What I Ate: Dirty Rice and Beetroot Sauce

Hello People,

I had never had wild rice and had been itching to give it a try for quite a while. So when I saw a shelve full of different varieties of rice at one of my old hunts (Onime's Food Basket), I quickly grabbed some and started planning a rustic meal; and some weeks later I finally cooked up the meal.

One thing I didn't know before I started cooking was that wild rice takes a long, looonngg time to cook.

The pack specified cooking the rice for about 50 minutes but I ended up cooking for the better part of two and a half hours. Although to be fair some part of that time was spent preparing  ingredients and making the sauce.

Anyways, back the the meal.

For the rice I used:

Brown Rice and Wild Rice Mix, about 3 Cups
Chipolata Sausages...6pieces
Streaky Bacon...4 strips
Shrimps...about half kg
Unsalted Butter
Dark Soy Sauce
Worcestershire Sauce
Onion
Garlic
Seasoning and Spices
Juice of one orange

I started off with the rice, using the packet instructions and left it to cook.

Then chopped up the sausages, bacon, onions and garlic.

I browned the sausages and bacon in the butter to get some caramelized flavor. Next I took out the sausages and bacon, and added the chopped onions and sauteed them for a bit. Threw in the sausages and bacon again, added the shrimps and the rest of the ingredients and seasonings and finished off with the juice of one orange.

When the rice was almost cooked, I mixed in the rest of the cooked ingredients and allowed it simmer for about 10 minutes to infuse the flavors and the dirty rice was ready.

For the sauce I chopped up some carrots, onions and beetroots and sauteed them in some butter then added some chicken stock, seasonings and some chopped mint. Finished it off with some heavy cream and the sauce was ready.

For the chicken, I had some boiled chicken in the freezer so I just browned them a little bit in some olive oil in keeping with the rustic theme of the meal and voila, the meal was ready!

Though this meal took a long time to make, the taste was totally worth it. I got five stars from my numero uno taste tester :D

I'll definitely be adding this to my list of staples and you should give this a try.

Until next time, God bless you.

Love, Preye.

What I Ate: Watermelon Hearts

Hi Everyone,

A couple of weeks back I saw a picture of some watermelon hearts on a friends profile so next time we were having watermelons, I dug out my cookie cutters and proceeded to make a fun presentation of watermelons :D

 

 I started out with this.

Then played around a bit

Decided to garnish with some chopped mint.

And then for the man who inspires me (DH), a special edible message :D

I think the watermelons tasted better with all the love in the air ;)

Until next time, God bless and complements of the season.


Love, Preye.

Sewing Updates

Hi Everyone,

Its been a bit...and I am glad to say I have been able to catch up on my much needed rest...though I was somewhat forced into it (I was ill).

Despite my "rest" period, I have been able to get in a bit of work (sewing) and play (cooking).

Oh yeah, the wedding has come and gone, and the bride looked lovely. I was/am so proud of myself. I am waiting for the pictures from the bride to do a full post as I was unable to attend. But here are some table-top pictures of the dresses I made for the wedding party (A dressform is on my wishlist if you're wondering what to get me for Christmas :P).

First, the Maid of Honor's dress...AKA Chief Bridesmaid

Its a long flowing gown with a band detail.

This was one of the fastest dresses I have made. I used a metallic fabric for the underlining and lined with a single face raw silk in a matching color.

For the skirt part, I skipped the lining and used just the underlay to reduce bulk so I had to finish the joining at the waist with a bias tape cut out from the Raw Silk

Construction Picture

 For the band I used the raw silk and interfaced with a stiff interfacing for structure. I also used my usual metallic zip.

And my usual metallic Zipper

I love this color and will def be making something for myself with this fabric

Next up, the bridesmaid dresses.

The dress isn't sized to the model in the picture so it doesn't show the true fit.

Peplum detail with a button. 

I made four of these dresses and it was a learning process for me. The lace was a stretchy lace and just when I'd think I'd got everything figured out the fabric would head out to a different direction.

In the end, the all turned out well and I conquered my fear of stretch lace!

For the zipper I skipped my usual metallic zip and opted for plastic zippers as this lace was quite soft and I didn't want it to catch in the zipper.

All in all the dresses were successful and lovely on the ladies and I have one more feather to add to my hat :D

Until next time, God bless you and complements of the season.

P.S I typed up this post a couple of weeks back and forgot to post it...Merry Christmas.

Love, Preye.

I Love my Chocolate Cake!

This is my favorite and easiest chocolate cake recipe. Its indeed a genius cake...I mean, a great tasting chocolate cake without chocolate, or eggs, or butter...? Who wouldn't be sold on that?

I have blogged about a modified version of this cake in this post and I've made this cake too many times to count.

Here's a link to the recipe: Margaret Fox's Amazon Chocolate Cake

And here's last week's installment of the cake (I bake this almost every week...I know X_X so much cake)

I dusted with Castor Sugar.

And then decided to serve it a different way.
I drizzled some condensed milk over the cake...yummy goodness! The cake soaked up the milk and the sweetness of the milk balanced out the bittersweet chocolate taste.

DH loved the condensed milk version (of course). But next time I bake this cake, I'll use whipped cream and some fruits to switch things up a bit.

Give this a try, I guarantee you'll love it. :D

Until next time, God Bless You.

Love,
Preye.

A Healthy Breakfast

Yeah, I am on a roll today. I am in a waiting room (have been for the past few hours) so I am basically killing time. Good thing I came with my laptop :)

A couple of days back I packed DH's lunch (He always takes fruits for lunch) and had some left over fruits, so I decided I'd have that for breakfast since it was my "work-free" day.

And this was what I came up with.

Here's a list of the fruits I used.

Red Grape Fruit
Orange
Pineapple
Strawberries
Cherries
A sprig of Parsley to Garnish

Right after I was done setting down my meal, my doorbell rang. I had a guest! I ended up serving this to him and had to make do with the left-overs from the left-overs. lol.

And since it was pretty small, I decided to amp up the fruits with some fresh yogurt. And this is what I ended up with.

Same fruits but without the cherries and parsley. I added some chopped mint. and Sweetened the yogurt with a teaspoon of castor sugar.

Everything worked out great in the land of left-overs after-all and I had a healthy and tasty breakfast that fine morning.

Until next time, God bless you.

Love,

Preye. 

Wedding Dress Update

The day is here. Today, the client will be picking up her dress along with the bridal party dresses and all appendages. She came in for a fitting last night and I had to make some changes to the dress.

I also completed the veil last week and she loved it. Here are some pictures.

I decided on a clip instead of the conventional comb

Details

I started out with this layered look but settled on the equal length later on

Neatly Packed for the bride

Blurry Picture but this was the only picture that showed the veil length.

And here's a sneak of the dress...just construction pictures though. I'll do a full post after the wedding

I cant wait for the wedding day when I'll see the bride fully dressed and can proudly say, "I made that" :D

I seriously feel like dancing...my very first wedding dress. This is no mean feat considering I started fashion school in February so you can understand my excitement and nervous anticipation.

Until next time, God bless you.

Love,

Preye.

Meatloaf Sandwich: Late Night Mystery Meal Turned Breakfast

Remember in my last post I mentioned having to stay awake till midnight because I was cooking a mystery meal? Well the mystery has been unearthed and you can stop wondering :D.

I made a meat loaf! I am not quite sure where I got the recipe but it was on food network so I'm thinking Barefoot Contessa or Tyler's Ultimate.

I made some modifications to the recipe and after waiting for an hour for the oven to do its magic, my delicious meatloaf was created.

Here's an abridged recipe if you'd care to recreate it.

Ingredients:

About 1.5kg of Minced Meat/Ground  Beef

Five slices of bread cubed (I cut off the crusts)

2 Eggs

Half Cup chopped Parsley

2 large cloves of garlic, Minced

1 Tablespoon Unsalted butter

One Large Onion Chopped

Salt and Pepper to taste

Curry powder

I started by sweating the chopped onions in the butter, and seasoned it with Cameroon Pepper, a pinch of salt and about half a teaspoon of curry powder.

Next I took a mixing bowl, and added all the ingredients (including the onions), washed my hands and proceeded to mix everything together by hand. I added some red pepper flakes as well.

Next I greased a loaf pan (I generally use a zero cholesterol Oil spray as I hate getting my hands oily) and then pressed in the mixture and flattened the top neatly.

Popped it into a preheated oven at 350 degrees for one hour and the meat loaf was ready.

This is the part where you expect to see pictures right? Well unfortunately, by the time I was done, I was too tired to think about taking pictures. But fear not, the meat loaf made an appearance in breakfast the next morning (Which was kinda the original plan anyways).

So here you go! My delicious meatloaf sandwich. :D 

 For the meatloaf sandwich, I took some bread, cut off the crusts and then spread homemade mix on two slices of bread (Mixture of 2tbsp Mayonnaise, 1tbsp ketchup, salt and lemon pepper). Next I sliced some tomatoes and washed and dried some flat-leaf parsley. Ad started layering the ingredients in this order: 3-4 Parsley leafs, a slice of the meatloaf, 2-3 slices of tomatoes and then topped with the other slice of bread.

Next I wrapped each sandwich with kitchen foil (Shiny side facing in) and placed them in a non stick pan on low heat. And since I didn't have a heavy pot on hand, I half filled a pot with water and placed this on the sandwich to serve as my sandwich press) after about a minute or two I flipped the sandwiches and heated the other sides. Took them off the heat, unwrapped them and Voila, my delicious sandwiches were ready.

And did I mention they were delicious. I had mine with Twinnings Raspberry Tea. Yummy yum yum. You should definitely give this a try.

Until next time, God Bless you.

Love,

Preye

More Asoebi Dresses

Its past 10pm and here I am trying to stay awake by typing up a post because once again, I've decided to cook on a whim.

I got home from work today tired and sore from the pile-up of stress from last week and immediately went into the kitchen and brought out two packs of minced meat to thaw. You see, I had stumbled on an old recipe in my diary while at work and was set on cooking it tonight...so here I am, with one hour to burn while the mystery food cooks in the oven; and I figured the best way to spend the time was to "attempt" to catch up on my pile-up of posts :D (Yeah Right).

Last week I worked on two Asoebi Outfits for two lovely ladies. The challenge was to elevate the fabric which had the feel of an unfortunate lovechild between a sack and a lace fabric :D and I had my work cut out for me.

For dress one I settled on a simple pencil dress and used the scalloped selvages for the hems.

I also accented the waist with cut-outs from a fabric which was provided as part of the Asoebi collection, and used matching buttons on the sleeves.

The client liked the dress but had one complaint; the length...she would have preferred it shorter. There really was no quick fix for this because of the scalloped hemline so she had to make do.

For dress two; which was a slightly different color (more of a honey toned shade) of fabric, I chose to combine it with a sequined fabric to create a zig-zaggy look.

And for the sleeves, I decided to stick with the zig zag theme and made an X with the scalloped edge of the fabric.

Unfortunately the client didn't like the choice of sleeves, so I plan to redo them.

I worked on these dresses till the last minute and actually had to do some needle work on the road. I was so relieved to finally finish them (and a lil dissapointed I didnt meet and exceed the clients expectations...Next time will def be better)

Off to check on my food. I've got just four minutes left on my timer.

Until next time, be Thankful

Love,
Preye