Christmas isnt Christmas.... until a month from now..

Christmas carols have been ringing in my head all evening.. I dunno why but carols always seem to cheer me up. Especially the image of Angeline dancing away while banging on her keyboard.. I cant wait for Christmas to come, although much planning is needed esp with regard to presents - I dont have time to knit/crochet all that I want to give to people. Perhaps I should start making next year's present now then I'll have time..

Anyhow, we were at Midvalley for dinner, decided to bring Mom to Ninja Jones since she hasnt been there before (surprisingly esp since we've all been there numerous times). I had my Mentaiko spaghetti which was as usual delicious. Dad had the Bara sushi set which turn out smaller than when Patty ordered it a few months ago. Evelyn had the beef and fish set which was really disappointing cos the portions have also seemed to have shrunk. Mom had the tori karaage and garlic fried rice which were quite good.

After dinner, Mom wanted to hop over to Metrojaya to have a look at the Christmas deco there. Yesterday we had already ventured into Robinsons and thought the stuff there were quite nice but Metro's designs were much nicer, they had a wider variety AND they were cheaper. So yea, we're gonna buy the rest of our Christmas deco from Metro.

Sigh, it's Saturday night, everyone's most likely out partying or having drinks or at least watching a movie. Me? I've got to finish reading at least half of macroeconomics by the end of the night and since its already 11.40pm, I guess I'm not gonna finish.. Ah well, there's always tomorrow! And besides, it's such a boring topic, it's mostly stuff that we've learnt in A-Level Econs (Shen, think Mr Morris talking about the cross elasticity demand of strawberries and cream... or apples and oranges?? Yup.... and I was busy drawing all those demand-supply charts this afternoon while doing microecons.. Yawn.. I thought I was done with those things after A-Levels)

Huei Suen called me this morning and gave me such a scare. She was asking which was the correct calculator to buy for the exam... and I was like... Umm it's only a week away to the exam.. But yea I went through a similar thing last year when I took the exam as well.. Haha..

Oh yea Shen abt the new layout for this blog, go ahead.. Im too lazy to figure this out right now and am fine with how this looks so I'll wait until you come back and you do it then.

Anyway I'm off to try and read some stuff from the Econs book.. Let's see how much goes in at this time of the night... Ta..

- Petrina

Fish head curry, anyone?

I am looking disappointingly at my score for Spider Solitaire - 26% pass rate. Yup I suck at this.

Anyway, back to my main topic for this post - fish head curry.

It all started on Monday night with Daddy getting a phone call regarding a 13.5kg garoupa that was caught and the fishermen were wondering if he was interested in buying it. Of course he was.. he always is, which is why we have a hoard of fish in our 2 freezers, all waiting for their turn on the dinner table). But a whole 13.5kg fish was too much for us to finish so we shared it with my dad's colleague.

Tuesday evening's dinner featured part of that fish, deep fried then drizzled with a mixture of oil, soya sauce, thinly sliced ginger and spring onions. We decided that night that this fish was PERFECT for a fish curry and so the next night's dinner menu was planned.

The head alone was a foot in length and mind you, since we shared the fish with my dad's colleague, we only got half the head, cut length-wise. Still that was too big for the 5 of us (maid included) so the parents started inviting ppl over for it.

Wednesday's dinner guestlist included Uncle Wai Keong, Aunty Regina, Uncle Max, Aunty Rubyann, Soon Chye, Ivan, Andy, Andy's wife and daughter, and of course godbro Uncle Lee who came after his usual badminton game.

Daddy went off to the Old Klang Road market early Wednesday morning to buy the curry paste, santan and all the other ingredients. Cooking started at around 4pm and there were quite a few disagreements between the two chefs (i.e. Mom and Dad) regarding what ingredients went in first and whether some of the ingredients were even supposed to be put in! We didnt have a recipe to follow and pretty much just "went with the flow" adding things along the way. Dad also added prawns and squid...

The ending result was not too bad for a first attempt, everyone said it was good (am not sure if they were just being polite though!). We also had some fried chicken that was marinated with curry powder which were mainly for Soon Chye, Ivan and Andy's daughter in case they didnt fancy the fish curry. At the last minute, Mom asked me to fry some Tori Karaage (Japanese fried chicken) in case the kids thought the curry powdered fried chicken was too spicy for them. I tried out this recipe from the Maranatha fund-raising cookbook my mom helped to create in church. Aunty Regina also brought some pork ribs steamed with fa tiew wine and bean paste which were really nice (I had the leftovers for lunch today). For dessert, Mom prepared bubur chacha.

Verdict: We cooked too many things and for me, personally, after spending all those hours in the kitchen helping to cook the curry, I didnt have much appetite to eat it! But I did have quite a few bowls of bubur chacha cos that wasnt too heavy.

Leftovers: Evelyn (our maid) made yam fried rice with the leftover rice and the extra yam from the bubur chacha for our lunch. We also reheated some of the fried chicken and the pork ribs. We still have about 3/4 of a pot of fish curry left. We definitely cooked too much!

You must be wondering why are we planning and cooking up dinner parties when Im supposed to be studying!? Well, I did manage to study and am more than halfway through my 3rd book. 2 books to go after that which is mainly revision. I need to read 2 chapters before I sleep tonight though and it's already 11.45pm.. Maybe I'll just read 1 chapter and rush the next one tmrw morning. Sigh...

Oh yes I did take pictures of the food but am too lazy to post them tonight. Perhaps another time..

- Petrina

Hello

This is a rather odd time for me to be starting a blog. It's 8 days to my exam so ideally I should be studying. But yea, procrastination is something I do really well, especially when it comes to studying. I thought I was done with exams the moment I left university. I mean at the back of my head, I knew that I would soon be pushed to do the CFA exams but I didnt want to think about then.

But anyway, welcome to my little world of constant babble and small talk. I'm a normal working young adult, back in Kuala Lumpur after 5 years of studying in England (2 yrs in the small but pretty town of Shrewsbury and 3 yrs in London). I like to knit (and crochet) in my free time and also dabble with other craft projects such as cross stitching and decoupage. I also like to bake and cook, esp when my sister is back from London (it's her turn in university there now, along with my brother who there is doing his GCSEs).

I occasionally read other ppl's food blogs (I believe a term has been coined for such blogs - flogs was it?). A colleague of mine is a foodie as well and she keeps herself updated with these flogs regularly. I also like reading knitting blogs and love drooling over lovely yarns from England which I cant find in Malaysia and it will be ridiculous to wear wool in our hot, humid weather anyway! Then it crossed my mind one day that I have never come across a blog that discusses BOTH food and knitting.

So that's when I decided I should just start my own blog and decided to name it: Knits and nibbles.

-Petrina