JustKay

Possibly. I know they grow strawberries there. And there's now a tulip farm in Perak. You are so kind. The nasi lemak was quite good. It has the usual sambal ikan bilis, eggs, cucumber and peanuts. Basically, it has the same things as the previous nite's soup. When I am not lazy, I'll prepare chilli paste - dried chillies, shallots, garlic, bit of belacan. I then cook it. Then freeze in small portions. Thus, I have a chili base to make various dishes with it. Including fried noodles. Err, coz they are cut from a bigger block? Before they come in a lollies shape, remember in the good old days they came in blocks? And the ice-cream man will have to potong (cut) and then sandwich it between 2 wafers? So I guess, even now that they are made as lollies, they kept the original 'name' for it. The flavors available now are the 3 I mentioned and double-treats Pulut Hitam & Kacang Hijau (black glutinous rice & Green Beans) and Pulut Hitam & Kacang Merah (black glutinous rice & red beans).

The gardeners say it's not them, the security guards say they would never steal them, the residents say they never had the chance to pick them ... the Management knows nothing. I think it's the cats. Cats love fruits, don't they? I live in a condominium complex - hence the gardeners, etc. Most of the units here are used either as weekend getaways or leased out to expatriates working around here. So, it's rather quiet most times. Very peaceful. This township has people from everywhere, or so it seems. I am glad we bought this place 'coz I absolutely love living here.

On the way back, we stopped at the spanking brand new gas station near my house.

It didn't rain tonite so we went to the Pasar Malam (Night Market) as planned. Surprisingly it was busier than normal and taking snapshots was difficult, what with my temperamental digicam. I tried. So please excuse the rather poor picture quality. For some reason, quite a few snapshots of the overall place were erased. In those pictures were various stalls selling all kinds of things from clothes, shoes, bags, sundry goods, kitchenware to toys and plants. My first purchase was the Murtabak which is kind of a savory filled pancake. Good murtabaks are a hard find nowadays. Vendors tend to use a lot of onions and very little meat in the filling. I bought 2 Roti Johns for the boys. This is almost like the murtabak except that it uses bread instead of Roti Canai dough. A cross between a burger and Murtabak? I got 2 packs of fried noodles that were fried in a super-sized frying-pans. I took pictures but the digicam Gremlin must have eaten them. There were so many different kinds of food sold (and this was only a small pasar malam!). I wasn't able to take pictures of every stall. But here are a couple of them: A steamboat stall. These are keropok (fish crackers) and various other fried goodies, including fried battered chicken carcass. For dessert, Apam Balik. The Apam Balik I bought has sugar and creamed sweetcorn as the filling. and Apams for my girls I also bought some boiled corns-on-the-cobs These corns were surprisingly good. Usually they would have been boiled for too long and hence loses it's flavor somewhat. I also saw something I know nothing about. The PakCik said they are called Buah Kederas and used in making a salad. Maybe someone else knows. Please bear with the pictures for now. I'll get them photoshopped and re-post.

Dark soya sauce and sugar for me. Or with sambal rojak. Unfortunately, we hardly ever get to pick the fruits. Just yesterday I saw a few bunches of mangoes .... today they're gone. Grrr ....

Oh yes! Should I take pictures of them? There are mango, jackfruit, banana, calamansi and kedondong trees. And curry and pandan plants too, I think. I don't plant them - the gardeners do. Btw, I *am* taking better pictures, am I? edited to add kedondong's botanical name, Burseraceae The tree you see in the picture on the website is the of the 'original' specie. Many years ago they have successfully cultivated a better variety. The kedondong trees that are planted nowadays don't grow that big anymore. The fruits are more abundant with a softer skin, and the meat less 'stringy'. Kedondong makes good pickles.

This morning, I had had to meet a customer at a gas station and so I decided to try the Nasi Lemak and Kuih Lapis sold there. Nasi Lemak is rice cooked with coconut milk instead of water, along with some ginger, shallots and ocassionally fenugreek seeds or cinnamon is added. Kuih Lapis is a steamed dessert and made of rice flour, coconut milk, rose water, sugar, flour and some cornflour. It is then steamed layer by layer. Lunch was fried Koay Teow (flat rice noodles). And for dessert , I had ice-cream. These reminds me of the days when I was little. Whenever Mom made these desserts, she would make extra so I could freeze them. Now, Wall's make them as lollies. They are actually not too bad, considering that they are mass produced. Kacang merah = red beans Kacang hijau = green beans Pulut Hitam = black glutinous rice Each dessert is cooked similarly. Coconut milk, sugar, palm sugar and the beans/glutinous rice and some Pandan leaves for the aroma. It's not as thick as a pudding but more like soup.

The tree that is.

Thanks. I can bake yummy cakes but I am hopeless when it comes to decorating them. I have now resorted to using molded chocolates and chocolate cut-outs. I can copy all kinds of fonts pretty well though. LOL! They are, aren't they? I'd rather not fight them and let them have their way and finish a meal. My son tried a few times to grow the honeydew but everytime they grow big enough to start fruiting, they die. The seeds will germinate easily though. He's growing a papaya tree at the moment. It's about 4' high now. It's only 1 tree so I hope it's a hermaphrodite or he'll be rather disappointed. Good chance it will be one though as the seed was from the Papaya Eksotika. I have no idea where the honeydew comes from

I guess I'll have to answer the first question on this blog eh? I have tried googling for a picture or something so that I can show you but nada. Maybe they've stopped making them? The last time I had them was like some 8 years ago. I Japanese chocolates and treats.

It's similar to sup tulang but very minimum usage of spices. I only added about an inch of cinnamon stick, a couple of cloves and a pod of cardamom. This is more flavorful though as it's a fusion of the various ingredients - that we don't want the spices overpowering - chicken meat, prawns, squids, eggs, carrots, celery, mustard greens, young corns. I would also normally add fish balls but I didn't have any yesterday. Moist Chocolate Cake and Toblerone Cheesecake are the most popular. And trifles. I mostly make western cakes & desserts. Hmph ... it's all the hype about being super skinny is good I guess. But really, the mamak stalls and nasi lemak places are still very popular in KL. Back in Johor, lontong would rival nasi lemak & roti canai. (I'll post a recipe for lontong so you guys know what it is ) Can you get the frozen roti canai/roti pratha where you are? The Kawan brand is not too bad. Definitely better than Kraft's. In a pinch, I'd eat this with Brahim's bottled sambal sauce.

LOL guys! We had dinner about an hour ago and I've just finished washing the dishes. I have to be quick about this 'coz I have a cake to bake for tomorrow. I made 'yellow noodles' soup for dinner. An easy and quick complete meal. I took pictures but they don't come out too welll. I've just got this digicam last Sunday as our previous one broke, so I'm still trying to figure things out. I'll learn me how to use this yet! Hopefully within the next day or two. The smaller kids do not like vegetables and seafood in their soup so I took the veggies and seafood out for them and leave the chicken meat and eggs in. The way I do this is that since veggies and seafood are added last, I have a strainer thing that I put veggies in and let it simmer for a while. After that, I take the strainer out and take a portion of the soup out for the kids. Then I added back the veggies & seafood to the soup. I then added some cornstarch to the soup to thicken it .. DH likes it that way. For dessert, I didn't make anything special. Just fruits ... mangos and honeydew. And the kids had more of the American candies to satisfy their sweet tooth. Tonite it was Reese's PBC. And the cake I delivered this morning - Toblerone Cheesecake.

Hi! I guess I should begin by introducing myself. Call me kew ('kyü), short for Qistina. I live in Malaysia's model intelligent township about 50km from the capital city Kuala Lumpur, and adjacent to the new administrative capital city Putrajaya. I am a SAHM, with 4 kids ages 4 to 12. I quit working about 8 years ago to concentrate on being a full-time Mommy. 6 years ago, I began baking goodies at home for sale, mostly to friends, family, and acquaintances. Back in the 80's I had the opportunity to live in Canada, where I studied Computer Math at one of the universities in Ontario. I loved it there, and still miss it very much. Given a choice I would have stayed there and work, but I had to come back. After about 2 years of being back and working in the field of my training, I realized that I didn't want to be holed up with machines and data all day long and eventually found myself in Personnel/Human Resources. I enjoyed what I did very much. I was first assigned to the Recuitment Section, then on to Compensations and Benefit and later to Employee Relations where I was also in charge of the cafeteria. We had about 4000 employees working round the clock on 8 hour shifts then. The cafeteria services was leased out to Gardner Merchant of the UK and I thoroughly enjoyed working with them. During that time, our cafeteria was known to be the cleanest and the best within Penang. I really loved my job, but when I was pregant with my third child, I decided that being a Mommy is more important to me. So, when my oldest child entered kindergarten, I quit my job. It was then that I had time to dabble with my other passion which is baking. My Grandma was a baker and my Mom, although she didn’t really pursue that as a career, loved baking and always did so for friends. Apart from the baking, I also now have a small home-based web services business. I should warn you that we don't eat any designer or elegant food at home everyday. And I hardly plan out in great detail as to what we'd eat. Gone are those days. Now, I much prefer to take it easy, so to speak, and work things out according to the changing demands. Some days I cook, other days I just want to be lazy. Weekends are rest days, we eat out. Breakfast is usually a hurried affair of bread or cereal and juice or milk for the kids before they leave for school. DH, he just wants a cup of coffee. And as for me, I eat whatever I want. Today, I had a Butterfinger Wafer for breakfast followed by some ice-cream. Butterfinger Wafers are not available here - we received a box of goodies from a friend in the US - hence the excitement And I needed to be real quick about it. I had a cake to deliver this morning, some 40km away and then come back in time to pick up my little girl from kindy. I seldom eat lunch because the kids have lunch at school and DH works too far away to come home for lunch. So, mostly I will talk about what we have for dinner. But I will try to eat a proper lunch the next 3 days. And you've been warned, it will be nothing like those you've seen before .... where you see them prepare/eat elaborate and elegant food. Everyday meals are a simple affair. And as I am currently over my head with things (but I've been asked to blog for several times that I feel guilty of saying no ) , I don't foresee preparing any time-consuming dishes. I will blog for the first 4 days and then TeePee will take over the next 3 days. Perhaps, we can see the similarities or differences between what a typical Malay family (mine) eat for everyday and what a Chinese family (TeePee's) normally eat. Feel free though to ask questions and I will try my best to answer them. I will talk about today's dinner in a bit. It's only 5:30pm here now and we don't eat dinner till about 7:30pm or so.

You'd need to add some invertase to help the fondant break down and liquidize. And usually maraschinos are used. If you can't find invertase, there's also Fermvertase which is a natural product to change fondant from a solid to a cream. Or if you can't get any, just add some spit.

Sorry can't help you there but I love MOS burger. I think MOS burger is the most freshest burger I've tasted ever. My favorite was the beef teriyaki burger and the other one which has beef strips and 'rice' bun. Too bad they closed shop here several years ago. I wish someone would bring it in again.

I'm not sure about the Emes Kosher gelatin, Imentioned it because it is said to behave like 'regular' gelatine. Kojel is another brand of Kosher gelatin and from the ingredients list, it looks like it might be vegetarian. But this brand won't work for making marshmallows.

Wendy, this sounds like something I'd want to try too. I've been doing quite a bit of molded chocolates lately. Can these truffles with the strawberry preserves in the center be kept at room temperature or must they be refrigerated? TIA.

Thank you, Wendy. I will experiment and flavor only small portions to see how it works out. I bought it to make hard candy suckers but I thought I'd try with the marshmallows too.

Of course, I don't mind the questions. After all I learnt how to make them from eGullet! I use a plastic container that has straight sides measuring about 14" X 20" X 3.5". I do not layer it with foil nor use oil. I just rub the sides with potato starch and for the bottom, I cover it with a generous layer of potato starch. I use a small sieve to help distribute the potato starch more evenly - has to be careful coz you don't want uneven surface. Each recipe/batch makes one layer. The time taken to make a batch is just perfect for the previous layer to just begin to set. Any quicker and it will result in uneven layers (see my early photo of my colored marshmallow)... so, that's 4 batches for 4 layers. I sometimes make up to 5 layers. But more than that, when you cut it won't be nice - it skews too much. When set, I generously rub the surface with potato starch (it feels so good ) and then I use a hot but dried knife, dipped in potato starch to cut around the sides and then turn it over on a big waxed paper covered with more potato starch. It will come out nicely. I then proceed to measure and mark and cut accordingly. I find that using no oil or confectioner's sugar is best. I also sell them covered with chocolate, rolled in toasted coconuts and nuts and other jimmies/sprinkles. But I sell the plain or chocolate covered ones the most. Sometimes, I flavor the colored portions according to customer's request. Now, me wanna make some flavored ones with the LorAnn oils - with flavors that are not common here.

You might want to look at the marshmallow thread as stscam and some others have posted about Emes Kosher Jel. Yes, I can get fish gelatine. They're imported from Pakistan. And so far, I think they work just like the pork gelatine because I have not had to alter any of the recipes that uses 'regular' gelatine.

I just went thru the thread and didn't see LorAnn flavoring oils mentioned. Can anyone suggest as to how much should I add this? First time using Loran - just got them from the US. And Neil ... again, thank you so much for the recipe coz I'm selling quite a bit of them marshmallows. I now make 9lb blocks and then cut them up (they're such a pain to cut though - wish there's a better way) They're a favorite party treat which I usually sell as a package along with the birthday cake and chocolate suckers. You can see some pics in my marshamallow album I've not had much success using cocoa powder though. They go rancid in about a week. Anyways ... back to the LorAnnn oil question ... I would appreciate the help. I have 2 flavors here - watermelon and keoke coffee. TIA.

There was thread about this some time back. I'll see if I can find it. I know I posted about Chocolatier magazine featuring this fusion dessert.

I have tried making marshmallows with Kojel - it does not work. Kojel does not contain any gelatin. It has substitutes like gum arabic, carageenan, etc. marshmallow thread It is quick setting and whipping the syrup for a long period of time somehow messes up the gelling properties and it won't set. I now use marine-based gelatine imported from Pakistan (I keep HALAL). It acts just like gelatine, and with out the 'weird' gelatine smell.

Is that *real* chocolate? How do you keep it fluid?

Are chilled cheesecakes considered cheesecakes? I82Much, I've been wanting to try that recipe for a long time coz it looks very simple and has good reviews. I guess baking mini cheesecakes are easier? No cracking, leaving in oven for an hour, water-bath, etc?