Sarah's 2nd Birthday lunch

After as small family lunch on Sarah's actual birthday, its time to party with friends and neighbours on the following Saturday, so its finger food galore!

In the line-up we have :

Marinated figs with mozzarella and prosciutto
This little kebab is described as the modern version of pineapple on a stick. Laced with basil infused olive oil for a dressing, it really does get the taste buds going!

Baked goats cheese with honey
Little medallions of goats cheese lightly baked and drizzled with honey, served on a bed of spinach leaves. I'm generally not a fan of large chunks of cheese but the combination of flavours here (this includes getting a mouthful of spinach) is just right!

Smoked Salmon with fennel slaw on toasted spelt bread

To tingle the taste bud further, there is smoked salmon given a sophisticated twist with fennel slaw, sprinkled with fried capers (who would have thought to fry capers! When fried, they become little salty crispy nuggets, yumm indeed!). All this served on toasted spelt bread. Oh yes, don't forget, topped with avocado too!

Chicken and mushroom pastry puffs

And there is something for the less adventurous, triangles of puff pastry filled with chicken and mushroom pie filling. Get them while they are hot!

Sausage, cheese, tomato ciabatta squares
This is one for the kids and the kids in adults, I mean who doesn't like sausages, right? Since this is a finger food party, the sausages are sliced and placed on top of ciabatta squares, spread with tomato sauce (proper sauce mind you, not maggi tomato ketchup) and topped with mozzarella. Pinned in place with a cocktail stick and then toasted till the cheese is melted and golden!

 Bread Salad and Apple Coleslaw
To accompany the food, there is of course the salad. I made two types of salads as I've noticed that there are two kinds of vege eaters, one that goes for the green leafy variety and the other that eats vegetables but not the floppy green kind! So the two selected to cater to everyone's perference are a bread salad with an Italian dressing (the green leafy one) and a simple apple coleslaw ( for those adverse to all things green and leafy)

Vanilla ice-cream with balsamic blueberries
To end the meal, a nice creamy vanilla ice-cream topped with balsamic blueberries and a piece of wafer. The balsamic blueberries were made by simply heating blueberries with sugar and balsamic vinegar till just the berries are just about bursting. And no, I did not make the ice-cream but I did grow the mint!

Pineapple rolls
And lastly, something to keep the hand occupied while we talk away, pineapple rolls. This is a typical cookie during festivities at home. Made with melt in the mouth pastry and homemade pineapple jam.

And that is the end of one of the biggest solo cooking feat I have attempted this year, now to put my feet up and let someone else feed me for a change! :)

Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Chocolate Fudge Cake

It's Sarah's 2nd birthday and now that she is old enough to have favourites when it comes to eating, the menu will have to be filled with her favourite things.

First up, the all important birthday cake and its no contest that it will have to be a chocolate cake. That was the easy part, the hardest part was deciding what shape and theme it would be. Since she practically eats and breathes Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, it did cross my mind to make a Mickey cake but in the end I decided to bite the bullet and go for the whole thing. So after a few weeks of looking a MMCh cakes, my head was spining and I practically saw Mickey and co everywhere I looked but I digress so back to baking and cooking. After having spent a fortune on ready rolled icing, I was raring to go, unfortunately the little lady did not go to bed till 11pm, which meant I could not start till then. So it was in the middle of the night till the early hours that I was crafting away in the kitchen and guess what, there is a certain peace to the stillness of the hour which made it very pleasant to work.

My biggest challenge to date

The sliced cake ..yummy!

Closeup on the front door detail

My shaky attempt at writing

 

The uncovered cake

The bits n pieces prior to assembly






Vegetarian curry puffs

After a curry puff experiment as short while ago to find a pastry that I like, I  was armed and ready for the next call for fingerfood. It came in the form a farewell for 2 fellow Malaysians. These were made using a sort of hybrid between the spiral curry puff and the normal curry puff skin. As for the filling, on the recommendation of Keep learning keepsmiling, I used a mix of the Scotty brand baby potatoes and the normal potatoes. The result was light crispy and flaky skinned puffs with fluffy potato filling...yumm!

The hybrid skin was flaky and melt in the mouth

The fluffy filling, fragranced with curry leaves ... yum!