Scent of Rain: September 2010

Just Any Other Day

Delicious udon noodles in chicken broth.

shrimp

fish patty

Moist and nicely spiced carrot cake. Only, there is too much carrot! This is a new genre of fail recipes, the first two fails were planned with confidence. This cake however was surely a fail before I began to make it! The recipe calls for 6 cups of grated carrot, 4 eggs, 3 cups of flour, 1 can of crushed pineapple.. etc. I don't have all of that.

i found 5 skinny carrots


shredded them in my food processor

5 skinny carrots made 2 cups of shredded carrot, 1/4 cup brown sugar to that

the recipe called for 4 eggs, I only have 1, add 1/2 cup white sugar


it also called for vanilla extract.. i used this stuff

barely 2 cups of flour, mix in 1 1/2 tsp baking soda and 1 tsp salt


at least i have cinnamon

this was sad, incorporate the flour to eggs

then mix in carrot, and this was when i realized there was more carrot than batter. FAIL

lightly greased and lined the pan

light spreadable cream cheese for frosting

looks like an omelet

take 2 dollops of cream cheese, with a good spoonful of shredded coconut and mix!

voila! it didn't taste bad..there were just too many carrots. Very moist

Go Green!

Banh lot (also known as cendol) is a sweet udon dessert made out of rice flour. It is not the easiest thing to make, I've made it with my mother a few times in the past. My refrigerator always has a container of these worm-like jellies in water. My moms friend makes it every single week and distributes containers to her friends.

Very odd looking. Green is from coloring the mixture with pandan extract, which also gives it a very distinctive fragrance.

This is simple syrup made with rock or cane sugar. It sweetens the flavorless jellies. Often I mistaken it for fish sauce when it's sitting in a container.

This right here is debatable, what to eat the cendol with? When you buy banh lot in stores, they give you a bag of syrup and a bag of coconut milk. Coconut milk is very rich, and milk tends to be a little thin. At my house we like coconut milk and milk, but lately the new trend here is half and half.


spoon 3/4 cup of the banh lot into a glass leaving out as much water as you can (the water keeps the noodles from sticking)


Sweeten it with your desired amount, I like 3 tbsp.

Add in some half and half, enjoy!

# 2 Fail: Species Identification

I went to the local farmers produce market.. I wanted to buy a butternut squash to stuff ravioli with. There was a big box of assorted squash, each only $1.75! I recognized acorn, spaghetti and butternut. The butternut were all significantly smaller yet they cost the same, so I found this random one that I thought was butternut. The color was similar.