My First Attempt at Making Buns

Finally decided to make sardine buns today using Gina's Basic Sweet Buns recipe. The variation I made: I added 1 tsp. of bread softener in addition to the bread improver. I don't have a stand mixer, so I did everything by hands. I rolled the dough until the butter was incorporated into the dough. And then I rubbed the outside of the dough with extra virgin olive oil before proofing for 5 hours (had to go out). Overall, I'm very satisfy with the result, the bun is soft like it should be. I just need to practise how to put the filling inside the bun and roll it into ball. Still not good at this and some of my filling was leaking out (greedy, wanted to stuff a lot of filling too). I only made 6 sardine buns, the rest I freeze it and will try it with chicken curry filling or plain green tea buns.

Venturing into making bread and buns is not too bad, will experience with more recipe later when I find time again. Thanks Lily for her instant yeast, without that I won't be able to make buns.

We got our Green Card!

After preparing our GC for 4 years, we finally received it. The recent trip back to M'sia was to go for the final phase of the process ~ to get interview at the U.S. Embassy. One week before the interview, we had to go for a medical check up and X-ray in a clinic in KL chosen by the U.S. Embassy. The day before the interview, we went to pick up our result and x-ray which were sealed in an envelop only to be opened by the official.

We were assigned 9am to be there. They took the result and some documents and asked us to come back in the afternoon. The American official would then interview Chong with some questions (I never get interview since I was H4 visa) and then we were finger printed and got a cancelled stamp on our old visa and were asked to be back tomorrow to collect our passport with the new visa stamped. Just an informal interview outside the window like everyone else, no special room whatsoever.

Once we entered the U.S., we had to go to the new immigrant counter and got finger printed again. He told us we will receive our GC in 3-6 months, but in reality we were PR on that day on. We received the congratulation status changed letter in 3 weeks and received our GC in less than a week. So, instead of 3-6 months wait, it's more like less than a month.

What do you know

My computer is fixed!! Chong came home with a new webcam and windows xp software yesterday and fixed it. And the culprit was one of my memory cards died on me. It had been having problem recently like jamming, restarting itself, shutting off when I turned on the webcam and one day just totally dead. What do you know it's the memory card and he told me it was infected by virus....geez....

Anyway, just glad that it's fixed and my parents get to see Evy through webcam every weekend again.

Bak Chang Season

It's the chang/chung season again! The urge to eat chang made me wrapped my own bak chang this year. I didn't get to make it two years back because (1) I was pregnant and (2) had to take care of a baby last year. I think the color was not dark enough, other than that, it tasted pretty good. This time I managed to use all my filling along with the glutinous rice, (all agaration and thus sometimes with leftover filling). I tried to stuff as much filling and wrap the chang as big as I could with the short bamboo leaves that I bought. (greedy! :0P)



Mental Note: Don't ever buy the short nice bamboo leaves again! But buy the long bamboo leaves, wide is a plus. Then, it's a guarentee big chang everytime.

Giant King Crab

While we were dining at one of the Seafood Restaurant in J.B., a reporter from a Chinese Newspaper (Nanyang) came to this restaurant to take some pictures. So, the owner (I guess) asked one of the kitchen chef to come out and hold the crab for the reporter. Chong took this opportunity to take some pictures as well. Heard that this King Crab was imported from U.S. and cost more than RM$1000. Whoa, now I wonder who would want to eat this crab? This is one expensive seafood restaurant, the steamed fish that we ordered cost more than $100.

Like My Pose?

This picture was taken in M'sia. I like this picture a lot so I thought I shared it here. She was trying on a dress that her kuku bought her and while undressing her, we thought why not took a half naked picture of her. Who would know she even pose it for us. LOL!