we are not WW

dont get mis-led by the blog title. we are NOT members of weight watchers nor are we strictly watching our weight (which we should). the title should have read Weight-watchers NOT in NOTT but that is a bit of a tongue twister..

few days ago, my other half suggested that we create a new blog, dedicated for photos and recipes of our gastronomic delights.  all these while we've got them in the doodlemom-mydoodle blog but he said that it would be good to have  a separate account to blog our recipes accompanied with photos; more for our own consumption and a neat reminder to ourselves and share with our friends and family members.

you see, my other half is a good cook, so much better than me to some extent but he's kind of very experimental with his recipes. you would never get to taste the same roast chicken or lamb or steak & kidney (without kidney) pie or shepherd's pie because he tends to change the recipes every time he made them. this i guess has everything to do with his character, his job and his passion. my mister is an IT guy who also had a flying license, passionate about his favourite things in life - family, food and anything to do with aerospace - space shuttles, planets, aeroplanes, star trek, star wars and the like. his head is always in the cloud, good imagination and visualisation. he's very patient though and can make time for 'trial and error' which is so relevant in his line of duty. but he's got a short term memory; could be due to age (?)  but he's been like that since i first met him almost 13 years ago.

i, on the other hand tend to follow the recipe as closely as possible when i bake my cakes and cookies. well, if i dont, then highly likely my cakes will end in the bin..i'm a QS by qualification, been trained to quantify building materials and estimate costs according to the drawing and specification. and now that i teach measurement (of building, civil engineering and building engineering services work) to QS students at uni, more of a reason why i become a bit more meticulous.. but i also teach estimating and procurement, and thats where approximate quantities or assumptions or alternative methods comes in. so, when i bake cakes, i sometimes do not weigh to the exact gram (especially before i bought the digital scale) or every so often have to use substitute ingredients; for example brown sugar instead of muscovado sugar, stork margarine instead of 'room temperature butter' (simply because i  forgot to take the butter out from the fridge and i cant wait for it to soften) etc etc

so this blog is a compilation, recollection and testimonial of the recipes we've used in the past, with updates from time to time and hopefully it will benefit us, our friends and relatives. knowing my other half's style of cooking, the amount of ingredients will be more like 'a pinch of salt' or 'a few drizzle of olive oil'; all to taste. in malay, we say "secukup rasa sampai sedap".