Cycle of Life ...according to Grant Snyder

Now am actually thinking, maybe just maybe Mr.S and I are ready for the cycle #5. 

Hopefully the day will come. 

Keep on trying love!

L'apprentissage du français: Petites étapes chaque jour

I haven't been posting at all this Ramadhan. Oh not that I don't want to...but somehow I landed myself a JOB! Haha not that I'm complaining but by the time I showered, changed and relaxed - I doze off. Yeap it is dead tiring - everyday! Anyways, I have been learning French since last year when I thought why not share here and we could learn this beautiful language together. I find it easier for me to learn through pictures/flashcards and songs. Maybe I will create a tab to share all this there. What do you think?

Ramadhan is around the corner...

Well last year I was in Mauritius and had the opportunity to experience Ramadhan and Eid there with my in laws. It was awesome considering issues we had before. But Alhamdulillah it turned to be a superb holiday. So this year since Ramadhan is peeking at us, I decided to test out a recipe which usually being served for iftar there. Traditionally, for iftar we break the fast by eating dates and water followed by a complete meal. In Mauritius, it is customary to have samoosas, gateau sale (salty fried cakes) along with alouda (rose milk with agar, similar like bandung with jelly inside).And yes another food that is significant to Mauritius is their naan bread. Usually store bought but I stumbled upon this recipe and decided to give it a try. Now am anxious waiting for Mr. S to come home and taste it. 

Ingredients:

250 g all purpose flour

2 tbs butter

1/2 packet instant yeast (standard one package is around 2 1/4 tsp)

1 tbs vegetable oil

1/2 cup lukewarm water

1 tbs granulated sugar

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp ground cumin (heat it up in a pan on low heat to break the aroma and grind)

2 tbs milk (for glazing)

Method:

1. Sift flour into mixing bowl and add all the dry ingredients too. Make a well in the center.
2. Gradually add water to the dry ingredients and mix well forming a dough.
3. Add butter and mix it well with your hands. Add the oil and knead until fats are well incorporated into the dough. 
4. Continue kneading until the dough is firm and elastic. You will see the dough stops sticking to the sides of the bowl. Add extra flour if needed.
5. Dust your work surface lightly with flour and knead your dough for at least 10 minutes.
6. Return the dough to bowl and cover with damp cloth. leave to proof for at least 1 hour or till it doubled in volume.
7. Divide dough into 100 g portions. Flatten it slightly and shape into spirals. Dust lightly with flour.
8. Line baking sheets on your tray. Place spiral 3-4 cm apart and allow for second proofing for about 20 minutes.
9. Brush on milk and bake for 15-20 minutes at 200°c. Cool completely on a wire rack. 

p/s: I will post the recipes for previous baking later on. Sorry about that. 

No knead bread :)

No knead bread day. A smudge of butter on this warm bread and a nice cup of coffee....

Umpph! It made my day. 

When apples just sit and stare at you...

All that I am or hope to be, I owe it to YOU

"She is my first, great love. She is a wonderful, rare woman - you do not know; as strong, and intense, and generous as the sun. She could be as swift as a white whiplash, and as kind and gentle as warm rain, and as steadfast as the irreducible earth beneath us." - D.H. Lawrence

Run! Godzilla coming to town...

Yet another of my handiwork for today.

Ooh Doo Dah Day!

I know this might sound like a dumb post to most of you but I have been searching for an application that doesn't require me to do in-app purchases. You see I don't mind purchasing the initial application but when it ask you to buy every single essential tools there is, then bah! FORGET it! I love doodling and sketching stuff whenever my hands are free and I have been searching for an apps on Apple Store. Lets just say 98% require in-app purchases. I have always loved Paper by 53 but I find it silly having to buy everything else when the apps itself is not even free. So I started looking and reading reviews after reviews and tadaaaa!! I came across ArtRage. All brushes and strokes and colour mixer are there! The apps is not free but hey I don't need to spend more quid to get crayon effects or dry wet effects. Am finally content! (If only you could see my wide-all-the-way-to-ears smile when I found this apps and how Mr. S probably bleeding his ears out listening to me yapping about it.)

Yeah okay I know my sketch is no Van Gogh but am pretty happy with ArtRage. I can doodle my day everyday! Yippeee!!

Toss it higher and make it round -

I don't know if it is normal for everyone. For me when it comes to making dinner, am always annoyed because firstly, I have absolutely no idea what to cook and secondly, I hate eating outside. SO am back to square one standing in front of my refrigerator contemplating what can I make out of the freezer's 'occupants'. While I was busy looking around I realised I haven't done anything with the Italian lamb sausage I bought in March 2013! Yes you read it right, MARCH! Fingers crossed and phew! luckily the sausage was not expired or anything worst - like probably have something green and fuzzy on it. Yuckies!

When I saw sausages I was thinking of puy lentils so I went to see if I have some in the pantry. Sadly none of its kind in my keeping. Ergo I opened back the freezer door and stared at its 'occupants' again. Mr. S has been asking for me to make calzone but I don't have the cheeses needed to make one. But I do feel like bashing something today. Therefore c'est le jour de pizza aujourd'hui ! People keep telling me it is hard to make a nice pizza crust and all, but I think that is just wrong. Dead wrong. You have absolutely no idea how easy it is. You don't need to have Kitchen Aid to make the dough. You just need your hands and fists. Haha.

Making pizza dough is very inexpensive. Trust me. All you need:

Makes about 2 12inches pizza

1 tablespoon  active dry yeast

 1 1/2 cups warm water

3 1/2 cups plain flour (you can substitute with whole wheat flour, if you fancy)

1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

A pinch of salt 

Now that wasn't so bad was it? First thing first. 

1. Make sure your water is warm and not too hot when you add the active dry yeast. You don't want the hot water to kill your yeast else your dough wont rise. Set aside until the yeast starts forming bubbles in about 3-5 minutes.
2. Sift the flour (any unbleached plain flour will do) and make a well in the center. Pour the yeast mixture into your well together with a pinch of salt and extra virgin olive oil.
3. You can either mix with your hand or using a spatula, drawing the ingredients together. You will know that it is ready to be kneaded when you're having trouble to move your spatula through the dough. 
4. Prepare your work surface. Make sure it is clean and dry. Flour the surface to avoid dough sticking to it when kneading. Otherwise, if you do not wish to knead the dough directly on your table or work surface, you can always line it with parchment paper sprinkled with flour. Frankly, it is actually easy to clean the mess later with some warm, soapy water once you're done. 
5. Turn the dough onto your work surface. You should have a loose, sticky ball. It is time for bashing and kneading! (my personal favourite)
6. Wash your hands and dry them. Make sure you have no jewelry. Lightly dust your hands with flour to keep it from sticking too much. Form the dough into a ball and punch the dough. Kneading is EASY! Press the heels of your hands into the dough, pushing it forward slightly. Punching helps the gluten start working. Continue until the dough is slightly springy.
7. To know when to stop kneading, shape the dough into a ball and let it drop on your work surface. The dough is ready if it holds its shape.
8. Spread a little bit of olive oil inside a bowl and transfer the dough into the bowl. Cover the bowl with a kitchen cloth and set aside for approximately 2 hours until it doubles in volume. You will need a warm temperature (24-26°C) room for it to properly rises. 
9. When the dough has doubled, punch it down to eliminates the air bubbles. Split the dough equally and on a lightly floured surface, use a rolling pin to roll out the dough. Use your hand and shape it to your pizza pan. 

Toppings can be anything that you like really! For dinner tonight I made a combinations of tomatoes, onion, cheese, Italian lamb sausages, and thyme. Layer tomato paste or if you are like me, I cheated and uses ready  made spaghetti sauces instead. You know a Ragu or Dolmio or Prego - whichever you like. They do have readymade pizza sauce but I usually prefer Ragu's chunky tomatoes and mushrooms spaghetti sauce. Then layer your thinly sliced ingredients onto your dough and off it go into your preheated oven. Oh don't forget to top it with your favourite cheese! Bake it for about 10-15 minutes (220°C) until the crust is golden all around. 

Reason why I said thinly sliced ingredients is because your pizza should stay in the oven for the shortest time possible to prevent it from drying too much and you ended with crunchy biscuit instead. 

And voilà! There you have it. Simple right. You don't need Dominos after this. Go ahead and try any toppings. Go crazy. I still have one batch left (from earlier dough) for tomorrow. Am making breakfast pizza with streaky beef bacon and eggs and cheese. Hot pizza in the morning. Yummieh!

Bon appetit!

The night where humans celebrated the ghosts -

31st October 2012

It has been years since I moved to my current place and not once I remembered celebrating Halloween. In the office or among friends - YES but home is always quiet and peaceful until that one fine night. And since we never had tricker treaters I never made any sweet candy-licious no-good-for-teeth shopping at all. No preparation for the night. Nopey NOPE! 

We thought we will have a quiet ghost movie night at home instead of going to any party when;

KNOCK! KNOCK!

We thought it was in the movie so we ignored it. Then there was the noise again. It was fairly faint but still audible.

KNOCK! KNOCK!

Mr. S turned and looked at me. And me scratching my head. Nope. I wasn't expecting anyone tonight I said.  Then the noise came back. We went to peep and saw bunch of kiddies around with costumes knocking on our neighbours' doors asking for candies. 

Oh crap! Tricker treaters this year? I wanted to open the door but before we did so, Mr. S asked me did we have anything to give to these kids. I rushed to the kitchen and rummaged through the cabinets and pah! there was nothing to give away! So we decided to keep our door closed and continued watching our movie. The noise subsided after a while but heck I never felt so bad before. SO this year 2013 we decided we are going to stick a some sort of postcard down each block inviting tricker treaters (kids that is!) to our ghostly home. I don't know if Mr.S would agree to wear costume but I guess if I let him choose what he wants to be, maybe he would say yes? 

To all the kids in SMC that came knocking last year, thousand apologies from us. It was not our intention to ignore you kiddies but we truly did not have anything to give away except for yoghurts in our refrigerator. I don't think you would want that. Anyhow this year I think we all going to have a blast! *fingers cross*

Absent-minded!

Hi people. I know it has been a while since I write anything in this blog. This is probably my second posts this year. Terrible me! *Sigh!* I have not been working since late last year and yet I have no desire to write anything in this page. Not that I want to shut this blog down. I want to keep it since I have poured so much effort into writing and designing it. It all began a year before my wedding. And now with just a blink of an eye am reaching two years into my marriage. How time flies! And Mr.S is still my same stinkybear. (Okay! Except for the tummy part that I would very much like it to go...oh well he blames my cooking. Lol!) Can't complain at least he loves my cooking. Haha.

I still have that tab that I needed to complete about my hometown- Kelantan; and all its wonders, yet somehow I found myself lost in translations. My mind was; frankly IS still totally absent. Never experienced it before. Hopefully this goes away and I can continue posting again. Probably it is all about practice? 

Am kinda missing the long hair...

Talk about being indecisive me. With the short hair now, I kinda missed having long ebony hair. 

Well we will have to wait and see if I have the patience to grow it again. Lol!

Strawberry & Ginger Sorbet

This is a good alternative for those of you who likes ice cream but do not fancy taking in all that fat. It was a try and error recipe that turned out to be absolutely delicious! Now to those who like to have some alcohol in their sorbet, you can always replace half a cup of lime with white wine, champagne or any alcohol of your choice. 

Strawberry & Ginger Sorbet

2 cups of fresh strawberries (you can use frozen ones if you like)

1 1/2 cups of lime juice

3 tablespoon of castor sugar

1 inch of ginger, grated

pinch of salt

Methods: 

1. Make sure you have a blender and blitz everything together. 
2. Sift the liquid to ensure smooth sorbet. Put in an ice cream maker and churn according to instructions.
3. Alternatively pour into a strong plastic box and put in the coldest part of the freezer. After 1 hour 30 minutes it should have frozen round the edges – take it out and beat vigorously with a fork, electric whisk or in a food processor until you have a uniformly textured icy slush. Put back in the freezer and repeat at least twice more every hour and a half, then freeze for at least another hour.
4. Transfer the sorbet to the fridge for 20 minutes before serving.

There you have it! It is the same method all the time. So you can tweak any flavours you like from fruity strawyberry , spicy ginger to even decadent chocolate sorbet. Hope you find yours to satisfy your craving for frozen treats. 

Happy Anniversary #1

How time passed by us ever too swiftly! It felt just yesterday we had to rush around planning and preparing for our wedding. It felt just a moment ago we were in Paris for our honeymoon. We blinked, had fun laughing poking each other, pulling each other's legs and here we are again... 

Yesterday:

09.10.11

NOW:

09.10.12

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY MR.S!

Garrets': Love is Messy!

Iliyana's: Love is messy but am loving it because you found me. I am eternally grateful that it is YOU by my side always and forever! Sincerely, Mrs. S.

A jar a day keeps doctor away?

Don't mind the title of this post... A jar a day will get you to the toilet NON-STOP for sure! Haha... I made chocolate pavlovas for my friend and her sister but still had some raspberries left over in the freezer. Since the berries don't stay long and get rotten easily I came up with an idea to turn it to a jam. And I did!

How to make this jam? Easy peasy!! Oh and I mix it with a bit of strawberry to just give it a bit of body :) I can assure you this recipe is not sweet - just maybe a bit sourish from the raspberries. 

Strawberry & Raspberry Jam:

Raspberries

Strawberries

1 1/2 cup of castor sugar

2 tsp. of vanilla essence

3 strips of clear jelly (agar-agar)

Methods:

1. Place your berries, castor sugar and vanilla essence in a pot and heat it up in a slow fire. Stir now and then to make sure you don't burn them.
2. Once everything is dissolved, add in the strips of jelly to thicken it. You can opt not to use this and it is all up to way. You don't want to over measure this else you end up having a summer berries jelly instead of jam. 
3. Turn off your stove and cool it in the room temperature. 
4. Once it is cool, scoop it into a sterile jar. Keep it in refrigerator. Serve it on bread or even with plain yoghurt ( I tried mixing it in plain natural yoghurt, it was YUMMY!)

And here is the invitation...

A colleague at work asked for help to design an invitation for her. And since I wasn't doing anything much today I agreed to do so. Unfortunately no idea was coming to me at all. AND it NEVER happened to me before.  **palmsontheforehead!**

Since she wanted it to be done by end of the day, it did not leave me much time to dilly dally. Came up with something and luckily she likes it! Phewwww!! 

Pick ME : Love HER!

I think living in this fast paced oh-so-busy-like-a-bee world we tend to think like it is easy and ended with taking things or those in our lives for granted. For an instance, how many of you still take the time to smell the fresh morning dew or how nice the grass smell after a pouring rain? How many of you still look up to the bright blue sky, free your mind and draw sketches of cloud bunnies? Well there you go! You have your answer. NO. I remembered I have always love the smell of the fresh grass after the rain and the smell of waves crashing along the coastline. Aahhh heaven! 

I was clicking and reading some of the old post on facebook and stumbled upon this article. I am feeling a little bit mushy today so I decided to re-post this here. Initial post was written by a man. May Allah PBUH bless his marriage life for reminding other men to be what they are supposed to be. 

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LOVE HER ... when she sips on your coffee or tea. She only wants to make sure it tastes just right for you.

LOVE HER ... when she "pushes" you to pray. She wants to be with you in Jannah.

LOVE HER ... when she asks you to play with the kids. She did not "make" them on her own.

LOVE HER ...when she is jealous. Out of all the men she can have, she chose you.

LOVE HER ... when she has annoying little habits that drives you nuts, you have them too.

LOVE HER ... when her cooking is bad. She tries.

LOVE HER ... when she looks dishevelled in the morning. She always grooms herself up again.

LOVE HER ... when she asks to help with the kids' homework. She only wants you to be part of the home.

LOVE HER ... when she asks if she looks fat. Your opinion counts, so tell her she is beautiful.

LOVE HER ... when she looks beautiful. She is yours so appreciate her.

LOVE HER ... when she spends hours to get ready. She only wants to look her best for you.

LOVE HER ... when she buys you gifts and you don't like it. Smile and tell her it is what you have always wanted.

LOVE HER ... when she has developed a bad habit. You have many more and with wisdom and politeness you have all the time in the world to help her change.

LOVE HER ... when she cries for absolutely nothing. Don't ask but tell her that it is going to be okay.

LOVE HER ... when she suffers from PMS. Buy her chocolate, rub her feet and back and just talk to her.

LOVE HER ... when whatever you do is not pleasing. It happens and will pass.

LOVE HER ... when she stains your clothes. You needed a new shirt anyway.

LOVE HER ... when she tells you how to drive. She only wants you to be safe.

LOVE HER ... when she argues. She only wants to make thing right for both of you.

LOVE HER ... she is YOURS! 

You don't need any other special reason!

All this forms part of a woman's character. Women are part of your life and should be treated as the Queen. 

The Messenger of Allah PBUH advised concerning women:

Treat  HAWA (women) well. 

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HAPPY WEEK END Y'ALL!

Open House Raya 2012 for BCP

One of my best friend requested for a favor to design her company's ecard invitation. I managed to come with something during lunch and send it over to her. Phewww! 

I personally think that this is cheerful and chirpy. I hope she likes it! Back to work people!! *Sigh*

Eid 2012- Chocolate Pavlova

Too lazy to type in the recipe. Sorry. PM me if you need one:)

------------------------------------------------
Thursday, September 6th 2012.

Okay okay here is the updated ones. I did not snap any photo after the baking part. However this photo was taken by the HR lady in my office. Yummy? Ermmm I would say yes because everything was gone! 

Some has been asking for the recipe. This has been in my family, initially baked by my sister. She adapted the recipe from Nigella Lawson. I however layered 2 pavlova with cream and raspberries in between before topping it up with strawberries. 

Chocolate Pavlova :

4 large egg whites

1 cup superfine sugar

2/3 tsp vinegar 

2 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder

40g dark chocolate chips

1 1/2 cup whipping cream

1 tsp vanilla essence

Strawberries, raspberries or any berries you like

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 175C and line the baking tray with baking parchment. 
2. Beat the egg whites until satiny peaks form and slowly add in a tablespoon of sugar at a time until the meringue is stiff and shiny.
3. Sprinkle the cocoa powder, vinegar and chocolate chips. Gently fold in everything until the cocoa powder is mixed in.
4. Mount the meringue onto the baking parchment and smooth out the top and sides. (To make this easier, draw a circle on to your paper parchment.)
5. Place in the oven and immediately turn down the temperature to 150C. Bake for one hour until the crust is crispy and the interior should still be a little gooey.
6. Leave the meringue in the oven door slightly ajar until it has cooled completely.
7. When you are ready to serve, invert it on a big, flat-bottomed serving dish.
8. Whisk the cream until thick yet still soft and plop a dollop onto the meringue. Put strawberries (or anything you favor) on top of it. 

ALL THE BEST!