The recipe is simple. You need flour, water and salt. That’s all. You can add milk and eggs but then it will be like the Angmoh’s pancake. Lempeng is Malaysian Pancake. The ratio of the flour and water, amount of oil and the fire makes the Lempeng different from one and another. You have to trial and error until you get the texture you like best.

Sorry, no photo of the lempeng here. Too good that I wallop everything before I can remember to snap pictures of it. You can Google “Lempeng” to see how a lempeng looks like.

I love owning my own business, mostly because each and every decision is mine. I worry a lot of the time about whether or not I’m making the RIGHT decision but you know, there’s something to be said for having all the responsibility on your chest but not having to answer to anyone about it (well, except your clients.) So I get to decide if I want t1 internet and whether or not I want to change out the coffee in the kitchen which is my break room– no one tells me I’m infringing on their workspace, well, except the dogs! I just like having so much flexibility and that things are finally coming together after all these years working on a business plan. I’m not exactly rolling in rough but I’m making plenty of money to warrant keeping this going for at least a few years so I can figure out whether or not this can be a lifelong career! I sure hope so because I really like working for myself.

Unfortunately on my 2nd stay I couldn’t eat their food because I had a surgery done. We, Chinese abstain from certain “itchy” food after a surgery so that the wound will heal faster and it won’t have any abscess. We can’t eat chicken, eggs, seafood and a few types of fish. The hospital main dish is either chicken or unknown fish. So I have to wait for hubby to bring food from home that my mom cooks.

According to the nurses in the hospital, the cook adds a certain kind of “ubat” medication/chemical to prevent the chicken meat or whatever fish from being “itchy”. What kind of chemical is that? I dare not take the chances though.

I was flipping through the channels on our www.Direct.TV the other day and landed on The Food Network. I can always find something interesting to watch on that channel. That is probably because I like to eat so much and also like to cook. There was a program on that was hosted by Sandra Lee. She is the one that always comes up with cheap ways to fix meals and makes them as easy as possible to create. This was a program that was mostly about making things with chocolate. She started talking about different ways to use chocolate in recipes. Then she started to explain about one of her favorite things to eat, chocolate fondue. This was not your ordinary chocolate fondue that you dip fruit and cake into. It was chocolate fondue to dip sirloin cubes into. She called it a savory chocolate fondue. Now I had never heard of dipping steak into chocolate. But really she didn’t use all chocolate. It had a lot of other ingredients that complemented the sirloin. She acted like it was really yummy when she took a bite. I am not sure if that is a recipe that I will try making at home. I would probably try it if we are ever somewhere that offers it.

1. Coat the fish with corn flour and salt. Deep fry the fish. Set aside.
2. Saute mince garlic and sliced onion.
3. Add in a tbsp of Oyster sauce and half a small bottle of tomato ketchup.
4. Add water, a tsp of sugar and salt to taste and bring it to boil.
5. Pour this sauce onto the fried fish.

There you go. The simplest sweet sour fish with the least ingredients. My children loves this dish.

You can also add cucumber, pineapple and tomato (all cut in cube) to the above. I don’t because my children won’t eat any of those.

I found a photo of sweet sour fish cooked by my hubby sometime in December last year.

We logged onto http://www.Direct.tv/ and decided that we would upgrade our television package. My parents gave us a great new flat screen television for our first anniversary. We had a smaller flat screen that we bought at Wal-Mart but it was only twenty-two inches, quite small in a living room. We decided to add the movie channels to our new television service because we recently cancelled our Netflix account. We were shocked when Netflix started the huge price jump recently. Normally, price jumps are only a few percentages when it comes to things, but the Netflix jump was literally sixty percent. I really didn’t think that it was fair that they decided to split the streaming and DVD service and then do a sixty-percent price jump! Talk about bad customer service. I heard that they lost like two million subscribers in one month. Kind of like Bank of America, except they haven’t backed off of the price cut. Even if they did, I wouldn’t rejoin. We are happy with the movie channels on our new flat screen.

Ayam Tempra / Chicken Tempra is one of the simplest Nyonya dish and quick to prepare too. All you need is Chicken, Onion, Calamansi Juice and some basic sauces which I’m sure you’ll have them in your fridge. Saute the slice Onions, throw in the Chicken add water for gravy then all the sauces and lime juice. Cover it up so that the Chicken can be thoroughly cooked then it is done. Easy right?

Here’s the recipe:

1/2 Chicken cut in small pieces.
One Big Onion, sliced. (if u like lots of onion, use 2 lar, like i do)
3-4 Calamansi (Limau Sambal) - Squeeze out the juice then throw away the seeds.
1 Tbsp Oyster Sauce
3 Tbsp Dark Soy Sauce (agak-agak lar, i like my gravy to be darker in colour)
Salt and sugar to taste

If you like the smell of Sesame Oil, add a few drops of it.
If you buy your chicken from supermarket, pls add a few slices of ginger to get rid of the unpleasant “not fresh meat” smell.
If you like spicy food, add some sliced fresh red chilli.

This is the step by step of how to cook Ayam Tempra.

1. Saute the Onions till fragrance.
2. Add in the Calamansi juice and red chilli.
3. Put in the chicken meat. Cook till half cooked.
4. Add water then all the sauces, salt n sugar.
5. Mix it well, then cover the wok till the chicken is cooked and the gravy thickened.

You are done!

My husband retired two years ago, and I am about to take the plunge into retirement as well. Retirement will finally give us the opportunity to some of the things that we have always dreamed about but did not have the time to do. One of the main things that I want to do is to be able to go visit my grandchildren who live out of state. It is really hard to watch them grow up from so far away. But, I am going to make them one of my main priorities during retirement. When I was very young my grandmother lived with us so I did not have to worry about getting to see her. She was always with us until the day she died. I have a lot of fond memories of learning to make biscuits and learning to crochet. I still make those same biscuits today and have crocheted blankets for my grandchildren. To prepare for the times we will be away from our house, we had a security system installed through TOTAL alarm SYSTEMS. At least then I will not have to worry about anything happening while we are away.

I wanted to try cooking something new. Something not spicy and my children would love it. My mom used to grill chicken wings marinated with dark soy sauce and some honey. I wanted more flavor to it. Furthermore, I bought the chicken wings with the supermarket. They have some kind of unpleasant smell due to not being fresh cut chicken? Could be. The best way to get rid of smell is by using ginger. Instead of just ginger, I add with it some shallots and garlic. I pounded them. Then I marinated the chicken wings with the pounded ingredients, some honey, vegetarian oyster sauce, Hoisin sauce, light soy sauce and a dash of salt. I kept it overnight in the fridge though. If you are doing this last minute, 1 hour of marinate should be sufficient. To cook, I deep fried them. You can also grill it in the oven but I wanted more aroma to my pounded ingredients.

Verdict: My children said, “It is Delicious, Mommy! Please cook this again.

We run a tight budget here in our house and are proud of it. We aren’t ashamed to switch cable providers just to get a promotional deal, research on http://www.texaselectricityproviders.com for the best rates on power, or stock up on coupons for our next run to Publix. But, what we will spend money on is good photography. We have five kids who grow faster than the weeds that infest our non-garden. I feel like every time I turn around, they have sprouted an inch and need new jeans. So, to keep up with our growing family, we get their pictures taken at least three times a year. We’re so busy running to and from practices, games, and recitals, I feel like I don’t adequately take pictures of these memories. So, it’s nice to be able to capture them in their uniforms, play clothes and dress-up clothes in natural light by a talented photographer. We have a dear friend who takes the kids’ pictures every season and she is so, so talented. Check her out, we love you, Luci! Thank you for capturing our sweetest moments with our babies!