Pandan fruit salad, and gifts from House.

It's nice to be back in the kitchen cooking yummy food. I've been flicking through SBS Feast Magazine, bookmarking things I want to cook now and at Christmas.

Yesterday I cooked prepared a yummy dessert that involved an exotic ingredient - pandan leaf - which I bought from my local Asian supermarket. I got a big bag of it, frozen, for 1.50. I'll use the rest to bake some chicken in. Pandan leaf comes from a south east Asian tropical plant. It has a sweet vanilla flavour, and can give food a green tint.

The dessert was a fruit salad with pandan syrup. I didn't follow the recipe to a tee, instead I used the fruit I had on hand. Half a punnet of strawberries, a handful of blueberries, a mango, some pineapple and half a tin of lychees

The pandan syrup involved four pandan leaves, some raw sugar (I used two icecream scoops but the recipe called for 400 grams of palm sugar), around 500 ml of water and half an icecream scoop of ginger (from a jar - I was a bit lazy). I boiled this up on the stove until it was reduced and slightly thick. And when cool, I poured it over the fruit.

I served it with Greek yoghurt. It was so yummy - the ginger made gave it a tingly and refreshing taste, and the pandan was delicate. I think the salad would be nice with mint leaves, and also the coconut flakes as the recipe suggests.

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So it seems a brand has finally discovered me and my blog! Recently I've made a new friend on Twitter, her name is Kat. She is really lovely and we have music and podcast tastes in common! During our chats, she's come to know that I am a cooking and food lover, and it turns out she is a manager at the kitchenware store House.

Kat was lovely enough to send me two parcels of kitchen gadgets - the first featuring a machine to make squiggly apples and potatoes (must read manual!), a Luke Ngyuen ginger grater, a microplane grater (great for lemon zesting!), some mini tongs, chopsticks and a silicone icecream scoop (which I use to get flour out of the container), some mini terrine rings, and silicone egg poachers (which I plan to use next weekend for poached eggs and smoked salmon). I'm so lucky!

The next parcel contained some Christmas themed stuff - cookie cutters, a pudding steamer, a pretty teapot and cup (which, I hope if Kat doesn't mind, I'll put under the Christmas giving tree with some other gifts that I have bought), two pretty bowls (great for dessert), two postcard style glass serving plates, some pastry tins, two glasses and a Baccarat mini saucepan (which I used for the pandan syrup). Again I'm so lucky!

Thanks Kat and House for sending me these lovely gifts, and for seeing the value in my blog. They will help me be a bit more adventuous in the kitchen, especially with baking - I want to use the baking tins and pudding steamer at Christmas. Thank you so much.