Pasta Bolognaise For Kids And Toddlers

My 3 gals, especially Baby love pasta and spaghetti with bolognaise sauce. I normally use minced beef, pork or fish. I cook this dish for them at least once or twice a week. Last week, I used fish, shiitake mushrooms, big onions, tomatoes and celery to cook with the bolognaise sauce.

Here's my sauce and all the ingredients in the non-stick pan.

This is how the sauce looks like once the cooking is done.

I boiled 2 types of pastas - one is fettuccine for the 2 older gals and one is Heinz alphabet and number pasta for Baby. When the pasta is cooked al dente, I poured the sauce over and mixed everything well. I sprinkled some Parmesan grated cheese for the 2 older gals. No cheese for Baby coz I find it contains too much sodium for a tiny toddler.

This bowl is for the older gal.


This bowl is Baby's pasta and carrots before the sauce is added. I boiled the pasta and diced carrots together. With the carrots, the pasta would taste very sweet. Baby is a carrot lover and sometimes when she has no appetite to eat anything, she will survive on soup and carrots alone.


After mixing the sauce to the pasta and once cooled down, I transferred the pasta into small air-tight Tupperware containers for deep-freezing.

On another note, after a day's outing at Times Square yesterday, rascal #2 had continuous vomiting. Find out what happened at my health blog.

All-Time Favorite Fried Vermicelli

We have homecooked fried vermicelli at least once or twice a week. My 3 gals do not seem to get fed up with fried vermicelli, so do I. Preparation is easy, cooking time is short and I can cook large portions enough for lunch and dinner and even for deep freezing. On days when I don't have the time to cook, all I need to do to put piping hot and tasty food on the dining table is to reheat the fried mee hoon.



My fried mee hoon with bean sprouts, cabbage, chicken breast slice, 3 eggs, garlic, dried shrimps and shiitake mushrooms. It is seasoned with MSG-free and preservative-free soy sauce and pepper. Baby and Sherilyn love this noodles to bits!

Enjoying Her Breakfast

... in front of the idiot box. Baby has her breakfast seated in front of the idiot box every morning. Some people say it's really bad to eat in front of the TV. Ya know, if I don't do that, this fler won't drink her formula milk or her supplements. She's already under weight and I'm having a very tough and stressful time getting her to drink formula milk. Anyway, I think it's not that bad as Baby is picking up tons of nursery rhymes and general knowledge from the TV. She can now 'sing' many nursery rhymes and Barney songs and can even dance when she hears the songs.



Do you allow your kids to eat in front of the telly?

Baby C's First Indoor Theme Park Experience

Hubs brought us to Mid Valley for dinner and shopping one evening last week. It was an eleventh hour decision to go to Mid Valley. We had dinner at Canton-I @ Gardens again, hubs favorite Chinese restaurant. After dinner, I bought Alycia a pair of school shoes as spare. While I shopped, hubs brought the gals to the indoor theme park. Alycia and Sherilyn had been to the theme park umpteen times but it was Baby's first ever visit to the theme park. Needless to say, Baby was beaming with joy, excitement and amusement.

Riding on the rocking car with Alycia jie jie.


First ever ride on the carousel. Baby was a picture of excitement and fright, all in one facial expression. Cute!


Rocking fire truck ride with Sherilyn jie jie.

Getting Alycia And Sherilyn To Eat Enough Fruits

On school-going days, Alycia and Sherilyn hardly have the time to eat fruits. I normally make them freshly squeezed orange juice (an orange for each of them every other day), which they will drink before they eat their lunch, upon their return from school. On weekends, they will eat fruits half an hour after drinking milk in the morning. I believe that fruits should be taken on an empty stomach and not together or immediately after food. Alycia has no problem eating fruits, she's a food lover anyway. For Sherilyn, it's tough job to get her to eat anything, except for junkies! And unless it's fruits that she really loves like these:



Jackfruits, strawberries and mini mandarin oranges (sweet tangerines) and her all-time favorite durian! Try giving her an apple, a pear or an orange and she'll take forever to finish them. Most of the time, she doesn't finish her fruits, unless they are in juice form, this lazy girl, sigh....

Settling Well Into New Routine

Alycia is settling fairly well into her new routine ever since she started Primary 1. She has no problem waking up at 5:50am every morning, gets ready for school by herself (drinks milk, brushes teeth, washes up, dresses up, combs hair, wears socks and shoes, all by herself), in time to be picked up by the transporter by 6:40am. By the time she comes home from school at around 2pm, has a protracted lunch (this fler loves eating and spends at least an hour enjoying her lunch and then dessert + junk food), takes a shower and takes a nap without being told. Sometimes when she's in a playful mood, she will skip her nap and if this happens, she will be drop dead jaded and sleepy.

Last week, she skipped her afternoon nap and this was what happened during dinner:



For once, she slept on the chair while eating LOL!! I had to pull her up, urged her to shower and then she plopped onto her bed at 9pm and slept all the way until 6:50 the next morning!

Grim Reminder

Rascal #2 loves eating with chopsticks and mind you, she does not like to use kids' chopsticks but my mil's wooden chopsticks which are quite pointed at the front. This rascal also loves to play with the chopsticks... digging her teeth with the chopsticks, running around with the chopsticks and she has a habit of kneeling on the chair when she eats. I have always been worried whenever she uses a pair of chopsticks to eat coz the problem with her is that she NEVER sits still when she eats. She takes 2-3 hours to finish each meal and no amount of coaxing and caning will deter her from repeating her habit. Sometimes she fights with Alycia during meal times.

Last week, there was an article in the newspapers that reported a 3-year old boy from China who had a chopstick stuck to his nostril while he was playing, which went into his brain. It was a freak accident and thank God the boy survived. I showed the picture to Alycia and Sherilyn, exaggerated a wee bit on the story to scare them in the hope of deterring them from playing with chopsticks. It worked. I scared them out of their wits. I even threatened rascal #2 that I will stick the picture on the kitchen cabinet so that she will not play with chopsticks again. Alycia was quick to help me cut out the article and stuck it on the kitchen cabinet, hahahahahahaha.... Since that day, none of them dared touch the chopsticks again. I will allow rascal #2 use chopsticks to eat again when she's more matured in her thoughts and outgrows all her mischief.

Finally...A Giraffe Soft Toy From Guardian Pharmacy

After collecting the soft toy redemption stamps from Guardian Pharmacy for over 2 months, we finally filled up the card with stamps. For every RM10 spent, a stamp would be issued. Each time we shopped at Guardian, my gals would be eyeing and touching the redemption soft toys at the counter. They would be telling me that wanted the elephant. Last week after dropping Sherilyn off for ballet class, we had 2 rounds of shopping sprees at Guardian Pharmacy and finally filled the Guardian Pharmacy card with stamps. We must thank the gals' 2 godfathers for contributing some of the stamps. We also have to thank a stranger who gave his stamps to us when he saw my gals going gaga over the soft toys at the Guardian Pharmacy counter several weeks ago.

Since the elephant was out of stock, my gals had to settle for a cute giraffe. The quality of the soft toy is very good.





Guess who liked the giraffe the most and has been hogging it?

And guess who was the one who had been diligently collecting the stamps from Guardian? Me, daddy, Alycia or Sherilyn?

Fan Cai Xiang Vegetarian Restaurant @ Taman Danau Desa KL

I have never really liked vegetarian food as I find most vegetarian food laden with MSG, high in white flour, starch and oil. There is no meat or garlic to make the food taste good, so obviously the chef relies on a lot on MSG and seasoning.

On hubs' recent birthday (end December), he suggested having vegetarian food. So we went to this vegetarian restaurant at Taman Danau Desa called Fan Cai Xiang for vegetarian food. I was a tad apprenhensive having vegetarian food as I hate the aftermath - the burning desire to drink water from thirst. After eating at this restaurant, I was really amazed and impressed with the food. The dishes were super low on MSG. Some dishes were free from MSG. You will know that the food was very low on MSG coz the food was not salty, not oily, tasted like homecooked and did not leave me running to the kitchen to gulp down glasses of water. I will definitely patronize this restaurant again.

This is the appetizer - a dried tofu appetizer. Nice!

Spinach in superior soup, wolfberries and foo choke (bean curd skin). Nice!


A tofu dish and fried rice. Nice!


Mui choi dish (preserved veggie with bitter gourd and tofu). Nice!



Chap choy (mixed veggie with button mushrooms and dried mushrooms). Average.


Braised yee meen. Nice!


Tofu and tau kan in clay pot. Average.


Sweet and sour 'fish'. The 'fish' was made of dried bean curd sheets. iLike!

Kaya buns. Average.

Guess What She's Eating?

Wanna make a wild guess what rascal #3 was eating here? We were having Japanese for dinner.


It was her first time tasting this weird looking stuff with tentacles.


I gave her one to try and she held on tight to it, licking and chewing this rubbery stuff.

It looks like a little rat's tail jutting out from her mouth hahahahahahah!

So what do you think Baby's eating?

Pusing Public Seafood Restaurant (Mun Choong)

My hubby's all-time favorite restaurant in Ipoh is Pusing Public Seafood Restaurant or commonly called Mun Choong by Ipohites. The main reason why he loves going to Mun Choong is because of the kon cheen har loke (fried prawns). This prawn dish is a sure-order dish by almost everyone who goes to this restaurant. If you don't pre-order, you won't even get to savour this dish.

This restaurant is always packed. The only thing I hate about this restaurant is the waiting time. We waited almost an hour before the first dish was served. Everybody's tummy was growling away and we were really famished when the first dish arrived.

This signature fried noodles was our first dish. It was really tasty and it was whacked within minutes.


The signature kon cheen har loke (fried prawns).


Stir-fried mixed veggie with deep fried crispy cuttlefish and cashew nuts.


Stir-fried baby french beans.


Stir fried fish sliced with ginger and spring onions.


Deep fried chicken with deep fried onion rings, very yummy!


Steamed super smooth tofu with fish paste. Very tasty.


Steamed crabs with Chinese cooking wine.



Address & Contact Number
Pusing Public Seafood Restaurant
No. G 57-65 Jalan Verasamy Ipoh
(Horley Road)
30300 Ipoh
Perak Darul Ridzuan
Malaysia
Tel: +605 2419 348, +605 2410 306, +605 2533 428

Wrinkle Cream

I have never in my life used wrinkle cream. But I think I may have to start using them very soon. Age is catching up with me. I no longer have smooth and supple skin. Instead my skin is terribly dry, especially on my hands and legs. Fine lines and crow’s feet have started to appear on my face and corner of my eyes. Gosh, I hope I won’t have sagging skin and skin pigmentation too! These usually come together in your BIG 4 birthday package!

Eczema

Eczema runs in my family. I have it and so do my 3 daughters. My younger brother had it too when he was a child. Till today, my skin is still on the dry side. My skin was terribly dry and peeling too during my pregnancies and was especially bad during my 3rd pregnancy. With eczema, the key is to keep the skin moisturized at all times, to prevent a bad eczema outbreak.

Birthday Wish

In a few months’ time, I will turn 37 years old. I can’t believe that the BIG 4 is just 3 years away. I wonder how I will look like and what I’ll be doing when I turn 40. I wonder if I will still have my youthful looks or have to resort to the best wrinkle cream to remove the inevitable wrinkles from forming on my face. Oh well, whatever it is, my one big wish is to have good health – for me and for my loved ones.

Weight Loss Stories

Do you have any good weight loss stories to share? I have my very own weight loss story too. If I had the time, I can write a book on it. It all started 10 years ago when I was diagnosed with PCOS (Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome). One of the many symptoms is unexplained weight gain. I did my own research by poring the internet and with lots of sacrifices and struggles, managed to lose 5kg. Till today, I am still practicing the regimen that I practiced during the height of my PCOS days.

Hoi Seng Restaurant Ipoh

When we were back in Ipoh last month, my dad treated us to a sumptuous dinner at the newly opened Hoi Seng Restaurant located at Ipoh Garden.

Here's what we had:

Shanghai Special Pork Ribs with man tau - very delish!


Signature Tofu Dish - super smooth and tasty!


Phoon Choy (Hong Kong Special Veggie Pot)



Steamed fish.


Crispy chicken stuffed with fish paste - great hit with the kids especially the deep fried noodles accompanying the chicken.


Some of the popular dishes served at Hoi Seng Restaurant Ipoh.

This trip to Ipoh is all about eating. Thankfully I did not gain a pound and don't have to resort to phentermine, phew! That's why I always say, EXERCISE and cut down on your carb intake!

For 7 adults and 2 kids, the bill came up to RM225.80, which is quite reasonable as this restaurant is quite posh and the food that we ordered all tasted good. There will definitely be a second trip to this restaurant again.

Restoran Hoi Seng Ipoh
86 Jalan Dato Lau Pak Khuan
Ipoh Garden
31400 Ipoh
Tel : 05-5482 272

Fun Way To Learn ABCs and 123s

There is no better way to help your kids learn than through fun and play.

Here's what I mean:

Check out Baby's left hand - wrapped up in a plastic bag to protect the IV catheter and bandaged from being wet. This pic was taken last week when she had a UTI attack and needed antibiotics jabs through IV for 4 days.

Bath times can be made into fun sessions and these foam alphabet and numbers from ELC are a great way to help toddlers learn. My sil from Hong Kong gave it to Baby 2 X'mas ago.

On another note, Baby could 'sing' the ABC song about a month back. She can 'sing' (though pronounciation is still not clear yet) and hum this tune, as with many other nursery rhymes.

A Visit To The Orphanage

On our way back from the hospital last night, we passed by a fire station. My kids were excited to see the fire station and the big, red and shiny fire trucks with sirens blaring away. Baby was really excited to see the fire station and fire trucks for the first time, after watching them on her favorite Barney VCD umpteen times. Hubby said that he will one day arrange for an appointment to bring them for a visit to the firehouse since he knows someone from that fire station. I told hubby that he should also bring the kids for a visit to the orphanage. That will be an eye opener for the kids, to show them how lucky they are, compared to the under privileged kids. Hopefully with the visit to an orphanage, they will stop complaining of what they don't have. I have long wanted to bring the kids to the orphanage and make a small contribution too. I wish I had the ability to contribute large sums, just like richard willich, the philanthropist. Anyway, it’s the thought that counts, right?

Crazy Over This VCD

Baby is absolutely head over heels, besotted, crazy, hooked and addicted to this Barney VCD:


Barney's "Let's Go To The Firehouse".

Daddy bought this VCD more than a year ago and it's only last month that I started to play it again. Aly and Sher used to watch this but for a brief period. It was sitting inside the TV console drawer for ages!

Since last month, Baby has been asking for this VCD every single day during spoon-feeding milk (formula) time. She would go to the drawer and single out this VCD and say "house".... not just once a day but twice and sometimes thrice (that's the number of times I spoon-feed her formula milk). I can now memorize all the songs in the VCD and my 2 gals are sick of this VCD to the pit of their guts haha!


Baby fishing out the VCD just before spoon-feeding milk time. As long as she gulps down her spoonfuls of milk and make life breezier for me, I have no problem sacrificing my TV programs. What TV programs? Ooops, I almost forgot that I've not watched a movie or sitcom for aaaaagesssss! Talk about motherhood, it's all about sacrifices.

Fried Hakka Noodles, Cantonese Style

A relative went to Ipoh and brought back some Ipoh Hakka mien (noodles) for us. My mil then whipped up this dish with the noodles:

She shallow pan fried the Hakka mien into crispy noodles... which everyone loved, me inclusive. It's like munching on Mamee snack, can be very addictive!

Then she cooked the sauce for the noodles, which consisted of prawns, shiitake mushrooms, mustard green (sawi), sliced pork and fish cakes. The seasoning used were soy sauce and some dark sauce. She used an egg to thicken up the sauce. The sauce is to be poured on the noodles when it's ready to serve.



Sherilyn my noodles crazed brat whacked a few bowls of noodles...

Even I whacked a bowl of noodles. I don't normally eat Hokkien mien, in fact I don't fancy eating mien, with the exception of vermicelli.

Try this for your kids, they will surely love this dish, especially the crunchy fried mien.