Recipe: Banana Carob Peanut Butter Cookies

We baked yet another lot of cookies for Shalom. Its also part of her Goodnight Cookies series. We have to vary the flavours or else the girl is going to frown at her cookies and leave crumbs all over the house when she plays with them instead of eating them.

Ingredients:

2 tablespoon of crunchy peanut butter (creamy works just as well)

200g bananas (that's about 3 pieces of Dole bananas)

1 tablespoon of carob

100ml olive oil

150ml cold water

1 egg beaten (for brushing)

400g flour

Method:

• Mix peanut butter, banana and carob well. It will look mushy.

• Add in oil to the mushy mixture.

• Add flour to the oily mushy mixture.

•Add water slowly as you knead the flour and mushy mixture into a firm dough. Break the carob bits as you knead.

• Flatten dough till 1.5cm or thinner if furkids don't have strong teeth. Cut to your choice shape.

• Glaze with egg.

• Place on lightly greased pan.

• Bake in oven at 160C for 20 minutes or until firm.

• Let cookie cool and harden before storing in air tight containers.

You'll notice that the recipe for Shalom's cookeies are pretty much similar. I just play around with different "flavoured"ingredient e.g. cod, peanut butter, pumpkin or even peanut butter. So have fun experimenting with what is good for your furkid or what your furkid likes best.

Carob is a safe alternative to chocolates. Chocolates are poisonous to dogs so I use Carob which is somewhat similar tasting but a wee bitter to replace chocolate. You can get Carob at good organic or baking shops.

#1 egg is more than sufficient to glaze the cookies. So I normally beat the egg and reserve only 1/3 of the mixture for glazing. The other 2/3 is added into the cookie mix.

Goodnight Cookies

Baked Shalom some of her fave "Goodnight Cookies". Some good home made goodness in her treats without any preservatives, colouring or artificial flavouring.

Simple and easy to make and it's quite yummy for humans too. A wee like our bread sticks.

Preparation time including baking is about 45 minutes.

Ingredients:

200g cod fish (or chicken meat)

125ml olive oil

170ml cold water (or meat broth if you're using meat)

1 egg beaten (for brushing)

300g gluten free flour

50g wheatgerm

5g of preferred herbs / spices (I use Italian herbs and cinnamon)

Method:

• Mix flour, wheatgerm, tuna, olive oil, half of egg mixture, herbs and spices well.

• Then add water bit by bit and knead till it becomes a firm dough

• Flatten dough (until approximately 1.5 cm high) on a lightly floured surface. Cut into desired shapes.

• Place cut out cookies on a greased baking pan.

• Brush with egg mixture

• Bake in 160C oven for 20 minutes or until firm.

• Let it cool and harden for about an hour before storing in bottles.

## If you're using meat, boil the meat to make the broth. Then separate meat from broth. Once the chicken is cool, tear it into slices.

## Gluten free flour is a bit harder to roll out. So use regular white flour if you need to.

The above keeps in the fridge for up to 4 weeks and a week in room temperature.

Ruby's Resort - my second home

Took advantage of the long holidays and returned to Ruby's Resort. This is actually my 9th time staying there. Hardcore as you may say, we return whether its rain or shine. I must confess that this trip was actually planned in 2010 itself. Yes last year. And our next return in August 2011 was also booked last year itself.

Here's my room. Yes my room because I've been staying in Palm 8 out of 9 times. This room has been repainted in white recently. Gorgeous isn't it? The usual works, we check in. Switch on the AC so that Shalom can rest before we hit the beach.

And while the diva rest, we head off to the cafetaria to makan! If you head here, you'll love the ice kacang. It goes well with the chicken wings too. And while we're at food, one of the other 2 faves of ours are the tom yam and the hokkien yee mee.

Done with makan, we waste to time to head to the beach. See what I mean that the skies and seas are really blue? And I'm very sure one of my pals who's doing her pre wedding shoot here next week is certainly going to have a fabulous time and seriously fabulous pics. The whole place is just so serene. Just perfect to chill and recuperate from the hustle and bustle of crazy KL.

With the seas so blue, a dip is certainly unavoidable. Strangely, the waters are really calm in the morning. So calm that I can actually see my own toes:D And so calm that I dare walk out deep almost to my chest with my camera sans the underwater casing to snap picture!

And if you wanna have a lil spa session, you may do so. We had a great time scrubbling our dead skin off with the soft black sand:D

The pretty blue sea isn't just for us human. Furkids enjoyed themselves too. Shalom is a water baby and it is tough keeping her away from the water. Its either she dashes straight into the sea or just strolls at he edge of the beach that guarantees us a soak mop looking Shalom.

And obviously when she's wet, she isn't a pleasant sight but that cute happy wide smiley face of hers makes up for all the awful looks:P

Please take note that you should always accompany your furkid when they play by the sea or in the water. They may get into trouble, turn tired or in long hair furkids like Shalom, the hair may weigh them down. Having some adults to be with them is always a good idea. Thanx to Jo who kept Shalom company so I cold snap some pics and video.

Here's a video of Hershey's maiden swim.

And Shalom's

A trip to Ruby's doesn't mean you need to get wet. A walk by the beach at night is equally fun. This time a bunch of us took a walk after dinner to look for turtles. We didn't find any turtles but we found a light bulb. A huge on that is the size of Jo's size 5 Crocs!

Lil and her old boy Tyrus also opted to stay dry this trip. And here's some dry shots of our furkids:D

And if you can wake up in time for sunrise (be by the beach by 7am), this is what greets you!

A reminder to myself that I really should be keeping (all) my cameras in the cupboard provided or else I end up getting my lenses all chilled. Then this is what I get when I want to shoot:-(

If you're game for a stay at Ruby's that has no Astro (cable TV), wifi, rather horrible mobile signal (but livable) no frills resort, here's the details:

Ruby's Resort

Lot 350, Jalan Kemaman,

Kg. Chendor,

Cherating, 26080,

Pahang, Malaysia.



Phone Number

+6016 938 1298

+6016 360 0009 (Aunty Ruby's)

GPS coordinates:

N 04d 8.956 E 103d 24.425

http://www.rubys-resort.com

And when you're there, please give her a hug from Evelyn and Shalom.

Also, please pick up after your furkids after they poop. We want this to be a furkids friendly resort forever!

Dare you try Durian the King of Fruits?

If you're an Asian and especially a Malaysian or Singaporean, then the durian is not a foreign fruit to you. Cat Hill King or better known as 貓山王 Mao San Wong in Cantonese is almost the ultimate grade for durians for any durian connoisseur.

The flavours from the Cat Hill King are extremely intense. It is sweet with a bitter aftertaste and when coupled with a rich creamy texture, it is truly heavenly.

Friends think I am kidding them when I tell them that even a dog can make out the difference of a superior grade or otherwise. My Shihtzu furkid Shalom has always been a picky eater and this extends even to durians. She'll eat the common grades such as D24 or durian kampung. However the enthusiasm is just absolutely a whole world of difference when she meets Cat Hill King. No more a gentle licker. She would hungrily bite the yellow creamy flesh off the seed.

Here's video "evidence" of her being a durian connoisseur.

Article first published as Dare You Try Durian the King of Fruits? on Blogcritics. 

CNY Touge Picnic

The very first CNY that we did not go anywhere nor really celebrated as I'm still within the 1 year mourning period of my gram's demise.

Seriously bored on Day 3, we decided that we needed a drive somewhere with the lil one. Obviously Shalom was happier than anyone else. Again we didn't exactly know where we wanted to go. So we packed ourselves a simple picnic:
• a flask of green tea & water
• peanuts
• cookies
• prawn crackers
• apple
• treats for the lil one

Off we went after a hearty breakfast at Hainam Coffee. Ah...the breakfast sets are wholesome and value for money. I love the bread and eggs (so did Shalom:P).

Armed with our picnic basket and tank full petrol, we started off with Ulu Yam. And the drive just went on and on. Stopped at Kuala Kubu Baru (KKB). Wanted to have our picnic at our usual spot near the dam but the usual spot was closed (festive break).

So we drove off a wee further and opted for the stream. A lovely spot under the trees. Nestled on some comfy rocks, we had gushing water on one side and a calm spot for Shalom. Enjoyed our picnic, we even had our family photo that I'll be submitting for my Ocean Potion entry. The gushing part of the area was fun. It was almost like a bubbly spa:D

It was lunch time and more people started coming in including a family of almost 40 people. So we packed our stuff and headed off for Frasers - Raub - Bentong.

Took a break at Chamang Falls - a place that hubby that went when he was a boy scout. Its my first time here and the falls are awesome. With clean amenities for changing, food stalls and ample parking space, this will be a nice picnic spot for the Spyder boys after our weekend drive.

We continued on to Bukit Tinggi Village for lunch and vegie shopping. Went gaga over passion fruit. A whole lot of them - 10kg for my passion fruit enzyme project for my sister in law.

By now the lil one was a wee exhausted. So its top up and the aircon for her to snooze on our return leg home. Nice snoozing, we opted for Janda Baik - old Mimaland road. Utterly fun windy roads with barely any traffic. Bliss!

Reached home at almost 5pm. The young one was exhausted but nevertheless very happy. Slept throughout dinner time and even while we were watching TV.

Conclusion? Day 3 of 2011 CNY was fun with our dive to nowhere:P