I Should Make This if I Ever Go Picnic

My latest obsession

My latest obsession lies in peas & beans salad, and pancakes.

Today, I've decided to make this salad with new addition, the kidney beans. It turns out well! The recipe is exactly the same as chickpea salad I made last week, even the dressing is exactly the same.

But one thing to admit, it's easy and simple to make, but it's not quick. Too  many things to chop (the onions, the tomatoes, the cucumber) and green peas to boil and beans & chickpeas to toast. It helps to have a super chopper that I recently purchased online. That makes the idiot like me chop like a pro.

I have plenty of all these ingredients, therefore I made a bigger batch this time and store them in the fridge. The next time I want to eat them (which is tomorrow), I will only need to whip up the dressing and sprinkle on the parsley.

I love this salad, I think I should definitely bring this if I ever go to picnic. (In my dream! Who the hell go to picnic in such inhumane weather!)

Of Sweat

My body is built up by different elements than the others, one way or another, which makes sweat comes so easily, effortlessly.

It always seems like I'm constantly heated up. I sweat so easily to the extend I've learned to ignore my sweat, they'll dry up anyway when I got into air-conditioned room. So, whatever.

But, have you ever heard of the pregnancy myth that says pregnant woman sweats a lot more? Don't hesitate on that, it's certainly true! Damn!

I haven't felt much differences up till 6 months pregnant. But by now, I perspire by sitting around the room, as long as I'm not under that high powered fan. Some days it's so freaking hot, I can't live without air-conditioner. And I'm truly convinced that air-conditioner made to the no.1 best invention to human's life ever in this modern world!!

If air-conditioner made into no.1, washing machine and dryer must have come next. With this new pregnancy symptom, not only the air-con/fan are constantly switched on, I have to do more laundry than ever. I kept changing clothes so often, I have to wash them much more often than before.

Besides, I use handkerchief at home to wipe my sweats (my friend told me just use towel), especially after yoga or after spending even a few minutes in the kitchen, perhaps just to make a glass of smoothie. Imagine the scene where I cook 3 Chinese stir fry dishes, or baking a cake, or cooking a soup, or worse -- having clothes in dryer, cake baking in oven, soup simmering on stove or slow cooking, all at once in the kitchen! That actually happened before, and I was drenched like I ran home in rain.

The Man tried to convince me that we can install a fan in the kitchen, but I refused. It's really sweet that he's such thoughtful but the potential of oily blades on fan really put me off. Besides, I kept telling him, it's going to be temporary, 2 months later, I'm off pregnant, and I think my condition will get back to normal. Well, my normal, not your normal. That means still sweat, just lesser extend compared to what I have now.

I shouldn't have stayed in tropical countries...

Nigella's Bread Pudding

I can't tell for sure if it's a good thing to always turn on Asian Food Channel or Food Network. The perk is that I get to try some recipes, or ask my mom to try :P. The downside of it is that I think sooner or later, we'll see the increasing waistline, which is bad, soooooo bad!

But, I still try them anyway. (And always end up with guilt and more exercise)

Well baked bread pudding

It was actually a chocolate chip bread pudding. I didn't have any chocolate chips, so I decided, heck it, I'll try them anyway. The recipe also calls for rum, but of course a pregnant woman should stay away from alcohol. So no no to rum.

I have stale bread, I have enough French baguette to make this. So really, what the heck, try them anyway!

Imagine eating the hot sumptuous dish in a winter night... But I can only imagine 

I never liked pudding to be honest, but a home made one wasn't that bad because I get to control how sweet I want them to be. I would prefer them to be slightly dryer, I guess I'll reduce the custard the next time I make this. And I'm sure gonna put in some chocolates.

However, with or without the chocolate chips, they smell really great!

(Perhaps this can be in my yearly Christmas party menu. In which, I highly doubt the possibility of holding one this year)

忌廉蘑菇鸡焗饭

简简单单的晚餐

融化的芝士

我很喜欢吃焗饭。焗饭做起来不困难，只是花费的时间稍微长一点。所以，我只在周末准备焗饭。

材料：

1. 鸡肉块
2. 蘑菇 Brown button mushrooms
3. 大葱
4. 鸡精块或者鸡汤
5. Cooking cream
6. 白酒
7. 白米饭
8. Mozzarella & Cheddar Cheese

做法：

1. 把鸡肉块切片，用少许盐和胡椒腌制至少半个小时。若时间允许，两个小时更好。
2. 之后，把白米洗净，放进电饭煲里烹煮。
3. 同时，把电炉调到180度C。
4. 把大葱切小块，把蘑菇切片。
5. 热锅，先把蘑菇下锅。把蘑菇炒至水分蒸发，表面呈深褐色。然后起锅，把蘑菇暂放一边。
6. 大葱下锅，炒至软化以后，把腌制好的鸡肉块翻炒。
7. 鸡肉炒熟了以后，把先前炒好的蘑菇再下锅。倒入少许白酒，让白酒蒸发以后，再倒入cooking cream，加入鸡精块。
8. 转小火，让酱汁在锅里浓化后，才熄火。
9. 把煮好的白米饭盛进oven proof的盛器，把锅里的蘑菇鸡肉和酱汁均匀的倒在白米饭上。
10. 然后，撒上芝士。
11. 再放进电炉烤25－30分钟。

这样，就是香喷喷的焗饭啦！

我并没有说明每种材料应该用多少。因为我觉得这些都因人而异。有些人喜欢多点忌廉，有些人不爱白酒，有些人喜欢多点芝士⋯⋯都得一个人口味调味。我本身下厨的时候，也没有准确的衡量。多半时间，都靠“感觉”。

白米饭也可以用意大利面来替代，也会很好吃。

Pancakes for Breakfast

American pancakes for breakfast (taken with iPhone)

What's better than waking up on weekends with prepared batter for pancakes? Well, prepared breakfast!

For my case, there will only be prepared batter. I couldn't resist to buy a 600ml of butter milk from supermarket yesterday. I've came across this so many times when buying milk or yogurt in chilled section but never bought. I'm curious but never try.

And then, I watched French Food at Home by Laura Calder yesterday morning, and saw how she used butter milk to make one of the most beautiful scrambled eggs with it. And I thought, well, why not?

That's how the 600ml butter milk ended up in my fridge.

Before I moved on to the scrambled egg, I saw the blueberry pancakes recipes on the butter milk packaging. I did not have enough blueberries in the fridge for the flavoured pancakes, so I made the plain versions of it, and to go with the blueberries that have left in fridge.

Let me share the amended version recipe here:

Ingredients (for 10 pancakes):

1. 1.5 cups self raising flour
2. 2 tbsp caster sugar
3. 375ml butter milk
4. 1 egg, lightly beaten
5. 1 tbsp melted butter

Method:

1. Sift flour into a bowl.
2. Add sugar, butter milk, egg and butter. (Make sure all the ingredients are in room temperature)
3. Beat and mix the ingredients until the batter is smooth.
4. Preheat a non stick pan, and oil then pan over a medium heat.
5. Cook the pancake one at a time by pouring the batter with a ladle.
6. Cook the pancakes until bubbles appear in the uncooked batter. Then, turn the pancake over and cook until golden.
7. Serve with maple syrup or honey with butter.
8. Also, top with any fruits you'd like.

Enjoy!~

(P.S. One thing to take note of, please do not try to fry the pancakes with butter, it'll turn out like the darker one in the picture)

Potage Parmentier

How on Earth did I even come into this dish that sounded so pretentious -- Potage Parmentier?? What does it mean anyway?

It happened on one lazy afternoon at home in Penang. I sat down with my Mom at the garden, both reading on our own. I was supposed to read "Cloud Atlas", but my "pregnant shrunk brain" couldn't take the literacy and sophisticated writing style no more. So I switch to "Julie & Julia" which I simply took from my sister's shelf.

Potage Parmentier, according to Julie, simply means potato and leak soup. Julie had described how simple and easy to make this fantastic no frill soup, how she and Eric (her husband) cleaned the pot! That's how, I decided to try.

Because, potatoes are my favourite!

And, it seems easy!

I do not have Julia Child's recipe books, so I googled. And I read a few blogs before I decided which to use. (List of blogs: Popsugar, The Doctor's Kitchen, food.com)

First trial of potage parmentier (taken with iPhone)

The soup turned out okay, not fantastic just okay. I used chicken stock as suggested so I didn't add any salt. But The Man thought I could have added some, it's still bland for his taste bud. But to me, it's just nice, I didn't like it too salty.

As we swept clean the entire pot (that is something good about The Man, even the food wasn't fantastic, he will always help me to sweep them clean!), we found there was a bitter after taste. So, I googled again after the meal. And I found out I'm not supposed to cook the green leafy part of the leek! Because, guess what, they're BITTER!

Dumb nook!

So now I know what's the problem, perhaps I shall cook it again next week? (^.^)

I bet the second one will be even better :)

Chickpea Salad

Chickpea is one of my favourite food. I like chickpea so much I can have completely vegetarian chickpea sandwich (I'm generally a carnivore). I always order a chickpea curry from my favourite Indian stall when we go there for lunch during weekdays. And I adore the hummus dip that my uncle made for us to go along with potato chips.

Chickpeas!!! Yummy!!

Good thing they have never stopped pregnant woman from eating chickpeas. And I've tried to make chickpea pasta salad and chickpea salad recently. I love both of them but let me share chickpea salad here.

Chickpea Salad for dinner

Ingredients (I made a big bowl for myself as dinner):

1. Chickpea (~1/3 of a 400g can of chickpea)
2. A handful of green peas. If you like to have sweeter addition in your salad, just add more peas
3. 5-10 Cherry tomatoes, depending on the sizes (In this case I bought tomato amoroso from Cold Storage, it's very expensive but it's really delicious. 15 tomatoes for $4.95!)
4. Half of a Japanese cucumber
5. Half of an onion
6. A handful of parsley, chopped

For the dressing:

1. 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
2. 1 tbsp of Balsamic vinegar
3. 1 tsp Dijon mustard
4. A clove of smashed garlic
5. Pinch of salt
6. Pinch of pepper
7. 1-2 tbsp of lemon juice

Methods:

1. Cook the green peas in boiling water for one minute, wash them with cold water to prevent further cooking
2. Toast the chickpeas in a pan for a few minutes
3. Dice ingredients 3-5 into small cubes

For the dressing:

1. Mix all the ingredients for dressing in a bowl and whisk them to ensure they mix well

Put all the ingredients in a bowl, throw the smashed garlic away from the dressing before mixing in. You can keep this in fridge to serve them cold too.

Variations:

If you do not like the strong pungent smell from onions, you could sauté them before adding into the salad. I've tried both raw and sauté, and I personally prefer the raw onions. It's all up to your preference. 

Love the colours

Yum!

Most of the chickpea salads on the internet use feta cheese for toppings. But due to the fact that pregnant women should stay away from soft cheese, I referred a few recipes and came out with this version of my own. I would definitely love to eat the ones with feta cheese. But oh well, I'll just have to wait for a few more months.

Try it if you want something healthy and filling at the same time =)

My Pregnancy Progress

Changes from second to third trimester

My mom hates the fact that pregnant women post their bare tummy photos, but I'm doing it, right here right now.

I think it's kinda funny and weird at the same time to see the changes. The first time I took the photo at week 17, was upon request of my best friend. She doesn't have the chance to see me in real person, so occasionally she would ask me how big I am, and I would take a picture of myself and send to her. And soon, it becomes a habit (even though I didn't try to keep it every week), I managed to take 8 so far.

The tummy really ballooned upon third trimester. I wonder how I could survive the 40 weeks pregnancy. How heavy would I be? How big can I be?

To be completely honest, I didn't feel very pregnant from first to second trimester. I carried on my life like usual, except for those delicious foods that I don't get to eat. But as time creeps into third trimester, I really feel "I'm so freaking pregnant!", and life starts to get scary. All the baby shopping we need to do... And all the money we have to spend. The most scary of all, all the wailings we're going to face.

I've moved on from reading a pregnancy book, to a nursing book. That's how fast the pregnancy feels!

I constantly tell my baby to be stay in my belly patiently. To grow properly, and also to give us some time to really prepare everything upon his arrival :P (The room is in a complete mess!)

10 more weeks to go, wish me luck!