Song for the Nations

May we be a shining light to the nations

A shining light to the peoples of the earth

Till the whole world sees the glory of Your name

May Your pure light shine through us

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May we bring a word of hope to the nations

A word of life to the peoples of the earth

Till the whole world knows there's salvation through Your name

May Your mercy flow through us

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May we be a healing balm to the nations

A healing balm to the peoples of the earth

Till the whole world knows the power of Your name

May Your healing flow through us

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May we sing a song of joy to the nations

A song of praise to the peoples of the earth

Till the whole world rings with the praises of Your name

May Your song be sung through us

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May Your kingdom come to the nations

Your will be done in the peoples of the earth

Till the whole world knows that Jesus Christ is Lord

May Your kingdom come in us

May Your kingdom come in us

May Your kingdom come on earth

Dirgahayu Oh TANAHAIRKu!!!

Sweet Savoury Bun

On bright and sunny home days, I would always think - why don't I make a batch of bakes that needs proofing (= yeast = warm / hot days). Saturday was such a day. It was such a sunny a.k.a. HOT day which awaken that yeast monster.

So I took out my fav simple baking book by Agnes Chang and quickly race for the sun. As I was preparing the dough, I asked Noel what filling he wanted (truth be told, I'm sick of the Sausage Bun for now). I was really glad when he said enthusiatically - chicken! chicken and mayo! like in the shop!! (oh dear, why did he have to set the benchmark so high?). Anyway... amidst baking Makmur cookies (Raya order) and cooking dinner, I managed to churn out these... Chicken Mayo Bun.

Do you think they met the Benchmark of "like the shop"? :) I personally am satisfied with these considering the fact that this is the first time I attempted anything like this :) Would probably bake this again in the future.

Here's the recipe:
Dough:
Ingredient:
500g bread flour or high protein flour
1 1/2 tsp instant yeast
100g castor sugar
1 tsp salt
270ml water
50g soften butter
Method:
1. Put flour, yeast, sugar and salt into a mixing bowl & mix well. Slowly pour in water.
2. Use slow speed to knead the dough till gluten is formed (can pull into very thin sheet without tearing - also called window pane test). Add butter and knead till well combined.
3. Remove dough from mixing bowl, shape into a smooth ball and put into a greased bowl. Cover with wet cloth. Leave aside to prove till double in bulk. To test, press with finger. The depression should rise up and back to shape.
4. Punch down and knead again till smooth. Leave aside to rest for 15 minutes. The dough is now ready to be shaped.
Filling:
Ingredients:
1. 1 chicken breast (debone / remove skin)
2. 1 carrot
3. About 8 button mushroom (I used the canned ones)
4. Bombay Onion
5. Mayo (as much as you want)
For item 1 - 4, cube into bite size chunks.
Method:
1. In a hot pan, pour in some oil. Caramalize the onion once hot. Throw in the chicken and let this cook in it's own juices. Add in carrot and mushroom when almost done. Continue to cook under low heat till dried up. You won't want soggy filling. Once dried up, dish out and let cool.
2. Once cool and dough is ready, add in mayo. Mix well. The filling is now ready to be used.
To assemble:
1. Weight the dough into 50g balls. The above dough yields around 16 balls.
2. Flatten the dough into a circle, put filling in the middle and close up by pinching around the edges
3. Place on baking tray. Let it prove for another 10 minutes and bake.
4. Oven should be preheated for 15 minutes before you start baking. Bake these at 200 C for around 15 - 20 minutes. Every oven is different so keep an eye on them. It should be done when it's brown all over. Take out and brush butter on top. Let cool (or gobble up immediately! Haha)
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These buns kept rather well. We had some for supper on Sat night, brought some for our routine Car Brekkie between services on Sunday and I had the last one for dinner Sunday night. They were still soft and moist till the last bite.

The lure of cinnamon...

Cinnamon is a spice obtained from the inner bark of several trees from the genus Cinnamomum which includes all species of Evergreen trees - source: Wikipedia

I do not know when my love for cinnamon started. But I am totally head over heels with this magic spice. It literally turns everything yummylicious. I finally found some plain yogurt last night and remembering the promise made to my Loyal Guinea Pigs in the office, I grabbed 2 big tubs and hurried home to bake these babies.


Don't they look divine??? But look can be deceiving. Hehe... The first version I made was a "salty" one, where I spread butter on the rolls after they come out from the oven. But this time, I wanted to try the "sweet" version, so followed the recipe to a T. While the buns were still good, it was a tad too sweet for me. I prefered the salty version. These are still heavenly when fresh out of the oven though ;) Made 2 batches, one for the family and one for the office (each recipe yields only about 8 rolls). It's a bit sad that I can't bring them in warm. Any idea on how to transport freshly baked goods?? :(

Two nights ago while studying for his exam, Noel suddenly requested for jelly. Not just any jelly, he wanted "green & white jelly". Cracking my head, I wondered what that was. In the end I thought, I'll just go make half coconut milk jellies for him. These were produced :)


The white layer (with coconut milk) is not exactly white because I hastely poured in the white on top of the green layer and it broke, so the green seeped into the white layer :( Oh well, these are yumm as well, nice and cool, slipping down the throat on hot days and nights like the ones we're experiencing! Most importantly, Noel loved them - it's exactly what he wanted :)
Right, so here we are at the end of the week again. Amazing how fast time flies. Can't wait for the Merdeka break and the Raya break, though being cheated out of so many public holidays this year since they fall on Saturdays! Oh well, there's always next year right? :) Have a great weekend peeps!!

A Rainy Day

“A rainy day”

… Chocolate Rice and Coconut mimics the beautiful rain drops falling on lush bed of green…

That's the description of this cake in our menu. This was my 2nd project on Monday night. Baked this to give away as a farewell gift to a dear grown up girl who will be leaving for India. She loved this cake the first time I baked it for her family and I thought I'll just bake one for her a few days before her departure. I will definately miss her. Since there's only 3 of them at home and they only had one day to enjoy the cake before everyone needed to fly off to various parts of the world, I divided the cake into 2 portion. 1/2 for home since it's one of dad's favorite as well.

This is one of the MUST cakes during Christmas, if we have Open House that is. Mom's been baking this for as far as my memory can recall, and now I take over baking these as she concentrates on the harder ones :) I keep thinking and thinking what words to describe this cake, but the description above says it all really. It's definately a lush bed of green with Chocolate Rice and Dessicated Coconut on every inch and one have to stop oneself from popping mouthful after mouthful.

One thing I love about cakes from yesteryears is that they are made with biscuit flour. This is one of those. You have to blend the biscuit to make into flour form. It's a whole different world that the normal flour! So sorry, but I won't be able to share the recipe since it's one of our selling item. But do let me know if you wanna give it a try and I might just whisper the recipe to you :)

I present you with... "A Rainy Day". What's with the name you may ask? Sorry, but I don't have the answer to that question! :)

note: Photo was also taken using Lumix :)

Goodness for the eyes

This was the 1st project I did on Monday night :)

I simply simply dislike it when there's "grating" called in a recipe. Even if it's grating soft cheese! So though my mom and I had wanted to bake carrot cakes for ages, we've not gone about doing it because it involves grating the hard carrots (recipes normally will call for more than one). But, since The Bug hit me really hard plus the exam bug, it is very typical for me to undertake something I will not normally do. Something hard. Something impossible. Something that requires sweat and blood. OK, okay... not to that extend :)

But all the hard work put into grating the carrot did not go to waste. Found the recipe here and gave it a go. The cake turns out so wonderfully soft, it breaks upon your touch. It's so so SO simple to make (apart from the grating). All you need to do is mix everything till smooth (I don't think you even need a mixer for this). It doesn't even require taking out the butter to soften! All you need is corn oil. It calls for brown sugar as well, which gives it a distinct taste and flavour.

When you bite into it, you're biting into a heavenly mixture of carrot, walnuts and blackcurrent (or raisin). The one thing that I might change for this will be to add on some cinnamon powder. I bet it will smell and taste heavenly!

This will definately not be the last time I'm baking this. Give it a go if you want to have some exercise for the upper arm :)

Here you have it - Soft Carrot Cake. This picture was taking using my dad's Lumix as the images taken with my phone were really hideous. I now so miss having a real camera (a point and go camera will be good enough. I don't need DSLR [not at the moment I don't! haha])

Wrapped Up Crunchy Goodness

I have a bad habit. A very very bad habit, which I forgot I have, till my mom reminded me last night. I tend to embark on silly project (s) - normally more than one at the same time, when there's a big exam coming up. When I was sitting for my term exams, UPSR, PMR, SPM etc, etc, on the night of the paper, I will have my nose buried deep - not in my books, but in my projects. This will normally be bakes, cooks or stitches. This time round, it's not my exam, but Noel's - which is equally important and the Bug came like crazy last night. As I was into my 3rd project for the night, my mom reminded me that there will be no more project for the week as Noel's exam is starting on Wed. Only then I realised, this habit of mine came back! Gosh. OK, I better keep myself in check when it's exam time.

3 projects?? Yes, you read me right - 3 projects at one go. I started at 8pm, done by 12am. The most important project was this...

Yes, the oh so yummm and simple Popiah (Spring Rolls) :) I've been craving for these for ages, but each buy at stalls makes me evermore so disappointed. In the end, I told myself, I need to make these at home. Got some turnip (mengkuang) CORRECTION from Kukuanga - SENGKUANG; not mengkuang :) + carrot + dried shrimp and popiah skin. Rolled them up last nite, fried a few just to satisfy the craving and kept the rest in the fridge to be fried this morning. What a wonderful late night and early morning treat! I packed some for the office but can't stop myself from gobbling a couple in the car (blame the trafic!). My apologies to the drivers next to me if they are fasting! :)

I'll write up about my other 2 projects in the coming days. The photos I took this morning with my humble phone was really hideous so let me go back and try to get better ones (I hope there's still something left for me to take photos off!)

When accident happens..

No... no accident happened... thank God... I was just re-calling this with my colleague the other day, and I thought it was good information to know... well, at least if you don't know it yet. I obviously didn't know and it was very.. troublesome at that time.

OK, so what do you do when the unfortunate happens (and if you are not wrong)

1) Determine if the wrong party will pay - if he says insurance, here begins your nightmare (see below steps)

2) Make a police report - even if you are not wrong, you too need to make that report. The station is opened till 12am. Do this within 24 working hours.

3) Make a report to your insurance. You need to do this within 3 working days. Get that report from the police and make the insurance report. Your insurance company will claim for the insurance company of the person at fault. Your NCB will not be affected if you are not wrong. If you are involved in a chain accident, claim from the car behind you (not from the 1st car [who caused the accident]). So make sure you get the details from the car behind you.

4) Check with the car behind you on what insurance company he's using. Then, check what are the panel workshop that insurance uses. Each insurance company will have their own workshop so make sure you do not simple send to your "fav" shop or to the panel of your insurance. You need to use the one who wronged you. If a tow truck is needed - do not let just any tow truck hook up your car - they might bring it elsewhere.

5) Wait. Wait forever for the workshop to get your car done. As it never will be done fast. Never.

Double Roti Part IV

I am having trouble keeping up with the Roman numbering! hahaa... i'll stick to normal numbers after this!

Right, I'm late for today's update... been a busy morning! Today's sandwich is what Jane would clasify as... non-traditional :) It's Cucumber Corn Shrimp Sandwich. Another summer-ish sandwich :)

For this sandwich, you will need:

Shrimp - boiled with some salt water and de-shell

Yogurt - Still sticking to the "healhtier" cream - and still sticking to Tropical Mixed Fruit that I used yesterday (actually, need to finish up the tub :P)

Cucumber - slice thinly
Corn Kernels - I am a HUGE fan of Ligo Corn Kernels - really really - if I'm cooking with this, I just neeeeddd to have a spoonful right out of the can. Errm, it kindda looks like my kids are getting this habit from me as well! Grab some and drain well. Mix it into the yogurt.

Burger buns - again, any kind of bread is OK - but I still wanted to continue with the round theme :)

Assemble:

Lower half of bun + yogurt (already mixed with corn) + shrimp

Top half + yogurt (only - no corn) + cucumber

Sandwich together. See below pattern? Nice, but I guarantee Kukuanga's hexies are much nicer!! Can't wait to see!!

The taste? The sweetness of the corn, with the sourish taste of the yogurt combined with the crunch of the cucumber and the fresh bite of the shrimp... heavenly.. the colours are beautiful as well! I didn't manage to stop myself from eating half as I was preparing these this morning :)

Apart from these as my packed food today, I also have... Bread pudding! Yummy! Remember on the day we made sandwiches from 2 loaves of bread? Well, we always trim the sides and keep them - normally to make bread pudding. I never make this as this is my mom's specialty. We use normal bread slices as well, but this is a good way to use the bread sides (especially if you're lazy to go to the park and feed to hungry fishes - like me! ehem!)

I think it's bread arranged in pan + fresh milk + egg + raisin on top + sugar = pop in oven. Mom made 2 trays - one with normal caster sugar (which was dusted with icing sugar when it comes out from the oven) and another one - with brown sugar and cinnamon on top (guess who is the culprit for this request?) We couldn't wait for these to cool down and had it almost immediately as it came out from the oven!

It's FRIDAY peeps!!!! Hurray!!! Have a great weekend ahead! I do not think I would be continuing with the Double Roti adventures next week, but then again, never say never eh? I'll now leave you with Mr. Dagwood Bumstead - he's a guy who definately loves his sandwich!

Double Roti Part III

It's dark, cloudy and rainy in Kuching today... Would be perfect for a creamy rich hot soup... But instead of that, today's sandwich is quiet summer-ish. It's called Chicken Pineapple sandwich. I didn't manage to take too many photos so I will just leave you with one of the sandwich being assembled. This is a very light sandwich that is very healthy and refreshing.

Things you need / need to do:

Chicken breast - Clean, get rid of skin etc - make sure it's lean :) Marinade it with teriyaki sauce (I used Kikkoman's) for at least 1/2 hour. My ratio will be 1 chicken breast : 1 spoon sauce. Then arrange on tray and pop into oven.

Pineapple - you might want to use fresh ones, but being the lazy person I am, I used the canned ones (ring form - not cubed) :) Drain well, arrange on wire rack and pop into oven above the chicken. The excess juice will drop on your chicken and makes it absorb a pineapple-y taste.

Yogurt - for dressing. I opted to use yogurt instead of the normal mayo because there's such a wide variety of choice available which are fat free. Choose one of those fruity ones that goes with the tropical theme - I used NESTLÉ® FAT FREE YOGURT Tropical & Mixed Fruits. You will need ample amount of these as chicken breast tends to be dry.

Green lettuces, tomato etc... - I was out on tomotoes so used my greens only.

Burger buns - I opt for these instead of your normal bread just so it's consistent with the ring shape of the pineapples :) Any bread will do. Do like you'd normally do for a burger bun - spread butter and heat up (or in my case - char!) in pan.

Assemble: lower half of bun + greens + good big dallop of yogurt + chicken + pineapple + top half of bun.

Now, on the chicken - you may opt to just put the whole meat on, or, like me, you can opt to slice them up - just so it's easier to eat in the office - if you're making this at home, by all means, just put the whole slab of chicken on!

This is a great idea if you're working on a barbeque / grill. Just make some extras for sandwiches on the next day. After all, that's what sandwiches are for - to use up (purposely done) leftovers! :)

Without further adieu, I present you... Chicken Pineapple Sandwich (do not be fooled by those tiny slices, I just wanted to show you the layers. Heaps more were put on after this pix!! haha)

One more day to the weekend peeps!

Double Roti Part II (double portion too!)

Great great day peeps!!!!

Continuation from yesterday... Today's sandwich is the humble Egg Mayo sandwich... There's many variety and since kids we have made a different kind, but back in uni days, I stumbled accross this yummy version and stopped making other types since then. It was during a overnight prayer gathering when I first sank my teeth into this beauty. Searched around for the person who made it - lo and behold - it was my pastor's wife!! Hurray! Learnt how to make it and today I'm sharing it with you.

So here goes...

You will need:

First, egg - boil, peel, mash. Then put a great big dallop of mayo followed by the secret ingredient - salt. I found out that salt is really magical. It brings out the flavor of the mayo really well making it taste rich and creamy (a.k.a. lemak). For the mayo, if there is any choice at all, please go for Lady's Choice. The rest are rather sourish. Mix well.

Next, put a great big spoonful (more like 2 spoonfuls!) on your bread. This is another tip I got from the pastor's wife - DO NOT BE FRUGAL when it comes to how much you put between the slices - it's THE factor that determines if the sandwich will turn out yumm. Then, put in some veg (optional) and sandwich them together.

Here you have it... Egg Mayo Sandwich

Now... because I often make this in bulk (more that 2 loaves at one time), I normally get sick of the smell and thus, not able to enjoy the sandwich. The same goes for today - made 2 loaves for officemates in respond to a colleague's request (thanks bro for the ingredient sponsorship!). So, for today's lunch, I decided to make another type of sandwich for myself - SPAM and fried egg sandwich (oopppsss, sorry, non halal)

We do not normally buy spam (a.k.a. luncheon meat) anymore these days since it's hard to get a good one. That, along with some concern over China food plus those USA ones being ridiculously priced makes this a rare item in our household. But, surprisingly, my brother bought this last nite, so this morning, I took the chance to make use of it! Hehe.

Here goes...

Pan fry slice of spam till nice and brown (and cripsy on the outside). Do not use oil - just use non stick pan. Take out, put on paper towels to drain the excess oil.



Then, beat 1 egg & fry (no salt needed - the spam itself is salty enough).



Then, assemble - bread (with that waterproof layer) + veg + spam + mayo + egg + bread (you should stop here but I went an extra layer! hehe) + veg + spam + mayo + bread.



Here you have it... Spam and Fried Egg Sandwich.



Now, now, before you judge me for being in the likeness of my food (spam = pig), it is my duty to inform you, that I quartered the sandwich - 1/4 for breakfast, 1/2 for lunch and the last 1/4 for tea. Hehe... don't hate, don't hate!

Have a superb MID WEEK mates!!!

Double Roti

Good day peeps!



For a change, it's bright and sunny this morning, which makes it easier to get up from bed! I hate those days when you wake up and it's dark and rainy, you curl back into your blanket to continue your Zzzzzzzz and suddenly you realise it's a working day!! Don't we all hate it?

Last night, I was planning to bake some cinnamon rolls, but buttermilk aside, I can't even get plain yogurt, even after searching at 3 supermarkets!! Tsk tsk!!! Once again, perils of living in Sarawak (don't get me wrong, I'm mighty glad to be calling this place home for the time being). Since I couldn't have cinnamon rolls for breakie, I thought might as well make some sandwiches... then I thought - well, I might as well make sandwich for lunch for the rest of the week and blog about it (but it's actually due to having to buy lettuce in a big qty - making sandwich every single day will help deplete them!)

I'm not sure when my love for sandwich started... but I love love LOVE the simplicity and feeling healthy after eating, since there's lots of veg inside (and small amount of carb + protein). I think we Asians are not too used to having sandwiches for lunch, but I'm telling you, it's GREAT! Give it a try mates!

So here we go... the first sandwich of the week is... Smoked Turkey Ham sandwich with Baby Roma Tomato (you can substitude the turkey with any kind of cold meat you can get your hands on)

There's one Mita bakery in Kuching (the one near Choice Daily) that sells really yummm wholemeal bread and their slices are very thick as well! So I grabbed some of those, spread butter on both slices, heap with TONNES of lettuce, put a slice of Smoked Turkey Ham, spread some mayo and heap on MORE lettuce and sandwice it together! I normally would put the tomatoes in as well, but then I couldn't find large tomatoes, so I'm serving it on the side for today. These roma tomato babies are SO amazing!! It literally pops once you bite into it and all the yumminess (juice and crunch of a tomato) just fills your mouth! Even Noel who dislikes tomatoes ate 3 on it's own last night - big accomplishment for him!

Here's a tip when you're making sanwiches - make sure you spread butter on every single mililiter of the bread. This will be your waterproof layer that will prevent your sandwich from becoming soggy. You don't have to trust me, but you've got to trust Jamie Oliver - I got this tip from him in one of his cook books where he talks about packing lunch for school children and he gave this tip.

So that settles our lunch for today! Stay tune for tomorrow's Double Roti!

Oh, I got this from Wikipedia, thus the title :) - when the British first introduced the sandwich in India, the Indians called them double roti ( डब्ल रोटी ).

Enough.... NEVER!!!

The reason I do not blog as often as I'd like would fall into the below reasons:


1) I need to have photos to go with my post
2) I do not have a camera (which I don't really mind, since I can still use my phone)
3) My phone does not come with a cable (how could that be???)
4) I do not have a card reader...

So, I normally have to wait for a while before I can d/l my photos... and by then, I would have lost my blogging idea... sigh...

Anyway.... :) On towards more interesting stuff... I am having a SUPERB start of August... and that's simply because, as Jane would call it... I'm having lots of "theraphy" sessions! Friends overdose? NEVER!

Hurrah for friends!!! Hurray for this gift of love one chooses to give one self :)

First... met up with Lisa (or better known as Puan among the others)... long time friend from Uni days... I think the last time I met her was... 6 yrs ago (and that was just a short short meet at Kuching's airport!)... We went to a BookStore - she wanted to buy a library of 66 books... I chatted with the storekeeper (who goes to BM service with us), she then told me she had the latest of Welyar Kauntu and of knowing that I love love LOVE Welyar, put on the songs for us. Naturally, Lisa bought a copy of the CD. I was mentioning about the cover being a tad broken and the counter lady simply took off the price tag and said it was MINE... for... FREE!!!!! Gosh, things like these doesn't happen in real life do they? It's RM35 okay... and to me that's a lot of money! So after collecting my jaw from the floor (and Lisa laughing away), we left. I've been enjoying the CD and I thank God for His unexpected gifts... Then we went to Jalan Song for Kolo Mee and Kueh Tiaw Tomato. Chatted till it rained on us... Thanks ah Lisa, jumpa sia malam tu :)

My precious FOC CD

Then... I had 2 precious ladies (plus their man) visit... MY BESTIE and her baby girl was in town!!! HURRAY for papa for having his anual dinner here in Kuching so mama and baby can come along! It was a very interesting 3 days, with my dad and I continuously bullying precious Allyssa, and with us given the opportunity to drive around even to Kota Semarahan where we studied before... It was something to be able to go back there, something I won't even think of doing if it wasn't so the little one could take a longer nap. Thanks datang Frid... sorry selalu bully Sha... kelak - kelak datang agik k... Andy - harap OK lah jagaan kamek ngan bini & anak kitak (walaupun selalu buli Sha... hehe)

This shot wasn't arranged on purpose - I walked into the room on the first day of the visit and saw this... how precious!

Then.... Then came my monthly date!!! With Togou!! :) Well, we delayed this date for about 2 weeks, so the last time we met was 6 weeks ago... The last time was a date to celebrate Fread's birthday (and he was in KK - yeah, yeah - HUH?? haha). This time, yours truly was craving for butter prawn, so off to TopSpot we went... NYUM NYUM!!! Had a great time catching up.. didn't even realise it was already 10pm! Gosh... Thanks Togs... really can't wait for our next meet... you get to pick what to eat the next time k!

Yummy food - Butter Prawn, Mango fish, Midin Belacan - all for RM54 :)

All these meets happened within 6 days... how awesome eh? I don't really get to do this often so when it happens, it's a real blessing. Like what I told Togs... it's days / nights like these that keeps me sane. So if you ask me - enough of friend time? I'd answer with a big hearty NO!

Have a blessed weekend peeps!