This 20-minute pizza mission started when I saw it in my FB newsfeed a few days ago. A friend from high school, Intan Zubaidah, posted about it and I made a mental note to try it during the weekend. So, it is weekend. And I kept my word.
Pizza without having to knead the dough and without having to use the oven. You just need a pan with a lid and a stove. How cool is that...
These are the ingredients. And the instructions on heating the pan. Hubby had to stop by the grocery store just to buy the self-raising flour. He he...
Put the dough ingredients in the pan (flour, water, salt, dry yeast and honey). Mix and spread the dough in the pan.
Spread chili sauce and add on the fillings. Top up with cheese. I also sprinkled oregano and black pepper powder.
Put the pan on the stove with the lid on.
The instructions said medium heat for 5 minutes. Then adjust the lid to let the steam out. Turn the heat to medium low and cook for another 10 minutes.
A bit tricky with the heat actually. My first try was not quite successful. The bottom was quite burned but the top part was still edible. So I just had to try again. Second try was not bad. The kids makan sampai abis. Pardon the messy presentation.
Tried and tested. The recipe works...:)
The video of this stovetop pizza can be viewed at Intan's blog page. I wonder whether we can just pop the pizza into the oven using the same no-kneading recipe...
I am going to send off my eldest daughter to boarding school tomorrow. She has just got the offer to register as Form 4 at Sekolah Menengah Sains Hulu Selangor (SEMASHUR). After coaxing her to accept the offer, she finally agree to go. I am excited for her since I too studied in boarding school once. Unlike her, I entered the boarding school, Sekolah Tun Fatimah, since Form 1. And the school is many many many miles from home. My daughter is considered lucky since SEMASHUR is just 30-40 minutes away from home.
Anyhow, I survived 5 years of schooling in STF. And I dedicated some of these survival skills to my daughter...:)
1. I labelled my personal things with my name to prevent them from missing. Over the years, the label Norazlina Mohamed changed to Leena punye.
2. I made friend with the bell. Bell for breakfast. Bell for every learning session. Bell all the time. We even have this tagline Hidup tak bermakna tanpa loceng.
3. I often woke up early to be among the first to use the shower.
4. I quickly learned about the booking system for the shower. We used to have towel booking system or pail booking system. More towels/pails at the shower mean more people queuing for that particular shower. So when I woke up late, I looked for shower with the least number of towels or pails. When I was extremely late, I learned how to brush my teeth and shower simultaneously...:P
5. When ironing school uniform, I saved time by only ironing the visible part. Ie only iron the bottom part of my kain baju kurung.
6. When hand-washing the clothes, I avoided wringing the clothes thus less wrinkles, thus save time to iron. (Something I learned when I was in matriculation... Not too late to learn...)
7. Laundry room was often full. I had to find time when there was minimal usage. I used to skip lunch to do my laundry or do it in the middle of the night. Skipping lunch especially when the menu was not that appetising.
8. I made prep hours bearable by having friends to chat with. I also listened to music during prep hours. I used to have walkman (those were the old days when we didn't have ipod or whatnot). Couldn't remember whether bringing walkman during prep was illegal or not.
9. Supper was the highlight before bedtime. Me and my friends often lingered around the dining hall after everyone has taken their supper. Then we went around and salvage what was left. Biscuits were nice snacks to be eaten in the dormitory (err again... Illegal ke ni?) Of course, entering dining hall in the middle of the night was considered extracurricular activities and illegal (but keep you survived...)
10. After lights off, study rooms were available for staying up to study. But can be limited too. There were always corridors with ample light to study. I had few corridor study-buddies who owned spots in the corridor.
11. I enjoyed the flora and fauna around the school, flowers and fruit trees. Sometimes I studied under a tree. Sometimes I walked around the school compound with friends. And sometimes we spiced up things a little by having middle of the night missions of harvesting mangoes and jackfruit from the trees. :D
12. We had TV room to watch favorite TV shows. But sometimes the favorite TV show was aired at inappropriate time such as during prep hours and we just had to sacrifice the prep hours. And avoided being caught by wardens or prefects...
13. Outings were something that we looked forward to. As if prisoners being released from the prison. The shopping spots that were famous back then in JB were KOMTAR and Kimisawa.
14. I had a hobby as my stress management kit. Collecting rock songs cassettes of various groups. Search and Wings were top in the list then. Of course, I have friends with the same passion.
15. We had water coolers to quench our thirst. At times of extreme measures, the water cooler was used to prepare instant noodle, served cold. And hey... we survived...
16. During weekends, I had to be alert for spot-checks by wardens and ready to made the bed in a jiffy and stuff anything unwanted into the locker...
17. Made friends and not enemies. The friends from the schooldays made the activities that I joined fun and enjoyable. Be it academic, sports, weekly Yasin recitation, fasting month with Terawih prayers, weekly movie etc. Those are the friends who still get in touch with each other and we shared more than just memories. Friends until jannah, inshaAllah.
I am really happy that my daughter will experience this and hope she will treasure every moment of it. Even though she will forever be labelled as Budak Form 4 baru, I hope she will embrace the label and regard that as the unique thing about her. I also hope she will make full use of this opportunity and focus on study. And on top of that, don't forget to have fun. After all, school is supposed to be fun... And sometimes, rules are made to be broken...;) But try not to be so obvious eh... Ha ha...
Finally, remember that the boarding school is a small community. Even though small, the same principle of hidup bermasyarakat applies. Be good to others, mind your manners and display good attitude.
Bak lirik lagu Joget Pahang "Kalau baik hati, nanti orang pun sayang..."
The whatsapp group of my high school friends is the busiest, most entertaining, most havoc, most dramatic and many more among the whatsapp groups I am in. We would be chatting about kids one moment, then about school next, then cosmetic, health tips, recipes pun masuk, shopping and everything under the sun. Not to mention heavy stuff like politics, tax, GST. During the 370 mystery, we were like the aviation investigators or the transport minister ;).
Today was no exception. We were chatting about perfume and shoes sale at Menara Maybank and next we shifted gear to hudud.
One of us asked how to explain about hudud in simple words to her non-muslim friends.
A lawyer friend explained it beautifully and I just had to share:
"Hudud itu hukum dari Allah. Kalau you percaya Allah lagi senang i nak explain. Anyway, hudud itu special utk org Islam shj. Sebab Allah sayang org Islam, so Allah beri satu had/batasan utk cegah org Islam dari buat dosa. Hudud itu asal dari perkataan "had". Batas. Allah selalu beri batas utk make sure org Islam tak melampaui batas. Contohnya zina itu salah satu jenayah dalam hukum hudud. Dan indahnya, menuduh org berzina tanpa saksi juga bersalah dlm hukum hudud. Jadi, utk jlnkan hukum hudud ini kena piawai yg sgt tinggi dan adil. Semua ini ada dlm AlQuran. Dlm Quran ada macam macam hukum & cerita Nabi Nabi. Very interesting
. Don't worry...hudud is specially for me from my God. If u r interested, i'm now inviting u to Islam"
Translated to English:
"Hudud is Allah's law. If you believe in Allah, it would be easier for me to explain. Anyway, hudud is special for Muslim. Because Allah loves the Muslims, so Allah puts a limit/boundary to prevent the Muslims from committing sins. The term hudud comes from the word "had" which means limit. Boundary. Allah puts these boundaries to ensure that the Muslims don't exceed the limits. Example, adultery is a crime in hudud law. And the beauty of it, accusing a person of adultery without any witness is also a crime in hudud law. So, implementing hudud law requires a very high standard and justice. All these are in the AlQuran. There are lots of laws and stories of Prophets described in the AlQuran. . Don't worry...hudud is specially for me from my God. If u r interested, i'm now inviting u to Islam"
Three research groups in UKMMC, namely the Bone Metabolism Research Group, Cardiovascular Research Group and Stress Enzyme Research Group, are organizing the 2nd International Conference on Advances in Medical Science.
When? 14th - 16th April 2015
Where? Concorde Hotel, Kuala Lumpur.
Abstract submission still opens. Click here for more information.
OMG!!! It was a year ago when I made the trip to Hong Kong. And I only got to write about it now?? Really pathetic. The trip was made soon after my UK trip (Part I and Part II) last year. I was equally excited because I have never been to Hong Kong before. And when I checked the weather forecast, it was quite cold. Temperature between 15-20 degrees. Had to standby thick clothing. But not as freezing as London.
So, to Hong Kong I went. I made the trip with another colleague. When we arrived at the HK airport, we had to make our way on foot to the bus stop. One of the cheapest ways to get to the hotel is by bus. We had to know the exact bus number that travels via the correct route though.
The ride on the bus was comfortable enough and uneventful. It has a spacious luggage compartment.
We had moments of uncertainty and were not sure where to get off from the bus. We stopped at one of the bus stops and were disoriented for a while and had to figure out where the hotel is. We had to walk for some distance before reaching the hotel. Luckily, I didn't have lots of luggage.
Finally, after some foot work, we arrived at the hotel. The Harbourview Hotel. Not to be confused with Renaissance Harbour View which is also close by. The hotel that we stayed in, besides quite cheap, it is also close to the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre, the venue for the conference.
The room is quite small. And the view from the window is dismal. I can only see the wall of the next building.
Besides listening to the talks during the conference, we managed to go for sight seeing. But since the weather is foggy, and at times raining, we were not able to enjoy the scenery as much as we can. One good reason to visit Hong Kong again in future.:)
The conference:
One of the attractions were the booths. The organizer arranged for booths that display the Chinese culture and crafts.
We bought a travel package which includes train trip to airport and unlimited MTR rides for 3 days. Saved us some money, I am sure. Because we fully utilized the MTR. And I like how organized the MTR is. Lots of people but the ride was smooth because the trains are punctual and very frequent. Waiting time was less than 5 minutes. I don't mind if I don't own a car with the excellent MTR service.
We took the ferry to mainland and walked around the area of Tsim Sha Tsui.
We walked along the avenue of stars. And saw lots of names on the stars and did not recognize most of them. And we only took pictures near the few names that we recognized.
Jackie Chan is a must la. Dia legend.
And of course Bruce Lee.
We also went to Ladies Market. Twice. It was full of people and the rain made it worse. However, macam-macam ada kat situ. Shoppers' heaven.
We also stopped by the Kowloon Mosque.
And walked through the Kowloon Park. In fact, we did a lot of walking. Kalau lama lagi duduk HK, sure selim melim dah...:)
Night view along the waterfront of Tsim Sha Tsui is amazing. With the symphony of lights displayed on the buildings.
Food is no problem. There are several middle east halal restaurants.
On another day, we left early to board the Ngong Ping 360 cable car. We bought the package ticket which included the cable car ride, bus and boat ride. It was raining and foggy thus we could not appreciate the scenery during the ride up.
The scenery and the buildings at the top (Ngong Ping village) are very nice. There is a halal restaurant there, so no worries about food. There is also a huge Buddha statue on the top of the hill. Lots of visitors climbed up the hill to get a closer look of the statue. We didn't think it was worth while to climb so we just took pics from far. With that kind of foggy weather, we can barely made out the silhouette of the statue. Jadi la daripada tak nampak langsung. :)
We went down the hill by bus. Stopped at Tai O, a fishing village, for a short boat ride. And boarded the bus again back to where we started.
Using the MTR pass, we also took the MTR to Disneyland. There is a special train that travels to Disneyland station. The coach is decorated with Disney's designs and characters. Very nice. The station is equally decorated. 
We decided that it will be no fun going into Disneyland without our family thus we just walked outside the gate and took pictures outside.
Macam rugi je kan tak masuk Disneyland? Well, not really. Let's call it a strategy to inspire us to visit HK again some other time. Until next time, lu tunggu wa datang lagi... InshaAllah...:)
Past
I celebrated last Syawal with mixed feelings. Hubby was sick since few months before Ramadhan. He started coughing which was not resolved with the usual cough meds. He was even admitted in one of the private hospitals for a few days. Doctor diagnosed his condition as maxillary sinusitis. He was eventually discharged. However, his coughing persisted despite the meds supplied by the hospital. He was sick throughout the month of Ramadhan and his condition worsened. However, he managed to gather strength to go to the market and shopped raw materials for Raya celebrations. Syawal came and I can see he was struggling through his illness and tried to enjoy Syawal as best as he could. He pushed his limits when we had to travel to Terengganu for my brother's engagement. It caused me as much pain as he was in pain coughing his lungs out. During that Syawal, his condition did not improved. Apart from conventional therapy, we also tried alternative therapy. Buatan orang/santau was also suspected. Despite being a pharmacology lecturer myself, I cannot dismiss those opinions considering there are sick people in this world who could go to extreme measures to get back to other people. Hubby's condition deteriorated each day, He could not go to work, he could not sleep, he had no appetite to eat, his coughing was bad and he suffered from laboured breathing. I could not sleep myself, worrying about him. He reached to the extent of talking nonsense in his half-awake state. Sometimes asking me weird questions or making weird statements. And that really freaked me out. Eventually, both his legs were swelling and his abdomen distended. However he refused to seek treatment from the hospital initially, until one day he decided to go to another private hospital. He was observed in the emergency room and doctor informed us that his heart was failing. At the time of admission, his heart was only functioning at 20% strength. He was admitted and treated accordingly (inotropic, diuretic etc). Angiogram was performed but no significant findings. To cut long story short, after being detained in the ward for a few days, his condition improved, his appetite improving and he could sleep better. He was eventually discharged. Alhamdulillah.
Present
This Syawal, I count my blessings. Alhamdulillah, after the struggle from the illness last year, hubby got better and better. Appetite much improved and he started to gain weight. And Syawal could not be any sweeter than this.
Future
Praying for Allah's blessings for future Syawal and may we become a better person than we are right now...
Pictures of past Syawal and present Syawal. Can really see the difference in hubby's appearance between these two pictures.
Sesungguhnya Allah menguji hambaNya dengan kesusahan dan kesenangan sebagai cubaan.... Dan sesungguhnya sakit itu ujian untuk yang sakit dan yang sihat.
For more than 10 working years in UKM, I am based in KL campus in Jalan Raja Muda Abdul Aziz. In fact, my history with the campus goes beyond that. I did my undergraduate and postgraduate studies in the same place too. And I fall in love with the surrounding areas and its strategic location.
When HUKM was first set up, only the 3rd - 5th year students are stationed there while the preclinical years, year 1 and 2 remained in the KL campus. For many years, there have been plans for us to move to HUKM campus in Cheras. But being in the comfort of the KL campus, and not really looking forward to move, I have always thought that it won't be realized in the near future. But eventually the new preclinical building in HUKM was completed and we received directive from the faculty management that it was time to move. So, we moved.
Packing was tedious.Imagine, things accumulated from my student days. Have been in this campus longer than I have been married.
And throughout the years, I have accumulated as much garbage as important documents.
We were supplied with 10 boxes each and I managed to fill all boxes.
And of course, loads of other things to be thrown away.
After everything packed and fragile items wrapped...
..and all have been transported, this is what left of my room..
Really going to miss this place. And these are 10 top reasons why:
1. Chow Kit market. Easy to do grocery shopping. Even though I rarely go there because the market smell will stick to your clothes but it is comforting to know that the place is just walking distance away. (Note: the market has now been relocated to a cleaner site nearby. I have yet to explore but now that I have moved to Cheras, the exploring is not likely to happen.)
2. For a more cleaner, air-conditioned grocery shopping and others, there is UO supermarket. Also walking distance.
3. Food stalls!! From nasi campur, hot food, kuih-muih, fruits, etc. Semua ada... Yang paling femes mesti la Hassan Shah, betul-betul opposite the campus. And also kedai makan MZ. Kalau time lunch, memang penuh. Walking distance je...
4. Shopping!! Nak pergi mana-mana pun senang. KLCC, Sogo, Ampang Park, Jalan TAR... And of course, last time there was the Mall which is currently under renovation. The Chow Kit itself is a shopping avenue too. Tudung and jubah and baju kurung pun banyak variety. Again walking distance.
5. The Chow Kit area has sidewalk businessmen who cater to my needs such as cobbler, locksmith and clothes alteration/repair shop. And what makes it even more awesome, walking distance.
6. My old office in the KL campus is situated on the 4th floor. Tolerable by stairs. My new office in HUKM is on the 17th floor. Have never tried the stairs and climb that high. Well, excuses la kan... Boleh je naik tangga 4-5 tingkat, then baru naik lif...:P
7. My old office room was spacious and it has a sink. Senang nak ambik wudhu and basuh muka after a short nap...;). The new office room is smaller and lack a sink... (But that doesn't mean I cannot take a nap...;))
8. I can see the Twin Tower and KL Tower from the window of my old office. So the view is postcard material. The new office has a view too. But of the clinical block and academic block of HUKM. Well, nice view too but not considered KL attractions.;)
9. So many places within walking distance, so I think I can reach my 10000 steps a day easily. (Errr... well... itu pun kalau keluar pergi Chow Kit setiap hari la... Which did not happen...:P)
10. And finally, the KL campus is close to Citibank, my hubby's office. Senang kalau nak lunch-date...:D Now, dah jauh la pulak...
Anyhow, this move is inevitable. I have finally unpacked and started to settle down in the new office.
I am sure this move brings more good than bad in terms of faculty management and students interaction. May Allah bless our hijrah that we made in the holy month of Ramadhan.:)
