spaghettini with garlic and pepper

i've just tried this last night. it was pretty good.

1 pound spaghettini (i substituted it with those spiral pasta thingy.. 6-8 genggam for 2ppl)
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil (again, i substituted it with regular veg oil, about 1/4 cup)
4 large garlic cloves, chopped (more or less, depend on liking)
salt & pepper
1/4 teaspoon hot pepper flakes (i added more)
3 tablespoons finely chopped parsley
grated parmesan cheese

and i added some chicken (thinly sliced) and chopped spam, although i think shrimp would be nice too.

caranya:
1. cook pasta until al dante (tender but firm), rinse with cold water, stand aside
2. in large pan heat oil (medium heat). add garlic cook until golden brown, then add salt, hot pepper flakes, pepper and flakes. then add chicken and spam, cook till brown.
3. add pasta into pan, toss to coat.

serve hot, adding cheese just before eating.

change of routines

this is what my daily routine looked like when i was still working:

08:00 wake up
08:30 read newspaper, or at least pretend to
09:00 get breakfast. either bread, fried rice, instant noodles, or buy porridge
10:00 bath and getting ready for work
11:00 leave for work (unless there's a meeting at this hour, then i'd get up 2 hours earlier than usual)
12:00 arrive at office, check email or newest office gossip
12:30 lunch
13:30 back from lunch, check more emails and do some work
15:30 maksor alias snack time, catching up on more internal affairs gossips
16:30 work
18:30 usually by this time i'm already ready to go home (of course, unless there's a shooting going on). but it depends, if i'm hungry i'd probably order the OB to buy some food.
19:00 depends. if i ordered food, then i'd still be waiting for the food. if not, i'd be on my way home.
20:30 already home, watching tv and talking to my parents or play with my two dogs.
21:00 usually chatting, read book, or watch dvd in my room
23:00 / 24:00 sleeping.

now that i don't work and become a full time housewife, my routine looks something like this:

07:00 wake up, get the dogs out for pee and poop time, then went back to bed
08:00 really wake up, feed the dogs some breakfast
08:30 get a short walk around the front yard with the dogs. they pee, i change their water, feed the birds, and if it's a wednesday get the trashcan down to the streets
09:30 get the dogs inside so they can play with their chewy while i grab some breakfast. usually choco milk with special K, bread, or instant noodles. and i surf the internet.
10:00 let the dogs out the backyard to play. continue surf the net.
11:00 shower, clean the bathroom.
12:00 fix something for lunch. usually left overs.
12:30 do some house chores. laundry, vacuuming, sweeping floors, and if i'm feeling up to it: mopping.
15:00 get dogs in for some play time, and watch ellen. scouring cookbooks for dinner ideas.
15:30 preparing ingredients for dinner
16:00 start cooking dinner for hubby
17:30 eat dinner (schedule may vary if hubby works day shift)
19:00 feed the dogs
20:00 watch tv
21:30 / 22:00 go to bed, unless hubby's not working, then i'd be watching dvd with him until around 01.00

once a week when hubby's not working we'd usually be out on a day trip (or longer). in that case there will be no house chores done at all. which means every wednesday i'm swamped with tons of laundry to do, dirty carpets and kitchen floors, and filthy bedroom floor. hff.

lately i've been so lazy i don't even want to cook something difficult. yesterday i cooked fried noodles (this is actually left overs from the previous night) and some spam filled chicken thighs. dunno why hubby loves this fairly easy recipe. once before brady came i made syomay and lumpia semarang. but somehow now i don't feel like messing around in the kitchen. maybe because i keep having to keep an eye on brady whenever he's in the house (he still need to be trained to sit and stay on his spot).

well anyway, if you're curious about the thigh fillet spam recipe, here it is:

ingredients:
chicken thighs fillet 3 pieces
spam potong kotak panjang tebal
mentega
char siu sauce
tepung terigu
tepung roti
telur kocok 1 butir

caranya:
chicken thighs di potong tipis jadi lebar2.
rub some butter, and some char siu sauce (from lee kum kee.. botolan) tipisss aja.
trus taro spam di tengah, gulung, ikat pake benang atau tusuk aja pakai tusuk gigi.
roll in flour (tepungnya bumbuin garam dan merica dikit kalau mau), cemplungin di telor, trus gulung lagi di tepung roti.
goreng deh sampe mateng, api sedang biar gak angus.

untuk saus (optional)
kaldu ayam (bisa diganti dengan air + maggi block)
+ hoisin sauce (again, lee kum kee is the best), garam dan lada dikit..
cicipin, kalau rasa sudah dianggap pas, thicken with tepung maizena.

kalau mau lebih kreatif bisa tambah bawang bombay tumis di saus, tapi rasanya gak perlu ya. udah cukup enak kok. hehe.

home alone

i'm getting lazier and lazier each day. gosh. anyway, here's a bit of an update.

1. brady got here. finally!!! yay. after waiting for months (or at least it felt like months although it's only about a month or so) we're finally able to pick him up from the airport/cargo building. he was a bit stressed at first, tapi dimengerti lah secara he just spent a whole day travelling inside a crate, alone. poor guy.

this picture was taken when we let him out of his crate to stretch before having to travel again (yep, he still need to travel at least 2 hours to get from tucson to our home.. ). he was so happy to get out of the crate that he really didn't wanna go back in. tried hard with four paws grabbing on to everything that can prevent him from going back in. :P


this is when he first met max. we let max sniffed him while he's still in the crate. once we know we can control max's excitement, we let him out. lucky we picked the brave one, he wasn't afraid of max. he was just a bit cautious because max is ... well .. huge. but max is gentle. at least we know he didn't want to (intentionally) harm the puppy. :P

and max took his big brother role quite seriously. he wouldn't let brady get badgered by the neighbor dog (max's girlfriend), but he wouldn't share his toys and chewy either. kept alllll of the toys and chewy to himself. aah, brotherly love.

this is brady snoozing after a moment of serious playing. it was raining the whole day yesterday (related to news #2) and the backyard was all wet and muddy so i let the boys play inside. it's better for me to clean the carpet than to leave my boys out in the wind and cold and rain. :P

it's so nice to see them together. at least max won't be bored to death anymore. now all i gotta do is teach brady how to sit, lay down, and stay so he won't have to follow me around all the time anymore, so i can do my house chores in peace. right now i still have tons of laundry to be done, clean the bedroom cause it was all so dirty from last night's rain,

2. semalem serem banget deh. hubby was at work, night shift as usual for the past 2 months, so i was left with the two boys alone in the house. nothing special except that there was a storm passing Arizona last night. so it was rainy for a whole day (strong wind picking up after dark). you could actually hear the wind howling outside, and caused the stuff in the yard to tumble and make noises against the house. then the lights went off. only for a minute, then it went back on again but it was scary as hell!! even the boys got scared. that happened 2x. and the tv's not helping either, with a weather update every 10 minutes warning everyone about wind, storm and flash flood. urgh.

lucky (for me) the storm landed up on the north side of AZ (i only got kecipratan aja), otherwise i wouldn't know what to do. heck, this house hasn't got any basement jadi kalau memang ada storm i won't know which is best: the archway between kitchen and livingroom (but it's facing a biiig glass window), under the dining table (but it sits next to a small window), or the bathtub (no window in bathroom, but it's not exactly located in the middle of the house either). anyway, i kept my phone next to me all night long, in case i need to call my hubby or 911. smart move, ey? glad i didn't have to do it.

bread and brady

although i've always enjoyed baking cakes i've never really play with bread making before. mom's more the bread type, not me. i don't like the kneading and waiting-for-rising process, it's too boring for me. but i do love the smell of freshly baked bread. and i do love to eat bread. no matter if it's store bought or mom-made, i simply love eating them.

when i moved here hubby showed me a new invention (at least, new to me..) : bread machine. apparently it's a magic machine that do the whole process of making bread, from kneading, rising, to baking all in one machine. wow.
so mom bought a box of bread mix to try the bread machine. it worked. so hubby bought a second box of bread mix (because he said we can't use the regular recipe for the bread machine). we love the fresh bread so much that he bought a recipe book from amazon.com: bread cookbook for bread machine, or something like that. :P he also bought flour, wheat flour, yeast, and other ingredients so i can make my own bread every day.

while it doesn't make the cute little buns filled with chocolate, jam or cheese, it does make a great loaf of bread. and i can still have my cinnamon raisins bread, whole wheat, french bread, portuguese bread, english muffin, you name it. it's all in the cookbook. interesting. i never knew they can make a whole book about bread machine alone. ha.

well maybe someday i'll be motivated enough to make bread the manual way (especially the ones my mom used to make), but in the meantime, this is sufficient enough. i'm still waiting for my first batch to finish baking and cool down (i mean first using the recipe from the book).

the bread machine's not the only high tech gadge hubby's trying to introduce me to. he seems eager to buy a slow cooker. if you've heard of pressure cooker then you'd probably guess that this pot do just the opposite of that. it cooks everything slowly.. so slow that it can take overnight to cook beef or chicken. this makes me think: why is it that westerners always do things slowly while the chinese like to do things fast? haha.

oh well i don't need a slow cooker just yet. i still have a lot of free time on my hand, why would i need a slow cooker? speaking of free time, i'm gonna get my new not-so-puppy-anymore next tuesday. FINALLY! i've been waiting for him for almost a month now! i'm gonna be busier when he arrived. more vacuuming to do, more mouth to feed, and more playing time with the two of them. i so can't imagine how busy i'd be when the baby arrived. :D

hubby also wanted to buy me a wii fit. it's not from being nice, but he thought i need it to lose fat from my butt. lol. true, i need it. now i won't mind the wii at all. at least it's better than the stairmaster. in the meantime i guess i'll just keep on baking bread (and a few other things).

introducing...

max, the gendeng english mastiff. ain't he handsome? ^_^

age: less than a year.

fave snack: oww.. anything, really. pork ear chewy, big cow bone, oranges, charcoals, log of firewood, ...

fave playtime: dragging waterbowl on dirt so that it makes loud noise

mischieves: fart (sometimes he does it silently, .. all we got was a sudden horrible smell!!) and snore.

this dog is bigger than any of the other dogs i've ever had. bonny (my dog in jakarta) is only about half of max. and yet max has a way of making me laugh with his goofy and gendeng attitude. or maybe i just love dogs. :)