Many years ago, I came across a random article in the newspaper talking about public hand dryers.  It says that there are many bacteria, etc, all things yucky in the hand dryers and we should avoid using them.  From that day onwards, I never use the hand dryers in public.  I rather wipe them on my skirt or just swat the water from my hands. LOL.  And if you notice especially man, after washing their hands, they would fuss with their hair.  That is another way to dry your hands.  Ah, hahahaha!

As always, I love the Wilton’s silicon cup.  This time, I tried to come up with a garden theme.  Love how the silicon cup compliment the cupcake so well.   The bee is made from fondant and the rest is royal icing.  So I decided to have the strawberries cut like a tulip.  And again, the food pick came in handy.

Far back is the bento for my little boy.  No bee for him as I’m afraid that will look not too manly for him and instead of using the flower silicon cup, I used the teddy bear silicon cup.

p/s:  This is a back dated bento wayyyyyyyyyy back before the Lunar New Year.  Busy writing credit report for the big bosses.

Left to right – Angel hair spagetti & prawn, sausage & cheddar cheese, baby mandarin orange.

In Cantonese Prawn is called ‘har’ which is also ‘siew har har’, that is lots of laugh.  So if you want a happy new year ahead, cook lots of prawn and make sure you eat them too!

Since I have quite a collection of girly food picks, I decided to get something more boyish for my boy.  Love this sword foodpicks very much!

Top Left to right:  Baby french beans stir fried with sweet raddish, fish ball soup.
Bottom left to right:  Fish Paste Roll.  (You can get the recipe by clicking on the link provided), white steam rice with a dash of seaweed powder

Just a quick update as I’m doing some spring cleaning and need to run down to the store to buy a new plasma mounts. Gong Xi Fah Chai to all!!!

This is a very easy and unique dish to serve during Chinese New Year.  I bought the fish paste from those who sell yong tau foo in the market.  That way, I do not have to debone the fish. You are most welcome to make your own fish paste from scrap that is including adding sesame oil, pepper and salt to it.

Ingredients:
Fish Paste
Scallion
Nori sheet
Fresh Chili or Carrot

Ingredients for egg sheets:
Egg
Pinch of salt

Method:

Mix all the ingredients together.  Chop finely scallions and chili/carrot.  I would prefer to use fresh chili as a little bit of spiciness really compliment the taste and also giving it a nice red colour but since I have little kiddos at home who doesn’t fancy chilies at all, so I opt it with carrot.

To prepare the egg sheet, for that amount of fish paste you saw, I only can make one roll meaning I only need one egg sheet.  Depending on the size of your pan but usually for 9cm pan, I only need one egg.  Beat egg in a bowl with a pinch of salt.  This is my term life insurance quotes secret of making a really thin egg sheet.  Firstly, heat up pan as usual.  Once they are hot, turn off the fire.  Pour egg into pan and swirl it so that the egg will cover evenly on the pan.  Turn on the fire again.  Let it cool.

Spread cooled egg sheet and a piece of nori sheet on a working board.  Spread fish paste evenly.

Roll tightly and steam them for about 15mins.  Once they are done, cut while they are still hot or if you prefer, let it cool down a bit so that you won’t burn your delicate fingers. Serve with Thai chili sauce.

Not very often, I had myself appear in photographs.  But this time I was quite pleased as my sifu had quite a number of my candid shot taken during our recent photography outing.  Love him for that!

Candid shot courtesy from www.kamkuey.com, taken using lens 17-35mm f2.8-4.

With this,

(This is when the live view came in handy when you can’t reach the view finder.  My first time switching it on.  Unbelievable!)

I get this:

With this,

I get this:

With this,

I get nothing. LOL!  There is no bugs on the dead tree trunk.  Just some wild  wood fungus grew on it.  Furthermore, the wood fungus doesn’t looks nice at all on macro.  It is other wise if they are mushroom.

And for some curious people like Aunty Kambing, no, I was not the only rose among thorn during the outing.  Nah, I got proof here *sticking out tongue*:

For those with school going kids and especially chinese school students, they have started extra school days on Saturday to replace CNY holiday.  Last week being the first day of school on Saturday (which I usually love), I prepare porridge/congee for the Prince who is in afternoon session.

Nothing fancy as we had the same thing for lunch at home.  We had some steam broccoli & artificial crab claw with REAL! crab claw life insurance.  Further to the back is fried omelet with tomatoes, french beans and shrimps.  And obviously, the one on the further right is porridge.

Not sure about you but I grew up eating porridge for lunch and rice for dinner.  And when I have my own family, the tradition was stuck with me.  We always had porridge for lunch and never, never had rice. lol.  Typical Foochow huh.

Date:  17 January 2010

Venue:  Taman Rimba Kiara, TTDI

Time:  Meeting time 7.30am.  Went for breakfast then adjourned to the park. Full swing was around 8.30am if I’m not mistaken.  And round up around 12noon.

Lens use:  Tamron SP90

Organizer:  Photokaki.com/forum

Other than this first photo, the rest of it was taken with Tamron SP90.  Forummers of Photokaki.com

Troops fixing up their gears getting ready for the shoot.

Custom made special flash extender.  Guess what is Andrew snooping about?

Nah, this praying mantis.

Damselfly

Macro was best to shoot at ratio 1:1.  But I notice (for my case) for example this caterpillar.  With 1:1, I can’t get the full body shot.  So half it is.

An eye opener for me.  Taking bugs shot is very different from big object.  We or rather they really look under every the leaves, in the deep bushes, examine every tree trunk, staring at the still water and many more.  But the effort really paid off once you look at the picture.  No regrets.

Final picture from the outing something that is not a bug.  I wonder what species is this?  Looks like nicotine earth worm. LOL

Things that blurted out from a 4 years old mouth.

Scenario 1

On our way back to kampung while the kids sleeping at the backseat:

Mummy:  Kharlette, since you are up we stop for you to shee-shee (passing urine) ok?

Kharlette:  *nod head*

Mummy:  If later Kor-kor (brother) wants to urine he can always urine in the (mineral water) bottle. *jokingly*

Kharlette:  *giggle* *giggle*

Mummy:  Kor-kor can shee-shee in the bottle or not? *holding up the plastic bottle*

Kharlette:  Can!

Mummy:  Daddy can shee-shee in the bottle or not?

Kharlette:  Cannot.

Mummy:  Aiks, why?

Kharlette:  Because Daddy’s penis is too big.

*ROLLING-ON-FLOOR-LAUGHING*

Scenario 2

One of the night Son gave me a good night kiss on the lips and I asked him to kiss his Baby Sister too and Kharlette said, “If he do that I’m going to use his shirt to wipe! I don’t care!” *while closing her mouth with her hands* LOL!

Isn’t this the best anti wrinkle cream in the world?

Waking up time – 5.30am
Completion time – 6.45am

I realised that Monday is the best time to pack a tricky bento after the body get a full recharged on weekend like catching up with sleep and such.  By hook or by crook, if I keep it up this way, I should be able to go back full swing on my bento.  The thing is, I’ve run out of new idea and today’s was a repeat from what I’ve posted up before.  The new stuff I made is the korean seaweed rice balls.

Top Left to right:  Sweet tamago sushi, korean seaweed rice balls
Bottom Left to right:  Stuffed kamaboko, baby tomatoes

For Him & For Her

Let’s talk a bit about schooling hours and I’ll bitch on the modern furniture they have in the next post.  For people like us who left school almost 18 years ago, we are shock (or rather I am shocked!) to learned that school nowadays start as early as 7.15am. During our time, school starts at 7.45am! LOL!  I didn’t know this as all these while, my children is in the afternoon session and I am still adjusting to my new routine.  Even driving to school in the wee hour of morning is a big challenge to me as the sky is still dark outside and I’m the type that can’t do night driving. Oh, don’t even talk about waking up!  After the 2nd day of school, I started to hit the snooze button.