After 2 full day tour we are all very tired. We then decided that everyone will stay in the villa while BH and me will go for a half day tour at Uluwatu - a temple built on a cliff facing Indian Ocean
We plan to visit Bedugul area to see the market of fruits and vegetables. There are 7 mountain surrounding Bali, therefore, with higher altitude you can grow begetables such as carrots, cauliflower, brocolli and even strawberries. On the way to Bedugul, we saw people harvesting water melon, we stop our vehicle and ask the farmers to sell us, we bought 2 huge water melon (at least 5 kg) at S$4. Wow!! so cheap.
We then visited the Bali Botanical garden, its not like ours. We need to drive into the garden, the aroma of wood filled the air making the us feeling refreshed and relaxed.
In it there is a green house to house catus.
After a restful sleep, we woke up with breakfast prepared by our butler Mr Nyoman.
We then set off for a day trip at 845am
Here's what we did in brief
1. Barong dance
2. Mt Batur
3. Tropical farm operated by their local community
4. Beautiful rice terraces at Tegalalang
5. Cultural villages along Ubud area
6. Shopping at Ubud
While everyone are getting ready for Singapore's 1st night F1 racing, we are preparing for our family trip. This will be Caleb's 1st trip on plane
I did not have a lot of time to prepare for this trip but i found several website extremely useful in my planning, these include:
- Tripadvisor
- Bali for families
Choosing an accomodation was the most difficult one as i need to cater to the needs of my family - 2 young children and an elderly using walking stick.
We have 2 places in mind - Seminyak and Ubud
Seminyak, is a quiet and upcoming area which is away from the hustling and burstling of Kuta (the main town with highest cncentration of people).
Its near to all the restaurants and beaches. Since our family is not so much into beach, we choose food then. So we stayed in Seminyak.
Another choice to stay is Ubud the cultural centre of Bali, accomodation there tend to be cheaper but there are less villa to choose from those accomodation near the main stress (monkey forest road) are mainly rooms. Also ubud tend to be hilly, its a bit more difficult to walk fo elderly.
There was another very layback area - Sanur which was recommeded by Tripadvisor for elderly and disabled. Its an area that we did not look into
Finally, we choose Serene villa at Seminyak
All of us were so relieved when we went to the villa ...... it was so relaxing, comfortable!!
By the time we reached the villa its almost time for dinner, we then went to La Lucciola, a casual italian dinning place along the beach. The beautiful waves and sandy beaches was absolutely lovely .......
This is a dessert with a very poetic name, in fact its tastes is also equally poetic.
The fragrant of mango, chewy sago mixed with small burst of sweetness from the pomelo, makes this dessert a lovely treat.
Here's what i made (enough for 4 pax)
2 honey mango
50g of sago
pomelo bits about 1/2 a pomelo
Method
1. Cook the sago in water and leave it overnight. Wash the sago in a sieve with water to remove excess starch
2. Cut 1 mango into cubes and another mango blend into puree
3. mix the sago, mango puree, mango cubes, pomelo bits together and chill for couple of hours.
Mum has always say that she wanted to make salted chicken but never do it as it will spoilt her wok if she were to fry salt on it. When i saw on Leelee's blog about beggar chicken, i was fascinated the dough wrapped chicken looks very yummy. It has been in my to do list .... somehow i managed to get all the ingredients this time during my marketing trip.
My brother bought some mooncake from 5 star hotel, somehow i felt that the lotus paste taste a bit bland. Throughout this whole mooncake making process, i missed out on the lotus paste making part. Out of curiosity, i really want to know what is the difference between homemade and commerical lotus paste. I took the challenge and tried ....... a tedious one indeed.
So i bought 600g of lotus seed and tried to follow the instructions from Aunty Yochana's blog. However, the lotus paste turn out different from what i had expected, it became so water and oily and even after more than 1 hour of frying, it just stay as it is. Its just too watery, i tried making mooncake but it jst become "pancake" and everything started to crack. Just too demoralising ...
A few days later, i decided to try frying again, this time round everything started to thicken but i became so thick that the whole paste become hard as a rock ........
I refused to give up since mooncake festival is a few days away, i go and buy somemore lotus seed, this time whole lotus seed.
I follow the whole process exactly as the recipe and gradually add in oil instead of throwing all at once. Also, i did not stir the blended lotus paste for too long but just put in sugar and oil into the mixture to fry. Within 20 mins the lotus paste thicken and form a lovely brown paste ........ Yippee!! I made it!!
Homemade lotus paste really taste much better than commercial one, the tangy feel with lotus fragrant is not something that you can get it outside. Maybe things made with love does taste better.
Sphagetti carbonara is always a delight for my girl. Thanks to auntie Sharon who give me the recipe and taught me how to cook this dish.
Ingredient
Sphagetti 250g
a bottle of cream about 250ml
streaky bacon x 200g (cut into small pcs)
water
minced garlic about 4 cloves
basil pesto 2 tsp
parmesan cheese
egg x1
Method
1. Cook spagetti according to instructions but reduce the time by 1 min. Drain
1, Fry garli and bacon together till dry and crispy
2. Add cream followed by water, cook for about 10-15 mins to let the taste go in
3. add basil pesto and add salt if necc
4. Put in cooked spagetti into sauce and simmer for 1 min
5. Off fire and stir in egg and grated cheese. Serve and best eaten when hot
Note: You can put in other ingredients too, i added mushrooms this time
After my success with making sugee cake, i need to finish using semolina flour so i made orange sugee cake.
Just replace milk with orange juice and orange peel of 1 orange.
You get a fragrant cake with a tinge orange freshness. Yummy