Tagged: Before I was a Mom and An Award!

I got this meme from East Meets West Kitchen. Here it goes.

The rule to the e-mail was that, once you have been hit, you have to hit 5 pretty Moms, including the one who thought of you today & sent it to you. The idea is that if you get hit again, You will know you are really pretty!

So I thought lets just turn this into a tag instead. But that “hit” part won’t work very well in a tag. So instead of giving a “hit” to the one who tag you, you add your name at the bottom of the tagged persons list, and without bumping the person at the top or bumping anyone off and let the list grow. Hit 5 pretty moms on your list to let them know they are pretty!

Before I was a mum; I went to the cinema with my hubby every other weekend.

Before I was a mum; I had ladies day/night out.

Before I was a mum; I shopped for myself.

Before I was a mum; I didn't know I am going to be a strict mom!

Before I was a mum; I got to go to the toilet alone.

Before I was a mum; I always wonder what our life would be like with kids.

*Hope I didn't scare anyone to become a mom! LOL! Seriously, it's rewarding and fun too!*

The first chain of tag:

1. Lovelymummy
2. Pek Imm
3. Momisodes
4. Ling that’s me
5. Janicepa
6. AnnieQ
7. Allthingspurple
8. Montessorimum
9. clumsy mommy
10. Sandra
11. KittyCat
12. VivianZ
13. Sweetpea
14. Sasha
15. Giddy Tiger
16. Wen
17. Jo-N
18. Janice Ng
19. ViEmwk
20. Little Corner of Mine

I would like to tag the following pretty moms :
Cocoa-Masakan Istimewa
Ling's Passion
Retno's Kedai Hamburg, Germany
Baking Fiends Unite!
Beachlover's Kitchen


~:AWARD:~

I totally agree with her 'peace above love', but then again you have to love in order to find peace. If everyone can 'love thy neighbour as thyself' ( Leviticus 19:18) as the scripture says, there will not be wars in the world.

I received this Peace award from Singarishgirl. Thanks girl! :* And I would like to pass it to:

Lily's Wai Sek Hong

Soy and Pepper

Beachlover's Kitchen

Cocoa-Masakan Istimewa

Chap Goh Meh, 2008 Dinner

My last day of CNY dinner spread. I told my hubby I'm going to cook something special tonight to celebrate the last day of CNY. I added one more dish into my usual two dishes.


Steam fish fillets, nothing special, I cooked this all the time, but this is one of my hubby's favorites.


Stir-fry Sweet Snap Peas with Chinese Mushroom, Baby Bamboo Shoots and Carrots. Hmm... I cooked this all the times too but not in this combination.


Butter Cereal Shrimps. Ha! this is something special as I normally don't cook so much shrimps for ourselves (I always sanction 3-4 for me and 4-5 for him, just want to be in moderation). But since this is the last day of CNY and it was my first time cooking butter cereal shrimps from scratch, what the heck right? Better enjoyed it! My hubby was actually shocked and asked me how many shrimps did you cook? HAHAHA.... So, I had to explain to him and also tell him don't expect any shrimps from me next week. So, we indulged! I will share my version of Butter Cereal Shrimps recipe in another post, if you want my recipe, stay tuned! :P If cannot wait, just do a search on Google lah, so many recipes on the net wat. :D

Sweet Red Beans + Tang Yuen Soup

Time flies, it's already the end of CNY. Today is the last day of CNY where we called it "Chap Goh Mei", the 15th day. Usually people will have a feast on this day and eating tang yuens to signified "tuan tuan yuen yuen", or togetherness, unity in the new Lunar year.

Since I wanted something different from my usual brown sugar ginger syrup, I made red bean soup to go with it. Added some mini tapioca pearls, dried orange peels and glutinous rice as well.



Also reserved some to eat with my favorite peanut + sugar coating. Evy really loved it, she "sapu" (finished) all below, asked for more and later ate her daddy share!! I think I managed to eat three balls only! Later I served her the red bean soup with tang yuens and she finished all the tang yuens in the bowl and asked for more but left the red bean soup basically untouched.



I am glad that I got to meet all my girlfriends this CNY. :) Extra big hug to V for purposely drove all the way down to "pie nian" with me, I am really touched and it showed what a great girlfriend she is. Wait for me to make the "kuih kapit" okay? :D

Dinner Feb 13th, 2008

One of my special CNY dinners.


Soup with bamboo fungus, dried beancurd sheet and enoki mushroom.


My "Mung Kwan Char" (stir-fry jicama). Not "Ju Hur Char" because no dried squid was used. This is a traditional CNY dish for us but I slightly adapted it my way. This dish is delicious and tastes better the next day. We used to eat it wrap in lettuce, with a piece of baked chicken and spread with homemade chili sauce (sambal), wrap it and enjoy! Delectable! I'm traditional like that, I need to eat my "mung kwan char" every CNY.


Emperor Baked Chicken. My house smelled absolutely divine when this chicken was baking.


Can see the crispy skin or not? Baked with my vertical roaster stand. Tigerfish, here's the pictures I promised you. Moist and juicy chicken with crispy skin, my hubby's favorite!

London Almond Cookies

Cooling on rack.


Covered with white chocolate and sprinkles.


Covered with semi-sweet chocolate and almond bits.

I saw this cookies at Rainbows and it really got me interested. I have not seen this kind of CNY cookies before because I have been living in the States for a very long time. Thus, I only familiar with the traditional CNY cookies. Luckily, I know how to bake and can always make whatever cookies that strike my fancy. So, here is it, my first ever London Almond Cookies. As I was lazy, I melted the chocolate using the microwave and perhaps that's why my melted chocolate was fairly thick and it won't spread nicely like the one in Rainbow's blog. She said the skill of making this cookie is in melting the chocolate. Guess I can't really do a short-cut if I wanted my cookies to look like her. Tastewise, no different but for the presentation itself, huge difference. LOL! :P

Verdict:
This cookies is on the sweet end, as the white chocolate is sweet. However, this easily can be any children favorite, but very messy when given to toddlers.

Baked Red Bean Nian Gao

I decided to make this red bean nian gao to bring to Lily's party and to serve at my party. This recipe was shared by Lin, and it is so worth a try. Thank you Lin for sharing this fantastic recipe. :*



This is seriously good. Tasted so much better with the added red bean, I will make this again next year. Oh yeah, have you spotted my mistake yet? I forgot to swirl the red bean paste around the batter when I dropped it in and thus some part had red bean while other didn't. Not pretty too but look can be deceiving! ;) Anyway, I learned from my mistake. 

Tagged: 10 Things about Little Corner of Mine

I got tagged by Daphne to do this meme: 10 Things about Me.

1. Little Corner of Mine loves to : travel.

2. Little Corner of Mine hates to: socialize (homegirl by choice).

3. Little Corner of Mine loves to: hang around with best friends.

4. Little Corner of Mine hates to: clean the bathroom.

5. Little Corner of Mine loves to: try new recipes, either cooking or baking.

6. Little Corner of Mine hates to: cook everyday. (Thus I'm having days off)

7. Little Corner of Mine loves to: cuddle her daughters.

8. Little Corner of Mine hates to: do laundry.

9. Little Corner of Mine loves to: spend more time with her parents and siblings.

10. Little Corner of Mine hates to: live so far away from Malaysia.


Now, I would like to tag:

V's East Meets West Kitchen
Ling's Passion
Big Fish
Tigerfish - Teczcape
Cocoa-Masakan Istimewa

Remember to link back to me when you do the tagged ya.

My Yi Lu Fa Cai

This is my copycat dish of Chef. Steven "Hou See Fatt Choy". I added some wolfberries for extra color effect. Whether it's a good idea or not, I don't know but wolfberries is good for us, so why not? Why I didn't name mine "hou see fatt choy" you might asked. That's because I couldn't find any dried oyster here. Nada...not one in sight. So, have to make mine without the dried oyster and gave it a new name which I read at Tigerfish's blog. This is the dish I brought to Lily's house.



Does this dish looks appertizing to you? I would really love to know because my hubby thinks this dish is soooo unappealing that he didn't even bother to try one. *Sorta pissed to learn later that he didn't even bother to try one of my CNY dish creation because to him it looks unappertizing, my own hubby!* You tell me!

Lastly, I want to wish my readers a "Happy Valentine's Day" !
Hubby wants to bring us out for dinner and so no cooking for me. :)

CNY Potluck Party, 2008

I had a potluck party at my house on Feb 10th. Sharing some food pictures here. It turned out to be a good gathering. Great food and met some new faces too.


The spread.

Highlight some of the dishes here:

My mixed vegetable with fa cai.


My sambal cutterfish and shrimps.


Y's store-bought good looking roasted duck.


Am's homemade yummy jiaozi (she is from China).


M's delicious dry chicken curry.


Su's Mushrooms with Bok Choys.


Sh's Fried Noodle.


T's store-bought orange chicken.

The below came late thus didn't make it in the 1st. picture:

Sa's oyster sauce veggie.

Sa's potstickers.

Sh's yummy egg tarts, my steamed cassava kuih and red bean nian gao.

My Nian Nian You Yu Agar-agar.

Su's Kuih Salat.

You guys should recognize this right? :P

Snack containers.

Look at all the shoes!!!

My Golden Rats

Since I am making another batch of pineapple tarts. I decided to play with the dough and made these six little rats to welcome the Rat Year. I got this inspiration from aunty Yochana's blog. Let me tell you, these are not easy to shape at all and really have to kudo to those that have the patience to shape so many rats, or the rose shape pineapple tarts. This was not my best job as I had to do it fast as little one was crying (wanna sleep), thus some turned out looking more like pigs. LOL!

Baked Pork Floss Mini Puffs

I saw the mini peanut puffs at Lily's blog and it gave me an inspiration to make mini pork floss puffs. Reason being I have a bottle sitting in my pantry ready to be used. Since I have no plan on making any deep-fried CNY cookies this year, I decided to experiment with the basic pie crust recipe for my baked puffs. The resulted pastry is buttery, crispy and flaky!

Kuih Bangkit II, 2008

I baked my 2nd batch of kuih bangkit this morning. Ahhhh, practice makes perfect (I also didn't use frozen coconut cream). I achieved the light, crispy and melt in the mouth texture that I like. I'm going to make my 3rd batch next week using the Pandan extract like I did earlier and let my brother brings it back to M'sia for my mom.


Playing with the different cookie cutters.


Are those pineapple and pine tree designs? What do you think?

For my kuih bangkit recipe, click here.
For my step-by-step-pictures guide, click here.

Tagged: 5 Facts About Myself & Award

I got tagged by Ling's Passion to do this 5 facts about myself. You are supposed to list 5 facts about yourself, link back to me and tag 5 more blogs.

Fact 1:
I got married at age 24.

Fact 2:
I am soooo not a vain person. My mom even told me to at least wear a lipstick when I go out! :P

Fact 3:
I have two degrees.

Fact 4:
I don't own a lot of shoes, just the essential. Unlike most women, right? :P

Fact 5:
I am practical and sometimes emotional.

Now, I would like to tag:

Baking Fiends Unite!
V's East Meets West Kitchen
The Art and Science of Food
Edith's Precious Moments
Retno's Kedai Hamburg, Germany

AWARD:



I received another award from Retno's Kedai Hamburg, Germany. Thanks Retno! Now, I would like to pass this on to the above blogs and the following:

My Kitchen Snippets
Beachlover's Kitchen
Daily Affairs
Daphne- More than Words
Big Boys Oven
Ling's Passion
Rainbows
Cocoa-Masakan Istimewa
Jadepearl's Play-Play in The Kitchen
Tigerfish - Teczcape
Big Fish

Gong Xi Fa Cai, Xin Nian Kuai Le!

I would like to wish all my readers who celebrate CNY:

Sorry so blur because Evy kept saying "Gong Xi, Gong Xi" and Edda kept moving her hands.

Happy Lunar New Year! Let's the feasts begin!