【焦糖核桃】Candied Walnuts

第一次吃这个焦糖干果是多年前有个朋友从亚洲来纽约出差，顺道来我家玩。

当时他带来的手信就是一包他在纽约街边买的焦糖干果。我不是一个嗜甜的人，对于甜味的干果总有点抗拒，我更喜欢原味或者咸味的做法。

前几天跟妈妈聊天，说起侄儿侄女很爱吃零食，外边买的又不健康，较后在厨房里看见还剩下大半包的核桃，就想尝试做一次焦糖核桃，以后回去可以给小朋友们做了当零嘴。

It has been raining cats and dogs today, it really is not helping with my mood. Baby A has been waking me up several times every night for more than 2 weeks now, I have ruled out teething, sickness and even growing spurt... It is really tough living with broken sleeps every day nowadays.

This morning after sending baby A to the daycare, I came home planning to work on some paperwork. So I turned on my laptop and begin to work, out of sudden I just could not proceed anymore, I could not even look at my computer screen. 

All I wanted was to rest. I turned off my laptop and went to bed, after about half an hour of tossing and turning, I got more irritated and tired. I was probably so severely sleep deprived that my body doesn't know how to relax and just rest anymore.

So I get up and made this candied walnuts, cooking is always therapeutic for me, seeing my own creation just makes me forget about things in life for a bit. 

When I was done, I went to bed relaxed and manage to nap for 45 minutes. Life is all great again!

【黑椒鸡扒】Chicken Chop with Black Pepper Sauce ala Malaysian Style

宝宝不晓得是不是正值猛长期，这几天每晚都夜奶无数，而且每次都要吸好久。无奈的妈妈只好边夜奶边拿着手机阅读。也就是这阵子开始读了几个菲律宾的美食博客。看着看着我就开始想念东南亚的美食了。奇怪的是，一直萦绕我脑海不去的却是这款鸡扒。

这道美食在马来西亚是有名的“西餐”。西餐厅里，咖啡馆里，甚至小贩中心里的西餐摊子都可以看见它的踪影。是各个民族非常喜欢的一道美食。出国这么多年，却从来没有在美国或欧洲的餐厅里看见过一样的做法。想想应该是一款被本土化了的西餐了。

想念那个诱人的味道，我忍不住今天就做了这个鸡扒。NS非常欣赏，下午给做了4 oz的还吃不够，晚餐又让做了两块 4 oz的才过了瘾。吃完还问以后可以经常做这个鸡扒吗？

I was reading a couple of food review blogs from the Philippines and was amazed by the similarities between Malaysian and Filipinos cuisines, some of the name of dishes were similar if not exactly the same. I had a lot of fun peeking into the day to day lives of the people in my once neighboring country, was completely immersed in the wits and humors of those bloggers too! 

Odd enough, after plenty of reading, it wasn't the typical Malaysian/South East Asian food that caught my attention. It was somewhere between Chicken Adobo (which I fully intended to try soon), Afritada, Crispy Pata, Lechon and Pancit that I started craving for this particular Chicken dish -- Chicken Chop ala Malaysian Style.

This is a "Western" food as far as Malaysian are concerned, it is sold in most restaurants, cafe or even hawker stalls in Malaysia. A steak house without Chicken Chop? Not a good steak house!

As I was standing in the kitchen chopping, seasoning, stirring and reflecting on my past life, I realized that I have never seen this Chicken Chop anywhere in the menu of restaurants here in the States let alone in Europe! 

Then I started thinking of the reasons behind and slowly it started making sense! Malaysia is so diverse in culture that the Malay (Muslim) doesn't consume pork and many of the Indian and Chinese do not consume beef due to religion and beliefs. So it is only natural that the restaurants find the need to create a chicken dish that suits the majority! 

So I think the Chicken chop was a derivation of pork chop, well, I could be wrong though. This Chicken "western" dish was a marriage of the west and the east, a western dish with a local twist!

Today's recipe of my chicken chop was an impromptu and it turned out exactly the way I liked! 

I made this for lunch and NS requested for it again for dinner, I doubled his portion in the evening with lots and lots of vegetables, he managed to clean his plate too! 

Blueberry Buckle

I have to say that today is really not my day, I woke up this morning with stuffy nose and crushing headache, I guess a few nights with little sleep to care for a sick baby finally takes its toll. So I cancelled my morning walk and lie down with Baby A, he was surprisingly cooperative today so we both got like 2 more hours of eye shut before sending him to the daycare. 

Woke up feeling much better and baby A away in the daycare. I thought I will blog about this beautiful pastry that I made over the weekend for a get together at our friend's. So here I spent about an hour typing and composing the post and god know what get into me, I cluosed the page without saving the work!

Pudina Dal（Mint lentils Soup) 薄荷豆子汤

I have a pot of mint at my front yard, I must have planted it when we moved into this house in 2008. It went dead the first year during the winter. So I thought that it was gone for good like many of my plants. 

To my surprise, it show up again the next spring, flourish as ever and never failed to showed up ever since.

So if you follow my blog closely, you will see that every summer I have to find ways to make use of my mints. Here is another one for this summer, mint lentil soup/Pudina Dal.

I have to say that this dal is not quite the ordinary dal we used to have at home, it is very refreshing, nonetheless.

薄荷是夏日很好的一个食材，这道豆子汤带有薄荷清凉的口味，是高蛋白低脂肪的一道菜。

夏天院子里的薄荷疯长的时候，可以这做这个汤试试！

Chocolate Coated Strawberries

We were invited to a pool party last weekend. The host made it clear that we need not bring any food but dessert is welcome. So I made this beautiful chocolate coated strawberries that I had so much fun making and the kids had so much fun eating!

Baby Cereal Pancake

I have been giving Baby Arjun solids since he was 6 months old, he loves whatever I gave him so far. With 8 teeth and few more on their way, he has been chewing pretty well when I let him tried our food. I had mean to make his finger foods as much as possible at home.

So here is one of them, homemade baby cereal pancake...