Recipe: Mushroom Risotto

Type: Main
Servings: 2
Category: Halal, Non-vegan

Ingredients
200g risotto rice
1 tablespoon butter
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
150g porcini mushrooms
500ml chicken stock
1/2 chopped onion
40g parmesan cheese
salt and pepper

Preparation
1. Heat olive oil on medium heat and stir fry chopped mushrooms.
2. Add butter and saute onions.
3. Add rice and stir until fully coated about 2 minutes.
4. Add a ladle of chicken stock stiring constantly until becomes almost dry.
5. Continue adding stock one ladle at a time for about 10 - 15 minutes until risotto is al dente. The texture should be thick and not too soupy or dry.
6. Stir in grated parmesan.
7. Season with salt and pepper. If it's already salty to your taste, omit the salt.
8. Best served immediately.

Scallops and balsamic vinegar in the picture are optional.

Recipe: Cream of Wild Mushroom

Type: Soup
Servings: 2
Category: Halal, Vegan

Ingredients
Wild mushrooms:
20g shiitake mushrooms
20g portobello mushrooms
20g oyster mushrooms
20g porcini mushrooms
 or any kind of mixed wild mushrooms you like

25g butter
1/2 chopped onion
1 chopped garlic clove
400ml vegetable stock
100ml heavy cream
2 tabespoon all purpose flour
thyme
chives
truffle oil
salt & pepper

Preparation
1. Heat butter in saucepan.
2. Stir fry onions, garlic and thyme for 5 minutes.
3. Add all the sliced mushrooms.
4. Add equal ratio of flour as the butter to create rue.
5. Stir for a minute then add vegetable stock.
6. Stir in heavy cream for about 5 minutes then add salt and pepper to taste.
7. Blend the soup in a blender.
8. Serve with croûtons and chives and drizzle with truffle oil.

Review: Cerelac Infant Cereal

Hello there, parents!

It's a great pleasure to share with you my views on Nestle's Cerelac infant cereal. Cerelac is promoted for infants 6 months and older as supplement to breast milk. The soft and smooth texture also acts as introduction to semi-solid food.

Whoa...that's a lot! Thank you so much Nestle! If you want a giveaway do let me know. I was given rice and brown rice cereal.

Review: Pedigree Dentastix

Good day pet owners,

Thank you so much Pedigree Malaysia for sending some samples of Dentastix for Benji. Dentastix is a unique "X" shaped treat clinically proven to reduce plaque and tartar build up.

A Dentastix a day keeps the cavities away.

Logos Hope World Largest Floating Book Fair

Hello bookworms,

Last week I went to Logos Hope Book Fair at Swetteham Pier Cruise Terminal. The special feature about this book fair is it is the world’s largest floating book fair and probably one of its kind. My husband and I went for a short visit on the weekends and it was a fun one. Love the ice-cream.

Logos Hope is back in Penang from 3rd to 28th September 2015 for the second time before heading to Africa.

Review: Olive Tree Hotel buffet

Hey foodies!

I ain't really a food blogger but I have my personal reasons to share with you about the buffet I had in a long time. What's so special about the buffet in Olive Tree Hotel, Penang is the Alaskan snow crab. I've had many buffets in Penang but never encounter any that serve snow crab legs however recently it seems like a lot of prominent hotels here serves them. I don't want to mention names of other hotels so you Google yourself.

Recipe: Onsen Tamago

You can serve it on top of noodles or simply eat by itself.

Type: Sides
Servings:4
Category: Halal, Non-vegan

Ingredients
4 room temperature eggs
1 liter tap water for boiling
200ml room temperature tap water

Preparation
1. Pour 1 liter of water into a pot and bring to boil until bubbly.
2. Turn off the stove.
3. Pour 200ml of room temperature water into the pot to bring the temperature down. Onsen means hot spring so ideally it should be 68 - 71°C.
4. Laddle in the eggs one by one and close the lid of the pot.
5. Set timer for 12 minutes.
6. After 12 minutes, take out the eggs from the pot and set aside for 5 minutes.
7. After 5 minutes you can put them into cold water if too hot to hold or you can immediately crack them.
8. The yolks are meant to be soft but not runny. If still runny try 13 or 14 minutes. I have trial and error many times.

Recipe: One ingredient Dulce de leche

Dulce de leche is caramel made out of milk and sugar unlike the traditional caramel. The taste is mind-blowing.

Type: Dessert sauce
Servings:as much as you like
Storage: A month in the fridge
Category: Halal

Ingredients
1 can of condensed milk
(I used Gold Coin Kopi & Teh Tarik coz mamak stalls use them so I thought it's more fragrant)
As much water as needed

Preparations
1. Remove label from can.
2. Place can in a large pot.
3. Fill pot with water until covers the entire can or risk explosion.
4. Simmer for 2 hours on high heat.
5. Always check water level and pour more water if it no longer covers the can.
6. To achieve the toffee colour like mine 2 hours is enough but if you want darker colour can boil for 2.5hours.
7. Do not attempt to open can while it is still hot due to pressure. I wanted to let the can cool for at least 3 hours but in the end I set it overnight in fridge and still came out awesome.
7. For my dessert, I just layered a scoop of hazelnut ice cream with slices of bananas topped with cocoa powder and drizzled some dulce de leche. Enjoy!

Second attempt came out more perfectly caramelized. Optical illusion test: is my jar fully circular or squarish with rounded edges? I was asking myself since when did I have a square jar?

Oh and you really gotto make dulce de leche lava cake. Its heavenly. Get recipe from Tasty's YouTube.https://youtu.be/4S7mWOkpLDE

Europe: Day 10 (Back home)

Hey dearies!

Phew! Finally this is the last post of my European winter trip. I have put a lot of effort into finding history, recall the timeline, getting info on places of attractions, flights, hotels and many more in order to write my entries as accurate as possible. Thank you for supporting me. Luv ya'll. In this post I will be showing you a bit on Schiphol Airport, my flight from Amsterdam to KLIA with Etihad Airways and back to my sweet little island via MAS.

Technically this is still Day 9 but will become Day 10 in a few hours.