Another Sunday On An Exam Week..

Next 2 weeks Emily will be sitting for her mid-term exam. I guess most parents if not all, also dread having to go through these exam weeks 4 times a year

Yesterday, Emily's tuition teacher gave me a packet of frozen paratha to try out. So this morning, we had this for breakfast, wrapped with cheese. It was really easy to prepare, just pan fry on a non-stick pan, without any oil. Turned out to be really crispy and to enhance the taste, I drizzle a little condense milk on top when done. Kids love it.
I read from some blogs that we can use it as substitute for puff pastry since it has lesser fat.

For lunch, we had steamed red snapper with laksa paste sauce. I cooked the sauce separately using Talent Cook laksa paste, ginger buds (bunga kantan), tomatoes and ginger. After steamed, I threw away the liquid and poured the sauce over the fish. Garnish with cilantro(my kids name it smelly vege :) ).

Look at the messy table where Emily has been sitting, to do her revision. Hoping that she will do well in the coming exam. 

Mum's Birthday Celebration

Every year during the month of April, I will be celebrating 2 of the most important persons in my life, none other than my Mum and Jared. This year I baked a sponge cake for my mum but it didn't turn out as well as the one I baked last year as I am still adjusting to my new oven.

I have been wanting to buy a turn table for icing my cakes, so when I saw this in one of the baking ingredients shop for a reasonable price, I immediately bought it. This turn table makes is so much simpler to apply the frosting and smooth it. I can also use it as a turn table for my dishes :)

Penang White Curry Noodle

My friend introduced this instant noodle to me and he purposely passed me a packet to try out. A person who tries to avoid instant noodle, fell in love with it instantly. 
I try to avoid eating when kids are around. Few weeks ago, I was actually craving for it, so I drove home from office during one of my lunch time, and wallop a big bowl of curry mee with added ingredients.. Yummy...

HomeMade Nutmeg Syrup

Soak whole nutmeg fruit till clean. Then slice into at least 6 pieces. Add the mace to enhance the flavor

Use 1 kg rock sugar for 1 kg nutmeg

Arrange a few pieces of rock sugar at bottom side of slow cooker pot, 

add nutmeg and finally the rest of the rock sugar. Cook for about 8 hours.

After 7+ hours, this is how it looks like.
Leave it to cool before draining the syrup.

Cooking Fun #5

Soupy BakKutTeh

Dried BakkutTeh, cooked using the meat and soup of BKT
with tiny anchovies.

3 cups chicken

Assam Babi

Chicken Cordon Bleu (but did not turn out well)

Desserts

Mango Lassi 

Banana Milk Shake

Grilled Cheese Sandwich

Baked Nin Gao wrapped with Pastry Skin

Nin Gao Taro Rolls

Turon

Thanks to JY for continuously pouring me with recipe ideas

Cooking Fun #4

I love making my own burger as I get to decide the ingredients of my meat patties. For this burger, the patties are made of minced chicken fillet with onions, carrots and pumpkin. Added with cheese, egg, lettuce, tomatoes and mayonnaise with some wedges as side dish. Kids love it...

Buttered rice with BBQ pork and egg

Decided to skip rice for dinner,
substituted with garlic bread, potato wedges, pork, red beans, egg and salad

Egg Tart

Cooking Fun #3

Fruit Salad in Gyoza cup. 
( I used red apple, blueberries, passionfruit and raisins. Next, I will try using wonton skin)

Tortilla wrap Pizza

Gyoza

Cooking Fun 2

Some food that I have whipped up for our meals and snacks.

 

Pot Pie

BBQ Ribs

Chocolate Marble Bread with Pumpkin Seeds

Kids' Afternoon Snacks

Pizza for Dinner

Yesterday, I tried baking pizza for dinner using off-the-shelf pizza base. This gave me the opportunity to use the pizza stone that was bought donkey years ago.

For the toppings, I used spaghetti sauce, cooked pork, fresh salmon, spinach, green bell pepper, cherry tomatoes onions and finally sprinkled with cheese.

It would have been better if I have sprinkled more cheese. Emily loves it and she said is better than pizza hut because according to her, pizza hut's a tad too dry and this one is juicier. But I think other wise :)
I still have 1 piece of the base. Will try with other types of toppings another time.

 

And I realised that I have made some mistakes when using the pizza stone.

1) Need to heat up the stone before cooking pizza to avoid cracking the stone. Luckily mine didn't crack.

2) Do not grease or oil the stone, just use cornmeal to aid removal. I did the former and now there is stain on the surface :(

3) Never wash the stone with dish wash, just rinse with water.

Sweet Corn "Popsicles"

I still remember when I was a kid, my mum used to buy me ice pops which came in many shades of colors. I felt really happy whenever I got this treat.

I have wanted to make my own "popsicles" for the kids but I didn't have the mold, until last Friday when I went to grab 2 sets from Daiso. I found many recipes for popsicles on the web and decided to try out sweet corn since both of them love corns. It was a simple recipe from this link. I replaced white sugar with molasses and reduced to less than 1/2 cup.

Emily was very excited ,she even offered to help me blend the ingredients and poured them into the mold. And now she can't wait till tomorrow to eat them :)

                                      
                                         Two happy faces enjoying their "popsicles"

Till today, I still feel happy whenever I am eating one :)

Delicious Curry Mee

I prepared curry mee for lunch today using the TalentCook Curry Mee paste. It was really simple to cook, I just dump whatever I could find in my freezer into the soup and for the noodle, I used organic noodle and some meehoon. It turned out really well, even better than those that I have bought from the hawker stalls. Hubby finished 1 big bowl of noodles plus all the soup.. delicious.

Most importantly I can trust the quality of the paste as it is manufactured by a friend and her sister themselves.

HomeMade Oink Oink Burger ..

Few days ago, my ex-colleague told me that there is a stall selling Oink Oink burger at Sg Nibong pasar malam on every Wednesday night. She said it tastes really good. I could also find a few blogs mentioning about this burger.
Today I decided to prepare burger for lunch. I minced and marinated the minced pork since last evening. It turned out to be good, hubby said it is even better than TGIF's (BIG GRIN!!). I think the fried onions make it even tastier. A good year end lunch!!

Thank you for a great 2011.

Wishing Everyone A Happy New Year 2012, may 2012 brings Good Health, Happiness and Wealth to All.

Christmas & Year End Lunch

It's the time of the year again where every department will organize free lunches or dinners for their employees as a token of appreciation for all their contributions throughout the year.
Our team decided to have lunch at The View, Equatorial Hotel. It offers a french cuisine semi buffet menu. We were quite disappointed with their services, considering the price that we had to pay. Firstly, 4 of us ordered lemonade and when the drinks arrived, it came with cans of 7-up lemonade.. what the xxxx!!! When my colleague told the waiter there has been a mistake on her drink order, they came back with 1 glass of "true" lemonade and the rest of us didn't get our replacements.. don't they check their order sheet??? We had to tell the waiter ours were wrong too before we got what we have ordered. C'mon, there was only 1 table occupied at the time of order.
Next, my boss's main dish arrived, he has asked for baked potato as side dish but it came with roasted baby potatoes, he had to ask for change.. another disappointment...
Finally the bill arrived. I paid using my credit card as they offer 10% discount. I didn't check the bill, trusting that there wont be any mistakes. When I wanted to make my claims back at the office, I then realised that they have over-charged us for 2 of the main dishes, DAMN!! I called up the front desk, they tried to make excuses, like prices are different because the cod is prepared differently, but I insisted they are the same as printed on the receipt. Guess what the guy on the phone said, oh, the cashier must have pressed on the wrong button. What an excuse...To cut short, we got back the shortchange.

Enough of all the complains. Here are some of the main dishes that we have ordered.

Desserts

Total bill, RM644++ after 10% discount

Just another Saturday..

Today is just another Saturday. Not much have been done except chauffering Emily from morning till late afternoon. While waiting to pick her up, Jared and I went to hang out at the mall today.
When we were back home, Emily got to watch a DVD and enjoyed her tuna sandwiches.
Food & TV == HAPPY KID (^^)

Happy faces with their V Signs.