Monday, May 27, 2013

Grilled Salmon with alfredo pasta

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This is my first time trying alfredo pasta. Wasnt very successful, the sauce came out a bit curdled, maybe next time i should add a bit of water and simmer less.

The recipe was from:

Ingredients:
+ butter
+ cream
+ parmesan cheese
+ parsley
+ crushed garlic
And  I added  a bit of salt and pepper as well.

Initially I wanted to cook the salmon as part of the alfredo, but changed my mind in case it doesnt turn out well. It was a good call, because Mr Fluff was making faces at my alfredo when he realised that there was cheese in it.

He said it was quite nice, but I dont think he enjoyed it very much. I guess this one is not going to be a repeat - since I am not exactly a fan of Alfredo either.


Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Miso soup

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A friend bought me the Miso soup paste after hearing that I have been looking for it. Apparently a lot of the off the shelves miso paste contains non-halal ingredient. She got this one from a shop selling natural goods, and ingredients are all vegetarians and no achohol.

For the dashi stock, you will need (i got the konbu and bonito flakes from Isetan KLCC):
- 2 x 4 inches konbu ( some kind of dried seaweed)
- 1 x cup of bonito flakes (shaved dried fish flakes)
- 4 cups of water 

For the add ons, basically you can just add on anything u fancy, some have seaweeds, or those soft tofu, it really is up to you but I prefer these:
- dried tofu
- spring onions

And not forgetting the miso itself. Mine is a paste, but it also comes in powder.

I was making it based on the recipe from this site :


I am not gonna rewrite it since it was practically the same, so I'll just post the pix of what I did.

Step 1: 


Step 2:

Step 3:

Step 4:


Step 5:

Step 6: the miso, i found that I dont need to mix it with the stock beforehand, it is okay to just stir it after

Finally:



The final verdict -

Taste wise, its quite okay and not too bad for a first try.

However, would I be making it again? Maybe not. While its quite easy to make, its too time consuming ( because u need to let the konbu sits for a while) and the ingredients are not exactly cheap.  The ingredients costs nearly RM20, maybe more, while you can just have those at the Japanese restaurants for around RM2.50 per bowl. Doesnt really justifies it, but of course u will know for sure that it is halal and if you make the dashi stock in big batches, you can always skip the time consuming bit and have it ready in less than 10 mins.


Tuesday, May 21, 2013

aztech homeplug - network your home without using electricity

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If you are like me, living in a two storey house and would like to have your cat5e cable on different location other than where your router is, and if you want to have a more stable and bigger than the 54mpbs of wifi, u should consider buying the homeplug.

Frankly I was sceptical at first, not sure if it would work out of the box like it says, especially after reading unsuccessful stories over the internet.

In the end, I am glad that I tried it anyway, cos it worked like a charm!

By the way, to state the obvious,  you will need purchase two units for it to work - though I reckon Aztech should have sold it in pairs cos buying just one unit doesnt make sense.

Unboxing the package you will get:
- the home plug
- cat5e cable ( a very short one though, I substituted it with my 3mtrs)
- a simple guide ( though its not exactly necessary, it was very simple to setup)
- the installer CD ( not sure what it was for because I had mine working without needing to install anything)




So first, you just plug in one unit on any plug point close to your router, in my case - upstairs at my TV room/area. As you can see, I actually just plugged it in on one of the power extension strip, and it was working okay. Then hook it with a cat5e cable which goes to the cable port on the homeplug on one end and the router on the other end.



  Next, plugged in the second unit in the same manner on a plugpoint which you want it to be, eg, downstairs. 

Its worth to mention that some people commented that it doesnt work if you have three phase wiring and if the two locations are in different phase. My house is a three phase, but it was working okay with one unit upstairs and one unit downstairs. Perhaps it so happens that the two locations were on the same phase, i dont know. Will update if it wont work elsewhere later.

As you can from the images above, there led indicators on the unit to indicate power, (dunno what the middle on is), and network. It goes green when it picked up signals, it goes amber when it doesnt. It took less than a minute for it turn green in my case, which surprised me at how easy and simple it is.

Overall I am very happy now that I can have a network downstairs without having to run long exposed cable.

The cost:
About RM200 - around RM100 each unit. Well worth the investment :)

More information can be found at http://www.aztech.com/prod_homeplug_hl112e.html

Below is copied from Aztech website to illustrate how it works:

Thursday, May 16, 2013

Dinner is on me!

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Just wanted to share with others who wants to get good sausages, I got those from Las Vacas. I usually go to the ones in Kelana Jaya because its the closest to me. Mr Fluff enjoyed his dinner very much. And I liked it too, its practically hassle free to prepare!

OK, those who'd like to get meat products its located at
No.23, Jalan SS5A/11 Kelana Jaya, 47301 Petaling Jaya, Selangor
03-7874 0711