Weekly Meal 2 - 8 January 2012

Monday - 2 January 2012
Not really going in the office, but instead went some detour to visit dear customer
Breakfast: Finishing few days old of bread from the fridge, with peanut butter
Lunch: Kupat Tahu at Pasar Modern BSD. Not really special
Dinner: Vegetable salad with pineapple sauce. Add a lot of peanut to make it nicer

Image via Wikipedia

Tuesday - 3 January 2012
Breakfast: Bread from Holland Bakery Cheese Loaf and Raisin Loaf
Lunch: Vegetarian lunch at Atlantica building, cassava leaves, buncis, tofu and tempe
Dinner: Sayur Lodeh, Empal (kind of minced meat) and some salad

Wednesday - 4 January 2012
Today I'm working from home, so it will be mostly food that we cook
Breakfast: Still finishing those raisin and cheese bread from Holland Bakery
Lunch: A delicious and refreshing chicken soup with sausages, and buncis (a kind of green beans)
Dinner: Still try to finish the soup, with martabak bought close to home

Thursday - 5 January 2012
Breakfast: Just another regular bread with peanut butter, brought from Lees at Sogo Food Hall. It is a damn big bread
Lunch: Went to canteen at Pondok Indah Mall 2 for a serving of Nasi Bakar. Great stuff for only Rp. 10.000
Dinner: Take Away from Glodok: Kuotie (Some kind of wonton), and take away from Kenanga: Tahu Baso, Pork Satay and Shu May

Pork Satay & Shu May from Kenanga

Friday - 6 January 2012
Breakfast: Lees Toast with Crumpy, nothing fancy
Lunch: Fish Ball and Tahu Baso Kenanga
Dinner: Tofu with Bean Sprouts, and Green Squash (Local Name: Oyong) with Egg

Tofu with Bean Sprout (left) and Oyong with Egg (Right)

Saturday - 7 January 2012
Breakfast: Again Lees Toast with Crumpy. It is Weekend, time for lazy breakfast
Lunch: Take Away Bakmi Vila Cinere
Dinner: Cassava leaves with coconut milk soup with fried tofu

Sunday - 8 January 2012
Breakfast: Fried Sukun
Lunch: Chicken Soup with Carrots
Dinner: Gado-gado Padang, kind of vegetables salad

Cassava Leaves and Coconut Milk White Soup Recipe

The dishes came from the origin of my mom, Padang in West Sumatra. So it is not surprising that she often cook it during my childhood.

There are some variety of this food. In most of Padang Restaurant, or maybe in some waroong on the street, the most common one is with yellowish soup from addition of Turmeric (Kunyit). But the one made by mom was simply without Turmeric.

Here is the ingredients:

• Cassava Leaves. Try to find the young small one that is softer when cooked
• Coconut Milk. You need a thin one, so if you have a first press, mix it with some water.
• Shallots, thinly sliced
• Sugar to taste

After washing the leaves, put in boiling water for 2-3 minutes to dilute some of the bitter taste. Strain and replace the water with the coconut milk, then bring to boil with the leaves in . Add some shallots and sugar to taste.

The 2nd boiling time will mostly depends on how soft the Cassava leaves are. If the coconut milk gets to thick, then add more water

The dishes can be served hot or cold. I can't wait to taste mine, freshly made for the sake of memory.

New in 2012: Daily Meals

Happy New Year. Wish that your new year party was great, and wish you a great 12 months ahead

Welcoming 2012, Jive Kitchen will create a new section, called the Daily Meals. You can find the special section to the right of our homepage

So, what is it all about? It is to document the food that we eat daily, might it be from our kitchen, or someone else kitchen (translation: eat out or take away). The purpose is that, this section will be our food log, from which we can refer to when we are really out of idea of what to cook, or where to eat.

So that it won't be cluttering our blog, we will publish the post every Monday morning, which will list our meals from the previous Monday until the Sunday before. We will try to include at least the name of the food, where to get it if we bought it, link to recipe if we have one, and some picture.

Of course, we would like to hear from you about our 1 week meals, so feel free to comment, or suggest some idea. Who knows, your suggestion will make it to our kitchen and get posted :D

See you all in 2012

Breakfast Idea: Bagel with Scrambled Egg

The Bagel can be purchased from local bakery. Scramble the egg in the morning. Cut the ham into small size, then mixed into the scrambled egg. Serve with slice of tomato, salt and pepper.

Banana Muffin

On one fine evening, Grace came out with the idea to make a banana muffin. I thought this was her old competitive spirit that come back after my successful venture with Chocolate Chip Cookies. "No", She said. "We just have too much stuff in the fridge that we need to finish before it expire". The fact is that, those stuff she mentioned is mostly similar to the ingredients of my Chocolate Chip Cookies.

She eventually made one a few day after. And what was called Banana Muffin was actually really everything-in-the-fridge mixed together. In addition to Banana, Grace put some oats, carrots, raisin, and almond. So much extra stuff added that the taste of Banana is barely noticeable.

The Banana Muffin

The mix adds to the richness of texture in the muffin. Most sweets come from the raisin, which is different from raw sugar. The oats and the almond add the crunchiness of different type, one is bigger, and the other is smaller. From nutrition perspective, these additional stuff add additional nutrient from any traditional muffin.

I was running in a race yesterday, and the muffin definitely made an additional after-race meal, in addition to companion of evening coffee.