DIY burritos, originally uploaded by izadd.

the wife requested for this a few times – it’s real easy to make, no need to find Taco Bell, here’s the recipe:

- 2 cans of pinto beans, or kidney beans (Mustaffa has an entire aisle to choose from)
- 1 packet of Old El Paso burrito seasoning
- 200g of ground beef

sautée chopped onions, then mix with all the above ingredients till cooked. mash the beans into a smooth paste. you’re done!

next step:

- 1 packet of tortilla wraps, or taco shells if you like them crunchy
- lettuce
- sliced cheddar cheese or nacho cheese
- sour cream (optional)

spread the above ingredients onto the wrap and scoop the burrito filling on it, roll neatly and place in toaster oven till slightly crispy. add Tabasco sauce for extra kick.

enjoy!

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yeah, more eggs.

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please enlighten me why a bowl of salad costs more than 2 entire mcdonald’s meals or chicken rice sets? ridiculous i tell you.

and yet.

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not going to embarrass myself with images of my pathetic attempt at making cute food for the kids, but i was too amused by this egg-mold thingy i found at Daiso.

well ok the egg’s supposed to be star-shaped, but because the egg we had was too small or maybe because i didn’t leave it in long enough in the fridge, it ended up looking more like a fat flower, but whatever! i was still fascinated by the fact that someone actually had the idea to invent such a thing.

had to restrain the kids from first, opening the mold too early, and then, from gobbling it all up. because they simply LOVE hard-boiled eggs, whatever the shape they come in.

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got terribly depressed last night after looking at pictures of beautifully-decorated bento lunches for kids.

i now have bento-envy.

but at 5.30am, you can forget about me even slathering peanut butter on a slice of bread, much less cut it into cute shapes of mice.

our lil fella is given $2 for his recess and i can only guess at what he’s eating in school every day. all i can get out of him is either “fishballs” or “pizza” or some unidentified, nameless food. occasionally the money goes to the bookshop. i ask if he can eat the flag erasers he buys.

then again, he’s not a fussy eater and has little appreciation for aesthetic details (i.e. gobbles up food without much thought of its presentation). plus, knowing him, it’s probably not ‘cool’ to bring a lunchbox to the canteen. (previous bags of sandwiches or snacks have come back unconsumed.) besides, he’s already declared me as “the best cook ever” with my occasional culinary serving of plain maggi mee, so i’ve pretty much set the bar low.

a kind friend, in an attempt to make me feel less guilty, assured me that giving him an allowance teaches him to be independent, and not expect life to be served to him in perfect little boxes. but that perfect little box (of carrot sticks and shaped sandwiches), to me, comes with thoughtfulness, love, and an A+ for sheer motherly effort.

never mind. let me just wallow in my bento-envy for now… (till the time i muster the energy to make a feeble attempt – hey who knows? stranger things have happened.)

i mean, srsly?? ‘Where The Wild Things Are’ bento lunch?! too much, i tell you. TOO MUCH.

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a few april birthdays in the family. (thanks for the treat, big bro. err, it WAS a treat, right…? :p never mind, next month’s universal studios trip is on me.)

guess who else has been counting down the months (yes, she does know the names of the months after all) and going “I CAN’T WAIT FOR APRIL!”?

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i saw this unbelievably simple mug cake recipe while browsing the net that i just had to try.

basically you just need a microwave oven to bake the cake, no need for a full scale baking oven.
and you don’t even need a mixer, just your good old fork will do the job.

below are the ingredients

4 tablespoons self rising flour
4 tablespoons white caster sugar
1 egg
3 tablespoons cocoa powder
3 tablespoons nutella
3 tablespoons milk
3 tablespoons olive or vegetable oil

method

1. combine all ingredients in a large coffee mug. whisk well with a fork until smooth. microwave on high for 1.5 – 3 minutes. (time depends on microwave wattage. mine took 1.5 minutes.)

2. top with whipped cream and chocolate syrup. enjoy!

yep, that’s it! easy peasy! took less than 5 minutes if you have all the ingredients.
btw, you can try replacing the nutella with peanut butter if you want some variety.

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sorry for the late second installation of the food trip, i was momentarily distracted by a certain new shiny object, hehe….

anyway, after the asam pedas lunch at muar, we drove all the way straight to our destination.

the last time when i was here, was way back 4 years ago and boy, am i amazed by the recent developments, many new buildings seem to have sprung up overnight!

as we drove into the bustling melaka town, the familiar dryness of our throats signaled the need for some cool icy treat and so the first stop was jonker street for, chendol!

we were told that the jonker88 stall sells one of the meanest chendol in town. just a sip of the rich concoction explained why it’s one of the famous chendol in melaka. super thick gula melaka just oozing from the shaved ice, not like the syrupy diluted gula melaka normally found back home. it’s superbly rich and sweet indeed!

after our sweet delights, we explored around jonker street like tourists from err… singapore. well, most of the tourists here looked like they come from singapore anyway. :p

by now our tummy had started rumbling again and what else to do other than to find food! we wanted to try the famed asam pedas but since we had ‘em back in muar, decided to try something else. so we drove to their central shopping mall, the dataran pahlawan melaka megamall. this is a new addition to the usual mahkota parade that i used to visit 5 years back. looks like so much has changed since i last visited the area!

found a halal chicken rice shop at the basement of dataran pahlawan. we were attracted to the signage that they sold chicken rice balls here, a melaka delicacy but alas, were disappointed that the balls had sold out. so we bought the next best thing, chicken rice. quite authentic tasting chicken rice, nice! and to wash it all down with a nice bowl of chendol.

there’s a heritage gallery at the basement where you can get all types of local handcraft and foodstuff under one roof.

a trip to melaka is never complete without stopping over at umbai for the seafood. so after getting our local foodstuff like keropok at the heritage gallery, we traveled south for dinner. the place is really popular among the locals and singaporeans alike. with super fresh seafood and super reasonable price, this place is a must visit!

you just have to choose the raw seafood displayed at the many stalls there and informed the hawker on how you want it cooked. we had our fish cooked half bbq and half sambal. our squid was deep fried and it tasted soft and crunchy. here you can eat your seafood with nasi lemak, piping ones wrapped in a mini newspaper bundle, comes with either sambal or without and tasted so so good with your bbq seafood!

although it was time to go back, a road trip is not complete without a visit to a local night market. coincidentally, we past by a night market on the way back, so without any second invitation, we raided the place. since our stomach were still digesting our seafood dinner, we just took a tour around the area. not surprisingly, some of these food looked too good to miss, fortunately there’s still space in my stomach for some crispy pancake, heh!

so with that last piece of crispy pancake in my mouth, we sped back to woodlands, two super contented stuffed married men :)

it had been an enjoyable makan adventure for us and we look forward to the coming holidays to indulge again in our favourite pastime. well, this time we are thinking of going further, hmm…

click here to check out the complete food trip pictures!

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what do grown up men do when they are hungry and have lots of free time on their hand?
they drive up all the way north for makan!

with just a trusty gps and an empty stomach, we began our journey…..

the plan was to travel all the way up to melaka and take the road less travel. forget about the northsouth expressway, just sticking to the road that passes the sleepy towns and kampungs.

it was revisiting the small towns like ayer hitam and muar that made the drive to melaka enjoyable where we got to experience local food fare first hand while enjoying the scenery.

our first stop was ayer hitam. the town was a huge hit way back in the 90s with singaporeans going to melaka or KL, stopping at the town as a rest stop before the opening of the northsouth expressway which took most of the travellers straight up, bypassing the town totally.

we noticed that there were many food stalls selling putu bambu by the roadside. we tried the delicacy and thoroughly enjoyed the sweet and rich taste with the generous amount of gula melaka in it. all of that for just RM$2 for 6 pieces!

we had our breakfast there and tried the soto since we saw many of the customers there eating it. and boy, were we really surprised at how good the soto was. the soup was not so thick and the taste didn’t have the overpowering spice taste, just nice.

next we checked out the market there, with shops selling an assortment of foodstuff, we bought a couple of kerepoks before proceeding to our next destination, muar.

along the way to muar, we stopped at a nice family-owned snack stall. with their piping hot pisang goreng and crispy kerepok lekor, we could not resist taking a bite before continuing our drive to muar.

lunch at muar was at a little foodstall selling asam pedas. with a side dish of rendang chicken plus the killer sambal belachan, the stingray version of the asam pedas with tehO ice just cost us a princely sum of RM$8 for 2.

we were supposed to check out the famous mee bandung muar stall but because it started to rain suddenly, didn’t really have the chance to venture further. we managed to do a bit of sightseeing around town before moving on.

from muar, we drove on the sultan ismail bridge, crossing over the muar river, from there we took the lebuh AMJ which stands for alor gajah-melaka tengah-jasin expressway and onward towards our destination – melaka!

check the flickr set for more pics

continue in part 2

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in case you failed to notice, there’s a new wendy’s joint right here in tampines!

i guess many have tasted the burgers but what i was interested in today was their breakfast. in fact, it’s the first time i’m trying their breakfast and also the first time stepping in wendy’s here in tampines. i’ve already tried their burgers last month at their orchard branch.

upon stepping in, the place looks rather spacious with this modern look to it. (like most other fast food joint, heh) but what i noticed right away, is that there were only 2 counters! wow, i can’t imagine during its peak period, surely the queues will snake all the way back! anyway, back to the breakfast menu. they seem to be promoting their morning melt paninis which looks like toasted bread burger with egg, cheese and your choice of smoked turkey or chicken sausage. they have the usual hash brown to complement their meal. there are also pancakes, egg burritos and the wholesome breakfast which seriously looks like mac’s big breakfast.

anyway, for today, i tried the wholesome breakfast with chicken sausage. the hash brown was nothing to shout about, i think mac’s hashes are better. the chicken sausage doesn’t really look like the normal sausage, kinda like a chicken patty. taste-wise, its better than mac’s patty so at least that’s a saving grace for a rather mediocre breakfast meal. eggs were bland, the toast bread was just ok, so it was nothing to shout about. maybe i should try the sandwiches or burritos on my next visit.

so overall, i think the breakfast menu doesn’t really excite me, skip it for mac’s or kfc’s. best stick to their lunch menu if you are trying wendy’s for the first time.

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Nasi Ambeng, originally uploaded by izadd.

four more days to the end of Ramadhan.

blessed to be surrounded by loved ones.

… and blessed with an abundance of food.

thankful for everything good in our lives. :)

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