My Kitchen Produce

I know it took me ages to have this posted. I have been preoccupied with crying baby, nagging toddler and lots of gathering every weekends. Every night, I had plan to do this, but just couldn’t find enough time. OK, let’s start the story telling my children.

Nathan had 3 birthday celebration and it was just because we couldn’t book the function place soon enough. He had his first birthday on the 29th of August (his actual birthday) with me, his dad and little brother. His second birthday was on 31st of August at his kindergarten. It was only singing, blowing candles and eating cakes with his friends and teachers. Now the third celebration on the 18th of September was a big one.

Party Guest: 30 – 35 people

Party Menu:

• Nasi Tumpeng (Yellow Rice), 4 kg of rice
• Ayam Bakar Bumbu Rujak (Grilled Chicken), 5 whole chickens
• Sambal Terasi (Sambal with Shrimp Paste), 500 gr chilies
• Rendang (Beef Rendang), 5.5 kg beef
• Sambal Goreng Hati (Chicken Liver Sambal), 2 kg potatoes, 2.5 kg liver
• Tahu Tempeh Bacem (Fried Tofu and Tempeh marinated in palm sugar and herbs), 2 boxes of tofu, 2 packs of tempeh
• Perkedel (Fried Mashed Potatoes), 4 kg potatoes
• Mie Goreng Ulang Tahun (Fried Egg Noodles), 700 gr egg noodles
• Gado-gado, 1 lettuce, 1/2kg potatoes,1 box tofu, 1 cabbage, 4 cucumbers, 1 dozen eggs
• Peanut Sauce for Gado-gado, 1 kg peanut
• Strawberried Treasure Cupcake with Cream Cheese Frosting

The cooking plan was thought through weeks ahead. Monday and Tuesday were for herbs and nuts pureeing and sambal terasi. Wednesday and Thursday were for cooking chicken, beef rendang, tahu tempeh bacem, and perkedel. They were all packed in an airtight container inside the fridge. I should actually took a picture of how my fridge look like. I didn’t have the time to take a photograph. My head and hands had been pre-occupied almost all the time. Friday was dedicated for the cake. The decorating part had to be done after the birthday boy fell asleep. Friday afternoon was for cooking sambal goreng hati.

Everything was as I planned and imagined by Friday afternoon. When my husband went home from work, I asked him to drive me to the groceries store. I wanted some chocolate coins to decorate the Pirate Ship birthday cake. I also had to buy some chillies for the peanut sauce. This chili thing for the peanut was something that I didn’t expect to happen, but I believed that it wouldn’t cost me my time. Well, my husband had another plan. He was hoping to get a parking on Friday night in the city so he could stop by the Apple store to get an Ipad. What a timing huh. We circled the city for few minutes. It felt like hours to me. Time was ringing TICK TOCK!!!  TICK TOCK!!!  inside my head. Well long story short, we couldn’t get the chocolate coins and by the time he got the parking, the Apple Store closed (LOL).

The birthday boy was asleep by 9 o’clock, but the baby kept waking up and asked for frequent breast feed. Well I think it was around 1.30 AM I was done with the cake decorating. A little story behind the cake. I was planning on making the Dinosaurs cake for a long time, but I couldn’t seen to get matching merchandise like goody bags, plates, toys and decorations. When I was hunting for them, I found lots of Pirate things instead, so we decided the theme is ” Ahoy there… YARGGGG Pirate”. Look at these goodies bags, aren’t they cute?

I searched through probably about hundred of pirate cakes on the internet to brainstorm my idea. They are almost have the same shape and I was kinda combining lots of different ideas that suits me and the decorations available. I designed (well it wasn’t really designing, but arranging stripes of red and white at Photoshop) flags and printed them few days before so that I wouldn’t rush at the last minute. The recipe used was Rich Chocolate Cake , because I think it was the easiest, simple and tasty cake. I made 5 layers of 30 by 30 cm. Having all the plan on how big the ship was going to be and drawn the template on the paper made the shaping of the cake so much faster. And Taaaa Daaaa….. here comes the cake.

If I could do something different, I would:

• Make 3 batches of Swiss Meringue Buttercream instead of 2. As seen on the picture, the cake was lacking on the water and wave.
• Not using the Astor (roll chocolate wafers), as the were too big and look a bit dodgy. I would chose something slimmer like chocolate wafer sticks.
• The chocolate wafers were started to brake because I stand them vertically. I should stack them up instead.

This was another Tumpeng platter I created (I am now starting to take orders, you could see the details on the “I SELL” page). I tried to improve my carving skills every time I had a chance to make one of these. The new addition of my creation is the cucumber, look at how the spread open. I am so pleased

These cupcakes were chocolate cupcakes with strawberry buried inside them, topped with cream cheese frosting, sprinkled with some brown sugar and had a cool pirate flag on each. I didn’t have a chance to take the picture of the inside, because they were all gone very quickly. I tasted one though, and they are so good with a very fresh taste from the strawberry and creamy taste from the cream cheese. Super duper yummy !!!

Please leave your comment/suggestion if you find this recipe useful. Can’t wait to hear from you and Thank You !!!

What so special about this dish? I don’t actually have a clue as well, as this dish is not in my “HAVE TO EAT @ INDONESIA” list. My husband on the other hand is really fond of this dish. He usually had this for brunch at Indonesia. My brunch is  more towards something with peanut sauce like Pecel or light curry dish like Lontong Sayur. I could have Pecel every morning for my breakfast and as far as I remember, I never been sick of eating this again and again.

Well, back to the topic Kwetiau Siram. Kwetiau means rice noodles and Siram means pour, because the sauce is poured on top of the fried noodles just before serving. Because I never cooked the sauce before, I surfed the web to look for some clues. To my surprised, all the things I could found was that the rice noodle is boiled not stir fried. Hmm funny, I never seen the boiled style before in Indonesia and yet all the recipes pointing to that. I asked the Kwetiau Siram admirer (a.k.a hubby), and he said to stick with the stir fried style.

I posted the Kwetiau Goreng recipe before, so in this post I only post the sauce recipe.

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This is my other creation to make my life a little bit easier. Using the meat patties balls reserve in the fridge, I turned one of them into this “Teddy Bear” patties cuties. Nathan was happy with his lunch. Although I haven’t really succeed encouraging him to eat his vegetable, at least there were hidden treasures (grated carrot and zucchinis in the patties) that he didn’t realized.

Other thing that I made for my picky eater as a variation was this meatballs in satay sticks with drizzle of tomato sauce.

Culinary tradition: American

Please leave your comment/suggestion if you find this recipe useful. Can’t wait to hear from you and Thank You !!!

We were on NO RICE diet (kidding… how can Asians afford living without consuming rice for a long time). Nathan seems to favor cheese burger from the junk food outlet lately, so I thought of making the healthier version at home.

I prepared all the ingredients in the afternoon while the baby was asleep and Nathan was watching his favourite TV show. I called my husband at work to buy some frozen chips from the supermarket on his way home to compliment my burger. I wanted to make the chips from scratch as well. I just didn’t have the time to make them. Well, there is always next time. I’ll save them for my next posted recipe like Fish and Chips (Australia Day maybe ).

This is my favourite burger patties creation so far. I did post burger patties last year. This time, I add shredded fresh wholemeal bread and parley. They are much nicer, moist, tender and juicy this time.

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This is one of great recipe that I found at Rasa Malaysia. This one is definitely a keeper. All the component in the dish, the salad, the vinaigrette, the pickle, the medium rare beef, really complete and support each other. You have to try it to understand what I meant.

My husband loves and rages about this “Shaking Beef”, especially the pickle Spanish onion. Just remember to brush your teeth and keep a mouthwash handy at hand, because the onion smell really sticks to your mouth.

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Something green, something healthy, something quick, something easy, something simple. The answer is stir fried garlic bok choy. It could be paired with any main Chinese dishes and it goes really well. You could serve it with warm steam rice or it could be a side dish to your noodle.

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I felt that our dinner menus was a bit boring. Curry, Sambal Balado, Chicken Kara Age, Chicken Katsu, Fried Chicken, Nasi Tim, Chicken Soy Sauce, they are all on my dinner menu rotation. I want something new, something different, never been tried in my kitchen. I started to search on recipes using chicken in few websites and bumped into this recipe in Rasa Malaysia. I thought I might give this recipe a try.

I ate this Kung Pao Chicken once in Chinese Restaurant in Indonesia. However, I don’t really remember how this meal supposed to taste like anymore. Well, I might just gave this recipe a  go. I didn’t really follow the recipe to the words though. I was sort of adjust it to the quickest and easiest way (according to me of course). At least they were good for our dinner variety.

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Yay!! My Kitchen Produce is now ready to receive Tumpeng order. I finally convinced myself that I really can do it after teaching myself on carving some of the vegetable. It turns out that it was not as difficult as it looks . I couldn’t wait to hear from my loyal and new customers. For details please go to I SELL page.

Wow what a title huh. Nothing serious actually. I just want to inform all my visitors and subscribers that my domain name has been changed from http://linda.hckurniawan.com into http://www.mykitchenproduce.com. This is the domain name that I am intended to get for a long time but my husband has not had the time to change it. Since I am completely blind about the IT stuff with its coding and stuffs, I had to wait for him to make it for me.

I hope this is a good stepping stone for my beloved food blog as I would also like to have a nice header to welcome you all into my website. My next step is to make a collage of pictures of foods and desserts. But for now, enjoy all the recipes.

Nathan is pretty picky on his meals. He loves to eat on particular things like fried stuff (of course), pasta (his all time favourite), and things that he use to eat (BIG NO NO to new things, and that is the hardest thing). Furthermore, he doesn’t like to eat things given by strangers which is great, but if he is at preschool from 9 to 3 with an empty tummy (imagine that). Almost every week he brought back all his morning tea and lunch. He barely touched the meals. All those things happened at the beginning of his preschool. Now, it is all depend on his mood and preferences. He finished his morning tea (yogurt and string cheese), but rarely finish his lunch.

He has been in preschool since March, and I guess he has been blending in with his friends including on eating yogurt and banana (finally something positive that he picks up a t school). Before, we had to buy the grand version of yogurt, the squeeze version that comes in tube, they are much much more expensive. Now, he is totally fine with the standard tub packaging. Now I have no problem on changing his morning tea menu from yogurt and cheese or banana on rotation (mostly I gave him variety of yogurt flavours).

I asked his teacher on what other kids brought to school for lunch. I thought I might prepare something similar so that he will eat as he watched others eat as well. It turned out that I gave him similar stuffs to what his friends had, like rice, pasta, noodle,and sandwich. The teacher said probably I should watch the portion as morning tea time is only one and a half hour difference from lunch time. I admit it that I usually gave him quite a lot but not as much as what he normally had at home (that was my argument to the teacher). Well I thought I gave it a try, reducing his portion and make his lunch much more eye catching, fun, and still healthy.

I did quite a lot of research on several websites. If you would like to check them out, click here and here. This is his morning tea and lunch for Monday and Tuesday. He loves it so much that he wanted the same lunch for Tuesday as well. Guess what, he didn’t bring any left over home. HAPPY MOM

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It was Saturday morning. Usually we all went out somewhere but this Saturday was a bit different. My husband went to buy a bike and all of its gear. Apparently he was into this healthy lifestyle (NOT). His office moved to Redfern area and it will be easier for him to ride a bike rather than taking a public transport. He was driving for couple of weeks but then he decided that it will be easier, economical and convenience to ride a bike instead. Plus, he goes to work at 7 o’clock in the morning, which means that lower energy and gas bill (he showered there) and he comes home 5 PM sharp. It is really helpful for me of course with the handful toddler and crying baby.

So, I prepared the Stir Fried Broccolini with Oyster Sauce paired with Cashew Chicken with Vege as the risen awareness of a “healthy lifestyles”. The verdict from the carnivores, they absolutely love it and finished them all in a day. You could absolutely throw any vegetables available in the fridge and mix it with the stir fry. The key is to roasted your own cashew nut. It tastes so much better then the roasted and salted nut available in supermarket.

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Every time broccolini is on special, I buy them. I absolutely love and adore this green thing. I regret that I only bought two bunches. I will definitely buy more when they are on special. Even my husband (who is not usually a herbivore) starts to keep an eye on the broccolini price when he does the grocery shopping. He told me the other day that the broccolini was almost $4 for a small bunch (now he is my groceries man).

I usually cook my broccolini using an oyster sauce, or just as simple as using only garlic. You could add prawns with the garlic combination.

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Occasionally I try to find fun things in the kitchen to do with my toddler. If my newborn is fast asleep then our fun adventure time begins. One of them was blueberry muffins making time. He doesn’t like blueberry so I thought by making them he would like the fruit. It turns out he still doesn’t like them. LOL well that was one of my effort.

I found this recipe here. I read good comments on the website about this recipe so I thought I gave it a try. I think I must measure things wrong, as I only dis 2/3 of the recipe. The result was not as good as I expected. I usually like ‘not too sweet’ dessert and snacks but these muffins weren’t sweet enough. I used frozen blueberries and I think what I did wrong was squeezing lightly my thawed blueberries. Next time I will give it one more try using fresh blueberries. (I will keep you posted on the result)

I have been doing all sort of mie goreng (fried egg noodles), fried rice, and other noodles types all this time, but never realized that I haven’t post the recipe before in the blog. So, here it is my Mie Goreng. My little boy really loves all this sort of stuff.

It is really hard for me to explain how to cook a very nice homely mie goreng in this blog. As long as you do your stir very quickly, then you got a nice mie goreng. I guess you have to use your senses. Good luck

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Since my second baby was born, I never do the grocery shopping unless my husband accompany me. It is pretty hard to shop with both a newborn baby and an active toddler. Usually my husband goes to Coles on his way home from work. I just tell him to buy meat or poultry that is on special. Now I don’t really plan ahead what will I cook but I just work with whatever available, as long as it is quick and easy.

This time he brought back beef round steak. Hmm interesting, that was the first time I cook with this part of the beef. Well, they looked tender as they sliced fairly thin and there was a mallet mark on the surface of the meat. This is my new invention dish. I think the dish is complemented well with the roasted capsicum as by roasting them retains its sweetness. As you can see in the picture, there was quite a lot of juices. I didn’t add any water or beef stock. It was purely came out of the beef.

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