Stew pork rib with braised peanuts

Basically I don't know what is the name of this dish therefore I am giving this name merely based on the main ingredient that contributes to the flavour of the stew. It is introduced to me by Weeliem's mom.



Ingredients:
~10 peeled chestnuts
2 cans 170g braised peanuts
4 medium size chinese mushrooms
300g pork rib
4 cloves garlic

Steps:
Add 1/4 teaspoon of sugar into a bowl of water and soak chestnuts overnight.
Clean the leftover skin and half the chestnut
Clean pork rib and cut into smaller pieces
Soften mushrooms by putting them in warm water for about 15 minutes. Slice
Heat oil in a wok and saute garlic
Stir in the mushroom and chestnut. Then add in the pork ribs.
Cook them for about 3 minutes and pour in the braised peanuts
Add roughly 1/2 cup of water, 3 tablespoons of soy sauce, 1/2 tablespoon dark soy sauce, salt to taste and pepper.
Bring mixture to boil for about 1 minute and cover work with lid.
Simmer the stew mixture in low heat for about 2 hours. Add water when neccesary.



We came home pretty late after work so I only managed to stew it for 80 minutes. Anyway it tasted good as well. It can be better if we can cook for another 20 minutes.

Fish curry

I have a bag full of okras (ladies fingers) from my dad from the home trips. For the past days and weeks, I have been eating a lot sambal stir fried okras and it doesn't stay long this way. I am bored of tasting the same thing. At first I was thinking of making fish head curry but Weeliem did not favor that because there is not much to scrap out of a head. So I changed the recipe a little , fish curry. The other day we celebrated Malaysia Day by going to Tesco and bought ray fish. This is it, the hot lunch on a super hot day, with a lot of okras



Steps:
Process onions, shallots, garlic, dried chillies and cumin powder. (*1)
Cut fish into pieces and sprinkle salt onto them and let sit for about 10 minutes.
Heat oil and saute *1 until fragrant.
Put in fish curry powder and tamarind juice from soaking pulp in water for about 10 minutes.
Let the mixture boil
Add in fish, coconut milk and vegetables (okra cleaned and halved, tomatoes wedged) and salt to taste

Chinese pattern cuting- Double happiness with twin birdies

I know I said I only want to make 2 of these but I can't resist another one. My hands are itchy tonight so I cut another. This time it's smaller but cuter.



I received a lovely wedding gift from my buddy today, couriered from Korea by her favourite person in the world. It's a laneige face powder which the casing looks really cool, something like a cellphone with mirror at the top. There is a very pretty card with the gift.



Not forgetting an ex-coursemate who purposely dropped by Penang! with his wife last month and passed me this. His wife will be giving birth sometime close to my wedding day and it is impossible for him to make it here

Of life, like it or not

Work has been slowing down and I am happy to enjoy life, example writting, cooking and making my DIY things.

I received a few responses about how good that I did the DIY stuff and save money in my wedding. Honestly, I did the DIY stuff for my wedding is merely just for my interest of doing so. There are no cost saving here or what I mean is the saving is negligible. The saving of few ringgits doesn't impact the whole wedding expenses at all. I am extremely happy of doing one or two but absolutely not happy if I am to make 50 or 100 of those, because it is not fun anymore.

The same reason goes for cooking. I cook everyday because I feel happy when I made yummy food. If the food doesn't turn out good like what I expected, the rest of the day will be a sad day for me. If I were to ask to cook for a party, it will be different. It will be tiring and much more effort required. At this point, there is no fun of doing what I like. You know, volunteer to do something and being assigned to do something are totally two different things. But when you were assigned the task, it is not of your own will or probably you are just too shy to reject for not liking. Most importantly is your will. You do what you like to do.

We do things because we love doing them. That's how I sustain living in this cruel world, by doing something that makes my heart grows fonder of staying home keeping safe. It is similar to some people, example for liking to shop, sing karaoke, outings, yumcha sessions, sport activities, playing computer games, facebooking. I am perfectly fine if my friends like to sing-k and I don't think it is a waste of time because that's what you choose to do during your free time. I am very serious when I said I don't like K because I don't sing. It is not of any other reasons like I don't like joining the clique or too pricey or someone is a thorn in the gang. But I really do appreciate the invitation because it is making me feel that I am still wanted in the group. That's why I love my lunch gang and colleagues. They still invite me although 98% of the times, I rejected. Thank you very much people.

Once I encountered a somehow similar experience during some pretty old days. I like making cards. Birthday cards. So I made for friend, and another next because I like making them during my free time. Eventually people started to expect the same thing happening for the other friends. It is not that I don't like the friends, but it is of my interest. I don't like to do it when it became a task. I know it sounds ridiculous, but that's me.

I believe everyone has their own opinion. I don't go againts people. You can like anything and don't like anything, freely.

Chinese pattern cutting - Double happiness featuring mandarin ducks

Not going to waste time during this long holiday, I to cut another patttern using the remaining red paper I have. That's all ;) This time it's fast, I completed within half a day.



Note: Future MIL took it because it's too pretty lol

Flower ball deco

This is another DIY thing I made for our wedding. The flower ball deco made of red fabric. I bought some few metres of red lining which cost less than RM10.

I saw some shops selling the flower ball for RM39.90, RM49.90 which is a ripped off.

It will be used to hang at our home entrance.



I hope it will look nice when being hung up. We'll see..

Chinese pattern cutting -double happiness

I had done some DIY stuffs for our wedding for the past few months. The latest that I am working and had completed one is the chinese pattern cutting work. I had this problem to search the double happiness "xi" word in google because I can't write the word. I pinged Yi Chong because he is indeed very good in chinese, I guess. Haha. I wrote "si" in messenger to him and asked if he can type the word in chinese for me.He was all puzzled and quicky rang me wanted to hear me pronounce the word. He was relieved. He thought I am going to write suicide note in chinese.

After thanking him, I tried googling the image of "xi" and it returned me numerous results, some suitable for pattern cutting and some not. At last I picked this.

I had painful finger for 2 nights because of "manuevering" the small size scissors to cut small edges. I am glad it was worth the pain.

Our wedding electronic invitation

As some of you might have known, we are getting married this year. Here posted is the electronic invitation that we sent out to colleagues and some friends. To Ailene, Peili, Kim and other Klang buddies, we have both mutual and virtual invitations in facebook Hot Chicks group so there is no need to have multiple invitation right? So I am sharing this to you all who are willing to share happiness in our coming special day.

If you already gotten this invitation and not yet RVSP, please do so love.