Sketches of Life|Life Lived in Simplicity

Munch this whole container of yummilicious Chocolate Chip Cookies for breakfast, tea-time and supper.

I just baked the above Chocolate Chip Cookies at my mom’s just now. She has bigger oven, she can babysit my baby while I bake and she can clean up for me. My fingers still not healed yet mah; if I play with lots of water, it will dry up slower mah.

I am sure gonna bake the same for CNY. So easy peasy to prepare and sedap I tell you.

Come, come I give you the recipe, you go try, then tell me nice or not.

250g Pure Butter
1/3 Cup Castor Sugar
1/3 Cup Brown Sugar
2 Tbsp Vanilla Essense
2 Large Eggs
4 Cups SR Flour
1/2 Cup Hersley’s Chocolate Chips

Beat Butter, Sugar and Vanilla till smooth then add in the eggs, beat till fluffy. Sift in the flour and mix with spoon. Then add in the chocolate chips.

Make them in a small ball and place them on the tray with baking sheets. Then flatten them with your palm. This is fun; let your children help you with this. Make sure they wash their hands clean ok.

Bake at 175C (top n bottom heating) for 10 minutes. Let it cool before you devour them. If not sure will kena sore throat one.

For today’s batch, my 5yo girl and 3yo son helped me beat the butter, sugar and eggs. But the rolling into balls and flattening them, I did. Too fun to let them do it. Nah…Dibo the Gift Dragon is more fun for them.

I look forward to August 23, 2009. That will be the day that I will be 100% housewife; not just a WAHM. Hey, I work you know, I blog to earn money. That is the day that my maid will leave us for a month holiday. I have already imagine how my household will be and how the compound will look like. Please don’t come visit me during that one month unless you come to help me out. Anyway, I thank God that my mom is living very near my in-law’s house and the cooking will be done by her. Phew! One burden lifted up. If not I must head to the Book Shop to get some cookbooks.

Talking about cookbook, have you heard about the big fat duck cookbook? It is not just any other cookbook. In The Big Fat Duck Cookbook, you will know the full story of the meteoric rise of Heston Blumenthal and The Fat Duck, birthplace of snail porridge and bacon-and-egg ice cream, and encounter the passion, perfection and weird science behind the man and the restaurant then only you will find 50 of his signature recipes.

Heston Blumenthal is widely acknowledged to be a genius, and The Fat Duck has twice been voted the Best Restaurant in the World by a peer group of top chefs.

We all know that eating fruit is extremely beneficial to our health and well-being. However, finding the time to eat enough fruit per day can be difficult due to busy lifestyles. So the quickest was to get those fruits into our system is by drinking its juice or best of all if you know how to make smoothies.

I have found a site that has hundreds of smoothie recipes to help with this. I am going to give it a try. My favorite recipes are the strawberry smoothies.

If you have good fruit smoothies recipe why not share it with the rest and submit it to the site.

I am so happy when my Singh BIL came back here. We will be enjoying good food if he cooks and when he cooks. He make good western food like grilled lamb, pizza, spaghetti, etc. All my favorite.

Actually I planned to cook spaghetti for Msau when she comes here but I couldn’t remember the recipe. Called my Philippino friend but she did not answer her call so I asked BIL for his recipe and he volunteered to cook! You are so blessed, LengLui.

Yesterday we had a late lunch, KFC. Even though I ate only one piece, I still feel full by dinner time. I wonder what they added in the chicken till we can be so full. It must have something to do with the fasting month. To make the Muslim who fasted feels full longer than usual. On other days, after 3 pcs, by dinner I will be hungry already. With advance technology, I believe this is possible. No?

That’s the name of my new niche blog. It will be a compilation of all simple dish recipes that I can dig and I can cook (hopefully). I will also add in simple food that I eat.

I got an idea to start this blog when my colleague kept asking me to search for her simple dish that can be prepared fast.

She needs to cook before coming to office. If she wakes up late, then it will be just deep fried fish and stir fry veggie.

So I hope to share simple dish recipe for all the working moms/dads or even student out there.

Do link the blog if you like it.

Here is a recipe to reduce high blood pressure. Tested and proven effective by my lady boss. Recently her blood pressure shot up to 180. She will then immediately make the juice to drink. After 15 minutes, her blood pressure when down to 120.

I shall call this juice, Blood Pressure Juice. All you need is…

One Green Apple
One Stick of Celery
Half Starfruit (if it is very big)

Juice them!

Drink every morning before meal or when your blood pressure increases.

Unfortunately there are side effect drinking this Blood Pressure Juice.

1. Your heart will be beating faster. I think the juice dilutes your blood. So you have to monitor our heartbeat rate. If it is faster than usual, try to reduce the frequency of drinking the juice.

2. Backache and the tingling feeling on your spine. This because all the above fruit and veggie are the “cold” type of food.

Disclaimer: Although this is a proven recipe, I strongly urge those who have any known special allergies to check with their doctors first before trying.

My family likes to eat the All Butter Shortbread especially my children. We love the buttery taste. During the recent church camp, I bought a packet of McVitie’s brand and in less than 15 minutes, all gone.

Yesterday at Tesco I saw All Butter Shortbread, Tesco brand. 26 cents cheaper and 50g more than McVitie’s. Since this is made in UK, I gave it a try. I bought both McVitie’s and Tesco brand.

The verdict, I would rather spend 26 cents more and get 50g lesser. Don’t believe me, give it try.

Everyone is talking about niche blog and seriously starting it too, especially those high earners in Cari Makan and other network. Since I almost decided to resign, I have just bought another domain for my food blog. It will be at www.simpledishonline.info.

Don’t go there yet. Mandrake, my hoster have yet to set it up for me. It is still early now, I hope after lunch I can start blogging there. hehe

Well, from the domain name, you can figure out what’s the blog gonna be all about. I am going to blog about the simple dishes that I can cook and eat, dishes from my mom that will be Nyonya food and simple dishes that I can dig from my friends and colleagues.

As a full time working mother of 3, I don’t have time to cook those complicated meals that requires a lot of ingredients and preparation. I am sure many working mothers are facing the same issue. Once I arrive home from work, I only have an hour to put a decent meal on the table.

So, anyone who want to prepare a quick meal, do hop over to my blog for ideas.

The weather is very hot this few days and because of the heatiness, I am having sore-throat now. At this time, I would love it if I can get hold of a glass of fruit smoothies. To get one I have to drive all the way to town so I decided to make my own since I have a lot of Starfruits at home. But how to make smoothies. Just Google search! I found a site that has hundreds of smoothie recipes but I can’t find a Starfruits smoothies. Maybe I will just improvise.