Raisin Bran Muffins

I have this really bad habit I would buy food that I have craving for and think I would finish it. I am not those kind of person that likes to waste food so I will always find a way to use the food that's sitting there. I bought Raisin Bran a couple of months ago because I wanted to have it for breakfast but that only lasted two morning. I didn't touch it anymore so I decided to make something with it before it goes bad.

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Raisin Bran Muffins

Ingredients:

• 2 Cups of Raisin Bran
  
• 1 cup yogurt/buttermilk
  
• 1/3 cup apple sauce/oil
  
• 1 egg
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup all-purpose flour (I used 1/2 C of Whole Wheat Flour and 1/2 C of all purpose flour)
  
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• Honey(Optional)
• Quaker Oats (Optional)
  

Method
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Grease muffin cups or line with paper muffin liners.
2. Mix together Raisin Bran and yogurt; let stand for 10 minutes.
3. Beat together apple sauce, egg, sugar and vanilla and add to buttermilk/bran mixture. Sift together flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Stir flour mixture into yogurt mixture, until just blended. Spoon batter into prepared muffin tins. Sprinkle oats on top.
4. Drizzle honey on top of muffin when they come out of oven.

I didn't think that hubby would like this because he's not really a big fan of muffins but then he said it was good. The reason why I made this is because I wanted to use up some of the ingredients that I have sitting in my house and also I wanted to find some healthy recipes so that hubby could have for breakfast.

Steamed Banana Cake

Every time when we buy bananas that has ripen and we've not manage to finish them I'll peel the skin and freeze the bananas in the fridge to use when I have the mood of time to make banana cake. While blog hopping I've read that many people have actually tried Chow Times steam banana cake and since I've been craving for banana cake but is too lazy to bake, have frozen bananas hence I decided to try this recipe. It is absolutely yummy and I would make it again. I am not sure if hubby would like the banana cake because sometimes when I think he would like things I make but then he doesn't and like wise. He's been surprising me lately with food that I think he would not like but absolutely love them.

Ingredients

• 1 ripe banana, mashed
• 1 egg (can be substituted with 50ml of milk or water; substitute egg with water works fine)
  
• 1 teaspoon oil
• 2 teaspoons water (I skipped this step because there was water in my bananas when I defrost mine from the freezer)
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 cup icing sugar ( I used brown sugar)
  
• 100g (2/3 cup to close to 1 cup) all-purpose flour
• 2 tablespoons of semi-sweet chocolate chips or raisins, optional

Method

• Place all ingredients in a bowl.
  
• Mix well with a fork.
  
• Bring a pot of water to a boil. Steam the cake on a rack for 15 to 18 minutes until a tester inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean.
• Remove from the steamer and let the cake cool for a few minutes. Use a knife to loosen the sides of the cake and pop the cake out of the bowl. Here you are, a warm and fragrant cake ready in less than 25 minutes. You may add some chocolate chips if you prefer.

* No picture taken as you can get them from Chow time's website.

I'm glad I found a yummy and healthy banana cake. Hopefully hubby would like it so that I can keep making this yummy and simple dish.

Smelling good

I love it when people take the time and initiative to make themselves smell good. When I go out I get attracted to people walk pass me that smells good that’s why I love going to Abercrombie and Fitch store because their store always smell so good.
For me sometimes I tend to go overboard with spraying my perfume. I love to smell good all day long so I would spray a ton of perfume but I think sometimes it goes over spraying myself with the perfume but the problem is I get so used to it that I don’t smell the perfume on me for long and it makes me feel like I don’t smell good. I love a good smelling perfume and so far my favorite perfume is Ralph Lauren Romance. My very first bottle of Romance is from my best friend because her ex boyfriend bought her one and I loved that smell so for my birthday she bought me a bottle too. I love this perfume so much that I’ve recommended this perfume to a lot of people and they love it too. Now that I've found perfume blog I can share my opinion with not only my current friends and family but also with people that has the same interest as me to talk about perfumes.

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Los Cucos Mexican Restaurant

Hubby and I are no food connoisseur but we do love to go out and eat when ever possible. Hubby lurvvvveeeessss Mexican food and every week I seriously mean ever single week he wants to go eat Mexican food (if it was up to him every day). I tell him all the time that he should have married a Mexican girl instead of a me. Anyway last Friday before we went to the hospital to visit Uncle Richie I promised hubby that we would go out and eat that day so what does he want to eat is no surprise to anyone now. We've been to Los Cucos with SIL, her hubby and a friend before and I really like this place especially their guacamole dip but we forgot what it it call but luckily we kind off remember where is located. So off we went (stuck in traffic) to try and find this place. I made a mental note that I should really start taking pictures of the restaurants we've been to so that we at least know what it is called.

This time hubby didn't really care for their salsa because it was warm. Hubby very much prefers his salsa to be cold therefore he didn't like that too much instead he thought that the guacamole dip tasted quite good which is weird for me because he don't eat avocado at all and he tried the guacamole dip this time around. For me the main reason why I like this place and wanted to go back there was because of the guacamole dip because I don't know or see much Mexican restaurant that actually serves guacamole dip. I liked their different variety of fajitas (that's what I always get when I eat in a Mexican restaurant). I love most of the food that we ordered but I didn't really care for the beans that came with my fajitas.

yummy chips and salsa

My fajitas

I don't remember what is this called. Is not a salad or tacos but I think it might be called Queso

The location of the restaurant is not the best place especially on a weekday because you are bound to be stuck in traffic a little. The place is large enough to hold a lot of customers and so far they have great servers there. We would definitely recommend this place to other people.

Self Confidence Booster

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Breast augmentation is a really popular procedure now. There are a lot of people out that that has either breast enlargement or reduction. People that has breast enlargement are normally people who are not happy and unsatisfied with their breast size and want to change that and people who normally has breast reduction are normally for medical reason or they might have had too big or a breast enlargement and feels uncomfortable with that size and want to reduce it a little.

XY have been talking about having breast enlargement after she had kids. She said that her breast size reduced dramatically after her kids was born and she wanted to have a breast enlargement when she has the money. I can now recommend her Charlotte Breast Augmentation when she’s ready to have her surgery.

***DISCLAIMER***

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*This is a sponsor post*

Still Alive

I cannot believe how long I've not updated my blog. I am not sure whether is it due to laziness of just plain busy. I just like spending time with the dogs and watching my TVB shows..I'm embarrass/proud to say that I've officially done watching The gem of life, Moonlight Resonance AND When cat loves a dog (don't remember the title). Yeahh...I've been very busy watching my shows and I've been trying to clean and tidy up the house more because PIL is actually down here. We were supposed to meet up with them at a state park Friday evening but early Friday AM uncle Richie was admitted to the hospital. He had a ruptured ulcer and needed surgery. I was so worried and was waiting to hear from Aunt. Hubby and I decided that we would not go up there because Aunt would need that night and we wanted to head to the hospital to see Uncle Richie. He looked so tired and weak that night we were there. We didn't leave our house until noon on Saturday to go visit him because we slept in as we got to bed late after coming back from the hospital and clean some.
Saturday evening we decided to take a trip to see PIL and would come back Sunday to see Uncle Richie. We didn't get to the hospital until about 8:30pm because FIL was cooking at our place and everyone was coming over for dinner. Dinner wasn't finished till then. Ever since then I've been going to the hospital to visit Uncle Richie because Aunt is really busy at work and cannot spend the whole day at the hospital with Uncle Richie. I'm so glad that Uncle Richie is discharged today!He was in the hospital for 5 days and he would not be able to go back to work for 4-6weeks!!That's how bad his condition is but thankfully Uncle Richie is a strong person and he looks so much better!Apart from the long scar and it hurting he looks fine. At least I don't have to be at the hospital now I can just walk over and visit him.
PIL together with SIL went to San Antonio for a couple of days and will be back on Thursday. PIL will be heading home I think either on Friday or Saturday morning as BIL school starts on Monday.

* Saya bersukur saya tidak tingal dengan mertua ku. Banyak mertua sangat senang untuk tinggal bersame tetapi ada beberapa mertua sangat susah untuk tinggal bersama.

I used to have pretty decent Malay when I was still in Malaysia apparently my Malay has rusted..Gosh I think I need to practice my Malay more...I guess at least I can still spill out a few words here and there huh..

Since things are slowly settling down I have a list of things/errands that needs to get done:

* Pick up my dry cleaning
* Reply a ton of emails that I have out there
* Spend more time job hunting

The list don't just stop there but that's my top priority at this time. :(

Officially Mine!

I don't like to claim things mine until I know for sure is MINE!I don't like to have things given to me and then taken from me because is a mistaken or some stupid reason but I am proud to announce that Milo is now officially ours. I know Milo has been with us for more than a month now and I do claim that he's ours but then with caution because I don't want some one to show up and tell me that Milo belongs to them and give me some crappy story and then I'll have to return him. Anyhow Milo behaved like he hasn't been feeling well for the past two mornings. He would just go outside and dribble a couple drops of pee and would stand there for like the longest time. I was afraid that he had like a bladder infection or what ever and was monitoring him because at noon onwards he would be just fine. Anyway I decided to take him to see a vet and I figure if I was going to take him to the vet I might as well get him his shots and do tests on him to see if he was healthy.

The test came out great and Milo is very healthy. Hubby stopped by the animal hospital when hubby found Sadie and Milo to see if they were microchiped but they were not microchiped. They also told hubby that they think that they are a mixture of a chihuahua and something. When I took Milo in yesterday they told me that he's more of a mixture of miniature pinscher and chihuahua and maybe something more. I quickly came home and googled min pin and both hubby and I think that Milo actually looks more like a min pin.

Picture of a min pin that I googled

Picture of Milo

Well I guess it doesn't matter if he's more of a min pin than a chihuahua just as long as he's healthy that's all that matters to us. The Vet said that Milo is about 1.5 years old. I felt so bad for him when they were trying to draw blood from him to do his heat worm test. He screamed and cry so loud and I just wish that they would stop but when they redrew his blood from his other paws because the first one was not enough he was just fine. Poor Milo he was in pain but I could not do anything. He was so horrified that he just jumped on my lap when the nurse release him. Luckily Milo didn't try to bite or growl at the nurse or the doctor he was such a good little boy. They said they could see how Milo is attached to me.

I'm going to have to take Milo back to the vet next month for his booster shot and eventually make an appointment to neuter him and get him microchiped. Stanley is going to need to get microchiped too and I'm planning to tell them that they will need a muzzle for Stanley because Stanley will be ugly at that time.Hopefully it won't hurt any of them too bad.

So after spending the money on Milo I declared to everyone that Milo is now officially OURS! I will not let anyone take him away from me!!! :)

Budget Friendly Meals

I've been trying to cook healthy, easy and most importantly budget friendly meals. Hubby has been really good with trying and eating (especially Chinese food) different kind of dishes every since we got back from Malaysia therefore now I don't have to cook up a storm to hope that he will at least like a dish of two. All I have to do is cook what comes in to my mind and so far he's eaten everything I made but I figured if he really didn't like it he could find something else to eat too.

This packet of noodles just cost $0.70 and it lasts for a few meals!

Noodles with mushroom and pork plus stir fry vegetables

Pork and mushroom noodles

Ingredients
A packet of noodles
Pork
mushroom
garlic
oyster sauce
soy sauce
sugar

dark soy sauce-for noodles
sesame oil-for noodles

Method
Heat the wok/pan and drizzle some sesame oil.
Add garlic and cook till fragrant.
Add pork and cook till brown.
Add the rest of the ingredient in with the pork and cook till the pork is done.
For the noodles cook them following the directions on what ever noodles you buy.
Pour a dash of sesame oil and dark soy sauce on a plate then put the noodles on it and mix well. Scoop pork on the noodles.

p/s: I quick stir fried some vegetables to go with my noodles. Hubby apparently really like this noodle.

I know that instant noodles is not the most healthiest thing to eat for a meal but then if you put the right food in it and don't use a lot of the seasoning it can be a pretty healthy meal. A packet of ramen/instant noodles cost about $0.15(The one below is more expensive because is Korean Ramen but hubby said $1.00 for a packet is still cheap) and add some vegetables, meat and eggs it would only cost at most $1.00 a meal (Mine would probably be a little more but not much though)

Ramen/Instant Noodles

Ingredients
A packet of instant noodles
eggs
luncheon meat
vegetables

Method
Cook instant noodles according to direction and put in vegetables and seasoning. Cook until noodles and vegetables are done.
A. You can put in the meat and eggs (if you want eggy ie egg drop soup kind beat eggs before putting in the pot)in the pot with the noodles and cook until done
OR
B. You can cook the meat and egg in a pan.

Barbeques is another simple and cheap dish you can quick whip up and would last for days (depending on how many people eating it). You can eat it with bread or if you are like me that don't care from bread you can eat it with noodles too.

Barbeques
Ingredients
2# of hamburger (ground beef)- you can also use turkey or pork
1/2C of Ketchup
1/2 C of barbeque sauce
2tsp of chili powder
1 tsp of worchestire sauce
1C water
One packet of dry onion soup mix
Method
Cook hamburger with water then drain water and rinse hamburger (rinse the oil away).
Add the rest of the ingredients in and cook until it is moist but not wet.

Hubby don't really care for steam chicken (he thinks is tasteless) I like to steam my chicken because is really simple and if we have the right ingredients it can taste pretty good too. This chicken was a little spicy for hubby because I think I might have put a little more chili pepper since I wasn't using chili padi (birds eye chili) so I thought it would not be spicy but it was.

Rice wine chicken

Stir fry bak choy with garlic

Rice Wine Chicken

Ingredients
4 chicken drumstick and two chicken breast
ginger thinly sliced
3 red chili chopped
10 cloves garlic chopped (medium size)
6 tbsp Rice Wine
Oyster Sauce
White Pepper
Soy Sauce

Method
Marinate Chicken with the rest of the ingredients for about an hour.
Cover the bowl/plate with aluminium foil and steam until done.

p/s: I just served my meal with stir fry bak choy with garlic and white rice.

After trying these dishes I found out that yummy dishes need not be expensive and takes a long time to prepare. Healthy, simple and budget friendly dishes taste as good too. I also found out that you can save a lot of money by preparing budget friendly meals. I'm hoping to find more ways to be frugal and save more for rainy days..Any suggestions is also welcome :)