Pineapple tarts

This is our homemade pineapple tarts. I always got to eat the tarts during chinese new year at home, either made by my mom or eldest sister. I used to help a little when I was still studying because I went back pretty early for the celebration to do spring cleaning. I called my sister numerous times to ask for the recipe and she finally gave to me last 3 weeks ago. I bought pineapples from home because my mom said the pineapples sold there were cheap and SWEEETTT!. Cooked the filling last weekend and kept in fridge until today I finally have some free time to bake the tarts. Of all the efforts, I managed to produce 3 containers, one for myself, one for my in laws and one for my sister/parents, depending on if any of them do not bake this year. Probably is my sister because she is so busy with working and 2 toddlers to take care of.



I had full days since Friday night,sleeping late because I was frying some food and yesterday busy cleaning, cooking, buying groceries and preparing a feast for her hau's bridal shower. At last I can sit down in front of my laptop and going to write all 360 I have. I got a bundle of them! Scary... It is the second time I broke my nailt this week, from house chores

Steamed yam cake

This is the steamed yam cake I made last night. We could not finish everything so I took some to office this morning. Suet Yin said I can add some fried dried shrimp on top, it will be more fragrant. I know that but I did not want to fry something at 11pm at night. I prepared, cut and cooked the ingredients and steamed it for 1 hour. Final product emerged at 12.30am. So I omitted the fied dried shrimp (xia mi) so save some hassle and avoid greasy night. Anyway the people that tasted the cake gave good feedback and I was quite a happy girl.

I used recipe from my sister

Malacca on 1-1-11

Finished writting focal at 10.45pm, I decided to make steamed yam cake because my dad gave me a yam last weekend and he reminded me to must use it within 3 days to preserve it's freshness. I came over to my desk to reply Ailene's IM and overcooked the batter. I felt a bit sad however let's look at the result later in 30 minutes? I used my sister's recipe from her blog. It is steaming for about 30 minutes already and another 30 to go. So, I am here breathing a little bit trying to dig something to update in my long time blog.

The just past weekend was New Year holiday. We went down to Malacca with my family for a short visit because Wee Liem wanted to shoot some photos, hoping to brush his skill in photography. I am very proud of him, really.

3 of us took a quick drive to town to visit St Paul but and could not find A Famosa, epic lol :P It was very jam so the "quick" is not so fast afterall. It took us like 2 hours to get there. Everyone was crowding Malacca during holiday season from all sort of places. We saw car plates from KL, Singapore, Selangor and Johore.


Big wall



@ Jonker street buying earings, RM1 each.


So here, we were at Portugese Settlement on New Year night



With lotsa lights decoration


I bought 3 packets of pop-pop , the lame "fire crackers" that gives you pop sound when you threw it againts hard object, eg floor. The kids were happily playing



The next morning, brother in law took us for dimsum breakfast and later Wee Liem, mom and I drove over to MMU to look around


For lunch, we went for chicken rice balls at Jonker street again and had cendol


Wee Liem took some great photos including this one, pretty.


We left afterward back home.. feeling very tired because for us, we drove 500km to reach there. Anyway, happy trip.

Memorable moments in 2010

Julian wrote about some of his memorable moments in 2010. I do not have a lot, I have a few which I think are some good ones

Our wedding last month topped the list. I am now married to the most patient and nicest man. I do not deny that I was quite frustated on our wedding day on some imperfections that occured once a while but Wee Liem stood out and take care most of them. I am really glad I have lots of sisters because now is the time they shine of all. Yvonne came to Penang earlier 3 weeks for her TOEFL and stayed with me until our wedding day. She was a great help in everything and ran everything according to my order and plan. I already thanked everyone on my previous post about our wedding so I am not going to repeat all over again here. Wee Liem and I promised to walk our life together as long as we live, and we mean it.






I always try to make a trip to oversea annually and this year Wee Liem went along or I should say I went along with him and his friends. We had a freezing yet warm trip to Shanghai and Hangzhou early this year and the memorable moment here is the Wee Liem proposed to me during on the day of our anniversary at night. Wee Liem popped the question on the first day we reached Shanghai at Shanghai Bund




Another memorable moment is the very short period my family spent staying at our new home during chinese new year. I drove them to Penang on second day of chinese new year and back to Klang the day after. It was the first time in my mom life she ever come to Penang. This year she made 2 visits. One during chinese new year and second was on my wedding. My family stayed at our home!


There are some food I made for the first time this year
Tang yuan (glutinuous rice balls)



Lion head meatballs which Wee Liem said its the best food so far



Bak zhang


lemon ice cream and many more...

Glutinous rice balls with peanuts filling

The other night my mom phoned me and informed me that "dong zhi" falls on the next day. I replied innocently asking if it's the "zhong zhi" making time again. Mom was shocked that until today, I still don't know what is "dong zhi" and corrected me that it means it is time to make "tang yuan".

I was rather relieved that I have a packet of glutinous rice flour in my pantry and a container of peanuts in fridge. So on that night itself, I pan roasted some peanuts and grounded them into powder form.


Returning from work on winter solstice festival day, got over with preparing dinner and I began making the glutinous rice dough. After dinner, I wrapped some glutinous rice balls with peanuts filling and cooked in malacca sugar, screw pine leaves and ginger soup.










Finished product

Fried spaghetti fusion style

The other day, I was in my unusual adventurous side, wanting to try doing something different from usual. So I was thinking of cooking pasta chinese way.



First of all, boil pasta in a pot of water until al-dente according to your packet instruction and set aside.

Prepare ingredients:
Cut pork into strips, about 150g in total
4 dried red chilies, cut small pieces
2 tablespoons of dried shrimp, rinse in water
30g carrots cut strips
2 crab sticks, cut small
3 cloves garlics

Saute garlic in 3 tablespoons olive oil in a wok (Chinese way :P)
Add in all other ingredients
Add pinch of salt and stir until pork turns pink
Add in pasta, a lot of basil and parsley flakes, and 1 tablespoon of soy sauce (Chinese way :p)
Cook for about 10 minutes and serve hot.

Something fresh to try, I kind of like it

Random update

I finally had a hair cut after so long waiting. I wanted to cut my hair short since months ago but I have to hold my wish because of wedding. I want a bun for wedding and I don't want to use a fake hair/wig to create it. This is the first photo of my new hair right after I came home from hair cut. I have been getting all sorts of comments related to pregnancy at the first time someone sees me, like : "Why that cutting your hair short is a sign of pregnancy?" , " Why is that cutting hair short is to prepare for pregnancy?". Okay, if I am really is.. I will cut it even shorter. This is like shoulder length, easily grow past shoulder in a month time. -_-


Today I dropped by MNG during lunch hour with Her Hau to see if I can get anything for myself. It is their year end annual sale. I got myself a black dress and a bag. Love to max. They are not very cheap though after discount so I am not sure what I bought them. Maybe because my head keep thinking I really need a black dress. A basic black dress that every girl should own one.


This is the wedding biscuits we ordered from LianBee's bakery for guo-da-li. These packages were given to relatives by my parents to inform them their daughter is getting married!

Three cup squids

I was looking at Rasa Malaysia today and saw three cups squid on the blog. I wanted to eat those squids! So while on groceries, I picked up some squids.

I made the three cup squids based on this:

3 squids cut small
1 lemon grass
1 big onion, sliced
ginger, sliced
1 clove garlic, minced

Heat some oil in wok. stir fry onion, ginger and garlic until fragrant. Add 1 teaspoon dark soy sauce, 2 tablespoons sesame oil, 1 teaspoon sugar, 1/2 teaspoon salt, soy sauce, basil leaves and 3 tablespoon shao xing wine. Let simmer for like 2-3 minutes until onion is soft. Add squids and cook for another 2 minutes and serve hot with white rice

Note: Serve 2

Next phase, please!

Our wedding had finally completed. After the wedding ceremony and reception in Penang, we had another wedding luncheon back in Weeliem's hometown on Sunday afternoon to introduce me to his relatives. It was really a long journey to and fro, 16 hours man... I was exhausted in the trips and the past weekend wedding that I slept at 10pm every night. I don't have any mood to work during my 3 days presence in the office last week. There were a little chaos and flaws during the wedding but everything still went thru superb with help from my siblings especially Yee Voan who had been here for the last 3 weeks before my wedding. I am glad that she was around because she typed, planned, remembered and memorized everything so she could direct the others when I was busy on the big day. Now is the time for me to mention a little about some highlights during my wedding.

This is a group picture of my direct family members. They came far away for my big day. Pin and Kevin flew all the way from Australia and returned the day after. Hong had her final sem paper until 6pm on Friday and she took bus directly from hostel and reached Penang at 2am with my mom's best friend Aunty Ying. She had the go back to continue her final exam after my wedding. Yee Voan came for her TOEFL in Penang earlier and stayed with me through my wedding, has been a great help and company in everything I need. Father and mother rushed from finishing their work at 12pm on Friday and drove all the way after that to Penang looking exhausted. My sister picked my grandma on her way up to Penang drove 6-7 hours to reach here. I was so thankful they all made it for ME. I love my family. When I told them about my problem in this event is mainly on transportation, they offered to drive here instead of taking flight. Everyone managed to make it for a dinner together except Hong and Aunty Ying. My dad's aunty family flew all the way from JB but they had their own plans on Friday, they didn't join us.




This is another sharing from the stuff I prepared for my wedding. Pin was holding a basket of items required to be brought over to groom place, teapot set, 5 types of beans, a scissors tied with red string at the end, sewing set and a mirror. I bought a basket and glued lace around the edge so it looks rather lovely. The beans were stacked in an used pepper glass bottle. The basket base was layered using the leftover fabric from the flower ball I made. Forgot to mention, her dress is super pretty. I love it. She bought it to wear especially on my wedding.



Yee Voan and I checked in to hotel on Friday and decorated the place. We already did that to my home earlier on Wednesday with my DIY things ; the flower balls, red pattern cuttings and flowers. This picture showed what we did to the hotel suite.


The next 3 photos are the places where I sticked the pattern cutting I did at my home (read: the groom's place). Note the minnie and mickey mouses on our quilt, I got them from LA Disneyland 3 years ago and kept for this day.





I love this picture , don't know why. I was walking here and there finding the bridal car. Surpringly I was holding the fan beautifully while running left and right.


Less attention was given to my pair of bridal heels during the day. I just want to say I love this pair very much. I searched the perfect heels for a very long time but I can't find any that suits my mood. I found this pair of gold heels in Aldo. They are perfect because so coincidently my actual day morning gown was in champange colour and my dinner gown is gold in colour!



I didn't know it was so hard to get red colour baby bath tub, wash basin and potty in Penang. I went to many places to find and at last I found them at different places. I refused to buy them at the wedding shops because they overpriced them. We didn't have any young litle boy to break the red potty paper so Weeliem got his friend to do it. This was funny.


At last the babies were fed. They came late because my friends had to feed their babies. Baby Matthew and Ting Ting are both 1 year old. We let baby Matthew rolled on the bed first later followed by Ting Ting, Cheryl and Celine


The rest of the pictures are all my 2 nieces. They are very cute and lovely. Our precious gems in the family. I love them being anywhere close to me. They ran, jumped and rolled happily in the hotel suite the night before because there were so many people. This is even better than Chinese New Year because we never had chance to gather everyone together. The last time we had gathering was during our Australia trip.

One of the greatest moment in Life

Same day edit (SDE) by Trinity photography

Click

Jimui's gear

Yesterday was our wedding day. It was indeed a good day because there were full 10 couples in the bridal house for makeup service for wedding dinner at the very day. Let me introduced another DIY thing I did.

I made sash and hand corsage for my jimuis during my wedding morning session. For the hengdai, I just made a chest corsage. I bought RM8 satin cloths back in Klang and sewed 11 sashes out of it

This photo of the product was taken by my uncle, Sean. He was taking photos all the time and he is a good photographer apart from Trinity, my official photographers for the day


The photo of my 11 jimuis wearing the sash and hand corsage. They were so creative with the sash. One made it into a rose and pin it to the chest like a brooch. One used it as hair band and some as the original purpose, a sash.

The birthday boy is getting married in less than a week!

I haven't been writting anything lately because life has been so busy. Anyway, I will post more things after my wedding. But we had an early celebration for Weeliem's birthday today. I love you baby. Growing old with you for another year, it's a bliss

Tauchiu steamed pork rib

I don't post recipe lately because there was no new food to write about. I can't be making new food everyday right? For people that know me very well, they should know I am a pork lover. I love pork since I was like 10 years old and that's the time when my mom started to venture into making restaurant type dishes for us every dinner. This is one of our family favourite, or I would say one of MY favourite since childhood; tauchiu steamed pork rib. I don't remember if I ever post this before, but here it is..



I use the finely smashed tauchiu sold in glass container ;) Careful not to buy the salted tauchiu because it's too salty. Omit salt in making food using this ingredients because you don't want to lose all your hair by 35 years old. My mom loves to add some taufu in because it can suck up the juicy tasty gravy came from steaming tauchiu pork rib. Both taste equally good.

1. Marinate overnight with this ingredients
small square pieces of pork rib cut out of 1 rib
1 tablespooon tauchiu (soya bean made sauce)
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 tablespoon corn flour
minced 3 cloves garlic
pepper
2. Add about 4 tablespoon of water into the bowl with #1 and steam for 20 minutes

Serve hot with rice ;)

Halloween @ Chicago Ribs House

Hello all! I feel like ages since I last wrote here. The just past weekend was Halloween. We did not celebrate any but only realizing that when we went for dinner at Chicago Ribs House for my birthday treat. There were many people with costumes walking around the Gurney place and live performers on stage singing lady gaga's, justin bieber's Baby, Shakira's and many other songs.



It was full house and we were lucky to still get a seat although weeliem phoned to reserve seats for 2 and they didn't jot that down. I didn't want to take photos of the waitress because their makeup and costumes looks a bit flabby and not pretty. :P

Before this I heard from friends and blogs that the waiting time for food is very long but we got ours in less than 15 minutes. So we ordered starters, fried mushroom. It was not nice at all but the dipping sauce is good.

Fried mushroom


I ordered Chicago pork rib and Weeliem picked beef ribs and they were superb.

Pork rib & Beef rib


We were so full after dining and I wished I didn't order the starter. hehe.