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Wednesday, November 13, 2013

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!!


 photo Alyssicklunch12nov_zps5a100bd1.jpg
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!

Tuesday, November 12, 2013

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.

Monday, November 11, 2013

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.

nutmeg 1

This chicken with raspberry sauce on a waffle was delish!


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

nutmeg3

My little tough cookie enjoying her desserts.


nutmeg 4

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

Saturday, November 9, 2013

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...

Wednesday, November 6, 2013

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.

 lunch 16 Nov - 1


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 :)

Sunday, November 3, 2013

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.

Thursday, October 31, 2013

Whittaker's Almond Gold Chocolate Bar

Years ago, Whittaker's chocolate were only available in New Zealand and at international airports in our country. The MIL used to bring back bars of our favorite Whittaker's Almond Gold whenever she returned from New Zealand.  Those were precious bars and we would hide our stash of Gold Bars, lest the kids found them and gobbled them all.

Now Whittaker's are available at local supermarkets.  I was excited when I saw my favorite Almond Gold bars on display at a shelf at Jaya Grocer last Sunday. The hubs who is a chocolate fan was just as excited and he bought a large Gold bar at only RM20.90 :D

whittaker choc

This Gold bar is now stashed in the fridge. It's my best stress-buster and I know some rats have also been secretly nibbling on it bit by bit everyday, judging by the size of the bar now!

Who's also a die-hard fan of Whittaker's Almond Gold bar?

Monday, October 28, 2013

Our Sunday - 28 October 2013

It was the last Sunday School class for the girls for this year. 

In Cass' class for pre-schoolers, the dedicated volunteer teachers did a photo collage with the hand print of all the Sunday pre-schoolers.  The kids were also given farewell gifts by the teachers.

Sund Scn 27 Oct - 1 

Cass' photo was taken by the teacher and printed on the spot yesterday.  See how IT-savvy these teachers are!

 Sund Scn 27 Oct - 2


After  church, we went to the newly opened Ramen Ten Japanese restaurant @ Jaya 33 PJ for a sumptuous lunch and then went to Jaya Grocer to do our weekly grocery-shopping.  We will definitely be back at Ramen Ten to try other items on their menu.  We loved the food at Ramen Ten!

Next, we went to KFC to take-away fried chicken for dinner. I promised Alycia that after her exam, I would buy her KFC. 

Yesterday was our part-time maid's off day.  As I was busy doing house chores, I assigned Sherilyn to do revision with Cass. Cass will be sitting for her final exam in pre-school today.  Though Alycia has finished her final exam, she is still required to sit for the Math and Science test papers in English today and tomorrow, for formality purposes.  Marks are not included in the calculation of position though.



Sher revises with Cass 27 Oct

Saturday, October 26, 2013

Bukit Bintang Wet Market

Last Saturday, we went to the Imbi wet market (also known as Bukit Bintang wet market) to have breakfast. It has been yonks since I last had breakfast at a wet market. I think probably about 20 years? Gawd, it's this been this long! As my parents are in KL, the hubs has been bringing us around to look for street food as well as to try new restaurant food.  My dad is a sucker for street food that is "pang, lang, chang" (which literally means cheap, nice and delish in Cantonese).

A stall selling deep friend 'yong liu' (deep fried fish paste stuffed with veggie and tofu)...

















My dad and mum 'tarn char' (enjoying their tea and coffee)



Dry curry chicken noodles.



Claypot yee mein for Alycia and a bowl of fish paste, meat balls and fish balls for everyone.



Porridge with deep fried piggy's spare parts. Not my kind of food but someone loves it.


Popiah and curry noddles...
BB Mkt 7


We ordered Hainan coffee from the well-known Keng Swee Cafe inside the Imbi Market. Next to Keng Swee Cafe is another stall (Ah Weng Hainan Tea) that also sells Hainan coffee and Hainan tea. Both are just as crowded and noisy. Most patrons will order  Hainan coffee and Hainan tea along with soft-boiled eggs and traditional toast with kaya and butter.

BB Mkt 1

Below are Keng Swee Cafe's traditional white toasted bread with kaya, toasted bun with kaya and chunks of butter, soft-boiled eggs in a stainless steel mug and Hainan coffee. It's been ages since I last indulged in such glorious sinful carbs!


BB Mkt 3

















Dry chicken curry noodles which was yummeh too!

BB Mkt 2

Daddy seems to love showering his princesses with flowers. See how happy Cass is here!





Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Vomiting, High Fever and Hallucination... Continuation From Previous Post

Continuation from this post.

In the midst of all the puking, retching and burning fever, Sherilyn was very weak as she could not hold down any food or water. She appeared to be in a daze and had hallucination!  After I forced her out from her sleep in the afternoon, I asked her if she felt like vomiting. She stared at me in a daze. I pulled her up from the couch and wanted to bring her to the kitchen to get a few sips of plain water.  But she held on to my hand, played with the bracelet on my hand and kept saying "it's final" while smiling like a lunatic.  I was shocked to hear that but knew that it was hallucination caused by the high fever and incessant vomiting. Alycia has had hallucinations when she was a 3YO toddler with high fever.   For about 3 minutes, I tried to 'pull'  Sherilyn out from the hallucination by asking her questions.  I asked her what her name was and asked her where we went to for lunch in the afternoon. She stared at me deliriously. I kept repeating the questions. After a while, she finally told me her name, phew!

To have a vomiting child with high fever who could not hold any food or water in her stomach can be a frightening experience. I thank God that the one and single dose of anti-vomiting medicine managed to stop her from vomiting further. She did not want to take the second dose as she said that the anti-vomiting syrup made her feel worse. For 2 days, Sherilyn only survived on a few slices of cream crackers, plain water and lots of sleep. When her body became too hot, I dragged her to the bathroom and get her to shower from head to toe.

It was the nasi lemak with just an egg and 2 pieces of potatoes that I bought from a road-side stall that caused the food poisoning. I was very reluctant to get  Sherilyn nasi lemak for her to bring it to the enrichment centre on that Saturday morning but this stubborn rascal ran down the road to the last stall and ordered the nasi lemak. I could not catch up with her as I was holding Cass with one hand and holding on to food on the other hand. At the stall managed by some Indons, I saw flies on the dishes. I felt really uneasy but I was thinking that the rice should be A-OK since it was kept in a warmer. The egg was kept in a container.  Though I did not see any fly on the potatoes, that dish could have been already pooed or peed on by those darn flies. Or maybe it was the unhygienic handling and preparation of the food by the cook.  I should have listened to my instinct and ignored Sherilyn's pleas, whines and fretting.  The girl wanted only nasi lemak and nothing else that morning. That will be the last time I succumb to her whines, period!

In the car, on our way to the enrichment centre, I had warned Sherilyn several times to eat the packed nasi lemak immediately upon reaching the enrichment centre as I was worried that the rice would turn bad if she ate it later.  I told her about the recent food poisoning case where a few guests died after eating in a kampung-style feast.  My fears came true. That night, she complained of stomach ache and a few hours later, she threw up like a volcano spewing up lava.  Her long hair was dipping into the toilet bowl with vomit all over... at 12 midnight!  History had indeed repeated itself.  This girl used to have midnight vomiting spells when she was about 3 years old, just before Cass was born. After Cass was born, the 'spell' seemed to have been broken.  But the evil witch then cast the spell on Cass. That's another story and I am still praying that the spell will soon be broken.  But nope, I ain't having baby no. 4!

This incident managed to serve the kids, especially Sherilyn a lesson.... that by disobeying mummy, they will have to face serious consequences.  Hmmm, perhaps it's a blessing in disguise. Till today, I still pick this incident to remind her of what disobedience can do to her. Hopefully this rascal will remember this incident forever and will listen to mummy's advice always.


Monday, October 21, 2013

Purple Carrot Soup

The other day in Facebook, I saw one of my friends in Australia posting pictures of purple carrots. I was intrigued and then looked around at supermarkets here in the hope of finding purple carrots too.  Last week, I finally spotted the purple carrots in a mini mart near my where I stay.  At about RM3.50 for 2 pieces, it is pretty costly but I was eager to get them to try.

Did you know that purple foods are bursting with goodness? Let's see what they can do for your health...

1) Purple foods are high in antioxidant and anti-aging benefits
2) Purple foods may be able to fight cancer cells
3) Purple foods are ulcer-fighters
4) Purple foods are good for your liver
5) Purple foods are good for the heart
6) Purple foods prevent urinary tract infections



purple carrot 1

At a look, the raw purple carrots looked like some rotten roots, caused by the dull blackish color of the skin.  When the skin is peeled, the flesh of the carrot is in bright purple. What attractive and pretty color!  .

I used the purple carrots to whip up a quick vegetables soup for the kids. With the soup, I blanched some yee mein and added tiger prawns and some meatballs.  With natural sweetness coming from the purple carrots, orange carrots, chicken ribs and cabbage, the pot of soup was very sweet and delish!

purple carrot 2

Wednesday, October 16, 2013

Homemade Beet Root And Pumpkin Ang Koo Kuih

This is what I had for breakfast today - homemade ang koo kuih which my mum made.  She had made them in Ipoh, froze them and then brought them to KL in a chiller box. 

Her homemade ang koo were made with all natural ingredients. The skin of the red ones were made from beet root and the yellow ones from pumpkin.  She also made purple sweet potatoes ones but they are not in the picture.  For the filling, she used green beans/mung beans, which she cooked and blended.

Love these homemade ang koos to bits! They are not oily and the skin is not thick and rubbery. I can chomp down all these for breakfast if I can just throw my trim-and-fit plan out of the window haha!

ang koo

Removing Stains From Clothes

For parents with school-going kids, I am sure you will definitely not miss out on having to deal with removing black stains from the collar of your kids' white shirt. I face this problem everyday and it is indeed a chore having to scrub the stains off the shirt collar everyday. But thanks to my most trusted spot stain remover, all I need to do is to spray the solution on the collar, let it rest for a few minutes before dumping the dirty laundry into the washing machine for a 50-minute wash and spin. For bad stains, I need to use undiluted stain remover and brush off the stains with a clothes brush.

Monday, October 14, 2013

Beating Exam Blues

When it comes to revising for exams, Alycia can act like a small kid who needs loads of sweet talks, loads of rewards, loads of praises and tons of laughter to get her going. Yesterday, after Alycia and Sherilyn wasted half a day doing nothing, I managed to warm them up into doing revision by first having a quiz in BM and English. The winner shall share a Magnum almond ice cream with me. I knew that Alycia would win the quiz, so here she is, enjoying her Magnum ice-cream while working on her English workbook.



After the ice cream, this girl obediently finished off all that the work that I had set for her. Before I attempted to ask her to do more workbooks, I goofed around with the girls to crack them up. One incident got us all rolling on the floor laughing. I got Alycia to try on one of my super tight bra spaghetti strap tops. The bra top fitted her so well and she looked like a teenager with 'boops' and all LOL!! I joked that if any of her friends or relatives saw her in the bra top, their eye balls would pop out from their eye sockets seeing her morphed into a teenager overnight. All of us rolled on the floor laughing till our tummies ached.

It is not easy to get my girls to obediently do revision for their exam on their own.They do not have the zeal and drive to do it on their own yet. Well, I can't blame them as their daddy and mummy were not overzealous scorers in school either ;:P


Thursday, October 10, 2013

Crispy Baked Egg And Cheese Sandwich

I whipped this up for the girls' lunch some time back. It has been a great success and thus, I am posting the pix here. When I say success, it simply means that I have gotten the thumbs up from my persnickety foodie-in-the-making girls :)  Only HFM Angels'-approved- food will be posted here :D

First I boiled some hard-boiled eggs and heated up some snap frozen sweet corn kernels from Wattie's.  Then mashed the eggs up, added some Kewpie mayo, pepper and sprinkled some chia seeds.

Toast 2 

I used 3 slices of white bread for the girls and 2 slices of wholemeal bread for myself. As you can see from the picture below, I spread the egg mixture on the first slice, inserted a slice of cheese on the next 2 layers followed by another layer of egg mixture and finally on the top layer of bread, I spread it with butter before sprinkling some mixed herbs. Then in went the tray into the oven  for 15 minutes.

 
Toast1

The baked sandwich, hot from the oven... Toast3


Cut the sandwich into half to make triangles.  This was Cass' lunch, with her favorite Envy apples and some cool cucumbers.



toast4
The baked sandwich was really crispy, even after an hour later when Alycia ate her portion. I am going to bake this again today to finish up the left over bread in the fridge :)

Sunday, October 6, 2013

Bad Week!

This week has been a bad week for Cass and Sherilyn, which means it is even worst for me. When the girls are unwell, it is always the mom who suffers the most.

Cass has been unwell for almost the whole of this week. She has been suffering from a phlegmy throat and had fever for two days earlier this week.  As she is getting better today, the virulent sick virus has now attacked Sherilyn.

Last night at exactly 12 midnight, she ran from her bedroom to the bathroom and puked into the toilet bowl. I was jolted up from my sleep. I saw the vomit pouring out into the bowl and her long hair was dipping into the bowl with vomit!!!  I thought it was a nightmare but the nightmare turned into a reality! At 12 midnight, I had to wash her hair and scrub the toilet bowl and  floor as stinky vomit was splattered everywhere.

I used to post in my blogs years ago when Sherilyn was about 3 years old that I thought it was a jinx that she would puke at 12 midnight very often. The jinx stopped short after Cass was born. Now I know that it ain't any jinx. The culprit is again MILK! 

Then at 3am, Sherilyn woke up and ran to my room. I thought she wanted to puke but she told me that she wanted to drink water and that she felt very sick.

Today has been bad. She has vomited more than 5 times and the hubs brought her to the doctor in the morning.

We had lunch at Nihon Kai Japanese restaurant today. While all of us ate, Sherilyn sat there in a daze. She only drank a few sips of hot matcha and a few slurps of soba.

In the car, she puked again.



vomit day 6 Oct

Back home, I gave her 2 slices of cream crackers before feeding her with anti-vomiting medicine.

She has been napping the whole afternoon and she seems really unwell. At one point, she had hallucination when I woke her up from her nap. She really scared the shit out of me when she blabbered out words that did not make sense and acted strangely!

To be continued...




Friday, October 4, 2013

Meltdown

This morning Cass and I had a big meltdown.  For the past 1 week, Cass has been uber cantankerous, so much that she has gotten on my rawest nerves and getting me really pissed off. I think one of the reasons why she has been acting this way is that she has not been feeling well.  But I have feelings too. I am also not in my top form (feeling under the weather and darn the PMS!) and getting nonsense from this girl all the time has really worn out my patience totally. You know, things like I give her an orange but she wants an apple instead, refusing to follow me out though there is no one at home, refusing to pee, refusing to eat, refusing to drink and  refusing to follow every single instruction from me. Everyone of them!! This morning was the final straw that broke my back.  I had woken her up to get her ready for school but she just laid down on the couch with a cup of water in her hand, almost spilling it. After being reprimanded from me, she sat at the dining table but she was not drinking. She was staring outside in a daze. No sweet talk nor threats from me would make her move and  get ready for school.  She had already skipped school for 3 days this week as she was down with a bad throat. She has to take part in her school concert next week and she needs to practise her concert dance everyday.  Exam is around the corner too. Finally, she was too late to go to school. She ponteng school!

With  pent-up anger from yesterday when she refused to eat the porridge that I cooked and refused to follow me out to the mini mart when there was no one at home to watch over her, I could no longer stomach her nonsense anymore. I barked at her with lava spewing out from me. But she was emotionless! That made me even more enraged. That was it. I told her that I was not going to care about her anymore. And I just burst out sobbing myself.  I did not fix her breakfast. I ignored her the whole morning. She came to me and asked me why my eyes were wet. She smelled my arm and touched me but I was and still am super pissed off with this brat! 

For lunch, I have reheated the porridge that she refused to eat yesterday for her to eat. She ate it all. She was starved from having no breakfast.  For dinner, I am on a strike. I ain't going to cook but will just take-away dinner. The brat has spoiled my mood entirely.  She is corroded with guilt now. She helped me to change the bedsheet just now and asked me if I wanted a massage.  But I am just in no mood for any of these but to run away from her!!

Thursday, October 3, 2013

Deep Freezing Uncooked Dishes For Future Meals In A Jiffy!

My girls and I love steamed pork.  Recently, I have figured a way to prepare delish steamed pork dishes in a jiffy. All I have to do is to spend some time on a day when I have free time to prepare the ingredients in the kitchen, store the raw steamed pork nicely and deep freeze them. On days when I ain't in a mood to cook but the girls want yummy and hot dishes to go with rice, I can easily remove this from the freezer, defrost it and steam it.


Here's what I now do...

1) Buy minced pork from the butcher. You can buy half-lean-half- fat meat and chop them yourself. I don't have the time, so I buy readily minced pork.

2) Here, I have minced pork with watercress veggie and prawns. Just chop up the watercress and prawns and mix them well with the pork. Add sesame seed oil, pepper and a little sea salt.

3) Then distribute the pork mixture into several stainless steel plates and bowls.  These will be ready to be steamed when I want to cook it.  I oiled the plates with some sesame seed oil too, so that the meat won't stick to the plate.




4) Next, I will place the plate of raw minced pork into an airtight container and store it in the freezer.

5) On the day when I plan to steam the minced pork, I will defrost a container in the morning. When the kids are almost back from school, I will then steam the minced pork.  In the pot where I steam this, I will put a couple of eggs so that the eggs can 'tumpang' to be cooked.  Thus, my girls will have a complete and well-balanced meal consisting of meat, veggie and eggs :D





How many of you do this? I am always trying to figure out how to dish out delish and hot meals for my girls, thus I came up with this idea.   Maybe you have already been doing this for aeons. But if you have not, do try this out. Your kids and family can have freshly steamed dishes on days when you are too busy to cook or just feel like doing nothing but warm your butt on the couch :D

Wednesday, October 2, 2013

Bored Baby

My poor baby has been feeling pretty bored these days. Her second oddball che che used to be her playmate in the afternoons but ever since Sherilyn started attending half-day tutoring at a tuition centre, Cass has been finding things to do on her own.  On most days, she will be drawing, scribbling and playing with her pretend cook set.  For the past few days, the iPad has been her best buddy.  Today, she's watching how cakes are being baked on You Tube! LOL!  Besides the iPad, Cass has also been helping me fold and keep the clean laundry. She also gave me a good 20-minute massage yesterday!  When she's in her goody two shoes self, she is totally lovable but when she steps out from her goody shoes and decides to play villain by protesting every single instruction from me disregarding every single threat from me, she can really drive me to strangle her!!




Tuesday, October 1, 2013

Udon With Awase Miso

Here's another post on food.  Lately, this blog has morphed into a food blog with almost every posting and picture on food LOL!  For those who visit to read updates on my girls or for stories on parenting, pardon me. I have been very busy lately with my online store and with cooking, thus, the lack of  write-up on the girls and on parenting.

Last week, I prepared a new dish for the girls.

I cooked Udon noodles with Awase miso paste as the soup base.   There was also a stir-fried cabbage with minced pork dish to go along with the Udon.

 


I bought this pack of Awase Miso paste from one of those stores that sell Japanese food stuff in Tokyo Street @ Pavillion KL.

I find Miso paste a versatile condiment to use.  It can be used to prepare soup and to flavor meat, fish, veggie and to stir-fry noodles.   The soup with Miso paste can be prepared into a 1-pot dish when you add tofu, seaweed, chicken fillet, veggie, crab meat sticks, eggs and whatever you fancy into the soup.

Miso paste can be very salty if you use too much.  Just go easy on the serving and test the taste before serving.  You can add more water to dilute the saltiness.