Food and Books Galore at Book Exchange Programme Year End Gathering 2013

Hello hello...sorry ya...Mamarazzi have been very lazy  busy these couple weeks. Supposed to update about our trip to Indonesia...uploaded the photos but yet to draft the post and then so many things cropped up. 

House warming la, baking la, shopping for Christmas pressie la, attending Hi5 House Party la this and that. Don't know where to begin...well..maybe I do .....

Last week, we were invited by the organisers and volunteers at Subang Jaya Book Exchange Programme to attend their private potluck gathering.

As it fell on Winter Solstice festival, Mamarazzi decided to make some Thong Yuen (Sweet dessert) to bring along to the gathering. It's easy to make.  Just add some water to Glutinous Rice Flour and made into dough. Add some coloring and roll them up into small round balls. Drop them into hot boiling water and when they float iup, it means that it's ready to be eaten. 

For the first time she put Gula Nisan *not batu nisan ok* as fillings. Gula Nisan is a type of sweet products made of coconut inflorescence.

Boiled some sugar water with some slices of ginger and some Pandan Leaves (Screwpine leaves) . Add it to the boiled Thong Yuen and the sweet dessert is done.

It is said that eating Thong Yuen  will make a person a year older and a year wiser.

 

When we arrived, there was already a food galore awaiting.

 Creampuff from Kee's Puffs, Glutinous Rice, Yam Cake, Salad and sweet dessert

We added Thong Yuen and Fried Fish Keropok(Crispy) to the fruit cake and pizza....wait a minute....where are the grilled Chicken Drumstick....hmmm...that was delicious....Mamarazzi's PC must have "ate" them

 But Mamarazzi had to say that the dish that steal her heart was this simple looking Kerabu Bihun (Rice Vermicelli Salad). It may look simple but the taste...oh my kucing!...super yummy!!!...Mamarazzi had 3 heaping of this...or was it 4....hmmm..it was very appetising as it had a sourish taste and very aromatic.

It was contributed by Ms Lilly Phoon and made by her Mom, Mrs Phoon.

 After that we played some games ...I pretend read a bit.

Eee....paiseh betul coz Mamarazzi didn't know there was going to be a gift exchange too. She came with two bunches of bananas(meaning empty handed). Should had asked first leh. Bad  Mamarazzi.

Thank you for the gift .

While on our way out of the place, I noticed that there was a picture dictionary laying on the side walk. It was wet. Auntie Fay was trying to dry it up. Someone left a bunch of books at the gate and it got wet when it rained. 

Auntie Fay let me have it. We came home tried to dry it. Sadly some pages got stuck together and some words peeled off. Still I insisted on reading it. It's my new fad. Now I like reading picture dictionary .

A reminder.. if anyone wish to drop books to SJBEP when it's closed, please make sure that the books are wrapped nicely so that it's protected from the weather. So sad this book got wet and some pages unreadable. Such a waste of a lovely book.

Mamarazzi have been dreaming of the delicious Kerabu Bihun for a week. To her delight, Ms Lilly had shared the recipe last night. Thus this morning Mamarazzi woke Papa up to go hunting for ingredients to make the Kerabu Bihun. 

The easiest ingredient to find was these Kafir Lime Leaves. Growing in the playground near our house.

After some hunting, Mamarazzi finally found everything that is required to make the Kerabu Bihun

Here is the recipe to that mouthwatering Kerabu Bihun which Mrs Phoon has kindly agreed to shared with us and the readers here. Thank you a million Mrs Phoon! *hugs*

Ingredients:

 
Beehoon (rice vermicelli) – soaked in water, boil and drain

Fish sauce to taste

 
Tom yam paste

Mint leaves

 
Bunga kantan (ginger torch flower) – sliced finely

Cilantro – cut into 1” lengths

Bean sprouts – cleaned and boiled

Daun limau purut (kaffir lime leaves) – sliced finely

Ikan bilis (anchovies)  – fried in oil till crispy, then crumble into smaller bits

Garlic – minced and fried in oil till golden brown

Onions – sliced thinly

Lemon or lime juice

Cili padi (bird’s eye chillies) – sliced

Method:

Mix and toss everything together. Serve. Eat. Enjoy.

Mamarazzi made some...but replaced the bird's eye chili with red chili. Taste? It's definitely not as good as the one made by Mrs Phoon.  

Mamarazzi's ones lack of flavour and way too sour. Next time must add larger portion of the ingredients and less lime juice. 

Looks like Mamarazzi needs more practise...who wanna volunteer as white mice  hands up!

 Today was the last book exchange session of 2013.....spotted these yummy Isaac Asimov books.

 Mamarazzi took two home. Must have been her lucky day as a volunteer found two copies of Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote.

 Some very interesting titles had came in. It has been a long time since Mamarazzi seen a book by K.S.Maniam.  

As  for me...I found myself three new books. What a lovely end of the year session.

Thank you once again to everyone in SJBEP, Lilly and Mrs Phoon for sharing her recipe ..yumz!

Don't Run Away My Ginger Bread Man

 Ho! Ho! Ho! Christmas is just around the corner. Thank you "Santa" for sending me nom nom and "Mrs Santa" for sending me pressie. You know who you are Mr Santa Anonymous and Mrs Santa. The nom nom opened already and the card is on my Christmas Tree. And Mrs Santa's pressie is under my Christmas Tree too.

Ah.....in Christmassy mood. This morning Mamarazzi and me were in a baking mood.

 A little bit of this and a little bit of that......chop chop here and chop chop there.

 And we have Ginger Bread Man and Christmas Trees.

 Mamarazzi asked why my Ginger Bread Man no eyes and I replied so that he can't run away. No eyes cannnot see so cannot runaway lah.

 First round and first time baking this.....haiz...have to wait so long geh to decorate it with icing. Mamarazzi said have to wait for it to cool down before I can decorate or else the icing will melt.

 Finally.....

Taste...I had two...errr....okay la....eh eh...got "sprinkle" on the plate...don't waste.....kiasu...put on the cookies and eat

Mamarazzi saw Betsy posted lovely Ginger Bread "deer" in her Facebook . It was made out of upside down Ginger Bread Man.It was very cute.

She also wanna try la but under her clumsy hands this ugly "deer" was the result....Mamarazzi should have bake this for Halloween  . *LOL*

She was not satisfied with the result of the first round baking. The cookies were too thick and the decoration were too ugly.  Mamarazzi baked one more round. 

Hmm......second round turns out not bad. Better than the first round. She even managed to make "Patrick" and "Spongebob" with Papa's help...though they don't really look like Patrick and Spongebob. Can you spot which one is Spongebob and which one is Patrick?

Many thanks to Mamarazzi's old chum, Hillary for forwarding her the recipe for the Ginger Bread Man

Here is the recipe if you wish to try out :-

Ingredients :

350g Plain Flour
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp ginger powder
1/2 tsp mixed spice
1 tsp cocoa powder
88g sugar                       }Mamarazzi changed to 80g brown sugar
87g dark brown sugar     }
50g egg
20g molasses } Mamarazzi changed to 1/4 cup golden syrup
60g water      } Mamarazzi didn't add any
115g butter     } Mamarazzi hentam 120g coz her "toy" weight machine is by 120g...no 115g *LOL*

Method

1. sift all the dry ingredients together
2. add butter and mix it till sandy
3. add egg, molasses and water...in her case it was egg and golden syrup
4. roll out and cut into shape
5. preheat the oven and bake at 180C for about 13 minutes


Icing

In the beginning she used store bought icing but she taste it and didn't like it. Hence she hentam look for recipe online. Here is the one she followed with some modification.


-2 egg whites beat till stiff foam/peak then add 300g icing sugar gradually. Continue beating till stiff peak formed.

-Divide into 3 portions. One portion add green coloring, one portion add red coloring and one let it be white. Put into fridge and later scoop into plastic bag .

-Cut a tiny hole at the bottom of the plastic bag then can start "decorating".

Raffles Resto, Gallery & Catering, Taman Safari

The next morning we woke up early. Went downstairs to have breakfast to have breakfast by the pool

I had a last minute "swimming". Lovely lovely view from the pool side. Can see the mountain and hill behind.

Very soon Papa's friend came over and said the cab had arrived. We planned to travel from Bogor to Bandung by car with some stops in between.

Papa said gonna bring me to feel the animals.

 

It was a long journey....if there is traffic jam . I looked at some scenery and then I sort of doze off. Time to recharge my battery before the fun begins ma.

A long the way Mamarazzi saw many interesting sights. Road side hawkers selling food, drinks and fruits. Mangoes were abundance there. Would have love to try out but just no place to keep the mangoes leh when travelling

Being typical "auntie"she noted that there were some shop selling cooking gas. Eeee.... got mini gas tank leh. Don't seems to have seen it over here in Malaysia

As we near the Safari Park, there were many vendors selling Bananas and bunches of carrots. Some kids who are younger than me also selling leh.

Papa asked the driver to stopped for awhile to buy some Banana and carrots to feed the animal. Two bunch of Banana and three bunches of carrots was 15,000rupiah...Agak-agak around RM5 in Malaysia?

Not far from where we bought the Bananas and carrot, we stopped again . This time it was at Raffles Resto,
 Gallery & Catering for a toilet coffee break.

Phewitt!! Got play ground here leh . Thought the sun was up high but I don't feel hot coz of the cooling weather.

Mamarazzi show me how to "swing" on this swing. left right left right....

Found load of Pine Cones. Asked the people at the restaurant whether I can take home or not. They were darn surprised. Of course can. They even give us a plastic bag to put it in.

No problem bringing these cones home. Immigration did not stop us. Now they are hanging my my Christmas tree lor.

What is that? 

Eh eh...found my friend here. Everywhere I went she followed. Very tame. Must have belongs to the restaurant staffs

Heard the fruit juice is nice. I wanted orange juice 

But when Mamarazzi's mango juice came, I found that I like the mango juice too.

Hey!  I found your friend the girrafe there\

There was a stall selling carrots and bananas here.

 

Papa bought another great big branch of Banana to feed the animals. The guy throw in some carrots too after some bargaining. If not mistaken, the total for these were around RM10. Super cheap leh considering the big branch of bananas.

Next stop...the SAFARI...errr.....but no promise when that post will be up as Mamarazzi is having the Big Bad Wolf Books sale fever right now. She kept stalking their Facebook and their event page to see all the delicious boxes of books being opened daily. Hence posting and blog hopping has been erratic for the past week. Hopefully will recover by next week as the last day of the BBWS is on 15 December 2013, till 9pm

ANNOUNCEMENTS : Winners for the "10 Things You Never Knew Can Harm Your Child " Contest

First of all, a big THANK YOU for joining the "10 Things You Never Knew Can Harm Your Child" contest.

and the winners are ...****DRUM ROLLS****


1. LOUIZ YEE with her comment  :

LouizYee3 December 2013 12:09

Question: What do you fear most about toxin in household products?

My Answer:
Allergy!

Be it skin allergy or eyes allergy or whatever allergy, you name it.

I am very concerned about chemicals or toxins in detergents when it comes to washing the laundry. I have mild OCD, so I usually wash my bedsheets every week and normal laundry everyday. There's only 2 adults, 1 baby and 1 toddler in the house, but yes, I wash clothes everyday. I always want to see the washing machine empty, haha!

There was a few times Baby G developed rashes all over his body after I changed my brand of laundry detergent. I then switched back to the normal laundry detergent, and his rashes subsided. Ever since, I am concerned on the brand of detergent I use.

Then recently, my hubby developed "fong mok" on his body too, but I guess it's not due to detergent this time. We recently sent the sofa cover to the dobi, and when we put on this cover into the sofa, my hubby started having this "fon mok" ever since. So again, I guess it must be some toxin or chemicals used to wash the sofa cover in the dobi.

Since you guys have been talking about this Method products, I am really interested to try this product and hopefully, somebody will courier the goodies to my doorstep soon. Haha.

2. Twilight Man  with his comment :-

 

Twilight Man3 December 2013 11:05

What a lovely and interesting post today. I am always a strong supporter in hygiene and cleanliness around my house, from the floor to ceilings and food on the table.

What do I fear most from the toxins in household products?? CANCER will be the ultimate fear as the toxins in many household products often contained various harmful chemicals that could penetrate our skins or through inhalation without our knowledge. I have helped HOSPICE for years and seen too many types of dreadful cancers that took away many lives sadly. Skin and Lung cancers from such toxins are painful. I know I sound scary but this is true.

Since I have read METHOD's articles blogged by Small Kucing and 3 other bloggers, I am glad I found this brand that offers very safe and effective cleaning products that uses natural ingredients.

I have bought 5 bottles of METHODs for my home. Yay!!!... Anay & Letchumy dancing around the dining table!

3. SK with his comment :

[SK]3 December 2013 14:29

oh, a giveaway contest!! hey, i have always wanted to try out METHOD products since Mamarazzi has been using and praising the wonders they could do to her house!! okay, here's Uncle SK's entry..

What I fear most about the toxins in household products??
CANCER for sure.. i always tend to associate toxins with cancer, and we have also heard a lot about cancerous toxins in things we eat and use everyday.. we may not realize how the toxins can affect us, because most of the time we thought we are just exposed to a small quantity which may not be hazardous enough to cause any harm.. but do think twice, once a small quantity but use them often and they accumulate - the effect could be fatal.. and when we hear the word "cancer", we always find this scary and threatening lives, that makes me fear most about cancer-causing toxins.. thanks to Mamarazi's post, at least we learn about the toxins, and when we buy household products, probably it's beneficial to read the composition of the content, what they contain and are made of.. glad to know that METHOD products are toxins-free, so why wait?? just grab them from the shelves in supermarket and start a safe and healthy household cleaning experience before it's too late!! :)

A big congratulations to all winners . Please e-mail me (smallkucing@gmail.com) within 48 hours of this post to acknowledge your winnings. Please also provide me with your name, contact number and address in order for me to forward to the company.

Thank you again to everyone who joined the contest. 

Second Round at Big Bad Wolf Books Sale 2013 & Restaurant Chan Yew Kee, Seri Kembangan.

We went to the Big Bad Wolf Books Sale again yesterday. First thing...I requested to be dropped in the Playland there.

Am getting notorious at the Playland. I said the Kor Kor and Jie Jie loves me but Mamarazzi said the Kor Kor and Jie Jie scared of me already la coz am too "lembu".

During one of the "intermission" where Mamarazzi came up and check on me, she spotted that I tengah cekik piggy-back on a Jie Jie.  Mamarazzi said poor Jie Jie. Surely her back would ache with my heavy weight.

Yesterday was the 5th day of Big Bad Wolf Books Sale including the preview day. Books are starting to get messy but this year they seems to have a system to re-arrange books at the Children section. See! It's a bit easier to find books right even though in a mess.

Good job to all the staffs!

 Spotted St Claire series by Enid Blyton. Darn it! It was RM6/book only.

 Aha...one of Mamarazzi favourite author.

 Yesterday we found that more food stall had opened for business upstair. More than what were on Preview day.

 Lucky the DJ announced for those who purchased above RM300 in a single receipt, is eligible for RM10 voucher from Bookxcess.

And those who purchase RM100 and above in a single receipt can get one year free membership from Bookxcess . What's more is that they get to spin the wheel and win mystery gifts or cash vouchers.

Mamarazzi had not claimed for the purchases made on preview day.Yesterday purchase was surprisingly below RM300. Wah lau eh...jalan till kaki lengguh still not yet reach RM300. Of course la...she looked for those RM1 to RM5 books for me mah.

 See these hardcover Disney books...RM5 only!

 It's in comic form . So lovely leh

 This hardcover Toy Story 3 only RM5 leh

Found more of the RM1 type of story book for me.

If you wanna see more of  the books Mamarazzi purchased for us and our friends during these two trip, check out our facebook at "My BBWBS 2013 Purchases" . As for books spotted yesterday , there are in "BBWBS 2013-spotted 9-12-2013"

We left Big Bad Wolf Books sale around 6pm. Time for food hunting. But while Papa and Mamarazzi were hunting for food, I started on my hoard of books. 

Saw some people recommended this Restaurant Chan Yew Kee in Seri Kembangan. Alamak.....Monday...pasar malam day. But luckily this restaurant still opened despite being pasar malam day.

 But when we reached the restaurant, I was too exhausted to eat. Play for 6 hours leh. "Hard labour" leh.....kesian the staffs there.

 Saw a blog recommended this rice “Tai Char Fan” with “siew yuk” (roasted pork belly). Portion for two person(RM16)...a bit too large for Papa and Mamarazzi to finish. Maybe not much appetite coz exhausted from the book hunting.

Next time must tell them not to add chili in the rice.

 Stir Fried Sweet potatoes leaves RM8 . Normal.

 Fried intestine RM18.

Saw  a lot of interesting dishes here including the dish that we had with Auntie Claire and Auntie Elin in Ipoh. If distance is not a problem, we will definitely come back again to try out the rests of the dishes here. Hopefully we will able to try out more dishes here.

Here is the address of the restaurant  :-

59, Jalan PSK 7, Pusat Perdagangan, Seri Kembangan, Selangor, 43300
Tel: 603-89419768