easy like Friday morning, noon....with macaroni.....

au gratin for last Friday's brunch. You will need , of course, macaroni and I like to use the small elbow macaroni, just boil it the normal way we do pasta,boil a pot of water with a bit of salt, when it starts boiling, add in the macaroni and boil till the pasta becomes soft

and drain'em

while waiting for the water to boil, you can start with the white sauce, simply melt butter, add flour, whisking to avoid it from curdling, followed by milk and chicken stock, stirring occasionally at all times till the sauce becomes thick

Actually, mean while, in between , before or after those two you can start making the filling. Mine, was a mixture of chicken , meatballs, fish fillet, crab meats and something which I didn't quite know what they were called which I found in the freezer and just threw them all in.,that is after sauteing the onion . when all the chickem etc are well cooked, add in thinly sliced potatoes and a dash of black pepper, abt 2 tsp, add in a little bit of water to soften the potatoes

Once all three main ingredients are ready, you just mix them all together

the filling

mixed with the white sauce

and in goes the macaroni, mix them well

done, and just before it went in the oven, sprinkle mozarella cheese on top. what I did was , I put in a bit of parmesan cheese, cheddar and mozarella, loads and loads of mozarella!

into the preheated oven at 350 temp, and bake for about 15 to 20 minutes ( depending on your oven ) it went,

ting! the timer went off and Voila!

bon appetit!

chocolate Mousse Tart-

Chocolate mousse tart (recipe simplified and extracted from one of my cookbooks collection )

Biscuit base:

3 oz digestive biscuit

3 oz amaretti biscuit

2 1/2 oz butter, melted

Mix all and press into the base of a 9" spring form tin. Chill in the fridge.

topping:

7 oz plain chocolate

4 oz milk chocolate, broken both types of chocolate into pieces

3 large eggs, esparated

2 oz caster sugar

chocolate flake bars to decorate ( optional/ can do without )

Melt the chocolate, double boil method , cool slightly add the egg yolks and mix well.

Whisk the egg whites until they form soft peak, add in caster sugar and whisk until stiff

fold the chocolate into the egg whites and then pour onto the biscuit base. chill in the fridge for 8 hours or overnight.

when you want to eat it unmould and transfer onto serving dish and either decorate it wth the chocolate flakes or none if you like.Can even eat it on its own, taste as good.

soothing pink and white

pink and white .... always works well together, many people's chosen colours, soothing to the eyes, heart and soul. .....sweet, romantic and blissful. a simple flower ribbon as the finishing touch with single white and pink clear crystal flower completed the whole sweet look.

instead of colouring the white fondant with pink colour, I decided to make all the roses using white fondant which I made the previous night and later sprayed a few with dry pink powder colour. It gave a different kind of nice to the roses.

six packs of four vanilla cupcakes, with buttercream and fondant deco.An assortment of deco with roses as the main flower, with rolled roses and white butterflies.

All six, packed and ribboned before they were placed in paperbags

besides the fondant deco roses, I also made 50 pink and white roses, 25 of each.

very minimal and simple deco. one rose in the middle with small star nozzle and kelly green leaves, finish off with small blossom with pearl beads.

the other 25, white roses on soft pink base buttercream with kelly green leaves and silver dregges scattered on the base

individually placed in a cup with dome cover.

not forgetting, two packs of lasagna.

as I am updating this entry, received an sms from farah:

"Sedapla k.zue lasagna, suami yg x bape suka pun leh mkn, tq:)

six paperbags whic I prepared earlier, as usual I drew the pictures and Batrisyia did the colouring

now that the cupcakes are in the bags, which ribbon should I use to complete the task

I decided to go for simple red and white ribbon. These would later be given to her neighbours.

buah tangan ikhlas dari

Lasagna

Daging halia and asparagus....beef , ginger and asparagus

mmmmm......sedaaaaaap ......



'Lama dah mama tak buat masak ni, daging dengan sparagus tu", said my eldest daughter. Thats true, I forgot how long ago did I make this dish, one of the recipes from Chef Wan's "Sedaaaaapnya....." book which I bought many many years ago and had his autograph on the third page of the book.

So, when we went groceries shopping last Friday, bought the asparagus, and after sending Batrisyia to school yesterday, made a quick stop at the wet market where I bought the senangin fish and bought the batang pinang ( also bought tulang rusuk,for curry or soup for other days )

I need to marinate the beef with the following:

oyster sauce,salt, juice of young ginger , beef cube and Tabasco sauce ( searched everywhere for it, in the fridge, in the larder but ..nil, I thot I had it ) so I marinated the beef without the Tabasco sauce and left it in the fridge.

When I went out to pick up my youngest daughter from school, I decided to stop by at Gi*nt and looked for the missing ingredient and thankfully the store had it an I just bought a small bottle because this is the only recipe that I knew which used Tabasco sauce and it would be a while before I am making make this dish again, unless somebody request for it again.

Add the Tabasco sauce into the marinated beef.keep aside.

Heat up a little oil in a shallow pan and fry some crushed garlic, sliced young ginger and asparagus.

then just add in the marinated beef and stir for a while till th ebeef is tender and you are done!

salt

"Lama dah mama tak buat