Coming home

My parents will be coming home tomorrow afternoon. My siblings have been renovating the house for the past two weeks. It is a surprise for my mother .

The work I have done, I mean my work is done too. I bought a new white furniture for the bedroom . I have wanted white for some time now. I have thought of painting the walls in my room blue but I decided not to.

Awang is trying to get into the house. He looks thin. I made a cottage pie and an apple pie for my sister Yati the other day. She had bought some potatoes from Jusco . Potatoes would make a

difference .It is very soft . I thought of doing one for my parents tomorrow.

Cottage pie

I have made a cottage pie few days back. The cost is about RM 30. As usual I got the recipe from the net. The difference between a cottage pie and a sheperd's pie is that a cottage pie is made with beef and a a sheperd's pie is made with lamb . I had forgotten the 'Lea and Perrins ' , parsley leaf and beef stock cube was not available at the neighbourhood shop. I add soya sauce and tomato sauce and plain water instead. My sister and brothers said it was nice. They are my loyal supporters. I have taken these recipes for the cottage pie

http://britishfood.about.com/od/recipeindex/r/cottpie.htm

another one from Elise.com

http://elise.com/recipes/archives/000216easy_shepherds_pie.php

and another one from allrecipe for a proper english Cottage pie

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Proper-English-Cottage-Pie/Detail.aspx

My parents have a good time judging from the pictures sent in the Facebook. The reason for trying the pies is that it is simple to do. With Malay cooking , I personally feel that it depends on the cook. You know that it is good when you taste it. With the pies I think I can lookup the recipe , buy the ingredients and I feel it is good enough for me. Another thing is that there is no comparison. With malay food , my mother's cooking is better always. I made an apple pie the next day.

Tompok and her litter photos

Kuntum

Pico

This is Poppy the energetic one

Poppy sleeping

Tompok

The kittens and Tompok sleeping

The kittens nursing

Tompok and Rio

Bella Rose and Kuntum sleeping

These are some of the photos taken of Tompok and her kittens. I will have to say good bye to them tomorrow morning.

The Kittens at two weeks

My parents had safely landed in Seychelles .Happy holidays. There is an incident on the 3rd June which I do not want to write in this blog. The kittens will be two weeks tomorrow. Officially their names are Pico,Rio, Poppy, Bella Rose and Kuntum . The first three are male and the two are ginger colour and are female. Kuntum being the largest, Bella Rose and Rio are very friendly, Pico is sickly and Poppy the most energetic. My sister Nas will be here for two weeks.The cat Tompok has been fed with cat food and chicken. I have been surfing for kitten's progress on the net. So far I haven't tried any new recipe. I should go to baking class but then I have to buy a new oven. I have also left my embroidery hobby. I should start that again.
I am still at work hopefully for another year. I feel very tired these days . I will start working on Monday.

Kitty Cat and Oeufs en cocotte

The kittens has not opened their eyes. I feel scared. Yesterday morning Tompok the mother cat, had carried all her kittens under GG's bed. I wanted to look at them at 7.00 pm. One kitten was under the clothes. So I transported all of them under my bed. I do not think it is a good idea. Today I had bought some new catfood. I had been surfing the net for information on kittens and what to feed them . I do not want them to end like Chomel which .... I have been surfing on a nice brand called Natural Balance by Dick Van Pattern . You know from Eight is Enough ?? Do you remember ?? I should not have touched the kittens. Actually not peering and holding the babies.

There were times when I could not sleep and I will watch the Food and Travel channel. One night I just happen to see Nigella Lawson cooking one tasty and simple dish is eggs cooked in cream or in France, this basic methods of baked eggs is called "oeufs en cocotte " or shirred eggs.

It is very nice and simple and for one egg you could eat it for supper or breakfast like I did this morning. I have been eating this dish whenever I buy cream. I haven't eaten it with salmon though . I found just the programme I had watched from Nigella Lawson from You Tube

.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wusyZLcTRs

and another one from a lady called Muna Mahzar who bakes her eggs with salmon

http://denhaag-ladies.fotopages.com/?entry=1636185

Newborn kittens

Tompok has given birth !!! It was in the wee morning that she could not sleep and yesterday she did not want to eat anything. I thought she was not pregnant. She wanted to go in my mother's room. I didn't put her in my room because she might disturb my husband. So this evening I searched for her . My mother said she had heard her cry in the afternoon under the room . So I was worried. And then she came out from the blues. She had given birth under my parent's bed. I took a torchlight to see the kittens. Tompok has 5 kittens. Three black and white kittens like Awang and two orange coloured kittens. We moved her into a cage in the house . Awang came into my mother 's room and I was so scared if he might eat the kittens. My father said that maybe he wanted to see his kittens. My mother said after he bite off one of it's head. How gruesome. Tompok has gone out , she was very tired. I fed her some fish. I have some names to give the kittens like : Kuntum, Bella Rose, Venus, Garfield , Rio, Poppy and Alexander . I think I will spay Tompok and find a bigger cage. My sister Yati is very worried of this colony.

Roast beef

On Friday evening I made roast beef and potato gratin. This is the first time I have made any roast beef.I bought most of the items at Cold storage One Utama . For 600 grams of beef it cost me RM 23.90. I bought a Bula heavy cream and an old style whole grain mustard called Mourtade at' Ancienne from Beaufor . The other items were bought at Jusco. My mother helped with the peeling of the potatoes which my father bought the day before. One thing which is difficult to know is when the beef is cooked. That is why a meat thermometer is needed . However we cooked the the beef and the potato using my mother's Tupper chef. The last 10 minutes of the beef was cooked in my mother's wok. Since my father wanted to try the roast. For a first timer I think it goes well.

My brother GG has come from a day in the hospital. It is still not known if he is suffering from dengue. He had a blistering headache and the doctors he went to gave him pain killers.My sisters and brothers were here . There is a dinner last night with a lot of prawn , petai, fish and my mother's fish curry.

Back to the dish I made I felt the potato gratin is very nice but there were no seconds for the roast beef. I also bought some broccoli to be steamed. I still have the mustard. I found a recipe for the potato gratin at :

http://foodgloriousfood-toto.blogspot.com/2008/04/slow-roasted-lamb-with-gratin.html.

The roast beef video recipe could be found at :http://www.videojug.com/film/how-to-make-roast-beef. This is an easy way to prepare roast beef but a meat thermometer truly helps. I saw one at Sogo for about RM 50.00. So far this is the only place which I know that sells a meat thermometer.

I saw a lovely oven in Sogo last two days. It is much bigger than the one at home and maybe a leg of lamb could be shoved in it. It cost about RM 340 which is on sale. My mother said that I would be better off cooking than sewing. Shall I listen to her ? Mother knows best . he he