Mrs Extraordinary Romancing the Everyday Ordinary

Am back

2011-11-16T20:42:00.005+08:00

I am able to find time today to update... finally, but I don't want to blabber, let's get straight to the point...
I made this:

for kids after school snack

and as for dinner, we had this:

All from taste.com.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

This and that

2011-05-10T14:29:00.000+08:00

After a long wait, finally I see beribu ribu lemon at our side yard :

Orange cake from here for kids lunch boxes:

Mother's Day gift from my little Angel - coconut ice prepared at school

Yeay...got myself a pair of ugg boots for my birthday from my darling last week ... finally my feet will stay warm...

Testing

2011-03-21T23:43:00.000+08:00

I m just testing ... dah lama tak update blog. Don't know if I remember me or not how to do it. I m testing pakai iPhone saja. Kalau berjaya then I can start updating again pakai iPhone. That will be more convenient. Sambil baring pun boleh update. Tapi macam tak boleh nak add photo from iPhone terus ke blog!!!??? Malas lah nak update if cannot add gambar terus :(
Besok lah will investigate further the possibility of adding photo terus from iPhone while updating a new post pakai iPhone.

Ronnie James Dio and nasi kerabu

2010-05-19T22:40:00.001+08:00

I am just so not in the mood to update. Ni pun paksa juga diri to write something, kalau tak nanti bersawang sawang lah lagi rumah ni. Tak ada mood sebab tak ada apa yg happening pun. Tulis pun you all boring nak baca.

Let me see, since Monday morning I had to put up listening to Ronnie James Dio's songs. Ronnie James Dio died on Sunday/Monday and since then my darling decided to endlessly listen to Dio's songs. Darling I ni kan dulu (masih lagi) mat rock. Tapi sejak dah tua sikit ni, memang dah tak dgr lagu rock lagi. Sebab tu I was taken by surprise suddenly Monday morning rumah I riuh dgn lagu rock. I asked him apasal pula dok dgr lagu rock, that's when he told me that Dio died. I ni sebenarnya tak kenal pun Dio tu. But surely I've heard of his songs especially lagu 'Holy Diver' tu but I couldnt be bothered to find out who the singer was. Also on that Monday, I terkejut dog sekejap bila tgk my darling pakai his old 'Rainbow' t-shirt. That is a 25 yr old t-shirt I think and I am sure he has forgotten of its existence. If I am not mistaken dia tempah t-shirt tu dkt Pertama Complex. Entah macamana dia boleh teringat balik baju tu and korek his closet looking for it.

So for now, itu sajalah highlight dlm hidup I. Dengar lagu rock saban hari. See, memang tak happening, sebab tu malas nak update. Ohh wait, 2 days ago I made nasi kerabu sempoi...and I am proud of it, sebab I tak pernah pun buat nasi kerabu before this. Kalau dkt Malaysia buat apa nak buat, baik beli aje. But here I have to be creative, kalau nak makan kena buat sendiri kan, so this is my nasi kerabu with ayam percik :)

Shorter days and hindi movies

2010-05-16T17:43:00.000+08:00

These past few days ni memang dah sah that winter is is just around the corner. Tiap hari sejuk. We need to use the heater now to keep ourselves comfortably warm, and at the same time berdoa janganlah gas bill nanti melambung tinggi. Baju pun dah berlapis, selimut dah berlapis and the days are getting shorter and shorter...which reminds me that its time to ganti puasa (selalu mengelat macam ni).

Speaking of shorter days, Maghrib now masuk around 5.30pm. Kelam kabut I tiap hari nak masak dinner cepat cepat sebelum gelap so that bila dah gelap sikit boleh terus makan dinner. Semalam I teringin lah nak buat tea, by the time I masuk kan my cake into the oven, it was about 4.30pm, then I went out kejap ajar kakak to drive (yes, now she is taking driving lessons from me - nanti lain kali I buat entry on this), bila balik about 5 lebih took the cake out tunggu sejuk, dah nak gelap hari. Nak serve tea dkt my back yard among my roses pun dah tak boleh. So ingat nak buat desert aje my cake tu, but my darling insisted for tea, maka ber'tea' lah we all during twilight.

Masa ambik gambar ni it was just around 5.30pm I rasa. I didnt use flash pun, but nampak kan dah gelap suasana.

By the way I made butter cream cheese cake. I dah pernah buat dulu and the recipe is here

Semalam malam teringin pula nak tengok cerita hindustan. Dah lama tak tengok tau. Actually bila buka movie channel dkt Foxtel, Slumdog Millionaire was on. Sedap pula dengar lagu Jai Ho. So I pun selongakar my vcd collections and settled on Kabhie Kushi Kabhie Gum. Who watched with me? Mula mula Angel sorang, then kakak datang, lepas tu my darling pula seret bean bag and tengok sekali. Cuma gambar aje tak clear, al maklum lah it was a cetak rompak vcd (not even a dvd). So bila balik cuti Msia bebila nanti, kena masuk to do list to visit kedai dvd and borong banyak banyak cerita hindustan.

Escape to the country - Jarrahdale

2010-05-14T17:14:00.002+08:00

Yesterday we took a short drive to Jarrahdale, a small historic town nestled in the hills just 50 Km south of Perth. Lately I've been watching too much of the programmes at Foxtel's 'How to' channel. This channel has programmes similar to the programmes that you find in HGTV channel in the US. Best lah tengok all the shows that give decorating ideas and I especially like this particular British programme 'Escape to the country'. It basically shows couples looking for properties in the countryside. Most of the houses are period houses with characters and what I love most is that the properties have amazing view of the country. Mula lah berangan our retirement plan cari rumah in the country.

Oh but well, here are some of the photos I managed to snap yesterday. Semalam pula was a truly autumn day, sejuk tak sampai 20 C pun. Red and gold leaves were scaterred everywhere.

Reminds me of a song I learned in school 'The Autumn Leaves':

The falling leaves drift by my window
The falling leaves of red and gold
I see your lips, the summer kisses
The sunburned hands I used to hold

Since you went away the days grow long
And soon I'll hear old winter's song
But I miss you most of all, my darling
When autumn leaves start to fall

Since you went away the days grow long
And soon I'll hear old winter's song
But I miss you most of all, my darling
When autumn leaves start to fall

I miss you most of all, my darling
When autumn leaves start to fall

Happy Mother's Day

2010-05-09T19:30:00.000+08:00

Assalamualaikum and happy mother's day to everyone.

Waking up this morning, I was pleasantly surprised by a homemade shopping bag hanging from the bathroom door handle. And dkt dalam pula ada a box of chocolate. Later on I was pleasantly surprised again by another homemade shopping bag with a beautiful homemade card. Those shopping bags came from Bunches and Angel. I rasa memang sekolah they all ni buat project besar-besaran guna a plain shopping bag and the kids could decorate the bags for their mums.

And Kakak pula got me a gift card from a bookstore. Terbeliak I tengok she spent $30 to get me the card. I knew she used her savings from the pay that she got when she was working dulu. I amat lah terharu bila tengok the kids went all out and spent mney on me. I told them please janganlah waste your money on me like that. Beli I chocolate yg seringgit lebih pun I dah more than appreciate.

Because of that, I decided to treat them to something sweet. Sebenarnya I teramat lah guilty with the thoughts that they showed me. So I prepared some sweet treats for them. This was very unplanned for, so I pun kelam kabut went to the convenience store and beli barang for my baking needs.

This was the result, tea with shortbread and brownies:

And they so deserve it, as without them I wont be a mother, right ....

And these are my mother's day gifts:

Some of you might be wondering kenapa I terlalu lama menyepikan diri. As usual kalau tak kerana busy yg teramat, tak kan I akan menyepi lama macam ni. My previous landlord sold the house the we used to live in, maka berpindah randah lah we all sekali lagi. And on top of that I had an exam coming, mana nak mengemas and mana nak study lagi. But Alhamdulillah, exam was over a few days ago, and I've sort of settled down now with most of the unpacking already done, though if you tengok my garage and my shed masih lagi macam tongkang pecah. Hopefully after today I'll be able to spare some time blogging :)

Long Weekend

2010-03-01T22:46:00.000+08:00

Bestkan, bukan Malaysia aje yg dapat long weekend. We all in Perth pun dapat long weekend juga, but of course due to a very different reason. Ours is due to Labor Day which falls on the 1st of March, bukanlah sebab Perth nak menyambut Maulidurrasul. But definitely the mosques here had programmes to commemorate the occasion.

Walaupun cuti panjang, tapi susah le sikit nak enjoy sakan sebab the weather was scorching hot, mak datuk habis habis scorching. Padahal hari ni 1st March dah officially masuk autumn, but the temperature still rose up to 38 C rasanya. Habislah bill letrik I bulan ni, air cond almost 24 hours.

Sepanjang this long weekend, I mostly had to play chauffeur to the kids. They all ni pun ada macam macam programmes lah kan, party lah, sleep over lah. Kesian sangat dkt I terpaksa drive dalam panas panas ni.

Since I banyak ambik gambar over the weekend, what I'll do for this entry is to paste all the photos in chronological order and storey morey from there.

Friday evening, Gebu went to a LAN party. Huh...you might ask what is a LAN party, hmmm party orang zaman sains n teknologi lah katakan. The definition can be found at wikipedia. I think ada about 10 boys who attended the party, semua bawa sorang satu laptop, they sat around a table and played computer games for a few hours. Ada lah juga internmission to makan, kalau tak bukan party lah namanya. Because the host was a Chinese boy, Gebu siap bawa balik angpow lagi. I juga lah yg jadi drebar pergi hantar n ambik dia. And that night I prepared pizza for dinner. FYI, I tengah malas tahap gaban now ni to cook. I buat cincai cincai aje. Letak cheese, tomato paste, and basil saja. Tapi sebab I sumbat cream cheese dlm crust pizza tu, maka pizza I tu tetap laku habis.

The next day Saturday nya pula, Angel was to attend a Hawaiian theme birthday party. Present nya I dah beli a few days before that. Sweetkan:

Cuma yg buat pening was to dress her up in a Hawaiian costume. Manalah nak cari tali rambu rambu for her skirt. Selongkar selongkar her closet dapat lah seluar and baju bunga bunga walaupun the colours dont match at all. Bunches pula happened to have getah rambut bunga, and she was kind enough to pinjamkan to her sister. I said kind enough sebab budak berdua ni selalunya macam anjing dgn kucing, kalau dapat pinjam meminjam tu, kira bagus sangat lah. Angel wished to have a flower wreath around her neck, so right before the party we went to Carousel to get her the wreath. And this is the result:

Yg dalam pink bag tu were her bathers and towel, because the kids were going to jump into the pool during the party. Mujur we all ada this big hawaiian towel, so kena sangat lah dgn the party theme.

Sunday pula we went to the mosque for the maulidurrasul celebration. Thank God it was a windy morning, so tak lah terasa sangat kepanasan bila nak berarak.

Thats Angel in the left photo and Bunches and Kakak (in green/blue) in the right photo.

This is inside the mosque itself, Angel with the rest of the little kiddies at the front row.

The kids during nasyid, Angel sempat kunyah lollipop lagi.

The food at the mosque was very yummylicious, nasi beriani with segala macam lauk, I makan penuh pinggan. Bila sampai rumah saja terus tertidur sebab terlalu kekenyangan.

And later that night, a friend ajak we all pergi tengok fireworks organized by Ctiy of melville. We all ni malas juga nak tgk fireworks tapi kalau pergi ramai ramai best juga. Its the company that counts. I pun suruh Gebu bawa DSLR ambik gambar firework using the tips given by blog owner Salam2benua. Pandai I main delegate aje to my son, sebab I memang malas nak belajar selok belok DSLR ni.

And today, the end of a long weekend, I went grocery shopping. I normally pergi Market City at Canningvale because I like the fruit n vege store there, banyak variety and fresher than Woolys. Also ada asian grocer across from it yg ada berbagai bagai Asian food stuff, sampai ke cencaluk and budu pun ada. Kalaulah ada tempoyak, lagilah happy I.

Tengoklah apa I bawa balik, tomato sos cap maggi, asam laksa maggi, cream crackers yg ada gula (utk cicah dgn air teh).

And finally our dinner tonight, mee rebus Kedah. Tapi kurang pekatlah pula. I couldnt cook rice tadi, sebab guarantee tak kan laku punya after the kids melantak nasi dkt masjid semalam. Walaupun my mee tu cair, tetap laku because its not rice. I sorang aje lah yg kempunan nasi.

Settling down

2010-02-25T14:27:00.001+08:00

Dah dekat 4 minggu kan I tak update my blog. I pun tak sangka that I was going to be this busy when school started beginning of the month. Suddenly saja I did not have the time to sit down and blog. You might be wondering, apa lah yg I busy sangat kan, I pun tak tahu apa yg buat I jadi teramat busy. Agaknya sebab I have 4 kids, 2 in high school and 2 in primary. All of them have different needs, requirements, activities, and there was only me alone to manage them. And I've also decided that this year I would give extra attention to their studies. Selama dua tahun that I moved here, I've never really sat down on a regular basis and keep myself informed on what they learned in school. Sebab dekat sini the schooling system macam lagi relax from what they went through in Malaysia, so I pun relax aje lah let them go at their own pace. Exam pun macam hardly ada saja.

Tapi I've decided to berazam baru tahun ni. After all Kakak is already in yr 12, her final year in school. I kena lah buka mata besar besar to make sure that she's on top of everything, no more honeymooning for her. Last year pun macam sipi sipi aje result dia. She's doing 6 subjects for her TEE this year, Math, Human Bio, Physics, Chem, Acctg and English. The first week tu she seemed to be struggling with her Physics, so I had to look for a tutor to help her. So now we had a tutor coming in once a week to help her with Physics. Subjects yg lain tu, dia kata alright lagi. Kalau accounting, I sendiri boleh tolong. Chemistry hopefully her daddy can help her there. Yg lain lain tu sendiri kena usaha. I kept telling her, at least she's not doing SPM yg ada 10 seubjects, so consider yourself lucky with only 6 subjects.

Gebu pula already in year 10, a senior at school. His math result was not that good last year, so I went to see the yr 10 head of math dept to ask for advice. Biasalah, dia kena double up his effort and I kena make sure that his effort IS doubled up. Almost tiap malam I sit down with him to help him with Math and all other subjects. So far ok, the only subject that he's struggling with now is English. I pun pening dgn English ni. Adoiii...pening kepala I tutoring him with his English. They are now learning about short stories and analysing the stories, macam kena study the plot, the structure, the characters, the climax, the language....Menggelabah I, ye lah dulu dkt Malaysia, we learned English so differently. I nak kena hantar dia pergi English tuition juga lah nampak gayanya. Another option for us is for him to do ESL. Yang tu senang sikit. I pun dulu masa buat SAM, I did ESL. But we'll see how he goes this first term.

Yang lagi dua orang tu, I pun make them sit with me malam malam and I belikan workbook for them to practise on their English and Math. Bunches who's in year 7 now pula tengah sibuk with her assignment on winter olympic. She's got to look for points, write a draft and finally come up with the final copy on the history of winter olympics, the sports events involved, how Australia is doing in the game and entah apa lagi entah, and its due sometime next month. Macam tu lah sibuknya my household sekarang. Not to mention my normal routine of preparing their meals, lunch boxes, and other houseworks. Dan dilupa jangan, that I also have my final CPA paper in May. Sibukkan...:)) Patutlah tak ada time nak ber blog.

Come, I'll show you what I do in the morning, or in other words, the lunch boxes yg I prepare tiap pagi. Each kid will have lebih kurang 3 container for food and 1 botol air. Yg colourful small container tu, is for their fruits. This morning they all bawa kiwi fruit and strawberries. The square container dkt bawah tu pula their sandwiches, today its tuna sandwich and thats for their lunch. I also made banana cupcake this morning for their morning break. That will go into another container, tak nampak dkt gambar bawah ni. Macam tu lah tiap pagi, I need to figure out what they should have for lunch and morning break. The fruits pula I've decided masa I buat grocery shopping, and make sure I beli buah yg senang nak bawa and potong. Kan senang kalau I boleh letak a giant apple, tapi guarantee kalau tak berpotong, ada lah yg bawa balik after school in that same original condition.

And the rest of the photos, are just photos I took for the blog but never got the time to write an entry. So tengok aje lah gambar, the story, I sendiri pun dah tak ingat apa cerita di sebalik gambar. :)

Chicken hor fun.

Oreo cheesecake

This is pavlova....first time in my life I buat pavlova and am mighty proud of it :)

Angel cyclying at the back yard wearing entah apa apa punya outfit. She likes to dress up merepek repek macam ni.

My Keanu Reeves

2010-02-01T00:36:00.003+08:00

Dah nak almost midnight baru ada masa nak update my blog. Mata pun dah tak berapa boleh buka, padahal I need to go to bed early, sebab school will start tomorrow. In a way I lega juga sekolah dah nak buka. Apa taknya, lebih dari sebulan budak budak ni bercuti - penat I melayan they all dgn seribu satu macam punya kerenah. Finally tomorrow I can have peaceful and quiet time at home.

Meh I nak letak the photo of my lowest profile kid, Gebu. Kan jarang gambar dia I letak dkt blog, sebab memang teramatlah susah nya I nak ambil gambar dia. Kadang kadang nak kena berkejar kejar dgn dia kalau nak ambil gambar dia. Sometime I nak kena jadi macam papparazi pula kalau nak ambil gambar dia, make sure dia tengah tak sedar baru boleh snap. Budak tengah nak jadi macho lah kata kan. Ini pun he agreed to have his photo taken sebab dia baru dapat a new pair of specially ordered sunglasses. Itu pun dia pesan jgn letak dkt facebook, malu lah tu kalau kawan dia tengok gambar dia - he didnt say jgn lketak dkt blog :). I tell you, if ever I letak gambar dia dkt facebook and tag his name, sure dia akan remove kan the tagging.

For the past few months, we've been noticing that his eyes were sometimes red. Macam urat dlm mata tu jadi terlebih merah. Heran juga kan. Ada juga dia rasa pedih kadang kadang. So my darling brought him to the optometrist to have his eyes checked. According to the optometrist, mata Gebu tu dah kena sunburnt. He cycles a lot, so that is when his eyes got sun burnt. Kan summer ni tengah panas, and time cuti pula, he and his friends would spend time cycling around the neighbourhood and pernah juga dia cycle sampai ke city. The optopmetrist pun prescribed kan lah dia a pair of sunglasses. Hah...saja aje si Gebu ni pilih frame ala ala Keanu Reeves dlm matrix. Kakak was the one who told me, Gebu wanted to look like Keanu Reeves dlm Matrix.

Ada gaya Keanu Reeves ke? Perasan dia sekejap jadi Keanu Reeves masa pakai sunnies tu.

Dapat aje sunnies tu, terus keluar naik basikal nak jumpa kawan.

Ok, masak masak time. This is what I baked 2 days ago, cream cheese pound cake. Sungguh lembut dan gebu (macam my Kenau Reeves Gebu) the texture of the cake - masuk bakul angkat sendiri ;) Tapi I tak tipu, it was so gebu, my kids minta I buat lagi.

The Recipe

Ingredients
250gm cream cheese
1 and 1/2 stick butter
2 cups sugar
6 eggs
Vanilla Essence
3 cups flour

Preparation
Cream butter and sugar. Beat in cream cheese. Add flour, alternating with the eggs, beginning and ending with flour. Stir in vanilla. Pour batter into a greased and floured 10-inch tube pan or Bundt cake pan. Bake at 150° for about 1 hour and 15 minutes to 1 hour and 25 minutes, until a wooden pick comes out clean when inserted in the center. Let cool in pan for 10 minutes, then remove to a rack to cool completely.

Actually I separuh kan the ingredients masa buat so my cake tu kecik lah sikit.

And this morning, I had a friend came over for breakfast. They just arrived from Malaysia for a short holiday, so singgah rumah I kejap. I prepared nasi lemak, makanan ruji for breakfast. Apa yg I thrill dgn my nasi lemak is that, for the first time in my life I buat sambal I menjadi. Bukan lah nak kata selama ni sambal I tak menjadi, but my sambals were usually cair (so tak berapa jadi lah tu kan). So semalam I googled sana sini nak cari tips on how to get a sambal yg pekat. Kak Hanieliza ada mentioned yg masa tumis tu kena tumis lama. Some of the other tips kata, kena pakai minyak banyak, bawang blend kan sikit dgn ikan bilis, but most importantly, kena tumis lama, sampai close to 2 hours nak siap kan the sambal tumis. And its best to cook it 1 day ahead, just like curry kan, lepas sehari baru sedap. So semalam beria ia lah I di dapur dgn sambal tumis I. I tumis cili kisar with belacan for about 30 min, baru I masukkan bawang blend and biar lagi for another 20 min or so, kira sampai betul pecah minyak. Then masuk air secawan and biar kering lagi, masuk lagi air secawan and biar kering lagi sekali. Masuk air asam, rasakan dgn garam and gula perang. And finally I am proud to say that my sambal pass with a distinction...heh..heh..ini I sendiri yg bagi grading.

This is what I prepared for the breakfast tadi, lupa pula nak ambil close up of my sambal tumis.

The Hunt is Over and sticky cinnamon rolls

2010-01-29T02:10:00.000+08:00

Yes the hunt for the ball gown is over ...phew...tetapi phew lah juga bila tengok credit card I digelek with the amount. Nak kata mahal tu tak lah sangat tapi nak kata murah pun tak lah juga. Habis, nak buat macamana. The best option was to buy in Malaysia, and silap we all tak beli masa we all balik raya hari tu. Satu tak sempat nak shopping for gown masa tu, and keduanya pula I thought we were going back to Malaysia for summer, tapi tak jadi balik, kenalah cari baju di sini juga. It was a bargain juga because the gown memang discount habis, in fact more than 50% discount. They have a rack of reduced price gowns which were actually last season's design and harganya telah diturunkan sejak boxing day hari tu. Masa masuk kedai, we planned to browse saja lah macam biasa. That was what we did when we visited the 2 other stores previously. Tapi kedai ni punya lah agak besar and spacious (yg dulu tu sempit sempit, leceh nak move around), and it had more choices. The sales assistant tu pula kata, you must try pakai the baju and dia pun tolong pilih kan gown gown untuk try. Hmmm...I think Kakak tried 5 ke 7 gowns entah, sampai conpius lah we all (we : Kakak, Bunches and me). Apa tak conpius nya, they were all lovely, kembang sana, kilat sini, yg tak kembang pun cantik, they flowed nicely. Mujur the store ada plush sofa near its fitting room. I duduk sajalah sambil Kakak parade around in one gown after another. Bunches pula would follow Kakak into the fitting room and helped with the zipper, hook, macam jadi assistant tolong kakak dia pakai baju lah, sebab some of the gowns tu complicated juga nak sarong. But I think sure dia pun tengah berangan of the ball gown yg dia nak pakai in 5 years time.

After awhile, Kakak managed to narrow down her choices to 2 gowns, and di sinilah stressnya bermula. She retried the 2 gowns tu 2 or 3 times more to make the right decision. I suka yg kembang macam princess, the sales assistant suka yg straight cut but with beads penuh on the chest (kiranya tak payah pakai jewellery). Bunches pula sekejap suka yg ini, lepas tu dia suka yg itu. Kakak tanya which one look good on her, we said they both looked good on her. Bertambah stress lah dia. . Finally after about 1 and 1/2 hour there, she made her decision, and I think she made the right choice, insyaallah..

Tapi tak dapat lah I nak cakap gown mana, and also sekali kali tidak dapat I nak letak gambar nya di sini. Sabar lah ye, insyaallah will post the photo after the ball in April nanti.

Sebab tak dapat letak gambar gown, I letak gambar I main masak masak hari ni. Petang tadi, for the first time in my life I buat sticky cinnamon rolls and sweet buns.

Meh I typekan the recipe dkt sini. I used the breadmaker to make the sweet dough:

Water 350ml
Egg, lightly beaten 1 x 60g (tak adalah I nak menimbang telur tu)
Butter or oil 2 tbl
Salt 1 tsp
Sugar 2 tbl
Bread Flour 600g/ 4 cups
Milk powder 3 tbl
Bread improver 1 tsp
Yeast 2 1/4 tsp

Campaklah semua ke dalam bread maker and pilih setting untuk dough.
Bila mesin dah berenti, roll the dough into square ke atau rectangle ke tak kisahlah.
Melt 3 tbl butter (I used more, lagi sedap), brush half over dough.
Sprinkle brown sugar, sultana, and ground cinnamon.
Drizzle remaining butter.
Roll up widthwise and cut into 2cm slices.
Place on lightly greased baking tray, 5 cm apart.
Cover with lightly greased plastic wrap and stand warm in area until doubled in size.
Remove wrap.
Bake in preheated oven at 180 cels for 25 to 30 min or until golden brown.
Brush with melted butter.

Yang sweet buns tu, bulat bulat kan aje lah dough tu, biar naik doubled the size and bakar sekali.

Sebab dah semangat buat rolls ni so bila dinner malas nya nak masak, tapi kena juga masak, kalau tak masak nak makan apa pula ekk.. I buat moi sajalah - you all panggil bubur nasi tapi I panggil moi. I dont know why I call it moi, tapi memang my mum and all my relatives panggil moi. Sebab kita orang Utara agaknya.

Tak payah lah letak resipi ni, rebus beras saja and letak santan bila dah nak siap. Lepas tu makan dgn kicap, daun bawang, bawang goreng and yg panjang panjang tu ikan kering. Sedap, juga :)

Australia Day and Serimuka

2010-01-27T00:07:00.003+08:00

Oh, I am still down with this malas to update blog fever. Sebenarnya I rasa my kepala dok berserabut with many 'to do things'. Biasalah I ni, am so bad at prioritising. Next week sekolah dah nak start. Though I dah beli all school books and stationeries, I havent yet wrapped the books. Lepas tu uniform for Gebu and Bunches pun belum beli. They are the only ones who need new uniform because they had outgrown the old ones. Yang budak lagi berdua tu, macam still muat lagi dgn uniform lama. And kerja dkt rumah ni pun macam bertimbun tak habis saja. Biasalah bila sekolah cuti and all kids are home, I rasa macam kerja I terbanyak pula melayan they all.

Anyway, hari ni Australia Day. Tak salah I the British formally took possession of Australia on the 26th of January 1788.The highlight of the day is definitely the city of Perth skyworks at 8pm. From my experience last year, dari siang lagi orang dah mula kumpul ber picnic and berlepak (oh teruknya my BM) at the Swan River foreshore.

But us, we stayed home. Anak anak I dah malas nak tengok firework. They would rather stay home. I tanya juga if anybody was interested to go to the city and watch the firework. Hmmmpphh...semua tak nak...semua except for Bunches yg tergedik gedik nak ikut kawan dia naik houseboat and watch the firework from the boat right on the Swan River. Walaupun I tak bagi, she insisted to go juga, biasalah my drama queen tu. Siap bermacam macam drama tadi she put up to get her way. Last last called my darling and after my darling bagi green light baru I let her go. Huh...thats life with a teenager (and I have 3 of them)

So, sementara semua ber Australia Day di luar sana, I sibuk di dapur and made Serimuka Pelangi. But I wont call it serimuka pelangi, mine looked more like a serimuka christmas. Tak sangka bila siap, and I tengok colour my serimuka sebiji macam christmas colour. Got the recipe from Hana's blog. But hers looked so cantik kan, mine biasalah, hasil amatur, asal siap boleh makan and the kids suka.

Macam warna christmas kan:

The recipe, copied from Hana's blog:

Bahan-bahan

Lapisan bawah

2 cawan beras pulut - cuci dan rendamkan 3 jam
21/2 cawan santan cair
1 sudu teh garam
sehelai daun pandan

Lapisan atas

1/2 cawan tepung gandum
1/2 cawan tepung kastard
2 cawan santan pekat
1 biji telur
3 sudu makan gula - hana buh 5 sudu
sedikit garam
pewarna kuning, hijau, merah (ikut suka) - I only used two colours

Cara-cara

Panaskan periuk kukus hingga air mendidih.
Masukkan semua lapisan bawah dan kukus hingga masak.
Apabila masak, kluarkan daun pandan dan tekan pulut ke dalam loyang sehingga mampat. - k.ct menggunakan plastik sebagai alas loyang supaya senang nak keluarkan.
Bancuh semua bhn2 lapisan pelangi kecuali pewarna kemudian tapiskan.
Bahagikan adunan kepada 3 mangkuk. Masukkan setiap mangkuk satu warna pilihan.
Kukus semula pulut yg telah dimampatkan.
Tuang lapisan merah dan kukus 10minit. buat lapisan seterusnya sehingga habis. - hana balut tutup pengukus ngan kain agar air tidak menitik ke atas kuih.
Lapisan terakhir kukus lebih kurang 30minit.
Sejukkan baru boleh dipotong.

Meriahnya my christmas serimuka :)

Dekat bawah ni I nak tayang the cute containers that I got from Woolworths semalam. Geram I tengok sebab comel sangat. I plan to isi kan the containers with fruits for the kids lunch boxes bila buka sekolah nanti. Muatlah kalau nak letak grapes ke or apple slices or strawberry slices ke. Tersangatlah murah pula tu, tak sampai $1 pun each, berapa sen saja, and they came in all sorts of colours, pening I nak pilih.

Roti canai and cendol

2010-01-24T23:54:00.000+08:00

Sebenarnya I tengah malas nak update blog ni, tapi digagahi juga.

So I akan buat spacing besar besar so that nampak macam I banyak tulis...:))

Tengahari tadi my darling wanted to buy meat. So kalau nak cari halal butcher yg buka on Sunday, maka ke Spencer Village lah jawabnya.

Lepas membeli belah daging dan yg sewaktu dengannya, we decided to drop by at the food court next door.

Maka terkejut badak lah I sekejap looking at the atmostphere inside, sebab sebiji macam we were in an Asian country.

Kan? Macam masuk food court dkt Singapore kan? Hari Ahad pula tu and it was meriah sebegini. Nak cari meja kosong pun susah.

We walked around tengok, ada 2 halal stalls, one was a Malay stall and another Indian Muslim stall. Maka we all pun terus meng order rot canai from the mamak stall. Me roti biasa and he roti telur. Rasa macam dkt negara sendiri pula dapat makan roti canai on a Sunday.

Meja sebelah tu order mee mamak Singapore. My darling dok terjeling jeling dah dkt mee tu, he should have ordered that instead of the roti canai sebab memang dia hantu mee mamak Singapore yg kaler Oren tu. Its alright, next time he said. This is better than Malaysia he said, sebab dkt Malaysia pun susah nak cari mee goreng mamak S'pore ni. There's one in USJ - Victory Arab Street, tapi yg tu fail dia kata.

Kalau dah order makan, mesti lah kena order airkan, nanti kehausan pula makan tanpa minum. I left it to my darling to order his choice of drink and then boleh lah kita share minum -( macam org tengah bercinta yg suka share air segelas ;) )

He ordered cendol durian.

And sekali lagi I terkejuk badak sebab cendol tu rasa dia sebiji rasa durian. Heh..heh..ye lah kan, nama pun cendol durian, mestilah rasa durian. Tapi I tak sangka sebab memang boleh rasa ke'durian'annya.

Gambar gambar agak kurang memuaskan, snap pakai hp saja sebab tak kan nak bawa DSLR pergi beli dagingkan.:)

And the Hunt Begins

2010-01-22T01:10:00.005+08:00

Yes, the hunt for Kakak's ball gown or evening dress to be worn to her Year 12 Ball has begun. Dah berapa minggu dia ajak I pergi city cari 'the' dress, baru tadi sempat pergi round tengok. Alahai...pening lah nak cari the right one. It has to be in the right colour, the right size and within our budget. Yang susah sekali is to look for the right size. Tahulah anak I ni kan kecik molek macam mak dia juga (actually mak dia lagi kecik), so agak lah susah nak cari baju di negeri mat salleh ni yg boleh fit ngam ngam dengan body dia. Sebab tu I sendiri pun susah cari baju dkt sini, jenuh nak dapat size, actually dkt Malaysia pun I cant get the perfect size for me.

We looked around at both Hay St and Murray St malls tadi, keluar masuk kedai. At least now we have some ideas on the kind of gowns to look for and their price range. Probably another trip or two, hopefully boleh lah dapat apa yg nak. There was this shop that can let you tempah the design that you want in another colour of your choice and size 4 is their smallest size. Macam alright lah kan. Lepas ni nak kena work out our budget. I dah suruh Kakak bagi hint dekat daddy dia the price range, ye lah kena bagi My Darling ample notice, nanti terkejut pula dia bila time nak bayar.
The ball is actually in April, about 2 months lagi. Lambat lah juga lagi, tapi kena lah mula cari sekarang . Berapa ramai budak year 12 satu Perth ni, kalau lambat sangat nanti habis pula semua ball gown dkt sini. And another thing Kakak said, cannot buy dekat Myers or David Jones, takut sama dengan orang lain.

So, tadi dalam sibuk sibuk cari baju utk Kakak, si Bunches ni pun sibuk nak juga for her year 7 dinner and dance, padahal her function tu jauh lagi in October. But hers tak payah lah yang grand, asal kembang sikit pun cukuplah. So, I told her, yg dia punya biar I jahit kan sajalah. Wah...tak sangka pula she agreed. I pula yg suspense, boleh ke I jahit baju kilat kilat and kembang kembang ni. Dah 3 tahun tak pegang mesin jahit.

Teruslah tadi I singgah Spotlight, nak cari kalau ada pattern yg sesuai. Excited pula I sebab ada project baru ni. Adalah 2, 3 patterns tadi yg I berkenan, tapi all out of stock Hissyy...orang tengah semangat ni, dia tak ada stock pula. Tahu lah Spotlight tengah sale, tapi takkan semua orang Perth tengah nak jahit baju kembang kembang. Nantilah I kena round Spotlight yg dekat Melville pula.

Gambar dkt bawah ni we all ambik dkt one of the shops yg we all singgah tadi. So cantik kan the gown, tapi tak adalah we all nak beli yg macam tu. Itu sebagai contoh saja, and lagi pun itu baju yg patung pakai, sure dia letak yg very the mahal kan.

Ok, now I letak gambar food pula. This was my lunch tadi. We ate out today, sebab sibuk bershoppinglah katakan. The kids had chicken udon at Shimizu, I pula teringin nak makan nasi padang. So, after buying the kids their lunch, maka I pun bergegas ke Indonesia Indah and had this:

Finally dapat makan ikan. Kalau dkt rumah memang I jarang masak ikan because no one is interested in fish. Maka hari ini I pun bantai order ikan berlado, siap dgn air teh botol lagi :)

And this was our lunch/dinner yesterday, roti arab with mince meat, sebiji sebiji I ambik resipi from Sizuka's blog.

The copy paste version:

Keema Daging

bahan A
1/2 kg daging cincang
5 ulas bawang putih - mayang
2 ulas bwg besar - mayang
1 tbs rempah kari
minyak - 4 tbs
salt

cara2
1. panaskan minyak, tumis bawang putih & bawang merah sampai garing. bila dah garing, masukkan rempah kari and daging.
2. goreng daging sampai betul2 kering, add salt. set aside

bahan B
2 tbs oil
3 biji bwg besar - mayang
4 ulas bwg putih - mayang
2 inches halia - cincang halus
1 biji tomato - diced
1/2 can of pea/chick pea - tak kesah apa2 legume pun - mujur dlm pantry I have a can of chick pea
4 tbs tomato sauce - and I also added Leggo's tomato paste sikit
4-5 cili padi - cincang - I guna cili hidup
salt, sugar

cara2
1. tumis bwg putih, halia and bawag besar sampai garing.
2. add diced tomato, cili padi and bahan A.
3. goreng for few minutes, then masukkan tomato sauce and few tbs of water just nak bagi basah sikit je.
4. add salt and sugar, pastu masukkan pea. bila pea dah masak and sebati, hidangkan dengan roti arab

Roti Arab :

(sukatan ini utk 7 kpg roti)

Bahan- bahan
1 cup of tepung gandum
3 sudu besar Coffee Mate ( Ganti dengan 3 tbs Anmum.. hehehe) - I used susu tepung
1 sudu besar gula & sedikit garam
½ sudu kecil Mauripan
1 sudu kecil minyak masak ( aku guna 1 tbs corn oil)
Air untuk uli ( 1/3 cup of water)

Cara-cara :
Uli semua bahan sehingga jadi doh, (kalau terlebih air boleh tambah tepung sedikit). Biarkan sebentar sehingga doh kembang. Uli lagi & tumbuk doh. Bahagikan 7 bahagian atau ikut suka. Canaikan dengan roller (taburkan sedikit tepung atas papan canai supaya tak melekat). Goreng dalam minyak yang banyak & betul2 panas.

Beatlemania and Nasi Ayam Hainan

2010-01-19T23:38:00.008+08:00

Suddenly there's beatlemania going on in my house. Well, actually it was just Kakak yg tiba tiba saja decided to become a fan of the legendary band The Beatles. Dont ask me how it happen - I dont understand myself how a 16 year old can become a fan of a band that was famous and popular during the 60s - I mean, even I was not born yet when The Beatles was at the peak of their career. So mula lah berjangkit, now si kecik Angel tu pun knows The Beatles. A few weeks ago, when we went to the Antique and Craft show, Kakak wanted to buy this hardcover book called 'The Beatles Album' and it had over 600 coloured and black and white pictures of the 4 musicians. And tadi as we went shopping (yes - shopping again), at Harbour Town, the kids saw a Beatle t-shirt just the right siza for Angel. Tergedik gedik lah si Angel minta I belikan t-shirt tu. Bila dapat baju tu, happy sakan dia, siap tanya I if she can straight away pakai or not. Of coz le I suruh dia bawa bersabar and tunggu lah esok lusa kalau nak pakai. Not only that, sejak we bought Rock Band, Kakak pula dok asyik minta belikan CD game Beatles to be played with the Rock Band instruments. Hari tu baru aje beli game Band Hero, and yg tu pun belum khatam lagi, dah nak minta game Beatles pula. I looked at the songs in that CD, ada satu dua saja lagu yg I pernah dengar (ye lah considering I ni pun bukannya Beatles fan kan, lain la kalau CD Duran Duran :) )

The two girls with their Beatles merchandise:

Ok, lets talk about food, hari ni I masak Nasi Ayam Hainan for lunch and dinner. Ye lah masak for lunch, sekali harung sampai dinner -2 in 1. Itu yg petang sempat pergi shopping pula, sebab dinner dah settled. Tapi my nasi ayam ni yg sempoi habis.

Untuk ayam

-1 ekor ayam tidak dipotong
- 2 ulas bawang putih diketuk
- 2sm halia yg diketuk
- beberapa helai daun bawang
-sedikit minyak bijan + kicap

Untuk nasi
- 5cwn beras
- 4 ulas bawang putih -dihiris
- air rebusan ayam tadi secukupnya
- sedikit garam.
- sedikit minyak bijan

Untuk Bahan sos
- 5 biji cili merah
- 5 ulas bawang putih
- 2cm halia
- 1 sudu teh cuka, garam, gula
- 1/2 cawan air rebusan ayam

Untuk sup
- lebihan air rebusan ayam
- kiub ayam
- garam
- daun sup/daun bawang yg dihiris.

Cara-cara

1. Untuk ayam - Ayam dibersihkan dan disumbat kan dengan bawang putih,halia dan helaian daun bawang. Rebus ayam di dalam air, agak agak sampai ayam tenggelam, dan air cukup utk dibuat sup, ditanak nasi dan untuk sambal. rebus dalam 20 -30 minit hingga masak. Keluarkan dan terus sapu dgn bancuhan kicap dan minyak bijan sementara panas. Biar sejuk sedikit sebelum dipotong/hiris.

2. Untuk nasi - Basuh beras dan toskan. Panaskan minyak,bawang putih hingga garing. masukkan beras, hingga agak garing, masukkan air rebusan ayam secukupnya, minyak bijan dan garam.

3. Untuk sos - blendkan semua bahan diatas. boleh ditambah tomato sos/sos cili jika suka. Boleh juga dimasak sebentar (jika suka)

4. Untuk sup - air rebusan ayam didihkan dan dimasukkan kiub. Kalau boleh masukkan kiub sebelum air digunakan utk masak nasi dan sos, supaya nasi dan sos lebih berperisa. Hiaskan bersama dun bawang.

Blueberry Swirl Cheesecake

2010-01-18T22:46:00.001+08:00

Past two days have been extremely hot - sampai more than 40 degree celsius. Badan pun rasa lemah longlai saja. You see when it was hot, we had to switch the air cond on. So my body ni memang jenis tak tahan kena air cond memanjang, made me lethargic. I peeped at the weather forecast this week, nampak gaya we will be in the top 30s all week, adoiiii, bercinta. Buka pintu rumah saja dah mula rasa bahang of the heat. Its like standing near a fire.So baiklah duduk diam diam dalam rumah. I hope when school starts next month, it wont be this hot anymore, bercinta lah I nak keluar masuk ambil/hantar budak.

So semalam memnag I tak larat gilerrr, what with the temperature rising up to 42 celsius. Hari ni walaupun 40 cels, I felt better. Sementara tengah rasa OK sikit, cepat cepat tanpa pikir panjang I decided to bake blueberry cheesecake. Kalau pikir panjang, takut I'll change my mind. Why blueberry , heh..heh..sebab hari Sabtu baru ni I went to Subiaco Market and bought a small packet of blueberries.So, I pun google sana sini, and settled for a recipe from this website.

The recipe:

PUREE:
1 1/2 c. blueberries
1/4 c. sugar
2 tsp. cornstarch
1 tbsp. fresh lemon juice

CRUST:
1 c. graham cracker crumbs - I used cream cracker
2 tbsp. sugar
2 tbsp. butter, melted

FILLING:
1 (8 oz.) pkg. cream cheese
1 c. sugar 1 container (8 oz.) sour cream
2 tsp. vanilla extract
4 lg. eggs, at room temp.
2 tbsp. flour

BLUEBERRY PUREE: Combine berries, sugar and cornstarch in saucepan. Bring to boil over medium heat and cook, stirring, 5 minutes. Puree in blender with lemon juice. Cool completely.

CRUST: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Wrap outside of 9-inch springform pan with heavy-duty foil. Combine crumbs, sugar and butter in bowl; mix well. Press evenly into prepared pan and bake 10 minutes. Cool.

Filling: Beat cream cheese in mixer bowl until light and fluffy. Gradually add sugar and beat until completely smooth. Beat in sour cream and vanilla. At low speed, beat in eggs one at a time, then flour just until blended. Pour batter over crust.

Place pan in larger baking pan. Carefully drizzle blueberry puree over batter. Swirl knife through batter to marbleize. Place on oven rack. Pour boiling water into larger pan 1 inch up side of springform pan. Bake 1 1/4 hours or until just set. Turn oven off; let stand in oven 1 hour. Remove pan from water bath. Remove foil; cool completely. Cover and refrigerate overnight. Remove sides of pan. Makes 12 servings.

And here are a couple of photos of Subiaco Market. Memang gila tengok all the fruits and veges dekat situ.

And yg dekat bawah ni pula was one the shops at the market that I like to frequent to. Bukan membeli sangat pun, saja suka masuk and belek belek. It had all sorts of spices, rice, nuts, dried fruits, turkish delights and entah apa apa lagi yg I tak pernah dengar nama pun. Walaupun teringin nak beli tapi tak tahu nak guna macam mana or nak masak macam mana. In the end, I ended up beli desicated cocunut saja, in case nak buat Anzac Cookies ...hee..hee...Gambar ni pun was just a corner of the shop. Besar lagi kedai dia, tapi segan pula if the sales girl tu nampak I mengambil gambar.

Potato Chips

2010-01-16T00:00:00.000+08:00

Aci tak kalau entry malam ni I tunjuk gambar dinner potato chips???
Heh..heh...actually I dont have much to blog about for today, tapi nak juga tulis entry sebab masih lagi thrill dengan my new blog layout yang pink karer ni. So cerita pasal potato chips pun boleh lah you all ekk..

I pun memang malas nak masak apa apa yang complicated. Lagi pun pizza semalam ada banyak lagi berlebih and my darling pula guarantee dinner dkt luar sebab dia pergi main sepak takraw.

Another reason why I goreng potato chips today was because I dah penat me 'vacuum' rumah atas bawah.

And finally the reason why I goreng chips today was because Bunches' ajak kawan mat salleh dia sorang sleep over. Mula mula ingat nak buat nasi goreng pedas, tapi takut pula kawan dia ni tak makan nasi goreng pedas.

But the bottom line was actually sesungguh nya I malas nak pikir lebih lebih apa nak masak for dinner.

Since tunjuk gambar potato chips, bolehlah I cerita yg I guna my deep fryer to fry those chips. I ni still dok peghak and jakun lagi with my deep fryer tu and was very amazed that it took me tak sampai 10 min pun nak fry almost 1 kg of chips. Before this I had to fry them manually dalam kuali lebih kurang setengah jam pun guarantee tak cukup garing lagi.

An Eventful Day

2010-01-15T00:14:00.009+08:00

After such an uneventful day yesterday, I made sure that today was going to be an eventful one. So everyone telah dipaksa rela by me to go on a trip to York which was 97km from Perth. Kalau ikut hati I know they would all rather stay home and main computer, game and watch tv. I googled and printed some information about York and paksa they read what I printed so that they would have some knowledge of the place we were about to visit.

So sebenarnya York is an old historical town being the first inland European settlement in WA and it was settled in the 1830s. I am really a fan of old town with old building and frankly tadi I sorang sajalah yg semangat nak pergi. In order to raise their interest, I not only made the kids read about the town, I also told them I wanted them to write about the trip, so they had better remember and take note of the trip and anyhting that might be of interest. Ha...ha...jadi lawatan sambil belajar pula kan.And the paper is due tomorrow...heh..heh..garang juga cikgu ni kan. Kakak and Gebu should submit a 1 page (A4 size) full of write up , Bunches 3/4 page full and Angel 1/2 page full.

I sempat masak nasi lemak in the morning buat bekal and we had our nasi lemak lunch at a park near the town called Avon pioneer park. Punyalah panas sungguh hari ni, I think it was about 40 celcius when we were there. I felt kind of guilty juga to drag them all the way for a 1 1/2 hour drive dalam kepanasan. Dalam kereta tak lah panas, but once we stepped out for the picnic, punyalah terasa bahangnya.

Kesian semua kepanasan:

Near Avon River where we had our picnic lunch:

And the town was just like a cowboy town, the shops were lined up along this one particular road saja:

And mujur ada this one sweet shop, and the kids went crazy looking, tasting and buying sweets and candies. The lady in the shop pun was very friendly, siap suruh we all ambik gambar lagi dalam kedai dia:

And on the way back we all singgah makan seafood pizza at this really popular pizzeria in Mundaring. Sempat pula terserempak dengan Elvis Presley..:))

An Uneventful Day

2010-01-13T22:29:00.002+08:00

A very very uneventful day. Event masak memasak pun tak ada. No mood to cook today and also because I think I was already too tired of eating my own cooking...tak lalu dah. So, apart from the nasi goreng I made this morning (from leftover nasi semalam) I told the rest, pandai pandai you all lah, buat maggie ke, makan roti ke...Mujur all of them are quite independent, takat nak buat maggie ke or bakar roti ke or heat up anything frozen in the microwave semua tu dah kira pass dah.

Sebab no event, I ambik gambar my flowers that were in my backyard yg sekangkang kera tu. I planted them way back last April, but because I was always away during school holiday and the plants were not watered maka they were like mati segan hidup tak mahu. I've only started regularly watering them since last Oct/Nov. So sekarang ni nampak segar megar - hopefully they will stay that way. Tak adalah banyak sangat yg I tanam pun . There were just asylum and periwinkle. I do like gardening, but most time malas nak menjaga, and lagi pun I am renting so tak nak lah tanam banyak sangat. But I am planning to add a few more potted periwinkle.

The white periwinkle

The white asylum and purple periwinkle

Angel cycling in our backyard. The backyard is so small, nak buat U turn on a bike pun tak boleh, only a 3 point turn boleh lepas. But a small backyard is alright with me, as I dont think I am that rajin to maintain a big one.

2010-01-12T21:47:00.010+08:00

Mula mula sekali, testing 1, 2, 3 - I am changing the layout of my blog. As I've mentioned earlier, I was getting tired of the old layout where everything looked small and had to be squeezed into the middle page. So for now I am using the default template, mujur the old setting tak ada yg hilang. Kalau tak jenuh I kena buat semua all over again.

And for the update now : today is Tuesday and because its cheaper to watch movies on Tuesday, so off we went to Hoyts this afternoon to catch a movie. Angel wanted to watch 'Alvin, the chipmunk' so my darling and I went with her. Bunches pula memang dah buat date with her girlfriends, so bila sampai sana she joined her friends to watch 'The princess and the frog'. Memanglah bila habis movie and keluar cinema, we noticed that most yg pergi tengok Alvin were little kids with their mum/dad. Dah cuti sekolahkan, so cerita macam ni memang penuh dgn budak budak yg tengok.

Buying the tickets, popcorn and drink:

Ni dah habis movie, dkt belakang tu semua budak budak:

Ini model iklan haircare product...:))), betapa berkilat nya rambut Angel after using her new hairdryer, this was before we left for the movie:

And dkt bawah tu was what I made for our dinner kejap tadi. Mengancam saja tengok Muna's lamb tagine and cous cous, so I tried preparing them for our dinner tadi. Ada a few ingredients yg I tak ada, tapi belasah sajalah apa yg ada dalam pantry and fridge plus I tambah a few other things based on what I saw at taste.com.

Copied from Muna's fotopages:

Lamb Tagine with Pomegranate Couscous

For the lamb tagine
4 tbsp olive oil
4 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed
4 onions, peeled and chopped
4 tsp grated, fresh ginger
1½ tbsp ground coriander
3 tsp ground cinnamon - and I added :

2 teaspoons sweet paprika
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 teaspoon chilli powder
1/2 teaspoon allspice

salt and black pepper
honey
500g lamb shoulder, boned, fat removed and cut into cubes
1 tbsp tomato purée
½ cup chopped sun-dried tomatoes
½ cup sliced green olives - didnt use this
½ cup chopped dried apricots - used sultana instead

For the couscous
1 small pomegranates - didnt use this
500g couscous
3 tbsp olive oil
1/2 lemon, juice and zest
3/4 litre boiling chicken stock
salt and black pepper
4 tbsp chopped coriander - didnt use this either

Preheat the oven to 160 C.
For the lamb tagine, heat a large ovenproof casserole or heavy saucepan on a medium to high heat.
Add the olive oil, garlic, onions, ginger and spices and season with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Stir, then cook, covered, on a low heat for about ten minutes, until the onions are soft.
Add the lamb, tomato purée, chopped ingredients and honey into the saucepan, stir throughly.
Bring to the simmer and place in the oven for 1½ hours, until the lamb is tender.
Remove the lid of the saucepan halfway through the cooking time to let the liquid reduce and thicken.

Meanwhile, for the couscous, cut the pomegranates in half and scoop out the seeds.
Place the couscous in a bowl and mix in the olive oil and lemon juice and zest.
Pour the boiling stock onto the couscous and season with salt and black pepper.
Allow the couscous to sit in a warm place for 5-10 minutes until the liquid has been absorbed.
Stir the chopped herbs and pomegranate seeds into the couscous.

To serve, place the tagine on serving plates with couscous.

2010-01-12T01:01:00.008+08:00

We celebrated Angel's 10th birthday on the 10th of Jan 2010 at the Adventure World. After all, since we moved here 2 years ago, we have never yet taken the kids to the amusement park. Only Bunches saja pernah pergi situ during her friend's birthday party. The park is not big, just the right size. Tak adalah penat nak cover the whole area. We spread our picnic mat dekat in the middle of the park, and all the rides are all around us.

Anyway, I for once had a great and wonderful time. Rasa macam jadi budak budak pula. I mostly went on the rides with Angel. The 3 older kids wanted to go on the more extreme rides, and no thank you I didnt want to join them because I didnt think my heart could take all the suspense of going on those rides. Dah cukup dah masa muda muda dulu I naik segala roller coaster yg tunggang terbalik tu. So yesterday me and Angel settled for the kiddies' ride. We went on the little roller coaster, the little pirate ship and some other rides suitable for little kids. Itu pun I terhoyong hayang juga lepas naik the pirate ship, and the roller coaster tu pun was fast enough to make you feel you were going to be thrown out. Yang besar 3 orang tu of coz lah pergi naik rides yg tunggang terbalik. Also all of us had a good time in the lagoon pool, not forgetting going on the slides yg pusing pusing that landed in the pool. Made me wonder why didnt we ever thought of visiting the amusement park before this. Padahal bukan jauh pun dari rumah. Lebih kurang 15 min drive saja. Anyway, here are some photos from the event yesterday:

For our picnic, I made sushi,

Smoked salmon sandwich using foccacia bread

Also made daging masak kicap with rice tapi yg ni tak ada gambar.

Angel with her tub of cotton candy:

This is the present that she got from Kakak's good friend. Angel ni memang jenis cakap banyak and manja so the big girls (Kakak's friends) memang suka layan dia. When asked what she wanted for her birthday, she said a 'hairdryer', so this was what Kakak's friend got her. She was very happy with the gift, so terus pergi mandi and washed her hair (memang kena wash pun lepas mandi dlm pool at the park) and used the hairdryer. Thrill dia tengok rambut dia soft, licin and berkilat lepas guna hair dryer tu. But I told her jangan guna kerap sangat, nanti rosak rambut.

At home with her ice cream cake - masa ni rambut dah kemas and berkilat:

And here is what I made for our tea tadi. Yang ni tak ada kena mengena dgn the birthday. I used the bread machine to mix the ingredient and bake the banana nut bread. Got the recipe here

The copy and paste version:

Ingredients

Banana Pecan Bread

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2/3 cup sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup vegetable oil
2 extra large eggs, lightly beaten
1/4 cup sour cream - I used thick cream sebab tak ada sour cream dkt rumah
1 teaspoon vanilla
2/3 cup mashed banana
1/3 cup pecans or walnuts, finely chopped - I guna almond

Directions

Into baking pan measure flour, sugar, baking powder, soda, and salt.
Add oil, eggs, sour cream, and vanilla.
Insert pan securely into unit; close lid.
Select"Cake" setting; press"Start. - My machine tak ada 'cake' setting so I used 'rapid' setting
When beep sounds after about 5 minutes, add mashed banana and nuts. - I think I waited for about 10 to 15 min before I added these ingredients.
Press"Start" again. - what I did was to press 'stop', and then changed the setting to 'bake' and press 'start'.
The bake setting took 1 hour, but my cake was still not ready yet (because I think I used more than 1 cup of banana and the skewer hasnt came out clean yet), so I tambah another 15 min to bake.
Using hotpads, remove pan from unit.
Turn bread out onto cooling rack.
Cool; slice thinly to serve.

2010-01-10T00:01:00.005+08:00

Tak nak tulis banyak banyak because I am very tired now, and still have a few other things that need to be done. Tomorrow is Angel's birthday, so we plan to take her somewhere and have a picnic. Therefore I need to prepare food for tomorrow. Malam ni nak buat sushi, then letak dlm fridge, so besok just bring it out of the fridge and pack them. Also plan to bring rice with daging masak kicap. But that I will make tomorrow morning. I ni memang lah Melayu tulin, kena makan nasi baru puas.

I penat hari ni sebab dok clear all the filings yg dah berbulan backlog. All the bills, surat, bank statements etc. I've also just changed my filing system, sekarang pakai lever arch file, so all the documents from the old files pun semua di[unggah masuk ke the new files. Yang dulu punya filing I just used manila file yg sempoi aje.

Also penat today sebab jadi reserved member of the newly formed band dekat rumah ni. Heh..heh...I was the reserved guitarist. My girls tengah semangat main 'rock band', and they have a formed a band called the 'Motherz'. You all might be wondering how did that name come about. I suppose they all ni suka main emak-emak, and bila main Angel was always the emak, and the kakaks will always call her 'mother'. So thats how the name came about. So in the band, kakak is the drummer, Bunches the guitarist and Angel the vocalist. Kalau ada org penat ke, nak ke toilet ke, I pun tumpang main and ganti....hee..hee..fun juga. Anyway, I just found out from my girls yg dekat Malaysia the game 'rock band', 'band hero' or 'guitar hero' belum sampai lagi. Ohhh...well, I dah bagi preview, so if sampai Malaysia, anyone interested, bolehlah beli.

You can see here Angel singing according to the lyrics that appeared at the top. Also you can see here there are 2 runways - sebelah kanan for the drummer, and sebelah kiri for the guitarist. Basically the guitarist and drummer tekan coloured buttons on their instruments according to the colours that appear on the runway.

And today I prepared apple crumble:

Ambik resipi from Hana's blog, but mine tak secantik hers. However, sedap gilerr. I'll copy paste the recipe here:

Bahan-bahan
Utk Crumble *loyang 18cm

100g tepung gandum
40g gula
80g butter sejuk dr peti ais
sedikit garam

Utk Inti

3 biji epal - kupas dan potong dadu
2 sudu mkn gula perang
1/2 sudu kecil serbuk cinnamon

Cara-cara

Satukan semua bhn crumble sehingga menjadi serbuk breadcrumb. ketepikan.
Dalam mangkuk lain, satukan semua inti dan gaul sebati. ketepikan.
Ambil sedikit dr adunan crumb dan tekan padat di dasar loyang.tk perlu terlalu tebal. (tp jika ingin lapisan tebal wat adunan crumble 11/2 adunan).Bakar sekejap dlm 10minit.
Kemudian masukkan inti. Tutup inti dengan menaburkan lebihan crumb tadi.
Bakar lagi suhu 180 hingga kekuning2an.
Siap dihidang. Enak juga jika dimasukkan ke dalam peti sejuk.

This is Angel helping me with the apple crumble:

And our lunch/dinner: Pasta with garlic prawns

Got the recipe from here, and I'll copy paste it below:

Ingredients (serves 4)

500g casarecci* or other short pasta- I used spaghetti
1 tbs olive oil, plus extra to toss
3 garlic cloves, crushed
20 green prawns, peeled, deveined, tails intact
1/4 tsp dried red chilli flakes- guna cili kering
2 tbs chopped fresh parsley - tak pakai
Juice and zest of 1 large lemon- tak pakai
1 cup (250ml) white wine - definitely tak pakai lah yg ni
100g unsalted butter, chilled, cut into small pieces
1 tbs baby capers, rinsed - tak pakai

Method

Cook the pasta in a large saucepan of boiling salted water until al dente. Drain, return to the pan and toss with a little oil. Set aside to keep warm.
Place remaining oil and the garlic in a frypan and heat gently over low heat. When the oil is hot, add the prawns, chilli and half the parsley, increase heat to high and cook for 2-3 minutes. Remove the prawns and set aside, then add the lemon juice and white wine to the pan and allow to bubble and reduce for 2 minutes. Briefly stir in the cold butter, lemon zest and capers until you have a smooth sauce. Return the prawns to the pan to heat through, then add the pasta. Toss together well and serve garnished with the remaining parsley.

Of cozlah I omitted the white wine tu kan...

2010-01-09T01:42:00.004+08:00

I rasa macam dah boring lah tengok my blog layout ni. I chose this layout dulu because I love green in all shades, and the the flowers up there come in pink and purple - beautiful combinationkan. But then the font is very small, ini pun I dah pakai large font, still they come out small. Gambar pun bila upload nampak kecik saja, and even all the settings dekat sebelah kiri ngam ngam saja dapat masuk the left column. And the ipod icon tu I kena pilih vertical ipod sebab kalau yg panjang horizontal tak masuk dlm column tu. Tapi bercinta lah kalau nak tukar layout, I have to redo all the settings balik - jenuh. But I am still thinking about it, and sementara tengah school holiday ni bolehlah suruh kakak do all the hard work for me..:))) and I cuma pilih layout saja....

Hari ni we went membeli belah lagi...sigh...more damage to the pocket. Bukan apa, after we bought the guitar hero masa boxing day, someone told us rock band pun tengah sale gilerrr...only $40 aje you. But bila we all pergi cari semua dah habis. Then a friend told us semalam dekat Harvey Norman masih ada at $45. So ke HN lah tadi, and there was only one left and its the one yg main on XBox (mujur dkt rumah ada XBox) Ok ambik...After all for $45 you get a guitar, drum set and a mic. Gamenya kena beli lain. We bought the Band hero game...game lagi mahal dari the instruments. It seemed that only XBox can accept band hero game to be played using rock band instruments..am I confusing you all? So at this very moment I am typing these, ada lah band tengah memekak dekat the TV room. Bunches on the drum, Angel nyanyi and my darling strumming the guitar.

My menu today:

Breakfast, ada inti daging lebih from making roti john last week and gulung dalam ready made puffpastry:

Lunch and dinner, Cik Mat Gebu's mee tomato sup:
And I shall copy paste the recipe here:

BAHAN - BAHANNYA :-)
1 tin "heinz cream of tomato soup"...boleh lihat sini....
1 biji tomato, cincang halus
3 camca besar sos cili
1 camca besar sos tiram
2 kuib pati ayam "Maggi"
2 liter air (atau secukupnya)
Garam dan gula secukupnya
1 biji bawang besar*
3 ulas bawang putih*
4 biji cili merah*(*kisar halus) - I only used 1 1/2 batang, takut pedas sangat
300 g isi ayam, dihiris - tak ada ayam dlm freezer
200 g sotong, dihiris - I used marinara mix sebab itu yg ada dalam freezer
15 ekor udang sederhana besar, dibersihkan - "
1/2 batang lobak merah, hiris serong
1/2 biji red capsicum, didadu - I only have green caps dlm fridge
1 pokok bok choy (sawi jepun), dikerat2 - tak stock dkt rumah
4 biji telur (optional)
600 g mee kuning, cuci dan toskan - used yee mee sebab tak ada mee kuning
Hirisan daun sup/daun bawang
Bawang goreng

CARA MEMBUATNYA :-)

Panaskan minyak dalam kuali, tumis bahan kisar hingga harum, masukkan tomato, sos cili dan sos tiram, kacau rata. Tambah daging ayam dan tuang tomato soup. Masukkan air dan kacau rata. Biar mendidih.
Masukkan kiub pati ayam, lobak merah, red capsicum, udang dan sotong. Bila mendidih, perlahankan api, pecah kan telur satu persatu (kalau guna telur) ke dalam kuah tadi dan biar masak perlahan sehingga telur mengeras.
Tambah garam dan sedikit gula. Masukkan mee dan sayur bok choy tadi. Gaul rata, masak sekejap dan rasa, jika ok boleh matikan api. Hias dengan hirisan daun sup/daun bawang dan bawang goreng. Tambah kuah lagi jika perlu. Hidangkan segera.

2010-01-08T00:45:00.002+08:00

Semenjak dua menjak ni I seemed to go crazy over kitchen electrical appliances. More like it sejak christmas and boxing day sale. Dekat Australia ni there are a whole lot of varieties of appliances, yg kalau dekat Malaysia macam susah lah nak jumpa. Some of the examples are the pie maker, chocolate fondue machine, doughnut maker, juice maker yg macam boleh buat juice yg jual dekat Boost tu, and all the whatnots. Harga pun tak adalah mahal sangat kalau kira in AUD. Geram sangat bila tengok christmas catalogues hari tu. Kalau boleh semua nak kan. However I ended up buying the bread machine, deep fryer, kettle (coz my old one dah rosak and dah berapa bulan I buat kopi pakai microwave), micowave (the old one's glass turntable plate doesnt turn anymore) - so dah berapa lama I masak air for my coffee using a microwave with a non turning turntable. Kira nya I only bought the essential appliances. Yang lain lain tu kena tunggu next christmas sale, insyaallah :))

So marilah kita melihat harta harta I yang baru ni. Sorry gambar not of good quality because I just ambil kejap tadi dah malam and the light bulb in the kitchen dah blow.

The long awaited bread machine:

The deep fryer - selama ni I refused to buy one because malas nak main minyak banyak banyak, but its alright actually once you get the hang of it. Lagi pun you can tapis and reuse the minyak.

Cute nya kettel I ni, only $45 (turun 50%) masa boxing day hari tu.

Also so cheap cheap cheap microwave, only $59 masa boxing day:

And yang dekat bawah ni I didnt get them masa boxing day. Only got them over the weekend hari tu from an Antique and Craft show. They are tablecloths and only $10 each. I fell in love with the colour and design and tak sangka pula they were quite old. According to the lady who sell them, the flowery one tu is from the 70s, and the yellow one tu is from the 50s - wahhh antique gilerr kan. She said that an old lady had them in the closet all these while and never used them. And menyesal pula I tak selongkar her bakul full of embroidered cushion covers, place mat, chair back which were selling for only $1 - $5.

2010-01-06T22:37:00.014+08:00

Malasnya nak update blog. I blame it on the summer heat. Punyalah panas tiap hari with average temperature of 30 degrees or more everyday. Bila dah panas macam ni, badan pun jadi malas nak kerja lebih. Nak perah otak to blog pun malas. So I tempek gambar aje lah this time. Malas nak membebel panjang.

Mula mula sekali nak tempek gambar caramel cookies. I really must share the recipe here because the cookies were really to die for. I cuma googled aje for the recipe and this one looked simple enough, so I pun try lah buat. Mula tu rasa macam nak give up aje coz the dough was really crumbly and it was difficult for me to shape it and flatten it down. Sebab tak dapt nak flatten due to its crumbly texture, I biar aje lah jadi bulat macam bola. And I got the recipe from here at http://www.bestrecipes.com.au/recipe/Caramel-Cookies-L209.html

And also a few weeks ago, I treated myself to a bread machine (lepas pass driving test). So asyik main masak masak dengan machine tu aje lah. Here are some of the products of the machine.

Sejak ada mesin ni, I dont buy bread anymore:)))

And the rest are photos of some of our activities the past 3 weeks. Sekarang ni pun tengah cuti sekolah, the kids have been off school since 17 Dec and school will only start 1 Feb. Mati kutu juga lah nak pikir aktivit for them.
(We do go out sometime but they also spend a lot of time indoor main game sebab panas sangat dekat luar. And we recently bought guitar hero and a few Sing Star CDs masa boxing day sale hari tu, so dengan anak and mak sekali asyik main game, menyanyi and main guitar :)))

This is Angel in her hip hop costume during her dance academy concert night:

The last swimming lesson for term 4, Angel and Bunches had to swim in their pyjamas. It was to develop their survival skills swimming in heavy wet clothing.
Angel doing her survival back stroke:

Bunches and her freestyle:

A few days before christmas we went around to look at some of the beautifully lit houses . Some really went all out with lights penuh the front yard sampai up to the roof.

What I prepared on Christmas day for our lunch. Tak panggil sesiapa pun, sendiri makan saja:

We took the kids to a BMX track nearby and let them cycled on the track - lebih kurang aktiviti lasak lah kan:

Also took a short trip to Serpentine National Park and this is somewhere near it, I memang suka scenery of the country side macam ni.

And these were our dinner kejap tadi. We went crabbing over the weekend, dapat lah beberapa belas ekor ketam. Hari ni masak gulai ketam, and since yang makan ketam cuma my darling and I saja, I made buffalo chicken wings for the kids.

2009-12-10T11:11:00.005+08:00

Christmas is just about 2 weeks away and naturally there are sale promotions almost everywhere. And naturally also I need to study the shop catalogues just so that I can grab any good bargains being offerred. Normally the catalogues are delivered latest by Thursday every week and the prices in the catalogues would be valid from Thursday right up to next Wednesday. So I ni dah lama nak beli breadmaker, tapi tak beli beli juga. And last week KMart ada offer BM at $89 only. Tapi sebab last week I tak ada mood nak shopping because of the driving test, so I postpone kan lah to after the test. Maka semalam I pun dengan semangatnya ke Carousel looking for the BM. Ohhh...tak ada rezki agaknya, tak nampak pun batang hidung BM tu. Haii...melepas lagi kan. I wonder when can I ever own a BM. But alas...there is still hope because I saw the same BM being offered at another electronic shop. Tak apa, sat lagi I will go and check if there's any more there, or maybe I kena pi cari KMart yg orang jarang pergi. Carousel is such a big shopping mall, so biasalah ramai orang and barang pun cepat habis.

My homework now, studying sale catalogues:

Anyway, while at Carousel yesterday, Kakak told me there's this new place yg jual frozen yogurt that just started business. I just love frozen yogurt and the best one I've tasted so far was the one at Darling Harbour in Sydney. But this new place at Carousel lagi cool, because its sort of DIY. They've got these yogurt machines all lined up with a variety of flavours, then ada segala macam topping and fruits and sauce for you to choose. You just do it yourself, then dia timbang and you pay accordingf to weight. Cool kan. Of cozlah I needed to try it out. Heh..heh..tak dapat BM dapat makan frozen yogurt instead.

And semalam I dah rajin balik main masak masak..:))). So we had laksa siam for dinner. But a very simple version of the laksa siam. Simple sebab I only used kacang panjang, taugeh and timun for the ulam. I just googled for the recipe and mix and match the recipes from a few sites.

Basically it uses:

isi ikan (not the tulang)
bawang merah (I used bawang besar) *
bawang putih *
lengkuas*
serai *
cili hidup *
serbuk kunyit *
asam keping
santan
dun limau purut
daun kesum
garam, gula, perasa

Semua bahan * dikisar and rebus dengan isi ikan. Add santan, asam keping, daun-daun and adjust the taste.
I suppose there is a better version of the recipe, tapi malas pula I nak beria masak. After all it was almost 6pm when I started cooking and I nak cepat siap.
And this morning, I decided to take the bus to send the kids to school. Bukan apa, dah tak larat nak drive. I've been driving a lot these past few weeks to practise for my driving test that I want to minimize my driving now that I dah dapat lesen. Terbalik kan, orang bila dah dapat lesen lah kena semangat drive. Well, I would rather take the bus here sebab the bus is not crowded and they are normally on time. Cumanya Perth is not such a big city that buses are not that frequent during non peak hours.
Macam pagi tadi, we managed to catch the bus to school. Then at school after saying bye bye to the girls, I pun head back to the bust stop to catch a bus home. But I missed it by just a few minutes, and the next one is 1 hour later (after peak dah kan). Huh..tak kan nak tunggu 1 hour. So I walked home. Mujur it was a pleasant morning. Not hot and not cold, with gentle breeze. I took it as my morning walk, boleh lah exercise sekali :)). And I enjoyed looking at other people's garden with colourful flowers. Cuma tak bawa camera pula, lain kali if I decide t be rajin to walk again, I'll bring my camera and snap some shots. Oh I must also mention here that by bus, it took only 8 minute to reach the school, but it took me 1 hour to walk home...hmmm I suppose I was really slow...

In the bus:

2009-12-09T10:23:00.002+08:00

I am back..:)))... Biasalah I ni tenggelam timbul. Berapa lama agaknya I menghilangkan diri ekkk.. As usual I had some other things that needed my undivided attention, so tak dapatlah I nak meng'concentrate' on blogging. Actually I was busy preparing myself for my driving test. Terpaksalah I sit for the test again sebab the Malaysian driving license adalah tidak laku di WA ni. Though I've been driving for the past 17 years of my life (lama tu kan), I was still nervous at the thought of sitting for the test again. I would say that I drive ok, dekat Malaysia tu dah segala pelusuk I dah belasah. I've also done long distances countless time Alor Setar - KL, Kerteh - KL - Kerteh, Kerteh - Kuantan, Kerteh - KT, and mind you some of the highways were not freeways, ie just jalan kecik aje. And I can drive manual too. Tapi still lah the idea of sitting for a driving test again sent shiver through me. And here in WA the test is different from Malaysia. I did mine dekat Setapak dulu, so we practised on 3 given roads and on the real day you will be asked to drive through one of the roads. So hafal aje lah jalan jalan tu, and you know what to expect la because you've familiarised yoursel with that road. Parking pula you did in that JPJ area and guna kayu as a guide.

But here in WA, they can take you through any route within 5km radius of the licensing centre. You need to know how to turn your car around by using driveway rumah orang, and parking pula dekat shopping centre. Make sure you never go beyond the speed limit and always stop at a Stop sign. Vehicle management is also important, like how you pegang the steering, handbrake etc. Always check your mirrow bila nak signal or brake, and checking your blind spot is very important. I just cannot describe here what I went through practising for the test. Of course I had to take up driving lessons with an instructor so that I can learn about the road ethics here. Dah lah my instructor teramat lah strict, so every time lepas driving lesson, I got very stressed. But Alhamdulillah after a lot of practise and prayers, I passed yesterday. Tak terkata betapa leganya I.

Dekat sini license is pretty important because it acts as an ID. If in Malaysia you use IC, tapi dekat sini orang minta lesen. If tak ada lesen then tunjuk passport. Lecehlah nak bawa passport ke hulu ke hilir kan, so lesen is very important. But I did my test using an auto car, so my license is resticted to driving an auto car only. Tak kisah lah apa apa, asal dah ada lesen...:))

Ok tadi I went to the primary school to watch Bunches' guitar recital. I was quite impressed with her performace. She attends guitar lesson dekat sekolah and the lesson is once a week before school starts. We only have a classical guitar, tapi tadi dia perform guna electric guitar. And I could see that Angel pun macam impress and dah berminat nak belajar guitar juga.

And Christmas is almost here. Semalam Angel was busy looking for her christmas sock which she got it free from school last year. What happened last year was that arwah my dad who was here last December used to put things in the sock. Selalunya my dad will put coins and kadang kadang dia letak maggie mee. Kelakarkan my dad, tapi dia rajin layan budak budak ni. And last year when Bunches saw Angel dapat coins in her sock, dia pun teringin tapi tak ada sock, so instead dia letak stokin busuk dia yg bekas pakai. Ketawa my dad tengok kerenah dia orang and still dia layan and letak coins dalam the sock. Hmm...now I miss my dad very much, AlFatihah to him.

So I told Angel, buat apa nak letak sock tu, Tok Abib is not here anymore :(((, but she insisted nak letak juga. And this morning first thing she did was to check the sock, and surprisingly ada lollipop. Siapa pula yg letak because it wasnt me and my darling is not here. Last last dia ngaku she put the lollipop sendiri. Alah kesiannya. So ok lah I thought I will start putting in treats for her, but we will go and get bigger sock...just for the fun of it.

2009-11-04T13:34:00.003+08:00

Here I am updating the blog from the library. Dekat rumah internet is very very slow...sebab...we have used more than 25GB allowed. Hai samalah macam Sheri's case, dkt Australia ni tak macam Malaysia, where you get unlimited internet access, nak download or upload berapa banyak gig ikut suka hati aje. Here, it depends on the package that you subscribe to. Dulu we sucscribed to just 12GB / month, lepas tu macam tak cukup, then we upgraded to 25 GB / month, pun tak cukup. Entah apa lah yg we all pakai banyak sangat. Everybody started to pinpoint at each other, semua tak mengaku pakai banyak. I mean I use the internet for my blog and upload photos. The rest of the time I just go on FB and cari recipe. Gebu downloaded games, but he said he only downloaded 1 game. And I dont know what the rest of the household members do. Alih alih dah reach 25GB, and our internet became slow and it will stay slow sampai lah the start of the next billing month, which in our case will be the 7/11. Mujur seminggu aje slow, kalau 2/3 minggu, mau pengsan I. And actually tak banyak cerita pun I nak bebel dkt sini. I just want to paste gambar some of the food yg I masak on Monday hari tu, and nak letak the recipe sekali, so that lain kali I want to make them again, tak payah lah I pergi mencari cari dkt myresipi.com lagi. So my blog ni will become my recipe book. At least I've tried and tested these recipes, and menjadi. Next I will need to put labels here so senang nak cari recipes.

Saw this recipe of nasi mandhi at Kak Ummi's blog, nampak mengancam.

Bahan:-

4 cawan/pot beras basmathi ~ rendam 20 minit dan toskan
3 camca besar minyak sapi
4 cawan air atau secukupnya - **tambah air supaya nasi lembut
1 biji bawang besar ~ hiris halus
3 ulas bawang putih ~ hiris halus
1 inci halia ~ hiris halus btg mancis
1/3 cwn kismis
Rempah tumis ~ 1 batang kayu manis, 1 kuntum bunga lawang, 3 biji buah pelaga, 5 kuntum bunga cengkih
Sedikit pewarna kuning- guna
1 sk kunyit campur dgn sikit air
Garam secukup rasa.

Cara penyediaan:-

Panaskan minyak tumis rempah tumis, bawang putih, bawang besar dan halia hingga harum dan bawang layu.

Masukkan kismis, goreng sebentar dan masukkan pula air, biar mendidih.

Bila mendidih, padamkan api dan tuang ke dalam rice cooker. Masukkan beras dan garam secukup rasa, kacau rata dan masak seperti biasa.

#Bila nasi kering, buat lubang ditgh nasi dan letakkan foil. Masukkan 1 sudu minyak dan seketul arang yang telah dibakar. Tutup tudung periuk selama 2 minit supaya aroma asap arang tadi meresap ke dalam nasi.

Buka semula tudung periuk dan keluarkan foil bersama arang tadi.

Titiskan 2-3 titik pewarna kuning, kacau/gembur nasi dan masak nasi sehingga masak.

(#) Step (4) ni tak buat sbb tak ada arang kat rumah..ada kat kedai, maleh nak membakar setakat nak letak seketuiii..hehee) Orang lain jgn ikut akak eh..rajin2 sikit..

Nota:- Utk dptkan nasi 2 warna gini jgn kacau rata2 sgt nasi tu.. nak nasi masak elok yg biasa buat bila masak nasi minyak dll, bila nasi kering tutup nasi dgn aluminium foil yg lebar, barulah tutup dgn tudung periuk....jadi nasi masak elok sbb wap nasi terperangkap.

So Monday night tu for dinner I made the nasi mandhi and roti jala, dua dua pun boleh makan dgn kari ayam.

This is the roti jala recipe which I got from here:
Bahan-bahan ( Anggaran 10-15 orang. )
450g tepung gandum
1 camt garam
1/2 camt serbuk kunyit
450 ml susu segar
3 biji telur (di pukul sedikit )
450 ml air ( sekiranya semasa menyediakan adunan, ianya agak pekat tambahkan sedikit air )
2 camb mentega cair
minyak untuk melenser
acuan roti jala

Cara-cara

Ayak tepung, garam dan serbuk kunyit ke dalam mangkuk besar. Buatkan lubang di tengahnya. Tuangkan susu, telur, separuh daripada air dan setengah mentega cair ke dalamnya. Gunakan pemutar belon / balloon whisk untuk membancuh. Masukkan baki air dan mentega hingga adunan tidak bergentel. Tapis dengan penapis halus.

Ketepikan adunan selama 20-30 minit.

Panaskan kuali leper yang tidak melekat atas api sederhana. Kemudian lenserkan sedikit minyak panas dengan berus lenser atau berus pandan.

Kacau dan isikan 80ml adunan ke dalam acuan roti jala.

Bermula dari bulatan luar, pusingkan acuan kira-kira 6-8 cm di atas kuali. Terus memusing dalam bulatan untuk membentuk juraian roti jala. Jangan buat pada bahagian yang sama dua kali kerana roti jala akan menjadi tebal. Biarkan masak tetapi jangan sampai keperangan.

Angkat dan lipat roti dalam bentuk baji atau gulungkan. Ulangi proses yang sama sehingga semua adunan habis di gunakan.

Tips: Untuk membuat berus pandan, ambil 4 helai daun panda, belah setiap helai kepada 2 secara memanjang. Kemudian hiris sepanjang 20 cm. Akhirnya ikat pada satu hujung dengan getah bulat.

The kuih cara I made for the kids' lunch box. Sebenarnya I couldnt wait to try the acuan kuih cara yg baru beli dekat Malaysia, itu yg sanggup buat pepagi lagi.

Here's the recipe which I got from here:

Bahan-bahan ( dalam 12 biji )
100gm tepung
200ml santan sederhana pekat/susu segar
1 sudu besar jus pandan (jun guna esen pandan sbb daun pandan x d)
1 biji telur
1/2 sudu teh garam
beberapa titik pewarna hijau
gula sebagai inti

Cara-cara
Campurkan tepung, santan, telur dan garam. Kacau rata. Kemudian masukkan jus pandan dan pewarna hijau sedikit. Jika terlalu berketul, tapis.
Panaskan acuan, lengser ngan minyak. Masukkan adunan tepung, biar sekejap, masukkan 1/2 sudu teh gula atas setiap satu kuih dan tutup acuan sebentar.
Pastikan api kecil supaya kuih tidak hangus, sbb kuih ni cepat masak, dalam 1-2 minit aje..

2009-11-01T23:29:00.004+08:00

Yesterday was Gebu's birthday. Thats the third birthday for the month. But I am not done yet with birthdays. Next week pula is going to be my darling's birthday. But nothing much I can do about it, though, as I dont think he'll be in Perth pun time birthday dia.

Although Bunches also wanted to have a haloween party to celebrate her birthday yesterday, I had to turn down her request. I told her, I tak berdaya nak organise a haloween party. Pengsan I kalau nak buat party besar besaran. I said, we'll just celebrate Gebu's birthday amongst us family sajalah. Kecil kecilan, please.

So, in the morning, I made the ricotta cheese pancake. Recipe nya I dah pernah tayang dekat sini masa bulan puasa hari tu. Then made scrambled egg, and ada croissant and mud cake that were bought. So, that was birthday breakfast for Gebu. Itupun, mujur juga Angel rajin nak tolong I buat pancake. I dah siap bancuh the mixture, and she helped to fry them. Angel ni semangat juga nak masak memasak ni, cuma I sometime dont trust her ability due to her rather small size.

Angel helping me out:

Breakfast for the birthday boy:

Malam pula I buat chocolate cake. So happened that on the same day I nampak dekat blog Kak Ummi she made this American Chocolate Cake. I pun mecuba lah resipi itu. It was quite good, since I ni tak pernah buat pun chocolate cake, kira my first trial ni menjadi lah juga. Here's the recipe yg di copy from that blog.

BAHAN:- (loyang 9 x 9 in/8 x 8 in)
2 cups flour*
2 cups granulated sugar - guna caster sugar
3/4 cups cocoa*
2 tsp baking powder*
2 tsp baking soda*
2 eggs
1 cup of milk (fresh)
1 cup of corn oil
1 tsp vanilla essence
1/2 tsp salt 1 tsp Nescafe, added to 1 cup of hot water

Cara;:-
Ayak bahan * sekaligus
Pukul sekejap semua bahan kecuali bahan diayak*, susu dan air. (akak pukul lebihkurang 1 1/2 minit gitu..)
Masukkan bahan yg diayak, air dan susu, kacau kejap dgn senduk kayu.
Bakar dgn preheat oven 170 selama 45 min. (oven akak - 165C sahaja)

Untuk topping:

1 tin susu pekat - boleh kurangkan
1 sudu teh esen vanila
1/2 cawan minyak jagung
1/3 cawan serbuk koko (akak guna Van Houten)
secubit garam
Cara:-
Campurkan susu, serbuk koko dan minyak. Masak atas api perlahan saja hingga pekat dan kacau selalu dengan whisker. Masukkan garam dan esen, kacau. Bila telah pekat dan berkilat (lebih kurang 10 minit), tutup api dan biarkan sejuk. Sapu atas kek.

The two guys in my life:

And sebab semalam was also haloween day, Angel was hoping to go trick and treating. Actually they dont really celebrate haloween here. Rasanya dekat US yg meriah sangat orang celebrate haloween. Masa I study sini dulu, I was not even aware of haloween day. Ada one time I happened to be in US (Hawaii), time dah kerja, terkejut I pergi tengah bandar tengok semua orang all dressed up in costume parading on the street. Baru lah first time I encounter haloween day. Anyway last year ada lah a few kids went trick and treating dekat area rumah we all. However, this year we have moved house, and our area now ni macam senyap saja, no one participate. Tapi sebab kesian sangat dekat Angel yg dah beria dressed up as Wednesday Addams (of the Addams Family), I pun bawalah dia pergi trick and treat. We went to our old house area, coz I know there are some houses there that participate. Just tengok dekat luar rumah if ada pumpkin ke or monster ke or cobweb ke, maknanya you can knock there and there'll be candies waiting for you. Berani juga si Angel ni pergi knock on the doors, sebab kalau I sure tak buat sebab I ni pemalu sikit nak knock on strangers' doors. However, the adults will normally accompany the kids when they go trick and treatings. I pun tunggu lah dalam kereta while she when knocking. Adalah juga close to 10 houses that we covered in about 30 minute. Happy lah dia dapat candies.

Angel getting reading to go trick and treatings...ehm...baju yng dia pakai ni was made by yours truly... and if focussed on the waist, you can see that its a smocked dress. Sigh...yes, I can smock but I have not touched my smocking and sewing machine for more than 3 years. Bila tengok Angel pakai baju ni semalam, terasa rindu sangat nak menjahit balik, but I just cannot find the time to do it.

2009-10-30T18:36:00.003+08:00

Although I said mine and my darling's tax returns are ready, suddenly at the last minute (more last minute than me) my darling came up with some more receipts he wanted to claim. Padahal I dah banyak kali mention to him, apa yg dia nak I claim, coz I dont see I am claiming much for him except for the education tax refund. Itu pun lepas I told him that in my case I am claiming my CPA subscription, and then dia pun kata dia ada subscriptions yg dia nak claim, and kelam kabutlah dia cari the tax invoice and receipts. And then bila I dah include that one in, and was telling him that I am also claiming a donation of $2 to a charitable organisation, then dia kata dia pun ada another donation to Victorian Bushfire that he wants to claim. Weh..I didnt know pun dia ada donate to the Victorian Bushfire red cross, and when I asked him how much and when he told me the amount, siap terbeliak lah juga biji mata I. Membebel lah I how come I was not told of this and he said 'why should I tell you when I am donating'. Well, of coz you should tell me sebab firstly I am your wife and secondly I do your tax return so I must know. Ini last minute baru I tahu, and receipt pun tak ada. Mujur lah when I called the red cross people they were kind enough to email me a copy of the receipt. But now, thank God dah siap lah the tax returns.

Ok, on another note, semalam I singgah rumah Muna and was admiring her new house that she has just moved in. I wished I had a house with glass window/door all around like that. Boleh lah enjoy the sun and the view from inside. And then ...a lightbulb moment....I have that too. Boleh I tak perasan that my dining area pun ada glass window/door all around. I normally tarik the blind sampai I tak ingat ada glass window/door dekat belakang tu. Heh..heh...selama ni I biar gelap so that tak nampaklah all the mess dekat dalam rumah ni. So semalam dengan semangatnya I pun mengemas my open space area dengan bersungguh sungguh. Vacuumed, mopped, wiped, washed, cleaned....satu hari I spent doing that. Sampai bila the kids balik sekolah pun they all terperanjat and they commented 'kemasnya'. Memang sah sebelum ni sungguh bersepah.

My dining area with the glass window and door. Cuma i dont have a view lah dekat luar tu.

And semalam I pun dah tak tahan entah berapa hari tak makan nasi. So I made nasi bawang. Got the recipe from www.myresipi.com . And had it with udang. Lega dapat makan nasi, finally.

2009-10-27T22:54:00.002+08:00

I worked very hard today. Since 10am in the morning, I bertungkus lumus di dapur nak siapkan segala kek kek. Mula mula I made patty cakes. After 4 batches of spooning the mixture into the cases, I gave up. Kalau teruskan entah bila nak siap. So I just put the remaining mixture masuk dalam a round tin, jadi lah sebiji kek bulat yang comel lote. So now from the same mixture I had 48 pieces of patty cakes and 1 small round cake. Lepas tu buat brownies pula. Sementara nak tunggu semuanya sejuk for me to ice them, I mengemas ngemas lah rumah dkt mana yg patut. Dah almost 2 weeks you I tak kemas rumah. Masa nak exam hari tu langsung I tutup mata tak nak tengok all the mess. Lepas dah kemas rumah, I prepared the icing and iced those cakes. Sempat lah juga decorate sikit sikit. Boleh buat the letter 'S' macam 'S' dekat perkataan Star Wars tu (though Angel said it looked like 'Z'). Dah siap semua tu, buat tuna sandwich. Then picked the kids up from school. Penuh lah juga van I today with at least four 16 year olds in the van. Jom tengok gambar. Can tell the story better with the photos.

Tu dia my brownies (in brown of coz), cake, patty cake and sandwiches. Siap pakai silver cover lagi. Tried my best to stick to silver sebab theme star wars kan:

Popcorn for movie time:

Ni dekat dalam cinema with 1st class and 2nd class seats. Siap ada light saber lagi atas that small table:

Now showing: Star Wars ( a scene with Darth Vader)

Kakak with the patty cakes, Happy Birthday, dear...and I love you and semoga menjadi anak yang solehah dan berjaya:

And my most favourite speech during the kids birthday will go something like this: 'Do you know 16 years ago I was in labor for 16 hours with so much pain to bring you into the world, so you better behave yourself'. Heh..heh...I will normally repeat this on their birthdays, and they all pun dah hafal dah apa I nak kata.

And....*drum roll* I've completed mine and my darling's tax returns. Sort of lah, I dah isi all the details. Dah dapat the tax estimate. Semua tu calculated by etax. Tomorrow I will try and do manual calculation pula, to see if my calculation tally with etax calculation. Phew, lega dah siap. Actually buka leceh sangat pun tapi I selalu tend to procrastinate with tax returns. Ok, then I should be free to cook and read story books for the next few days.

2009-10-26T23:31:00.004+08:00

Hari ni cannot membebel panjang because satu tak ada banyak masa, sebab tax return and preparation birthday party belum siap, and yg kedua sebab memang tak ada cerita pun yg nak diceritakan.

Pagi tadi terkejar kejar cari Star Wars ep 4. Sebenarnya, I've gone to Civic Video last night to see if they have Star Wars or not. Its a video rental outlet and kita orang memang ada account dkt situ. Unfortunately episod lain ada, tapi ep 4 yg dicari tak ada. It seemed that they have 3 copies, but 2 were out and 1 is MIA. So, I thought, I'll just go to Big W ke or KMart ke and beli sajalah. So this morning dkt Big W, tak ada pula. Sales girl tu kata, it comes and go. Since dkt depan Big W tu ada Blockbuster Video, another video rental outlet, I pun went to check it out. Mujur ada, Alhamdulillah. So, I pun sign up lah di situ juga utk menjadi member dkt Blockbuster pula. Elok lagi Block buster ni dari Civic Video. They have more selections and the lay out dkt dalam pun nampak lagi teratur. Dont know why dulu my darling ni pergi pilih Civic Video instead of Blockbuster.

Anyway, baru kejap tadi, Angel and I pun tengoklah Star Wars because Kakak wanted to be sure that the video is in good quality. Nama pun rental dvd, entah dah berapa orang pinjam, so adalah juga a few places yg tersekat sekat, but I said to Kakak, tak apalah, sikit aje, overall its still in good quality. In fact I dah suruh the lady dkt the outlet tu cuci kan dulu dvd tu tadi. Tengok Star Wars punya pasal, tax return tetap tak siap. So, I am rushing now updating the blog.

And as for dinner pula sebenarnya I dah lama tak makan nasi. Everytime I masak nasi, the kids were'nt really ineterested. Terpaksa masak something else. Tadi I pun buatlah fish and chips and we had it with steamed brocolli with white cheese sauce.

So, budak budak ni makan lah dgn semangatnya, except for their mum. So, kelaparan lah I. Lepas tu kena lah masak maggi for myself.

Ok, kata tak ada cerita jadi panjang pula entry ni...signing out n ow.

2009-10-25T20:59:00.003+08:00

Wokeh people, I am making the effort to update my blog walau tahap busy belum turun lagi. At least I am done with my exam on Friday and boleh lah bernafas sikit. Speaking of exam, I sometime dont know why I bother taking exams anymore, at this age, I really cant take the pressure. Especially bila tengah duduk for the exam, rasa macam nak dapat heart attack and semput. I had difficulty in keeping up with the time, 60 MCQ to be completed in 2 hours, and most questions panjang panjang, with the choices pun panjang panjang, mana tak semput nak habiskan paper tu. Tak masuk lagi bab panick. Its just different from the time masa buat exam muda muda dulu. But I suppose I got to do what I got to do. Kalau I tak upgrade my qualification, rasa macam rugi pula wasting my time and my brain go idle. Ok, enough of that, now I have to pray hard moga I pass, Ameen....

Tomorrow I will start bertungkus lumus nak siapkan mine and my darling's tax return. Hopefully it will be straight forward. Tax returns are due this 31st. I buat e-filing aje lah kan.

And then kakak's birthday is this Tuesday. She will be 16 years old. Kalau ikut dia, dia tak nak lah buat party ke apa. And I pun memang malas nak organize party. But its her sweet 16 birthday. You only get it once in your lifetime. So I thought kita buat kecil kecilan that she can invite a few of her friends (4 or 5 people) and they can just hang out lepak lepak aje. And she agreed that they will watch a movie dekat dvd. She wanted Star Wars yg original tu (ep 4). So happened we only have ep 3 and 6 dkt rumah ni. Besok kena lah I go hunt cari ep 4, hopefully ada lah dkt Big W. If not I kata you all tengok Transformer aje la. One thing I dont mind organising a party for budak besar is that there is nothing much to organise. I just siapkan food simple simple. Budak budak sini pun makan snack saja. Kalau buat party for budak kecik yg malas, nak siap organise activities and games, plus party pack lagi. I am done with that. Dulu when the kids were 7 and below, selalu lah juga I buat party party ni, siap dgn theme, and I did it all on my own, from games, deco, party packs, etc, part makan aje I contract out to my mum. Kalau boleh dah nak pencen dah from all that. Cuma this 31st ni will be Gebu's birthday and Bunches's birthday was on the 7th hari tu. Si Bunches ni gaduh nak suruh celebrate her birthday this coming 31st, nak buat haloween party. Itu yg I malas tu, kalau haloween, sure kena organise segala macam benda. Lagi pun 31st ni Gebu's actual birthday, so if nak celebrate Bunches' kena celebrate Gebu's sekali. Malas, malas, tapi kesian. I am still thinking about it.Tu lah I have 3 kids borned in the same month, ada pening sikit jadi nya.

Today, seperti biasa Sunday, ke masjid lah kami. Belajar 1 hour saja, because the other hour we had a raya makan makan. Mari lah kita melayan gambar makan makan di masjid:

Pot luck from the mums, tapi I tak bawa apa pun, tak sempat coz I only found out about it last nite:

The masjid sponsored burger, sausage and chicken wing:

And also because it was extra sunny today, we decided to go for an adventure. Adventure because instead of taking the car, we took the bus to the city. Saja jalan jalan ambik gambar, since I havent really captured much of the spring flowers on photo. Marilah melayan gambar gambar itu:

Angel and I walking towards a bus stop:

Kakak and Angel with the flowers:

Angel with the flowers:

2009-10-12T18:26:00.003+08:00

Uwaaaa....so busy, bila nak update blog properly ni? Rasa nya beginning of November baru boleh betul betul update.

Just got back to Perth yesterday. Spent 3 weeks in Malaysia. So sorry to those people yg I plan to call but did not get to call. Mulanya 1st week I beraya sakan. Tapi bila masuk 2nd and 3rd week, I ter'busy' pula. And I only managed to spend only 3 days to study and the rest of the time I ke sana ke mari from 1 corner of KL to another corner of KL. There were trips to JPJ to renew my road tax, Tabung haji rectivate my dormant account, JPN coz Bunches turned 12 on 7/10 so kena buat IC, hantar kereta ke workshop coz aircond rosak, tax accountant re our tax returns, , gynae for the yearly check up (tapi dah 5 years tak check up), dentist for the 6 monthly check up (kononnya), bank masuk kan check, money changer to convert RM to AUD, dry cleaner to dry clean my raya kurung, a bit of shoppings at Mydin, Bake with Yen, brought Bunches and the rest to KLCC on her birthday, pergi Jln TAR saja nak survey, visit my arwah dad's graves once in a every few days (tho I wished I had time to visit everyday) a few open houses, massage on my last day there, Putrajaya coz kidds wanted to meet old friends, phew...semput I especially during my last week in KL, memang terkejar kejar ke sana sini.

And after this I will still be busy coz exam coming up on the 23rd and then nak terkejar kejar with tax return yg due on the 31st. Memang last minute sungguh I buat kerja. So, friends...I dont think I will be updating sakan the next few weeks.

Here are a couple of gambar raya yg sempat I upload:

Hari Raya Eve

2009-09-20T00:23:00.004+08:00

Hari ni teramatlah lain suasana berbuka for me and family, as I got to spend it with my beloved mum and siblings. Sebab dapur berasap untuk juadah hari raya besok, so tak adalh kita orang masak untuk iftar. Instead we bought the food from Param...yeah, I just learnt a new word today...Param stands for Pasar Ramadhan. You know for the past 1 month I've been confused reeading status of some friends at facebook yg asyik sebut Param sana sini. I thought this must be a new chain of restaurant kot as there seemed to be branches everywhere. Finally today barulah I tahu apa itu Param.

What we got from Param today, kebab, donut, murtabak and cucur udang:

Ini kids favourite, Kenny Rogers muffin:

Proud of Angel who managed to fast in Malaysia with an extended hour fasting time:

And Gebu got to join the rombongan takbir raya group. It was his first experience pergi rumah ke rumah bertakbir.

Gebu and my brother bersiap siap nak pergi takbir:

Takbir raya at our house:

Kids from the group dapat duit raya as they were leaving for the next house:

Gebu pun dapat duit raya:

2009-09-17T10:35:00.004+08:00

Semalam the primary school finally had their faction carnival after postponing the event twice due to bad weather and I was very exhausted after spending half the day on the field giving my moral support to my kids. They were both in the green faction, so I pun kenalah cheer for green. Layan aje lah gambar gambar carnival dekat bawah ni.

Angel during her 75m race, she in green and skort (she didnt win this race):

Bunches during her 100m race:

And she got third place (muka and rambut habis diconteng hijau):

Angel during her tunnel ball race:

Bunches during her tunnel ball race:

The excited Angel:

Especially because her daddy was back in town and was there to watch her run:

At home Angel showing off the stickers she collected, dkt sini tak dapat piala bagai, you get a sticker at the end of each race, as can be seen here Angel was in 5 events, yg smiley face tu for saguhati and the rest ada tulis 1st, 2nd or 3rd placing:

Bunches was in 3 events, 1 event 1st place and the other two 3rd place:

And below were what we had for iftar on Tuesday, pizza and bread pudding with butterscotch sauce.

Pizza:

Bread pudding with butterscotch sauce:

Lepas ni raya dah nak dekat, jadi kuranglah I ber blog. A lot need to be done and I'll be pretty busy in the next few days, or probably weeks. So di sini I nak ucapkan Selamat Hari Raya to everybody and maaf zahir dan batin kalau ada apa apa terkasar bahasa. Tak sempat I nak buat kad raya and letak dkt sini, and for those yg ada buat kad, kalau I sempat I akan singgah ambil, kalau tak sempat, minta maaf but I appreciate it very much.

2009-09-15T09:04:00.004+08:00

Most nights during the month of Ramadhan ni, I am off to bed early. By 8 or 9pm after terawih, I dah flat. Must be because I've been up since 4 or 4.30 am in the morning. Imsak is at about 5am, awal kan. Dulu masa beginning of Ramadhan imsak was about 5.30am. Iftar is now at 6.08pm and Isyak masuk pukul 7.35pm.

And semalam pula, I bertungkus lumus mengemas rumah. No special occassion, cuma dah lama tak kemas rumah Bulan puasa ni tak larat juga nak naik turun tangga vacuum. Mujur dkt atas tu all carpeted, tak payah lah mop. But dkt bawah ni still have to vacuum and mop.

So bila dah masuk final week of Ramadhan ni, I pun dah tak bole pikir apa nak bagi budak budak ni makan for iftar. Browse punya browse, I settled for Ummi's maggie goreng, which I think she got from MyResipi.com juga and which I'll copy and paste dkt bawah ni nanti. I tell you bila dah siap, sebiji rasa macam maggie goreng yg dkt kedai mamak tu. I kinda of like the kedai mamak maggie goreng and my fav was the one dkt Precint 9 Putrajaya. Lepas ni tak payah lah kempunan maggie goreng mamak lagi, since I can already make one. Cuma resipi Ummi ni is for maggie perisa curry. Tak ada pula perisa curry dkt Oriental shop tu semalam, so I bought perisa ayam and letak my own serbuk kari.

Maggie goreng:

Bahan-bahan ( 4 orang ):-
2 biji telur
2 ulas bawang putih
4 peket maggie perisa kari
2 peket perencah kari(perencah yg dlm maggie )
3~4 batang kacang panjang-potong dlm 3~4cm panjang. (*akak letak sawi)
1/2 btg lobak merah-potong kecil memanjang
2 cawan air
minyak untuk menumis
utk hiasan:
daun bawang
bawang goreng
cili merah

Cara-cara:-

Panaskan sikit minyak dalam kuali. Masukkan telur dan kacau-kacau biar jadi scrambled egg. Angkat dan ketepikan.

Ketuk-ketuk bawang putih dan cincang halus. Panaskan sikit minyak dalam kuali. Tumiskan bawang putih sehingga naik bau.. atau nampak perang.

Kemudian masukkan perencah kari yg telah dicampur dgn sedikit air. Tumis sehingga keluar bau wangi.

Masukkan sayur. Kacau-kacau sekejap dan masukkan air. Biarkan mendidih.

Kemudian masukkan maggie. Patahkan maggie kepada 2 bahagian supaya senang nak lembik. Kacau biar semua serata dan maggie lembik. Kalau air dah kering tapi maggie masih lagi keras, bolehlah tambah sedikit air lagi.

Akhir sekali masukkanlah scrambled egg tadi. Kacau rata.

Angkat dan hias dengan bahan-bahan hias. Makanlah panas-panas.

And then for desert, or kuih...heh..heh...I made hotcake or you can call it pancake. Dah lama tak buat hotcake ni, and tumpang strawberries tengah murah ni, we had it with strawberries. It was a recipe given to me by a friend last year which I think must have came from a local magazine.

Ricotta hotcakes with strawberries and maple syrup:

Ricotta Hotcakes with Strawberries and Maple Syrup
1 and 1/2 cup self raising flour
1/4 cup sugar
2 eggs
100g ricotta
milk
butter for cooking (but I melted it and mix it into the bater instead)
2 punnets ripe strawberries
maple syrup.

Put flour, sugar and eggs into bowl.
Add enough milk to make a thick pourable batter
Mash the ricotta cheese and stir into the mixture, it should be well combined but still look a bit lumpy.
To cook, melt some butter in a pan over oderate heat and mixture in tablespoonfulls.
Turn over when the bottom is brown and the top is bubbly.
Cook the other side.
Place 2 or more hotcakes on each serving plate, top with strawberries and pour over the syrup to taste.

One thing I am happy about yesterday's iftar was that the food were all finished, tak ada leftover pun. Puas hati kalau masak semua habis, Alhamdulillah.

2009-09-13T21:58:00.004+08:00

And semalam I telah berjaya lagi sekali membuat kuih raya yg kedua iaitu biskut suji, and I am so proud of myself because I think it was a success. Its a recipe I got from my darling's aunt ages ago, but never attempted baking it. So bila first time buat and terus jadi, thrill lah kan. Satu adunan tu quite banyak, I think I got almost 200 pieces if not more. I wanted to halve kan the ingredients tapi tak berani pula pandai pandai, nanti tak jadi.

Biskut Suji
Bahan-bahan:
750gm tepung gandum*
1 cawan tepung suji/semolina*
3 sudu teh baking powder*
1 sudu teh garam*
1 tin minyak sapi (454 gm)+
1 tin gula icing (I used the same minyak sapi tin to measure this)+

Cara-cara:

Semua bahan * diayak dan digaul rata.
Bahan + dikacau bersama sampai hancur dan dicampur pada * sedikit demi sedikit.
Uli sehingga mendapat adunan yg boleh dibentuk bulat.
Bulatkan dan bakar pada suhu 150 - 160 darjah celsius.

And also yesterday, kakak got an invitation to attend her friend's birthday party. It was a theme party and you were to come dressed as a super hero or super villain. Dia ajak lah I pergi rent from a costume shop. So I called lah the shop tanya how much would the rental be, and it was $45 per costume. Wah...so expensive, so cannot lah I told her. Kalau beli baju dkt kedai pun you can get cheaper than that. So I suggested we googled for costumes and tengoklah if we can make do with whatever we have at home. And coincidently I tengah dok dengar my fav song at www.mixpod.com "I want to spend my lifetime loving you"(zorro 1 theme song) and it occurred to me...hah, pergi jadi zorro sajalah. Senang aje kan the costume. We googled for female zorro image and decided to use this one as a guide:

And this was the result. All we had to do was buy the mask which was less than $5. The rest semua yg dah sedia ada di rumah:

And today Sunday as usual is our day at the mosque. Sebab next week dah nak raya, the younger kids did raya cards and had an enjoyable time coluring and decorating the cards.

Angel with her card, which she said she wanted to give it to daddy:

And the touching part was when Bunches came over to show me her card and told me that she wanted to give it to Tok Abib (arwah my father). I said, macammana Tok Abib dah tak ada. And she said "Can I put it on his grave?". Terlalu sebak sangat, I couldnt say anything. Because selalu I suruh my kids buat handmade cards when it was my father's birthday. So agaknya bila buat handmade raya card tadi, terus dia ingat nak bagi her grandfather. Which also reminded me when my father was in Perth in December hari tu, and Angel had made some craft item at school, she brought it home and terus cakap to my father "Tok Abib, I made something for you". Handmade craft items are always meant for my father, even if he was in Malaysia and we in Australia, we would mail it to him.

Bunches and her card:

2009-09-12T16:40:00.005+08:00

Semalam berjaya juga akhirnya I membuat biskut raya after many many years (that many that I dont remember anymore when was the last time I made kuih raya). Selama duduk Malaysia, I just bought. Buat apa nak buat kan, if I could buy saja. Even this time pun I dont know why I baked them sebab kita org nak balik raya Malaysia. That was what Kakak asked just now, why did I bother making kuih raya when we wont even be here almost the whole duration of Syawal. Well, I told her I just wanted to get into the raya mood. So I pun pilih biskut yg nampak senang sungguh and memang senang pun nak buat, almond chocochip cookies. Got it from Ummi's blog here, which I think comes from Yani at www.myresipi.com but I'll just copy and paste here anyway.
Almond Chocochip cookies
Bahan-bahan ( 30-40 biji ):-
100g butter-suhu bilik
50g gula halus
50g gula perang
1 biji telur
sedikit esen vanila
100g almond powder
150g tepung gandum
1/2 sudu kecil baking powder
120g chocochips

Cara-cara:-
1. Pukul butter sehingga jadi bentuk krim.
2.Masukkan kedua-dua jenis gula sedikit demi sedikit sambil dipukul. Pukul sehingga putih.
3. Masukkan telur dan esen vanila. Pukul lagi.
4. Masukkan pula tepung yg telah diayak dengan baking powder dan juga almond powder. Kacau dengan spatula. Masukkan chocolate chips.
5. Panaskan oven pada 180C
6. Ceduk adunan dengan sudu kecil dan letak atas oven plate yg telah dialas dengan oven sheet.
7. Bakar selama 20-25 minit dengan suhu 180C.

As for iftar yesterday, I made buritto as suggested by my dear cousin Muna. Tengok dkt her fotopages, dia pun dah buat the same thing but she uses soft taco instead and I used the tortilla bread. Thank you for the idea...heh..heh..my kids were happy with it. I have the ground beef bolognese sauce leftovers and I used them as the fillings.

I letak gambar dkt bawah ni to show what are needed to assemble it. Clockwise from the top: mashed avocado with drops of lemon juice, lettuce, sour cream, diced tomato, mexican salsa, ground beef filling, grated cheese and yg dkt tengah tu are the tortillas.

And we had it with chips:

2009-09-11T11:21:00.002+08:00

Sehari dua ni memang hujan, plus angin kuat lagi, so mood nak masak pun kurang. But no choice, I've got to do what I've got to do ie ...malas or not tetap kena masak, kalau tak masak, apa lah yg my kids akan makan for iftar. So after2 days of pasta, semalam kena ikut my selera, and I wanted to eat gulai ikan. Memang lah ada salmon frame dalam freezer, I memang teramat minat dgn salmon. So prepared the gulai yesterday. I know my kids dont fancy fish, so I made ayam goreng berempah for them again. Betul pun, masa makan tu, they only took the kuah and tak ambil pun ikan. Nampak gaya I lah yg kena habis kan ikan tu, so for the next few days the gulai ikan will be my menu. As for kuih, I just buat cucur bawang sajalah. Walaupun I rasa sepinggan besar penuh I goreng the cucur, sekejap saja licin, sampai berebut rebut semua dok chop cucur tu.

Anyway below are some photos of how yesterday look like (today pun sama), so imagine sajalah betapa kuat nya angin, melayang layang pokok dkt luar and how gloomy it was (and still is) .

Backyard..nampak macam snow pula hujan ni:

Front view:

Dan marilah kita tengok suasana berbuka semalam. Just ambil gambar the kids, malas nak ambil gambar lauk lauk yg sempoi.

Kakak and Angel:

Gebu and Bunches, see that cucur sepinggan, memang banyak I buat tapi still tak cukup...berapa lama I nak menggoreng banyak tu, lain lah kalau ada deep fryer:

2009-09-09T21:35:00.004+08:00

Pagi tadi kan I dah pening pening pikir tak tahu apa nak masak for iftar. Kalau boleh I just wanted to prepare something that's easy so I didnt have to spend too much time in the kitchen. Banyak lagi kerja lain yang tergendala sejak bulan puasa ni sebab too much time spent in the kitchen. Dah lah I ni sebenarnya not a natural kitchen person. My darling could vouch that. I used to think spending too much time in the kitchen is a waste of time. So tak tahu macamana bulan puasa ni I boleh terminat pula masuk kitchen selalu.

So I thought that I would make bengkang for kuih today. Yang itu senang kan, just mix everything together and pop it into the oven and the oven would take over from there. There's this one recipe bengkang that my mother selalu buat. And I dah pernah salin the recipe from my mother, in fact dah banyak kali salin sebab asyik hilang saja recipe tu. My mum pernah bising juga dulu that my sista and I everytime nak buat bengkang tu kena call dia and minta recipe. Tadi I wanted to make the bengkang, selongkar my recipe drawer tak jumpa lah pula recipe tu. So buat kesekian kalinya kena juga call her to ask her for the recipe. Hopefully lepas ni I wont lose it anymore. Or better still I'll type it down here, so later I could come back to my blog to check the recipe.

Bengkang susu:

Bahan-bahan:

1 tin (bersamaan 2 cawan) ideal milk
2 cawan tepung
1 cawan gula halus
2 atau 3 biji telur (bergantung pada saiz)
sedikit garam
5 cawan air

Cara-cara:

Campurkan semua bahan bahan kecuali air dan pukul. Masukkan air sedikit demi sedikit sehingga adunan tidak berketul.
Tuangkan ke dalam bekas yg telah disapukan mentega dan dipanaskan. Masukkan ke dalam oven lebih kurang 200 darjah celsius selama 1 hingga 1 1/2 jam.

Senang habis kan nak buat. And for the main meal I made fetucinne carbonara. Sos dia pun yg beli dalam balang ala ala preggo yg dekat Malaysia tu. And I also made mee goreng mamak using the leftover spaghetti semalam. Cukuplah 3 jenis untuk iftar tadi. Itupun tak habis juga. Nampak gaya nak kena masuk fridge lah lepas ni for future consumption.

Fetucinne Carbonara:

Spaghetti goreng style mamak:

2009-09-09T09:06:00.004+08:00

Yesterday, for the first time ever, Bunches tinggal puasa. She called me from school yesterday morning with gasping breaths which I could hear clearly over the phone. She told me that she had just completed 800m run and was very thirsty and had to drink. And could I please come over to school and bring her morning break snack and lunch. And morning break was in 20 min time.

Hmm...I wonder juga dia call I pakai phone siapa, and was she calling me from the field ke? And siapa yg suruh dia lari 800m? I know that sports carnival is at the end of the week. Budak ni tengah practice sport ke nak masuk 800m run? Why didnt she tell her teacher that she was fasting, because I know the teachers here were very understanding. If you tell them you puasa, dia tak kan suruh you buat PE.

So, I pun kelam kabut lah prepare kan dia roti (letak butter and jam saja) and mujur ada pizza base dalam fridge, so buatkan lah pizza with just tomato and cheese (I didnt have any other topping).

The express lunch box:

Bila sampai sekolah just in time for her morning break, tengok relax aje dia dok borak borak dgn kawan kawan dia, ketawa ketawa lagi. Ingatkan penat sangat. I tanya dia siapa suruh lari, and she said that they could collect points for their faction if they run. So, ini preparing for their sports carnival lah, you run, do throws and jumps to collect point for their faction. Bila after school I tanya lagi, apasal you volunteer nak lari, and she said sebab her green faction tak cukup point, so dia nak tolonglah collectkan point. Angel said even for her class pun kalau nak lari 600m boleh, tapi dia dah cakap dengan cikgu dia awal awal lagi dia puasa and tak nak lari. And rupanya si Bunches ni siap masuk office to use the office phone to call me to bring her lunch. So, I dont think masa tu dia masih lagi termengah mengah, heh...which means the gasping sound were just and act. Drama queen betul anak dara sorang ni. Berlakun dalam phone macam she had just completed the run like a minute ago, and tengah termengah mengah phone I. Tapi dia dah siap minum air and berjalan pergi office, tak kan masih termengah. I tahu lah dia ni, she was trying to justify to me her action yang terpaksa buka puasa, kenalah ada sound effect sekali.

Anyway, yesterday after going Middle Eastern and Thai, we went Italian. Alah...buat spaghetti sempoi saja. Macam the day before bila buat nasi, memang banyak tak habis. So nak kena buat something yg bukan nasi juga.

Spaghetti sempoi:

And I know I tak kan puas makan spaghetti, so nasi left over from the day before tu, I buat nasi goreng ikan masin.

Nasi goreng ikan masin:

And as for kuih, maka I pun mencuba buat burger Malaysia yg letak inti timun and sambal ikan bilis seperti yg tertera di blog Hana. And part of the dough tu I try buat donut. Saja aje nak try try buat donut, tapi in the end the donut lebih laku dari burger Malaysia tu. Gambar dkt bawah tu, I letak contoh one of each aje lah of my production. Tak boleh letak gambar semua sebab maklum lah I ni masih lagi amatur, jadi donut and burger Malaysia tu all come in different shapes and sizes. Hee..hee...first time buat kan, ada yg terkecik, ada yg terbesar...but I am going to practise them again especially the donut because it was a hit.

Burger Malaysia and donut:

And today I tengah pening tak tahu apa nak masak for iftar???????

2009-09-07T20:43:00.004+08:00

After going Middle Eastern yesterday, today I decided to go Thai. Sebenarnya sebab I nak makan nasi, rasa macam dah lama tak makan nasi. So today masak sempoi aje lah. An easy dish for me was tom yum, and I made vege tom yum. Dalam freezer dah ada ayam goreng kunyit, and then I just made telur dadar. Siap lah dinner ala ala masakan Thai. We used to have this kind of menu when we ate out masa duduk Kerteh dulu. Tukang masak dia Melayu Siam, and we loved his ayam goreng kunyit and tom yum.

Our simple spread:

As for kuih, I made popia again. Dah expert sikit this time, so I modify the inti letak sambal tumis and kacang goreng yg macam orang buat popia basah tu. They were all gone dalam sekelip mata.

The popias:

And today Angel wanted so much to buy maggie mee in a bowl. Actually Kakak bought it last week. So dia amat teringin sangat bila tengok Kakak makan maggie tu, so just now after school, dia minta belikan, and was happy dapat maggie semangkuk.

The two girls with the maggie in a bowl:

Tak banyak cerita kan hari ni. Ye lah Monday kan, isnt it the most boring day of the week, plus it was a pretty gloomy day today - sejuk, angin kuat and hujan saja. Hopefully tomorrow will be a cheerful day, so that I can have more to tell.

2009-09-06T19:51:00.003+08:00

Today we went Middle Eastern. I tried preparing gozleme for iftar. Actually semalam I brought Kakak and Bunches to Harbourtown to do their raya shopping. Dah dekat sana, surelah punya kempunan tengok gozleme yang Pak Arab Turkey tu jual. Lalu dkt depan kiosk dia saja dah bau gozlemenya. So we bought lah 1 set of spinach andn cheese gozleme. Maka I pun wonderlah if I pun boleh buat ke tak gozleme ni. So bila google tengok macam senang aje recipe dia.

Hu..hu.. Nampak saja senang, tapi bila buat...adoi...I didnt know what kind of dough texture should I get. Macam liat and melekit, so punya lah susah nak knead and roll, nak angkat masuk kuali pun susah. I wonder juga, jadi ke tak ni????Tension sekejap tadi.

But when Kakak took a bite and said 'Woh..this is good', I pun teramat lah lega. I suppose it really pays after all the hard work and effort you put in it, and it got appreciated.
Lain kali I nak kena pergi tengok dekat belakang kiosk Turkey tu lah tengok macamana makcik Turkey tu menguli doh ...heh..heh..

This is the gozleme that we bought yesterday:

This is the one I made tadi:

Another middle eastern dish yg I teringin sangat nak buat tapi tak buat buat lagi is baclava. Its getting more and more expensive to buy baclava dkt sini sekarang. 1 small piece dah $2.50. Semalam dkt Harbourtown teringin lah jugakan, tak kan nak beli satu, so I bought 4, already $10. Memang tak boleh jadikan, nak kena juga try buat one of these days.

The baclava that I bought yesterday:

By the way, today, apart from the gozleme, I also made pumpkin pie for desert. Dah lama tak buat pie pie ni kan. Kiranya hari ni dari pagi sampai petang I buat kerja dgn tepung ajelah. Habis my kitchen bertepung. Buat pie crust kena uli tepung, buat kulit gozleme pun kena uli tepung. Rasa macam dah tak nak tengok tepung dah for the next few days.

My pumpkin pie, yg the small round one tu was made by Angel, ada sajalah dia menyibuk masa I tengah nak roll the dough tu, so I let her do one in a small mould:

Masa pergi beli baju raya semalam, Kakak found and bought this ear muff. Memang tinggal satu saja pun dkt kedai tu. Thrill habis dia dapat ear muff tu, coz actually we have yet to find it anywhere else. Ni first time nampak, so ambik ajelah kan. Maka bergayalah dia dgn the ear muff....walaupun winter dah habis...heh...heh. Agak nya nak pakai raya ni kot. She is so happy with them now, that she said her ears will feel lonely without them. Entah apa-apa.

Malu-malu kucing posing with her ear muff:

2009-09-05T11:30:00.004+08:00

Semalam the sun was shining pretty brightly, so I yang dah agak lama tak kena pancaran cahaya matahari, terus dapat sakit kepala by evening. So, off to bed early and tidak lah dapat nak meng'update' my blog.

The night before tu, I was chatting to Kakak and Bunches on what to prepare for iftar (yeah, now I need their feedback coz I've ran out of ideas...), and there were suggestions of putu piring lah, putu mayong lah....errr...hello, kalau I boleh buat putu-putu semua ni, might as well I buka stall berniaga putu teruskan. Sorry...putu dan seangkatan dgn nya is a big 'No No'. My skills belum naik up to that level. Finally, we settled for apom balik and mee hoon with fish ball soup. That sounded doable lah juga.

Maka I pun meng'google' apom balik and found it here. Ni se umur hidup tak pernah buat apom balik, tau makan saja, so yesterday had my first attempt buat apom balik. Rupa dia tak lah berapa cantik sangat, tapi rasa dia sama aje lah yg dkt pasar malam tu. Dapat about 12 pieces, which looked a lot, and I thought siapa lah nak habiskan banyak banyak ni. Tapi habis you, sekejap saja licin, sorang ambik 2 -3 biji. I only took 1 sebab nak rasa, coz I dont really fancy apom balik.

My apom balik:

I think nanti balik Malaysia, I need to go to Chow Kit and look for all the acuan kuih melayu and what not...hear that Darling, put that in your agenda, you need to bring me to Chow Kit nanti. Can't even remember when was the last time I masuk Chow Kit, had to be in the 90s.

And this was the mee hoon with fish ball sup, kids love fish ball so lakulah this dish though I'd rather have rice:

And also earlier yesterday, I attended a presentation at the primary school given by 2 students from Curtin Uni on health and nutrition. Basically its about making healthy food choices for school aged children. At least now I tahu lah juga nak baca the food labels on the breakfast cereal.

Always look for:
more than 3g of fibre per serve
less than 120mg of sodium per serve
less than 10g of sugar per 100g and checkif sugar are added or come from fruit. Only choose the product if fruit is listed before sugar on the ingredient list.

Some of the examples of good and not good choices of cereals and snacks:

And guess what, semalam singgah kedai Indian grocery store nak beli tepung suji (konon nak buat biskut suji), sempat lah I pinjam dvd hindustan. Heh...heh...dah lama tak tengok cerita hindustan. Once dulu I hantulah juga Bollywood, kalau naik kapal terbang pun tgk cerita Bollywood. So semalam pinjam cerita ni, hopefully sedap lah cerita tu. Quite cheap what to pinjam, only $2 for 1 week, and its 2 in 1 pula. Ada 2 movies in that 1 dvd.

2009-09-03T19:39:00.003+08:00

By today I've ran out of ideas what to prepare for iftar. I couldnt think of what to prepare for the main meal neither could I think of what kuih should I make. I have this sambal tumis petai and udang in the freezer. I could make nasi lemak and have it with the sambal tumis. But then nobody here except me and my darling yg makan petai. And he is not here, so rugi aje if I defrost that, tak terhabis I sorang yg melantak. So, if I make nasi lemak, I need to prepare it with some other lauk. Last last, decided to make ayam goreng berempah (kids will definitely love ayam goreng) and daging masak hitam (in laws' recipe) .

Maka I pun membanting tulang since noon lagi, preparing the ingredients. The daging masak hitam saja required merebus, menggoreng and memasak (huu...teringat kelas SRT). Ayam pula nak kena perap.

Itu belum lagi masuk bab nak buat kuih. Kuih apa lagi yg senang yg I boleh buat. I went through the old SRT book (yes, I have my sis SRT book here with me - mine dah hilang) looking for ideas. Then browsed myresepi.com, and decided to make popia goreng aje lah kan. Suspense juga nak buat popia coz the last time I made it was somewhere in mid 90s. I am quite bad at menggulung. But must try, kalau tak bila nak pandai. Tapi kulit popia pun tak ada dekat rumah. Tak apalah I could drop by at the Asian grocery store on my way picking my kids up from school.

So after picking up the kids, and with kulit popia in hand, I pun mulalah kerja menggulung (inti dah siapkan noon tadi). I ni jenis buat kerja gopoh gapah, itu yg kadang kadang the end result tak cantik. So masa nak gulung tadi, kept telling myself to do it with care and love over and over again, and not to gopoh. Alhamdulillah, cantik juga my popia...heh..heh. Dapatlah 11 biji. Berebut juga the kids time berbuka tadi dgn popia. Tak apa, esok nak buat popia lagi lah. Dah semangat popia pula now...heh...heh.

Thats my nasi lemak with ayam goreng rempah and daging masak hitam. Yang background tu my popia.

Ayam Goreng Berempah:

Semalam si budak berdua Bunches and Angel sibuk berposing dengan camera dalam bilik pakai self timer. They wanted me to put these on my blog, agaknya nak suruh daddy tengok. Dengan payung and sunglasses lagi, layan aje lah gambar budak berdua tu.

Bunches, Angel and umbrella:

Bunches, Angel and sunglasses:

By the way, I've just realized just now that there were some comments from my visitors relating to earlier posts (past 5 days) yg I belum tengok before this and baru nampak tadi, and baru jawab tadi. Sorrylah ye, tak perasan the comments, bukan bermaksud tak nak jawab...jangan marah, datanglah visit lagi ye.

2009-09-02T20:10:00.005+08:00

This morning as I was passing by the living room area, terkejut sekejap tengok meja yang I letak potrait the kids. Eh, ada gambar baru pula dekat tengah tu. Heh..heh...yeah I saw Angel was drawing it last night. She was drawing her daddy. He has been away for the past two weeks and naturally everyone here misses you, darling. So semalam Si Angel yang sekarang ni berangan nak jadi artist pula (baru last week nak jadi chef) sibuk nak lukis gambar her daddy.

Angel's impression of her daddy:

Nothing much to write today. Hari ni macam terlebih sejuk pula. Padahal dah officially spring. Gebu wanted burger for iftar, so went to buy mince meat this morning to make my own homemade burger.

This was what we had for iftar just now, cheese burger, chips and onde onde:

This was yesterday's iftar, roti jala with chicken curry:

By the way, jangan mare ye, I thought of getting into the raya mood, hence the raya song...(padahal belum pun sampai 15 hari puasa).

Baking With Angel

2009-09-01T14:18:00.007+08:00

As mentioned in my previous entry, I would write about baking with Angel. Remember, how on Sunday, she was complaining, nak buka puasa, lapar, padahal dah 4.30pm, tinggal lagi 1 and half hour saja to iftar. She didnt look lembik or tired, just lapar. Kalau masa awal tengah hari tadi nak buka puasa, I would let her, tapi sekejap lagi dah nak iftar, sayang lah. So kenalah I think of something to take her mind off. Dia pun memang nak sangat lah try out her baking kit tu.

So, let the following photos tell the story.

Beating the sugar and eggs, padahal the most part of this step, I yang buatkan. Tak terlarat dia nak beat them sampai fluffy:

Spooning the batter into the itty bitty cupcake pan:

Spreading the batter into the cake pan. By this time I dah suruh dia pakai hair band, kalau tak rambut menggerbang:

Popping them into the oven:

Smiling with her done cakes:

Frosting and decorating her cakes, while Gebu licking some of the leftover frosting:

Tak ada pula I ambil gambar cake yg dah siap frosted. Sebab lambat sangat siap, I pun dah penat nak tunggu.

Anyway, on a different note, this was what we had for iftar yesterday, Godam. I dont know if anybody has ever heard of it, but its sort of a hand me down recipe from tok, nenek, moyang I lagi. Both my paternal and maternal grandparents were from Palembang and I guess this recipe was from there. Most of my aunts, cousins,second cousins etc (we are a big family) all know how to prepare Godam - termasuklah I.

The baked Godam:

A piece of it:

Keratan rentas:

And our desert for yesterday's iftar was sagu gula melaka:

2009-08-31T09:05:00.004+08:00

Very very tiring Saturday and Sunday, sampai tak larat nak update blog. Moreover with the kids at home, susah lah sikit I nak dapat turn to use the computer. Kena tunggu turn pula. Everybody wants to use this new Acer, coz laptop yg lain tu dah berumur so tak laku.

Saturday morning had me rushing to the library at Curtin Uni. So bila balik tu dah kena decide what to cook, sebab petang sikit around 3pm need to bring Bunches to go buy a birthday present for her friend who was having a sleepover party that evening.

I got this idea to prepare soup from Cik Mat Gebu's blog. Masa tu Cik Mat buat sup daging tetel and he said kalau makan dgn mee hoon boleh juga. Ok, I've got tulang, so I 'll make sup daging tulang and boleh makan dgn mee hoon. At least it was a change from rice kan, tak adalah the kids will be bored. So, that afternoon, I pun merebus tulang (yeah...me dont have pressure cooker). Senang aje nak buat sup ni. Nanti when all the tulang dah empuk, boleh lah buat tumis darat, ie you tumis separately the rencah and curah aje dlm sup tu. I tumbuk all the rencah and then we were ready to go to Carousel for a birthday present shopping. I'll tumis the rencah when we get back later. Kakak also wanted to go coz she wanted to get exercise books and Gebu wanted to get stuff for his science project. So Angel had to go also coz tak kan nak tinggal dia home alone.

While there 'ter' pass by Pumpkin Patch and they were having this 70% off old winter stocks. So melencong masuk situ, bolehlah I tengok kan Angel's baju raya. She was very happy, dgn tak disangka dapat baju raya pula. Got her 2 pairs of baju. She was saying "Oooohhh...I love shopping especially when we are buying me clothes". Ye lah tu, pada hal, she is the last person you want to bring shopping coz she hates shopping and akan selalu buat perangai dkt kedai...like hiding between clothes or in the changing room. So, an hour shopping jadi 2 hour shopping. Balik rush le...nak kena tumis darat sup tu.

The sup tulang with mee hoon:

Lepas solat Maghrib, Bunches dah paksa paksa suruh hantar dia ke rumah kawan dia for the sleepover party.

She packed her belongings semua siap and was ready to go:

When we were at Carousel just now, I wanted to buy subway sandwich for Gebu. Sebab a few days ago, his Mechantronic class had an excursion to Curtin Uni, and they were served Subway sandwich for lunch. Kesian Gebu, dia puasa kan, tak dapat lah makan. So, I thought I should get him the sandwich for being such a good buy observing his puasa. Tapi dah tutup pula Subway tu, at about 4.45pm. Biasa lah, shopping centre tutup at 5pm, so the staff at Subway outlet pun siap siap nak baliklah.

So we thought of looking for another Subway outlet yg not located in a shopping centre. After sending Bunches in Cannington, kita pun singgah lah ke Subway yg ada at that suburb.

Gebu got his foot long seafood sensation sandwich:

Kakak pun tumpang makan:

And on Sunday morning, pepagi lagi I had to bring Gebu to his Choral Festival. He takes up Music as an elective, so all music student kena masuk choir. And yesterday they had this WA Government Secondary Schools' Choral Festival. Dekat Churchland pula tu. Dekat mana ni??? Mujur ada GPS, but it was still quite far, about 27km and took us almost 30 min to get there (I really followed the speed limit ye..kalau org lain dah lama sampai kot).

Gebu performing at the festival:

My henshem Gebu (he refused to have his photo taken, sebab dah jadi macho boy kan, ni kena paksa dgn I ambil gambar):

And after the festival, balik rumah and siap siap to go to the mosque for mengaji and jualan. I wasnt going to cook, sebab nanti balik dah after 3pm. Where got time, letih lagi. On the way, we picked up Bunches from her sleep over party.

We had this amusing conversation in the car. Bunches said "You know, C's mum is 30 years old and S's mum is 31 years old. They were like 18 or 19 when they each had C and S. How old were you when you had me?" And I said "30". And she said "That's old, I wished you also had me when you were 18"....Hello, you expect me to start a family right after SPM? Terbeliak beliak mata I. Well, nothing wrong with that, just that I couldnt picture myself having a baby at 18. Wasnt I still a child when I was 18? I am sure during the sleepover they were comparing facts, and she wished she was also like them. Then she said "I am going to have my first baby when I am 21 or 22, so that I wont be that old when they are grown up" Yeah...now she considers me old.

The way her mind works amazes me sometime, itu yang dia pikir of all things. Agaknya thats what they talk about during sleepovers. Nak kawin umur berapa, nak beranak umur berapa.

And at the mosque, I bought myself and kakak nasi sambal goreng, soto for Bunches and Angel and roti jala for Gebu, and kuih muih sikit. Lega tak payah masak.

Balik rumah ingat nak rest, but Angel was complaining she was hungry, and I had to take her mind off food, so I let her try her baking kit. Kena lah I turun padang sekali buat cup cake dgn dia. That'll be in another entry "Baking with Angel".

2009-08-29T12:28:00.009+08:00

I have been trying to update my blog for the whole day of yesterday tapi tak dapat dapat nak masuk blogger. Nak visit blog orang pun tak boleh. Fed up betul. So hari ni punya cerita is cerita yg patut masuk blog semalam which means that its Thursday punya cerita.

I happened to be in the city on Thursday to run some errands. So I thought boleh lah I bawa the camera and snap some shots for the blog for the benefit of those yang tak pernah datang Perth. I wasnt really in the city centre. Ni dekat tepi tepi city saja. Tak laratlah nak jalan sampai ke pedestrian mall or ke tepi sungai nak ambil gambar. Lain kali kalau lalu situ boleh lah singgah ambil gambar.

This is somewhere along Murray Street, west of the mall, banyak pula construction work sana sini, buat kacau traffic, tapi tak lah jam pun. Kalau dkt KL ada construction tengah jln guarantee jam:

Fast Eddy which is lebih kurang macam my version of kedai mamak sebab its opened 24 hours. So kadang kadang my darling and I would lepak here sambil minum kopi. But we normally go to the one in the suburb:

A building that caught my eyes, tak tahu pula building apa ni:

Dome at Hay Street:

Part of Hay Street, west of the pedestrian mall:

Dah habis errand dkt city, I then needed to go to the bank and visit an Asian grocery store. Teringin nak pergi Kong sebab ramai orang dok sebut Kong saja, kata murah and banyak barang. So I pun terus ke Victoria Park. This is one of my favourite suburbs sebab the town centre and the houses there remind me of the suburb in the Eastern states. I ni kan pernah dulu (lama dulu) duduk Melbourne and Sydney. Most houses there near to where I used to live were old houses, macam yg ada dkt Vict Park ni. So bila dtg Vict Park ni, baru terasa macam ada di Australia. Heh...heh...coz suburb lain tu the architecture is a bit different and more modern, I think, so tak berapa rasa macam Australia, to me lah...

This is a street in Vict Park, shops with flat roofs:

How convenient, sungguh tak sangka Kong sebelah ANZ bank saja, can kill 2 birds with 1 stone:

Kong (first time masuk Kong). Dapat lah beli gula melaka, beras pulut and perasa pandan yg star brand macam dkt Malaysia tu:

Flowers are already blooming. Dah nak masuk spring lah katakan:

Balik rumah kalutlah I nak siapkan food for iftar. Was going to prepare ayam masak merah and nasi tomato. Gambar nasi tomato tak ada coz lambat sangat nak tunggu dia masak. You know lah pakai rice cooker and though dia dah habis cook, tapi nasi dok mentah lagi. Nak kena tekan cook a few more times, unless anyone ada petua nak masak nasi tomato with rice cooker tak mentah.

Ayam masak merah:

This is what the pandan essence is for, nak buat ketayap. Kelam kabut juga nak buat ni, as I was running late. Nak dadar the batter, nak roll the ketayap. Then Angel offerred to help roll the ketayap. I didnt trust her to do it properly sebab I pun macam terhegeh hegeh nak gulung, ni kan pula si kecik ni. But I let her help me coz I was running late. And what do you know, she did it perfectly. And now I call her my ketayap roller. Tak sempat nak ambil gambar dia menggulung...sebab kelam kabut kan:

2009-08-26T21:03:00.006+08:00

I am quite impressed with myself lately. Why? Hee..hee...because I terlebih rajin pula masuk dapur. You see, I dont quite enjoy cooking. I feel that its kinda time consuming standing in the kitchen for hours (yes, I take hours to prepare meals, just to show how slow I am) trying to cook a decent meal. Penat tau. I dont like standing for long hours. Tapi I rasa ni sebab bulan puasa ni. I got excited looking at the food blogs, especially those listed in my blog roll. Rasa nak try semua. Like I spent hours surfing one food blog to another, lepas tu macam macam idea lah datang. I dont know how long will this last. Probably two weeks at the most. When you dont see anymore photos of food here, then you'll know that my mood has gone with the wind.

So, yesterday I made the usual bubur nasi, rice and tom yum. However, I think my kids had grown tired of eating rice for 4 consecutive days already. Tak habis nasi and tom yum semalam. I think if I cook rice again today,guarantee kena masuk tong sampah. So kenalah buat something Western. I of coz prefer rice, tapi demi anak anak ku, I decided to make roast chicken wing. Makan lah dengan mashed potato, french fries and steamed veges. Lagi pun Bunches had been asking for mashed potatoes since day 1 lagi. Tapi I refused to make sebab rasa macam tak kenyang aje makan itu aje. Today she got what she wished for. And memang laku 1 kg chicken wings, sekali dengan mashed potatoes licin. Alhamdulillah. Kalau tak habis macam nasi semalam, sakit jiwa juga.

Lepas tu, I tergoda-goda pula tengok desert dkt blog Ummi, apple crepe with cinnamon ice cream. Bertungkus lumus I tengahhari tadi nak prepare desert ni. My kids, especially Bunches was so happy dapat makan apple crepe dgn ice cream. Dia sorang saja entah berapa kali helping. Dah lama juga I tak beli ice cream, patutlah they are very happy. But ice cream ni I tak letak cinnamon pun. Speaking of Bunches tadi, sampai masa I tengah tulis entry ni pun dia masuk dapur semula looking for the desert.

The Photos

The chicken wings:

The desert:

This is Bunches' desert, ice cream dia saja penuh pinggan and she wanted all flavours:

Angel having desert, dia dah penat ni, hari ni puasa half day saja, coz she said she was soooo...tired in class, and sleepy that she got waterry eyes, so kenalah buka puasa.

Orang happy dapat makan ice cream:

Kakak and Gebu tengah serius makan:

My dinner yesterday which will also be my sahur tonight:

2009-08-25T09:58:00.004+08:00

Dekat rumah ni selalu time the kids are getting ready to go to school, which is about 8am, mesti kelam kabut. However I tried to keep my cool mesti ada saja kerenah budak budak ni yang buat I angin, especially dengan si Bunches, my middle girl. She is such a forgetful girl, with a mind of her own, and always the way her mind works does not go in hand with how my mind works. Urut dada saja lah dengan anak dara sorang ni. Teringat ada satu ceramah agama yang I dengar, dalam ramai ramai anak ni, selalu adalah sorang yg lain dari yg lain. Moga dengan ujian macam ni kita akan lebih berdoa pada Allah. Kalau semua nya senang nak dijaga nanti kurang pula doa kita pada Allah.

Bukan lah apa sangat dengan anak dara ni, but she is very good with excuses, asking me to justify my decision most times, and I will normally end up saying "Because I said so".

So yesterday morning, for the umpteenth time dia tanya, where's my school jacket. This is not the first time tau. For the past 1 month dah dua tiga kali dia tanya school jaket just before we leave the house. Kalau I tak nampak I would say lah, I havent seen it, probably you left it at school. I marah lah juga dah berapa kali dia tertinggal dkt sekolah and she lost 1 jaket already last year. This year kena beli jaket baru. If every year new jaket, mengamuk lah I. Bukanny murahkan.

So the past 2 or 3 time dia cari, she would always argue, "No, I bawa balik, tak tinggal dkt sekolah". Jenuh pagi pagi cari jaket, so kena pakai jaket biasa ke sekolah. Bila sampai sekolah I said to her "I'll wait in the car, you go and look in your class and come and tell me ada ke tak". And selalu masa I tengah tunggu dlm kereta, instead of coming to me, she would just text me saying "Its in my class, but I was sure I bawa balik". Tak berani nak jumpa I dengar I berleter.

So, kisah nya semalam, dia argue "I bawa balik, and I put in the laundry basket for you to wash it, sebab you always complained my jaket busuk". Sumpah I tak ingat pula I kata jaket dia smelly, and I did laundry over the weekend, and I didn't remember seeing the jaket. Tak kan lah I am so forgetful kan. I even mentioned in my blog hari tu, I kena buat laundry especially kids uniform. And I remember going through the laundry, choosing to wash the uniforms first so that they have uniforms come Monday. Tak ingat pula ada school jacket.

So berargue kami dua beranak, she insisting that she put it in the laundry and me insisting that I havent seen it there. Hee..hee..its just like she's blaming me for the missing jacket, not her fault coz she put in the laundry basket and it was my responsibility of its whereabout. Last we drove to school and as usual I akan berleter dlm kereta and I told her I'll wait in the car for her to go look for it in the class and come back to me and tell me the result. And as usual I'll get a text message and this time berbunyi "Its in the class room but I swear I thought I brought it home on Friday. Bells gone bbbbbbb." Those b stands for bye bye lah kan, berapa banyak b. Macam tu lah selalu dgn si Bunches ni. Sabar ajelah. Tu tak masuk lagi bab how we argue the way she wear her hair to school, nak pakai long pants ke skort ke ...

But she could be so nice and good if she wants to. Macam semalam petang I was so exhausted (Monday is my most tiring day of the week), she voluntarily help me unload my grocery. Did the dishes without any arguement at all. Selalu dia selalu mengelat basuh pinggan. And selalu if I give her chores, she would also be the one to ask me to justify my decision, like "Why her?".

Anyway as I said tadi Monday is my busiest day, because I normally do my grocery on Monday and both Bunches and Angel have dance classes after school. And they have it at different times, which means I have to chauffer them one after another. Tak adalah jauh, just 5 min drive, tapi penat juga bawa kereta tak berenti.

And semalam was also the start of the verge collection week at my area. This is when you boleh longgok all the junks yg you tak nak dah on the verge depan rumah, and the council truck will come and collect them. Selalu 2 or 3 days sebelum start verge collection, orang dah mula longgok. I was kinda busy so ingat Monday morning I'll take out my junks. Sebab selalunya, council ni datang after a few days coz they have two weeks to go around and do it. Sekali pagi semalam masa nak hantar budak ke sekolah, I notice my neighbour's junks dah tak ada, which means council dah lalu my street. Alamak terlebih efficient pula council ni. So what I did was to go and dump my junks at another street infront of an empty lot. I made 3 trips lah juga, got rid of 3 suitcases (1 conveniently left by my sista when she visited dulu), 1 bag full of old shoes, an old vacuum cleaner, a broken chair , an old carpet and some boxes. Itu pun by the 3rd trip I tengok, 2 of the suitcases, the shoes and vacuum dah tak ada. Biasalah dah ada orang I ambil before they got taken by the council. Like the pepatah "1 man's junk is another man's treasure" or something like that.

Apa yg tinggal from what I originally dumped, err...yg banyak dkt belakang tu org lain punya junk ye..

Tengah hari I buat grocery, and that means visiting satu kedai sayur, satu kedai ikan, satu kedai daging and a supermarket. Though they are all under one roof, tapi one is at one end and the other is at another end. Macam tawaf shopping centre lah kan, dengan trolley full of barang.

My grocery shopping which Bunches had helped to unload into the pantry and fridge.

So for iftar, I only made bubur nasi (wajib) and ayam goreng kunyit. Tak ada tenga dah nak masak banyak banyak. Mujur ada lauk yg I order from my friend, so I had mussel masak lemak also. Saw this yummylicious looking tuna puff dekat blog Cik Mat Gebu, and teringin nak try. Jadi lah walaupun presentation wise tak boleh lawan Cik Mat Gebu punya. My kids love them, I made about 12 big pieces and a few small pieces, habis licin semua.

Ayam goreng kunyit.

Mussel masak lemak, yg ni order ye bukan I masak

Black pepper tuna puff

2009-08-24T07:10:00.003+08:00

Yesterday, at the mosque ada jualan or lebih kurang pasar Ramadhan. There were just about 3 stalls, tapi oklah. Kalau banyak banyak macam dekat Malaysia, boleh jadi rambang mata pula. Semua nak belikan, nanti membazir. I was already planning to make lasagna anyway for iftar and the compulsory bubur nasi dish yang nampak gaya macam laku saja dekat rumah ni sekarang. So I was planning to get just kuih muih from the jualan. I let the kids choose apa yang they all nak. All my kids were crazy over kuuih ketayap. We all borong sampai 10 biji. Memang dekat Malaysia dulu pun, we used to get kuih ketayap and buah melaka/onde onde kalau tiba bulan puasa. Then Bunches saw lopes, and dia teringat I used to buy it masa balik Alor Setar hari tu, and she said "ini Tok Abib's (my father) favourite, so got that one also. Angel saw nasi lemak and she asked for nasi lemak. And I got myself pasembor (or orang Singapore panggil rojak Singapore).

There was a stall yang jual lauk pauk, whick looked mengancam. Tapi since I tak masak nasi semalam, I wasnt planning to buy lauk. But after chatting with some friends there, we though it was a good idea to buy and freeze them, just in case ada hari tak cukup lauk or can use for sahur. I pun membeli daging black pepper and kari ayam, which can be used to cicah with roti or roti jala. Balik rumah terus I put those into the freezer.

Suasana at the mosque

Angel's nasi lemak

The rest of the items that I got from the jualan : ketayap, lopes and pasembor

From my own kitchen, lasagna and bubur nasi.

1st Ramadhan

2009-08-23T07:07:00.005+08:00

Let the photos tell the story sajalah. Nothing much to cerita anyway. Everybody puasa, even Angel, though she had been asking for food since 11am. I tengok dia ok saja, tak lembik pun. I told her to go watch the TV to take her mind off the hunger. But she said the problem is that the TV is showing food most time. Pulak dah. I think almost every hour kot dia tanya how much longer to berbuka. She is already 9. Last year pun dia dah puasa. So I think that she needs to be trained. Kalau dia lembik sangat, I would ask her to berbuka, ni nampak aktif saja macam biasa. I told her to puasa just during weekend. Weekdays she can do halfday, sebab takut dia tak tahan tengok semua orang makan dekat sekolah.

Dah terhidang

Angel the first at the table.

Alhamdulillah, bubur nasi sekejap saja dah lincin.

2009-08-22T15:49:00.011+08:00

A few days ago the primary kids brought home these wish lists. A sort of book fair was organised at the school and biasalah, nak bagi jualan lakukan, siaplah segala wish list. I think each class was allowed into the book display area, they look through the books, yang mana yang they all berkenan, they list them in the lists, sekali ddengan harga buku and the location of the book. Then bawa balik rumah and tell your parents, "I'll do the dishes, massage you, make you hot chocolate, then can you get me these books". Apa nak dikata??? I katalah "No". Then Angel said "But they're in my wish list, so you must get them for me". Kesian pula kan, padahal buku ni you can always borrow from the library. Library sini pun have very good selections.

Actually I pun dah totally forgotten about it yesterday. Tapi just before nak keluar ambil them from school, ternampaklah wish list tu atas meja. Tak sampai hati pula. So oklah, I'll just go and have a look. Dah lah list they all punya panjang, no way I was getting all the books. I did mention to Angel that I'll 'probably' get her the baking kit. But I need to see it first.

Angel was so excited to show me the baking kit, alahai macam toy baking kit saja. But seeing her excitement of wanting the baking kit and dia dah berangan nak try baking and tiba tiba her ambition now is to open a bakery...hah.... , sungguh tak sampai hati. Sejak bila pula budak ni into baking.

So I ni pun sebagai ibu yang tak sampai hati, pun membelilah. Kalau beli untuk Angel kena juga beli untuk Bunches. So, bought Bunches the story book yang I rasa story line dia ala ala fairy tale.

Semalam after a few days of having pasta for dinner, I cooked rice. Dah nak puasa kena makan nasi lah kan. Nanti asyik teringat nasi pula. I made lamb vindaloo...tapi mengelat punya vindaloo. Beli yang dalam packet punya vindaloo..."Passage to India", lebih kurang macam Berahim punya style. Memang India mari and halal lagi. They have a few selections, tapi yang I suka sekali is the butter chicken paste. Memang real macam makan dekat restaurant. And its so easy, just add meat. Meat pula boleh masuk sampai 1 kg of meat. Inilah dikatakan nak cari jalan senang saja bila nak masak. Entah bila I nak jadi macam fellow bloggers yang rajin memasak.

And today is supposedly my laundry day. I've got loads. Asyik hujan saja, itu yg lama tak basuh baju. I have a dryer, tapi tak berapa berkenan nak pakai. Tapi hari ni kena pakai dryer lah juga nampak gaya, kalau tak my kids tak ada baju sekolah lah pula Monday ni.

20th August

2009-08-21T14:21:00.007+08:00

The title says 20th August which means this entry will be about yesterday. Tak sempat nak update semalam.

Naahhh....nothing much happened yesterday. It has been raining for the past few days and jadi sejuk pula. Agaknya sebelum winter ni officially over by the end of the month, segala hujan pun turun.

Since it was forecasted that it will be a wet week, masa dkt City last Sunday I pun beli kan Angel payung. Dah lama dia minta payung, tengok kawan kawan bawa payung pergi sekolah, dia pun teringin.

Tapi, since Monday, walaupun hujan, time school habis aje hujan dah stop. Siap bermatahari lagi. So I said to Angel, tak apa, you can still use the umbrella when the sun is out, macam dekat Malaysia kan, masa panas pun orang berpayung. Dia pun berpayunglah though it wasnt raining, sampai kawan kawan dia tanya, "Why are using the umbrella?"

Heh..heh...semalam hujan lebat sepanjang hari. Happy lah Angel dapat guna payung baru dia.

So many times I wanted to write an entry about my kids' lunch boxes. Bukan apa, itulah yang tiap hari buat I pening. I have 4 kids, and everyday I have to prepare 4 lunch boxes for their morning break and lunch hour, plus snack like sip and crunch. That would be 3 different kind of food in their lunch boxes plus juice. Habis idea nak pikir apa nak bekalkan. Takkan the same menu everyday. And tiap pagi dalam kekalutan selalu I tak ingat nak ambil gambar. Semalam thought of snapping the photo, as usual, terlupa. Tapi ni ada gambar Angel eating her lunch after school sebab dia tak habiskan during lunch hour. Semalam for morning break I gorengkan fish fingers, then lunch panaskan frozen sausage roll and snack was celery and carrot with sour cream. Lepas ni bulan puasa, tak adalah I nak preparekan lunch box for 1 month, unless kalau Angel tak larat puasa kenalah juga buatkan,tapi 1 box aje lah kan.

As for dinner semalam, mujur my kids minta fettuccine carbonara yang I modify letak marinara mix saja. I ni amatlah pemalas turun ke dapur masak beria. So that one was an easy dish. That brings me to the subject of - what to cook this fasting month? Good luck to me then.

Al Fatihah to My Beloved Father

2009-08-19T13:10:00.015+08:00

It was the 29th of June 2009. As usual it was a cold winter morning. I was wrapped in my blanket in front of the tv. I needed to go and do my grocery shopping in a while. At 11.15 I got up, kemas rumah, and got ready to go out. I was on way my driving to Carousel. Suddenly my phone rang near a traffic light junction and I saw it was a call from my brother. By the time I took it dah putus. Selalu bila terima a call from my brother, my heart would beat faster. Memang ever since my father was taken ill from cancer, I memang tak sedap hati to receive calls from my brother. The light went green, and I drove on and then the call came again. I managed to answer it this time, and I got the news then. My beloved father was gone. I couldnt say much or ask anything. I only managed to say ok, I'll make arrangement to fly back that very day. It was 11.45 am then. I found the nearest parking spot. Parked my car and called a friend to ask a favour to help get the seats in the next available flight. MAS departs at about 4.30pm daily. Then, my husband who was also in Malaysia called, I only managed to say to him "I tahu".

I turned the car around and headed home. Spent 30 min on the phone getting MAS to change my flight from the 6th of July to that day. Then picked my kids up from school. Bunches cried, she was the only who cried, being the one closest to my father. I was just too busy getting everything in order, I only had less than an hour to pack. No time to sit and cry. Some friends came to help and sent me to the airport, may God bless them. Lepas checked in, through the immigration, while waiting to board, barulah my tears came flooding, sampai half way through my flight. Sat in the plane clutched on to my surah Yassin and I lost count how many time I recited the surah. I happened to be fasting that day, the kind steward came by at about 6.30pm to inform me of the time to berbuka. Ye lah, kalau Perth buka at 5.30pm, and KL sure after 7pm, I didnt know what time I was supposed to berbuka. So mujurlah steward yg baik hati ni, simpankan the food and came at 6,30 to tell me the berbuka time, may God bless him.

During those few hours, what was I supposed to feel? I knew it was coming. He had been very ill. I went back to Malaysia in April for 3 weeks, and May for a week. I saw how much in pain he was. I was there when he got one of his worst attacks, and when he cried in pain. I even prayed to God that if this is the kind of pain that he had to endure, then please take him if that was better for him. At the same time I wanted miracle. Maybe if I teruskan ikhtiar, he would recover. I got him vitamins, brought him for Ozone theraphy, looked for nutritious meals, made him green juice, whatever anyone suggested, I tried my best to get them - you name it, B17, soursop, dragon fruit, H2O2... Tapi orang sakitkan, no appetite, how much can he eat or drink. Nak telan vitamin pun susah. Always I got frustrated. Sometimes he tried to take what I offerred, then he threw out. I was so frustrated, hopeless, I asked God, why make this difficult? Kenapa jalan buntu? Sometime I tak sanggup lagi nak tengok my father in that condition. I pujuk dia to come and stay in Subang Jaya as the rest of my siblings are there. Selama ni my parents hanya tinggal berdua di Alor Setar. My mother didnt drive and still doesnt,and I couldnt leave them in Alor Setar when I go back to Australia. Thank God he agreed to come to Subang Jaya, dapat lah my adik beradik tengok kan dia.

My last visit was in May for 1 week. At the same time, I had also got tickets to go back on the 6th of July for 2 weeks and 3 weeks during hari raya. I left him on the 24th of May, kissed him all over his face twice and I told him I love him. I have never in my adult life said I love him to him. Never...But at that time, though I wished to see him again when I come home on the 6th of July, I didnt know whether that was also God's plan. I wondered whether I would see him again. Maybe I wont, so I must tell him that I love him before it was too late. Little did I know that was going to be my last kiss, and the last time I would see him. When I was back in Australia, I didnt know much of his condition then. But sometime he would called just to tell that he felt fine that particular day, and told me what he just had for his meal. When I heard the positiveness and strength in his voice, I felt relieved. I prayed that he was not in so much pain.

My husband went back to Malaysia on the 8th of June. He visited my father regularly to give him a foot massage. His feet were the most badly affected part of his body. There would always be pain there and by the 15th of June, his 70th birthday, he couldnt walk anymore. My family had a simple makan makan to celebrate his birthday. Alhamdulillaah he made it to his 70th birthday. We skyped and joined in the celebration and baca doa.

The last time I spoke to him was the evening of 25th June. He was warded at UMMC and sounded weak, but pesan that I was not to worry as the hospital was taking good care of him.

I thought, he was in good care at the hospital, and I was going back on the 6th of July for two weeks and sempatlah and I can get to see him.

I suppose I am just a human being yang hanya dapat merancang, Allah juga yang menentukan. That Monday morning, the 29th of June, bersamaan dengan 6 Rejab, dia telah pulang ke Rahmatullah pada lebih kurang pukul 11 pagi. It was a usual morning according to my mother. He had oat and air cincau. Dia mengadu penat, took a few deep breaths, and after just a few minutes of the deep breathing, he was gone. It was easy and he went very peacefully, Alhamdulillah.

Of coz I teramatlah terkilan sangat sangat I couldnt see him that last time. Allah lebih mengetahui and that was the best for him and for me. I arrived at 10pm. It broke my heart not to see him but no way I would make them wait for me. Jenazah telah selamat dikebumikan right after Asar and everything went smoothly, Alhamdulillah.

By the time the plane touched down, it was already 10pm and almost 11pm when I reached home. Cuma tinggal my mother and siblings saja. Everyone who came to visit had gone home.

The next 21 days in Malaysia, I spent visiting his grave daily. It was near our house just about 5 mins drive away, which was very convenient. I know that this was not necessarry sebab dari mana kita doa pun tetap akan sampai. But I found peace at the graveyard. It was a quiet place on top of a hill and it was his final resting place. When I was there I was constantly reminded that our days are numbered, and death can happen anytime.

Although I knew it was going to happen, especially after all the sufferings and pain he had to endure, and I thought I was prepared for it, I was far from right. I was not prepared with the pain of losing a parent. I miss him very very much. I dont think I was that close to him though, leaving home at the age of 12 plus to go to a boarding school, overseas at 18 plus, stayed on my own in KL when I started working while he was staying in Singapore and then got married at 25. You see, I never stayed with him since I was 12. I never really missed him during all these years we were apart. But now since his passing, I miss him constantly. I think of him everyday, in fact many times a day, I cannot call him anymore when I think of him...all I could do is to sedekahkan Fatihah whenever it feels unbearable.

Having lunch at Padang Besar after raya 2008

December 08 when he was in Perth for a visit

In Alor Setar April 09, little things I did to make him happy, like having dinner together,

Teatime together

Another teatime together

April 09, Subang Jaya - Family time

April 09, Subang Jaya

May 09, doa for his health with his grandchildren,

May 09, celebrating my sista's birthday, notice he had fruit tart in front of him, masa ni sdia suka fruit tart, so apa yang dia nak we tried to get it for him

What a day

2009-06-26T23:27:00.005+08:00

Yes, what a day it has been today. I always have my radio alarm clock wakes me up in the morning. And the first thing I heard when I was awaken was that MJ has died though at that time the news wasnt confirmed yet. Biar betul, tapi memang betul lah kan. Terkejut lah juga because once upon a time I pernah juga had a crush on him, alahai masa tu dia tengah popular tersangat after winning all the grammies. Ok, I am not going to write about him, may he rest in peace.

Today was supposed to be a pretty busy day. The primary school was going to have their annual edudance performance so I must make sure to go early so that I could get a good seat and can video tape Bunches' and Angel's performances. Edudance ni is a yearly affair and rasanya most primary schools have it some time during the year. All the kids learn and practise the steps throughout the term, and then they perform it at the end of the term. Lebih kurang macam choreographed aerobic ada juga. I arrived pretty late last year, hence didnt get a good seat and tak nampak sangat performance anak I. Tadi I was like 45 min early, huh I think I was the first parent there, and dapat tempat duduk cantik sangat.

That's Bunches seated and waiting for her turn later. Yang berbaris dekat depan sana tu was Angel's class getting ready to sing for the opening of the show. Angel yg berdiri depan sekali far right yang pakai baju hijau:

That's Angel after the edudance. Her hair is like that because the title of her dance was "Hair", so cikgu dia dah sepah sepah kan rambut they all. Sempat juga dia korek cosmetic box dia to get the blonde hair extension:

And then when I picked Kakak up from school, she reminded me hari ni ada "Open Day" dekat sekolah dia (which I have totally forgotten). Rush le pula ke high school. Bukan lah open day macam dekat Malaysia yang ambil report card tu. I pun kurang pasti what the open day was all about. I think basically some of the classes will exhibit what they do during the semester. Kakak said her human bio teacher ada put up a few of her diagrams up the wall, so that was what I was going to go and have a look. Moga terbukalah hati budak ni nak buat medic...Amin. Sebenarnya she still doesnt know what she wants to do. Tapi dalam banyak banyak subject dia, she seems to be scoring Accounting, walaupun from my experience I amatlah tidak menggalakkan dia buat accountancy. Hmmm...if I knew better dulu, I wouldnt have done Accountancy, tapi masa tu I blur lah sangat. My only reason for taking up accountancy was because I loved Math...apa kena mengenanya ekkk...kalau suka Math patutnya buat degree in Mathematic...didnt I say I was blur those days.

Anyway, back to the open day, here are the diagrams done by her:

The lung:

The heart, though I told her doesnt look much like the heart:

I suppose this is the digestive system:

Kakak infront of her bio lab:

This is the science building where her bio and chem labs are situated:

Kakak in front of her locker:

Yang cutenya tadi, located at certain corners of the school were the drama students showing off their talent. When someone passes by, the students will act, and they were very good actors, macam tengok theatre pula. I especially like yg dekat bawah ni, because they just froze bila we all lalu. Dont know how they could stand the weather dressed like that, sebab believe me it was cold hari ni:

Budak berdua ni pun cute juga, they were two soldiers quarelling and arguing. As I mentioned tadi, they will act the part bila ada orang pass by them saja:

My kelam kabut dinner hari ni, macaroni goreng, nampak macam maruku lah pula:

The sun is back for the day

2009-06-25T23:34:00.004+08:00

Marvelous today as the sun was shining rather brightly with a top of 19 degree. For once hari ni tak payahlah I berbungkus sangat. Tak bungkus pun I still had a few layers because I ni memang jenis yang tak tahan sejuk. What a different atmosphere when I picked the kids up from school. No brollies (umbrella for OZ) today. Tapi kalau ikut weather forecast, the rain will be back tomorrow and throughout the weekend. Tengok news tadi pun ferries to Rottnest Island all cancelled weekend ni. Its alright, I dont quite mind pun kalau hujan and sejuk, boleh duduk dalam selimut and just zzzzz...thats what I've been doing anyway past few days. Berselimut depan tv with a rented dvd and a good book from the library sambil berpuasa.

Angel the one in green, the class had their last period outdoor agaknya to enjoy the sun:

Berbeza dengan gambar semalam masa semua orang berpayung:

My baby Angel, while waiting for Bunches to come meet us:

And normally right after picking up the 2 little ones from school, at least one of them will minta singgah IGA (the local supermarket) dekat sebelah sekolah tu, just to get ice cream or candy. Dah lama permintaan tak dilayan, but today since Angel was saying it was a hot day and dia nak ice cream, I pun oklah, dah lama tak beli ice cream. I also need to singgah IGA to get a can of pineapple slices for dinner. Huh...I was going to make pizza la hari ni. Since I wasnt going to cook rice, I was kinda pening pikir apa nak masak. As usual la, bila dilema, I'll just surf for recipes, and mulanya nak buat pasta, then banyak pula barang macam tak cukup. Tapi kalau nak buat pizza semua cukup. Yeast pun ada dalam pantry. The toppings tu tak kisahlah, campak campak aje apa yang ada dalam fridge. Only thing is I want to have a pineapple topping juga, so itu aje yang kena beli.

Angel and I, I got my pineapple and she got her ice cream:

My pizza, buruk la sikit rupa dia. But I like it thin n crispy, tu yang lenyek senipis yang boleh. And as I said, my kids ni, kalau bukan nasi, guarantee licin dua bekas pizza.

Winter is here...

2009-06-24T20:22:00.006+08:00

I know it has been more than a month. Wanted to update sooner but I didnt have the right laptop at home. Memang we have a few laptops dekat rumah ni, let me see, 4 altogether, but satu saja yang boleh diharap. We have 2 dells, 1 sony vaio and 1 apple. Apple tu dah quite old so we dont use it anymore. The sony pun kira outdated. That left us with 2 dells, 1 old and 1 new. Of coz the new dell tu my darling yang pakai. The rest of us use it only when its available and not used by my darling. So now my darling is overseas, and that means the new dell is with him. We are left with the old dell which is very slow. I've attempted blogging many times but I gave up bila nak upload photo. It took me ages to browse the photos sebab punyalah slow nak scroll up and down. Tak jumpa pula tu gambar yang I ambil. So what I did just now was to go to the library and used the computer dekat situ. Uploaded the photos there, and balik rumah baru bercerita. Everyday I snap photos, tapi semua dah jadi cerita lama coz tak dapat nak upload. So the latest photos yang I ambik were photos to describe how cold it is here now.
Winter is back, rasanya macam colder than last year. Dah almost seminggu hujan tak berenti, and daytime temperature is about 11 to 13 celsius. Menggigil lah. Semua buat tak kena, sebab semua tempat sejuk. How? The bed is cold, the chair, the car, the floor...even the clothes are cold. Berapa lapis dah I sarung, still sejuk. No, I am not complaining. Just thank God for whatever that come my way.

This photo was taken yesterday, depan rumah masa tu I was about to go and pick my kids from school:

And this one was the atmosphere at school yesterday, hujan kira lebat lah juga:

And my kids ni biasalah, time winter ni, they'll be very hungry when they come back from school, guarantee the kitchen will be the first place they visit at home. Semalam I made sup tulang kambing with macaroni. I've started my ganti puasa, so awal awal lagi I dah masak, so tak kelam kabutlah time nak berbuka nanti. That became their after school snack, soup cicah roti:

Mula mula it was just Angel and Gebu kelaparan:

Then Bunches joined them too:

And for my buka puasa, just the soup with keropok, sambal and left over sambal tumis from the weekend:

And semalam coincidently, 2 kids had homework and 1 had to study for a test today. Biasanya budak budak ni tak ada homework, but once in a while tu you'll get a surprise when they come home with homework. Kakak pula biasalah, she is already in year 11, so she is all the time having one test after another.

Kakak revising for her Math test and Angel did a research on grasshopper (terpaksalah juga pakai the outdated vaio):

Gebu doing a research on the holocaust, and Bunches, since she was not doing anything, I got her to do revision too:

And it was still raining today. Pagi tadi when I sent them to school, I could see the dark clouds looming ahead:

And this is what Angel had for her after school snack, actually the carrot n celery dip dgn sour cream tu were leftover from her school lunchboox. I suruh juga dia habiskan after school. The rest were just some cereal and crumpet (beli, tak buat) with golden syrup.

Buka puasa pula I just served nasi goreng which was actually the leftover nasi semalam and I fried this morning for their lunchbox, semalam punya sup tulang and sambal tumis from weekend. Semua nya leftover. I got Kakak to fry chips and sausages saja tadi. I think my kids ni memang kurang la when it comes to nasi. Because the nasi goreng, sampai sekarang pun tak habis lagi. Chips, bread rolls and sausage semua habis. Pening la kepala, tak tahu apa nak masak lagi if rice is not an option.

Anyway, alhamdulillah, dah 3 hari I puasa this week. Rejab pun dah masuk kan. So kena tambahkan rajin puasa. Mujurlah juga Maghrib awal, around 5.21pm dah masuk. Cuma yang siksa is the sahur. Sungguh tak sanggup nak bangun sejuk sejuk ni. Normally, I'll just minum air saja. One thing I notice about myself is that I get very thirsty is winter. Bangun pagi saja dah terus rasa haus. Itu sajalah dugaan puasa ni. Sebab kalau nak kira lapar, tak sempat nak lapar sangat, dah time berbuka kan.