2011 Birthday Present

On the eve of my birthday, I was chatting with my Sis, nephew and niece through Facetime. The kids made me a Lego birthday cake and sang me birthday song. It made me really homesick. I made me drop a few tears but I got back to normal pretty quickly as well. That's something I have to constantly adjust and get use to. Can't have everything in the world. I gain some and lose some.

Enough of all the emotion, back to happy event. Past midnight, I was still chatting with Sis and Mr. suggested I better start hunting for my present. Last year, he hid my present as well and it only took me less than a minute. That was because I knew what he was planning. Accidentally spotted him on KA website. This time round I was total clueless, I was shocked! In fact I spend 2 minutes repeating this question " You really bought me something? When did you have the time to sneak a trip to the shop?". When I finally believed him, I didn't know where to start. Although the current house is not extremely big but there's 3 rooms plus quite a bit of storage cabinets. Most important, I don't know what I'm looking for! How big or small is the present???

The kids got involved started giving me suggestion and asking where am I etc. It did take me a while as I'm expecting a small gift. Don't ask me why but that was the 6th sense at that moment. But I was wrong. The gift was huge and heavy! Definitely something from Matchbox when I spotted the wrapping style.


Same wrapping paper and ribbon as last year.


Kids were both excited when present was found and kept shouting for me to open it up quickly as they were curious too.


Did you manage to guess it right? It's a KA food processor. A kitchen appliance which being missing from my kitchen counter .

It was definitely a surprise. How did Mr. know I wanted one? I had never mention to him before. In fact I was still trying to come up enough reason to convince myself that I need one.

While admiring my new toy, Mr. again suggested to start searching for present #2. This time round I spend even more time reassuring that wasn't something he made up to give me a good work out before bedtime.

It was a lot harder to hunt for present #2. Again without knowing what I'm searching and already looked at all the highly possible areas, I hadn't left with much choices. I almost wanted to give up but Mr. said if I can't find it, it will go back to the shop :( No idea how true but I chose to believe it. Sister who was still online was helping by suggesting areas to look even though she had never being to my place before.


Finally I found present #2 hidden among all the unfolded packing boxes we had in the study room.




It's a Pasta Press attachment for my KA stand mixer!

Mr. know I being eyeing on a pasta machine and decided to buy this when he came across it at the shops. I was shocked how expensive it was when I surfed KA website the next day. Well I can't really scold him for spending so much right? Lucky it's only once a year. :P

Yesterday I finally had the time to study, learn and play with my 2 new toys. It took me awhile trying to figure out the food processor. It has a total of 3 bowls and 2 blades. A large working bowl which matches the big blade. A 4-cup small bowl which matches the small blade. What about the medium bowl? The mini blade is too small and the large blade is too big. After reading the manual at least twice, I finally figure out that the medium bowl is require only when using the shredding disc.

I made a batch of pasta. Using the food processor to make the pasta dough and the pasta press to make the pasta. I only play with 1 pasta disc out of the 6 which came with it. Felt I had too little dough to play with all. I wasn't feeling very confident too and had a Plan B as backup if I needed to.


It didn't take me long to feed all the dough thru the pasta press. 


I didn't end up with lots of pasta as well. Just enough for dinner for 2 and Mr. night supper. It tasted alright but both of us felt the pasta was a bit too thick. Not too sure because of the type or because the dough. Need to have more play to find the answer.





I didn't follow the basic pasta recipe from KA manual book. Came across another recipe while I was researching on the pasta press before playing and decided to try that instead. Plus it was a smaller volume recipe. I tweaked it further by using just egg yolk instead of whole egg.

Egg Pasta Recipe 
1 1/2 cups Italian '00' flour (original called for all purpose flour)
1/2 teaspoon salt
100g egg yolks (original asked for 2 eggs)
1 tablespoon oil
Enough water to mixed into a dough (original didn't state water but mine seem too dry)

Cookbook Challenge (Love) - Flourless Hazelnut Chocolate Cake

4th Theme for the Cookbook Challenge is Love. Honestly I was a bit stuck with this theme. How am I going to link the food with Love? Something which I love eating? A dish which uses a ingredient which I love? 

I started seeing others who written about the meal they cooked for Valentine day. I didn't cook anything special. Just steak with 2 sides which all the ingredients were purchased from the Farmers Market the day before and yes I did try new recipe for the 2 sides but I didn't manage to take any photos. So fail big time :-( 

Then it occurred to me, I haven't got the chance to blog about the birthday cake which I made for myself. It was the 1st time I used the recipe. It's a bakecook which I seldom used. I used my birthday present to make the cake which I loved! The present was from my lovely husband. Should fit in the theme right? Or it's still consider cheating??

Mr. kept requesting me to bake my own birthday cake a week or two before the actual day. That is actually pretty unusual! Being together for more than a decade, he had never made such request even for his own birthday. Smell something fishy!!!

A few days before my birthday, I accidentally saw Mr. checking out the KitchenAid website. A stand mixer as gift??? That was my guess as he knows that's one of the many kitchenwares I wanted to add to my kitchen but price was holding me back.

Two days before my birthday, Mr started to hint me about the gift. He even allowed to let me search the house and I can open it if I find it. But he never expected me to find it in less than 1 min!!! Although the house area is pretty big but areas to hid something from each other is pretty limited.

With just a big box + super heavy, I knew it must be the KA stand mixer!!!! Yeah!!! Finally I own it!!!! Plus I love the bright red colour!!!





As there's isn't any discount, Smatchbox gave a free cookbook and offered Mr. the latest edition KitchenAid cookbook. I had flipped thru the book but hadn't got around to try it. What surprised me was it didn't contain much baking recipes at all! A handful of bread making recipes and rest were mostly cooking recipes.

It didn't take me long before having a play with the new toy. On my birthday eve, I baked a tray of chocolate cupcake for work. I was falling in love with my toy. I was learning about my toy.



On my birthday, I started immediately baking my birthday cake once I got home from work. I even managed to document the process.

Cake for the occasion : Flourless Hazelnut Chocolate Cake
Bakebook : Crave a passion for chocolate
Author : Maureen McKeon



Ingredients
300 g chopped dark chocolate
100g unsalted butter
7 large eggs, separated
1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
115g caster sugar
80g ground hazelnut

Method
Preheat the oven to 160 degrees. Butter a 23cm (9 inch) springform tin or deep round cake tin and line in with baking paper.

Melt chocolate and butter gently in a heatproof bowl over hot water, ensuring that the base does not touch the water.


Remove from the heat and allow to cool.


Using an electric mixer, beat the egg yolks for 1-2 mins, or until pale and thick and ribbons form when the beaters are lifted out of the mixture.


Using clean beaters, beat the egg whites and cream of tartar in a large bowl until soft peaks form. Gradually beat in the sugar, then continue beating until the mixture is stiff but not dry.


Combine the egg yolks and melting chocolate mixture and beat gently. Using a rubber spatula, fold half the meringue into the chocolate mixture, then return this combined mixture to the remaining meringue. Add the ground hazelnuts and fold in gently until combined.

Pour into the prepared tin and bake for 50-55mins, or until the cake comes away slightly from the side of the tin. Allow to cool completely in the tin before turning out.

The cake actually raised a lot during baking. Lucky I laid the baking paper above the tin height as you can see from the photo below. But it started to sink once I took it out from the oven. What did I do wrong?? Over mixed?



It looked all fine when I turnover the cake. Yes it looked ugly but it taste really nice. It was still moist inside :-)



We had it with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. Just the way we like it.

CL's Birthday Feast

At 530pm on CL's birthday, "I want to eat Japanese food" was what he said once he got home from Uni. He made the call to Shira Nui and got us 2 counter seats for 6pm seating. Honestly, I didn't expect to have any available seats for us at all. Shira Nui is always full and has to make booking at least weeks before.

CL requested to try their omakase menu since we always go for À la carte and had a good reason to pamper ourselves. :)


Chefs busy at work behind the counter.

We managed to shot all the delicious sushi before popping them into the mouth. Chef even asked why we like to take photos of the food. It's to remind myself what I had eaten/tried.

Chef brief us on every pair of nigirizushi when served and told us to have it with soy or no soy. We had so many that I don't exactly remember what each nigirizushi is exactly made of. I just have to let the photos to do all the talking. :)

1st pair of nigirizushi

2nd pair of nigirizushi was Salmon seasoned with shichimi togarashi and pan fried. 5th pair of nigirizushi was oyster grilled with mayo. Both pictures can be seen on my previous entry.

**OMG.....while going though my old entries, found out that the 1st time we ate at Shira Nui was last year during CL's birthday.

3rd pair of nigirizushi.

4th pair of nigirizushi was grilled beef. Picture can be seen on my previous entry too.

6th pair of nigirizushi was Ark Clam.

7th pair of nigirizushi was tempura lady finger stuffed with crab meat. It was really different.

8th pair of nigirizushi was tuna lightly pan fried on the surface.

9th pair of nigirizushi was white fish belly marinated in some sauce.

10th pair of nigirizushi was grilled scallop.

Up to this point, only me, CL and another customer were still going. The rest already surrendered and ordered dessert.

This was a complimentary nigirizushi from the chef. They constantly tried new idea, new combination and seek reviews from the customers. This nigirizushi is made up from white fish, bacon and plum sauce. I find the bacon taste was too strong and covered/hidden all the rest of the taste.

11th pair of nigirizushi. White fish torched with miso.

12th pair of nigirizushi was tuna with special sauce. Special sauce made up of avocado, spicy chilli sauce and miso.

13th pair of nigirizushi was salmon belly torched with salmon roe.

Can you believe at this point, we can actually eat more! The chefs were pretty shock especially after 10 pairs of nigirizushi, we still requested for more. HAHAHA. But we had to stop after number 13th as it was already 8pm and that when their 2nd seating for the evening start.

It was a really good experience for both of us. We both enjoyed the meal a lot! Sitting at the counter, watching 3 chefs busying making sushi, slicing sashimi etc. Totally no idea what nigirizushi we will be served.

Hmmm.....when will be my next trip?? On my birthday???

CL's Birthday

It was CL's birthday last week. We went for a very nice + expensive Japanese dinner at Shira Nui on the actual day (my next entry). As we were both too full after the dinner, CL didn't manage to blow his candle till few days ago.

I didn't forget to buy some candle a week before his birthday. :)

5min Chocolate Cake which I baked. Super easy! All ingredients available in the pantry and 2 mins in the microwave! Super dangerous recipe!!!!!