Short getaway

I can't wait! My first trip to Bintan ever! In less than twelve hours. Jumps around excitedly.

Milk + Cookie crumbs

Friendship

"But friendship is precious, not only in the shade, but in the sunshine of life, and thanks to a benevolent arrangement the greater part of life is sunshine."

~Thomas Jefferson

Pecan date tarts

Can you believe that I've never tried a pecan prior to this? Yeah, I know, sad life right. Anyway, when I saw some pecans in the baking supplies store, do I need to even stop and consider what I was going to do with it? Nope. It's going to be the classic pecan tart for me. And yes, I've also yet to try an authentic pecan pie/tart in my life. I know. The calamity.

Pecan maple date tart

Salted caramel ice cream with caramelised cocoa nibs and roasted almonds

I think I need to buy an ice cream maker. Soon. I've been making my own ice creams so often lately that it's a bit scary. Hand churning ice cream every half an hour for a few hours is no fun. Not to mention time-consuming. I can think of several things to do in the meantime of having to set the alarm to remind myself to churn the ice cream when the time is up. Imagine if I had an ice cream maker...oh gosh. Okay, on second though, scrap that thought. That'll probaby result in me making ice cream like once every week. Or something. ;)

The weather was hot (a few months back, now, it's just rain and rain and more rain), so I was thinking of a cold dessert. Something that doesn't require me cranking up the hot oven. Salted caramel sounds like a good idea. The Sis loves salted caramel. I decided to make a salted caramel ice cream. But plain ol' salted caramel is just not good enough for me...I like my ice creams to have add ins. I was contemplating what I should add in, and browsing random websites for inspiration. In the end, I settled on adding caramelised cocoa nibs and roasted almonds.

Salted caramel ice cream with caramelised cocoa nibs and roasted almonds

Blood orange and grapefruit tart

Blood oranges. Doesn't that just sounds so good already? Scouring the Internet for recipes is sort of like a habitual daily routine for me. I love fruits. All sorts of fruits (most of the time). The citrus family are favourites - the lemons, the oranges, the limes. So when I kept seeing blood oranges in recipes, I was intrigued. Never before have I seen those red hued beauties. So when I read the papers on one weekend, reporting that blood oranges are in season and are available at selected grocery stores. Do I really need to say more?

In fact, I was so eager for a taste of these babies, that even though they cost a pretty penny, I bought two bags of them. The first was bought by the Sister, then several days later, after sampling the citrus fruit at home (wow), I got myself another bag (cos, who knows when they might come in season again...). Logical reasoning yes?

Bloody blood oranges