer this place hosts numerous trails for mountain biking, monster biking, walking, jogging etc activities that can be done in the summer.

This is a family friendly place where everyone from as old as you can imagine and to the youngest who has just taken their first steps will enjoy the experience of bikers’ thrills.

In the winter Semmering will be one of the ski slopes that skiers will come and have fun. Someday not too long I hope Schnappi will come and enjoy these boy things, someday maybe before we move to another continent.

Eid Greetings

I got my first Eid greeting card yesterday, normally I will get from my girlfriend first, but this time around it was from my medic princess. Like everything from there nothing is designed to impress, but the wording and the thoughts that come with the card counts.

Ok, ok what I want to write about is that, I read the card while waiting for my cooking to finish. So everyone was in the kitchen and hubby of course understands what was written in English, and then he left to update his computer. After completing reading the messages written, my little angel looked at me and asked me, “mama, what is ‘Bonda’?”

Chef Diva quickly explained that ‘Bonda’ is the classic way of salutation for mother, and ‘ayahanda’ will be for father, while ‘kekanda’ represents salutation for a sister or a brother. My little angel goes like what, are you for real? But why?

This got me thinking too, as when I received an email from a good friend whereby she wrote everything in Malay, it got me confused at first because she was using all the old style of spelling. For example InsyaAllah used to be spelled InshaAllah, air used to be spelled ayer, cat used to be spell chat. Therefore, when my little angel got a bit lost with the classical way of salutation, who can you blame?

Anyways, thank you sayang for the card, I don’t like the color, as you know pink is so not my color la.

Cannelloni

Again I was lost for idea in what to prepare for iftar, everybody loves spicy stuff, but hubby do complaint of heartburns due to over eating of chilies at time. By the way, I also try to alternate the type of menu served.

Yesterday for the first time I decided to make Cannelloni with meat sauce. This is my first try at making Cannelloni. To accompany the Cannelloni I also make grilled calamari with garlic and parsley sauce, and a bowl of salad. If you notice in the salad I added some chopped boiled potatoes as well as whole hard boiled eggs, mainly because it is more organized that way, and the eggs will not get messed.
Anyways, if you are interested in trying your hands at Cannelloni, this is how I did mine:

You have to have 1 big box of Cannelloni, boiled and drained afterwards under cold tap water, and sprinkled with some olive oil.

A medium size bowl of minced meat
2 average sized onion, chopped into tiny pieces
1 can of whole tomatoes, some tomato paste, and a cup of tomato puree
I like to add thyme and oregano for taste, as well as rock mountain salt and ground black pepper
Extra virgin olive oil
A small of Béchamel sauce, and ½ packet of parmesan cheese.

Method of cooking:

Heat the oil in a heavy bottom pan and sauté the onion till slightly brown, add the minced meat, stir so that it would not be in chunks. Once the minced meat is brown add the whole can of tomato, the tomato paste and the tomato puree, sprinkled in the thyme and oregano. Let boiled for 5 minutes then add the pepper and salt. Let it simmer till sauce is thick and take off from the heat.

Now comes the hard part, where you need to fill each pieces of the Cannelloni lovingly (lol), so that it will not break.

Take the cannelloni and stuff them one by one, you can use a teaspoon but if you find that that is too troublesome, just use your fingers but take care not to smear the Cannelloni as you go along.

Place the stuff Cannelloni pieces in a roasting pan side by side, and if you decide to put on top of each other, you have to alternate with the Béchamel sauce as well as the Parmesan cheese.

Whichever way you choose to arrange is up to you.

Finally bake the Cannelloni in a preheated oven at 180 degree for approximately 30 to 40 minutes.

Give it a go, I am sure you will enjoy seeing your family loving each pieces of the Cannelloni.