CNY 2010

Woohoo! Gong xi gong xi!

A tiger shaped pineapple tart made specially for u!

I'd been idling from blogging for the entire CNY holiday, but we were extremely busy with visiting & makaning (eating) with relatives.

As usual, we were back to Seremban for the CNY celebration, we left on Fri after little girl finished school, we didn't really get stuck in the jam but the traffic was rather slow, we used about 2 hours to reach Seremban!

And this was greeting us when we were home:

a beautiful backdrop handmade by BIL

The eve and 1st day of CNY were passed very fast, we were visiting relatives, lazying at home, watching TV, munching cookies, chit-chatting and the days were zoomed off.

Returned to PJ on 2nd day & 3rd day, repeating the activities above again, but this time was at mum's & uncle's place, we were home for zzz-ing only.

Kept repeating the mentioned activities, plus some 'low hey' dinners from Seremban to Pandan Jaya til last nite. We were really exhausted after all those get-together times with relatives.

Though it was tiring, but little girl said it was the best CNY, as:

1. It was the longest CNY holiday, from 13th - 22rd Feb, a total of 10 days
2. She gets to play with some light firecracker for the 1st time, she is not afraid of the fire & sound at last
3. She gets to play with most of the cousins, about 40 of them, of course met in different days :)
4. Meeting 3 cousins: Cassie (21), Nick (17) and William (13) from KK, Sabah for the 1st time. Though they r much elder than little girl but they r really wonderful & charming, little girl had so much fun playing with them
5. She gets to sleep very late (mid nite) and wake up very late too (mid noon)
6. The most importantly: she has no homework!

Brought her back to her pre-school this morning, to see the lion dance and meet up with her ex-teachers & friends. Boy, she was so happy there, hugging the teachers, playing at the playground, even gotta join in the yoga class with her old-mates...

Lion dance in Tadika Diyana

So, how did u enjoy ur CNY celebration?

CNY & Valentine's Day 2010 Celebration

Little girl & hubby decorated the house this morning:

Pasted some greeting cards on the wall

Placed 8 mandarins, a nian gao (年糕) and some preserved fruits & sweet

Hubby's last minute purchase this morning, bamboos pot 步步高升

The little red packet fishes r prepared by little girl which she learned from school

And this was what I baked yesterday - Pineapple mochi cake 旺來高高, used the recipe from strawberry & grape mochi cake, but changed the fruit to pineapple ;)

The front of cake: wishing u a prosperous year ahead 一年旺過一年

The bottom view of cake: wishing u a happy Valentine's day 恩愛美滿

We r heading down to Seremban after little girl finishing her class later, hope the traffic won't be bad. And again, Gong xi fa cai & have a great tiger year, roar!

Guiness Shepherd's Pie

This is a back dated recipe I cooked for our X'mas party. I found the recipe here, a not so difficult or troublesome recipe, I altered the recipe slightly to best suit our taste buds, however, it still tasted too Guiness to us :p

Ingredients

1 tsp black pepper

500g ground lamb

1 large onion, finely diced

1 cup frozen baby peas

3-4 sprigs fresh rosemary

2 tbsp flour

1 tbsp butter

1 can Guiness stout

3 tbsp ketchup

3 tbsp Worcestershire sauce

2 tbsp Maggi's concentrated liquid chicken stock

6 (about 200g each) Russet potatoes, cooked, peeled

40g butter

125 milk + dairy cream

grated parmesan cheese

1. Preheat oven to 200C
2. Saute onions in the olive oil for a minute or 2, then add the meat
3. Season with black pepper and rosemary
4. Cook until brown then drain fat
5. Add the butter and peas
6. Sprinkle with flour and stir through
7. Add ketchup, Guiness, Worcestershire sauce and chicken stock
8. Let simmer til stock thicken. Season and remove from heat
9. Mash cooked potatoes until smooth, add butter and milk (and cream), stir until combined. Taste and season with salt and pepper
10. Grease a 9" x 13" dish with butter and add the lamb mixture
11. Spoon in mashed potatoes over top. Sprinkle with cheese
12. Bake for 20 minutes or til the potato is browned on top.

The Eve of New Year (2010)'s Eve Dinner

Hahaha... I like the title of this posting!

We had our New Year's eve dinner a day early as I had my yoga class on the New Year's eve. Little girl had requested for the cheesy chicken chop again for the dinner (just like last year), and so with limited ingredients left in fridge, made do this simple dinner:

This was my plate of chicken chop (without cheese) with onion brown sauce, aglio olio topped with a packet of dried chili (from Domino's) and some cucumber slices. Hubby had a similar plate but omitted the dried chili.

Little girl's plate of cheese stuffed chicken chop, oglio olio and cucumber.

Happy New 2010 Year!

Happy

New

2010

Year !

Loves from Kel & family

X'mas Party 2009

Parent threw a big party on X'mas day, not that they were Christian, but more to hold a 'grand-opening' for their 2 newly renovated toilets 新屎坑 (joked by SIL) and a bigger kitchen , hahaha.... :p

Actually it was for the 2 birthday girls, SIL (birthday on X'mas eve) and little girl. We had planned our menu 2 to 3 weeks ago, every families (about 7 families) would bring in some food to cater the big group of relatives.

Our buffet line

With about 15 delicious dishes (I lost count, just so many of them), from Western to Chinese, and local

The main actor for this show - roast turkey

Had decorated it for fun while resting it

Mum roast this beautiful turkey, and it was so, so, so succulent!

Another of mum's must cook dish for party - roast lamb leg

Dad contributed this local salad - pickle chopped onions, cucumbers and pineapple

Aunt came early to help mum preparing this dish - fried prawn and a big pot of fried meehoon (rice vermicelli, may find at photo of buffet line)

Aunt's must cook item for every party - kau zhi

SIL's mum came early to cook this dish too, the stuffed yau char kuai

and she brought some cute jelly for dessert (may see at photo of buffet line)

God mum cooked this yummy sticky rice (loh mai fan)

It was so good that hubby requested to tapao (pack away) home!

Chicken curry from god mum

Have u ever see purple potatoes? No, not sweet potatoes, but potatoes, sis & me found them at Cold Storage, Jaya One, we were so surprised to see potatoes as black as charcoal (the outer layer)!

Sis made this beautiful 2 tones potato salad

The super crunchy cocktail sausages from Euro deli, sponsored by sis

It is now presenting dishes prepared by yours truely:

Guinness stout shepherd pie

A dish cooked to ease dad's crave but I poured in the whole can of Guinness stout which resulting a strong flavor pie, which was not accepted by most people ;p (will post the recipe soon)

Baked mac & cheese

An easy dish, used the Kraft's pokemon cheese mix and added some chopped smoked sausages, baked a small quantity (not very confident with the cheese mix) and it was fast wiped out by the kids

The 3 flavors cake (strawberry, green tea and plain) I baked for little girl (recipe will be up soon)

And moist chocolate cake for SIL

The kids prepared this too - chocolate cookies (will post recipe soon)

Cookie dough was helped prepare by me, molded by HT (god bro's eldest son), picky eater Y and little girl, whereas the decorations was done by SWM, SKS, SKY (niece & nephews), little girl, me & mum, ok, I know, we r not artistic at all ;p

I think there were a few dishes that we didn't capture the photo, like mum's sago pudding, neighbor auntie's pot stickers, god bro's ice creams, etc, there was so many of dishes flowing in.

Although there were about 50 peoples in the party, there was still plenty of food leftover by the end of the nite, but every family was happy tapaoing (packing) home. I believe all of us were home with full belly and boxes of goodies.

The most fun moment of the party was during the present exchange time, SIL had placed number on each present kids brought over and had each of them to pick their lucky number from a box. I was almost drown by the kids while distributing the presents, gotta keep asking them to sit still ;) Once all the kids had their present on hand, I called out 'u may open your present now!', all the kids gave a loud cheer & started tearing off the wrapper at the same time! It was so fun to see those happy, excited faces, really priceless!

Merry Christmas 2009!

Wishing all of u a very merry Christmas!

Of course, not forgetting happy birthday to u too, little girl!

Christmas Tree - 2009

We put on our christmas tree at the evening of 1st Dec this year, same old tree with same old balls and lights, with a slightest different:

Little girl is pointing it out to u....

Duck from Littlest pet shop

Little girl is a big fan of littlest pet shop's soft toys lately, she had begged hubby & cried once to get her this littlest pet shop VIP's doggie few months ago:



And when she found some new series at Ikano, she begged hubby again, she chose to have the duck last Mon, but we made her promised to unwrap/play with it only after her birthday or Christmas day, however we let her slept with it with the box on for a nite. She found a best place to hang it on the Christmas tree so that she able to touch and kiss it when she wakes up in the morning.

LG: Mummy, why u said Tweety is a duck?
Me: The label said it is a duck
LG: No, it is not a duck, it is a bird!
Me: It is a duck!
LG: Urrrrr..... Is a bird * showing a angry look *
Me: Ok, ok, ok.... Bird-lah!
LG: Yeah!!!!

Lion Dance

It was a happy and long waited morning, little girl were going to see lion dance at her pre-school.  It was scheduled to start at 9.30am, but the "lions" were late,  started only about 10.10am.

Kids were gather around the field, enjoying the lion dance.  At the beginning, the lions ran near the kids so that they were able to touch them, there were a few kids cried after being frightened by the moves.  Then, the lions danced around a plate of fruits (pineapples, pomelo and some mandarins).

Both of the lions laid lazily after stuffing the fruits ...

... actually, the ppl inside the lions were busying peeling and decorating the plate of fruits, ta-dah!

Kids were turning wild whenever the lions went near them, see how they attacked the lion :)

They performed for 1/2 an hour, rather short but full of laughters and enjoyments!

Cake for Kids

My mum, SIL and me baked 3 sponge cakes and 4 mini chiffon cakes on Thu b4 CNY. I took 1 sponge cake back to sban, with 1 Tweety Bird cake topper, 3 kiwifruits, and 300g of pre-whisked non-diary cream.

I started decorating the cake only on the eve of CNY (Sun) morning, with very limited tool available there => 1 cake knife from Secret Recipe. I cubed 1 kiwifruit (for filling in the center) and thinly sliced the other 2 (for the topping).

Little girl couldn't wait to help me spreading the cream as she said she was playing well in "Cooking Mama" (a famous Nintendo DS game) * roll eyes *

And of course, it was not as easy as playing game in real life, she threw the knife back to me to take over.

After decorating the top of the cake, found that it was rather bare without anything at the side, hubby suggested grapes, cut into heart-shaped.

So, here it goes, heart-shaped grapes that look like jewels, I was so proud of myself cos this was the 1st time I decorating a cake without mum's help.

All the kids (4, inclusive of little girl) were glad to see a cake after our reunion dinner, I passed them each a plastic knife, a candle, got them to sing CNY songs (hehehe... not happy birthday song), then they had fun blowing the candle and cutting the cake their own preferred ways.

CNY Home Decorations

As there weren't be any guests visiting our hse, these were the things we prepared as CNY decoration, 4 boxes of chocolates & sweets, 10 baby mandarins and 1 年糕 "nian gao".

We "balik kampung" (went home town) to seremban on Fri, right after little girl's school, to avoid all possible traffic jams.  When we were at in-law's place, were rather surprised to see the following...

A beautifully hand-crafted backdrop made by BIL, with the theme of golden ox, pretty flowers and fishes.  He used red, gold and yellow colored papers to make a 3D effect of the picture, really salute him of the patients, times, creativity, clever fingers to complete it.

MIL bought a big bunch of 臘梅 (winter plum blossom), little girl was having fun hanging all the tiny deco onto the brunches.  She was happy too that she was able to peel off the skins from the little blossoms, to help them bloom faster.  She even asked me to stand back, so that I wouldn't able to help her and she could peeled all by herself.

Little girl contributed this 吉, she wrote it in pre-school, BIL let her paste it at a vase and put on more deco.

Hubby said the hse decorations for this CNY was too "gold" (full of gold color) but this was what the elderly preferred, right?

Back from CNY Holiday

Hi, I'm back blogging at last, :p

One of my friend MY has been asking me why was I absent for such a long time, well, been having "low sang" dinner every nite since 2nd day of CNY (til Sun nite!) and were home almost midnite daily, couldn't find more strength to proceed blogging, :)

I'm charged today and stay tuned for 1 or 2 back-dated CNY postings later.

Happy "Moo Moo" Year n 恭喜發財！

I made this for little girl's breakfast this morning, took me quite some time (about 1/2 hour), especially the wording part.  Little girl was delighted to see it, but she complained a bit on the time I took preparing her breakfast.

The ox was made of:

1. cut 1st bread to form ox's head, spread with nutella

2. cut 2nd bread to form ox's nose, ears and horns, spread ears and horns with butter

3. place 2 dried blueberries as nostril

4. cut 2 cheese circles to form ox's eyes, and 2 chocolate chips as eye balls

The wording was arranged with caramel barley pops.  At the beginning I just arranged them on the plate, they were in a mess easily whenever I moved the plate.  Therefore, I spread some strawberry yogurt onto the plate, re-arrange the wording, it was nice n neat then.

I won't be able to blog 2moro onwards til next Tue, so wishing u out there "Happy Moo Moo Year and Gong Xi Fa Cai!"

X'mas Day Bento and Happy Birthday!

It's X'mas day and it is little girl's 5th birthday!  

We brought her to Berjaya Hill at Bukit Tinggi, to check out the Colmar Tropicale and Rabbit Park.  It's not really an interesting place to me, ok, the Colmar Square is pretty, but it is just 2 rows of shops, nothing interesting at all.  Moreover, those shops and stalls are selling things or mostly toys that we may easily get in pasar malam or supermarket.  Whereas the restaurant are selling very expensive but simple food.

The only 2 rows of buildings u may see at Colmar Tropicale, with the entrance fee of RM10 each person!

The white swans

The black love birds

We were at Colmar Tropicale for about an hour, little girl got her interest at the black and white swans after we pulled her away from those toy stalls.  We went to the Rabbit Park then (entrance fee RM3 each person), this was no doubt a fun place for adults or children as ppl are allowed to go into the park, play, cuddle, hold, chase, feed, etc the rabbits.  There are even a donkey ride (RM6 for a 10-15 minutes ride), I was surprised little girl has requested for the ride, as I always thought she'd be afraid.  She was so happy on the donkey, only felt a bit tensed during the 1st few steps, I told her to relax and she did, she couldn't stop herself from smiling ear to ear during the entire ride.

Feeding the rabbit

Enjoying the donkey ride

Little girl said it looks like My Melody by pressing one of the ear down :)

We left rabbit park after about 2 hours later, went to had early dinner at Kampung Bukit Tinggi, very delicious dinner, we ate a lot there.

I made 2 bentos for our brunch which we ate during our car journey to Berjay Hill:

This belonged to little girl, contained pan-fried mold onion roti canai, quail eggs, frankfurters, grape tomatos, edamame and a container of soy sauce.

This was hubby and mine bento, having similar ingredients with an extra container of mayo.

Last but not least, here are the little cakes we had at home, to celebrate little girl's 5 years old birthday!