The garden in the wet Spring season

Spring has officially arrived in OZ since First of September hari tu.

But biasalah kan, Spring and Autumn ni memang very unpredictable seasons.

Dah masuk 20 hari in September, cuma beberapa hari aje yang rasa macam Spring weather.

The rest of the time, macam Winter because it’s been raining every day so memang sejuk lah pagi2 and malam.

All my Spring and Summer flower seedlings pun macam nak tak nak aje membesar sebab tak cukup sunlight and warmth.

And the rose buds pun tak begitu cantik berkembang sebab asik kena hujan aje hari2.

But the lawn is happy sebab hari2 dapat minum.

Kalau tunggu tuannya siram, alamat lah sampai haus sgt2 baru bagi minum!

hehehehe.

Dah tinggi2 my rose bushes selepas di pruned 2 bulan lepas.

Dah banyak bunga tumbuh.

Another view of the garden.

Two of the roses yang dah terbuka sikit.

And another type of strawflowers that I bought a week ago.

A purple plant this time.

Hopefully it’ll survive cos I’ve planted it on the ground instead of in a pot.

And the lavender right infront of our front door.

And one of the bees yang suka noh hurung dia.

And dapatlah 4 kuntum roses untuk diletak dlm vase.

Kena beli a vase mulut kecik so cantik lah sikit klu letak 3-4 kuntum aje.

Malam semalam I teringin sangat nak makan mee rebus/mee jawa.

Pergi kedai, tak jumpa paste mee rebus ni.

Yang banyak berlambak2 paste mee udang.

I beli jugak pes mee udang tu sebab I tengok the basic ingredients lebih kurang sama cuma mee jawa ada a few other additional ingredients lah.

So balik tu, I rebus daging.

Then I added air rebusan daging to the paste.

I also added mashed sweet potatoes, pes asam jawa, gula and the daging rebus.

it turned out really good actually! Tak lah terasa sangat udang kering tu. I tak suka sangat udang kering kalau banyak sangat2.

Dapatlah jugak hilang rindu dendam I kat mee jawa ni, hehehe.

But seperti biasa, the rest tak makan mee jawa ni.

I made them enchiladas instead.

Kenapa I buat banyak2?

Sebab They could have it for lunch today.

So, everyone was happy sebab dapat makan their favourite food .

‘Restaurant’ food

I’m quite amazed at the reaction my previous post has generated from the readers of this blog.

Thank you so much from the bottom of my heart for all the encouragements, the warm loving thoughts and for the flatteries about my cooking abilities, hehehe.

It did get me down at first because I feel like they look down on us because they think we don’t have enough money to go out every so often and maybe they think we are cheapskates and scrooges for not wanting to spend money eating out.

She did say she kesian dengan I cos I have to cook every single night without any break, sure penat…

Like The Other Half said, “we have the money but we’d rather spend it on something else”. .

And no, this friend doesn’t read my blog and doesn’t even know the name of this blog.

And since we don’t entertain much, dia tak lah pernah kena jemput datang dinner to our house to see what kind of dinners I serve my family.

Setakat open house masa raya and the occasional makan2 get together aje lah dia dapat merasa my air tangan .

Dekat Perth ni banyak restoran halal sebab ramai Muslims but mostly asian restaurants and middle eastern lah or seafood.

So, my friend yang sorang yang akan eat out every weekend ni slalunya eat out at the asian restaurants or the middle eastern or eat seafood lah.

For me, kalau kat asian restaurants ni, sometimes, baiklah I masak sendiri kat rumah aje, hehehehe…

And sometimes I rasa the food yang I cook pun dah ala2 restoran (sape lagi nak puji my cooking kalau bukan ny family and I kan, hahahaha) so tu yang buat The Other Half and I rasa lagi malas nak makan kat luar and waste money kat luar.

Baik I beli the nicest ingredients and cook them myself.

Like last night, this was what I cooked.

See, tak makan kat luar pun we all dinner ala2 restaurant food kan.

I marinated the lamb racks in olive oil, rosemary, lemon slices, honey, mustard and salt.

After searing the lambk racks in a hot pan, I transferred the racks into the baking tray.

Laying them on top of a bed of roasted sweet potatoes and potatoes.

Bake them in a medium hot oven until cook to your liking.

I baked it for 30 mins and it was just perfect. Still pink and tender but not baaa-ing.

We had it with gravy and the roast potatoes and veges.

Everyone devoured everything on their plates.

Lepas tu The Other Half said, “See! that’s why I don’t want to go out because I know you can cook it as well at home.”

Should I be pitied?

The other day someone asked me, “you guys don’t go out often do you? because I’ve never seen or heard you said you went to eat at this place or that place.”

Lerrr…… I had no idea that everytime we go out to eat, we have to put it up on facebook or tell people about it!

.

So I told her that we all memang jarang makan kat luar and I can’t remember the last time we went for a sit-in dining at a restaurant.

(tapau and foodcourt not counted ok).

And then she asked, “so you cook every night?”

I said, “Yup, you can say that.”

Then she said, “I can’t do that. I can’t cook every night cos I’ll go crazy. I have to eat out every weekend.”

Then someone chimes in, “she even makes her own pizza!” with a ‘I can’t believe it anyone does that anymore’ tone of voice.

Then she gave me  this ‘I really pity you’ look.

Nasib baik I tak bagitau diaorang yang I bought a 25kg bag of flour and I make pizza once a week!

Mau pengsan kot diaorang dengar!

I told The Other Half about it and he said, “but everytime we go out you will always end up saying what a waste of money because you can cook it as well at home.”

Memang betul apa The Other Half cakap tu because I will always end up saying that, hehehehe.

Tak pernah lah pulak The Other Half and the girls menangis tengah2 malam sebab kelaparan tak cukup makan and tak pernah lah pulak diaorang menjejes2 air liur bila lalu depan restaurants sebab tersangat lah mengidam nya nak makan the restaurant food!

Memang lah ada banyak food yang I tak pernah masak and would love to eat but most of them susah nak cari yang halal kat sini.

That’s why I would rather buy the ingredients and try to make it myself.

Memang lah it’s nice to eat out everytime because you dont have to worry about cooking, cleaning and washing the dishes.

But we would rather spend the money on something else.

This doesn’t mean that we don’t eat out at all and we refuse to eat out.

We still do tapi mostly just foodcourt or takeaway stuff.

I know we go out very rarely but I don’t think we suffer greatly from that!

We still eat good food and I still cook a variety of dishes most days.

Like this quiche ‘lorraine’.

The real quiche lorraine has ham or bacon in it so I sub mine with beef silverside.

And I bukan masak Western dishes aje, I masak jugak Asian dish.

Ada jugak rupa lauk kat restoran kan .

And I bukan saje buat pizza sendiri, i sometimes even make my own bread!

And so far most of what I cooked and baked have been devoured by The Other Half and the girls without any complaints.

I think I’m a pretty good cook, good enough to satisfy my family’s tastebuds.

Isn’t that a good enough reason to have home cooked meals every night then?

Bread days

When you’ve bought a 25kg sack of bread flour, you have to use it at least once a week kan.

Or else terperam lama2, sampai tahun depan tak habis!

But I memang every week akan guna tepung roti pun untuk buat our weekly pizza.

Dah lama jugak kan I tak tayang pizza kat sini.

I guess sebab I dah jemu jelak makan pizza ni sebab tiap2 minggu kena buat!

Orang lain kat rumah ni masih tak jemu2 lagi, heran betul I!

And usually, every Friday our menu will be pizza.

And kalau takde pizza, Miss 14 will go, “what happened to pizza night?”

So, semalam I pun buat lah pizza.

But this time I made something different.

I made pull apart pizza.

I used this recipe as the dough base and I followed her way of doing it.

Kiranya samalah macam nak buat cinnamon pull apart bread.

And ini bila dah dibakar.

For me personally, the bread tasted good but I know next time to use normal pizza dough as the base.

This dough is too rich and ‘heavy’ so rasa dia lain sikit lah dari pizza biasa.

And next time I will put a lot more cheese in between the layers!

And I also made normal pizza just in case yang ini tak sedap, hehehe

I made mozzarella-stuffed crust pizza.

And rupa selepas dibakar.

Semalam dah buat pizza, hari ni pulak I buat roti burger.

Sebab The Other Half kata dia nak makan steak sandwich and dia nak makan dengan roti yang homemade.

(mentang2 lah bini dia yang kena buat roti homemade tu, tu yg senang aje dia nak tiba2 mengidam. Cuba dia yang kena buat sendiri, mau kot tahun depan baru ngidam nak makan kan! hahahahaha).

So, I made burger buns using this recipe. Banyak recipe burger buns you can find on the net, pilih aje mana yg berkenan di hati kan .

Sebelum masuk oven.

Fresh out of the oven.

 

Our steak sandwich dinner with aioli, sauteed onion, chips and salad.

aioli yg I buat ni aioli orang malas and not the pure version. I just roast some garlic and mash it and then mix it into sour cream+mayo. Then add a bit of salt to taste.

So, esok I nak buat roti apa pulak ye?

hehehehehe…..