Quick Chocolate Brownies

There is not much that offers more comfort than cooking up one of your favourite recipes. You can visualise the finish product before you even begin. You know the recipe is going to work. And most importantly, you know it will taste GOOD.

And that is why I made my chocolate brownies today. This recipes does not call for any chocolate and, instead, uses cocoa powder for the chocolate flavour. So if you can't be bothered melting chocolate this is a handy recipe for you. Obviously the quality of the cocoa will affect how the final product will taste. So if you can get something like Valrhona that will be perfect. As a variation I added roughly chopped walnuts into the recipe. This will add some crunchy nuttiness and bitterness to the slice so amount of sugar may need to be adjusted accordingly. As usual I did not frost my brownie but a chocolate frosting can definitely be spread on the top while the brownies are still warm to add sweetness and moist.

1/2 cup melted unsalted butter
2/3 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1/2 cup plain flour
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking powder
Walnuts, roughly chopped or broken into halves

1) Preheat the oven to 175 degrees C. Line a square baking pan.
2) Mix together butter, sugar, eggs and vanilla. Beat in cocoa powder, flour, slat and baking powder. Stir in walnuts. Spoon mixture into the prepared pan.
3) Baking for approx 25 minutes.

My brownies today are slightly overcooked today and they taste a bit dry to me. And you can tell by the bubbles appearing on the top of the slices. I'm blaming this to the pan that is larger than I thought, making the brownies a bit thinner and therefore faster to cook through. But that did not stop me from enjoying 2 slices after they came straight from the oven - again chocolate goodness has saved the day :P

And I saw this on smitten kitchen today. and OMG how good do they look!!!! I can't wait to try to make some!!

When did we stop being kids?

It's weird how when life gets to a certain stage, things start repeating themselves, only in the opposite direction. I remember when I was still in primary school, I would call my mum all the time when she worked at the hospital. It might be problems with homework, complaining about my brother, hoping to get Drumstick ice-cream for dessert. I would ring the hospital whenever I needed anything and I would get a little disappointed if she couldn't get to the phone straight away. And about 10 years later, I am the one answering the call and trying to get off the phone 'coz I have to go back to my job. All of a sudden your parents are the ones with all the time in the world while you work 48 hours a week. They are happily living off their retirement pension and you are the one with a mortgage. They are travelling everywhere whenever they want to when you don't even know when you can get your next annual leave. Instead of a tag-along of your parents, you are getting wedding invitations with your name on it. Not long ago you were a student and then you got a full-time job and you are officially an adult.
Growing up is not easy, but it is inevitable. You can try delaying it for as long as you want but eventually you'll have to bear the responsibility and just make that jump. But lucky for us there's that little bit of freedom and independence to make adulthood at least bitter-sweet.

Blood Donation

It is true that being able to give blood is a gift. It means that you are perfectly healthy and you are able to share that health with someone else. For the first time since I weighed enough to donate, I was rejected 'coz apparently my Hb is too low. 104 g/L was their reading. Never thought I might be anaemic but apparently I am! I guess I have been feeling tired and breathless at times but I thought that was just due to not sleeping enough and me being unfit. I'll probably need to book an appointment soon to get a blood count. And no more blood donation and more red meat in the next six months!
And if you are one of the lucky ones who are healthy enough to donate, please make time to do it every 3 months. It really doesn't take that long (about 30 minutes in total each time) and you are sharing the gift of life with someone else. And it really doesn't hurt that much. It feels a bit uncomfortable when the needle goes into your vein but that usually goes away within half to one minute. Plus it's kinda cool watching your blood being collected in a bag. It gives me a strange sense of achievement as the bag slowly gets filled up and the machine reaches 400. And if the sight of your own blood freaks you out, you can always look the other way and watch TV or have a chat with one of the Red Cross staff members, who are always lovely and will happily feed you after each donation :P

Just me complaining about people complaining

It is true that we often don't realize how blessed our lives really are. We complain about our bosses, our parents/kids, the bills, the traffic, the government, the weather, Gen XYZ, the relationships we are in, how boring the news are, the neighbour's dog that wakes you up at 5am, the person at the other end of the phone line whose accent you can't understand etc etc etc. Many people seem to be addicted to lengthy but pointless discussions that are based on nothing but negativity and criticism. While most of the time I just respond with a smile, all I want to tell them is that the world will be a much lovelier place without their complaints and negative energy. Just because you are an angry old (wo)man, don't spread your anger to other people. It is annoying, counterproductive and completely unnecessary. Our society is noisy enough without people dumping their frustration on each other. Don't complain about your job. Be thankful that you have a job to complain about. Don't complain about having to get up early. Be thankful that you wake up at all. Don't complain about your neighbour's noise. Be thankful that you can hear. Don't get annoyed by your parents' nagging. Be thankful for having a relationship with them. Don't take things for granted. Show gratitude. Learn to appreciate little things in life. Because the world can be as beautiful as you want it to be.

Banana Orange & Choc Chip Cake

So what's the difference between a banana cake and a banana bread loaf? Apparently it's the icing. And I think the cake is meant to be sweeter than the bread, or at least that's how I would make it. But since I have never been a fan of icing, I improvised and made a banana cake sans icing. This is based on a recipe called Banana & Lime Cake from the book Easy Baking.

Banana, Orange & Choc Chip Cake

1.5 cup plain flour
1 cup wholemeal flour
small pinch of salt
1.5 tsp baking powder
1 cup brown sugar
1 tsp grated orange rind
3 small bananas, mashed with ~2 tbsp orange juice
1 egg
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup applesauce
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
1 tsp ground cinnamon
choc chips

1) Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celcius. Line cake tin with baking paper
2) Sift the flour, salt and baking powder into a mixing bowl. Stir in sugar and orange rind. Mix well.
3) Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients and add the egg, banana, olive oil, applesauce, vanilla, cinnamon and choc chips. Mix evenly.
4) Spoon the mixture into the prepared tin and smooth the surface. Sprinkle extra choc chip over the top if desired. Bake in a preheated oven for 40-45 minutes, or until firm to touch and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Leave to cool in tin for 10 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack.
5) If you wish, you can prepare a topping by mixing 125g sifted icing sugar and 1-2 tsp orange juice to form a soft but not too running icing. Stir in some grated orange rind and drizzle the icing over the cake while it is still warm.

This cake is quite a dense and filling one, probably due to the amount of bananas. (I already feel satisfied after eating one slice!!) They also help keep the cake moist, despite the reduced amount of oil. Next time I would probably use the rind from a whole orange and more orange juice as the flavour needs to be a bit stronger to cut through all that banana richness. Overall, another easy and delicious recipe :P

Meatballs & Spaghetti

Just because you have some mince in your fridge, it doesn't mean that you have to have spaghetti bolognese for dinner. I am not an Italian and I'm certainly not an expert in Italian cooking. But here it is, my version of Meatballs & Pasta.

400g of mixed lamb and pork mince (I would normally use beef + pork but lamb is what I have in the fridge)
chopped basil
chopped parsley
3 tbsp breadcrumbs
1 egg
1 chopped carrot
1 chopped onion
2 cloves of garlic, crushed and roughly chopped
4 tomatoes, roughly chopped
1 canned tomato soup
Wholemeal spaghetti or any pasta
Parmesan, grated (optional)

1) In a large bowl, mix together the minced meat, chopped basil, parsley, breadcrumbs and 1 egg. Add freshly ground pepper and mix well.
2) Roll ~1 tbsp of mince mixture into a meatball. Repeat with the rest.
3) Cook pasta according to the packet instructions. Drain and set aside.
4) In a heated frying pan, add olive oil and meatballs. Allow to cook until golden and cooked through. Set aside on paper towel to absorb excess oil.
5) In the same frying pan, add onion and carrot. Stir until soften then mix in garlic. Add tomatoes to pan and cook for a few minutes. Add in tomato soup and bring it to a simmer. Add water to thin it out if desired. Mix in meatballs, cracked pepper and chopped basil.
6) To serve, place pasta on a plate or a bowl and spoon over the tomato sauce. Sprinkle over grated Parmesan if desired.

This may look waaaaayyyyyyyyyy to saucy for some of you but this is the type of pasta that I grew up having, which obviously is not the most authentic Italian. Oh well, I'm blaming my parents for it!

Brothers

"No one can have greater love than to lay down his life for his friends" John 15:13

To a certain extent human beings are born to be selfish, I think. It's a natural instinct to protect yourself in order to survive. If there's a situation that puts you in danger, you avoid it. It's self-preservation. But human beings are not JUST animals. We don't just act on instinct, we also act on emotions, we act on knowledge. We don't just think about ourselves when we make decisions. We also think about the impact on other people.
But what about choosing between living or dying? What about killing someone to save yourself when the alternative is to save someone's life by dying? Jesus makes the decision to die for all of us to give us a new life. But what about the rest of us who are not prepared for this loving and heroic act?
In Brothers, Sam, a US Marine who has been captured, has to choose between killing his friend to live and getting killed himself. He is a soldier at war. He needs to survive. He has a family that needs him. So he chooses to live. Not that it is in any way an easy decision. It is his friend. He is someone's father, someone's husband, someone's son. His life, too, is a gift from God. And none of us has the right to take that away from anybody, no matter for what reason. It is against his passionate nature. But the chances are that both of them would get killed if Sam chose not to kill his friend. It is cruel but it is also the reality (well, the reality in a fictional film). So he takes the selfish alternative to live. And for the rest of his life he has to live with the consequence. He gets to live because he has taken someone's life. He struggles to connect with people again. He has lost a sense of who he is. He thinks himself undeserving.
It's unbearable to think what we would do if we were him. Death itself is not scary. It's how you die and more importantly how it affects people who love you that is. We don't just want to protect ourselves, but also our loved ones from the grief and getting hurt. Sam is prepared to die once being captured but he loves his wife enough to kill his friend. I don't think I have what it takes to take someone's life like that. But at the same time the alternative seems equally cruel.
I wonder how many people in the world are truly capable of sacrificing their lives for someone else. Very, very few I am guessing. But the rest of us can probably start with something smaller. Be generous with what you have. Be kind to other people. Give without expecting any rewards. Put other people's needs before yours. And one day when we have to choose between living and dying, maybe we'll make the right decision.
And if you are wondering whether the film is good or not, the answer is ABSOLUTELY. The acting is terrific, especially by Toby Maguire and Jake Gyllenhaal. The kid who plays Isabelle (Sam's daughter) is amazing. The film is emotional, powerful and touching. It is a good story, that has left me a few messages to think about.