Quick banana bread

Ingredients:

1 ¾ cups or 175gram flour

3/4 cup or 75gram caster sugar

1 teaspoons baking powder1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 large eggs, lightly beaten

1/2 cup (50gram) unsalted butter, melted and cooled

3 ripe large bananas (approximately 450gram), mashed well

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract / essence

Garnish: (Optional)A few slices of banana

Method:

Preheat oven to 180 degrees C.

Butter and flour the bottom and sides of a 9 x 5 x 3 inch loaf pan. Set aside. In a large bowl combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.

In another bowl combine the mashed bananas, eggs, melted butter, and vanilla. With a rubber spatula, lightly fold the wet ingredients (banana mixture) into the dry ingredients just until combined and the batter is thick and chunky. (Do not to over mix the batter. Over mixing the batter will results in tough, rubbery bread.)

Scrape batter into prepared pan and place the slices of banana on top of the batter for garnish.
Bake until bread is golden brown and a cake tester inserted in the centre comes out clean, about 60 minutes. Place on a wire rack to cool and then remove the bread from the pan. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Tip / personal experience: Baked in the oven for about 40 min or when you notice the bread is turning too brown, remove pan from the oven and wrap it with aluminum foil and continue baking it for another 20 min. This will prevent burning on the top of the bread.

Enjoy!

Sliding Doors

Have you ever get that kind of feeling where you start to look back at your past actions/decisions? Yes, the big words - “WHAT IF”. Have you ever picture there are actually two sides of every decision that you make?

I watched this movie “Sliding Doors” the other day and I find it quite interesting.

The film is about Helen’s life. For the start, she was fired from her public relations job. The film’s plot splits into two parallel universes which run in tandem. In one universe, Helen manages to catch a train home on time, and on the other she misses it. In the first, she gets home in time to catch her boyfriend cheating on her with his ex-girlfriend. She immediately walks out on him; meet another man and falls in love again. In the second, she carries on an oblivious and miserable relationship after arriving home late (her boyfriend’s lover has left) and not knowing that her boyfriend has been unfaithful.

Towards the end of both scenarios, she discovers she is pregnant with her respective partner’s baby. In both timelines, she ends up in near fatal accidents, gets taken to the hospital and loses her baby. In the first scenario (in which she catches the train), she dies on the arms of her newfound lover. In the second, Helen (knowing that her boyfriend has gotten his ex-girlfriend pregnant) tells him to leave her alone for good. Then, while in the hospital, she runs into her love interest from the first scenario, leaving the audience to speculate about the outcome of their meeting.

There was this one part in the movie that really makes me think again. Helen (who’s still with the unfaithful boyfriend) said somehow she knows there is a boat racing going on at the river (Helen from the first scenario is actually at the boat race with her new lover) which make me wonder whether there is actually another “us” that is living on the other side of the universe, living on the decision that we did not make in our existing timeline. Why did I say that? Well, I am sure all of you have had De Ja Vu before.

So, what do you think? Have you ever wondered where/what will you be if you have not made that decision? Will I lead a totally different life if I have not got on that plane? Sometimes, I really wondered.

How about you?

Another Year Gone By, So, What’s next?

Looking back, I didn’t achieve much but I’ve gone through lots of changes in my life. It might be good or bad. Nobody knows. Time will tell. I have been through a lot too in 2006. Be it how to deal with “trouble makers, gossipers or hypocrites”. Yes, Nikki, you are right. Somehow, both of us faced with the similar problems.

I am currently residing in Melbourne. Having said that, it took a lot of courage for me to drop everything back in Malaysia and finally take the leap. A very BIG leap indeed. However, the good news is that things have started to settle down here. I finally found a job with PricewaterhouseCoopers, Melbourne. It is such a relief after being unemployed for more than 3 months.

I still remember the first day I sent out job applications and the feedback was that my 5 years working experience in Malaysia are not relevant. I can’t aim for my previous position and yet I can’t go for junior role because I am over qualified. Can you imagine my frustration then?

I am going to start work next week and God knows what I am going to face. I understand there will be lots of differences with the working environment here. Hopefully things will turn out fine.

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Successful Woman

According to Paris Hilton, a successful woman needs to have four types of animals. First, a mink in your closet, a jaguar in your garage, a tiger on the bed and a jackass who will buy or give you anything that you want.

However, one of my girlfriends has a very different view. She claimed that a successful woman just needs one animal. That is a jackass that will buy or give you anything that you want. He will buy you a mink for your closet as well as the jaguar in your garage.

Well, since the jackass will make you rich, you can have as many tigers as you want on your bed too. Ha ha ha…

True also! : p

Love Turn Sour?

There is a big news screaming headlines in most of the major newspaper recently here in Malaysia. The news claimed that a Mongolian model was brutally murdered in an executioner style and her body was blown to bits with explosives in Shah Alam. It was speculated that the motive of the murder was something to do with an affair turned sour, betrayal, blackmailing and apparently few people have been remanded to help out with the investigation.

Well, I am not supposed to comment much on this case because it’s likely to go to the court or else any further comment will be held as a contempt of court. Why am I bringing this case up anyway? Hello… I am not going to talk about the case.

But, I was just wondering, how can a person who used to love you so much and at the end of the day hated you like a sworn enemy to the extent of hurting you? Causing you agony, grieves, misery and pain. Countless are dying to find out.

“When you turn over a pig’s stomach, you will see lots of shits. That is the norm”, claimed one of my girlfriends over coffee this morning. I have to agree with her because this Chinese saying has been around for so many hundred years. Therefore, there must be some truth in it.

But then again, it is quite scary don’t you think so? A person who is supposed to protect you, to love you and the one that you can rely on suddenly turn out to be the person who is going to hurt you the most.

Does this imply that once a relationship breaks down; either party can do anything to harm each other? Is it really that love and hate stands in between of a fine line?

Then, is this love at all?

Love should be patience
Love should be kind
Love should be accepting
And love should not be blind

Try open up your eyes to see
To find out whether he is worthy
For all you know he might not be
Heart broken you will ended up to be

Love is all about sacrifices
But without losing your one self
Love may come and go without notices
Hope you will handle it well

Sigh… Maybe this is what they say “When love and hate collide”? Or perhaps it is something like when there is no more hate, there’s no more love.

He hates you = he still loves you???

Conflict of Interest

Does it ever work out?

I was chatting with one of my girlfriends over MSN the other day when she suddenly asked me a question, “Can a relationship work out if a couple does not have anything in common?” Apparently, due to this reason, things started to falls apart, conflicts arise, argument occur and they do not have much topics to talk about.

I guess these are all in a package of relationship. Conflict of interests is bound to happen whether you want it or not. Sometimes even when you least expected it. But the key point for a relationship to work out does not depend solely on whether both of you have common of interest at all. This always falls back on how both of you tries to work things out.

Fighting, arguments and conflicts are inevitable. It’s fine to fight once in a while as long as you know how to end the argument properly. In fact, these fighting does wonders in helping to grow the relationship by assisting in the process of understanding the other involved and improving your sex life.

Well, you must be asking, how the heck by fighting with your partner will improve your sex life?

According to Samantha Brett from Sam and the City, “Marrieds, long-termers, co-habitees and newlyweds all know the power of a little squabble. Frustrations are let out, passions rise, temperatures heat up and wham - before you know it, you're butt-naked on the floor having mad, passionate sex”. (wow)

Come to think of it, how can we expect men to have common interest with us when women are from Venus and men are from Mars? Maybe it’s even better that both do not have common of interest where both can start a topic and that’s how the communication comes in. You talk about it. I am not saying that you have to force yourself into your partner’s world. Perhaps you can try to get to know better about his/her interest or at least listen to them when they talk about it. Who knows things will work out perfectly.

Maybe this is what they call opposite attracts! What say you?