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Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Fever



I have been absent from blogging for a couple days for one single reason: T was hospitalized. Well, yesterday he was discharged from the hospital and now he is fine and resting at home.

T admitted himself to the hospital after vomiting a few times in his office on Saturday afternoon while I was in the middle of a photography seminar. And he chose the hospital close to my residence to make it convenient for me to go and visit him. Couldn’t believe he still had a very clear mind in the midst of all the discomfort and illness. He was diagnosed of having intestine infection that later at midnight led into high fever. 39.5 degree Celsius and no doctor was available to attend to him because it was a weekend.



I was worried that his body temperature might rise even higher and whether this was H1N1 cause apparently he was having headache, fever, and vomiting. Ice pack, bed bath and body scrub didn’t seem to help much. The temperature was still above 38.5C. He lost his appetite and any smell of meat, no matter how subtle it was made him want to vomit.



Nurse informed us that only the next morning (if we were lucky) the doctor might come early or else normally he would come late on Sunday morning. I didn’t want to take that chance. Emergency department was contacted and I managed to get the Emergency nurse to pressurize the nurse in charge of T to make a serious phone call to the responsible doctor or anybody else who could replace him. I was very upset.



Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Daring Bakers' Nanaimo Bars



This challenge is hosted by Lauren of Celiac Teen who is now busy compiling feel-at-home recipes for her ebook, an actual contributing action for Haiti relief. Bloggers have been asked to send their most-loved, most-made recipes that make them feel at home. The final ebook will be published to raise money for Haiti and available soon for online purchase. Kudos to her wonderful thoughts and I wish her all the best and great sucess for the ebook in regards to both its completion and sale. Double kudos for her initiative of taking up this DB hosting assignment in the midst of her major charity effort. Thanks Lauren!



This Nanaimo Bars challenge was full of surprises. First, while I was baking the Graham Wafer, I was surprised of how much puffing occured to the previously neat and flat squares of wafer dough on my baking tray. They inflated tremendously and became out of shape. Fortunately once they were cool and hard, the taste was nice with buttery aroma! And there I was actually thinking of baking it again and serving as stand-alone cookies.



Second, as I was mixing the ingredients for the bottom layer, I was surprised that it was amazingly possible to mix the whole great amount of dry mixture (a lot of coconut shreds, nuts and crumbs) with seemingly very small amount of liquid mixture (egg.,butter, sugar, and cocoa) and yet yielded a pliable mixture pressable into a cake ring. Wow!



Thursday, January 21, 2010

Grateful



I should admit that I am pretty happy with the way a couple of things are going in my life. For one I know this blog has been fun and I am challenged of creating nice baking/cooking content and taking better photos for hopefully more frequent posts. Just the right moment for me to express my gratitude to Mandy of What The Fruitcake?! for passing me a very nice Over The Top award. Do visit her blog and explore her great recipes with beautiful pictures. You will definitely love it....



Meanwhile, I like to pass this award on to:
- Julia of Melanger :: to Mix
- Jo of Sugar & Everything Nice
- Barbara of Barbara Bakes
- Simone of Junglefrog Cooking
- Anncoo of Anncoo's Hobby. These 5 bloggers, with each individual, unique and distinctive style of blogging, have truly inspired me. A visit to their blogs is a must! Again, a must! :-)



Second, I am so glad that coming into the sixth month, T has always been there for me. The connection is getting stronger and we seem to be inseparable. And he is getting more involved into things that I like for instance now if we go for shopping, he will keep an eye on photo props for me, like plates, cups, cake stands, and all. And I reciprocated with picking up an interest in gardening everytime I am in his garden.



Third, I am grateful to be in Bangkok for my seventh year. Things have been good here and people are friendly and kind. All I can hope for is that I don't have to leave...... forever. That can only happen if I have the Thai Permanent Residence in hand. Will I have it soon? That is still a curious question mark? I have been trying... and waiting!



To celebrate this particular grateful moment of my life, I like to post Pink Lychee Mousse Cake that I baked recently for my colleague's birthday. I have kept the photos for a special occasion. Apparently January has been a perfect month for everything especially making new plans and keeping people who are close to me even closer to my heart. And my beloved sister's birthday also fell on this month. So.... to all the good things in my life and to people who made them happen, thank you!

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Daring Cooks' Satay



I am not an expert of Thai food despite I have been staying here for 7 years. Pretty much still learning about it everyday. All I can say is Thais have extreme taste buds - the food has to be either very sweet or very sour or very spicy. Nothing less is acceptable. In Thai we call it "khaem khoun" meaning "very tasty or concentrated".



In regards to that, I could say the challenge satay recipe turned out pretty good. Satays were delicious and tasty (according to me and T, a Thai), but the sauce needed a bit of adjustment. Had added a few teaspoons of granulated sugar and soy sauce. The final taste was acceptable by T but I personally would like it even sweeter to resemble satays from my favorite shop.



In DB Forum, jillouci commented that the cucumber dip was missing from the challenge recipe and therefore attached necessary detail of how to prepare it. This dip recipe was easy to prepare and I added sliced shallots and red chilies. End result was fabulous, exactly as what I had expected - sweet, sour, and with a kick! Thanks, jillouci!

Finally, my extra tip to make satays taste better. Reserve 125 ml of coconut milk in a shallow plate and dip satays in before grilling or pan frying.



The January 2010 DC challenge was hosted by Cuppy of Cuppylicious and she chose a delicious Thai-inspired recipe for Pork Satay from the book 1000 Recipes by Martha Day. Thanks to Cuppy for this wonderful and practical challenge. Will definitely make this delicious dish over and over again!

Have made some adjustment to the recipe for my own convenience and preference. Original recipe could be found here.

Friday, January 8, 2010

First Bread



This is the perfect time to check out blogs. Most bloggers will do a roundup of their favorite posts in the previous year, so we will get to know the annual mainstream of their baking or cooking without actually going through the long archive.

Apparently most bloggers would have chosen the best of their baking from photos or their tasting memory. It is the fact that no bloggers can blog about their food without tasting them first right? They have done the filtering, rest assured. So when they present the best 10 of the year, I am pretty sure they are really the best 10 they have been happy with.



Meanwhile, I enjoy seeing those roundup photos, mostly because there are a whole series of nice photographs being lined up next to each other like a nice tapestry or a sweet table calendar I got from my Finance colleague every first month of the year. Very eye pleasing!

I didn't do a roundup of my posts but sort of running through what I kept in my mind (and in my computer of course!) and I noticed I didn't bake any bread at all the entire year. Would be nice to start a new year with a bit of change. I have been following some bread baking blogs and that should remind me of getting a copy of Peter Reinhart's The Bread Baker Apprentice soon. This book seems like the holy grail of bread baking no one should miss.

As I was flipping through Dean Brettschneider's Global Baker, I had noticed there was bread I wanted to bake. And without any delay, I decided to start scaling the flour...