Sneak peek

Oh mon dieu! I totally forgot to blog about my trip to New York & Washington. I wanted to wait until my iMovie clip finishes and I postponed and postponed sampai tiga bulan. Although it's quite old news, it's still worth documenting. Here's a sneak peek!

Make your choice

"Happiness is a choice"

It is quite natural for me, and ironic at the same time, to blog during my most occupied times, like today. To justify this absurdity, my rational thought would be: to get the important things done, I have to get the trivial things done first, so that when I start doing something important, like school work, I would be in a state where I am concern-free. Do I make sense?

I have this thing where I sometimes think too much in the bathroom. Not that I am trying to be anything close to a philosopher but my think hat seems to work at its best only during long showers and . . . when answering nature's call. Yesterday, I was thinking about the ever present topic of happiness.

What defines happiness and how does one get to it? Apart from being a state of emotion, does it manifest itself through materialism, through devotion to God, through generosity to others, or, through a cup of coffee on a Sunday morning?

It's a matter of perspective, really. Getting a fine hand-embroidered Hermès purse puts you on cloud nine. A trip to Milan, an engagement announcement, winning a lottery, bestfriend's wedding, a new member of the family. Everybody knows how life has its twists and turns no matter how perfect or miserable you are. Whether you succumb to hardship is however a different story. Your trip to Milan? cancelled, your beloved fiancé? disappeared. Your lottery winning? a fraud. Your bestfriend? died on his wedding day. Your new born baby brother? diseased. How now, brown cow?

I am still waiting for the day when the epiphany comes. But for now, "When life gives you lemons, make lemonades. Happiness is a choice."

Summer plans

I can't believe semester Winter 2012 is coming to an end already. Exams are a week plus from today, and I still have a couple of tests and a presentation to work on.

Briefly on what's happening this Spring/Summer:

Registered for my Intersession semester (a.k.a spring school or short semester) so I'll be attending classes until 20th June.

Planning to visit Montréal again, if the bus line here decided to STOP the strike. For god's sake, it's been 5 months already.

Booked my flight to London on 30th June. It's a family reunion! I honestly have no idea what the actual plan is, but Paris and Scotland are in the list. Of course, Manchester too, because that is where my brother is and he is graduating in mid July. After the ceremony, we will be heading back to London and our departure to KUL is a few days after.

It's going to be an awesome Summer. Can't wait for the euro trip and to be back in my own tanah tumpahnya darahku.

Spring is when I take out my sheer scarves and colourful outfits out of the box. Goodbye bulky jackets and heavy sweaters, you guys are going into the winter box.

End

Green monster, blueberries and nails

Good morning! I'm still on hols for a week (it's Saturday today.. technically I only have today and tomorrow left). The perfect time to be having a terrible flu.

I have been sleeping early for the first half of the week. Waking up early never felt good! Although it's a little bit ironic to be waking up early when you're on hols. When my flu started to subside last Monday, I got up very early, did some stretching and exercised. Right after, I made myself the delicious green monster smoothie, one of the things that I'm consistent with. I like the new recipe I created that morning. Tasted like heaven!

Green monster smoothie
1 banana
A handful of spinach
1 tbs flax seed
1 tbs unflavoured coarse milled fiber
2 tbs of nestum
1/8 to 1 cup of organic soy milk
Blend everything together

I don't bake often anymore. It's too money consuming and my goodness, the amount of sugar I take is crazy. But, a few days ago my housemate KD was too eager to stuff herself with anything with cream cheese icing. So we made blueberry cupcakes topped with cream cheese. They were oh so good.

How we made them?

Blueberry cupcake
1/2 stick of unsalted butter (1/4 cup)
1/2 cup of granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 cup of 2% milk
1 1/2 cup of flour
1 tbps baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
a few drops of vanilla extract
1 cup to 1 1/2 cup of fresh blueberries
Bake at 175 C for 20 minutes

For the cream cheese topping, I used the same recipe I got for my red velvet cake: joyofbaking.com
But I omit mascarpone cheese (because it's expensive) and reduce the amount of whipping cream. Also, I add half cup of oil to the red velvet batter to make it moist.

I like joyofbaking. Gonna try the panna cotta recipe when I have the time.

P/S: It's that time of the month. So I painted my nails. I like it!

The kitchen is where I belong . .

. . . . no matter how hard I try to stay away from it, so that my hair doesn't smell like ayam masak lemak cili api, or sambal belacan ikan bilis.

This is gonna be one of my food tagged posts again, fellas. You know me and food, we are inseparable. It's winter (Canadian winter can be so long, long enough to cover 6 months) and it is also common knowledge that human beings have the tendency to eat more when it's cold. Maybe that's why Asians are tinier? Maybe not? And maybe that's why I bake a lot this past few months.

I thought this wrap was a fairly quick breakfast worth sharing. Well, 12 minutes is fairly quick to me.

You need:
1. Pita bread
2. Beef/Chicken patty or hot dogs
3. Red onion
4. Baby tomato
5. Lettuce
6. Your choice of sauce (I used ranch, donair, and ketchup)

I like to heat my pita bread in the microwave because I like it crispy and warm. I don't fry the patty, I put it in the oven for about 10 minutes on high temperature. I'm trying to not deep fry anything, not even french fries. Why? So that I feel less guilty eating my fattening cakes.

Red velvet again for the 173747th time

Blue velvet cake

Voila! Thank you KD for helping me decorating the cake. I was on the phone with mom and dad on one hand, while the other was icing the cake and preparing supper

I promise, this would be my last velvet cake of the season. I'm too obsessed with it, it's not good. Especially when I'm trying to lose some lipids around the tummy and thighs. Must resist temptation.