Eid (part 1)

On the last night of Ramadan (we celebrated Eid on Friday, Oct 12), me and my sister went out to visit our uncle in northern Jogja (we live in the west). Thank God we went by motorcycle, for the traffic was really jammed.

From uncle's home we went south to Jalan Mataram for shoes-shopping. My sister wanted to buy those transparent plastic slippers but ends up buying a black lacey shoes. I bought a pair of fake-leather slippers. They're quite cheap, with the price range between Rp 20.000 to 80.000 and you could haggle for lower price. For example my shoes were initially priced Rp 75.000. After haggling (and I'm not really good at it), the seller finally let them go for Rp 50.000.. *yeayy..!!*
(here for more story in bahasa Indonesia)

At 9.30 pm, most of the shops were already closed. I asked my sister to go south via Alun-alun Utara (north Sultan's square). To our delight, takbiran and lantern festival was being held in front of the Post Office Building. But since it was so crowded, my sister refused to stop. I could only take some picture (most of them were blurred because I took it with phone camera and my sis was speeding).


Lantern in the shape of 'Allah' word


the detail


Beduk lantern

There were many other shapes of lantern: boat, helicopter (which I initially thought was a bullet train ^^), ketupat, etc. Talking about ketupat, we didn't make our own this year. In fact, we only made it once a few years ago. We didn't have any idea that it was so difficult, putting the wet rice into the ketupat pouch. We slept really late that night and almost late for the Eid prayer. The next year, we didn't bother to try again.. ^^

The next morning we went to the field for Eid prayer. There were so many kids with balloons. I believe that's some parents way to keep their kids amused and quiet during the prayer.. ^^ Sometimes we speculate on how many balloons would fly off the children hands.. ^o^

My neighbor Gamal and his balloon..

*more story on the next posting..*

Happy Eid Mubarak

Lihat Kartu Ucapan Lainnya
(KapanLagi.com)

The Cookie Monster

Eid without cookies is like sleeping without pillow. I've been wanting to bake cookies since the beginning of Ramadan but I knew the cookies would be gone before we finish the first week of fasting. So I had to postpone the cookies making until last week, exactly 1 week away from Eid.
I made two kind of cookies: kaastengels and butter cookies. The pictures below had been edited, an attempt to cutify the cookies.. ^_^


Kaastengels
This salty cookies --more like cheese biscuits perhaps-- is a must have for Eid and any other holiday festival in Indonesia.
You'll need 1 egg, 1 cup of butter/margarine, 1 cup of shredded cheese (I used processed cheddar cheese), 2 cups of flour, 1 tbsp of powdered milk, and a pinch of salt. Sometimes I add other stuffs like corned beef, chili powder, cornflakes, or parsley.
Beat the egg and butter until smooth, and mix the other ingredients. Roll the dough into 1 cm thick, cut with knife or cookie cutter, glaze with egg yellow, and bake.
I used my new kaastengels cutter, that's why they're in such uniform shape. Usually, I didn't bother to cut them with knife and my kaastengels were really out-of-shape. So there's an improvement this year.. ^.^


Butter Cookies (green tea, chocolate chips, and coffee)
I didn't use recipe and scale to measure everything. So what I wrote below is just the approximate amount.
Ingredients: 1 egg, 1 cup of butter, 2-3 cups of flour, 1 tsp vanilla, 1 cup of sugar, 1 tsp baking powder, and a pinch of salt.
Beat egg and butter, mix other ingredients. The dough was divided into 3. I add 1 tbsp powdered milk with green tea flavor to the first part; chopped chocolate bar (with cashew nut and dried fruits) to the second part; and 1 tsp instant coffee to the third part. Next, drop the dough into baking sheet using fork and spoon, then bake. So easy.. ^^
The green tea flavor was really weak. I planned to use real green tea powder but then I realized that I left the stuff at lab. Too lazy to get it, I just used HiLo green tea..

Cookies never last long in our house. That's because there's a cute cookie monster who's also happen to be my little (but bigger) sister..

Love you sis, but please let the cookies last until Eid..