CNY Cooking Spree

27 Jan

CNY Cooking Spree

Noticed there was no cooking post for the past one month? That’s coz I havent’ been cooking much *shifty eyes*

But in view of the long Chinese new year weekend, I decided to cook some Chinese food! And now I got a few dishes to share with y’all! Yay!

First up – cornflakes chicken. Oh hell yea. You might think it’s weird, but it’s so easy to make and taste wonderful too.

Cut chicken into bite size and marinate with some sesame oil, light soya sauce and lots of black pepper. Fry it and then drain. In a separate bowl, pour sugar-free cornflakes (any amount you desire) and season with black pepper, lemon and pepper seasoning with a bit of salt, gently press down cornflakes to break it.

Heat wok with oil, add in 4 tablespoons of butter, add in 4-5 clove chopped garlic, curry leaves from 3 stems and 2 halved birds eye aka chilli padi (more if you like it spicy). It should smell glorioussss by now. Add in cereal and coat with butter sauce and then combine with chicken and stir for another 1 minute.

 And you’re done! Believe it or not.

 

I served it with some Golden egg tofu! And this was easy peasy to make.

First off, buy 2 tubes of egg tofu (soy beancurd in tube form), gently cut out the tube and let it roll out like toothpaste :D  Cut tofu into pieces and fry it with oil until golden brown. Prepare the seasoning by adding 2 tablespoon light soy sauce, 2 tablespoon oyster sauce, some black pepper, some seasoning oil, salt, sugar and some water. Prepare cornstarch with water for thickening. Heat oil, fry some garlic, red bell pepper and handful of dry chillies. I earlier boiled some baby corn and added it to the pan. Throw in seasoning. And the cornstarch. You can add an egg into the pan if you want. Add in browned egg tofu and you’re done. Increase seasoning if you want more sauce to the plate :)

 

Chinese new year dinner is served, hehe

Then on Sunday, I decided to make egg noodles for lunch because Sairah LOVES her egg noodles. I guess the Thai blood in her runs deep :D Thesedays I have to cook food that my toddler can eat as well so here’s a great recipe for kids and family!

Add 4 portions of egg noodles into the pot and boil until noodles are soft. Drain with cold water and set aside. If you frequent hypermarkets you’ll notice they love to sell a portion of assorted dumplings like crab sticks, prawn cake and the works for steamboat. Boil that in hot water until soft, I also added some baby corns to it. Chop all in bite size when done.

Fry one chopped onion and four clove chopped garlic until light brown. Add in one chopped chilli, and throw in the assorted dumplings and baby corn and fry for a bit. In a bowl add 4 tablespoon light soya sauce, 4 tablespoon oyster sauce, half tablespoon sugar, ½ tablespoon dark soya sauce, some sweet soya sauce, some water and mix. Throw in the mixture and add in the noodles while coating everything. You may cook some eggs after that and add to the  mixture. Season with black pepper and salt and garnish with spring onions, like this:

 DONE!

My baby absolutely LOVES this dish. She kept eating and eating it and when I stopped she would say maam maam, and she’s usually not *this* easy to feed, LOL.

The next dish is a super easy dish to make! And best of all, I boiled some tiny macaroni and coated it lightly with the sauce and added in some chopped sausages for Sairah’s lunch – it’s like killing two birds with one stone. The kid enjoyed her meal alright and then slept for a good 1.5 hours :D

For the chicken:

Using 2 pieces of chicken breast, slice each piece into half making it flatter and easier to cook in the grill. Season with black pepper, garlic salt, rosemary, dried oregano, some paprika – in short you can season with anything you like so long there’s rosemary for flavor. Fry in the grill with olive oil until cooked.

For Sauce:

Saute one chopped onions, 5 clove chopped garlic, red bell pepper in butter. Pour in tomato sauce (I used Prego’s as it’s sweeter) to thicken, and add in one cheddar cheese slice. Add in some rosemary and black pepper to taste. Sauce is done.

I had some Greek potatoes to go as the side. Cut 2 russet potatoes into large wedges. I nuked it for 2-3 minutes in the microwave so it will cook faster in the oven. Mince 4 garlic clove, half a lemon juice, black pepper, oregano and a drizzle of olive oil (I omitted this though). Then heat up your oven and cook it until it’s cooked. I would also suggest wrapping it up in a foil to maintain the flavor of the garlic juice while adding some water to it. I’ll probably try it later.

Arrange the chicken, potatoes and sauce to look like this:

A closer look – almost gourmet-ish, *pats back* Well done ME!

Turning 34 With An Awesome Coffee Machine

26 Jan

Turning 34 With An Awesome Coffee Machine

My husband officially turned 34 years OLD yesterday!

And because I got super excited and couldn’t wait, I gave him his gift a day before the birthday while we were in my parent’s place. So he could go to work the next day and tell his colleagues what his wonderful wife got him!

While he was downstairs talking to dad, I ran up and arranged his gift on the bed.

Is that for meeee? wonders Baby Sairah.

Okay when daddy comes in, what are you gonna do?

Why, I’ll give him this cutest, sweetest angelic look, like this:

And then, I’ll pass him his b’day card.

He’ll be super touch coz we said we wanted to get him a nice sports car but couldn’t afford it so we had to settle on buying this gift instead. It’s the thought that counts :o

Then I’ll try my luck at opening the present…

Hmm, wonder what my wifey got me this time? Trust me when I say it’s starting to get tough deciding what to buy this man!! But kudos to me for lugging around this HEAVY gift all the way from Mid Valley to Garden’s carpark despite my poor back.

The smile that says it allllll

I obviously nailed that perfect gift :D I got him the Nescafe Dolce Gusto Circolo because my husband is a serious coffee drinker. That man drinks at least 3 cups to keep him running. Plus it did help that I caught him checking out this machine a few months ago but knew he’d be too stingy to buy it for himself :D

Coffeeeee machineeee

And because we have limited varities in Malaysia, I got hold of someone from the UK to help buy me various capsule flavors to satisfy his coffee cravings. Check here out to see how many crazy flavors they have there!

I got the man least 7  packs (I’m crazy I know! ), ahem, so that’s coffee enough to last 2-3 months I reckon :D But I do seriously hope Nescafe would bring me more flavors coz the current ones we have is kinda pathethic! Just four freaking flavors :(

Baby girl in her naughty mode

MINE! I WANT COFFEE

Coofffeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee……………Haha proof that Sairah isn’t exactly angelic sometimes, lol

She’s starting to hate wearing socks. Constantly finds ways of pulling it off. Even her shoes too.

Of course we got home and somebody couldn’t wait to set up his new coffee machine. It was set up in a jiffy coz instructions are pretty straight forward.

Oh hai, just setting up me new coffee machine

All done. Doesn’t she look pretttyy? Now we’re quite keen on having nice coffee mugs/cups and the whole works to go with our little ‘cafe’. Shit man, we’ll NEVER have to step into Starbucks or Coffeebean and pay cut-throat high prices for coffee anymore. Now we’ll have good coffee to go. What I love about this is the convenience!  Beverage is done in less than 1 minute (perfect for a lazy wife like me, then again I usually let the coffee/tea making to the husband, heh), you can always pack it to go in a nice tumbler and have this on the way to work…….such a nice machine to have seriously and I have no regrets purchasing this for us the husband. My only complain is the loud sound that it makes when it’s in action, lol but we can live with it….

We were deciding which flavors to try first, but it was late and we didn’t want any coffee intake.

Good thing I bought choco-cino which is a beautiful smooth blend of hot chocolate! You can actually control the milk level if you don’t want it too milky. So far I”ve tried this and the Mocha and just lovee lovee it.

LOL the look that says it all. It was superrr yummy! But now I gotta find ways of making sure we have ample supply of this.

And then on his birthday morning, somebody actually work up EARLY (he almost never wakes up early for work!) so he could get ready and serve himself a hot cup of coffee!

I can already see that this gift was indeed love at first sight.

P.s: I purchased this at Harvey Norman and got a 8% discount with some free samples in view of their sale. Sale is on till end of this month, incase anyone is keen :D Machine also comes with a 2 year warranty, sweet!

Let’s Get Naked 2

24 Jan

Let’s Get Naked 2

Yup, got myself the new Urban Decay Naked Palette 2!!

That’s right, I gots one :D You got? :D  And it came all the way from the US. Alaska to be precise! Sephora Malaysia recently launched the palette too, but I believe it was snapped out almost immediately. Saw a photo of ladies LINING up just to get their hands on this. Kudos to them for I can never do that.  Retail patience – they have it and I have none. But it does go to show that this baby sells like hot cake! And it’s for a reason.

I paid a little bit more than what you could get in Sephora, but I say RM20 more to avoid lining up, fighting with these ladies just to get my paws on it, and the need to want it asap is well worth it.

I believe a lot of reviews have been done with this already so I’m not gonna attempt to review this but merely give me two cents. If you could even call it that.

I’ll just say I’m a very happy camper with this neutral eye palette. It has the shimmery (and boy is it really shimmery) and matte colors to play with and you can use it for day or night. Helps that it comes with a nice black shade too for a nice smokey eye look. The color payoff is amazing, just a swipe of it and the color shows up, tanned skin or not.

I like how each color is labeled at the bottom, because god knows I’ve forgotten colors that I’ve put on my lid sometimes just because I’m old and quite retarded. The packaging is sooo much better than the first one (not that I own the first palette, only seen it in Sephora), it comes in tin form , which means I can travel with it.  I have one BIG 88 Coastal eyeshadow palette before this so lugging it around was out of the question.  Now I can have pretty eyes when I travel, wheee! This baby also comes with a dual ended brush although the quality on it its pretty meh but will suffice on short trips. The itty bitty sized gloss that comes with it serves no purposes as the color payoff sucks, actually there’s no color to it making it neutral, but does come in handy when all you want is some shine to your lips.

My little girl just went oooooooooo when she saw this palette. That’s the same expression her mom did too. Was just contemplating NOT using it so I can sit and stare at it but what do you know, I’m weak, woke up excitedly for work the next day just so I could use this palette. Shoved the palette in front of the hubby’s face, unfortunately he had NO expression whatsoever  to share my happiness and joy. Hmpf! Maybe coz he had to pay for this.

But yea, now I have a good reason waking up a little early in the morning :D

Retail price: USD50. I paid USD65. I believe it’s selling for RM187 in Sephora.

Know what would be awesome though? If they can come up with Naked 3 and have all matte colors for us girls who prefer matte colors more! And then follow with Naked 4, with just purely shimmery shades, heh. Or launch both at the same time! Whatever. I should be on their marketing team :D

The person who helped get me this still has four palettes available if you’re keen. She’s only here until 30th January so if you ladies want a palette, you know the drill, email me!

Now excuse me while I go prettify my small naked eyes.

La Vie En Rose

19 Jan

La Vie En Rose

A while ago we were listening to radio and this DJ asked this guy, what has changed in your relationship since dating/getting married.

Immediately I yelled….bugger you hardly take me out to nice dinner thesedays. All we ever do is use the vouchers I buy you bloody cheapskate!

Almost felt sorry for my husband’s ears that day coz out came a bunch of other list. Heh.

So as I was attempting to plan out our Friday he coyly mentioned that he was taking me out to dinner.

See ladies, men always say we nag, but nagging gets things done. True story, tried and tested :D

Instinctively I had a rough idea where were already going coz I mentioned to him once about this new french restaurant that opened near my office.

Check out me Victorian style ring, me likey!

The interior of La Vie En Rose, which is located in Jalan Raja Chulan

Instintively I also had a bad feeling of them not having a baby chair. And true enough, they didn’t! I was quite annoyed. But I dont’ blame them, whoever takes a baby for fine-dining anyways? This will be probably Sairah’s first and last until she’s a bit older coz let me tell you it’s not easy! Gonna stick to normal restaurants coz she behaves so well there. Well maybe she does coz they actually HAVE a baby chair :)

A good baby for now….good thing we brought her stroller though she only used it for a good 10 minutes.

The menu….pretty pricey. And food selection is pretty limited. I want BIG soft fluffy french style crossaint on the menu. As main course!!

You can almost tell he’s regretting bringing his wife here after seeing the menu. If we choose to leave now the bitch wife will nag, haha. Yea I can read his thoughts!

But too late! We’re here! With one naughty kid in tow. Ah yes, she was her naughtiest that day.  Refused to sit, refused to eat, refused to let us eat…….all she wanted to do was walk walk walk and fml, I forgot her shoes! And if we didn’t let her walk she’d SCREAM! I felt sorry for the other diners who were trying to get some romantic time, haha. Almost wanted to tell them also to enjoy every minute of it coz once a kid comes…….they can kiss that good bye, hehe.

Happy shot before the naughtiness begins….you can already see it on her face how she’s planning out some epic misbehaving…

We were given a serving of warm bread which was pretty good and with what you call a shot of julienned carrots with a dollop of cream. Ooo julienned I feel so posh, lol.

Had a simple salad while we waited for the main course. The salad was pretty divine. The cheese portion was very generous.

And that’s when it started……..the naughtiness! Her father had to walk her around the restaurant in her socks while I sat there eating my salad ALONE. We were lucky they were only 3-4 occupied tables.

Mommy tried to distract her by letting her rummage through her bag.

Mom, you lied, there’s no chocolate in there! Did YOU eat it all?

After a while she got bored with the bag so mommy had to distract her with a bangle or whatever random object she could find.  At this point of time I was praying that our main course would arrive pronto.

Oh but it did not. So I did the next best thing I could do – turn the camera screen in front of us and cam-whored! Which lasted about a good 10 minutes.

Nobody messes with my mommie. Word.

Okay I lied, haha, I’m no gangsta. Just naughty.

Pouty pouty pouty…

:p Yes I’m a bad influence to her :D

I was almost certain I ordered the chicken with cream sauce but got the coq au vin instead. But no worries, chicken with red wine – I can eat this. The chicken itself was soft and moist but the sauce was a bit too over-whelming. Hats off to the wonderful mashed potato with truffles though!! It was totally out of this world. Even the naughty kid approved. I would go back for this!

Hubby’s lamb shank which he claims had alot of fats. But still okie.

We didn’t even stop to have dessert. Coz I wanted a shake from Milkshake Factory, yums :lol:

A little more naughtiness before we leave.

Misbehaving in a fine dining restaurant……….yup, that’s my girl right there! Again to all diners who were dining there on Friday – we’re SOOOO SOOO sorry :D

I”m so fabulously naughtyyyyy.

Hmpff, guess that means hubby has a fine reason not taking me out somewhere nice. But no worries, I’ll make sure any new restaurant will do :eek: for now.

Total bill was RM184 inclusive of a beer and apple juice.

Baby terrorizing people on a fine night out: PRICELESS.

Would we return again? Probably not. One time experience here is enough :D

You can check out this blog for more substantial reviews on this restaurant.

We Love You Kiddie Photolab

18 Jan

We Love You Kiddie Photolab

I was gonna blog about something else, but then yesterday we went to Kiddie Photolab to look at the end product of our photoshoot which we did on X’mas day. I went OMG, this has to go on my blog, like today, so I uploaded all these like a mad woman. Take this as our CNY gift to you all la hor :D

Although we paid RM47 for this deal that consist of one personalized mug and 6 pocket calendars, after seeing all these magnificient photos nicely displayed on their touch-screen PC as we walked in (kudos to the photographer for such awesome shots and mad photoshopping skills! Also kudos to them for knowing parents weaknesses, heh), her father immediately decided to buy ALL the soft copies at a price of RM550. Which is the real package amount anyway. We’re suckers like that. But I believe most parents would too! I mean how can you look at the rest of the photos and say okay, I’ll just stick with the 6 personalized pocket calendars thank you very much!

But just see how easily this man spends on his daughter, didn’t even think twice to get all the photos, but to get RM100 out of him when it comes to me he has to think like 10000x times! MEN! 

There are 37 photos on this blog post. I REALLY can’t decide which ones I like. Because I LOVE EM ALL! All in, I got 104 photos from the photographer……..*pats back* for not being a total pyscho and uploading them all although my fingers and half-baked mind are so tempted to. But if you’re on my FB then yea, all 104 photos will be up in the next few days:D Coz I got nothing better to do in life.

Looking at all her photos certainly makes me feel so thankful and happy. Happy that I’ve been blessed with such a happy (albeit naughty sometimes) smiley baby! Her penchant for the camera just blows my mind every single time.  I think GOD must finally love me for making me a mother to Sairah :D

Here are some of the natural black and white shots first….

CAR! That seems to be her favorite word at the moment. Probably has a penchant for cars, like her dad perhaps?

Then we move to the studio shots of her in the black tutu dress with some fruits as objects.

An apple a day, keeps a doctor away.

Let’s samba mommieee. Imma gonna be a musical genius like mom one day :D

LOL total model profile shot!

And now for the Bumble buzz buzz bee photos. Honestly am SOOO impressed with his mad photoshop skills!! These items were not even there in the studio, how the heck did he even do this? It really reminds me of a Anne Geddes shots which I super LOVE!

Aww I love my Dad & Mum (though I think it should be the other way around, just saying).

PEEKABOO. SUPER LOVE THIS ONE!

Waddup Ma?! 

And now we move on to something more girly, sweet and pink because little girls are made of sugar and spice and all things nice, makes me want to have another baby girl. Please ignore the last sentence, I’m on a super high looking at these photos.

Bear-bear poses with a bear :D

This is my ear. At the same time, I’m just giving you a super girly pose!

Love the butterfly effect on this photo.

There you are Mr Bear…

Har har I love all this attention I’m getting.

Hubby was saying she looks sooo grown up and matured!

One of my favorite photos from this series.

UP!

Sitting like a BOSS with yet another bear.

Oh she LOVES balloons!

My little angel…

While we have to go back there again in February to pick up the final copies, photo print outs and album, they were kind enough to give us a soft copies of all these photos. Maybe because I had the most haddup-can-I-have-these-photos-NOW- please-so-I-can-blog-and-upload-on-Facebook face :D Actually I did tell her I wanted to upload em on FB asap :)

Overall, this definitely has to be RM550 well spent.

Because it’s not often that you look at the same photos over and over again and grin from one end to the other for a LONG time! I hope these photos brought a smile to your face too. FREE SMILES yo!

Bless Kiddie Photolab! Highly highly recommended place for your kiddie photography needs.

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