We Are Moving!!

It's a sudden decision, it's for the best, it's exciting yet overwhelming.... oh we are gonna miss this house of ours :(

Reason for moving- sunny boy is starting kindy next year and we want him to attend a good and reputable private school in P.Jaya, so we got to start him off in kindy first. Then he will be guaranteed a seat when he enters primary, which is in the same building as the kindy and secondary school. It's a big decision we have to make for him, I hope we are doing the right thing.

I am excited about the move, because I was born and bred in PJ and now, after almost 5 years living in Klang... I feel like I'm returning to where I really belong :) We will be renting a house about 2minutes away from sunny boy's school, also the same area where I have lived in my entire life there. The house is much bigger than what we have now, therefore more space and bigger rooms. Rent is also quite affordable for that area.

Here are some pix of our house which we bought in 2003 and renovated in 2005. I was 2 weeks due for schedules c-section when we moved in. I spent the last 2 months driving around sourcing for suppliers, lighting, fittings, and stuffs for the kitchen. I designed the auto gate, kitchen layout, kitchen cabinets, and most of the renovation work were all carefully planned to accomodate our needs.
Renovation works took 4 weeks.
The first colour of our house was olive green, a popular colour during that time.

The green faded too quickly, so I decided to get it painted last year a bright yellow. Such a sunny and cheery colour... I just love it :) See the bamboo tree on the right? It is growing so well, almost 8 feet tall already. I'm hoping to dig them out and plant them in the rented house.

Back of the house.... fully extended. The back of the house is facing the Kesas Highway... that means no back neighbours.

More pix on this yellow home later....

Sunny Boy's Birthday Cake with Family

This would be the first time I didnt bake a cake for one of our birthdays. Due to the "emergency", we had to celebrate sunny boy's bday on the day itself with Mal's family. It was supposed to be a week after, I had planned to bake a durian mousse cake and have a small party for the family at home... but alas....not this year. Sorry sunny boy :(

Anyhow, I got the birthday cake from RT Pastry House again. I must say their cakes are much better than Secret Recipes.

No durian mousse cake, have to settle for chocolate mouse cake instead :) Sunny boy chose this cake btw..

We had a family makan at Hok Seng Restaurant (near our house) and then went home for the cake. How sweet sunny boy looks.. he's getting better at posing for the camera ;)

Once again, he got a big piece of cake to himself.

Presents time..... he got mostly vehicles vehicles vehicles...


This is 1.5 yrs old Lucas, sunny boy's cousin (Mal's younger brother's son). How cute they look :)

Sunny Boy's 3rd Birthday in Guoman, Port Dickson

Just like last year, we went to P.D to celebrate sunny boy's birthday. Reason being, he loves water & sand, so P.D is the only place that's convenient to enjoy both. I liked Guoman the last time we were there, so we booked Guoman for 4 nights.

Some pix from last year:



hahha sunny boy has been wearing that swimming suit for 2 years now :)

We left on the 21st, after lunch, and the first thing sunny boy wanted to do is to go to the beach. But it was too hot to do anything there so he decided to go to the pool instead.


Can you see his happy face? It's so easy to please him ;)




He's old enough to go on the slide...our baby ;(


Next day 22nd Nov, Birthday boy gets to open one present from us. We had to cut short our trip due to an emergency (which I have yet to reveal ). So there isnt any cake smashing for sunny boy this year. We checked out later in the afternoon, and celebrated with dinner and cake with Mal's family.

Here's cake smashing 2007:

to be continued....

3rd Birthday at Tumbletots

Sorry for the long absence. I've been real tired and stressed out with things going on here. I've got good news to share (NO I'm not pregnant!) but let me get sunny boy's birthday celebration out of the way first :)

Sunny boy had a pre-birthday celebration 2 days earlier at his school in Tumbletots. I bought a cake from RT Pastry House, Subang Jaya, and his friends and teachers sang him a bday song.

See how happy and excited he is...

Sunny boy gets a big piece of cake to himself.

Back home, I allowed him to open his present from Godma. "thank you Godma! I love it :) "

Sunny boy's school mate's mommy bought him a gift. How sweet of her :) Fyi sunny boy is absolutely in love with vehicles or things that has wheels.

Next post: Birthday celebration in Port Dickson

Short trip to PD

We are off to Port Dickson in an hours time! Tomorrow (22nov) is sunny boy's 3rd birthday.. so we will be celebrating it at Guoman PD, just like last year.

Something big and good is about to happen soon. Mal and I are excited yet unsure... but it's all for the best, I believe? :) Well it's gonna be real busy time for us from now on till end of next month. Will break the news when we return from PD ;)

Meanwhile here are pictures of sunny boy from 0-2 yrs old.

How much he has grown....:)

Oyster Omelette (Hor-Chien)

I was so happy to have found some fresh oysters in the night market last weekend. These are small oysters meant for making omelette or better known in Malaysia as hor-chien. The best one we've had (still unforgettable) was in Penang :)

So I grabbed a bag of oysters from the market weighing about 500gm and costs RM11 only. I used half of it to try out this recipe by Lily Ng here.

I adjusted the recipe a little as below:

240gm fresh oysters (small ones, not those Australia or NZ fresh oysters) - wash and drain well

Mix together:
1 TBSP tapioca starch
1/2 TBSP rice flour
4 TBSP water

2 cloves garlic - minced

3 whole eggs - beaten

Mix together:
1TBSP light soya sauce
1/2 TBSP chinese wine
a dash of white pepper

1 TBSP oil for frying

Method:

Heat a large frying pan until very hot and add in the oil.

Pour in the batter and fry for about 15 seconds until batter is half set

Pour in the eggs. When the eggs are almost set , make a hole in the center by pushing the egg and batter mixture to the sides of the pan.
Add a little more oil and fry the garlic for a few seconds.
Mix, then season with sauce mixture.
Top with oysters and cook just long enough to heat through.

Note: I followed Lily's instructions closely, there wasn't enough time to take any pictures of the frying process. It didn't turn out very well. The oysters didn't stick to the eggs and the eggs were not brown enough. Also, I decided last minute not to pour in all the sauce mixture, afraid it might be too salty... end result, bland tasting. But anyhow, it was good, I like the stickiness and the oysters were fresh. Went well with some Lingham chilli sauce.

I still have another 250gm of oyster in the freezer. Till next time ;)

Sphagetti Puttanesca

I have been subscribing to Flavours Magazine for two years now. Flavours Magazine is published by Star Publications every 2 months. It contains writeups on food, wine, new restaurants worth mentioning, cookbook reviews, and many good recipes. Go here for a list of their past issues.

This recipe is taken from the September-October 2008 issue, titled "everyday pastas". We love pastas, sphagetti especially. My favourite used to be the thin spahgetti also known as angel hair pasta. But not anymore... I discovered Barilla sphagetti no.5 is even better. Cook it slightly over al dente, and the texture becomes soft and chewy (bouncy) :)

This is a very easy sauce to make... and it freezes so well. I made a slight change (adding way more sauce than called for) to the original recipe and ended up with sauce that makes 10 servings :)

Ingredients:

350g sphagetti - cooked to desired bite, then toss with some olive oil

50ml olive oil

1 onion - finely chopped
3 cloves garlic - chopped
1 can tomato paste
100g pitted black olives - chopped or leave whole
1-2 TBSP capers - drained
60g ( 1 small tin) anchovy fillets
3 gm fresh basil leaves - roughly chopped
salt and pepper to taste

original recipe doesn't state the size of the tomato paste can ! I didn't realize it until I was ready to cook so I have to put in 3 small tins of tomato paste. That was all I had in my pantry. And, the bottle of anchovy I had didn't come up to a nett weight of 60gm. I was 10gm short.

What to do now:

Simply heat the olive oil in a saucepan. Add in the onions and cook till soft and slightly caramelised. Then add the garlic and saute till fragrant.

Add the tomato paste and the rest of the ingredients and simmer until the sauce is thickened and slightly reduced. Make sure to stir once a while so that the bottom doesn't burn.

Ok then came the disaster.... I don't think there was enough sauce for 3 servings. What to do?? should I add some fresh tomatoes or canned tomatoes. Luckily I still have a big can of crushed tomatoes in the pantry. No choice then. Gotta add that in. So in went a big can of crushed tomatoes. Hahah.... Continue simmering till thick and season with salt and pepper.

The end result was pretty good. I have never tasted puttanesca sauce anywhere, so I can say this one's a keeper. It would have been lovely with lots of chilli padi, but you know that's not possible with sunny boy around. He loves it btw. Good served with some bread, or salad, or grilled chicken wings, or KFC fried chicken?? Malaysian style la :)

Wanna know what puttanesca mean? Check it out here!