House Renovation??

The floor tile in our house start popping up recently due to poor construction (After less than only 3 years!!). We have to re-do almost all the flooring downstair. There're so many things I want to change in the house, so we are also planning on renovation other parts of the house like countertop, sink etc etc yeayy!! (suka plak hahahha). So I think I'll won't pass out this op. hehehehe

The floor started popping up in the living room and the kitchen (couldn't really see in the above picture tho), so we have to move all the furniture.. It was scary.. I thought we were having an earthquake or something!!

Our dining area is so messy.

This is between the living room and dining area.

Food craving

Alhamdulillah, I'm in the second trimester of my pregnancy, I don't have so much complaints on food served in front of me.. (unlike during the first trimester yang sungguh nightmare, ahh takmo ingat balik) but now everything is yummy.. especially the smell of freshly baked bread (except i never baked my own bread of course lah).. arghh pagi2 bau toast sedap nyer..

This was the superlicious over priced sandwich from O'Briens Irish Sandwich Bar.. kalu dpt mkn hari2 pun takpe hehe

Below is Briyani Rice from JM Baryani, Bangi.. not bad at all, the rice was not too milky/oily which was what I like the most :)

sleeping corner

I end up buying a baby bluish sofa bed with very cheap2 price from Cavenzi :P My next mission is to put frames, wall clock, notice board etc up on the empty walls.

I missed my old room when I was studying in the US.. so cozy, cold and best utk tido hehe

Cheap, contemporary from Cavenzi

saya suka sofa ini.. saya rasa macam nak beli utk office saya hihi

no sense in waiting

it was very hard to give the home i live in a make over. then i saw the picture of Maximilian Sinsteden's dorm room in the apartment therapy - my all time fav blog. then i thought maybe i could turn my office into a dorm so it would become my second home.. and do whatever makeover i like (assuming my boss won't bother) hurmmmm yes yes!! When my office has the cormfy couch, i can sleep sleep.. briliant!!

Wedding Reception at Bangi Golf Resort

See more pictures here

What's cooking in Maine

Freshly lobster
Blueberry pancake
Pecan Waffle

bz

my studies is hethic and sad
no time to cook but still got time to eat, a lot!

Simple Gyros

.. for breakfast this morning

Wonton soup

This is my very first time I ever had wonton soup. Suka.. suka! :P Since I prepared it myself, how do I know it taste like what wonton soup should?
I like it though!! slurppp!!!

Fakhrul's Lamb Ribs

This is one of my favorite guilty pleasures because it's prepared by dearie hubby and oh it feels so good as you scrape every bit of meat off of the ribs bone.. nyummm!! The lamb was always his idea so he couldn't really complain about my belly fat, that's the best part hehe. I'm not sure where he got the recipe but I couldn't agree more this must came from an expert (though he said it was originally his.. hmmm). He simply rubbed some oyster sauce, and McCormick Montreal steak seasoning on the lamb ribs and let them set for a couple hours. Then the ribs were grilled in the oven for about 30 minutes at 450 degree F. Pretty impresive on how easy it was; plus he made this all the time, probably that's what makes him claimed he's an expert :P

Tenderlicious! What's left on our dinner plate.

Baked peach custard

I prepared a dish of baked peach custard before I drove my way to Minneapolis to visit dearie hubby and Ayah yesterday. I also cooked some other dishes but Mr camera refused to cooperate ishhh!!.. so here is just a shot I managed to capture. Anyway, Ayah is here in the States for a few weeks, and stays with dearie hubby in Minneapolis. I've got to visit them this weekend and maybe stay a bit longer since a lot of fun stuffs awaiting. Hmmm. Seems this summer gonna be a busy one, both with works (conferences, meetings here and there, hate it!) and travels (love it! love it!).

I need to get ready to go to a party fashionably organized by Malaysian Student when it is almost come to the end of the semester. They've got a color theme for the party, blue and white. What? since when? Iskkkk!!

Cream Cheese Danish

My husband really likes cream cheese danish, so do I. I got the chance to experiment with a very simple recipe from cooks.com supposely was meant for breakfast this morning but I overslept (well.. it's Saturday + dearie hubby is not around), so this was my lunch huhuu. Not bad at all. At least I know how to prepare this at home now :P. Sorry honey, I got to eat this without you. Picture above is the cressent roll used to make the danish. The danish was baked in a square baking dish and didn't look tempting enough though the smell was superliciously seducing. So, to be creative, I cut the danish using a cookie cutter, stacked two of them with layered whipping cream in between and brought some contrast with sliced red stawberry. Pretty and yummy :)

What's cooking?

Nothing special. The tortilla wraps I bought a week ago were still untouched in the food cabinet. But I was craving for exotic asian flavor for dinner. So I end up using some left over of mustard greens, shredded cabbage, carrots and beef; sauted with saseme oil, chopped onion, curry powder, oyster sauce and meggie chicken stock; for the tortilla filling. I unintentionally discovered that this is what they call fusion cooking when I somehow fused the Mexican and Asian style in the cooking! Interesting!
The vegetable beef filling - asian style

Breakfast at Panera

Almost everytime when Fakhrul is here, we'll cut our eye-shut short for a good breakfast at Panera Bread, or go for the brunch if we oversleep. Fakhrul really like the soup in the bread bowl and the baguette; he said I have to learn how to make it. I think I won't pass up the chance to make the soup but never thought of making bread or baguette myself. (Hmm... anyone has a recipe to recommend?)After all, it was not just the bread and the soup at Panera. Having a breakfast time together is so precious for us as we don't have the chance to do it everyday like every husband and wife should. Eating breakfast out on a beautiful morning, sitting in the cafe, smelling the coffee, chit-chatting.. the moment is just priceless. We can't help but always dreamt of having precious breakfast time like this even when we were old.For now we weren't be able to wake up next to each other every single day; but if we did, the breakfast time might not be more precious than this.

Guacamole

scooped up with corn tortilla chips.. nyum nyum!!

You can google the recipe but I used elise's.

Cranberry Chicken

My husband is here, so I have to cook heavy meal so he won't complain hehe. So I thought of cooking something to serve with rice because it has been a while we didn't eat rice huhuhu which is wierd because in Malaysia we eat rice everyday hmm.. Then I found this cranberry chicken recipe from a cookbook I bought from Walmart. Suprisingly this chicken seriously tasted like the Malaysian honey spicy chicken which is usually served with tomato rice; only easier to prepare and the chicken is more tender because it was baked. I definitely will do this chicken again! The recipe is:
1 can whole cranberry sauce
1 bottle sweet and spicy honey-french salad dressing
1 pkg dry onion soup mix
4 large chicken quater (or 8 boneless chicken breast halves)

Preheat the oven t0 325 degree F. For sauce, in medium bowl whisk together cranberry sauce, salad dressing and soup mix.

Arrange chicken in 3 qt retangular baking dish. Pour sauce over chicken. Bake, uncovered, for 45 to 60 minutes or until chicken is no longer pink (170 degree F)
We had the chicken with plain jasmine rice. Good enough!

Tuna Tartare

Now that I'm worried about gaining weight since I've been passionately doing my new hobby--cooking, everyday, huhuhu, I tried to cook light meal. Today for lunch, I tried another recipe from Barefoot Contessa cookbook; the Tuna Tartare. I've been dreaming of making this myself for a long time. I really like munching and snacking, so appertizer-type recipes are my favorite. So happy I finally made this, so yummy I can't stop eating. Oh my husband is coming today; he will be my biggest competitor (hmm 'should I save some for him?' jahat tak? hehe)!
Just a shot of some of the ingredients:
The tuna tartare is good to be served with crackers. But I still have some chive biscuits left over from the other day. So I cut the biscuits into thin slices, spread butter on each slice, sprinkled garlic powder; and toasted them in the oven until golden brown at 350 degree F. Bellow is the pictures of the toasted sliced biscuits on a cooling rack.
Suprisingly they turned beautifully like crackers and yummy!!Yeayy!! I'm a happy lady!

Strawberry pie custard tart

Ingredients:
1 refrigerated pie crust
1 cup egg (about 3 large eggs)
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1.5 cups milk (I used half and half)
2 cups fresh sliced strawberries (can also use peaches, blueberries, kiwi etc)
Whipped light cream (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degree F. Place pie crust in 9-inch pie plate, pressing crust firmly into bottom and up sides of plate. Flute edge. Prepare the crust as directed from the box (might need to pre-bake).

Beat egg, sugar, vanilla in large bowl with wire whisk until blended. gradually beat in milk until combine. Carefully pour filling into prepared crust.

Bake 40 minutes or until knife inserted near center comes out clean. Cool completely on wire rack.

Chill until firm, about 2 hours. Arrange fruit on top. Cut pie into 8 slices, top each slice with wipped cream just before serving.

I screwed up one pie crust huhuhu.. (luckily it comes with 2 crusts in a box). Because it was still eatable, I put the pieces into ramekins and poured some custard tart on top of it and baked it in the oven. Hehehhe still eatable :