Weekend Menu #37: Happy birthday, Mister!

It is darling hubby's birthday today.  Since it is a working day, we celebrated his birthday a day earlier yesterday.  My dad invited us to dinner last night for double birthday celebration.  My god-brother's birthday fall yesterday so we have his family together with ours for a Chinese dinner in Courtyard Restaurant, Jalan Petanak.

So I cooked lunch at home yesterday.  Ala Western.  Pan-fried lamb shoulder, mashed potatoes and egg and cherry tomatoes salad. 

Pan-fried lamb shoulder

I marinated the lamb shoulders with salt, black pepper and worcestershire sauce for an hour.  Then pan-fry them for few minutes till the shoulders were done.  Keep the juices from all those frying for its sauces.

Lamb steak sauce

Chopped few cloves of garlic and sliced 2 shallots.  Chopped 1-2 celery stalks and a carrot.  Heat up a wok and add 2 tbsp oil.  Added garlic and shallots into the wok and saute till fragrant before add celery and carrot with the juices from the lamb earlier.  After the vegetable almost cooked, add some water.  Let it simmers.  Then added 1 tbsp of butter, 1 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp oyster sauce and dashes of black pepper.  Let it simmer for 1-2 minutes then sieve the sauces into a bowl.  Spooned few spoons of sauce onto the lamb shoulder before serve.  As for the vegetables, you can eat them or keep for other vegetable dish.

Cherry tomatoes and eggs salad

Washed the cherry tomatoes and lettuces.  Chopped the lettuces into small pieces.  Sliced the boiled 2 eggs. Added cherry tomatoes, lettuces and eggs into a bowl.  Added few tbsp of extra virgin olive oil, few dashes of black vinegar and few pinch of salt.  Mixed well and chilled before serving.

Mashed potatoes

Peeled and cut potatoes before add into a boiled water in a pot.  Added 1 tsp of salt into the boiled water.  Let the potatoes cooked till it is soften.  Took the potatoes out from the hot water and slowly mashed the potatoes with fork.  Add 2 - 3 tbsp butter, half cup of low fat milk and few pinches of salt into the mashed potatoes. Depends on how you want your mashed potatoes to be.  Mixed them well.

Our ala Western lunch for the birthday man! 

After our dinner last night in Petanak, we went back to MJC to discover the whole MJC in the dark.  That was before 9pm.  Luckily we have our dinner without any interruption in Courtyard Restaurant but nearby shops were blackout.   

So we had to drive and stop by H&L in 3rd Miles to get some candles and a touchlight.  What a way to celebrate hubby's birthday.  In the dark with candle light and hubby played his guitar.  The electricity only came back around 11pm. 

This morning around 8.10am, again no electricity in MJC.  Some areas also affected but it was not that bad compared to last night which almost the entire Kuching was affected.

Nevertheless, Happy birthday to darling hubby!  With loves from your dearest.

That is me!

How I am going to enjoy my Saturday night!!  Perfect!  Loving it!

More food

We have an early night last night as we attended my girl's graduation concert in MBKS which started at 7pm.  When we reached there around 6.25pm, the auditorium was packed with family members of the students.

So yesterday I cooked dinner early.  SIL came on Thursday night and brought some okana (black olives) from Sibu.  Since hubby loves okana, I soaked some okana in hot water and add a spoonful of sugar and few dashes of black soy sauce on the cooked okana.

I fried some fish pieces I bought from the MJC market.  And cooked pork belly with sour mustard and stir fried small cabbages.  I think I overcooked because we cannot finished all the dishes.  So going to eat them again for lunch today.  Lol!

After her graduation night, my girl complained she was hungry.  Must be too much dancing from her.  So we went to one of the coffee shops in MJC and had our kolo mee supper.  By then it was almost 1030pm.

Everyone was tired and after a warm shower both kids and hubby dozed off while I did some last minute packing for kids' holiday. 

Woke up before 5am this morning, because the kids' flight is around 7.10am.  After sending them off together with the kids' aunt, hubby and I went for our breakfast in McD which opens around 6.30am. 

We tried to sleep but our neighbour was doing some works and make so much noise that we hardly can sleep.  Well, maybe we are going to have an early night tonight. 

They're killing me!

Aaaarrgggghhh!!

This has been going for 2 days and I do know how long I can stand them!  The noise and dust!  Gosh!

There are some major works to the escalator right in front of my shop.  Shifting the direction of the escalator so now it is full of dust and noise (from the tiling works and dismantling of escalator) for the rest of the week over here. A big hole was dug up to the basement to accommodate the new escalator route.  They even do works at night, so the noise is so overwhelming not to mention the dust because they do not bother to cover the area.  I placed my 2 kids in my parents' house last night because I do not want them to expose to the dust and noise. 

Now talking to customers also have to scream my lung out.  Annoying.  Not only me but my customers too.  And I think I have a re-occuring sore throat.  My throat has not fully recovered since last week. 

Sigh!!!

He is going to school

Brought my young boy to register for next year enrolment in Q-Dees this morning.  He is going to P1 next year.  And as usual in his cheeky mood, he disturbed the lady in the office while I was busy filling the forms.  The lady been courteous, handed over a piece of paper and pencil for him and ended up been tortured by Baby Jay to draw pictures for him.  Lol!  That is my boy.  I am expecting his class teacher is having some problem with him in class.

You can say that Q-Dees is one of the expensive kindergardens around Kuching.  For P1, it costs RM1796 for new students because you need to buy new sets of uniforms, stationery and other stuff for them.  Per semester (3 months) costs less than RM1500.00.  We will be coming back end of December to collect uniforms and stationery since the uniforms are not ready. 

Luckily my girl is going to primary school next year.  Otherwise cannot imagine the fees that we need to pay for both kids if they are going to the same kindergarden.  Sigh!

Weekend Menu #36: Spring Roll Snack

With the leftover Loong Kee chicken floss, I made some spring rolls yesterday afternoon.  I used Popiah Skin and cut the big pieces into quarters. 

It takes some times to assembly but it was fun.  My step-by-step as follow:

Brush some egg wash on each sides and place a spoon of chicken floss on the top

Fold the sides with egg wash. 

Brush egg wash on the bottom and roll tightly to the bottom. 

The ready to be fried sping rolls

Need to be watchful when frying spring rolls because they tend to burn fast and even when you dig them out from the hot oil and on a kitchen paper towel, it will still turn browner.  Dip with chili sauce or ketchup to your liking.

Our breakfast: Homey burgers

Saw a pack of unopened chicken floss yesterday afternoon.  It was a gift from a client to hubby and we have not yet open and consume it.  Maybe can add to porridge or add to my vegetable dishes.  And then an idea suddenly came to my mind. 

Why not make a burger out of it??  My own version.  Bacons & Chicken Floss Burgers.

Super easy.  Ingredients are olive oil spread, bacon strips, lettuces, chicken floss and buns.

Just fry the bacon strips to your desire, but dont overcook it as they would be very hard to bite.  Cut the buns into halves and toast them for a while in frying pan (without oil).  Butter the buns with some olive oil spread, then add lettuces, bacon strips and spoonful of chicken floss.  As for hubby who cannot do without eggs in the morning, I add fried egg to his burger.

Bon appetit!