Of life, like it or not

Work has been slowing down and I am happy to enjoy life, example writting, cooking and making my DIY things.

I received a few responses about how good that I did the DIY stuff and save money in my wedding. Honestly, I did the DIY stuff for my wedding is merely just for my interest of doing so. There are no cost saving here or what I mean is the saving is negligible. The saving of few ringgits doesn't impact the whole wedding expenses at all. I am extremely happy of doing one or two but absolutely not happy if I am to make 50 or 100 of those, because it is not fun anymore.

The same reason goes for cooking. I cook everyday because I feel happy when I made yummy food. If the food doesn't turn out good like what I expected, the rest of the day will be a sad day for me. If I were to ask to cook for a party, it will be different. It will be tiring and much more effort required. At this point, there is no fun of doing what I like. You know, volunteer to do something and being assigned to do something are totally two different things. But when you were assigned the task, it is not of your own will or probably you are just too shy to reject for not liking. Most importantly is your will. You do what you like to do.

We do things because we love doing them. That's how I sustain living in this cruel world, by doing something that makes my heart grows fonder of staying home keeping safe. It is similar to some people, example for liking to shop, sing karaoke, outings, yumcha sessions, sport activities, playing computer games, facebooking. I am perfectly fine if my friends like to sing-k and I don't think it is a waste of time because that's what you choose to do during your free time. I am very serious when I said I don't like K because I don't sing. It is not of any other reasons like I don't like joining the clique or too pricey or someone is a thorn in the gang. But I really do appreciate the invitation because it is making me feel that I am still wanted in the group. That's why I love my lunch gang and colleagues. They still invite me although 98% of the times, I rejected. Thank you very much people.

Once I encountered a somehow similar experience during some pretty old days. I like making cards. Birthday cards. So I made for friend, and another next because I like making them during my free time. Eventually people started to expect the same thing happening for the other friends. It is not that I don't like the friends, but it is of my interest. I don't like to do it when it became a task. I know it sounds ridiculous, but that's me.

I believe everyone has their own opinion. I don't go againts people. You can like anything and don't like anything, freely.

Chinese pattern cutting - Double happiness featuring mandarin ducks

Not going to waste time during this long holiday, I to cut another patttern using the remaining red paper I have. That's all ;) This time it's fast, I completed within half a day.



Note: Future MIL took it because it's too pretty lol

Flower ball deco

This is another DIY thing I made for our wedding. The flower ball deco made of red fabric. I bought some few metres of red lining which cost less than RM10.

I saw some shops selling the flower ball for RM39.90, RM49.90 which is a ripped off.

It will be used to hang at our home entrance.



I hope it will look nice when being hung up. We'll see..

Chinese pattern cutting -double happiness

I had done some DIY stuffs for our wedding for the past few months. The latest that I am working and had completed one is the chinese pattern cutting work. I had this problem to search the double happiness "xi" word in google because I can't write the word. I pinged Yi Chong because he is indeed very good in chinese, I guess. Haha. I wrote "si" in messenger to him and asked if he can type the word in chinese for me.He was all puzzled and quicky rang me wanted to hear me pronounce the word. He was relieved. He thought I am going to write suicide note in chinese.

After thanking him, I tried googling the image of "xi" and it returned me numerous results, some suitable for pattern cutting and some not. At last I picked this.

I had painful finger for 2 nights because of "manuevering" the small size scissors to cut small edges. I am glad it was worth the pain.

Our wedding electronic invitation

As some of you might have known, we are getting married this year. Here posted is the electronic invitation that we sent out to colleagues and some friends. To Ailene, Peili, Kim and other Klang buddies, we have both mutual and virtual invitations in facebook Hot Chicks group so there is no need to have multiple invitation right? So I am sharing this to you all who are willing to share happiness in our coming special day.

If you already gotten this invitation and not yet RVSP, please do so love.

These are edible

They are my baby nieces. I feel like squeezing them now. Haha

Tuna pizza

It's national day coming anyway I don't feel very patriotic these days all caused by games and lies that gomen created.

Forgetting about the stupid issues in the country, I know I have been talking about pizzas for the past few entries but I can't help it. I made dough enough for 3 pan pizzas last week, so there is one more coming.. ;)

Today, what came into my mind is tuna pizza. Toppings included tuna mayonese chunks, tomato pieces, sausages, mozarella and parmesan cheese. I forgot to put some basil flakes on top so pizza today is like missing something important in it's flavour. I have no idea what pizza topping should I adapt next. Throw me some ideas, please.

Pizza dough is cooked in pre heat oven at 220 degree celcius for 8 minutes, rubbed a lot olive oil on both sides to prevent it to be too dry. Add toppings and cook for another 8 minutes.

ABC soup and blanced chye sim

Today is one of the busy and getting back home late day. Luckily I had the soup boiling at home for almost 10 hours since morning when I left for work. The soup is called ABC soup because it contains many types of vegetables and is kind of nutricious. In 20 minutes I want food to be ready on table so I picked some chye sim (sawi) and blanched in boiling water for a quick 1 minute, keeping the leaves fresh and almost raw. I like it this way. :) Dinner is ready in 20 minutes after I reached home. This is what I called quick preparation and a perfect wonderful meal.

ABC soup
---------
2 medium potatoes, cubed
1 big tomatoe, wedged
3 medium onions, wedged
3 baby carrots, cut
600g pork ribs

All goes into slow cooker and cook for > 8 hours at mix temperature level. Add salt and grounded pepper before serving


Blanched chye sim
------------------
Cut the vege into smaller lengths. Separate the leaves and stems.
Boil water in pot. Add 1/2 teaspoon of salt in the water
Put in stem first and after 10 seconds, add the leaves in.
Blanch them for another 20 seconds and scoop out , place on plate
Add soy sauce, oyster sauce, sesame oil, pepper, fried onions and mix well. Serve with rice.

Hawaian pizza

I was devastated by the dead and tiny dough this morning. Luckily I found my super beloved friend online and told her my failure and see if she can help. She is a great baker and cook, who right now bake everyday! She asked every step in detail and rootcaused where the problem was. Salt and fridge! I put the salt too early in the stage and it killed the yeast and also yeast only works in room temperature. I threw the dough into the fridge after kneading completed so the dough never rise. I was using two different recipes from internet for last week and today's pizzas but somehow I don't know why I put into the fridge although today's receipe didn't call for it. So I failed terribly. Anyway no mourning, I springed to the kitchen right away after lunch again and re-made a new dough using very simple recipe given by her. The yeast was happily growing! and the dough rose into 1.5 the actual size. I was thrilled looking at the growth and happily informed her about this.

I cut the dough into 3 equal size and kept the other two in freezer for future use. Use my fist and punched the dough to get rid of the air bubbles, then let it sit for 10 minutes before roll the dough into a flat round shape.

I wanted to make Hawaiian pizza. So I bought a pineapple yesterday and this morning I carefully de-skinned and cut away all the "eyes", sliced them to tiny pieces. The toppings for this pizza are, crab sticks, sausage, pineapple, onion, mozarella and parmesan cheese, tomato sauce with sprinkle of salt and parsley flakes and a lot of basil flakes.

I don't have a roller to roll the dough so I use an old wine bottle I kept for this purpose :P

Sausage, mushroom, capcisum and onion pizza

This is my first attempt of making pizza. The pizza edge is a bit tough but inner is crispy and nice. I dressed the pizza with lots of toppings; onion, capcisum, sausage and mushroom. It was a very generous amount of toppings, trust me.

The dough recipe was copied from somewhere and it's easily obtainable.



I am going to try again next time, see if the dough turns out better.

Mushroom and shrimp spaghetti

All because of the expensive button mushroom on sale in Jusco last weekend, I grabbed a box at RM6.99. Maybe the easiest way to use it in cooking is to associate the mushroom with pasta because cream is so expensive so an absolute no-no to mushroom soup as I had wasted a whole packet of cream worth RM20+ the last time I purchased one. Thinking that my "essential pasta cookbook" had dissolved in the air after searching all corners and drawers in the house for it, I found the green colour cover book after 40 minutes. While gasping for air, I looked through the pages and found nothing I fancy with mushroom because they like to cook mushroom with cream and that's what I want to avoid. So I opted for spaghetti marinara only that I don't have any other seafood except shrimps. The shrimps were bought an hour earlier on my way back home from work when I stopped for groceries in one of the supermarket nearby. I love marinara because WeeL made it for me on Valentine's Day 2 years back. It looks and taste almost like marinara but it is not. I made some modifications to many of the ingredients.




For the tomato sauce:
3 tablespoon cooking oil
1 onion medium size diced
1 baby carrot, diced
4 cloves of garlic, chopped
1 can of tomato puree (the smallest size)
2 teaspoon sugar
1 tablespoon chinese rice wine
1/2 cup chicken stock

4 button mushrooms, sliced
6 large shrimps, cleaned and removed skin

1. Heat the oil in pan, add onion, carrot and garlic and stir over medium heat for about 5 minutes. Add in mushroom and stir for 5 more minutes
2. Add tomato puree, sugar, wine and chicken stock. Simmer for about 20 minutes. Stir occasionally
3. Add shrimps and cook for 5 more minutes
4. Cook pasta in large pan of boiling salted/greased water until al dente. Drain and set aside.
5. Combine the sauce with pasta and serve


I served the pasta with boiled corn and mashed potato because I worry the big boy doesn't have enough.

Feast on roasted pork

Disclaimer: This is a non-halal post. Read at your own risk and judgement.

I can't wait to go home since 9am when I walked into the office. The main driving factor is tonight's dinner because I am going to make roasted pork!!! One of the most sinful food around because of the amount of fat.

Last night I spent 10 minutes of my before sleep time marinating pork belly which I carefully chop into 3 pieces of 10cm's length. I never google or search for any recipe but I feel so much like eating roast pork. So I used my imagination and simply threw about 1 teaspoon of five spice powder, a few drops of sesame oil, salt, pepper, shao xing wine, a few drops of soy sauce and oyster sauce. I rub the ingredients on all side of the belly. I know it must look like a hell lot ingredients here. Keep in fridge overnight.

I took the sinful belly out from fridge today and patted dry using kitchen paper towel. This is an important step that one must not miss to make sure to get crispy skin after roasting. I sprinkled some fine salt on the pork pieces and roasted them in oven for about 30 minutes at 240 degrees.


Fresh out of oven. Can't wait!!!




Fat ready for the feast. Beware of the cholestrol ;)

Lion's head meatballs

This weekend I am a happy girl again because I tried out new stuff today. Lion head meatballs!!! I adapted the recipes and steps from userealbutter and changed some of the ingredients because I don't have them at home. lol


The ingredients laid out on kitchen top, ready to be massaged and treated ;) I did not measure the ingredients, just simply pick and mix. Luckily the meatballs turned out superb!




For the meatball, I mixed minced pork, shitake mushrooms, button mushrooms, ginger, onions, rice wine, dash of salt and pepper. I added button mushrooms to replace the bamboo shoot from the recipe, so the meatball would not be to dry. I added some corn starch into the mixture to hold the ingredients together. Make 2 lion heads! for 2 human heads. :)

Wrap the lion heads in plastic wrapping sheet, keep them in freezer for about 20 minutes. I probably did that longer because I was watching Rain being tortured in Ninja Assassin throughout the whole making process. It was so kind of WeeL to pause everytime I was away working on the lunch.


Coat the meatballs with flour and fry them to get the nice browing to their outer layer. I fried them carefully to make sure the meatballs don't break, or else I will be getting a kitty head (according to Jen's dady) instead of lion head.


Place the meatballs in the container on top of the layered napa cabbage and add in the sauce. Prepare the sauce by saute-ing big onions, ginger in cooking oil until fragrant, then add in soy sauce, rice wine, salt, sesame oil, pepper and oyster sauce.



Slowly steam the lion head meatballs for about an hour.


Serve hot with rice. WeeL said the name of this dishes should be lion king, because you have the meatball as the head and the cabbage as it's body. I love this absolutely..

Nothing more than plain

It's too pathetic that I have nothing to update in these 2 weeks. My life is all about three things: working and working and working. Spending weekend on the big day preparation is fun but it turns out to be frustating sometimes. I had not explored any new special recipe recently, only managed to modify a few everyday dishes. Nothing much special to brag about, you know just reducing some sourness and adding some sweetness to soup or using a slightly different texture of pork by mixing corn flour instead or starch. My kitchen is feeling bored of the owner for not bringing any excitment to it. I grade myself as boring. I am living in a rather plain life, neither a roller coaster ride nor new found of the land of lollipops. Most of the times, my only entertainment is to find someone to chat to from my live messenger contact list. I don't chat to everybody in the list. The active chatting contact pityful has less than five and most of the time, only one is kind enough to entertain me.

Today surprisingly we came home pretty early and by eight o'clock I am ready to explore the internet world again in our comfortable dim lighted hall. The sound of siren heard from our window is from the main road far at the foot of hill. It should be the ambulance, pretty loud and clear from here maybe because we are near to the hill and sound is trapped in this area. Everything returns to serene and quiet environment once the siren dissapeared. At this month of the year, the air is cooling at night. There is breeze compared to March to May period of hot and high humidity; read sweaty. I feel rather thankful for the breeze because everyone can live without air condition now. Ha-ha. That will not save the world though. It is so strange that I spend almost 2 hours to write until this line. I guess I am taking my own sweet time, sure nice.

The hot chicks are having yumcha session tomorrow and I am going to miss another gathering because I won't be home (or for the past times, I was not invited because noone knew I was home) . I don't go home so often that everytime I go back, I will be busy running errands and visiting family members or relatives. It is bad to not having spare time for friends I know. Watching movie.. Bye

A week after

Having to go with the tittle Mrs for more than a week now, nothing much had changed since before hand. I am handling it just perfectly normal. Cooking dinner as usual and sitting at the same position lazying with my laptop every night on the coach is kind of my favourite in contrary to many other girls favourite, outing and shopping. At home I don't feel uncomfortable from people's wandering eyes except for the few occasions where neighbour passing by our door like to peep into our living hall. They are not aware I am a super girl where I can be watching the television or my sight is on my laptop screen, don't be surprise still I can sense if someone watching from the side.

I had a perfect dip yesterday because the temperature in the pool was just nice and the sky wasn't too dark at the right time of the day, after work. Proudly to say this, I can go for 10 laps non stop nowadays improving from 2-5-7-10. Trying to mantain this routine in an average of once a week, I feel less bulky now. It can be a great way to trim for the fittest condition for the big day four months from now. Fully utilize weekend to complete the wedding checklist makes my rest day a hectic one. Both of us were down sick, out of breath from coughing and sneezing few days back, still dosing the medicine until today. Sleep. Bye.

Becoming Mrs

It was a bright morning, everything went smootly. The addition of nasi lemak with blood clam sambal was a great kick to start the day off with. People arriving in time, or I should say they were punctual + early :P. You guys were great. Thank for dad for rushing from work for me and the troop that travelled 3 hours to be there.



I really enjoyed the morning we had, tying up hair, make up in my own room, making hair for baby sis , saying yes you can wear this to sweet sis and other little stuff. The girl friends showing up in their cheerful smiles made up my day. WL's family arriving with happy faces brought my spirit up skipping in the sky.



We are very glad to have our family and friends together at Klang Hokkien Association to witness our registration of marriage.



Thank you all for the lovely presents I received and for being kind enough for being my photographers on the day. Credit goes to Bryan, Pei Li and my sweet sister. Also not forgetting wishes from Her Hau from hundreds miles away. Ya, I love the lacey basket and the lacey ring pillow. You girls are just too lacey.. Haha.




The sun was so bright after the ceremony but we took a little time posing around the building for some shots.







I know, I know. You are happy


Legally, the Mrs.

Moments in Life

One of the moments in life that I love:

Sitting on the couch, leaning againts each other while reading own magazine/book and sipping red wine in the cold air conditioned room under the dimmed light with music playing at the background. The feeling is wonderful.


Should do this more often, but absolutely not on busy day like today ;)

2010 Mid Year Trip - Singapore

The trip is about meeting up with old friends and have a short getaway from work.We did both. I think my life is ruled by internet. I cannot live without internet so I wified in the hotel whenever I am in the room.

That was us the girls loafing in the hotel lobby waiting for the complimentary cocktail session after a lot of walking in malls along Orchard.




Walking again in Clarke Quay in the evening. There were so many people around because it was the day to celebrate Argentina loss to German all down.



I super <3 the hotel's breakfast. We had breakfast in executive lounge on the 27th floor. The staff felt a bit strange for a young couple to sit in there with a lot of angmoh so one of them asked us, where are you guys from? WeeLiem answered proudly, Malaysia while I looked down all the times . lol




After visiting Kim at her new home, Ailene and Bryan brought us to the city for a little tour. This is the wealth fountain at Suntec




And a big clock.. haha. don't know what is that for..




We went to the Esplanade and saw many plastic made sculpture, creative but strange


Picture with the durian


City at background



Group photos with Marina Bay Sands at the background. Believe me, we walked from here to there!


Our loyal tour guide doing lovey dovey posing



We walked so much that it exceed Ailene's maximum perday. Anyway I think Hong Kong is a lot worse than this :D



He said he likes this picture a lot.



Last picture for the blog


We had simple dinner at one of the foodcourt inside Suntec tower, which the place is used for some expo too, left for hotel right after because our tour guide need to work the next day. Weeliem and I took a short stroll in Orchard again when we reached hotel... not to waste the beautiful night ;)

A day trip to Universal Studio Singapore

Weeliem and I had a short vacation to Singapore and we visited the country's own Universal Studio as everyone on earth is frantically talking about the place. I had been to the one in LA and this time I just want to be there with my love one.

The weather was surprisingly good on Monday. It was drizzling and sky were grey on both Saturday and Sunday. There were a crowd on weekday! in Universal Studio and tickets were sold out by 10.30am. Luckily we purchased the tickets online. We got SGD10 voucher for food and retail each person so it's a good deal. We waited 60 minutes for Mummy ride and imagine waiting for 45-90 minutes for all of the rides. That's the reason we did not manage to take the Jurassic Park ride that will drench you in water.

This is a must take photo of the place. You cannot miss out this spot as it will be at the entrace.


We didn't find Marilyn Monroe anywhere but we found Charlie Chaplin.


Silly photo of me


Weeliem wanted a photo with T-rex. He loves all dinasours.


This is the Madagascar pic :P

Winter melon and luo han guo dessert

Her Hau gave a slice of her giant winter melon that Tze Yee planted back at his home. There's problem with bluetooth on this laptop so I couldn't transfer the amazing picture to lappie. Anyway, I don't fancy soup made from winter melon so I am thinking of other things to cook from it. There I found a dessert cooked using winter melon so that's what I made in the photo above. The dessert has all the good things in enhancing, fixing or improving the respiratory system.

Recipe
http://cookingcrave.blogspot.com/2009/05/winter-melon-luo-han-guo-dessert.html