Spiral Pasta with Corned Beef

All in one pan meal. This would also make a wonderful dish for a potluck.

Spiral Pasta with Corned beef

Ingredients

1 packet (500gm) Spirals pasta (I prefer San Remo Brand)

1 can (340gm) corned beef (I prefer Highway Brand)

10 pieces Shiitake mushroom – sliced thinly

4 chicken sausage – sliced thinly

3 tbsp olive oil

½ Holland / yellow onion – peeled and diced

3 cloves garlic - minced

¼ cup chopped fresh Chinese parsley

½ cup chili sauce

¼ cup tomato sauce

1 tsp mixed herb

1 beef stock cube

¼ cup grated Parmesan cheese (optional)

Directions

Fill a large pot about 2/3 full of water because pasta needs plenty of room to move around as it cooks. Cover the pot with a lid to help bring the water up to the boil more quickly, on high heat. Once it is boiling, remove the lid and add ½ tbsp of salt. Add the pasta to the water. Turn the heat to medium and stir the pasta occasionally as they boil to prevent it from sticking together. Cook it according to its packet instructions. (This is how I normally cook my pasta -- carefully scoop a pasta out of the water and bite into it to see if it’s 'al-dente' or cooked soft enough for my liking. If it is still too hard then boil it for another minute before checking it again.) Turn off the heat. Set a colander in the sink and pour the pasta into the colander and shake it gently back and forth so excess water drips into the sink.  Set aside.

In a large skillet, saute the onion and garlic over medium heat until aromatic.

Add the sausages and stir until it is cooked, for about 1 minute. Stir in the mushroom and cook until it tender and cooked thoroughly.

Add the corned beef, break it up with a spatula and stir.

Add the sauces and beef stock cube. Stir, taste and adjust seasonings. Turn off the heat.

Add the pasta to the sauce and stir to coat. Toss in the chopped parsley. Stir.

Sprinkle with grated Parmesan cheese. Enjoy!

Milky Arab Cookies

My daughter and I made these cookies for Raya recently. They are so soft, it melts in your mouth. Just 4 ingredients. One of my favourites.

Milky Arab Cookies

Ingredients

500gm All-purpose flour

250gm Castor sugar

200gm ghee

1½ cup Milk powder

Directions

Pan-fry the flour in a dry wok on slow heat until the colour turns slightly yellowish. Transfer to a mixing bowl.

While it is still warm, add ghee and sugar then mix with a wooden spoon until it starts forming a dough. Form dough into balls of preferred size.

Roll each ball gently to coat them well in milk powder then put in a small baking paper cup.

Keep in a tight lid container.

Mini Sausage Bun (Pig In a Blanket)

I got this recipe from my cooking class a few years back. Made this last week and my children ate the entire thing in a matter of 2 days.

Mini Sausage Bun (Pig In a Blanket)

Ingredients

250gm All purpose flour

140ml fresh / full cream milk

2 tbsp margarine

2 ½ tbsp granulated sugar

2 tsp dry / instant yeast

½ tsp fine salt

12 pcs sausages – halved / 24 cocktail franks

Directions

Combine the flour, sugar and yeast in a mixing bowl. Add milk and margarine to the dry ingredients. Using the mixing paddle attachment, mix it on low spead for a minute. Add salt.

Then replace the mixing paddle with the dough hook attachment. Knead the dough on low speed for about 10-15 minutes until the dough is smooth and elastic. If it’s too wet then sprinkle in a little more flour. The dough should be a litte tacky to the touch.

If you do not have a mixer, then you can mix the ingredients together and knead them by hand.

Form the dough into a ball and place it in a large greased bowl to proof. Cover the dough with a plastic wrap and let it stand in a warm place for 45 minutes until it doubles in size.

Punch down the dough a few times and divide it into 24 equal portions. Gently pull the dough to stretch it out into a strip or a long sausage.

Take a strip and wrap it around the sausage pieces. Pinch the edges of the dough together and place it in a greased baking sheet about 2-inch apart.

Let it rest again for another 30 minutes till dough is puffy.

Preheat oven to 180C and bake for 12-18 minutes until they are golden.

Brush the top of the bread with margarine as soon as it comes out of the oven to give them a shiny glaze.

Let them cool for 5 minutes before serving.

The Al-Fattahs Lamb Soup

Finally got this recipe posted to the blog! This soup is sooo satisfying. It’s my go-to whenever Hubs and my son craves for soup – it means comfort food to them.  

The Al-Fattahs Lamb Soup

Ingredients

6 lamb shoulder chops

¼ large yellow onion - loosened into individual layers
5 Cardamoms - bruised
1 Cinnamon sticks
3 Star anise
3 liters Water
4 pcs Carrots - medium cubes
3 pcs Yellow potatoes - medium cubes
5 tablespoons Vegetable oil

Spice paste

4 inches fresh Ginger – peeled
6 cloves Garlic – peeled 

3 tablespoons Coriander powder
1 tablespoon White pepper
1 tablespoon Black pepper
3 teaspoons Fennel powder
3 teaspoons Cumin powder
2 teaspoons Turmeric powder
1 teaspoon Nutmeg powder

Garnish Ingredients

2 shallots – peeled, sliced and fried
1 stalk fresh Cilantro sprigs - chopped
1 Lime - wedged into 4 (optional)

Directions

Clean the meat and put in a pressure cooker. Pour in the water, close and cooked for 45 minutes.

Blend together the ginger and garlic until smooth.

In a heated pan with oil, stir fry the cardamom, star anise and yellow onions until fragrant. Toss in the spice paste and sauté until the oil separates.

Pour in the fried paste into the pressure cooker. Add in the carrots and potatoes. Bring the mixture to a boil then allow to simmer until the carrots and potatoes are tender.

Add seasoning. Garnish with cilantro and fried shallots.

Skim off the fat that rises to the top with a large spoon before serving.

Beef Dendeng

This week I'm into soy sauce, so here's another great-with-rice dish.

Beef Dendeng

Ingredients

1kg fresh beef

30 pcs shallots – coarsely blended

2 pcs yellow onion – finely blended

3 inches ginger – finely blended

2 bulb garlic – finely blended

½ cup dried chilli paste

½ cup chilli sauce

¾ cup sweet soy sauce

1 tsp tamarind paste

3 tbsp sugar

1 tsp salt / to taste

1 ½ cup cooking oil

Directions

Boil the beef for atleast 30 minutes or until it is tender. Remove it and let it sit for 5 minutes. Keep the broth. Cut against the grain into ½ cm-thick slices (otherwise it would feel like chewing a mouthful of rubber bands later).

Bash the beef slices thin with a pestle and a thick cutting board.  Lay the piece of meat on a cutting board, pound one side with the mortar until it thins out. This process is to tenderize a tougher cut of meat by breaking up some of those tough muscle fibres and stretching them out. Start pounding on the outer edge and work your way in to the middle.

Marinade the beef with sweet soy sauce. Mix thoroughly to ensure that it is evenly coated, cover and let it sit for 30 minutes.

Deep fry the marinated beef in batches until dark and slightly crispy for about 1 minute. Make sure to keep it in a single layer while frying. Set aside.

In the same wok, using the same cooking oil, sauté the garlic and ginger until aromatic for about 5 minutes. Add in the shallot and yellow onion then continue to sauté until the oil separates.

Stir in the chilli paste and continue to cook until the oil separates again. Season with sugar, salt, tamarind paste and chilli sauce. Stir to combine well.

Add in the fried beef and stir to coat. Lower the heat and let it simmer for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally until the sauce is thickened. If it is too dry then add in a ½ cup of the beef broth.

Note: It’s best when it has rested for a day!

Hello, I am back!

Hello, I am back! I’ve been away from the blog since last year and the reason for my temporary hiatus is because I was ill.

I was diagnosed with Graves’s disease in early 2018 and what a journey I've had. I was in hospital for nearly a week. My thyroid was very over-active.

Thyroid is a small, butterfly-shaped gland in our neck, along the front of our windpipe. It makes hormones that help control many parts of our metabolism, like how fast our heart beats and how fast we burn calories. Women are more likely to have a problem with their thyroid than men.

I call it a battle because to me, that is what it was. At its worst I thought I was going to die but thanks to my incredibly supportive family especially my husband that I am still here.

I have always been quite healthy. I am a person with loads of energy. It all started when I noticed a significant change in my entire body. Friends and family commented on how much weight I had lost. I had been trying to lose weight but had not realised how much I’d lost. My clothes were becoming too lose and despite a good diet I kept on losing weight until I was 10kg less than I had always been. It was unbelievable considering I had never been able to shed any weight on previous occasions.

Getting home from work, from the moment I would sit or lay down, I knew I wasn't doing anything else for the rest of the day. I had absolutely no energy to do anything. I was exhausted all the time, even if I slept really well the night before. My energy levels were sinking at a dramatic rate. What had been a mere breeze became an impossible task. In fact there were times I just didn't want to get up and go to work.

I had a constant really low mood, feeling cold and I kept on losing weight, despite eating a lot more.

I started to feel light headed and nauseous. Sleeping became uncomfortable. Waking in the middle of the night with cramp in my legs. I thought it may have been something viral or it’s my diabetes.

My hair started thinning, turning to straw and breaking easily. It came out in huge amounts when I combed it. I was horrified at the thought of losing my hair. I also felt my hair was growing very slowly.

I couldn't believe in such a short space of time how unwell I became. I also find it a struggle to walk up one set of stairs. Leg muscles hurting when I climbed the steps at home.

I was out of breath from panicking and couldn’t stand up as the muscles in the backs of my legs were shaking violently. I felt so sick and dizzy. My husband suspected low sugar.

After about a month I started to get more and more tired and slower in my thinking. I started finding it harder and harder and just trying to manage day to day tasks became a challenge. I just thought all these symptoms were normal for me and never really questioned them or linked them in any way. Nobody thought it was a medical problem – a working mum juggling with house chores was extremely exhausting but you just have to get on with it. So that’s what I did for another 3 weeks – soldiered on.

I was foggy in the head. I couldn’t concentrate for very long and my memory was dreadful. Sometimes I would stop speaking in the middle of a sentence because I’d forgotten what I was saying. I couldn’t even form sentences properly and forgot words. 

I had strange episodes of feeling like my body was shutting down. My skin was so dry that I had to apply a moisturiser all over, every day. But moisturizing made no difference. I just went from myself to feeling like I was aging superfast. My nails were weak and breaking.

Despite having the most supportive and understanding family, no-one knew what I really felt like. The last thing I wanted was my family to worry about my health. I had never felt so alone.

I didn’t tell anyone outside my family how I was feeling. I did not see my mother and sibling for a few months. I pushed myself to keep looking and behaving normally. I had a family to look after. Some days my energy would suddenly sap to a massive low and I’d have to just stop what I was doing - too tired to even finish washing the dishes.

I was miserable, had no interest in my blog or even cleaning the house, let alone anything that I used to enjoy. I went about my day, going through the motions but not really being there. I didn’t care and I wasn’t bothered.

I felt like I wasn't part of my life anymore - just like I was watching from the sidelines.

I was bad tempered a lot of the time. I made everyone's life a misery with my mood swings which can turn at the blink of an eye. I didn't enjoy anything and I couldn't laugh at anything. I had no interest and felt like I was going mad.

Then I started to have a sharp pain in my upper abdomen. I thought I was having a reflux again. So the doctor put me on the highest dosage of reflux med he could prescribe. He then sent me home after telling me to rest and it would go away. Unfortunately, it didn’t and it only got worse when a few days later I started having heart palpitations and a hand tremor for which I decided to consult another doctor.

He suggested for me to go for ECG to check for signs of heart disease. The test came back positive and he told me to see a heart specialist at Gleneagles but I told him that I need to consult my husband first and asked him to prescribe something to slower my heart beat.

Three weeks later I thought I was dying.  My symptoms were debilitating and included vomiting and diarrhoea, trouble with my breathing and heart palpitations that felt like I was having a heart attack.

Then I started to have that sharp pain in my upper abdomen again then I decided to see the doctor again.  He did not know what to do as he was the one who prescribed the highest dosage of reflux med earlier but the med did not seems to work for me because the pain were getting a lot worse again. He also said that there were so many things that didn’t make sense. He eventually arranged urgent referral to KPJ to undergo endoscopic.

After putting up with these symptoms for a month then it wasn't until mid May of 2018 when I decided to go to KPJ and undergo endoscopic to figure out what was going on with me but the result came back negative. There’s nothing wrong with my abdomen.

The doctors then decided to do a full workup of blood tests as they suspected I had thyroid issues.  Once the results came in, I was told that my thyroid was so bad. It showed that I was hyperthyroid. They explained I had Graves' disease and the  condition, the symptoms I was experiencing, why I was feeling the way I was and that I'd need medication every day.

I felt relieved that there was an actual diagnosis and it had not all been in my imagination. However, I was feeling more and more ill. My heart beat was well over 150 just sitting in my doctor’s office.

Due to my bad conditions, the doctor had to put me in the ICU right away. I had several ‘thyroid storms’ where my body just collapsed which can be fatal. I was treated with highest dosage of Carbimazole and Propranolol for months.

In my case, the side effect of the medications were severe skin rashes, muscle and joint paint, changes in the way things taste and decrease in the normal numbers of blood cells in the bloods. I was constantly scratching which affected my sleep and warm weather worsened the itch. I was treated with antihistamines, painkillers and given a big bag of calamine lotion to apply on my skin. Every evening, I have to add 1 cup of baking soda to a big bucket of lukewarm water and soak in it for at least 30 minutes.

The doctor also recommended that thyroid blood tests are carried out every week and overall it did take some time and adjustments to find the correct dose to keep me in the normal zone. I really hope I can stay on the dose I am currently taking.

He said I was fortunate that my Thyroid Eye Disease (TED) was very mild.

In the first three weeks it didn't seem like the tablets were working, in fact I felt like I was feeling worse than before. I went back to the doctor who said that the tablets take a while to kick in. After about six weeks I was starting to feel the difference.

And then I was given three options:- an operation to remove some of my thyroid, medication, or radio active iodine. I have always had the utmost respect for the medical profession so I asked for the doctor’s opinion. He favoured the second option because he said my overactive thyroid was reacting well to the medication I had been taking for weeks and at the moment he claim there’s no reason to remove it.

I have been treated for more than a year now but getting the balance right wasn’t easy. It took about months for it to stabilise.

I decided to focus my energies away from feeling sorry for myself and into getting well again. Getting my iron levels back up slowed my hair loss. Now,my hair is in much better condition, doesn’t fall out so readily and new hair is growing back. My weight has not really gone back to normal though. More than anything I’m warm.

It is sometimes annoying having this condition, tablets every day. My kitchen cupboard still looks like a pharmacy and I am still undergoing a blood test every two weeks to check my thyroid’s hormone levels and also to check my white cell count. However, the most annoying thing about having to have a lot of blood tests is that I have very useless veins so it usually takes them numerous attempts to take the blood. It does suck but life could be worse.

I can't say I feel 100% better because I don't, but I feel so much better and I am still working on building up my energy reserve. 

When I got my diagnosis I was shocked at how many people did not know about the condition. I had to explain it all to them which have in a way inspired me to write about my experiences with hyperthyroidism.

Now I am able to manage the daily struggle I have with the support of my family but I do find it hard to tell people how I feel about it and what it is really like to have it.

I have so much appreciation for my life now. I do have times where I feel like no one understands that I have days where I feel tired. I am very lucky that it’s not cancer and that although it won’t get better it’s probably not going to kill me either.

We all want to be happy and live a long and healthy life. Sometimes things don't work out the way we planned. Sometimes life gets in the way.

People fight everyday and sometimes we really don't know what a person is truly going through. You have no idea what people are thinking and the obstacles they face. So don't be too quick to judge. Everyone is dealing with a battle of their own. But if you let it consume you then you allow it to win. Accept your struggles and find peace with it. You are lucky that you are alive and that you can fight for another day. Smile at everyone you meet and do not let anything get in the way of you living your life to the fullest. You deserve all of the happiness that this world has to offer.

The end result is that my stomach is flatter and my boobs have gone down a bra size.

My regular doctor was always very attentive and I was never made to feel I was wasting his time. Having a caring doctor who understood, took time to talk, answered my questions and had the patience to help me through my nightmare, I can never thank him enough.

Despite the improvements I never quite regained my old self. Sometimes there is forgetfulness, the fogged brain and difficulties with concentration and I have never quite got over the tiredness. My hand would also fall asleep if I sat in one position for very long.

It hasn't been an easy journey but I've managed to carry on working and still enjoy life.It has made me the person I am today.

Chinese New Year

My family used to celebrate Chinese New Year when I was a kid as I am Hokkien on my mom’s side. This is my childhood memories of Chinese New Year. Our Chinese New Year had always been pretty simple. We did not have drinking session so it was not loud and riotous but it’s one of the many special memories I have of my grandparents.

My late father's parents and sibling would gather at my parents’ house on Chinese New Year’s Eve for the great celebration. They would be really busy preparing all the food for prayers. My mom would make the “Nian gao”, a sticky brown cake made from glutinous rice flour and palm sugar which is also mom’s favourite desert.

Each side of our front door would be decorated with sugar cane stalks. The pair of the sugarcane symbolises harmony, unity, cooperation and strength. It’s also believed that the sugarcanes can protect the family from harm and enemies throughout the year.

My father would also make us do the red paper cuttings to stick on our walls and doors. In the evening everyone would gather for the reunion dinner.

On Chinese New Year day, everyone would wake up early. My parents and in-laws would have made the pork porridge for breakfast. Then, everyone dresses up in their new clothes. 

An altar for prayers is then set up in our living room, a few hours before the prayers are to begin. All the offerings are then placed on the altar; glutinous rice dumplings, a pyramid of oranges, apples and grapes, candles, incense, roasted pig with its tails intact, boiled chicken, different rice and noodles dishes, sweets, dips and sauces, peanuts, and the list went on, filling up the altar. There’s so much food. A truly Chinese New Year feasts. Prayer started and the candles and joss sticks are lit. Each family members burn incense and say only good words and ask for blessing for a better year ahead.

The second part of the celebration would be burning of the prepared paper pieces which symbolizes burning money for the ancestors, outside the house by my late father. He would make us fold hundreds and hundreds of the paper offerings in the form of ingots and fans before Chinese New Year.  This spirit money is set up in mountains before being burnt. Then some would let off fire-crackers, fireworks and also lion's dance to mark the arrival of New Year. However, my late father is a law-abiding citizen hence he doesn’t encourage fireworks. So boring!!

Then everyone moved into the dining room where the table was set. What was offered at the altar also we can eat. It's officially an open house.

Then in the evening, a much smaller altar is then set up at the front door.

On the second day, we would go to visit my aunties and uncles’ house which is quite fun because we get to catch up with them after a year of not seeing most of them. Ang pows would have been given out by then. We’d just play together. It’s been years since I’ve seen some of them. It would be nice if we could joke and laugh like we did when we were kids.

I truly miss celebrating Chinese New Year. A long tradition that no longer in practice.

Here’s wishing everyone a happy Chinese New Year!