Happy Birthday dear......

and thank you Allah.....

No special celebration as usual though today is hubby's birthday. However, I feel so blessed to be the mother of his children, the friend he can count on and I pray that Allah will continue His blessing to all of us, family and friends....... The couple
The caused of our joy and sorrow...


The contented pets of the house....
P/s, No party to celebrate the birthday, just pulut kuning with sambal ikan bilis for dinner......

Bila la ada masa nak duduk diam2 to update this blog....

So much to tell so little time.......between 3 boys to chauffeur around with 2 taking major exams this year, baking and socializing......my time is reduced to just updating short notes on the Facebook....aishhhh

Someone shared this with me and i like it very much.........

Heart of Gratitude!!!

A blind boy sat on the steps of a building with a hat by his feet. He held up a sign which said: "I am blind, please help." There were only a few coins in the hat.

A man was walking by. He took a few coins from his pocket and dropped them into the hat. He then took the sign, turned it around, and wrote some words. He put the sign back so that everyone who walked by would see the new words.

Soon the hat began to fill up. A lot more people were giving money to the blind boy. That afternoon the man who had changed the sign came to see how things were. The boy recognized his footsteps and asked, "Were you the one who changed my sign this morning? What did you write?"

The man said, "I only wrote the truth. I said what you said but in a different way."

I wrote: "Today is a beautiful day but I cannot see it."

Both signs told people that the boy was blind. But the first sign simply said the boy was blind. The second sign told people that they were so lucky that they were not blind. Should we be surprised that the second sign was more effective?

Moral of the Story: Be thankful for what you have.. Be creative. Be innovative. Think differently and positively.

When life gives you a 100 reasons to cry, show life that you have 1000 reasons to smile Face your past without regret. Handle your present with confidence. Prepare for the future without fear. Keep the faith and drop the fear.

The most beautiful thing is to see a person smiling…

And even more beautiful is, knowing that you are the reason behind it!!!

Enjoy your day with a heart of gratitude.

Little assistant with a big help ......

After my last big project here, i have 2 weeks of leisure. Another big one will be next week. I hope i would be more efficient as i will be really on my own, the boys will be at school. The last job was a bit easier as the boys helped me with the packing as they were in the house for the Chinese New Year holidays. My sisters in KL and the brother in Selama came to the house on the Monday of the CNY. He is the youngest in the family, he eldest are twins, a girl and a boy, then a girl(angah in the picture) , a boy and the last addition is a baby boy. I was really happy to see them as i missed them during the Raya Haji. There was another story behind this visit too, funny one though....will share with you in future posting ( kalau teringat lah).

In spite of heavy cooking i had to do when they were in the house, i was very thankful to Angah and my sis(yg terpotong gambar tuh) as they were the ones finishing the putting on the " Terima Kasih" stickers and the small purple flowers on the favors boxes. The girl insisted to finish doing the 1000 boxes before they left for KL on the same day ha ha ha.....'Angah, Mak Teh is still grateful and thankful for Mak Lang and your assistance'. I completed only slightly more than 200 pieces at that time he he
So, now with no little girl's assistance, i gotta stick these tiny ribbons and the 'Terima Kasih' stickers on my own...and again at this moment of typing, i only completed 300 pieces.....alamakkkkk
Quite awhile that i didn't share the dishes we had at home, i remembered Wanshana did ask how i fried my Kobis goreng bodoh here. So, Mam Wanshana, the very simple one....this time i used french beans instead of cabbage....

You need,
a few slices of ginger
slices of 2 small garlics
slices of 2 small red onions
slices of 1 red chili
a bit of dried anchovy(ikan bilis) / dried shrimp
(since i did sambal udang i used anchovy this time, but with the cabbage i used the dried shrimp)
the beans u can slice them like i did last night or just roughly chopped each to an inch cuts.

Wash the beans and throw the water but let it be in a bowl ( a bit of water left with the beans will help the dish not to get too dry)....Heat 2 tablespoon of oil. Throw in everything except the beans, fry until fragrance, put in a pinch of salt, stir and put in the beans and stir and stir and stir, with high flame i just fried it less than a few minutes as i like my vegetable crunchy not mushy....off the fire and serve with hot rice, and last night i made shrimp sambal which I think i had the recipe in the earlier post.

Rantings or ramblings??........

Yesterday morning while driving my 2 boys to school, i heard on the news that the sugar price will increase after the Chinese New Year. Heart dropped on the floor for awhile. It is not my house consumption that i worry about as we are very low sugar users, it is my little home bakery business which would be badly affected. Only in my last posting , someone mentioned that my pricing is very low, and that was not the first time. I thought about increasing the price a little after last Hari Raya, but i didn't. However, with this incoming increase of sugar price i really had no choice unless i do the baking for charity.....enough about that...i had a pleasant teh tarik session with my big boy yesterday evening. He shared what just happened during the supposedly trial debate. He was not very keen to participate but when the topic was "Same gender marriage should be allowed", he just walked out. And I support his action there as i think that was not an appropriate topic for a school debate. He also told me thats he is coping well with the new subjects such as Physics, Chemistry and Additional Maths. He must be having his father's brain he he.....i pray he will continue to enjoy his school years.

Some dinner dishes we had a few days ago.....

Telur itik masak lomak cili api with belimbing buluh.
Sambal ikan bilis with terung
Sotong goreng tepung

Reminiscing and Selamat Hari Raya Korban...

Tomorrow all Muslim in the world will celebrate Aidiladha. Here in my home, we mostly would cook rendang, buy a few lemang and i baked 1 or 2 cakes. My butter cake is already on the table, and will bake chocolate cake for the kids in the morning. I always remember my late mum when i fussed in the kitchen during the Raya times coz i would get her longest nag. I was 'heavy' to do any kitchen thingy when i was young. And now, after getting interested in baking and selling my baked goods, i was always wondering what would she say if she saw me spending so much time in my kitchen nowadays he he....and she would be very shock to see me doing things for wedding hantaran ha ha ha....
Most of the times, i was asked to make the wedding gifts i wouldnt know how the gifts be presented. But a few times, when i did the gifts for relatives or close friends i managed to get the pictures of the gifts on the 'hantaran tray'(not quite sure whats call). I have a few pictures of that below.




The green fondant hats were send to Puchong, white and red roses were for a few doors away neighbor and the fruit tarts were for former staff's sister wedding in Putrajaya

I pray for your safety good friend.....

On Saturday late morning, when i on my YM screen i saw a few off-line messages. I almost felt my heart dropped on the floor when i read the messages. There were from my dear friend saying how she had a bad day when her handbag was snatched. Passport, money and handphone gone. She is on holiday in Vietnam. Later, i was told she got back her IC and credit cards. She is supposed to come home today. I couldn't sleep well since, though she would update her situation when she got the chance. I know she will be alright as she is a seasoned traveler and she used to work abroad before. She is my teh tarik buddy and my confidante. I pray that she would be home very soon.

p/s the picture is her creation of cupcakes for her sister's birthday a few months ago....

Cake deco class....

Still feeling guilty while writing this post. Didnt make cake for my youngest birthday on 1st Nov as I had attended Wilton Cake Decorating Course at Amore-eBake in Seremban 2. It was an 8 hours course split into 2 days 4 hours each. This course is available in KL and mostly conducted in 4 days 2 hours each . The traveling didn't appeal to me though i really wanted to attend to one. Therefore, when i was told by the owner of Amore-eBake that she would try to get the course conducted at her shop, i just had to go. So last weekend, Saturday and Sunday, i spend half day learning the basic of cake decoration. I enjoyed the course but i was really struggling making Wilton roses ha ha ha......i told myself...practice, practice, practice.

I was also asked to make hantaran cupcakes with no flowers....i came up with this .
To the visitors from Sabah, if you can find this key holder, i appreciate if you could get 1 or 2 of these for me.

16 years later.....

Last Friday, after sending the boys to school, i did not continue my sleep like i usually did. Instead, i baked Chocolate Chips Muffins and Banana Chocolate Chips Muffins. Then i made custard for the fruits tarts, assembled them and packed them in the boxes . Everything was completed by 11.30, i took a shower, fetched the boys from school and got them to shower and changed. We left for KL to deliver the goodies at about 1.oo pm. We reached KL at almost 2 o'clock .Boxes of yummy fruit tarts
Someone requested almond London too....Amazingly i managed to arrange all the boxes at the back of my small Aveo ha ha ha.....i was sweating doing this......

That was part of what happened on my 16th wedding anniversary day. Then continued with us heading to Ampang Point area for a late lunch at Ampang Yong Tau Foo. Then we 'lepak' at my sister's house in Taman Kencana before we fetched the father of my boys at his office after office hour. My oldest boy wanted to eat Mexican and we went to Las Caritas located somewhere along Jalan Ampang....We had our anniversary dinner all 5 of us and so engrossed with the yummy food, I forgot to take pictures he he......I had old pictures of the boys scanned. Mostly when we were staying in our 'sarang burung' apartment in KL, one in a rented house in Gombak and the beach picture was taken in Cherating.

And have a blessed Ramadhan to all Muslim visitors to this humble blog of mine.

i am a bad speller baker ha ha ha.....

I was told a few weeks ago by my younger brother that his wife had completed her PhD in something-something....Sorry Zis, i just cannot remember the whole thing. He had also mentioned about having a thanksgiving do and tahlil on 14th August. At first i just wanted to used edible picture for the cake but some technical problem arise i ended up swirling yellow rosettes and tried basket weave on the side of the heart shaped chocolate moist cake. Confidently i piped the words on the cake and my writing as usual suck ha ha ha......and to my horror i realized i spelled both words wrongly, even her name. Sorry Izah, didn't mean it. I quickly amended by covering the wrong spelling with fondant plaque with "Congratz Dr. Izah". I didnt get to take a picture as i was running late. I also baked tiny vanilla cupcakes with butter cream frosting and small fondant flowers on top.

Nature's wonder and food again.....

First of all, apology for the big pictures. I received a few request to post pictures maximum size for my entry. They said ' baru puas tengok' he he...
For a few days last week i heard bird chirping away over my head whenever i parked my old Wira under the mango tree in front of the house. But on Saturday, the chirping got louder and lo and behold, i looked up and saw this beautiful creature. I did not get to see the young ones though.
One of dinner dishes inspired by ms hart posting on chicken soup here.
Hers was chicken but my house preference of protin source is beef. So it was beef curry on one of the night last week and followed with lightly toast bread with curry for the next morning breakfast he he.....
Taking a break from rice, i made pizza for dinner after the curry affair. I got nice 3 extra large pizzas from the dough i mixed and all went inside the satisfied tummies in a jiffy. Cost cutting of almost RM50.00 if we had similar feast in you know where, across the street.

Just a note after a year of blogging

Borrow my son's birthday cake picture for this posting.
A year ago i started this blog just for fun and just to write about anything i wish. I did not expect anything else...a year later, i have gotten to know many friends through this blog. Those who shared the same interest with me and some who does not. Some i have met in person and i am glad that i did because all of them are a wonderful people...who say internet is bad.....its depend on how we use it right??

I thanks all kind visitors and appreciate your kinds words.....