I Almost Jumped Out Of My Skin!

Today, I had lunch with Alycia and Cass at a nearby coffee shop.  After lunch, we walked back to my car, which was parked a few steps away from the coffee shop.  After helping Cass and Alycia get into the car and closing the door for them, I walked to the driver's side of the car. Just as I was about to get in the car, I heard a man shouting from my right side. I turned around and saw a man with helmet on a motorbike. He said something like "HEY CIK...!!" (he mumbled something) and he was driving his bike towards me.  I almost jumped out of my skin.   Stories and news of people attacked outside their cars by assailants are menancingly rife these days. 17 years ago, I was a victim of a snatch theft, by a SOB on a motorbike.  Since that fateful day, I have developed a phobia of the sound of motorbike, when I am on the road.

Anyway, back to my frightful moment just now.  When I saw the burly man on the motorbike talking to me, I quickly tried to get into my car. Then he talked even louder. I then looked at his face and saw a familiar face.  He quickly reached out a Skynet parcel to me to tell me that he was from Skynet. And then, phew.... I realized that he was the regular Skynet delivery guy and he was trying to tell me that he was from Skynet.  He told me that he had just left my parcel at the guardhouse of my condo.  Before he rode his bike off, he told me "Jangan takut ya" but I was still in a fright, thinking that I was going to be a victim the second time.

What seems so creepy is how on earth did the Skynet guy know that I was at that location having lunch?? And how the heck did he even see me on the road?  He had a helmet with a visor on. And I was about to get into my car.  I did not tell the guards at my condo that I was going to have lunch at that location. So how in the world did this guy know I was there? C R E E P Y!!

The Guitar Teacher

Alycia's guitar teacher teaches guitar on a full-time basis. On top of teaching guitar, he is also a freelance guitarist. He gets paid to perform with his guitar at weddings. He also performs at orchestras. His voice quality is that of a singer too. He reminds me of Emil Chau, the Hong Kong born Taiwanese singer. He was once my favorite singer and actor. Whenever the guitar teacher teaches Alycia, he will sing and strum the guitar simultaneously. Luckily he does not have a Hugh Grant look. It would be very distracting to have a hunk with good looks and good voice in the house every week haha! And oh yes, the way he holds and strums his guitar with bajo sexto strings is with style too. No wonder he is married at such a young age and has a 4-year old child. He must have swept his young wife's feet off with his voice and charm years ago.

Rose bud From A Bundle Of Siew Pak Choy

Today I discovered something amazing by accident.  After I cut the stems off the bundles of siew pak choy and was about to bin the stems, those cute flower-like stems caught my attention. At a closer look, they looked like rose buds!  Very intricate vegetables rose buds that looked exactly like a real rose bud.

Check them out...
 

I quickly salvaged them, washed them clean and used them as deco for my Chicken Adobo dish!
 

Here's how I discovered.  Lazy me always try to find shortcuts to do my chores. To save time having to pluck off the siew pak choy, leaf by leaf, I always use a pair of scissors to snip off the end of the stems (the right side of the siew pak choy, as shown in below picture).  Once the stems are snipped off the bundle, the siew pak choy will come off leaf by leaf.  I do not even bother to cut the stem off the leafy part. After washing and soaking the veggie a few rounds, I will either blanch them or stir-fry them with a meat, to make it a one-pot dish.



If you buy 10 bundles of siew pak choy, you will have 10 pretty green rose-buds to decorate your plate of dish. Or you can use the rose-buds to decorate other dishes. I briefly blanched the rose-buds, so that they will not turn soggy.

SS20 Fish Head Noodles @ Damansara Kim, PJ

After Cass' second electromagnetic acupuncture session early this week, I told the hubs that I craved for some soupy noodles with fish. My foodie hubs then brought us to SS20 Fish Head Noodles @ Damansara  Kim.

The moment I stepped foot into the restaurant, I knew that I had gone to the right place! The restaurant's facade, the kitchen and the toilets passed my stringent cleanliness requirements.   The food the restaurant serves looked like MY kind of food too.  They have noodles with a choice of Soong Fish or  Haruan fish.  You can also have side orders like fish slices and fish paste. This shop also sells cendol, ais kacang (ABC ice) and fruit juices. We ordered a bowl of ais kacang.

We ordered 2 bowls of Haruan fish noodles. Each bowl had about 6 pieces of fish - 3 pieces non fried and 3 pieces fried. We loved the fish texture and taste. I love the soup too, albeit I find it too salty for kids.


 


We also ordered a bowl of haruan fish and a bowl of fish paste with no noodles.  Each bowl came with a very HUGE portion of spinach.  This is the kind of meal for weight watchers as the meal is high in protein and fiber.  Thus, I love it!

We also took away a portion of fish paste, which I used to prepare noodles for the kids at home, with my own made anchovies soup and lettuce the next day.

     

I foresee we will be having lunch here again as we will still be bringing Cass for her acupunture sessions this school holidays.

 SS20 Fish head noodle is located at:
Gerai 20, SS20/10, Damansara Kim, 47400 Petaling Jaya
Tel : 012-628 8896
Situated 5 minutes away from Tropicana City Mall and at the same row as Extra Super Tanker Chinese Restaurant.

Dancing Class

One of the things on my 'To Do List' is to sign up for dancing classes. I think dancing is a good form of exercise. When you dance, your whole body moves vigorously. Running can be pretty boring at times, as with working out in the gym. But dancing is so much fun as music is involved. When Cass goes to primary school in a year's time, I will have more free time in the morning to engage myself in my hobbies. One of the things that I plan to do is to sign up for a hip hop dance class. There is a dancing school in my neighborhood that is pretty good. I heard that the teachers from that school are very good - just like the dance doctor of los angeles. My daughters like dancing as well and I can see that they can dance pretty well. When Cass gets over with her bladder issues, I am going to sign her up into a modern dance class. I know she will love it. I can't wait for that to happen.

Friday Evening Rendezvous

Today Alycia had her mummy all to herself in the evening while her sisters were in art class.  After guitar class, we went to the pasar malam - just she and me, and she was really happy.   We ate fish balls at the 'look look' van, ate apam and sweet corns. She helped me to pick the fruits at the fruit stall.  Back home, she bragged to her 2 sisters and gloated to them about what she ate and they could not.   Now, she can't wait till next week for our pasar malam rendezvous together LOL!

3-Mushroom Prawn Pasta

Today has been a super crazy day for me. All because of my 2 dot com blogs who have been acting up since 2 weeks ago.  Last night the blog host 'pulled the plug' off my blogs and during the time they went 'dead', I felt as if I had lost something very, very dear to me.  When my blogs were finally up again after the Wordpress had been uninstalled and reinstalled again, everything went haywire.  I sat in front of my desktop computer from 7am through 1pm to tidy up both the blogs. I did some google searches too, to get compatible themes for both blogs, to find out how to instal plug-ins, how to enable comments and all that jazz.  Wordpress  is such a huge confusion and so not user-friendly.  6 hours on the computer made me queasy and dizzy. I did not have the time to cook lunch, so we had take-away food.

For dinner, I cooked something simple to dish out which the 3 fussy-pots love...

3-mushroom penne pasta with baby shrimps.

Ingredients used:
1) 1 punnet fresh button mushrooms, 1 packet shimeiji mushrooms and 1/4 packet of shitake mushrooms.
2)  1 punnet fresh baby shrimps. I bought de-shelled ones.
3)  1 whole bulb of garlic, chopped
4)  2 small onions, chopped
5)  Sea salt to taste
6)  Mixed herbs and dried parsley
7)  3/4 can of evaporated milk to replace whipping cream.  The reason why I used evaporated milk is because it has longer shelf life and I can buy it way in advance before cooking a creamy pasta dish.  It costs a fraction of the price of whipping cream too!
8) A little water
9) Black pepper

Method
Boil pasta al-dente in a saucepan. That will take about 10 minutes.
Brown onions and garlic.  Add in shrimps. Stir-fry for about 10 minutes.  Add a few shakes of black pepper and the dried herbs
Add in the 3 types of mushrooms and toss in pan/wok for about 10 minutes
Add in 3/4 can of evaporated milk. After the milk has bubbled, add some sea salt to taste. If the consistency is too thick, add some water.  Taste the sauce. If you want it saltier, add a few pinches more of salt.
The milk thickens pretty fast. Once it has bubbled, you can turn off the fire.
Mix the pasta and sauce together in the wok or in separate plates and serve immediately, while still hot.

I was quite tempted to get some bacon or sausages for the pasta but was successful in refraining myself from buying sausages, bacon and deli meat yet again! :D   I do not allow my kids to eat these unhealthy meat. We only eat them once in a blue moon when we dine out.  And as I walked away from the deli meat section of the supermarket, I picked up a punnet of fresh shrimps. Nothing beats fresh food.

My recipe can  yield 3 kid portions (big eaters) + 1 adult portion.

Stir Fried Young Lotus Root And Pork Slices With Miso Paste

Earlier this week, I cooked a somewhat new dish - stir fried young lotus roots and lean pork slices with miso paste.  We normally cook this dish with oyster sauce. The girls love eating young lotus roots as the texture is crunchy.  Since I still have a big box of miso paste sitting in the fridge, I decided to use some.  And the dish was yummeh!

There is still a lot of miso paste left. I think I am going to google search for recipes that use miso paste, so that I can finish off the paste before it expires. Do give this dish a try. It goes well with rice or porridge. I ate it sans rice and have always been eating dishes sans rice ;)

Sick Kids And Sick Computer

Hubs and I bought a new desktop computer so that my old desktop computer can be moved to the girls' room.  What do I know? My new 'baby' gave me a whole load of problems the day she came home!  From a physical problem on the CPU to internal problems, within a week, my new baby had to be re-admitted into the 'hospital' for observation and treatment. And I suspect that since the computer was not yet installed with an anti-virus software, some malicious virus infected both my www.healthfreakmommy.com and www.healthiswealth.healthfreakmommy.com blogs as I did access my blogs using the new computer.  For a week, the blog host has been trying  to restore my blogs but to no avail. I am so down now and disappointed with the host. Though they are quick in replying my emails and pretty helpful, they are however unable to find a solution to the problem. Now, both my dot com blogs are inaccessible :( 

Fortunately I still have this blogspot blog to update blog posts.

Alycia and Sherilyn are getting better from their sicknesses and they managed to get well enough to attend their last day of school for this year yesterday. But Cass is now having an ear pain since yesterday. Gawd,  with sick kids to tend to, a sick computer that is affecting my rice bowl, Cass' ongoing bladder issues and family matters to grip with daily,  life is tough for moi!  But I am certain I will be able to surface up the water and swim to the shore safely, albeit slowly.

Lunch For The Sick Girl

Alycia has been telling me that everything that she eats tastes bland. Besides, she has zilch appetite. When a person is sick, his/her body needs to rest. The internal organs need a rest too. The best type of food to serve a sick person is fresh fruits and veggie.

So here's what I served her for lunch yesterday...

Jackfruit, avocado and a piece of organic wholemeal bun with grated coconut as filling.  And of course her favorite comic book to help remove all the queasiness and discomfort from her!  Alycia keeps telling me that reading her comic books and watching TV seem to make her feel better! I told her that it's all in her mind - her mind is controlling her feelings - mind over matter! LOL!!



Today, the fever is under control but she has developed a runny nose, cough and lots of phlegm, which is irritating and gagging her throat, thus causing her to throw up and the nauseousness. And today, Sherilyn got bitten by this most vicious bug too! When it rains, it really pours. Now I have 2 sick pups to care for. I'm praying hard that Cass won't be the next victim. And me too, I pray that I'll be protected from the virulent bugs. The household will go haywire when I am down too and there is no one else to help me!

Post-School Trip Illness

I thought Alycia was the second kid in her group who had fallen ill after the school's day-trip to Sekinchan on Saturday. What do I know? Yesterday, Alycia told me that almost everyone who went on the school trip in her class had fallen ill and were absent from school. With so much walking under the killer hot sun in the afternoon in the paddy field, fishing pond, kampung and visits to other places that were exposed to the scorching hot sun, who could have gone unscathed by the sun-grilling aftermath? I know I will never be able to survive a trip where I will be exposed to the hot sun. My destiny is such that I will either have a massive migraine, a fever, throat infection or general feeling of malaise if I am exposed to prolonged hours under the scorching hot sun. I shudder to think of what's going to happen to the girls and me next month as we will be making a trip to Legoland - the land of long queues under hot sun, waiting for rides! After Legoland, we will be heading to Universal Studio in Singapore - another land of grilling humans under the hot sun. I am going to arm myself with huge brollies and bottles of water. My duty as the kids' slave will soon begin and I am dreading it!

Yesterday, after Alycia returned from school, she looked really jaded and her body was still slightly warm. After a lunch of chicken porridge, she lay down on the floor of the walk-in wardrobe and dozed off. I woke her up and asked her to shower. After her shower, I blew dry her hair with the hairdryer. As I was blowing her hair with the hairdryer, I realized how much grown up my precious baby was. I cannot even remember when the last time was that I helped her to dry her hair. I think it was before Cass was born and that was over 5 years ago, gawd!! As I was helping her with the hairdryer, she started to chat with me and told me all that had transpired in her school yesterday. All of a sudden, I felt like I missed this big baby, who has grown up to be so independent as a 'tai kar cheh' (big sister) figure, yet would sometimes go hungry for my attention and TLC, just like what I am giving to Cass now.

Did I tell you that on a few occasions recently, Alycia insisted on sleeping with me on the bed in my bedroom and refused to sleep in her own bed? She argued that if Cass could do so occasionally, why couldn't she do it too? And the hubs and I had to allow her to be wedged between us the entire night, just so to please our very precious first born, the baby whom we yearned to have for years and wanted so much to share our bed with.

Lunch at Nutmeg @ Bangsar Village KL

We brought Cass to see the Prof. Dr at UMSC on Friday to review the ultrasound scan report of her urinary tract and kidneys. This year, we have to do the ultrasound scan in KL as Cass' surgeon in GMC Penang will be away during the school holidays.  I am glad that all looks normal with her kidneys and urinary tract. The one thing that we must work on is to get her to do the therapy exercises to strengthen her sphincters, which are weak.  Gosh I tell you, I hate the stress and anxiousness that I have to go through every year around this time. And I have 7 more years to worry.  Cass needs to do an ultrasound scan of her kidneys and urinary tract every year until she turns 12.

After the appointment at UMSC, we went to Nutmeg @ Bangsar Village for a lunch. Food and shopping have always helped me to destress and I needed some good food that day to calm my nerves after weeks of anxiousness lol!

That was the second time this month we lunched at Nutmeg as we were really satisfied with the food the last time we went  to this cafe about 2 weeks ago with my parents.


My baby girl certainly deserved a good meal. She is the toughest little fighter I have ever met.



This chicken with raspberry sauce on a waffle was delish!


Mouth watering Lasagne for take-away for Alycia's lunch.



My little tough cookie enjoying her desserts.




We will definitely be visiting Nutmeg again very soon and this time to bring Alycia and Sherilyn along, as promised.

Alycia's First Primary School Field Trip

The day that I dread to let go of my 'precious baby' to go on a school field trip finally arrived today. Many people asked me why I am so paranoid of allowing my girls to go on school trips, especially relatives who live overseas. Firstly, as I have just mentioned, Alycia is my 'previous baby', the baby whom I went to great lengths to get. Secondly, if you live in Malaysia, especially in the Klang Valley, you would already know how unsafe it is to live in this city where cases of kidnap, murder, rape and robbery happen every single day. Just yesterday, a toddler was kidnapped in the affluent Bangsar residential area. Thirdly, who trusts express bus drivers now after umpteen incidences of horrific fatal bus crashes? Tell me, if you were me, would you feel at ease letting go of your soon-to-be 10-year old daughter to go on a school trip?

Alycia was pretty excited over this trip that she had been waiting for, for almost 2 months. This morning she woke up at 5:45am on her own without me jolting her up. By 6:30am, she had left the house with her daddy. Initially, she told us that she should be back in school by 4:30pm but later she told us that the bus was only expected to reach the school at 6pm. At about 6pm today, I received a call on my mobile phone. It was Alycia and she told me that they were still in Sekinchan, the place of visit and the return journey would only begin at around 6:15pm. I was told that they would reach their school by 7:15pm. By the time she reached home safely to me, it was already almost 8pm. The moment she stepped into the house, I saw that her cheeks and neck were as red as a lobster! She was grilled under the hot sun! My heart ached as this forgetful mummy had forgotten to give her sun block lotion and a cap, BUMMMER! How could I have been so forgetful?! This is a lesson to learn for me, that for my daughters' future school field trips, I should always apply sun block on their face, neck and hands!

I had been thinking and worrying about Alycia the whole of today, wondering what she was doing, wondering if she would be left behind by her teachers or the school bus, wondering if she had drank enough water, if she had peed, if she had eaten a proper lunch and if she was safe. The hubs knew that I was worried and he brought Sherilyn, Cass and me to Mid Valley Megamall for lunch and shopping. Honestly, I am still paranoia of letting go of my daughters to attend future school trips. If Alycia wants to attend her next school trip, I will make sure that the hubs and I tail the bus from behind and join in the trip discreetly, kekeke...

Mushroom Omelette Sandwich For Lunch Today - 6 November 2013

Here's another lazy meal prepared for Cass' lunch today.

Fresh button mushroom omelette sprinkled with seaweed to go along with bread with herbs and  Surgers butter. As usual, she will have a cup of color-free strawberry yoghurt drink, fruits and today I gave her a packet of Multi Vitamin Gummy as dessert.

 


Normally I will take-away food for lunch or reheat what I had cooked for dinner the previous night for Alycia and Cass. If I prepare homemade meals for lunch, it would normally be sandwiches. Dinner will always be a proper and well-balanced meal :)

Shopping Burns Loads Of Calories Too

Today I skipped exercising in the morning.  It is partly because of laziness (I wanted to catch up on my beauty sleep) and partly because I had no time.  Our part-time helper does not come on Sundays, thus I am extra busy on Sundays.  Nonetheless, I have had more than enough of exercise today as we spent about 6 hours at 4 shopping malls. I think I stood and walked for 4 hours today. It is a slow-paced marathon of sorts for me -- in the comforts of air-conditioned malls :D

First we spent over an hour at Tesco to get some household stuff.  Then we went to Pavillion for lunch at Tonkatsu Japanese restaurant.  While hubs entertained his angels with more food at Tokyo Street, I darted across the road and walked for 15 minutes to Uniqlo and then to H&M.  At these 2 outlets, I paced hurriedly to get what I wanted to get. I did not really trust the hubs with handling 3 rambunctious monkeys, especially with Cass. He can be very careless and not vigilant enough. He has had previous encounters with losing sight of the girls and nearly losing them at some theme parks while I went shopping. 

I spent an hour each at Uniqlo and H&M.  After a satisfying retail therapy session, I hurriedly walked back to Pavillion under the scorching hot sun.  I think I burnt over 500 calories doing all these brisk walking haha!

Whilst mommy had a mad mad retail therapy session, the girls had some crazy eating therapy with ice-creams, cakes and juices at Tokyo Street. To keep them still later, hubs brought them to TIMES book store in Pavillion where he sat with Cass at Espresso Lab cafe inside the bookstore and bribed her with a blueberry muffin while Alycia and Sherilyn quietly shopped for more storybooks.

For dinner, we had take-away fried rice and pulled noodles from Din Dai Fung and hubs bought Annie's pretzels too. I better be more disciplined tomorrow morning and must pull myself out from bed by 5am for my morning exercise to burn more calories before I pile up more calories on Tuesday - which is another holiday for us :D Oh yes, tomorrow is also a school declared holiday for Alycia and Sherilyn.