A pleasant weekend.......

Most of the time, i cooked one or two dishes to go with rice for dinner. My boys are a good eater and they love different type of food but poor hubby prefer rice for dinner as he usually eats light for lunch. Once in a while when dear hubby said he wont take dinner at home, i would cook something else. So last Friday when hubby smsed me at noon saying he would be home quite late, i asked the boys what they wanted for dinner......Unanimously they wanted my version of Bolognese sauce with spaghetti. Hubby also asked if i had any delivery on Saturday, my replied to him was no but i had one for Sunday. So we planned to go to Malacca on Saturday just jalan-jalan cari makan trip.


The spaghetti was very good i might say...we ended up finishing the sauce with lightly toasted bread as one packet of pasta finished in a jiffy.Anyone want the recipe, let me know......

Here, i introduce you to our latest addition in the family, Blackie@Hitam, i took him from the market near my house on Baby's birthday. Didnt expect that he would turn out to be a very manja cat. He sleeps with me at night, in between hubby and i.....now we feel like we are having a new baby.....he would wake up at night and licked my nose or my chin then go back to sleep ....... and hes one skinny cat ha ha ha....
Sedapnyer tidooooo.....
Friday night while watching TV, i prepared the shell for my fruit tartlets for Sunday morning delivery.

Saturday morning, while having breakfast at one of mamak's restaurant in Sban 2, i casually asked hubby about a wedding in Rembau on that Saturday afternoon which his mum asked me a few days before. He didnt tell me anything about it and i thought the wedding was not in the 'must attend' list he he.... Aaaa.... he actually totally forgotten about the invitation and he almost jumped on his chair when asked. " Sh*t.....i promised the guy to go....so how the trip to Malacca?" he asked me, told him to postpone the trip as i felt it was not nice not to fulfill once promised.... Then almost noon we were on the way to Rembau to the wedding, with his mum and our 2nd boy. It was a nice drive, and on the way i saw an antique shop beside the road and made a comment to hubby to stop by that place on the way home later. He just nodded his head.

As we were looking for a parking space upon arriving at the wedding, we saw the kompang and caklempong people was walking back with the goodie bags in hand....wahhh i said to myself the bersanding was early as the time was yet 1 pm. When we did our salam and all i asked the bride's mum about that and she said they decided to do the bersanding early due to the current rainy spell...then we headed to the buffet spreads....it was a typical wedding dishes but the taste was very good. While eating we were entertained by a band which i felt the best wedding band i heard so far. All the 4 singers sang very well and definitely better than any of the AF winners he he.......Though i was very much love to just lepak and enjoy the music, i asked hubby to go home as i had some baking to do for orders on Sunday morning. We did stop at the antique shop and i saw a few things that i like but i felt the pricing was a bit steep, i didnt get anything. We went into the car and hardly after 100 meters driving hubby realised that his mum was not with us ha ha ha....... she was left behind at the shop. Both of us thought she was behind us when we went to the car he he.....hubby made a U-turn and there she was standing and smiling widely to us.... we were laughing about it all the way home ha ha ha ..........

That night after maghrib, i baked the cakes. After the cakes were out from the oven, the boys and i went to Senawang for McDonald supper, it was almost 10.00 pm. Dear hubby was having teh tarik session with his friends in town. At 3.00 am i started decorating the cakes and the cupcakes. Finished just after 6.00 then took a breather by watching TV, at 8.00 i assembled the fruit tartlets and we left for Mambau to deliver the goodies at 9.30 am, the agreed time to hand over the goodies was 10.00. We made it to the place in good time to my suprised as i didnt know that Mambau was not far from Seremban. The customers' sisters collected the cakes and tartlets, as she was doing her make up. These were all she ordered for her big day...the cake and tartlets for the makan-makan and cupcakes for the engagement gift . She requested my earlier design for the hantaran, the combination of purple and pink....Enjoy the pictures




After settling the boys lunch, we decided to go to a tyre shops as my old car tyres needed to be replaced. We went to Senawang and had to wait for awhile as there were many cars ahead of us. We just waited as hubby said he had to go outstation soon and he afraid that the car might gave me trouble due to the tyres. Yes, i can drive his car but dont quite fancy driving his in Seremban town.... or just to go the market behind my house..... While waiting, he received a call. The call was from his relatives who happened to study in the same Uni in the States....ha ha ha talking about a small world kan?? and during that time they didnt know they were related until after hubby and i were married and we went to Sg Besar for his granduncle's funeral. The guy was with his mother in law who happened to be cousin to my mother in law.....complicated?? in short the guy and my hubby is second cousin.... they wanted to visit my in laws.

Then i dropped hubby at his mum's place with the guests, i went home to assemble the balance of fruit tartlets balance from the order earlier. Of course the real reason was to check on my 3 rascals at home ....... Went back to MIL's place with one big tupperware of tartlets and i just listened to their conversation which half of it i didnt understand. They were talking in this peculiar accent. When they left for KL, hubby and i went home and spend the rest of the day with the boys.....its tiring but fun though......

Stories behind the cakes....

This year Aidiladha was a bit different to us as one of my hubby's cousin gotten engage on the very day. The occasion was after the Friday prayers. But before that, i baked 30 pcs of muffins and 270 pcs of plain cupcakes for wedding favors. These favors traveled to the north on last Wednesday.
At same time, i prepared 50 pcs mix flavors of cupcakes for makan-makan occasion in one of the office in Nilai.
Once the cupcakes and muffins done, i bake 2 cakes, one was heartshaped and one was round for the hantaran of the engagement of the cousin. Earlier they had given me the 'bekas' hantaran. The bekas-bekas to me were a bit heavily decorated so i decided the cakes should be a simple ones. So here was one of the hantaran cake, simple decorated with lines at the side ( i need more practice to have the lines very straight) and big cut off pink flowers and small yellow and purple flowers on top for a girl side to a guy. The cake was butter cake sandwiching blueberry filling.
Then the boy hantaran to the girl was a simple blue polka dots with pinks flowers. The cake was butter cake sandwiching strawberry filling.

The ceremony went very well and the girl looked so resplendent in blue. Congratulation Nisha and hope to see you 'bersanding' soon and berkekalan hingga ke anak cucu. Thank you for your trust in me for doing your hantaran cakes. Glad to know you both like them.
Then the Saturday morning, i send this chocolate cake to a nearby Taman, requested by fellow blogger Kay...she has been a great support to my small bakery biz. Thank you Kay and hope the children and the adults enjoyed the cake as much as i enjoyed making it.

After delivering the cake, we went up to Bkt Beruntung, my big brother's place to have a belated gathering of Aidiladha.....the itenaries was eating, eating and more eating while yakking and watching tv. We only left for Seremban around 8 and safely home 2 hours later feeling so full even the boys were complaining of eating too much ha ha ha......told them sekali sekala tak aper lah.......

At last.......an update....

When i decided to quit from the corporate world a few years ago, i did it because of my boys. They being looked after by my in laws and i felt it was time for me to lighten their burden as they were also looking after their other grand children and still do until now. Honestly, i was always felt guilty during those times. They never complained though. So, when i started staying home, i felt restless especially when the boys were in school. I would be pacing the empty house and i thank God for the Internet. Browsing the Net, i started trying new recipes and enjoying the pictures of beautifully decorated cakes and cupcakes. I also started a blog to show off my baking products, and alhamdullillah 80% of my sales now came from the blog. I opened this blog just to share the day in and day out of my routine especially in the kitchen and received nice words and some said hello in the comment space. I had since met many wonderful bloggers in person especially the so called 'Makcik Bloggers' and a few others.

Pak Zawi is also a fellow blogger whom i had been wanting to meet for so long but always the time was not on my side. One of his children is staying in Enstek which is quite near to Seremban, still i did not get to meet him. But last month when he wrote in one of his posting that he would be in Shah Alam for awhile to care for his young grandson, i took the opportunity to meet him. I killed 2 birds with one stone that day by meeting him for lunch and attended a Deepavali open house invitation in the evening. The lunch was sponsored by Pak Zawi's friend Mr. Chia, who generously invited us along when he saw my comment to meet Pak Zawi. I managed to bake choc chips cookies for Pak Zawi and Mr.Chia packed as in the picture.
We were enjoying the ayam kampung lunch, picture courtesy of Mr. Chia and the wife was the one who took it hence the empty chair. Pak Zawi was seaten facing my hubby, moi, my 2nd boy and the youngest in black...

Pak Zawi was kind enough to paint me his version of beautiful tulips now hanging on the wall of my living room. I love the bright colors he used. I feel it would be better if the painting was framed...which i would do so soon.....Thank you Pak for making time to meet us though it was such a short meeting and for the lovely painting.....
After blogspot, i was invited to join Facebook. I cannot remember who invited me. I saw many users of Facebook use it as a tool to find old friends, especially those in high school or colleges. What i appreciate most about Facebook was most of the members were using actualy names. I tried to locate my old class mates of whom i last saw was in 1982 after SPM results, but was quite disappointed. The reason was i forgot the correct spelling of their names he he...btw, my old school was no longer at its place. One 'canggih' shopping complex stand menacingly to my eyes when i passed by the road. Always make me sad and so far i only went to 'that' shopping complex once.....so sedey la.....But one day i saw a new message in the inbox of my Facebook....i was so estatic because the message was from someone who was my classmate when i was in Standard 5 up until Form 5.....ha ha ha.....telling me of a re-union organized by another friend....then the jejak kasih bermula until we met in person at Cyberview Lodge.We were all 'anak2 Yayasan Selangor' whom after the Penilaian Darjah 5 were given scholarships, stayed in one of the Yayasan hostel in KL and went to B*GS. Apparently Malays student were the minority in that school. This group represented 3 classes when we were in Form 5. If i was not mistaken, only 9 - 11 malay students out of the 40++ in my class...Oh we worked hard in that school to compete with the best of the chinese and Indians....i personally value my time in the school, and i am sure the rest of the group feel the same way and the experince made us a resilient lot.....

Lastly, i did an image changed on the day before my youngest boy turned 11. I dont know why that particular date, but i was very thankful to my older sister, who accompanied me to get the tudung and to the guy who man one of the many tudung stalls in Ampang Park. He was so understandably kind in showing me the many ways to wear the tudung and said soothing words to the awkward nervous me on that day. Many of my Facebook friends list had seen me with the new image.

With all these happenings, i still churned something from the oven in my kitchen.....enjoy the pictures....
Hantaran in KL
A wedding cake in Seremban....but i was not pleased with the outcome...

Cupcakes for lunch do in TKC dining hall
Tartlets to Sban 2

The long overdue posting........

Baby of the house birthday on 1st Nov...
Uploaded the pictures long ago but really I was suffering the "M" sickness at the largest scale.... When asked if he wanted a party for his 11th birthday, he said no....he only wanted to eat Chicken Chop in Co*y C*or*er Ampang Park. Hmmm good enough. so we went on Saturday a day before his actual birth date. But on Sunday i just baked a choc cake and cooked my signature rendang cili api to mark the occassion and the grand ma made pulut kuning to give to next door neighbors. Honestly, he is the easiest boy out of my 3 boys to take care of so far even when he was inside me for the 9 months...Alhamdullillah.....

At 9 months old
At 11 years old

Lucky me......

When i first saw him more than 20 years ago, i was warned to stay away from him. I chose to ignore that warn and fate has it i ended up marrying him ha ha ha......Saw him first time with a group of friends, and by the time i talked to him the first time, his hair was longer than mine. I knew he cooked but only knew he cooked quite good a few months before i left for home from the States. He in fact introduced me to cabbage curry, never eaten that before i met him.

Why lucky?....When we got our first son, we never really discussed how to tackle the daily house chores as both of us were working. We had a wonderful baby sitter at that time. We send our first boy to her in the morning, and fetch him home mostly around 6 - 7 pm daily, depending on the traffic on the notorious Jalan Genting Kelang that time....if we felt like eating out, we would have our dinner first, then fetch the boy. If we wanted to eat at home, after fetching the boy, we would stopped at one of the many shops near our place along Jalan Gombak and bought the necessary to cook for dinner. Most of the time, i would do the cooking, and he would play with the son. Or he would cook and i would be the one layanin the boys. I heard so many ladies complained about the hubbies just sat on a sofa reading newspapers when they had to cook and took care of the children at the same time. So, dear hubby is quite at ease in the kitchen or take care of the boys. On and off when the mood strike, he would volunteer to cook for the whole family. And he cooked this wonderful nasi lemak and the eggs sambal from the many eggs that we got on one weekend last month from a few weddings that we went to. He cooks a lot actually but i just dont have the picture except for these ones......Enjoy the pictures ......

My style of cooking......

I had an interesting short chat with a blogger at gmail chat yesterday. After the normal salam and hi....the topic went to food...he said maggi mee is not good to eat. I agreed with him because i am not a fan of instant mee or any instant food. Even if i was craving of cokodok ikan bilis, i wont be making from Adabi instant mix....of course to all working mothers, these instant mix/spices are a God send after a tiring day in the office. I am not saying they are bad or anything of the sort....its just not authentic to my anak tekak....

anyway....the next topic was the use of Pak Ajinomoto in cooking. I never bought a packet of Ajinomoto before and i surely will never buy one in future. To me if all the spices and ingredients are enough in one recipe, it doesn't need the Pak Aji to make it taste better. Both my parents never approved of Pak Aji in the cooking at home and i continued that way when i have a family of my own. But really we have no choice if we ate out kan?? He suggested to replace Pak Aji with sugar...i am ok with that but i use sugar in certain dishes only, even that i use brown sugar. As for salt, i use fine salt only to fry fishes, tempeh and vegetables, but coarse salt in everything else. My fishes would only be fried crispy except for meaty fishes like tenggiri or bawal.

Here i am sharing recipes for my masak lemak coz someone in the Facebook asked me for the recipe and also my sambal belacan.

Crispy fried mackerel/kembung


Lemak cili api daging with potato.
The recipe;

500gm beef ( best use batang pinang) - cut bite size crossing the grains
200gm coconut milk
1 piece asam keping
one lemon grass - lightly bash the bulb
10-15 small bird eye chillies* ( more if you want it hotter)
an inch of tumeric*
*pounded or blend together
2 - 3 potatoes -quartered

Wash the beef, put it the deep pot, throw in the pounded chili and tumeric and the lemon grass. Let the water dry a bit, if the beef still not soft add a bit more water ...then put in the coconut milk, let it boil, put the potatoes and asam keping in and let it boil till the potatoes softened. Put some coarse salt to taste and do stir frequently to avoid the coconut milk become 'curdled' (separated?? any better word for this?).

Lemak chili api tenggiri with bittergout.

500 gm tenggiri
200gm coconut milk
1 piece asam keping
Half of big bittergout - sliced thickly(abt half cm ) and soak in salted water
10-15 small bird eye chillies* ( more if you want it hotter)
an inch of tumeric*
*pounded or blended together

Wash the fish, put it in a deep pot, throw in the pounded chili and tumeric. Let the water dry a bit, then put in the coconut milk, let it boil, put the sliced bittergout and asam keping in and let it boil again. Put some coarse salt to taste and do stir frequently.

My kangkung belacan

My mix vege
My lala in hot oyster sauce.

My fried bihun with secret ingredient..the minced touchu
Simple tumis french beans
Sambal belacan
2-3 red chillies
5 - 10 bird eyes chillies
1 inch roasted shrimp paste
salt to taste
juice from one lime
Pounded all coarsely except the juice. Add in the juice and serve.

All of the dishes were cooked without the Ajinomoto.

Weddings, open houses and etc.......

Purple was never my color, so when anyone requested for my cakes to be decorated in purple, it would be a bit of a struggle for me to let my creative juices flow ha ha ha...macam la creative sangat. So for requested purple silver, i came up with these deco, the blue was actually another shade of purple but looked blue in the pictures. These cupcakes travelled to Pasir Mas 2 weeks ago.


Combination of purple and pink on white was requested which i found a bit easier to come up with...the flowers roses roses, rolled and petaled, i cant remember the name of the yellow flower. These cuppies went to Kajang.Then, on two Saturday ago, we started our journey to Johol for dear hubby's cousin wedding. The rain was so heavy during the solomnised ceremony. Picture was taken by my youngest boy.


From Johol, we drove down to Senawang which actually quite near to our house, for my cousin daughter's wedding. The newlyweds were distributing the wedding cake to the guest.In the middle of last week, Wednesday to be exact, i baked 700 pieces cute little cupcakes for wedding favors. The cakes were collected by the bride herself on Thursday night. Selamat Pengantin Baru to Maz semoga kekal ke anak cucu.
Since the heavy baking was done by Thursday, i was looking forward to spend time with my 3 rascals and the father. We were invited to a Raya do in Tanjung Malim and in KL on Saturday. So we left for TM late morning that Saturday, and we were in TM until about 2.30 and stopped by Sungai Buaya to see an old friend. Chatted and had nice Laksa Johor (moi) and Carbonara Spagetthi (the boys), we left for KL at almost 5 o'clock. Lepakking in KL(Cheras) until 7.
We reached Seremban at 8pm, rushed for shower and went to another open house hosted by a young neighbors just infront of my house. Yak for awhile and went to bed so early. I was told that i started snoring at 10.30 that night ha ha ha.....that was way too early for me....must be too exhausted.

Because of the early night, i woke up at 6 am on Sunday morning. I did some cleaning up in the kitchen, and was suprised that hubby was up too. So we decided to have breakfast at the stall near Seremban Hospital. It was almost full, we had to share the table with another couple. Both of us had nasi lemak. I actually wanted to eat the kuih that they had, but all were finished by the time we reached the stall. Most of the patrons ate curry mee there but to me the mee is not up to my standard he he.....then we decided to check out some clearing sale in a shop in Seremban Parade. Poor us, by the time we arrived the shop, there were not much things left. Then we just went around the ground floor of the complex enjoying the Coloring and Drawing contest held there.


I like this girl's work. See his face expression.
Saw this boy almost crying face and yet still vigorously did his coloring. Apparently the siblings were enjoying McD meals and of course he wanted to have some too...i heard the mother/grandmother was 'pujuking' and best was when he started coloring the face looked quite calm but the moment he saw the mum, he started grimacing.....but he was so cute....