Our Backyard

We've got a bit of empty space in our backyard so my husband and parents transformed it into a mini vegetables and fruits garden. My parents did the initial work of cleaning this space when it was heavily weedy and planted some chillies to start this garden. Then, my husband continued their work and added more plants in this small land. This garden is located near our kitchen so it's very easy and convenient for me to run out and pick few things when I need them.

In the past couple of months, my husband had discovered the joy of growing own vegetables and fruits just like the main character in Harvest Moon (except that he doesn't have to sell the crops later on). Thus, he decided to take almost full responsibility of all the greens he grows in our backyard. I still help him weeding this area regularly and sometimes water all the plants in the backyard too when my husband happens to be busy or away from home. Meanwhile, my gardening remit in our house is taking care of the flowers and carpet grass in the little garden in our front porch.

Quite fair split, I think.

Anyway, here is how our vegetables and fruits plants in our backyard look like now:

The mini lime tree and pandan.

Cherry Tomato plants.

Both husband and I were so excited when we saw our first bird's eye chillies that we planted some time ago have actually produced some real chillies. For a moment, I was hoping that the chilli price in the market would sky-rocket as my backyard has now got us covered with enough chillies supply for months. Just joking.

Chillies and Peppers plants.

Baby Papaya trees.

On another note, we are currently battling with powdery mildew and black ants issues that attack our plants in the backyard. It's really annoying to see these plant diseases multiply faster than virus every single day. As such, last weekend, we've decided to spray some gardening chemicals to treat them before they got out of control.

By the way, these days I can have a really long phone conversation with my Mom just to talk about the orchids, chillies and other plants my husband and I grow in our gardens.

Last but not least, I can't wait to start picking our cherry tomatoes when they blush crimson or eating our home-grown once considered exotic fruit, papaya.

Seemingly, gardening is still a fun hobby as long as there's no pests, filthy insects and petrifying worms involved. Big gah to these creepy creeps.

Naomi: 8 Months and 4 Weeks Old

Baby Naomi is turning 9 months old in four days' time and she's out growing her baby-ness really, really fast.

Cute, heh! Except her uneven fringe, of course.

As of today, she is teething her 7th and 8th teeth on her lower gum and still a very bitey baby. She's bitten her Daddy's hand real hard few times and actually left marks on my husband's hand when she could't find any teether nearby.

She still cruises and I think I witnessed Baby Naomi walked her first two steps independently late last night. She has not practised this feat again today.

Naomi has this weird obsession toward remote controls, hand phones and specs. I wonder why.

Baby Naomi is now able to show emotions very well, especially when she is frustrated or angry. When she's really angry, she makes gestures as if she jumps repeatedly in the same spot and at the same time moves her hands up and down whilst giving us her crying face with "huhuhuhu" sounds until we give her what she wants.

She would now open her arms and look at you when she wants to be carried.

Baby Naomi has found her voice and sometimes, is a little screamy for no apparent reason.

Baby Naomi can play by herself with her soft toys. She'd hold the toys in both hands and start talking to herself. She can't play with the other babies yet but loves to watch babies or kids around her.

These days, she loves making snapping sound with her tongue. I find it cute.

I still sing to her to get her attention or amuse her.

Her vocabularies are pretty much the same as last month. No mama word comes out from her mouth just yet.

Travelling with Baby Naomi by car without a baby car seat is a nightmare now because she can't sit still on my lap and moves around non-stop during the whole trip.

Baby Naomi can focus much better when I read her story books but her span of attention is still relatively short. Also, I need to constantly keep an eye on the book on my hand as I read to her because she can grab the book in the nick of time and put it in her mouth.

Baby Naomi still eats soft rice porridge (made from half cup of rice) twice a day and drinks water from straw cup few times in a day.

Baby Naomi's slumber still starts around midnight every day. She rises and shines in late morning so good thing is that she doesn't have to attend school early in the morning, huh! Recently her napping schedule has changed again so she naps only once a day but the duration is slightly longer than before.

Smile and smile like there is no tomorrow!

And of course, she's still generous in showering us with her sweet smile and I hope it won't change as she gets older.

Making Banana Chocolate Cheese Puff Pastry

Love banana? Love chocolate? Love cheese?

What if you combine all those three ingredients into a pastry's filling?

Divine. Period.

Anyway, I had really ripe bananas that I reckon they will go straight into a trash bin in a day or so, hence I thought of making use of them before throwing them away just like that tomorrow. On top of that, I also had a big pack of chocolate rice that I had not finished in months and a pack of ready-made puff pastry that hibernated in my freezer for God knows how long but the contents weren't expired yet.

Thus, this morning I thought of experimenting making a puff pastry with simple ingredients I already had in my kitchen such as banana, chocolate rice and cheese and ta-da! -- less than an hour later I had a plate full of fragrant puff pastry on my dining table ready to munch.

This recipe is really versatile that you can alter the pastry's filling contents in any way you want (say use hot dog or ham and cheese or strawberries and chocolate) and it's so easy to make too. Further, this recipe causes less damage mess in the kitchen because you literally don't have to whip anything unless you decide to make the pastry dough from scratch, which by all means, please go ahead to do so if you can.

Here's the recipe I used to make the banana chocolate cheese puff pastry today.

Banana Chocolate Cheese Puff Pastry.

Ingredients:

• 6 pcs Ready-made (ready-to-bake) square puff pastry, at room temperature
• 1 tbs Water or unsalted butter, melted
• 3 tbs Chocolate rice/chocolate chips/chopped cooking chocolate
• 1 Ripe banana, thinly sliced
• 1-2 Cheddar cheese singles, cut into small squares
• 1 Egg yolk, lightly beaten (optional)
• A little bit of flour
• A little bit of icing sugar for dusting (optional)

Tutorials:

1. Place a piece of ready- made puff pastry on a work surface.

The ingredients for making banana chocolate cheese puff pastry.

2. Dip your finger in water and moisten the inside edges of puff pastry or brush the edges of the puff pastry with a little bit of melted butter.

3. Place about 3 banana slices, 2 cheese squares and 2 tsp of chocolate rice into the centre of the puff pastry. You may be tempted to be so generous with putting the filling into the puff pastry but please don't put too much as you may encounter difficulties in folding the puff pastry later on.

Filling the puff pastry.

4. Fold the puff pastry into half and seal it well by pressing the edges with your finger. Repeat the above processes for the rests of the puff pastry pieces.

5. Place all the puff pastry on a baking tray already lined with a baking paper and sprinkled with a little bit of flour.

6. If you wish to have a shiny looking puff pastry, brush the top of the puff pastry with a little bit of beaten egg yolk before baking them.

Egg wash on the puff pastry's top.

7. Bake the puff pastry at 170 degree Celsius for about 20-25 minutes or until golden brown.

8. For finishing, dust a little bit of icing sugar on top of the puff pastry. Best served warm.

The final result.

This puff pastry is so delicious that my husband instantly fell in love with it after one or two bites. There's no huff and puff required to make some and if you wish to keep them in the freezer for stock, you can do so and bake them on later day(s).