Dinner at home

My housemates and I didn't really have a proper dinner together for quite some time now, as everyone was busy with working and such. So, the other day I was in the mood to cook and from an initial menu for making 3 dishes, I made 6 instead! ^^

These dishes are very simple to prepare though... lol

Menu for the day:
Vegetarian dishes:

1) Carrot omelette...


This is surprisingly good... It's very sweet (of the carrot) even though I did not add any sugar in it... =)


2) Stir fried mixed vegetables in vegetarian 'oyster' sauce


What I chuck into this Mixed veg dish? Answer: Brocolli, Chinese mushroom, chick peas, and lotssss of baby corn...


3) Tom Yum soup


This one is a lil bit too sour and not so spicy... It's more like a sour soup than Tom Yum to me... *sigh*


Now, Non-vegatarian dishes!

4) Malaysian style Chicken Curry


I think among the several times I made curry, this is the nicest to date! hahahaha... Bought some curry leaves from one of the Indian shops around the corner and the aroma of the curry was superb... =D


5) Pan fried Haddock with ginger, chilli flakes and salt...


I wanted to grill them at first, but then I realised I don't know how to... So, I changed my mind and thought of making fish tempura... Then, think twice and thought it's time consuming to make the batter and everything... So, in the end, just add some butter on the pan and place the fish on the pan and wait for then to get cooked! lol...


Lastly.....
6) Herbal ribs soup


I don't know what are those herbs, it's mixed herbs in a small sealed pack (my mum sealed them) for me to bring it over to the UK. I just need to chuck the mixed herb into a pot of boiling water and wait for about an hour, and then chuck some ribs into the same pot and wait for another hour, and it's good to go!

So there, the dinner that I made few days ago.... *satisfied*

One last pic of the meal before we start eating... =)

Steamed Banana Cake

After my not so successful attempt of making my first ever steamed cake, I've tried to make another one the following week! ^^ This time, I tried making Steamed Banana Cake... I search for the recipe online and it seems very easy so decided to give it a try.. =)

The ingredients needed:



2 ripe bananas (approx 200g)
2 eggs
150 self-raising flour
80g sugar
1/8 tsp Baking Powder
70g oil


Steps:
1 - Sift together self-raising flour and baking powder and set them aside
2 - Whisk the eggs and sugar in a big bowl
3 - Mash the bananas and mix them into the ribbon stage eggs and sugar. Beat til combine
4 - Gently fold in flour mixture and oil
5 - Pour the batter into muffin/ cake pan
6 - Steam for about 20 minutes or til an inserted skewer comes out clean


Step 5




Step 6


Ta-da! Done....


Step 8


Soft and fluffy and ready to be eaten... ^^

This is very very very easy to make and they tastes good too! The nice aroma of bananas were great! =)

Blackberry Curve 8520

I just got myself a Blackberry Curve 8520 and I totally lurve it! The reason I chose this was because of the offers that is going on now... It's a plan that offers lots of free minutes, with unlimited texts and also unlimited internet! I'm a very new user to smartphone and am now in the midst of exploring the phone's functions and such... Initially I wanted to get the Violet curve but then the salesperson told me it was out of stock so I ended up bringing back the black BB with me at the end of the day... But one thing, it's kinda easy to use and hopefully I will grow fonder towards my phone as days goes by... =)

So far I've been trying to text, call, email, and browsing to the internet (free unlimited internet!!)...The internet speed was good, and works well too! I'm starting to getting used to the texting part coz it's fairly different from the previous phones that I have used...


Qwerty keyboard yo!

All in all, this is a superb phone.!

One last pic of my friend's iPhone, Nokia, and my Blackberry...



til then, ttfn!

Laugh Out Loud: They walk among us!

NEW YORK - resident Kathy Evans brought humiliation to her friends and family when she set a new standard for stupidity with her appearance on the popular TV show, 'Who Wants To Be A Millionaire.'

Evans, a 32-year-old wife and mother of two, got stuck on the first question and proceeded to make what fans of the show are dubbing 'the absolute worst use of lifelines ever.' After being introduced to the show's host Meredith Vieira, Evans was posed with a typically easy initial $100 question.

The question was: 'Which of the following is the largest?'

A) A Peanut
B) An Elephant
C) The Moon
D) Hey, who you calling large?

Immediately Mrs. Evans was struck with an all consuming panic as she did not readily know the answer. 'Hmm, oh boy, that's a toughie,' said Evans, as Vieira did her level best to hide her disbelief.
'I mean, I'm sure I've heard of some of these things before, but I have no idea how large they would be.'

Evans made the decision to use the first of her three lifelines, the 50/50.
Answers A and D were removed, leaving her to decide which was bigger, an elephant or the moon. However, faced with an incredibly easy question, Evans still remained unsure.

'Oh! It removed the two I was leaning towards!' exclaimed Evans.
'Darn. I think I better phone a friend.'
Mrs. Evans asked to be connected with her friend Betsy, who is an office assistant.

'Hi Betsy! How are you? This is Kathy ! I'm on TV!' said Evans,
wasting the first seven seconds of her call.
'Ok, I got an important question. Which of the following is the largest?
B, an elephant, or C, the moon. 15 seconds hun.'
Betsy quickly replied that the answer was C, the moon.
Evans proceeded to argue with her friend for the remaining ten seconds.
'Betsy, are you sure?' said Evans. 'How sure are you? Duh, that can't be it.'

To everyone's astonishment, the moronic Evans declined to take her friend's advice. 'I just don't know if I can trust Betsy. She's not all that bright.
So I think I'd like to ask the audience,' said Evans.

Asked to vote on the correct answer, the audience returned 98% in favor of answer C, 'The Moon.' Having used up all her lifelines, Evans then made the dumbest choice of her life.

'Wow, seems like everybody is against what I'm thinking,' said the too-stupid-to-live Evans. 'But you know, sometimes you just got to go with your gut. So, let's see.. I'm going to have to go with B, an elephant. Final answer.'

Evans sat before the dumbfounded audience, the only one waiting with bated breath - and was told that she was wrong, and that the answer was in fact, C, 'The Moon.'

Caution...they walk among us!

***************

One day I was walking down the beach with some friends when someone shouted....
'Look at that dead bird!'
Someone looked up at the sky and said...'where?'

They walk among us!

***************

While looking at a house, my brother asked the estate agent which direction was north because he didn't want the sun waking him up every morning.
She asked, 'Does the sun rise in the north?' My brother explained that the sun rises in the east and has for some time. She shook her head and said,
'Oh, I don't keep up with all that stuff.....'

They Walk Among Us!

***************

My colleague and I were eating our lunch in our cafeteria, when we overheard an admin girl talking about the sunburn she got on her weekend drive to the beach. She drove down in a convertible, but said she 'didn't think she'd get sunburned because the car was moving'.

They Walk Among Us!

***************

I was hanging out with a friend when we saw a woman with a nose ring attached to an earring by a chain.
My friend said, 'Ouch! The chain must rip out every time she turns her head!"
I had to explain that a person's nose and ear remain the same distance apart no matter which way the head is turned...

They Walk Among Us !

***************

I couldn't find my luggage at the airport baggage area and went to the lost luggage office and reported the loss. The woman there smiled and told me not to worry because she was a trained professional and
said I was in good hands. 'Now,' she asked me,
'Has your plane arrived yet?'... (I work with professionals like this.)

They Walk Among Us!

***************

While working at a pizza parlor I observed a manordering a small pizza to go. He appeared to be alone and
the cook asked him if he would like it cutinto 4 pieces or 6. He thought about it for some timethen said 'Just cut it into 4 pieces; I don't think I'm hungry enough to eat 6 pieces.

They Walk Among Us!

***************

And last, but not least:

A VERY GOOD EXAMPLE OF THE KIND OF REPRESENTATION WE HAVE IN CONGRESS,TRUE STORY:

A noted psychiatrist was a guest speaker at an academic function where Nancy Pelosi happened to appear. Ms Pelosi took the opportunity to schmooze the good doctor a bit and asked him a question with which he was most at ease.

'Would you mind telling me, Doctor,' she asked, 'how you detect a mental deficiency in somebody who appears completely normal?'

'Nothing is easier,' he replied. 'You ask a simple question which anyone should answer with no trouble. If the person hesitates, that puts you on the track.'

'What sort of question?' asked Pelosi.

Well, you might ask, 'Captain Cook made three trips around the world and died during one of them. Which one?''

Pelosi thought a moment, and then said with a nervous laugh, 'You wouldn't happen to have another example would you? I must confess I don't know much about history.'

Cream Cracker Layer Cake

27th October 2009 marks another 'first' time of something in my life. I made a cake!! ^^

It's actually very very simple so that's why I decided to give it a try.. ho ho ho

The ingredients:

200g butter
180g castor sugar
250g cream crackers
5 eggs
1 tbsp cocoa powder
3 tbsp water



The vital ingredients


Method:

1) Grease the cake tin with parchment

2) Cream butter and sugar. Then add eggs. Add cream crackers after eggs. (as below)



3) Pour three quarter of the mixture into the cake tin.



4) Cover with foil (as below) and steam for 20 minutes or til firm.



5) Add the cocoa power to the remaining batter.. When the bottom layer is set, add the cocoa mixture (as below). Cover with foil, and steam for another half an hour.



and voila! my Cream Crackers Layer Cake is ready!!

6) Cut a slice and place it on a plate., and it's ready to be served. =)



One pic of myself and the cake that I've made for the first time in my entire life! Cheers! ^^

Lack of Updates

While walking back from work a while ago, I felt a lil bit guilty for abandoning the blog for more than a week without any updates. *sigh* I wanted to write something everyday but then my brain/mind was blank and thus, no updates for quite some time. Plus, my life is at a stagnant stage at the moment. Not to say I have nothing to do, in fact, I have lots to do so thus reducing the time of me sitting in front of my reliable HP laptop most of the time. =)

I need to wake up at 7 every morning, and then come back home after 12.00 midnight almost every other day of the week for the past two weeks or so, and this will go on til next week. I think this is synonym to what people referred as, "No Life"? I am missing a great deal of sleeping time from all these...

I used to think sleeping is a waste of time, and I still do some times... So, after I came back from work, I don't rest much. I used the few hours I was suppose to sleep to do other stuff like, reading some great fictions, watching movies and tv shows online, chatting with my friends, basically just relaxing and enjoying things I like spending my time for. Then, I have tonnes of photos waiting to be edited from my previous trip, lots of planning to do for my upcoming trips. =)

So, anyway I'm feeling kinda tired from the lack of sleep since August if I don't recall it wrongly. On average one day about 4 to 5 hours sleep isn't enough, right? So, I'll definitely rest as much as I can after the month of November. This is a promise I make to myself... ^^

Before I end this entry, here's an extract I read from The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks. I've read this book for the 3rd time already and it's still very nice. It's about an old couple staying in love for more than 4 decades which I thought was very beautifully written... This is one book that I'll read over and over again after A Walk To Remember by the same author. Although the subsequent paragraph may not portray what I am going through now, but it is still an extract that I liked a lot.. =) Here goes:

"... I learned, bumbling and slow, but learning nonetheless what had to be done. I learned what is obvious to a child. That life is simply a collection of little lives, each lives one day at a time. That each day should be spent finding beauty in flowers and poetry. That a day spent with dreaming and sunsets and refreshing breezes cannot be bettered. ..."

So there... will stop here for today.

ttfn.

Girls' Day Out

A short entry coz I'm tired (jus came back from work like one hour ago)...

Girls day out is a fun thing to do! Although only 3 of us, but that Tuesday was still great nonetheless... =) Been window shopping, and then lead to some shopping... You know what, I just bought a pair of Crocs for only 6 quid!! Such a good bargain.. feel like going to buy few pairs more if next week I'm going there... Feeling so contented after that....

Had Chinese buffet for dinner @ Flaming Dragon Valley Centertainment... It's not authentic Chinese, but it's even better coz they served sushi and made-upon-order teppanyaki.. all you can eat yo! hahahah... Had few rounds on teppanyaki prawns and steak.. Yum yum...

Will be busy for 2 consequent weeks and then 2 more weeks to earn more $$$ and it's traveling time again!! In the time being, I have a feeling I'll feel darn exhausted by the end of the 2nd week... hehe... Anyway, all these will lead to good deeds I suppose...

til then, Ta...