It's a long weekend.....Happy Merdeka Malaysia !!!

We all have an extra day off on Monday so the family got itchy....cannot sit at home! Mind has been thinking where to go..........then the filial son thought of his kampung, guess kind of missed home kua.... ???!!! So a phone call was made to his dad back home....hinting an intention to go back which obviously triggered the excitement in his old dad!!!! The intention lasted for a while only to have it changed by huby!! He said as we need to make another trip back again in Nov-08 for a cousin's wedding, so maybe we should postpone this???

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So when huby conveyed the message to his dad, he sensed that his old dad was very upset as he claimed the grandpa wanted to see the twins so much.......

Unfortunately, the filial son got touched & melted by his dad's reaction, hence the soft hearted side in him override whatever decisions made earlier...... and so this trip is ON !!

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Will be departing this afternoon and will be putting up a nite in Penang basically for food & will let the twins visit the cousins there too for a few rounds of 'fight'.....haha

Selamat Hari Kemerdekaan !!

Happy Holiday to all too....

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MORE Cooking.....Baking.....and cooking !!

Hey, here are more works from this cupcakes newbie!! This attempt was nothing to hoo about as i only used pre-mixed cake flour so there shouldn't be any mistakes with the cake. I just wana play around with the decor part........haha, like playing masak-masak lidat !!! It was fun this round as the boys also helped me with the design & also placing of the chocs chips!! And it served us supper that night.....which is no good!!

My verdict: still looked very cartoon.........more practice to come !!

Btw, the above bake was during one of the weekday's night and during weekend, below was another try! It was meant to be chocolate mousse cake but obviously didn't really turned out as desired !! You see la...........before even can "walk steadily", i already wana "run" (simple cake also can't master, wana do mousse cake wor...)???

Here's a tales for you to laugh about..........

By the time it was done, it's was nearly 11pm & my old man was already obviously snoring away in the living hall!!! As i was excited over the bake, i woke him to give him a first bite over my mousse cake. He initially brushed aside my offer.

Only after i said "i made this mousse cake just for you la", then only he opened one side of his eye, sat up & opened his mouth (albeit reluctantly) as the guinea pig !! Munch.....and.....munch, he then commented : mousse cake ahh?? the chocolate top ok lar (fair enough as it was edible)..........then..........as he further commented, the bottom layer....what is it??? ........... rubber ahhh ??? alamak...... kik sei ngo la!!! Not believing him, i tried myself. Yes, it was indeed hard & bouncy!! I checked back the recipe & realised it was my own dumb cooking sense! As the recipe was written by one of the fellow blogger who might not be as detailed as the book writer, she only mentioned about the cake flour which i figured she must have expected a baker to understand that it would either mean pre-mix flour or if one is to use plain flour, the baking powder or the likes should be added along side which i obviously didn't do so. As I only BLINDLY followed........she said cake flour ma..........so i ma put plain cake flour lah........and it turned out 'rubber' loh !!!

But i wasn't about to give up. Since the chocolate mousse was edible, i immediately bake another sponge cake the following morning, separated the mousse layer & placed it on top of my freshly baked cake so the rest needless to say.....was already history, yum yum ok lah.......hahaha!!

what a baking tales, huh ??

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Next is our home made pizza for lunch !

Similar to the baked cracker version, this version uses whole meal bread instead. I added ham & sausage slices on top of the white cream & tomato pasta sauces!! Great finger food!!

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Saturday dinner was home-cooked.

My creative huby wanted to cook his creation of Japanese noodles!!

The idea came after fallen in love with a special 'soup' that my mom like to boil.

It was the "white carrot boiled with roast pork"/"pak lobak pou chue kuat thong"!!

Other important ingredients are red dates, dried scallop & dried 'hou si'/clam. Below was how it looks. The speciality about this soup was that the roast pork really managed to bring out a very strong & fragrant smell so much so that my boys could recognised this smell whenever my mom boiled this soup & my mom always happily told me how excited the boys could be when she boiled this!! My monkeys certainly has a taste bud similar to his dad.

Then by using this as the soup base, huby served it with the "Japanese soba mee" together with all other Japanese side dishes......check out below !!

Apart from the crab stick, steam fish cake & fried fish cake, i can't tell what were the rest so can't expect me to name them in japanese, ok!! And it was my dear lou kung that did the marketing of all these stuffs in Isetan before picking me up after work.........wuah, sound such a good man hor!!

With the super sweet & fragrant soup base, soft & smooth noodle...........arghh, u can imagine how much it suited all of our tastes!! Both mom & dad had big bowl of it until "liam-liam jui" !!

Finally, here is my dessert, just a far view of it as it wasn't very appealing to see the inner part.
Areas to improve on:

- reduce the barley quantity in the 1st layer
- to blend the corn before using it in the 2nd layer
- to eliminate the sago from the 3rd pandan layer

Once the above areas are 'worked on' properly, i believe this makes a very delicious & beautiful dessert !!!

Oooh my.....am i turning this into a food blog already??

Oooh no.... I have one more SON now !!!

You didn't get a shock, did you? It must be kidding to be preggy & even a bigger joke if it's another boy, hehehe........

Just an introduction to our GOD SON, baby Kendrick !! He is about 7 months old at the day of his Baptism, 16/8/08 born to huby's youngest sister !! Kendrick is the youngest of 4 siblings, with 1 ko-ko & 2 cheh-cheh!!

Beautiful alerting eyes !!

Since our bloggers' gathering held in Kajang recently, we have been to this place (which we rarely visit) again & again !! SIL stayed somewhere very near Kajang & visited the Catholic church in Kajang because it was fully air-cond !!! A week before the baptism day, we droved all the way to attend the baptism briefing. Obviously we had been there again the following week for the actual ceremony!!

Sean & Scot were enjoying themselves running back & forth in the church with their cousins.

A confession.........

Initially, i was made to understand that for a male to be baptised a Catholic, he has to appoint a Godpa & the wife/partner usually automatically becomes the Godma.

Same goes for the female! Obviously, both the Godpa & Godma needs to be a Catholic too! When Sean & Scot were baptised (in another church), their Godpa, Francis is my 3rd sister's hubby. The fact that my sister isn't a Catholic, we have no choice but to get Francis's aunty Iris to become my boys' Godma as it was Aunt Iris that arranged for our baptism session in the church then!

When SIL approached huby to become his son's Godpa, huby agreed without hesitation & i was more than delighted to hear the news...... but with the "understanding" that SIL will find someone else to be the Godma (as i am not a Catholic too)!! I even insisted that huby informed/reminded his sis about me not being a Catholic yet so that she knew what to do!!

Then during the briefing session, i didn't see any other relative/friend coming to join us meaning SIL didn't even find someone else to be the Godma! I persisted huby to find out there & then again & i was reluctant to ask myself as i'm afraid it might misled her to think that i'm not willing to be of the role! SIL only gave us an unconscientious smile indicating to us that it's ok if the partner (i.e. me) is not a Catholic!! It looked to me that she refused to check & hoping that the church did not find out about this.

The organiser then started to call out the name list, starting from the kids, the parents & the Godparents. Boy..... my name was called out too & i became speechless & stone for a moment until i didn't acknowledged myself and the caller has to repeat my name with her eyes staring at me!! I gave her a smile & nodded my head while my leg repeatedly bumping into huby's as a sign of how uneasy i was right then. Actually it wasn't a big deal for me to take up the role but the way that it was handled somehow made me felt that i was cheating! And the more the briefing actually went on (which basically emphasized around how significant the roles of the parents & GODparents in ensuring the practise of good faith in the baptised child), i got even more guilty!! The burden that lies on the godparents are certainly not light in the eyes of the religion!

The big question of "How am i suppose to enforce the good faith in my godson when i'm not even practising the faith myself?" kept loitteing around my mind !!

Frankly speaking, it wasn't a good feeling at all.......i mean when it comes to critical issue like faith & religion, we shouldn't take it lightly, should we?? Anyway, since nothing embarassing actually happened throughout the ceremony, i might as well receive it with a big, clear & happy heart!! I might have just been over worried over the matter. I believe at the end of the day, irrespective of what religion, what matter most is to be a 'GOOD' person & live a 'GOOD' life...rite !!??

See how peaceful Kendrick was when he was baptised?? He basically slept thru the ceremony.

Godpa lighting up the candle.........

Here is the happy Godpa with his 3rd son..........hahaha

See....my name was there too !!

So, officially i have 3 sons too..........sob sob sob... :( ....where's my girl ???

After the session, SIL treated us to a dinner in celebration of the occasion and below was the main dish, the Hakka famous "phun choi" !!

Congratulations on the new addition to our family, haha !!

Bento week # 9

It was like a task unaccomplished if i didn't put up a post during the week end....... certainly not feeling good & it can somehow bother the mind (thou a very mild one).... "now, saying that blog is not stressing" may not be exactly true also !!!

Anyhow, it's just my way to babble it out......as i strongly believe that i will get over with this feeling very soon !!

It's raining very heavy now & i'm just gonna get this post fix up very quickly coz my head is a little heavy this afternoon.....wonder if i'd over worked or what??!!

Some more tomorrow school starts again & huby needs to travel for 3 days.......sigh !!

It is sure gonna be a bad blue Monday......

Below was a snack bento for the boys when they attended their art class on Wednesday during the past school holiday!

- a stick of fried meat balls

- in the pink container are some pancakes & in the blue kitty bag are crackers, both to be dipped with honey, hershey chocolate rice & peanut butter sauce!!

Below another breakfast bento for the boys at home. Dady took care of them at home when attended to an electrical contractor fixing a new wall fan in the kitchen!

"smiley face" burger (it was fish fillet & cheese), mixture of grapes & peach cube & danish cheese stick!

This bento was prepared on Monday as the octopus are suppose to be finished up first!

Octopus sushi, grapes & cheese cube!

The boys ate this with grandma & my mom got worried seeing what they ate early in the morning coz mom wasn't keen seeing d octopus & afraid that i would poison their little stomach!!

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Here are mummy's bento :

(1) On the right: Pork patties in between zuchinni slice & cherry tomatos.

On the left: all the greenies....

At the bottom: salad

(2) On the left: Bitter guard stuffed with meat

At the bottom: "Fu chuk" stuffed with meat served with brocolli, sweet pea, tomatoes & carrots

(3) Fruits=grapes & peach

Same veggies again....

and chicken cooked with "muk yee" & ginger (pic further below)

Oooh btw, if you think the main dishes (chicken, pork fillet, stuffed bitter guard/fu chuk & etc) in all my bentos above looked nice......... they were all courtesy of mom actually. I only added the side dishes (salad, veggies & fruits).

" mom, man sui, man sui, man man sui ehh " !!!

It's okay......still our PRIDE !!

Just wanna extend my big big CONGRATULATIONS to our badminton hero for raising our flag in this 2008 Beijing Olympic.........don't know about you but i do felt deeply touched witnessing that very precious moment !!!

~

Despite only a silver medal..........despite a lost.........despite every fellow malaysian somehow felt a little 'sad', to me it doesn't matter anymore as he has fought his greatest spirit through to the FINAL. Don't forget it was a history he created to the country. That Chinese guy (LDan) was just TOO skillful. Frankly speaking we all felt extremely painful seeing our folk been hit so badly & been tricked to pull from one end to the other end rather effortlessly!!

~

Furthermore, with such annoying scream & cheers against him at the back, how else could you expect a human being to re-act if not pressure & tense !!! Even my mom also got so angry with the disturbance & in response to that: she couldn't resist but angrily told off " tit sei lui pao ah, ngai meh lar, yeng kan ker la " (no need to shout, you all obviously gonna win).

~

On a lighter note, whenever the camera turned to Misbun, we all laughed so badly.........

aduh, habis lar itu wang 1 million sudah terbang lor, hahahah !!!

~

LEE CHONG WEI, our nation's proud & pride !! Kudos to you !!

~

Another passion started....

Suddenly i felt myself slowly fallen into a more 'womanly' stage in life.... in other words also mean i'm becoming more & more 'si-lai'........... oopppss, that's only my own definition ok, i don't mean all d bento mummy r 'si-lai', hehehe! What happened?

I found new passion in me........besides bentoing (also mean 'cooking' generally), i also wanted to venture into baking so much!! It all started with me falling in love with the recent hit of cupcakes. Then the more & more i see, the desire was building up very speedily....... good or not, i seriously don't know!! But one thing for sure, it was a good news to that creature called 'the husband' !!! He was very supportive (albeit in an indirect way) !! Despite always teasing me along the journey, i knew he was glad with such new found hobby to the extend that he was encouraging me to go for baking / cooking class!! Sigh......how i wish but for me, struggling between a full-time job & a family with 2 hyperactive boys, it was near to impossible!!! Wait la.....wait until i no need to work one 'fine' day !!!

I had this 'not very good' behaviour, in that when something struck on my mind to do, most likely than not, i would do it either immediately / instantly.......hahaha, both also same speed right ??? In other words, if possible i would do it right away without hesitation!!! And that could be at d expense of a much needed 'deep-thought' and when bad luck strikes, it could be of detrimental consequences too!!! huby always complaint that i'm a very " chung tung " type of person, anyone.....what's the right word to describe this?? Yes, that i was......

So with this type of character, i wanted so much to pursue my baking journey again this weekend after the first failure last week.....hahaha, too shy to show the 'failed product' to you guys lar..........

That aspiration grow so strong until i couldn't wait for the weekend to come.........and when the weekend was already one day ahead (it was already friday night), i still couldn't wait !!

And there i was seen starting my baking stunts around 8pm on the friday night........so strange & crazy heh??!!!

This time, i followed exactly the measurement of every ingredients and here are the outcomes....

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tadda

Yes, still little bit of flaws seen. But i'm pretty much satisfied with the taste as well as the texture of the cakes. It was cream cheese lemon cupcakes btw.

Now i wonder, what it means when the surface of the cake wasn't as smooth as it suppose to be, you can see the top breaking up right?

Next, came the decoration part. wow.......what a tough task man........boo, shame shame lar, there are ppl who said easy pitsy only!! But nah......it wasn't so at all. Blame it on the lack of study....by merely seeing the picture, i assume i can picture out how to twist it, haha...wrong i was!! Also gotta blame on the lousy writing nozzle, anyway, i also didn't study what are the basic type of decoration tools!! Even, with the whipping cream, instead of the initial intended yellow color, i put in too much coloring & d color turned out of way too !!

arghhh........"sei chau sei lar"..........see it for yourself !!!

Yellow topping became orange. I seriously don't know what kind of twist i had made ..... in fact, i think the nozzle had lost its' way la..........

The boys were too young to tell the ugliness of it or rather too young to condemn my work but the 'old man' said : looked like "yat tuk si"/bunch of shit, wa kakakaka !!!!

But frankly speaking, as far as the texture of the cake itself, they were edible......seriously!! All in i made 12 pcs of them: I had 2 pcs myself, the boys had 3, my fussy lou kung gave me face by eating 1 pc & my maid walloped the rest all (must be the best cake she has ever eaten, hahaha)!!

So, guess besides having the right contents & measurements accurate in the process of cake baking, the next important thing that i gotta pay attention is of course the ART of decoration too coz it really indeed made difference to how appealing the cakes are!!

How i wish to be able to do at least something like the below.....i know they were only simple cupcakes (by wondermilk) comparing to those that came with fondants decor or etc but it would certainly be a good guide to begin with !!!

look so easy right ??

Anyway, though there were many cupcakes maker out there, i don't exactly remember where to find shops that sell good cupcakes around. So it was a last minute hunt few weeks ago when i wanted to get some for a good friend's birthday lunch in MidValley! So, i just went around the uptowns where i knew wondermilk was located but frankly speaking, the available cakes over the counter were rather dissapointing......not much choices & not as fancy as i'd expected !!! But having said that, i must still say the taste of the cake was quite good though !!

Here we are singing happy b'day song to aunty p-fung after she treated us a sumptuous japanese lunch at Oh Sushi !!

arghh.....can't run away from japanese food again !!!

Work harder woman, there are more to learn !!!

Bento Week # 8

To make my weekly bento preparation easier as well as to lengthen the bento journey, i need to have the menu suited for both the boys & myself!! I definitely didn't want to burden myself with preparing 2 different meals given such hectic life. Quite a challenge i would say.... but somehow, i just couldn't figure out what gave me 'that' feelings of satisfaction & achievement !!!

Anyway, i am now also into considering keeping dinner's left over for the next day bento lunch! I mean it's not that bad an idea afterall, mom only cooked it the night before so it would certainly lessen my burden in one way or another! In one of those lucky day when my bento was taken care by the left over, i'll just have to come out with something simple for the boys !!

Check it out..........

Top left little container consist of rice (small quantum of carbo) with spices to go along.

Top right was left over steam minced pork with egg served with cherry tomato & lettuce.

Bottom right was left over potatoes anchovies cooked in oyster sauce.

Fruits were sugar plum & little cheese cube for snack.........erggg + burppp !!

Another similar bento with the same minced pork, 2 pieces of Ajitsuke Inari (sweet bean curd skin) stuffed with green pea rice!!

In the left little container was 2 pieces of ..........supposingly 'siew mai' prepared in stash over the weekend to go with some mayo sauce !! But guess the skill wasn't there yet......haha

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Once the left over has finished, a simple bento made up my lunch. 2 more pieces of stuffed taufu skin, this time only with rice & grated carrots!! Veggies were steamed brocollie & sweet peas. Lettuce salad with baby tomatoes, sautanas & thousand island sauce in d yellow container. Another sugar plum to finish & to fill up d stomach!!

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Usually, i will made some extra meat balls / patties for the week's protein as it was an easier yet delicious choice so it won't go wrong!! Some extra meat were used to make the stuffed mushrooms too!

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Next are for the boys.............

This wasn't a healthy one i know : 2 pcs of sausages, 1 pc of meatball on the star shaped rice, 1 slice of snow skin moon cake (yeah, so early heh...), slices of peach & tomato sauce in the little container!

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2 pieces of cheese & ham roll, 1 pc of 'siew mai' with mayo for dipping. In d silicon cup was half kiwi & few slices of sugar plums.

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Seen above: half pc of whole meal apple bun, steam brocolli & 2 cube of sausages. In d silicon cup consists of BAKED rice+chicken floss+mozarella cheese top with a pc of star-ham!!

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Below are snack days:

The plastic scoop (spoon/knife) was purposely meant to make d kiwi fruit eating session a FUN one....know my boys well!!

P/S : I gotta knock myself hard....last saturday i tired myself out by making quite a few dishes into the freezer for the week ahead WITHOUT realising it was the week of school HOLIDAY..... arghhh........boo to myself !! "Cried" & show my grumpy face to huby in d hope that he would offer to help me finish the bento stash but his response was :

you finish them all lar !!

%^&#@ ***cilaka*** %^$#@

All in the name of BENTO ......

Argghhhh............haven't been able to put up a post this weekend, life is busy! Gotta make sure this is quick before the FINAL Badminton Men Single begin in an hour time .............. our dear Lee Chong Wei, please please please do us proud, love u to bits !!! Malaysia BOLEH, GOOD LUCK !!!

The other week when Mic (3rd sis) came over, i showed her some of my bento works & also all my cute bento accessories which i knew would be very NEW to her, being still a very young mom to a lil boy of 1 year ++! And having much taste & interest similar to mine, i knew she will be interested. True enough, she was thrilled & got very very excited that she kept bugging the huby to agree to how nice these things are!! She even told her baby that she would made bento for him when he grows older.....hahaha, so sampat !!

Mic is a cabin crew and she didn't tell me ahead that she will be going to Japan (probably bcoz i didn't really insist her to get me the bento tools as i'm afraid she might get duplicate stuffs for me). A week later, i was surprised that she called me after returning from Japan that she can't resist buying them after shopping in the 100 yen shop in Tokyo.......hahaha, u wouldn't believe how happy i was! The greatest thing was that this lil sis of mine was so right in her selection of the tools as some of them were really in my wish list, it's just that the pricing of getting them via ebay or nst are freakingly pricey!!

Can u imagine below 2-tier lunch box only cost approx.ly RM3++ each.......???

Below are the food separator/partition which are particularly the only accessories so far that i'd been holding my urge to buy as some of u may already know that it costs around RM20+/- each pack.....that's crazy right?? Thank god i didn't buy any of these yet.....Now i got them at less than RM5 each pack.......bwahahahaha.....so hepi !!!

Next are separate aluminium food container!

More cutters........

NOW, open your eyes big big & SEE.............don't get jealous hah !!!

(18 items for RM38....)

On a separate matter, bento is getting so much into my little ones' life lately that they even yearn to have sushi lunch during our weekend eat out at Ikano today! And check out these CUTE KIDDY Bento sets !!! How can i reject having them for the boys???

Sean with his boat set (but Sean claimed that it was a train instead of boat)

Scot with his aeroplane set !!!

Again unrelated matter (but still bento-related lar), finally i've got myself a PROPER lunch box since i began packing home food for lunch for the past month !! Thermos was having a promotion fair in Isetan, so i got myself this set of box at RM69 complete with insulated bag !!

This is a cooler box for storing cold food and spill proof complete with a compartment for spoon at RM18 each!

Finally it was more storage lock & lock boxes at reasonably good offer !!

What i like about this set was that the bag is wholly insulated too !!! Good for a picnic session heh!!

Finally, huby agreed to getting this new kitchen toy from IKEA today!! From having the thought of not going to utilise much of beautiful kitchen to realising my kitchen is too small for my busy cooking encountering today, it's hard to believe how life could evolved this way, haha...........

Aren't they all in the name of Bento ???? my gosh.....