BBQ Beef ribs
Ingredients:
- 1 kg beef ribs
- 1 onion (or you can replace it with 1 tsp of onion powder)
- 3 garlics (or you can replace it with 1 tsp of garlic powder
- Black pepper
Ingredients for BBQ sauce:
You can replace it with store bought bbq sauce but since I don’t have so I made bbq sauce myself.
- 5 tbsp ketchup
- 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
- 1 tbsp soy sauce
- 1 tbsp sugar
- 2 tbsp paprika powder
- chilli powder or cayenne powder if you want
Methods:
- If you don’t use onion powder or garlic powder then you should minced the onion and garlics.
- Mix it with the other ingredients except the beef ribs.
- Cut the beef ribs for each bone. I did this because I want it all to fit into my slow cooker.
- Put the beef ribs and the mixture into the slow cooker. Make sure that all of the beef ribs are coated with the mixture.
- Set to high for 4 hours or longer if you want.
Result:
- For some reason I was missing a kicking feeling of it. So after it is cooked, I coated the beef ribs again with a newly made bbq sauce. And it tasted better. Maybe it is supposed to be lightly grilled after being in the slow cooker. But since I don’t want to have extra dishes to wash, I just use this option.
- After 4 hours, some of the ribs are still medium instead of well done. And since I am pregnant, I need to have it well done instead.
So for next experiment, I need to find out how to tweak the recipe so then after it is cooked the taste is still good. And also find out the best duration to cook the beef ribs to make it well done. Maybe I will try to use pressure cooker instead of slow cooker.
But the most important thing is both my husband and my son said “It is yummyy”. And the opinion of my son is the most important for me because he is such a picky boy with his food.
Basil Pesto
I was looking at my bunch of basil collection that is about to go bad. So I was thinking to make a basil pesto with ingredients that I have on my kitchen.
Ingredients:
- 2 cups fresh basil leaves
- 1/2 cup of Parrano cheese. (Originally it is better to use Grana Padano cheese or parmesan cheese)
- 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
- 1/2 cup pistachio (Originally it is better to use pine nuts or you can use walnuts as well)
- 3 cloves garlic, minced (about 1 tablespoon)
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/8 teaspoon black pepper
Methods:
- combine everything in food processor and pulse it several times until everything is mixed.
- Don’t chop or pulse too much or too long because the colour of the basil can change.
Sambal Goreng Kentang Ati (Spicy Chicken heart and Potato)
Ingredients:
- 300gr chicken heart
- 300gr potato
- 3 bay leaves
- 3 lime leaves
- 1 tbsp sugar or palm sugar
- 300ml of soy milk or coconut ( I used usually soy milk since I like it better. It will give a nutty taste)
- 2 tsp salt (but use it wisely)
- oil to fry
Ingredients to grind:
- 5 shallots
- 5 garlics
- 6 small red chilli pepper
- 6 cherry tomatoes (this is optional, I added it because otherwise it is too spicy for our family. But if you like spicy you can remove it or you can even add another red chilli pepper).
- Kemiri (candlenut – but you can remove it if you don’t have it)
Methods:
- Boil the chicken heart until it soft. I cooked usually for about 30 minutes.
- Peel and cut the potatoes into small dice like the picture below.
- Fried the cut potatoes.
- Grind all of the ingredients to grind.
- Stir fry the ingredients that have been ground together with bay leaves and lime leaves.
- Stir it until it smells good and not stick on the bottom of the pan.
- Put the chicken heart and stir it together until it is all covered by the ingredients.
- Add the soy milk or coconut milk.
- Add sugar to it.
- Add potato in it.
Lemon Thyme flavoured sea salt
Ingredients:
- 2 lemons
- 4 to 6 fresh thyme (depends on your preferences)
- 1 cup sea salt
Methods:
- spread the sea salt on baking sheet paper
- sprinkle lemon zest (grated lemon skin) and fresh thyme on the sea salt
- Mix it well
- You can dry it in the oven with 80C for 30 minutes or you can put it in ziplock bag and dry it for couple days.
Since I do not really like waiting for too long, I chose the oven options.
You can also try to squeeze the lemon juice as well as putting the lemon zest. It might taste more tangy. But I have not tried this version yet. I will give you an update after I try that version.
Beef black pepper
Ingredients:
- 250gr lean beef (slice it thin)
- 1 onion (cut it square)
- 5 garlics
- ginger (crush it)
- 1 tbsp oyster sauce
- 1 tbsp sweet soy sauce (indonesian sweet soy sauce)
- 1 tsp sugar or palm sugar
- Paprika
- salt
- 1 tsp pepper (you can adjust it based on your preferences)
- water (I added around 250ml water. It depends on the thickness of your beef slice)
- 3 tbsp oil
Ingredients for marination:
- 2 tbsp oyster sauce
- 2 tbsp sweet soy sauce
- 2 tbsp salty soy sauce
- 1 tbsp pepper
For me it is good combination but for my husband it is too sweet. So when I made it for him usually I reduced the number of sweet soy sauce or I removed the sugar from it.
Method:
- Slice the beef thinly if you have not done it and mix it with the ingredients of marination. Leave it for about 1 hour in the fridge.
- After 1 hour, put the oil into the pan and put onion, garlic, and ginger.
- After it smells good, put the beef into the pan (also includes all the marination liquid of it).
- Stir fried it until the colour is changed to brown.
- Put oyster sauce, sweet soy sauce, sugar, pepper, and salt.
- Add water and cook the beef until it is soft enough to be chewed. Add more water if the beef is not yet soft.
- Put the paprika and cook it until it is according to your style. (my husband likes it hard, so I did not cook it for too long).
- Cook until the water is drained a bit.
Painting: Hardship
I made this painting in my first trimester out of impulse but it also enables me to visualize what will I have at the end of the whole process.
I was struggling a lot during the first trimester. Constant threw up, headache, unable to sleep at night, unable to eat and drink, unable to stay near the kitchen because I could not handle the smell of the food even I could not smell rice. I mean rice is like my nation food, my comfort food, and my daily food. It was a disaster I could not eat any rice and was unable to bear its smell.
From all of those miseries, I tried to find a distraction. And somehow it led me to draw and paint my first baby echo. During the painting process, I realized that all of this uncomfortable process will lead me to something beautiful (or not, it depends on how you view it). At the end of the pregnancy process, I will have a beautiful, healthy, and cute baby. I also realized, it is not only me who works hard to fight this uncomfortable process but the fetus inside my womb is also working hard to be stronger and healthy.
My husband loves it and he submitted my painting to the wall of fame of his company. It receives a warm welcome and many people love it as well.
I tried to keep the message I got from it.
When we are able to conquer our uncomfortable (hardship) process, we will be gifted with a beautiful thing (reward, goal, or target is achieved). So whenever we wanted to give up just remember your goal, remember that you can have your reward later on, remember that this hardship is needed to achieve those dreams.
Bakso Malang
Recipes:
- 750gr lean minced meat
- 200gr ice cube
- 150gr tapioka flour
- 50ml white egg
- 1/2tsp baking powder
- 1/2tsp baking soda
- 2.5tsp salt
- 1tsp sugar
- 3 garlic – slice it thinly and fry it and crush it
- 5 garlic – crush it
- cold water
- water to cook
Procedure:
- Grind the minced meat with ice cube until it is soft.
- In a separate bowl, mix the meat with fried garlic, garlic, white egg, flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and sugar.
- Mix them well.
- Boil water in a pan.
- Make a ball of meat and boil it until it is floating. It is a sign that the meatball (bakso) is cooked well.
- Scoop the meatball and put it into the cold water to stop the heat.
Beef cut in NL and EN
40 garlic crispy chicken
Recipe:
- 1kg chicken carbonade (usually it will consist of 6 pieces)
- 40 garlics unpeel (I used less of this)
- green onion chopped into any size you want. Some people like it to be cut small but we prefer to be cut in big long chunk.
- salt
- lemon juice
- 30 gr butter
Wash the chicken and boil it in a water with salt and lemon juice for 30 minutes. Turn off the heat and then take the chicken out from the pan and dry the chicken for about 30 minutes. While you are waiting for the chicken to dry up, steam the garlics until it is soft and put it aside.
After the chicken dried up, heat up the dried pan with 3 tablespoon of oil. When it is hot enough, put the chicken skin side down on the pan and sprinkle some salt on it. Wait until all the skins are crispy and all side and then turn it over so the skin is side up. Sprinkle some salt on the skin side. Then put the steamed-garlic, green onion, and butter. Wait until all are cooked well.
Usually in our case, I took out the chicken only and put it in a plate. After that I continued with the cooking by putting the thinly chopped carrot into the pan with garlic and green onion. Cook it until the carrots are all soft and add some salt if it is not enough salty. So in this case, I will not feel that guilty for not having proper vegetables during dinner.
I wish I took the picture before we started to eat. But both my husband and son could not wait until I finished with my vegetables to start eating the chicken. I loved it when they do that though. Especially both of them are picky eaters, so it is really satisfying when they are able to eat my food without any complaint.
In the end of dinner, my son asked me for extra chicken but there was no extra chicken anymore since I did not expect him to ask for more. It is really rare for him to do that or to finish his food. In the end he was really sad and cried a bit because he wanted it. I had a mix of feeling between happy and sad. It shows that he really likes the chicken I have made but in the other side I was sad because at this one time I did not have extra chicken for him.
Result: Successful!!!!
