I Found My Moment Of Rest

Life had been pretty hectic for me lately…busy with baking after work, weekends will be worse – marketing to be done and more cooking and baking, especially when the Piggies are back home with us :) )) ( not complaining ) I ENJOYED those cooking and baking moments and seeing Piggies slurping down those food and desserts!

Today is Monday and I dread going to office on Monday….BUT life is such, we have to keep on going no matter how much we dread it. As usual, I will be busy preparing my lunch to take to work in the kitchen and rushing through to get myself ready for work . I can feel something inside me looking for that moment of rest……



While waiting for him this morning, I took the clothes out to dry in the garden. After finishing the job, normally I will rush back into the house to hurry Daddy coz I do not want to be late for work. BUT this morning, I paused for a moment to look around my small garden and behold I saw my athriums aka “ naughty boy” in blooms again. Guess what… I ran inside the house and took out the digital cam and started clicking away.

For once, I am not in a hurry to rush to work…(“,) coz I know that when I reached home later in the evening, I won’t be able to capture the mood and the scenario would not be the same. I will not have the time to PAUSE for a moment…Daddy expects dinner to be served early…hmmph


I realized that the roses are blooming too. Buds this morning but later in the afternoon it will starts to blossom. I smiled gleefully and really, I felt so good the whole morning and what a nice way to start the morning. Beautiful flowers to cheer me and put me in the right mood before I started the day work.

It's true, in the midst of our daily hustle and bustle, our flurry of daily activities, rushing here and there, we tend to forget to pause for a moment and see LIFE .... as it is...steady and continuous, ongoing and faithful... just like my plants ,unaffected by us. Looking at them this morning has renewed my strength for the day :)


If I had not taken a moment to pause and looked around the garden , I would have let this beautiful sight slipped through . And I found my moment of rest this morning in this buds :)))

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Durians.....

Yay…the local durians are in season now. The King of all fruits….the strong aromatic fragrance of durians really give people the kicks…you either love it or hate it :) but as for my family ,WE absolutely , completely and utterly LOVE IT!!!!

I understand there won’t be a boom this season due to the raining season lately. So it will be pricey this season . Ernest brought over some for us last Friday …haha so kind of him (“,) So we had durians for supper. The flesh was thick and the taste was fantastic..bitterish sweet and I gave it a rating of 4.5/5.

I trained my Piggies to eat durians from young . Now, this fruit has become their favourite :) . It is rich in protein which is good for the brains . The younger generation should eat more and the older generation should reduce the intake. Haha…Daddy won’t like to hear this (“,) coz it is his favourite.

As for me, I will savour one fruit from each species , that’s it. I can control my diet…good citizen..can’t be bribed nor tempted *winks ** Health to me is important , so for my age , I have to take extra care in my diet.

nice golden color....bitterish sweet...YUMMZ

Some choose durians by looking at their thorns, some will shake the fruit to see if they are ripe enough and some will smell the end part of the durian to see if it is ripe. Haha...there are many ways to choose durians. But for me, I know nuts about it. I only know how to eat...I can't even open a durian...haha

this is another type... bitterish sweet too
but it has got oomph

The next round of durian feast, I will steal some to make durian ice-cream and durian cream puffs..........just the thought of it is enough to make me yearn for more durians (",)

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A Fruit Flan For Piggy Gal's Birthday

I took a day off just to make this cake , in time for Piggy gal’s birthday. After the disastrous cake making adventure of mine , the night before , I finally managed to get this fruit flan ready for her birthday. Wheew… thank God it came out nice. Custard was good and the sponge base was soft and fluffy ( the other time it was compact ) Yup, practice makes perfect :)

Time flies, my baby gal is now two decades old….haha BUT no matter how old she may be, she will always be my big baby and she will have a big space in my heart. Momsie loves this Piggy gal very very much. She is not only my daughter but she is also my best friend and my confidante.

** We have telepathy minds , winks ** Her most famous line : "Eh, how you know wan ? " And I will always reply : " Don't think ...when I am around you "

Fruit Flan

I so love the colors of these fruits..... it adds sparks to my life

and speed the saliva glands into fast motion

the final product after hours of hard work

none can compared with the love put

into this cake

He has taken my place in her heart..... I hope she has a

space for me still in her heart ;) :) :)

Shout out to Piggy gal : I hope you had a wonderful birthday with us.
(all your loves one with you.) I sure do love having you back home
for your birthday!!!



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Happy 20th Birthday Piggy Gal

I took a day off just to make this cake , in time for Piggy gal’s birthday. After the disastrous cake making adventure of mine , the night before , I finally managed to get this fruit flan ready for her birthday. Wheew… thank God it came out nice. Custard was good and the sponge base was soft and fluffy ( the other time it was compact ) Yup, practice makes perfect :)

Time flies, my baby gal is now two decades old….haha BUT no matter how old she may be, she will always be my big baby and she will have a big space in my heart. Momsie loves this Piggy gal very very much. She is not only my daughter but she is also my best friend and my confidante.

** We have telepathy minds , winks ** Her most famous line : "Eh, how you know wan ? " And I will always reply : " Don't think ...when I am around you "

Fruit Flan

I so love the colors of these fruits..... it adds sparks to my life

and speed the saliva glands into fast motion

the final product after hours of hard work

none can compared with the love put

into this cake

He has taken my place in her heart..... I hope she has a

space for me still in her heart ;) :) :)

Shout out to Piggy gal : I hope you had a wonderful birthday with us.
(all your loves one with you.) I sure do love having you back home
for your birthday!!!



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When Chocolate Ganache Slides Off.....

The last few days were filled with baking and baking and baking non-stop. Not that I have orders from customers but busy trying out nice recipes…keekeek… now that government servants can work part-time…..hmmmm maybe I should go into this cake business earlier than planned * just toying with the idea :)))))))) **

Piggy gal’s 20th birthday is just around the corner, so I thought I will bake a Chocolate Banana Cake for her. She loves anything chocolatey and strawberries are her favourites so that’s it. Chocolate Banana Cake it is!

It was hard work and I started preparing it on Thursday night itself. Getting all the ingredients ready , I started out with the sponge base. I was delighted when the sponge cake came out soft and fluffy. So next, I prepared the chocolate ganache and let it cooled down while I sliced the cake into 3 layers.

Next , I proceeded with the heavy cream and whipped till it became stiff . I was delighted when everything came out nice. I left the whipped cream in the fridge while I sliced up some banana as fillings. Squeezed some lemon juice over the sliced banana was fun. The fresh lemon fragrance filled the room and it really helped to keep me awake ( it was almost 1am ) . Tired I was, but I had to carry on to finish the cake before I can go to bed.

Now, came the most interesting part….assembling the cake. Due to my tiredness , I had overlooked something very important which spelled DISASTER later . It had never happened before in my cake making adventure :(

I set to assembled the cake, first , I placed the bottom layer on cooling rack , applied the whipped cream on it , then placed the sliced banana on the cream , top up some more cream. Repeated the same process till I have finished all the layers. Covered the cake with the extra cream. It took me almost half an hour to do that coz I have to make sure that the surface is even and nicer plastered with the cream. Well , becoz I was so tired and my brain had gone into hibernation, I guess , I poured the chocolate ganache over the cake . To my delight , the cake was covered with a nice smooth shimmering layer of chocolatey goodness.

My Piggy gal would surely love this sinfully rich chocolatey goodness. I bought some very sweet, BIG imported strawberries from Jusco . Without waiting for the chocolate to set I proceeded to decorate the top with those BIG BIG red luscious fruits . I managed to take some pictures of the cake before DISASTER struck.

Either the brain was still hibernating or suffered brain freeze , I forgot the most important fact. I should have allowed the chocolate ganache to set in the fridge first before moving the cake to a cake base I bought. As I was about to move the cake , the half set chocolate ganache layer slided off the cake surface ( due to the weight of the BIG BIG fruits ) and the whole cake was in a mess.

My brain was jolted out of slumberland and tears just rolled down. Oh….there was nothing I could do but watched helplessly as the whole cake turned into the most ugly looking thing. All I did was muttering in shock….ohh…ohhhh ……....

I was so mad with myself .... I dumped the ugly cake into a big container and chucked it into the fridge. Cleaned up everything and it was nearly 3am.

I went to bed with the worst heartache ever....tossing and turning and muttering to myself... "I should have dumped the beautiful cake in the fridge and moved it to the cake base the next morning " Why..Why...Why???? So many reasons.... the chocolate was not properly set, the strawberries too heavy..... ** the main reason - I WAS TOO TIRED !!!!!

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*** I took emergency leave the next day to bake another cake for Piggy gal's birthday...can?

What Is In My Bento ?

This is what I prepared early in the morning for my lunch today. Easy to prepare and yummz :) I decided to bring my own lunch from home coz lately I seems to be having headaches after taking food from the office canteen. Some colleagues told me , it could be the ajinamoto added to the food that could be causing me the headache. Hmmmm..could be that or some spices that doesn’t agree with me.

Well, lunch today was good….the fish was just cooked , making the flesh smooth and sweet…haha I sliced up some cucumber and tomato as salad to go with the fish. The aromatic ‘sambal belacan’ or prawn paste with chillies really spiced up the whole dish Awww… after that , a cuppa of hot green tea to shimmy down…. so comforting to the almost bloated tummy (“,)

yummilious fried fish stuffed with 'sambal belacan'

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