Painting!

Our first painting job in the new house. We started at the master bed room.

From this 

To this! Almost there. We took a lunch break and this is what we achieved after 3 hrs of painting.

What a difference!

Can't wait for all painting job to be done. 

Kcan

Ducky duck!

I made stew duck( lo shui duck) for the first time on Saturday!

First marinate the duck overnight.

Slice up shallots, galangal, ginger, lemon grass. Whole garlic.

Pound the ginger, galangal and lemon grass.

Have bay leave and cinnamon stick handy.

Cook the duck in the sauce n spices for 1.5 hrs.

Tada! All chop up and ready to be serve.

Chilli dip to go with the duck. 

And salads and veges. 

The duck sauce is so versertile and we had it for many days later with beancurd and hard boil eggs. Yumm!

I even kept a bottle in the freezer for future use. 

Kcan

新年快乐！

Happy Chinese New Year!

The days still goes on as per normal. The construction guys came nice n early to dig and pull things apart and lay back the pavers.

Reunion dinner yesterday was a stressful one, because of my in-laws in ability to organise things earlier (despite me reminding them to write me a list of dishes to cook a week, 2 days and the morning ago) and last min food request by the 'emperor'. To make things worse, they only came back at 6.45pm....expecting me to cook whatever last min things they bought. 

The food was simple. A fish dish was there. A roast pork was present. Vege dish to add some greens, and the special request noodle. Oh, and we had left over soup and egg plant dish from the previous night. 

Finish off with dessert soup which I had prepared earlier in the afternoon when I rushed back from work. 

Think we'll push for the reunion dinner to be eaten outside home next year.

Kcan

The bake-off

Chinese New Year is around the corner! And I miss my mum n her cooking! =( 

Feeling sad that this place is still quite messy and little improvement don't seems to matter as the de-provement are more apparent. *sigh*

Anyhow, because i missed my mum's cooking, plus cny is coming plus this church friend of mine who started my temptation on pineapple tarts, I decided to make my own too!

But guess what! Mum is uncontainable in Malaysia. >_<. There goes my recipe. 

However, I stumble across a blog on Sunday, which featured a pineapple tart recipe! Melt in your mouth pineapple balls. =D 

So here it is!

Bought this big baby from the supermarket for $5. Weigh about 1.7kg.

After skinning and de-core, left only 700g. 

Put it through the blender to mash it up. Then sieve out the water from the pulp.

Measure the sugar for the paste.

Cook the pulp on the left, heat up the juice from the pineapple.

Mix sugar, and after cooking for 1 hr.... Here it is!

Mixing the short crust dough. Oh my, lots of butter!

The making stage: weigh n roll the cooled pulp into balls.

Does the same of the dough.

Combine and here you have it! Ready to bake.

Freshly out of the oven!

One mouth full. Yum!

Still miss the times making the pineapple tarts with mum. Sad that no one helped me when I make it. They only know how to 'siam' (disappear) and eat.

Kcan

Sashimi

Eric's family loves having sashimi. They would go to the fish market and get a whole salmon, had it skinned and de-boned, into sashimi fillets. Then at home, slices it up into thick pieces, and enjoy it with  wasabi. Some times there will be so much that we'll have it over three days!

Here's what we had for dinner two nights in a row.

Eric's sis bought half a salmon (so one sashimi fillet), and I had them sliced up for dinner. We had them for two meals. Yummmm! Think there will be more sashimi coming up in the coming weeks as the FIL will be here tomorrow for cny.

Kcan

Photo blog

My harvest from the garden!!

First little Japanese cucumber. 

Donoe why, but it is round instead of long. 

Here's how it looks like when cut. Just like a normal cucumber. =)

We bought an outdoor parasail for the new place over Christmas. We only open the box today.

Here's the 60kg worth of concrete for the sail. Cost $60! $1/1kg?!

And here's our massive shade in the front yard. It's 4 m in width. (Thus needing such huge base for support)  Unlike the concrete base, the sale was on massive discount of $30!!! We bought an outdoor table with chairs to go along with the shade, but we realised it was not well put together =(   

And because it was a discontinued item, we could not get an exchanged, only a refund. How good it will be to sit under here for summer lunch....

Kcan

Photo blog

My homemade beef balls.

Not bouncy though. =( 

My MIL's ingenuity.....

Quite good I'd say, stops the toilet roll rolling everywhere on the table. Haha

Kcan

My vege pots

Some time last year, I threw scraps of veges into the soil of my lime tree for compost. And behold, the corn kernels sprouted and out came my corn seedlings!

Here are my two precious miracles and it is beginning to fruit!

Look at the hairy bush on the stem, that's my baby corn nicely wrapped in there. =D 

I had to put the fencing there to scare off the nasty possum.

My poor tomato plant that was bulldozed by the possum few months back. Finally grew some leaves back.

Sweet potato leaves are my favourite! But they are still too small for any decent harvest. =( 

They were a favourite of the possum too, so it's hiding under the mesh as well.

My Japanese cucumber! Donoe what but it turned out to be round in shape instead of long.... Haha.

There's a few small ones fruiting soon too!

My hanging tomato plant!

Oh my, the possums learned how to use the planter box underneath it as a stool to jump off and eat my tomatoes. Need to hang them higher now. These are the 2nd crop of the season.

This is how the tomato plant hangs, in case you are wondering...so it's up sided own.

Quite confusing for the plant I think... As you can see, one of the plant refused to be pulled down by gravity!

My herbs tiers are growing ok. The basils and mints are growing extremely well, but ubfortunately the mints were frequently targeted by while fly or caterpillars... *annoyed*

The spring onions keep us constantly supplied with spring onions..lol... And we had a good harvest of corianders too.

Then one day, another mystery plant sprouted mysteriously, and we were wondering what it will become. It's creeping everywhere, and it started flowering recently. I think it is a pumpkin plant!

Not sure if there will be pumpkin harvest, as I don't see any female flowers, only male flowers.

It will be a bonus if a pumpkin grows!

That's all the report from my garden. Hope I can get some fruity harvest soon! Gotta keep an eye out for the annoying possum. Hump!

Kcan

Bready is working again!

For many months, our dear Bready is out of action, because we lost the kneading blade during our renovation! >_<

It took us many months to find it and later contemplating whether to replace it, or buy online or.....

So in the end, we finally got a replacement blade before Christmas. However, lazy me did not feel like baking (weather so hot!), so Bready had a long holiday till, Yesterday!

Coming back from work, it was already 5pm. I had the sudden urge to make pizza with the left over chicken breast from the night before dinner. So I got Bready out from storage and started measuring the four, water, salt....

As time is tight, I put the bowl of dough into my Tomato (car) to help speed up the rising process. (The car was quite warm from being in the sun). And it works! In 25 mins,it had double in size! Yay!

The 'pizza' that I made. The dishes last night were a weird combinations. Noodles, stir fry sweet potato leaves, and stir fry lettuce as the sides, apple soup as the main (prepared by MIL), and pizza.

Thank you Bready for giving us freshly made breads again!

Kcan 

Photo blog

This little maple leave caught my attention when Eric stopped the car on the roadside to fix something. (Forgot what he was doing)

Not only is this leaf is growing on the bark of the tree, it is the only coloured leaf (as in being red) as the rest of the tree leaves are green!

God works wonders. 

Kcan

Family dinner

Family gathering dinners are considered a huge thing in hk families. Fish, soups, desserts are a must!

That's why people like my MIL would not invite ppl into the house cause there was just so much expectations! (Plus too much work to do) Hump.

In order to break the bad cycle of : Going to people's place for dinners and not vice versa.  We decided to start the trend!
(This is also part of the therapy we would want to train MIL not to hoard things at home, and hide things away from visitors. )

So it started on Christmas, where we invited aunt and her husband for Christmas dinner. Then on Friday, we invited the aunt n her whole family (husband + 2 children) over for dinner. Oh what an event! It that been years that the cousins were allowed and able to step into this place, let alone have dinner here.

Instead of following their crazy hk traditions of cooking fish, soups, desserts.... I prepared Vietnamese rice paper roll for dinner! Which means, it's like a popiah style,where people wrap their own rice paper roll for dinner. Very hands on. And for soup, we have simple yet nutritious Miso soup! During the last minute, my MIL requested me to make some dessert drink. So I quickly gathered all the dried ingredients from the fridge and pantry, wack it into the pressure cooker and there comes the red bean soup! (With lotus seed and lotus flower)

Simple ingredients of Hainanese chicken (shredded chicken), roast honey soy chicken (shredded), bean sprout, beehoon (rice noodles), spring onions, basil, coriander, fish sauce mix and peanut sesame sauce mix. Oh, and not forget the rice paper! 

So who says dinners much be Big fish and Big meat.

kcan

It's 2014!

Sorry for not updating since my last post. It had been quite a big roller coaster ride since my last update.

Well, things at home were still quite a big frustration for both Eric and I. It's like almost to a breaking point where it was affecting even our own relationship with each other. Going to the women bible study every Wednesday morning helps to allows me to be with other older women, who would listen and share experiences. And at times, it was amazing that the discussions would touch my heart, to the deepest point. 

One day, I received a book from my pastor's wife Carmi. She asked if I would like to join their book club, reading through this book together and discuss as a group every 2-3 weeks during lunch.

This event was a God sent. The book they were going through was not only helpful for a newly wed wife like me, it teaches us how to be a Godly wife to our husband and family. 

It talks about how to love and communicate with our husband. How we work with our husband, so that we are there for each other's needs. How to love and teach our children. How to prioritize our life's, with work and home, of want and need. How to not succumb onto temptations of sinful nature, such as greed, anger, bitterness. Oh how it touches my heart! 

It wasp quite hard, trying to seek the truth and admitting to the sinfulness of my own. But praise God for softening my heart. Thank God for the many older women who were there to share their struggles and their listening ears to mine. Everyone who were there, had struggles of their own, as a wife and mum to their family. It was a good opportunity for us to open God's words and read the guidance God has for us. It felt so supported, encouraged, and guided. No one teaches us how to be a wife, especially Godly wife. No one teaches us how to raise a child. Examples from our own families may not be the best model. Oh how much I learned. 

Eric and I also met up with the pastor for counseling one afternoon. It was a great opportunity for us to talk about things which had been bothering us for a while. Like the house renovations, moving out, living with in-laws, clinic work.....

So Jeff, our pastor sat there and asked abut our issues and listen to our situation. It helps a lot as there is now someone who can see it from a third person's point of view. So the conclusion at the end was that we should moved out from this place and Eric should get his decision ready and get things moving (for both the renovations and clinic work). 

And so we did! We moved out the following week after the session with Jeff. We moved our beds there, so we are sleeping there at night. However, the rest of the house is still in a mess. Or day time work is either at the in-law's place inspecting the construction work, or at the other home, doing the wall paper removing. And I'm still in charge of cooking at the in-law's place. So we will have dinner together before we head home. 

At the end of November, my clinic work finally started too! My first patient is our friend at bible study. And since then, I have another two regular patients. We promoted our clinic at Eric's uni friends gathering around Christmas, and we got a few interest clients. Haha. But so far, we are just thinking of going slowly and just treating people we know, because we are doing home visits. Eric is not comfortable with me visiting stranger's place. 

Relationship wise, has been much better between Eric's mum and me. His sister's absence for a month for her holiday in HK, helped a little. (Less people to worry) His mum had a sudden scare of sciatic pain shortly after the Boxing Day, which sees us sending her to the hospital's A&E, staying in there for 6 hrs and finally discharging with just a script of painkillers. They could not find what was wrong with her. So today, after 3 weeks in pain, she finally is going to see her GP for a referral for MRI scan. This had caused a bit of stress in Eric with his mum, as it was so difficult for us to coax his mum to take pain medication. It was like coaxing a small kid, and without the medication, she could not sit, stand, lie down, nor even go toilet! What's more, there's three levels of stairs for her to climb at home to get to her bed room! Sigh.....

To add on to the stress, there was the construction at the front of the house to fix the foundation of the house. It is now finally done! Took 3 weeks in total. 

For the Christmas, we invited Eric's aunt and uncle to our house for Christmas dinner. His aunt had recently became a Christian. So happy that at least we have another relative who is also a Christian. She is my in-laws sister. I made some food for that night. Also baked the Japanese cheese cake for dessert, but it did not turnout as pretty. Taste wise, it's awesome. Hehe. Need to brush up my skills. 

Then new year was a time where we were look after the 'kid' who refused to take pain medication, and also housing a visitor from Canberra. We brought him to see the famous new year fireworks on new year eve. O my, it was sooooo chaotic! 

We went together with three other friends from our bible study. 

Unfortunately, the location where we were at was not ideal for the fireworks. Our conclusion for the night was: sitting at home watching tv for countdown, would be much more comfy than being at the site where we were. Think my brother who saw it live on tv in Perth,have a better view than us. Lol.

We were into fishing lately. So this is Eric's catch of the day on last Sunday. It was really the catch of the day! The fish got hooked within 1 second! Really. ONE SECOND! And for the rest of two hours, we caught nothing. Haha. 

Tonight, we are inviting his aunt and family over again for dinner. His cousins will be joining too. We are making vietnamese rice paper roll for dinner. Nice and easy. Hehe. Lazy me.

I hope u all have a good start to your new year too!

Kcan

Bush fire

It is the bush fire season again. But unlike previous years, this is not even Summer yet!

The air for the past few days had been choked by smoke from the BlueMountain bushfire. It had travelled ALL the way from the west to our home. Clouding the sky into red orange with roasting wood smell.

Many homes were destroyed and 1 person died trying to defend his home from the fires.

Where I am now, faces the national park. I do hope that no stupid person will be silly enough to set alight the trees anywhere in this national park. I need a bushfire plan. Apparently, no one in the house cares or worries, even thought their house were one of the few houses here in the suburb labelled to be in bushfire danger zone. *rolled eyes... is this a sign of complacency?*

So if that day really do comes one day: I will take all my essential things, packed it into my tomato, and drive out far far away.

I pray for the many people who had lost their homes and for those who are fighting hard to protect their home. I do hope that people are ready, when the time comes.

kcan

Frustrated!

Often, I always wondered why this family I married into had no brain/common sense at all.

There was this broccoli stems incidents just last week. 

MIL got freebies from her cheepo friend who is working in restaurant business. Broccoli stems.

Well, they only uses the heads in the cooking, not the stems. So what did she do? She leave them in those shopping bags and distribute to her friends when she had accumulated 'enough'. So this MIL of mine got a bag of these stems from her one day and happily 'hid' it from me by placing it in this sealed bag and placing it on the door of the fridge. She did not let me know about it till I found out one day while clearing the fridge for old veges. (I'm the one cooking now a days) 

And guess what, they had all gone BLACK! And the bag had gone wet from the moisture of the veges that some of them had wet rotten edges. 

So taking and showing her (and intend to throw it away immediately after that), 'what is this, it's bad, not good for eating. I'm going to throw it away. Next time u bring anything back, let me know.'

MIL: What, it's still ok to eat. Don't throw away. Just peel back the skin and it is still ok to eat.

Kcan: O_O but it is bad, it's gone black n rotten!

MIL: if you don't want to eat, I'll give to YiYi (aunty, her sister) 

Kcan: (wtf...)

In Chinese, there's this saying: 己所不欲，勿施于人. If you yourself does not want/desire it, do not give to others. I feel like slapping it onto her face that she should not have such evil heart to do that to others. Somewhat her little sister! (And remember the incident earlier in the year about the broken toaster?) 

In order not to get into trouble with her (trying to please her), I had to cook half of them n threw away the rest IN SECRET! 

Then yesterday, monthly called came and I was in lots of discomfort. Headache and backache. Yet I still have to cook for them while they snooze/laze away in the afternoon. I made dumplings, hoping that I can have left overs to last for a few weeks as emergency food. The SIL came to help wrap the dumplings while I made the skin from the dough. We sat there for hours, with my headache getting worst by the minute. After making each plate full of dumplings, I made sure they were pop into the fridge to freeze so I can keep them individually in bags for future use. But last night, I entrusted the task and told the steps to SIL as I am really unwell to move. (Plus my hands were all covered in dried dough) 

And after that, I was so exhausted to even clean up or check on the progress...

Behold... When I was ransacking through the freezer just then, I found this Big WHITE SOLID BLOCK.

OMG! It's the dumplings I made yesterday! That WOMAN had stuffed the unfrozen dumplings into a bag and squeezes it to a corner of the fridge. And there's two big solid bags of it! 

MAN AM I MAD!!!!!

Not only did my effort in making dumplings for the future had gone down the drain, now what the hell am I going to do with these bricks of dumplings. 

Then I had to suck it up and not show any of my anger and frustration to these people cause...'what's done already done, it is just going to make people less willing to help blah blah blah......' Eric always uses this to shut me up when trying to defend his family. WHY DO THEY NOT HAVE ANY BRAINS!!

Argh!

Then there's also the raw sea cucumber fragments that is STILL in the fridge. It had been 5 weeks since it had appeared in the fridge. For the first 3 weeks, it was left uncovered in a small bowl. Then I reminded MIL that it should be thrown away as it was uncovered n been left in the fridge for too long. 

What did she do?

She took it out from the fridge,

gave it a rinse, 

put it back in the same bowl, 

PLACE A TAKEAWAY CONTAINER ROUND LID ON TOP OF THE BOWL, 

and place it back at the same spot in the fridge. 

It's 5 weeks and ticking! I am so going to throw that away one day ...

I seriously hate living in this place.

Kcan

Long Weekend

This weekend is the labor day long weekend. It also coincides with the International Fleet review (Saturday), which marks the 100 years of Australian Navy. There are many international navy ships that sails into the Sydney harbour through last week to celebrate this event. Even the Prince Harry was here too!

The highlight of the Fleet review was the march sail pass, plane and helicopter display and fireworks!
The organisers were expecting extraordinary crowds. Therefore enforcing a 'leave your car at home' rule for anyone coming into the city.

We woke up early to set off at 9am, hoping to catch the helicopter display which Eric so wanted to see, starting at 10.45am. -_-" All along the way in the train, people were in festive mood, bringing picnics rugs, esky, outdoor chairs.... All ready to stay till late for the fireworks at 7.40pm!
We brought 3 picnic rugs, 4 vietnames bread rolls, a box of cherry tomatos, a box of Edimame beans, salted nuts and lots of water. We also brought 2 big table clothes, to act as 'scarve' against the hot afternoon sun.

We arrived to a crowded Circular Quey area, where people all lined up to enter the Opera house area. We choose an area where it faces the jetty and botanical gardens area. It was SOOO hot. The place is all concreted up and no shade at all. Under the hot midday sun, the sun rays are piercingly painful. We all hid under one umbrella. Standing behind the masses of people who were there early, we were so tiny in comparison. Cannot see anything!!! >_<
Anyhow, we later parked ourselves at an area where it is close to the toilets.

We read books, have lunch, eat snacks, make 'tent' from the table clothes... patiently waiting for things to happen.
The area we were in became an 'exclusion zone' at one point, where people who were not there from the morning could not enter. They had to stand behind a fence. While we who were there since the morning, we had the 'privilege' to remain there, as long as we don't go out of that area (apart from going to toilet). The exclusion zone was made so that all the important people can enter the opera house from the jetty. We were so excited as we thought we might even have the opportunity to meet the PRINCE!!! Unfortunately, instead of meeting the Prince, we met the delegates from all over the world that came to attend the fleet review, plus the Governor General of Australia. =( we were so sad when the trumpet blower left the jetty after the arrival of the GG.
Anyhow, the spot where we were is the perfect spot for the fireworks. Front row seat!!
Unlike normal fireworks where you see explosion after explosions of fireworks, the fireworks now is incorporate into the story of the formation of Australian Navy 100 yrs ago. There were story projected onto the sails of the Opera House and the fireworks were compliment to the scenes on it. Very educational.

The whole event ended at 8.10pm. The crowd leaving the city area was a scene one would relate to in China, where People mountain people sea will be spewing onto to the streets, towards the various bus stops and train stations. Instead of heading straight to the train station, we went to have dinner at Petaling Street restaurant. Glad that we arrived early, for the place was soon full with people arriving from watching the fireworks. We got back home at 11pm.

On Sunday, we join Eric's friend for BBQ at their place. John is the groom's man during our wedding. He invited all the coursemates from their uni days to have a gathering. Many of them are already married with little children running here n there. haha. It was a great time of catching up.

Today, sadly, Eric woke up in the early morning with tummy ache. My poor husband was in bed till almost mid day. I made chicken porridge for lunch for everyone, and he fell asleep right after that on the sofa. Just then when I went down to check on him, I found him to be a little warm.... ohmy... he's having a fever~~! 38.6degC!

So off he goes into the shower to cool him down, pop in 2 panadols, acupuncture, herbs and into the room to sleep. Hope he'll feel better soon!