bad shot, good cake

more of my cooking. i love to cook. have not always loved to cook. never used to cook anything fancy before i got married, apart from the common stuff that just needs some common sense to stir up. i remember telling my then fiance not to expect me to whip up dinner every night after we got married. he'll just have to get it from his mum, who btw is a great cook who can whip up a mini buffet on a nightly basis. and there was no expectation from him. but it just seemed natural that once i got married i quite liked the idea of having nutritous home cooked meals at my own home. so i got some recipe books and the rest is history. nope, am still not a great cook and cooking for anything more than 8 people stresses me out. but after 10 years of doing it, i find that i love it - the cooking, i mean.

i love baking. seeing the strange batter coming together to form an absolutely yummy smelling delicious cake is really a delight. there's nothing quite like the smell of fresh baking cooking in the oven. ahh, absolutely divine. my best cake yet is my kahlua cake that i make once a year for my husband's birthday. he loves it, and it's once a year cos the cost alone is a whopping rm40! love baking cakes, muffins, breads and spoon cookies. don't like making pastries and cut out cookies. quite obviously because i hate the fuss of handling pastries. been there, done that, don't like it. i can eat the pastries some other folks make.

this is my effort at one of nigella lawson's cakes. some choc fudge cake or the other. that's the batter coming together. and altho that's a bad shot (bad light, bad focus) of the finished cake, it tasted oh so yummy! at least my guests agreed so.

i like general cooking too. i love the rainbow colors of raw vegetables and fruit. i love them raw but i also love how fresh food gets cooked and it comes together to be smelling and tasting so good. warm food on steaming white rice...ahh...nothing much better than that. i hate overcooked food that's all mushy and have lost all of its color. what is the point? i'm not too big on meats, especially deep fried ones, but well cooked meats tastes ok i guess. well cooked chicken looks really good in presentation. my favorite meat is till fish as it's a lot lighter.

this is a shot of a sweet and sour fish i did, and watercress soup with spare ribs and sweet red dates. i'm not big on soups but my little chinaman son loves soups, so i got to have some soup whip ups up my sleeve.

well the last shot is one of my favorites - veggie. and also one of my favorite veggies - broccoli. this is just a simple fry with garlic, but just look at the deep bright green color of the florets. isn't it gorgeous? and so inviting.

speaking of inviting, all this talk and photos of food is making me very hungry. so i shall stop and have breakfast now.