School holidays have begun and I am alone at home for most of the day as Pete is still working 
To keep myself busy, I thought it would be fun to set myself a cooking and baking challenge. The challenge is to cook something new for dinner and dessert as often as I can. I am realistic about this, there will be days when we might go out for dinner and family functions and there will be definitely a few days when I feel downright lazy. So in my ten days holiday, I am aiming for about five to seven new dishes that Pete and I have never made before. This is going to be FUN!
So today, after a whole day of happily running around doing errands and food shopping, I made my first dish for dinner.
Panfried Mackerel in a Spicy Sauce with stir fried Kailan flowers, Red Peppers and Sugar snap peas
1. The panfried mackerel is a great Bruneian favourtie. Very often, the mackerel slices are marinated in turmeric powder or tamarind pulp and pan fried. I decided to do a simple marinade of turmeric, garlic and a little bit of salt, coated about 400 grams of mackerel in it and left it in the fridge for about half an hour. Do wear gloves when you are rubbing this marinade in with your hands because the powder will stain your hands.
2.Pan fry the mackerel. My mackerel slices were quite thick so I had to fry each side for about five minutes.
3. For the spicy sauce, I pounded together two cloves of garlic, a large onion, some dried chilli and one small fresh chilli. In the same wok after the mackerel was fried, fry this paste until fragrant. I then added a dash of soya sauce and a bit of tinned tomatoes. Put the mackerel back in to the wok to reheat.
4. I found some kailan flowers in the supermarket and I thought why not? But when I got home however, I had no idea what to do with it… Back up plan, quick stir fry in oyster sauce 
Added a few sugar snap peas we had left over and a whole red pepper.
And here is dinner!!
YUMS!!
Now for dessert!
LEMON DRIZZLE CAKE
Pete has been asking for this cake for a while and it sounded easy enough. I decided to trawl the net for a good recipe and I found a great one here
I decided to use two lemons instead of one and used a cake pan instead of a loaf and HERE IT IS!!
I DROWNED the cake with the lemon drizzle and left it to soak for a few minutes.
Came back and found the top of the cake glistening golden thanks to the drizzle.
And when we slice into it, it smelled so heavenly!
The cake was moist and the lemon was not overpowering.
Pete was very happy
and so am I
