Easy Scrumptious Potato Salad

Hello guys, I am Wardah's sister and fellow partner-in-thyme. I'm there for her when she is frantically searching for a substitute for sour cream and I am her photographer. I'm also the one who helps her clean up after she makes a huge mess in the kitchen.
















She recently had the pleasure of trying my potato salad, and in a moment of inspiration (and a stroke of pure genius), she asked me, "Why don't you write guest posts for my blog? You can bake too."

Why thank you for noting, Wardah.

I actually taught her everything she knows about the world of combining ingredients into edible creations, but she won't admit it ;)

Today I'll be sharing my version of the potato salad.



















This "salad" is high in cholesterol, but it tastes SO GOOD. You will want to find family and friends to share it with, or you might end up eating it all by yourself.

































I didn't write it on my recipe card, but adding garlic powder makes this potato salad taste even yummier. How much powder? I say go crazy with it!

I also added some shell pasta because my siblings like it.

Unfortunately, my family finished it off before I could get a picture of the completed potato salad. I think you will have to try this recipe for yourselves to see what it looks like- and more importantly, to taste it :)

Photo Recipe: Singaporie Rice

Recently, a lot have people have been asking me how I made the Singapore rice in one of my first posts. So, I decided to make a blog post showing how I made it. Here goes...

Singaporie Rice
Serves: 8

Chicken:
1 chicken breast
1 tspn garlic paste
1 tspn ginger paste
1 tbsp red chili paste
1 tspn salt (sea salt)
1 tbsp oyster sauce
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp oil

First, combine all the ingredients for the chicken except the oil and marinate it. Leave the chicken to set from anywhere over an hour to overnight. After the mixture sets, fry with 1 tbsp of oil until cooked and set aside for use in rice.

Rice:
8 cup water
1 tspn cumin seed (optional)
1 tspn whole black pepper (optional)
2 cups of basmati rice
8 oz bag of vermicelli
1 tbsp oil
1 tbsp oil
3 medium or large sized carrots
1 green bell pepper
1 head of broccoli
8 oz of frozen corn (optional)
 salt, garlic salt, black pepper, oregano leaves, and basil leaves for taste

Boil 8 cups water in a big pot and add cumin seed and whole black pepper. For better results add one tablespoon of vinegar or lemon juice. Add rice and cook until well done. Drain and set aside in serving tray.

Cook the pasta as directed on package. Drain water and toss pasta with oil so it does not dry out or stick together.

Stir vegetables in oil separately, until each vegetable is softened. Sprinkle with salts, black pepper oregano and basil leaves as desired. Toss vegetables together and set aside for later use.

Sauce/ Topping:

3/4 cup ketchup
1 cup mayonnaise
1 tspn sugar
1 tbsp vinegar
crushed red pepper for taste

To make the sauce, beat the ketchup and mayonnaise in a bowl until free of any lumps. Add sugar and vinegar and mix well. Add red pepper accordingly. Add water if the mixture is too thick.

Serving:

Grab the serving tray of rice you had previously set aside and spread a layer of vegetables on it. Decorate however you want to.

Do the same with the pasta.

Then spread a layer sauce on top.

Chicken...

Spread a last layer of sauce and you're ready to serve. Truthfully, the layers are interchangeable; just make sure that the first layer is rice and the last is sauce. 

Try this recipe and make sure to tell me all your success stories!

Wardah

My Little Sister's Pound Cake

 Oh glorious pound cake, I will eat you soon...

Don't worry, I promise it won't hurt... Well, it won't hurt anymore than it did when you were whipped into a batter, poured into a mold, burned in the oven, and sliced by a knife. Didn't you hate all the torture?

Don't you want to escape from it?..
.......
Ok, ok, I'm done. Hilarious post: FAIL. Just enjoy the pictures. :D

It's so cute!

Pound cake party!

I picked these flowers from my backyard. Such a pretty color :)

Whipped cream = Love

Just to emphasize.

Pound cake made by my sister, Hajerah
Photos taken by me

Do you like?

Love,
Wardah

Cake Ball Nightmares

I made something Bakerella again, only this time, it's cake balls! (Not cake pops... Get it? *awkward silence* Hahaha).

We were invited to a party by one of my mother's friends. The host and her husband live with her brother-in-law's family and her other brother-in-law was invited too. Together, they have more than a dozen kids! We couldn't think of an adequate present that would suit and please all of them, so I decided to bake something as a present. Cake balls seemed perfect because they wouldn't be messy and look so cute.

The cake balls I made this time were burger cake balls from Bakerella's website. They look absolutely adorable and are perfect for kids. Man, I have to tell you. However easy they were to make for Bakerella, they were not easy for me. It wasn't that the process was hard or difficult to understand. It was just that there was so much frustration involved, that I almost felt as if I would never make them again!

The cake balls after the first coating.

The terrors of cake balls that Bakerella never tells:

First of all, I had not even decided to make burger cake balls until last minute. I had a bunch of candy coating so that was fine but I had already made my cake balls and I hadn't shaped them correctly. For burger cake balls, they have to be shaped slightly rectangular so they look like buns. Well, I started shaping them after they had hardened and some of the balls started cracking or crumbing. That was annoying.

Despite all the difficulties I ran into, I was so pleased with how they turned out. What do you think?

Then, I had trouble with the candy melts. I made a makeshift broiler so that I could melt the candy melts. I just boiled some water in a skillet and set a bowl with my candy melts on top. They melted just fine but they were too thick. I had to keep on thinning the melts down but they would never become the right consistency. Once, some water got into my candy melts. Oh, the horror. It was terrible; my candy melts jammed up and became unusable. I had to throw them away. What a waste.

They tasted so good... Mmmm.

Of course, the trouble didn't just end there. I didn't have time to make the cake balls until the evening, so I had to work away into the night. It started getting chillier and the cake balls with candy coating started drying right on my spoon! I had to pull the cake ball off the spoon and a layer of cake ball and coating would stay stuck on the spoon. Then, there would be crumbs inside the coating and so on...

Sometimes the cake ball would get heavy with coating and fall right off my spoon and right back into the bowl. All my careful dripping gone to waste. That was a problem I had with my cake pops too; the cake would get too heavy and fall of the stick.

Can you see the few yellow "sesame seeds?" I had to handpick these from a colorful sprinkles variety.

I ran into problems dipping the second and third layers of coating too. When I held the cake ball to redip it, the candy coating would start to melt from my body heat. It would also melt from after coming in contact with warm coating. When I lifted the cake out of the bowl, the two coatings would be mixed. I would find lettuce popping out of the bun. xD

♪ We're going on a picnic.. Na na, na na, na na ♫

Still, when the kids saw the burgers/cakes, they were so excited. Their mothers were so impressed. It was worth it. And of course, I can't resist exaggerating. It wasn't so bad, I probably only ran into these problems once or twice before I would improvise or solve the problem. I don't want to scare you guys from making cake balls. So, try making Bakerella's cake pops or balls and remember to tell me or show me if you do!

Love, Wardah

Behind the scenes with Wardah. ;D

P.s. Do you guys like the new banner and background? Is it too tacky?

Garlic Bread

Garlic bread... Heaven on French bread. Actually, it would be heaven if it didn't make your breath smell so much, but you get the point, right? Anyways, I made garlic bread, probably one of the easiest foods ever. It wasn't my first time making them so it was no biggy. Still, they tasted... heavenly. Haha

Check it out...

Crushing the garlic. Isn't this the coolest little crusher ever? It's from back home...

Garlic spread made out of garlic, softened butter, oregano leaves, basil leaves, garlic salt, and a pinch of pepper

Cutting the bread, if you ever want to make garlic bread, try cutting the loaf diagonally rather than straight down. It adds style. :D

All the cheese and loveliness popped in the oven.

Yummy...

Hope you guys enjoyed! Also, sorry for the long hiatus. I'm trying to make up by posting more! Love,

Wardah