Gong Xi Fa Cai

 Gong Xi Fa Cai , Ang Pau Nah Lai... LOL....My teacher taught us how to make this Lion last week. Nice?

Chinese New Year coming lo.

Flowers are blooming everywhere. Saw a lovely bloom from the garden yesterday.

Anyway, we'll be going on a blog holiday Starting from tomorrow. Nah...we'll still be in town but gonna zoom here and there. Will update after my birthday...yup...yup....my birthday is coming soon...Yipee...got a surprise for me wor.....dunno what leh.

Mamarazzi's Beauty & The Beast Chinese New Year Meat Floss Rolls

 This year ah....I think Mamarazzi gone crazy. Kept frying and experimenting. Previous years , her usual CNY cookies were Ngaku(Arrowhead Chips), Kuih Ros(honeycomb Biscuits) and Pineapple tarts. Even dinner also fry chicken for me to eat.

Now....fry Ngaku la....but experiment by adding black pepper and salt. I love it. Another friend also love it. Said nicer than the plain ones.

Followed by making the Nian Gao la.

What  project next? Well, she happens to saw Nancy's blog. Fuiyoh...her Chicken Meat Floss rolls looks easy to make leh . Just roll and fry, right?

 Initially she thought wanna make Dried Shrimps Rolls but as she was heading to the kitchen, she spotted a small packe of leftover meat floss on the dinng table. Not much left...about 100gm ..maybe.

 Pour out bit by bit. 

Dig in the freezer, saw got some leftover popiah skin from last Popiah session. *Gosh...she really needs to clean the fridge. So many leftover here and there*

 Anyway, to cut the story short, she got a pair of scissor to cut the popiah skin into smaller pieces and start rolling.

Wokay....looks simple enough but this rolling thingy really boring la. At least with frying ngaku she can do other stuffs while waiting for it to fry.

Roll halfway...huh...still got ah....roll some more...huh...still some more ah....

Okay la.....first time mah...ugly a bit la.....After like one whole hour, baru got this tiny tub. Time to get frying.

 Tada!!! The beauties.....

And the Beast(s)...

 

Only get this small tub....adoi...not even 10mins can finish eating liao. As you can see, the colors not so nice.Some too dark and some are like 鍾無艷; one side dark one side fair. Coz the darn rolls refused to turn over to be fried properly.....

Anyway...yahoo....one more experiment over liao...what's next?

Oh ya...recipe ah? Headover to Nancys blog lah. Scroll up to see the link. But basically just need the meat floss, popiah skin, corn flour mixture to seal the popiah and oil to fry.  Happy frying....it's FRY-Day !

Chinese New Year Projects

Okay...Ngaku Chips done....and these are the result of Mamarazzi's experiments. All shapes and sizes...okay...Looks pretty ugly but finally managed to make 1-2 that did not leak. The rest are like wearing bandages.

The one in the plate duno what happened. Refused to set eventhough others from the same batch had set.

Closed shop for Nian Gao this year. Now headache what to do with the ugly ones. Throwaway too sayang. Ownself eat  ...cannot habis...want diabetic meh...Gosh....the amount of sugar needed for the Nian Gao is really scary. No matter how much 'less sugar' put in, it's still way too much to consume a lot. 

 Don't be alarmed if mamarazzi went "missing" from online next few days coz yesterday she spotted something she keen to experiment. All thanks to Nancy. Hopefully will be successful la and not like the crabstick project that she made two years ago.

Another project. D.I.Y. Money is never enough. Better D.I.Y la instead of buying since after Chinese New Year the decorations will be thrown away anyway. 

The D.I.Y. idea came from Xiao Ying . We received CNY card and goodies from her yesterday. The card was just a normal card but she decorated it nicely with plum flowers and chop with nice chops, making it stand out. Thank you very much Xiao Ying.

well, that's all for now. Back to the project.....opsss....ya one more thingy....

 

Got myself a McD Vanilla Sundae Cone coz my Ting Xie(spelling) 100% correct. But when Mamarazzi saw the book....cheh...simple words...already learn much harder words in kindergarten leh. No wonder can get 100%.

Restaurant M...Something Something

 Another 'basi' post. So basi till Mamarazzi forgotten the restaurant name. only remember it's M something.....MX MJ or what. Die moe?? AUNTIE CLAIRE!!!! what's the restaurant name ah????

Seems the noodles here is very popular. Minimum waiting time is 40 minutes. That night we waited for nearly a hour. 

 No fear coz Auntie Claire have thought of everything. She ordered some 'munchy' for us to bite on while waiting for the noodles.

Papa and Mamarazzi simply heart this dish. Got a long Chinese name which Mamarazzi can't recall. It's made of octopus arms. Blanched and added some nice sauce on top.

 Next was these Lala.

 

 Kiasu me....kept stuffing more and more lala into my mouth.

 Finally, it's our turn for the noodles. First comes this Wat Tan Hor. Not much Keoy Teow in it but the soup/gravy taste very good. One bowl certainly not enough

 Fried Yee Mee . A bit like Hokkien Mee but without the thick gravy. Also have a lot of seafood and meat and *sobsobs* vegetables too

 Last comes fried bihun. By then Mamarazzi full already lor.  

Fast fast go back to the hotel . Mamarazzi wanted to zzzz already but I wanted to open my pressie.  A bear coin box.

Whoever that thought up this coin box very clever la. Got 3 coin sloths. This one Papa put, that one Mamarazzi put and last....I put.  And end of the day, all the monies belongs to ME! Clever hor?

Frozen Fruit Ice Cream Maker

Weather have been pretty hot lately. Guess will continue so till after Chinese New Year. Hopefully there won;t be any water interruptions woes this year.

Anyway, we changed new water filter recently and the filter comes with an option to buy an ice cream maker for just RM30+. Saw in certain hypermarket, similar type of ice cream maker cost about RM200 leh.

Thanks to a good friend we managed to get one. A big birthday pressie for Papa and me.

I have been impatience to try it out but Mamarazzi kept say "tomorrow...tomorrow...tomorrow" . Makes me wonder if she is reading of Sidney Sheldon's novel "If Tomorrow Comes".

Or maybe coz she was reading this la. Sidney Sheldon's  Chasing Tomorrow by Tilly Bagshawe. Thanks to Auntie Claire who alerted her about this new book. It was a very good book. Page turning. Maybe that's why she kept delay making ice cream for me la.

Finally Sunday evening she finished reading the book. With my help reading the Manual , she set up the Ice Cream maker. Got a few pieces of frozen Bananas from the freezer.

Put into the Ice Cream Maker....out come very creamy and smooth "ice cream" for me. Very healthy and cool. No added sugar or anything. Just plain old frozen Banana. Can use for others fruits too.

This is my "kiasu " look. Kiasu scared Mamarazzi will wallop all ....with the spoon in my mouth while she snapping pic, sure she won;t be able to 'curi'(steal) my long awaited ice cream.

Hehehe...clever leh.....

What's In The Pot - For Chinese New Year

Last Friday Mamarazzi asked you to guess what's in the pot right?  So far, only Nancy and Wenn got it correctly...as of when Mamarazzi drafting this la...(Saturday 9.50am)

Still no idea? What if I show you this? Banana Leaves and Tiffin...

Or this....

Or this...

Yup! It's Nian Gao/Kuih Bakul/Ti Kwe/Chinese New Year Sticky Rice Cake. Ehem....any more glamour name for this?

Not bad la since being first timer making these.  Looks OK from the top.

But leaked from the sides. Mamarazzi knows her mistakes liao. She lined the tiffin with only one layer of banana leaves.

Feedback from friends, have to put at least 3-4 layers of banana leaves so that there won't be leakage.

She made these nian gao after spotting Sonia's perfect Nian Gao. Seems easy to make wor. But now she knows it's the layering of the "basket"  so that it doesn't leak takes a lot of "kungfu"

No worries....Mamarazzi said she will try making it again....Hopefully this  round will have good result. Too bad she doesn't have empty condense milk containers or those can fruit containers as those would makes great mould for the Nian Gao instead of Tiffin.

For complete recipe, please head over to Sonia post     :-

Nian Gao 传统年糕 (Chinese steamed New Year sticky cake)

Though Mamarazzi's Nian Gao shape "kantoi" but the taste is there thanks to Sonia's recipe. By the way, she lazy to wait 5 hours used pressure cooker to cook the Nian Gao coz she always big head prawns have difficulties in monitoring the water level in the wok if she was to steam it in a wok. Have to keep topping up the water pulak.

UPDATE : 9/2/2015

Okay okay here is the update. Made two more batches on Sunday. Yay! No leak!!

And also tried using pressure cooker steaming 2hours and 5 hours. Hey! Really have difference leh. Those steamed 5 hours are more fragrant than those 2 hours.


 

The Adventure Twins in an Incredible Mayan Mystery Mystery Fiction by Roxanne Juravlea

Synopsis as per www.goodreads.com

When Lisa and her twin brother Bradley tag along on their Grandmother’s vacation to Cancun, Mexico they end being left behind at the resort to watch movies and participate in a boring kids day camp. 

After day three of reading books and watching movies at kid camp, Bradley decides to lead his sister on what turns out to be a risky expedition. The twins end up running into an ugly, mysterious man who intrigues them and at dawn the twins follow him to his boat and chase him into the Mexican jungle. 

Will the twins be able to stop the man who claims to be taking over the ancient Mayan land or will they be stopped by the lord of the underworld?


Our Comments :

It has been a long time since we review a book in this blog . Earlier this week, we were offered the chance to review a children adventure story. Of course Mamarazzi jump for it as there is never too much book for me. Moreover now I have a new toy to read ebook with. 

What I like about this book is that it's fun and quite fast paced. Frankly, Mamarazzi  did not have high expectation on this book coz how much can an author cramp into 24 pages? But she was wrong. The author did a very good job. Had proper introduction and storyline . Plot was interesting too and I can say that it was not predictable at all. All blend in very well.

I think this book is suitable for children like me... from 7-10 years old. Not too many big words and the language was clean cut. No four letters word or offensive language. Yes, you'll be surprise that there are some children books that have offensive language

What I like to see if it's in paperback is that some fun illustration of the story lines in between pages. It would help kids to enjoy the book more .

I sincerely hope that this book will turn in to a series like Enid Blyton's Famous Five Series.

Miscellaneous Ramblings

 Hi ! Sharon. Am here. Thanks for messaging. Am okay. Doing fine in school.

 

 But Mamarazzi K.O-ed. She is feeling under weather . That's why didn't blog hop and "FB" these two days. 

Fried 8kg of these on Tuesday. Guess she didn't drink enough of water gua. Sorry ya, Sharon, can't poslaju coz by the time arrived to destination, it would have turn into crumbs.

Come over  to Malaysia la and have a feel the Chinese New Year mood here.

I probably should ask her to pluck some of these and make into drink. These "weeds" have invaded our garden coz since school term started, Mamarazzi hardly any time to take care of the garden. These "weeds" are killing her mints leaves. But another friend told her that this is not weeds. Actually it have medicine value. Said it's good remedy for fever.

 Another "weeds" that is in the garden. Mamarazzi posted up in gardening group in FB and it seems that this is another natural herbs. Said to be able to cure many things. Check out the remedy at this Facebook link ...Wah...can also be use as remedy for Tonsillitis, pharyngitis, bronchitis, pneumonia....etc...

 But Mamarazzi said aiyo already not feeling so well...just take the easy way  la...went to the shop and got a box of Hor Yan Hor Herbal Tea. Just add hot water and can drink already.

Today she is feeling better.....hence started itchy hands again...who can guess what is cooking in the pot. Not Bak Chang ....but if without using Pressure Cooker...then will need to cook for 5 hours.

Hopefully successful la as this is the first time Mamarazzi making this and according to old folk this thing very "siew hei" (easily offended). If say wrong thing then will kantoi  liao.

Wiff reveal next week....if successful lah. Have a great weekend!

Vegetarian Lou Sang

Had our first "Lou Sang" last saturday. Organised by the Buddhist temple nearby who invited residents around our area for the Vagetarian Steamboat dinner and Lou Sang.

First time having vegetarian steamboat and Lou Sang.

Put in all the goodies. 

Ready...steady....huat ah!!!!

Heheheh....this is the only time when I made a mess nobody will scold. 

While waiting for the steamboat to fully boiled, we were served these fried Tau Pok and Wantan. Hmmm...dunno what they put into the wantan but tasted very nice la. One is not enough.

All the goodies in the pot liao. Not only vegetables leh but have mushroom balls and stuffs like that. 

The soup base was super sweet. According to the lady, they used red sugar cane to make the soup. It was boiled from morning to night time and they added two pieces of ginseng root. No wonder so sweet la. Hmm....she said next time must try and make this soup. 

Getting ready to scoop noodles to eat....but uiks....Mamarazzi didn;t put in any noodles yet ah? Wait till clear the Steamboat thingy baru put in the noodles wor...

Hmm...while they eating, I went and play la. 

Very "yit lau"(merry) leh. There were a singing Chinese New Year song session and the temple people giving out angpau and mandarin oranges.

Thank you...thank you....

 

Last but not least....noodles.....muhahaha....noodles for me....yum...

They said every month there will be gathering for talks about Buddhism and everyone are welcomed to join.