Wordless Post : " WEEK of Burning the OVEN "

Pineapple rolls

Cornflakes, cereal cookies

Merry X'mas & A Happy New Year !!

Christmas is always a JOYFUL & MERRY occasion to me even before i married a Catholic!!
It was only after my marriage that i take the effort to make X'mas an important celebration in my household !!
It used to be an annual family affair to have a thanks giving dinner on the EVE of X'mas!!
But this year, we'll be celebrating it at a highland, few thousands feet above ground!
I have been traveling a lot lately leaving my kids behind so since it coincides with school holiday, huby & I decided to bring them to Cameron Highland tomorrow. This is the boys' first visit and my last visit was before marriage so time is due for a re-visit!!

Unfortunately this time around, i wasn't excited at all..... guess i'm just exhausted....my whole body feels so soft!! In fact, i'm so sick of packing luggage...particularly so when i'm traveling with my kids. Despite only a 1 night stay, there seems to be so much necessities to bring along...... *sien*!!

check it out
.......The boys & my clothings.......
.... this is a super big bag u know .....


...........Cleansing necessities...............

.........After-Wash necessities..........

.........Only Simple Make-Up necessity.........

...........Light Food necessity..........

Do you also consider these as necessities?? Will you also be compel to bring these much when you travel (alone or with kids) or is it bcoz i'm so " CHAR POU " only???


Luckily this time we have the grandparents (maternal side) & 2 of my younger sis tagging along the trip so i trust this would further add JOYS to the festival !!
And this year our thanks giving dinner will be a warm STEAMBOAT with a slightly cooling weather (hopefully) !!!

Here's our boring recycled X'mas Tree ..... economy no good ler .... so nothing new to the tree, except with my fatty Sean sitting beside it (whom has since grown so much "wider" this year)!!


Finally, a significant task for the occassion.......how can I not bake something for X'mas??
Yet it was only a simple & lazy version.

Banana Macademia Nuts Cupcakes
with Santa Claus & his gifts sack on his motorbike!!
Given more time, i wana try doing fondant on the X'mas cupcakes!!

Again, may you & your family be granted with a
WARM, JOYOUS & MERRY X'MAS !!!

and

A HAPPY "OX" NEW YEAR !!

Jac finally attended baking class ....

Yes, it finally 'happened'......... after much thoughts & fantasies of attending a baking class officially !!! Yet, it wasn't exactly those kind of baking courses which required some kind of commitment be it in the form of 'effort' or 'time' !!!

I had pre-selected a few places which offered my most required 'conveniences' ....eg. flexible 'one-off' lesson, i can choose the type of cakes to learn & the venue that must have hang-out place for my dearest chauffeur & kids to 'kill time' while waiting for me to finish my class, LOL !!!

I'm also very interested with "Apple Kitchen" lesson but unfortunately the location just isn't that desirable, so being much of a PJ person, Damansara is definitely a more sought after choice!


Yes, i learn baking 'TIRAMISU' with " SUNNY YAW " this afternoon!!
The fact that there weren't many participants this round, my 2 monkeys...huby & maid could actually stayed around while i attended my lesson !!!

geee.....see 'my dearest' so good hor ??
Actually if it wasn't the support & encouragement shown by 'him', i wouldn't even be pursuing this newly found passion of mine !!!

OK, enuf of all the 'yuk ma' stuffs.....back to my baking class.
The basic chocolate sponge cake for the base has been baked ahead (to safe up time) and the entire lesson actually concentrated in the making of the mousse/cream mixture which was the highlight of tiramisu anyway!!

But both huby & I took the opportunity to get Sunny's advice on the 'trick' to bake a moist & fluffy sponge cake as opposed to the heavy & dry cakes i usually baked!! Sponge cake might be the basic of baking cake but usually the 'simplest' thing isn't always the 'simplest' after all.....if u know what i mean?

The cake cut outs became the victim of my 2 hungry monsters!! Both of them were fighting for the moist chocolate cakes.....'sei mou' !!!


The whole thing was a pretty fast affair & very much easy than i would have thought....probably it was the hand of an expert that was doing the job. I will probably have to prove this one day when i have to do it all by myself. Sunny shared with me some of the brands of ingredients that he used, the places he got them & the prices too!! Of course not forgetting the step by step process of doing things!!



Well, apart from learning what i'm suppose to, the most valuable advice that i had from a professional baker was hearing & seeing with my very own eyes how the whipping cream miracally turned from a LIQUID form into beautifully whipped CREAM .....
that's my biggest baking challenge!!!
I even recorded down the process ........hahaha
Yes, my failure & mistakes all these while were due to over beating.......
guess, only "more PRACTISEs could MAKE it PERFECT" !!! slowly 'whipped' more la....

Here are the cream mixture with 2 flavours (green tea & coffee)


Then the cakes needed to be chilled for at least 1/2 an hour or 1 hour for best result ! That's when we excused ourselves to The Curve for the weekend needs and only picked up our cakes later!!

When we picked up the cakes, Sunny had already dressed up the cakes beautifully !!! Both Sunny & his partner Sidney were such pleasant gentlemen to deal with. Sunny even reminded me to call him should i still have any doubts/queries in my future baking journey....how nice heh!! I would certainly be back for more lessons.....

Here are THE ULTIMATE OUTCOMES !!




Eemm.....it would be another milestone if i can really made out something like this one day!!!

HAPPY 6th BIRTHDAY !!!

As usual we had a few rounds of celebration for the boys' birthday....i wonder when i will stop torturing myself with these!!

Yesterday (a week day) was their actual big day so last weekend, on SUNDAY we had a pre-birthday party at home only with my immediate family members but that was already enough to caused me into being a "cooking maniac", as i have 5 sisters all together with only the youngest being single. So together with the hubbies, kiddos, my parents, sister MIL, 2 maids, there were at least 19 mouths to feed!

So bear with all my back-dated posts with the amount of tasks that i had to swallow for the past weekend !! Again the photos will do more talking here....

Tesco has these balloons with the age of the birthday, interesting heh!!

The culture continues ....

... The kiddos ...

Great to see ppl enjoying my masterpiece.........hah hah

B'day boy no.1 Sean with cousin


B'day boy no.2 Scot with cousin

Their activities ..... games




Sam yee with Nic & Wyee





So, what did i offered?



*** A BUFFET ala JAPANESE STYLE ***






I had contemplated to do tempura prawn like forever but none was successful, thus far.....sigh!

Anyone can advise how to make the prawn stay straight & DO NOT curl after cooked, chris??

*** SOBA ***

*** SUSHI, INARI ***

*** FRIED STUFFS ***

Apart from the above, I BAKED TOO .....

*** Vanilla sponge cupcakes with FLORA egg whites icing ***

*** Not just baked one type but TWO ***

*** CREAM CHEESE WALNUT BROWNIE ***

I also made 'Serimuka' kuih to ensure the stomachs get FULL coz it's glutinous rice ma...haha

I almost can't believe that i made it thru (it was like a milestone achieved...hehe).

You know what, the fact that my BIL commented that "only the effort put in to do these were already suffice to give a big applause & appreciation with the "TASTE" of the food being secondary already"......how touching!!

p/s: and my "loukung" didn't forget to say "san foo sai" mumy (really hard work of me) that night before we retired, hahaha !!

The boys were not behaving well this time, without even realising, they went & opened the presents!!

PRESENTS

LEGO

(notice the little kiddo disturbing & got sean ko-ko annoyed...so cute)

SAFETY HELMET

finally got them

There were 2 more MIND games that Godpa & 'sam yi' bought but forgotten to snap pic.

On the actual big day, mumy & dady treated the boys to their favourite piece of cakes from Secret recipe!!

These are what we got them....cheaper version of the PDA, somethg the boys had been eyeing for quite a while (despite not exactly knowing how it works). About RM35 each...good gadget!!

And guess what, since the boys will be bidding farewell to their little classmates of 3 years after graduated this year, we planned for a celebration in the kindy this coming Friday in conjunction with Party Day (last day of school)!!

Stay tune for the BIG Surprise for them!!

till then .... continue to be busy folks!

A Fruitful weekend that has been long lost ......

Our weekend was usually filled with outings (merely means away from home even if it's only a trip to the shopping mall). Maybe both huby & I are not the type who enjoy staying at home. We also felt that we are obligated to spend sometime with the boys at either public playground or paid play centre or a reading session at the bookstore!! With that, it means i hardly have a peaceful time managing household affairs given that there are so many other things that eats up my time, BENTO.....BLOGGING......BAKING (not enough???)

This past weekend, i felt i'd achieved so much !!! So many tasks accomplished !!! First of all, the boys' mountain of TOYS at home had been seriously in an UGLY sight! Over the years & months, the toys only got to accumulate and had never been downsized !!! Just about anywhere i could find space to hide their toys, there they would be buried.....esp. in time when there will be guests visiting & we were running short of time to tidy up.

The worst victim of all was the TV cabinet. Other than the middle portion of the TV top was occupied to place the TV, the rest of the compartments were ALL FILLED UP with toys!

... THE MAIN TOY CABINET has already been over crowded ...


... THE LEFT SIDE OF TV ...

... THE LEFT CUBICLE ...

... THE RIGHT CUBICLE ...

... THE MIDDLE DRAWER ...

... EVEN ANY BASKET AROUND WAS NOT SPARED ...

I had long wanted to do a housekeeping of those toys that they have out grown !!
So i'd finally picked up the spirit to sort out those toys that are still in good condition & those that can be thrown. In the end, i had a big pack of toys that can be recycled. I will be donating them to the orphanage house!

Despite being busy on that day, i still cooked them a simple lunch as i was not in the mood to go out until my mission of settling down with the TOYS was completed !!

Site track a bit...I realised that even for meal time at home, these bento boxes are excellent use for the kids!! Not only that they increase the kids' appetite, they hold food better for kids since they have a deeper space, hence would eliminate the chance of the food spilling off as compared to using a plate instead !!
Furthermore, isn't it wise that i utilise them more since i'd invested so much in these boxes.....heh ??!!

Anyway, the job of sorting, arranging & storing of all the long jumbled up toys were really killing me. It nearly took my whole saturday off, with several breaks in between for cooking, lunch, baking snacks for tea, entertaining "the fights" at home & etc....until i was all sweaty & soaky!!

I can even baked a simple cherry muffins with mixed nuts (i was trying to finish of the left over cherries from the earlier baking session of the Black Forest Cake)

I finally gave it a FULL STOP at 4pm as i had completed nearly 80% of the job and wouldn't care less for the remaining.....!! I took a good shower & decided to rest & nap for awhile with the boys. But the boys just wouldn't cooperate. They continued to talk & talk on the bed & refuse to sleep. Suddenly Sean said he had a 'stomachache' of which i asked if it's a poo that he needs, but only to realise his stomach pain means 'hungry'...hahaha !! It was already close to 6pm. So, i thought i better start cooking dinner. As i was busy trying to speed up my cooking, suddenly it was all quiet out there.

And this was the sight i discovered !!!

Aduh....yeah such tired they were !!!

I retired my Saturday after watching the final 2 episodes of the Last One Standing series shown at Astro On Demand.

SUNDAY

Next Sunday morning, as expected i was forced to wake up early again. I didn't cooked them any breakfast but just snacking some left over muffins. Then i started changing the table runner, cushion covers, table & cabinet cloths.....basically all the "tidying-up-the-house" tasks....once again a long overdue one!! Then, i proceeded to pack my luggage for an upcoming trip next week...probably a post on this next !! By the time i was done, it was nearly 10am and thought i should be planning for brunch already. I was kind of tired & boring then so i thought it would be a win-win situation if i could send the boys of to a play centre (which has been much needed anyway) while i relief myself with a nail job & some retail therapy!! So off we went to Mid Valley & had our brunch at Oh Sushi. Then i got the boys registered at Megakids & left 'potato' minding them while i quickly headed to the salun, just a floor down. I dare not think about indulging into a full menicure spa or the like as i would never know when my mobile would ring just in case the boys need me to attend!! So it was just a quick "cut+shape+buffing" session which lasted less than 30mins. I was all prepared to forgo the nail job if the queue is long but thank god, i was immediately served once i walked in. After i had my nails polished nice & shine, i even had enough time to shop for a much needed pair of legging !!!
I had a quiet peaceful moment all by myself for nearly 1 hour & no interruption at all until i became worried. So i went back to check on them. And I had my query answered, the boys met their school mate and they had a good time playing together. The boys were even reluctant to leave. On our way to the car park, the boys were still not contended & wanted to eat ice-cream. SO they had a scoop each in the car. By the time we reached home, it was about 3pm & we all hadn't eaten anything after our sushi brunch!! So i made a quick snack for tea.

The boys called it :

... Mummy's McDonald meal ...
just because i had some french fries there, hehehe !!!


I just threw in the marinated chicken & the baby potatoes into the oven & bring them to cook while toasted few slices of bread with cheese in the toaster. Frying those little fries on the non-stick pan was rather quick & hassle-free too.


Place the chicken strips on the toast & squeeze some tomato sauce!
That's mumy's version of BURGER, hahaha......


Scot love it so much that he specifically requested the same 'burger' for Monday's Bento. Since i had balance of the chicken chop, i fulfilled his request. Will try to post that up soon.

To end this long 'rojak' post, i'll present you the master piece of this week !!

... Tadda ...

These were done on Friday night, this time with my youngest sister who place "an order" with me for cupcakes & konyaku jellies. She had a pot luck session with her colleague mates on Sat & offered herself to bring desserts!! She must have had a super real big guts for trusting her "setengah masak"/"half-boiled" skilled sister, hahaha !! And this super good sister gave away the orders absolute free of charge.....it was just to satisfy her baking & decorating bugs, hehe....

Anyway, to reduce the chances of failure, i asked her to buy 'pre-mix' flour & i only added blueberries & carrots into the cakes to create 2 flavours!! This time around, i found a tentative solution to my icing problem. I tried using the alternative to whipping cream i.e. meringue powder to made my icing topping and i have to say that this is so much easier to handle as compared to the whipping cream!! And those cute little carrots were bought candy, not made by me, ok!! Oooh, i just HEART the super white icing carrot cupcake (anyway looks nice doesn't necessarily guarantee good taste, ok)!!

Hope you had a good time enjoying our weekend's happenings !!

Have another great week ahead !!