Have you ever seen such tiny cherry tomatoes?

I got the darlingest little cherry tomatoes the size of peanuts at the vegetable wholesaler down the road during my last minute run there when I discovered we were completely out of vegetables. I was hungry, and it's 30 minutes to iftar time, but I know I must have them for dinner. So here's the simplest meal that I could scratch up in under 20 minutes, oil free. I had it with some blanched spinach and a grilled salmon fillet, also seasoned with Hot Chick Spicy Salt.

Bon appetit!

French Lentil, Rice and Tiny Cherry Tomatoes Salad

Ingredients

• 1 cup of lentilles du Puy / french lentils 
• 4 whole garlics
• 1 cup of cooked rice
• 1/2 cup of roughly chopped cilantro
• 1 tsp Hot Chick Spicy Salt
• 1 cup of cherry tomatoes, halved if using regular one

Directions

1. Boil lentil with whole garlic in 2-3 cups of water until lentil is cooked and garlic can be easily mashed. Drain excess water if any. 
2. Add the cooked rice to the lentil, season with Hot Chick Spicy Salt.
3. Stir in cilantro and the tomatoes, mix well.

Serves 6 as side dish, or 2-3 as main meal with a side of protein.

Saturday Entertainment

Eavesdropping on my mom, just like when we were kids. This is where all the juicy gossips are.

Be gentle to me, 2014

I am glad the new year is finally here. Yet I am thankful for the two highlights of 2013. Here's to the wisdom of Yoda, hopefully they will guide me through 2014.

2013 has coloured my life with a mixture of shades - amber and indigo. Amber for all the glory and happiness and indigo for my heartbreaks and devastations.

Nevertheless I will venture the new year with courage and determination. I just hope my sanity comes along on the trip.

May 2014 fulfill all your dreams.

What Happened to Respect?

Funny thing this social media is. And what it's capable in doing to us as a society in just under a decade. Asian are generally polite and respectful. And I am sure other cultures teaches good values too, respecting the elders and respect among human being being amongst others. Sadly, the past decade or so has seen a major decline of what we have been brought up to believe and practice.

For instance, in real life, a friend of your mom says something that you don't entirely agree with, you will usually just keep quite or at most politely begs to differ and state your points. But most of the time you just keep quiet.

Out of respect. Because we were brought up to be respectful of the elders, and everyone else, regardless of his social standing, age or wealth. 

Another scenario, an elder in the family gently tell you that what you are doing is not right, that you are following the mass, quoting wrong facts. You quickly apologize and say you won't repeat it again (pretending, if you think you are in the right). No matter how your heart rebels to be saucy, but that mental image of the repercussion from your mom or dad or heaven forbids your grandmother flashing in your head will stop you.

However, had it been on Facebook, you will tell her off rudely, your friends will jump in the attack, you bombard your answer with unverified and often ridiculous copy & paste 'facts', dragging religion if needs be. And finally using the default favorite, this is my wall, I can pretty much do what I want. 

We don't go around attacking strangers, do we? Neither do we personal attack people we barely just met. Or sucker punch that friend of a friend of a friend, for being different than us. If we don't do this in real life, why do we do all this and far worse things on the internet?

In real life we take the trouble to hide our secret vices, we know what's right, and what's wrong. We are usually ashamed to flaunt the worst of ourselves. So what happened to us on social media? Did agreeing to the terms and conditions to the sites give us license to be downright rude? To throw away all the good values we are brought up with?

What happened to the values you are brought with? You are the embodiment of the good ones, I have met you, and I know how some of you are brought up. Is social media where people go to let their hair down and be the ugliest of themselves? Is this just predominant in Gen-Y and after? Or it's the whole freedom of not being physically face to face that let us think we can get away with anything. If this is the behavior of the adults and young adults these days, what's of the children of tomorrow? 

I am always saying what children see children do. If before this, you just let your hair down and be crude or rude or racist only among your trusted peer, you are now doing it where everyone can see it, not just a one off thing, but forever. And children are watching, yours included. And they will copy. And then some.

I too believe in freedom. Of speech, politics and ideals. But I also believe in being respectful, polite and being tact. After all, this is an eternal world platform. It will always be here, long after you and I are all gone.

Shall we resolve to promote respect and politeness in the coming new year? And accountability too? And all the good values we were brought up with. Plus all the great ones that we've picked up along the way.

Athene's Roast Chicken

Roast chicken must be one of the easiest dish that you can make in about an hour. You can even have a one pot meal if you plan the dish properly, adding some roots such as potatoes, pumpkins, carrots or sweet potatoes to be roasted in the same pan making a complete meal with so little hassle. It will also make it's own gravy if you do it correctly.

Some of you may ask, why do I cut the chicken along the backbone instead of the usual way it's done which is to cut on the breast side.
Cutting this way makes sure that the breast doesn't lose too much of it's juice during roasting. If you see from the photo, the whole breast is in one big piece, no cut at all, hence the part that's usually brushed off as being dry in a roast chicken will still be plump and juicy.

Don't be put off by the strong acidic smell of the balsamic vinegar. It will bake into a molasses-like texture, lending a fragrant fruity caramel flavor to the dish. I'm sure once you've tried it, you'll want to include it in most of your dishes.

Athene's Simple Roast Chcken

1 whole chicken, uncut, about 1.5kg
2 tbsp Lemon Lime Pepper Salt 
or 
2 tbsp (or more) Hot Chick Spicy Salt
4 tbsp of date vinegar /balsamic vinegar
2 whole head of garlic
2 onion
50g butter, cut into cubes

Directions :

1. Preheat oven to 160 degrees C.
2. Wash and clean the chicken. Using a sharp knife or kitchen scissors, cut on the backbone to flatten the chicken. Remove the neck if you wish.
3. Cut the top off the heads of garlic, making sure every clove is cut. Peel onion, cut a cross half way down the onion, be careful not to cut all the way through.
4. Crush the spice salt, rub all over the chicken. Try to slip in some of the spices under the chicken skin, just be careful not to tear the skin. Spare about a teaspoon of the spice salt.
5. Drizzle the chicken with the balsamic vinegar, massage gently.
6. Place the chicken in your baking dish, skin side up. Pack the garlic cloves and onions in the pan with the chicken.
7. Sprinkle the remaining spice salt on the garlic cloves and onion. Spoon the remaining marinate all over the chicken and onion.
8.  Dot butter cubes all over chicken
9. Roast for 55 minutes, or until juice runs clear.
10.  Remove the chicken from the oven, cover with aluminum foil, and allow to rest for 15 minutes before serving.
11. Serve with the roasted onion and garlic. Great sides will be roasted toots vegetables or homemade mash potatoes and fresh tomato and greens salad

Marinated chicken and pumpkin on cookie rack ready for roasting

Roasting away, the balsamic vinegar working it's magic

All done, now just to give it a rest for 15 minutes. Check out the dripping that will be gravy for the roasted chicken!

The roast chicken, pumpkin with the gravy.

Note #1 : Use a cookie rack in the baking dish, place the chicken plus garlic and onions on top of it. This will help the chicken remain crispy while you don't miss on the brilliantly delicious dripping that will make great gravy.

Note #2 : You can roast some root vegetables in the baking dish along with your chicken. Cut the roots into equal size, you can use  pumpkin, carrots, sweet or regular potato, add a bit more of the marinate, make sure you rub them all over and roast.