Friday, September 21, 2012

Open house 2012

Salam everyone and i know it's a bit late, but I still want to wish everyone Selamat Hari Raya! LOL

We had a glorious Raya break this year mainly because it was a long break as we commuted between Kuching and Bintulu. Since my cousin got married on Independence Day, I had a good excuse to prolong the leave so we could spend extra time with our loved ones at home.

Anyway the festive mood continued and last weekend, being the long weekend we decided to host makan2 event @ open house this year.

Honestly i was expecting massive efforts to be put to prepare the feast. Days before the event, I ambitiously planned to prepare laksa Sarawak, mee kolok and daging masak hitam served with lemang (tak sedar diri tengah pembawakan budak!).

But as the day drew nearer, laziness took over and I had a brilliant idea of getting a caterer to prepare nasi tomato while we only prepared laksa Sarawak and mee kolok.

We managed to get a caterer 2 days before the event at very affordable price (RM5 per pax, complete with serving tray, plates and everything needed for the party).

Then on Saturday, we did some major cleaning before we went out to buy groceries for the feast. We also stopped by Deja Moss' cake shop to buy kek lapis Sarawak to add to my kek lapis cream cheese variety.

Kek Lapis Tulip from Hadeeja

What with grocery shopping, going to Kak Retna's doa selamat event, and cake-hunting, eventually we reached home around 8pm to start the preparation.

I immediately started on the mee kolok recipe for dinner. And that's when I decided to drop it from the menu. My mee kolok was almost inedible! LOL

So, our menu was - laksa Sarawak, nasi tomato, kek lapis Sarawak, and some Raya cookies that I purposely saved in case we decided to go ahead with the event.

Senang kan?

By that night we were already in full mode of the feast preparation that even our little girl decided to chip I'm some help.

She helped me to fill the cookie jars :) aawww...

She also helped to clear up her toys (but always got distracted by the toy she picked up!) and even wiped the polystyrene bowls.

The whole family worked hard that night and only went to bed around 1am.

Penat seyhh...

The next day, I became worried that nobody would turn up to our feast because we only had 5 people who confirmed they would come via FB. And we had prepared a feast for 30 pax!

So apa lagi, sesi calling2 to check whether people were they were invited.

Needless to say, I was worried over nothing because after 2pm, neighbors, friends and colleagues turned up till we had a full house!

Meriah sangat rasanya, sampai tak cukup tangan melayan tetamu ^_^

To my delight, my cream cheese kek lapis was a hit and I had to refill the cake tray several times. Thank God we had the cakes all cut up and stores in the freezer ready to be served.

We were also amused that children found our ice-dispensing fridge fascinating. They kept refilling their cups with crushed ice every time they finished their drinks.

Overall I'm so happy that we managed to host this makan2 event successfully although it was a last-minute decision thing. Our normally peaceful home was also bustling with laughter and crowds.

It was totally worth it to be having people over at our house even though after everything was over, we had another massive clean-ups to do and a really aching feet and back to tend to.

I can't wait to do it again next year, Insya Allah :)

I'm also grateful to those who also brought along some gifts (eh, first time pulak buat open house dapat gift!) because they knew that we just finished our house renovation a few months back. So they came along with some housewarming gift for us. Baik kan?

To these friends and colleagues, we take this opportunity to say thank you for the lovely gifts :) See how Khayla was excited about 'em?