the year 2012

almost a year since i was last here and a lot has happened since then. here's a recap to the year 2012 in random order.

i assisted in cooking my first turkey ever.. of course with chef father-in-law and i have to say it turned out mighty fine. defrosting that 5 kilo bird was painful. it took 24 hours to defrost, marinated overnight, about 2 hours prep and another 3 hours and 45 minutes to cook. but it was definitely worth it. the meat was juicy and tasty and of course we had heaps of food. it's may not be my first home cooked christmas but it's a first traditional one with turkey and all.

after much travelling back and fro home to kl, the hubby and i managed to end up in new york this year; all in 2 weeks planning and luckily enough flew out a couple of days just before hurricane sandy hit. as expected, loved the city and everything about it - the lights, the late nights, the atmosphere... everything. i manage to catch up with friends i haven't seen in a decade and now everytime i watch a movie shot in new york, i scream "new york!!". someone's gonna get sick of me eventually >_<

the beginning of the year was a bit of a whirlwind. started with ups and downs. some downs too private to share and some downs turning into ups. there was the difficulty in selling our apartment but yet we were able to buy the house we wanted and surprisingly it all worked out. the hubby and i always grateful that although we may not be the rich, but we're lucky in what matters and that we do live comfortable lives.

i turned the big 3-0 this year with no major parties since the hubby was overseas. i did however get a very belated surprise giant birthday cupcake when he came back. and when i say surprise i mean surprise considering i starting singing along to the birthday song not realising that it was for me.

became the proud housewife when i made tong yuen (glutinous rice balls) from scratch for the winter solstice. not that i wasn't the proud housewife before ... but seeing it was so pretty and something different from the everyday house cooked dinners i couldn't help but beam in happiness. one step closer to being a stepford wife. hahahahaha .. that's never gonna happen!

i got the chance to overcome my slight fear of go-karting and now go full throttle without that thought stuck in my head that i will overturn at corners. now i just need to learn to cut the corners right. *evil grin*

dyed my hair purple... then pink. welcomed a few cute adorable babies into the world, non of which are mine of course and built more lego this year than i have ever built in my life. this year flew by so quickly i didn't even have time to blog about it. now to bring on the new year!

happy new year!

another candle blown...

seafood paella

harajuku - green tea gelato, red bean, glutinous balls & black jelly on crushed ice

my poor birthday boy is sick on his birthday. poor thing, it must suck :(  it's probably from the jet lag and the fact that we had such a busy weekend - wedding the whole of saturday (post coming soon), the exciting of fast cars on sunday plus his birthday dinner. last night we headed to the spanish restaurant encasa for dinner since we had some friends from overseas here to attend the wedding. i never really know what to expect when trying a new restaurant but i have to say ... the ambiance is pretty good. it was completely packed but thank goodness they were nice enough to move us to a bigger table when that booking didn't arrive. we ordered different types of tapas, seafood paella and of course sangria. next stop, passion flower for old times sake where i pretty much od-ed on 3 types of dessert. tired D very loudly ask "who's birthday is it?" when little surprise candle on a little cake was for brought out for him. poor confused boy >_<

without the "yee sang"

 

you can never have too many chinese new year dinners. although we didn't manage to get any yee sang, there was plenty of food. i am proud to say that my steam prawns were tasty (to me) though it was my first time making it and we had a very nice prawn peeler in clara >_<

 

 

 

the highlight of the night was dessert made by kei. it's weird to pronounce to obviously i don't remember what it is called -_- not only were we all so intrigued while he put the dessert together, we were politely fighting for the extra plates. that couple will definitely be invited for dinner anywhere *grin*

oh and you can't forget the cny cookies that alex brough back.... *happy happy* this is all i get :(

i like aeroplane jelly, aeroplane jelly for me!

every now and then we make heaps of aeroplane jelly coz D loves it and we always end up buying heaps when they're on special. so today, after having the jelly packs in our pantry even before moving to our new place, we finally decide to make use of 6 packs out of the 13 packs we had.



now i never knew about aeroplane jelly till i got here. D on the other hand remembers the jingle from when he was a kid...

i like aeroplane jelly, aeroplane jelly for me
i like it for dinner, i like it for tea
a little each day is a good recipe!
the quality's high, as the name will imply
it's made from pure fruit - one more good reason why
i like aeroplane jelly, aeroplane jelly for me!

this is the 1956 ad the D remembered watching a long time ago....



it's really easy to make. each pack is mixed with 250ml of boiling water & 200ml of cold water and put it into the fridge for 4 hours and it's ready to eat. *yum* :D

we're gonna have plenty of dessert to last us more than a week....