Birthday at Home...

There's no hosting of parties. It's my big day so I wouldn't want to slave myself in the kitchen while everyone is having a good time eating. It's a Tuesday so I still did not announce my birthday as a public holiday. I have an early class so I woke up extra early to go to the market which was a mere 3-minute walk from the house. I went there with a big pink pail to put the mud crabs in. I have no idea how to kill a mud crab but being cruel, I put them into the steamer alive. Yes, alive~! A few of the crabs tried to run away but in less than 5 minutes, it was over. Wasn't that better than putting a chopstick on them to kill them?

You see those crabs going in different position and cooked in different positions? They tried to run away as I said. I have no idea how to remove those book lungs of crabs. Don't even know which part to be thrown away and which part to suck on.

Mi mama was at home to remove those book lungs. Some of those crabs died shitting in the plate. The sweet juice from those crabs could not be salvaged. The shit looked like blobs of rabbit shit. It's okay... I'm actually okay with steam crabs alone without any gravy. I tried making those gravy like how hubby did them. Hubby was in school and if we were to wait for him to come home, we would starve on my birthday. My special should not have anyone starving.

The gravy was not like how hubby did it no doubt he prepared them ahead and put them in a container in the refrigerator. There's only one egg left in the basket. We ran out of ketchup and ran out of Thai chilli sauce. I have forgotten to make an inventory check on what we have in the kitchen. *sigh* We scrapped the peanut butter gravy aside as it's too sweet and salty.

I stir fried some cockles but they look so miserably small. I got them from Tesco as I couldn't get them anywhere in the market. It seemed like it's difficult to get cockles except from Batu Lanchang market. But the afternoon market is such a hassle to go to. It's okay with those small cockles will go and get them big cockles on of the Sundays.

The miserable middle sized prawns. Oh, why... why are those prawns shrinking in size? Again, big huge handsome prawns can only be found in Batu Lanchang market. But the price would be so high my heart would skip a bit or two. We will have huge prawns after the Chinese New Year then. Hehhehehe.... No harm done... Those prawns are not the centre of attraction on the table.

The power of advertisement worked on us once in a blue moon. Yesterday happened to have a blue moon appearing on us. Kedai Ayamas' advertisement leaflet landed in our postbox. It's RM46.90 for two birds with an addition of RM3 for delivery. We had the Oishii chicken. The taste was really good and I have no idea how to copycat that recipe. I have no idea how to describe the taste. Oyster sauce with a whole lot of mixture...

I have always have a soft spot for Percik roaster. I have no intention of copying this at all. I love it the way Ayamas did it. Wonderful two birds that we attacked on.

Mi mama made me a no-bake chocolate cheesecake. Mi mama is getting to be a professional in making cheesecake. I am moving backwards in baking but moving forward in Chinese cooking. I seriously need to learn up Japanese cuisine.

So since it's not a party and I had to cook those dishes myself, we invited no one but ourselves. The tripod needed to put to good use once in awhile. I celebrate it with much style. Threw the apron away, release the long mane, snap a few photos.

Snap snap a few more photos. The timer has been set. Good one~!

Just the three of us. The last photo before we put away the cheesecake back into the refrigerator. The pink container with lychee konnyaku must go back to sleep. The hair is tied back up in a ponytail. The plates are filled with basmathi rice. The tripod is shifted into the piano room lest it went missing again. The camera is left on another table or we might accidentally spill food on it. A photo says a thousand words. Don't always believe what you see. I'm good in propping up a place just for a nice picture. We washed our hands clean and you wouldn't want to see how we eat. We looked like barbarians chomping down on food, like we have been hungry for a couple of days and seeing food for the first time. And yeah we used our hands!! The crabs were the last to be attacked. 

I removed the flesh from those crab claws and had a second round of rice. Awesomely nice~!!! I got really tired eating all those. It's like going for a long march. Then... the saddest part was I did not get to rest. I had a class after sitting on the dining table for 1 hour 45 minutes. The hubby came back when we were halfway done attacking the food. Three of us leave just a few pieces of chicken meat on the plates. We took the delicious tender part away. Ahhh..... in this house, we wait for no one when it comes to food. No photos with the hubby as the hands were really dirty.