My 2012 Review

31 December 2012: A Time to Look Back
December 31st, 2012.
Sydney.
On my comfy bed.
Fingers dancing on Mac's keyboard.
Writing a blog post.
Waiting for the date in the calendar to change.
To a new year: 2013.

JANUARY 2012
My first Australia trip. Meeting my soon-to-be husband.

FEBERUARY 2012
Start of the Nielsen DA Young Talent project. More going home late. But becoming closer to one of my colleague who happens to have the (almost) same character in the past! We're so klop together in many things, somehow.

MARCH 2012
Gold Award for participation in the Young Talent project. (Actually I kinda forgot which month this happens) :D.

APRIL 2012
Engaged to my now-husband. Six years my senior. A senior whom I never met in high school or university, padahal we attend the same high school and uni.

MAY 2012
My first naik gaji :D, alhamdulillah. Why oh why does it have to happen when I'm about to resign :(.

JUNE 2012
New (cool) boss who brought me to the right path (translate: ke jalan yang benar), haha. So sad that I have to resign at the end of this month :(.

JULY 2012
Married. Officially off from the market.

AUGUST 2012
Struggling with Partner Migration Visa application to Australia. And finally reunited again with my beloved husband in Sydney. Got a sewing machine for my birthday, which I have never utilize to earn money until now.

SEPTEMBER 2012
The most boring episode of my life: being a housewife and jobless (and activity-less, and social life-less). Finally I have my own kitchen and was starting to learn-and-love cooking and baking.

OCTOBER 2012
Started working at Blogger (a job that I made myself). As an author of a photography blog, a cooking & food blog, and an interesting personal blog. Also as an amateur illustrator and photographer for my blogs. Can't believe I'm really doing something that I never have the time to even start! I guess, I do need a time off to be able to do the things I like. And I finally found a real friend in Sydney!

NOVEMBER 2012
Spending 3 weeks holiday in Jakarta while applying for another visitor visa to Australia. Gosh, I'm starting to get tired of this visa stuff.

DECEMBER 2012
Learning how to deal living with the in-laws. And marriage has never been this wonderful! We're working things out much much better than before :). I love you, husband.

ULTIMATE ACHIEVEMENT IN 2012:
Got married one year after my graduation. Allah left me amazed with His greatness. He gave me someone that I wanted without me ever specifically having to say it in my du'a. Nggak sia-sia istikharah berkali-kali sampai sempat hampir putus asa karena kebingunganku membaca "tanda". He made it very clear to me. Very very clear. So, then I believe that he was whom God chose for me. Sometimes when things go wrong between us, I know that God is never wrong :).

*reposted from my old blog

Panda Bread

I finally made a panda bread!!! I feel so bad to my former roomate in Japan, Risi, because I promised her a loooongg time ago that I would make a panda bread for her birthday. It never happened. But, I do really really want to try making one though. Bunbun got me a new mixer and I had to try it out so I chose this panda bread recipe for the try-out.

Before making this panda bread, I've seen a couple of image results of this panda bread in Google. Some has this nasty green color, seems like it was artificial coloring. I don't want my bread to look like that, so I stick with the green tea powder for the green coloring. And i was right indeed! The color turned out beautiful with green tea powder, but I do have some issues with the texture of the finished bread. It hardens too fast.

Ingredients:

• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 1/2 tbsp sugar
• 3/4 tbsp salt
• 2 1/4 tsp active dry yeast
• 1 1/2 tbsp unsalted butter, softened
• 1 cup milk + 1 egg yolk (both should total 1 cup together)
• 1 tbsp green tea (matcha) powder, mixed with 2 tsp hot water
• 3 1/2 tsp cocoa powder, mixed with 1 1/2 tsp hot water

How to make:

1. In a small bowl, microwave milk and egg yolk for about 30 seconds. Set aside.
2. In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine flour, sugar and yeast.
3. Add in butter, salt and milk mixture, stirring on low speed with the dough hook attachment.
4. Increase speed to medium and knead until dough comes together and pulls away from the sides, about 5-10 minutes. If the dough is sticky, add a tbsp of flour at a time until it is smooth and elastic.
5. Divide dough into three pieces, two about equal and one about 1/3 the size of the other two.
6. Place one of the large pieces in the stand mixer bowl and mix with green tea/water mixture OR green tea food coloring until desired color is reached.
7. Remove dough from bowl and place in a lightly greased bowl, covered, to rise until doubled.
8. Clean stand mixer bowl, then place smallest piece of dough in stand mixer and combine with cocoa powder/water mixture until color is blended through. Remove dough from bowl and place in a separate, lightly greased bowl, covered, to rise until doubled.
9. Place plain piece of dough in a separate, lightly greased bowl, covered, to rise until doubled. All pieces should double in about an hour
10. Once dough is risen, on a floured surface, divide plain dough in thirds, with one piece being half the size of the other two (as you did before). Use one of the larger pieces to form the face. Divide the cocoa dough in quarters and use two quarters to form the eyes.
11. Quickly place the smallest piece of plain dough between the eyes to keep them in place. Stretch remaining piece of plain dough over the whole bread to lock everything in place.
12. Take last two quarters of cocoa dough and form the ears.
13. Divide green dough in two pieces, one twice the size of the other. Take the small piece to fill in the space between the ears. Take the larger piece of green dough and stretch over the whole bread to lock everything in place.
14. Place dough in a lightly greased loaf pan, cover and let rise until doubled, about 1 hour.
15. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 190 degrees C.
16. Once dough is risen, bake for about 30 minutes or until golden brown on the outside. Allow to cool completely on a cooling rack before slicing or serving.

 If you're confused how to separate the dough, here's the diagram how to do it ;) I literally made a mathematical equation from the directions above and translate it into a picture!

 

And if you are confused how to put everything together, just follow the picture diagram below:

The original recipe from Japan advised cake flour, but I used the Australian all purpose flour. After I found out that the bread hardens too fast, I googled about cake flour and how to substitute it. After some research, I found out that it is totally different... What I mean is that you can't substitute a cake flour with an equal amount of all purpose flour (especially Australian all purpose flour, some say it's too harsh). Some mixed it with cornflour or potato flours. But I think next time I'll just buy some from the Asian store or get the (more expensive) specialty flour. 

Source: Tablespoon

Crispy Chicken Fingers

After scrambling around the internet for good breaded fried chicken recipe, I was able to come up with my own by mixing and making adjustments to the recipes I found. As a good family friend taught me, "If you find different recipes for a food, make a side-by-side comparison. Find the ingredients that makes the recipes different with one another and then use them all. Those different ingredients make each recipe tastes good." I used her advice when cooking this menu. You know what, it tastes great!

Ingredients:
500 gr boneless chicken
Lemon juice
Salt

Dry ingredients: 
1 1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup cornflour
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp chicken salt
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp paprika
1 tsp mixed herbs
2 tsp black pepper

Glue mixture:
1/2 cup milk
2 eggs

How to make:
1. Cut chicken into finger size. Marinate chicken with lemon and salt. Let it sit for 1 hour or overnight in the refrigerator.
2. Mix all the dry ingredients and mix all the glue mixture
3. Prepare baking sheet. Dip chicken into the glue mixture and then to the dry ingredients. Line it up on the baking sheet. After all pieces are coated with the first layer, dip it again into the glue mixture and dry ingredients, making a second layer.
4. Heat oil in a deep fryer or saucepan. Give last dry ingredients coating before dipping it into the oil. Fry each coated chicken fingers until golden brown.

Note:
1. You can always adjust the amount of spices used
2. Keep the leftover dry ingredients mix in a ziplock bag for later use. You can also use it to powder the meat when making chicken katsu.

My Traditional Wedding

As much as I would love to have a modern-muslim wedding, I also wanted a traditional one. Not only the decoration that is fully traditional (by mom's request) which we called gebyok, me and the moms wanted to me to wear the Solo traditional headpiece (kembang goyang) as well.

Marriage is only once in a lifetime (aamiin) and when else would you wear this extravagant inherited culture if not in your marriage - at least that was what I had in mind. So, at the end, I opted for a traditional Solo wedding. I opted for the Solo instead of Jogja because the headpiece fits the shape of my face better. But the Solo headpiece is actually more complicated than the Jogja headpiece if you're wearing hijab, because there's the sasak part that you can't simply shape & cover neatly. Thanks to my genius make up artist, tante Neni Nazeh, she was able to do the Solo headpiece really well and everyone said that my make up looked really good. Even I can't stop smiling looking at myself!

Makeup artist: tante Neni Nazeh from Rumah Kebaya

Photography: Viure Photography

Decoration: K-Jogja

Souvenir: Fine Souvenir

Invitation: pasar Tebet

Red Velvet Cake

I consider this as my ultimate accomplishment up to date! Why? Because Red Velvet cake is my favorite cake. Before I made this cake, I didn't know that Red Velvet cake is supposed to taste chocolatey because it's basically a chocolate cake with daring red color (from food coloring). All I know is that I fell in love with the velvety red color and heavenly cream cheese white contrast frosting.

Ingredients:

• 125 gr butter, softened
• 300 gr caster sugar
• 3 eggs
• 2 tablespoons red food coloring
• 2 tablespoons best quality cocoa powder
• 188 gr plain flour
• 125ml buttermilk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
• 1/2 tablespoon vinegar

Icing:

• 200 gr cream cheese
• 350 gr white chocolate
• 250 gr butter, softened

How to make:

• Preheat oven to 170 degrees Celcius. Grease and flour three 20cm tins.
• In a large bowl, cream butter with sugar. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Mix food coloring with cocoa and add to mixture.
• Add flour alternately with buttermilk. Add vanilla and salt.
• Mix bicarbonate of soda with vinegar, and gently stir into mixture. Be careful not to over mix. Divide cake mixture into three prepared tins. Bake in the preheated oven for 25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Allow to cool.
• To make the White Chocolate Cream Cheese Icing: Melt the white chocolate and allow to cool to lukewarm. In a large bowl, beat the cream cheese until light and fluffy. Gradually beat in melted white chocolate and softened butter. Beat until it is the consistency of whipped cream, then use to fill and ice the cake. 

 

Notes:

• When I looked at the original recipe, the amount of sugar is too much for me. So, I only went with half recipe. And after reading some of the reviews, I adjusted some of the ingredients. The recipe above is the half recipe and already adjusted by me.
• Even though the baking time is stated 25 minutes, mine didn't came out baked until 50 minutes. A couple of other reviewers stated the same problem. Maybe it depends on the height of the batter in the pan (because I was using an 18 cm pan and I only divided the batter into 2 batches). So, just make sure you check your cake done-ness by inserting toothpick and check whether it comes out clean.
• If your red food coloring is strong enough to give the red color just with 1 tbsp, I suggest to reduce the amount to 1 tbsp.

To my surprise, this cake is far the best that I have ever tasted (even compare to the store bought). It tastes chocolatey and the velvety red color is amazing. Enjoy!

Source: Allrecipes

Scrambled Mixed Fried Noodles+Rice

Had a small amount of leftover noodles & cabbage after making Mie Jawa, so I decided to mix it with leftover rice from before making Mie Jawa (LOL) and cook nasi-mie goreng. The mixed texture of rice and noodles feels unique in the mouth.

Ingredients:

• Leftovers (white rice & noodle)
• Cabbage
• 1 stick of carrot, diced
• 200gr shrimp
• Sausage, bakso (optional)
• 2-3 sticks of long green onion
• 1 1/2 tbsp soy sauce (kecap asin)
• 2 tbsp fish sauce (kecap ikan)
• Black pepper
• A little bit of white pepper
• Olive oil

Ground together:

• 2 very hot chillies (you can adjust)
• 5 cloves of shallots
• 5 cloves of garlic
• Salt

How to make:

• Heat oil, saute the grounded spices until aromatic. 
• Add shrimp, sausages, and bakso. Add long green onion, stir a while. Add cabbage and diced carrot.
• Mix in the leftover rice and noodle. Add soy sauce and fish sauce. Sprinkle black pepper & white pepper. Continue stirring until everything is mixed well.

Note:

• You can change the vegetable to any vegetables that you like. Suggestion: peas, corn, etc.
• You can add other meat or seafood. Suggestion: squid, chicken.

Dealing with Yeast

I always take it easy (or underestimate) when dealing with yeast. I've made some food with yeast back in Indonesia and there's no problem at all. But in a couple of fine moments in Sydney, I failed big time when making my pizza crust! The batter did not rise at all - bantet. It didn't happen only once. It happened twice! I can't accept that, given that I had no problem at all back in Indonesia. So, I had to find out what's causing it. Is it the yeast? Or the water?

First rule that you must know: if you mix sugar, yeast, and warm water, the mixture MUST form foam. If it doesn't form any foam, then there's something wrong with either your yeast or your water.

After Google-ing, I found out in a website that some of the cause of dough not rising is that the yeast is old or the water is too hot. My yeast can't be too old, I just bought it for a couple of days. What might be wrong is the temperature of the water. I wanted to check whether it is true. So, I came up with this experiment:

Each cup contains 1/2 tsp of yeast and 2 tbsp of water in different temperature. In scientific term, the water temperature is the variable here (man, I feel like going back to school).

• Top cup: hot water (almost boiling)
• Bottom cup: warm-to-hot water, your finger can stand the temperature for 15-30 seconds until you have to pull it out
• Left cup: room temperature water
• Right cup: just slightly above the temperature of the left cup

From all the cups, only the top cup with hot water didn't form foam. The foam appeared about after 30 secs to 1 minute, but I think it took longer for colder water. The top cup was the mixture that I got when I first made my pizza crust! Ok, so now I realized that the water was too hot for the yeast. And now you too know that foaming the yeast require the right temperature.

Conclusion: even though the yeast will still foam with water around room temperature, it's still very recommended to use warm water.

For other troubleshooting tips for bread yeasting: http://www.care2.com/greenliving/yeast-breads-10-troubleshooting-tips.html.

Strawberry Shortcake

Actually, I found this recipe on YouTube from one of my favorite YouTube-r, ochikeron.

You can view her video how to make this very easy strawberry shortcake on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RE8uha6l32M.

Ingredients:

Cake:

• 2 eggs (room temperature)
• 60 gr sugar
• 60 gr flour
• 20 gr melted butter

Syrup:

• 20ml hot water
• 1/2 tbsp granulated sugar
• 1 tsp rum (optional)

Decoration:

• Fresh strawberries
• 300ml fresh cream
• 1 1/2 tbsp sugar
• 1/2 tsp of vanilla extract
• 1 tbsp rum (optional)

How to make:

• Line cake pan with parchment paper & heat oven to 170 degrees Celcius.
• Beat the eggs, add sugar and mix well. Place the bowl over hot water and melt the sugar.
• Beat the eggs on high speed until white and fluffy. Then beat on low for a mintus to set.
• Sift in flour, then gently mix with wire whisk. Sprinkle the melted butter and mix.
• Pour the batter into a pan. Drop the pan lightly to drop the air bubbles. Bake for 25 minute.
• Let cool in wire rack. After it cools down, wrap with cling wrap and store in refrigerator for 2-3 hours.
• Mix all the syrup ingredients.
• Mix fresh cream, sugar, vanilla extract, and rum. Put the bowl in top of ice water and whisk the mixture until it forms soft peak.
• Slice the cake into 2 layers. Brush the syrup on the sponge side of the cake.
• Spread cream on one of the cake and make the strawberry layer. Put the other layer of cake on top of the strawberry & cream layer. Then coat the rest of the cake with the remaining cream.
• Let it sit in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour before serving.

Wow, the instruction seems so long. I guess it's better to watch the video directly! This shortcake is very yummy and refreshing. I think it's a must to try. Enjoy!

Freezing Spices

My mom was once a housewife who lived abroad as well. She knows how it feels like living with difficulty to find hometown spices. And now she's transferring her knowledge to her daughter who is living a life that she once had.

My freezer is not only filled with meat and frozen treats, but it's also full with frozen spices!

Yes, my mom taught me to keep every fresh spices that could dry or rot in refrigerator to be kept in freezer.

What spices did my mom suggests I keep in my freezer?

KAFFIR LIME LEAVES (DAUN JERUK)

If you don't keep in freezer this will definitely dry out. So, to keep it "fresh", put the lime leaves inside plastic bag and freeze it. Every time you need to cook with it, just take it out of the freezer and it will defrost in no time.

LEMONGRASS (SEREH)

The first time I was able to find lemongrass was in Sydney's Paddy's Market. And because I was afraid that I couldn't find it someplace else when I ran out of it, I decided to buy 3 bunch (each bunch consists of 7 sticks). Keep it in your freezer, no need to put it in plastic bags. Every time you need to cook with it, just take it out of the freezer and it will defrost in no time.

CHILLIES

I keep a lot of chillies in my freezer. In addition to that, I also keep basic cooking mix made out of red and green chillies. So you can imagine the amount of chillies in my kitchen! Meaning that I can't live without it. For chillies, I prepare cleaned ex-takeaway transparent food containers (or you can use plastic ziplock bags). Clean the chillies under running water and cut off the stem, to make it more effective when packing it. Put the chillies inside the containers and close the lid. If you want to use the chillies you can defrost it about 15 seconds in the microwave.

Mie Jawa

Honestly, I'm running out of cooking ideas even though there are still lots of recipes from Bu Sisca's book that I haven't tried! So, I asked my mom for her yummy Mie Jawa recipe. This recipe will be out of my kitchen first thing before the others (which the picture is already uploaded on my Facebook) because my friend from far Makassar had requested it this morning. 

Hope you enjoy ya Mbak ;)

Ingredients:

Soup:

• 500gr boneless chicken breast
• 2 chicken drumstick
• 2 liters water
• 4 long green onion (daun bawang)
• 8 cloves garlic
• 1 clove red onion
• 1/2 tsp white pepper (merica)
• 1-1 1/2 tsp sweet soy sauce
• 1 tomato
• 2 sticks of celery
• Salt
• Sugar
• Olive oil

 Complements:

• Egg noodles
• Cabbage, chopped and boiled until soft
• Fried shallots (bawang goreng)
• Water-boiled egg (optional)

How to make:

• Boil chicken with salt until chicken is tender. When it's done, take the chicken out and break it into small pieces with hands.
• Ground garlic, red onion, and white pepper together.
• Saute the ground spices and chopped green onion with a bit of oil until aromatic.
• Pour the sauteed mix into the chicken broth.
• Add diced tomato and sweet soy sauce. Stir and bring to boil.
• Add chopped celery. Then, add salt to the desired amount of saltiness and sugar to get the balance of taste.
• In individual bowl, prepare egg noodles, cabbage, and pieces of chicken. Pour the soup and sprinkle fried shallots on top.

Notes:

• You can change the chicken according to your taste (or what you have in your fridge :P). I used drumstick for making the broth and the chicken fillet for more meat.
• Olive oil can be substituted with cooking oil. I used olive oil because it's healthier.
• Anyway, the measures above is my estimation (because my mom never give the exact amount of ingredients). But if you want to enhance the taste, just add more spices, hehehe.
• Most importantly, use ayam kampung any way possible! They taste a lot better than the huge injected chicken in Australia.

Sambal Ijo

The last time I went to Sydney Paddy's Market, I bought a kilo of green chillies. When I got home, I forgot that I still have 1 container of it in the freezer! I had to get rid of it (read: cook), otherwise my newly bought 2 kilo of chillies (green, red, and very hot) won't fit into the freezer. For your information, I buy meat for 1.5 months stock. So you can imagine how full my freezer is. 

I kinda wanted to make those ayam cabe ijo, hmmm... yum yum yum. So, I thought of making a big batch of bumbu dasar ijo (basic green spices)~ I made this up, totally. Now, every time I want to make either fried meat with cabe ijo (green chillies balado) or just sambal cabe ijo (green chillies condiments) I can just scoop a couple spoonful of this ready-to-use spices.

Ingredients:

• 22 sticks of green chillies
• 10 small very hot green chillie (cabe rawit)
• 8-10 garlic cloves
• 8-10 shallot/red onion cloves
• 3-4 kaffir lime leaves (daun jeruk)
• 1-2 tsp salt (you can adjust to your taste)
• 1/2 -1 tsp sugar
• a bit of vetsin
• 100ml cooking oil for frying

How to make:

• Combine all ingredients in food processor and blend
• Heat oil and fry the blended spices until aromatic
• Let it cool, then transfer to a plastic container and keep refrigerated for long use

Notes:

• Very sorry for the approximation of the ingredients because I didn't really pay attention to how much ingredients I poured into the food processor :P
• The small very hot chillies is optional if you wanted to be more spicy 
• To make it healthier, I substituted the cooking oil with olive oil
• Pour the cooking oil enough to flood over the spices

My husband loves this sambal ijo so much to the extent telling me to whip up more even though I still have one container in the fridge! It's not like we're gonna eat sambal ijo everyday, dear, hahaha.

Halal-friendly Australia

Today, to my surprise, the chicken salt shaker in Aldi is actually halal! Alhamdulillah.

I've been looking so long for chicken seasoning outside Indonesian brand that is halal.

I'm happy with my decision to trade down my grocery shopping to Aldi because they provide cheap products and halal cooking ingredients as well. For your information, Aldi is a supermarket in Australia (they have it in US as well) that provides cheap products under their own brand (99%). 

Some other products with halal label are:

salted butter

various kinds of cheeses (mozzarella, tasty-vintage cheddar)

  

unsalted butter

This really shows that Australia is very halal-friendly! 

Well, we can't deny that muslim community have grown so much in Australia and maybe it's been highly demanded along with the growing number of muslims in Australia.

If I find new stuff with halal label at Aldi, I will surely give an update ;)

Mango Platter

November is the season for mangoes in Australia! Yippie! Finally, a fruit that makes me feels at home. About two weeks ago I went to Sydney Paddy's Market on Saturday for the first time. It was a fruits & veggies heaven. They even have those Asian hard-to-find fruits & veggies! I ended up buying so many green and red chillies, very hot red chillies, and 15 sticks of lemongrass. Because mangoes are in season now, many sellers offer mangoes in big boxes at a low price. We decided to get one box (around 30 mangoes) for $25.

Last week we were invited to our friend's home to celebrate Eid together and I planned to bring mango cupcakes. Usually I use 4-stars rated recipes to make sweet desserts. But this time I tried something else. I was reading through Coles Magazine where they featured a recipe for mango cupcakes and decided to use it. Since I'm still new in cooking world, whenever I read a list of ingredients I cannot imagine how the food would turn out like. So, I went with the recipe completely without changing anything. Unfortunately, it turned out that the cream was tasteless (I rechecked the recipe again and it didn't mention any sugar at all for the cream) and the cupcake wasn't sweet. 

Now this is the part where creativity is challenged! I added sugar and mango puree to the cream to make it more flavorful. It still didn't work. The cream is really yummy, but it's not stiff enough to decorate the top of the cupcake (because it wasn't butter cream). I was exhausted that night, so I stopped trying and kept the cupcakes in the fridge overnight. The next morning, I re-oven the cupcakes for 5-10 minutes. Surprisingly, the outside becomes yummy crunchy! Then I had the idea to make a mango platter: vanilla cupcake served with mango cream and diced mango. At the end, we munched the whole batch of cupcakes ourselves and brought store-bought cookies to our friend's home, hehe.

Ingredients:

• Vanilla cupcake:
• 160 gr, room temperature
• 3/4 cup caster sugar
• 3 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 1/2 cups self raising flour
• 1 cup milk 

• Cream:
• 200ml thickened cream
• 1 tbsp sugar
• 1/2 mango, pureed

How to make:

• Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celcius. Line muffin pan with paper cups.
• Beat butter and sugar until smooth and pale using mixer.
• Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in vanilla.
• Sift half of flour over mixture and fold in gently. Add milk and the remaining sifted flour. Then spoon into the muffin cups.
• Bake for 20 minutes. Leave muffin pan in the oven for 5 minutes, then let cool in wire rack.
• Serve on a plate with mango cream and diced mango.

Notes:

• If you want sweeter cupcake, I recommend to add 1/4 cup more of caster sugar
• If you want the cupcake to taste more vanilla-y you can add 1/2 tsp more of vanilla extract
• Best served when the cupcake is still warm and the cream is fridge-cool

My First Photo Competition

Last month, husband and I went to Canberra to see the Floriade and visit some of his friends. Floriade is Australian spring festival that is held in Canberra every year. As you know, spring festival is identical with flower festival. In Floriade you will find beds of tulips and poppies and many other exhibitions. The Commonwealth Park (where the Floriade is held), is not that big compared with Showa Kinen park in Japan. Me and Honey finished seeing every corner, eating churros, and taking pictures in only 2 hours. That's quite fast compared to my 4-hour trip in Showa Kinen, hehe.

Anyway, in Floriade, there is also photo exhibition which exhibits pictures from the previous Floriade photo competitions. The pictures were large-printed and placed randomly around the park. I don't know why suddenly I wanted to enter the competition. So, we went around the park and see the winning pictures, try to find out the key to winning. Actually, there is nothing really special about those pictures (except a few). So, I thought I'd give a shot.

I had to find a "different" idea. I avoided taking pictures of the flower only and macro shots (I didn't have the lens anyway, haha). Then, I came up with the idea of making heart-shape with our hands and have the flower bed as the blurry background. It took me many attempts (and a couple of different flower beds to see how the background turned out) to get the perfect heart-shape and photo angle. Honey was whining a couple of times too because he couldn't hold his hands up too long. Seriously, with only two of us and two usable hands, this is called "niat banget!". It was a pain for me as well because I had to hold my left hands up and hold the camera (and snap the shutter button) with my right hand.

In the competition, each person can submit up to two entries. I had a couple of other shots but I somehow feel this one is going to make it. Besides, I was too confused which other photo to submit, so at the end I only submitted one.

A few days ago my photography friend (who taught me a lot about photography when I was in Japan), mas Reza, posted on my Facebook wall the link of the Floriade photo competition announcement. He found the link when he was browsing and saw my name on one of the photo. I even already forgot about it, actually, because there wasn't any notification. Alhamdulillah the picture made it as the finalist. I didn't get the major prize, but I'm happy enough as the finalist since this is my first time to enter a photo competition. Lastly, my husband says, "see, you can even win the competition by using your lame lens-kit ;)"~ he's finding excuse for me to keep taking pictures regardless how crappy the lens-kit is (before I am united again with my prime).

And here's the winning picture (cropped)!  

http://www.abc.net.au/local/photos/2012/10/22/3615995.htm

Other shots from the Floriade:

http://augystagram.blogspot.com.au/2012/10/floriade-2012-be-spring-inspired.html

http://augystagram.blogspot.com.au/2012/10/lalala.html

My First Photo Competition

Last month, husband and I went to Canberra to see the Floriade and visit some of his friends. Floriade is Australian spring festival that is held in Canberra every year. As you know, spring festival is identical with flower festival. In Floriade you will find beds of tulips and poppies and many other exhibitions. The Commonwealth Park (where the Floriade is held), is not that big compared with Showa Kinen park in Japan. Me and Honey finished seeing every corner, eating churros, and taking pictures in only 2 hours. That's quite fast compared to my 4-hour trip in Showa Kinen, hehe.

Anyway, in Floriade, there is also photo exhibition which exhibits pictures from the previous Floriade photo competitions. The pictures were large-printed and placed randomly around the park. I don't know why suddenly I wanted to enter the competition. So, we went around the park and see the winning pictures, try to find out the key to winning. Actually, there is nothing really special about those pictures (except a few). So, I thought I'd give a shot.

I had to find a "different" idea. I avoided taking pictures of the flower only and macro shots (I didn't have the lens anyway, haha). Then, I came up with the idea of making heart-shape with our hands and have the flower bed as the blurry background. It took me many attempts (and a couple of different flower beds to see how the background turned out) to get the perfect heart-shape and photo angle. Honey was whining a couple of times too because he couldn't hold his hands up too long. Seriously, with only two of us and two usable hands, this is called "niat banget!". It was a pain for me as well because I had to hold my left hands up and hold the camera (and snap the shutter button) with my right hand.

In the competition, each person can submit up to two entries. I had a couple of other shots but I somehow feel this one is going to make it. Besides, I was too confused which other photo to submit, so at the end I only submitted one.

A few days ago my photography friend (who taught me a lot about photography when I was in Japan), mas Reza, posted on my Facebook wall the link of the Floriade photo competition announcement. He found the link when he was browsing and saw my name on one of the photo. I even already forgot about it, actually, because there wasn't any notification. Alhamdulillah the picture made it as the finalist. I didn't get the major prize, but I'm happy enough as the finalist since this is my first time to enter a photo competition. Lastly, my husband says, "see, you can even win the competition by using your lame lens-kit ;)"~ he's finding excuse for me to keep taking pictures regardless how crappy the lens-kit is (before I am united again with my prime).

And here's the winning picture (cropped)!
http://www.abc.net.au/local/photos/2012/10/22/3615995.htm

Other shots from the Floriade:
http://augystagram.blogspot.com.au/2012/10/floriade-2012-be-spring-inspired.html
http://augystagram.blogspot.com.au/2012/10/lalala.html

*reposted from my old blog

Fresh Strawberry Ice Cream

When I was about to wash dishes on the other day, I thought of making ice cream out of my frozen strawberries. Since the recipe was quick and easy to make, I decided to go on with it so I can wash the utensils right away. It's more efficient, hehe.

Ingredients:

• 200gr strawberries
• 2 tbsp of sugar
• 50 ml thickened cream (or whipping cream)
• 1 tsp lemon juice

How to make:

• Peel and cut the fruit into small pieces. Then, put it away in the freezer until frozen.
• Pour in the frozen fruit into food processor. Add sugar, thickened cream, and lemon juice. Blend them all together until smooth.
• Scoop with ice cream scoop and place into each dessert bowl.

  Notes:

• Chill the work bowl and dessert bowl in the refrigerator before making the ice cream. But I didn't do it though :D.

You can change the fruit with other fruits available. Or you can also store seasonal fruits in the freezer so you can make it anytime all year round! This tastes a lot better than the store bought ice cream. The strawberries tastes so real and fresh. Hmm... it tastes a bit like Haagen Dazs (which they don't have it in Sydneeeyyy!!!!). Hope you enjoy the recipe!

Source: Cooking with the Dog

Old-School Baked Potatoes

A while ago I was cooking chicken corn cream soup and was thinking of what carb dish would go great with it. Since I was bored with mashed potato already and thought that making another dish that contains milk would make the whole meal tastes so milky, I thought "why not make baked potato!?"

I searched for a recipe in Allrecipes and made some additions to it.

Ingredients:

• Potatoes
• Olive oil
• Salt
• Ground hot chillies
• Black or white pepper
• Shredded cheddar cheese and butter

How to make:

• Scrub the potatoes' skin with sponge. Clean it off from the dirt.
• Make holes with fork to enable steam to come out from the potatoes while it's being baked
• Rub each potatoes with olive oil
• Sprinkle salt, ground hot chillies, and pepper
• Bake in the oven (175 degrees C) for 1.5 hour
• While it's still hot, slice it in half and stuff it with shredded cheese. Put it back in the oven and let it melt.

Note:

• To melt the cheese, you don't need to turn on the oven again. It will melt with the heat after the baking process.

This baked potato is awesome! The skin is crispy and the ground hot chillies made the potatoes taste even better! Hope you enjoy this recipe!

Fruit Creme

I had some leftover strawberries and thickened cream after making a strawberry shortcake as a gift for Honey's team leader while we're visiting her. And lots and lots of alhamdulillah, she gave us a lot of navel oranges to bring home! I was like, "No way, there are only 2 of us at home. How are we going to finish this!?!?." Sooo... yeah, as my attempt to finish all the strawberries and cream before they are not edible enough, I made this simple and easy fruit creme in cups.

Ingredients:

• 2 kinds fruits of choice, diced (I used strawberries and skin-peeled navel oranges)
• 300 ml Thickened cream (or liquid whipping cream)
• 1 1/2 tbsp of sugar
• few drops of vanilla extract

How to make:

• Creme: Mix all of the ingredients (except the fruits, of course) in a bowl. Whisk until stiff (or until it forms soft peak, whichever you like)
• In single cups, spoon in alternatively a spoon of strawberries, a spoon of creme, a spoon of navel oranges, and a spoon of creme until it reached the desired height.

Notes:

• This dessert will taste even more fantastic if you add layers of crumbed cookies, such as biscuits or marie.

It's so easy, right? The ingredients were minimum and there's no need to bake or cook anything. Hope you enjoy!

Homemade Pizza

For the past month I've been craving for pizza several times. At least once in a week, I suppose. The price of eating out in Australia is quite expensive, so I am trying my very best to be able to cook (almost) anything at home to avoid spending. Alhamdulillah I bought a pizza pan a month ago, so I was very excited to make use of it as well! I used a (almost) 5 star recipe from Allrecipes for the crust and top it off with any toppings desired.

Ingredients:

• 2 1/4 tsp active dry yeast
• 1/2 tsp brown sugar
• 1 1/2 cups warm water
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 3 1/3 cups all purpose flour

How to make:

• In a large bowl, dissolve the yeast and brown sugar in the warm water. Let it sit for 10-15 minutes until foamy
• Stir salt and oil into the yeast solution. Mix in 2 1/2 cups of the flour
• Turn dough out onto a clean, well floured surface, and knead in more flour until dough is no longer sticky. Place dough into a well oiled bowl and cover with cloth. Let the dough rise 
• until double (about 1 hour). Punch down the dough and form a tight bowl.
• Preheat oven to 220 degrees C. Lightly oil the pizza pan and let dough rise for 15-20 minutes before topping and baking it.
• Bake pizza in preheated oven about 15 to 20 minutes, or until crust and cheese are golden brown

 Notes:

• A reviewer suggested to change the sugar to 1tbsp because it tasted too yeasty. I agree.
• Make sure the water is WARM, because if it is too hot the yeast won't work. That's what happened with my previous 2 experiments. It resulted in thin uncooked crust. 
• I didn't oil the pizza pan, instead I lightly floured it.
• The crust came out pretty thick. It's like double the thickness of ordinary pizza. So, if you would like thinner ones, you can actually make 2 pans of pizza out of this.
• If you don't have brown sugar, you can substitute with the same amount of white sugar. 

You can top your pizza with your favorite tomato pasta sauce, sausage, mushroom, basil leaves, salami/pepperoni, capsicum, tuna, chicken, olive, and loads of cheese. Hope you enjoy this recipe as much as I do!

Source: Allrecipes

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Selama sebulan terakhir ini saya beberapa kali kangen makan pizza (langsung kebayang Pizza Hut). Setidaknya sekali dalam seminggu tiba-tiba kepingin makan pizza. Harga makan di luar di Australia cukup mahal, jadi saya mencoba untuk selalu memasak di rumah untuk menghindari pengeluaran. Alhamdulillah, sebulan yang lalu saya membeli loyang pizza, jadi yaa makin kepingin bikin pizza deh. Saya menggunakan (hampir) 5 Bintang resep dari Allrecipes untuk kerak dan top it off dengan topping yang diinginkan.
 
Bahan:

•      2 1/4 sdt ragi
•      1/2 sdt brown sugar
•      1 1/2 cangkir air hangat
•      1 sdt garam
•      2 sdm minyak zaitun
•      3 1/3 cangkir tepung terigu

Cara membuat:

• Dalam mangkuk besar, larutkan ragi dan gula dalam air hangat. Biarkan selama 10-15 menit sampai berbusa.
• Masukkan garam dan minyak ke dalam larutan ragi. Campur dalam 2 1/2 cangkir tepung.
• Letakkan adonan di permukaan yang sudah ditaburi tepung, dan uleni tepung lagi sampai adonan tidak lengket. Tempatkan adonan ke dalam mangkuk yang telah diminyaki (supaya adonan tidak kering), kemudian tutup dengan kain. Biarkan sampai adonan naik dua kali lipat (sekitar 1 jam). Kempiskan adonan dan bulatkan menjadi bola.
• Panaskan oven hingga 220 derajat C. Beri sedikit minyak pada loyang pizza dan biarkan adonan naik selama 15-20 menit dahulu sebelum topping dan memanggangnya.
• Oven pizza sekitar 15 sampai 20 menit, atau sampai kulit dan keju menjadi coklat keemasan

   
Catatan:

• Ada pembaca yang menyarankan untuk mengubah gula untuk 1sdm karena raginya terlalu berasa dan saya setuju dengan ini. 
• Pastikan air yang digunakan hangat, karena jika terlalu panas ragi tidak akan bekerja. Sebelumnya saya sudah mencoba 2 kali membuat pizza namun selalu gagal (ternyata) dikarenakan air yang saya gunakan terlalu panas.
• Roti yang dihasilkan resep ini cukup tebal. Dua kali lipat ketebalan pizza biasa. Jadi, jika Anda ingin pizza yang lebih tipis, Anda dapat membuat 2 loyang pizza dengan resep ini.
• Jika Anda tidak memiliki brown sugar, Anda dapat mengganti dengan jumlah yang sama gula putih.

Untuk topping, Anda dapat menggunakan saus tomat yang dibubuhi oregano, sosis, ayam, daging asap, paprika, olive, tuna, dan keju mozzarella. Selamat mencoba!