the very unexpected surprise

i'm not very good at surprises; obviously this hasn't changed. so this year for my other half, i didn't do much planning until the very last minute... coz i do feel bad for not planning anything. all i told him was, we're having dinner the weekend after your birthday with some friends. there.. i've organised something. but what's the fun when there's not surprise? i decided to come home with a birthday banner, add some balloons, cook him something different for dinner and pretended i felt bad for not organising anything at all. prior to that i also ended up giving him a small surprise birthday present a day early (again) -_- but that's not the end of it...i had everyone come over to surprise him with a small cake session and boy was he surprised! hahaha actually it's only because i got lucky this birthday - he fell asleep on the couch which gave everyone a chance to sneak in and scream at him 'happy birthday!!!#$%#^#@#!' .. yes scream. it was a good thing no one was too close to him or it would be the first time someone got hurt during a birthday.

and just like always, at the end of the night, we're all hooked onto some new game someone has introduced us too and the worst bit? we're playing on our phones/ipads with the same people in to room o_O thanks everyone for coming though it wasn't really well planned and i'm sure you all enjoyed seeing D's very SHOCKED face.

dinner 11020608

when G's hungry, he climbs up onto our dinner chairs to remind us to feed him 

ever so often i try cooking a new dish for dinner. and every time i do that, i worry that it will taste bad and everyone will be stuck with a bad dinner. so to ensure they at least have something that they will eat, i try to make one dish that i know will for sure be tasty i.e the super unhealthy potato salad >_< the other problem i have with cooking is that i never taste my food before serving it which i know is terrible coz then i won't know if i'm missing anything. ah well..... nothing you can't add a little bit of salt to. hahaha last night i tried oven baking bread crumbed pork chops. probably healtier but the bread crumbs weren't crispy; either that or i made it wrong -_- at least the boys didn't complain and they looked like they really enjoyed their dinner. no one had a tummy ache so alls well *grin*

movie - unknown

my in-laws are in town for a week to attend J's graduation. and last night was something i hadn't done in a while; watch a movie with parents. the last time i watched a movie with my parents was to see titanic and it was in one of those old cinemas. not gsc, not tgv.... i think it was in the old paramount cinema at old town pj. clearly a very long time ago. i've come to the conclusion that as long as D doesn't guess the ending of a movie, it a good one. unknown is one of those films you come up with so many conclusions and still don't get it right. no clues, no hints and then they explain everything. it's a movie worth watching..

australia day 2011

it was a super hot australia day and we were invited to what aussie's love to do most, a bbq. if they had it their way it was be a bbq on the beach. so anyways... it started at 11am, we got there at 1pm >.< .....hey! it was a day off work and we wanted to sleep in and spend some time with G since he would be at home alone the rest of the day... most of them had finished eating by the time we got there with the chicken and potato salad. we didn't have to have lamb coz the fella who brought lamb finished it before we arrive. hehe well that's what the host said.

we laughed so hard playing charades and cranium..... where i found out that i suck big time at guessing multiple choice questions ( coz we couldn't choose the longest answer anymore; also probably why my grades weren't all that good O_O) and we figured out an obscene ways to describe "man". some high and low points from andy were:

the good: we know what trucculent, yipps and egree mean
the bad: some of us should start watching the simpsons
the ugly: some people can't do a charade for jurassic park, some people who are tone deaf should not be allowed to hum "umbrella" by rihanna and line dancing and lion dancing are 2 different things.....

it was hilarious! i also met an old friend i hadn't seen in ages. for dinner, it was round two bbq! *grin* oh and did i mention that while i was there, only clara was the cook? what happen to the men??? tsk tsk tsk

anniversary pancakes

we finally celebrated an anniversary. previously we had either realised too late or remembered a day or two too early and forgot on the day itself. we've accepted the fact that we have two anniversaries - the day we signed our papers and the day we announced it to the world. D's such a sweetheart, he sent me a text during work that made me smile to myself like an idiot and tonight, he made me pancakes for dinner...... honey, i'll love you long long time!

food: clems

alex and JD have been telling us about this awesome chicken place call clems at newtown. it's not the kinda place you order and have a sit in dinner, it probably more comfortable to tapau (takeaway) and eat in the comfort of your own home. last weekend, we finally have a chance to try it and ooooooo it was yummy. it wasn't of course only the fact that we were starving since it was almost 10pm but i swear the fried chicken was as good as kfc!!



we had left the order to alex & justin and talk about overkill, plenty of fried chicken, roast chicken, mushrooms and potatoes, egg salad, potato salad and seafood salad. they also gave us a cold sandwich and some extra buns. we had so much leftover that we had it for lunch and still have extras for dinner. oh but it was sooo good so... we are having it again tonight for dinner!! can't wait....^_^

clems chicken shop
crn king & brown streets
newtown nsw 2042
02 9519 6000

oh... and i've been lucky enough to have it brought over to our place so i've never been there. don't ask me for directions k.... :D

birthday fun part 2.

i had 2 cakes this time. they had bought me the most delicious rich tempered soft white chocolate cake from guylian and oooooo it just melts in your mouth. it was so soft the candles wouldn't stand straight on it. poor clara had to hold the candles until the boys finally came to the table. it did stay up long enough for the to sing me a song :)

it was a pretty easy going day. slept in as we normally do on weekends, ate lunch and we headed to test drive a car D wanted. yes.. it's almost as if he was buying me a car for my birthday. hehehe







we went to home thai for dinner and the food was absolutely yummy. the pork dish we ordered was.... omg so good, it was so good we ordered TWO! oh and i think we ordered almost every dessert on the menu. the cool part about the place? they use ipads when they place your orders and have LV pouches to hold them in. we were like o_O !! we also had this bunch of people sitting next to our table that kept eyeing our food. in fact they actually tapped clara on the shoulder to ask her what the dishes we ordered were. we didn't really mind it but it was kinda uncomfortable that they kept staring at our table and POINTING.  tsk.tsk. so we thought get them to take a group picture for us since we've been so nice. we ended up having to do the same for them -_-





it was after cake cutting where the craziness began. we finally had a chance to play our lego pictionary since we were in a group. it was me, D & clara in a team and alex, jd & justin in another. we did cheat a lil considering we were making stupid sounds to explain what we were trying to build. we laughed until our jaws hurt, realised that alex and jd are on the same wave length and justin created a way for us to identify how to build animals :D i can't believe we were up pretty much all night and had mackers breakkie before heading to bed at 6am. i definitely haven't done this in a while.....

thanks for all the birthday fun! please come back and help finish the cakessssss......

xoxo



 

 

 

nia can cook

well sort off... i'm learning new dishes from the internet. it's pretty much what we want to eat but lazy to go restaurant so figure out how to make it at home :D today is the first try i attempted to steam a whole fish. it wasn't hard except for the fact i was trying to put a fish almost the same size as the pot INTO the pot. i had the most ridiculously difficult time trying to take out the cooked fish but.... tadah!! steam snapper with soy sauce & spring onions!



the meat was actually still fluffy. not bad for my first try..... next fish - teochew steam fish (the one with salted vege and stuff) just have to figure the ingredients.

a new dish

tonight i tried a new dish i learnt from nigella (the british cook) on TV. i love watching her cook, she makes everything look so easy and it actually is! if you have the ingredients of course...



this is my attempt at chorizo & scallops. it's sooooo easy. fry the chorizo, remove from pan and chuck in the scallops and fry with chorizo's oil. soooo simple and tasty!!



the pasta salad is from coles and garlic bread is ready made - just had to chuck it into the oven. as usual, cook too much food which means we have lunch tomorrow :) awesome!

forgot AGAIN!

it was our 2nd year anniversary two days ago since we signed our lives to each other.... and guess what? it's the 2nd time we sort of forgot >.< hahaha i had this nagging thought in my head for the past week thinking i was meant to remember something then it hit me today.. OMG our anniversary was on monday! *bleed* what's the worst part?? my dinner sucked big time on monday o_O



this was what happened last year. click here

our conversation when i emailed him earlier today...

"happy belated anniversary! hahaha i just realised it 2 days past our anniversary!"
"YAHH!! somemore i remembered last Friday but forgot on Sunday Night. So what are we going to do this year?"
"at least you remembered earlier....i kept thinking there was something this month but couldn't figure out what. haha somemore bak kut teh dinner fail on Monday! haha bad shapes....need to do anything wan meh?? R u finally going to take me out for a candlelit dinner? hahah i think rather spend the money on shopping :p we buy new coffee table to celebrate! haha"
"hahahah new coffee table"

when he came home he told me he didn't want to set a reminder on his calendar in case i saw it. he wanted to wish me first.....and then he forgot ^_^ at least he tried. we'll soon find out if we get a new coffee table this weekend......

Happy Belated Anniversary sayang... may we have many many more to forget in the future :D

xoxo

today's dinner - baked pasta & deep fried asparagus

i've never really been one for experimenting new food. i'm a the type that sticks to what i know. if i was testing a new dish during dinner, i would normally make sure that there is 1 dish that we would both enjoy for sure. today for some reason, our whole meal was experimental. *shocked*



i always thought that pasta bakes would be faster and easier than making normal pasta, dunno why.... but i was wrong. it felt like i had cooked everything and still had to wait for it to be baked -_- well definitely worth the wait with extra fried bacon toppings.... yum!



people who know me know i don't fancy vege. eat it only coz i have to. D pretty much eats most vege and asparagus is one thing he like *blekkkk* we happen to have a bunch in the fridge and i figure if i never cook it'll just rot. so i googled and picked a recipe that was simple and thought that i would eat it..



yeah.. took a bite and left the rest of the plate to him >.< who would have thought finally something deep fried i didn't like.. hehe again my terrible estimation means we have plenty for lunch tomorrow. :)