Simmos Icecream @ Mandurah

I would like to end my post for July with a "sweet" one on the Simmos Icecream. Any ice-cream lover out there? :P
How could one miss a scoop or two of Simmos Ice-cream when visiting Mandurah, WA? No way! We enjoyed a single scoop of Cappuccino ice-cream before our cruise to see the Dolphins.

See, this is the single cone ice-cream. One scoop is equivalent to a double or more as what you would expect to get in Malaysia. It's sweet, rich, creamy and yummylicious. We can taste the "freshness" of the fresh milk and cream in the ice-cream. I fall in love with it on the first lick. :P. The store is just next to Dome right on the boardwalk in the cosmopolitan town of Mandurah. Having our ice-cream while sight seeing was kind of relaxing.

Besides the awesome ice-cream, they do serve icy cool, sorbets, indulgent desserts and even hot drinks. They have about 39 flavors available each day.

Their stores are located at:

MANDURAH

On the Boardwalk
Unit 6 / 73 Mandurah Terrace, Mandurah

T | 08 9582 7177
Open | 10.30 till late everyday (seasonally adjusted)
Email | simmos-m@bigpond.net.au

DUNSBOROUGH

161 Commonage Road, Dunsborough

T | 08 9755 3745
Open | 10.30 am – 5pm everyday
Email | admin@simmos.com.au

MARGARET RIVER

Top of Town
Shop 2 / 140 Bussell Highway, Margaret River

T | 08 9758 8886
Open | 10.30am till late everyday (seasonally adjusted)
Email | simmosmarg@westnet.com.au

Roasted Drumsticks With Fruit Salad

I'm glad that I found this recipe from Elinluv's Tidbits Corner. I did some modification on the marinate ingredients since I don't have the cajun seasoning, paprika and oregano. Like Elin said, this is the really finger licking good drumsticks. Yummy!

Roasted Drumsticks With Salad
Serves 2

Ingredients:

6 drumsticks with skin on, remove the excessive fat from skin
Planta

Marinate With:

1 tbsp oyster sauce
1/2 tsp sea salt
1 tbsp light soy sauce
dash of black pepper
3 cloves of grated garlic
dash of mixed herbs
some honey

Salad:

2 green apple, cubed
2 red apple, cubed
6 cherry tomatoes, halved
fruit salad dressing

Methods:

1. Marinate the chicken drumsticks for about 6 hours. Rub it with honey an hour before roasting.
2. Preheat oven at 230º C. Roast the drumsticks for 25 minutes.

3. Take out the drumsticks and rub it with margarine.

4. Roast for another 30 minutes till cooked.

5. Elin's tips: Remember to keep turning the drumsticks for even browning of the crispy skin.

Cereal Butter Cake

Another baking session for me on Saturday night. I promised to him that I will bake another cake for him. I was supposed to buy a packet of brown sugar, but too bad I forgot about it. See, how forgetful I am. :(
Oats and Nestum Cereal will never run out of stock in my kitchen. I always have a cup of oats + Nestum cereal + milk on every weekdays before I go to work. I learned from other bloggers that these 2 ingredients can be used for baking too. So, I decided to try on Cereal Butter Cake, a moist and fragrant yummy cake! While baking, the aroma is so irresistible. However, the texture is a bit rough. Does anybody knows the reason?

Cereal Butter Cake

Ingredients:

250gm butter
140gm Castor sugar
1 tbsp honey
220gm self raising flour
1/2 tbsp baking powder
4 omega-3 eggs
Nestum cereal 60gm
150ml fresh milk


Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180°C. Grease the sides and base.

2. Beat butter, sugar and honey until light and fluffy.

3. Add eggs one at a time beating well after addition.

4. Add Nestum and mix well.

4. Fold in the sifted flour and baking soda to mix.

5. Pour in milk and stir to mix.

6. Bake in the preheat oven for 45 minutes.

Buffet Lunch @ Miss Maud Restaurant

On one afternoon, we were invited for a buffet lunch at Miss Maud Restaurant which is located in Miss Maud Swedish Hotel near Perth City Center. Together with us, we had Uncle Eric, Auntie Amy, Auntie Loo, sister-in-law and brother-in-law. The old folks had the privilege of discount on that day. They paid less, but they consumed more than us, lol...

The food ranges from soup, salad, seafood, finger food, roasted beef, ham, bun & cheese, to desserts. They don't have wide variety, but it was a fulfilling lunch. I enjoyed the dessert the most. Let the photos describe the food.

The yummy desserts.


Roasted beef.


The seafood corner.


The salad bar.


Hams...


Bun & cheese.


Some finger food and stir fried veggies.

The Dalecarlian horse, the famous traditional wooden horse statue originating in the Swedish Province of Dalama.

2nd Baking: Butter Cake

It's not that I never bake a cake before. Just that I never found a recipe that is just nice for a butter cake that it supposed to be. Sometimes, the cake is too dry and sometimes it is too sweet.

So, to be at the safe side, I served the net for a "guaranteed" recipe. I found this appeared as the first searched result. It's 5x mom's recipe. It's simple to follow and I feel more secure by just follow her's. Anyway, I substituted some of the ingredients with what I had in the fridge, and I reduced the sugar portion by 30gm.

The cake turned out just nice. It's soft, fluffy, not too sweet and not too dry. Anyway, I just need to improve my skill in cake cutting. I spoil the cake, opsss...... Also, I shall wait the cake to cool before cutting, which I failed to do so. I was eager to see its texture. So, you can see I have two pieces of ugly cakes below. I didn't care that much, and so do him (hubby) and him (Tiger). Both of them keep on asking for more. So, in just less than 15 minutes, we ate up almost half of the cake. So "laku".

Butter Cake

Ingredients:

250gm butter
200gm Castor sugar
250gm self raising flour
4 omega-3 eggs
1/2 tsp soda bicarbonate
1/2 tsp orange essence (added to eggs)
1 tbsp of condense milk diluted in 6 tbsp hot water

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180°C. Grease the sides and base.

2. Beat butter & sugar until light and fluffy.

3. Add eggs one at a time beating well after addition.

4. Fold in the sifted flour and baking soda to mix.

5. Pour in milk and stir to mix.

6. Bake in the preheat oven for 45 minutes.

Ong Cheng Huat Seafood 王清发海鲜

Ong Cheng Huat Seafood is a familiar place for those who stay in Butterworth area near Bagan Lallang. Though it is situated in a village, it's a popular place to dine out for its specialty dishes. More and more people visiting to this place after it appeared in Taste With Jason. Lots of review you can get from the net.

Here, you get only 2 types of drinks. One is tuak and the other one is herba tea. We opted for one bottle of tuak. Warning for those who's allergy to wine. I had to suffer for 2 days body itchy after the consumption of half glass of tuak. Gosh...So, bear in mind ya...

This is one of their specialty, the deep fried baby chicken 炸童子鸡. The chick is chopped into half, marinated and deep fried. I don't really like the chicken as I found it has a kind of weird taste. Perhaps it is because of the "milky smell"? :P

Their deep fried homemade soft bean curd. Grounded dried shrimps are added to their tofu. The tofu tastes ok.

Steamed lala which was my favorite during the dine in. The lala was steamed with ginger, garlic and chili padi. Oo...la...la...

Last but not the least, their fried vermicelli. Although you can't find much of ingredients in the dish, but it tastes good. The vermicelli is not too dry and it has the springy texture.

The total bill costs RM32++.

GPS Location: N 05° 26.595'
E100° 23.769'

Homecooked Chicken Combo Set

Lately, I've been so active in experimenting new recipes for pan-fried, oven-grilled and oven-baked chicken combo set. Unlike the Baked Chicken With Home Made Sauce, all of them just taste average, nothing to be proud of. For the health purpose, I substitute chicken thigh with skinned chicken breast, but the chicken breast turned out to be not so juicy. Perhaps if I use chicken thigh for the recipe, the dish will be much improved?

Ok, let's see what did I cook so far. The above is the pan-fried followed by oven-grilled chicken breast with mushroom and onion sauce.

Next, I have the lemon grass flavored oven-baked chicken set with baby carrots, cherry tomatoes and chad potatoes.

This was our dinner last night. Oven-baked herbs chicken with carrot and chad potatoes.

Come on, I have to encourage myself to never give up! Hopefully, I will have more successful Western platter soon.

Homemade Butter Cookies

As a baking newbie, I'm still at the beginner stage looking for recipe which is simple and straight forward. I managed to get an easy to follow recipe for butter cookies and I didn't hesitate to give it a try. The first attempt did not turn out well, as the cookies were too thick and hard. Majority of the cookies were used to feed Tiger, my pet Chihuahua. Tiger loves it so much and always asking for more.

I never give up. I made 2nd attempt to bake another batch of cookies. I modified the recipe hoping that the outcome will not as hard as the first time's. Well, it didn't disappoint me, I managed to get the result that I was looking for. I have a bottle of the cookies as my Father's Day gift. My dad happily finished up the whole bottle. :) I guess he must have the "sweet sweet" feeling inside him. Hehe...

Homemade Butter Cookies

Ingredients:

125g of soften butter
1/2 cup of sugar
1 Omega-3 egg
2 cups of flour

Method:

Step 1: Beat butter.


Step 2: Add sugar and mix till fluffy.


Step 3: Add egg and mix well.


Step 4: Combine the batter with sifted flour.


Step 5: Make it into a ball, and leave it in fridge for 10 minutes.


Step 6: Make the batter into 1cm diameter balls. Arrange the balls on the baking tray. Roll it flat into round shaped cookies as photo above.

Step 7: Bake in the preheat oven for 15-20 minutes under 190 deg C.

Step 8: Leave it cool and place it in an air tight bottle.

Boost Juice Bars

Boost Juice Bar is a franchise store that you can find everywhere in Australia. We tried once when we were in Hillary's Boat Harbour.

Boost Juice Bar serves healthy drinks like Low-Fat Smoothies, Super Smoothies, Absolute Fruit Smoothies, Wheatgrass Shot, Skinny Smoothies, Fruit Crushes, Fresh Juices, Boosters. All these are the healthy alternatives to junk food. A drink made of fresh fruit or vegie juice is just as tasty and contains fantastic source of vitamins, minerals and antioxidants as well.

We opted for fresh juice, the Wild Berry Juice. It contains freshly juiced pineapple, apple, raspberries, strawberries and blueberries plus an Energiser Booster. The bar outlet has an open kitchen concept, so we can observe how the juice was prepared. Fresh fruits were selected, then brutally squeezed, pulped, and grinded into this cup of delicious juice.

Try it and you'll know why it is called Boost Juice.

Yuk Chuk Pearl Corn Soup 玉竹珍珠玉米汤

I ran out of idea on new soup recipe. So, I just mix and match some of the ingredients to come up with my Yuk Chuk Pearl Corn Soup. Not bad, right? :)

Yuk Chuk is called Polygonatum Odoratum/Solomon's seal. It is widely used in Traditional Medicine. It is neutral and taste a little bit sweetish. With Yuk Chuk, red dates, honey dates and pearl corn, the soup turned out to be a nourishing soup with the natural sweetness. It suits my taste bud. When it's cooked, pearl corn's kernels still remain very soft and sweet.

Yuk Chuk Pearl Corn Soup
Serves 2

Ingredients:

10 strips of yuk chuk
1 pearl corn, cut into 4 portions
2 honey dates
8 red dates
300 gm pork ribs
salt or light soy sauce to taste
water

Method:

1. Bring water to boil in a pot. Then pour it to the slow cooker.

2. Put in pork ribs, pearl corn, yuk chuk, red dates and honey dates. Cook under high heat for 3 hours .

3. Add light soy sauce to taste. Let it simmer under auto mode for another 2 hours.

4. Remove scum and oil from the soup surface and serve hot.