2D 1N Stay At Four Points Sheraton, Penang (16-17 September 2014)

This is one of the best and most fun-filled holidays for the girls in Penang.  Ever since Cass' operation in Penang in 2009, our family has been making yearly trips to Penang, for Cass to see the surgeon for follow-up consultations and new treatments.

This time, we stayed at Four Points Sheraton, Penang and we loved this hotel and the awesome beach.



The beach was teeming with an assortment of seashells. Never in our lives had we seen such a bountiful of seashells on a stretch of beach. 

 



Can you spot Alycia, Sherilyn, Cass, my dad and me in the picture below?



 

The girls could not contain their curiosity and got their daddy and koong koong to climb the rocks with them to the other side of the beach to check it out and bruised their knees and hands.  I joined in the fun too!  I used to do a lot of these adventurous stuff during my teenage days.  I'll bet you won't believe that this puteri lilin here who would literally melt in the sun was a Girl Guides Patrol Leader and an avid beach camper eh? ;)  Well, that was yonks ago.



The girls found some life clams and did an experiment by submerging a clam in some water in the hotel sink but nope, the clam did not open up.

 


Part of the girls' seashells loot.

 


My mum having fun in the pool with the 3 girls.









Can you believe my mum is just 2 years shy of her 70th birthday?  She is exactly 68 years old today!  Happy birthday mummy!  May God bless you with many, many more happy birthdays. I pray that you will live long enough to witness Alycia, Sherilyn and Cass' graduation from university and witness their wedding and birth of their children too! :)





The girls burying a dead crab...





And collecting seashells...



My 71YO dad helping the girls hold their bagfulls of seashells...




Everyone had a blast in Penang. Not forgetting the seafood - we had crabs and prawns for 2 days.  Hubs also brought us on a 'jalan-jalan cari makan' tour of Penang to search and tuck into the best hawkers food in Penang.  Hubs commented that he ain't going to touch crabs and prawns for the next 3 months. Hmmm, I shall see how long he can abstain from his favorite food!

If Only We Were Wealthy

Yesterday Cass and I bumped into a friend's daughter at the lift of our condo. Her live-in nanny cum maid was accompanying her to the music school. I asked her where she was going, to which she told me that she was going to attend violin and drum class at a musician's friend  shop located at a shopping mall  about half an hour's drive from where we live. Their driver was waiting in a big MPV. My friend has a driver and bodyguard and her husband has some kind of title awarded to him. Apart from drum and violin lessons, this girl who is a year older than Cass is also learning hip hop dance with Sherilyn and attending swimming lessons. This girl and her siblings have a dozen of extra-curricular activities to attend and they are chauffeured around by their driver and bodyguard.  If only we could afford the various lessons and a driver to chauffeur the kids everywhere with a nanny to accompany my kids, I would do the same for my kids. Ah, how nice would that be  if we were wealthy!

Sin Kheng Aun Penang - Hainanese-style cuisine and Apom Ah Guan

It has been more than 2 years since we last lunched at Sin Kheng Aun.

Upon arrival in Penang on Monday, hubs drove straight to Chulia Street. Thankfully hubs has an impeccable sense of direction. After our 3-week stay in Penang during Cass' surgeries in 2009, hubs has mastered the roads in Penang, mostly the roads to all the good food of Penang. That's my hubs - food will bring him to anywhere :D

Sin Kheng Aun is more than 60 years old and still standing strong and definitely not losing out to the newer and more modern air-conditioned competitors mushrooming in Penang.


What we had this time:

Gulai assam tumis with white pomfret fish. This is Sin Kheng Aun's signature dish and the crowd-puller, five-star dish.  We can never get fed-up of having this assam fish dish and ordered 2 bowls this time!

 

Lobak and assam pan-fried prawns.  Tofu with prawns and a veggie dish.




Kerabu chicken feet.




Caramelised fried chicken with dark soy sauce



Egg omelette with julienned turnip, crab meat and fried shallots




After this hearty lunch, we headed to Burma Road to get my all-time no. 1 favorite food in Penang - apom by Ah Guan!  And mind you, in order  to indulge in this fluffy and aromatic apom, PATIENCE is a MUST  due to the sheer popularity of this apom!  As usual, my darling hubs stood at the roadside and chit chatted with Ah Guan whilst I napped in the car for a little over an hour! 

For almost five decades, Ah Guan has been patiently flipping this fluffy local pancake for his legion of fans from his humble roadside stall.   He speaks English too and on the day that we were there, he was joking with a couple of German girls while flipping apoms!




I think Ah Guan's Apom is the best in the world and second to none.  Try it and you'll be hooked on it. 




We walloped close to 20 pieces of the apom from the drive from Burma Road to our hotel in Tg Bungah. 




Till we meet again Ah Guan, I can now only dream of your mouth-melting and fluffy aromatic apom!

Homecooked Dinner - 12 September 2014

Another simple and healthy homecooked dinner dished out in under an hour by a self-declared super busy no-time-to-even-shit health freak mummy :D

Grilled chicken drummets, steamed tofu and stir-fried organic veggie.




The chicken drummets were seasoned with all my favorite types of herbs and darkened with blackstrap molasses.





I tossed in some deep-fried crunchy vegetarian anchovies on the tofu.  To safe time, I placed the tofu on a stainless steel plate and heated it in the oven for about 10 minutes while the drummets were still in the oven.

As usual, one of my photos was once again photo-bombed by someone who could not wait for mummy to snap the pix. 







The vegetarian anchovies are made of mushrooms stumps and are very yummy!  They can be eaten on its own as snacks.

 


For getting a greased face and hands and clothes splattered with hot oil, my reward  is always getting a happy smile on my girls' faces :)


 

Cass In Kindy - Random Pictures

A picture taken last Friday at the lantern party at Cass' kindy.

Before the party started, all the parents and kids walked round the neighborhood with their lanterns.  It was my sixth (or was it seventh?) time doing this with my 3 girls.  And it will be our last time having this party in that kindy as Cass will be going to Primary 1 next year.  I can't believe how fast time has flew past us.  I remember Alycia going to this kindy when she was 3YO.   And that was 8 years ago!

This is Cass walking with one of her besties, Megan. I know she will definitely  miss all her buddies from the kindy on the last day of school in 2 months.




This is the spelling list for Cass...




The Ejaan list...







And the Ting Xie list.  A couple of the words in the Ting Xie list here were the same  as Sherilyn's Ting Xie list.  Imagine a 6-YO being tested on the same words as a 9-YO.  And oh yes, some of the topics in Math for 6YOs in this kindy are the same as what Primary 2 kids are learning.  Honestly speaking, Cass is still struggling with her Chinese but doing pretty well in the other languages and subjects.  I know I will definitely have some hair-pulling moments with her grappling with Chinese when she goes to Primary 1 next year, in her che ches' school.  Ever since the school was awarded with an SBT status, the academics expectations of the HM have shot up to the highest level on the Richter scale, putting even more stress on the students, parents and teachers!




In another 1.5 month's time, Cass will be sitting for her final exam.

What do you think of the level of  Chinese, English and BM in this kindy based on the list of words as shown here?  If you compare this with your kid's kindy, would you grade this as difficult, moderate or easy?  Would love to hear from you :)

Kids Nasi Lemak For Dinner - 9 September 2014

Today I cooked 'kiddos nasi lemak' for dinner.  My version of  kids nasi lemak is sans salty fried anchovies and peanuts and sans spicy sambal.  I replaced the peanuts with baked cashew nuts.

It was my first time trying out this brand of chicken curry paste, by Mak Nyonya.

The result was a HUGE success!  My super critical and persnickety hubs polished off the entire plate of chicken!



It was pretty easy to prepare this chicken curry.  First I heated up some oil, then put in the curry paste and fried it for a few minutes.  Next, dump in the chicken, puffed tofu and potatoes and cooked until aromatic and browned (about 20 minutes).  Then add in the coconut milk (santan) and some water and let them simmer for another 20-30 minutes until the chicken meat and potatoes are soft.  You can add more water if the sauce is too salty for your liking. I added quite a bit of water as I did not want it to be too salty and spicy.

 

I separated the chicken curry into two portions.  The one in the pyrex bowl was meant to be for tomorrow's dinner. But what do I know?  Hubs liked this so much that he walloped the entire bowl of chicken himself and asked for the second bowl of chicken, woohoo!  Pat on my own back for dishing out such a perfect curry dish :D  Now, I have to think of something else to dish out for dinner tomorrow.



 

Mak Nyonya curry paste is  mild in spiciness.  Even the girls ate it without having to dip the chicken in another bowl of hot water to wash away the curry.  And they did not have to run to the kitchen to look for ice cubes and water.  And nope, I did not feel thirsty after eating this... which means that it is indeed MSG-free!  I will definitely stock up  more Mak Nyonya curry paste.  It comes in a variety of curry pastes for chicken, fish (curry fish and Portugese fish), tomyam, nyonya laksa and vegetables and only cost RM4.90 a packet.

The rice was cooked with fresh coconut milk.  The girls love santan rice incredibly and there is not a single time when we had leftover of santan rice. They can eat the santan rice on its own.  Though I cooked double the portion of rice today, it was still not enough for everyone!  I am so glad that everyone loved my nasi lemak! :)

Nude Beef Bolognese

There I was the other day, very excited to cook some beef bolognese sauce for the girls.  I normally cook a big pot and deep freeze some. I use the sauce for spaghetti and as filling for our grilled wraps.

And there I was happily heating up the wok after I had blended the garlic, onions and tomatoes in the food processor.

The moment I ignited the fire on the stove, SH*T, where is the bottled bolognese sauce? I searched the fridge but there was no sight of it.  Never mind, tomato ketchup? I rummaged through the fridge and cabinets and SHI*T, no sight of it either.  That's the problem whenever there is a hiatus in my cooking. I tend to be too reliant on the mil to do the cooking when she is around.  I do not even check what is available in the fridge.

So how now brown cow?!

So I just cooked brown cow meat with whatever that I have on hand!  And I named my sauce - HFM Nude Beef Bolognese.  It is my very tasty beef bolognese sauce made from minced antibiotic-free Australia beef, garlic, onions, loads of organic tomatoes and seasoned with mixed Italian herbs, salt, a dash of brown sugar, ground cumin, ground coriander seeds and ground black pepper. 


A pot of HFM Nude Beef Bolognese - as natural as nature intended it to be :D




Part of the Nude Beef Bolognese sauce was used to make crispy grilled wraps.  Another portion is still in the freezer and I intend to use it for the girls' spaghetti lunch tomorrow.

Homecooked Dinner - 29 August 2014

Our Friday night grill...





Grilled Saba fish with an assortment of herbs.  I added ground cumin (love the aroma of this herb!), ground coriander, black pepper, parsley and oh boy, I think I used more than 8 types of natural aromatic dried herbs to marinate this fish to mask the fishy odor.  My mil has a cupboard filled with some very amazing and aromatic herbs, some of which were brought back from her recent trip to Hawaii.

Grilled organic Japanese pumpkin.  The pumpkin wedges were steamed for about 15 minutes and grilled for another 15 minutes in the oven.


I was having a stuffy nose that night, thus could not taste the fish. But I got the thumbs up and 'high 10s' from my 3 fussy eaters. Even Cass who was recovering from a stomach flu and did not have the appetite to eat anything walloped the fish!   So, I think I aced in this grilled herbs Saba fish with a 10/10! HA HA!

Stir-fried portobello mushrooms and Shimeji mushrooms with an entire bulb of garlic.  I needed the potent compound from garlic to help fight off my flu, thus I used a big bulb of garlic, sliced, to stir-fry this dish :)






On the menu tonight will be beef bolognese spaghetti. I am leaving my desk now to prepare dinner. This time, I will be blending the tomatoes, garlic and onions with a food processor. This will safe me some time chopping them up! :D

Our Merdeka Dinner - Healthy Grilled Sandwich

After a hearty lunch at Sushi Zanmai today, I prepared something light and easy for dinner tonight...



Grilled bread with cheese, fried eggs, tomatoes and cucumbers.

Bread was grilled in oven at 150C for 15 minutes, thus was very crispy.  The girls love anything that is crispy.

The multi-seed + nut bread was baked by my mum. 

The eggs were seasoned with ground cumin and ground coriander and a few pinches of sea salt and pan-fried.

The Tamago egg was takeout from Sushi Zanmai.

Our dinner was simple yet the girls had no complaints and enjoyed it. Good girls! Mummy and daddy will reward you all with a treat at Avenue K tomorrow! :D

Fond High School Memories

I have many fond memories of my years spent in high school. I have too many to list down. My most remembered and cherished memories are those spent camping with my besties in Pangkor Island (1986) and Pulau Kapas in Terengganu (1989). Also the 10-day Wilderness Adventure Camp in Lumut (1989), our first school visit to KL in 1987 and our Canteen Day in 1989. I miss those care-free and crazy days with my besties. I still keep in touch with most of them, albeit we are not as close as we used to be back then :( When we left high school back then, we should have gotten ourselves something for us to remember forever, like some custom class rings or a custom t-shirt with the year we left high-school. If I could turn back the clock, I would love to turn it back to 1987 and start re-living those years.

Cassandra's Random Drawings

Cass was down with a stomach flu and had a colicky tummy for the past two days.  Today she felt slightly better and could get up from the couch to start drawing again.

Lately, my flower-loving girl has been telling me about her "PLAN" when she is a working adult.  She even wrote out her "plan".

Here goes her plan:
1) Buy me a big house to stay with her
2) Buy me my favorite kind of dog - a Golden Retriever, Beagle or Dalmation
3) Hire a maid to help me
4) Plant lots of flowers in the garden


In the car yesterday, Cass told her daddy and me that she loves gardening. She hopes to have a garden like granny's in Ipoh.  And she would plant her favorite sunflower and Rafflesia in her garden.  Wait a minute... Rafflesia??  I told her that Rafflesia can only be found in the deep jungles of Sumatra.  Cass then told me her "plan" includes hiring a jungle guide to bring her into the deep jungle to search for her favorite flower - the Rafflesia! HAHA!  She gasped when I told her that the Rafflesia is bigger than her in diameter.

Just a moment ago, she drew this...




She even penned down her signature!  Cass drew and wrote everything herself except checked with me on the spelling of Rafflesia :)


Cass at 6 years 4 months.

Taiwan Jumbo Watermelon

A few weeks ago after our book-shopping spree at the KL Book Fest @ KLCC, we went to Isetan for lunch.  At the supermarket, the girls were awestruck when they saw some gigantic watermelons.  I think they easily weigh over 6kg each.

The juxtaposition of the size of Cass' hand and the size of watermelon is shown below. 

The jumbo watermelon is almost three times the size of a regular size watermelon. 



But at RM139.90, would you buy it?   I would not.  With RM139.90, I can probably buy 6 or 7 regular size watermelons!

Would you spend this much on a gigantic fruit?

 

My Monday - 25 August 2014

After my appointment with the dentist this morning, hubs called me on the phone and asked me to meet him at Ficelle Boulangarie & Patisserie for brunch.  We also sent our cars to the car wash (by the alley) while we had our brunch.

After our brunch, lo and behold - it rained cats and dogs.  Alas, the RM20 that hubs spent to clean our cars was washed down with the rain too, bummer! 


The beef burger that the hubs ordered at Ficelle... 



And the girls had takeout spaghetti, pizzas and quiche from Ficelle for lunch. They were delighted to have something 'extraordinary' for lunch on a school-going day :)

Happy Monday everyone.  I hope today is not a blue or black Monday for you.  And I hope that no one was caught in the flood in Cheras during the downpour this morning.

Our Sunday - 24 August 2014 (Brunch at Fong Lye Taiwan Fusion Cuisine Restaurant)

We had brunch at Fong Lye Taiwan Fusion Cuisine Restaurant @ Gardens today.

We were really famished when we arrived  as we had skipped breakfast.  When the appetizers arrived, the girls walloped them all in a jiffy.  By the time I had finished snapping the picture of them digging into the appetizers, there was almost none left for me!




Cass helping herself to the yummy appetizer...

 


Our steamboat set.   The tomato soup base was a hit with the girls. They commented that it tasted like  granny's (my mum) homemade tomato soup.

The set includes razor clams, prawns, squid paste, yummy pork balls, pork belly slices, fish, squids, veggies, sweet corns and well, everything that is spread on the table in the picture below...




The girls each had a bear shaped and Angry Bird shaped fish cake.





This is part of the set too... comprising of squids, salmon with crackling skin and pork.



Alycia helping to cook the squid paste and then served us...



The desserts were heavenly!  They were not overly sweet or cloy and were portioned just at the right size for tummies that are already 80% full.  I thought that since the desserts were part of the set, they would taste just so-so like those from the buffet spread at hotels but I was wrong. Every single item was delish -- the creamy Mango Panna Cotta (mango pudding), coconut cake, red velvet cake, green tea cake and cheese cake.




Damage was RM259.85, which I think was a bang for the buck. This was our 2-in-1 meal of breakfast and lunch, complete with appetizer, lots of meat, veggie, seafood and heavenly desserts.  And I am SO full until now that I can definitely skip dinner today!
 

 

Cass' Best Buddy

Cassandra is very attached to her granny - my mum. She calls granny almost everyday to update her on the happenings in her daily life.   We subscribe to Unifi's internet plan and local calls are free, so we do not limit her calls to Ipoh.  Sometimes as soon as Cass wakes up at 7am, she would pick up the phone to call granny. Lately, she loves to call granny her "best buddy", to which my mum will call her "my honey bunny"! :)









Cass was on the verge of tears when my mum returned to Ipoh last week.  She hugged her granny really tight and refused to let go of her. It is really heart-warming to see them so close.  How nice it would be if only my parents stay in KL too.... IF la... life would then even be sweeter for us.