Archives for 2011

Feeling good, thanks to you

April 5, 2011 By Suanie 5 Comments

This is a “thank you” blog post. There, I’ve just summarised the content of this blog post so you’d be absolutely clear with what this is about. No? Okay then. This is a “thank you” blog post.

Those who can’t donate their money, donate their time. Or try to, for I know how easy it is to get caught up with our own things. I’ve been lucky to be involved in a few projects at the 1st quarter of 2011. You’ll have to forgive some rambling ons as I write this also for my own life documentation.

#1. BBQ Addicts’ Rumah Hope outing

Group photo with volunteers and kids at the outing

I blogged about it here. Thinking back, wow what an amazing trip eh? I helped to organise the goody bags for the kids, and till today I’m amazed at how open and generous everyone has been. From my stationery supplier to my family and friends, I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

The outing itself was great! I learned a few things about being with kids, and surprisingly about my friends. E.g. It was real eye-opening to see how good Melissa was with the kids. I know she does it for work, but we know how that turned out for some unfortunate kids… Anyway I feel that there are lots about caring for and handling children that everyone can learn from her!

#2. Lenovo laptop giveaway, donate in aid of the Japanese Red Cross Society

Masnaida, winner of my Lenovo Ideapad U460 contest

Who’s the luckiest girl in the world? Me. Who’s the luckiest girl in the world that Lenovo gave her an EXTRA laptop to giveaway in a contest? Me. Say what you will about perspective and angles: my perspective and view is that I have been a very, very lucky girl.

Of course the 1st thank you goes to Lenovo MY: without which, the whole thing would not have happened. A personal thank-you to Blake for being so patient facilitating the process. Next to everybody who helped spread the message about the contest on my blog. Finally, to friends and random readers who donated, thank you so much for your generosity. I don’t know how much the MilkaDeal donation drive raised but at least RM5,400 came from my side. That’s amazing!

#3: Twestival Kuala Lumpur 2011

Programme for the event. Photo by Nigel

I was part of the organising team for Twestival KL 2009 along with Niki, David, Ling, Radiance and Nigel. Never did blog about it because I was so burned out then. I suppose it was due to me giving pressure to myself and not being mentally prepared for the event. It was very successful, by the way. Our 1st Twestival KL fund-raising. I remember us being so worried if we were ahead of ourselves and that may not meet our target of RM3,000. As Twestival KL history would have it, we raised over RM11,000 in cash for Destiny Starting Point, a home in Klang for delinquent teens.

This year, I went back to Twestival KL and the team has expanded to include Andrew and IcedNyior. Bloody brilliant team, if you ask me! It was slightly tough as Niki is currently based in Singapore for a few months but we pulled through, yeay! On March 24th 2011, we had a FANTABULOUS fund-raising event at Finnegan’s Midvalley. Final count for our donation drive: a spectacular amount of RM26,000 in aid of Pertubuhan Masyarakat PRIHATIN in Kota Bharu, a NGO caring for single mothers and kids living with HIV/AIDS. I’m still doubled over at how we managed to pull that off =)

On my side, I wish to thank everyone I’ve asked for help. Thank you for hearing me out, I’m sure you’ve enjoyed my automated script of explaining what is Twestival? Hah! 😛 If you don’t know what Twestival is, do find out from here. We’ve a GREAT list of sponsors who were so generous, do check them at our Twestival KL blog. I’m just going to quickly mention those that I directly contacted, k.

Thanks to Melissa of Finnegan’s for replying to my tweet then immediately volunteering the venue and food! Thanks Joyce for the really cute Favors Essence souvenir. Thanks Patrick Teoh for vouchers to my favourite steamboat restaurant. David Cheong, thanks for the photos! Thanks Nigel for the STUFF stuff 😉 Thanks Hafiz, the BEST swimming coach in the world and some say Bukit Jalil. Thanks Kel Li for all the lovely Sony Music goodies, and the Adam Lambert CD (WHOA!). Thank you Selva of Original Bootcamp Malaysia for agreeing to sponsor without hesitation. Thanks to my Bootcamp buddies who have been so generous and supportive, you know who you are! Thanks to friends and followers of @TwestivalKL: sekiranya saya salah silap tweet, saya minta maaf.

To end, a big thank you to DaddyLian and Niki for roping me in 2 years ago, and thank you to Ling and Radiance for having me. Mwah! <3

5 Comments Filed Under: Assorted Blah

Suanie’s Very Merry Guinness Beef Stew

March 28, 2011 By Suanie 13 Comments

I’ve been hankering for beef stew (the ultimate comfort food!) and so I made it!

This recipe calls for the use of alcohol: Guinness and red wine. If you do not have one of the other (or both), feel free to omit and add more beef stock. Unlike humanity, beef stew is a very forgiving dish!

Ingredients:

– 600g to 1kg beef, cut into bite size. I normally get topside as it’s easily available to me
– some flour for dusting the beef before frying
– Plenty of salt and ground black pepper
– 1/4 cup (60 ml) olive oil.
– 2 onions, chopped
– 3 carrots, cut chunky
– 7 garlic cloves, chopped
– 2 medium sized potatoes, preferably waxy types
– 3 tbsp tomato paste
– 3 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
– 1 tbsp dried thyme
– 3 to 6 bay leaves
– 1 litre beef stock (preferably salt reduced)
– 1 cup (240ml) red wine
– 2 bottles of Guinness, 325ml each
– Fresh English parsley
– Sense of adventure

Pat beef dry. Season beef pieces with salt and pepper, then lightly coat/dust with flour.

Heat oil in a pot. Add beef to brown for a couple of minutes. Remove and put aside.

In the same pot, add onions, garlic, carrots and potatoes. Saute for 10 mins.

Add tomato paste, make sure to coat the ingredients in the pot with it. After a couple of minutes, add the beef + thyme + Worcestershire sauce + bay leaves.

For this particular time, I used two pots as I didn’t have a big enough pot to hold everything. I do now.

Add beef stock + wine + Guinness. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to low. Simmer uncovered for 2 hours.

Remember to remove the scum that floats to the top later on.

Serve with bread and butter. Or croissant. Or rice if you are Asian. Or penguin, if you’re so inclined that way.

I’d normally cook this huge pot and freeze the rest into individual portions. When I take one out and reheat, I normally add some water as the stew would be rather thick. Instant meal, sorted!

13 Comments Filed Under: Eating In Tagged With: beef stew recipe, beef stew with guinness, irish stew recipe

Chinese New Year 2011 update

February 9, 2011 By Suanie 10 Comments

Back to the grind, eh? I know you are, I can see the evidence on KL/PJ roads.
Of course I went back to my hometown for Chinese New Year as well.
We went back a few days earlier because one of my uncles passed away.
Then I returned to work yesterday because Joey Yap said it’s auspicious mah.
So I listen to him lor, ‘cos I’m very Cina one.

This time round I didn’t meet any of my friends.
Except for Richard and TiMei, when we visited Bhante Sumana.
Besides that and visiting my relatives, I stayed at home. Slept and fed and mushroomed.

On the 3rd day of Chinese New Year, we went to my Dad’s annual classmates reunion dinner.
This tradition is nearly 50 years in the making, without fail!
We all used to go with our parents as kids. Then as we get older, we stopped going.
Got other things to do mah, like hanging out with our own friends during CNY.
Now we are much older, we all go again. Cycle of life.

Dad and his friends!

Got a lot of stories to tell one…

Another group photo, yeay!

Got notice anything unusual or not?
…. .. ….. ….. …. .. .. .. . .. .. …… .. .. time’s up!
Yes, ladies and gentlemen… as you can see in all three photos above…
MY DADDY WAS SMILING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Fuwahhhhhh never see before leh… so out of his seemingly stoic character.
Faster go buy 4D.

Of course the next day, he was back to his usual sunny personality.

10 Comments Filed Under: Assorted Blah

BBQ Addicts’ Rumah Hope outing!

January 27, 2011 By Suanie 17 Comments

My friends at BBQ Addicts (who make the BEST BBQ food items ever so check out their FB page) decided to host a BBQ lunch for the kids at Rumah Hope in Petaling Jaya.

The order was: Lydia read some of our blogs raving about BBQ Addicts’ superior BBQ items. She wanted to organise a lunch for the kids and wrote to them asking for quotations. Grill Sergeant Lance decided to sponsor the BBQ and roped in his friends, asking us if we’d like to spend a Sunday at Rumah Hope with the kids. Yes sir of course sir.

I must have asked if they needed anything for the BBQ or home. Someone told me that because of the ‘back to school’ period, the kids needed stationery. Somewhere down the line, I thought of preparing stationery goody bags for the kids.

Off I went to my usual stationery supplier. I told him about what I wanted to do, then picked out items that I thought that the kids may need in school. I’d asked Lance to find out the number of kids below and over 12 years old as they will have different needs.

To cut the story short, my stationery supplier (who would like be unnamed) and I came up with a goody bag for both groups, each costing RM40. He gave me good discounts for the items for which I’m most appreciative!

I rallied family and friends to help in sponsoring the stationery bags. By the end of the day, I had sufficient pledges of donations. Much overwhelmed and humbled by your generosity, thank you! By the time I was ready to collect the items, I had extra money so I got add-ons such as Manila cardboards, art drawing blocks, geometry set, etc. These would be given to the home administrators to dispense as and when they deem fit.

Awesome goody bags for Under 12 and Over 12

Off we went to Rumah Hope! It seems to be a good home, quite well-equipped. The home admins and most of the older kids were at church selling coupons for their upcoming Open Day so there were only a handful of young kids around when we got there. As someone quipped, it’s easy for kids to mingle; just run around with them and chase chase chase.

Time to get the BBQ started! Lance had a new BBQ equipment and it was a challenge to get the fire going. Heheh, didn’t prepare for that leh!! Horng went to get dry branches and twigs which worked. As you can see in the photo, Mrs Cheang and Kim helped by channelling inner qi towards the fireyahhh…

Yeap, I had my cousins bring Ryan the Nephew along. The kids were mostly interested in computer games anyway, so iPhones and similar gadgets with games in them were huge hits.

We had lots of awesome food! BBQ Addicts’ wonderfully marinated chicken wings, satay, Juicy Lucy, mushrooms and cheese, bacon-wrapped asparagus, premium sausages… other volunteers prepared different types of food so there were salad, sandwiches, mashed potato, jelly etc.

Saw lots of running and chasing, UNO and assorted computer games being played, Haze drawing cartoons for the kids… a huge hit, that!

There was an arts & craft session headed by Melissa. You’re given a piece of paper, some black ink and straw, then you have to blow the ink to make a pattern which hopefully turns out to look like tree branches. Then you stick little pieces of pink paper to make the blossoms. There was gold dust too… saw a lot of creativity in process.

See the completed works!

Time to give out angpows and the goody bags!

… and a group photo!

Thanks everyone. It was a wonderful Sunday, I had a great time. And thank you, my stationery goody bag sponsors. Couldn’t have done it without you, thank you!!

BBQ Addicts has the best BBQ food items ever! Check out their FB page, and a latest feature on them on Goreng.my

Rumah Hope, established in 1994 is a sanctuary for abused, neglected and under-privileged children between the ages of 5-17. The Home relies solely on public funding to maintain itself. For information on the home and activities, check out their website.

17 Comments Filed Under: Parties/ Events/ Fun