FOODIE WEEKEND - Creme Brulee

Happy weekend, everyone! What's cooking?

Creme Brulee is one of the most popular desserts ever and it comes in many varieties using different recipes.  Last year, Captain and I went for our anniversary break in The Maldives and we stayed in a breathtaking resort called Velassaru.  The place was gorgeous, the staffs were friendly and the food was fabulous!  One of the nights we were there, our favorite restaurant was serving creme brulee as one of the desserts and it was one of the best I've tasted!  It was not too sweet, soft and the brulee was perfect!  I thicken my skin and asked the chef for the recipe and guess what? He gave it to me!

The recipe is easy to make and this time we were excited as we bought the blow torch to make the brulee instead of grilling my creme in the oven for the brulee. So, let me share with you the recipe for creme brulee Velassaru style!

Creme Brulee Velassaru Style

Ingredients (serves 8-10)

500 ml thick fresh cream 

500 ml fresh milk

200 - 250 grams of sugar (depending on your taste, I used 200 grams)

10 egg yolks (yup, a lot of eggs!)

2 whole eggs (again!)

2 tablespoons of vanilla essence

Some sugar to make the brulee

Method

Mix together the cream, fresh milk and sugar in a sauce pan and heat on a low.

Once it is warm, add the eggs and egg yolks. 

Remove from heat.

When it is slightly cool, add in the vanilla essence and mix well.

Pour in the little dishes and bake them in a tray filled with boiling water. 

Make sure that the water covers the bottom half of the dishes.

Bake at 180 degrees pre-heated oven until the side firms up and 
the middle a bit wobbly.

Remove from tray and cool .

Just before serving, sprinkle a thin layer of sugar and torch to form a crusty burnt layer of sugar.

Note :

Be careful with the torch especially with kids around.  

My children were more interested in the torch rather than anything else so I had to remind them of the danger. 

Don't worry if you don't have a torch, you can create the brulee by using the top grill of your oven.  Sprinkle the sugar and grill for about 3 minutes and serve!

Noticed that my brulee didn't turn up so well? It was my first time using the torch. 

Frankly I prefer the top grill :)

New Online Crush!

To tell you the truth, I have been searching forever for that perfect little black dress that would be in my closet for a long time, that would suit every occasion and most importantly, that fits in all the criteria of a 'perfect black dress'.

The perfect black dress for me should preferably be with sleeves or single sleeved (I am a huge fan of single sleeve anything!), should hit just above or below the knees (the most flattering length) and should highlight all my assets and hide any imperfection.  Sounds fair, right?

My search brought me to the website of Black Dress HQ, the one stop online shop for black dresses, how cool is that? This shop is amazing, it has black dresses for every occasion, be it day or night! I found these fabulous pieces when browsing and please let me know what do you think, ok?

On top of dresses, they have some great jewelry pieces to go with these black dresses too. I love these in black oxidized silver, so edgy and unique!

So what do you think?  Which of these dresses is the best in your opinion? Help me choose and thanks in advance!

Birthday message to my wife..

Ciao, everyone!

For today and today only I will steal the scene (or should I say the keyboard) from Mrs C and sneak into her world.


I'm 'Captain' as my wife addresses me from time to time in these pages and the reason why I'd like to share a little moment with you is because today the woman that matters to me the most, first open her eyes and came to this world 42 years ago. 

It is said the value of a person is defined by how she is able to touch other people's hearts and bring them joy. My beloved wife.. you went beyond that and through all these years you made my life worth living, transforming it into a wonderful adventure that I hope will never end. 


For you I wish all the happiness, health and life that is humanely possible to wish, and for me that you never realize how much I'm not good enough for you. Happy birthday amore.. I love you. 

Please everyone, join me in wishing my wife, Mrs C a very happy and serene birthday...

Captain

Welcome, Ramadhan!

May be not many of you are aware that yesterday was the starting of the Holy Month of Ramadhan for muslims all over the world.  This year would be the 8th year my family and I experience this holy month here in the Middle East. I thought it would be nice to do a small write up about this month to share what I know about it.

The month of Ramadan is the 9th month in the muslim calender, in which was revealed the Holy Quran. It starts with the sighting of the first crescent after the new moon for the next 30 days when muslims will perform their duty of the 3rd pilar of Islam which is fasting. During this time, muslims abstain themselves from food and drinks and sexual intercourse from just before the starting of dawn until sunset.

It is by means of fasting that those who never have to hunger or thirst are made personally aware of the plight of the underprivileged, which thus evokes a degree of social consciousness. Thus, during this month muslims are urged to give charity by hosting iftar (the breaking of fast at the end of the day) for the under-privileged and refrain from wasting. 

Through fasting, a muslim comes to grip with his carnal self, taming his physical appetites, subduing his greed and lust, and thus traversing a path which progressively elevates his consciousness from the physical to the moral and ultimately to the spiritual dimension of his being.

Here, I would like to take the opportunity to wish all my muslim readers and friends 'Ramadhan Kareem' and may you all find peace in this holy month :)

FOODIE WEEKEND - Red Velvet Cupcakes

Hooray! Another weekend!! 

Hi, everybody! Hope you all have something fun planned this weekend.  As for me, more fun with the children as this weekend will be the last for them to be together since Edo and Roby will be going back to Italy somewhere next week.

This weekend, as I promised the children, I made them Red Velvet but this time in the form of cupcakes.  I kept in mind all the mistakes I made the last time here, and the results I must say was a lot better.  No holes was formed in the cupcakes and they turned out soft and delicious.

I also used 2 bottles of red food coloring instead of one this time and the color as you all can witness is rich and beautiful.  There was a lot of "Ohh..!"s and "Ahh..!"s as we bite into the cuppies.  One of my readers NaNa shared with me a few tips in making a perfect cakes without holes or uneven texture which are :

1.  Shift all dry ingredients 3 times - in my case I shifted my flour, baking    powder and salt together for 3 times.

2.   Do not over beat the mixture - I tend to run the electric mixture for a while, while tending to other chores like lining the baking tin or washing and lost track of the time.  This time I did everything in advance and focus on my mixture.

NaNa also share with me that the red coloring can also be achived using natural ingredient which is beetroot!  It makes beautiful red color and plus it is healthy too. And this is how to do it :

Use a portion of 5tsp of beetroot juice + 1 tsp of red colouring. In order to get a pretty rose red from beetroot, boil the beetroot until soft, then take it out to cool. Remove the skin and cut into pieces. Use the juice maker to squeeze the juice out. 

Thanks NaNa for sharing and I will definitely try this method next time.  This time I was too busy to venture into something first time :)

Recipe can be found HERE

Have a great weekend, everybody!

A little bling!

Hello dear friends! How the week has been so far? Hope it was not too bad :)

In this post today I would like to introduce to you my new Mystique sandals I got from the sales.  I am very excited because I paid only a fraction of the price after a 70% cut! On top of that this pair was the last one in my size, how lucky is that?

I think this pair of sandal is perfect to spice up a simple outfit like I had on earlier today and the blue 'bling' straps go well with the jeans too, in my opinion.  I love everything about these sandals but they get quite slippery when I walk on marbled or tiled floor. Maybe I should get one of those anti-slip soles before I fall flat on my behind!

So, what do you think? What would you wear this sandals with?

:: Outfit ::

Embellished top : Express (old)

Denim Shirt : American Eagle Outfitter (last styled here)

Jeans : American Eagle Outfitter

Sandals : Mystique (with green stones) (love this)

Bag : Balenciaga City

Bangles and Fedora : Forever 21

FOODIE WEEKEND - Thai Green Curry

Hello, everyone! Welcome to my Foodie Weekend where I share on a weekly basis my 'creation' in the kitchen. 

As I mentioned before in my previous food and recipe post, I consider Thai food as the most delicate and flavorful cuisine in the world (..and I am NOT Thai). Since I love Thai food so much, I try to learn and cook some of my favorite dishes including this green curry!  I learned this recipe from a TV show called Food Planet where the host travels all over the world and sample the food from each country.  

Before we start, maybe some of you who are familiar with Thai food are wondering what is the difference between green curry and red curry? Well, from that show I learned that the difference is only in the type of chili used!  For green curry, they use green chili and red, red chili that produces the color.  Nope, no artificial color or what so ever used in making this dish!  So lets see how it is made, shall we?

Thai Chicken Green Curry

Ingredients (serves 4)

For curry paste 

5 shallots or 1 medium red onion

3 cloves of garlic

5 green small chilies (very spicy) or you can substitute with bigger green chilies or mix.  All depending on your spicy level.  Mine is mild.

2 sticks of lemon grass, take only the white part

1 inch of gallangal  

6-8 leaves of kaffir lime leaf

1 tablespoon of chopped coriander roots or stem

1/2 a teaspoon of shrimp paste (optional)

The rest of the ingredients

2 big chicken breasts, sliced

1 - 1 1/2 can of coconut milk (2 cups)

3 leaves of kafir lime leaf 

1 teaspoon of palm sugar or brown sugar

1/2 a cup of Thai basil

1/2 a cup of pea aubergine or substitute with asian eggplant or the normal aubergine/eggplant you can find, cut in smaller pieces or cube.

Some fish sauce

Some vegetable oil ( I used about 2-3 tablespoons)

Thai basil

Kafir lime and leaves

Asian eggplant

Method

In a wok (you can use pot if you don't have one) heat some vegetable oil

Add the curry paste to the hot oil and saute until fragranced (about 3-5 minutes)

Reduce the heat and gradually add 3/4 of the coconut milk.  

Cook until it started to produce a sheen glossy film. 

Add in the sliced chicken, the eggplant and kafir lime leaves (don't forget to break them to release the fragrance/flavor) and cook until the coconut gravy starts boiling. 

Remember to stir once in a while.

When it started to boil and the chicken is cooked, add in the rest of the coconut milk, 

the palm sugar, fish sauce and stir well.

Finally sprinkle the Thai basil and turn off the heat.  

Serve hot with steamed white rice. 

Note : 

Noticed this recipe does not use any salt?  This is because the fish sauce is acting on behalf.  So use it sparingly and according to your taste.
You can also use the green curry paste that is being sold in the supermarket but if you can find all the ingredients, why not try and make your own paste? 
Please feel free to ask me any questions if you have any :)