Recipe: No muss salad

This is for when I really really want to eat a handful of savory food, but hate to eat too much calories from a normal meal.

What you need:
Bowl
knife
fork

Ingredients:
2 medium sized Carrot, slice thin and long, use slicer or peeler if needed.
1 tbs of diced onion
2 tbs of mayonnaise
lemon, make 1 tbs of juice from it

How to make:
1. Slice the carrot, mix with onion
2. add in lemon juice and mayonnaise, stir and let sit well for about 20 mins in fridge
3. eat.

Recipe: steamed macaroni schotel

So, I was thinking to eat macaroni schotel but I don't have an oven to bake. I decided to do the steamed version of it.

what you need:
a small pot to boil the pasta
a bigger pot to steam the bowl of schotel
bowl, I am using my usual 20 cm diameter bowl (8 cm depth)

Ingredients:
1/2 cup of pasta, elbow/fettuccine/spaghetti/any pasta
1/3 cup of milk
2 eggs, battered
2 clove of garlic, crush and mince
1 medium sized onion, dice
50 grams of minced beef
1/4 cup of grated cheese
1 tbs of butter


How to cook it:
1. Boil pasta to cook. Drain and rinse with cold water.
2. melt butter, saute garlic and onion to fragrant.
3. Throw in beef and cook until the beef turned from pink to dark brown/gray
4. throw in a bit of salt, stir. Throw in the pasta. Stir for another 2-3 minutes. Turn off the heat.
5. Mix battered egg and milk. add in salt and pepper.
6. Throw in the sauted pasta into it and mix well.
7. Put the mix into the bowl, and steam it with low heat for about 20 mins. Make sure you don't fill the bowl more than 3/4 of it.

You can change the pasta with sliced potato. You can also add diced tomatoes into the schotel.

Human minion

My human minion is trying to make me a DIY scratching post. That lazy minion stopped middle way and went to cook something. 

Finish it, you human minion! I am waiting...

Another adoption

One of my avocado got adopted! And we are heading that way.... To its new home. Riding a metromini...

knitting my way back

Trying to dig myself out of depression, I started picking up my needles again. I've been avoiding the knitting needles for quite a while now, and I just think that I should do something about it.

I gave away my blue teal trefoil to my aunt, and convince myself that it is now in good hands. It's quite difficult to part with that shawl, as it is just so damn beautiful. I still have my blue teal stash, so ... no better way than to leave it in my stash cupboard.

So I started to knit distant hours. Third time's the charm!

Recipe: Steamed banana bread pudding

Woops, second recipe posting.

This is for one 20-cm diameter bowl-pan (8 cm depth)

Tools you need:
- mixer or egg whisk
- juice extractor or blender, optional
- steamer or big pan
- pan made from well-tempered glass or ceramics that can withstand steaming
- knifes, cutting board, etc etc

Ingredients:
- 4 slices of bread, you can also use days old bread, as this is one of my way to salvage uneaten bread.
- 6 Bananas, peel and make thin coin slices (around 5 mm, around probably quarter inch)
- 2 Eggs
- 2 tbs of brown sugar, or subtitute with 1 tbs white sugar
- 1 tbs of white sugar, or omit if you like brown sugar only
- 10 pcs of pandan leaves, or substitute with 1/4 tsp vanilla powder
- 1 cup of milk or coconut milk
- 1 table spoon of butter, melt it.
optional ingredients, any or all of them:
- cheese, grated
- raisins
- chocolate sprinkles, or we call it muisjes.
- tiny cubes of jackfruit
- cinnamon (powder: mix at the same time with vanilla. bark: during steaming)

How to make it:
1. Cut the pandan leaves into 2 cm long and extract the juice. Add to 100 ml volume. If you don't have that much pandan, you can just use one leave and cut it 2 cm long, and later put them on top of the banana pudding while you are steaming it.
2. Tear bread into small pieces. Or not, if your pan is just the size of the bread. Soak into the pandan leaves extract. If you are not using the pandan leaves extract. No need to soak.
3. Mix the eggs, sugars, milk/coconut milk, melted butter and the pandan leaves extract (vanilla) left from soaking the bread.
4. Put the banana slices into the pan to make one layer, Lay off the bread on top of it. If you have optional ingredients, sprinkle them here. Put more banana, bread, and the optional ingredients again. Make sure you don't exceed 3/4 of the pan depth, as the pudding will grow.
5. Heat water in the steamer or pan, put the pandan leaves (if you don't use extract) on top of the pudding and steam the banana pudding in low heat for 30 mins.
6. And you are done....

How to eat it:
- Scoop it in a small bowl and eat it for breakfast, or afternoon snack with your tea.
- Dessert: scoop and add
Alternatively, you can also use one layer of pudding and steam them in small bowls.

Have a little faith

So remember when i bought some mint and decided to salvage some to grow it with a little help of my water retaining bubbles?

Well... It indeed slow down the rate of decay and the leaves did stayed fresh (majorly) for 3 days. Nevertheless, i think the post harvest treatment is a bit bad as so many of them died starting from the middle stem, despite the new emerging root from the lower nodes. Pardon my scientific gibberish.

It end up with only few stems left, as one by one the whole stem decayed and it basically kills the leaves. Dead leaves = no significant photosynthesis = less possibility of root forming.

I decided to maintain two of the stems i salvaged as it showed apex growth as well as root growth, despite of the almost dead stem.

So i still have a little faith on this stem: