Father's Day 2020

We celebrated this year father's day at kampung. I bought cake from Baker's Cottage, actually I asked the niblings to buy the cake. And then we did a simple decoration. We celebrated three fathers; abah, abg ain and uncle D. By the way, here is a message for my beloved abah (if you ever stumble upon my blog);

Dearest Abah,

I may not be the perfect daughter,

but for me you are the perfect father.

You are always there for me

through all my ups and downs.

My life has been roller-coaster ride,

nevertheless you are here by my side.

You are my rock when things get tough,

your love for me is more than enough.

When I lose the will to live,

you tell me that I have more to give..

Believe in yourself, you said,

the journey in life must be carefully tread.

Because of you, I'm still here,

trying my hardest to be sincere,

in life, in love and everything dear.

Thank you for everything,

I love you always and forever!

Your daughter,

Eema

Aidilfitri 1441H/2020

Well, celebrating Aidilfitri with the new normal is certainly different compared to previous celebrations. We were only allowed to cross border on the first day of raya. And the number of people allowed per gathering is 20 persons max! Since most of my colleagues were unable to balik kampung, I invited them to my parents' house. I consider myself lucky for I am already at kampung with my beloved parents.

I helped my mom prepare the menu one day before raya. We prepared the usual; nasi impit (cube rice -  no ketupat this year since I'm incapable to anyam (weave) the coconut leave eventhough I did try to learn them, huhu..), beef rendang, chicken curry and lemang (bought). And this raya, for the first time ever I cooked kuah kacang all by myself following the recipe from Google and YouTube. Not bad for my first try! I also made some mac and cheese.

On raya morning, there are no congregation held for solat sunat raya at mosque. Instead we prayed by ourselves at our own home. The khutbah text was given by Islamic Religious Department via social media. And our family held a zoom meeting that morning. We still get to see each other. Each family made  raya wishes. Kak Sya's and Kak Ala's were at Putrajaya, Abg Ain's family was at Sungai Merab and Abg Ijan's family was at Bandar Bukit Raja.

Our zoom meeting

And around 10am, my colleagues started to come. My house was the first on their raya visit list. Next house is Zariq's and the last house would be Pn Heidi. We ate, talked, ate, talked until our stomachs couldn't take it anymore. 😂 This raya was certainly different but it was still a joyous and happy event where we were still able to get together!

My parents' house

Zariq's house

Ovaltine Cookies

Don't expect the cookies to retain their original shapes. This 'turn out' is consider a miracle! Usually, cookies just spread all over the pan with no shape AT ALL!!!

One of the MUST HAVE kuih raya in our house is Biskut Ovaltine. It has been handed down in the family, maybe from my grandmother. Everyone that came to our house during raya will ask for these biscuits. And the cookies will usually finished even before raya since the niblings love to munch them while watching TV. And we had to make a new batch again for raya. But, since we couldn't celebrate raya together this year because of the MCO, I actually posted the biscuits to all of my siblings! That means, I have to make five cookies batch! I included the recipe as well so they could make them themselves. Here are the recipe by the way;

INGREDIENTS

• 250 gm butter
• 1 cup condensed milk
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 2 cups corn starch
• 2 cups tapioca starch
• 1 cup wheat flour
• 4 cups Ovaltine

PREPARATION

1. Mixed butter, condensed milk and brown sugar together (electronic mixer)
2. Add all the flours little by little.
3. Add Ovaltine last (if the dough wasn't 'chocolate' enough, just keep on adding Ovaltine until it looks like picture above)
4. Bake for 20 minutes (180 C top bottom)

So, I send the jars of Ovaltine via ordinary domestic post service, not Poslaju. If I used Poslaju, I need to pay RM15++ for one jar. With the ordinary post service, I just need to pay RM7/jar. And it took almost two weeks (roughly) to reach the destination.