Update on braces, I have gone to see the dreadful orthodontist during my christmas break and have my photograph taken for my teeth. I have a feeling it’s going to cost me an arm or a leg to fix up my crooked teeth. But on the upside if I do go ahead with it, I might be able to lose some weight hehehehe

This Saturday I’m going to check out this cake decorating course that’s running. I’m in love with baking at the moment and I think if this cake decorating course isn’t too far it’s only for 7 weeks for a term I might signed up myself for it then I can make and bake peoples birthday cakes

Well, I’m hoping this year will be a better year for Pandabear and I after what we’ve been through in 2011…hey it could only get better right?

till next time bloggy readers…

Pandabear’s mum is not very well from the chemo treatment, poor thing – I can’t imagine what she’s going through. She’s such a strong person, I’m hoping that she’ll get better soon 14 days left of work, I’m looking forward to it…need a break to catch up on preparing for christmas and attending to other appointments. Also, I’ve been contemplating on getting some braces…I’ve been doing all the research and watching horror videos on utube on how they put on braces and how they take them off…I’ve been putting it off for ages but my dentist thinks I need them for the sake of my teeth (they are all crooked and overcrowded – the top ones..)

So, I’ll let you know the progress of it and whether I ended up going ahead with it…till then look after yourself and let me know if you have any experience of getting braces I could do with a little moral support. Baking wise, I’m going to meet up with my girl friends for a baking session and I think we’re going to do a black forrest cake – a recipe by Poh. Will let you know how we go with this one.

So last night, I didn’t sleep too well – this always happens to me when I’m sad or stressed out. Woke up around 3am and couldn’t get back to sleep. I hope I survive my final class tonight….I’m so tired….this year has been a really challenging year and I’m glad it’s coming to an end….:-(

Anyways, baking wise – I’m still baking just haven’t had the time and energy to post them up. Red velvet cupcakes, Pandabear said they were really nice so might consider making them for Christmas Oh, I forgot to mention that I’ve been doing this evening course which my doc has recommended to help me cope better with stress (yes, sometimes I’m just like a stress ball when times get tough ) Thank goodness it’s only on Tuesdays/Thursdays nights after work and this thursday will be my last day for the course – hooray I made it so to reward myself, I will go to a nice relaxing massage. My mate Audrey has recommended me this massage that does walk ins so you can ring up anytime and go in any time it’s great and the girls are Korean/Japanese very friendly and very good at massage

Not that I’m counting down but I have less than 4 weeks of work left (hooray!) and it’s Christmas shut down. This year Pandabear and I have volunteered to have a family christmas dinner at our new place so we’ll be pretty busy in December Time to set some new years resolution for 2012…scary…today is Pandabear’s birthday – HAPPY BIRTHDAY!! We’ve had an early celebration dinner at the Loosebox and the degustation was fantastic…when I have time I shall upload some photos to show you guys..

On a sad note, Pandabear’s mum had to be readmitted back to the hospital as her cancer cells have came back so she’ll have to go through some chemo treatment. My mummy is still in Overseas cos my grandma is unwell. For some strange reason everyone around me seemed to be unwell lately…it just makes you think about the importance of spending time with your family and close friends when ever you can as sickness can fall upon anyone

I’ve also started this once a week walk with my mate Audrey. Even though we have only done it once due to the crazy unpredictable weather we been getting in Perth. It was great to catch up and have a walk buddy…we usually meet up on Fridays as she only works 1/2 day and I finish at 4pm on Fridays so yeah hopefully we’ll keep this up. I’m hoping with cycling and walks I’ll be fit and healthy!! Well, that’s the plan anyways…I will upload a picture of my flashy bike when I remember next time!

Pandabear is doing fine, he’s still working hard now that we have a bigger home. Well, I can’t believe this year is coming to an end…it’s a scary thought. But I’m ready to put this year behind me I’ve also started this 4 week evening course which takes up 2 days of the week which makes me very tired too! Plans for next year (2012) – March/April traveling overseas and Iam thinking of going back to study (yes! I’m mad!!) – just a language course to brush up my Japanese but we shall see.

Regarding my business venture with my mate Jon, I have put that on hold – Jon is super busy with his photography business and as for me, I need to find time to continue with this business idea…we shall see what happens in the new year.

Even though I won’t be updating my blog as much – I will try to find time to update from time to time

take care everyone and Christmas is just around the corner!

Hope this post finds you all well. Anyways, when my brother in law’s family was over in Perth not too long ago this year. We celebrated my sister in law’s birthday, and one of her son is allergic to eggs so I have volunteered myself to bake some eggless cupcakes. I have never done it before, after researching a few recipes online I’ve nailed down to one simple eggless cupcakes that’s vanilla flavoured. I’m quite concerned as to whether the cupcakes would be edible or not cos I can’t imagine any cakes not containing the important ingredient ‘eggs’. So I bought the necessary ingredient, and knowing that I would be quite busy I decided to play it safe and purchase a chocolate frosting can which even comes with different types of nozzles for frostings (what a great idea)

Ingredients

I bought some silicon muffin cups from London and they are so colourful and cute – it’s time to put them into a good use..

It was indeed a simple recipe you basically whip everything together in my Breville kitchen mix. The only concern I had was one of the ingredients was vinegar. How bizzare, I’ve never baked a cup cake using the ingredient of vinegar. I really hope it tasted ok. So I decided to bake the night before hand, just incase it’s not edible I could still go to the cake shop and buy Eggless cupcakes..

When I peeked through the oven I could see the eggless cupcakes raising up. That’s a good sign, except even though I have baked for at least half n hour, it still look rather pale looking as if it’s not baked or cooked properly. So I poked the cupcakes and the skewers came out clean. It was time to take them out and let them cool down. So I had a test bite, it tasted ok – it was edible except it was rather doughy. You know the kind of feeling you get when you bake some cake and it’s not exactly cooked – it tasted exactly like that. So I waited till next day to put on my chocolate frosting and I break one bit to feed it to Pandabear and asked “is this edible?” he tilt his head “yeah, it’s edible obviously not as fluffy as the usual eggs cupcakes” feeling rather concerned I proceed to pipe some frosting on – they are starting to look like nice chocolate frosted eggless cupcakes (sorry no photos, I ran out of time to take them).

So when we went and picked up my sister in law’s birthday cake, incase my nephew didn’t eat those eggless cupcakes, we decided to purchase a large chocolate eggless cupcakes on the safe side. Lo and behold he went straight for the large chocolate eggless cupcakes and to my comfort he did attempt to lick the frostings off my eggless cupcakes and had a bite that was good enough for me. I had to take the rest home and in the end they went into the bin, cos none of us ate eggless cupcakes….so yeah, I guess I haven’t mastered an eggless cupcakes yet. I wonder how the cake shop managed to make their eggless cupcakes fluffy and tasty??? That’s a mystery to me…

Got my ticket, so excited – waiting patiently at the queue. Fortunately it didn’t take that long for the queue to move. I’m glad we were at the Hisense arena cos the other one was packed to the max!!

So our players were F Vadasco versus this Japanese dude K Nishikori. F Vadasco was ranked amongst top 10 and K Nishikori was ranked some where along the lines of 120 so you knew it was going to be a short game and chanced are K Nishikori would be slaughtered…but I decided to support K Nishikori, cos I didn’t really know F Vadasco and I think it’s an Asian thing, I felt sorry for K Nishikori there were lots of cheers for F Vadasco and not so much for the K Nishikori dude. So in the midst of the game I screamed with my limited Japanese “Gambate Nishikori!!” the girls next to me surprisingly said ‘well done, nice…’ hehehe there were obviously some Japanese fans out there but strongly the odds were against Nishikori.

F Vadasco

K Nishikori

Wow, I must admit the whole atmosphere of the arena is so much different than when you’re sitting at home infront of the TV. I was so excited, we bought some Cornetto and some gatorade drink – everything at the arena was expensive as expected…

Sadly the game did not last till 3 sets. Both sets were something like 6-3 and 6-4. I was hoping that the second set K Nishikori will pick up his game and that it will go into third set but unfortunately it didn’t happen. After this game you could also stay for doubles game. I’ve never liked doubles, so I was hoping we could make a move. But Pandabear wanted to stay and watch so we compromised and stayed for one game before we left for home..

On our way home, there was a huge TV broadcasting the tennis game in the Rod Laver Arena (the more expensive Arena) and it was playing Venus Williams versus Andrea Petkovic. It would have been an exciting game but for some strange reason I prefer men’s tennis games than women’s tennis games. Anyways, I took some photos of the players before heading home

Overall, we have enjoyed our experience at the Australian Open and if you ask me whether it was worth going? Yes, absolutely…especially for tennis fans out there…it’s not the same as sitting infront of TV and cheering on for the tennis players. The whole atmosphere of the game was amazing You feel like you’re up close to the tennis players….

Till next time…

Anyways, that night we have reserved a table and it was a saturday night so they decided to sat us down upstairs – where it’s a lot quieter than downstairs. I picked the dishes for that night as nobody wanted to choose the dishes from the menu so I volunteered that night. Here are some of the wonderful dishes we had…

Seafood clay pot

Stir fried chinese vegies

Chilli pepper salt pork ribs

Roast pork and duck combination

deep fried toothfish

stir fried butter prawns

Here’s a snap shot of all our dishes…

The great thing about dining at a Chinese restaurant is that there’s minimal waiting time for your food. Dishes came straight after one another and they were delicious. I must admit I was quite disappointed with the butter prawns stir fry – it was a little plain for my liking, we usually go for the salted egg yolk prawns – and that’s delicious, but I thought I’ll try their other prawn dishes – clearly their salted egg yolk prawns are still one of the best prawn dishes there….Another great thing about Chinese restaurant is that you can order various dishes to share and that gives you a a variety at a reasonable price. So we were really happy overall with our dishes.

Then it was time for their fruits which was served with some coconut jelly…

Then it was time for the birthday cake..yum yum – I ordered a orange, almond polenta cake. I’ve never had polenta in a cake before, but this particular cake was delicious, very moist and it had a nice tangy orange taste not too sweet but just right. Everybody enjoyed the cake…

I got my younger sister a lovely Burberry white wallet which she loved it so much that she didn’t want to use it. hehehehe…I bought it in London and knew it was the wallet for her….here’s a picture of the birthday girl…Maureen aka MoMo…does she look like me??

So here’s a snap shot of my very proud vegie garden patch – they are growing very nicely…and soon I’ll be able to harvest some fresh organic vegies soon..

climbing beans

Remember last time, I mentioned I tried to untangle these climbing beans so that they can all fit through the wires, well some of them died along the way but eventually the ones who have survived managed to climb themselves onto the wires without my ‘dodgy help’ and they are growing nicely, I’m hoping I would be able to harvest them before winter comes. Though my father in law told me there’s no way I will be able to harvest these beans as I have planted in a wrong season and they will eventually die when the cold weather hits in sniff sniff, one can only hope that our Perth weather stays a little warmer this year….

Chilli plants

My chilli plants are flowering quite nicely and within next few weeks, I should be able to harvest some chillies – yum yum, I love my chillies…they are very green and healthy thanks to the cow manure and some veggie fertilisers which I’ve recently purchased from Bunnings…

climbing snow peas

Now these climbing snow peas ain’t climbing up much compared to my climbing beans but they are slowly moving their way up. My friend told me you could actually eat these leaves on it’s own. Then I was like, but if I eat these leaves there won’t be any snow peas coming out of it. She laughed..and said no you only eat them after you’ve harvested your snow peas. Oh!! (blush..) I see..that makes sense…

curly lettuce

These curly lettuce are growing quite well, I’ve harvested them a few times already – except I realised I have planted all seeds together so they kinda looks like random weeds hehehehe oh well, at least they are edible…

Cucumber plants

These cucumber plants are quite huge with leaves and they actually take up alot of space too. These cucumber leaves are rather furry and sticky and if you’re not careful it seems like its going to scratch your hands. I was told by my friend that I could just let it grow and it will climb on the ground. However, I managed to put some bamboo sticks to tie the large stems as the leaves were quite large it was drooping.

Tomato plants

tomato plants with some fruits

The tomato plants have started flowering already and have grown so much from last time. Unfortunately it was getting rather crowded so I decided it was time to relocate them to a new area. I was surprised to see that even though the tomato plants were quite low they have started flowering and there were tomato fruits on them already – so cute…:-)

Capsicum plants

I have also decided to shift these capsicum plants from my small vegie patch to a bigger area as they’ve started to flower already and it’s getting a little crowded too. I’m really surprised that even though they were quite short looking it has started to flower already.

vegie garden patch

Now that I have shifted my capsicum plants over to a new place, it left some space which I decided to shift my only two basil plants left. I’m hoping they will survive as I know basil plants are rather weak and any movement to the new area might potentially kill it. I’m hoping that it won’t die as I haven’t had much luck with planting basil plants. Well, one can only hope – I just moved it this morning so I’ll wait for a few days and hopefully they will survive.

Now it’s time to harvest my salad mix…fresh yummy organic salad – it’s so rewarding to think you could just step out to your own backyard and harvest fresh vegies/salad for your lunch next day…
all the hard work is really worth it… they taste so fresh and crunchy…