The cost of a tissue

We went out for very late lunch/afternoon tea petang tadi.

We went to a food court ala2 asian style food court.

And what did we get there?

The girls asked for roti tissue with extra drizzle of susu pekat manis….

I had chicken bryani and The Other Half had roti paratha with chicken masala……

Woit korang! Takke dah nak pergi Msia so tunggu lah makan kat sana nanti!

Hari2 nk makan roti tissue pun boleh

But The Other Half kata bila kat Msia, dia nak makan fast food puas2 like KFC and McD and Burger King hari2 instead of makan roti canai hari2…

Betul jugak dia cakap tu….

Bila lagi nak makan KFC and McD and Burger King puas2 kalau bukan kat Msia kan.

So, kalau sape2 terjumpa we all kat KFC or McD tengah melantak dengan beria2 nya, you all tau lah kenapa.

Hahahahahaha…..

Ini lah rupa budak berdua yang sangat teruja nak makan roti tissue

And kalau ada sape2 yang terjumpa the girls kat mana2 kedai mamak tengah beria2 makan roti tissue dengan susu pekat meleleh, biarkan aje lah ye…..

Hahahahahaha……

 

And ini pulak rupa my chicken briyani.

It was so pedas! I tak larat nak makan so The Other Half yang habiskan.

On top of habiskan my chicken briyani, he also finished off his roti canai set.

You want to know how much roti canai set costs here?

2 roti canai with chicken masala rege dia $8.50 which is considered cheap Perth standard.

I can’t imagine makan roti canai 2 keping rege RM8 kat Msia, hahahaha.

My chicken bryani was also $8.50 which was ok for the amount.

And the roti tissue pulak rege dia $4 each!

Tu sebab the girls jakun bila jumpa roti tissue sebab Mum & Dad diaorang jarang bawak diaorang keluar makan sbb rasa macam tak berbaloi nak pay $4 for a roti tissue! .

The pin board

A long time ago when we were living in Adelaide in our own house…

We used to have a pin board we put on the wall at the dining table where we pinned up a lot of our photos.

It was fun choosing and printing the photos to be put up on the board.

And then we moved to Perth to a rental house where you can’t really put up anything on the wall that’s not already up there.

So, The Other Half couldnt drill the screws to put up the pin board.

No more fun photos on the wall…… We didn’t even have that many photo frames up on the walls either because there wasn’t any nice hooks on the walls that were already put up by the home owner.

And then we moved into our own sweet home 2 and half years ago but we just didn’t have the time to put up a lot of nice photo frames either. We did put up a few but not many.

Until today when The Other Half decided to put the pin board back up on the wall in the family room .

Yeay!!!! We can finally sort through the photo folders and print loads of the photos including my food photos to put on the board.

This was how the board looked like in 2005 at our old house.

The girls were still so young then. Only filled with photos of people aje

And this is the photo of the pin board just now…

Baru 4 keping aje gambar, hehehehe….

Tak kuasa I nak go through each photo folder nak print banyak2 gambar malam2 ni!

But I’ve already printed some food photos as well, heeeee……

Another often cooked dish in my kitchen

Another favourite dish of ours is baked chicken wings with roast potato.

Especially Miss 9 yang suka sangat chicken wings ni.

I guess a lot of people like chicken wings kan sebab senang nak ratah .

Miss 9 memang definitely ikut I sebab I pun hantu chicken wings, hehehehe……

But bila I buat baked chicken pieces ni, I selalu tukar2 the marinade for the chicken wings.

Saje je, depends on what I have in hand and what’s easily available in the fridge.

Malam ni I guna madu, bawang putih, serbuk pati ayam/chicken stock powder, kicap manis ABC (indon mari), dark soy sauce (kicap masin tapi dia sgt hitam), brown sugar and mustard seeds.

And kalau ada masa, marinate lah for a few hours in the fridge.

Tadi I cuma sempat marinate it for an hour aje, but the taste was still good.

(by the way, I takde exact measurement for the ingredients, just main agak2 aje.)

So, tu sebab nama dia sticky baked chicken wings!

The honey and brown sugar make the wings very sticky and caramelised.

And the kicap manis and dark soy sauce give the black glossy colour to the wings.

I like to put mustard seeds and garlic because I think they are the perfect combination with roast chicken.

And then make sure you first put alfoil on your baking tray, then put another layer of baking paper on top of the alfoil before you arrange the chicken on the baking paper.

Ini untuk membuatkan kerja2 mengemas anda jadi lebih senang.

After you’ve baked the chicken, you can just throw away the alfoil and baking paper and your tray will still be spotlessly clean!

No burnt caramelised bits on the tray to sental!

The roast potato tu pulak, I boiled the peeled diced potatoes first until half cooked.

Then I drained the potatoes and return them to the saucepan.

Put the saucepan back on the stovetop to ‘dry’ the potatoes a bit.

At the same time, shake the saucepan vigorously to roughen up the potatoes.

They say this will help to make the potatoes crunchy on the outside but soft and fluffy inside.

And then you can put the potatoes on a tray and drizzle some olive oil, salt, pepper, paprika and cumin on it for flavour.

Roast the chicken wings and the potatoes together at 190C (fan-forced oven) until the potatoes are brown and crispy and the chicken wings caramelised and cooked.

It’ll probably take about an hour which you can wisely use to lepak2 surf the net or tolong anak buat homework or chatting on the phone or exercise bagai nak giler sebab nak makan chicken wings banyak2 or masuk kebun siram pokok2 yang dah nak separa mati sebab hari ni panas ya Rabbi!

Hahahahahaha……..

Food that we love that we often make

When a food is loved by the whole family, you tend to make it often.

Ye lah kan, what’s the point of making something that they don’t like!

Bila dah berpenat2 kat dapur, you want your food to be eaten instead of thrown into the bin…

So, it doesn’t matter if people say that you are not adventurous with your cooking sebab balik2 masak benda yang sama aje.

I couldn’t care less….

As long as our families love our cooking and they grow up healthy with our cooking, that’s what matters kan.

Samalah dengan I, balik2 masak benda yang sama aje….

The Other Half suka nasi dengan indian curry and thai curry so balik2 I masak nasi dengan indian curry or thai curry….

Miss 9 suka chicken pieces especially wings,  either baked or fried or in soup, so selalu lah I masak chicken in so many different versions….

Miss 13 tak suka banyak benda but she loves enchiladas so every few weeks I akan masak enchiladas.

Bila I masak enchiladas, I will make a big batch of it.

So, I can freeze some and put some aside for a few days’ worth of lunches.

And I will try to put a few veges in the filling so the girls won’t notice and eat them all….

I served the enchiladas with avocado salsa.

But my enchiladas tadi tak letak banyak cheese so adalah mulut2 yang komplen sbb tak cukup cheese, hehehe…..

The avocado salsa is basically just diced red onion, avocado, tomato, lime juice and salt.

I made 8 big enchiladas using spinach and herb wraps and 6 small enchiladas using the small tortillas.

banyak gilers kan, hahahahaha…..

Boleh The Other Half buat bekalan when he’s alone at home….

Walaupun I cuba hide the veges in the filling, the girls still jugak terjumpa the diced up mushroom which they promptly kuis ketepi!

Hasil menuai

The Other Half dah mula bekerja hari ni but the girls were still on hols.

But I was so tired this morning, we woke up at 6, dia pergi kerja, I sambung tidur balik sampai nak dekat pukul 8!

Sekali sekala dapat sleep in, I made full use of it lah kan.

Esok dah start balik jadi makcik kantin and supir.

Since The Other Half dah start kerja, terpaksalah I masuk kebun balik sambung tugas siram pokok.

I love the days when he’s at home sebab he will do all those gardening chores yang I tak berapa gemar nak buat like watering all the plants.

Bila masuk kebun tadi, punyalah banyak sayur mayur yang dah memanggil2 suruh dipetik.

So, I pun petiklah some of them.

Nak petik semua, sape larat nak makan kan!

What did I harvest this morning?

kangkung, kacang panjang, timun (ada banyak lagi kat pokok I tak petik), serai, daun kunyit, pegaga, cili, mizuna salad leaves.

I thought nak buat rendang daging, kerabu kacang panjang+pegaga+timun+mizuna leaves and kangkung goreng belacan for dinner.

But seperti biasa, I ended up cooking something else…..

I made daging masak hitam instead of rendang daging. I guna recipe ini.

I used sekilo daging and ada banyak leftover!

Which I promptly packed nicely and masuk dalam freezer untuk kegunaan dimasa malas, hehehehe….

But The Other Half tak berapa gemar pulak daging masak hitam lauk nasi kandar ni.

I guess dia lagi suka pure kari mamak style or pure indian curry or rendang melayu style sebab itu aje yang I slalu masak, hehehe.

but the girls like it sebab I buat tak pedas and I like it so ok lah tu, sedap lah maknanya…

Cuma tak kena aje dengan his tastebuds, hehehehe….

But a good thing about The Other Half ni, walaupun dia tak gemar, dia still habiskan what’s on his plate.

Cuma he won’t go for seconds lah.

Kalau kena sangat2 dengan his tastebuds, he will go for seconds and makan sampai kenyang, hehehehe….

He said he really loved the kerabu though!

The reason why….

It is amazingly easy to neglect your exercise.

I haven’t been on the elliptical for 6 days already and yet it did not feel that long!

Rasa macam baru 2-3 hari aje tak exercise.

Sikit pun tak terasa yang I’ve been missing it, hahahaha

Tapi kalau dah start exercise, tak pulak rasa macam cepat bebeno masa berlalu.

Kadang2 I rasa macam I’ve been exercising for weeks and weeks and yet bila kira, baru aje seminggu, hahahaha…..

I guess when you are doing something you dont particularly enjoy, it seems like forever and ever kan!

So, after 6 days of not going on the elliptical, tonite’s exercise was a major chore.

Rasa macam takde tenaga nak push the pedal, hehehehe…..

At times like this I really envy two of my friends who could eat anything anytime and still stay sekeping aje.

Do you want to know why I beria2 nak lose weight?

Sebabnya in a couple of weeks time, we’ll be going to Malaysia for a holiday sempena cuti sekolah kat sini.

And The Other Half and I have promised ourselves that we will eat whatever we want whenever we want without thinking of the calories masa kat Msia nanti.

So, in order to do that and not worry about the weight gain, I kenalah lose some weight first so if I were to gain a couple of kilos nanti, tak lah I nangis beria2.

Kalau I tak gain weight masa bercuti kat Msia, memang a miracle lah!

Hahahaha….

I think it will be mostly from the goreng2 food and the lemak2 food and also all the sweet icy drinks that we’ll be consuming there.

But The Other Half kata we’ll be doing some exercising as well there because we’'ll be doing a lot of touristy walking kat sana.

And with the panas weather, sure lah akan berpeluh2 kan so hopefully tak lah cepat lemak tu berkumpul balik .

The Other Half pulak tak sabar nak tunjuk his new svelte body ke my family, kahkahkahkah…..

So, I have 2 more weeks to lose about 500g……

But with dinner like this, susah lah sikit nak lose cepat2 kan, heeee…..

Linguine bolognese with salad and croutons.

Dah lama jugak tak makan simple bolognaise ni so bila sekali sekala makan, sedap lah pulak

But I suka makan pasta with some salad on the side.

Especially salad with croutons and apple in it.

Hopefully I can do it so I can makan dengan senang hati kat Msia nanti .

What we did on Saturday afternoon

Semalam we went for an impromptu picnic by the river.

Luckily I was already halfway in making dinner when we decided to go, so we just packed our dinner up and packed a few things and off we went.

Jauh jugak lah our picnic destination this time (jauh for Perth standard not Msia standard ok!).

It took us about 30 minutes to get there. We all pemandu berhemah, ikut speed limit all the time so tu yang ambik masa 30 minit.

But sempatlah we all berjalan meredah the Swan River, the girls main air and makan2 dinner by the river before going home just after sunset.

We had a lot of fun.

Ramai jugak yang berkelah at that place.

Ramai jugak yang kayaking and fishing.

And there was even a wedding going on there.

And there we so many black swans around us so I took about 30+ photos of the swans!

The Other Half said, “More black swans! yippeee!!!!” while rolling his eyes, hahahahaha…..

So, you all pun kenalah jadi macam The Other Half ye, layan gambar the black swans yang diselangi with a few photos of us .

This was what greeted us when we got there.

A bevy of black swans.

I told you I took a lottttttt of photos of them, hahahaha…

Selang selikan with our photos pulak ye .

Sambung balik gambar the swans…

Some more of the girls pulak….

And our picnic dinner, cheese pizza aje.

I’ve already made a family size besar gedabak pizza because my pizza pans are really big.

Then suddenly nak pergi berpicnic terpaksalah cuba sumbat that big pizza into the small boxes.

Tu yang when we opened up that box, it became square shape!

hahahaha…..

And the sunset

And some of the palatial mansions around that area.

Sure penat nak mengemas the whole house kan sebab besar gilers!

hikhikhikhikhik