What's Growing in the Garden?

Tuesday, January 5th, 2010

Happy New Year, everyone! May this year brings you an abundance of joy, good health and good fortune.

This is my first post for the year and many more to come!

It's 2nd day of school today and the children are settling down as the year starts all over again. Tomorrow is going to be my 1st day at the office as well. Dread to think about it! Sigh! I'm not as lucky as my two other sisters who can laze around the house and do whatever they like. Hey, sis, I'm envious of you - you can grin even wider now!

Anyway, when we went to pick up my daughter from the kindy this morning, we made a wonderful discovery. One of the houses in the neighborhood has this wonderful fruit/vegetable tree right in front of his house and he uses it to shade his metal swing. What a great idea as the 'tree' actually provides shade and bears fruit/vegetable for his consumption. Googled up for the name of the fruit/vege tree and I came as close to it as possible. It's called Bottle Gourd (correct me if I'm wrong but I think it is bottle gourd. That's what the internet says anyway).

This is the picture that I took this morning. From afar, the little gourd looks like green apples hanging from it's stem. That's what caught our eyes. We thought someone had tied plastic apples on the tree to give visitors the illusion of an apple tree but when we got closer, we discovered that they were actually fruit/vege tree. When the fruit matures, it grows into a big oblong fruit.




Wonderful right? Wish my grapevine will bear fruit soon too! Still waiting for it to happen.

Ok, here are some of the nyonya kuih, brownies and chicken rendang that I made over the last few days. Have a look and salivate! Haa haa haa..















Nyonya Pulut Seri Kaya


Marbled Cheese Brownies

For the cheesecake mixture

1 egg

225g/8oz/1cup full-fat cream cheese

50g/2oz/1/4 cup caster sugar

5ml/1tsp vanilla essence

For the brownie

115g/4oz dark (bittersweet) chocolate (min. 70% cocoa solids)

115g/4oz/1/2 cup unsalted (sweet) butter

150g/5oz/3/4 cup light muscovado (brown) sugar

2 eggs, beaten

50g/2oz/1/2 cup plain (all-purpose) flour

1. Preheat oven to 160C/325F. Line base and sides of 8in cake tin with baking parchment.

2. To make the cheesecake mixture, beat the egg in a mixing bowl, then add the cream cheese, caster sugar and vanilla essence. Beat together until smooth and creamy.

3. To make the brownie, melt the chocolate and butter. when mixture is melted, remove from heat, stir well, then add sugar. Add the eggs and beat well. Gently stir in the flour.

4. Spread two-thirds of the brownie over the base of tin, spread the cheesecake mixture on top. Then spoon the remaining brownie mixture in heaps. Using a skewer, swirl the mixture together.

5. Bake for 30-35 mins or until set. Leave to cool in tin.

Chicken Rendang

Onion, Garlic, Tumeric, Galangal, Lemon Grass, Red Chillies, Candlenut and Ginger. Pound into a paste.

1 Grated coconut (1/2 for kerisik, 1/2 for thick coconut milk)

For kerisik: Fry the grated coconut till lightly brown. Once cool, pound and set aside.

Fry pounded paste till fragrant and oil separates. Add in chicken and fry for a minute or two. Add in thick coconut milk. Add salt to taste and tamarind slice. Once done, add in the pounded kerisik.

This goes well with rice or rice cubes (pic below).