jalapeno garlic tilapia

oh i just found a new recipe that i quite like. but i accidentally closed the website i 'stole' it from so i'm gonna write it quickly before i forget.

jalapeno garlic tilapia with pasta

ingredients:
pasta (i use spiral ones but you can use any kind, really) secukupnya, cook al dente
tilapia fillet (i bought mine frozen, looks something like this:)

to cook the tilapia :
mix 1/3 cup margarine, melted + 3 cloves garlic, chopped.
dip the tilapia in the margarine and then toss in flour (just regular flour). fry in 2 tbs olive oil for about 5 min, turning once. roughly until brown on each side.

i added some shrimps too, cooked the same way.

spinach leaves (de-stemmed) about 5 ounces, but i didn't measure.
1/4 cup heavy cream
2-3 jalapenos, sliced
1/2 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp garlic powder
salt + black pepper
2 1/2 tbs lemon juice
1 tomato, chopped

once the fish and shrimp is done, add the remaining margarine & garlic sauce into the pan, plus the heavy cream, lemon juice and the paprika, cayenne pepper, garlic powder, salt and black pepper into the pan, cook until sauce is reduced a bit. add the spinach, cook until wilted. then add pasta and tomatoes, toss until covered in sauce.

mine looks horrible but taste good. (if my husband adds a second helping, that means he likes it, and that's good for me.. :P).

update: oh i know why mine looks horrible. apparently you're suppose to fry the fish then take it out of the pan. grrr. no wonder my fish was ruined when i put in the spinach (cause i have to stir, see?). oh well. it's still good enough for me. and i also forgot the tomatos, and omit the jalapeno cause i don't have it.

baking under the heat

akhir2 ini kok lagi banyak maunya tapi malasssss banget. belom lagi patrick rewel (ntah kenapa. jangan tanya deh..) jadi kurang ada waktu buat bikin2 yang di luar kegiatan rutin. jangankan yang gak rutin, yang rutin aja keteteran kok. tapi walau begitu kok ya masih sempet baking2 dan bikin camilan sedikit. simple2 aja.

mini cheesecake
ini gampang banget, sayang lupa ambil foto karena emang bikin buat dibawa ke kantor suami.

ingredients:
nilla wafers yg gede (18-20 biji, plus bbrp untuk di crush)
2 butir telor
2 cup (@8oz) cream cheese
3/4 cup gula
1 tbs lemon juice

caranya
panasin oven sampai 375F (190an C kali ya)
cemplungin 1 nilla wafer ke dalam muffin cup (dilapisin paper cup ya) untuk jadi dasarnya. bagian rata ngadep bawah.
isi: kocok creamcheese + gula sampai lembut. masukin lemon juice dan telur satu per satu, kocok sampai agak putih kayak krim. isi ke dalam muffin cup kurang lebih 3/4 penuh. taburi dengan nilla wafer yang sudah dihancurin... panggang 15-20 mnt (sampai kecoklatan). dinginkan di kulkas.

note: bisa juga dihias pake buah kalau ada.
warning: very addictive. makan 1 ga cukup.

habis ini masih mau bikin apple pie, bakpao, sama churros. untuk churros ini kebetulan nemu tepungnya di asian grocery, jadi pengen bikin deh. yumm yumm. trus masih mau bikin es krim buat makan apple pie nya. hadoooh, kapan yaaaaa?

anyhow, how are things?
things been going pretty well here. we go boating every week now (not during weekend though. i can't stand the crowd, neither can my husband). the weather's been so hot that every family who owns a boat would spend the day boating and skiing and swimming. those who don't have a boat buy a swimming pool (i have one too, cheap small plastic ones... just in case patrick wants to play in the water.. hee hee) or simply install a sprinkler in their yard. i prefer to stay indoors but of course it's not possible when hubby's not working. and i know it's not healthy for patrick. :p

yesterday we went to tucson to grab some things. originally we wanted to grab dinner at takamatsu, the korean bbq resto. but when we got there it was closed, with police line on the front doors. apparently the restaurant caught on fire a few weeks ago. darn. but we found a thai restaurant we rather like. so it's all good.

i also found another indonesian family who lives in this town. imagine that!! another indonesian. haahaa.. . i heard them speaking indonesian in walmart. i was so shocked to hear indonesian language being spoken that i blanked out for a few minutes. we exchanged numbers and planned to have dinner together or go boating.. i dunno. yay!!

now, if only i can find the time to declutter the house.

morning notes

if you buy a present for someone, and he turned out .. err.. not really excited about it, what would you do?

i don't buy presents cos i know i suck at it, but when i do feel like giving presents i think and think and think about it for quite a long time before deciding on something. this is probably why when he/she doesn't like it i get sad and a bit offended.

oh well. maybe gw sensi aja kali ya?

yesterday we went to lake roosevelt and went boating and swimming. it was so hot! had to slab on extra sunscreen on patrick. and i went for a short swim in the lake to. a major achievement knowing i have phobia about swimming in murky waters. must be the heat. patrick went in too, wearing an infant lifejacket. so cute.

shame on me..

abis ngebaca tulisannya adhitya mulya tentang mbak heni... kok gw jadi keinget waktu dulu pegang acara built in frisian flag. acaranya sih seru, intinya fun and educative games untuk infant and toddlers. biarpun bikinnya cape setengah mati (karena kurang orang, no producer and no effective executive producer in charge, dan research writer pun cuma seorang sajah.. oh gosh masih keinget capenya ampe sekarang) tapi gw seneng dan puas dengan program ini. berasa banget hasil jerih payah gw.

hubungannya dengan tulisan adhit.. begini. frisian flag ini punya maskot. badut .. aduh siapa ya namanya, lupa. marilah kita panggil dia dengan boneka baba. nah pada saat itu mbak klien ngotot si boneka baba ini ikutan nangkring alias in frame di setiap episode. ga akan jadi masalah kalau kita berhubungan dengan anak2 umur 5 ke atas, yang notabene udah cukup gede untuk berani salaman sama badut. susahnya adalah susu bendera target utamanya adalah untuk anak umur 1-3 tahun... which mean buanyaaaakkkk banget anak2 umur segitu yang takut liat si baba. boro2 salaman, baru liat aja udah mundur teratur duluan. frustasi deh, karena pas audisi banyak bgt bocah2 yang oke (pinter dan cameragenic) tapi takut ama baba. terpaksa ga lolos audisi karena gimana mo tampil satu frame sama baba kalo dari jarak 100m aja mereka udah nangis kejer2?

singkat kata untuk beberapa episode terakhir kita ngadain kompetisi antar TK, dan kita syuting di outdoor locations. lokasi pertama adalah ancol... kebayang kan puanasnya kayak apa? gw yang cuma pake kaos ama celana pendek aja udah kringetan setengah mati, gak tau deh gimana nasib si bapak yang 'berperan' jadi baba. padahal dese mesti joget2 senantiasa.

nah pas lagi ngadem di tenda ber ac gw sempet ngobrol2 sama si bapak tukang badut yg jadi baba. pertama sih ngalor ngidul basa basi aja. tapi di satu kesempatan dia sempet curcol, bilang kalau anaknya yg SMP malu kalo bapaknya tukang badut. padahal si bapak di sini berpanas2 ria demi anaknya bisa sekolah, supaya gedenya nanti ga cuma jadi tukang badut kayak bapaknya. gw jadi terenyuh, ikutan ngerasain sedihnya si bapak. tugasnya ngehibur anak2 tapi anak sendiri malu sama bapaknya. belom lagi mesti berpanas2 joget2 hanya untuk bayaran yang buat gw biasa abis dipake sekali makan di foodcourt. sekarang gw berdoa setengah mati jangan sampe anak gw nanti malu sama (kerjaan) bapak emaknya.

life's unfair but you make the most of it.

bella .. without edward!!

i was bored today (or had too much time in my hands, .. or simply too lazy to do any house chores.. :D. well, either way.. ) so i surfed thru netflix.com and stumbled upon a movie called bella. i saw the trailer about a few months back but didn't really pay any attention to it until now. it turned out to be a really good movie. me likey.

the one thing that made me cry is when the main character (the guy, jose) told the story how he hit and killed a little girl. it was an accident but it robbed him of his passion. now i can't imagine what it must've felt like to have hurt, let alone kill, a little child. but now that i've got patrick i see it from a different perspective. i can't imagine what it must've felt like to lose a child.

before patrick was born i was not a baby-child-kid-friendly person. i get tongue-tied infront of a child. hand me a baby and i won't know what to do with him. not that i ever want to voluntarily hold a baby in my arms, oh no. i'm scared of them.

nina, the main female character in this movie was scared when whe found out she was pregnant. she wanted to abort the pregnancy, thinking she won't know how to care for a baby. when i was pregnant hubby used to tease me, because i worried so much that i won't know what to do with the baby. well... i still worry too much, but at least i'm not afraid of babies anymore. now i have other things to be scared of: losing my baby or hubby. i pray hard that it would never happen. i don't know what i would do without them.

anyway... i'm rambling. i should be doing some cleaning up. besides, my baby's woke up from his nap. time to get him his bath. whoopee! fun.

ps: when i googled bella poster, the top page came up with kristen stewart's poster from the twilight saga. duhhhh!!! i'd always wanted to name my baby girl (if i ever have any) bella, but thanks to twilight... i change my mind.

dumplings...

i miss yamcha. i miss those dang delicious dumplings and chicken feet and blackbean pork ribs, and everything else that comes in dimsum. oh well. i got one of those asian dumplings book so yesterday while hubby's home i tried to make the pork and napa cabbage water dumplings. the author (andrea nguyen, same author as my vietnamese cookbook) made everything sounds so complicated, but in reality it's really simple.

ok, for dumpling skin you can just buy them in the supermarket. but here we don't have asian grocery, and the ones available at safeway were only for wonton so it's not suitable for dumplings. so i had to make my own. it's simple.

2 cups of flour
3/4 cups of just-boiled water (i added another tablespoon). boil the water and then set aside (not longer than a minute)

in a bowl pour flour and create a hollow in the middle. pour water and (at the same time) mix the flour with a wooden spoon. do until the flour's moist and then using your hand knead them a bit so it'll create a ball. take the ball out of the bowl, and knead some more using hand for around 2 minute until it bounced back (but leaving a dent) when pressed with finger. put in freezer plastic bag, squeezing the air out and leave in room temperature for more than 15 min but not more than 2hr.

filling:
2/3lbs ground pork, fattier kind prefered but i use 80/20 ground beef, and i use around 1lbs
1/4 cup of chopped green onion
2 cups of finely chopped napa cabbage (sawi putih kalo orang indo bilang). after chopped, put in bowl, sprinkle with 1/8 tbs salt and leave for 15 min. then rinse 2x with water, and then squeeze the excess water out by using cotton cloth (i just use saringan sama peres pake tangan lah.. manual)
1tsp minced fresh ginger
salt
soy sauce
black / white pepper

how to make filling:
mix everything together. gampang kan? :D

how to assemble:
prepare a workspace, yg lebar ya.

dumplings:
- take dough ball out of plastic bag, divide into two. roll the dough into a 1 inch thick log (se-buku jari) and then divide into 16 pieces. sprinkle some flour on the cut side so they don't stick together, put back in plastic bag.
- take another plastic bag, cut 3 of the sides, put one of the dough inside, close, and press it with bottom of glass. and then roll the dough until it's quite thin (according to the recipe it should be 1/8 inch thick but i don't know how thick that is so i just 'kira2'..... but according to size it should roll out to be a bit smaller than your palm). then press the edges with your finger so that the edge is thinner than the middle part.
- fill with filling, putting the meat slightly off centered. then fold the edges together, pressing with your thumb to create a pocket. set aside. repeat.

before eating, boil the dumplings for a few minutes until they float and looks puffy and glossy.


any filling left-overs can be frozen in a vacuum bag or use ziplock bag and squeeze the air out.
any skin left can be refrigerated for up to 2 days but it's better to just make the dumplings, and then freeze those. to freeze dumplings: place on top of parchment paper then freeze for 1hr. after that put into vacuum bag, and it should last up to a month or two.


well, here's the result. not bad, ey?


oh ya, sauce. gampang.
soy sauce (1/4 cup? depends on how much you wanna make)
1 tsp sugar
minced garlic
chile oil. kalo gak ada bikin pake peanut oil + red pepper flakes. caranya panasin peanut oil sampe hot hot hoooot, trus masukin (alias goreng) red pepper flakes for about a minute. leave to cool. i was too lazy to fry the flakes so i just put the peanut oil in the microwave, and microwave it for about 1.5 minute, and put the flakes inside, and microwave again for another 30sec.

sometimes

sometimes i wonder why am i a better baker back at jakarta than here
sometimes i think my brain is just one big blob of jelly
sometimes i dream reruns, as in i've dreamt the exactly the same dream before
sometimes i wonder what would happen if i hadn't get pregnant
sometimes i think my brain's not working at all
sometimes i feel too tired to do anything, but then i'd say to myself i was just being lazy
sometimes i want to throw everything away and then go on a vacation, just by myself
sometimes i wonder if he really loves me
sometimes i'd like to think myself as a great cook
sometimes i think i should get a lasik surgery
sometimes i think i'd rather buy something else than spend the money on something i don't really need, like a lasik surgery
sometimes i wish there's a target store here in town (actually i lied. it's most of the time..)
sometimes i think i'm being too hard on myself. but that's impossible, knowing how lazy most of the time i am
sometimes i wonder why i'm hungry again eventhough i just ate a couple of hours ago
sometimes i wonder why i wonder so much...
i should stop..

really... stop.