On the rare occasion when I am sick but not sick enough to lose my appetite, all I want is some comfort food.  Pending on my tastebuds, it can vary from instant noodles to porridge to tong sueh (which is not always so easily available).

Today, I came home from work early and craving for houmous.  So, I stopped by Tesco to get the biscuits and houmous.  Thank goodness they make reduced fat houmous nowadays, so I can have more without feeling too guilty!

Talk about Tesco, I can easily say my lau ang is a TESCO man.  No, correction!!!  He is not a TESCO man, he is a TESCO VALUE man!!!  His tastebuds like cheap things.  As many times as I tell him to go for better quality, he still says as long as it tastes good and cheap, he is happy.  This 12 packets crisps costs .43pence compared to my McCoys which is £2.25 for 6 packets but 35gms per pkt and not 25 gms.  I only buy them when they are BOGOF (buy one get one free).

I was going to rant a bit here but I decided not to.  Not today anyway.....takes too much energy.  Instead I will show some photos of what I cooked over the Christmas hols.  I cooked loads but as I am not a seasoned blogger now, I keep forgetting to take photos until all the food is gone.  So, these are only some of the leftovers of what I cooked.

BUBUR CHA-CHA (why is it called cha-cha?)


STEWED ROAST PORK ON WANTON MEE


CHICKEN SATAY AND CHICKEN WITH HAM SPRINGROLLS


YAM CAKE (WU TAU KOH)

I can't believe that it is already 5 days since Christmas.  As relaxing as the last week was, I feel I need more time as Michael's sister and her family are coming for lunch on 4th January 2009.  I have not even thought of the menu though they have requested for a Chinese meal.

On Boxing Day, Michael and I rose early to get ready to meet Carrots in East London.  I promised Steph that we will meet her at 11.30am and take her and her friend out for timsum.  Within 15 minutes on leaving our home, we were stuck in this traffic.


 
A horrible accident on the A26 leading to the motorway, caused a total standstill for nearly 2 hours.  There were several police cars trying to go pass us and then the ambulance and the air ambulance arrived.  There were impatient drivers tooting but I feel at times like this, one needs to get one's perspective right. 
So, we didn't get to East End until 1.30pm.  We did have timsum but we gobbled down the food in a rush.

We had so much meat left from Christmas eve and Christmas day, so I made coronation chicken from left over roast chicken which was what we had for lunch on 28th.  
Having unbaked bread sticks in the fridge is always handy.  We made coronation roll with cucumber, spring 
onions, coriander and lettuce.  And with the left over roast pork, we had fried rice.

Left alone at home yesterday while the kids were out and Michael was in town, I decided to wrap the Christmas cake which I made with my mum's recipe.


It took me just over two hours to cut the paper, wrap the cake and twirl the ribbons for 3/8 of the cake.  It is tedious but I will not have it any other way because it gives a touch to the presentation of the cake when given to friends and the taste is out of this world.

One has to use 28 egg yolks and 5 egg whites for this 13 inch square cake.  So, what did I do with the 23 egg whites?  Well, last night after roasting the leg of lamb, I made a pavlova with 13 egg whites which is three times the normal recipe.  I creamed the pavlova this afternoon and half the pavlova has disappeared after dinner.


As it was such a huge pavlova, I did not want to decorate the whole pavlova with fruits.  Fruits are added upon 
serving.  It is strange that one comment just sticks in my head even after years.  I think I have mentioned before that my mum never thought she liked pavlova until she tasted one I made.  Since then, she only eats the pavlova I make (I think).  So, each time I make a pavlova, I always think of my mum and wish she was here so that I could give her a slice.  The plan I had to make one when I went back in August 2008 did not eventuate.  There were too many things to do and eat. 

I have lost and found a few things but never ever have I been so happy and excited to find this long lost friend.  We have not been in touched for nearly 13 years.  In the last 2 years, when I started blogging, I had a brainstorm to put Angie's photo on my blog hoping that one of many visitors to my blog will know Angie.  Somehow I never got round to doing it. 
Angie and I met when I returned to Malaysia from Melbourne for a year in 1983-84.  Both of us worked in the same company but what we actually looked forward to was our time out as girls.  We have managed to lure Auditors who came to audit the company we worked in to take us out clubbing.  We had many fun times together doing mischievous things. When I returned to Melbourne, I put our two photos side by side and to date, these photos still sit on the mantelpiece in my lounge room.
 
About 2 weeks ago, I decided to search Facebook but there were so many Angie W's with no familiar faces.  I then decided to search for Angie's daughter.  Thankfully, Angie put her daughter's name at the back of her baby photo sent to me in 1988.  Being a rare Chinese name, I found one with the similar name and took a risk writing to MK asking if her mum is Angie and I gave her a few information.  MK soon replied my message "Jackpot" and that I have found the right person.Angie and I have exchanged a couple of emails and I feel like we have never been apart at all as we still share like we used to years ago.

At this point, I always remember the poster my dear friend, Ilene, gave me in 1977 which goes like this, "New friends are like silver, old friends like gold, make new friends BUT keep the old."  I do treasure all my friends of old.