Joyeux Anniversaire pour Maman :)

Today is Maman's birthday and i decided to give her a treat so she was banished from the kitchen today for i prepared for the family this dish which i adopted from my beloved niece in La Rochelle (Elisa) for showing to me how you did the Stuffed Round Zucchini "Corzet" is what they call them in france but i dont know how to spell it hehehe

Anyhow it was not so easy to make a suprise gift as well as cook at the same time, BUT with the help from Papa, i managed perfectly :)

My preparation started one day before, had to wait until maman went to her room for some rest then i went to "Inter marché" to get all the ingredients i need for the next day and at the same time i managed to get her a gift (cadéau) and had to hide in my backpack :)

The next day i had ample time to go again to "Intermaché" to get me some fish and some vegetables for the lunch and dinner i'm making for one very special Lady :)

Lunch time went by quickly with some Steamed fish using a lot of spices and particularly cumin and ginger and onions and carrots and mushrooms, place all of it in a alluminium foil seasoned it with some nem sauce and some soya sauce a dash of pepper and salt its off to the rice cooker for some serious vapourising 30 minutes, and then made some fried Rice. You must be wondering why no pics?? because simply i forgot and also i was running out of time hehehenext time lah hehehe

The by mid day, once again had to wait till maman goes to rest in the room then i could start anything so pick up some stuffs to make the cake which is the hand mixer , the cake mold and the ingredients . While doing that i had the round Zuchini ready for steaming to make it softer so again I used my microcomputer rice cooker to do it :)

My ever so charming utensils for the cake making :) very portable indeed. havent yet unpacked our stuffs from Malaysia, i had to hunt for these things and it was.....ermmmn..hard. but finally got them in one piece and of i go making the cake which is a very simple cake recipe i just made up as i go and again i was using the rice cooker to cook it too. Anyhow will put in the recipe later :)

and here are the zuchini placed and ready for some major steaming with the rice cooker :)

Steaming Process in progresss

done with the steaming nd now off to do the fillings :)

for the fillings i just add brown onions, carrots chicken or turkey in this case i had some turkey scallops they call it here so i used that and some small pieces of potatoes. cooked it with light soya sauce or whatever sauce you like some pepper and salt and its ready for stuffing the Zuchini :)


so here is the stuffed zuchini and on the top you can add any type of cheeze you like i used some tiny pieces of comte cheeze and cover it up and placed it again in the steamer for another 10 minutes and finally just click on the keep warm button until you are ready for dinner time :)


The end product of it, the zuchini is so tender that you can easily sliced it open and eat the stuffings along with the zuchini and at the end you are only left with the lid uneaten :)


here is teh cake and here are the ingredients :-
Main Ingredients:
Sugar: 1 cup, Butter: 1 cup ,All-purpose Flour: 2 cups, Baking Powder: 4 tsp
Orange Juice: juice 1 cup, preferably freshly squeezed
Orange Zest ( just a little), Eggs: 3
Sauce Ingredients:
Orange Juice: 1/2 cup, Sugar: 2/3 cup
Directions:
Preheat the oven, Cream butter and sugar in a mixer.
Add eggs one at a time and mix. then slowly add sifted backing powder and flour.
Blend in orange juice and zest. Pour the mixture into a mold and bake for 40 min or till golden.
Let it cool down. Meanwhile prepare the sauce by boiling sauce ingredients for 5 min.
Let the sauce cool down and then pour over the cake. Cover and keep it refrigerated.

And and and...here is the finished cake :) Its a simple cake but according to maman and papa its del-ee-c-u !

and..here is the gift! i had to place it in the storage room for one night to hide it from maman heheh :)

in the storage room

i made this casing for the pot just the morning of the actual day a copule of days back i took pictures of her favourite flower which is a big rose flower just at the bottom of their room window so put some words in it printed it out and voila!

this is the actual picture :)

All in all we had a wonderful suprising day and laughter and smile all around us although its only 3 of use but our laughter seemed to make it seemed like there a lot of people in there hehehe...

Anyhow, to mama, happy birthday to you and hope to celebrate many many more beautiful birthdays to come again and its a pleasure for me to have the opportunity to spend this beautiful day with you and papa!

Love always,
Clarity!

p/s...pictures courtesy from my SEG900