Wake Up and Smell the Cake

Saturday boy was I busy in the kitchen! Went to the market earlier and was home by 9.40am and got started cooking! The siblings wanted chicken fajitas so I quickly sliced the chicken meat and marinated (fajitas mix + paprika + black pepper + dried basil) before Junior & I went to the market. Junior made my heart melt: all those times spent baking and cooking with him paid off! He now is officially my little baker! I didn't want to bake anything, but he sorta forced me. How can I refuse when he took out the whisk and ladle and even the sugar! But before that, Junior was busy helping me cook! On the menu for the day: Chicken Fajitas Sindhi Briyani (Shan mix) Potato Soup for Junior Potato soup is really simple. Peel & cut potatoes, boil and add cauliflower, broccoli, carrots and fish/chicken cubes in and cook together. I throw in a teeny bit of salt, and some dried basil. It's even yummy for adults! So on to the biryani! I was kind of eager to cook biryani whe

I'll steal in a quick blog post this morning. Last Saturday I tried out the Malay chicken curry recipe to the T from Malay Heritage Cooking by Rita Zahara. Not my type of curry, sadly. Too much coconut milk! It would have been much better omitting the coconut milk totally, or replacing with yoghurt. I'm an Indian curry lover, not Malay. Haha. Husband started his 6 week class on Saturday mornings and that leaves me plenty of time to do my own things. But for the past two weeks instead of stealing in a quick bake, I decided to cook! Feels good to cook for The Husband especially when he comes home all hungry and tired :) The weekend before I made sweet and sour fish, no recipe just throw in stuff. This Saturday I plan to make laksa! Heehee. I also managed to clean the house, do laundry and go to the market before cooking. It's amazing how much you can do in a few hours. No pictures of cooked food because I didn't bother taking any, but here's photos of Junior ca

Weekend is almost here but I'm not looking forward to it. Too many things happening that I am not in a good mood. I told FFL my itinerary for the 2 days and she said I need a superman's cape. I still haven't found my peace of mind thinking of what's to come. Very tiring. In chronological order: cooking 2 days' porridge (no time on Sunday) the usual ironing and laundry to do play group open house 5 houses to visit all in JB staying overnight in JB Junior's playgym wedding of someone I don't know and right now I don't care to go visit one house, if people are at home cook for guests we're expecting on Monday. I'm not doing the cooking but I'm doing cleaning. clear house for Monday. Peng's Kitchen just made some vanilla custard puffs that look easy to follow! If I have time (WHO AM I KIDDING RIGHT) I would love to try it out. Husband wants the stayover in JB cos probably he's sick of Singapore. It's only 1 and a ha

Heloooooo!! I know it's been ages since I've updated, there's still our family's umrah trip to talk about but I'll just do a random update here. You see, my brain is kinda fried for the day after three whole days of figuring out the stories behind certain numbers and accounts. It's tedious and frustrating at times because you can't get the whole picture due to some missing pieces. So, I'm going to spend the rest of the day clearing up, writing the to-do list, and some other menial work. We've to prepare our house for a small shoot on Sunday, and nothing's been done! Today we plan to vacuum, lay out the carpet, rearrange the sofa (on normal days it's just against the wall for maximum space), dig out whatever little ornaments that can be used for decoration (we don't have that many). It's going to be a long night! Kuih-wise, I've pretty much settled on my kuih list. Made two batches of kuih tart at my mum's last week (o

Last Sunday I signed both Junior and myself up for a trial session at MyGym Tampines. We previously went to a trial class at Leap Schoolhouse but it wasn't to my liking. I felt that they were limiting free play by cramming too many activities into one session. I liked the location though. My colleague recommended MyGym, so I decided to give them a call and sign up for a trial. I've set aside playgym classes for Husband to have some father-son bonding time, but I forgot that he had another appointment during that slot so I went ahead with Junior instead. How did Junior find the session? He seems to love it! Well love the place at least. He doesn't listen to instructions yet which is a bit of a problem but we'll get there insyaAllah. Once he's satisfied playing with the slides and balls and explored every nook and cranny (he even wanted to go into the store!), I think he should be able to sit down and listen. At least I hope so! I was a little bit worried beca

I miss my cheekycheeks. He had an emo moment yesterday. I had night class, and Husband would pick Junior up then me. So at my MIL's earlier, he was really hoping for me to come home soon. He heard the gate open, ran to the door thinking I was home, but was sad to see it's his auntie instead. So he walked to his atok, sat beside him and sobbed! No tears but with sobbing sound. So emo but so cute! I love that boy so so much. I can't wait to see him tonight. And it's a long weekend ahead, with trial play gym with Junior on Sunday! I hope he likes it :)

Junior came for abah's class (where I'm the student as well) last Saturday! He was the teacher's assistant, and thankfully an obedient one too for the long (in baby hours) four hours. Got up early to get things ready, and I was extra early so I made bread pudding for breakfast! My breakfast. Hahaha. This time round I used condensed milk only, no granulated sugar. Recipe: 6 or 7 slices of bread, torn to about 2 to 3 inch squares 388g tin of condensed milk 2 cups milk 3 eggs 1 box of raisins Sprinkle of sliced almonds Tear the bread and arrange them in the pan. I used an 8 by 8 inch square pan. Sprinkle raisins and almonds in the pan. Mix milk, condensed milk and eggs together in a bowl and pour into the baking pan. Preheat the oven to 170 degrees Celsius. Let the bread soak up the custard mixture while waiting for the oven to heat up. Bake for about 40 minutes. Yummy soft custardy bread pudding! Almost like my mum's. Almost. Tastes much nicer whe

Yay the easel has arrived! Can collect it after work. I'm so excited to have it in Junior's room! It'll be crowded but ah well every kid needs an easel haha! I'm doing way too much online shopping these days. Tsk tsk.

Today I brought the wrong book for class nooooo. Maybe I'll make a copy for today's lessons later. Bleah. Last weekend's bake: banana choc chip muffins for breakfast. I used the recipe before , this time round I made it a little bit healthier. I reduced the egg from 2 to 1, switched from butter to oil, and I used a bit more bananas. I noticed that the muffins' top became smooth as cupcakes when I left the batter to rest before baking. Nice! I used: 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour 1 1/2 tsp baking soda 6 medium ripe bananas, mashed 3/4 cup sugar 1/2 cup oil 1/2 cup low fat milk 1 egg 1/2 cup chocolate chips Preheat oven to 180°C. Grease muffin cups or line with muffin papers. I got 17 muffins.  Combine all dry ingredients and chocolate chips in a large bowl and mix well. Combine bananas, sugar, oil, milk and egg in a medium bowl. Mix wet ingredients into the dry ingredients bowl. Do not over-mix! Divide batter among prepared muffin cups, fill it till 3/4 full. B

Yesterday was my first day at work without pumping. I noticed my breasts weren't full by midday, and at the end of the day wasn't hurting either, so I didn't pump. This could be the start of the stop of pumping at work! That'll save me 1 hour of work time, the hassle of bringing my pumps and ice bag, and no longer need to wear nursing friendly clothes! The joy! Actually I'm already wearing a dress which is not pump-friendly muahahaha. And no ice bags today! :) But I'll still continue to breastfeed at night or when Junior is with me. Need to get him accustomed to drinking milk from bottle with me around.

Good "Monday" to everyone. So glad it's a short work week and Monday Husband is back! YAY! :) I love my colleagues. Last Friday was really TGIF, with a wonderful lunch and grocery shopping included. Haha. What was supposed to be just getting a box of oranges ended up with at least $30 worth of groceries per person. I got the Bisquick mix too, to make pancakes since I've read that it's almost similar to McD's pancakes. I made two batches over the weekend, the first time was really good and the second time was a little runny and I couldn't make thick pancakes. 1 cup of Bisquick (+ 1/2 cup milk + 1 egg) is enough for a hearty breakfast for 2. I still have more left, so I'm gonna make some for Husband when he gets back. I also made strawberry cake with cream cheese frosting on Saturday, and rocky road brownies yesterday but the recipe is different from my clear-the-fridge project last week . This time round I used a best cocoa brownie recipe with mo

The feeling of guilt is back again. Not the ate-too-much guilt, but the guilt of not teaching or exposing my child enough. I am still refusing to send him to school because I need to force myself to teach him. I haven't repeated finger painting with him, and I haven't been introducing much things to him. How bad a mother I have been :( Tomorrow lunch time I shall forgo exercise, and I shall head down to Popular to get some sticky board, blue tack, vanguard sheets and glue. And I need to make some busy bags for the weekend trip too. Hope I can get creative enough!

Nothing on food today. I wanna talk about Junior. He's growing so fast. In a few weeks' time, he'll turn 18 months. He's grown so much, so tall. Junior pretty much understands most of the things we say to him cos he knows when to shake his head if he doesn't want something. But he hasn't learnt to talk yet. I am kinda worried about that, but then Husband didn't talk till after two and that didn't stop him from being a debater. I'm trying to console myself by saying maybe he's a little late, that's all. Not like he has some deficiency or something. Junior keeps changing his preferences. Like now he likes panda bears (he loved Kungfu Panda on okto yesterday!), he doesn't want to solat but he aminkan doa . Things that aren't seasonal are his love for fruits, climbing, biting me (yes, it's been going on for the longest time), and the most sweetest thing, helping out with housework. He will pull the laundry basket out of our room a

It's only Monday but I'm looking forward to the weekend. Just had a great weekend which started off on Friday with a long overdue date with Other Half. In our daily routined lives and busy work schedule, we tend to forget how to have fun and dates like these are meaningful and necessary reminders :) Back to planning for this weekend! Besides weddings (yup the season's here again), I have thought of a couple of things to do, especially with Junior. 1) Apple cupcakes. I have like 7 apples at home, 5 of which are green and bought for the sole intention of baking no way am I going to eat them raw haha, so off as apple cakes they go! I'm going to repeat the recipe I used before since it was a success. Since I'm going to chop the apples, I think I'll get Junior involved so he can play with the apples and batter :) 2) Go to the library. I have to get for us travel books on Lombok. Have not done much research as a dutiful travel planner and besides, I would real

Been a long while since I blogged. Made red velvet cupcakes for sister-in-law's birthday yesterday! Decided to try a different recipe, one which doesn't use butter. Reason being I didn't want to wait to thaw the butter hurhur. Anyway below will be a whole lot of buttermilk recipes cos I have a carton of buttermilk. Haha. Went to Universal Studios before that, with my family. There were too many people cos there were 2 family days there, one my dad's and another is a big shipping co. The waiting time is seriously crazy. We gave Transformers a miss. It rained too, in the afternoon. Thank goodness we weren't at at queue for outdoor rides. Anyway not much time to blog so here's the red velvets! It's a really moist cake, I read the reviews and some people found it too oily but I think it's perfect cos I hate dry cakes. I came across this when I was googling for "red velvet cupcakes oil". The tips were good, and turns out it's Paula Deen'

No bakes last weekend boo. I happily took out my butter and cream cheese with this cream cheese butter cake in mind but then I realised. I have. only. TWO. eggs. Baaah. So back into the fridge they went. I did find eggless chocolate cake and brownie recipes but didn't bother to do any. It was quite a packed weekend with raya, cousin's engagement and a little bit of work yesterday, and to top it all off, dear Junior decided to wake up at 4am this morning all fresh and happy. So I did laundry & ironing while he was awake. He only slept back at 6.10am and as much as I wanted to sleep back, it was a bit too late. Darn. There was talk of school for Junior and those montessori of sorts, Husband is convinced Junior needs school once he's 18 months old but I'm kinda refusing it. If the purpose is for the activities then I think we can have our own little school at home. I refuse to pay for something which can be done at home. It's like going to a baking school t

Had a superb weekend which means I'm sooo having the Monday blues. I love "just us" weekends. Husband had to attend a two day convention but skipped some sessions. Me and Junior was at home the whole time except Saturday afternoon where we went for early dinner and walked around Vivo. Vivo was quite an experience hahaha. I know it's family and children friendly but Junior wasn't keen on walking around on his own yet so we didn't really take note of such places until last Saturday. We have tried to let him walk around but he was choosy with the places. We first went into Toys R Us to get him warmed up, and warmed up he was! He couldn't wait to get out of the stroller! Once out, he happily roamed free, trying out this toy and that, wanted to make friends with GIRLS omg Junior you're too young, and when we carried him, he wanted to be put back down so he could walk. We literally had to scoop him up, hold him tight because he was squirming around

We met a young boy at one of the houses we visited few days ago, and ohmy GOD how drama mama is that boy! I tell you if his mum wasn't there I'd go up to him and give a good pinch on his arm or thigh or whatever. A slap would be appropriate too. So this is what happened. My little boy is still learning to play with others, at 1 year 2 months he's not much of a social butterfly. But my in-laws do train him by playing with his five month old cousin, so far it's been good. Kids that age don't share toys or even worse, get jealous and do evil stuff but Junior can pat his cousin's head when we told him to "sayang-sayang adik". Sometimes it gets violent too like a slap hahahaha but he's a boy. Anyway! So at that particular house, there were other toddlers as well, but Junior was very quiet. Takes after his mama you see, not a social butterfly. He liked this toy school bus and took it so he could spin the tyres. But at this particular instance, J

How time flies! I can't believe we have Junior for a year already. This time last year, I was induced awaiting for the birth canal to open up, just the start of a very long labour . This was the monitoring device for my contractions. Not much contractions huh. Hence, 44 hours. Haha. My labour was pretty easy, just that it took a looooong time. Thank God we didn't have to go through any assisted delivery or caesarian. Junior was happily snuggled in my womb not wanting to come out, he was happily kicking still. Pushing itself took almost an hour. But at last, at 11.02pm, 30 June, he popped out. My 4.056kg charmer. We love you very very much little sweetheart! The energy you drained from us, almost every night of disturbed sleep, extra fats, stretchmarks all worth it for you have brought endless joy, countless smiles, much love that we all need in this world. Aww Mama's about to tear.

I am so so sleepy. Junior woke me up at 4 plus this morning and he didn't want to sleep. He only slept back at 6, which was already too late for me to go back to bed!! Here's some photos from the last few days. This is my mum's cabinet door that Junior dislodged. Don't ask me how. We're still puzzled. If he were an Avenger, I think he's The Incredible Hulk.  We had a wonderful family time weekend, just like how weekends are supposed to be like. We could tell Junior was enjoying his weekend too. This was at John Little Expo. Junior loves to sit at the empty racks cos he can crawl round and be free to move. He didn't want us to carry him away either! And I managed to find work clothes that are cheap (read: $15.90 only!!) and breastfeeding friendly!! The only downside is the dresses are long. Like below the knee long. Reminds me of my very kental days in secondary school where my uniforms were always oversized thanks to dad. Haha. And this foll