I love salad

Especially those that I made on my own. Hehe!

My first attempt of home-made salad was on Friday night. I bought a recipe book recently and I have only tried one out that night. I actually improvished the recipe a bit to suit my taste. Hehe!

 Here is my first attempt of salad.

The ingredients include chicken fillet, cherry tomato, celery and mixed veggie. The dressing was one tablespoon of white wine vinegar, one tablespoon of honey, basil leaves, mayonnaise and a little bit pepper. My darling said it was yummy. It was my first time using white wine vinegar and I was surprised I quite like it. The smell from the vinegar was very strong at first. He was saying it smells like rubbish bin but surprisingly it tasted very good together with the rest of the ingredients.

 This white wine vinegar really can do wonders…and this is the cheapest I can get from Bangsar Village…I didn’t know vinegar such as this can be priced up to RM50 or more. So expensive.

 Here is my second attempt today…

Same dressing but different ingredients. Chicken fillet, carrot, potato and Japanese Edamme. My darling was surprised that I could come out with such combination. Hehe! I just searched the fridge and took out whatever I could find to put into the salad. I felt it was quite good despite that you might find this combination odd. Hehe!

I’m beginning to like making salad as it’s the easiest meal and it’s supposed to be healthy food. Right? Next, I would want to try egg salad. Hehe!

 

Reunion Dinner

This is my second year having reunion dinner at my in-law’s house. We had steamboat last year. For this year, my father-in-law made BBQ plus steamboat dinner. The BBQ food were delicious. No need for me to say so much. Photos time.

 Preparing the equipment…

  The food…

 More food…

 My sister-in-law and father-in-law in action…

 Don’t you agree these look yummy? They were indeed.

Simple dinner…small family…plenty of food…the best I ever hope for…Hehe!

 

Food Party

We went to my lady boss’s house party last night. We had abundant of good food and good company. We had long chat with colleagues (both current and ex-) while enjoying variety of both home cooked food and catered food.

 

 My lady boss is a very talented cook. She cooked the turkey and ‘nasi kuning’ with chicken curry. The top hat was done by my immediate boss. She’s another talented cook too.

 The yam cake by the same immediate boss. The nice yummy ‘agar-agar’ by another talented colleague who loves to bake. She baked a very nice green tea cheese cake but unfortunately we forgot to take photos. Too hungry. Hehe!

 My favorite ’satay’…

 The dessert corner…

We had more food that not in photos, unfortunately. My lady boss invites us almost every year to her house for such party. How I wish we have these more often…haha!

 

Tanjong Jara Resort – The Food

Here are all the yummy yummy food…

Lunch at The Nelayan (1st day)

  Let see the menu for lunch…

 Chicken burger…my darling’s meal…

 Fish fritters and chips…

Dinner at the Di Atas Sungei (1st night)

 First time eating bun with chili sauce for starter…

 Tom yam chicken soup for appetizer…

 Main course – chicken with dried chili…very local…

 Fried fish in soya sauce…

 The best brocolli with garlic I ever tasted…

 The best dessert ever…yummy…banana souffle…

Breakfast at Di Atas Sungei (2nd day)

 Very healthy breakfast started with fruit

 Pancakes for my darling

 Omelette for me…

Lunch at The Nelayan (2nd day)

 Very yummy satay…

 Not so yummy spaghetti…but I love the blue plate…so cute…

 Very yummy fried mee according to my darling…although a bit salty…

 Keropok lekor…

Dinner at Di Atas Sungei (2nd night)

 Starter for dinner…couldn’t get enough of stay…hehe…

 Spring rolls…

 TJR specialty chicken…

 Beef rendang…

 Dessert time…chocolate lava cake…

 

Sunday lunch

I cooked lunch last Sunday. It was quite a last minute decision as initially my darling had plan to go out. Anyway, here’s what I prepared:

Chicken fillet…cut and marinated with salt.

Yellow pepper and onion…chopped by my darling. Not bad heh! He he!

Black pepper sauce…just add water.

The outcome…black pepper chicken with dry noodle.

Served with my best soup…old cucumber with carrot and tomato.

Ready to serve. They are yummy but the black pepper sauce is super hot. Probably I should improvise next time. Hehehe!

 

Tom Yam Steamboat

We had great steamboat last Friday. My darling was telling me that he was so satisfied with the food and asked to do it again next time. Hehe!

The Tom Yam soup I made…a very simple one…

His favorite veggie…long cabbage

‘Kangkung’…our favorite…

All the other food for the steamboat…

Not forgetting our favorite drink…it’s really cool us down with all those tom yam…

All these may not be many but we were so full that we didn’t eat any noodle with it. We also couldn’t finish the long cabbage, surprisingly and I thought we could eat all and more.

All in all, we had a great steamboat at our home for the first time. Haha!

 

Peaceful mind and body

Recently, I’m feeling lethargic, failed to concentrate and feeling a lot of negativity around myself. My mind rarely relaxes although I did nothing at all. I know something is not right and I have failed to remedy it. Making my mood even worst. I seldom talk in the office as my mind is full of unorganised thoughts. My colleagues have just commented about my silence state the other day. Although I blog more and probably chat even more online, deep inside me I realise I’m not as well as I’m used to. I just don’t feel good.

To ease my concern, I have started researching more about yoga and the way to be healthy. I learn that I have got it all wrong. I thought that learning yoga and perfecting asana or having the ability to do a certain pose, I would eventually be healthier and fitter. The truth is yoga is not just that. It’s much more than that. Breathing is important and I have learnt a bit about that in my yoga class. However, I find that I always fail to breathe correctly, meaning shallow breathing and sometimes I would forget to breathe too. Hence come my tense state of mind and eventually body. Later I found that to achieve a peaceful mind and body, yoga asana and pranayama (breathing) are still not enough. I will need to follow a yogic diet.

The purest diet in yoga is called Sattvic food which consists all the usual healthy stuff that we all know. Cereals, wholemeal bread, fresh fruit and vegetable, pure fruit juices, milk, cheese and butter, legumes, nuts, seeds, sprouted seeds, honey and herbs tea. Of all the following, I think I only manage to consume 10% of the mentioned in my diet. Pretty bad, hor? What to do? I dislike cereals and nuts and milk. I know I should eat more of this Sattvic food but it’s hard for me. Really have to force myself to eat them. Sigh!

Rajasic and Tamasic food are categorised as bad food in yoga. These are the food that I normally consume, unfortunately. Rajasic food is hot, sour, bitter, dry and salty. Sharp spices, strong herbs and stimulants such as coffee and tea, fish, eggs and chocolate are Rajasic too. Apparently, eating in hurry is consided Rajasic in yoga. Rajasic food feeds the body but promote activities hence making the mind and body restless. On the other hand, Tamasic food induces heaviness of the body and dullness of the mind. Tamasic food includes meat, alcohol, tobacco, onions, garlic, fermented foods such as vinegar, stale or overripe substances. Overeating is Tamasic in yoga.

So you see, my diet always consists of spicy and salty food. Coffee and tea cannot run away from my diet. I rarely eat fresh fruits which I know it’s my bad. Eggs every other morning. Alcohol sometimes as I love wine. Onions and garlic are main ingredients whenever I cook. So how? No wonder my mind is never peaceful, right? My diet is all wrong but I couldn’t do much about it. Unless I start a new resolution to follow yogic diet. Unless I have all the determination and will power. Sighhhh! In reality, there’s no unless. Sighhhhhh!!!!!!!

 

Adorable and yummy

Do you like my new header? She’s our pet daughter, Michi. It’s so hard to take her photos as she’s very shy and turned her head away whenever she saw her papa with a black color thingy a.k.a. the camera. We got a few nice shots of her with my darling’s DSLR using the macro lens.

Isn’t she adorable? Can you see the emotion in her eyes? She’s like trying to tell us something. If only she could talk, right? Hehe! She’s all we have now after the disaster that happened to my another pet daughter. I still miss her. Sigh!

For the yummy part, of course, it’s not about Michi in any way. We can’t eat her, can we? Yikss….Anyway, I just want to share the simple food I made a few weeks back.

These were our breakfast one Saturday. Egg mayo sandwiches, mushroom soup and orange juice. Not bad huh??? Hehe! All photos are taken by my darling with his DSLR with macro lens.

 

Island Bistro

After the dinner, my darling and I met up with my two sister-in-laws and we went for a drink. We went to Pavillion and finally settled at Island Bistro.

 Never tried this wine before. We had nearly half bottle. Hehe! Really enjoyed ourselves.

Photos by my darling. Quite art too. Hahaha! Sorry that I was drunk that day. Did you take advantage, darling? Hehehe!

 

Dinner at Eden

My company annual event was at Eden Restaurant on 23 August 2008. It’s my first time attending the company annual dinner as all these past years, we had company trips instead. I had organised the company event many times in the past years but I gave up totally when they asked I to organise again this year. It’s time for the new staff to do it. We are in need of new ‘blood’ for organising such event. So this year, we have new staff did it indeed. They are all very good. Creativity A1. Commitment A1. Teamwork A1 Plus. Hehe!

Even though I was not the committee at first, I received a lot of demand to help out the event. So at the end, I had become the advisor instead. The event was considered a success with most of the staff presented. Our theme this year is Red Fiesta, so we tried our best to dress as red as possible. I’m sure everyone of us had a great time with all the games, lucky draw, singing and of course the food. Our game master, Mr Au Yong and Mr Jeff are the best. They are extremely talented. I’m glad our company has such talents. I’m looking forward to the event next year, which I’m hoping they will become the committee again. Haha!

The buffet line.

I have been dreaming of having ‘ais-kacang’ for some times. Yahoooo!

‘Sago melaka’…I didn’t try it coz there were so many other food I fancied. Hehe!

Photo courtesy of my colleague cum photographer, Mr Tham.

For lucky draw, I got second prize. Hooray! It’s a Canon Power Shot camera and Jaya Jusco voucher worth RM50. I was so near to getting first prize which was Phuket trip for 2 persons worth RM1000. Sigh! I guess I was lucky but not lucky enough. Hehe! I have planned to give the camera to my mum as I have my own Sony camera already. I’m sure my mum will be very happy. Hehe!

For game, at least our table won one, Musical Vest. Since we are engineering consultancy firm, our games tend to be quite ‘engineer’. Two representatives of each table came up to the stage. When the song started, each one would have to wear the vest, take it off and pass to the next. When the song stopped, whoever still has the vest will be asked a question about the company. Of course the whole team (all the members in the table) would help to answer. If they answered correctly, they could choose the representatives who were standing at either sides of the person. My darling was one of the representative from our table. I guess we were lucky that he was the last two left and the other person failed to answer the question correctly, which made us winner of the game. But we did prove that we know the company a lot as we managed to answer most of the questions. Yeah, we were the winner. Haha! Here is our prize:

Creative idea, right? In conjunction with Olympics. We were so happy and excited to get our medal on the stage. Totally felt like a winner. Haha!