Picture-filled Wednesday

Since I jarang update blog nowadays, banyak lah gambar tertunggak yang bertapa dalam camera tu.

Kalau dulu, most nights I will letak gambar our dinners kan.

Sekarang ni, seminggu sekali baru I letak, hehehe.

So, baaaaanyak lah gambar yang tak sempat I nak tayang.

You all layanlah ye gambar2 dinner yang tertunggak ni.

A few days ago I made chicken curry laksa and vietnamese prawn rolls.

Guna rice paper yang cuma kena celup dlm air suam sebelum digunakan.

I added cooked prawns, suun, julienned carrots, lettuce and taugeh for the filling.

And use hoisin sauce for the dip.

And we had fettucine and meatballs in bolognese sauce the next day.

I used to be repelled by the smell of parmesan cheese sebab bau dia yang tersangat lah busuknya itu.

But skrg, my fridge memang tak  pernah lekang dengan parmesan ni .

And then semalam pulak, we had beef schnitzel with chips and colourful salad.

What did I put in the salad?

Mixed green lettuce, snow pea sprouts, grape tomatoes, pear, almond and brie.

 

Dah lama rasanya tak makan schnitzel ni.

And that night we had homemade strawberry semifreddo for dessert.

Miss 14 yang memang tak boleh langsung makan strawberry because for her all strawberries are extremely unimaginably sour (even the ones that we say are sweet) found that she liked this dessert.

Ye lah, bila dah letak gula and cream in the semifreddo, tentulah jadi sedap sikit kan.

Kenapa I terrajin buat this strawberry dessert?

Sebab I got this 4 punnets of strawberry for $2 total at the shop!

And since strawberries tak tahan lama, kenalah I turned them in desserts kan.

The inside and the outside

What did we do at the weekend?

Rearranging the interior deco of the house again!

A long time ago, The Other Half bercita2 nak our house to be ‘zen-like’ when it comes to furnishing which is basically the bare minimum.

Dia kata, tak lah serabut tengok kalau tak banyak furniture.

But mana boleh nak buat macam tu kan sebab bini dia ni ada hobby mengumpul segala alatan dapur and we all pun minat kumpul segala macam books.

And anak2 dia pulak suka kumpul toys which need place to store them in…

And itu belum segala macam baju lagi which also need storage areas….

And segala macam benda for the garden and things outside lagi….

So, nak tak nak, terpaksalah menyempitkan rumah dengan segala macam furniture, hahahahaha….

But during the weekend, we managed to go through the filing cabinet and  the computer area, getting rid of all the junk and what not and rearranging the area in the process.

Ini rupa the before photo when we were sorting out that area for make over.

Ini rupa the after photo selepas di make over.

But masih ada a few things that need to be tidied and hang-up on the wall which we’ll continue this weekend sebab semua dah tak larat nak kemas semalam, hehehehe….

What happened to the plastic drawers and the table?

Semua disumbat masuk kedalam shed.

The Other Half said, “everything goes into MY shed. There’s no way we can fit anything else in there!”

I said to him, “I’m sure you can find ways to put more things in there. I have a magic freezer, you have a magic shed.”

They look small from the outside but so many wonderful things can be stored in them!

Hahahahahahaha…..

Sambil buat kerja interior decoration, I sempat lagi buat kerja2 kebun.

I’ve planted some more flowers out the front.

This time I planted gazanias, portulaca (ros jepun), asters and dahlias.

And I planted some lettuce, snake beans and basils in the back garden.

The Other Half made this connecting trellis for the snake beans. He tied some strings between the 2 trellis.

He said, “There’ll be more areas for the snake beans to grow.”

I tak tau macam mana lah I nak petik kacang2 panjang yang jauh nun on top of the trellis tu.

Dia lupa kot, bini dia ni kemetot!

Tak kuasa I kalau nak petik kacang panjang pun kena panjat tangga!

Anyway…. enough of garden and house talk, dah lama I tak tayang our dinners.

I masih masak dinner macam biasa…

Mee goreng sempoi

Beef vindaloo with cucumber raita and rice.

Sebab vindaloo tu pedas, I made chicken sate for the girls.

And on Saturday, I made cinnamon pull apart bread for post lunch dessert, afternoon tea, night time snacking, hehehehe….

For the next few months I kena buat banyak roti sebab…

I bought this humongous sack of flour a few weeks ago.

Selalunya I beli 12.5kg sack which can last us 2-3 months.

Kali ni sebab I malas nak pergi the warehouse again, I beli 25kg sack of bread flour terus.

Macam nak bukak bakery aje!

Gilers!!!!!

hahahahahahahahaha…

Spring garden update

2 days of perfect Spring weather, cool in the morning and warm during the day, made my heart meronta2 nak lepak2 in the garden…

Hikhikhikhik…

Masa Spring aje yang buat I feel this way cos the temperature during the day is still in the low 20s so sangatlah nyaman nya nak lepak lama2 kat kebun tu.

Kalau dah masuk Summer, nak keluar rumah pun tak sanggup sebab panas sangat, lagi lah nak berjemur lama2 kat kebun!

And the plants in the garden pun macam tau2 aje yang Spring has sprung because they are all flowering and growing like mad.

I am so happy because I did not manage to kill the grapes nor any of the roses with my pruning.

One of the rose buds just waiting for the right time to bloom.

Masa ni lah hari2 kena check the rose bushes for aphids and spray them before they can cause damage to the flowers.

And ini pulak, the view when we open the front door.

Nak lalu sini kena hati2 sikit cos the lavender bush is flowering so memang banyak lah bees around here.

But it doesn’t matter that much sebab if we don’t disturb them, they wont disturb us kan.

I think this is a different type of lavender compared to the one below.

Pokok dia pun lain sikit and bunga dia pun berlainan warna but both still cantik.

And the lime tree pun tengah galak berbunga dan berbuah so hopefully kejap lagi dapatlah we all guna buat limeade, lime pie, mandi limau….

And the lemon tree pun tengah berbunga jugak.

But pokok lemon we all tak berapa sihat, togel aje, takde banyak daun.

But masih lagi berbunga and berbuah.

Sambil tengok2 pokok kat kebun, sempatlah jugak I petik a few flowers, the colourful snapdragons and the paper flowers untuk letak dalam vase.

Now I know why a lot of people like to plant flowers in the garden.

So, they can have freshly cut flowers everyday!

And our grapes have also started producing leaves but laaaaama lagi lah nak dapat makan buah dia.

And the blueberry bush.

We nearly killed it masa Winter haritu from neglect.

Alhamdulillah, it’s starting to heal again and have started flowering. Only time will tell whethere there’ll be any berries or not.

And ini pulak our mini ‘greenhouse’.

Just a spot in the girls’ bathroom where it’s warm and humid and has the best light.

Anak pokok kacang panjang tu memang nak kena transplant into the ground esok sebab dah besar giler, hehehe.

The rest are just flower seedlings.

I kan berangan nak jadi minah bunga sekarang so tu yang beria2 tanam banyak bunga, hahahahaha.

It’s not bare anymore

Semalam I spent so many hours beautifying the corkboard.

Pagi2 dah pergi kedai utk print out all the photos and then balik tu terus berkerja keras pinning the photos up.

Patut lah bertahun2 malas giler I nak buat!

Sebab it was quite a boring job!

Tapi bila dah siap, cantik pulak so berbaloi lah berjam2 duduk mengadap corkboard tu, hehehehe…

Ini gambar yang I ambik a quarter way there…

And the end result…

The Other Half kata, “we can call this the feature wall now.”

Hehehehe…..

I didn’t just stop at that wall.

I found this metal wall art at the shop semalam and I think it is so apt for coffee lovers like The Other Half and I.

So, I pun sangkut lah kat dinding sebelah coffee machine tu so my ‘barista’ can look at it everytime he makes coffee for us .

The Other Half loves it so much!

And since it’s officially Spring already, I picked some lavenders to brighten our house.

Selalunya people dry the lavender flowers tapi I baca, you can still put the fresh lavenders in vases just like any other fresh cut flowers.

But since they are quite short, I had to put them in a water glass instead of a vase.

And now, to our dinner.

I made roast chicken with chips and salad for dinner last nite.

It’s quite a big chicken so banyak lah leftovers for sandwich filling untuk lunch tadi and esok .

For the salad, I used mixed lettuce leaves, orange, pear, cucumber, cherry tomatoes and pistachio nuts.

For the chicken gravy pulak, I used the chicken juice collected in the roasting tray when I roasted the chicken.

I transferred all the juice (the fat+burnt bits+everything) into a small pot.

Heat it up on medium heat. If you want to, you can strain the oil out and throw that oil.

Add some plain flour to it and whisk it continuously until all the flour is incorporated nicely in the juice and the gravy has thickened a bit.

Then add some kicap masin and pepper to taste and some water if the gravy is too thick.

The gravy is done!

Senang kan nak buat gravy ni .

Spring cleaning

For the past few weekends, we’ve been trying to rearrange the deco inside the house.

Our house is quite small so there’s not much you can do without making it too cluttery.

In order to make it look more spacious, we are trying to throw/store stuff away yang memang dah lama we all tak guna.

Some of the things that we threw out semalam are some of my cookbook/ cooking magazines collections yang I dah kumpul since 2001!

Sedih giler nak berpisah dengan the cookbooks and the magazines itu!

The Other Half memang takkan sentuh my collection tu so it was up to me to cull it.

Betul2 kena cekalkan hati semalam, hikhikhik.

And now the big rubbish bin is half full of old magazines and unused cookbooks.

And the lounge room is now one bookcase emptier.

This mid September, we would have been living in this house for 3 years. And sejak masuk, memang dah macam2 rearrangement we all buat to the interior deco of the house and a bit on the outside as well.

Nak renovate the house, tak mampu lagi so tukar deco aje lah.

Like The Other Half kata, “a change is as good as a holiday.”

Hahahaha .

Msa the first year masuk kat rumah ni, this area at the front door memang kosong aje.

Now I rasa makin bertambah berseri2 bila dah letak flower pots here.

And the Everlastings ni pun has made the postbox area berseri2 jugak kan .

And sejak dari pukul 3 tadi, I’ve been sitting in front of the computer trying to sort out photos that I want to print so I can put them up in photo frames and also on this cork board yang masih sangatlah kosong nya!

So, I can start decorating the empty walls in the house.

Sebab corkboard tu masih kosong so I rasa that area tu sangat lah kosong nya jugak so I pun pi lah beli this wall deco to brighten up that area a bit.

Geleng kepala aje The Other Half bila I kerah dia pasang the wall art tadi, hahahaha…..

Takpe, before I asked him to do that, I made sure I made him a special breakfast.

Hari ni is Father’s Day here in OZ so I pun buat lah scones for breakfast pagi tadi.

And sebab Father’s Day, I cut the scones into heart-shapes and serve with strawberry compote and whipped cream .

And ini pulak our dinner a few nights ago.

Rice with chinese style lauk pauk.

I made stir fry beef and veges in black bean sauce and honey chicken.

I like this style more than mamak or indian curries and once in a while, everyone kena makan this style of lauk pauk with rice bila I really craved for it.