Egg Fried Dried Tofu and Vegetables

Ever since the start of Ramadan up to this very day, when we're hungry, we tend to think about different kinds of food to eat when iftar comes along. Unfortunately, there are no Bazaar Ramadan and such in Dublin so having meals home-cooked is the only real viable solution. Since it's only the two of us (my husband and I) who actually eat a full meal, every alternate day, I'll try to cook something different such as an appertizer or a dessert to add to the main meal so that we won't get bored with the same dish. For example,  i've made sardine rolls, Roti John, Prawn fritters, etc. etc.

And, this is Dried Tofu with Eggs and Vegetables that I've been making for most of the past few weeks. It's so simple but yet so tasty. A relatively healthy source of protein to sustain you for the remaining fasting days ahead too...

To make it, you will need:

Fried Tofu (about a handful will do)
Eggs (or leftover egg whites from making all those Raya cookies) - the amount of eggs depend on the amount of tofu you have.
1 Carrot finely chopped
1 Spring Onion finely chopped
Salt and Pepper to taste

And this is how you can make it:

Combine all the ingredients except for tofu in a bowl. Cut the tofu in the middle with an "X" shape. Take out all the tofu "flesh" and put it in the bowl with the rest. Turn the tofu inside out so it's shaped like a flower cup.

Heat oil in a small pot or deep fryer. Make sure you have enough oil to completely submerge the entire tofu. Put 2 teaspoons of egg mixture in the prepared tofu and deep fry until golden brown. Toss the tofu to rain any excess oil and serve with sweet garlic chili sauce.

PS: Feel free to add meat like minced beef or chicken or even shrimps/prawn in the mixture - for an added difference.

This Year's Kuih Raya Sale

As soon as Ramadan started, few of my friends started asking me whether I was going to sell any kuih raya this year. Unsure of whether I would be selling any myself, I just said InshaAllah. One day, somebody actually just went straight to the point and made a request that I make some for her, if possible. So, I guess that's when this year's journey began.

Alhamdulillah, since last weekend I had started taking orders for a selection of kuih raya. I still don't know whether I can handle so many orders as I don't have anyone to help me with the preparation and the baking of the kuih. To make things worse, my loyal "bibik" isn't around this time to mind the kids (Oh Nani, this is when I need you so much...ahaks). But, as I plan to keep my promises to so many people, I'll just have to put in the effort and get it done. Yes, get it done, Nana. Just do it and all that...

Anyway as promised in my previous post these are some pics of the cookies I've made for sale:

"Nana" Carries: My favourite and undisputed #1 hit in the house (the portion I baked for the home was gone as soon as they were ready!). I blame the kids. It just means that whoever plans to come over to my house for Hari Raya won't get to savour this. Hehehe...

Mummy Nana's Colourful Kuih Suji

Nutty Mocha Cookies for the coffee and chocolate lover

There's also a few others that I like but just haven't gotten around to making. Wanting to offer something unique this year, I even  made some special Limited Edition treats for customers who fancy something different to bring as buah tangan to a friend's house during Hari Raya. When I say Limited it really is quite Limited as I only have 10 Jars of these special treats available. Hehehe Mummy Nana's so lazy lah...

A special home made treat by Mummy Nana which was designed in collaboration with my little brother.

Thanks to everyone for buying and supporting me to date. Don't hesitate to contact me if any of you are interested to order before or even after Raya. I'll definitely try my best, OK?

A New "Baju Raya" for Mummy Nana's Blog

It's been a very busy few days for me of late. Due to popular demand (OK, a few requests from friends), I've decided to take orders to bake Hari Raya cookies once again. I'll write about it in the coming days, InshaAllah.

Seeing that it's Hari Raya which regularly involves the purchase of new items of clothing, why should this old blog be left out? So, as of today, I can proudly present my new Baju Raya  logo for the Mummy Nana blog and side business. The logo was specially designed by my little brother (he's not that little anymore though) who along with a close friend (ahem...) had recently set up his own design and printing business.

Personally, I think the logo is simple yet very nice. Just the way I like it. So, if you're like me and might be interested in having something professionally designed (I've been told to stress professionally - my bro holds a degree in the area so, this is a serious business for him and not something he picked up after watching a couple of videos on YouTube) or printed e.g. logos, business cards, labels, tags, invitation cards, etc. you can contact him directly at firdaus[at]graphikr[dot]com. He has promised to cater to your needs accordingly and of course, as he's just starting out, will price himself as competitively as possible.

Just tell him Mummy Nana sent you. Do check out his website for more information, ideas an inspiration.

Ameera and Ramadan

The hours can be too long here to fast this year especially if you're just learning to fast. Alhamdulillah, Ameera still manages to do it with minimal complaints. To be honest, we don't actually force her to fast every single day and have settled for every alternate day instead. So far, she's managed to fast for 6 full days. I think that is more than a great achievement. Even we as adults, struggle ourselves to do it this time around.

For some reason, she doesnn't look too tired and can be found playing outside with her friends or riding her bike with her "bike gang" and to top it all off, she can also be seen jumping up and down in our back garden. But, as soon as she's stuck indoors without anything to do, she'll start to complain. Oh Ameera...If I were you, I'd rather just stay home and if possible, take a good long nap. Hehehe...

Well, this is what she had for last night's iftar.

With her request of rice and chicken curry with four different types of drinks

Well done Princess! Mummy and Daddy are so proud of you.

Cream Caramel Pudding Cake

I thought Ramadan is the perfect time to make a different type of dessert or kuih for iftar. While waiting during the long period to break my fast, I started blog walking and searching on the internet for anything interesting and easy to make.

I've always wanted to make Cream Caramel Pudding and this one in particular has a twist - it comes with a colourful cake base. I made one when I had guests a few weeks ago. They loved it and even took the recipe home to New Zealand. Unfortunately, I forgot to take a whole picture of the cake but hope this is more than enough to show how it looks like for those who have never tried it before. On the other hand, I'm sure most of you already have or will do so soon enough :-)

Oh, and it's been a long time since I shared a recipe here so what better time than now...

Recipe


Caramel
60 gm Sugar
1 Tbsp water


Cream Puding
4 Eggs
500 ml Fresh Milk
70 gm Sugar
1 Tsp essence vanilla


Cake
2 Eggs Separated
70 gm Plain flour
60 gm Sugar
20 gm butter (melted)
Food colouring as desire


Caramel: Melt sugar in a sauce pan, stir until golden brown. Once it starts bubbling, stir in hot water then remove from heat.


Lightly grease a baking tin (I used 8" pan) and fill in caramel above. Swirl the baking tin to completely coat bottom while the caramel is still hot. Set aside for later use.


Custard: Combine milk and sugar. Bring to boil on a low heat then stir in vanilla essence. Turn the heat off and set aside for later use. In a mixing bowl, lightly whisk eggs then stream in milk then, whisk rapidly until well blended. Strain the mixture then fill baking tin with mixture.


Cake: Beat egg yolks with half of sugar and leave the rest aside. In another dry empty bowl whisk egg whites with balance of sugar until firm foam peaks appear. Put 1/3 of foam egg whites into a yolk and flour mixture and gently mix it. Gently fold all the mixture into the remaining egg white foam mixture with a spatula until fully combined. Then, gently stir in the melted butter. Divide the mixture into two or more desired colours. Pour  them in a marble pattern into the caramel mixture. The cake mixture will float on top of it.


Place baking tin  in a tray then fill tray with water or a water bath. Cover the tray with aluminium foil. Bake in a preheated oven, 170ºC for 25-30 minutes or until cooked. Turn the heat off, let it stay in the oven for a further 10 minutes. Chill before serving. Flip over on a plate to serve.


Note: You could double the cake mixture if you want to have a bigger cake layer.

Animal Lover? Not.

While browsing all the pictures in my phone's memory, I just realised that I have lots of pictures and videos that I didn't upload or share with others. When Husayn's good friend came over for holidays a few months ago, he couldn't just stop talking about it. They spent time as much as they could and had so much fun.

If I have all the time and if I wanted to, I would do the same thing (like I am prone to do) and tell you all about Husayn and how he misses his friend. But, I think that should do it (for the moment). Now, the only other thing that Husayn keeps on saying and asking is...

When are going to go back for good to Malaysia and can't Daddy just find a job in Malaysia instead of working here in Ireland?

Hmmm... well, InsyaAllah it'll be soon dear. We just don't know when yet.

Anyway, this is a video when we went to the park not to long ago, trying to feed the birds. Yup, all my kids are scared of birds...and cats and and rabbits and definitely dogs. Oh well, pretty much any furry animal. Here's Husayn trying his luck by throwing bread at Auntie Sarahah...

My Foster Family from NZ

It's been such a long time since we've been in touch with each other but when June came along, out of the blue, I received an email from my long lost foster family.  They mentioned that they were coming over to Europe on holidays and would love to stop over in Dublin to pay me a visit.

I used to be active with the Girl Guides when I was in secondary school. I never failed to attend any camping activities or pretty much anything remotely related to it. So, when the opportunity aroise to join an International Jamboree all the way in New Zealand, I was so excited and was so happy to be part of it. That's when I met this nice couple who took me in for a whole week while I was there.

Two years later, they even came to Malaysia and visited my family. Now, after 18 years, we meet again in another part of the world. Unfortunately, the last two days of their visit coincided days with the start of Ramadhan. Being such cool people they even said that they'd join in the fast. Of course, they didn't do the full day but they definitely surprised my husband and I by waking up early in the morning (at 3 am) to have sahur with us and refused to have a big meal during the day.

I managed to bring them to a few places around the city but for the rest of their stay, they just stayed at home being a very nice grandma and grand dad to my kids. The walked with the kids in the park, read the kids story books and played all sorts of games with them. They were just so happy and got along really well with each other.

I know you're probably not reading this Ann and Peter, but I do hope you really enjoyed your stay over here and really hope we can meet again maybe at your place where The Last Samurai was filmed? Yup, I was on that farm where the Tom Cruise film was made.

Hehehe... So my dear hubby now do you believe my story...?

Ramadhan Al-Mubarak

Ramadhan Al-Mubarak everyone. Hope it's not too late to wish you. I was so busy for the past few days with my guests who came all the way from New Zealand. We had a very busy weekend but we managed to start our extra-long fasting month this year without any problems. Alhamdulillah.

Oooppss.. for my dear friend Rina, I still owe you a tagged entry but for now, I made this using your recipe first. So, I think that should make up for the absent tag as its something from your blog...hehehe. I didn't have enough strawberries to spread them evenly on the dish so I had to cut them into very small pieces to cover my pavlova. Oh, I did tell you Rina that I think I like original one more compared to the improvised chocolate one. Strange for a chocolate lover such as myself but still yummmm... To my guests' surprise, I managed to finish almost half of it by myself!

Mmm...so, what shall I make for dessert today? I'll think about it later as we can only start eating at around 9.30 pm anyway. The fast over here starts from as early as 3.45 in the morning. That's almost 18 hours. Yikes! 

Well, I hope all of you have many more good and barakah Ramadhan days to come and pray for us so that we can do it without any hassle. My sincerest apologies for any wrong-doing over the past year (and even before then) and may we be rewarded by Allah. InshaAllah Amin.