pampered poochie's latest menu

after watching oprah show on taking care of our poochies few weeks ago, i have been comtemplating and now have decided to upgrade vodka's food . well i did some calculation, it would not only be more yummy and healtier for vodka but also more $$ cost saving. it is actually a little cheaper but is more work...

so here's vodka's latest menu.

grilled or boiled lamb shoulder
contains the correct ratio of all 8 of the essential amino acids, and is also a great source of high quality protein, b-12, zinc, niacin, iron, and riboflavin

boiled sweet potatoes
rich in vitamins a, b6 and c as well as manganese, copper, potassium and iron.

sometimes rice .. cooked with the boiled sweet potatoes/lamb stock - yummy! (else i just drink up the sweet potatoes soup myself .. no wasting pls.)

2-3 fistful of kibbles - for crunch to clean his big gigi and filler too la. i will mix a little water after grilling the meat then pour over the kibbles - yummy!

looks expensive? no... ok.. here's the breakdown...

new menu costs
5 pieces of lamb shoulder - rm10.00. 1 pc/day = rm2.00
1kg sweet potatoes - rm2.40. yesterday i bought around 2 big 4 small - rm1.60. 2small/day (1 big/day) - rm0.55
so total / day = rm2.60

old menu costs
1 can/day - rm3.30
1 portion of chicken meat or liver or etc /day - rm1.00
so total / day = rm4.30

*rice n kibbles not included as i fed vodka same amount for both case

this means i save rm1. 70/day!! although more work but the satisfaction is great when vodka jilat kilat kilat each meal!! unlike previously... always had to add extras to make him "finish it up". also... i noticed after eating 2 days lamb... his tummy pricky heats diminished.

mom's back - yea!yea!

ok. mom's back. my life will be back to normal ... i will have ready food on table, constant bickering, tv partner, gossips, etc. aaa. and also... vodka will no longer be lonely for all the hours i'm in office ... ha ha ha...
mom n che2 bought so much gift for me, you will be so jealous -

• hardrock tee (a very traditional thingy to buy when anyone of us go travel .. erm ok, except remy... hardrock replica also don't have.... the only tee i got from him is because it was like way to small for him)
• copper penny accessory... very cool mint :) hahah.... quite expensive ... a pair earrings nearly usd9!!
• baju baju ...
• nike sneakers
• chocolates - of course ...
• nuts!!
• wine ... too bad one broke ...
• peaches - yum!! grapes - yum!!! nectarines - yum!!!!
• pasta sauces .. haha... and left over dressing .. haha...
• disneyland popcorn .. haha...
• leftover cakes .. haha... just ate some...
• cheche even bought a box of very chewy brownie mix...
• etc,etc,etc

but so darn tired... cos clean house immediately after work - else kena mom's wrath... then drove to klia to pick the gals and slept at like after 1700... oooOOoo cant wait to go back ....

it's real buttercream!!!

siewli & jericca : pretty ladies of pretty frosting

i really really (i mean really really really) love buttercream. and it's so frustrating as buttercream frosting is slowly disappearing as its cousin the light whip cream dominated the skinny world. today, i'm a very happy lady. not only i get to meet siew li and get to devour some delicious cupcakes with BUTTERCREAM frosting! aaaAAaaa.

to drool for : buttercream frosting cupcakes

go drool a little more here : http://www.prettyfrosting.com/

pyro musical competition & display : putrajaya 2007

wow! my very first photo shoot outing with my workmates!
well... at first i was rather disappointed as i left the shutter open too long for most shots. due to extremely slow write processing, i missed several nice bursts too. lesson learnt : switch of the nr to speed up the the write.after some post-processing, actually the shots that i thought was real lousy turn out quite ok. ^-^ the post-processing involved were just cropping and adjusting the shadow.

day1 [20070818] : ok. i did ooed & aahed as i love fireworks. as my excitement subsided, i realised that the 20mins display was ordinary. nothing extraordinary & the bursts were all pretty low too... then i just found out.... it's team malaysia...

spooky shots

artistically creepy photos, eh? actually the light source is from the infrared lamp i used for sore shoulders and back....

he's so naughty

oh no! vodka!'s is turning into a big bad apple... loads of ppl said that goldendoodles are non-aggressive, gentle dogs... oh noooOOooo. vodka!'s totally opposite that. since puppy he loves to chase and bite and nip and bite and nip.. especially at the ankle. thank goodness he grew out of nipping our ankles as we walk... well he sometimes still does when he's too excited. he loves to growl when he flew around like tin kau. it's actually very cute and comical until he start to give you surprised snaps... maybe he never have doggie playmates.... so he thinks he is one of us?

this morning he sneaked out as the gates were wide open. he was sitting and stayed until i vanished into the house then cheekily snaked out .... the more i shout "vodka! come back!" the faster he trot away from me... that's why i never... NEVER put him off lease... when i managed to catch up with him and tried to hold his collar... he GROWLED at me!! no manners. so i smacked him. and guess what... his skull like batu only.... i hurt my index finger and it swollen and turned blue black immediately. i think i must have hit the nerve or something cos it's not sprained.

to punish him, i whacked him couple of times with the rotan (which i guess felt like ant bites la) and tied him at a corner. ignored him for as long as i can (couple of hours) and fed him like late. immediately he turned into a lamb. but he is an actor...

so i thought he regretted his action.. but noOOOOooOO. he was back into his mischevious self again. when i was taking my bath, he chewed and broke my new hair band!! it costs me like 6.90!!! no wonder he rolled onto his back and acted cutesy pie when i came down to check on him. haiseh... what am i do to with him?

p/s : although aggressive at times... but i think he is like anjing lembut man.... he loves to nibble on hairbands, scrunchies, hairclips, etc...

moist neopolitan butter cake

so it’s time for another cake… and i had been yearning to eat some nice buttery cakes. for great butter cakes use the most expensive butter you can afford. farmcows/buttercups are what I can do with now.

as usual I tweaked the recipe i found online a little… cut out less than a quarter of sugar, increased the butter to 250g as the recipe used too little butter 185g only. and it’s a butter cake! the recipe calls for 3 eggs but 4 was used as the eggs i have was rather small. instead of making plain butter cake i decided to make it fancier by modifying it to neopolitan butter cake! so after batter is ready, I divided them to 3 portions one remain as original, added the chocolate ganache to one of the portions, while the remaining portions I added 2 teaspoon of strawberry essence and a tiny drop of red food coloring.

it took nearly 50 mins in 160c and phew!!! luckily neither the sides or top of the cake was burnt as some of my cakes tend to be. being a kanchiong girl, i decided to cut the cake while it was hot as i cant wait to see the colors inside. the top was crunchy but inside was soft and moist. it crumbed a little – not suppose to cut it hot J … it tasted … erm… not as good as i expected it to be. disappointed i was a little. something was missing…. the texture was off a little. however, vodka who was sitting prettily for the last 15 minutes lapped all the crumbs that mysteriously found their way to the floor cheered me up a little. at least he loves it. he was such a good boy sleeping patiently below the table while i was working with the cake and cleaning up. putting my disappointment aside, i let the cake to cool which i catch some sleep… lack of sleep lately as i was so hooked on the crime & investigation channel and tend to lose track of time.

much later… i dreaded to have another piece of the cake … afraid to face the fact that it didn’t turn out well… but i had too… else i don’t have anything to eat for dinner!! but.. but…but… it’s yummy! haha. it tastes very moist and buttery. however, the strawberry flavor too weak as the batter portion was too little compared to the chocolate and butter. i'll definitely make some more when mom’s back but this time without the strawberry part…

250g butter (room temperature)

3/4c sugar

1c flour

1.5c self-raising flour

4 eggs

3/4c milk

1 tsp vanilla essense

1 tsp strawberry essense

1 portion chocholate ganache

chocolate ganache:

2 tbs coco powder mix with enough milk

some like it hot, some like it cold, some like it in the pot 9 days old

i love cooking porridge and love them thick and very hot with slices of yewcharkueh. it's healthy, easy, fast and yummy. one of the easier to prepare is the chicken porridge. just boil water with uncooked rice and once boil throw in chicken meat (breast meat the easiest to work with and healthy too... but i love using chicken thigh ... got those fats which will definitely made the porridge yummier...). once meat is cooked, take them out to cool while continue to stir the porridge until think and nice. sometimes i add an egg in low fire so you can get stringy eggs in the porridge which looks lovely. peel chicken into strips and throw them back into the porridge. you can leave some to garnish. voila! it's done.

one of the variations i came up with during in one of those wuliao days is using the chinese herbs - yewsamchew (american ginseng roots - smaller ones) and keiki (gooseberries). boil the yewsamchew separately and pour the stock/essense into the porridge as the roots cannot be eaten (doesnt taste nice but i guess its no harm if you wanna chew them in your porridge). for the keiki, cook them with the porridge. i add some during the end of the cooking as i love the cruchiness and the sweet raisin-like taste. this porridge helps to cool your body (yewsamchew) and good for your eyes too (keiki). hmm... each time i cook this porridge i have this daejanggeum song playing in my head...

now i feel like eating porridge ... maybe will cook some seafood porridge later....

someone stole my yakults!!!

when i openned the fridge... i was shocked!! someone took off with 5 bottles of my yakults which i left in the fridge's pantry over the weekend.(ok, so it's not body parts... still) to think that such reputable (erm) company to have such dishonest employees. worst - it's just yakults.

"free" treat(s)

yes! i managed to utilised the "free" bday treat from gsc by watching the much hyped about harry potter's latest movie. why "free"? bcos of this "free" treat.... i ended up spending $$, more than the ticket's worth....

one of my frens remarked that it is "kinda weird going to movie (cinema) alone... i'll never do it... i rather give the movie a miss if no kaki". erm. yes. it is quite intimidating going to movie alone. it feels like all the eyes boring into your back when u walk into the movies alone. you can almost hear the other not-so-alone movie-mates whispering "alone, ah?". another of my collegue's offered a cover up: when walking out of the cinema, pretend to make a call on your hp, talking louding to ensure the ppl around you hear what you are going to say - "eh?! where are you?? the ended and you are still not here?!" .. ha ha ha... cheesy...

it was a few years back when i watched my first movie in the cinema alone. although i didnt go there alone but i ended up watching it myself as the others decided to go for the movie that i have seen. i felt horrible walking in but as soon as i sat down next to a family, i didnt feel alone at all. thanks to the little boy who smiled adoringly up at me :) maybe it was dark and he thought i am some cute chubby character from some cartoon he had watched recently :) haha... so i enjoyed the movie pretending to be part of his family.

so this harry movie ... not hesistation to do it alone. anyway, i had a very packed schedule... i had to watch it .... rush back ... clean house a little ... spend time with vodka and get rest enough to drive back to mcca. so going alone was the best solution. also the "free" ticket will expire by end of this month... haahahha ... so i procrastinated a little ...
while in the motion of sitting down... the girl next seat bumped my butt, feeling a little embarrassed, instead of saying sorry she said "hi"... whatever she meant by that i gave her a pasty smile (i guess it was too dark to notice it though). so i guess it some kind of warm welcome....
it was quite boring - the movie that is. it was a let down at least for me. ok. so i didnt take my fren's advice "dont read the book of any movie that was made based on it until you have watched it". actually, i dont like buying movie tie-in books. i actually bought the order of phoenix more than a year ago when popular sold it for rm39.90. i read the lord of the rings like years ago before it was made into a movie. i didnt finished. it as i was so confused by all the character but enjoyed the back of the book part which explained the characters and how they were related, etc. i had the da vinci code and angels & demons when none of my frens heard about them (except carol whom recommended them to me). ok. the point is i kinda dislike the idea of movie tie-in releases especially when the book was written just because of the movie's famous... come to think of it.... the only author's work that i read and love that have movies made after them - pride and prejudice, sense and sensibility and emma... the movies had almost replicated the the book. i love jane austen. (so i love to deviate....) ok. although i only read like 1/4 of the phoenix book, i find the movie left out a lot of small details and loads of scenes chopped out. probably they have like 1.5 hours only.... but they "left-out" parts made the movie almost empty ... without subtance i.e. and pretty *yawn* dull movie. however, i did enjoyed the twins fireworks and dumblemore vs valdemort fighting scenes. so i guess for those who havent watched the movie.... it is worth to wait a few more months to be aired in astro (or whatever paid cable tv u have).

for the "free" ticket i ended up spending :
1. popcorn set, 6.50 - i mean who goes to the movie without popcorns?!!
2. kaya balls, 2.20 - it was lunch....
3. 3 hair bands, rm14.70 - i need them. fringe's getting longer and hair becoming unruly and cant steal mom's as she took it to sfo
4. durians, rm24 - its DURIANS... and its d24... erm and i dont know how to belah them ...
5. doggie dry food, rm27 - vodka's not on hunger strike, you know... and it came with a free black lease ... erm not that i need them as he already has like 3 of them... but its black and its free!
6. chew bones, rm7.90 - he has chew sticks (which he can now chewed down in 5 minutes) but not chew bones.... anwyay,fyi he loves them.

hmm... but its not that bad... i had free parking as i spent above rm10 in jusco... yeek.

"what you call a very hairy efren reyes ? - hairy potter"

(chunky) cheese brownies

i am so crazy over brownies! baked another batch of brownies with a cheesy twist... literally and figuratively. yipeedeeda! it turn out great but the cheese sandwich could be better ... maybe because it was in the freezer which "killed" some of the creamy cheese texture.... also it wasnt really chunky as most of the chocochips melted when baked... maybe it will harden when refrigerated.

he's camera shy

i noticed vodka's camera shy. it's so hard to take nice potrait of him. one of my fave angle is to take from top down which has nice effects.
just discovered that vodka is silver frosted goldendoodle! ha ha very glamourous, eh?

a lot of ppl whom seen him when he was younger always asked in confusion "eh, why grey now ar?!"
i always answered nonchalantly "old d mar.... hair turn grey lo...."

sick human poor dogs

really sick sick human. i nearly cried when i read this article. these dogs had to endure 40 mins of torture. one of the dogs suffered multiple injuries and broken teeth! how can they continously beat the dogs? maybe they were high in drugs? i believe the thieves will get their payback soon.

[ http://www.thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2007/7/12/nation/18280747&sec=nation ]

chewy chocolate brownies

thank god i am recovering from the much despised flu. my appetite wasnt so great which was good actually but this caused bloated tummy as i ate irregularly. i miss my mom and her cooking!! haiz.... she was planning to extent her stay ...ok, so i dont really have mood to eat but the sudden thought of chocolates perked me up and my digestive juices started flowing... then i remembered having a great slice of american chocolate brownies in secret recipe on my birthday... that what i called CHEWY!! i hardly find really chewy brownies here. i guess malaysians dont really like the chewy texture... moist yes but chewy maybe not. it's an aquired taste, i think. why? cos most of my friends dont really fancy chewing their cakes.... mom certainly doesnt but maybe it's her dentures :P so my quest to look for a chewy brownies recipe begun... and yipeedidee! found one which is simple and has some rave reviews... bake it with the tweakings as suggested and it turn out yummy! however, i think i will cut down the baking time to maybe 25 mins so it would be goo-eyer. maybe i will drizzle some sheridan (baileys would be better but i dont have it here...) on top..

* i tweaked those ingredients in []
2 BIG eggs [ 3 medium eggs ]
1/2 cups butter, melted[ 1/4 cups vegetable oil ]
2 cups sugar [1 1/4 cup]
1 cup flour1 cup cocoa powder (i used the cheapest local cocoa from "bake with yen". i reckon if you use those higher quality cocoa powder, your cake will taste better)
2 tsps vanilla essense
1/4 tsp salt [i omitted the salt]
[a small fist of choco chips]

1. melt the butter and mix the vege oil and sugar while the butter is warm. put aside to cool.
2. shift the flour and cocoa powder together into a bowl.
3. pre-heat the oven to 160C or 325F
4. beat the eggs lightly and fold it into the wet mixture.
5. fold in the wet mix to the dry mixture.
6. mix then together until combined but do not over mix else it will be cakey.
7. i swirl in the chips before pouring the batter into the pan. original recipe uses 8x8 square pan. i used a 8" round pan.
8. bake for 30 mins in 160C. but i think should reduce to around 25mins.
9. to check for doneness - which really depends on how u like your brownies, insert a toothpick and if it comes out clean IT'S TOO DONE!!! for me i think it should have crumbs sticking to the toothpick but not too wet.

5sc.1 class of 93

this photo certainly make my mind racing back to those times where we pulled cheeky pranks on teachers and friends, exams, teeny bopper mags, exams, silly crushes and miami vice. did i mention exams?

note : actually i lost all my secondary school photos. i accidentally thrown the photo albums while shifting houses. so i would be really great if someone can sent me somemore pictures...

mini bbq @ bridget's

the food all working hard ... but one drinking

all eating ... butt one still drinking

eat the po-tay-to eric & swee style

after a satisfying meal...

reunion of the gals

it was a great nite with great gals! had superb meal with best companies after such long time. the pictures tells it all!

beauty time : let's hydrate!

love facial masks. they actually do help. believe me as some yielded the results as promised. today i tried the bbe algae soft mask from it's herbal soft mask range. it is actually in powder form and you have to mix with water into a paste of you prefered consistency before applying. didnt noticed any scents but perhaps my nose is not sensitive enough to pick the scent. it's pretty easy to mix the paste as it disolved easily. i used my fingers to mix it and applied onto my cleansed face. application was easy too but i think i have used too much powder. i think it's quite economical too as i've only used 1/4 of the pack and i had some more paste even after covering my face. and i do have quite a large face :)
after 5 mins after application, i can feel my face getting cooler. i had some tingling sensations after around 10 mins. i felt my face tightening a little and a little itchy after about 13-15 mins. after about 25 mins, i lost my patience and decided to peel the mask off.
removing the mask especially those feel off ones is my fave part. but it didnt went that well. removal of the mask was a really messy affair. the mask was flaking at the corner of the mask while the middle was smooth. i didnt managed to "remove the whole mould" as per instructed (which got me excited when i read it). it cracked, tore or stuck all over. perhaps the paste was too thick? i can actually see my pores' marks on the bigger pieces which i think if good as it cleaned them. luckily i managed to remove the mask residues after rinsing my face with water and using a small towel to lightly scrub the more stubborn pieces.
the after effect was pretty nice. my skin felt supple and smooth. i think my pores looked less defined and face more radiant and fair. maybe the deep oil cleansing before the mask application helped to achieve this too but this algae soft mask did hydrate my skin after all.