Condensed Milk+Raisins Chocolate Cookies

When we go for grocery shopping, we would usually buy something for the kids for them to hold, or to keep them quiet. Usually they request for raisins. And this is what happens. They open a pack, ate some, then request for the same thing again next week, repeat, and now, I have 4 packets of raisins at home - opened half & half.

I want to 'get rid' of the raisins. I am thinking of raisin cookies, or raisin muffins, something simple. I don't have sugar, but I have a LOT of condensed milk. I love my oats with condensed milk so I stock up on condensed milk. 

So, muffins or cookies? Err, I seldom hear condensed milk muffins. But condensed milk cookies, yes. So let's do condensed milk raisin cookies, eh?

All my ingredients are agak-agak. 1 cup butter, 1 cup flour, 3/4 cup cocoa powder, half a can condensed milk and raisins. I have to keep adding more flour because the dough is wet and sticky from the condensed milk.

I rolled them into balls using my hands as I don't have an ice cream scoop.

Gently pressed them down a bit, and bake at 170 degrees for about half an hour.

The result? Very bitter chewy chocolate raisin cookies. Not sweet. Not buttery (maybe I put too much cocoa). Edible, but I won't say it's the best in the world. It taste EXACTLY like bitter-sweet dark chocolate cookies. I prefer sweeter cookies made with sugar or brown sugar. 

I put 16 pieces into a cookie jar.

AND.....

Surprisingly, hubby FINISHED the whole jar of the cookies when he came back from "ching ming" with his family that afternoon.

People who don't like sweet stuff would love this, but not me kua, I prefer my cakes and cookies and desserts to be very SWEET (and condensed milk is not suitable because they are NOT sweet at all when used for baking).

MEANTIME.....

The boys doing some beading.

Ok bye!

Last Thursday's Dinner

Was at home last Thursday, no go to work.

I found two packets of Graddsas beef gravy (for meatballs) bought from Ikea and...

the expiry date is coming soon - 09.04.2015. I don't have time to cook dinner on weekdays, and I don't cook dinner on weekends since we'll be going to mil's place or my mum's place for dinner usually.

So I plan to use up the two packets of beef gravy. But wait, let me show you what I cook that night for dinner, since I'm at home, and I have the whole day. I'm roasting half a chicken. Marinade using just Kikkoman soy sauce and Italian herbs.

And I plan to use up the two packets of gravy by cooking spaghetti. Yep, beef gravy with spaghetti. Gonna cut up some luncheon meat too for the spaghetti. I'm gonna call it luncheon meat with beef gravy spaghetti.

Look at those luncheon meat chunks, yummeh.

I fry luncheon meat and onions separately first. Then I made the gravy, just follow instructions behind the packet. Then, I poured the meat into the gravy, mix with spaghetti when it was time to serve.

Anyway, here is my roast chicken...

My luncheon meat-onions-beef gravy spaghetti... And...

Ta-daaa !! Surprise !! I made another tuna-corn salad with hard boiled eggs too. This one, can make in advance and chuck in the fridge. Erm, missing some cherry tomatoes here I know, but I don't like veggies, so no veggies here, teehee.

Just in case you are wondering why I use aluminium trays for the 3 dishes I cooked, well, just for fun. I wanted it to look like a party buffet. Syiok sendiri.

Ok, bye!

"Same Thing" Day

Am being very honest. Am running out of stuffs to write. So I just randomly take photos of my boys last weekend, and blog about them, haha.

This was their breakfast last weekend. Am getting very lazy now to even fry an egg for them, let alone making pancakes. So they just get a cupcake, yoghurt and a Vitagen each. All from the packet, no cooking required.

After breakfast, it's playtime. I will sit and relax on the sofa watching Astro, while they play and watch YouTube on the tablet. G is not so sticky now as he is bigger already, so I get my TV time for a while, before he makes noise and request for Baby Einstein (on the dvd player).

I'll cook lunch around 10.45am - boil rice, heat up leftover-soup-in-a-jar and steam egg. If you want to see how it looks like, here you go. I only keep the soup in the jar, I took out all the "liew" already.

Not bad, finished all also.

 After lunch, nap time for them. G naps outside, while Kz naps inside the room.

Ok, what's after this? Usual lah, by now, you should have known already. Hubby back around 2pm, the boys wake up, we go to mil's place, hang around until dinner, and come back lah, what else. 

Ooh, I'll do the laundry, take a rest, and zzzz.

Ok, bye!

Photos Taken During CNY

Don't worry, not gonna bore you with report-duty details. Just to keep a record, and show off my boys.

Chor 1 - Went to mil's house in the morning, visited a relative after that, went home for the boys to nap, back to mil's house for dinner. Done.

Chor 2 - Went to my parents' place for lunch, back home for the boys to nap, then to my mil's place for dinner. Done.

*Psst, please ignore the dog at the back.

Chor 3 - Hosted a mini gathering for the in-laws. They came around 12pm, left around 7pm. I cooked - roast chicken, cream sauce spaghetti, potato-egg-bacon salad and cheesecake for desserts. Then they gambled whole day. After they left, I vacuumed and mopped and washed the toilets.

Chor 4 - Went to visit hubby's boss in Klang, and stayed home after that. Done.

Chor 5 - Sent the boys to the daycare (yep, they opened already), while me and hubby went shopping and paktor, yay! Took this photo after we got back from the daycare.

Chor 6 til 9 - Start work already, nothing much to report. Everything back to normal, go to work, come back, tapau dinner, sleep.

Chor 10 - Steamboat at my sil's house, so this was taken at their living room.

A few minutes after taking the family photo, Kz ran around the house and slipped and fell and knocked his head. Look at his "bungalow" (hou mou lau). Ouch !!! I quickly applied some tea tree oil, and the bump subsided after a while, phew!

Chor 11 - Resting and relaxing at home is the best. Nobody cares if I walk around naked or fart loudly while cooking. 

Chor 14 - Last day of CNY. Boiled soup the night before (Chor 13), and "lou tong sik farn" (rice with soup) only for dinner on Chor 14.

Soup ingredients: Pork ribs, chicken carcass, white radish, carrots, wolfberries, red dates, dried oysters and dried scallops.

Ok bye!

Testing... Thinking...

I've had enough pineapple tarts and ngaku chips. Today I want to talk about (no bake) cheesecake, and this time, I plan to use condensed milk instead of my usual whipping cream+sugar (to save cost), so I want to test it first to make sure it's good. 

So, last week, I tested by cutting a small chunk of my Philadelphia cream cheese, just enough to put into two cupcake papercups, and let it rest to room temperature. Then I put one whole Oreo (instead of crushed Marie and melted butter) as the base.

Then I mixed some condensed milk (agak-agak) with my 'test' cream cheese chunk.

I added orange juice because I don't have any lemons in the fridge.

Done. Poured into the cupcake liners. No gelatin, none in the pantry.

Topped with candies, or crushed Oreo, whatever.

Setting in the fridge.

The result? Hubby says nice, but I personally prefer the whipping cream+sugar+gelatin+lemon juice recipe. Thinking, thinking, thinking...