Of Apple Pies and Roast Pork on a Saturday night

We invited some friends over for dinner on Saturday night. I had few things on my to do list :
1) bake apple tarts
2) cooked hubs favourite Hinghwa noodle, my aunt had given me a couple of washed and cooked "chee tou".

I love apple pies and when I came across a lovely looking apple tart recipe from a Malaysian mom married and living in Pennsylvania , I knew I had to try. Took me a while to test this recipe out, I needed to get the tart pans from a baking shop supplier.


My baking, though not as good looking as the original recipe, but tastes yummy.


The kids and my friend Fun, had some vanilla ice cream to go along with it.



Joanne giving a thumbs up !




And my little precious, giving me a hi-five for the tarts and ice cream.

Joanne's daughter, Sharon.. Aha.. you'd love to invite her to any parties. She relishes good food and it's a joy to see her eat. Sharon goes to the same childcare as Amber.

After the apple pie, we had roast pork as side dish to go along with wine and cheese.

Amber and Khloe both loved the siew yuk. My little girl took only 1 piece unlike :

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Sharon , she loved the siew yuk to bits and I can hear her crunching and crackling the skin up !


We had 2 red wines for the night, only 4 of us drank (very well behaved coz there's kids to look after)

After the small little party, kids had a hard time saying goodbye.. Here's Amber and Khloe giving each other a goodnight and goodbye hug.

And little Sharon.. she was busy as a bee, carrying her baby bag and mom's handbag..ensuring nothing is missed !

Having friends over really warms the house up. That's why we never had any official house warming since moving in.

Countdown to 2009 !

Coincidentally, New Year's Eve is also my birthday. This year marks a milestone in my life. We have moved to a new home and my little darling daughter wished me and sang me a song.
In the morning when she woke up , i told her :

Me : Amber, today is Mama's birthday !

Amber : still sleepy, looks at me blank and said "err... I Cook You A Cake !"

Me : What cake ? How do you cook a cake ?

Amber : Like dat lor.. make the swishing sound with both hands , like frying kuay teow ! lol ...

later, on the way to the bbsitter, she told me : Mama, I make ce-le-bra-tion for you ok ?

Those words really made my day, the best gift and thought from a 2.5 yr old.



The simple dinner spread I made for our friends, fettucine carbonara with streaky bacon, grilled sausages, baked chicken wings, curry chicken, fried rice and apple salad.

It was a wonderful day for me, I had a good breakfast at Mak Jah's, Ampang Jaya , the best roti canai in town (will blog about it next) with Mabel, a very dear friend. Thereafter, I run some errands, went back to office to have San Francisco Coffee with hubs. Does anyone know that you can claim a free coffee on birthday at SFC ? Check it out k ? After lunch, i rushed home to prepare the small dinner spread.

Hubs wanted to invite some friends to 'warm up' the house and it was a meaningful night for us. Our friends were very relaxed in our home, there was ample space for everybody to chill out and we all waited till midnight to countdown. We could see the fireworks from Curve and KLCC but it was not as good as I expected. I would like to say a big thank you to our friends esp Collin and his mom and sis who braved the bad traffic jam at MRR2, all the way from Klang and Kota Kemuning.


Some of the wine we had


Olives and cheese to go with the wine

A small celebration for me !

Friends chilling out with the kids. .. my babysitters for the night :)

Amber and Wen Zee. Look at her pose !

Friends waiting for the countdown

Amber having lotsa fun with Dominic kor-kor

We headed for mamaks at 2.30am in the morning and only went to bed past 3am. Amber was oh-so-cranky the next day. Who is to blame ? The parents of course for keeping her up so late.

Anyway, Happy New Year to everybody and here's wishing everyone a fruitful and blessed 2009 !