My Walk... My Talk...: Simple Birthday meal

Over the years since SIL joined the family, we have tried as much as we can to celebrate her birthday with her - just like the rest of the family members of course. But we've come to realize that every time we had a cake while celebrating her birthday, it would rain so heavily till a point of thunderstorm even!

It was a fine, bright day

There was this year, when we decided to have a bbq at home for her birthday, and we decided to dine al-fresco, bringing out our dining table. The evening started to drizzle - we moved in the car porch, then it rained - we moved further in to the veranda. It started to be a full forced thunderstorm, that we have to move into the living room and when it got really heavy we moved back to the kitchen!

Red Velvet cake with Cream Cheese frosting

Another year, we had dinner at TopSpot, a seafood outdoor eating place, and again, it decided to rain cats and dogs. And both years, it was when we had a cake for her birthday! So we resorted to not have any cake anymore (actually, come to think of it, we don't have cakes for the other adults too!).

RV was originally a layered cake - so actually, it should be more than two layers - but, oh well.
Sandwiched with cream cheese.

But this year, I went back to the usual practice of making a cake for her birthday just to test our theory of cake = heavy rain. It took me nights and days thinking of what cake if suitable. Didn't manage to think of any so I decided to head to Taka (local bakery) to look for inspiration. Even before I walked in, the name Red Velvet (RV) jumped out to me. But, but, but.... I've never baked RV before - because of two reasons. 1. To me, it's just chocolate cake with red colouring (a lot of colouring at that!). 2. In my head, a RV should be sourish as in, it contains sourcream and buttermilk - to make it sourish and moist - and both ingredients are almost impossible to find in Kuching. But what the heck, I went ahead to try to find a "localized" recipe and found one here and I baked the cake. The result, a bit too dense for my liking (In my head, it should be light and fluffy) - yes, I have too many ideas in my head! But then again, I've never tasted a "real" RV so I've got nothing to compare it against. The other RV I ever tasted almost made my teeth break and dropped due to it's sweetness! Not a good benchmark.

Ready to be roasted on top of a bed of carrot, celery, onions and garlic - love the lemon in the bird.

Then for the dinner, I cooked a simple meal - all oven based. She was working that night so I had to rush rush rush. Followed Jamie Oliver's roasted chicken recipe as closed as possible. Love the lemon in the chicken cavity - but, hard to get fresh herbs around here (thyme, rosemary etc).

Need more cooking time. Not brown enough too!

Result? The recipe indicated 1 hour 20 minutes in 200C oven for a 1.6kg bird - not enough cooking time. The chicken was still bloody when we cut it open even after I have added another 30 minutes to the cooking time. Next time I'll try 3 hours. But when it was cooked, the chicken was still nice and moist, which is what really matters actually. And.... our family of 5 adults + 2 kids finished the whole 1.6kg chicken in one sitting! Yums!

Rice splashed with mushroom soup, topped with mince meat red sauce

As for the carb, I decided to make Cheese Baked Rice. The kids called it Pizza Rice! Haha... probably because I used the same mince meat + red sauce as the topping for the rice.

Topped generously with mozarella cheese and baked till golden brown

In the "normal" Hong Kong food shops, the baked rice is very creamy and wet - which I do not quite like - so for ours, I didn't put too much mushroom soup on the cooked rice - poured just enough to cover the rice. Topped with a lot of mozarella cheese and bake till golden brown.

So much cheese for the day! Cream cheese (from RV) + mozarella cheese!

Result? Nice moist rice - with just enough taste of mushroom soup - not wet and sticky, superb layer of cheese and again, our family finished the whole dish in one sitting (about 3 cups of rice!) - which is actually very rare as we limit our rice intake.