Cherry Blossom Festival

This year we managed to visit the Cherry Blossom Festival in Auburn Botanical Garden. The previous years, we usually missed it because we didn't know it existed. Auburn Botanic Gardens is regarded as the best place in Sydney to view cherry blossoms, so we just can't miss it this time! The festival itself was held on August 16-24.

It just feels weird having cherry blossom blooming in August. But, hey, this is the southern hemisphere! Spring IS in August!

The Cherry Blossom Festival is held in the Japanese garden area of the botanical garden. There is one main pathway with rows of cherry blossom trees on each side, and plenty of cherry blossom grooves on the other part of the garden. It truly felt like I'm going back to Japan. Even some people thought I was in Japan (well duh, it's August, so technically it's impossible!).

My 2013 Review

My 2013
End of the year! It's time to contemplate of what I have achieved this year and also time to make a list of resolutions for the upcoming new year 2014!

As far as I can remember, I don't think I actually made a list of resolution for 2013 *oh how I wish I had*. So, I will just share on what I have achieved this year - with no planning:

GOT MY AUSYTRALIAN PARTNER PROVISIONAL VISA (TR)
Finally I'm eligible to stay indefinitely in the land of kangaroos and koalas! This means I'm allowed to find a full time job too, alhamdulillah!

APPOINTED AS MENTOR FOR TEENS HALAQAH
I never thought I'd ever receive an offer to be a mentor. This is absolutely a huge responsibility! But with the help of my mentor and support from my husband, this has become a learning opportunity for me too in becoming a better servant to Allah.

GOT MY FIRST AUSTRALIAN JOB
I was offered a role in the same company and department that I have worked for in the past (for their Sydney office) after 3 months of intense job seeking and after 4 unsuccessful interviews. In this event, God's hand played a huge role. Because looking at my experience and current state, there is no way I would have landed a job without His miracle and also the du'a of my closest people. So, this is my greatest miracle, story, and achievement this year.

EARNED MY FIRST AUD!
Alhamdulillah my first official job pays well. The first time I got my salary transferred to my account, I was in shock. I've never earned that much money in a month! Let alone working in only four days a week. Even saving up my allowance money and seeing it reach $1000, seems like already a lot for me *terharu*.

FLYING SOLO
This doesn't mean that I went on a solo flight or a solo adventure :P. Flying solo here means that I'm trying to be independent financially by having my own little business. I opened a small shop at Etsy, selling my calligraphy artworks. Alhamdulillah I've sold two of my works so far. Unfortunately, due to the increasing busy-ness, I haven't had time to update the shop (I turned off the ad campaigns) and has been progressing very slowly in coming up with new designs. For 2014, I have to be more productive in making artworks so I can really keep my business going.

LEARNED NEW COMPUTER PROGRAMS

• Adobe Illustrator - Essential for my calligraphy business :)
• R (statistics software) - Learnt this while I was still looking for a job. I tried to enhance my skills in my area of expertise, which is market research and data acquisition, so I took classes related to statistical methodology, computation, data analysis, and marketing.
• Easiquest (questionnaire design software) - Learnt this in office as a part of my role.
• Unix (systems) - Learnt this in office as a part of my role.

I CAN FINALLY SEW! 
Finally, after abandoning my sewing machine for some time due to my fear of failing in sewing, I gathered the courage to actually start! I tried to make a skirt, but foolishly cut short the front side of it after realising that the front part and the back part of the skirt don't actually align. But I succeeded in making curtain covers for my shelves :D.

I have prepared a new list for 2014. It is quite ambitious. I'm not even sure if I can tick all of them by the end of next year, but at least I know what I want to achieve :).

InshaaAllah me and hubby will be spending our New Year's Eve at Bradfield Park, Milson's Point to see one of the best fireworks in the world. So excited!

*reposted from my old blog

Don't Let Your Dreams be Dreams

Source: http://bazzerio.tumblr.com/

The sentence in the above picture is one of the powerful sentence for me, I have it up on my Twitter page. It gives the sense of refusal to give up and strong will.

Sometimes I see people with goals and dreams, but seems like they didn't prepare or actually did something to achieve it. For me, every second counts. Once you fail to make a good use of your time, no one knows how much you will regret it in the future. Time keeps running, yet sometimes we don't act fast enough to keep up with the pace.

Don't let your dreams be dreams. Act to achieve and realise it. It's a reason you're living your life day by day. To be able to go through each and every day. Sometimes the end result just doesn't matter. The path towards it, the ups and downs you went through, is nothing but to make you a better person.

Don't let your dreams be dreams. How do I do it?

1. Make a list of what I want to achieve. No boundaries, just write anything that you want to achieve, even the most ridiculous ones. Because I believe, by writing it, it will remind us of our target so we can focus on it and unexplainably miraculously will help us achieve it. I have a couple of personal experience where my dreams that I wrote in a piece of paper came true one by one, and I never ever expect it to actually happen (sometimes I even forgot).
2. Make bullet points of the things you need to do to be able to achieve it. Sometimes I do this, sometimes not. But if is a big goal that I need to structurally plan the small actions, I will definitely make bullet points.
3. Don't just work hard, pray hard as well. I personally believe that what I had achieve is not merely because of my skills, but God's hand plays a big role in my life, my plans, my goals, my dreams, and my achievements. So, if someone says I'm lucky this-and-that, I'd say alhamdulillah, this isn't luck, I prayed hard for it.

So, what are you waiting for? Have a dream,write it down, and live your life realising it :).

Keep Calm and Stay Positive

Uncertainty after uncertainty, that's what I've been going through in my journey in job seeking. At one point I was on fire and another point I was desperately pessimistic. Every time I was feeling down after I heard no news after an interview, I would lose the will to look for more opportunities. But I keep feeding my positive dog with positive thoughts. It's hard, I know, but I know I've got to do it. I keep telling myself not to stop looking, not to give up trying, it's just a matter of time inshaa Allah. If I stop looking, I might miss out on a really good opportunity. If I give up trying, it means I'm delaying my success. With all energy that I have left, I'm still pushing myself. I refuse to give up. 

Last week I gathered up the courage to start applying again. It was on Saturday. I was quite bored and I thought that I didn't want to miss any opportunity that came up during that week, so I applied to some vacancies. I counted the number of applications that I sent. It was seven; seven applications. On Monday, I got a call. Surprise, surprise, it was from my past employer (I sent application on that Saturday). I was very happy. That was the phone call I've been waiting all my life here in Australia. I got an invitation for an interview the next day. I prepared beforehand and made sure I wasn't going to be late like my last interview (which was embarrassing). I made sure everything was perfect. I did my best, and will let Allah do the rest. I still haven't got a call back though, but I'm hoping it will come in soon. But if I didn't get the job, I will go back feeding my positive dog again and reminding myself again "just a little bit more...". 

Halal Spot: Billu's Indian Eatery

Sorry for having delayed this post for sometime! A couple of weeks ago when we were moving out, me and husband went to eat out at Billu's Indian Restaurant. It's my second visit there (the first was in January). As the name says, Billu's is an restaurant located in Harris Park which specialises in Indian cuisine. Billu's has been around for 23 years. The restaurant is quite fancy, but you don't need to dress properly tho. I realised that on my trip this time, they have this exclusive menu book and the waiter/waitresses looks very preppy as well! It's as if you're being treated in an exclusive dining. Love it!

This time I ordered butter chicken and basmatti rice, while Honey opted for biryani as usual. On our first trip in January, I ordered chicken tikamasala and cheese naan. The butter chicken was really nice and tasty! And it goes really well with basmatti rice (or naan). The biryani is very flavourful. You can really taste the mix of the spices. Oh, and it tastes really spicy (for my tongue). If you love strongly-spiced flavoured food, then this is it. Their naan bread is really wonderful! And, oh, you should try their cheese naan (eat while it's hot). It's the best! Can't go wrong with that.

Aside their Indian main course, they also have glass display full of sweets that you can buy in bulk (in kilograms). We tried one of it, gosh I forgot the name, but the shape is like a big chocolate ball. It tastes awesome! The inside is solid, it's not like a sponge cake. It's sweet and you can taste a hint of lemon in it. I would definitely buy more to stock up at home! But unfortunately we still have some cookies left, so we would like to finish it first. I can't wait to go there again, as I would really love to try other sweets!

I really recommend this place for dining out (dinner) or just hang out with your friends at daytime to enjoy the sweets. I would definitely go back to try other menu!

Billu's Indian Eatery

62 Wigram Street

Harris Park NSW 2150

www.billu.com.au

(photo will be posted when I have transferred the pictures from husband's iPhone :P)

Black Forest Cake

On Eid Adha, my husband's pengajian held a family gathering. I was assigned to bring cake (as usual; I got a nickname "bakery" from my pengajian). And some of the wives requested something chocolatey like a blackforest cake or a mud cake. There's actually a mud cake that I've been really wanting to try from The Great Australian Bake-off book, but since a mud cake look too plain, I went for a blackforest cake instead (even tho I'm not that fond of blackforest). 

I used a recipe from Allrecipes.com. I got soooo many compliments with the cake. My friends said the cake is not too sweet or too milky-tasting. And when I shared the recipe, another friend of mine said, "it looks really easy to make". Indeed! You don't need to cream butter and sugar, which is a lot of time saving.

INGREDIENTS:

Cake:

• 2 1/8 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 cups white sugar
• 3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 3/4 baking soda
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 3 eggs
• 1 cup milk
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1 tbsp vanilla essence/extract

Cherry filling:

• 2 (450 gr) cans pitted cherries
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1/4 cup cornstarch
• 1 tsp vanilla essence/extract

Frosting:

• 3 cups whipping cream
• 1/3 cup confectioner's sugar

DIRECTIONS:

1. Preheat oven to 175 degrees C. Grease and flour two 9 inch round cake pans (I used square pans).
2. Combine flour, sugar, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Add eggs, milk, oil, and vanilla essence/extract and beat until well blended. Pour the batter into prepared pans.
3. Bake for 35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the centre comes out clean. Cool cake in pans on wire racks for 10 minutes.
4. Drain cherries, reserve 3/4 cup juice. Combine 1/4 cup of the reserve juice, cherries, and sugar in a saucepan. Combine the other 1/4 cup of reserved juice and mix with cornstarch. Heat the saucepan and stir just until the sugar dissolves. Then add the cornstarch mix and cook until it thickens (use high heat if you don't want most of your cherries to break apart). Turn off the heat, then add vanilla essence/extract.
5. Combine whipping cream and confectioner's sugar in a chilled bowl. Beat with mixer at high speed until stiff peaks form.
6. Assembling: Split the cakes into halves. Crumb one of the halved layer for decorating the sides (I didn't do this, I just saved the layer to make a mini blackforest, as pictured in this post). Brush the layers with the last 1/4 cup of reserved cherries juice to moisten the cake. Spread 1 cup frosting on a layer and top with cherry topping. Repeat process for the second layer. Top with third cake layer and frost sides and top of the cake. Shave some dark cooking chocolate, sprinkle it around and on top of the cake and decorate the cake with the remaining frosting.

Source (with small changes in directions).

Bubur Ayam (Chicken Porridge)

The bubur ayam (chicken porridge) idea came when I had leftover cakwe that I had bought from an Asian grocery. Turned out that cakwe from Asian grocery is not like what I had expected. The appearance is the same with cakwe Medan, but the taste is totally different, meh. 

The bubur ayam recipe does look like a long list, but it's worth the work. Especially if you're badly craving for it, hehehe.

INGREDIENTS:

Porridge:

• 300 gr of jasmine rice
• 2 litres of water
• 3 cm ginger (or about 2 tsp crushed ginger)
• 2 sticks of lemongrass

Chicken:

• 2 tbsp vegetable oil
• 1 tbsp sesame oil
• 5 garlic cloves
• 3 cm ginger
• 1 whole chicken
• 1 1/2 litres water
• 2 tsp salt
• 2 tsp white  pepper
• 3 garlic cloves, for frying the chicken

Soy sauce:

• 1 1/2 tbsp kikkoman sauce
• 1 tsp fish sauce
• 1/2 tsp anchovy sauce
• 1/2 tsp sesame oil

Serving:

• Finely chopped celery
• Fried red onion
• Pickled radish
• Sliced cakwe

DIRECTIONS:

1. Porridge: Mix all the ingredients together and cook it in your multi cooker / rice cooker according to the direction. If the porridge came out too dry, you can dilute hot water and stir until you get the porridge consistency that you want.
2. Heat vegetable oil and sesame oil in a pan. Saute 5 sliced garlic cloves.
3. Boil water, add in chicken, ginger, and sautéed garlic. Cook until chicken becomes tender. Drain the chicken and cut into dice pieces. You can save the broth in the freezer for cooking later.
4. Saute 3 finely chopped garlic cloves, add the diced chikcen, add white pepper and salt.
5. Soy sauce: Stir well all of the ingredients together.
6. Serving: ladle the porridge into a bowl, sprinkle cakwe, chicken, and pickled radish on top. Garnish with finely chopped celery and fried onion. When you're about to eat, add 2-3 tsp of soy sauce and mix all the porridge. If you find it not salty enough, you can add more soy sauce.  

Crepes

Eating crepes always makes me happy. This recipe is often my go-to whenever I crave for some light snacks. It's very easy to make and so yummy as well! I found this recipe from Beth La Manach from "Entertaining with Beth" in Youtube. I definitely recommend you to try, as I have been making this over and over again.

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 cup flour
• 2 tbsp sugar
• Pinch of salt
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 2 cups milk
• 4 tbsp melted butter

DIRECTIONS:

1. Whisk together flour, sugar, and salt.
2. Mix in the milk to the dry ingredients and whisk until the batter is smooth.
3. Add the well beaten eggs, mix to combine.
4. Sprinkle the melted butter. Mix well.
5. Heat non-stick pan and dab with bit of oil.
6. Pour the batter and quickly spread around the batter in the pan by rotating the pan.
7. When the sides begin to turn golden, scrape the sides. Then turn it over on top of cutting board and tap hard on it to get the crepes to come off of the pan. 
8. Spread your favourite filling onto the crepes and fold into quarter circle.
9. Dust some powdered sugar on top.

NOTES: I upgraded the sugar amount to 2tbsp for a tad sweeter crepes.

Source

Mexican Rice

OMG, I can't believe it has been more than two months since I last posted something here *shame on me*. When I was about to post this recipe, suddenly the card reader refused to read my SDHC *darn-all of the pretty pictures were in there*. It took me quite a while (too long) to get a new card reader. Also, I've been busy prepping for my store opening at Etsy, inshaaAllah, and taking some free online courses to refresh my brain. So, that pretty much sums up why I haven't been able to post anything here. But I did, though, tried some new recipes; but it wasn't worth the upload... so... meh.

Anyway, I will just post what I had already drafted last month before the card reader incident happened. So, here it is:

On the 29th night of Ramadhan I pushed myself to do the last i'tikaf while I was having a severe sore throat. And the next day, I succeeded in losing my voice. Since then my throat hasn't gotten better. I didn't prepare anything festive and special for Eid. I just went around from one open house to another, hehe. I did manage to make opor ayam (by hubby's request) on the 10th of August, tho, but I was still feeling unwell so I didn't have the chance to take serious pictures and blog it.

Oh ya, this Ramadhan I participated in Indonesian Foodblogger cooking challenge (view my entry here) with the theme "noodles". I submitted my mie Aceh recipe and alhamdulillah it made it to the top 10! I didn't win eventually, but at least getting a place in the top 10 in my first attempt (out of 30 participants) is pretty impressive :). I can't wait to try other people's noodle recipes because they all look so yummo!

Today I want to share a Mexican rice recipe. I was browsing the internet yesterday and came across the word "Mexican rice". Hmm... I got curious and searched for a recipe. After reading the ingredients, I said to myself, "This is easy! I can make use of my quite-old-but-never-used cast iron pan as well". I called my husband in the last minute to get me a bunch of coriander leaves (how I wish I have a herb garden!). I adjusted the recipe with what I had in the kitchen. If you want to check out the original recipe, scroll down until the end of this post!

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 can of crushed tomatoes
• 1 medium onion
• 3 green chillies
• 2 cups of jasmine rice
• 1/3 cup of olive oil
• 4 minced garlic cloves
• 2 cups of chicken broth
• Salt
• 1/2 cup of coriander leaves, minced
• Lime

DIRECTIONS:

1. Process tomato and onion in blender until smooth. Measure and reserve exactly 2 cups (I forgot to measure it and just dunked in the whole thing into the pan). Discard excess.
2. Remove seeds from 2 green chillies. Mince flesh and set aside. Mince the remaining green chillies for later.
3. Wash rice thoroughly with cold water and rinse. Do this around 2-3 times.
4. Heat oil in oven-safe pan with tight fitting lid (I used cast iron pan) over low-medium heat. Drop a few rice grains, if they sizzle then it's ready. Add rice and stir fry until rice is light golden and translucent, about 6-8 minutes.
5. Add garlic and 2 minced green chillies; stir constantly until fragrant.
6. Stir in broth, pureed mixture, and salt. Increase heat and bring to boil.
7. Cover pan and transfer pan to oven. Bake in 190 degrees Celsius for 30-35 minutes. Stir well after 5 minutes.
8. Stir in the minced coriander leaves and the remaining minced green chillies.

This Mexican rice taste very nice. It is like some sort of tomato rice and the coriander leaves gave it that extra fragrance and unique taste. Hubby liked it and gave a thumbs up! We ate it with accompanying fried egg.

NOTES:

• The green chillies flavour didn't really come out, to be honest, so it's a bit missing that "chilli" (not hot) taste. Maybe using real jalapenos is best or maybe adding green bell pepper can work too.
• I used 1 block of chicken bullion in 2 cups of water. Just use accordingly to your chicken bullion instruction and adjust it to the recipe's chicken stock measurement.
• Don't be afraid to mix in a lot of coriander leaves! Because it really makes this rice taste sooo good. I was a bit afraid of mixing in the whole 1/2 cups of minced coriander leaves, but regretted it at the end that I had not put more!
• I don't really know how to properly serve Mexican rice, but having it side-to-side with grilled chicken or fried egg would be really nice!

Source

A Good 5 Minute

The next morning after I was feeling really hopeless, desperate, you name it; hubby sent this to my Whatsapp:

BACA 5 MENIT SAJA, INSYAALLAH BERMANFAAT  

HUSNUDZON kepada ALLAH 

Nabi NUH belum tahu banjir akan datang ketika ia membuat kapal besar &i ditertawai kaumnya. 

Nabi IBRAHIM belum tahu akan tersedia domba ketika pisau nyaris memenggal buah hatinya. 

Nabi MUSA belum tahu laut akan terbelah saat dia diperintah memukulkan tongkatnya.

Nabi MUHAMMAD SAW pun belum tahu kalau Madinah adalah kota tersebarnya ajaran yang dibawanya saat beliau diperintahkan berhijrah. 

Yang mereka tahu adalah bahwa mereka harus PATUH pada perintah ALLAH dan tanpa berhenti BERHARAP yang terbaik. 

Ternyata dibalik keTIDAKTAHUan kita, ALLAH telah menyiapkan SURPRISE saat kita mematuhi dan menunaikan perintahNYA. 

Seringkali tangan-tangan ALLAH bekerja di detik detik terakhir dalam usaha hambaNya.
So, never give up !! Make better for the best :) 

Kalaupun hasil yang kita usahakan jauh dari harapan, bahkan menyakitkan, jngan kita berkecil hati. Karena sering ALLAH mencintai kita dengan cara-cara yang tidak kita sukai. Tetap HUSNUDZON kepada ALLAH apapun yang terjadi. 

ALLAH berfirman:
"Boleh jadi kamu membenci sesuatu, padahal ia amat baik bagimu, dan boleh jadi pula kamu menyukai sesuatu, padahal ia amat buruk bagimu. Allah mengetahui sedang kamu tidak mengetahui."
(QS. Al-Baqarah: 216). 

✔Ingatlah:
Tidak ada yang tidak mungkin bagi ALLAH SWT
Selamat pagi  :)

It totally made me tear.