3 days to Chinese (Lunar) New Year of the Rabbit or 4701

The family of my eldest sister specialises in making noodles and my three nephews all run their own noodle making businesses supplying fresh noodles to restaurants and noodle stalls in Kuching . They also supply (by air) to customers in West Malaysia and Singapore. My eldest brother-in-law was a chef before he became a noodle maker and he was a really good chef. His festival dinners were meals to look forward to! Since he passed away, three of his children have mastered their father's skills in cooking.

Our festival meal today meal was prepared by his third son - Fah.

To start off, we have the (five fragrances meat roll) ....

Next, we have chicken wings in a honey sauce. This is certainly one of my mum's favourite dish.
 

Then curry chicken ....

This next dish is my favourite - a thick slab of pork (back thigh meat - with a thick layer of fat) stewed with mushroom, cuttle fish, scallops and chestnuts. 

For soup, we have stuffed winter melon ....

 

Finally, fried fresh noodles - this noodle is specially hand-made with flour and eggs only. The egg noodle is much nicer than the normal noodle.

Yummy!!!

11 days to Chinese (Lunar) New Year of the Rabbit or 4701

It is still 11 days to the Chinese (Lunar) New Year of the Rabbit and the feasting has already started :-) 

As in previous years, our non-Chinese friends and neighbours start to cook and send over the food. Yesterday, one of our Muslim Indian neighbour send over, as he had done for  decades,  various home-made dishes.

For this year ...

Briyani Rice .... chock full of vegetables and herbs. Our neighbour certainly cook the best briyani we have ever eaten in Malaysia or Singapore or elsewhere!).

 

Grilled Chicken drum sticks .. yummy!

This sour and spicy brinjal is another favourite of the family ... again, we have no eaten anything similar yet over the years to beat this dish!!

The nice cold cucumber side dish ....

Finally, the yummy sago and oatmeal dessert!!
 

A really great meal to start off the countdown to the Year of the Rabbit!

Takakura Home Composting Part 3

To aerate the compost, I mixed the compost well and then even out the seed compost.

Add in the chopped and diced fruit peelings and vegetables.

The end-result should look like this.
 

I had earlier cut a couple of cardboard boxes to fit the top of the basket.

Then I covered the basket with a piece of thick cloth. A black piece of cloth was suggested but since I had an old towel, I used this instead. To keep out the light,  had earlier added cardboard lids which helped to keep the compost in the dark.

Twenty four hours later, on opening, you can see this .... the bacteria had been hard at work!

Just repeat the whole process every day. 

Take note that the compost should be slightly moist - not dry. If the compost feels too dry, spray some water into the compost and mix well befoe adding the next lot of chopped vegetables/fruits.

Broody Hen

At the back of the garden, we kept a pair of local chicken - gifts from TK's eldest sister. They are not as small as seramas but ,still, they are miniatures of the normal local chicken.

The hen had been laying eggs every alternate day ... final is a clutch of nine eggs though one was broken when it fell off the box on which she laid the eggs.

Last Friday (7/1/2011), the hen started to incubate the remaining eight eggs.

I am not sure if we will get to see eight miniature chicks in three weeks time ....

Takakura Home Composting Part 2

During the fermentation process over the five days, the covered box felt warm and after about 5 days, the seed compost was covered with white mould ...

The seed compost is now ready. Prepare one or two compost containers - the containers should have holes on the sides to allow ventilation. Line the container with cardboard - to prevent  spillage and insect infestation.

 

Transfer the seed compost from the box to the compost container. The compost container should be two-thirds full. During the transfer, you can see steam coming out of the seed compost.

Everything is now ready to start the Takakura Home Composting.