Selalu Manise

Kerja buat Tuhan selalu manise

Biar tanpa upah selalu manise

Ayoh kerja buat Tuhan

Sungguh senang-senange

Dipanggil Tuhan selalu manise

Membawa diri ke ladangNya Tuhan saudara

Ikut Tuhan selalu manise

Here I am, Lord.
Is it I, Lord?

I have heard you calling in the night.

I will go, Lord, if you lead me.

I will hold your people in my heart.

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Whether it's scrapping coconut the old fashion way, or, mopping the floors of a house, or etc etc (you get the picture), one just gotta do it eh?

Beautiful Moon

The moon was so, so, SO beautiful last night. Round and bright and ever so perfect. Tried to capture her beauty, but of course, my mobile phone does no justice to how beautiful she was.

Had a great time playing and lighting up lanterns too. Can you make out Noel and Del in the below picture? They had loads of fun, running there and there in the dark imagining a treasure hunt with their lantern torches :)

And this was Del and Noel with lanterns 3 years ago! How fast time flies!

Cakes from the Moon?

Mooncake Festival is not really a big thing in our household though Mom is a Chinese. But I normally will get some lanterns for Noel, just for the fun of it. However, it crept silently behind me this year and I have not gotten either Mooncake nor lanterns! Haha... hopeless me! Oh well, I better run out after this to try to find some lanterns to put up tonight (I need to persuade Mom to cook extra special dinner too! Haha... hopeless!)

I did manage to grab some mooncake though - but not the ones that I would call "real" type. I got the below ones instead. I like these more than the "real" ones since those would usually be really sweet.



Here's Noel saying Happy Mid Autumn Festival! (photo taken like... 3 yrs back?)

Happy Moon Cake a.k.a Mid Autumn Festival Peeps!

Plentiful and Few

"The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few." Matthew 9: 37
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Well, the photo is not actually of a field of harvest - wheat or rice - but it's still overwhelming when one needs to clear a whole patch of land all ALONE.

Golden Flowers to start the week

Because my mind is to overwhelmingly full, my body is on the verge of breaking apart, and my heart is so heavy at the moment, I will start the week's blog with comforting stuff - food :)
Baked these babes again last Saturday and while I am happy and content with plain ones, I thought I'd need something filling to bring to work. So decided to make flowers on Sunday. Flowers? i.e. gardening?? tsk tsk tsk... not to that extend! Flower Sausage Bun is more like it :)
I've wanted to try crafting these for aaggessss but as always, trying and doing something new is always scary (not only in baking). I looked to the ever trusted Google for my inspiration, but though there were lots who made beautiful flowers, I didn't manage to find any... "detailed" work instruction as to how to twist it into a flower. So, in order for me not to forget, and to ease your trial [see how kind I am?? NOT! :)], here goes....

Prepare dough.
Weigh the into 60gms balls. Flatten them into a rectangle-ish box. It should be enough to cover your sausage from tip to tip. Put the sausage on top and roll to cover.
Cut 4 slits into the roll - make sure you cut through the sausage, but leave some dough uncut - for connection purposes.
Bunch up to a "U". We'll now refer to the sections as Sub 1, Sub 2, Sub 3, Sub 4 and Sub 5.

Here comes the tricky part. Twisting it. Ready? Take sub 1 and bring between Sub 2 and Sub 3. (Yucks! My hand so ugly and wrinkly already??? I'm only 32!!!) (Oooppsss!!! did I just annouced my age to the whold wide world???) Doink!

Let's continue with class... :) Then, take Sub 5 and bring that between Sub 1 and Sub 2 (You can't see Sub 1 in the below pix)

Then, you'll have to turn Sub 2 and Sub 4 upwards. There you have your flower :) Easy Peasy!
Let your flowers proof for about 10 minutes (Below is already proofed and ready for the oven)
Pop into the oven, spread butter on top as soon baked through and Voila!! Golden Flowers ready to be munched on! A note on the oven - each oven will vary on the temperature and the timing. I used 150C @ 20 minutes. Else, my oven will burn these beauties. Here's a rear shot - just so we know how they look like from behind :)

And because some needs evidence that the buns have holes inside [:)], here's an attempted shot. The sausages looks oily as I've just spread butter on these and couldn't wait for them to dry off. In actual fact, they are not oily at all.

So there you have it... lots of flowers to start our week. Praying for a steady emotion week ahead!
For easy ref, here's the basic dough recipe. Can't live without this :)

Ingredient: 500g bread flour or high protein flour
1 1/2 tsp instant yeast
100g castor sugar
1 tsp salt
270ml water
50g soften butter

Method: -
Put flour, yeast, sugar and salt into a mixing bowl & mix well. Slowly pour in water.
Use slow speed to knead the dough till gluten is formed (can pull into very thin sheet without tearing - also called window pane test).
Add butter and knead till well combined. - Remove dough from mixing bowl, shape into a smooth ball and put into a greased bowl.
Cover with wet cloth. Leave aside to prove till double in bulk. To test, press with finger. The depression should rise up and back to shape. - Punch down and knead again till smooth. Leave aside to rest for 15 minutes. The dough is now ready to be shaped.

Much Love, Hugs and Kisses Peeps!

Carnival Malaysia Day

The church has been abuzz with excitement for the past 2 months as we planned and promoted the TMC Carnival. We (the church) has bought a piece of land very nearby to our current premise and we wanted to raise more funds for the land purchase. So the idea of a food sale came to mind. But, instead of a regular food sale, our Pastor-in-Charge wanted to have a time where members can mingle and have fun. So, the Carnival was brought to birth. A carnival where there's lots of fun games, lots of sales, great music, laughter, cheer, unity and of course most importantly, lots of good food!

16th September finally arrived. A bright and sunny day. The entrance to the carnival was set with hundreds of baloons.

Programme kick start at 8am with Pastors (we have 4) leading a marching band (Boy's Brigade) + lady & youth dancers from Pelayanan Bahasa Malaysia (PBM) [SOooo PROUD of the ladies & youth group - HURRAAAAHHH!]

Followed by everyone singing the National Anthem - Negaraku [What a great touch to Malaysia Day I thought!] . I was actually very surprised that many sang along and knew this song by heart. Surprised because it's an 85% Chinese community and didn't expect them to be patriotic! I have indeed underestimated my fellow citizens! Followed by the PBM lady group cheering on the congregation and guest with a dance.

Then, praise and worship and Opening Prayer followed committing the Carnival for His glory.

We had tonnes (really... TONNES) of activities. And of course food. Here are some stalls we had...

Our own version of McD - MacDavid. Fresh burger. Noel's first meal of the day.

Local kueh and bao (pau). The ladies who sold really knew their products though they got the supply from others. Looks like they've done their homework in sampling the food for promotion :)

Even had a product from Thailand selling. Love that cute lil' pinky :)

The smell of local coffee brewing was heavenly. It was too hot by the time I found them, so I didn't sample their hot coffee (though it was much needed!). This stall also sold yummy goodies from Sibu.

The festive air was continuously filled with great music. Thanks to the team who were stationed at the Request Corner. Here's our Music Director singing Puff the Magic Dragon. Photo courtesy of Noel [he said he wanted to take Uncle's photo :)]

Bright yellow bananas. We were afraid to grab these as the bananas looked too... perfect! But we got some other fruit - apples and oranges which were available too.

The must-have bbq pit. I expected MORE bbq stuff quite honestly.

We had plants selling as well - I don't think many came for these though.

Nail painting and tattoo too (check out the little girl's tattoo on her arm!). This stall was attended by the youth. There's a guy who was doing most of the nail painting - quite amazing. They had face painting too - I thought they could have "sold" more of these as there's lots of kids around. They should have painted their face for promotion :)

I was surprised to see a wine booth set up. They had Australian and Chillean Wine for sale.

Blow pipe stall!!! This is a stall set up by our Pastors and this ended up being our fav stall. Fav as in, someone would rather stand here to cheer people on to try instead of sitting down to rest her tired feet! Great giveaways too - if you hit the devil's body, you get one can of soda. If you hit the eyes - you get 3 cans of soda. Highest record was... 5 cans in total. Noel got 5 cans in the 3 games he played. It being a really hot day, any can of soda is very much welcomed!

Here's the target of the pipe blowing. See the devil's photos?

Someone even put up a shoe polishing station - what an amazing idea I thought! Customers came to have their shoes polished while able to just sit and relax at the same time. Absolutely clever!

See how happy this customer is? [I can bet that this sentence is grammatically incorrect - help to correct me!!]

We also had a station called "White Elephant". It's where people donate items that they bought but never actually used and those items are re-sold. But looked like there's lots of 2nd hand stuff as well. People donated so many amazing items - from electical stuff to clothing to books to designer bags to souvernirs to shoes - you name it, you got it. The clothes started at RM3 per piece to RM2 to RM1 and at the end of the day even went to RM0.50 each! A deep fryer for RM25, a rice cooker for RM10, a Bonia handbag for RM30, a LV handbag for RM40 - Tsk! Amazing! One side was attended to by the wife.

And another side by the husband. Togou and I got heaps from this guy. He's quite amazing - as in, he looks at us and he knows what we like :) We got photo frames, photo albums, books - recipe, devotional. They were really cheap too. Good buys I'd say.

Of course, the star of the show would be these guys! This is the PBM group, seen here roasting themselves under the sun to bring out amazing pansuh - a local delicacy of either chicken or pork cooked in bamboo. My family (yeah, ko pun in this category) had to drag ourselves out of bed at 4.00am to go to the local market and to prepare the ingredients for these. It's great to see how these guys really put themselves into the action. It almost looked like they didn't mind the sun a wee bit! Yummy goodies which were gone by 9 in the morning! We also had bbq-ed corn - which for the life of me, can't remember why I didn't take any snapshots of those!

Here's the taukey and taukeynio giving the sales of the day to the representative of PBM to the carnival. Very good sale.

Here's a puzzling sight during the day. This boy wore soccer boots and long soccer socks - for no apparent reason. There was absolutely NO football games that day.

We left the carnival at about 12.30pm and head of to lunch at Jojo's Seafood. Here's food - for 3 adults and 1 child eating. Extreme? Obviously. But we didn't finish the food - da bao (tapau) -ed home some.

A great fun day. A day well spent. Exhaustion doesn't begin to describe how tired we were after the whole day. To my family, the day was made even greater by having dear Togou with us since Wed night :) Though we ended up with so little sleep, with body aching and with bloated tummy from the extreme food intake, I had a really superb time. Thanks Togs :) Let's do it again someday ya. Lots love.

Plain, Sweet and Simple

Sometimes, it's the simple things in life that gives us the utmost pleasure isn't it?

I baked these last weekend, knowing that I would need bread / bun for lunch / breaks etc. It would be easier to just head to a bakery nearby to grab whatever kind I wanted but then again, where's the fun in that? And also knowing that dad likes simple bakes (simple butter cookies, simple butter cakes, simple buns), especially right out of the oven, made me even more determined to give this a go. I've never tried baking these before. I made the savoury version before, but never tried it plain and simple.

They came out almost perfect. Well, for me at least. A 9.5/10 if I may (hey, it's MY blog so I can say anything right?). The buns were soft and fluffy. Sweet and salt-ish at the same time. It was buttery enough so no extra jam or butter was needed (which of course can be applied if one wanted to), but the butter taste was also subtle enough so it was not overpowering and sickening after a few bites. They were done just at the right time for dad to break his fast, so he happily greeted these yummy simplicity. The satisfied look on his face was well worth the sacrifice of my much needed afternoon nap!

Mom said she bakes buns and bread every other day when we were little. Unfortunately, I do not recall, but it's definately nice to know that now I too can bake for my son and my loved ones.
Give these a try - it stays well - was still soft on the 3rd day (yes, lasted for 3 days because I hid some for my lunch). Hop over here to get the recipe for the sweet bun dough.

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Indian, Malay, Chinese, Murut, Kadazan, Bidayuh, Dusun, Iban, Semai, and all the other wonderful and beautiful races residing on one land. The land abundant with smiles & warms hearts. It's quite simple really. Simple but astonishingly wonderful. I hope we remain simple in our belief that all of us can work together for the harmony of Malaysia.

Happy Malaysia Day

Love from Mr. Incredibles

Do you know them? I watch them a gazzillion times. Really. A GAZZILLION times.

And... I know one of them personally. Really. VERY personal.

Told ya right? I DO know one personally. And guess what? He sends me love letters. Every day if he remembers. I come home eager to see what love notes he's written for me. Ain't I one lucky gal?

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Edited note: As an afterthought - I'll just share this - we have a whiteboard hanging behind our room door. The top part will be with memory verse and the bottom part is empty where we (Noel and I) write, draw or do whatever we want. I normally write something before I go off for work so Noel has a note to read when he wakes up and he writes to me in return too. So even if I get home late and he's already asleep, I get a love note from him as well :)

Easy, Simple & Healhty (trying hard)

The past week has been a crazy motion of trying to get all the Raya orders done. Mixing dough, rolling into tiny morsels, watching the oven for the temperature, steaming for hours, etc., etc... Between all that, we still needed to eat. But we can't afford the luxury of cooking elaborated meals (not even the usual ones - meat, soup, veg kind of thing). So on one of those days, I quickly soaked some glass noodles, shredded from poached chicken breast meat, cut up some carrot into matchstick and slice up golden fried egg. Quickly toss around in a pan and our brunch was ready... Fried Glass noodles (Tang Hoon).

Dinner was also impossible to cook up, so, thankfully, on the rare occasion, my brother and SIL took over the stove. They churned up Chicken in Soy Sauce, Spam fried with Onions and Enoki Mushroom soup (sorry, I didn't manage to take any photos of these). Since we didn't have much veg, plus the fact that my Iceberg & Butterhead Lettuce were fast turning bad, I decided to quickly assemble a salad - nope, I don't have a name for it, as I basically used what I had in the fridge - what name will you give this salad?
What you'll need: Hard boiled egg, Roma / Cherry Tomatoes, Greens - any kind (I used Iceberg and Butterhead Lettuce)
What you'll need to do: Assemble in this sequence (just to make it pretty)
Icebery Lettuce
Butterhead Lettuce
Baby Tomatoes
Hard boiled egg (simply chopped up)
Use any dressing you like - we used Thousand Island

I guess, even in the midst of busy-ness, we managed to eat well - easy, simple and healthy :)

Giving Back Life

Life is lost because...

1) Life Happens - cancer, hurricane, dying etc... we need not think of the theology, it just happens.

2) There's evil in the world - it's a constant battlefield.

3) Just because we give it away - poor choices, consequences

What do we do then? We need to step in and give back life. Why? Because, life was first given to us. Give then - give back more than people expect.

Jackie Pullinger is an example of someone who gave back life. She was young. But she knew what she wanted to do to give back life. She got a one way ticket to where she knows she was heading to. The Wall City of Hong Kong. She is from England. She had talent in music, so that was her way in to the City. Read more about her here and here. We don't have to think too far when it comes to giving back life. Even in our own backyard, there's lots needing life.

*This is a personal note after hearing Sunday's sermon given by Rev. Dr. Al Vomsteeg. I'm blogging about it, so I won't forget.

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edited note: I spoke too soon. Please pray along with us. Our boss' new born baby is unwell. There were complications during the delivery and the baby went w/out oxygen for 8 hours. The baby is now in ICU, the mommy is still not aware of what's going on. Speak life and there will be life. Thanks for your prayers.

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update note 20Sept: Just met boss - he's back after 2 weeks. His baby is out of the hospital, breathing on his own. A miracle in itself. Continue to pray for the brains, so no damage was done during those hours.

For the love of Yogurt

Year: 1989
Place: Melbourne, Australia
Situation: An innocent 11 yr old girl was tricked by her father into thinking that this was yummy-licious!


No.... it's NOT vanilla ice cream!! It's plain yogurt on a cone. My dad was so convincing, saying that I'd love it. And it does look very good, doesn't it? On the first taste - YUCKS!!! Needless to say, my dad was a happy man that day since he had 2 cones of that plain yogurt (as he had to finish mine as well).

Ever since then, I have never ever ever wanted to even touch yogurt. Then came those fruity yogurt in uni days. A coursemate was really crazy about them and told me (more like pester me) to give it a try. So I gingerly tried a spoonful. And to my surprised, they were not only acceptable, they were lovely! So I began my love relationship with yogurt.
One of my recent bakes requires buttermilk, which I substitute with plain yogurt. Being greedy, and knowing that it will be hard for me to get the supply in the near future, I grabbed 2 tubs recently and now I am left with half a tub. Though I have been having those fruity yogurt with no issues for the past 10 yrs or so, I have never dared to taste plain yogurt on it's own.
After so much "good" food, which contains lots of coconut milk (santan) recently, I told myself that I need to pull the brake for a while and give my body (and my waistline) a break. With this, came the idea of... low carb week (hopefull rolls into month). So my first low carb lunch will be Coleslaw and Poached Chicken Breast Meat.
The basic of Coleslaw in our household is cabbage + carrot + blackcurrent (or raisin) + mayonaise. Me, tyring to be smart (and "healthy") decided to trade the mayo with my leftover plain yogurt. The verdict? YUCKS!!! NO NO NO NO and NO!!! Gosh!! What a terrible combination, I almost cried when I took a bite! Thankfully, I only mixed a handful and I regret to inform that I have indeed wasted food :(
So, though I breaks my heart (not really, hehe) to use mayo, I went back to the basic. And I will be chomping on this for lunch with a smile on my face :) [though I'll be missing my rice very much for the next few days :( ]

Note: Sorry for the blurly picture... taken with my mobile phone camera :)