Friday, November 30, 2007

Messy....messier.....messiest....

The mess surrounding my house......how i wish i have magic like I dream of Jeanie....a blink of the eyes, i would have gotten my dream house ha ha ha.....i think i am having baking/cooking withdrawal symptoms.......siggghhhhh







Thursday, November 29, 2007

A few dishes before the kitchen temporarily closed.....

Just sharing a few dishes here cooked before my kitchen closed for a few weeks. Hopefully not more than 2 weeks. The mess around my house is terrible but gotta make do until the work is completed. As some of you know that I am a KLite, born and bred there. My husband's parents are here. After we got married both of us stayed in KL as we were working in KL. We still keep our apartment in KL and anyone interested in renting one can get in touch with me. I will post the pictures of the apartment later.

We bought this house in 1997 and rented it out until 2005 when at first we decided to make this house our weekend house as my kids were with my in laws since beginning of the same year. But after a few months of being away from the kids we decided to move here and commuting daily to work. We had started to just made tiny little changes to the kitchen and the bath rooms fittings, so we let that be. But now that i am a stay home mum and love fussing in the kitchen i think a little bit more space might make me more comfortable.



Bubur som som or lompat tikam.
Not quite sure the name of this yummy dessert. This dessert is the combination of coconut milk, rice flour, light coconut milk and pandan juice with a bit of salt and a teaspoon of lime water for the green layer. My green is not so bright as i just do not have the heart to use food coloring in our local food. The white layer consist of similar ingredients minus the pandan juice and the the use of thicker coconut milk. Cook on small fire, stir often until you get a shiny and thicker paste for the green layer first and put in the small containers, then cook the white layer and pour it on top of the green layer. Let it cool down to room temperature and keep in the fridge for a while. Pour brown sugar syrup to enjoy this dessert.




Lemak putih sawi dan ikan tenggiri goreng chili
(Coconut grayv spinach and chili fried Spanish mackere)

For the vege, i used 100gms thick coconut gravy, added in 1/2 cup water, 3 shallots - sliced, 1 red chili - sliced and a tablespoon dried shrimp. Add all in one pot and cook until boiling, add in salt to taste. Stir often to avoid curdle.

Rub some salt and tumeric powder on the cleaned fish, and deep fried. Put aside. Heat a bit of oil in a wok, throw in chili paste with blended 3 onions and garlic. Put in slices of one big onion and 3 tables spoon tamarind water. Salt to taste and put in the fried fish. Let it simmer on high heat for 5 minutes. These 2 dishes go very well with hot white rice...hmmmm yum yum


Tumis kobis dan daging masak halia
(Stir fry cabbage and beef ginger)

As for the vege, 1/4 cut of whole medium cabbage - sliced, 2 garlics - sliced, 3 red onions - slice, 1/2 in ginger - sliced, 1 red chili - sliced, 1 tbspoon dried anchovy or dried shrimps, 2 tbspoon oil.
Heat oil and throw in everything except the cabbage together with salt to taste. Then add in the cabbage and stir just a few more minutes. I like my vegetables crunchy not mushy.

Beef ginger, 400 - 500 gms beef sliced thinly. 3 inch young ginger sliced, 4 garlics finely chopped, 1/2 cup water, 2 tblspoon oyster sauce, 1 tsp cornstarch mixed with 1 tbs water and a few straws of green onions chopped about an inch long.
Heat oil in a wok, fry chopped garlic until fragrance, throw in the beef and the ginger and stir, put in the oyster sauce and water, stir a few minutes and pour in the cornstarch mixture and throw in the green onions.

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Pop corn chicken......




Blog hopping one day and i discovered this yummilicous. in the cyberspace. Tried the pop corn chicken and my boys just love it. Before this, i only fried ayamas version but when the boys' cousins are around one or two packets are not enough. You can find the recipe here. As for my version i used a few tablespoons of chili powder as my boys just love hot food....

Sunday, November 25, 2007

The search of TELL magazine.....

Please forgive my ignorance but the first time i heard about this Tell magazine was when i blog hopped to Rocky's Bru. Then came Tembam , leaving comment in my earlier posting. I wanted to look for the magazine yesterday as i was in KL but i was pressed with time. So this morning when my other half asked where to for our weekly groceries shopping, i told him Ju@co in Seremban 2. Usually i do my groceries shopping in G*ant but there is only one small book shop there.

Off we went to Ju@co, did our shopping and had coffee in S**rb*ck. Then we went to Popular and i went through all the magazines racks but no Tell found. I asked the cashier and she asked another colleague of hers. Almost at the same time both said the store does not carry the magazine. A bit pissed i went to MPH and again i went straight to the magazines racks and no Tell found either. I asked the cashier again and she asked another girl. The other girl went looking at most of the racks until i lost sight of her. Then she came handed over the magazine to me and disappeared before i could asked her why there is not one of Tell is displayed like the rest of the many magazines. I paid for the magazine and bumped into an old friend whom i had not seen for almost 18 years.

After reading a few articles in Tell, i prayed for umpteenth times for the killer/s of sweet Nurin be caught soon. Whoever dropping by here, do get Tell to know more about the Nurin Alert and i found that other write ups are quite engrossing read as well.....

And do go here, here and here and just in case you cannot find Tell at the book stores near you, you can contact

TELL MEDIA SDN BHD,
1, Jalan SS 7/10, Kelana Jaya,
47301 Petaling Jaya,
Selangor Darul Ehsan
TEL: 03-7873 7313
FAX: 03-7873 8545
or email:
michelle@tell.com.my

Friday, November 23, 2007

I watched Federer vs Sampras last night......

I am an ardent fan but a bad player of tennis. Before i went to the States years ago, i had this notion that tennis is the game for the elite. And it is true here in Malaysia. I was always love sports either as a player or spectator and i started to play tennis when i was in the States. In the States, tennis is played everywhere, public park, colleges, high school and most apartment complexes have tennis courts for the tenants.

I only took up tennis when a friend insisted i tried to play the game. He bought me the racket and faithfully hit the balls with me until i felt comfortable hitting the ball over the net. He even subscribed me Tennis Magazine for a year at one time. And honestly, i fell deeply in love with the game i would play with anyone or i just hit the balls against the wall. In the States, if you went to the courts alone, some of the people at the court would invite you to play with them even if you told them you were not good. But back here at home i had not seen that happen as yet.

However, since i shifted from KL to Seremban, i hardly played the game. I do not know any other ladies who play tennis here and the hubby is pretty busy with work. But i still love tennis, i would watch most tournaments shown on the sports channels. I really wish i could still play this game for the fun of it. Come to think of it i have to as there was once a few years ago i lost almost 20kg just playing tennis 3 times a week for 3 months straight. How i miss those days......and i need to shed a lot of kg now......




I was suprised when i saw the crowd in front of Malawati Stadium in Shah Alam last night. I think the stadium was almost full even though i feel not much publicity given to this occasion.
I enjoyed the matched tremendously but i just i felt the dancing and the rebana thingy should be just left in a cultural type of event.

Sampras still played well for a retired player and of course Federer being a current number 1 player was just awesome.

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Vanilla cupcakes with butter icing ....

School holidays have started. The kids are lazing around the house most of the times and today was no different. I woke up in the morning and saw all 3 of them still snoring away i did not have the heart to wake them up. I let them be and smsed a friend to go for breakfast. I do not like to serve cold food so i did not make breakfast for the boys. My friend and I had rawa tose and I packed roti canai for the kids, 2 pieces each.....

Later in the day, while browsing through the net my 2nd son asked if i would bake some muffins or cupcakes and of course i said yes...i decided on vanilla cupcakes and planned to ice the cuppies with colored icing...and 2 hours later wallaaa.....my 2nd boy could not wait to show off the cuppies to his friends outside....



p/s - pls excuse the not so neat decorating as these were for our own consumption....but if interested to order of course i will give my best....and the cakes are yummy

Saturday, November 17, 2007

Dinner dishes...

My heavy cooking mostly done for dinner as that is the only meal we will all eat together. My 2 older boys do not take early breakfast as they tend to have to spend sometimes in the loo after that, their earliest meal will be after 9.00. Lunch is always simple affair which the menu would consist of hotdogs, or burgers, or fried rice or maybe some egg sandwiches. Dinner would normally be rice with some meat/seafood and vegetables. The other day i decided to cook masak lemak chili api tenggiri with kambas, tumis sawi and sambal ikan bilis garing. The gulai

Tumis air sawi

Sambal ikan bilis with potatoes

Friday, November 16, 2007

Nostalgia UPSR.....

Yesterday was the results. Very pleased to hear that 2 of my nieces had 5As and one nephew the twin of one of the nieces, gotten 4As 1B. When I bought Utusan for my FIL just now, i browsed through the papers before i handed them to him. What i noticed were, firstly more girls had better results than the boys (would this be more mat rempits soon??) and secondly Utusan had a few write ups on those students who come from less privilege background but did very well in the exam. I read that some of the students are 'anak tukang sapu', 'anak jaga', 'anak nelayan' and so forth. I am not undermining students from the more privilege background , but i am just admiring the will of these students. I will be using these stories for my younger kids to appreciate what they are having and by right they should be doing much better when their time comes. I too just happened to watch a lovely movie on channel 702 Hallmark titled "The Triumph", story about a determined teacher and students to prove that being poor is not the hindrance to success, albeit a difficult one.

I congratulate my nieces and nephew for the excellent results and to the rest of the students who did well. For those who did not do as well, it is really not the end of the world. Some people 'peak' later in their studies. This UPSR is a small first step, if we slipped a bit plenty more time to get over bigger steps ahead.

Just sharing the picture taken on the day my first born gotten his UPSR results, in late 2005. I was just as anxious as any mothers who's kids getting any exam results. I would be very happy if he had gotten just 4As because he was having problems with his Bahasa subject. But with the help of his Bahasa teacher and his determination he managed to get what we were hoping for.

Well.....that was almost more than 2 years ago, next year will be double stress for me as he will be sitting for PMR and the younger brother will be facing UPSR.......hmmmmm better start exercise soon and a lot of vitamins for me ha ha ha...

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Lunch dishes on Sunday

Syawal just ended and so were the many open houses. We were eating Raya food on all weekends during Raya right up until last Saturday night . So on Sunday lunch the gulai chili api daging, rebus pucuk ubi and the sambal belacan tasted heaven to me. The papadom and bulleyes fried egg were for my youngest son. Not to say the Raya food was not tasty, just that when eating the same food almost daily for about a month, you tend to get tired of them right??

Thursday, November 8, 2007

Muffins again.....



I have been going to so many open houses, hosted by former colleagues, friends and relatives. I like to bring 'buah tangan' along just as a token of thanks for inviting us. Before i was bitten by the baking bug, i would bring fruits or store bought goodies, but now i would just whipped up something to go into the oven and brought them still warm most of time. These muffins thus far the easiest to make and very delicious to eat. Recipe is right here.

Monday, November 5, 2007

Happy Birthday Baby.....



The youngest in the family. His birthday was actually on the 1st Nov, but we celebrated only yesterday at my sister's house in KL. I made Moist Chocolate Cake with edible image of Batman, i kept saying superman till all the kids got mad with me he he.....It was his 9th birthday. Forgot to take pictures of the other food made for this celebration plus Raya makan-makan. We had nasi tomato with chicken curry and papadom, acar mentah cucumber and pineapples, Penang Asam laksa, Masak Lodeh, Kuih Kacang, Nasi Impit, yours truly beef rendang chili api, , assorted kuih raya, 3 chocolate cakes and 1 chocolate birthday cakes.