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Daging Masak Merah; Love Weekends

Whoever does work today is not normal. Haha. Eve of a public holiday yet no half day oh the pain!

Saturday my siblings came over for lunch, and cooking was yet another diner dash. On the menu was daging masak merah and very simple fried cabbage. Butter cookies was supposed to be an after-lunch activity but it was changed to butter cake because of lack of time.

I also had to go to the post office to get Junior's books that arrived but were too big for the mail box. Maybe I should have one big mail box outside my door and ask the postman to deposit it there instead. The queue at the post office was so long! When I came at about 10, I was like 60th in queue?! So Junior and I went to get some groceries while waiting for our turn, and when we came back, the number only moved up by 20. Damn.

By the time we were done and back home, It was 11.30! Not enough time to cook the meat! Thankfully Junior explored his new books on his own quietly, so I had time to cook. Multi-tasked: frying onions while chili was in the blender and cutting meat at the same time. Pretty amazed myself. HAHA. The meat turned out good, a little spicy though (I suspect it's the chili) but Husband approved! Yeah!

I think I memorised the recipe already, first given by my mum. It's really simple.

For 1 kilo of meat (use daging kari or with urat-urat):
3 onions, sliced
1 stick of lemongrass
6 cloves garlic + 1 inch ginger, pounded
6 tbsp. dried cili paste
1 tomato (or can add small can of tomato puree, optional)
1.5 tsp salt + 2 tbsp. sugar

Made butter cake with the reduction of 2 eggs, and replaced with about 1/2 cup of yoghurt. The cake didn't taste sour (THANK GOD cos Husband doesn't know I put in yoghurt heehee!) but it's less dense and oily. What to do, healthier foods are always less desirable haha.

Junior helped too, with my brother. Junior seems to be accustomed to our baking sessions! He automatically took sugar and flour, and the whisk! He wanted to help sift the flour too. So proud of my little baker :) Of course, he helped himself to the chocolate chips too haha.

Healthier butter cake with chocolate chips:
227g unsalted butter
200g sugar (can reduce if you wish)
250g self raising flour
3 eggs
1/2 cup yoghurt
vanilla
sprinkle of chocolate chips (Husband's request)

Baked in 8x8 inch square pan, 17 degrees Celsius for 40 minutes.

The aroma of cake baking in the house is the best aromatherapy for a home. And even Husband loves it too! He says it smells like a bakery :) I should start learning how to make bread, it'll smell even better!

Family weekends are the best :) I love this routine of cooking and baking every Saturday, having home cooked food for the Husband when he comes back from his class. And simple things we do together, that even Junior loves and appreciates. Thank you God for this wonderful little family we have. Life is complete :) Leaving you with a couple of photos from the weekend!


Umar at Ar-Raudhah Mosque, entertained by 2 neneks while syarahan was on going. He is a happy boy at the mosque, and I'm so happy to see him so comfortable at the mosque. Sometimes I meet nice ladies who encourage bringing kids to the mosque, sometimes I get discriminatory remarks like I can't be in the middle Jemaah, that I have to be at the back or at the side so that my son won't disrupt the prayers. Come on lah, my son sits quietly with me. Stop discouraging kids from being accustomed to prayers and to the mosque.

This is his current train collection! We found imitation Thomas the train collection at a push cart in IMM, and they can fit on Ikea's train track set! BRILLIANT! Cheap ($2.50 each only!) and functional! So now he has 6 of those imitation trains (I bought all designs that they sold), 1 real Thomas the train (the blue one) and 1 Ikea train (the rest have gone missing). Now I'm teaching him how to take care of his toys and how to keep them.

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