I haven't been writing in a long time. But I tried making nasi tomato or tomato rice yesterday and wanna write d recipe down so I won't forget. My friends liked it. So here it goes:

Recipe for tomato rice, chicken in spicy tomato sauce (ayam masak merah) & vegetable (acar)

Tomato Rice

2 cups of brasmathi rice

2 cups of water

2 tablespoons of butter

2 cloves of garlic

1 shallot

1 inch of ginger

1 cube of chicken stock

1 cinnamon stick (kayu manis)

1 star anise (bunga lawang)

2 cloves (bunga cengkih)

2 cardamom (pelaga)

3 tablespoons of tomato puree

Steps:

1. Switch your rice cooker to 'on' and once hot, put in 2 tablespoons of butter. U can use ghee or margarine (personal preference)

2. Throw in shallots and garlic with the 4 spices

3. Leave to simmer for a minute or two

4. Put in a cube of chicken stock

5. Put in 3 tablespoons of tomato puree

6. Stir

7. Put in 2 cups of rice with 2 cups of water

8. Stir and leave it to cook like how you would do for plain rice

Chicken in Spicy Tomato Sauce (1 whole chicken)

1. 400 g of tomato puree

2. 3 tablespoons of chili powder (dilute with a little water)

3. 2 bulbs of garlic

4. 4 shallots

5. 1 inch of ginger

6. 2 sticks of lemongrass

7. 1 cinnamon stick

8. 3 star anise

9. 3 cloves

10. 4 cardamom

11. 4/5 tablespoons of cooking oil

12. 1 cup of water

13. some sugar and salt to taste 

14. some tomatoes (if preferred)

15. 3 tablespoons of tumeric powder

Steps:

1. Marinate chicken for half and hour or more with turmeric and salt

2. Fry chicken (3/4 done)

3. Prepare separate pan with heated oil (preferably taken from leftover oil from the fried chicken)

4. Throw in garlic, shallots and ginger

5. Simmer till fragrant

6. Throw in spices

7. Put in chili paste and stir for about 5 minutes until chili is cooked

8. Put in 400 g of tomato puree and stir for a few minutes till boil

9. Put in chicken that was fried earlier

10. Stir until chicken is covered with spicy tomato paste

11. Cook for about 15 minutes

12. Put in salt and sugar to taste

Vegetable (acar)

1. 4 cucumber (sliced thin)

2. half packet of baby carrots (sliced thin)

3. 1 large onion (sliced)

4. 2 cloves of garlic (pounded)

4. 1/2 tablespoon of turmeric powder 

5. 4 tea spoons of vinegar

6. 1/2 tablespoon of red chili paste

7. Salt to taste

8. Sugar to taste

9. 1 cup of water

Steps:

1. Leave sliced cucumber and carrots in salted water for about 15 minutes

2. Remove water 

3. Heat pan with 2 tablespoon of cooking oil

3. Throw in garlic and let simmer

4. Add turmeric powder and chili paste 

5. Stir for 2-3 minutes

6. Put in cucumber and carrots

7. Add 1 cup of water

8. Add vinegar, sugar and salt

9. Leave to boil

10. Vegetable is ready

Try my recipe and tell me how you like it! Enjoy!

Malaysia!

I thought I was gonna start writing again, (referring to my previous post), but I didn't.

I could have found the time, but the mood to blog hasn't really kicked in yet :p

Anyway, I'm back in KL!!

Touched down in KUL on Monday nite. Emirates was my airline of choice this time. Route I took was JFK-DBX-KUL since the flight's layover is the shortest - 2 1/2 hours since I travelled alone. Hubby is busy with work and can't follow me home plus PM and our Agong is in NYC, and he needs to be around.

Right now it's 6:10 a.m. I've been awake since 4 a.m. Still not adjusted to Malaysia time zone. urgh. I'm hungry at odd times and my sleep pattern is still haywire. I'm super hungry now.

So far since I got here, I had lontong, nasi with lauk-lauk Melayu, roti canai, maggi goreng, duku langsat.. Next on list: mee goreng mamak. Can I have that for breakfast today? Hungryyy.

2 months hiatus!

It's been quite long since I last blogged.

I think since I last wrote:

1. Hubby and I made a business/leisure trip to Boston, went up to Maine to have big, fat, fresh lobsters and made a few more trips to NYC....

2. I spent a whole 10 days with my bestie in Chicago while hubby flew back to Malaysia & HK for business...

3. Got a birthday surprise from hubby - a dinner cruise on Odyssey...

4. Celebrated 4th of July watching fireworks in D.C (which was also my birthday weekend!)

5. Moved to a new apartment - on the 26th floor with a view of D.C...

6. Did I miss anything? Maybe I did, 2 months is a long time!

Cheesecake & Movies

Here I am eating a piece of cheesecake, waiting for hubby to come home.

The Brazil vs. North Korea much was disappointing. Although it was a 2-1 game, I still think Brazil could have played better. Hoping for a better match against Ivory Coast.

I was chatting with my friend just now, and we're thinking about another movie date sometime next week. We watched Sex & the City 2 together and another chick flick is always tempting. Always better to watch with the laydees. No offence to hubby dearest, you're still my favorite movie date ;)

Should I have Haagen Dazs Java Chip ice cream now?

Oh no, I'm eating too much!

Sun & Sea

I've been meaning to write, but always end up not writing because of my l.a.z.i.n.e.s.s.

But anyhow, here I am writing because it's 8:50 p.m. and hubby's on a conference call with Malaysia.

Last weekend was Memorial Weekend here, so we spent it in Ocean City Maryland. Beach weekend was great as the weather was warm and just perfect for it. We also took a drive up to Rehoboth Beach in Delaware, about half an hour away. 2 beaches in one weekend = purrfect.

One thing about the state of Delaware is that there is no sales tax! A good reason to do more shopping! So we headed to Tanger Outlet and spent a few hours there and came back with a few shopping bags including a new pair of bikini for me. heh

And the other thing about the sea that you can't offered to miss is..... seafood! And the most popular here are crabs! So that's what we did. We had crabs and calamari twice during the 2 nights we were there.

This is where we had our lunch, before we left for D.C. Yum!

Ocean City would definitely be a place we would go again this summer.

This Might Interest You!

I have new COACH items for sale, managed to get good deals during the recent Mother's Day sale :) (bags are all in KL now)..

Email me at sshoporama@gmail.com for any inquiries!

'Frisco

As my hubby and I are currently residing in the east coast, I presumed that the weather was gonna be a lil warmer, and I packed some light clothing with the aim to enjoy a lil bit of the sun. It was about 10 deg. Celsius in D.C. at that time. (Although hubby has checked the forecast beforehand and said the weather was gonna be chilly, but there I was hoping for it to not be :p) But of course, we went prepared.

But it was just about the same. The flight took us about 5 1/2 hours to reach one of the big cities in California. Picked up our rental car, and we were on our way. The 2 things I wanted to revisit was definitely the Golden Gate and Fisherman's Wharf; and we did.

Pier 39 - one of the tourist attractions here. a must go.

We had lunch at a seafood restaurant overlooking the marina. Beautiful.

Golden Gate

Alcatraz.

The sea lions port on Pier 39.

Street performance

Good seafood can be found here.

Cafes along the road....

Here's a short video of the sea lions - we took a 60 min cruise around San Francisco. They took us around Alcatraz, Golden Gate and Bay Bridge (the sister bridge of Golden Gate) Oh how glad I had my jacket with me, it was freezing!

Ohh.. one other thing about the west coast, it's only a 18-hour flight back to Malaysia :p

I had fun in San Francisco!

The City that Never Sleeps

I know I haven't been updating much. Been busy! This domestic goddess is busy learning how to run the house!

I am now learning the ropes on how to be a wife - the cooking, the cleaning, the decorating... and it's also my first time operating machines - the washing machine, blender, oven etc (oops, not proud of it, but that's d reality, i've always had my bibik a.k.a maid to do all d stuff and my darling mom is always around)

And yes, I'm learning how to cook too! I do it at least 3 times a week :) Simple stuff, really.

Anyway, the past April, we've been traveling quite a bit. We were in San Francisco, CA and was in NYC twice. Nobody can have too much of New York :) And of course, we drove up to Woodbury Commons when we were in NY (on both trips, of course), coz it's the BEST place to shop!!

At Times Square, Manhattan

@ HRC New York

At our apartment, just a few blocks from 5th Ave :)

5th Ave - I took a walk when hubby had to attend a conference that day, just 10 mins and I'm at the shopping haven!

My trip to 'Frisco will be in my next post!

Vanilla Frapp

My favorite drink for now is THIS.

I'm no coffee addict, but this one is really good.

I need a coffee fix.

Cherry Blossoms Everywhere

The Cherry Blossom Festival is gathered by many from all over the country. And this year, I get to attend this too! There were over hundreds species of cherry blossoms or the 'sakura', and there were probably 3000 over trees around the Tidal Basin.

Simply beautiful. Most of them were in the softest shade of pink. You can find white ones too.

The time we went the flowers are almost in full bloom and by now the trees should already be all green. There were lots of people and the weather was purrfect!

The next time anyone plans to come to DC, plan it around the end of March to first week of April so u get to catch this event!

I'm craving for them!

Before we leave the country for the States, my beautiful friends treated us to two dinners.. at Opus in Bangsar and then at Fatty Crab, Taman Megah. I was just transferring the pics from my camera to my MacBook.. and I was just thinking to myself how good these crabs are. Goodness. How I wish I can have some NOW!

Thanks guys for the wonderful treat. Anyone knows Fatty Crab's secret recipe? haha Don't we all wish we had it!

I've been cooking just a bit since we got here. Nothing too complicated tho. I'm a newbie remember? Sometimes I just use the packet stuff a.k.a Brahims :p

I made bolognese today. Quite good if you ask me... I used Prego :)

Hubby's coming home soon.

Later!

It's 8pm on a Wet Thursday Nite

It's only 8, but I'm already sleepy.

It must be the weather. It hasn't rained since I got here, and tonight it looks like its gonna be a chilly and windy night. It's about 13 degrees celsius outside, but it's d wind chill that makes it extra chilly.

I decided to shut the window because the wind was pretty strong and right now I'm under the covers planning to watch Entourage. I've watched 4 episodes of Season 1 earlier today. The show's alright, but nothing great. My current favorite that tops my list is still Gossip Girl. heh

Wait, The House Bunny is on Encore. I think I'll watch this instead :p