homemade pizza

Last week, I was feeling extra hardworking that I wanted to make my own pizza. I bought the ingredients the day before so I could have homemade pizza for dinner on Friday. I bought a Betty Crocker pizza crust mix, not the frozen, ready-made ones. All you have to do is add 1/4 cup of warm water to the mix and mix together and let it sit for about 5 minutes. The toppings on my pizza was simple. I put some tomato puree, chicken hotdogs, mozzarella cheese and cold chicken lyoner. I used Gourmessa brand. This is the type of meat where you can make cold sandwiches with. Once the dough has rested, I spread it in a round baking tin before putting the toppings. I baked the pizza for about 15minutes.

 Before the pizza went into the oven.

 Pizza fresh from the oven. Just look at the cheese!! The house smelled so good when the pizza was baking.

The almost-finished pizza.

Taste-wise, it is not as great as Pizza Hut, I must admit. Maybe because of the minimal ingredients and I simply used tomato puree anyway and not some fancy schmancy tomato sauce. If I had Prego spaghetti sauce, I would have definitely used it but I didn't have any. As for the cheese, it was not as gooey and stringy as Pizza Hut's mozzarella cheese.So next time, maybe we'll just call Pizza Hut Delivery.

home made donuts

Towards the end of Ramadhan, my aunt hosted a berbuka puasa. Obviously I can't be going empty handed, right? A cake came to mind and I did bake a custard sponge cake which was very easy to follow and required very little ingredients. But unfortunately, I misread the oven temperature. It reads 90 degrees celcius but I mistakenly set the oven to 190 degrees celcius instead. So the top of my cake was burnt and the cake ended up 'bantat' because I kept opening and closing the oven door to check. The cake went straight to the dustbin. So sad. 

That didn't stop me. I opened my scrap book and searched for a recipe of something that I can make, something which I have all the ingredients in my kitchen. i stumbled upon a donut recipe which I kept years ago so I decided to give it a try. I have a packet of instant dry yeast in my kitchen along with other ingredients. I then started working on the dough. Working with yeast can be tricky because you want a fluffy donut and not a stiff and dense donut. AS i mixed the ingredients, I kept chanting, please make this work or else I'll have to resort to buying some kuih along the way.

After the dough was ready, I covered it with a cling wrap and waited patiently for it to rise. This will make or break the donuts. You know what they say about a wait kettle never boils? Same goes to a donut dough. 30 minutes feels like forever! I let it sit on the kitchen counter and kept myself busy. When I checked again, I was so thrilled to see that the dough has doubled the size, which is exactly what I wanted. Phew. So step 1 was a success. Step 2 was making the donuts, which proves to be very tricky because the dough keeps sticking to my hands. I thought that it doesn't 'jadi' because the recipe says it should be a clean dough and it shouldn't stick. I then put some flour on my hands before I shape them. My fear is that the donut will become hard. I've no picture of the shaped donuts because my hands were sticky. 

Transferring the shaped donuts into the frying pan is yet another tricky task. It stuck on my fingers again.Who would have thought that the donuts actually rise and spread even while frying? Luckily I didn't shape them into really big donuts or I'll end up with giant donuts. I find it easier to use a tong to pick up the donuts than using a ladle.

I ended up with quite a lot of donuts. I covered some of the donuts in caster sugar while some were covered in a mixture of caster sugar and cinnamon powder. When I pressed the donuts, they feel fluffy. I can't taste them because I was fasting so I just tawakal. I even gave a few pieces to the security guards at our condo (the one in the blue container). I hope they liked it.

As for my donuts, it was a hit at my aunt's house. Everybody loved it! They said it sure looks and tastes homemade all right. ;) I only get to taste half of it but I was so happy that it worked out well and everybody was happy. Yeay! Irene too loves donuts so I will make it again one day, Insyaallah.

July in a nutshell

I just realized that I did not write a single post in July. That shows how busy I was. Right. :P

Anyway I know we only have a few days left before Ramadhan bids goodbye but I believe it is not too late to wish everyone Salam Ramadhan & Selamat Berpuasa.

OK truth be told, I only went for terawih once (so far) at the mosque near my parents' house. At that time sis and sil stayed home so they helped look after Babycakes. I wore my pink telekung which my friend Sara gave me, which she bought in Jakarta. To my surprise, I was among the few ones wearing coloured telekung! There were probably 3-4 other people wearing coloured telekung but the rest were white. So it made me think, I saw all over the internet all kinds of telekung being sold from pink to green, colour blocking to denim. But at the end of the day, I think people still prefer white for their telekung.

On a different note, we have been breaking fast a lot at home and I would cook simple dishes. Thank God my husband is not a picky/fussy eater who wants gulai/kari/sambal at every meal. He's already happy with just chicken or vegetable soup and fried fish and omelet. Alhamdulillah. We do break fast outside too but not at the hotels because the prices were just ridiculous. We've been to Tropicana Golf & Country Club, Royal Lake Club, Kuala Lumpur Golf & Country Club (KLGCC) and Bukit Kiara Equestrian Club. We also went back to Ipoh to break fast with mil on the 2nd weekend of Ramadhan. And we had my grandfather's 100th birthday celebration and break fast at his house on 27 July 2013. I must say that the month of Ramadhan brings our family closer because we would all break fast together and when we are all at our own homes, we would whatsapp each other of what we are having for break fast. I only managed to take a packet of bubur lambuk near Masjid Wilayah on the 1st day of Ramadhan. The bubur lambuk is really nice.

Last weekend too, sis, mum and I went to get our hair done. It is our 'annual raya thing' to do where the three of us would go and have a nice hair pampering session at the salon. Babycakes too had her hair cut by the hairstylist. It was her first trip to the salon. The story behind it was, the previous week, my hands were itchy so I took the scissors and started cutting her fringe but I am a lawyer, not a hairstylist. Plus, it's not easy to get her to sit still (even though I cut her hair while she was eating roti canai). I ended up cutting her fringe a bit too short. Poor kid looks like Temenggung Jugah. If you don't know who Temenggung Jugah is, shame on you! I'm sure we learned a bit about him in history classes. Since I freaked out upon seeing how short I had cut Babycakes' fringe, I decided not to continue so her back hair was quite long she ended up like having a mullet. Oh my poor child. After her visit to the salon, she now looks like she's sporting a pixie cut. I must say that her hair is a bit too short to my liking but oh well, hair grows, right? Hopefully she'll have a nice hair come raya time.

I did travel outstation to Muar for work, once during Ramadhan. The drive to Muar in the morning wasn't that bad because I had a nice mug of kopi-o for sahur. I was fresh the whole time. But coming back from Muar, I went to Mahkota Parade for a while. I left Melaka at about 2pm because I don't want to get stuck in traffic by the time I reach KL. I eventually reached home at 4ish and I straightaway went to take a nap. 

As for shopping, thank God for the  convenience of online shopping. Only thing is, you must make sure that the size fits. In my case, I had to return an item I bought from thepoplook because the size was a bit too big for me. Too bad they deducted 5% for 'restocking fee'. I ordered the same thing again, only in different size and different colour. I still haven't bought my raya shoes yet and I am in dire need of a nice pair of court shoes. This weekend will be the 'last kopek' for shopping so let's go all out, full force, shall we?

Till my next post, Insyaallah. Bye for now!