Things change for the better...or worse?

You know, things always seem to be getting worse and worse for me. It's almost as though I can foresee that another big one will be coming up next. Soon. It's like tetris. You start with level 1, where the blocks drops down really slowly and you have so much time to arrange the blocks nicely. As you proceed to level 5, your hands have to work faster than your brain or else you'll screw it up. By level 10, you can almost barely see what shape the block is when it drops down cause it is too fast to catch up. By then, all your blocks would have been stacked up and have barely anymore space to place the blocks, and eventually you die. Game over. It gets harder and harder and in my case, initially I thought that, 'this had got to be the worst that could happen to me!' but little did I know, that things will get worse later on. Naive I was, I thought things would be better, as told by many. Instead, every other day I am feeling worse and worse because I keep finding out more and more about the brutal truth. Every time I find out something, I write in my secret journal "this has got to be the worst I have experienced" but later on it gets worse and worse until I am so afraid to do anything now. I wish I could either turn back time, undo the things I shouldn't do, or just stay stagnant. Yes, stagnant, at least I wouldn't have to go through the 'worse' that is coming my way.
I really hate it. It is VERY tormenting. When will it end? Can someone give me an answer? Is there a secret path out?

Down the drain

My effort has all gone down the drain. I should have known. I should have believed my own instinct. Because I kept living in denial, it got from bad to worse. I don't know who to blame, myself or him. It doesn't matter now. It doesn't matter who's at fault. Cause it is the least of my concern. My concern now is.... what's my concern? I don't even know what the heck do I want and where the heck do I go from here. I guess I am not given a choice. I have to take the road that I've been dreading to take.
I pray for strength and motivation. I pray for all the good things to start coming to me now, I really need it at this critical moment. Please.

A break

Today, my blog post will be something different. It will not be about food. It will be about how bad my luck is, most of the time. I could say all the time, but it wouldn't be fair cause at least I have hands legs eyes nose ears and mouth. At least I have a family who loves me and will always be there for me. For that, I am grateful and cannot ask for more.
There are many more people out that who are not as fortunate as you (or me). But if you look around longer... You'd realize, that there are also many more people who are way better off than you! Some say they deserve it cause they work for it, they pay for it, they earned it. Let me tell you that there are also these people who clearly just sat there and have tinker bell sprinkle fairy dust on them.
Why? Why is my life the way it is? I question myself (or God) almost everyday. A lot of (bad) things that happened to me were out of my control. I could not have taken a step to avoid it. It just happens to me. Why me? Why not you, him, or her? What have I done so wrong that God decided to do this to me? Some might tell me, everything happens for a reason. Learn from it. But what if there's NOTHING to learn?
Let me give you an example. I treat a person nicely, and put in all my effort in controlling my emotions (anger). In return, that person betrays my trust and 'misuse' my kindness towards him/her. So.. what is the lesson learnt here, people? That one should not be kind or should not be nice to another person? That one should always be selfish and think for oneself before anyone else?
I don't get it. I always get the bad stuff, it's like, it's destined. Me and bad luck, that is. Why do these things happen to me, God? Was making me stronger the aim of Your plan? Well let me say, no, it has not made me stronger. It only makes me feel less and less loved by You and more and more of thinking that I should not be put in this world in the first place. What's the point? Why would someone live to suffer streaks of bad luck, one after another since primary school?
I wish I could start listing down the bad lucks that I had experienced since a very young age. I could do so, but that might result in me being not able to update this blog forever because I would have committed suicide. If I were to list them down, you might be shocked, I might be even more pessimistic which is totally not why I'm writing this post in the first place.
Today, I started my day by having a heart attack. I nearly lost my handphone. I left my hp in the toilet, walked out, washed hands and left the ladies. Shortly after that I realized that my hp wasn't with me, I dashed back into the toilet and that particular cubicle was occupied. I prayed and prayed that no one would notice my hp and was waiting impatiently for the person to come out. Thankfully, Jocelyn rang my hp and I could hear my ringtone from outside the cubicle. Thank Jesus, that no one stole it. The lady came out and I quickly ran inside to take my hp back.
Today, is the day I really didn't enjoy at all. No one would have. Don't ask me to think positive, cause there's nothing positive about it at all.
Today, I was embarrassed, and will be for as long as I face this new colleague of mine. When I broke up, everyone asked me to get a job to take my mind off things. Keep myself busy. Which I have, and I actually thought it worked quite well, the moving on thing. But then, the 'thing' today just had to happen, and now I don't know how to face the colleague of mine for the rest of my time in this company. This makes me want to resign. Why do God (or whoever up there) lead me to a road, guide me into it and then puts a stop sign there shortly after? What's the point of walking down that road then? I am not going to disclose here what the actual incident was, as I already said it is something embarrassing. I'm not going to embarrass myself further. If you're my close friend, come ask me I would tell you.
Today, I drove to kl and endured the crazy kl traffic (and drivers!!). Can't you people drive properly? Anyway, I parked my car at Wisma Cosway. Before I started to drive to the exit, I took out the parking ticket from my purse and placed it on I dunno where but then later when I reached the payment booth, I couldn't find it. It dropped on the ground. Finally, I reached my hand out of the window to give the parking ticket to the parking attendant(?) only to know that no one is inside there. WTF. I thought to myself, "is this really not enough of bad luck already? what does life want from me?" Fortunately someone came to attend to me shortly.
Today, I met up with this someone. To cut the long story short, that someone lied to me again. And it was not a nice feeling at all, cause it was already too late after I had realize that he/she lied. I felt like trash, which totally didn't help after enduring the many bad lucks that happened during the day.

When, when will my good luck come? Shall I wait, or shall I not?
People always say FML even when there really is nothing to F about Their Life.
But now, I can say I totally qualify to say, FML.

Spaghetti Aglio-Olio Inspired

People have asked me what my favourite type of food was. I find it really difficult to answer that question, because truth be told, I love all types of food! I love Thai, Indian, Malay, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Italian, Western.. Oh and also Indonesian! They're all my favourite. Lol! So greedy right? That explains where those flabs came from. Sigh. Let's see, Tom Yam is one of my favourite Thai food. Best tom yam soup I've tasted is actually from Just Thai, but they seem to not taste as nice as it used to anymore, but still good. As for Indian food, I like banana leaf rice; where you eat your rice on a banana leaf, with fried chicken and other side vegetable dishes. It is quite pricey to eat banana leaf rice in my opinion, therefore I seldom eat it. So I don't really know which places serves the best banana leaf rice. Please leave a comment if you do know a place, it's quite sad that not much comments are left on my blog :(. Hmm, Malay and Indian food are quite similar, aren't they? I guess if someone likes eating Malay food, they'll be fine with Indian food too. Oooh, 'Ulam' is definitely one of my favourite. 'Ulam' is basically raw vegetables (petai, long beans, four angled beans, cucumber) that is usually eaten together with sambal. Petai is sooo good whether raw or cooked. Those who thinks petai is smelly, you're probably right! Haha but if you really are a connoisseur of food, you will know how to eat it. It is really good for health too, it is said to cleanse your kidney or something. Cat fish (Ikan Keli) is absolutely delicious too, especially the deep fried ones. Can't recommend a specific place that has nice Malay food though, cause so far I do think that most Malay stalls food are not bad at all. When it comes to Chinese food, hmm the list of favourites won't end! Char kuey teow, Porkball noodles, Fish head noodles, Tai Chao, Mixed rice, Chicken rice, and all kinds of dishes that go well with white rice, some of which I have blogged about in my previous posts.
Salmon sashimi is my utmost favourite Japanese food. At first I thought it was quite disgusting, the jelly-like texture and the fishy taste, to know that it is 100% raw just did not sound appealing to me... But later on I kept trying it again and again then I slowly grew to like it so very much! I prefer to just consume the salmon sashimi on its own without rice. Best japanese food I've tried so far is Rakuzen and Sushi Zanmai... Am still looking for better Jap restaurants. My favourite Korean restaurant however, is Bon-Ga Korean BBQ in Solaris, Mont Kiara. The price is reasonable and the side dishes are free and refillable, they even give you free stone-bowl kimchi soup, free iced coffee and dessert! Very satisfying. I'm sure most Korean BBQ restaurants serve free side dishes if you order their BBQ dish. In Bon-Ga Korean BBQ, their pork belly for 1 person costs about RM25. Super reasonable, and it's my favourite too. Bbq-ed right before my eyes, and then eaten hot and fresh. Not to mention that Korean rice are really nice too, as it is short-grained.
As for Western food, I really like grilled beef or lamb. T-bone steaks, Rib eye steaks are just too appetizing.
When I think of Italian, I think spaghetti, risottos, cheese, cheese, cheese! Mozarella, Parmesan, Cheddar... Haven't tried blue cheese. People say they stink but then again, petai and durian 'stinks' too according to some people. So I'm not gonna judge until I try it myself. Erm, I used to think Italiannies was the best Italian restaurant. My perception changed after I tried D' Italiane Kitchen @ Jaya33. I'm definitely a fan of risottos, so I tried the risotto with bacon bits and light cream. It was like carbonara risotto, lol! Very nice. The Garden Lifestyle Store & Cafe at 1 Utama near Hang Ten also serves reasonable and delicious spaghetti. I tried their Spaghetti Vongole (Spaghetti with pesto sauce and clams), and it was very nice. When the dish arrived, I thought I had ordered wrongly cause, I didn't expect pesto sauce to be green in colour plus the illustration did not show the dish having any leafy green sauce. Now I know that basil leaves and pine nuts are used to make pesto sauce! Hehe.

So today, I'm gonna share an Italian dish - a recipe on how to cook spaghetti aglio olio. Aglio-Olio does not have sauce, instead it is mixed with generous amounts of olive oil. No worries there, as olive oils are really healthy and absolutely not fattening. As the dish does not have sauce, it is important to add enough chopped garlic, salt and herbs for better taste.



Ingredients
1. Spaghetti
2. Sliced beef (optional)
3. Peeled prawns
4. Sliced button mushrooms
5. Olive Oil
6. Italian mixed herbs
7. Chopped garlic
8. Salt

Method
1. Boil spaghetti in a pot for about 20mins with a pinch of salt. If you're not sure if the spaghetti is soft enough, check the texture of the spaghetti by just taking one strand from the pot, cool it and 'pressing' it with your fingers.
2. When spaghetti is done, strain them and place them in a bowl. Mix 1 tablespoon of butter to prevent the spaghetti from sticking together. Set aside.
3. In a clean pan, heat a generous amount of olive oil, and then saute some chopped garlic till fragrant.
4. Add in sliced beef and button mushrooms first, fry for about 1 minute and then add in prawns and stir fry till cooked.
5. Add in spaghetti and toss while adding mixed herbs and some salt.
6. Serve hot.

Oops sorry

I was supposed to blog about Claypot Chicken Rice next but unfortunately I didn't copy the photos in my pendrive when I came to Australia. I'll share the recipe when I get back to Malaysia. Also, I fell sick for the past few days and was really not in the mood to blog about anything. Can't imagine how my blog traffic has deteriorated :/

So, I'm gonna compensate and share my secret recipe on how to cook butter crab! (Nai Yau Hai) which is very appetizing and quite easy to cook.



Ingredients
1. 1 Crab
2. Curry Leaf
3. Egg white
3. Light soy sauce
4. Salt
5. Chopped Garlic
6. Evaporated Milk
7. Butter

Method
1. Marinate chopped crab with light soy sauce, salt and 1 egg white for about an hour.
2. In a pan, heat up oil and deep fry crab until thoroughly cooked and then set aside.
3. In a clean wok, melt about 4-5 table spoons of butter, and fry curry leaves and garlic till fragrant.
4. Add in cooked crab and toss for about 2 mins and then add evaporated milk and salt. Keep tossing until evaporated milk thicken, then turn off fire.
5. Serve hot with white rice or chinese buns (Man Tao).



Absolutely delicious.

Homecooked Nasi Lemak

So I got up one morning and felt like cooking nasi lemak (Coconut milk rice) for the first time. Always wanted to try but just the thought of having to go to the market to buy these ingredients got me lazy. It's actually quite easy to make, but there are actually quite a lot of things you need to buy, if you're making everything from scratch.

That evening, I invited my cousins over to try my first-time nasi lemak. I actually also made some "Ayam Masak Merah" but it was odd-tasting according to them. So I shall not include the recipe here, yah? :D Haven't mastered that dish yet. However, the coconut milk rice and the kunyit fried chicken was good according to them. The sambal sotong was easy because I got the ready packed sambal from the market, I only had to add a little salt, big onions and sliced squid (sotong) and stir fry till fragrant. As for the peanuts and anchovies, I did not get the ready fried ones, I got them uncooked and fried them myself. Much fresher that way.

Nasi Lemak

Ingredients
1. Rice
2. Fresh Coconut Milk (Santan)
3. Pandan Leaves (Knotted)
4. Salt
5. Ginger
6. Shallots
7. Peanuts
8. Anchovies (Ikan Bilis)
9. Cucumber
10. Chicken
11. Turmeric Powder (Kunyit Powder)

Coconut milk rice

1. Wash the rice
2. Cook rice together with knotted pandan leaves, a pinch of salt, sliced shallots, and chunks of ginger in a rice cooker.
3. When rice is half cooked, pour in desired amount of coconut milk (depends on how much rice you cook)

Peanuts, Anchovies
1. Get unroasted peanuts (with skin) from the market. Tell them it's for frying, not for soup. The colour of the unroasted peanut should be light brown.
2. Heat up enough oil in a frying pan and fry peanuts in medium fire.
3. Keep tossing until peanuts turn to a slightly darker shade of brown, and then switch off fire.
4. Do not fry the peanuts in high fire as it'll most likely become burnt.

1. Peel anchovies or simply get peeled anchovies from the market.
2. Wash anchovies and drain them dry.
3. Fry anchovies in oil, also in low fire.
4. Patiently stir until anchovies turn golden brown.
5. Quickly turn off the fire and remove anchovies from hot oil. It may not seem crispy at this moment, but they will eventually become crispy once u leave it to cool on a plate.

Fried Kunyit Chicken
1. Marinate chicken with turmeric powder for about 1-2 hours.
2. Deep fry in oil, make sure that the fire is put to medium as to avoid burnt but uncooked chicken.

Lastly, cup the coconut rice in a bowl and place on a plate, fry a sunny side-up, slice some cucumbers and serve with fried kunyit chicken, peanuts, anchovies and sambal sotong.






Next post - Claypot Chicken Rice!! This one's a little tricky. Learnt how to cook this myself. Super delish according to those who tried. :D

Homemade Chicken Rice

We all love chicken rice, don't we? It is something most people wouldn't say no to. The question is, how do you judge a nice tasting chicken rice? The chicken? The rice? Or the chili sauce? Personally, I always taste and judge the rice first, then the chicken and chili sauce. I love chicken rice's rice. It is very important to have fragrant enough rice to go with your bak cham kai (Steamed Chicken) or siew kai (Roasted Chicken). Some places are famous for their Nga Choi Kai(Taugeh/bean sprouts Chicken). In this post I'm going to include a simple dish of bean sprouts too. It is a shame to say though, that I haven't tried making the chili sauce for my chicken rice...

The actual way of cooking chicken rice actually requires a lot of steps, which is basically not practical if you are only cooking for 2 or 3 persons, or if you are simply a newbie in cooking. We want fast, easy and equally as delicious food! That is what my blog is all about.


Homemade Chicken Rice

Ingredients

1. Rice
2. Chicken stock cubes
3. Minced garlic
4. Ginger
5. Chicken thigh
6. Japanese cucumber
7. Chicken fats
8. Taugeh/Bean Sprouts



How to make the chicken

1. Cut off fats from chicken thigh, keep fats aside to be used later on.
2. Clean chicken thighs and marinate with salt for 1-2 hours.
3. Steam chicken in a wok/steamer for about half an hour.
4. Poke chicken using a fork to ensure that it is well cooked.



How to make the bean sprouts

1. Wash bean spouts thoroughly.
2. In a pot of boiling water, put in bean sprouts and let it boil for about 10 seconds then quickly drain bean sprouts. Overcooked beansprouts will lose its crunchiness.
3. Add some oyster sauce and fried onion/garlic on top of beansprouts and serve.



How to make the rice

1. Wash rice and drain off the water.
2. In a wok, add 2 tablespoons of oil/chicken fats. Saute minced garlic till fragrant, then add in chicken stock cubes and chunks of ginger.
2. Add in washed but uncooked rice, and stir fry for 3mins or until rice turns golden brown.
3. Boil the rice in a rice cooker.

Serve chicken rice with sliced Japanese cucumber and chili sauce.



You can also saute some minced garlic and serve in a saucer together with some oyster sauce in it. Goes very well with the steamed chicken.



Stay tuned for the next recipe that I am going to share - Nasi Lemak.