A Celebration Feast

My husband and I went on a cruise to celebrate my sister in law’s 60Th birthday. It was our gift to her. The cruise was her second time on the ship and the first time for me. We leave from Fort Lauderdale, Florida to Bahamas. We checked in on board as early as at 1 pm. The security checkpoint went smoothly. Our luggage are scanned and we were issued a ship card. The ship card will be used to open the cabin door, to order extra drinks from the menu, to buy items from the gift shop and as our identification to board the ship.
On our way to Fort Lauderdale, we drove right into a severe thunderstorm and heavy rain. This is the picture I managed to capture of the heavy cloud ahead of us. We drove right underneath the cloud which was pouring hard.
I have never seen cloud as thick as this one.

The ship sailed out at 5:30 pm as scheduled. This is a picture of Fort Lauderdale taken from the ship.
I do feel a little bit of motion sickness but I try not to think about it.
Our cabin is at the top deck with view facing the front of the ship. As you can see from the picture above, my husband was excited to look at the ocean as we sail out.
View of the Atlantic ocean from our cabin. Although the weather was not good on our way to the port, it changed into gorgeous and fine day by the time we sailed.
Our room was on the right of the two - three windows on the picture above. The ship has slides, pool and everything you want to do. My sister in law and I did our own thing while honey was busy with his homework. For those who has been on a cruise or never been on the cruise will hear about the food. Yes, the cruise provide us with lots of food. There are 4 different dining restaurant that we can choose from. We tried the buffet and also the serve restaurant.

On the first day on the ship, lunch were served. There are so much food to choose from. There are fruits, bread, rice, meat, fried fish, baked fish, steamed vegetables and salad of all kind.
And not to forget the dessert, all kind of delicious cakes.
At dinner, which we chose to have by 6:30 pm, we had more delicious food.
I have rice with squid, fried banana, vegetable salad and lots of dinner rolls. I have to eat bread to stop my queasiness on the motion.
Meal for breakfast was awesome too. There are scramble eggs, toast, yogurt, fruits, danish, hash brown, bacon, sausage, cereal, rolls, etc.
Lunch and dinner on the second day was excellent. The food are cooked to perfection. The taste was really great. By the second day I could not take it anymore. Too many food to endure.
We have been eating all day long. The buffet served too many food one could dine.
But I will never pass up these delicious miniature sweet tooth delights. I tried each and every cheesecakes they serve. Some with fruit topping and some is mix with chocolate. They are too delicious to describe here.
I finish all of these sweet treats in no time. The cheesecakes were soft and really melt in my mouth. It is all worth the money we paid for.
At one of the hotel we slept in, there are waffle machine that we could cook our own fresh waffle.
The instruction was easy to follow and in 2 minutes I have a perfect and delicious waffle.
Our road trip to and back from Fort Lauderdale, Florida to Alabama took us about 2600 miles. At every hotel that we checked in for overnight stay, we were served with cold continental breakfast. Having the fresh and delicious waffle really make our trip a perfect one.

My sister in law will be having a formal dinner to celebrate her birthday with her children, grand children, great grand children, her mother, husband, friends and us tonight at one of the hotel here in her hometown. I will update on the food. Stay tuned.

Sea Scallop with String Beans and Shrimp

A simple meal I served for dinner today.
Ingredients:
2 cups shrimps
A bowl green string beans
2 tablespoon chopped garlic
1 tablespoon butter
2 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon red pepper flakes.
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
salt to taste

For sea scallop:
12 sea scallops
1 tablespoon Seasoned salt
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 teaspoon chopped garlic
Method:
In a big skillet, heat frozen string beans with olive oil. Then add chopped garlic.
Saute for 3 minutes until the beans soften. Then add shrimps. Add butter, ground black pepper and salt. Cook until shrimp turn pink.

Sea Scallop:
Thaw frozen sea scallop in cold water for about 5 minutes.
Drain. Rub seasoned salt evenly on the scallop.
Line up sea scallop on baking sheet.
Sprinkle garlic and ground black pepper.
Broil on 450 degree F for about 10 minutes.

Serve warm. We have slices of fresh pineapple for dessert.

Happy Mother's Day

The kids gave me a bouquet of flowers as shown in the picture. They are very sweet indeed. I love roses in any color. The carnations are beautiful too. I did not prepare any special meal for everyone. I just served fried breaded tilapia and scallop potato for dinner.
Happy mother's day everyone!

Black Pepper Beef

Ingredients:
1/2 lbs beef
2 tablespoon ground black pepper
1 large yellow onion
1 sweet yellow bell pepper
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 teaspoon salt

Method:
In a saucepan, heat olive oil. Sweat onion. Add beef. Cover. After 5 minutes, add ground black pepper and salt. Cover and let the beef cook until tender. Two minutes before turning off the stove add yellow bell pepper. Serve warm.

Fried Chicken and Scallop Potato

The scallop potato and fried chicken were the meal for honey.
Here, the saffron rice and fried chicken were for my dinner. I did taste the scallop potato. It was good.

Fried Chicken: Breaded chicken fry in olive oil until golden brown and cook through.

Saffron Rice : Prepared seasoning from a packet. Just add in the rice.

Scallop Potato: 5 medium size white or russet potatoes. Peeled the skin and slice it thinly.
In a big pot, heat on high 1/4 cup olive oil. Then add potato. Stir to coat all the oil on the potato.
Add 2 tablespoon rosemary and garlic seasoning.
Add 1 tablespoon ground black pepper.
Add 1 tablespoon salt.
Add 1/2 cup water and turn the heat to medium. Cover.
After 5 minute, stir.
Cover and cook for another 5 minutes. Stir.
Taste to make sure the potatoes are soft and cook through.

Enjoy!

Update on Daun Kesum

About two weeks ago, I root some daun kesum in water. You can refer to the old picture of daun kesum here when I first started. Daun Kesum or "Kesum" leaf is very popular in asian cooking. It has a strong lemon flavor and taste. You can add this leaves in the hot and spicy fish soup or as garnish in your meal.
Today, I decided to check on the roots of this daun kesum that have sitting in water all these while.
I must say that I am happy with the progress. As you can see from the picture below, the roots are healthy and white color. I removed all of the dead leaves and put this plant back into the small china bowl with warm water.
I will probably wait for couple more weeks before I plant them outside in a big pot. For right now, I could snip some of the leaves into my cooking already. Cutting it regularly will promote it's bushiness.