World Peace Cookies

My first Valrhona bake of course had to involve a Pierre Hermes recipe.

I made these some time back as a gift for one of H’s friends.

For those who needs a dose of world peace on a Monday morning.

I’ve had a terrible week and a really rough Monday. My grandma broke her hip and had her operation cancelled as her oxygen levels had dropped and then she developed an acute gastric bleed and is in high dependency. Things don’t seem good and her dementia has made her delirious and confused. I’m still doing work while attending to her in between my own patients, inserting her lines as she keeps pulling them out. I’m feeling a little worn around the edges so I’ll probably take a break from this blog till things sort out.

 

A sneak..

Music

Gifts

Food

Sweets..

 

All girls, a belly dancer and a wedding coming up..

 

Any guesses?

Vanilla Sky

I commented to H that some parts of the sky if it were a watercolour painting would be painted using a dry brush technique. See the horizontal strokes at the middle top. The lower part would definitely be wet on wet with a graduation of colours. Sometimes I think of all the things I miss and did, painting, scrapping, making homemade and handmade gifts. When I made Mel a card in the car (don’t ask) I thought of where all the time went and how we have such little time for little pleasures.

If there’s one thing I really appreciate and use, it would be my oven toaster. I use it all the time, for toast, to heat up cake or pastry and lately to toast small quantities of nuts when I feel like some.

This is a teensy cup, though the perspective makes it look large.

The spoon is a small teaspoon, I think indulgence should be in small quantities, don’t you think so?

I think Ben&Jerry’s vanilla ice cream with vanilla beans is really yummy. The other ice cream which I’ve been hunting for is Haagen Daaz melon ice cream. Its orange and tastes of pure cantaloupe.

About potatoes and salad

One of my favourite shows on the Asian Food Channel is Chef at Home. Besides that, I’m totally addicted to the River Cottage series.  Chef Micheal Smith gives lots of recipe ideas and infinite possibilities of twists and variations to a recipe. He recently made a potato salad with smoked salmon and talked about how you can make variations of a potato salad by using different potatoes, different dressings, different herbs and different add ons to a salad.

I had a really good potato salad recently and I was intrigued at the combination of potatoes in the salad. It had waxy local potatoes, red skinned potatoes and Russet. There was a combination of textures, creamy from the russet, whole and starchy waxy potatoes and the red potato was slightly crunchy.Last weekend it was my turn to cook for the family so I kept it simple with tenderloin steaks, steamed corn and a potato salad.

For this variation, I stuck to the classic combination of eggs and potato, using russet and waxy potatoes. I added finely diced celery for crunch and green onion for some bite. In the dressing, I used a combination of sour cream and mayonaise in equal proportions with freshly grated black pepper and salt. To make your salad extra tasty, here are some tips:

-season at every stage, season your water well while boiling the potatoes and season the dressing, then season the final salad if need be

-beat the eggs with the dressing first to dissolve the yolk in the dressing and gives it a richness from the yolks rather than chunks of yolk in the salad

-dress the salad while the potatoes are still hot, this causes it to absorb the dressing better

-potatoes are really tasty with their skins on, but this depends on the potato. Red skinned potatoes are fine, the “washed” potatoes from Cold storage are good with the skins on too. I tend to peel my Russets as they have a thicker skin.

-cut the potatoes in large chunks, larger than you’ll like them because they break up slightly during the dressing process

-think texture in your salad, different textures from different potatoes, the slight crunch of shallots or celery, the springiness of the egg whites, the creaminess of the yolks

You can find a basic recipe in a post I wrote last year and make it your way, potato salad is very very forgiving.

This weekend

Was perfect. Lunch at Mel’s (take it easy, you’re working too hard, Mel!!), dinner at grandma’s with the salad above, breakfast on a Sunday, a long nap then lunch at home in between the rains that came and went.

 

More to come.

More from last weekend

This is what it means by bake till a crust forms

Deceptively neat squares that don’t really separate that well becuase though the edges were set, the middle was incredibly fudgey! Which are fine if you like fudgey brownies. I think the cause of the uneven making is that my oven can’t be set at 175C which is the set temperature. I baked these at 180C. Watch them well cos overbaking will give you a super dry brownie.

 Notice the different textures, the brownie in the second row and to the right was from the edge so it baked up almost cake like while the middle brownies were noticeably fudgier. Since the recipe is right over her in Laureen’s blog, I shall not retype it. The only changes I made to the recipe was halving the sugar and using all bittersweet chocolate. I used Phoon Huat’s dark couveture because I’ll can’t afford to bake with Valrhona yet. Its a little wasteful I think, I’m saving it for truffles! Hopefully this weekend.. My dad’s coming back from the Middle East soon so I can’t wait for the pistachios and walnuts and dates.

The last of daylight on my now dead orchids. They lasted a good 3 weeks, outliving their cut flower counterparts by a good 2 weeks!

I’ll give you this look too,

If you glugged my Thai chilli sauce out of the bottle causing an avalanche over my vegetable spring rolls (thanks Mama!) H made the exact same mistake. Now why does Thai chilli sauce come in such a wide necked bottle and refuse to come out with a gentle shake then decide to totally empty on a harder shake?

Seth was in a sleepy mood.

Yawny browny

 

I love my cheap lens.

This is how I feel tonight. Its a 9 pm fall asleep kind of night.

 

Seth in the middle of a yawn.

This weekend

The weekend was spent:

Baking brownies

Finding out that cutting fudgy brownies isn’t exactly my forte

Pressing hazelnuts onto the surface of the brownie batter so each cut square would get one

Owning my first plants

Hosting the Last Official Housewarming Party

Eating lots of laksa

Getting the house cleaned (notice it wasn’t “cleaning the house”)

Rolling chapati for the leftover keema from the house party

Looking at a yawning baby

 

Pictures and recipe to come..

Preweekend on my balcony

Yes, we do! Erm, a predinner snack just in time to catch the sunset on the balcony. Truffle chocolate cake from cedele, a bakery I always enter and wish so hard I have more time to spend in the kitchen baking! Its so inspiring, I just feel like whipping up scones and almond slices each time I step in. I love their almond sugee slice, buttery almond goodness on a tart base that’s to die for. The Frankel Avenue branch is a little secret I share with my mom, we sneak off for a cup of coffee whenever I have an afternoon off. Its along a row of shophouses and mostly filled with stay at home moms and their girlfriends in the late afternoon. Its a little disppointing they close at 6pm.

The one thing I can’t get used to is the noise of traffic. I found it so stressful initially and really enjoyed going back to our parents and the in laws for some respite. But I’ve kind of gotten used to it, and the later it gets the louder the sound of the insects from the field in front and thankfully the traffic slowly diminishes..

Thanks Alia for dips which were wiped out pretty quickly with doritos. Now someone should bring this in to Singapore.

 

This weekend will be spent having the last official house party. The next event planned in the house would be Mel’s Hen’s PArty, I can’t wait!

Today I discovered

Bath sheets:

The largest bath towels available are called bath sheets. These over-sized towels can be 6 feet in length or more. Many bathers find a bath sheet to be preferable to the standard bath towels offered in hotels or guest rooms. Standard towels can become saturated with water quickly, but a bath sheet has much more surface area for absorption. Bath sheets can also be used as emergency wraps for modesty. Not all bath towel sets offer these over-sized bath sheets, but many find them to be worthwhile investments.

 

And they’re HUGE, almost touching my ankles. I couldn’t help laughing when I used them for the first time. They make me feel more midgety than usual.

 

We got ours from Aussino on sale for S$16. I think it contributes to a good shower experience coupled with our rain shower (H’s idea, I wasn’t for it as it isn’t very environmentally friendly.. Has a high water pressure and its difficult to regulate. But it is relaxing I must say)

 

Photo courtesy of thirstytowels.com