Of sickness and lost mood

I’ve been quite busy with just the normal day to day stuff so minta maaf kalau lambat jawab all the comments ye.

And at the same time, my blogging mood hilang sekejap.

And then today, Miss 8 stayed at home because of cold.

She’s a good patient, tak banyak songeh and is quite happy lying on the couch watching tv, reading and playing her iPod.

She’s been coughing with runny nose since semalam so we want her to get some rest at home fro a couple of days.

She’s going to have a class excursion to the Museum on Wednesday, tu yg we all nak dia duduk rumah so she can get better to go on Wednesday.

So, with her around and mountains of chores to do, lagilah takde masa nak duduk depan computer nak blogwalking and nak jawab komen satu persatu.

Dah lah 2 hari semalam berturut hujan lebat dari pagi sampai malam non stop so memang lagi tinggi lah the mountain kan, hahahaha.

Inilah rupa budak yang tak sihat tu drinking her ‘lemon and honey’ concoction.

She said, “It doesn’t taste that nice but it is nice for a medicine.”

(Rambut serabai gilers. Padahal I baru basuh pagi tadi, petang dah macam sarang burung balik, hahaha.)

Dah lama dia tak batuk so I completely forgot to give her lemon n honey in warm water semalam and pagi tadi.

Petang tadi baru teringat, hopefully it’ll help heal her coughs lah.

I hope she can go to school again from Wednesday sebab I ada jamuan makan2 on Thursday, heeee…..

And now, to food pulak.

We had this baked egg on Saturday morning.

Next time I will use sandwich bread instead of thicker bread. Sebab susah nak shape the thick breads into the texas muffin tin due to its thickness.

I baked them for about 15-20 minutes at 180°C until the egg white has turned white from clear but the yolk is still runny.

Kalau makan dengan kicap masin, fuyooooohhhhh, alangkah sedapnya kan .

And ini pulak, our dinner tonite.

Metball stroganoff with sweet potato rosti and buttered white bread.

(Kalau guna sourdough or ciabatta lagi sedap, dunking the bread in the sauce. But I cuma ada white bread and multigrain aje tadi so gunalah the white bread.)

Selalunya we all makan stroganoff with pasta tapi I malas pulak nak makan pasta tadi, tu yg buat the rosti.

Our Saturday nite ‘feast’ ;-)

Ramai family on Saturday or Sunday nite they have an extra special dinner.

I guess these 2 nights yang the cook in the family selalunya ada extra time to create masterpieces in the kitchen kan.

But kalau kat Msia, masa musim kenduri kahwin, masa Saturday and Sunday nite lah the cooks tak masak sebab dah kenyang makan lauk pauk kenduri, hehehe.

Tapi sebab tuan blog ni tinggal kat Perth yang jarang2 ada kenduri kahwin (ada kenduri kahwin tapi diaorang tak jemput I, hahaha), so Saturday and Sunday nite memang lah I kena masak extra special sikit.

And selalunya yang pandai memintak2 nak makan macam2 ni cuma The Other Half aje lah.

The Little Misses hanya boleh pasrah and redho makan aje apa yg Mum masak, hahahaha…

Tonite, The Other Half teringin nak makan chicken kiev, a dish ,\made famous in the 70s.

I tanya lah dia whether Mak dia slalu masak chicken kiev masa dia kecik2 dulu, tu yg dia mengidam nak makan.

Dia kata, “no way I got this when I was growing up. that’s why I want to have it now .”

So, isteri mithali dia pun masak kan lah chicken kiev for him for dinner tadi.

It’s basically chicken breast with a garlic butter filling, coated in breadcrumb and then pan-fried until the breadcrumb is golden.

Then baked in the oven until the chicken is fully cooked,

I made cauliflower n broccoli gratin to go with the chicken kiev, and tak lupa some chips as well .

But my chicken kiev semua bocor, the butter meleleh keluar instead of staying put in the ‘pocket’, hehehe.

So, what I did was I collected all the butter pooling in the roasting pan and put it in a jug and pour it on top of the kiev masa nak makan tadi.

But the garlic and basil flavour semua dah meresap masuk ke dalam the chicken breast during the cooking process so it was still extremely good and tasty.

It was a superb dish, as long as you don’t overcook the chicken breast or else the chicken will be dry and tak sedap.

No wonder lah it was so famous in the 70s kan!

And this is the cauliflower and broccoli gratin which is basically steamed veges in white cheesy sauce and topped with breadcrumb and grilled.

I jarang masak cauliflowers sebab they just taste so bland and takde oomph mana pun.

But since it is in Season during Autumn and Winter which means that they are cheap to buy, tu yang teringin nak masak tonite.

And bila masak in gratin, it tasted wonderful, hehehe…

But kalau everytime masak the cauliflowers in cheesy sauce, habislah gemuk we all kan, hahahaha.

Friday nite exhausted rambling…

I occasionally feel that people do judge full time stay at home Mums more than they judge working women.

If rumah tak spotless and clean inside and out, some people will snigger and say, “duduk rumah aje pun tak boleh keep their houses clean.”

But I as a full time stay at home Mum, sometimes rasa, kadang2 memang takde masa nak kemas rumah luar dalam and keep it clean and spotless and all the house chores up to date all the time.

Sebab I don’t think I stay at home all the time every day.

Kadang2, I will get out of the house at 7.30 in the morning for morning school run and don’t come home until 12 noon.

So many tasks to do outside the house, going around everywhere.

And then, by the time you do a bit of house chores, it’s time to pick the girls up again at school.

And by the time the girls are at home, I can take a bit of a breather sebelum start masuk dapur to cook dinner and start masuk ‘tuition room’ to tutor the girls.

These two tasks are normally done at the same time, sambil masak sambil tengok homework diaorang.

Malam2 lah baru dapat buat other house chores yang menggunung tu, hehehe…

Like this morning, my morning started at 6.

While the girls were having their breakfast, I was busy scrubbing our toilet and bathroom.

Pastu, rushed out of the house at 7.45 sebab Miss 8 had to be at the school early for her choir rehearsal for the special ANZAC day assembly today.

Baru aje sampai jalan besar, I asked Miss 8 whether she remembered to bring along the roses for the assembly.

Dah sahih dia lupa!

Penat2 I bangun pagi2 pergi petik bunga roses kat depan rumah tu and put them nicely in a container next to her lunch box supaya dia ingat.

(each student was asked to bring along some flowers so each class could make a big floral bouquet to put under the flag pole for ANZAC Day commemoration).

So, kenalah I patah balik rumah sambil membebel non stop to her in the car.

Geram betul I kat budak2 ni.

They don’t have to remember much but itu pun tak ingat nak bawak.

Then I stayed at school until about 9.30 watching the assembly and her choir performance.

Pastu, sampai aje kat rumah, terus sambung balik sental the other toilet and bilik air.

Habis aje sental segala benda, I had to go out to my tadarus class at 10.30.

The tadarus class selalunya habis pukul 1, then sambung solat Zuhur and makan2 and normally habis at 2.30.

But tadi, I had to bohong sunat and excuse myself lepas aje habis tadarus.

Balik rumah, terus sambung vaccuumed the whole house and mopped the whole moppable areas.

Pastu rehat sekejap, then terus kena ambik the girls at school.

Balik rumah from picking the girls up, terus sambung buat dinner.

And now, while writing this entry, I’m feeling so exhausted!

Hahahaha…..

But, if I don’t keep my house clean…..Mana tau kan, ada yang mengata….

(Luckily, Alhamdulillah, I live over here surrounded by friends yang tak mengata…)

that’s why I pilih kawan, hehehehe……

And at the same time, I feel like I should be doing more…

I want to start sewing again (instead of just sewing sebab terpaksa when Miss 8 needs a costume, hahaha), spend more time tending the garden, clean up the guest bedroom of all the junks, make another lightbox so I can take good food photos again.

The list is endless…..

But at the moment, I am happy enough that I had time to make dinner tadi, hahaha….

For dinner tadi, I made pizza, our usual Friday nite fare.

And I had to ambik gambar the pizzas in the oven (manalah tau kan ada orang tak percaya I made our own dinners, hahaha ).

I made sausage pizzas for dinner.

I cooked the sausages first with sliced onions. Bila dah masak, baru tabur atas the pizza base.

For us, I added some chilli flakes and basil leaves.

The Other Half said, “you made cripsy pizza again…”

He loves his pizza gebu so he had a bit of ours and a bit of the girls’ pizza yang gebu.

Kuih ketayap ala Mat Saleh

We all tak main lah kuih ketayap melayu ni…

We all cuma makan kuih ketayap Mat Saleh aje, hehehe…

For dinner tadi, we had western ‘kuih ketayap’.

It’s baked savoury mince wrapped in spinach and herb tortillas.

Rupa the tortillas sebijik kuih ketayap sebab I used green tortillas, but saiz aje lah bagak2.

Makan 1 dah kenyang sangat2….

Actually kalau you tanya Miss 13, she would rather have kuih ketayap melayu with inti kelapa manis than savoury dishes like the above, hehehe.

The mince filling tu I used onion, garlic, beef mince, capsicum, cumin and coriander powder, paprika, a can of diced tomato, tomato paste, salt and pepper and a can of kidney beans that I blitzed until mushy.

I precook the mince mixture first so bila you bake the tortillas, you dont have to bake it that long, cukup until the cheese has melted.

Then I pour a bit of tomato salsa on top of the ‘ketayap’, tabur some grated colby and mozzarella on it and bake it until the cheese is all melted.

If you like cheese, you can tabur loads of it.

Kena makan dengan green salad, baru sedap

(But kalau you all tanya the rest of the family, they would rather not have the green salad.)

This is how the inside looks like, all goeey and mushy….

It felt like Sunday.

Thank you everyone who thinks that Miss 8’s hairdo is funky and suits her face yang bolat itu.

I didn’t do such an awful job lah kan.

Bolehlah I bukak salon macam ni kan (next to the restaurant and the kedai jahit and the vege stall.)

Muahahahaha…..

Miss 8 loves her short hairstyle which is what matters most.

Malam tadi, every few minutes dia tengok cermin and betulkan the clips she put on her hair.

We all cuma boleh senyum aje lah, hehehe.

Sibuk dia memunggah her hair accessories box to look for nice clips to wear but she didn’t have that many. Esok I kena belikan her some more lah kan so she can look more girly.

(Jimat duit Mak Pak dia about $20+ sebab tak payah hantar dia gi salon untuk potong rambut, dasar kedekut, hehehe).

Which means she’ll be happy to go to school esok showing off her new hair do to her friends.

As long as tak kena gelak dengan kawan2 dia, I am happy .

I wonder how long it will take for her hair to grow back to shoulder level this time.

Today was a public holiday here in OZ to commemorate Anzac Day (wich is like Hari Pahlawan in Msia).

We didn’t do much except relaxing at home tending the garden and going to the park.

We finally harvested our first snake beans or yard beans or kacang panjang.

I cuma tanam 4 pokok kacang panjang aje and tadi baru dapat 6 biji saje.

Cukuplah untuk sekali goreng kan.

Our beans pun dah berbuah so for the next few weeks we’ll be eating kacang panjang and beans aje lah, hehehe

I love this habanero plant, so cantik to look at.

So, tadi for dinner I made kacang panjang goreng telur, kangkung goreng belacan and honey chicken.

Kacang panjang, cili and kangkung from kebun.

Dah lama we all tak makan this style of dishes.

Selalunya balik2 masak lauk kari aje!

hikhikhikhik….

Esok tugas I sebagai supir and makcik kantin akan bermula semula…

Half of it is gone ^____^

I finally did it this morning.

We spent an hour from start to finish..

Turning her from a long haired curly girl into this…

Just after it was cut and her hair washed and still wet.

Once it’s completely dry. Menampakkan lagi ke ‘bolat’ an muka Miss 8 .

Punyalah banyak rambut I potong, hehehe.

I wanted to go shorter but hati ini tak berapa berani.

I did a layered cut hairstyle but since I tak habis khatam belajar macam mana nak buat layer cut on curly hair, tu yang the sides puffed up.

I think I might have to re trim the sides and make it shorter with a lot more layers so the curls tak kembang sangat.

The Other Half kata Miss 8’s new hairstyle ni reminds him of Sigourney Weaver in the movie Alien.

Ada kah! Hikhikhikhik….

Asik cerita pasal rambut aje, jom lah kita cerita pasal food pulak.

I made tuna mayo croissant for lunch semalam. The girls had leftover burgers and I had this.

I haven’t had tuna croissant for a very long time. Everytime lalu depan Croissant Express tu, terasa2 aje kat tekak nak makan tuna croissants but so malas nak buat, hehehe.

I love my tuna sandwich with loads of veges. Baru rasa macam makan something healthy.

That night, I made mac n cheese for the girls while I had nasi and lauk.

(The Other Half wasn’t home, tu yg I masak lauk ikut tekak I, hahaha.)

The girls’ Mac n Cheese.

And tonite, I made something that The Other Half has been asking for.

I still had the leftover egg yolks from the pavlova sitting in the fridge so I made lime pie for The Other Half.

It is  a bit like cheese cake but it only uses egg yolks, sweetened condensed mik (susu pekat manis), lime juice and lime zest for the filling.

It is very rich but it is nice sebab the tanginess of the lime juice cuts the sweetness of the condensed milk down.

But definitely tak boleh makan banyak2 lah or else I have to buy a bigger pair of jeans! hahahaha

What to do with the hair

We have been contemplating on cutting Miss 8’s hair.

To a really short style!

Since she started having hair at around the age of 1+, we’ve only trimmed the tangled bits off.

Too scared to cut the curls, takut tak timbul balik, hahaha.

But cuti kali ni, Miss 8 dah berani kan diri dia nak cuba style rambut baru.

She wants her hair to be cut quite short ala2 Halle Berry dgn rambut pendek dia or Winona Ryder dgn rambut pendek dia or Natalie Portman dgn rambut pendek dia.

Tapi dia nak I yang potong rambut dia.

The Other Half dah volunteer nak clip Miss 8’s hair but we all yang seriau takut dia terus buat crew cut style. Menangis tak berlagu Miss 8 nanti, hehehe.

We went through the net looking for a pretty style for really short curly hair and we found a few.

But Mum dia ni cuma pandai masak aje, potong rambut memang tak reti langsung, so macam mana lah nak dapat gorgeous hairstyles kan, hahahaha.

Masa dia setahun, memang takde rambut banding dgn sekarang.

Muka Mat Saleh and takde rambut macam Daddy dia, hahaha.

Masa dia 2 tahun, baru ada wisps of hair. Masa ni I slalu letak beanie or hat on her head to ‘tame’ the unruly wispy hair a bit. Luckily she doesn’t mind having hats or beanies on.

Masa 3 tahun, makin lebat the curls and makin serabai, hehehe.

Masa 4 tahun, still tak panjang2 jugak sebab rambut dia makin curly so masa basah aje lah nampak panjang.

And the latest length..

Dah berapa tahun, ini aje lah the hair style that she’s been sporting.

No one knows what style will suit her face yang agak bolat and chubbs itu, heeee….

I think I kena beranikan hati and lembutkan tangan untuk potong rambut dia before school opens again this Thursday lah kan…

What do you think?

Or she can always go like this .

Masa gathering makan2 hari tu, she ‘volunteered’ to become a tudung model, hahaha.

The oven had a good workout today!

Sejak ada oven baru yang working and not playing up ni, hasrat The Other Half nak makan macam2 membuak2…

SInce dia tak reti masak and tak dibenarkan masak (unless in an emergency, hahaha), I lah yang kena tadah telinga dengar dia cerita pasal benda2 yang dia nak makan ni.

And most of the things he wants to eat involves a long slow cooking process in the oven.

And I jugak lah yang kena cari the ingredients kat kedai and surf the net for a good recipe since I am a Lady of leisure kan .

This week, he wanted to try eating slow cooked beef ribs…

But I bought beef ribs and beef briskets instead of just ribs.

We decided to do beef cooked in coke. You heard right, the original coca cola, not the diet version nor the caffeine free version nor the coke zero version, hehehe….

There’s so many recipes out there on how to cook it sampai tak tau nak pilih yang mana satu.

We finally decided on just pouring the coke onto the beef in a baking tray and then slow cooking them until the meat is basically falling off the bones.

This is how they look like about an hour into cooking.

After 4 hours of slow cooking at 120°C, they are basically ready to eat.

But it wouldn’t have tasted nice with just coke to flavour the meat so I ‘painted’ on some sauce mixture on them.

I just used a mixture of BBQ sauce, tomato sauce, sweet chilli sauce, garlic, a dash of paprika, a dash of white pepper and olive oil for the sauce.

And then I transfer them onto a rack and bake them some more for about 30-40 minutes at 150°C to ‘caramelise’ the sauce.

This is how they look like after everything is done.

And then The Other Other Half said that it would be nice to have the beef with bread.

So I made ricotta and basil bread. Just use any bread dough recipe, roll it into a rectangle, then fill it with ricotta, garlic, basil and salt mixture and roll it up like a swiss roll. Cut it into the thickness you like and bake them in the oven until they turn brown.

And to tone down the richness of the meal, we had it with salad, heeeee…

But lepas tu, I increased the richness back with dessert, hahahaha….

Fruit is good for your body and soul kan. And bila makan dengan chocolate, lagi lah it will make your heart sings, hahaha .