Saturday, June 27, 2009

How Would You Like Your Cookies To Look Like?

Enough of cakes, it's time for cookies. I am never good with cookies. The dough I make is always wet and soft, the cookies cutouts always stuck on the working surface. But it never stop me from trying :)

First I tried the doggie cookies again as Charlotte took an "order" from her friend in school. I made it with Horlicks this time and I love this version better than the Milo version. It looked better with the color contrast, it also tasted better.



The little bottles were for Charlotte's friends in school :)

Then I tried a new butter cookies recipe and when I was just preparing the dough I found it was a little dry than usual. So I thought this should be it as I always got it too wet and too soft. As I was rolling out the dough, it started to crack here and there :( I had to make the cutouts really carefully and transferring it from the working surface to the baking tray. I was harder than I thought but it worked!



It looked nice, tasted great but still need a little bit of practise on working with the dough :)

Friday, June 26, 2009

It's Just A Matter of Time

Pat and I love durian. In our younger days, it was never too much for us. I would be very surprise to know if Charlotte doesn't carry this taste bud with her.

I tried giving it to Charlotte last year but she didn't quite like it. A couple of taste of it later she called it off. I remembered some of my friend's child (same age as Charlotte) was already enjoying it. I was really wondering how could her taste buds be so different.

It's durian season now and especially in Penang we get to enjoy a wide variety of grades of durian and good quality too. I bought my first batch 2 weeks back and I asked if Charlotte would like to try it. I was mentally prepared that she might not take a lot of it since her taste of food is rather conservative. To my surprise, she LOVED it! I had to control her not to take too many this time as the weather is not good. The next day, she even had it with rice as her lunch!

I bought it again this week and managed to snap a few precious moment of her enjoying the king of fruits...


She was not worried of getting her hands dirty too (Normally she gave up the food if it makes her hands or mouth dirty)! She does inherited our love for durian too :)

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Unforgetable Father's Day


Last Friday Charlotte came home with 2 little tokens for daddy. Her school had helped the children to prepare something for all the fathers. In the lunch box (on daddy's hand) it was a sushi made by Charlotte (with teacher's assistance) and a fancy handmade ornament.

It was a tough day for daddy and I was glad that Charlotte's gesture put a little smile on daddy's face.

We will never forget this day. When the time is right I will post about what had happened.

Happy Father's Day, Pat!

Thursday, June 18, 2009

Yummy Chocolate Swirl Frozen Cheesecake

I have been baking almost every week lately, mostly improving my skills on some of the old recipes that I (and my family members) really love. Occasionally, I also try new recipes but only on those that really interest me, just like the cheddar cheese cake (I can't mention enough of this).

This week, I made my husband's favorite frozen cheesecake again with chocolate swirl. I did this a couple of weeks back for a family gathering but I forgot to take a picture. So I made it again just for the picture library and shared it with friends.



I tried to swirl with Ribena before, it tasted great but the color contrast wasn't very good because I didn't put enough amount of Ribena to make the purple color stands out. The last chocolate swirl that I made was not quite successful either as I had the chocolate portion to much and instead of making a swirl the whole cake almost looked like a chocolate cheesecake.

I think I did it alright this time although the patterns are still not to my satisfactory.

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Before Holiday Ended

After Seremban, it was KL but nothing much to blog about as it was mostly a shop and eat trip and I don't have many pictures to share but one that I cannot miss out.

Charlotte's KorKor (Pat's sister) promised her this dress (Bell's dress from Beauty & The Beast) on our last trip to KL and since then Charlotte had been asking for it. Every time Pat went and came back KL she will ask why daddy didn't bring it home. She asked when we left home for this trip, it took her 2 days waiting and looking forward to it. This was when her patience paid off...!


We stopped in KL for a couple of days and next stop, Cameron Highlands! Unfortunately, the day before we depart for Cameron the hotel called to inform us that they were having water disruption and there was no promise if it would be back to normal by the time we check-in. We gave it a thought and only after a fair consideration of convenience and hygiene, we called off the Cameron trip.

We were back home 2 days earlier than schedule. It was a good thing because I had to help Charlotte finish up her homework before school starts again I myself get a couple assignment from her form teacher too. Will talk about that in separate post.

This was a very good holiday trip, Charlotte was behaving very well, ate well, slept well, played well, and even pooped well :) What more can I ask ;)




Friday, June 12, 2009

Holidays Mean "Out Of Town"!

Right after the Penang Hill trip, we had 2 consecutive nights of dinner gathering with family and friends. Which also means, I didn't have to cook dinner for 2 nights *big grin* but I made a chocolate swirl frozen cheesecake and another cheddar cheese cake for each of the occasion and the guests loved it!

We headed for Seremban on Saturday morning, the car boot was already 95% full when we leave the house, can you imagine how overloaded was it when we came home? Anyway, we met up with family members, had a nice hotel stay, good food, great catch up, everybody just had a lot of fun.

We brought along Charlotte's scooter and she had a big show-off at the park on the first evening there at Seremban.


Then we saw there was a big field where a lot of people were flying kites there. Charlotte had been asking for kite flying for the longest time but because we couldn't really find the right moment to make it happen for her it was still on the to-do list. So we thought that was just the great timing to make it happen and we went ahead to get her another kite (we didn't bring along one) and one for her cousin Christopher. It was daddy's job to make it "fly" but it wasn't that easy, some more Charlotte chose a big kite! Daddy was sweating just trying to get it up in the sky...


We had to catch the wind and only after several attempts and finally her kite flew up in the sky! But the wind only lasted for a short while and soon the sky turned dark. We had to call it off and head out for dinner. Lucky thing was Charlotte had her kite flew high but not Christopher. She was quite contented and willing to leave the park but poor Christopher was crying and throwing quite a big tantrum at that (the boy in this picture is Christopher).


Charlotte actually did a great job in keeping her kite flying up high...

I don't know what happened on the way to the restaurant as we went in different cars, Christopher was back to his normal self again when we met again at the restaurant, phew! We called it a night after a that big great dinner, it was almost 11pm when we returned to the hotel rooms.

I was surprised that everybody came to this trip very well prepared. I secretly prepared Charlotte’s swim suits thought just in case there will be a swimming session at the hotel but to my surprise others also brought along tennis rackets and stuffs. The next morning, before checking out the hotel younger children (mainly Charlotte and Christopher la) were going to swim at the hotel pool, Charlotte’s other cousins and uncles were playing a tennis game while the rest of the adults continued to chit chat at their convenience.



Charlotte shows her improvement in swimming, she was able to move or "swim" quite quickly across the pool when we put her on the float! Once again, Christopher was throwing tantrum at the pool side, he wanted to get into the water and swim like Charlotte but he was afraid of water! We tried to hoax him, gave him the float but still he was afraid and yet frustrated because he couldn't play in the pool like Charlotte. We had to leave him sitting by the poolside with his mommy. We checked out the hotel after a good shower.

Next stop, KL!!!

When Holiday Started...

Movie was just a warming up, we had a lot of planned agenda ahead. First, it was a visit to Penang Hill with Ching Ern and Yan. Charlotte's first trip to Penang Hill was in Aug 2007 (how time flies), I didn't think she would forget about it until I asked her when we were at the foot hill. I should have shown her the pictures before we left for the trip but because I was worried about what if the plan didn't turn out (raining or some other reasons) I didn't tell her about it until we were about to leave the house that morning.

I am always amazed how kids get connected almost instantly and they are so sincere to their friends. Ern and Charlotte hit it off almost instantly, it took a little time for Yan to warm up but very soon they are like good friends for ages! They played together, sang together, ran about together, making funny pose together...



We had light lunch at the David Brown's Restaurant and Tea Terrace, by the time we left it was almost 2.30pm! It was way past Charlotte's nap time and she just snoozed off while we were still taking the cable car down. She slept all the way home, I purposely took a longer route and drove at slower speed so that she could catch up with her nap before reaching home.

It was a fun adventure, thanks to Auntie Wooi Sin and Auntie Cheah Wei for making it happened! Check out what Ching Ern says about this trip here...