Sewing Journey

This is my birthday gift in 2010. I have an old tiny sewing machine which makes me super frustrated coz not all fabric can sew nice with it. Finally I have a proper sewing machine. Bought this from J.P. Doshi . http://www.jpdoshi.com/contact.html

My old little tiny sewing machine

Brother- Innov-is 50

 Sewing station

 Have 135 diff stitches

 Wit Pretty Hardcover. So in "Project Runway" mood.

 Handmade pillows for my cutest nephew, BX

 close up for details

 same fabric for pillow covers

 close up

 Another set of cover

Pillow for my cousin, Keh Xin 

Steamed white sugar sponge cake ( Bak Tong Gou 白糖糕)

This dessert is quite easy to make but a bit time consuming as it need about 6-8 hours for fermentation.You can choose to prepare at nite and let it ferment before sleep. Next morning just steam for 15-25 minutes then you will have nice fluffy dessert for breakfast. But please take note; it will turn sour if it gets over fermented.

Ingredient：

(A)

200g      Rice flour粘米粉

140g      Sugar白砂糖

410g      Water水

1. Add all ingredients into a pot, mix well and keep stirring with low heat. Make sure the pot is big enough for double the ingredient coz after fermentation, the mixture will almost double the size.

2. Cook until the mixture is a bit sticky and increased thickness (like sesame paste) removes from heat. Bear in mind that the mixture will continue to cook until it is completely cold off. Please continue to stir for a while and sieve it to remove clumps.

 (B)

½ tsp     Baking Powder泡打粉

1 tsp      Dried yeast乾酵母

2 tbsp    Water水

1. Add baking powder and dried yeast into water. Mix well then add into cold off mixture (A). Cover with cling wrap, let it sit for at least 6 hours.

2. Laid a layer of cloth or baking sheet on steamer tray/baking mould. Steam for 15-25 minutes, depends on the size of the mould. Bigger mould, lesser time coz thinner layer. J

This is how the mixture of water, rice flour & sugar look like before heating it up.

 1 hour after added yeast mixture

 

 5 hours after added yeast mixture

 I used white clothe for steaming.

After 20 minutes.

  This dessert is best to serve at room temperature.

I got the recipe from this blog

http://hk.myblog.yahoo.com/jw!RfGjM9iaBRmFZGnSATz.Hd.B/article?mid=1514

Marine Nail Art

My latest nail art creation!! :)

 After applying base colour, let it dry completely. Then start drawing with white acrylic. I prefer to let it dry before drawing with other colours. My practice is to sketch the design first then only start looking for suitable nail polish and matching colours. hehe.... as you can see my nail art turned out slightly different from my original design.

Clay Testing

I always wanted to try making some miniatures with clay. Miniatures are soooooo cute. Clay is like playing with play dough so fun…. ;)

But after some research only I realized, there are so many different kind of clay in the market. I was once confused and thought that Fimo clay is a type of clay. In fact, Fimo clay is just a brand of polymer clay. The most frustrating part is very hard to find polymer clay in Malaysia. I start with paper clay but the colour changed after dried up. It became whitish as shown below… yucks… (>.<)

At first, i planned to use food colouring to colour my paper clay. But turned out my fingers are redder than the clay. 

Texture of Paper Clay... super hard but can add water to make it softer.

Failed terribly... I added too much water. it became extremely sticky... Very hard to work wit.

After calling up a few handicraft supply store in town, I found toy clay. I bought red and brown for testing.  Toy clay air dry whereas polymer clay need to bake.  Hence, toy clay will get harder while u are working with it. If you are working with toy clay for longer time must cover it up.

Below are some of my creations. J

Cookies & bread

  Macaroons

  Roses

To do list

I am soooo into clay now....wanted to make cupcake, slice cake, fruits, tarts, cookies, ice cream and macaroon from clay. Just bought red and brown toy clay last Sunday. sadly they are out of white colour clay.  will go back to the store and get other colours as well.

Really need a to do list coz my bf kept nagging me for buying too much handicraft stuff but nothing solid being produce yet. ;p

1. a dress for myself (i have grey, black, grey, leapord print, khakis colour fabric now) Done in April
2. a cover for my workshop chair Done in April
3. dozen of cushion cover
4. clay miniatures
5. clay button
6. deco my workshop
7. more nail design 
8. fondant cupcake
9. fondant birthday cake

Pork Rib Glass Noodle

Really love this Korean Glass Noodle. Good with soup or dry. As usual, ingredient for Chinese food is really mix and match based on your taste. Below are ingredients for your reference.

Source: Chrys's recipe

Ingredients

Korean Glass Noodle

Anchovy Dasida Soup Seasoning

Pork Ribs

Pork balls/Fish balls

Vegetable

Slice Mushroom (Forgot to put in. ;p)

Soya Sauce/salt

1. Boil a pot of hot water, put in Pork Ribs. Cook for at least half an hour.

2. Add in pork balls, slice mushroom and some Anchovy Soup Seasoning, cook for another 20 minutes.

3. Taste the soup and add in salt or soya sauce.

4. Add in Korean Glass Noodle. You can soak the Glass noodle with filtered water b4 cook; it will shorten the cooking time. Cook until the noodle is soft enough.

5. Add in vegetable, cook for another 3-5 minutes. (Duration is depends what vegetable and how crunchy you want your vegetable to be.)

6. Serve with chopped spring onion on top, if desired. 

Stir Fried Korean Glass Noodle

I bought this bag of Korean Glass noodle and a pack of seasoning from Empire’s Korean Fair. The promoter gave me some cook glass noodle to taste. Below is my version of dry glass noodle. J Please feel free to change the ingredient according to your taste. For example, you can add in slice carrot, slice capsicum, dried mince shrimps and etc

Source: Chrys's recipe

Ingredient

Korean Glass Noodle

Anchovy Dasida Soup Seasoning (Optional)

Mince Pork

Slice Cabbage

Slice Mushroom

Sesame

Chopped Garlic

Soya Sauce

Sesame Oil

Cooking Oil

opps. I left out the mince pork. ;p

1. Boil a pot of hot water, put in Korean Glass Noodle. You can soak the Glass noodle with filtered water b4 cook; it will shorten the cooking time. Cook until the noodle is soft enough. You may add in a two tablespoon sesame oil after the water is drained well.

2. Fry sesame seed in a wok with medium heat (do not use oil) in a few minutes you will notices that seeds are changing in color to light brown. Place it in a plate, set aside.

3. Heat 1 tablespoon cooking oil and fry the garlic in medium heat.

4. Add in mince pork, stir it. When mince pork is almost cooked, add in sliced mushroom, stir fry for a minute or two.

5. Add in slice cabbage, stir fry for 3 minutes.

6. Add in 2 teaspoon of Anchovy Seasoning, sesame oil and soya sauce.

7. When everything is cooked, turn to low heat. Add in drained glass noodle.

8. Stir everything well, add in sesame seed.

9. Remove from heat and serve immediately. Serve with shredded omelets on top, if desired.

Abbott Calcium Milky Chew

My bones had given me warning for lack of calcium for quite some time. But, I just can’t shallow pill not even Panadol. I dun take antibiotics and only take medicine when I m really seriously sick. >.<

Saw this product in my friend’s facebook. Abbott Calcium Milky Chew!!! This is such a good alternative for getting more calcium.Bought it from Caring at RM48 for 2 bottles with Citibank voucher. 

It taste like candy. I think kids would love this too. Taking one per day now. Bone Bone please grows healthier oh!!  J

Herbal Chicken Soup (炖鸡汤)

I like soup coz it is easy to cook and very nutritious. Last week, got a drumstick from my FMIL and so happened I have ready pack herbs for cooking soup. So convenient. ;) wash the non powder herbs and put into stew pot (炖盅). Then can start prep for chicken.

This is how stew pot look like.

~Prep the chicken~

I got a huge drumstick which comes with thigh. So I chopped the drumstick into two pieces. For soup better keep the chicken into big pieces if not all the meat will fall apart. Next is removing the skin and excess fat, so that the soup wouldn’t be so oily.

Boil a pot of water. When it’s boiled, throw in the chicken for 30 second. Once the chicken turn into lighter color, pick it up and put into stew pot.

Put a bowl of water into slow cooker, then put in the stew pot (with herbs and chicken in it)

Add water into the stew pot. Let it cook overnight. I used auto mood.

Next morning, add in some salt then u will have nice warm chicken soup for breakfast. J

Romantic Lace Nail

Finally, I bought my first pack of fake nail (a.k.a false nail). There are 10 sizes per pack and q a lot of false nail per size. I bought mine from Sg wang at RM24. In fact, they are having sales buy 2 at RM32. Now I regretted that I only bought 1 pack. >.<

How to hold false nail on screw hook? Dun have plasticine at home. So I am using cellophane tape. The false nail is not stick tightly on screw hook. It kept moving when I am drawing. >.< This is how it looks like.  

 

First step, sketch for nail art design.  Then, apply 2 coats of pink nail polish. Let it dry, then can start drawing with acrylic paint. After, the acrylic paint is FULLY dried up, apply top coat. If not, it will smear your design.

Dang dang dang dang… my finished product. J 

I bought another set of small screw hook next day. Yay!! Now I have 2 set of false nail holders.  It’s hard to draw with big screw hook holder coz it’s too high, I can’t rest my palm on the wood stick while drawing.  Hard to control my drawing coz my hand is shaking. ;p But big one can keep for applying nail polish. ;) 

Homemade Pizza

Pizza Base:-

315g       Bread flour

2 tsp       Dried yeast

170ml      Warm water

1 tsp       Salt

1.5 tbsp   Olive oil

1.5 tsp    Castor Sugar (optional)

 

1. Put the yeast in a small bowl, add 4 tbsp of the water and soak for 1 minute. Whisk lightly with a fork until dissolved.

2. Sift the flour, salt and sugar into a large bowl. Add the yeast mixture and remaining warm water. Mix until the flour is incorporated and the dough hold together.

3. Mix in the olive oil and knead it until it is smooth and silky.

4. Shape the dough into a ball. Put in a bowl cover with plate/cling film. Set aside in warm place to rise for 45 minutes until doubled the size.

5. Turn the dough on to a lightly floured surface and knead lightly until smooth. Set aside in a warm place again for another 30-40 minutes.

6. Roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface in 5mm thick. Transfer it to lightly oiled metal pizza tin or baking sheet. Add in your favorite topping (can refer to suggested topping as below).

7. Bake at 200’C for 15 minutes. Serve hot.

Topping:-

Mozzarella cheese

Tomato sauce

Button mushroom

Bacon

Ham

Pork Sausage

Green Pepper

Onion

Garlic Oil

Herbs

BBQ sauce