'Tis the Season...and plans get changed - again and again!

This Christmas was going to be a bit different - for all of us. For me, personally, it was the first christmas that my grandmother wasn't around. She passed away early in the year. For The Lovely Wife, it was her first Christmas without her father, who passed away in September. With that, traditions and what we normally do on Christmas would be different.

Usually on Christmas Eve, The Lovely Wife, kids and I go to her parents house where we are joined by the other siblings and sometimes TLW's uncle and family for Christmas Eve dinner. That has been the tradition ever since I got married. My parents on the other hand, usually go to my Grandmothers house.

This year, the original plan was to have Christmas Eve dinner at our place with TLW's family and my parents. However, all plans sometimes go awry and TLW got called back to work for something urgent on the 22nd and she reckoned she could possibly be tied up on the 24th as well. So... we decided to call off Christmas Eve dinner and notified the rest of the family to 'go do their own thing.'

Come Christmas Eve however, The Lovely Wife managed to finish off all that she had to do and my parents suggested that we go out for dinner. I suggested to The Lovely Wife that we get her family over after dinner for dessert as I had already made the dessert. We could all then open up our presents as we would normally do on Christmas Eve. That sounded like a good plan.


Late in the afternoon of the 24th, we were out shopping and so on the way home, we decided to stop at a restaurant nearby to make reservations for dinner. Would you believe that at 4pm, they were already fully booked for Christmas Eve dinner? And here we thought that everyone would be at home on Chrissy Eve!

I decided then that rather than go out somewhere I would cook a simple meal. As I said, dessert had already been made the day before so it was just deciding on the main meal. I decided to keep it really simple and just get some bread and toss up a pasta as well as some fried sausages. That would be enough for my parents and the 4 of us.

It was then that The Lovely Wife asked if since I was already cooking, could I make extra and invite her family over as well, rather than just getting them to come for dessert. No Problem!

So...rather than just make one pasta, I made two. TLW's family bought some Pizza too and brought that over so there was plenty. It was really good having everyone over and the meal was enjoyed by all.


So for Christmas Eve Dinner, this was what we had:


Pasta Salmone - Pasta with Smoked Salmon and Portobello Mushrooms in a creamy sauce lightly flavoured with Salmon stock and tomatoes.




Spicy Vegetarian Pasta - Zuchini, Fresh Thai Basil and Red Capsicum tossed in Chilli Flakes



Sausages fried with Basil




Triple layered Chocolate delight - Oreo base layer, baked mousse layer with nuts and topped with a final layer of Chocolate Mousse.

Not forgetting the garlic bread and the bought pizza :)

Dessert didn't quite turn out the way I wanted it to, but it was still a mighty delicious dessert nonetheless. I had wanted the baked layer of the dessert to be softer but it turned out more like a brownie thanks to me adding in too much flour, forgetting that the cocoa would act as a binder as well. (I redid the layer a few days later and I'll post about that soon - I hope!)

We didn't put up the Christmas tree either this year either so the kids decided that our reading light was going to be the Imaginary Christmas Tree...



...and all the presents were placed under this light in lieu of the tree. After all, the tree is usually place in this spot anyway!



A week earlier, I had ordered a new TV for the family as prior to this we were still in the Stone Age with an old CRT TV - thats Cathode Ray Tube TV for those that have never seen a fat old TV Set before. I took the opportunity to take a picture on Christmas Eve night since all the other presents were being opened and this was by far the biggest present! Note the small ribbon that we put on the TV...



Now we have the latest but probably not the greatest, but still a marked improvement to what we used to have! The kids love it and so does The Lovely Wife! I have to admit that watching football(soccer) on the big screen is so much more fun - especially so when I have hooked up the sound to my audio system!

The best part about this dinner was getting the whole family together. Christmas Eve dinner is rarely about the food and more about just getting together with lots of love and laughter!

Merry Christmas Everyone and a Blessed New Year ahead!

Crème Brûlée infused with ginger

Crème Brûlée is something I've always wanted to make. So a few weeks ago, when we had Lynn and Tina over for a get together, I decided to make Crème Brûlée. I also wanted to use my kitchen blowtorch that I had bought some time ago. I'd used the torch for briefly searing tomatoes and peppers but nothing really fancy. I'd actually bought the torch for desserts like Crème Brûlée so this was a perfect excuse to make the dessert and use the torch!

The Lovely Wife had mentioned that one of her friends had told her about this fabulous Ginger flavoured Crème Brûlée at some restaurant. A couple of weeks earlier, we had tried the Ginger Creme Brulee over lunch at a Vietnamese restaurant. It was a big disappointment as the custard was lumpy and runny at the same time. The flavours though were really quite good.



I adapted a recipe I found in the Readers Digest Your Cooking Questions Answered - one of The Lovely Wife's favourite cookbooks. This is what I did:

Ingredients
600ml Whipping Cream
2 tsp Vanilla Essence
4 large egg yolks (or 5 medium egg yolks)
125g Caster Sugar
3 tsps ground ginger
Method
Preheat oven to 150C. Heat the cream with the vanilla and ginger until just boiling. Remove from heat and allow the ginger to infuse into the cream.
Beat the egg yolks with half the sugar until thick and creamy. Temper the yolks with a little cream and then whisk in the cream ensuring that the yolks dont curdle. Pour the custard into 6 ramekins.
Put the ramekins in a baking pan and pour in enough hot water to come halfway up the sides of the ramekins. Bake for at least one hour or until set.
Remove from the pan and allow to cool before refrigerating for several hours, preferably overnight.
Before serving, sprinkle the tops with the remaining sugar and then caramelise the sugar with a cooking torch. Serve immediately.

[If you dont have a torch, place the sugar covered custard under a very hot grill until the sugae caramelises. Chill again for a few hours or the custard creams will be hot]

To say that this was delicious would be somewhat of an understatement. The ginger flavour of the Creme Brulee was lovely. I was in a bit of a rush and the custards didnt set as well as I had hoped, with the centre a little runny. I think that was partially due to the eggs being slightly smaller than usual. Also, I think it would need to be baked for a while longer to set really well.

Nonetheless, the custard turned out rather well and I was most pleased with the caramel layer. It was crisp and full of flavour and it was a lot of fun cracking the crust and digging into the smooth custard underneath.



A lovely dessert, very professional looking and really yummy! Something I will definitely make again and the best part of this dessert is the fun using the torch!!

How I celebrated my Birthday Part Two..

In my previous post, I talked about the earlier part of the day of how I celebrated my Birthday. This is what happened later in the evening....

TLW came home a bit late as it started raining and she was caught in a jam. She got home just a short while before my parents left and the kids had a quick shower before we headed out again.

We decided to just go to one of the shops in the nearby shopping centre as it was still raining and it was getting late. Dinner was at The Meat Experts where we had some ribs and sausages. The kids wanted to get back home quickly and I knew that the kids and The Lovely Wife had something up their sleaves as they kept whispering and making remarks about not having dessert all the way home.

Once we got home, I was barred from the kitchen. The Lovely Wife had bought something on the way back from office but I had no idea what it was. I soon found out though...

Before they came out of the kitchen, Sarah sat at the piano to play me Happy Birthday!



The Lovely Wife then came out of the kitchen with some cake.


She had bought two slices of cake from Harrods in KLCC. One slice was a Victoria Sponge that is apparently a hot favourite at Harrods. The other was a Jaffa Cake. She also bougght two slices of a chocolate cake called Chocalate Devil Cake from Chinoz, KLCC.









It was a lovely gesture from The Lovely Wife but I have to say that the cakes were a HUGE disappointment - especially when the Lovely Wife told me how much the cakes from Harrods cost. Exhorbitant. s.i.m.p.l.y.
e.x.h.o.r.b.i.t.a.n.t. I was surprised that the cakes were so highly priced when they really weren't all that tasty.

The chocolate cakes from Chinoz were just as bad and my son remarked to The Lovely Wife that she should have known better than to buy me cakes that werent nice. He remarked that the cakes from Coffee Bean would have been nicer as "At least we all like those cakes!"

In The Lovely Wife's defence though, she was just trying cakes from different shops and as I said earlier it was such a lovely gesture.
That's why she really IS The LOVELY Wife!

Thanks for the cake slices honey, thanks for the lovely dinner and most of all Thanks for being The Lovely Wife!

So ends another birthday story for me....

How I celebrated my Birthday...

It's my Birthday today!

I decided to take the day off and spend it with the family. Alas, The Lovely Wife has something pressing at work but that was a great excuse for me to spend some quality time with the kids.

The kids woke me up early with two lovely handmade cards. I still look a little sleepy in this picture...


I also got my presents - a nice shirt that was wrapped up to look like a cylinder as Sarah wanted me to think it was a Camera Lens. I also got a lovely pair of cufflinks.



If you look closely, the cufflinks are engraved with I Love my Dad. My son asked me, if I wear the cufflinks, does it mean that I love my father or would it mean that my children love me...




The kids and I weren't sure how we wanted to spend the day. So rather than planning everything in detail, we decided to play it by ear and go out for breakfast first. We went to the nearby Old Town White Coffee and stuffed ourselves with Peanut Butter toast, Eggs on Toast as well as Hazelnut Iced Coffee - two cups actually!!







After breakfast, we took a drive to the nearby Science Centre to see if the Dino's Alive exhibition that we had seen advertised was already showing. Unfortunately, it only starts on December 1st. Michael made a note of it though and hopefully we'll go see it soon.

Next plan of action was to take a drive to The Curve and on the way, we thought we'd make a slight detour and go to the Houz Depot (a huge home improvement shop) since it was still really early and most of the shops in The Curve would be closed. Funnily enough, the Houz Depot was closed too so we just doubled back to The Curve and started to walk around an almost empty shopping mall.

It was actually quite fun watching shops open up and being the only people around. After bumming around a little while, shops started to open up and we made a beeline for Borders where we spent some time browsing for books. Both the kids got some books for themselves. After browsing in a few other shops, we decided we wanted an early lunch as we were all feeling a little peckish (read greedy!).

For lunch we went to Bubba Gump Shrimp Company. Firstly I had to explain that Bubba Gump originated from a movie and all that. The kids had more fun calling it Bubble Gum though! The waitress came by to explain that the two licence plates on the table are to 'stop' the waiters if you need anything. The Blue "Run Forrest, Run" plate means you dont require any service while the Red 'Stop Forrest, Stop' means you need service!



After scanning through the menu, we decided on the
Bubba’s After the Storm “Bucket of Boat Trash” which is basically Deep fried Shrimp, Fish and Lobster Tail that is served with Fries. We didnt take photos though as we were too greedy...

We DID take photos of the dessert though. I got a free Chocolate Sundae for my Birthday while we ordered something called That Chocolate Thing - Warm flourless chocolate cake in a jar topped with vanilla ice cream and whipped cream. Theres also some raspberry sauce that the cup sits on. The kids polished off the ice cream on top very quickly so it was a good thing that I had enough of my ice cream to go with it!! The dessert was indeed very yummy and I would go back there just to have That Chocolate Thing again.




Both the kids lay back in their seats after eating so much with a smile of satisfaction on their faces. We waddled and plodded our way to the car and just to work off some calories, we went to Houz Depot for a little while before returning home.

The best thing was, it was only three pm by the time we got home!! What a wonderful day with the kids celebrating my birthday.

My parents came over in the evening with another present for me...



Now we just have to wait for The Lovely Wife to come home and maybe we'll go pig out somewhere again!!

Happy Birthday to me!!!!

A first - a birthday without dad's cake!

My son celebrated his 9th Birthday on the 15th of November 2010 and for the first time, Daddy didn't make him a cake! What?

Well, truth be told, we went away for a short holiday and were actually away on the day of his birthday as well so I didnt have the chance to make him a cake. However, I couldn't have him not have a cake to cut so what I did was to arrange a cake for him - complements of the hotel that we stayed at.




He was surprised when the hotel came into our room just before dinner, singing Happy Birthday and brandishing a cake brightly lit with candles. He was surprised indeed and asked me rather sheepishly how the hotel knew it was his birthday. I had to explain that I had arranged for the cake through email correspondence!!



Michael liked the cake but after eating a few pieces, he grinned up at me, said thanks for arranging the cake and then remarked:
"The cake is nice Dads, but not as nice as yours."

Ahh... what a loyal son I have!!

Happy Birthday Mike!

Graham Cracker Crust Chocolate Flourless Cake

What do you do when your children want something delicous to eat, you want to finish off some unused biscuits and you want to try something new? Bake a new dessert of course!

I've seen a lot of recipes that call for Graham Crackers. Never seen them before nor have I tried them. I usually use Marie Biscuits or Digestives in place of Graham Crackers whenever a recipe calls for it. Anyway, our friend Lynn brought over some Graham Crackers to eat with cheese - not knowing that Graham Crackers are sweet. I don't blame her since the word cracker would imply savoury rather than sweet. Anyway, I was thrilled to finally get my hands on some Graham Crackers. They tasted very much like Digestives, although maybe a little sweeter.





The Graham Crackers sat in the cupboard for a little while till the kids asked for a nice dessert one fine day. I decided to whip up something and to use the Graham Crackers as the base. This is what I did.

Ingredients
125g Graham Crackers
90g Butter

200g Chocolate
3 eggs
150g sugar
100g almond meal

300ml cream
Method
Melt butter and allow to cool. Crush the Graham Crackers in a bag till fine (or use a food processor - although the bag method produces a nicer crust). Place crumbs in a bowl and mix with the butter. Pack into a 8" or 9" springform and then bake crust for 15mins at 180C. Remove from oven and let cool

Meanwhile, melt the chocolate over a double boiler. Allow to cool. Whisk the eggs and sugar together till thick and creamy. Beat in the chocolate and then mix in the almond meal till smooth. Whip the cream and fold into the chocolate mixture. Spread into the springform pan and bake at 180C for 20 mins. Remove from oven, cool and then refrigerate for at least 4 hours before serving.

The crust turned out really nicely and the cake was mousselike with a nice texture from the almonds. The children really enjoyed it as did The Lovely Wife. I love anything chocolate and this one goes in as another one of my favourites - a mix between a pie and a crusted cake.

Simply Delicious!!