A rainy late afternoon at Fat Spoon cafe

Wednesday, October 31, 2012 Liyana Hanim 0 Comments

This is a late post I guess considering that I went to Fat Spoon right after the Silky Girl event ended.I've heard good things about Fat Spoon via twitter,instagram and such.Always wanted to go there but didn't have the time and I also heard that the place was always full of people.

I planned with my friend Aimi to meet her and Faiq there after the Silky Girl event I attended which was held at Hello Deer.I just had to walk a few steps from the event and my car was park right next to Fat Spoon.Finding a parking spot on a Saturday afternoon there is like winning a prize!haha

When I went there,there was only 2 tables that was occupied at Fat Spoon.Probably because it was raining really hard.I love the place as it was quaint and the tables were mismatched.Even the plates were mismatched and the place felt really cozy and homey.The table we were sitting on was actually a sewing table.Cool!

Their menu is actually enclosed inside Peter and Jane books I read when I was little.They used Enid Blyton's book to put the cheque/receipt in it.Also instead of bowls of white sugar for your coffee,they serve bowls of brown sugar!

Since I was a bit full from the event at Hello Deer,I only ordered a baby hot chocolate and sago gula melaka.The baby hot choc was really good but the sago gula melaka was just okay.I will definitely come back for the ulam fried rice or the spicy beef macaroni soup.

 

 

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A few movie reviews:Ruby Sparks,Oldboy and VHS.

Monday, October 29, 2012 Liyana Hanim 0 Comments

I watched a TON of movies..just name it and I probably have watched it because my boyfriend have a huge movie collection.He gives them to me or sometimes we watch it together when we have the time.

But I always forget to blog about it or it'll be too long of a post or in one mishap,a long draft was deleted because of an app glitch.(I blog from Blogsy app on the iPad).

So here are 3 movies that I watched recently with the boyfriend:

Ruby Sparks

I saw this trailer a few months back when Razin showed it to me.I like the concept because there's a bit of magic in it but not in a fairytale sort of way.It's about this guy who's a writer and he had a case of writer's block and one day he wrote about a girl named Ruby Sparks.

Basically she's his dream girl.One day,she suddenly appeared out of nowhere.She has all of the characteristics and mannerisms which he wrote in his manuscript that he showed to no one.

I love the movie.It was great and you do learn about the dynamics of a relationship from it and the cast is good as well.And at the end of the movie when the credits rolled,I was surprised when I found out that Zoe Kazan(who played Ruby Sparks) wrote the entire movie.Impressive!

VHS

When I saw the trailer for this movie awhile back,I was really disturbed by it.I was like,could this bring the glory of Blair Witch Project/Paranormal Activity(don't get me started on 2&3 which was shitty..no need to watch 4).I'm sure a lot of you know what VHS is..back when there wasn't any dvd/vcd/torrents,that's what we used to watch movies or record tv shows(I did this a lot back in my teen years).

So VHS is a compilation of videos of scary/paranormal/gory encounters of different groups of people.There was quite a few moments that made me go "What the f$%#?!??"..and it looked so bloody real.It is a great scare fest.Definitely do not watch this alone!

Oldboy
This is quite an old Korean movie because it came out in 2003.The boyfriend watched it back in 2007/2008 and he told me about it recently and I watched it with him.It was just plain crazy of a movie.The boyfriend who doesn't watch Korean series or movies recommended me to watch it.I trust his taste in movies so I'm glad I watched it.

For a Korean movie,the quality was great.Great script,a storyline that is brilliantly sick and many more.But it was adapted from manga though the boyfriend said the movie is way better than the manga.

Imagine one day,for no apparent reason,you were captured and imprisoned in a room for 15 years.You have no idea why and you can't get out.I won't say much about this movie.There's a lot of violence,sexuality and many more.The villain in this movie is one of the most brilliant villain I've seen in a long time.Watched it,be blown away by the mystery of it.

 

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Baked chicken mushroom pie!Other foods I made/baked :)

Wednesday, October 24, 2012 Liyana Hanim 0 Comments

If you can tell,I've been updating my blog these past few days because I feel so bad for abandoning it a lot this month!So sorry to my loyal readers as you might think I'm so slow in blogging.hahah No excuse for that!I have many posts in draft mode...so bad!

As you know,I love baking and cooking.Last week I tried a recipe I've never tried before--chicken mushroom pie.Actually I didn't follow any recipe,I just used what I've watched on cooking shows on tv and read on food blogs and came up with a way to make one of my favorite pies!

I've tried so many different versions of this pie!From Baker's Cottage to Jaya Grocer,Urbanfresh,Presto supermarket,Teapot Deli,Secret Recipe,Ben's(so yummm!) and many more.I guess I love chicken mushroom pie because it taste comforting.

So I bought some puff pastry,button mushroom,fresh milk,chicken breasts and decided to make my own.
It's really easy.You buy the aluminum pie mould for mini pies at any baking store.

Cut your puff pastry by putting the pie mould onto the pastry and circling it and then use a knife to cut it,transfer to the mould.Remember to cut 2 rings of puff pastry as you need on for the bottom and top of the pie.

But I suggest making the filling first before you cut the puff pastry as it thaws really fast.You want to work with puff pastry when it's cold.

For the filling you just cut the chicken breast into little cubes and also the button mushrooms.Stir fry them with a little bit of oil,chopped onions and fresh herbs/salt/pepper.Set them aside.

In another pan or the same pan,melt some butter,add some flour until you have a paste.This is called roux..the same method if you're making white sauce which I've done many times.Add milk until you get the right not so thick consistency.Add more milk if it's too thick.

Add a chicken stock cube/chicken broth(but this would mean you have to use less milk).Add your cooked chicken and mushroom.Let it simmer.Add salt/sugar to taste.

Then you can see in the picture below how I put the filling into the pie.I like to add a lot because usually when you buy these pies outside,they scrimp on the filling.
Close the pie filling with a later of puff pastry,crimp the edges using a fork.Poke the middle of the pie three times using a fork.Brush some egg wash on top of the pastry.Baked in the oven at 200 celcius until it is golden brown.Delicious!My family,my boyfriend and my friend Aimi all loved it!Yes,I made a lot of pies haha.

Will definitely make a lot more of these for my loved ones.A picture of the flaky pie below,I turned up the top to show the creamy filling inside.

Also made tomyam a few weeks back.I love a hot bowl of it with rice and a crispy omelette.My tip is to stir fry the veges like onions and cauliflower separately and then add it to the tomyam at the end to prevent it from becoming limp.Also I fry the tomyam paste with the chicken and prawns so the flavor will seep in more.Pictures below:

I've forgotten how to make doughnuts and was craving for simple glazed doughnuts so I decide to make them.I used a recipe from this bread cookbook we have in the kitchen and I forgot the name of it because I'm here blogging in my room.haha.But basically I think you can find any doughnut recipe online.

Kneading the dough is hard and requires elbow grease!The glazed is simple.You melt some butter,add icing sugar.Then add some milk/evaporate milk and heat it up until it thickens.Then dip your doughnut into the glaze.I made different shapes of doughnut.Even heart shaped ones to give to Razin..awww :p

Baked pandan cupcakes as well.Which I gave to Aimi as she turned 25 last week.Will blog about our tea at Fatspoon soon.My family and especially my boyfriend loves this pandan cupcakes.I've never seen Wondermilk/Whisk selling pandan cupcakes.They should!haha
Razin's little sister Qeema made yummy pavlova and she also served it with homemade jam!Got a bunch of strawberries because Raushan's(their brother) girlfriend went to Cameron Highlands and brought a lot of them back.I ate a lot of fresh strawberries last 2 weeks.Love them!
Now did I make you guys hungry or inspired you to cook/bake more?I hope both!hahah

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SILKYGIRL Sweet Temptation Launching *updated*

Tuesday, October 23, 2012 Liyana Hanim 0 Comments

On Saturday I was invited along with a few other bloggers to Hello Deer for Silkygirl's newest product unveiling--their Sweet Temptations EDT,collectible perfume dolls.It will be out next month on 15th of November which is only a few weeks away!

I was excited because when I saw the invitation,the collectible perfume dolls looked so cute!And I love fragrances!I have a few in my collection.My parents instill in me at an early age the importance to smell good.

The theme of the event was candy colors.I had already planned on wearing this lilac maxi dress since the invitation was given out 3 weeks before the event.

But unfortunately that 'time of the month' visited me so change of plans and I wore a different outfit to make me feel comfortable for the day.My outfit below with my friend Nina who invited me to the event.

Top:Forever 21. Pink outer:Oldblossombox Store. Jeggings:ASOS Shoes:Madden Girl by Steve Madden. Necklace:Oldblossombox Store.

This was my second time going to an event that's being held at Hello Deer,a place owned by Wondermilk.I love the decoration and of course their refreshments are always delicious!

At the start of the event,we were briefed on the different fragrances that Silkygirl have come up with under the Sweet Temptations collection.Also we had to take a personality test whereby it determined which out of the five fragrances suited us.I got Lovely Lucy!They also listed all the different notes in the perfume and you can see all of it down below:
The other four fragrances was Sunshine Sue,Bold Becky,Innocent Isabelle,and Charming Charley.
After that it was the cupcake decorating competition/tutorial.Initially we thought it was like using a piping bag filled with buttercream which I have had experience working with.But it was fondant!So it was interesting to learn how to use it.

I was sitting with Shea,Dee,Lyna and Izzati.Since the other girls knew that me and Dee loves to bake,they said we have to win.But fondant is something foreign to me!haha It was quite hard but I enjoyed it because we got to learn something totally new.

Shea won second place!:) Below is a picture of me in the plastic apron they provide for us and all of our decorated cupcakes.As you can see we had to do the Lovely Lucy doll.Sweet Tooth Ville provided the tools and instruction for us along with an individual cupcake.
Pic of the girls above with me taken from Silkygirl's page :)

After we finished our cupcake deco,we had a question sesh and I managed to answer one of it and got a perfume.I gave it to my mum when I got home as I already got one in my goody bag.
Above is my picture with the girls.From left:Shea,Lyna,Dee,Nina,me and Izzati.
Loveee the refreshments provided by Wondermilk.Everything was so good.All of us was hungry since we didn't have lunch.haha.
This are some of the things I got in my goody bag.I choose Lovely Lucy scent because it's my favorite.I love the fresh scent.I also love the ice cream lip pot..it taste so good on my lips!And the dessert charm bracelets is so cute!I don't wear bracelets but I'll make an exception for this one since it has lollipops,ice cream and cupcakes on it.
As stated on the packaging,the fragrance last for 6 hours and it retails for only rm19.90 which means you can even get all of the dolls for rm100.So girls go and buy them on 15th of November before it's gone from the shelves!:p

 

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Season 2 of Once Upon A Time,Revenge and American Horror Story.

Tuesday, October 23, 2012 Liyana Hanim 0 Comments

I don't particularly like watching horror tv shows/movies but yet I've come to realize that I've watched a lot of it over the years.Maybe because my boyfriend watches a lot of different movie/tv series so I got it from him..Recently I watched The Woman in Black and VHS(that was crazy!).Will try to blog about them soon.I've watched a lot of movies and haven't blogged about any for like 4 months?

Anyway,I don't know if some of you have watched American Horror Story or not.The season 2 came out recently.I don't watch our national tv and all of the tv shows that I watched are downloaded.I heard that the first season came out on Astro?But I'm sure a lot of it was cut out because AHS is very graphic in terms of sex/horror.

If season 1 was about a haunted house,season 2 is about an asylum.The first episode there was new faces such as Adam Levine(yes from Maroon 5!),Jenna Dewan-Tatum,Joseph Fiennes,Sarah Paulson,and James Cromwell.Zachary Quinto is on the cast but he didn't appear in episode 1.So we have to wait for episode 2.
Recurring cast members from the first season is Evan Peters and Jessica Lange.

I have to say that American Horror Story never fails to give me a mind f%#k.Pardon my french!haha.It is disturbing and there's so many questions.I love questions because it leaves me wanting for more.We have newlyweds played by Adam Levine and Jenna Dewan,who stumbled upon the old asylum and from there we got to see the flashbacks of what happened to the place.

There seems to be an alien theme going on.Also the crazy mad doctor.I can't wait to see episode 2 because I need to know more!This will be hell of a season!
I remembered watching Emily VanCamp as the sweet innocent Amy Abott on Everwood years back.Now she's playing the vindictive Emily Thorne/Amanda Clarke.

So season 2 starts with Emily being trained by Takeda.There's another dude with her but I don't remember his name.haha.4 episodes have come out so far.There'll be spoilers in the next few sentences so close your eyes if you don't want see it.Do you really think Victoria Grayson was dead from last season's episode?Come on!

That's what they wanted us to believe the first few minutes of the first episode!haha But the story does get a bit twisted.Emily have become more ruthless.Going as far as lying to Amanda by saying her baby is not Jack's.And Emily's mother is still alive!Currently Emily have no love interest so it's interesting to see what will happen!Look out from the Clam cam in the first two episodes.Like,are you serious?How can a perfectly smooth clam,contains a camera?haha

Trivia:Did you know that Josh Bowman who plays Daniel Grayson is British?haha He's dating Emily VanCamp!
Ahhhhh..the tv show where fairytale characters comes alive--Once Upon A Time.This second season we're seeing a lot of new fairytale characters from Sleeping Beauty,Mulan,Captain Hook and Sir Lancelot.There's of course a few exciting twist.*spoiler* Apparently,while Storybrooke was under a curse,a part of the old land was spared from it so some of them fairytale characters are still there.

4 episodes have come out so far and I don't know what have happened to Pinocchio.There will be crazy hell to pay if some evil characters managed to escape the magical land and come to Storybrooke!

Currently the story is divided into three parts..--the current situation in Storybrooke where everybody remembers who they are and magic is back,the old magical land where some fairytale characters are still there and also flashbacks of what happened in the past.

I can't wait for more episodes to come!

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Homemade oreos,dulce de leche brownies,goreng pisang,cake pops and more

Tuesday, October 09, 2012 Liyana Hanim 0 Comments

As all of you know,one of my favorite pastimes are baking and cooking.I have a few interesting blogposts lined up for you especially my review on Steve Jobs autobiography by Walter Isaacson.But for this post I'll blogged about the things I've been baking and cooking recently with a few other things in the mix.
Who doesn't love oreos?My boyfriend certainly does,so I decided to bake him oreos!I used the recipe from Bakerella.You can get the recipe HERE! I love the recipe and it was easy to make.Though the cookies puffed up as they bake so I suggest you slice it thinly.
Had some leftover toffee sauce from the sticky date pudding that I baked weeks ago in the fridge so I decided to use it to make dulce de leche brownies.Dulce de leche is toffee sauce but way thicker.

What you do is just use any brownie recipe that you like and then mix the dulce de leche with the brownie batter at the end.It tasted so good but didn't turn out looking so great due to my toffee sauce was not that thick.But it tasted really good.Definitely gonna bake these again one day.
My mother loves goreng pisang(fried bananas) so much.So when I managed to make the perfect crispy batter for it a few weeks back,she's been asking me to make it every week.haha.It was my first time making goreng pisang because I was craving for it but unfortunately there wasn't any good ones being sold near my house.

So I searched for the recipe online and I was appalled that most of the recipe uses either margerine or coconut milk in the batter.I thought that was crazy since we have to deep fry it and the batter has to have those ingredients as well?After I didn't find the right recipe,I decided to wing it!

I've tried two batter recipes with success(because I've been making it every week) and I don't use any form of measurement since we just deep fry them.My tip is you fry a little bit of the batter in hot oil to test the crispiness and then add anything that's missing.

The first batter recipe consists of tempura flour+corn flour+1 tablespoon baking powder+cold water+sugar/salt.

The second batter recipe consists of flour+rice flour+corn flower+1 tablespoon baking powder+cold water+sugar/salt.You gradually add the cold water and make sure it's not too thick or runny.
I had some leftover chocolate cake and frosting so I wanted to try and make cake pops.I know that I should've use cream cheese frosting because it's thicker and can hold better.

But my first attempt is in the picture above.I coated the cake with melted chocolate and pink sugar crystals.Definitely will try it again with a different stick because the one I had just made it slipped down.
The boyfriend wanted me to make bbq chicken wings and also KFC style fried chicken.So I took the challenge and the result is as above.For the bbq chicken I marinated it a day before with hickory smoke bbq sauce and I added some chilli flakes to it as well to make it a little spicy.

The fried chicken was easy as I dip it in egg whites and then coat them in kfc flour mixture which I tweaked a bit and the result was so yummy and crispy!

I love ABC(ais batu campur) which is like Malaysia's version of snowcone but with a lot of things in it like rose syrup,gula melaka syrup,evaporated milk,sweet corn,jellies and red beans/peanuts.I've tried a lof of different versions but I have to say the best ABC in Shah Alam is Fredoo ABC at Section 2 Medan Selera.

I takeaway their ABC special last week and the last time I had one was early last year but the quality is still the same.For rm3 for the special one,you get your money's worth--they put chocolate sauce,seedless grapes,lychees as well.So good!
Another icy treat that I love is cendol.This one is different than ABC because it has coconut milk,cendol(the green worm jellies),gula melaka syrup and red beans(adzuki beans).The best one I've had for years(other than the original place of cendol in Melaka on Jonker Street) in Shah Alam is from Rojak Karim at Section 9.

My family have been buying their pasembur and cendol for years ever since my teenage days.So good especially on a hot day and you can takeaway them as well.

I love getting new books!Ever since I had an iPad2 early this year,I've been downloading all the books that I have read/bought or new books so that I have the convenience to read any of the books anytime I want without having to carry all of them.You gotta love technology!

One of the new books I got recently was Casual Vacancy by J.K Rowling which is her newest book!I can't wait to read it soon and tell you my review of it.

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