Cupcakes

Friday, December 26, 2008 [9:14 PM]

This Christmas Eve, my mum asked me to make dinner for the family.

Preparing the dinner menu was stressful as I didn't know the number of people coming. It got worse when I realised I had to prepare dinner for 15 whereas I've never cooked for more than 8.

After some thinking, I decided on serving:
Starters: Cheese Cigars with Pesto (me), Salad and Shrimp (mum)
Main: Mediterranean Couscous, Roast Chicken, Cabbage Soup - Italian-Style Bread Soup (me) and Sautee Poatatoes (aunt)
Dessert: Chocolate Cherry Cupcakes, Think Pink Cupcakes (me) and Hungarian Pancake Rolls (aunt)

As you all would have already guessed, the dinner making was super stressful and by the time I finnished, I was in a seriously bad mood with a black cloud hovering above me.

Raw Roast Chicken

We originally pilled it onto this small tray but realised tht the chicken would probably fall off if we moved it, we had to transfer it into a bigger tray.

This roast chicken is easy to make. I just chopped whatever vegetable we had in the fridge and dumped it on the bottom of the pan. After a sprinkle of salt and pepper with a drizzle of oil, the marinated chicken is placed on top.

I just marinated the chicken in a little salt, pepper, lemon juice, oilive oil, garlic and parsley.

Then, I just stick the tray into the oven and cook it until it looks cooked. Honestly, I have no idea what temperature or how long to leave it in there. I just take it out and check every 20 minutes.

Roast Chicken - Before

Roast Chicken - After

For the 'Cheese Cigars' I mixed some cheese, butter, spices and everything else I felt like adding into a bowl.Then, I spread in onto some bread that has been rolled flat and crust-cut.

After rolling it up, I spread some egg onto it and deep fry till golden brown. I also served it with some ready-made pesto. You can buy those at Cold Storage.

Cheese Cigars with Pesto

As for the 'Mediterranean Couscous', I jus cooked some couscous according to the packet instructions and tossed them wif some lemon juice and mediterranean begetables.

Mediterranean Couscous

I also made some 'onion gravy' to go with the chicken.

Gravy!

Lastly, my 'Italian-Style Cabbage Bread Soup'. This is a recipe which I would like to keep it a secret. Sorry!

Cabbage Soup!

Christmas Eve's Dinner!

After dinner, we also had dessert! Duh!

For my 'Chocolate Cherry Cupcakes' - my speciality - I decided to change the recipe for the icing on top and experiment a little. Again, I surprised myself by outdoing myself. This recipe I would also like to keep a secret.

My mum was grumbling about how expensive this cupcake was for I used fresh cherries for this.

My favourite Chocolate Cherry Cupcakes!

Yum!

Aside from that, I made 'Think Pink Cupcakes'. I used a normal vanilla recipe, added a few chocolate chips and golden raisins and tinted the buttercream pink. Then, I added some sliver balls as decorations.

Think Pink Cupcakes!

Mix and Match?

After dinner, I got bored so I took a couple of pictures that I find classy!

My Pink Picture!

My Rich Pictue..

Around 10 pm, my mum let Megan open her presents because she was getting sleepy. My aunt gave her a doll making kit and she was too young to know how to work it.

I volunteered to help her and ended up finishing the whole doll. It was so much fun I couldn't stop. In the end, she was super happy with the doll I created!

The Doll!

At midnight, everyone insisted on opening their gifts. This year wasn't as fun for most of us knew what we were getting. We all kind of picked it out ourselves anyway.

I got a towel set, a book, a necklace, a couple of bracelets, a pen, an earing box, a pendent, shoes, and some money.

My favourite though, would have to be...

Uncle Cecil and Adeline Yiyi's present...

Which would be...

...

A Kakashi Action Figure!!

*squeals like a fangirl*

Kakashi!!

OMG! Kakashi!! *faints*

Well that's it. Hope everyone enjoyed they're Christmas!

Chowz-

♥ Michi

Monday, December 22, 2008 [8:11 PM]

Embarassing.

Today, my mum wanted me to make some muffins. She said it would be good practice for the cupcakes/muffins that I'm making for Christmas Eve's dinner.

I willingly agreed as I was bored and craving for muffins, but we didn't have anymore ingredients at home.

So, we drove all the way to Cold Storage so we could get the things we needed. I chose to go there because I knew they had the berries I wanted.

So after shopping for the things we needed, which took like half an hour, we all - Me, my mum and Megan - walked over to the counter to pay.

Megan was playing next to the counter and somehow just fell on ther 'arse' - to put it as the British do - and started wailing.

At that moment, everyone stared in our direction and Megan just sticks her arm out, points at me and announces to everyone that it's MY fault.

Giggling in the corner, I suddenly froze as everyones gave turns upon me. I clearly didn't touch her, but that little snake blames me for everything.

After my mum hushed her to one corner, she opened her bag to pay for RM154 worth of groceries. Just then, she realises that she forgot to bring her purse.

I wanted to scream! Her first solution is to look at me in hopes of me paying. Unfortunately, I only had RM20, 20 Canadian and 10 Aussie. Don't you find it weird that I carry foreign money around?

In the end, she had to call my dad to come pay for the groceries. With a whole line of people waiting behind my mum and the security gaurd staring at us, I wished I had a rock to crawl under.

Finally we left, without the groceries. It was left by the counter with a tag that had my mum's name and phone number on it, waiting for my dad to collect them.

...

When my dad finally came home with the groceries, I made Strawberry Muffins.

I used a vanilla muffin batter and dumped in 8oz of fresh strawberries cut into quarts.

Baking in the oven

Fresh from the oven...

Strawberry Muffins!

Mmm...

Well that's it.

Toodles.

- - Me - -

Thursday, December 18, 2008 [11:07 AM]

Muffins

Yesterday, I wasn't in a good mood. I got into a fight with my sister so I was in desperate need of comfort food. So, I dumped everything I could find in the fridge into the mixing bowl and made myself some chocolate muffins.

I dumped in some raisins, chocolate chip, chocolate chunks, nuts and coconut into the chocolate batter.

Baking in the oven..

If only I had some gummy candy. I would dump those in too. If only I had some vanilla ice-cream! I'd kill for that too.

Chocolate Muffins with everything in it!

Yummy!

---

Being at home this holiday really sucks. It's so boring at home!

I'm hungry..

♣ - Me

Monday, December 15, 2008 [10:01 PM]

Hummingbird Cupcakes...

I'm starting to think my mum is taking advantage of my free holiday time. She keeps encouraging me to make cupcakes and gives them away to her friends. I'm wondering if she's secretly profiting from MY cupcakes.

Well today I made Humminbird Cupcakes. It's a tropical flavoured cupcake recipe which has a variety of fruits - and one vegetable - in it. A combination of orange, pineapple, coconut, banana - and a carrot - all mixed into the batter.

Before

After

On top, I added a scoop of Marmalade Icing.

Hummingbird Cupcakes with Marmalade Icing

It's just some Marmalade, icing sugar and butter mixed together.

Tada!

- Michi

[9:32 PM]

Shopping!!

I went shopping on Saturday with my mum. We went to the new 'Sarawak Plaza'.

There, I bought a new 'Trench Coat' and a pretty new necklace. I was so happy because I finally got my 'trench coat' thing.

New Look

After that, we went to get my new school shoes. My mum told me to walk over to McDonalds and wait for her there while she gets the car.

She also told me to go buy some drinks. I put the bag of new clothes and accesories on a chair and placed my order. After I got the drinks, my mum arrived and I got into the car happilly sipping my coke.

When we got home, we sat down and watched 'Mama Mia the Movie'. Half way into the movie, my mum asks 'Can you pass me my clothes? I want to go hang them upstairs.'

At that moment, I just replied 'I don't have it.' before it dawned on me that it was still at McDonalds. Then I screamed 'OH MY GOSH!! IT'S STILL AT MCD!!'

So my mum had to drive me all the way back to town, to McDonalds, to get RM200 worth of clothes and accesories back. The whole time grumbling to herself how troublesome this is and how careless I am.

Well, at least I managed to get it back. The staff working at McDonalds stashed it in the store.

My mum is never trusting me to carry the shopping bags ever again.

...

I also cut my hair by the way. If u look closely at my face in the picture, my hair is shorter and my fringe is a little weird.

Toodles

Me-

Sunday, December 14, 2008 [11:39 AM]

Food...

I know it has been a while since my last post. If you haven't already found out, my CPU was taken away due to the infection of 38 different viruses. So this post begins with..

Thursday:

My mum came home from work and decided to bring me out to go get a new oven! I've been bugging her about how small our current oven is and so she finally agreed to get a new one. I'm extremely happy to report that I can now bake 12 cupcakes at a time instead of the usual 6.

New oven!

I was so excited that I made cupcakes the same afternoon. Remember the chocolate-filled cupcakes I made? Well, I call these 'Surprise Cupcakes'

I re-wrote the vanilla batter recipe I used for the chocolate-filled cupcakes and changed it into a chocolate batter. Instead of inserting a piece of chocolate into the center like I did with the chocolate-filled cupcakes, I inserted a piece of chocolate covered candy.

Now every cupcakes has it's own different flavour for the chocolate covered candy had different fillings. It's always a surprise for no one knows whats inside. Serving warm while the candy is still sligthly melted is like taking a bite into heaven! Serving it with vanilla ice-cream too would be heavenly...

Cupcakes in the new oven...

Raw cupcakes

Surprise Cupcakes / Candy-filled Cupcakes

Melted candy center

That night, I also made dinner. I made 'Chicken Cacciotore'. An italian chicken dish served with pasta.

Chicken Cacciotore

It's chicken cooked in an italian style tomato sauce topped off with some flavourful herbs.

Yum!

Friday:

I woke up and was dead hungry. So, I made myself a nice omelete. It didn't come out lookin great but it tasted awesome.

Omelete

Whatever I could find in the fridge, I just dumpped into the pan and topped everything with some eggs and cheese...

I made dinner again. This time I made it proper going along with a starter, main course and dessert.

Starter: Onion, Tomato and Pepper Salad
Main Course: Grilled Chicken and Onion Gravy with Bubble and Squeak Potato
Dessert: Molten Chocolate Cakes

Onion, Tomato and Pepper Salad

Bubble and Squeak Potatoes

Grilled Chicken with Onion Gravy

Onion Gravy

Molten Chocolate Cakes topped withicing sugar and served with a scoop of Raspberry Jam

Well, that's it. Yesterdays activities will be posted up later for my dad wants his computer back. Gosh I hope mine gets back soon.

Toodaloo..

Me - ♥

Wednesday, December 10, 2008 [10:21 PM]

Dinner and Desert!

Yesterday, I made Chocolate-Filled Cupcakes. I used a vanilla cupcake recipe and stuffed a chunk of chocolate into the middle of the batter before putting it into the oven. After that, I add a little dusting of sugar on top. By serving this warm, your first bite will bring oozing chocolate flowing out.

Fresh from the oven...

Chocolate-Filled Cupcakes

Oozing Chocolate

More Cupcakes!!

I made 26 cupcakes! Tada!

Just now, I also made Pork Chop with Bok Choy and Rice Noodles for dinner. It was surprisingly super yummy but the pork chops were sligthly hard.

Pork Chop with Bok Choy and Rice Noodles

Chris says it looks a little like 'kolo mee'.

Yummy!

Anyway, I'm very satisfied with what I've accomplished. Tomorrow, I plan on making 'Surprise Cupcakes'!

Toodaloo!

♠ Michi ♠

Tuesday, December 9, 2008 [8:01 AM]

Money...

I'm spending too much money lately... With all the Christmas Shopping, I lost about RM100+ already.

Plus, yesterday, I also bought a top that cost around RM100 together with a pair of awesome jeans!

Pretty...

I also bought myself a book! This is the last book for my 'Black Dagger Brotherhood' collection. This is the fifth book in the collection. I've been looking everywhere for this book! When I saw it at the bookstore yesterday, I almost screamed! Luckily, I didn't.

Lover Unbound - J.R. Ward

I officially call this my Christmas present to myself!

♥ Me

[7:57 AM]

Merry Christmas!

Wishing all a Merry Christmas!

Especially those Kakashi fans!!

Merry Christmas!!

May all your wishes come true...

Mich~

[7:26 AM]

Polka-Dot Cupcakes!

Sunday morning. I woke up and found myself craving pancakes! So I went down to the kitchen at 7.00 am and made myself Mini Cinnamon Pancakes!

Fresh from the pan!

Mini Cinnamon Pancakes

That afternoon I was very bored so due to the request of my mum, I made Polka-Dot Cupcakes!

Polka-Dot Cupcakes!

These Polka-Dot Cupcakes are actually orange flavoured cupcakes with cream cheese frosting on top.

More Cupcakes!

Weee..

I topped each cupcake with a Smartie but I had to wrestle them off Megan.

The night before, my dad came home with 5 boxes of Smarties and Megan refused to share them. So, while she was sleeping, I stole some and I nearly got killed when she found out.

Initially, there were only suppose to 26 cupcakes. Instead, I made 48 instead by using smaller cupcake cases.

My mum gave some to her friend, and I am extremely egoistic at the moment because she absolutely LOVES them!

I guess that's it. Chowz.

♦ Michi