Orange chicken in milk

I had only a piece of chicken breast left, and I had oranges but no lemons. So I decided to just try making chicken in milk with orange zest instead of lemon zest.

I expected the orange zest to be maybe not acidic enough to split the milk, but surprisingly it split it just as well as the lemon zest!

However, I reduced the cooking time because there was only one small piece of chicken, and the effect is that the chicken is not as tender as usual (though it is not tough at all!), and the flavour of the garlic probably didn't have enough time to get into the sauce.

But it was still good, and this means that I don't have to go searching for lemons to make chicken in milk!

Lots and lots of leaves

I was just thinking, "hey it's Thursday, let me post my Photo Friday pic since I'm pretty sure I won't get a better one by tomorrow".

Then I realized that this challenge runs for two weeks.

Anyhow, I'll post this all the same...

Lots and lots of green leaves!

This is a plant near the market; I snapped the photo when I went to the market last weekend.

It seems to be a few plants growing together...there are a few different kinds of leaves. I can't identify any of them, though.

Landscape of keys

This week's theme was landscape. So difficult!

So as usual, I made do with a different kind of landscape. Presenting... a keyboard landscape! 

A tale of cats

This week's photo theme is cat. 

I have so many cats that I can take a photo of, including the cat that I bought recently to scare birds away.

But I decided that I would try taking a photo of a real cat instead. There is one that used to lie down on top of the stairs of my neighbour's backyard. I would often see it basking in the sun, and once I even saw it shivering in the rain! I hadn't seen it recently though... and as the week went by, I was almost giving up and even took a photo of my new fake cat one day, just in case.

And then I saw the cat!

It didn't sit at the top of the stairs though...it went right into the garden as I watched.

More photos (though the first one is still the best shot because it doesn't only show the cat's back!) :

As for my fake cat, here's how it looks like when doing its job!

It actually seemed to be doing quite a good job of keeping the birds away... but since I started using it, I’ve found two cats coming in. Usually I hardly see cats coming in, but it's been twice in a week! Is my fake cat too attractive? Did they feel like making friends with it?

I don't leave the cat out all the time...I only put it out once in a while, and I do feel that birds stop coming for a while after I put it out there. But if it's attracting cats, that's not an option!

As good as I remember!

Mir's Kitchen was having an 11% off promotion for 11/11. So I took the opportunity to order a mee kuah tulang!

For some time now, I had been feeling that the taste of the mee kuah tulang was not as good as before. The meat was also not as tender. Then I realized that recently I had been ordering it for lunch, whereas in the early days, I frequented the shop at dinnertime too.

So today I decided to make the order for dinner. And just as I hoped, the meat is again very tender, and the soup seems more flavourful too! (or maybe not...it might be psychological :P ) Today's soup was also very spicy...or was it because it was still very hot? The dish was in an insulated container on its way here, after all...

It is unfortunate that there is a charge of RM4 for delivery...otherwise I would probably order a variety of dishes from them, one at a time!

Morning jigsaw puzzle

This morning, I started my day with a jigsaw puzzle.

It's a frozen eggette! It's supposed to be a whole piece, but it got broken, so the smaller pieces fell all over the place.

I only discovered the existence of frozen eggette recently, when Snorlax bought me this.

The eggette was already a little darker than the one in the picture. After reheating, it became even darker. The outside was crispy, but somehow it didn't feel fluffy, and there was less fragrant aroma... either because it wasn't freshly made, or because it was overcooked after reheating.

But it's not bad for a quick breakfast!

A grassy beach

Last week's photo theme was beach.

I don't care what you think; I shall call this a beach! :P

Last Sunday I "luckily" went to D'Residence, which is along Pantai Jerejak, for badminton. I couldn't get proper photos from inside the residence's compound itself, so I made a quick stop at Penang World City (luckily it was closed at the time, so there was no one to stare at my antics), and snapped this photo.

Autumn decorations

Because this week's theme was autumn!

These were the decorations at Queensbay Mall. The leaves have fallen off rather quickly, huh? :P

This war is getting serious

There have always been a lot of birds hanging around my porch area. I have hung CDs on my laundry rack to keep them away, but they still go to the other areas of the porch.

I had been putting up with them, but some time ago, two birds came into my kitchen. Even though that isn't directly related to having birds on the porch, I was afraid that the ones from the porch would one day come in as well (they have already come as far as the front door grille), and this triggered me to take action!

I have seen these at Daiso before, and now I bought them! One is a cat that you hang 5cm from the ground, so that birds (and other cats) would see it and not approach. The other one is plastic spikes, mean to stop cats and birds from walking around in your garden.

I bought these on Tuesday, and upon reaching home, I put the spikes on the roof of my car (where birds like to land), and hung the cat out for a while.

Then I took the cat in (yep it's my pet cat now), because the instructions said not to use it in strong winds, and I had read online that we need to move it around so that the birds don't get desensitized to it.

The next day I only saw one bird on my porch wall (shared with next door, so I didn't put my spikes there) and chased it away. After that I didn't see any more. Now I have removed the spikes from my car, and up till now I haven't seen any more birds. I hope they have spread the news that this porch is no longer comfortable!

But I do wonder, which deterrent was more successful?

Kledang Saiong Forest Eco Park

I have been wanting to visit this park for a long time, since it is just nearby our place in Meru. However, we always had something or other to do in the evening, and did not have the time to go and explore it.

During our last trip to Ipoh in June, the park was closed, probably due to MCO. This trip, the park was open, albeit with limited hours. So I finally managed to visit it!

The entrance fee is RM2 for Malaysians, and free for senior citizens. My ticket had the date stamped on it, so I expect I could have left the park and returned later, using the same ticket.

Note: We visited the park in the morning at 8:30am when it opened, but I didn't take this photo until we were on our way out, which explains why it is so sunny in this photo!

a playground, closed at the moment

a description of the plant called "lemba", which I have never heard of before!

the aforementioned plant

They have a nepenthes park, which was closed as well.
(I would never have known that it was the pitcher plant without the numerous fake pitchers around the park!)

this area was also cordoned off

and then, the river!

The river is probably the main attraction of the park. The day before our visit, we had driven to the park in the afternoon to check whether it was open. There were so many cars there! (it was a Sunday) Most likely they had all come to picnic at the river.

Looks like a bathroom for the workers at the entrance office?

There is a 1.8km-long forest trail. What's more, it is a digital forest trail, with an app that allows you to identify trees along the trail!

the rules
(not allowed to hike in bad weather, only allowed to start the hike before 1pm, need to report back to the office upon returning, etc)

what the trail looks like (not for the faint-hearted!)
There are yellow strings on the trees to mark the path.

Zooming in, you can see the sign marked 1750m in the bottom-right corner.
Did you notice the first sign that said 1800m, right at the foot of the signboard indicating the forest trail? I guess this was 50 metres in!