Warm Pig's Trotters in Vinegar by the Big Brother

It's been raining for days now and I'm starting to miss the warm sunlight. My body is reacting badly to all the humidity and coldness. My fever kept coming back because of this.

Thank goodness for this wonderful bowl of warmness from the Big Brother. Home cooked pig's trotters with ginger and black vinegar. It was made with the ginger we bought during our day trip to Bentong on Christmas. It helps to warm up the body, good for my cold and bloatiness. 

Plain white rice makes the best companion but when one's hungry, anything quick and easy will have to do. Creativity and  efficiency goes hand in hand when it comes to this. The Soba comes to the rescue!

*Princess Emma does it again, she's getting good at bombing my photos nowadays.

Christmas Eve Dinner

It's almost a full Spanish affair for Christmas Eve except for the Hungarian wine and sweet paprika I used. 

Here I have the Ceviche as the appetizer. Made from dory fish. I sliced them and marinate them with lime juice to help 'cook' the fish with its acidic juice. Chopped some tomatoes, avocado, chilli and coriander to add in. Some lemon juice as finishing.

Then comes my favourite part of the entire course, the Tapas with Chorizo, Manchego and Iberico cheese, olives and  the Serrano jamon. 

The main star for the night, Seafood Paella downed with the red wine I brought from Budapest two or three years ago. It's a bit too dry for me. The Paella needs a lot of preparation. From de shelling the prawn to making the stock, sautéing the scallop, dicing the tomatoes and onion and not forgetting the saffron. I'm making extra for my frozen meals collection again.

Anyway, Merry Christmas !

Savory Glutinous Rice Balls

The year is coming to the end with the celebration of the Winter Solstice. Looking forward for a wonderful brand new year.

This year is the second time I tried to make the glutinous rice balls. I failed the first time because I used the wrong flour. It was very funny. I put them to boil and I waited forever for them to float when they are cooked. They just sunk to the bottom of the pot.

It was said failure is the first step to success so I will try again this year with a twist. I made the savory type as I wanted to keep my sugary/ sweet food intake low so that I won't burst my quota. I want to reserve them for chocolates, cookies and such. 

There's a lot of ingredients going into this compared with the sweet version. I had the soup base made from chicken bones, soy beans and anchovies. Then there are chicken slices, mushroom slices and lotsa cilantro. This goes really well with chopped chilli with garlic and some juice.

I managed to find 3 guinea pigs for this experimental dish. So far, they are still alive and kicking.

Telling the Time

Being stucked in a tight budget isn't a bad thing after all especially when it can help all those stagnant creative juice flowing again.

I wanted a bigger wall clock with Roman numerals, unfortunately it's out of my little budget. But I don't want to go for just a plain clock on the wall. What can I do this time? *scratching head

It's not what I want but it's wayyyyyy cheaper, only RM 2.50. Deep down inside I know I'm going to hate the way it look on my wall. I was struggling until I got the idea for world clock. I'm going to hang not one but three, yes three of it with time adjusted to two of my favourite place, New York and Budapest. 

Now I'm a happy girl whom always a little behind time because I have been looking at the wrong clock most of the time.

Teal Christmas Wreath

Princess Emma says Merry Christmas!

As I put up some Christmas decoration at this new place, I was thinking how good if I don't have to put these back into storage immediately after the festive season or maybe don't even have to put it back. It will be wonderful! Lazy people like me always think of lazy and easy ways to work around things. Hmm.....

Here's the making of my little teal wreath. It's something that I can leave it hanging all year long with the little angels guarding my house.

Some teal yarn here with my Princess Emma.

It's quite time consuming trying to wrap the yarn around the wreath base having to keep the whole thing looking neat and tight without some odd gaps here and there. 

I made two of this. One with initial J for myself.

And the other one with initial D for my BFF Danielle.

Fault In Our Stars

Okay. The movie really touched me in a different way. Not that I want to be the doomed lovers in it but it has inspired me to change my original idea for a faux fireplace to the tree branch decor in the Oranjee restaurant.

Get what I mean? 

So I made my own blue vase with a plain vase and some light blue spray paint. 

It's not hard at all.

The hardest part was finding the right tree branch. I managed to pick up one as the City Hall was trimming the trees around the town. It wasn't what I had in mind but it will have to do for the time being. I trimmed off all the leaves and most of the thinner branches.

And here it is, a piece of Fault in our stars movie inspired decor for now.

Chicken Enchilada Soup

It's just too much hassle to cook for one single meal and having to do the dishes afterwards. I always try to cook in bigger portion and divide it into single portion batches and freezes them. Same amount of dishes to clean, doubled or tripled up the ingredients and just a few minutes extra ensures a lazy person like me a home cooked hearty meal most of the time. On my busy days I'll just chuck the frozen meal into the science oven( I really adored the way Jennifer Lawrence called the microwave oven this way in American Hustle ). I'll be cooking new items and store it on other days so I won't get bored eating the same meal 3 days in a row.

There's a little prep work to be done before putting everything into the pressure cooker. The black beans need to be soaked for a few hours. Sauté chopped onion until they caramelised then add in the garlic, bird eye chilli's, cumin, tomato purée with some Hungarian sweet paprika. The chicken breast, sweet corn and black beans goes into the pressure cooker along with the sautéed ingredients with salt, bonito granules and pepper to taste. Cook them under pressure for 90 minutes and they are good to eat. Can be garnished with grated cheese and parsley according to your preference. 

Bon appetite

Simple and Easy Way for Noise Reduction

It was a plain white canvas where I'm free to dictate how it's going to turn out and I'm so excited.

First of all I'm going to seal up that door. No, just sealing it won't do. I will need to do something to reduce the amount of noise going back and forth through that door. This kind of doors are usually hollow in the middle giving them a lot of empty space for the noise to go in, vibrates and reflected to the other side. This almost guaranteed lack of privacy for both side of the house. 

I got an acoustic chalk for this purpose. Sealing up the surrounding gap of the door. What's that? Acoustic chalk is another type of sealant that remains permanently flexible rather than hardened up like the regular chalk and reflects noises to every direction. This acoustic chalk is able to absorbs noises ( never knew I could be talking about types of sealant chalk).

Then I bought a queen size quilt from IKEA for RM9.90 only (this item is out of production for now) and hang it over the door for further noise absorption. With another layer of foam tape at the gaps with cardboard and I'm done.

Noise reduction works done but it's a total eyesore as can be seen here. I've got one BILLY bookcase up and I need one more to complete it.

 And TAHDA!! Here it is as if the door never existed in the first place