riding home

Yesterday was "Hari Ini Dalam Sejarah." Husband had to send his bike for repair and service over the weekend. So we had to ride the mini scooter to work. After lunch, he pinged me that the orange bike is ready and either we take on the next day, which means i have to drive all the way to work and stuck in the stupid jam OR he rides on the big bike while i follow him with the scooter. Sounds like a plan. So off we went for the second option.....bad choice!

While we were on the way to the bike shop, the sky started to get dark. Damn! Of all days, yesterday was the day we did not bring our raincoats due to the box key was attached to the orange bike key which was passed to the mechanic at the bike shop. And even if we were to ride home straight, we would still be caught in the rain and get wet. We proceeded with our initial plan, to ride home on 2 bikes. I was a bit worried with my riding skill, esp we had to ride in the rain & it's a scooter!

Before going up the bridge, i was tailing husband very closely. He turned left, i turned left. He braked, i braked. Until when we're on the bridge, he asked me to go first while he followed closely from behind. It was raining cats & dogs, fish & frogs. I was very nervous yet excited. Surprisingly, i did not feel too cold. Could it be me being over excited or the weather was still hot though it was raining. Anyway, we reached home safely in about an hour or so. I proudly announced to husband that i'm fit to ride on the scooter to work myself. Then, he spilled the beans.....it was him who followed me behind while fending off the other bikers who were trying to overtake my bike!! Owwww...so sweet huh!

worst nightmare

Yesterday night, i had the worst dream ever.

Khye and i were walking on the road when we were caught in a gun battle between robbers and cops. I have no idea where the gun men were and have absolutely no idea why i didn't even protect khye. When everything stopped, i was unhurt but khye was brutally shot in his legs, chest, and arms!!! Somebody had just shot my 20-mth old baby!! He looked half conscious but didn't make any noise. I guessed he was in too much pain to show any reaction. I screamed and carried him before running all the way to the hospital. All i could remember when i reached hospital was, i was shouting "Doctor! Doctor! Emergency!" I put khye down on the stretcher and asked the doc to take good care of my one and only baby. Then, i jolted up from my sleep. I could feel the feeling of emptiness, the feeling like i just lost a child, and i cried. Leaning over to khye's baby cot to find him sleeping peacefully...... and very much ALIVE.

Watching too much of CSI & violent shows does have its drawbacks. It's a "zombie-ing" day for me again today.

chat

Was chatting with one of my old friends....

Me : GO DIE!!
Fren : mommy not suppose to be like this,k
Me : mommy can type & swear online. Cos...babies are "buta huruf" .

Roast - Pork Belly (siew bak) Part II

As promised but I'll let the pics do the talking =)

Roast - Pork Belly (siew bak) Part I

What i did two days ago..

Remember i wrote about my next biggest challenge was to roast pork belly a.k.a. siew bak / siew yok. Hubby asked mil to get us a piece of pork belly with skin on Monday morning. I googled high and low for the easiest recipe and even called an aunt of mine who owns the exact same turbo oven as i do.

I asked mil not to buy a big piece in case it turns out bad and at least the meat will not go to waste. And this is what i found when i went home on Monday night.

It's a BIG piece of meat that goes up to 2kg+ easily. The butcher already slit the meat nicely and it was cleaned by MIL. All i needed to do was to wipe it dry before marinating. Imagine how this fatty portion will turn out to be like after roasting. I will remember to snap the exact angle tonight.


To marinade the skin:
1.5 tablespoons of vinegar
1.5 tablespoons of salt

To marinade the meat:
1.5 tablespoons of 5-spice powder
1.5 tablespoons of pepper
1 tablespoon of salt
1 tablespoon of oyster sauce (to replace "Nam Yue" or fermented beancurd)

Before marinating process, i poked hundred of holes on the skin using the tip of my knife. This is to create bubbles that will make the skin crispy during roasting. Scoring is quite dangerous (at least, for me) cos i maybe slitting the skin too deep whereby the salt + vinegar will go into the meat portion. Stabbing on the skin was so much, but hubby who was in the kitchen too, refused to join in the crazy fun.

After making sure there are enough holes on the skin, i marinated the meat first, though most of the recipes i found stated otherwise. You need to "massage" all the ingredients into every corner of the meat so that they can penetrate into the meat. Do the same for the skin. After massaging, put the marinated meat into fridge and lower the temp. The secret to get crispy siew bak is to have a very dry skin before roasting. Preferable 4 days. Mine will be only for 2 days cos mil needs the siew bak to be ready by Friday morning for prayers.


Do you know that siew bak or siew pai (roast pork belly / roast pork ribs) are selling at RM100++ per piece during 8th day of CNY? Let you know the result tomorrow.
Stay tuned....

Cookies - Choc Chunk Cookies

Before we got married, mil told me that she bought a set of "Space Wok" (turbo oven) so that i can bake cakes or cookies. It costed her about RM2K at that time, 4-5years ago. I didn't know how to use it or even want to take the bulky oven out from our kitchen cabinets.

After reading several cooking/baking blogs & watching AFC on Astro, we finally bought a packet of ingredients to make cookies. Before we bought it, i was making sure that i do not need to add any additional fancy ingredients or use a mixer. My kitchen does not equip with a lot of cooking equipment. We could live with a pot & non-stick frying pan, not forgetting a microwave.

After sending Khye to mil & a long nap, i started to take out the giant turbo oven from my cabinet & wiped it clean. I just need to add an egg & some veggie oil to the cookie flour. Since we do not have veggie oil, i substituted it with our newly bought Naturel Olive Oil, hoping the cookies would still taste good. I do not have any baking utensils at home, i had to borrow baking tray from mil, using knife from Secret Recipe to mix the dough. Instead of using ungreased paper, i put some margarine (no butter) before throwing chunks of cookies dough into the tray :P


It says, i need to pre-heat the oven at 360F. It's a good thing there is a Converter function in my phone, from Fahrenheit to Celsius. For a first timer, i adjusted the temp & on the switch. Nothing happened. Then i turned off the switch and re-adjusted the temp. Again nothing happened. Finally, after a few rounds of testing, i only realised, i forgot to adjust the timer. Temp > power on > time. That simple! Once the power is on, the fan of the turbo oven started to swirl the air into a hot tornado-like air. The baking tray was shaking non-stop in the oven, could be due to the uneven base of the baking tray.


The instruction said the cookies need to be in the oven for 8-10mins at 360F, but the cookies turned brown after 5mins. I guess the air must be pretty hot and the cookies were heated up very fast. I only need 5 trays and completed the whole baking session in an hour. I also did a quick check and the oven consumed 2 units of electricity within the 1 hour baking session. Although the color of the cookies is not exactly presentable, the taste is excellent, with a bit of burnt smell. Hubby has placed order for cornflakes cookies :P


My next big challenge would be roasting pork belly or "siew bak". I've been searching and collecting recipes on how to roast siew bak using turbo oven. Some of the recipes looks pretty simple. Wait till i give it a try and post up the pics of the whole process yah...

patience

The following conversation proved that i still have patience. Someone was interested to view the apartment today and i was asking help from dad to attend to this person.

Me : Hello dad, someone wants to see the apartment at 6.30pm today.
Dad: Hello, what's up?
Me : Someone wants to see the apartment at 6.30pm today.
Dad: Someone wants to see the apartment? What time?
Me : At 6.30pm, today.
Dad: 6.30pm when?
Me : Today...........

Nope, i didn't pull my hair out.

medicine

Yesterday night, hubby went to see doc due to eye infection. One of the pills given are antibiotic pills.

Hubby : You think i can take antibiotic?
Me : Why not? You're not breastfeeding....

ASM & ASW 2020 craze

I joined in the craze of buying ASM last week. Fortunately, i was early and by the time i dropped hubby at the airport and reached Batu Maung post office, it was only 7.20am. I waited in the car for like an hour before the post office opened the main gate and was only attended by the officer at around 8.45am. Managed to open ASM account for khye easily and reached office around 9.15am. Surprisingly, there are so many people walking into the office at that time, and i thought our flexi working hour is from 8-8.30am.

This morning, we reached the Butterworth post office much later, around 8am. There was already 11people queueing up in front of us. Iskh!! I cannot stop blaming hubby on that. The main door was opened at 8.30am sharp and we got no. 11 & 12. Only one counter was available for new account application cos "tak cukup kakitangan". Konon lar. So it took about approx. 12mins per account and by the time we finished our transactions, it was already 9.30am. Hubby sped all the way to office and reached by 10am. We created a sejarah for ourselves for arriving at that time. My colls who went to Batu Maung office came back to office empty handed cos the online system was down. They told me the people queueing in front of them were cheating cos they took extra numbers for their friends who are on the way. So instead of getting 20-something number, my colls got 60-something number. Bad isn't it. It was a good thing, hubby suggested we go to the one near our place. The gang didn't want to give up and tried their luck again during lunch time. Unfortunately the 2billions ASW 2020 was snapped up right before 12pm, barely 3 hours after launched. Scary. Either there are a lot of rich people out there or people are using backdoor concept.

colors of the face

Girls ought to install bright lights in their rooms or bathrooms. You will be surprised to see girls with super white or super red faces walking around in public area. Haven't they realised that the color of their faces do not match their necks or worse still, if they are wearing sleeveless, their arms? Personally, i hate face foundation a lot. Putting on moisturizer or sunblock is a very irritating task for me. My face can't breathe after applying them. Even if i use oil-free or grease-free or whatever, i still feel a layer on top of my face. I even minimized the things i apply on my face to work - toner, moisturizer, sunblock lotion, light blusher & a bit of eye shadows. No lipstick. My lips can't breathe either :P