Instant Chicken Jalfrezi

Last night for dinner, I decided to cook a simple Indian dish. But was too lazy to make the sauce from scratch. Luckily, I have Patak's instant Jalfrezi sauce at hand. So, this is how I cook my Instant Chicken Jalfrezi.















Instant Chicken Jalfrezi

Ingredients
1 baby chicken (700 grams) - cut into pieces
1 carrot - chopped
A handful of mushrooms - cut into half
1/2 red onion - diced
2 cloves garlic - roughly chopped
Coriander leaves - roughly chopped
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 bottle of Jalfrezi sauce (I used Patak's sauce)

Salt & pepper - to taste

Direction
Heat oil in a pan, then fry the red onion and garlic till its slight brown. Put in the chicken and fry it till its cooked. Next in,  are the vegetables (carrot & mushrooms), fry it till the carrots are slightly soft. Pour in the Jalfrezi sauce and simmer on low heat for 15 minutes. Once cooked, sprinkle the chopped coriander leaves on top. Serve with warm rice or pitta bread.

The sauce is so tasty, it's almost the same as the takeaways. But at least, I know how much fat & salt I'm consuming, even though the sauce used is kinda instant. :) It's not spicy at all, so I added chopped chilies as well. Yummy dish to cook on a cold, rainy day.

My Homemade Iced Caramel Macchiato

I just love Starbucks. Loves everything on their menu from lattes to chocolate drinks and even lemonade. But being a student on budget, daily Starbucks coffee will be very expensive. So how do I adapt to this new tight budget situation? Well make your own coffee, of course.

So Google came to the rescue. There are lots of websites that provide almost-Starbucks drinks recipe. So I decided to try the famous Iced Caramel Macchiato. Got the recipe from here Eugenie Kitchen, just as a guideline. I tweaked the vanilla & caramel measurement. The basic ingredients are expresso shots or a very strong coffee, vanilla syrup, milk, caramel sauce and ice. Wow, it was not easy to find vanilla syrup around my area but finally found it at Waitrose. It was not cheap either, around GBP 2.99 per bottle.

Iced Caramel Macchiato 
(serves 1)

Ingredients

• 3 tablespoon vanilla syrup
• 1 cup ice cubes
• 1 cup of cold milk (240 ml)
• 1/2 cup strong brewed coffee
• 2 teaspoon caramel sauce

How I make my coffee: I don’t have an espresso machine so I bought instant espresso powder, instead. I used 2 tbsp of espresso powder with 1/2 cup of hot water. The coffee needs to be cool down before you pour it into the drink, otherwise all the ice will melt before you could enjoy the caramel macchiato.

Directions

Just put in the vanilla, then milk followed by ice cubes. The tricky part is putting in the coffee into the cup. Slowly, pour the coffee into the cup so you won’t mess up the layers. As suggested, I used the back of a spoon to pour in the coffee. Last but not least drizzle yummy caramel sauce on top of the ice/coffee. 

Done! Easy right?

Ok now is tasting time! It has similar taste to Starbucks’ Original Iced Caramel Macchiato. But it’s a bit too sweet for me. The measurement given above is just a rule of thumb. It depends on the size of the cup and other factors. But in my case, I think it might be because of the vanilla syrup and caramel sauce. I’ll just use 1.5 tbsp of vanilla and 1 tsp of caramel sauce next time. Plus I got approx. 1/4 cup of coffee leftover that did not go into the drink as it was too full. Will  reduce the amount of water to 1/3 cup and so i’ll have a stronger coffee taste . There you go, my first attempt at copying the famous Starbucks Iced Caramel Macchiato. Not a success yet but at least I’ve tried. 

Have fun trying!

The Weighty Issue

Hari ni hujan ala-ala manja gitu. Dah nak dekat pukul 12 tengahhari tapi masih gelap. Apa lagi tarik duvet and sambung tidur la kan. But felt like rambling this Sunday morning. Hubby still tidur so takde sape nak layan I nak berborak ni. This morning, around 6 am, we were woken up by blaring fire alarm. The whole building was so noisy and I thought that our apartment block is on fire. But luckily nothing happened, probably just some malfunction in the system. So nak sambung tidur dah tak lalu, so kemas-kemas la apa yang patut. 

Then I looked at my phone, oh there's a message still unread. Click it. An image sent by my hubby last night while I was asleep. Oh God, I was stunned to look at the picture. Who is this person in this picture? I didn't recognise it at first. But it was me!!!!. I am SO F***%^& FAT! I used to weigh around 53kg when I was in Malaysia but then the scale now shows 65kg. How can this happen in just 4 months. Plus I was fasting for 18 hours daily last month. How? When? I did not take any picture during Eid celebration because I don't feel confident. But yesterday, my hubby forced me to take a picture with this handsome naval officer, that we met on board of an Italian naval ship docking at Canary Wharf area. I totally forgotten about the picture after that. But hubby sent me the picture last night. I think it is his subtle way of saying, Baby, please accept the fact that you are fat and do something about it.   Or may be he just want me to keep it. I am so disappointed with myself and can't believe this is happening.

I am determined to lose 10kg in 3 months. Is it possible, though? I am hatching a plan to achieve this goal. So I sign up to Calories Count and gonna begin my weight loss journey. Wish me luck!

My unflattering photo that trigger the weight loss journey. Isn't he handsome?

Hobby Idea.. Scrapbooking

I love browsing through videos in Youtube. It is so addictive that I keep clicking one video after another. Anyway, I found some very interesting videos on scrapbooking. Those scrapbooks look AMAZING! It looks like fun to make one too. But I'm afraid to start on making one. Well, first I am jenis hangat-hangat tahi ayam. So excited at first then it will die down after a month or two or even earlier :). Secondly, those beautiful art supplies are sure gonna be expensive. I don't know for sure as I never buy one but a ribbon might cost at least 50p a roll. Knowing me, I always buy more than I need, and ended up not using any of it. Then my hubby gonna give me ' I know you gonna throw that out one day' look.  Well, men, what do they know about hobbies and stuff :)

Thinking about buying a starter scrapbook kit at theworks.uk tomorrow. Hopefully, my hubby is willing to swipe his debit card for it, hehehehe :)

Hope I can be as creative as this!

First Blog Post, again :)

Oh my goodness!!! It has been more than a year since my first nervous blog post. Hahahah..totally forgot about the existence of this blog.

Right now, I am sipping my Millionaire Shortbread Mocha while watching the autumn leaves fall outside my window. Yes, I am in London, baby! It has been four long months, so it feels more like a year to me. So many things happened. Well, I'm here to be with my hubby yang nak sambung study in Forensic Medicine (here comes the rojak language, you've been warned!). I quit my job and left everything, to be with him here. At first, I did regret my decision to quit as it will definitely disrupt my career path.  But then, rezeki ada dimana-mana, alhamdullilah. I was offered a job by my previous employer, to manage a new investment in Cambridge. You never know what will happen in the future. I thought I'm gonna be a full-time housewife with no purpose in life. I was so thankful to Allah and my family who prayed the best for me.

The company is now based in Norwich, approx. 2 hours train ride from London. But by October, I hope it will move its operation to Cambridge, which is much nearer to London than Norwich. It has been a routine for me to wake up at 5 a.m. in the morning to catch a 7 a.m. train. Could be troublesome for some, but I enjoyed every minute of the ride. The scenery is so beautiful that makes my heart ache as I know I'll not be living here forever. Will post some pictures of the beautiful sceneries in a later posting.

I'm staying in east part of London, Poplar to be exact. But it is so near to Canary Wharf, the financial district of London. I love this part of London as it is full of young, vibrant people an most of them work in one of many investment banks here. So lots of black suits walking around. It almost make me miss my job in Malaysia, well almost.

Fuh, quite a long entry today. I'll try my best to update the blog on a daily basis from now on. I want to write about my life here in London, as memory when I go back home next year.

Adios!