making home and home made cooking

Confinement leave is really a blessing. though i have to waste a total of 40 days at home .
But thanks to my  three months leave, I have learnt about  new passion. cooking and baking! this hobby has been rather viral i guess. everyone is suddenly into it. i'm not a cooking type really, and apparently my husband is ok with that ( thank God). but i can see he really lightened up when i cooked or baked for him.the signs were very subtle but having been with him for 4  years, i  can detect it well :P

broccopoulet oregano soup - made when my maid was on leave

salmon pasta - a bit dry . should have made it creamier

Raclette - with russet potato, baby carrot, salami, mashed potato, frankfurter (wish we had merguez instead) 

ahh this is my favourite - egg benedict!

Salmon risotto - got inspired after watching masterchef 

chocolate pavlova - the meringue collapsed in half , cream wasn't whipped enough, but the taste was heavenly good!

this is my version of  turkey and egg sandwich

and my favourite drink - le creme chocolat :) 

we are also busy renovating  our new house in Kota SAS.  so far we are only installing kitchen cabinets, grills, curtains,  electrical appliances, and grass in the backyard .will buy some basic furnitures after everything above is completely done.
and oh , we painted our kids' room too ! can hardly wait to move in. well, it's probably will just be a weekend home for now. am thinking of making it as a guest house as well, since we're not staying there all the time.

Harris' room - stars made by 80%  mommy 20%  papa

Sarah's room- too tired to do murals - perhaps will resort to stickers, later

sneak peak to our 90% completed kitchen - so looking forward to play with these toys! wait for more foods;)

racletting again!

and it was soo fulfilling. had a new year dinner with my close pals last night at chez moi and it was awesome. we have chefs amongst us who can cook better than the masterchef participants ( exaggerate  giler) . anyway, got the opportunity to eat raclette again ( thanks to izy who bought the cheese) last night and encore, this evening with husband.  

this year's resolution : 

1. MRCPCh part 1 

2. NEW home (hopefully)

3. Wish to start a business ( yo yo je haha) 

4. New work place? in or out? hmm:)

5. Better Servant to Allah, better wife to husband, better mom to son, better me for family, better doctor, better friend.

Insyaallah. how about you?

un macaron presque parfait

mesdames et messieurs, voila! my first baked macaron. this was my 2nd try. the first attempt was last year which eventually turned into a cake.  tastewise, the almond flavour were too strong, would prefer it to be more chocolate-ish. next holiday nak cuba lagik.

oh, walaupun agak x berpuas hati dgn macaron ini, tp rase bersemangat balik bila hubby ckp sedap . hohoho

to be and to live

Salut a tout!


liking my new banner? hehe. I like it ofcourse. kind of bored with the old one.

Old

 

nouvelle!

liverpool. they have reboost my liking for them for the following reasons :

• new coach 
• entertaining and superb performance by the newbies - louis suarez and andy caroll
• they beat Chelsea and Torres on his debut game for chelsea and against former club:D
• They BEAT Man U with a hatrick! :D:D
• The have replaced Carlsberg with Standard Chartered!! :D:D:D

boleh la beli kan harris official jersey.

Breastfeeding.

My body is very textbook physiological speaking. at least for pre and post delivery changes. textbook says contraception via exclusive breastfeeding is only effective up to  6 months, and true enough, my ovulation cycle restarted at 6 months post delivery- the last being when I conceived Harris of course. kinda miss the menstruation free days.
Alhamdulillah, up to now Harris has never had to taste any formula milk , even after weaning.
talk about food , menu du jour for harris would be... Apple puree with milked mashed potato!

Dinner at my place!

I hosted an 'end of posting' dinner on the 2nd March 2011 at chez moi. it was awesome.
My leave started on that day, therefore i began the morning quite late, geting cozy with harris in bed till 9 am hehe. by 10 o'clock, I went to the market with grand-mere, buying quite a lot of stuffs. damn, the 2 kg meat loaf costs me a whopping 46 ringgit! i never knew it was that expensive ! ( as i never bother to do grocery-shopping at wet market for the last two years :D ), so along with that, we bought 6 whole chickens, vegies and spices. by 12.30 pm, we started cooking. the menus and work assignments are as follows :

• grandmother recipe of buttered rice - obviously by my grandma
• chicken with red chile sauce ( ayam masak merah la tu) - by grandma and maid
• paprik-style vegies - by maid
• vanilla muffin - by auntie
• cottage pie - by me!!
• chicken and beef satay  - ordered from pak cik din :)

the rice was delicious!the cottage pie as expected, was way below par compared to the rice tastefulness quality but edible anyway haha.

My cottage pie was next to the muffin, not within the captured scene ;)

Many of my close friends came and was so touched as some of them came from as far as chini, lipis and sungai tekam for the sake of honouring my invitation! one very good pal even swapped on-call that day so he could join us.  two  surgeons - whom i lookep up to very dearly- were also among the attendees eventhough they had to go through pouring rain to get here. no words can describe how thankful and touched I am.

Harris was the centre of attention that night.  everybody was taking turn holding him:D when Harris was held by  one of surgeons, I ( automatically) whispered to myself : May you be a succesful surgeon like him one day, my child =)

for my surgical colleagues, thank you for making me feel very welcomed while I was there. I truly enjoyed working as part of the team. We have a great set of comitted surgeons, dedicated MOs and  (some) reliable housemen :) I don't mind prolonging my stay there actually, but need to move on with what I decided to pursue.Inshallah the friendship would remain :)

* now trying to picture Harris as a surgeon .. hmmmm :D

My personal experience

Breastfeeding benefit from my personal experience :

1. a  huge contributing factor for a healthy and chubby baby I am granted with currently.
2. even though my baby was born with a low birth weight, his weight pick up exponentially after birth, surpassing many of his baby collesague, even those who have already aged 8 - 9 months.
3. mommy lose weight incredibly too! no jamu, not much exercise but may be hectic oncalls are to blame too. i weigh lighter than my pre-pregancy days :D
4. the physiological changes I endured during pregnancy have gradually dissapearing.e.g. hyperpigmentation is getting much lighter just as before :) it has gone back to normal now. luckilly no stretch marks.
5. satisfied feeling seeing bottles of breastmilk filling in the top compartment of the freezer :)
6. money saving! no need to buy those expensive powdered formula milk.
7. effective contraception. baby is 5 months old and Im still menstruation free. expected to last up to 6 months. we'll see ;-) 

I hope I could continue to breastfeed Harris for 2 years. Btw, Harris got his 5 month old  jab yesterday and he did not even cringe let alone cry when poked! kuat anak mama nyh ;p

Harris milkstock. Used to be more.. but because of frequent busy calls, it has depleted :(

weekend is here but no, i haven't weaned him :p

Should I , Should I not.

Should I wean Harris to Solid now? He's only five months old yea but he seems ready and he weighs incredibly too. I think he has probably weighed about 8 kilos by now ( wanna bet?-  am going to the KK for 5 month old appointment next week inshaallah.)
furthermore his milkstock is ain't that much now =( going to be oncall tomorrow, hopefully the milk can last till evening next day. sigh. 
Bought Harris a bottle and food warmer via online. loving it, though my granny said it is a just a waste of money as she doesn't favour it that much ;p
may be, just may be, I'll feed Harris with mashed milked potato next week. ha! =D

the once in a blue moon chef

lately i have been following the masterchef series quite frequently. in consequence , prompted me to sort of make a dish yesterday evening. something which can be considered 'extraordinaire' in my daily routine. sorry hunny, for the cooking mode came while you were out station ;p

i wanted to make something that involved white sauce in the menu. something simple. therefore i chose to make a creamed potato and corn dish. it was a bit experimental as this was my first time trying to make white sauce form scratch and well ,, it works! the sauce tasted better than the canned one. hmm now that i have my own signature recepi for a white sauce.. lasagna would be next!

All that I am

erm. I am very lazy to blog lately. which is a good thing i guess.

but since i have nothing better to do at the moment, perhaps i should crap a little.

Have you watched Glee? interesting. i love their third episode in particular. the single ladies dancings were HIGHlarious. love kurt hummel even though he's so gay. but i can't stand Lea Michell ( and her character). seriously Glee needs to replace her. she is one ugly and irritating narcicist. and yet she's the main actress! bleughhh.

must be the hormone loathing her.

Otherwise I am happy. I am fortunate. I am blessed. I am thankful. I am in love. I am complete.

I am Pregnant.

Birthday and Thank God It's Friday

woww

after all the good things in life that happened to me in the recent past, i feel obliged to acknowledge them here. I can't thank God enough, and I cant thank YOU guys enough. thank you.

My birthday happened to pass by quite recently. As much as I'm upset with the notion of being a quarter century old that auto-engraved itself on my mind without my consent, I actually feel so good with the support and care i received in return.

this year, the earliest person to wish me happy ageing birthday is MIEY (~,^) - on the eve of my birthday ;)

then a couple of wonderful friends and close contacts texted their warm wishes to me at 12.00 am . my future adik ipar was one of them. hehe. i was already asleep by that time due to exhaustion from playing futsal earlier that evening.

as the day went by, more wishes came pouring my way. rase cam org tabur petals je. haha. baba was the first parent to call me that day;) my mom n my abah only did so later that night. so this year baba won lah:P

the best part of that day only emerged after sunset. me and my entourage here in penang went dining out celebrating my 20th+5 bday at TGIF ( i was made to choose between Chillis and TGI friday. of coz la i pilih TGIF kan hehe). The 3-course-meal was extravagantly abundant and super delicious! TGIF is an ideal place to celebrate birthday really. The crew are all well trained to co-celebrate with you. The TGIF staffs brought me a slice of cake ( for free ) and made me stand on a chair, embarassing really huhu. They gave me a pepper mill 'unique TGIF microphone' and i almost believed him. You cant blame me, his facial expression is so indifferent! i was asked to sing ( shoot!) the only song that came to my mind was Letto's haha. eventually, i sort of reluctantly (and nervously) sang two lines but apparently no one heard it, which was a good thingggg coz im so freaking ashamed of how cocky and off-tune i sounded!! Then the craziest part was when they made me blow the candle from more than one metre distance! that guy reminded me ' no saliva, yea' hahaha. naturally i didn't manage to blow it that far, until that guy brought the cake slice up to 90 cm hehe. yippie! done it! then the crew sang their classic version of birthday song to me as well as the unanimously known birthday anthem ( at this point my colleague joined along i guess :P ). Thanks Coyeen, Ally, my housemates the two siti hasmahs ( ct n ceme ) , maz, julie, Chaon, Nuni, Dolly, Haizum, Effa, Aleq, Mie, anas and sani for making my birthday so memorable and wonderful!

Cheri, played his part too. He was the last person that day to wish me - purposely i guess. when he called at elevenish that night, i was a bit 'muncung' already la kan hehe. tp naturally, my masam muka cam sangat lah transient, sweet talk mana yang patut cepat je berbunga balik haha. present? well, cheri biasanye will delay the delivery until we meet. tahun ni probably hadiah dlm hantaran terus kot hehe. but i usually like his gifts. practical and elegant;) keep it up. sunset boulevard kah? hehe. up to you really hunn ;) D300 tunggu saya bergaji dulu lah baru leh kate 'ye' okie;))

anyway, i got gifts from my adorable friends instead ! I got a beautiful mauve colour head scarf from Cheme. I'm so touched by my dear house mate's thoughtfulness !!! Nuni gave me this floral scented body wash. Her special request is to save a few mililitres for my wedding night :P. will do nuni hehe.
Dolly gave me this very pretty mauve card with meaningful nostalgias and wishes ;) love her. Asten gave me a cute lovely lace mini bear ( now hung in my car) . so cutee!!!! Angeline,Elyssa and kean yew gave me a very lovely bracelet with a magnetic hook. i likeee it like mad!! Saliza, another angelical friend of mine, who is my studymate nowadays, brought me to Bella, an elegant Italian Restaurant. The food, i tell you,is soo damning delicious with authentic Italian taste. Thanks for the treat Saliza. like I said before, i can't thank each of you enough. this is the best i can do for now. thanks guys for being so nice to me. It feels good. and it is good. i am so grateful to have you, friends. i am!

oh yeah, Mie and Anas also tried to organise a bowling session on Saturday, alas the whole lanes in Penang bowl were booked for tournament and Midlands bowling centre only opened by 12 noon. next time yeah hehe.

merci beaucoup a tous ! merci merci merciiiiiiii !

au revoir :)