An evening of beer, ribs & furkids @ Craft Brews

I love beer. I love pork ribs. I love furkids. I love my car pals. OK its not necessaril in that order but I am writing with a very hungry stomach and crazy thirst in my mouth.

And when I caught hold of Groupon's offer for Craft Brews' BBQ Meat Platter at RM69, I grabbed it immediately. This is one good buy of yummilicious meat platter of pork ribs, chicken, old fashion wedges, salad and soup that can feed 3 (or 4 small eaters).

Fast forward, it was a brilliant Sunday evening. Wasn't too hot. Wasn't wet. Perfect traffic made it all the better. Perfect for dinner over beer and lots of laughter with our usual bunch of pals with our furkids and our rides (Geraldine is getting her ride real sooooooonnnnnn).

Hubby and I arrived early. We walked our diva Shalom first before we settled comfortable and started off with our beer while waiting for the rest to arrive. Yummy cold beer. We started with the Red Dot for Dennis while I opted for the English Ale. The diva wasn't left out. She had her iced water and lots of treats that I had baked that Sunday morning.

As the rest took turns to arrive, we started with one of the best fried calamari in town. Not chewy like eating your pencil eraser, it was tender and flavourful. Was tempted to order a second serving just for myself.

The whole bunch are all nicely settled with their beers and ice lemon teas. Furkids are all fed with treats too and our food arrives (Craft Brews service is really amazingly fast and prompt. Lots of brownie points for the the folks there!)

Being quite hungry and not being able to resist pasta and bacon, we ordered the Craft Brews Pasta. Yummy creamy sauce with a bell peppers and shitake mushrooms. Oh! A generous portion of crispy bacon. The only complain would be I prefer my pasta to be el dente. That aside, the pasta was perfect.

Yes this bunch of makan, car & furkids kakis opted for 2 servings of the BBQ Meat Platter. I love the soup (minestrone) in little cups. Cute! Most importantly it was a comforting start to the main meal.

The salads are really generous. After all the meat that we're going to eat, vegies are a definite must.

The meat platters arrive. Corn looked beautiful and is still nice and juicy. The wedges here are creamy on the inside and crispy outside. Perfect for the beers to come. But a word of caution. Don't be too trigger happy in munching the wedges first. Otherwise you'll be too filled to eat the meat especially the yummy ribs!

We ordered all 3 flavours of the ribs and my personal favourite is honey mustard. The ribs were juicy, tender and absolutely flavourful. Use your hands and lick the ribs clean:D The chicken is also equally good.

Done with dinner, the chatting continued with more beer flowing!

Such yummy food had us humans really satisfied. I wished I could share them with the furkids too. Look at those pitiful hungry or cute faces. They make us look like they have been starving for days. In actual fact they were all fed before they came. And when they arrived they were also given treats! Look at the beagles and their pitiful looks.

And B has to eat tissue to prove her point. (OK B does not eat tissue but she was busy playing with tissue - one of her fave pastime.)

Confession: it was Shalom's day out. I actually gave her a bit of everything except the beer and calamari. Just a small piece of the ribs and chicken. Yes pasta too. How can I resist this huge big eyes "unwanted" furball?

As I write this with a hungry stomach post my run at the park, I am now planning a return trip to Craft Brews with the gang. Hehehe...

Goodnight Cookies

Baked Shalom some of her fave "Goodnight Cookies". Some good home made goodness in her treats without any preservatives, colouring or artificial flavouring.

Simple and easy to make and it's quite yummy for humans too. A wee like our bread sticks.

Preparation time including baking is about 45 minutes.

Ingredients:

200g cod fish (or chicken meat)

125ml olive oil

170ml cold water (or meat broth if you're using meat)

1 egg beaten (for brushing)

300g gluten free flour

50g wheatgerm

5g of preferred herbs / spices (I use Italian herbs and cinnamon)

Method:

• Mix flour, wheatgerm, tuna, olive oil, half of egg mixture, herbs and spices well.

• Then add water bit by bit and knead till it becomes a firm dough

• Flatten dough (until approximately 1.5 cm high) on a lightly floured surface. Cut into desired shapes.

• Place cut out cookies on a greased baking pan.

• Brush with egg mixture

• Bake in 160C oven for 20 minutes or until firm.

• Let it cool and harden for about an hour before storing in bottles.

## If you're using meat, boil the meat to make the broth. Then separate meat from broth. Once the chicken is cool, tear it into slices.

## Gluten free flour is a bit harder to roll out. So use regular white flour if you need to.

The above keeps in the fridge for up to 4 weeks and a week in room temperature.

CNY Touge Picnic

The very first CNY that we did not go anywhere nor really celebrated as I'm still within the 1 year mourning period of my gram's demise.

Seriously bored on Day 3, we decided that we needed a drive somewhere with the lil one. Obviously Shalom was happier than anyone else. Again we didn't exactly know where we wanted to go. So we packed ourselves a simple picnic:
• a flask of green tea & water
• peanuts
• cookies
• prawn crackers
• apple
• treats for the lil one

Off we went after a hearty breakfast at Hainam Coffee. Ah...the breakfast sets are wholesome and value for money. I love the bread and eggs (so did Shalom:P).

Armed with our picnic basket and tank full petrol, we started off with Ulu Yam. And the drive just went on and on. Stopped at Kuala Kubu Baru (KKB). Wanted to have our picnic at our usual spot near the dam but the usual spot was closed (festive break).

So we drove off a wee further and opted for the stream. A lovely spot under the trees. Nestled on some comfy rocks, we had gushing water on one side and a calm spot for Shalom. Enjoyed our picnic, we even had our family photo that I'll be submitting for my Ocean Potion entry. The gushing part of the area was fun. It was almost like a bubbly spa:D

It was lunch time and more people started coming in including a family of almost 40 people. So we packed our stuff and headed off for Frasers - Raub - Bentong.

Took a break at Chamang Falls - a place that hubby that went when he was a boy scout. Its my first time here and the falls are awesome. With clean amenities for changing, food stalls and ample parking space, this will be a nice picnic spot for the Spyder boys after our weekend drive.

We continued on to Bukit Tinggi Village for lunch and vegie shopping. Went gaga over passion fruit. A whole lot of them - 10kg for my passion fruit enzyme project for my sister in law.

By now the lil one was a wee exhausted. So its top up and the aircon for her to snooze on our return leg home. Nice snoozing, we opted for Janda Baik - old Mimaland road. Utterly fun windy roads with barely any traffic. Bliss!

Reached home at almost 5pm. The young one was exhausted but nevertheless very happy. Slept throughout dinner time and even while we were watching TV.

Conclusion? Day 3 of 2011 CNY was fun with our dive to nowhere:P

Shalom turns 7!

OMG but my lil girl Shalom is all grown up and turned 7 over the weekend. 7 years old and I still call her a lil gal. That I supposed has everything to do with her manjaness, her running and jumping around the house every day!

Her current nick divashalom pretty much came about when I set up her twitter account. Shalom was not available so I thought why not divashalom since this Royal Highness demands to sit nothing but on chairs at home and parties. And when we're put in the park or beach, its the mat or only soft sand. No pricky grass for this diva!

This time around, I thought why not bake everything from scratch on my own for my kiddo. After all I have been baking 90% of her treats. So its a good time to share some wholesome almost organic goodness with her pals from her obedience classes, jungle trekking, beach bumming, makan & twitter kakis. Baking all those cookies and cakes wasn't easy amidst a busy period at my boutique sized ad agency. But I have no regrets doing so. It was therapeutic and mostly so when I saw the happy faces of the furkids when they ate.

We had tonnes of fun on that fine Sunday morning at One Utama Central Park. THANX to all who braved the rain and also did the sun dance. We had an amazing dry ground and mildly sunny weather when it was pretty much raining everywhere else! The furslaves (us) brought our own picnic nad yoga mats and settled down under the tress and enjoyed our breakfast. The birthday picnic was BYOM (Bring Your Own Mat) and BYOB (Bring Your Own Breakfast)! Many thanx for the lovely mini potluck to pals who also brought some yummy goodness. Edleen & Adam brought lovely nasi lemak bungkus. Jo made us chicken avocado sandwiches. Gladys who had to miss the picnic baked us lovely chocolate chip banana cake! Visit her website for the recipe!

This momma here basically packed the picnic for the kids. I reckon the kids will not complain on bad food:P

Oh oh oh...this was not a picnic for those with furkids only. We had pals like Wijay who swung by even though he does not have a furkid. Yeah wijay has always been a big part of Shalom's picnics and parties. And I must thank Wijay coz he actually went searching for candles at 8am on that Sunday morning coz this momma forgot the candles for her baby. THANX bro. *muaks muaks muaks*

Heres some pics for her 7th birthday do. Didn't take much pictures as I was busy being mummy to her 7 year old diva:P And also special thanx to Andrew, Cai Lin, Mae V and Rocky for the use of some pictures taken by them that I have used here too!

Visit the following blogs for more pics:D
• mikeyip.com
• runningandrew.com