The More the Merrier Christmas Cookies

Yah, so I've said it many times that I do not like cooking or baking....except when it's something creative and fun to do.

You will recall my ordeal in trying to follow a recipe - click this.
You can see what we did last year round about Christmas time...click here
And you can see what my Spaghetti Aglio..no, Olio....whatever...looks like.


This year I wanted to make gingerbread cookies again but the real fun part for me, is icing them.
Making the cookies is tiring for me. I decided to ask (on facebook) if anybody might want to make them with me. I had two people who were game. RJ and G arrived yesterday evening.

What fun we had coming up with these...






Look at how each person can have a different idea....so fascinating.




And then, for one of the batches in the oven I must've accidentally pushed the wrong button, and the poor cookies got...ummm...a tan?
I think I must've had Botswana on my mind....(where my hubby, youngest daughter and I are heading soon - SO excited!).


Ah well, make the most of it. We decided since they were black anyway, we'd pipe icing on some of them to look like penguins.......and then got carried away. Here's the back of a black plastic container with an aeroplane cookie flying above icing snow and an icing snowman, with the penguin cookies....


And the next day, I had leftover dough and icing so I got some little girls to come over to have fun. Someone asked how did you find SIX little girls in such a short time? Trust me, parents are more than willing to send them off with me especially since it's the school holidays now. They were already talking about next year's Christmas plans.....


See how even a child can do it? easy!





Thanks RJ, G and young ladies.....!


And Blessed Christmas and a Happy New Year to all!

Spaghetti Ugli Betti (otherwise entitled Why this is not a food blog)

I don't know why people don't believe me when I say I hate to cook. A few have even suggested I do a food blog like in the Julie and Julia movie! waht?! I mean, what?! (I was so shocked I couldn't even think straight!)

If anything at all, this post is to convince you why a food blog is unthinkable to me. If anything at all, this blog post should be called "How not to cook...".

There we were at a small potluck reunion of ol' gal friends. Potlucks scare the daylights out of me. You will recall the last disaster I had.....here

So I quickly asked if I could bring fruit..

Yes!

Phew!

At this potluck, someone had made a spaghetti dish that sounded like Spaghetti ala Ugly with Oreos. Or somethin'somethin'. (See? I don't even bother with what the dish is called.) It was yummy!

And here's my story. Just two days later, I came across a cool way of cooking spaghetti. You must understand that cooking is a terribly terribly boring chore for me. Something has to be creative, unusual, cookable and grab my attention for me to actually consider making it.

I'll call my dish Spaghetti Ugli Betti. So fun I had to try it out!

Lookie!

Look closer...

Eh? What's wrong with your eyes today? (Sorry, that's the only photo I took.) Can you see how the spaghetti is going through the sausage? How fun is that!! squeal! But that's all they showed us - an unusual way of cooking the pasta. Now what?

From this time on, I start improvising. Remember? Improve + otherwise = Improvise.

I chopped up some garlic and onions.


Then of course I had to add in vegetables since it was gonna be my kind of dish - a one-dish meal, all thrown in. I always try to have some vegetables. The first thing I found in the fridge was pumpkin (pumpkin in spaghetti? Nehhhh...unheard of. Even I wouldn't think of it).

I found one sad-looking stalk of celery, and a chilli that was saying, "Pick me! Pick me! I've been cold and lonely in here!"

Pathetic. But those'll have to do.

See how I cut the celery neatly when it suddenly occurred to me hey! this could be a blog post? Normally, it would just be chopchopI'mdonewhat'snextwhydoesitneedtobe prettyanyway whenit'lljustbegobbleddowninfiveminutes?



First I fried the garlic and onion in a wok. With butter. Normally I'd just use oil but decided on butter because someone once said on facebook somewhere about butter being able to solve the world's problems or somethin' (ok, not the world's problems but for sure, she was singing the praises of butter).

Then I just added in the celery, chilli and the cooked spaghetti. Stir-fried the whole thing, added a little soya sauce, tossed in a little fried shallots, and I was done.


Spaghetti Ugli Betti

Two guinea-pig daughters were at home to try my experiment.

One daughter made a face when she saw it.

The other daughter said, "Nice. How'd you do that?" (she was talking about the spaghetti-through-sausage thing, not the dish as a whole).

* I tried making the spaghetti with fatter sausages some days later (since your vision was blur earlier on, and I'm nice like that). Here are the pictures.

From this...


To these...
This time I found carrots, french beans, anchovies and chilli paste...look at the noodles going through the sausage!

.
.
.
.
.
.
Oh, the dish still didn't taste any greater.

I don't know why people don't believe me when I say I hate to cook.

Questions:

1. Should I call my dish Spaghetti Ugli Betti or Spaghetti Electric Cables?
2. Should I start a food blog called "How not to cook"?

Oh, don't forget the giveaway from the previous post....deadline 20th June 2011.

Do leave a comment in the comment section of this blog post. I love reading and replying to each of them! Also, if you sign up as a follower (on the right side of the blog page), I believe it will automatically update you each time there is a post. Thank you to all who have been reading and commenting on this blog! Really appreciate you :)

English Tea Scones, anyone?

Many years ago, I remember being taken to a quaint, little place called


I don't remember what exactly we ate cos even back then I was not a foodie so the meal would not have excited me much. BUT what I do remember I loved was how sweet this little cafe was. And is.

So when my girls decided to take me for a treat recently, this is where I chose to go. Although I'm sure anybody else would have chosen to go at tea-time (see the name of the cafe?), I quickly googled the cafe to see if they had lunch-time food served (anything to get out of cooking)- yes, they did - and off we went!

Immediately as you reach the cafe, you already see that the mosaic floor entrance has a teapot design on it. Even the handle of the door at the entrance is shaped like a teapot...

And inside, there are - teapots (no kidding)! I was told there are about 200 in the cafe but that the owner has more at home.


three teapots on a display shelf mounted on the wall

I tried taking photos of the more interesting ones but as the shelves were quite high, I had to reach my camera high up, just shoot and hope for the best. So all I kept getting were...well, the bottom of the display shelves...or the top of the teapot lid....or nothing that was even close to the teapot. So my eldest daughter Joni helped me with these shots, to save me (or maybe her) the embarrassment of the customers that were there staring at this crazy woman getting in their way (I embarrass my kids without even trying).

a sink teapot, complete with tap, toothpaste, toothbrush...




a fireplace and mantel teapot, and a carriage teapot



a cabbage teapot (I like!)


ooo....a teapot with amazing painted details


What we ate for lunch wasn't anything to scream about but then again I'm not a foodie (did I already mention that?). I had a basil buttered fish steak and was happy enough that the fish was fresh. The girls tried the rosemary chicken which they said was good.

Ye Olde Candy Shoppe Teapot - look at the details!



antique piano teapot



But - but.....here it comes!! We had so wanted to try their home-made tea scones, with home-made clotted cream and jam. And -

O - M - G

.....you're gonna love me for this piece of info, brought to you free of charge, cos I'm cool like that..

You must go there for their tea scones with clotted cream! And this, coming from a SNAF (so-not-a-foodie)! I'm-a-tellin'-you!

I found out later that my younger girl, a FNID (foodie-not-in-denial) actually went there again with her buddie within the fortnight. And they had ordered some Summer somethin' somethin' tea to go with the scones which they said was heavenly, too (how come they didn't invite me, eh?)


I have been dreaming of them ever since (the scones, not my daughter and her buddie) and looked up recipes of tea scones and clotted cream. But I've only gone as far as buying a few of the required ingredients. (You will recall in my Allison's French Onion Dip post that cooking/baking and I don't exactly blend together)


a rose teapot (squeal! so pretty!) I wonder if it had matching tea-cups - rose buds perhaps? eek!

A word of warning though. They may not have everything that's on the menu cos I suspect they only concentrate on a few key dishes each day. I would suggest you go for the teatime stuff rather than lunch or dinner. Check out their website or better still, call for any info you may want before you go (for example, I hear their scones only come out after 3pm. RM3.90 for a pair, plus plus).

While I love the quiet ambience, the fact that the place is small and cozy, and the idea of all those teapots, I rather feel that the display of the teapots could have been done in a more creative way. But that's just the artsy side of me coming out. I'd have some suspended in mid-air, some in glass cabinets with mannequins and some on revolving pedestal tables. Heh! Having all those teapots on shelves only, and if I'm not wrong, all facing the same direction (handles on the right)....well...that's..just..not..my cup of tea? ok, that was lame.

And would you believe I was so taken in with examining each teapot that I plum forgot to take a picture of the tea scones? (see? SNAF....)

Anyone wanna come with me next time?


Useful info: You can find them on facebook, The Teapot Cafe
Address: 169, SS2/24 (same row of shoplots as the Affin Bank)
Tel : 03-7875-3024

Opening Hours :
Mondays : 12noon - 6.30pm
Tuesdays - Saturdays : 12noon - 10pm
Sundays and Public Holidays : Closed



p/s if you're reading my blog, do sign up as a follower if you haven't already. C'mon, don't be shy. And leave a comment here cos I love to read your comments. They will not appear immediately but they will come to me first, then I have to 'publish' them. And I do try to reply every comment, too. If you read "this comment has been removed", it is not because I didn't like it, but I sometimes mistakenly published the same one twice, so I removed the extra one.

Allison's French Onion Dip (It Wasn't)

Yah, so my friend makes this French onion dip that we all love. The first time I made it, I followed her recipe (leaving out this and that, if I didn't think it'd be missed), my kids said it wasn't quite right. They don't mince their words.

Something you need to know about me and cooking. We don't exactly blend together, y'know?

So I tried it a second time recently, cos we had this party we were going to, where I was told to bring a vegetable dish.

My vegetable dish. Blanched broccoli, raw carrot, celery, and cucumber strips, and cherry tomatoes. To be eaten with Allison's French Onion Dip! (well, technically it's not Allison's but I don't think the French would mind) Drool.



This time the kids (who are my worst cooking critics) said the dip was:

(kids not mentioned in any order)

Kid 1. it's nice! (and tucked into it)
Kid 2. it's not the same as Allison's..(and took apprehensive bites)
Kid 3. there's something not quite right about it. You put something in there that you're not supposed to...(gulp! I swallowed - it was detected)

sigh. I had put in so much effort this second time round. I had gone through all the trouble of buying everything right down to the cayenne pepper. Even though it only needed one eighth of a teaspoonful!

But when I was making it, I discovered that I.
forgot.
the.
worcestershire sauce.









This is how you pronounce it:

Worcestershire sauce (pronounced /ˈwʊstərʃərsɔːs/ WOOS -tər-sher-saws ), or Worcester sauce ( /ˈwʊstərsɔːs/ WOOS -tər-saws )

I know, right? That was so helpful. Cos I'm just cool like that.


No worcestershire sauce? No problem. Like every exasperating non-cook expert cook out there, I just improvised (love how that word sounds - kinda like improve + otherwise all rolled up into one word). Worcestershire sauce tastes sourish to me. So I used.
.
.
.
coming
.
.
.
wait
.
.
.
.
hold your heart
.
.
.
.

a dash of Japanese sushi vinegar (and all the Japanese say, HAI!)

I don't think the French would mind...I mean, look, I even put up their flag there:



But worcestershire sauce is dark in colour. hmmm, no problem. I added
.
.
.
.
coming.
.
.
.
wait
.
.
.
.
.
.
hold your heart (I really mean that...)
.
.
.

a dash of light soya sauce (and all the French say, NON!)

And there you have it. Improvised Worcestershire sauce for Val's French onion dip. The guests at the party didn't think there was anything wrong with it. (and my kids will say, "of course lah, how can they tell the truth?" sheesh.)

Anyway, I found out that, and I quote from wikipedia.org

"The ingredients of a traditional bottle of Worcestershire sauce sold in the UK as "The Original & Genuine Lea & Perrins Worcestershire sauce" are malt vinegar (from barley), spirit vinegar, molasses, sugar, salt, anchovies, tamarind extract, onions, garlic, spice, and flavouring.^[8] The "spice, and flavouring" is believed to include cloves, soy sauce, lemons, pickles and peppers."

So I wasn't that far off whattttt.....

I was going to add the recipe here (the Allison one) but I didn't think you'd trust me.





p/s if you're reading my blog, do sign up as a follower if you haven't already. C'mon, don't be shy. And leave a comment here cos I love to read your comments. They will not appear immediately but they will come to me first, then I have to 'publish' them. And I do try to reply every comment, too. If you read "this comment has been removed", it is not because I didn't like it, but I sometimes mistakenly published the same one twice, so I removed the extra one.