I Love Holiday Season

No, frankly I think I should hate holiday season. It's always time where I stuff my face silly, and skip my dance classes. Which of course translates to extra pounds in unwanted areas because I'm simply adding on calories to my body without burning them off properly. Wait. I do burn them off, all this laughter with family and friends are good cardio exercises! ;) Hey, I just found a reason to eat more!!! *grin*

Fat One BBQ Steamboat Truck

Well, yesterday we had a nice family get together (well, YS invited some of her friends too, since she hasn't seen them for a long time). Ophie also invited her family to join us and unfortunately, TW's family couldn't come because of other commitments. In all we had about 30 ppl and thought it was a good idea to bring in a steamboat truck *drools* For days we pondered on what should be on the list of food in the steamboat session, and knowing the glutton among us *ehem* we almost ordered enough food to serve 70 ppl!!! Thanks to the good advice of Fat One steamboat, we reduced our order to quite a reasonable amount (approx. 400 sticks of seafood/meat/vege).

Extra orders for those not into steamboat and for the x-tra hungry ones

Mom was still worried that we won't have enough to eat, and decided to order some fried mee hoon and fried rice too. At first it still didn't seem enough, but by the end of the day, we were shocked to see how much we have overestimated our ability to chuck in food. We only managed to clear about 50% of the food on the steamboat truck and probably another 30% of the extra orders.

Just like the stuffs you see in pasar malam - only difference is
we get to choose what goes on the truck

It was nice too that they have some bbq sausages and meat to go with the steamboat, and also a pot of boiling tomyam soup to go with our favourite fried fu chuk and oyster mushrooms. Just thinking about it makes me hungry again. Fret not, we still have leftovers from yesterday's feast in the fridge to clear! These nice folks from Fat One Steamboat helped us packed all the left overs nicely, together with all the extra peanut sauce, sweet sauce, chilli and even the tomyam soup!

Birthday cuppies for my cuz complete with yoga poses :)

Also coincidentally my cousin's birthday falls on the Xmas eve, so we decided to surprise him with some cupcakes, made by yours truly and assisted by my 2 beautiful assistants YS and SS, along with our guest decorators Mr. Goo and Joseph... hehe...

We had a splendid evening, with our family members and friends, complete with scrumptious food and lots of laughter. Lovely :)

I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas...

It's beginning to look like a blog dedicated to cake pops...

Hickory Dickory Dock

The mouse became a pop!

Look What I Found!

I went to Giant supermarket today to do some grocery shopping... and couldn't resist myself when I saw these!

M&Ms Christmas Mix and Orange Flavoured M&Ms

Arrggghhh! How could you not get them?? I can already imagine those yummy christmassy cake pops in my mind! *grin*

Gifts from Australia

2 of my sis arrived from Brissie yesterday... and look what they brought me!!!

Can you guess what this is?

And this?

and thisss??

and..and..and thisssss???

All those candy making stuff that I have problem sourcing locally!
(food markers, candy colouring, candy melts & lollipop sticks!)

THANKS A MILLION SIS!!!

SDI Exam Day

Good luck to all!

Old Macdonald Has a Farm... E.I.E.I.O

Well Old Macdonald has a farm
E I E I O
And on his farm he has a pig
E I E I O

Old Macdonald has a farm
E I E I O

***

Old Macdonald has a farm
E I E I O
And on his farm he has a cow
E I E I O

Old Macdonald has a farm
E I E I O

***

Old Macdonald has a farm
E I E I O
And on his farm he has a dog
E I E I O

Old Macdonald has a farm
E I E I O

***

Old Macdonald has a farm
E I E I O
And on his farm he has a horse
E I E I O

Old Macdonald has a farm
E I E I O

Thanks to Bakerella and Cake Pops Galore for the inspiration!

I *Heart* Cupcake Pops

Once you start you can't stop - I meant the process of course ;)

Thanks Bakerella!

Bakin' with Aunty Lyne

Lyne came over to my place today to make cake pops! Thank's to Bakerella for her inspirations, we were quite successful in our pursuit this afternoon :)

Before Lyne arrived, I managed to put the chocolate cake batter in the oven. Decided that it was best that I use a ready cake mix I bought from the supermarket to save the hassle. After all, it's the decorating part that was more fun *grin* While waiting for the cake to bake and cool down, Lyne searched the internet for ideas of cake pops that we could make, while I prepared lunch. And it wasn't long before our cake was ready:

Fresh from the oven, smells good!

Dry cake crumbles

After crumbling the cake (it was really dry by the way - wonder why it was called super moist cake on the box), it was time to add in the butter cream cheese frosting (I'll put the recipe at the end of this post). I put in a little at a time, careful not to overdo it, and stop the moment it was possible to shape and mould the cakes into the shapes that we want.

Adding butter cream cheese frosting, a little at a time

We started by churning out golf ball sizes, and then various other shapes, such as pumpkin, bells, cubes and egg shapes, trying to keep them as even sized as possible.

Ready to go into the fridge

We only managed to get about 27 mini cakes out of the crumbled cake, we probably could get even more if we make them a little smaller. But the lollipop sticks I bought from ICCA was quite long (6") so it may look a little imbalance if the cakes were small. The size that we made were just perfect for the sticks.

White chocolate coated ghost cake pops

We just couldn't wait to dip those balls into the chocolate coating! As soon as we finished lunch we took out several bowls and melted some white chocolate in the microwave. I also tried to use Candy Melts by Wilton, but it was just too thick to coat the cakes evenly. I had to add some vegetable shortening to thin it a little, but then I realised that it took a longer time to harden if shortening was added. Still found that white baking chocolate was best in this case. I also used some gel food colouring (you'll need oil based food colouring to colour your chocolates).

Our first attempt at cake pops - successful!

Seriously we were both laughing so much and squealing with excitement each time the cake pop turn out just right! At first we tried to use some food markers to draw faces on them, but it was hopeless. In the end we just used some dark chocolate as a replacement. Works out great!

Cake pops for Lyne to bring home

I think we spent close to 5 hours (including waiting & lunch time) to complete about 14 cake pops. Yes, I know its pretty slow, but this was an experimental session, and so we made a lot of mistakes and that took up some of our time. But we learnt a lot of valuable techniques, definitely. The next time it won't take so long!

What do you do with a mummy so cute? Eat it of course!

Lyne didn't want to take too many home, and it was impossible for me to eat 10 of them! Plus I didn't know how long these babies would last. So I gave them all to my neighbour's kids who were just two doors away and happened to be playing outside at that moment :)

The last 2 cake pops - for my breakfast tomorrow!

I still have some cakes in the fridge, waiting for me to decorate them. I'll try to mix some orange colour tomorrow and see if I could make pumpkins out of them. Here's the recipe to the butter cream cheese frosting:

Ingredients

200 gms icing sugar

100 gms butter

200 gms cream cheese

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

BEAT the softened cream cheese and butter together and slowly add in the icing sugar and mix until light and fluffy. I only used about 1/2 of this portion in my cake crumbs, you may need more or less depending on your cake size. The original recipe in Martha Stewart's website calls for more sugar, but I didn't have that much left in my pantry (thank goodness), and still it came out just nice and not too sweet. Adjust the recipe to your liking.

As for the coating, I simply used white chocolate with some oil based food colouring. Becareful not to accidentally mix water into your chocolate (especially if you are using a baine marie). Other materials I used include mini M&Ms, pretzel sticks, chocolate chips and coloured sprinkles. You are free to use whatever you need, you are only limited by your imagination!

Too Early for Halloween?

Couldn't make up my mind if I should post this in craftee guiri or here... but I thought its better to put it here since this poor bloggie has been quite lonely ever since bloggie no. 2 was out.

Boo!

Last Saturday Nanci organized a small gathering at her place with a few members from the belly dance tribe and 2 from the yoga tribe :) It took me almost an hour to find her apartment - I'm completely hopeless when it comes to looking for places other than in Cheras :P

When I arrived, several of them were already busy in the kitchen preparing some ayurvedic food for all of us to munch on before we work on our belts and tassels. And I did help too! To eat of course! :P The yoghurt mushroom was a favourite among all of us...mmm.. I'm drooling just talking about it.

As soon as our tummies were satisfied, we took out the belts and yarns and embellishments and we discusses on ways that we could decorate our belts. While we were busy spinning our yarns on the DVD boxes, Nanci demonstrated to Deda how to make her very own tassel, which she in turn help the rest to make theirs :)

Deda helping Nikki to make her tassel

We spent several hours just making tassels, and eating and chatting. Some of us even attempted to pat Kitty, Nanci's very shy cat. And I only managed to complete about 4 tassels, all ended up at different thickness (that shows how much woman's instincts I have). I took them home that night to make some adjustments, and then I realised that one of them was of a different shade of red. And so what did I do with that odd red? Googly eyes and hat, and voila! *grin*

Our very first tassel! (Mine's not trimmed yet)

I probably have to finish up my belt at home on my own. But first I'll have to clean off that dust on my mom's sewing machine... and trying to figure out how to use it properly. I'll post the finished belt in craftee guiri! Stay tuned!

What have I been up to?

Just the other day my sis said that I've been very quiet with my blog lately. I must admit she's right. I could only blame laziness, procrastination and lack of inspiration for the silence. Somehow I wasn't in quite a mood to update anything. Why? Is it because I've nothing interesting to write about? Not really. Well, here's a quick summary:

1) A friend of Joyce's who owns Indulgence @ Tropicana City Mall asked if she could get her students to perform at their opening ceremony. Initially I thought it falls exactly on my mom's birthday, so I didn't agree to go. And I was roped in just the day before after realising the miscommunication! I simply didn't know any of the steps except for the primera copla of the Sevillana, but I participated anyway. Just hid myself in between the rest who were more well-versed with the steps but it's tough since I'm quite tall! :P Made quite a lot of mistakes throughout, but who cares? We had a great time! :)

Arte Flamenco students @ Indulgence, Tropicana City Mall

2) I took up swing dance classes with Ming from KLSwing. And coincidentally, just after 4 classes, Matt Bedell from NY happened to be in town and KLSwing organized a welcome party - the Matt Hatter's Tea Party @ Urban Attic. It was a blast! Both TW and I went as poker cards, while we also had Alice, sexy cats, cute bunnies and queens who could schwinggg! Check out their photos here!

3) While SS was back in KL sometime in July, we went for a cake decorating class at ICCA. It was supposed to be a 3 hours session but we end up spending close to 5 hours at the center! Both of us brought home 4 cakes each decorated with fondant. Haha... when we asked the rest of the family members to guess who decorated what... they immediately pointed out the correct ones! Wanna know why? :P

Mini wedding cake decorating class @ ICCA

4) Salsa Party @ Urban Attic was just last Friday. Organized by Niels and DJ Vicente from a Cuban band named Habana Revolution, it was a hot latin night. Lucky for me I managed to get TW to do a few merengues and simple salsa with me too. Thanks to the all supporting & encouraging friends out there :)

5) And since I'm so obsessed with dancing, I took up belly dance too *grin*! Nanci Traynor, who also teaches yoga is now conducting Tribal Belly Dance class at KLPAC. I really enjoy attending her class, and so eventhough I live miles and miles away from the studio, I didn't mind travelling there every Saturday during the busiest time of the day. It's a good thing that she always start the class with a Savasana pose first :D

6) I finally found the heart to throw away my collection of miniature bottles. They are at least 15-20 years old, probably even more, and some of the contents have already turned into a different colour, leaked out or simply deteriorated. Instead of continuing to keep them and add to my already unbelievable amount of collector's trash, I've decided to just keep photos of them instead.

A small sampling of my miniature bottles/samples collections

6) I completed my very first oil painting(s)! Hehe.. nothing complex... in fact I believe a 10 year old could come up with something better. Still, I'm proud of myself :) Details here.

7) My new blog, craftee guiri was launched sometime last month. It's dedicated to all my crafty moments and my passion for DIY gifts. I thought it was best to have a focused craft blog rather than cramping everything in here. Now you know why I've been so quiet :P I can't split myself into 2~!

OH dear...and I still haven't updated anything about my last Europe trip yet. Bummer.

Mango Lime Sorbet

Some time ago I received a comment wanting to know how to make that Mango Lime Sorbet. Coincidentally I made another batch last week and managed to snap some photos. Here's the recipe that I got from SimplyRecipes!

Ingredients (makes slightly more than 1 pint)

1 large mango (about 1.5 pounds)
A pinch of salt
Juice of 3 limes
1 tablespoon of tequila (or Choya plum wine)
1/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup water
Lime zest (a little would do)

*Note: Adjust the ingredients to match the size of the mango you use

HEAT sugar, water and lime zest in a small saucepan until the sugar is completely dissolved. Set aside to cool.

CUT the flesh out from a mango. Here's a great guide on how to do it properly - How to cut a mango.

PUT the mango pieces, syrup, salt, and lime juice into a blender. Blend until completely smooth. The last time I tried this recipe I had to use a strainer to get rid of some fibrous pieces, but this time the mango I used was really nice and and smooth, so it wasn't necessary. Pour the puree into a bowl, cover with plastic wrap and chill it overnight in the refridgerator.

ONCE chilled, pour it into an ice cream maker and add in the tequila. Process the mixture according to the manufacturer's instructions. The alcohol helps prevent the sorbet from being too icy. Transfer the almost frozen mixture into a container and freeze in your freezer for at least 6 hours (or until firm) before serving.

Another note: Although the amount of sugar syrup to put in is not meant to be to taste, do check before you pour it all in. At times you may get mangoes that are already sweet, and you may risk having your sorbet too sweet. Also be aware that if you do use less sugar, the texture of the sorbet will tend to be a little icy too. Just experiment and see what fits you best :)

Good luck!

Skytrex Extreme Adventure

Some time in June Ben posted some of his Skytrex photos on FB, and that got me really interested. Of course I've been told about it before, but it never quite sparked my interest because no one invited me to go :P

This time Ben asked if I'd like to join them for their next session in July, and I promptly agreed! Also I tried extending the same invitation to a few others, but only Lyne decided to join us. So in total there were 9 of us :)

We paid RM3 at the entrance of the Taman Pertanian, then waited about 10 minutes for the Skytrex shuttle to arrive. On the bus they'll do a headcount and check against their booking list, priority is given to those who have booked a slot.

As soon as we arrive, we immediately proceeded to the registration counter and got ourselves a pair of gloves each. Personally I didn't think their gloves were sufficient, I still had some minor blisters at the end of the trek. And yes, this is almost as good as a pair single-use gloves. Don't expect to be able to reuse them, because depending on how hard you hold on to the cables or harness, it would have been completely ruined t by the time you finish.

Lyne showing off her pair of RM3 gloves, you'll need them!

Once we gao dim our registration, we were required to put on our safety harness. Don't worry, there will be experts to help you put them on correctly. Coincidentally there were a big bunch of school children that day to try on the "Little Adventure". While I was starting to regret my presence there, the children was all excited and did not show any sign of fear.

Lyne being fitted with a set of safety harness

After that we were taken to the Initiation/Jump Start circuit. Here we were all given a briefing on how to use the carabiner, pulley and all the do's and don'ts in the circuit. Everyone was required to try out their simple trail and get used to hooking the carabiner and pulleys on the cables. It's VERY important to have at least one carabiner hooked at any one point in time, so that if you do fall, there's something to hold on to you! Safety first!

Our instructor demonstrating the ways to use the carabiner

In only less than 5 minutes, we completed the trial circuit. And now for the real thing! The first challenge was to climb this flight of ladder. Trust me it's tiring! I was already panting eventhough I was only halfway up. Serves me right for not having a heavy breakfast before I came (as recommended by Ben). Only had 2 pieces of digestive biscuits and a glass of milk. Yikes! Maybe it wasn't such a good idea to go straight to the Extreme Challenge before first trying the Big Thrill *sweat*.

There were about 4-5 of ladders of this height throughout the circuit

Immediately after climbing this ladder we were to do a Flying Fox (FF). Indeed it was very scary. Not only would this be the longest of the whole track, it was also very very high (there are higher ones later, but much shorter distance). But later I wished that they had more FF along the way (as a mean to skip some of the challenges). The whole thing was getting very tiring (especially since I didn't have a proper breakfast) and dragged too long. Partially because we were held back by "traffic jams" created by the earlier groups. Only a maximum of 3 persons is allowed on each platform and a maximum of 1 person on each challenge at any one time.

Some of the challenges that you can expect to see at the Skytrex Extreme Challenge

Basically I completed the whole course without chickening out at their 'Ayam Exit', with an exception of the monkey bar which was at the beginning of the circuit. I knew I didn't have enough upper body strength nor did I want to exhaust myself completely when I still had 80% of the challenges waiting for me! So I kinda cheated and did the FF instead.

Me on the flying fox (photo courtesy of Darry Lum)

Also at the very end I had to be "rescued". That particular challenge was extremely difficult, and without a proper upper body strength and technique it was difficult to get through. We can choose to skip this with a FF, but I decided to give it a try. I only managed to cross about 75% of this particular part before having one of the guys on the platform pull me up because I was taking too long and was simply too hungry... ermm... I mean too tired to continue :P (food...I need food!!)

My rescue at the last leg of the circuit

It was a great sense of achievement having completed the whole thing. Really, I mean it. Never mind about the pain that follows the very next day. I enjoyed every moment of it, and wouldn't mind doing it again. In fact, Ben said he is planning another one in October! Yep, I'm going again!

Look! It's not that scary after all - I can still laugh right?
(photo courtesy of Darry Lum)

A Weekend of Food and Fiesta

Last Saturday our farmyard members decided to host an early birthday celebration for TW. Of course it was just an excuse to get together and stuff ourselves silly again. We had a nice dinner at Tong Tong, a restaurant just of 5 minutes walk from my place and after that we had a nice homemade mango ice cream (by yours truly of course) and a cake cutting session :)

That's us trying to blow the candle together
(though I really looked like I was about to suck in the cake)

Sunday it was Father's Day... and this time we thought we'd have a steamboat session, something we haven't done for quite a long time. From the morning I started to prepare the tomyam soup and porridge. Mom got the fresh ingredients from the market while I got the frozen stuff from Giant supermarket. WL on the other hand bought his favourite pork slices from the non-halal section at Tesco Extra.

The table ready for our steamboat session

Everything seemed to be in order at first. I had the table nicely set, we had plenty of food to put into the 2 pots, one for porridge and one for tomyam soup. I had an induction cooker that we could use and mom had another. We were happily getting ready to start when mom's cooker started beeping non-stop and giving funny error codes on the screen.

No matter what we did, the cooker would not stop beeping, and wouldn't even heat up. *sigh* In the end we had to make do with just one cooker and swapped the two pots whenever the other reached the boiling stage. After the dinner we had some durians by TW's family...and some pineapple from Ophie's family.

Halfway through the dinner I had to take a photo ...cheeezzze

There were also a plenty of leftovers. I had porridge enough to feed 3 persons and half a pot of tom yam soup. Fortunately for me, that'll be my breakfast, lunch and dinner for the next 2 days :P

Accounts cleared!

Prague - Salzburg - Vienna - Krakow - Budapest - Madrid - Salamanca - Seville - Cadiz

Spent several hours today compiling my expenditure for the trip and guess what, I only exceeded about 7% of what was budgeted. Not bad, huh? And that excess was purely due to unforeseen circumstances such as change of flights (thanks to Ryanair*) and overindulgence on food :P

On an average, our spending was as follows:

RM75 per day per person on accommodation (approx. USD21 or EUR15)
RM85 per day per person on food (approx. USD24 or EUR17)
RM120 per day per person on local tours/inland transportation (approx. USD34 or EUR24)

This was based on the fact that we managed to stay in a 3 star hotel towards the end of the trip, and indulged in restaurants every now and then (mostly in Spain). Also we did not join tour in every city. Most of the time we did our own exploring, and just paid for the train/bus tickets. And the cost above also include cheap opera tickets, entrance fees to various museums/cathedrals/castles and even a spa session! ;)

So yes, it IS possible to travel on a shoestring budget. There really isn't a need to spend so much on the food if you aren't picky. There are plenty of cheap local delights available if you keep an eye out for them. And if you don't mind having a snoring roommate, sharing rooms in a hostel isn't too bad an idea. More good news - most of the cities provide FREE use of bicycles for at least an hour, which means you can save time, $$$ and energy moving around in a big city.

So much for now, will post more details about my trip soon.

Jet lag??? What jet lag???

Lucky for me, I'm immune to the change of time zones. I can fall asleep practically anywhere, anytime, given an opportunity. Last night we arrived at about 9pm, and after a quick Hokkien mee supper, it was home sweet home.

A nice scrub in the shower then went straight to bed and slept like a log. This morning I was up at 9:30am and back to my normal routine. I know. Many are envious, but I just can't help it :P

Got about 10,000 photos to upload. Be patient.

We are coming home!

Can't believe it's the end of our trip already. It's time to squeeze everything back into our two tiny luggages. What a nightmare. :(

Our flight departs Seville at 21:15 and arrives London at 23:00. Then we have to rush to the check-in gate again for our flight back to Malaysia at 01:25 tomorrow. Hope there's no delay!!!!

Hasta muy pronto!

@ Budapest Airport

We are at the Ferihegy Terminal 1 waiting to board our flight W6 269 to Madrid. At least they provide free Wifi at the airport, this ought to keep me busy until the battery runs out. :P Will try to upload some photos.

Already the 4th stop

I can't believe we are already at the 4th stop - Krakow. We arrived here this morning by a night train (my first on a sleeper coach). Exciting.

Sorry I haven't been quite active with my blog, but its quite difficult when there's so much that I want to write about and yet so little time and very much limited internet access. I'll try to post some of my offline drafts soon.

And yes, we ARE enjoying ourselves here... try not to be too jealous, ok? ;) At least you won't be as broke as we are when we get home...

Till then...miss all of you back home... HUGSSss..

A day in Prague

It's always like this for me, only updating my blog days or weeks later, only to forget to mention about all the exciting stuff that happened.

We arrived Prague on Monday morning, decided to avoid all the hassle of taking public transport to our hostel and chose the shuttle service instead, which costs us 480CZK (approx. RM90). It was probably slightly more expensive than taking the public transport but cheaper than taxi. Most important was it got us straight to the doorstep of our hostel. If you are a group of 4, shuttle is the most convenient and economical choice because you'll pay the same amount whether you are 2 or 4.

Airport Shuttle service price list

We were greeted by Mirek at Hostel One that morning. He provided us with a map and gave us information on how to move about in the city. While waiting for our room to be ready, we decided to look at some of the brochures at the reception. There was this "Ultimate Prague Tour" for 1200 CZK per person (approx USD60) which was highly recommended. It included a walking tour, river cruise, lunch and a complimentary Ghost tour in the evening. Since we only have approximately 2 days to visit the city, we decided to give it a go. Frankly, we were not disappointed.

The tour was booked for the next day, so that morning we decided to just casually stroll in the city, and (ehem!) shop for souvenirs in case we didn't have time tomorrow. Also we had to find our way to the train station to get tickets to Salzburg. The main train station was only about 3 tram stops away from the hostel, but we just walked. It was a beautiful morning! How could we waste that? ;)

Praha main train station

Just about 20 minutes of walk from the hostel we arrived at Wenceslas Square. And the first thing I saw was.....MCDONALD'S!!! Seriously I ought to have taken photo of every single McD I find in all the cities and I would have been able to compile a thick album! :P Of course the Chinese didn't lose out either, throughout our trip, Chinese restaurants are just as easy to find as McD, if not easier :)

It was then we spotted our very first meal in Prague.... hot dogs! LOL! The street was lined with fast food kiosks selling a selection of sausages, long, short, big and small :D

"Which one should I eat first???"

While walking towards the Old Town quarter, we passed by many souvenir shops. Most of the similar souvenirs are sold at a standard price. So if you see something you like, it is not quite necessary to hop from one to another trying to get a better bargain. Unless of course you want to look for a bigger variety of items.

Not too far from the Old Town quarter is a market, selling handcrafted items, puppets, chocolates, vegetables, flowers and many more. I enjoyed looking at all the puppets that are hung at the stalls, some were cute, while some were scary.

Different types of puppets that can be found at the market

More Prague updates soon - our Hostel, the Marionnete show and the Ultimate Prague Tour