Been busy baking

Guess what I have been busy baking since last week. The idea started with wanting to bake a birthday cake for Pearl, but did not get the result that I wanted. Due to lack of confidence and time, my SIL was so kind to help me out to bake a birthday cake for Pearl to bring to the school, that really saved my day.

I have yet to try her recipe because I am lacking of the flour needed, however, I tried other sponge cake recipe, one was the premix recipe which I bought meant for Pearl's birthday, it turned out to be dry and not as spongy. I also tried the Japanese Cotton sponge cake recipe which turned out to be really good, probably because there are milk and butter in the ingredients.

I was also dare enough to try the cream puff and eclair recipe on monday and that I have a little problem with the baking time. It took much longer time that indicated in the recipe because I made the piped the dough too big thus needed long baking time.

Just the night before I baked a chiffon cake by using the chiffon cake premix which made the preparation process so much easier. Unfortunately, I fixed the chiffon baking pan wrongly that have allowed the batter to lick out from the bottom of the pan, and I accidentally touched the oven door and got a burn on my arm as well, silly me. Good thing was that the chiffon cake turned out to be fine but can be better. Next time I will try to mix the egg white separately rather than mixing everything together.

Last night, I tried the Japanese Cotton Sponge cake again due to popular requests by my family.

And today no cake baking, but puffing time. Chicken sausage puffs and cream of mushroom and chicken puffs by using the ready made puff pastry. So we had puffs for tea time this afternoon. I have posted the pictures and the recipe here.

A way to say "Thank You"

This year we celebrated Pearl's birthday in a small way, in such a small way that only involved her small little friends in school. With the help of my SIL, a nice purple cake was baked the night before, saved me the worries of baking it myself.

We did not send any invitation out to inform the students' parents for the celebration. We thought since the kids will be in school on that day, we will just send in a birthday cake and goodies bags to have a small party during their morning tea break.

By the time we arrived the school, the teachers have already got the table set up and put a little birthday hat on for our little Pearl, all ready for the party. We brought in Crystal to join in the party too...she has to excuse herself from her class for a little while, obviously Pearl is very happy to have us around for her birthday in the school.

Besides receiving birthday presents from her form teachers, we were very surprise to see Pearl received presents from her classmates, not just one but two presents. We did not expect it so since no invitations were sent out to the parents. Since we don't normally have the chance to meet the parents, sending thank you notes to them would be the best way to appreciate their thoughtfulness.

I would prefer to have personalized thank you cards and thank you notes to express how thankful we are to receive those gifts which have given a much brighter smile on Pearl's face on her birthday. Kids and adults alike love to receive gifts, don't we?

Nowadays it is very convenient to get a personalized thank you card through the web. There a many different types of cards to choose from. Just type in the thank you notes in the card you have chosen and print it out. We could make it more personalized by uploading a photo from our computer too, having our photo on the cards would cost us dearly if it is to be printed by the shop. We could get it at a very reasonable price from the net nowadays.

Get paid to read emails

Would you like the idea of getting paid just by reading emails? It is too good to be true. At first I thought it is just another spam. After checking through their website, I am happy to announce that it's a 100% free and legitimate program.

It has more than 150,000 members now and it is the largest Paid To Read Email Program in Asia. Point will be credited into your account each time you read an email they send to your email. The points will then be converted into Singapore dollar and we can either withdraw our earnings via Paypal or cheque. It is a very good news to Malaysian as we will be earning double because of the exchange rate.

I have started to earn only after 3 days of joining the program. Check it out at emailcashpro.com. You will like what you see!!

Buka Puasa stalls

We were in darkness when the power cut at around 4pm on Tuesday. Couldn't stand the stuffiness and darkness in the office anymore, we thought of a place to go, that's the nearby buka puasa stalls. The sun was so bright and very smokey. After a walk around the stalls, bought what we wanted, we couldn't stand that heat any longer.

the stalls, very smokey, I find myself smell of babeque chicken wings when I got back to the office. gosh...

A big tong of Nasi Briyani. RM2.90 nasi briyani is considered quite cheap. But I did not buy...not into it that day.

Earn from blogging - LinkfromBlog

I came across LinkfromBlog from one of the bloggers when I was dropping my entrecards. It catches my attention because the advertisers that I have registered with are not offering much paid posts that I desired. I quickly registered with LinkfromBlog and the approval came almost immediately. It has always been my dream to be able to earn money by just writing blog reviews at the convenience and comfort of my home.

One good thing about LinkfromBlog is they allow bloggers to add more than one blog under one account which not many affiliate programmes in the market would allow us blogger to do that. It allows us to have more chances to monetize our blogs and much easier management under one single LinkfromBlog account.

If you would like to find out more about LinkfromBlog, just click on the banner. Let's make money through LinkfromBlog together!

Cake baking

I stopped my baking venture after many failed attempts to obtain the desired results couple with the many washing and cleaning up after that are also the contributory factors that had stopped me from baking. But I was in the mood to bake again recently, probably due to the persistent requests from my two little girls. They promised to help me out..yes they did help me on the preparation and decoration of the cake... not on the washing..:( They are still too little to do that for me..they will get themselves and the kitchen all wet..cause more work for me in the end.

Hands on the turning bowl..having fun..I had to stop them from doing that..it's not toy girls.I picked this Nona Super Moist recipe from supermarket, just add in oil, butter and eggs.
Crystal insisted on dressing or decorating the cake..it is too much work for me to prepare the dressing so I let her use the white choco chips and pestels hearts.

This is what she did.

The texture is fine but a bit too sweet

Japanese Food is one of my favourite

Japanese cuisine like this one is hard to resist. It is one of my favourite. I used to prefer having lots of raw salmon to dip in wasabi and Japanese soy sauce, but after knowing the possibility of having blood parasite after taking too much of improper preparation and storage of raw fishes by restaurants, I refrain myself from eating too much now. More pictures of Japanese food here.

Pos Malaysia delivers moon cakes

Moon cake festival will be in a month time. Unlike previous years, I still can not see any moon cakes for sale in the shops this year. Is the economy really that bad??

I am glad that the company that I work for will not be selling any mooncakes this year. What a relief!! Or else we will be asked to sell mooncakes again...

We received a nice mooncake brochure which was sent to our office a couple of weeks ago. It says "Pos Malaysia delivers family bonding and friendships this mooncake festival". It is a very good and new idea that I came across. Having this service, sending mooncakes to someone near and far is so much convenient. There are four mooncake sellers to choose from, the brochure also include the different types of mooncakes and their prices from each seller. For more information, log on to www.pos.com.my/mooncake

Clothes to pass on

Fearing that the clothes hanging railing designed by Clet would fall off one of this day, I decided to check through the heavy loaded line of clothes meant for our girls in our bedroom.

I always notice there are a number of clothes which has been out grown by Pearl each day I pick clothes for them.

Here are the clothes that I picked off the hanging railing. Most of them are passed down from Crystal to Pearl. I picked some beautiful dresses that would suite my little niece, Chloe. Some I donate through our church.

Shopping on Line

I appreciate shopping on line very much due to the fact that I hardly got the time and also every time going for a shopping trip, it would turn out to be like chasing games, hide and seek with my two active daughters.

Each time my mum follows us to shopping she couldn't stand the behaviour of my two daughters, her comment would be that " I don't think you could even buy anything from the shop with your daughters behaving that like" which I agree with her...

Just yesterday I brought my mum together with my two little young girls to children and lady's departments thinking of buying some new shoes and clothes, instead of looking for clothes I have to keep looking for them as they like to hide in between the lines of clothing which basically cover them. I get so tense keep looking out for them all the time.

At last I tell myself, I would be more relax and make better choices with shopping on line at the comfort of my home. My favourite on line shop is shopwiki where I can virtually find all kinds of women's wordrobe needs, ranging from designers' fashion to eco-friendly choices, fashion and trendy selections to figure flattering clothes for women, and all kind of accessories too, you name it shopwiki will have them in store for you.

I am particularly interested in the eco-friendly selections, it is fairly new to me and what attracted me to these clothes are that they are made with organic raw materials, with no pesticide, harmful chemical and bleaches substances in them. These clothes are made with environmental friendly in mind. This trend will catch up in the fashion industry in no time.

Miss Venezuela - the winner of Miss Universe 2009

The 18 year old, Stefania Fernandez, was crowned as the winner of Miss Universe 2009 in Bahamas on Sunday, 23rd August 2009. Last year's winner, Miss Dayana Mendoza was also from Venezuela.

Miss Fernandez is such a beauty in a stunning red gown. Congratulations!!

Our saturday

As a full time working mum, I always look forward to weekends. It's so relieve that I still can go back to sleep when I am awake at 6am during weekends, that I got to spend some time with my girls, not sit around but being around with them at home even though I am always busy with the never ending house chaos. Praying hard to become a WAHM with a helper so that I can spend quality time with my girls, being with them every single moment is a precious moments to me...though there are times they drive me nuts..:@

Our niece, Kathleen, came visit us today, and our girls are shouting with joy because we have been waiting to have her around. Kathleen brought along two VCDs. Their afternoon were filled with activities. They watched VCDs, surfing the web, colouring, blowing bubbles, sharing "junked" food (keropok & jellies), decorating cup cakes, went to church and had dinner together after the mass. Pearl was so exhausted that she dosed off right after dinner at the shop. Too excited to having Kathleen around that she did not take her afternoon nap.

watching TV while having afternoon tea with the cupcakes which they put the toppings on

the cupcakes that I baked for tea

colouing session in progress

removing ear wax

The doctor prescribed this ear wax remover drop for our girls when we visited her clinic more than a year ago. We used it once or twice to ease the excessive wax from Crystal ears. This is the SOLUWAX ear drops , its function is for softening the ear wax thereby it can be removed or drop out by itself easily.

And last week Crystal complained that her ears were very itchy and kept digging them with her fingers when she was trying to sleep at night. She requested for the ear drops. But we had to get a new bottle as the one we have had already expired on 01.08.09. Even though it had only expired for about 2 weeks, to be safe than sorry, I got Clet to buy a new bottle.

I have been applying the drops on Crystal's ear for the last 2 nights, Pearl saw it and wanted the drops for her ear as well. She too having plenty of wax in her ears. We have never cleared our girls ear wax since they were born cos too scare to hurt their ears with the little scoopy thingy knowing their always on the move characters so it would be safer to use ear drops.

Pearl thought it is fun and giggling there when I put the drop in her ear, she supposed to tilt her head for 4-5 minutes, she does not even bother, started with her playful act soon after I put the ear drops. hmmm... How do you clear your children's ear wax??

Cintan non fried broad noodles

Since our girls like noodles over rice, this time I tried the Cintan brand non fried broad noodles, sound like healthier cos it's non fried, low fat and cholesterol free. I added some cut four colour rolls, siu mai and vegetable.

They did not finish their mee cos they do not like the shape, it's broad and flat in shape instead of round. Very fussy!

2 frozen four colour rolls

Remedy cure for H1N1

I received this email from my colleague this morning. It would be a very comforting news if green apple and orange juice can really cure those infected with H1N1 virus. It is a very useful piece of information to share with you. You may want to confirm this information with Regina whose name is on the bottom of this email. Here is the details,

NEWS ON H1N1 : from a concerned friend :

My staff was crying herself sick on Tuesday morning...was told that her son was confirmed of H1N1 in his Uni at Kangar, Perlis...worse was that when he was bedridden 2 days the warden didnt even bother to sent to hospital till his dad came fm KL and with his friends assistance brought him to GH Kangar....

No one bothered in the hospital and he was put in the normal ward for another 2 days!!! (imagine the amount of people he has infected!!) .....after 2 days and his eyes were turning yellow and saliva greenish...he was put in quarantined room...

His mom practically fainted just telling me the story.. cant do much cos she does not have enough money to go to the north with the father...

First thing we did was made her call the hospital and insist that they sent him to Sg.Buloh Hospital or any other hospital in KL since they seemed to be more alert and more equipt...they refused of course...so I sent her off to Kangar the same day to solve the problem.

Whilst this was happening, I had a call from one Ustaz who was in town to "help cure" another H1N1 child in Shah Alam....and was told this simple prescription by him.....

EAT MINIMUM 6 GREEN APPLES A DAY AND FRESH ORANGE JUICE
for those with sore throat please blend the apples and keep on taking till your fever disappear and yr symtoms are gone....I cannot explain it but the child in Shah Alam was ok too after taking this tip....

my staff's son was given the apple juice for the whole day on Monday/Tuesday and he was out of the fever yesterday Wednesday... .she called me and was crying on the phone to say that her son was out of ICU and was able to eat normally...all these happened within just 4 days today (thursday 6 august)...

This is just to share with my fellow sisters and brothers and hope this small info could assist others as well, No harm in trying and anything can happen!!!!

Thank you and Best Regards,
Regina Chong
Inventory Mgmt & Adm
Supply Chain Management Department
Petronas Methanol (Labuan) Sdn. Bhd.
(Tel: +6087-403 246 6Fax: +6087-427 827
Petronet: 8-597-3246
*Email: reginachong@petronas.com.my