Tore Tau Kueyh 花生饼

My friends always ask me : Do you really love to cook that much?

I will always give them a few giggles and said : I live to eat.

haha... typical Penangite huh? XD

Ya, it's true, especially when you're overseas and you miss the food at your hometown *especially your mum's not-guarantee-tasty-but-always-hearty meal*

and the only solution is either you forget about them or

roll up your sleeves and move your hand in the kitchen!

Of course I took the second option. Remember? I'm born to eat. XP

As Chinese New Year is approaching, of course I miss all the kuih making session with my mum and my aunties. Even though I do get some nagging and instructions delivered in high pitching voice, I still love it! Especially the moment the cookies were sent into the oven and soon the aroma filled the air, and finally came out and awwh~.... I'm drooling..... XD

Last year I did blog about the lurve letters a.k.a kuih kapit making in my house.

But this time, I'm going to blog about peanut cookies, Penang Hokkien would call it 'Tore Tau Kueyh", and my Malay friends call them Kuih Mazola. What ever it is, the thing matters to me is the 'YumYum" factor. XP

Alright, let's move our hands!

First, roast some peanuts till they're fragrant and almost burnt.

Then remove the skin of the peanut and blend them till they're fine.

But in my case, I would prefer to have some texture in it, so I didn't really blend until the peanuts turn into powder.

To produce the dough as shown above, mix the peanuts with ......

some plain flour (of course coles smart saver, the cheapest brand!)

normally the proportion would be peanut:flour = >2:1

if you want your kuih to melt into your mouth at the moment you put them in.

*that's a tip from my aunt, thanks 芳姑！*

some peanut oil

some caster sugar

before sending them into the oven, I brushed them with some egg yolk and a little egg white

HERE YOU GO! Song's TORE TAU KUEYH!

食物总是

思乡游子解愁的

最佳良方

这是无可否认的

新年要到咯！

咚！咚咚！锵！

哈哈~

random stuffs

Thanks to the 'awesome' weather, with rain continuously for 4 days, my journey in the farm has come to an end. =(

Hmm... I think it's time to settle my enrolment for new semester and ready for my Gold Coast trip. And of course, this post will be a wrap up for my farming experience.

I would say that working in a farm is not hard, just tiring. Everyday, you have to reach the farm by 7.30am, and in my case, I would wake up around 5.30am, dilly-dally for a while, take some brekkie and cook my lunch. Normally, I would be out by 0700, because it takes at least 30 minutes to reach the farm by driving, and thank God, it's summer!!! If not, I think I would take 1 hour to toss and turn on my bed, another 1 hour to flip and flap on my bed, 1 hour to dilly-dally here and there..... and finally slack back to my comfy bed. XD

There's no photos of me working in the farm... *sob-sob* The rain came in too sudden, and it's already my last day in the farm before I knew it. =( However, one of the great advantage of working as cherries picker is you get to eat as much cherries as you want. Of course, there's no reason for me not to 'tapao' some back. haha.... shhh.....

It's heavenly great when you freeze up some cherries and eat them while you're watching movies or reading books, or even gossiping with your friends in the middle of the night. They tasted just like slushies in the shop!! Gosh~ I think I'm addicted to them, haha....

They contain heaps of:

-Vitamin C

-Vitamin A

-Bioflavonoids

-Ellagic acid (a kind of antioxidant)

-Perilly (alble to arrest tumour cells)

-Anthocyanins (another powerful antioxidants)

-Melatonin (another antioxidant) and many more good stuffs.

But, be careful with the sugar level.... You won't want to end up with too much glucose either. *All these are info from the web*

Steps to a successful cherry jam making:

(kononnya) =___=

First, smuggle some cherries from the farm buy some fresh cherries and wash them thoroughly.

第一个步骤！帮蛇回来的樱桃洗白白！！

Second, de-stone and de-stem the cherries. Or should I say,

"buang batang dan bijik cherri"? a.k.a. castrate the cherries XP

第二个步骤！马上"阉割"洗干净的樱桃！

太监的都挂在墙上，樱桃的则留在盘中 。。。erbs~

Kitchen homicide? =O

*Back to the topic*

-Heat up the castrated processed cherries until it boils,

-Bring down the heat and let it simmer till they're soft and mushy.

-Cool them down and put them into a blender and blend till the flesh and skin of the cherries are squashed till unrecognisable *KEJAM nyer~*

-Pour them back into the pot and bring it to the same simmering as before.

-Put in as little or as much sugar as you like. In my case, I only put in 3 tablespoon of sugar.

"OMG!!! 3 tablespoon of sugar for 1.5kg of cherries?"

"What to do?... I've to jaga badan mah~" haha.... duh~ XP

- Actually I notice that you don't really need much sugar for this jam. The natural glucose content in the cherries is more than enough.

- Before switching off the stove, *optional*

-add in a few tablespoon of lemon juice (to add a zesty flavour to the jam)

-mix in a tablespoon of cornflour (to thicken up the jam)

Da-LANG!!

Song Song's homdemade cherry jam!!!

My housemate's homemade pancake with my jam... haha! YUM!

It tastes so good until you can dig out a full ladle of the jam

and eat it just like that!

老王卖瓜，越卖越夸

haha...whatever!

XD

Appiee's photo

It's really hard to find time to sit down and blog about your recently life when you are busy with work. However, the weather bureaucracy sent out a flood warning in the early morning. Therefore, it means no work today. Yay~! Gonna get some rest! But, sigh~ no work means no money, no money means no honey. =P

You all must be wondering what's appiee, I bet. haha... just my own term for apples. In the farm, I notice the supervisor always end the noun he use in "-ie"

for example, when he's suppose to say

"Go and have a check on the row you have done just now"

he would say: "Go and have a checkie on your previous row"

I also discover many Aussie terms they use in the farm (or should I say Tassie?).

'tea' = 'dinner'

'smoko' = 'small break between work' (perhaps for those who smoke, I think)

and of course many more XD

The farm I work in is called Carlthorpe a.k.a. Top Qual. The company is based in Hobart (capital city of Tasmania), just that its major apple farm is in Lonnie.

Alright, I'm too lazy to elaborate any further. Let the photos do the talking!

There're many species of apples in the farm, eg. Red Delicious, Golden Delicious, Royal Gala, Pink Lady, Jazz, Granny Smith, Fuji .... etc.

Just to let you know the amount of crates used to shift the apples during the apple picking season. See the building behind the crates? It's almost 4 storey high.

Gosh~ who knows what'll happen when the crates fall? XD

The one in the picture above is Granny Smith, which we normally call "Granny's Apple"

Guys, meet Kris...... and his sexy jeans XP

I had a Korean working partner and this bloke is my current partner. His background is rather complicated or should I say "A fuzz of life"? He was a drug addict *OMG!* , and now he's major in Fine Arts *WHAT~!?", and specialised in oil painting. hmmm... what can I say about him?

hmm..... Quiet but definitely hard working (he's so far the best working partner I can find on the farm, because the pay you get is the speed of your work, and your partner's as well)

The supervisor always repeat their favourite quote:

"One big, one small.... Take big, leave small

Many big, many small.... Take small, leave Big

Many small, no BIG.... Take them all

All medium, take till there's 1/2 left"

Nik aka Nik Aziz (ya.... same as the one in PAS) XD

Another Malaysian in the farm, who's also an architecture student,

just that he's taking master. And we are the only Asians, but who cares?

That's all about it, hope you guys have a great early 2011 as well! CHEERs!!

“我爱我的家

在那山脚下

前面有颗苹果树

后面没有花。。。”

Is it money?

Finally, my apple thinning job is coming to an end in few days time, and I'm going into cheery picking after that.

"Money~ Money~"

That's really the sole motivation you can get when you feel tired from working. When you think of that, your will feel that your hands have been revived and start moving again. haha.... Money is not everything, but I'm sure there're a list of things you won't be able to do without money.

Nothing much about this post... just that sometimes money does change a person and others around. *sigh~*

or did they...?

"the lights are shining on the sea

as the rolling waves crash along the beach

and our minds were meant to sail

take a rest from our thoughts

take a brake from this world

and we'll feel miles away

from the places that we used to be"