1 Tip to Save Time Early Morning

Although I set my alarm to wake up really early in the morning, there were days when I overslept. When this happens, I rush like crazy. Everything becomes haywire and you can be sure it affects the rest of the day.

Why?
Because I believe that the choice of the clothes and scarf sometimes affect my mood.

If I rush in the morning, I usually don't think much about the clothes and choice of colour I choose for the day. Usually I do the obvious. I will reach out for the clothes that doesn't need ironing. Even scarf. Sadly, most of my scarves need ironing and then I will reach work past the clock-in time.

However, when I discussed with friends, they gave me an interesting idea.

Time Saving Tip

A friend usually irons her clothes for the week ahead. She decides on the weekend and spend about close to 2 hours ironing her clothes and her children's clothes. So, I thought why not try.

I lay out clothes based on the dress code for each day in the week. On Thursdays, we have to wear Batik theme clothes, on Fridays, it's either jubah or baju kurung. On Mondays, it's baju kurung. On Wednesdays, it's the gray corporate shirt. On Tuesdays, any formal clothes will do.

I will lay out clothes based on the requirements and the matching scarves (on Saturdays or Sundays). Over the weekends I spend about 45 minutes to choose and iron everything out. By doing this, I save a lot of time in the morning whenever I overslept.

Try this out and let me know whether it works for you or not.

Try and Error

This was a try and error recipe but it turns out good. I put it in the office and that evening the bottle was empty. So what did I use to make this snack?

There are cashews and walnuts which I have always used to make this snack. This time around I used pumpkin seeds. I have read a lot on pumpkin seeds and one of the benefit is it promotes hair growth. The pumpkin seeds are very crunchy after toasting it. 

I toasted all the nuts and then add milk chocolate buttons while the nuts are still warm. The chocolates melt easily. Keep stirring in a baking tin until the chocolate and nuts are well mixed. The more the chocolate, the better.

Find small cups and scoop the nuts mixed with chocolate into it. Chill for 3 minutes and store in an airtight container. This snack could last for two weeks unless someone wants to finish it in a day. Enjoy trying.

Quick Easy Lasagna on a Sunday

Pretty easy lasagna

First of all you must remember it is the two sauces that makes lasagna. What sauces am I talking about? Well, it is what i call the red sauce and the white sauce.

Red sauce

What I meant by red sauce is the spaghetti sauce. Refer to my previous post on the ingredients and how to make one. http://fadzarahim.blogspot.my/2016/11/spaghetti-napolita-is-japanese.html

This is the white sauce

The white sauce is the creamy sauce where you start with melting butter in a saucepan. Stir flour (about 5 tablespoon) in the saucepan. Stir well and you have to watch out that the flour doesn't turn into lumps. Cook for 2 minutes over gentle heat. Remove from heat and stir in milk (I used  one tin of IDEAL Evaporated milk) and added water (use the same tin measurement from the IDEAL milk). 

Gordon Ramsay pours the milk three times. Every one third, he will stir and remove from heat if it starts to thicken and goes back to the heat.

So, return your saucepan to heat and keep stirring until the mixture is thick and smooth. Season the mixture with salt and pepper and add mozarella or cheddar cheese. My friend would add in the cheddar cheese slices (5 slices). Stir over low heat until cheese melt. 

The brown lumps you see in the picture is because I didn't keep stirring.

Start layering the sauces

Once the sauces are ready, prepare a baking tin. Pour in the red sauce first, Then layer it with lasagna. I used San Remo's Instant Lasagna.

Make sure the lasagna covers your red sauce. Then, pour in your white sauce.

Layer the white sauce with lasagna. Just make sure there is enough sauce to cover the layers.

Keep layering the sauces and lasagna until the white sauce is on top. Then, sprinkle a generous amount of cheese (mozarella or cheddar)

I POURED cheddar cheese

Before you bake, heat the oven at 180 degree for 40 minutes. Then, bake for 40 minutes.

Easy peasy lemon squeezy, your lasagne is ready

Try it out on a Sunday and let me know how yours turn out.

Spaghetti Napolita is Japanese?

I was watching Midnight Diner yesterday and so this main character called 'Master' in that movie was a chef. He has a diner where his regulars would come only at midnight and after. He opens from 12am to 7am.

So, in one scene he served Spaghetti Napolita to his customer and she was praising how tasty it was. It was mouth watering to me especially when it was served with scramble eggs. So today, I bought some ingredients and dashed to make my Napolita.

Of course I referred to my friend for the basic spaghetti sauce recipe. I added onions and garlics. Button mushroom, minced meat, red and green pepper, some tomatoes and a bottle of Prego Napolita sauce. I also added one bottle (the Napolita sauce bottle) of water. Then I added salt and sugar for seasoning. It seemed like it turned out well but it was watery. Perhaps I shouldn't use too much water, or perhaps I should just stick to tomato puree as advised by my friend.

Here is a picture of the Spaghetti Napolita. I used Angel Hair for the pasta.

After Isya' I decided to just find out how experts cook this dish only to find out this is a Japanese Dish. Well, that is a lesson for me. Perhaps tomorrow I will prepare some scramble eggs with the leftover Spaghetti Napolita.

Borobodur: A Masterpiece

Borobodur at the far end of the road

I always heard my professors talking about Borobodur and Prambanan when I was reading Islamic Art. Both are historic and preserved (along with Angkor Wat in Cambodia) as heritage structure. Why? Because it reflects the history of Hindu (Prambanan) and Buddha (Borobodur) in Asia. History is always traced from literature, paintings and architectural structures. On structures, the motifs that represents each period of time are embedded. This reflects the advancement of culture of certain kingdom. Apart from that, it reflects the belief and lifestyle of the society.

The Borobodur is built nine story high and the walls are plastered with story of Buddha.

Staircase leading up to the temple

Since mom found it hard to climb all those stairs, our guide took us through the ramp. We just had to climb up in circles but it was easier for mom. Below is the view at the top of the ramp.

Nine story high and the walls are filled with story of Buddha

 The highlight of our trip to Borobodur was this. We saw the Buddhist praying and chanting and it sound very similar to some Hindu words. For example, the word sami was repeated several times and I have heard that sami is referred to deity in Tamil.

The ladies

The ladies took the left area while the men took the right side. The ladies were shaved bald as the men were. 

The male monks taking their spots

There was a family who wasn't clad in the robe joined the chant and prayer. I think she could feel me because after a few silent snaps (I turned my phone to silent to respect the event) she opened her eyes and looked at me. I was startled.

The makara from Borobodur

The lion that stand guard at the entrance. Look at the stylistic approach in carving the lion

The best angle to photography the Borobodur. An amazing view

I can't remember which floor or what was this panel about but here is the view of a panel of story

No cement were to assemble the Borobodur. It was all bricks placed in the above format. The holes are water tunnels so that rain water could flow through

I am at the ninth floor and this was the only Buddha statue without the stupa. What is stupa? It is the bell shaped structure you see beside the man clad in blue t-shirt

I was that if I want my wish to come true I should go around the ninth floor for 7 or 9 times and the I make a wish. I went around once only for the view.

There is our guide. An Indonesian Muslim who is very proud and knowledgeable about his heritage. Can't remember his name though

My visit to Borobodur was more fulfilling because the guide came together with us and I actually went around each floor to hear the stories. As I climbed further up the stories become lesser and on the ninth floor there no more stories on the wall. One of my professor said something significant about this but I cant remember now. We had an experience witnessing the prayer of the Buddhist. The place is also cleaner that Prambanan. At the time of our visit to Prambanan it just stopped raining so there were puddles of water everywhere and it reminded me of India. But Borobodur was clear of rain and no water around the area. 

Prambanan: A Step into the Past

The surreal Prambanan

The temple area was drenched wet at the time of our visit to Prambanan. We entered after our guide bought us a ticket each. I thought usually the guide comes in and show us around but this is not the case in Prambanan or Borobodur. We decided not to take the guide because it seemed expensive. I was sure about the price exactly but there were so many zeros in Indonesian price tags it scared me off. Furthermore, I just wanted to have a look at this heritage that has been talked about for as long as I have studied Asean Art History. 

The walkway leading to the temple

There were rows of jasmine plants along the walkway leading to the temples. You don't actually see the temple once you come from the entrance. One needs to walk about 5 minutes and take a right turn and there stood the breathtaking Prambanan. It was majestically standing with a few pagoda shapes structure at the end of the walkway.

This was one of the pagoda shaped structure or one of the temple

After climbing a few stairs, I entered the complex of the temple. The ground was not paved as you can see in the picture above. There were several pagoda structure but I only went into one. I guess that is the main temple because Shiva's statue was at the top inside a shallow room. What I found interesting is the staircase were large and it would a take great effort to climb up. I was imagining how the devotees would make their way up and down. Where did they get such rocks from?

Shiva's statue was up in the room. 

I came here mainly because of the motifs found on Prambanan. Although I have seen kala on temples in Bali and Cambodia, I needed to see it here in Jogja. It never occurred to me to study the stylistic difference between the kala but I think I will make some effort in the future. 

Although kala seemed very gory, it is actually a symbol of protection. It is placed at the entrance of houses, temples and even I found one at the entrance of the Kraton at Jogja. People believed that it protects the place from evil spirit.

Makara from side view

Makara from frontal view

Another motif that I wished to see was the makara. Makara was believed to be the mythical sea animal with the truck of an elephant. One can see makara on boats in Kelantan, Terengganu and Southern Thai. Since it is a sea animal, people believed it protects the boats from evil spirit when fishermen leaves for the sea. I believed it was also the transport of Shiva, but not entirely sure of it.

Kala

The pagoda shaped structure resembles the temples in Angkor Wat 

We had to walk a long way to get out of the complex. We came across a museum which housed some gamelan instruments and other historical documents which I didn't get to read. It was raining again by the time we finished going around the temples.

The museum

The entrance to the museum

We had to past through a huge field before going out

The Prambanan was looked after well. It was clean, even the toilets were clean. I am very particular about toilets when I travel, so I am happy. However, when I visited Borobodur, I started to think that maybe Prambanan was not as important because the treatment of tourist at the former was even special. Wait for my next blog post.

Taman Sari, Jogja: A Peek Into the Royal Villa

Taman Sari is a place where the Ruler of Jogja used to rest and relax with his family. The villa is prepared with fragrance from flowers and incense. Fruits will be brought over before the king and his family arrives. 

The entrance to Taman Sari

The second entrance where kala is portrayed on the wall

The entrance leads to the main pool

The main pool is where the wives of the ruler and his children take a bath. The king would look at them from a tower that is situated on the left. From there he will pick one of his wives to spend the night with. According to the guide, he chooses the wife by throwing a flower to her. 

The rest of the family members will then get dressed and leave the king and queen for the night. 

The pool at far is for the king's children while the pool at foreground is for the wives. The building at the background is where the wives and children get dressed after the bath.

This is the private pool where the king will spend time with his chosen wife.

The king and his wife would spend the night at the villa. In between the public (main) pool and private pool, there is a building where the couple spends their night together.

On our way out there was a batik painting area

As we walked out of Taman Sari compound, we came across a few crafters making puppet shadow (wayang kulit)

Taman Sari is situated around a compound where the palace (kraton) and some houses for palace workers. This area is built with high white walls and is very crammed when there are a lot of tourists. The weather during our July trip was hot so you might want to bring a hat along.