Happy New Year!

I have been doing so much baking recently, especially during Christmas. Oh how I love Christmas! This year I decided to try making Gingerbread boys! Those turned out better than I ever imagined! And I also tried out an apple pie for the very first time. Was a hit at the party I brought it to. I’ll write about those another day.

To kick of 2012 I started off with a mushroom and onion quiche.

This quiche is pretty great for a first try. The crust was easy to work with, and it held the filling really well. A good thing about the filling is that I didn’t have to use any cheese in it. Just whipping cream and eggs to make the custard filling. Cheese is pricey and it’s hard to use the rest up in a Chinese kitchen.

I got the recipe from the Epicurious app on my iPhone. I’m telling you, I’ve found so many reliable recipes on that app! Love love love! Made minor tweaks to the original recipe. So here goes…

PIE CRUST

1 1/2 cup All purpose flour

1/8 tsp Salt

1 tsp Sugar

1/2 cup Butter (I used Buttercup instead of pure butter and it still turned out nice) – Cubed & chilled

1 Egg + 1 tsp Iced water

1 Egg white – Beaten (I put the remaining white and yolk from this egg into the custard filling, so as to not waste)

> Cut butter into the flour, salt and sugar using a pastry blender** (or you could pulse it in a food processor/rub between your fingers) until the mix resembles breadcrumbs.

> Add the egg mixture and stir with a fork until the dough starts to come together. Pour onto the table and bring the crumbs in, fold several times but don’t overwork.

> Flatten into a disk, clingwrap & refrigerate for 30 mins (or put in the freezer for 10 mins)

> Roll out dough between clingfilm/parchment paper and transfer to an oiled loose-base pie pan. I used a 10″ pan. Leave a 1cm overhang around the edges to allow for some shrinkage.

> Blind bake for 20 mins, 180 C. Remove beans, prick base and continue baking for 10 mins.

FILLING

1 large Onion – Sliced

250g Fresh mushrooms (I used white button & Swiss brown) – Sliced

1 clove of garlic – Chopped

1  bay leaf

3 sprigs of rosemary

> Pan fry in some butter & season with salt and pepper. Once cooled, spread onto base of pastry.

200mL Whipping cream

2 Eggs

Salt & pepper

Sprinkle of dried oregano

> Mix together and pour on top of mushrooms.

> Bake 25 mins, 200 C

I’ll definitely be making this again, with little changes in the filling.. adding ham, bacon or sundried tomatoes to make it interesting!

**Ever since I got myself this pastry blender, it has made my pastry making SO MUCH EASIER!! Since I don’t have a food processor, I’ve always been too lazy to rub those pieces of butter in the flour!

I <3 you!

If you’re bad, I’ll stuff these in your mouth and you’ll be sorry!

I came home tonight and decided to bake something. Then I thought of those big yummylicious muffins you find at Starbucks and those fancy cafe’s.

Like these healthy looking oaty muffins!

So I searched for a recipe for apple walnut muffins. I thought ‘maybe if it came out well, I could make it my first recipe entry!’. Well, here is what came out of my baking…

Horrible pale appetite suppressing thingymajigs! EEE!

Guess sometimes you come across good recipes and sometimes you don’t. Even my standard go-to recipe database Kuali.com failed me this time.

So kesian-lah who is gonna eat them now?! Hahahaha. I feel like secretly bunching them up and trashing them. Of course that would be a sin thinking of everyone else in Somalia or wherever that were eating dirt to fill their tummies. Or maybe teachers could use them to punish their misbehaving students.

Or maybe I could go feed the birds tomorrow. But what if even the birds don’t eat them?! Then there will just be muffins lying about in my garden! -.-

It’s these failed recipes that make me totally malas to try any new recipes I find. And I keep going back to baking the boring ol butter, marble, orange, chocolate cake.

Guess I won’t be baking anymore for the next few weeks No mood liao!!

Of the things I love – Food and cardmaking!

I’m been slightly bitten by the craft-bug lately.

The last time I blogged about continuing my cross-stitch piece of the boy and his bear – failed. I took it out and was stitching a few rows when I remembered why I stopped in the first place – I had no idea what I was going to do with it after it was done. And that put me off just as it did the first time. So once again, it’s going to remain untouched for awhile.

I was at the Garden’s the other week right after my eye check-up @ ISEC and I popped by the huge art store and went a little bonkers.

I was like a kid in a candy store. I was oogling at all the colourful paper, scrapbook ribbons and buttons and things. There were alot of basic stuff as well as fancy-pansy art stuff which I had no idea how to use. Suddenly I wish I studied art of some sort cause these stuff looked so fun! And as much as I like craft, I think I’m really not that good at it

So I got a few items (after being in there for sooO long) and was inspired to make a farewell card for a colleague. That same night I went back and got to work… till 2am.

“Lydia, you’re a star! All the best!” If there was anyone who would love a handmade card, I know it would be her!

After more than a dozen signatures from close friends and a dinner at Mid Valley…

Guess she really liked it after all! It was meaningful to me that what I made had gone to good use. It was a vessel for everyone to pen down their wishes to her and I’m really proud of it! I had to cut out the words one by one using my X-Acto knife. It was tricky I can tell you that. Don’t know how some people (Made by Julene) make it seem so easy.

__

This weekend was a real lazy one. Saturday was spent at 1U. The new Jusco is amazing. Looks expensive like Isetan. The food looks real good and they had a good number of real Japanese people behind the counters! Sushi was going at 99 sen/piece which meant we naturally had to have some…

Sushi dinner date on the big couch in front of the TV. Comfy heaven!

And for breakfast the next day we had a good brunch at home of fat juicy pork sausages, baked beans and omelette.

Fat Fat Fat juicy porky sausages from that bloody amazing Jusco 1U Lol

Next I’m gonna do french toast and luncheon meat. Hohoho!

Lets get crafty!

And so it’s Thursday again. Busiest days of the week have gone by and I am more than looking forward to the weekend.

I don’t really remember how but I stumbled upon a blog that reminded me of my love for craft – Murni Roslim’s Mimpi Murni. I love her blog. An explosion of soft colour at every scroll of the mouse and every post opened my eyes to a kind of craft that I never knew existed!

It’s through her posts that I found Made by Julene. Basically, she cuts paper. But I bet you’ve never seen anyone else cut paper like her!!

  I Like Everything About You, Made by Julene

A design for Pfizer for the anti-cholesterol drug Lipitor, Made by Julene

Mad right? I thought only high tech machines could cut like that.

Murni Roslim also organizes craft parties for those who love making pretty things with little buttons and colourful ribbons and beady things Oh the thought of it makes me so happy. But when I went to Handmade KL, I found out that I just missed the last one. Boo. Oh maybe next time round. I’ll definitely be keeping an eye on this one.

So armed with the sudden wave of creative inspiration, I dug out my unfinished cross-stitch piece from years back

Little boy and his bear

He has a girlfriend too… I finished her first cause girls are just cuter

Little girl and her bunny

2 other completed pieces, 1 turned into a bag which is currently MIA; and another I framed cause I didn’t know what else to do with it -.-

Currently up on my room wall

So what am I gonna do with the little girl and boy once their done??….

Last Friday I got myself a pair of new eyes

It’s the 3rd day after LASIK and I still find myself looking for my glasses. Sometimes I ‘feel’ my non-existent glasses slipping down the bridge of my nose and my fingers are automatically there trying to push them up, only realizing “oh yeaa…!”

My biggest pre-LASIK concern was oddly enough how I would look without glasses and not so much about the quality of my vision. So weird hearing me confess about it. Am I that much of a vain pot?! My face feels lighter.. more ‘airy’.. kinda feels like freedom! In the mirror it does look somewhat plain. Like a frame is missing. Something I gotta get used to.

Everything in general looks much clearer. Like I got new glasses with a higher power. Details are not that sharp yet. The doctor says it just needs time to heal. And so I’m diligently putting eyedrops every 4 hours, making sure my boyfriend’s monkey-like long limbs doesn’t take and accidental swing near my eyes and being sure not to subconsciously rub them!

So if you’re thinking of LASIK too, do not search ‘microkeratome’ in Google image cause I’m pretty sure you will never get it done after that! Just like any other surgery, you wouldn’t wanna see how they do it till after

So now what’s left is to pay for that huge bill on my credit card for these new eyes!

Back to life

Hello once again!

New awesome colourful background to shake this blog back to life eh?

I’ll try again. This time, with less ranting! Was a bit of a complainer back then wasn’t I?!

So I got my first camera.

Nikon Coolpix P300

It’s not one of those pro-looking DLSR’s which everyone seems to have hanging over their shoulder these days. But hey, it’s lightweight, compact and a perfect beginner’s camera for a noob (like me) Not to mention affordable, just under RM1000.

And you know what else I bought?… Armani sunglasses Pending to be used after my scheduled LASIK surgery this Friday *shivers nervously*. It’s a little nerve wrecking to know someone’s gonna clamp my eyelids open, slice that jelly bit of my eyeballs so that he can aim a laser to burn the back of my eye o.O (can even smell the burning apparently…)

*pengsan*

 Hope the doctor @ ISEC Mid Valley is not hungry, sleepy or angry when I’m on the chopping block! Perhaps 3pm appointment (post-prandial drowsiness?) is not such an ideal time!

I’m crossing my fingers and hoping that the terror and RM5200 that will be credited into my card will be well worth it. Waking up in the morning without blur vision.. Eye makeup that won’t be hidden under glasses… That dent on the bridge of my nose from the years of wearing glasses will finally heal….

Cannot get water into eyes, cannot rub eyes, cannot swim, cannot wear eye makeup for a month after surgery! San-fu.

So to make myself feel better I’ve set up an appointment for a facial a day before @ Airellis Esthetics & Wellness Studio in SS2. Since theRM88 for a 2 hour facial for first trial. Lets see how good they are. Have not heard of their products though. My regular beautician from Beaubelle @ Ikano is always fully booked

*Phew*

Talk about outflow of $$$$$ !!

Here’s a yellow gerbera. Pretty ain’t it?

Not so yay.

I wish I was crazy for Chinese New Year just as I was for Christmas… But I’m really not.

And I find it extremely unfortunate.

It wasn’t always this way. I loved CNY as a little kid. I remember fighting to play ‘TV game’ with the other kiddy cousins in my aunt’s room and counting ang pows on the bed at the end of the first day. There was a huge rambutan tree outside the house which was always full of fruits by the time CNY came. Under the tree were the goldfish tanks that grandpa kept. He had ariwana and catfish and a tonne of other random fish that I used to torment by poking them. The house was full of buzz!! Noisy and plenty to see and do. Reunion dinners were lavish dinners held at home. My grandpa used to serve soup in a carved melon which impressed me every year.

Things have changed a great deal now.

The cousins are all grown up and we live in our own world – the English speaking world and the Mandarin speaking world. The English speaking ones are overseas… and well… thats that.

They chopped down the rambutan tree.

Grandpa passed and all the fishes did too.

No one can do cool dinners anymore so we just pay a whole lot to go to a noisy Chinese restaurant for dinner.

I pass my days by watching DVDs.

What is there to look forward to for CNY??

I don’t have cute baby nieces or nephews to play with… I don’t have cousins to talk crap to… All I have are loads of aunties and uncles who will probably comment about how I look and make me talk about work. Last CNY I was humiliated when they just could not stop talking about how fat I was. I just came back from UK!! Can they give me a break?! Instead of asking me how my whole UK/Sabah experience was, they asked me how I got so damn FAT?!?!! Did I really travel over 300kms to Johor Bahru just so they can judge me on how I look?!

I know it’s not going to happen this time and I only hope that they won’t pull out any pills from their bags and start going “So ahh.. this medicine rite.. good ahh? Which one is the best ahh?? I heard people say horrr………..”

*sigH*

Please tell me what is there to look forward to for CNY?

The fact that I don’t have to go to work?? Yes.

Maybe I can hop over to Singapore for a little shopping spree?? Yes.

That is all I can look forward to.

They are my family. It should come naturally to be happy to see them but I don’t know how to be.

It’s so sad.

Really.

Pounding is all I hear

I’m really feeling the concequences of all my procrastination now. Research project is real shit right now and everything else is not moving. BOO to freaking ol’ me!

First the flu made my nose peel and look like a monster.. the sore throat is really taking the joy out of dispensing.. and I went to sleep with a headache and got up because it got worse! T_T

And now, still with the damn headache I need to do up a thing for the research shit by tomorrow. And that’s not it! I’m dispensing at the pharmacy over at the psychiatric clinic ALONE.. well with this Kak but I might as well be alone cause she’s just shit. And so many are Chinese patients (wonder why??) and psych patients just ask so many questions!…. In all sorts of Chinese dialects!… Shit….

You know what will make all of it a bigger pile of crap?? Is if I wake up with the bloody fever tomorrow!!! Bullshit!

I’ll be so glad for the end of tomorrow.

Weirded out by kacang man

I had the oppotrunity to meet a man today.. who was missing a part of his skull.. Hmm..

It all happened over lunch @ Blossom.

Well basically, this limping Indian man came to our table to ask us to buy kacang. Okay.. Not unusual.

But neither of us wanted any (Yannee was going healthy by eating her ‘lui cha’ and well I just didn’t want to be any more of a piece of pork) so we politely declined.

He went on to saying “tolong lah.. beli lah.. saya ada 6 anak.. “ blabla.. yknow.. in an almost.. begging kind of tone..

How do you ask a person to go away after he says all those things?!! It’s just kacang damnit.. buy from him only lah (I’m such a sucker right?)…

2 ringgit for a pack of horsenuts (err.. kacang kuda) which was.. hmm.. oily.

So normally they would walk away and leave you to peacefully have your pan mee lah.

But he pulled the chair beside me and sat down… HMM~~…. I feel uncomfortable now..

Engaged in some small talk and when he knew we were working in Seremban GH he went on to saying he was in some kind of accident and had to have part of his skull removed..

He then PRODDED his head and it was SOFT. Like… like… prodding a fat person’s butt. I think Yannee almost regurgitated her green lui cha crap (lol sorry). I guess it doesn’t hurt.. But doesn’t it like give you some sort of headache for directly prodding your brain like that??

Uhh.. I had nothing to say.. It was extremely uncomfortable with him sitting in our table with his basket of kacang.. And I sure as hell didn’t feel like making eye contact or anymore small talk with this peculiar Indian man who decided to take away our appetite for lunch by poking his brain in front of us.

He eventually left to sell more kacang.

And we left after not finishing my pan mee.. I was so weirded out by the incident I left the kacang behind.

I don’t know why I’m still thinking about it now. It’s a one-off weird encounter that happens sometimes.

I think I feel bad.. For not taking his kacang.. I feel like I’m insulting him in some ways.. By giving him the 2 ringgit and not taking his damn kacang and acknowledging his way of making a living. I was prejudiced from the start.

He’s just a man.. in an unfortunate situation of which he did not chose to be in. All he’s doing is trying to put bread on the table for his family and perhaps got carried away with his tragic life story. And I looked at him like he was some kind of crazy person.

Well I feel bad.

Sorry Mr. KacangMan.

Anything will do tonight

Internet is back!

I’m gonna take a loooooong bath… Battle the breakouts with Dermalogica kau kau.. *sigH* Wish I bought that set of 3 masks from Origins…

*Hydrating mask + deep pore cleansing + 10 minute mask to rescue problem skin* Mask Marvels RM150 on promo!

After that I’m gonna do a body scrub *sigH* Wish I bought that Body Shop special edition Black Velvet body scrub. Smells sooo awesome…

Black Velvet Apricot body smoother. Special edition!! RM49

Unfortunately I didn’t buy either… So I’ll just have to settle with what I have…

After the long bath I think I’m gonna stay home and try out that instant scallop porridge for dinner.. With my sotong balls… And a cup of Milo??

It’s ok. I’m going home tomorrow. I’ll have home cooked food. With fresh green vege. And soup.