Banana Pancake (2 ingredients)

Prep Time : 1 min

Cook Time : 15 min

Yield : 5 mini pancakes

Freezer Friendly : No

This is a very healthy treat and very easy to make with just 2 main ingredients. Results? Banana makes the pancake juicy although the natural sweetness tastes too sweet for me (I do not use to too-sweet treat) but this is good for those craving for sweet treat and even for toddler. 

Ingredients:

2 small bananas

1 egg

Little olive oil

Steps:

1) Lightly grease pan with kitchen tissue dipped in olive oil.

2) On small heat, drop 1 tbsp batter into the pan.

3) Wait for 30 seconds, try lift the pancake up, you might need a spoon to help, flip over. If not, wait for few more seconds, then flip.

4) Pancake will rise. Push the edges of pancake to touch the pan so the edges are cooked.

5) Serve.

Sink Drainer

When I was small, I use to clearing the sink drainer while doing the dishes. I wonder why the sink was designed in such a way that the drainer is only 1cm depth and with a small diameter of around 5cm.

Nowadays, my sink drainer is bigger but often with too-wide holes to hold tiny particles of food, the end, most of the food slides down the sink, often led to blockage. 

Later, I Found this sink drainer which has the same diameter as the existing sink drainer, but with a sieve-like surface to hold tiny particles. Now I do not have to worry about blockage :)

Existing sink drainer that comes with the sink

However, I do retain this as this can be push downward to hold water in the sink when I need to soak food. You can even choose to have different drainer each side of the sink. It depends on your usage.

New sink drainer

Yogurt Muffins

Prep Time : 15 min

Cook Time : 35 min

Yield : 6 medium cupcakes

Freezer Friendly : No

Ingredients:

1/2cup unsalted butter

2 eggs

1tsp vanila essence

1cup greek yogurt

1tsp baking soda

2cups all purpose flour

1/2tsp baking powder

Pinch of salt

1/2cup brown sugar

Steps:

1) Melt butter.

2) Pre-heat oven at 185 degrees celcius.

3) Beat butter with whisk, add egg one by one, then vanila. Set aside.

4) In another bowl, mix yogurt and baking soda. Set aside.

5) In a large bowl, mix flour, baking powder, salt and sugar. Add in egg mixture, then yogurt mixture, stir until just combined.

6) Spoon batter into cupcake liner.

7) Bake for 35 minutes.

Original Recipe:

http://www.food.com/recipe/yogurt-muffins-436254

Basic Steamed Cake

Prep Time : 5 min

Cook Time : 10 min

Yield : 4 cakes

Freezer-friendly : No

Ingredients:

75g all purpose flour

1tsp baking powder

1tbsp brown sugar

1 egg

2tbsp fresh milk

1tbsp olive oil

Steps: 

1) Sieve flour and baking powder. 

2) Add sugar, egg, milk, oil. Beat with a whisk until combined. Take care not to overbeat.

3) Spoon 1 tbsp and place on a cupcake liner supported with cupcake mould.

4) Steam under high heat for 10min.

Original recipe:

http://www.justonecookbook.com/recipes/steamed-cake/

Cleaning Scorched Iron

This is relatively simple.

Heat up white vinegar, dip a soft cloth and apply onto scorched area. I did use my fingernail over the soft clothes to ease the removal of the burnt material, it works and I am done in about 5 minutes.

Before

After, my brand new iron

For alternatives, please read the source below:

http://cleaning.lovetoknow.com/laundry-tips/clean-scorched-iron

Cleaning Burnt Clothes

It is not uncommon to accidentally burnt clothes during ironing but this is the first time happen to me. In order to save the new shirt, I have googled on what to do. 

Apparently if we soak the burnt cloth in ice cold water immediately, the burnt mark will go away. Unfortunately, I waited for almost 2 weeks so I have to go for alternative way, white vinegar.

Pour white vinegar on burnt marks, I use a cloth brush to brush the mark, then run under tap water. I use fingernails to remove the burnt pieces. I think tweezers will help too. Repeat until burnt mark gone.

Before (wet)

After (dry)

Source:

http://www.howtocleanstuff.net/how-to-remove-burn-marks-from-clothing/

Handmade Xmas Tree Deco

Time : 20 mins

Ingredients:

1 birthday hat

2 pc of decorative strings

Double tap

Scissors

Steps:

1) Put double tape on the birthday hat in rounds from tip to bottom.

2) Remove the double tape and stick the decorative strings. Start from the bottom of the hat with the hat upside down. 2 pcs of the strings should be placed side by side together, start moving the strings rounding the hat while removing the double tape. 

3) Repeat till the tip of the hat, trim off excess and slot in the end of the string into the small hole at the tip of the hat.

Sam Jaya Mini Zoo

A decision was made to visit this mini zoo after hearing its name for sometime but yet to have a chance to visit. Its my holiday and outing time with my siblings thus we explored this place.

Its location is at Mile 16, Sg Gum Gum, Sandakan can be found using GPS. We saw Sam Jaya Supermarket on the left side of the road (from Sandakan) before we turn in and saw the mini zoo on the most left hand side of Sam Jaya Supermarket. Its name is actually Natural Park.

There is a small sundry shop at entrance where we bought our entry token at RM4 per pax. If you wish to feed the fish later, remember to grab the fish food here at inly RM 1.00 per pack. Before we went in, we visited the the toilet. Toilet is below standard and we were charged RM0.20 per entry. 

  

The first animal we saw was long-tailed macaque.

One macaque was catching mites for another.

Then we saw a fenced playground which was closed that day.

This place is not really well-maintained, perhaps due to lack of visitors. Spider webs with a spider clinging on it was seen. I cannot imagine if i accidentally bumped by face on it...

Porcupine in the culvert.

A low fence garden with a variety of ducks running around. And yes, we saw the ugly ducklings :)

Then, we reached the Bird Park. There were many bird species but I just managed to capture a few which were willing to pose for me. This bird, oh I forgot what's his name, was the most talkative and attracted most of our attention. He said hello, Assalamualaikum (greetings in Malay), bye bye...but he is so smart that he only spelled out a new word when we wanted to walk away from him, lol.

Another cute species seen...

Guess what! This is an eagle!

And one of the 3 biggest species of owl found in Sabah.

The walkway in bird park, indeed most of the walkways are roofed to protect us from the hot sun.

A small garden for us to sit down and relax.

Then we reached a fish pond, we spent some good time feeding the fish.

We met Mr. Lizard there, mistakenly thought that a baby crocodile escaped to the walkway at the fish pond, pheeewww.

The landscape at the pond.

Fish feeding session.

Then we continued the walk and we saw this owl at the walkway.

We were still in the bird park, this is the largest place where a whole lot of chicken species are living in it. This bird/chicken caught my attention due to its beautiful colour and its size.

See? His size compared to a normal chicken. I wonder how to balance the body weight with the legs in front, I think it would be tiring,hmmm...

Oh please, don't look at me that way, we are friendly visitors, lol.

Another view as we rounded the place. The chickens were so friendly, they followed us as we walked around the place.

After saying goodbye to the chickens, we headed on and found another fish pond.

A few species of weasel i think, apology as I really do not care about the names lol. We had a chance to observe their feeding session.

Then we continued our walk to exotic fish pond.

We tossed a few coins and made some wishes, but be careful not to knock their heads, ouch...

Snake room

Another fish pond with wooden walkways.

The walkways looked endless. They lead to a few rest places.

One leg width bridge for us to cross.

 

It leads to a beautiful rest place. We think it is good for barbeque.

 

A wooden staircase with a tracking trail above. Looked like nobody has been there for sometime, the trail looked unaccessible, so we did not explore further.

 

We were about to the exit, saying goodbye to the stagnant crocodile.

 

Just for fun, there were really lots of spider webs around.

 

There we were! The exploration ends. In my opinion, this Natural Park is worth a visit due to its affordable charges and that the animals are well taken-care of. However, the place needs a boost if wants to attract more visitors. I did not notice a different charges for non-Malaysian, so I presume its the same. We went to the supermarket to get some drinks before heading off.