Sincere friendship is the best gift

To me, there is one precious gift that friends can give to their friends, their sincere friendships. (I hope I did not confuse you with this sentence. LOL!) Today I want to share with you the true story of how two strangers had become friends. I stumbled upon this blog, "Still crazy all these years" just a few months ago and enjoyed his space. From reading all his posts, I knew he is a sincere, humorous and down to earth person. Not only that, I like that he takes time to reply his readers' comment and his reply often times are wittingly hilarious. His posts always put a smile on my face and his reply to my comments never fail to give me chuckles!

We visited each other’s blog often the past few months. We are not just leaving comments on each other's posts, we actually communicate and enjoyed our interaction. Recently, we were connected through facebook as well. As you can see, we have progress from from blogger friends to facebook friends. When I learned that he and his family are coming to Kuala Lumpur, I told him I would like to meet them and I wanted to cook a meal for them but being considerate, he did not want to trouble me. He suggested that we meet at his hotel for coffee. An appointment was made and we finally met last Sunday. I cannot believe it when he gave me two bags of the special rice from his hometown and a bottle of special cooking wine because they are heavy stuff to bring. I really appreciate his thoughtfulness. I can’t wait to taste the rice and find a dish to cook with the wine. Thank you again, Arthur for the gift and for your friendship.

I was thinking hard what bakes or food I could prepare for Arthur and his family to try. I finally decided to let them try my macarons with butter chestnut filling and a new Christmas cookies. When I was baking the macarons, I not only have my fingers and toes crossed, I had every single blood capillaries in my body crossed. If you are my regular readers, you should know that my macs don't always come out right. Thank God! that they came out perfect that time. I cannot be more happy. It is an early Christmas gift for myself!

We had a wonderful dim sum brunch and I was glad he and his family enjoyed the food. 

I got feedback from Arthur that they love my macarons. It means a lot to me when the it came from a foodie like Arthur that my macs were delicious. YAY!! I am looking forward to his comment on my Christmas cookies. These chewy cookies have an old spicy flavor. Isn’t Christmas all about flavors? I believe eating these cookies will trigger one’s nostalgia. Want to try making some? Here is the recipe. I hope it is not too late for those of you who wanted to try making this for Christmas.

Molasses Sugar Cookies

Adapted from allrecipie.com with modification

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups butter

1 1/2 cups white sugar

1/2 cup molasses

2 eggs

4 cups all-purpose flour

4 teaspoons baking soda

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

3/4 teaspoon ground cloves

1 teaspoon ground ginger

1 teaspoon salt

Method:

Melt the shortening in a large pan on the stove, and cool.

Add sugar, eggs, and molasses, beat well.

In a separate bowl, sift dry ingredients together and add to the pan. Mix well and chill 3 hours or overnight.

Form into walnut-size balls. Place on greased cookie sheet about 2 inches apart. Bake at 375 degrees F (190 degrees C) for 8.5 minutes.  Store in an airtight container.

Note: 
Every oven behave differently so you might have to find out whether 8.5 minutes works for you or not.  


If the cookies do lose their softness, an easy way to restore it is to place one slice of fresh bread in the container with the cookies for a couple of hours or overnight and they will be soft again!

Man plans God decides

Last year today, I celebrated my best friend, Peng's birthday at my home. I made a simple dinner and a birthday cake for her. We drank wine, ate, chatted, laughed and had a good time together.

This year, I thought of going to Bangkok with her to celebrate her birthday there. This was planned two months ago. I was going to buy her dinner at our favorite Thai Restaurant, Ban Khun Mae in Siam Square. Air tickets were bought and hotel room were booked more than a month ago.  I planned to take her to have a massage everyday, eat and shop till we dropped.  I don’t think I need to go on and you already guessed what happened. We have to cancel our trip today because of the flood in Thailand.  Not only that our plan is spoilt but also the air tickets were burnt! The airline said that since they are still flying there, there will be no change of dates without penalty and no refund. What a RIP OFF!!  We have spoken to our clients in Bangkok and they said it is not advisable to go because the highway is flooded and no one is sure if the flood will hit Bangkok or not. I was rather upset yesterday after I have contacted the airline but then my Quay Lo asked me to take a deep breath and let go. When things goes wrong, we had a choice. We can stay upset or we can let go and be happy. On hindsight, loosing the money on the air tickets is better to be caught in a crisis like that in a foreign land. This is a blessing in disguise, don't you think? It is so true that Man plans, God decides. I believe in that, do you?

So much for my ranting and I have made my choice. Now, let's get on to a happier note. Today is Peng's birthday. I have a new idea. I am going to take her to a nice Spa for a two hours relaxation massage and then go on to have a scrumptious lunch with her. So please join me to wish her a Happy Birthday. Instead of a birthday cake how about these delicious chewy banana chocolate chips cookies as a birthday dessert with vanilla ice cream?

Chewy banana chocolate chips cookies

Adapted from Big Oven with modification

Ingredients:

1 large egg

1 1/4  C All-purpose flour

1/2 tsp Salt

1/3 C Light brown sugar

¼ C oat meal (raw)

2 tbs corn flour

1 1/2  medium bananas, mashed (preferably banana raja)

1 tsp Baking Powder

1 tsp Vanilla extract

1 C semi-sweet chocolate chips

75 gm Butter or margarine

1/3 C Sugar

Method:

Lightly grease cookie sheets. Put brown sugar, oat meal and corn flour in blender and blend well and set mixture (A) aside.  Peel banana and place in small bowl. Mash enough banana with fork to measure 1/2 cup. Set aside. Place flour, baking powder and salt in small bowl; stir to combine. Beat mixture (A), butter, granulated sugar and brown sugar in large bowl with electric mixer at medium speed until light and fluffy, scraping down side of bowl once. Beat in banana, egg and vanilla, scraping down side of bowl once. Add flour mixture. Beat at low speed until well blended, scraping down side of bowl once. Stir in chips with mixing spoon. Wrap the dough in cling wrap and chill in the freezer for 30 minutes or more. Just before baking, preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Drop by 2 heap table spoons onto ungreased cookie sheet and bake for 12 – 15 mins or until lightly browned.  Cool slightly and remove cookies to wire rack to cool completely.  

Are these cookies "OLD" and "LOSE AIR" already?

Amos famous chocolate chips cookies were available in Malaysia since 1983 and the first store opened in Sungei Wang in 1984. There were no other brands that could compete with them back then. Then, came a new brand, also from the USA in 1996, but they were available only exclusively to this Quay Po and her family. The brand name is ”Quay Lo’s Chocolate Chips cookies”. His cookies were huge, thick and chewy! Most of all it is the best chocolate chips cookies I have ever tasted. My Quay Lo told me my mother-in-law made these cookies on holidays together with lots of other goodies. He inherited this recipe from her.

"Quay Lo’s Chocolate chips cookies" are one of the many favorite sweets that my Quay Lo bakes for family and friends in Kuala Lumpur. The first time these cookies were introduced to my side of the family, the following ensued. After one bite of a cookie, my sister-in-law pulled me aside and asked me this question quietly so that my Quay Lo could not hear it. She asked, “Are these cookies very old already? Why is it so chewy?” She said in Cantonese “Hai mai lau foong jor? (translating literally as, “did they lose air already?”). I was not surprised at all by her question because I knew that Asian taste buds are more used to crispy cookies not chewy ones. Honestly, I had not eaten a chewy one before I met my Quay Lo too. Most of my family members took a while to like them, but not my god-son, Darryl. He was only 5 years old then and my Quay Lo had baked a batch with colorful M and M instead of chocolate chips for all the kids. Darryl loved them so much that he ate many (no one knew how many) of them quietly while his parents were busy visiting with us. I was told by his dad that he got sick from over eating. Poor guy, LOL!  Today Darryl turned 21! He is a fine and handsome young man and an aspiring chef. I am sure this brings back lots of fond memories for the two guys. 

Ingredients:

2 eggs
2 sticks (8 oz.) butter soften

1/2 C granulated sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract
2 C semi-sweet chocolate chips

(A)

2 ¼ C all purpose flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

(B)

¾ C packed brown sugar

½ C oatmeal (raw)

2 tbs corn flour

Method:

Put (A) in a bowl and mix well and set aside. Put (B) in a blender and blend till fine. Beat fine blended mixture (B), butter, granulated sugar and vanilla extract in a large bowl with the mixer until creamy. Add eggs and beat well. Gradually add mixture (A) mix well. Stir in chocolate chips and mix well. Wrap the dough in cling wrap and chill in the freezer for 1 hour. Just before baking, preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Drop by 2 rounded table spoons onto ungreased cookie sheet and bake for 12 – 15 mins or until lightly browned. (Note: this depends on your oven, mine was perfect at 13 mins)  Cool slightly and remove cookies to wire rack to cool completely before taking out of the baking sheet.


Note: Keep cookies in an air tight container and store in the fridge for balance not eaten. It becomes more chewy the next day.