Vegetable Cream Soup

Ingredients:

1 Tbs butter

1 Tbs wheat flour (if you like thick soup, you may add another 1Tbs of flour)

3 cups of milk 

1 cup of mixed frozen/fresh veggies (carrot, corn, green bean, broccoli) 

1/3 cup of canned mushroom, sliced

1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese

a pinch of salt

a pinch of black pepper

How to:

1. Melt the butter in the pan, stir in the wheat flour. 

2. Pour in milk. Stir until you get the consistency you want. You may add more milk.

3. Stir in mixed veggies and mushroom. If you're using fresh veggies make sure to boil them until tender.

4. Add shredded cheese, stir until it blends with the soup 

5. Add salt and black pepper.

6. Serve with plain or garlic butter french bread.

DIY Multi-purpose Cleaner

On last October 15th, I harvested a pint of DIY citrus multi-purpose cleaner. And I have tried it for mopping the floor. I mixed the citrus vinegar with water with 50:50 proportion. And for a small bucket of water I add about 5-6 caps of the cleaner (the cap is the size of a mineral water's lid). I could still smell the vinegar's tangy stench but with fresh orange scent overtone. The floor is very clean and smell good, comercial cleaner is absolutely beaten but I got one lesson: Make sure to clean/wash the mopper after mopping! Getting ready to harvest another pint and produce more!

Basil & Lemon

Yesterday, I noticed some Basil seedlings sprouting out and within hours they grew bigger! 

And also the lemon seedling...

However, I haven't seen any sign of germination from the orange bell pepper and lime... 

Oh well, I'll wait a little longer...

Btw, it's over 3 weeks now and the tomatoes seedlings are growing taller and those new shoots are getting bigger and cuter too. I can hardly wait to move them into bigger pots as it is getting crowded in the germination pot. 

Cumin Fried Spaghetti

I am a fan of cumin and love to experiment with it in my cooking. I was first fallen with cumin when my best friend's helper cooked "Gulai Aceh" (a special fish curry from Aceh); I experimented with my own recipes ever since. So, one day I made this cumin spaghetti and my family loved it, it has become one of my signature dish so far! 

Ingredients :
1 medium ripe tomato, diced
1 orange/red/green bell pepper (or combination of three for more color, I happened to have the orange color one only in my fridge), diced
1 packet (500 gr) of spaghetti
300 gr chicken breast, minced (I like to use shrimp too but you can of course subsitute it with ground beef)
salt

Condiment, finely ground using blender or stone mortar and pestle:
2 cloves of garlic
3 cloves of onion
5-7 red pepper
1 cm of fresh tumeric
1 Tbs of ground cumin
3-4 Tbs of olive oil

How to:
1. Boil the spaghetti until al dente.

2. Sauté the condiment with olive oil til fragrant, add  bell pepper and tomato, and stir in minced chicken breast until well cooked. You may add more oil if it's getting dried up (adjust it to your preference, especially if you like more olive oil with your spaghetti).

3. Finally, add boiled spaghetti and stir well and add salt (adjust it to your taste). Serve.

Spicy Steamed Fish Head

The weather had been bleak for days and the sky had been gray and foggy the whole morning. It made me hesitant to go out, though I had wanted to shop for several run out items like vinegar and butter. In rainy season like this, I usually consume a lot of ginger tea or more spicy food to warm up my body. Since Indonesian is an archipelagic country surrounded by the sea, thus, Indonesian diet consists of a lot of seafood, mostly fish. We do have abundance of fish - many kinds, which we are very grateful for 'cause we have such immense source of protein from the sea.

So, I decided to cook spicy steamed fish head (Chinese style) and here is the recipe:

2 big red snapper fish heads (halved)

2 cloves of garlic (minced)

5 cm of young ginger (julienned) (add more as you like) 

10 hot Thai chayenne pepper (diced, if you don't like spicy leave the pepper undiced) - you can use any paddy chilli too (green ones)

2-3 small calamansi citrus to marinate the fish heads (you can subsitute it with lime or lemon juice just enough to season the fish head in order to eliminate the fishy smell) 

2 Tbs of vegetable oil for sautéing

2 Tbs of sesame oil

3-5 Tbs of salted soya sauce (adjust it according to your taste, I usually don't use anymore salt so I just add more to reach the salty taste).

1 Tbs of salted soya bean (optional) - if you use salted soya bean, you may want to lessen the salted soya sauce.

11/2 tsp of sugar

1 - 1 1/2 cup of water

2 sprigs of scallion, sliced

How to:
1. Marinate the fish heads with the lime juice for 5-10 mins, drained. Place the fish heads in a tin plate. 

2. Pre-heat the steamer and sauté garlic with vegetable oil until fragrant, add diced chilli, ginger, salted soya sauce, sesame oil and salted soya bean(optional). Keep sautéing until it turns brown. 

3.Transfer the sautéd ingredients over the fish heads, sprinkle sugar on top of it, add water.

4. Place the the tin plate in the steamer when the steamer is boiling or ready. Steam for 15 mins.

5.Remove the plate from the steamer when it's done and sprinkle with sliced scallion. Serve with steamed rice.

Sometimes I use dehydrated red pepper though fresh paddy chilli/hot pepper is best