Our Open House

It's a hot night tonight. It has not rained for the past few days and while this could be a blessing to those who lived in flood prone area and even I never like a gloomy rainy day but after a few days of heat, I'd welcome some rain.

It feels like I have been working the whole day today. It's for a personal project and I'm still torn between two options. Probably writing or ranting would clear up my mind for a while.

Around this time last week, I was cleaning the house and slaving in the kitchen for our open house. Hubby wants to cater some of the food but after careful consideration, I figured I can handle all the cooking. I can still smile when I remembered hubby's response when I told him I'll be cooking. "Biar betul!" in such a disbelief tone hehehe...

I rarely cook since we're married. Normally we'll finish work quite late and by the time we reached home, both would be famished. The thought of waiting for another hour or so till the food got cooked was just unbearable. So eating-out it is. But, I also know my cooking is acceptable. No one has been poisoned so far. I know I have never cook at a large scale before but there's always the first time right? And normally my first attempt worked.

It's risky no doubt inviting people to your house and there's a risk of not enough food to serve but I'm adamant to give it a try. There's food backup just in case. Then hubby thought my food backup was still not enough so he bought more backup for my food backup hehehe... The fried chicken, chicken fingers and nugget were a hit so thank God for hubby's extra backup. My second boss went into the kitchen wanting to know how we marinated the chicken. We also cook fried mee as an addition in the late afternoon. We have other plans for the mee actually but I thought that would be too much. Thank God I hired a very competent helper to help in the kitchen. Otherwise, I'll have no time to mingle with the guest at all.

I envisioned myself looking perfectly made-up in my stunning kebaya greeting and entertaining our guest during our first open house together. All the food would also be ready by the time our first guest arrive.

Reality check: I still wore the blouse and pants worn while cooking in the morning and the main dish was still not ready when our first guest arrived. Yikesss!! Lucky they're family so everyone got into the kitchen to help. Anyway everything turned out quite well. The rice was a bit soft and the jelly should be sweeter but other than that, the food were OK. Some of my friends praised lavishly after being well-fed so I'm one very satisfied cook even though I don't have enough time to 'meng-anggunkan diri' :D

I cook a lot of things for the first time last week and I just googled most of the recipes too. Everything has to be cook at a large scale. My only limitation was we don't have that many big pots and pans. I bought some for the occasion but still there were not enough large containers to mix and store things. Next time, I'll know what to borrow from relatives :) Last week was a really tiring but enjoyable week.

I learn many things.

1. I need a bigger frying pan
2. I need a lot more big containers
3. Ketupat and lemang were not people's favorite after going to so many open houses
4. Because of item 3., 2kgs of meat would be enough for the rendang
5. 2kgs of Basmathi rice was more than enough. Maybe next time I should just cook 1 to 1.5 kgs.
6. 2 packs of minced meat were enough for the spaghetti sauce
7. 500gms of spaghetti would be enough. Buy another smaller pack just in case
8. About 3 kgs of chicken would be required for the fried chicken
9. We used 2 packets of chicken fingers and 2 packets of nuggets
10. I need another bottle of chilli sauce. The tomato sauce was not a favorite at all
11. The mee packet bought at Tesco and Fajar wasn't good. If I'm not mistaken the brand was Mi Ku or something like that.
12. We need lots of rugs and towels in the kitchen. It gets messy and wet easily during all the chaos
13. I need the container where people put water to wash hands
14. We need a bigger mat
15. There are few other things we need but the most important thing, cooperation and lots of love :)

Many little things and a smile from hubby from across the room meant a lot during those busy moments. Not to mention the foot massage afterward :D Heavenly.