Food and Factory Outlet Hunting Day

Last Saturday I went out of town to Bogor for Food Hunting and
shopping spree with two friends, one of whom is actually a denizen of Bogor but only stays there during weekends because of the work is in Jakarta. These two friends like to eat out at restaurant new to them.

Bogor is an hour's reach by car from Jakarta and it is known as the city of rain because the rainfall is relatively heavy there. Bogor's temperature used to be much cooler than Jakarta's, but don't expect that in current weird world weather, you'll be disappointed. Btw, if you haven't been to Bogor, then visiting Bogor Botanical Garden is A must!! It has a great collection of very big trees, various plants, and better quality of air.

We're lucky there's no rain during our visit there, though it did have rain earlier in the morning as reported by my friend's Mom.  Seems we had the mojo to stop the rain  :-D
We first visited Venus Bakery which is famous for its mini buns called Roti Unyil, then we hop to a nearby shop for Asinan Bogor (salted fruits or vegetables). Finish from there, we stuffed our stomach at Gurih 7, a Sundanese restaurant with open spaces in nature concept. The foods there are ordinary but not disappointing.

photos by:alo7

As our stomachs were tamed and our energy recharged, we went for thrifty shopping spree at Factory Outlets :)) ...but we didn't really succeed and only got one stuff for each of us from three FOs that we visited.

Went again for food hunting, and the next stop was Macaroni Panggang -roasted macaroni, where we ordered for a take away, a medium size of special  Macaroni Panggang cut into half -paid additional charge IDR 3K for cutting it; one half for me and the other for C...we're being thrifty of carbo intake :-P. The special one is the one with additional mushroom other than slices of beef. This Macaroni Panggang seems to have become one of Bogor's prides recently, and its taste does satisfy the taste buds. Hope one day I'll be able to find its original recipe, like last time I got an Original Tiramisu Recipe from my Italian teacher.

Out of MP, we went hunting at two other FOs again, and again got each of us just one stuff. Since it's almost 5pm, we took off for a street hawker seafood stall which receives a good review on one of our national newspapers -Kompas. G said the stall opens at 5pm. We ordered "Crabs in Padang Dressing", "Fried Crabs with chilli" and "Steamed Blood Cockles", and half portion of steamed rice for each of us. As we're about to finish from there, the stall was starting to be overpopulated with its visitors. I didn't find anything special about the cooking there, and I was a bit disappointed and now I have a doubt if that is really the one mentioned by Kompas.

Cooking Made Easy

"I do like cooking, but I can't guarantee you will like what I cook," this is my default intro words whenever got asked if I can cook. Yes, I'm not confident with my cooking, because even though I follow a recipe, the result is unpredictable ! It's somehow a tough job for me :-D
So to prevent disappointment in the future -when the tongue touches my cooking, I always say that kind of sentence.

I like to try recipes that look scrummy, and -the important thing- easy to follow by me. I always check the appearance or the photo of the prepared food when I search a recipe on internet, because it's motivating, you know.

Got motivated is also what I feel when watching the video of Chef Ariane Duarte preparing some economical and simple Summer recipes, because she prepares scrummy looking Sirloin with homemade steak sauce and cauliflower puree from things that can be bought easily from most supermarket -on that video all stuffs are easily found at Walmart. The sauce used to be her secret recipe, and wow -this is something healthy but tasty that I won't mind to eat- her cauliflower puree is said taste mouthwatering that a kid won't even know that it's from cauliflower!! Trust me, just by watching it, makes you feel like want to lap your monitor :-D

This site also show me how it is very easy and also affordable to make Vanilla Ice Cream Cake, and it looks like a fun activity too for kids. I won't ask my little niece and nephew though, because I'm sure they will have too much fun and mess everything before the cake is ready :))

You Can See More Life Made Easy Videos Here on iVillage.com. This seems already boost my confidence in cooking, hope this is not temporary :)

Pull me up

Ho avuto questa ricetta di sabato scorso dal mio professore, mi piace molto tiramisù!!


Ingredienti per due persone:
200gr Mascarpone
100gr ca biscotti "Savolardi"
2 uovo
Caffe/ Alcool
Cacao in polvere
200gr zucchero

Dividere il tuorlo dell'uovo dal bianco
Montare il bianco dell'uovo con una frusta
Unire il tuorlo allo zucchero e al mascarpone
Mescolare, poi aggiungere il bianco montato e creare un impasto omogeneo
In una teglia mettere un primo strato di impasto
Immergere un po' di biscotti nel caffe e metterli sopra allo strato d'impasto
Ripetere l'operazione fine alla fine, l'utimo strato deve essere d'impasto
Infine coprire la superfice con il cacao in polvere
Mettere in frigo per circa 1 ora.

Hhmmm...gusto celestiale nella bocca, c'e Tiramisu.
Ma attento del' influenza aviaria!! :-P

Photo by UncleVinny