Wimbledon Wrap Up

Ahh.......at last Wimbledon is over. I've been staying up every night watching the matches. I was heart broken (ceh..) that Roger Federer lost. I mean I know Nadal has gotten the best of him lately, but he fought really really hard and at the look at the 5th set, it could have gone either way. A great final don't you think. What a superb tennis by both players. I haven't enjoyed this much for a long time. It is the best ever final. I'm a Federer fan altho' I guess his era is ending. Rafael Nadal is the man now. His play is totally solid just like his muscles (ehem). But I still like Roger for his elegant, graceful play. Rafa is all power and speed and skill but he's so irritating on court do you all notice? I have to turn away a bit when he's serving cos I got impatient watching him. He's so slow, taking time doing this and that. Errghh!! all those chronic towelling, ball-bouncing, picking pants ritual. God! damn irritating! But he's gonna be around a long time now. Just a matter of time before he takes the top spot. Have to bear with him..

Who's your favourite tennis player?

New Gadget !

Yeay!!yeay!yeay!! I got a new mixer! Take a look.

Kenwood. 700w. Complete with beater, whisker and dough mixer and a bigger bowl. Now that's more like it.
All this time, I was using this. 200 watt, no dough beater. And it always cranked up because I overworked it and I ended up hand-holding the beater cos' the thing won't rotate on its own anymore. Why didn't I get a better one before? What was I thinking.

Maybe I don't wanna kid myself into assuming I'm gonna be a pro baker so no need for fancy good quality equipment. Stupid. Could have saved me much work.

So voila!! my first experiment - a simple banana bread. I'm sure it would have turned out the same using the old one, but I can't help feeling the cake came out better due to the brand new gadget.

Picnic Basket

This is not to further elaborate on whimsy's picnic tekiding. But coincidentally I happened upon this thing while roaming Parkson with my sis couple of days ago. Nice isn't it?. Came in few patterns, but no country/roses ones. Mostly stripes.

Ample space to store in foods or mags or anything.
The best thing is , you could collapse it and store away anywhere.
only RM 29.90.

My sis got one too. We are planning for a picnic again. Yesss.

Friday Fiesta

Don't you just love Friday? End of the workdays. End of sending-kids-to school days. The day to unwind. The day to relax and let it loose. Nowadays I've got another reason to love Friday. This monthly 'do' we have on Fridays. Feast! Food! Friends! Fiesta!

Let me tell you about our fiesta today. No. 1 on impressive list is Whimsy's goodie basket. Not having managed to bring any potluck before (oopppss!..) , she sure impressed me with her beautiful picnic basket today (she decorated herself). What's inside? How about this! Pretty colorful jelly in a cute serving dish. Became the favorite of little Sofea.And this! Tiers of chicken sandwich and chicken 'wrap'. Complete with the platter. Menyenangkan host. Sedap. Memang sedap.
(Macam aku tergigit nenas, whimsy! ko campur nenas ka?)
There's another one she brought. Lemon cheese cake. I forgot to snap. Delicious too. That's a no-fail dish.
Impressive don't you think? Very wife-material isn't she? Hik!


And then, Super shabbymom brought the star of the feast, Chicken Risoles. Very successful recipe. Simply delicious. I found my picky son gobbling 2 pc of it.

Chicken risoles. Best while hot.

Tiramisu. Also by Shabbymom.

Best kan host. Tak payah sedia apa-apa. Just serve tea and some humble kuih keria. Hihihi.


New 'tea party' members, Nonong and Wati. Maybe next 'tea' we'll get to see their place.wink.

So even if it's raining, even if the maid's gone home, I welcome Friday. It's still the best day. Hubby & I had just sent off our kids to their cousin's place for them to stay the night there. Which means.....TONIGHT we have the house ALL to ourselves. wink......!

Goodnight.

Malay Kuih

Ya puan-puan, untuk rancangan masakan hari ini, kita mencuba resipi kuih Melayu. Asyik-asyik carrot cake, chocolate cake, bread pudding aje jemu juga kan?
Motif aku cakap Malaya?

I suddenly had the urge to eat kuih keria yesterday and there happened to be ubi keledek lying around - 3 biji. Just perfect.

Makes 15 pc.
Before adding sugar.
After adding sugar. Quickly disappear. By the time I wanted to take pic, only 2 left.

This is one of the easiest kuih to make. The thing is, if you buy this from the stall, they usually put more flour than ubi, so it's not so tasty. You can be generous at home. I made mine with as little flour as possible (just enuf to form dough), and add a spoon of butter to make it crispy. And the sugar coating, you can omit it if you're counting calorie, instead add a little in the dough for taste. Yummy. I'm serious. A good option from the oily cucur ubi keledek or messy bubur cha-cha. Give it a try!

Kids Day Out

UMS Aquarium. Have u all been there? It's not a big place but they've redeveloped it since they it first started so it's not too bad. We brought the kids there on Saturday with my sister and her children. These are the marine lives on display.

Quite beautiful aren't they. The corals are amazing. This place open daily 9.30 am to 4.30 pm. Entrance fee is RM 2 per child and RM 5 per adult but there's a family fare of RM 10 for 2 adults + 2 children.

My sister packed a lunch and we had the picnic around the campus canteen area. We wanted to go down to ODEC, but unfortunately (a real unfortunate) it was raining...how unlucky.

This is all I could snap before my cam batt conked.

So the foods couldn't make it here.hehe..but as always with my sis, her picnic box bukan yang alang-alang punya. She made chicken rendang, fried chicken, sambal bilis, serunding udang kering, hot drinks, cold drinks, mineral water...cukuplah untuk seminggu kalau di hutan.

Home & Garden

How was your Sunday? Quite bleak maybe. Cloudy all day, wasn't it?
My Sunday was spent doing home & garden stuffs. We went to Pasar Tani in the morning, got some plants (flowers&fruits) and then in the afternoon browsed for some home furnitures. We found the high chairs for the breakfast counter we've been looking for (actually waiting for the 'sale').
My kids do their homework here too.
And Shabbymom, can u picture your girls sitting here, scooping ice cream? (wink, next trip ha)
This we bought last week. Hubby's fav spot to read papers. Gugurls! next time we have our tea here.

Flowers...flowers..my mom-in-law is soo into this, these days.
Hubby's 'farmer' side showed..he bought pokok rambutan, ciku & laici ..maklumlah..mau mengembangkan ODOI Putatan. Let's hope jadi. Selingan - at Gaya Street, somebody tried to be creative with his puppy. Nda pun cute.

My kids were irritated that we left them in the house all day to buy nonsense and demanded to go swimming. It was 4.00pm, it was drizzling. I did asked their aunts and uncles to come over so they can play with their cousins but everybody was busy and tired, nobody can come, so I told them if you're so bored, we'll go to Kiddies (Sutera Marina). If it stops raining, then we can swim.

As it happened, it did stop rain around 5.30 pm so off they went to the pool. (it's easier to wake them up for school Monday if they had a good weekend)

All in all a good Sunday. I wish you all (esp Whimsy) a not-black Monday!!