after eight

When I reached home on Saturday morning, the first thing that my brother took from my luggage were chocolates. He saw after eight and immediately opened it. 'eh coklat tu slalunya makan lepas dinner la..' my dad said.. and i asked him, 'nape?' and he answered, 'cause its after eight' hehehe i find it amusing.. perhaps it is true.

I kept on listening to ich bereue nichts and Tokio Hotel's Monsoon..remembering my husband at every second. I was soo $£%*ed up in the morning cause the internet was down but only was ok again at around 1215. see, in our relationship, we only have 30 minutes of chat time (for now) and if i have 1030 - 1230 class, that would mean, we only can talk for 2 - 5 minutes on the phone at night, provided i dont sleep early or he comes home from work early.

my jet lag is not so bad today, although i slept at maybe 3am and woke up at 6am. it was very hard for me to wake up since i had headache plus with the rain made me hit the snooze button a couple of times. right now, i am on the bed. with my little laptop and one eye half closed, trying so hard to open them..


but everytime i close both eyes, in my mind, i will recall the time when me n ikhwan n some of his friends were watching transformers and he caught me almost falling asleep.

ikhwan : 'haa tido ke ?'
dora : 'takde lah.. tutup mata je'

now b, i tak tido.. i tutup mata je tau.....

Read more...

heartbeat

'my heart is beating very fast'

i met the person who has the same interest as i do.

i have mixed feelings. happy. scared. excited. confused. sad. all mixed like a cooked mixed vege.

what do i do now ?

let's think things through with a bit of müller peach joghurt (see how fancy they spell yogurt?..supercool right)

Read more...

factors and factorization

I have been listening to Katy Perry's Thinking of You over and over again (yes, I'm a freak). Every song has a story. Then I called my mom and my brother :) Ikhwan says I'm homesick cause I call home almost everyday.

Its surprising when you are alone and there's this push factor that makes you do things you didn't even dream of accomplishing.

The grocery shop closes on Sundays and we were out the whole day on Friday (Heidelberg) and Saturday (Metzingen) and came back really late and tired to buy food. So we went grocery shopping yesterday evening after Ikhwan came back from work. During tea time, I made baked potatoes. Surprisingly, he said, 'this is insanely sedap la'. Though it might sound like a mere 3 second sentence, but for me, it was best comment so far and I shall remember it.

Since we have chicken now, I made ayam masak merah (totally push factor) and hopefully he will like it. I'm not a good cook but I cook with love. maybe it will reach him.. somehow..

Sure u might say, 'maybe its the just married factor where everything is pretty and nice, sugar and spice..' So what if it is ? Let me have this since we will be apart for awhile by end of this month and it's not gonna be easy.. we had a taste of perfection but later we have to endure the time difference factor, cost factor, puasa factor, raya factor and all the other factors. and it all sums up like the factorization method, the long distance inter-regional marriage (LDIRM) factor. Not the usual weekend husband/wife. However, this is our fate. This is how Allah has written for us.. I consider myself lucky. It could be worse. Alhamdulillah Allah made it easy for me :)

Remember I wrote about changing points? Going back is gonna be the worse change point ever and I dont know if i am strong enough to deal with it..

cause in your eyes i'd like to stay.. stay...

But I know I am not alone..

Read more...

hard candy

My whole life I have been trying to gain some weight. After being called, papan (stick), bini Popeye (Popeye's wife), kurus kelingking (what's that all about) and other names that describes my thinness, finally, alhamdulillah, I have gained some significant weight :) **smiley smiley** no no.. dont think that it's THAT ok.. i have simply gained weight because Ikhwan buys me a lot of things.. mainly food :p chocolates and yogurt.. and milk and chocolates again and again and again..

We are planning to go to Heidelberg this weekend insha Allah and some other places in Europe (to be determined soon) with some friends who are currently residing in Germany as well.. Im starting to get used to waking up at 5am.. though sometimes i still get freaked out at the fact that the sun is still shining brightly at 8pm..not that I am complaining. I love the sun :) Maghrib prayers is at 938pm and Isya' is around 1145pm..

Yesterday Ikhwan wanted to treat me for dinner at a restaurant.. and being his punctual self, he says 5pm we leave.. and 5pm it was.. not even a minute late.. but then we realized that the buffet starts at 6pm so we hung out at the grocery store to kill time.. and of course.. we bought more food.. more chocolates and cookies.. and when it was almost 6pm.. it rained heavily and we had to head back home.. we walked in the rain sharing one umbrella and somehow it was kind of romantic.. hehe.. then I looked at him and I felt like I was in some hindustani movie (only that there were no people from behind the trees dancing simultaneously at the background hehehe.. it would be freaky if that happened though..). when we reached home, were soaking wet and very very superbly hungry..

and suddenly it hit me. Im a wife. I mean, yes I know that I am a wife.. but at that time, it really really hit me. I dont know why.

I prepared the Delifrance bread we bought at the grocery store. I baked it with some cheese and butter. And it was nice (surprisingly). And I heated the roti canai and made coffee for him.. And while he was eating and watching CNN, there were flashbacks about when we first met on 1st September 2005 at San Francisco Coffee. Then, I looked around and thought, roti canai, coffee after being soaking wet in the rain. It's just like San Francisco Coffee's tagline, 'Life is good' .

This is an amazing experience. Its like Indian summer in the middle of winter..like a hard candy with surprised center..

Alhamdulillah.

Read more...

my favourite Arabic delight

The semester has ended and now it's examination time. It would mean, no lectures. And most of the time is occupied with marking and other administration work.

One of my international students comes to see me every time he can. Just to cakap - cakap and perhaps seek advice. So one day, he brought a nice Arabic delight called Basboosa. I fell in love with it the minute I tasted it. Sedapnyer bendalah nih~

So today, I asked him to buy for me more. Cause during the weekend, in my mind was only Basboosa. And I googled the recipe. Ingat nak buat lah satu hari ;)

Ingredients

For the syrup

• 2 cups sugar
• 2 cups water
• 1 medium lime, zest of
• 1 medium lemon, zest of
• 1 teaspoon rose essence or rose water
• 3 teaspoons honey

For the cake

• 3 cups semolina cream of wheat
• 1/2 cup flour
• 1 cup white sugar
• 3 eggs
• 1 medium lemon or lime, which the peel was used for the syrup
• 1 cup soured milk, squeeze the lime or lemon, into 1 cup of milk to make this
• 16 tablespoons butter
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• whole almond, for garnishing
• unsalted pistachios, for garnishing

Directions

For the syrup:.

1. put all the ingredients together except for the rose water in a pot and bring to a boil.when it starts to boil, put in the rose water and let boil.it should look like syrup but should not be thick.don't let it reduce too much.let it sit while the cake is baking.

For the cake:.

1. while the syrup is put to boil, start the mixture of the cake.mix butter and sugar together(before doing this, make ure butter is very soft.cutting it up in small cubes always help).do not use a hand mixer or a cake mixer (this causes it to be too airy and we don't want this) but, use a fork or a potato masher.the butter and sugar does not need to be melted into each other.

2. now add the eggs and the dried ingredients to this.lastly, add in the soured milk.mix into the mixture and pour into a buttered dish.it should only be poured 1 inch in height.

3. put into oven at 325 degrees for 20 mins, then take out and cut into squares depending on the sizes you want and place back into oven for 5 - 10 mins.take out and pour sugar syrup all over the cake,making sure that the whole cake gets enough syrup.let cool and eat.

4. the pistachios can be crushed and sprinkled over entire cake and an almond goes on each square.

5. it tastes alot better the next day so this can be made a day ahead

Read more...

my successful kek batik

Yeay... looks nice.. feels nice.. it is nice.. my successful kek batik.. nyummy!

Read more...

Day off

I took the day off today. At first I wanted to spend the day alone watching High School Musical the movie. but i did that on Saturday with my nephew and niece. So I changed the plan. I wanted to go to area2 KL with my mom. we wanted to look at some stuff. but then, tak jadi. plus i wasnt in the mood. so i stayed at home and cook instead.

so today i became a wanita misali. i cooked. dua lauk.
1. kari ikan.
2. sayur campo.

jadi ke x? i dunno. tgk komen orang...

Few mins later:

-yeay passed! woo hoo!

Read more...

Sugarless ?

I spoiled myself this month with chocolates. And its only the 3rd of May! Shout out to my cousin Kak Mimi who's celebrating her birthday today! After payday, i treated my parents at Secret Recipe where we had a slice of Chocolate Indulgence, Carrot Cake and Blueberry Cheese Cake. Not getting enough sugar, i bought myself 3 bars of Kinder Bueno. I've always been told that this chocolate is scrumptious but never really experienced it for myself.

So I dropped by at Watson on a Tuesday night and grabbed some Kinder Bueno. My God! It tasted soo good I went and buy another 6 bars the next day. Even my mom loves it !!

Still feeling abit sugarless, today I bought 6 packets of Chocolate Dadih at the store next to AVON. I'm going sugar crazy! Ok so I have to add another label which is "food" since I foresee that i will be blogging alot out it later on.. Hehe

Oh yes, please visit my sister in law's cupcake shop (online) to order your cupcakes ok :)

Since we're on the subject, I managed to cook our family's famous Beef Stew today! and it turned out nice.. hehe alhamdulillah yeay!

Read more...