Pork Stew

About a month ago, the family (3 of us, husband, youngest daughter and yours truly) spent 5 days in Krabi.  We loved it there.  It was relaxing, lazy, lazy and lazy! 

Where we stayed, at Aaonang there was a great German open air cafe two minutes away.  The owner is a German and calls himself Andy.  The Thai food is scrumptious and the German food was dirt cheap and delicious.

I loved the porky dishes which he served and one evening I daringly asked Andy what he put in his pork stew.  He was very accommodating and  rattled the ingredients for me.

Yesterday I tried it out from memory.  I plucked a whole lot of herbs from my garden again.  There was parsley, sage, terragon, cekur, basil and thyme.  The recipe simply calls for pork, chopped onions, mushrooms, carrots, garlic, tomatoes and a can of chopped tomatoes.

I seared the pork in my amazingly great-to-use Green Pan.

 

Then I cooked down the onions and button mushrooms.

 

Then I tossed the herbs and tomatoes together.

Added the carrots and garlic too.

 

Poured a can of chopped tomatoes and about a cup of stock.

 Allowed it to simmer for one hour on low fire.

 

Added some freshly ground black pepper and salt to taste. 

I think it tasted very close to Andy's recipe. 

I shall add some red wine next time!

Gaden update

I've been busy in the garden trying to keep my herbs alive! Actually it's not difficult but they do need some attention.

Look at my Basil here below. I keep trimming and cropping it for my cooking and it's growing, but not as fast as I want it to.


Trying to plant some parsley here.

The mint are in full bloom. I probably need to trim them soon.


Ahhh....this one is really good for steam fish, Lui Cha and Thai tom yum. I think it's called sawtooth coriander.

I saw this tree fruiting. Hubs got this from a friend who wanted to dispose it. Honestly, I don't know how to pickle them.

My lime tree is blooming again. *happiness*. Fortunately there is more than one! LOL!!


This is a newly acquired miniature lemon tree. Can't wait for it to turn yellow!

These bell pepper seeds were planted two weeks ago and has begun sprouting. I hope they survive to begin fruiting!


My chilli padi plant is forever producing an abundance of very, very spicy hot chillies.


This Sage plant is hardly thriving well enough to allow regular trimming for use.


I just re-potted Thyme and there has been some damage. I think they'll survive.

My 'sawi' veggies growing.

My tomato plants have doubled their heights since the last update.

I've begun feeding my compost bin.



My compost bin.
Pictures 'speak' a thousand words!

Hari Raya Holidays

Malaysia, being multi-racial and multi-cultural has once again provided opportunities for families to spend time together. I love living in this country despite of all the underlining 'issues' (many too, at that!).

Hari Raya is wonderfully welcome because schools get the longest break. A whole week to celebrate this festival, adding the weekends, they total up to 10 days.

Last night after dinner, #2 promised to make breakfast for us this morning. Pancakes were the call for this morning. They were freshly made and I made the 'accompaniments'. Instead of Maple syrup and butter, we had a variety of, whipped cream, lemon curd and a combination of onions and canned mushrooms cooked in Italian herbs and cream.


A closer look at this deliciously savory combination. #1 exclaimed that it was "delicious"!


This is a sweet combination of whipped cream and lemon curd.

Breakfast was at the terrace where my vegetable seeds has begun to sprout. These are tomatoes in the making!


My "kunyit" (tumeric) and spring onions are already growing and so is the "sawi" or was it "siew pak choy"? Anyway, there's going to be more updates soon on my other herbs. My little pots of herbs are growing and keeping me very busy.

*happy!*

Bento 193

I made Ratatouille last night. I've only had this dish once and I liked it. The recipe in the "Cooks Bible" which I bought for #2 looked easy. I had all the ingredients and I started cooking after dinner.

All the vegetables were basically 'hard' vegetables and had to be cut into bite sizes. The brinjal or aubergines went under the knife first because it had to be sprinkled with salt and left aside for a while to allow it to soften.



Part of the time was spent cooking down the onions, garlic, aubergines and pepper, the rest of the vegetables, thyme and tomatoes were added halfway through. In total, preparation and cooking time, I took about one hour.

This was the result.


The Ratatouille was further flavored with salt and pepper. It's really got a wide mix of flavors and textures. The courgettes added a crunch to the Ratatouille, the peppers and celery gave it a pungent flavor, the aubergines were smoothly soft and the tomatoes added a tinge of sweet and sour taste. Quite a mouth full really.

The whole pot went into the fridge last night. I made Couscous to eat with the Ratatouille and it tasted so good. I know in Malaysia, many people don't know what Couscous is because our staple is rice and there's really no need for an alternative.

I think Couscous and Ratatouille is a perfect match for each other. One bland, and the other bursting with a wide mix of flavors! This was my lunch!

Some seedless grapes and a silicon cup of strawberry yogurt and a box of Couscous topped with Ratatouille.


Normally, I wouldn't pack yogurt with bentos to go but I ate this at home as soon as I packed it so it was still cool.

Bento 191

My "Nasi Ulam" is a hot favorite with #2. She loves it, so I packed it for her again today for school. She had a couple of mouth full for breakfast!

Anyone who know my daughter, knows that she doesn't like rice. She's selective at eating rice, sushi, onigiri and nasi ulam is fine. "No plain white rice please" is her standing order.

Perhaps I shall try brown rice? *idea*

The left box has some mini bok choi blanched in hot water and topped with some garlic oil and shoyu. There are three pieces of lychee from the can.



The right box contains the awesome nasi ulam packed with herbs, fish and dried prawns. There are four half's of some simmered shitake mushrooms from my freezer stash. Took me less than 10 minutes! Yahoo!!!

Bento 185

Hubs bought a bag of 'lala clams' for miso soup on his last trip to the fish monger. I kept it in the freezer until last night when I decided to use it to make Spaghetti with Clams.

De-shelling them was a little 'nightmare'. I had to first boil them in water with ginger and spring onions to rid the 'fishy' smell. Then, I had to remove the clams from the shell. After all that, I had to wash out the sediments and broken bits of the shell. Finally I put the clams back into salted boiling water for a final round of cooking.

The preparation process for this recipe is quite simple actually. I just tossed some chopped garlic in olive oil and salt, added the clams and turn off the fire. Added some chopped Italian parsley, cooked spaghetti, pepper and salt, gave it a good mix and viola, it's done!

I prepared this last night so there was no hassle this morning. I only had to skin the Kiwi and chop up the vegetables. I am now using Yogurt to replace half the usual amount of dressing which I normally use.

This morning, I used half sesame seed dressing and half Yogurt. The dressing was mildly flavored with sesame seed and had a tangy taste to it. It was a good mix of flavors.