Tuesday 12 April 2011

Cottage Pie


Yeeppie! Another frustrated cooking attempt by yours truly :D Personally, this should be rated  5 out of 10 where 10 being perfect lol! Firstly, due to the lack of ingredients. My mashed potato did not have any milk therefore it wasn't fluffy but thankfully not too dry and not so sloppy either. I started cooking late and I couldn't be bothered to run to Spinney's and buy some milk but it didn't make so much difference anyway ha! Also, I forgot to sprinkle some grated cheddar cheese after spreading the mashed pots over the beef. And again the inconsistency, I think I've boiled too much potatoes and cooked too little minced beef.


So I'm warning you, this isn't your traditional english cottage pie like that one on top haha!

After crumbling in some ground beef on to the skillet with onions. Cooked until brown.

Diced potatoes boiled until soft :)

Added some carrots and green peas

My ultimate cooking parter :D

Added the recipe mix in to the meat filling


Mashed pots with one of the very generous slab of butter lol (I added about 10 of those)

After spreading the mashed pots over the beef filling

inside the oven

I k now, I know, it looks odd HAHA

but hey don't judge the book by it's cover lol whatever

In fairness, it tastes really good according to my hubby, my mum, my sons and my officemate (coz I brought some for lunch today) they better be not telling me it taste good just so I will feel motiviated to cook dinner again and again coz it ain't fair lol! But anyway, I loved it and really it isn't so bad after all! Yummers!

Monday 11 April 2011

Rain Rain Go Away

Sandstorm, thunder, lightning and heavy rain showered Dubai last night, not sure about the other Emirates but yeah it was crazy! I've taken some videos of the rain whilst I'm on my way home and uploaded them on my youtube channnel. I hope there will be no more rain next week tho as we want to enjoy the sun in the beach, please!!!!

I was in Sharjah Industrial Area to get all my car tyres changed and I just finished with the alignment and balancing when suddenly the wind started to blow a sand full of air and garbages lol!

So here are the pics I've taken last night when my car got massacred...again ;-)
taking off his tyres...

balancing & alignment

Nice junk! I asked them if I can drive it and they said sure when it's fixed :s

Please be careful with HIM :p
Zero visibility on Emirates Rd

And oh btw here's a picture of my paratha with double egg omelete for yesterday's breakie.. my hubby wants to see what's a paratha like so I took a picture of it lol! I'm going to buy one for him very soon! Acha tike bolo?!


Monday 4 April 2011

I'm a Mistress

Ok it is definitely not what you think it is. It's about my husband and yes I think he's having an affair...with his bikes! Or rather I say I'm the mistress and his bike is the great missus. The reason being is that he's been spending great amount of time with these bikes more than with me now, I know it's ridiculous of me getting jealous or competing over a bike but just read on and you'll see why!

He now owns two, one an Aprilia RS125 and the other is a Honda NSR250. I was sort of happy when both broke down and went for repairs so he wasn't able to ride them for almost 2 months but last week Honda came home! But even when his bikes were in the garage, he was still spending so much time in front of his laptop reading and writing on bike forums online. I even told him he should start blogging about his bikes lol! 

So today, I've decided to have a sneak peak (via google) on these forums he's been busy with the whole time and guess what I think he really should start a blog as he had posted way too much on these forums and found some of them in here which I think he posted when he just got Aprilia oh I mean Akila

After an extended labour period my baby is due to arrive tomorrow...

The showroom are dropping her off in the morning! I haven't passed my test yet, it was supposed to be this coming Thursday but the Arabic new year has put a stop to that so the showroom kindly offered to give me the bike registered in their name so I could start fitting all my new parts.


My test is now on 24th December so I'll be legal a few days after that.


Will get pictures up tomorrow evening, btw it's a 2009 Spains FP.


HAPPY DAYS! 


Akila is her name. An Arabic girls name meaning 'inteligent or bright' not really appropriate to a bike but oh well.


See calling her baby? I can't believe he named his bike Akila and worse is the fact that the bike is a she! How could he?!?! And they're like women in that forum btw, they're talking about bike names, changing nappies and being a good daddy when talking about bikes, lol! And I found this too:

Bored at home right now waiting for the England V USA game so thought I would get some pictures up of my Aprilia RS125.

I've spent a fair bit on upgrades because although the frame, motor & brakes are spot on the suspension was shocking, excuse the pun and I bought some trick bits too (told my wife I bought them all secondhand lol).



Liarrrrr! Grrr...  :'( And this one about Honda:


After several years of searching for an NSR250 I finally found one, in my town funnily enough.

On Saturday I'll be handing over the cash and will be the proud owner of a 1996 Honda NSR250SE. It needs a little bit of work doing (been in storage for 2 years), there are a couple of cracks in the plastics and a tiny dent in the tank, the forks need a little bit of attention as they have some minor greyish corrosion? but it will only take a few weeks of TLC to get it looking great.

The best part is the price. 12,000 UAE dirhams (around 2000GBP). It comes with a full stainless Arrow system, Ohlins rear shock & steering damper, HRC jetting kit & carbon front fender. 



A few weeks of TLC eh? I'm so doomed! He even kiddingly said that he'll be sleeping beside Honda when she arrives. I just said that's fine, but he meant taking the bike in our bed and she will be in between us! FML.


But thank you tho for bringing me lunch yesterday, I love you and I got to do something to take your attention away from those bikes *evil laugh* They said keep your friends close, and your enemies closer (if that even makes sense!) I'll be riding it soon so she better watch out or maybe the other way around coz she might drop me off  in the middle of the road LOL!! Oh no I think I'm going nuts! I hope Joe won't read this blog and found out I've done some mission impossible and went spying on him on his forums and worse, writing a blog about him and his bikes....  >,<

Sunday 3 April 2011

Chicken Chasseur

I don't really love cooking because cooking doesn't love me back LOL! Seriously, I can't cook for my life. I need to get a better job if I were to live all by myself because I would just go to any nearest fast food chain or order take aways just to eat everyday until I go skint. And I don't think anyone can survive with instant noodles, eggs and hotdogs alone! Most of the time my husband cooks and prepares every meal at home otherwise we'll get take aways. In the morning specially weekdays, we rarely eat breakfast except my son Calix who I make sure eats his chocopuffs before going to school. My husband sometimes eats weetabix if and only when he woke up earlier than usual. I only have a cup of coffee or tea in the morning which I drink while I drive Calix to school and then to my workplace.

But now I've realized that it's my job as a wifey and a mother to cook food for my family, perhaps 3-4 times/week is ok haha I'm lazy like that! And due to my inconsistency, the recipes and cooking instructions are very essential even if I've cooked the same meal twice or thrice already otherwise even a dog won't eat the food or I can't cook at all. There was once when I was only briefed by my hubby how to bake beef lasgna but he forgot to tell me how to prepare the sauce and so I mixed the red and white sauce instead of cooking the minced beef with the red sauce :D Ok enough of that now...

So here it is, one of my frustrated cooking attempt:

I fried the chicken portions first even if the How To Cook instructions didn't say so :) as I wanted them to be well cooked

I've also added some salt and pepper

Here, I've added the onions and mushrooms...

Finally the recipe mix...

180 degrees F

I love Colman's! I get about 5 different recipe mixes when we go food shopping....


I've only cooked them for 40 mins and not 1 1/2 hr because I've already fried the chicken portions earlier


for hubby

and for me

Actually I'm well chuffed with the outcome and my hubby even brought some for work lunch the next day ;) Yummers!