To celebrate the Bulan Puasa or the Ramadhan Month (well I don't actually celebrate it because I'm not muslim but any occasions that has good food is my celebration. Muhibah kan?), I've decided to make Onde-Onde or Buah Melaka which is one of my favourite delicacies sold at the Pasar Ramadhan (Ramadhan Market).

Onde-Onde is a soft, chewy green glutinous rice balls coated with coconut shavings and when you pop it in your mouth, a generous amount of melted palm sugar come oozing out of it. Nyum! It's delicious and MoofMoof gobble down most of it.


Don't you just love looking at the green fuzzy balls? Trust me, you'll love it more in your mouth.

So if you're looking for something different to serve during tea time, this may just be what you're looking for:

Ingredients:

• 250 g Glutinous Rice Flour
• 200 ml Pandan Juice (screwpine leaves) [substitute: 1 teaspoon of essence of coconut mixed with 1 or 2 drops of green food coloring + 200 ml water]
• 150 g Gula Melaka (Palm Sugar), finely chopped [substitute: gula jawa]
• 100 g Grated Coconut [substitute: unsweetened desiccated coconut or dried coconut flakes]
• A Pinch Of Sea Salt

Method:

• In a large bowl, combine the glutinous rice flour with Pandan juice and knead lightly to form a smooth dough. Cover the dough and set aside for about 15 minutes.
• Mix the grated coconut with a pinch of salt and steam for about 2 - 3 minutes and let it cool completely.
• Pinch a small piece of dough (about 15 g each) and flatten lightly. Fill the center of the dough with palm sugar. Roll them in your palm to form a smooth ball.
• Cook the glutinous rice balls in the boiling water. When the rice balls float to the surface, remove them with a slotted spoon and shake off the excess water.
• Coat the rice balls with grated coconut and serve immediately.

Easy eh? Have fun trying it out!

Everyone is in the picture except for the photog, Jenn
(picture courtesy of Jennifer Tai)

That day was the first time I saw so many Malaysians since I moved to Seattle. I didn't know most of the people at the party but was told by a friend about the existence of that party and so we joined her. I'm really glad that we decided to go cause it was simply AWESOME! Fun people, finger-licking-good Malaysian food(I couldn't separate myself from the keropok ikan[fish crackers] bowl) and a place buzzing with real Bahasa Malaysia (Malay language) not Bahasa Indonesia. Before I was always excited whenever I hear people around me speaks Bahasa Indonesia cause that's the closest thing to home...HAHAHA


Keropok Ikan
(picture courtesy of Jennifer Tai)

That day I felt at home. I can't wait for the next event! :D

WINE - when it comes to wine, I'm not the type of person who goes after branded, well known, expensive wines. I'm the type who likes to try all different types, brands and price range of wines. To me, brands and price don't really matter. What I care more is if they sit right on my palate. Today I happen to hop into Safeway for a little grocery shopping while my laundries are having a jolly good time in the laundromat and the husband decided to make it up for the lost Sunday that he caused. So we decided to grab some wine to go with our dinner. Lookie, lookie what we found:

Sunny, windy, chilly, fun, crazy, hot dogs, cheese burgers, chicken wings, salad, beers, delicious, tiring - those are words to summarize our barbeque party in Golden Garden. 

Kiam Chai Ark (sour mustard duck soup) is one of my favourite soup. I can even eat it with plain white rice. It's a Malaysian Nyonya dish that my grandmother serves every Chinese New Year. The recipe I'm giving today is not the original recipe but one of my variation.

If you like chicken and if you like vegetables, this is a simple, wholesome recipe that comes in handy when your refrigerator is low on stock. This recipe makes 4 servings to go with rice & one other dish or 2 servings to go with only rice.

Some of you might know and some of you might not, but the first Starbucks was founded in Downtown Seattle at Pike Place Market. It's about a 20 minutes drive from my place so what the heck, lets go check out the first Starbucks to see what it looks like or how special it is. It didn't disappoint me at all. I did enjoy my trip down there as it was warm, sunny and the place was buzzing with life and I had a great lunch in La Panier (french bakery) and an awesome wine tasting session in La Buona Tavola (a small little truffle cafe). Anyway here's a picture that I took in front of Starbucks :

We were up in Vancouver for a one day trip and the highlight of the day has got to be La Casa Gelato. It is the only gelato factory/store in the world that carries 218 flavours on location from the 500+ flavours that they have. 218 flavours! That's an amazingly diverse amount of flavours. It is so diverse that we had a hard time picking out just 1 flavour. They range from standard gelato flavours  to very exotic ones like chocolate curry, balsamic vinegar, wasabi and gorgonzola blue cheese (I tried all the above) just to name a few. 

The place was practically swamped with customers and normally I would’ve leave as fast as I can (I dislike overly crowded places) but that didn’t stop me from staying longer. The interesting combinations of gelato flavours were so tempting that I had to walk from one end to another to carefully taste and pick my flavour. 

(image courtesy of La Casa Gelato)

La Casa Gelato has got to be the best gelato I've tasted thus far. So good that they receive a vast amount of media coverage for example the Chinese Network, Vancouver Sun and Ripley's Believe It Or Not! Even the queen of lifestyle, Martha Stewart herself has been there to get a taste of La Casa’s Gelato.

If any of you ever hit up Vancouver, don’t forget to pay La Casa Gelato a visit. It’s highly recommended and a definite must go. 

p/s: I doubt that I’ll ever get much of durian in Seattle, so we ended up picking the durian flavoured gelato. It even had tiny bits of durian flesh in it. I also bought an almond nougat bar, my all time favourite snack. yum yum...

I love popcorns and usually, I can't watch a movie without popcorns. Shopping at Fred Meyer today, seeing rows and rows of self-popping popcorns reminded me of my first popcorn in Seattle.

I would never ever forget about that popcorn incident. It was the first salty popcorn I ever tasted in my life. I bought the popcorn at the movie theatre thinking it's the same irresistible sweet popcorns that I’ve always had in Malaysia and popped it in my mouth. Immediately I turned to MoofMoof with a disgusted look on my face. Here’s how the conversation went: 

Me: Honey, I think there’s something seriously wrong with the popcorn. 

MoofMoof: What’s the matter? 

Me: I think they forgot to put in the caramel. I can only taste the butter. 

MoofMoof: *starts laughing and laughing* Honey, that’s how they are suppose to taste like. They are butter popcorns not caramel. 

Me: Huh? (getting more puzzled) You guys have butter popcorns? People actually eat salty popcorns?????? 

MoofMoof: Of course we do! *lalalalalala and a whole bunch of explanation*

I’ll just stop the conversation right there. There’s a long stretch of popcorns debate to it but I won’t bore you further. Since then, I’ve been constantly searching for caramel popcorns where ever I go. So far I’ve only found 2 places that sells caramel popcorns, one in Puyallup Fair and the other one in one of Portland’s (Oregon) mall. The hunt shall go on and I shall not give up!

A new word that I learned from MoofMoof today - Swig = Super Twig. I'm always mesmerized by his ability to mix, match and mesh words into one funky word.

First of all thousands of apologies for my MIA. Reason being, I was too busy preparing to visit Vietnam and move to Seattle and then got too busy trying to get settled down in Seattle. Now still busy with renovating my future room which will be highlighted in my later post. Now I bunk in MoofMoof's old room.

Okay a quick update of me here before I move on to my main topic:

Sept 02 : Flew to Saigon, Vietnam to visit MoofMoof's relatives
Sept 08 : Flew home to Seattle (new home lo)
Currently : Still in Seattle la, abo then >< :D
Oct 11 : Shall be my wedding registration day in King County Court House, 3rd Ave Downtown Seattle

Aite, back to my cerita:

Have been bising-bising hinting to MoofMoof for the past 2 days that Raya is here and I'm not home to go to all my dad's friends rumah terbuka for all those yummy kuih-muih, rendang, lemang and ketupat. So today MoofMoof suddenly messaged me on MSN while he was at work saying "Hey, lets have Malaysian food for dinner". I was obviously trying to hide my overexcited-ness by just saying "Really?" but padahal I was jumping like crazy in my room already. KK fast forward to dinner time.

Do not attempt to strike up a conversation on Skype, Live Messenger, Google Talk or any other IM application OR sign on your Facebook to scan through everyone's new pictures just glance at the updates while you're cooking, else you risk eating "Me + IM + Facebook + Cooking Pasta = Soggy UglyTasting Pasta". Urghhhhhhhh, what a BIG ewwwwwwwwww!

It's just toooooooooo ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwww-ey that my camera won't even "chik chak" when I press the snap button. Can you imagine how ugly that marsh looking pasta is? You still want pictures? Tough Nougies! No pictures! Camera won't budge.

Lesson learned.

p/s: It is not the first time this has happened. There was another shrimpy incident (Shrimpy was meant for MoofMoof - he laughed so much he nearly wet his pants).

Words of him have been spreading far and wide. Every time I walk by, I peer into the glass searching for him. As always and without fail, he sits there looking as hot as ever. He makes my heart flutter, like a teenage girl falling in love. At the sight of him, I'm reduced to a mass of quivering jelly. The more I hear about him, the more I look at him, the more I long for him.

Today I ain't gonna run no more. I'm gonna make him mine and bring him home with me.

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I can't believe it! He's mine now and he's home with me. He's sitting in front of me, warm and ready. His nearness and the sweet-hot scent of him completely weakened my knees. I brought my lips close to him. Slowly parting my lips, bringing my mouth over him. As soon as we touched, my lust for him took over me. Losing self-control and losing all my senses, I grew more and more greedy as I tasted him. He explodes into a burst of sweetness and juiciness as I lick and bite. His crisps alone is overpowering. The world began to spiral around me, and I whirled around it, lost to the present, riding a timeless wave of utter satisfaction. Before long...


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I've come to completely devoured him,

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my Bo Lo Baau (Mr. Pineapple Bun)

(image courtesy of Jo Lynn)
Eh hamsap people (translation:perverts) , I was not screwing some random hunk I found in a store okay? I was just talking about me enjoying my favorite food, the Bo Lo Bauu. So shake those perverse thoughts out of your brain! =p

p/s: Wish I can feed on it as often as I want to but sadly it is just as fat as McFatty >.<

In conjunction with "Monika Wants To Know Your Favourite Food"

As I was chatting with Denny, we stumbled upon what he ate for the day and 2% milk was mentioned. Hmm…was scratching my head, wondering what’s a 2% milk. Is it some kinda new dairy product with some fancy new milk-making technology? Does the milk contain only 2% milk? Then, what would the other 98% be? I’ve never heard of a 2% milk before, never ever in my life until then. It’s either that the term isn’t being used in Malaysia or I’m too ignorance to notice such a thing existed.

Okay to those who are just as lost as I am when it comes to what’s a 2% milk, here’s a little fact about it that I’ve googled up from the web.

The 2% refers to the percentage of fat by weight that the milk contains while normal full cream milk contains about 3.5% fat. 2% milk is often mistaken for low fat milk but in fact it can only be referred to as reduced-fat milk. 1 serving of 2% milk still contains 5g of fat that derives close to 35% of its’ calories from fat but to qualify as low fat milk, its’ total fat content must be 3g or less. So if you’re serious about eating a low fat diet, 2% milk isn’t gonna cut it, you’ll have to opt for 1% or best of all, go for fat free milk.

Well hopefully this tiny piece of information helps make you a smarter milk-shopper and not a dumb milk-shopper that I used to be. Does the milk contain only 2% milk? Duh! What a silly question to ask >.< …I’m such a DORK…