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Couple of months back miss D, miss Kim and I decided to meet up for dinner, dessert and movie at D's place in USJ Subang. Yup just us girls...
By evening we were all gathered in D's house when we decided to try out Pizza Uno for the makan-makan and maybe later to have gelato at Leo's. D's mum was gonna be home alone so we insisted that she tagged along...after all IT IS girls night out. :)
So basically Pizza Uno and Leo's are both located in Taipan, which is like 5 minutes drive away from D's humble abode. So yay!!!
About Pizza Uno...
Pizza Uno started as Pizza Italia in USJ in 1997. After 18 months, the 2nd outlet was opened in Kuala Lumpur. Now there are total of 3 outlets in Klang Valley. (USJ Taipan, Centrepoint Bandar Utama, Bandar Puteri Puchong)
Their wide spread menu includes antipasto, tapas, soups, salads, breads, pasta, lasagna, paella, pizza, desserts and beverages.
First picture is miss D's fettucini carbonara with lightly fried beef bacon and onion in a delicious creamy sauce, which she claimed was superb. (it's her 2nd time there and well erm...2nd time having carbonara so go figure) I tried a mouthful and it is really good. Next up is miss Kim's garlic prawn spaghetti. I can't really recall what she had said about it but she did finish it so it must have been good. I had the fettucini con salmone, it's cooked in creamy sauce with a good portion of pieces of smoked salmon. I loved it of course knowing how much i looooove salmon. :) D's mum had the deep fried chicken which came sooo much later than our pastas therefore i was busy diggin into my food that i forgot to snap a picture of that. booo....
next...dessert!!!
About Leo's
Leo's, a trendy cafe, the place to see and be seen (as said by them) offers an innovative and creative selection menu for the current food trend, coffee, pastry and in-house made gelato....mmmmmm Gelato = Italian Ice-cream
Currently Leo's has 4 outlets. (The Store in Bandar Baru Sri Petaling, Carrefour Kepong, Bukit Tinggi, Taipan USJ)
They are specialized in 3 main areas which are Leo's Gelato, Leo's Coffee and Leo's Bakery. Yes they have everything including menu with noodle, rice, western gourmet, soups, light snacks and a long list of groovy drinks which you will not be able to remember the name.
All of us decided to share a 'gang of 5' gelato where you pick five flavours of gelato of your choice and then it is served with whipped cream, chocolate sauce and sprinkles of nuts. There wasn't much flavours available that particular night so we had to make do with what they had which wasn't so bad lah actually....we got a scoop of lime, wafer, after 8 mint, vanilla and hazelnut. We also shared 2 drinks amongst us four. Had a hard time deciding as the names of the drinks made in confusing for us. Ended up with a 'The Glory Of Gold Cup' and a 'Over The Great Crown'. You must be wondering what the heck is that? Well the first one consist of mango, mixed fruits and crystal lychee while the latter is the same just substitute the mango with sea coconut. There were loads more of funky drinks such as 'The Phoenix Crown', Beauty Of The Century', 'Love Overflow', 'Black Temptation', 'Hard To Resist'.....and many many many more. Don't ask me what they all are cause i can't remember. I guess there's a reason to go back there then.
Made these at random just because they looked so pretty!!!
I was just surfing the net when i came across these cookies at williams sonoma website. First thing it reminded me of was ice-cream and then candy and then just all things wonderful, sweet and nice. :)
The soft colours and the thought of cookies just brings you into a comfort zone...aaahhhhhh.
SO I HAD TO MAKE IT!!! :P
Neapolitan Cookies
16 Tbs. (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room
temperature
1 1/4 cups sugar
1 egg
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1/4 tsp. salt
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/4 tsp. baking powder
1 oz. unsweetened chocolate, chopped, melted
and slightly cooled
1/4 cup finely chopped pecans
1 or 2 drops red food coloring
1/4 tsp. freshly grated nutmeg
In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the butter on high speed until fluffy and pale yellow. Add the sugar and continue beating until the mixture is no longer gritty when rubbed between your finger and thumb. Reduce the speed to low and beat in the egg, vanilla and salt until well blended.
Over a sheet of waxed paper, sift together the flour and baking powder. Gradually add the flour mixture to the butter mixture and beat on low speed or stir with a wooden spoon just until blended.
Divide the dough evenly among 3 bowls. Stir and knead the chocolate and pecans into the first bowl, the food coloring into the second bowl and the nutmeg into the third bowl.
Line a 9-by-5-inch loaf pan with a sheet of waxed paper, overlapping the long sides by about 3 inches. Scrape the nutmeg dough into the pan and, with a small offset spatula, press to the edges in an even layer. Smooth out the dough with your fingertips. Drop the pink-tinted dough by teaspoons onto the nutmeg layer and press into an even layer. Smooth with your fingertips. Repeat with the chocolate dough. Fold the waxed paper over the top and press to smooth and compress the layers. Refrigerate until firm, at least 24 hours or up to 2 days.
Preheat an oven to 350°F. Lightly butter 2 baking sheets or line with parchment paper.
Use the paper to lift the dough out of the pan. Invert onto a wooden board and remove the paper. Using a long, thin knife, cut it in half lengthwise. Cut crosswise into slices 1⁄4 inch thick to make striped cookies.
Place the slices at least 1 1⁄2 inches apart on the prepared pans. Bake the cookies until set and pale gold on the bottom, about 15 minutes. Transfer the pans to wire racks and let cool for a few minutes, then transfer the cookies to the racks to cool completely. Makes about 72 cookies.
Adapted from Williams-Sonoma Collection Series,Cookies,by Marie Simmons (Simon & Schuster, 2002 ).
Crunchy, aromatic, light and basically just very very yummy!!! :D
Made this simply because 1. i was bored 2. was looking through some recipe books 3. this looked simple to make and i had all the ingredients... it really was very fast and simple with no aid of an electric mixer. The only thing i'm not sure about is if i had filled it too much that it had rised to that high or is that normal for self-saucing puddings? i always thought it should come out flat...or am i wrong? maybe i keep imagining my pudding with a scoop of ice-cream or dallop of whip cream on top, so now with those kind of tops i guess you just have to eat it like that...anyway that's just my thought. Here's the recipe for anyone who's interested.
Chocolate Self-Saucing Pudding
(adapted from those periplus mini cookbooks, fast meals edition)
1 cup self-raising flour
1/2 cup castor sugar
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1/2 cup milk
2 tbsp melted butter
Chocolate Sauce
100g brown sugar
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1 cup hot water
yields 4 individual puddings
Preheat oven to 180 degrees C.
Mix together flour, sugar and cocoa. Stir in the milk and melted butter until combined. Divide the mixture evenly into greased pudding bowls.
To make chocolate sauce, place all brown sugar and cocoa into a jug and then stir in the hot water and mix till all ingredients has dissolved. Pour carefully onto the chocolate mixture in the bowls and careful not to overfill.
Place pudding bowls onto a baking tray and bake for 35 minutes or until cooked.
Dust with icing sugar before serving or if you like, cream or ice-cream. This is best eaten hot.
Seeeedaaaapppppnyeeeeeeeee................ :)
There's always one of those days where you don't know what to eat or you're at home and there's no lunch and you're lazy to go out just to buy something, so i searched inside my fridge to see what leftovers i could clear up. Well, i found half a mini tub of feta cheese in oil with herbs and some pesto which i had made couple of days back with pasta and had extra. Since there was fresh bread lying around i decided to have a sandwich instead of using the pesto for pasta again. I added an extra slice of kraft cheese just for cheeses sake and used my mini frying pan to heat up the whole sandwich for extra crunch and melted cheese. Sorry i don't have pictures of the finished product because i practically wolfed it down once it was done. Hehehehee....and i have to say i liked it...nice and light...! here i'm writing down the recipe for the pesto and i guess the rest is basically ready-made store bought. Do try it and feel free to add more or minus off some ingredients. Tell me how it turned out ya??
SPINACH WALNUT PESTO
(adapted from women's weekly pasta cookbook)
250g baby spinach leaves, trimmed
1/2 cup walnut pieces, toasted
1 clove garlic
1/4 cup coarsely grated parmesan cheese
2 tbsp lemon juice
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
Blend or process spinach, nuts, garlic, cheese and juice until almost smooth. While the motor is still operating, gradually add oil through the hole on top until pesto is of desired consistency.
Makes about 11/2 cups
To assemble the sandwich, take two slices of bread and spread on the pesto evenly. Lay the slice cheese on one side and crumble on the feta. Drizzle some extra virgin olive oil (i used the oil from the feta) and lastly close the top with the other side of bread. Place sandwich on the pan and bring to a low heat on both sides.
My mum has been bugging me to make something with cream corn because we had alot of it in the fridge. I have no idea where it came from, so anyway when i hear corn i could only think of cornbread, corn pudding and savoury corn muffins. Firstly cornbread doesn't use cream corn so that's out. Secondly, corn pudding would be perfect and i even have a fool proof recipe for it and tastes good too BUT i have made it before and i wanted to try something new so i guess my last option is corn muffins. I went through a few recipes in books, online websites, blogs and came to realise that most of the recipes calls for corn kernels. Just the corn NOT cream corn....sigh...so i decided to concoct my own recipe by combining a few that i have read here and there. But basically i can say that i adapted most of the recipe from Dorie Greenspan's Corn Muffins recipe.
SAVOURY CORN MUFFINS
(yield: 12 regular sized muffins)
1 cup all-purpose flour
11/2 cup cornmeal
3 tbsp granulated sugar
21/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp grated nutmeg
1 cup buttermilk
3 tbsp melted butter
3 tbsp corn oil
1 egg
1 egg yolk
1 cup cream corn
Preheat oven to 200 degrees C. Fit the muffin pan with paper muffins cups.
In a large bowl, combine the dry ingredients...flour, cornmeal, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt and nutmeg. In another bowl, jug or large measuring cup, combine the liquids...buttermilk, melted butter, oil, egg, egg yolk and whisk till combined. Pour the liquid ingredients over the dry and gently stir to blend. The batter will be lumpy and that's the way it should be. Lastly stir in the cream corn till just combined. Divide the batter evenly among the muffin cups.
Bake for 20 minutes, or until the tops are golden and when a knife inserted into the center of the muffins comes out clean. Transfer to a rack and allow to cool 5 minutes before removing the muffins from the pan.
This recipe was a success...muffins had a nice texture and taste good, but i think no harm adding more cream corn for cornier taste...theeheheee
Eeeerrr...maybe not. Actually it's a doraemon, the japanese cartoon character BUT i bought it at the dorayaki stall. You know the ones at Jusco at the bakery section...yeah. So anyway what is a dorayaki? Well it's a type of japanese pancake where two small round patties is wrapped around a filling of sweet red bean paste. So that's the original but when it's here in Malaysia, you just get some confection of low standard tasting pancake with all sorts of filling you can think of. There's of course the red bean, kaya, strawberry, blueberry, peanut butter...etc.... and since doraemon's favourite food is dorayaki they made a chocolate chip doraemon shaped version. I just bought it because it looked so cute standing upright at the display...and cost only RM0.50 each...hehehe...taste wise...naaaahhhhhh...sorta taste like dry kueh bahulu + cake...i won't buy it again.
