Gracebee's Diary

Wednesday, 4 November 2015

Homemade kaya jam

2015 November 3rd
Kaya ,is also known as coconut egg jam,which is a popular toast spread in Malaysia and Singapore.
This sweet coconut nut jam is made with just coconut milk,eggs and sugar and pandan leaves. Pandan leaves are to make the jam taste with fragrance. Later the leaves will be discarded.
My husband had a Google search for the making of kaya and he chose one that was simple and easy. He tried a couple of times to get the texture he preferred. That the texture is not watery like those shown on videos.
The ingredients are: 250 gm sugar,250 gm coconut milk, 4 eggs,beaten.
The process is
1. In a pot or mixing bowl, place sugar and pour in the coconut milk.
Put the pot on stove. Stir the mixture until the sugar melts completely.Add in tied pandan leaves (not shown because this time he did not use..optional).
2. Meanwhile beat eggs thoroughly. Using a strainer,pour the well beaten eggs into the pot of melted sugar with the coconut milk. Stir well for a while.
3. Transfer the pot of mixture onto another bigger and wider pot or a kwali (chinese use it to cook dishes and food) filled with boiling water (as shown in the picture).Keep stirring on slow fire.
4. Keep stirring with patience until all ingredients mixed well.
5. On the other stove,use a saucepan to melt 5 tablespoons sugar till it turns brown color,not burnt.
Pour the melted sugar into the pot and keep stirring again until sugar well blended into the texture.
6. Finally the nice texture of kaya is ready. It takes half an hour only to get the job done.

1. 250 gm sugar place in a pot.

2. 250 gm fresh coconut milk in a glass .

3. Pour coconut milk into the pot and picture shows the mixture.

4. Picture shows the pot of mixture is placed on stove with slow fire.
Keep stirring until the sugar melts in coconut milk. The mixture turns to this color.

5. Beat eggs thoroughly and pour into the pot of mixture.Keep stirring on slow fire.

6. Stir well until turns into the correct form of mixture.

7. On a saucepan,melts 5 table spoons of sugar till it melts and turns brown then pour into the pot.Keep on stirring until you get the desired texture .

8. Once cool,pour into containers and it is ready to serve.

Editing is done on 4th November 2015.

Thursday, 29 October 2015

Homemade Soy milk

2015-Oct 29th
Hi ! It has been almost 2 months since my last post. Time really passes so swiftly. During the last 3 months my husband and I were busy with the new member at home ! Looking after baby need a lot of energy as we two old folks are over 66 years old already...Now everything is easily handled. So,while time allows, my husband is happy to make soy milk and a jam called "kaya" (next post).

We learnt the method of making soy milk long long time ago from a friend. We used to buy soy milk from market,sold only at weekends. But so unfortunately the uncle has stopped selling since he had a fall and been hospitalized for quite sometime. My son drinks a lot. So,we have to do it ourselves at home. Taste is "not bad" to me and my sister in law said it was nice !

Process :
Soy beans, any amount you like..we tried with a cup of soy beans for 1st try and later increased the amount if we need more soy milk.
Soak the beans over night.
Next, I prefer to peel off skins of the beans before blending, so that it tastes better when cooked.
Add some water to the beans in the blender and start blending process.
Pour the blended paste into a cloth strainer as shown in the pictures. Must add water each time you are to squeeze the bean paste to get the amount of soy you want into a pot below the strainer.
If the milk is still thick, add water to it before or while boiling.
Let it boil for a while and turn off fire. Add sugar to taste. Let it cool down before pouring into containers.
Happy trying !

Saturday, 22 August 2015

Remembrance Day...Labuan 2014

22-August 2015

Remembrance Day 9 November 2014
World War II Memorial, Labuan (formerly Victoria Town )

I read about the news and the notice of this event in the newspaper and I went to witness the ceremony on the 9th November 2014. It was raining heavily the night before .Luckily the rain stopped before the ceremony started. This memorial Park on the island of Labuan was a popular place where visitors loved taking photos while walking around the compound.When we were young ,we used to bring our friends from afar to visit this beautiful Memorial.Writing about this Memorial really brings back lots of memories of my school days.

Remembrance Day is an annual event organised by Labuan Tourism Council to commemorate the fallen heroes during the World War II . On that day, many High Commissioner representatives from Commonwealth countries attended the event to offer tribute. Below are some of the photos taken before and during the Prayer service.

Thursday, 6 August 2015

Baby Silvia's First Full Month celebration

(6th August 2015)
My grand daughter,Silvia Lee was one month old on the 4th of August (the 20th day of the 5th month in the Chinese lunar calender). So,the actual full month (20th day of the 6th month) fell on the 4th of August.
According to Chinese traditional culture ,different dialect has its own way of celebration to mark this important 1st full month of the baby's life. I would choose a simple and meaningful "package" to follow. We prepared many eggs dyed red..300 red eggs and red ang ku kueh ,some roasted pork for very close relatives. The eggs were boiled in three different big pots. These hard boiled eggs were dyed red.This was done one day earlier, from afternoon to late at night. We made order for the ang ku kueh as we did not know how to make. We wrapped 6 red eggs and 6 ang ku kueh (in separate plastic bags) with pink paper.

On the very day ie 4th August, first thing to do was to cut a little bit of baby.s hair to keep in a red packet. Later my cousin sister accompanied me to two temples to pray for the little girl. We placed the some red eggs and the kueh on the alter as offerings to Gods and Goddess. I prayed for my grand daughter's happiness,good luck,good health and safe and sound in her growing up.

After coming back from the temples, we started to distribute those packets of red eggs and kueh to relatives and friends. In return ,they would give red packets called ang paws or jewelry to the baby with blessings and luck.

That was the simplest celebration we had for the baby. We wish all the best for her as she grows up. That is enough. Some of the photos taken during the one month.....................

Silvia on day 4...