Our Saturday Breakfast Chow Down

Today hubs and Alycia joined Cass and I for breakfast at our usual Saturday coffee shop after dropping off Drama Queen at the tuition center.  Alycia does not need to attend school on Saturdays anymore for the rest of the school days for this year,  YAY!!!

With hubs around, there is always PLENTY of scrumptious food on the table.  And this is why I need to force myself to run or swim every morning.

I ordered bitter gourd noodles sans the noodles but with minced pork, vegetables, lots of bitter gourd and an egg. Today the egg looked really  'plasticky' and I was feeling really skeptical on the genuinity of the egg!  I should have snapped a picture of the egg.  Was it real chicken egg or was it fake egg from China?! Eewwwwww!!  If the stall owner knew about the eggs and served them to us, I hope he knows what he's doing. Karma bites back like a bitch I tell you.

The big princess ordered 3 sets of coffee shop style Chinese white bread toast with kaya. This girl eats toasted bread every morning yet she never gets sick of them!

And the carnivorous hubs ordered chicken, char siew and siew yoke PLUS a big plate of wantan mee with beef brisket!








We had breakfast with Alan Yun, our celebrity cum entrepreneur long-time friend (blurred image of him in the background).

 

After breakfast, we did grocery shopping. Back home, I supervised the girls in the kitchen. They made passion fruit agar-agar and coconut pudding for the first time :)

Glamorous Wedding & Prom Dresses

One of the best places on the internet to get elegant and affordable prom dresses and event dresses is at www.dressfashion.co.uk

www.dressfashion.co.uk carry a wide selection of glitzy and affordable wedding, prom and event dresses.


A-line V-neck Chiffon Tulle Sweep Train with Beading Boutique Backless Prom Dresses



V-neck Red Chiffon Sweep Train Beading Open Back Prom Dresses




Princess V-neck Tulle Floor-length with Beading Exclusive Prom Dresses



Discounted A-line Sweetheart Chiffon Sweep Train with Beading Royal Blue Prom Dresses





Modest Princess V-neck Tulle Court Train Appliques Lace Burgundy Prom Dresses




A-line V-neck Chiffon Sweep Train Sequins Lace-up Perfect Prom Dresses

Down Memory Lane

My mum Whatsapp-ed me this picture of her taken with the girls about 5 years ago.  Alycia was 8, Drama Queen was 6 and Cass was 3.  Love this picture so much of all the people whom I love the most in the whole wide world :)

This picture is now set as lock screen picture on my desktop computer. If only I could teleport myself back in time to relive just one of those days. I miss the girls when they were at that age where they were  still cute as little puppies and ever so cuddly, where they have not learned to retaliate and answer back rudely.




Well perhaps I'll be saying the same thing 5 years down the road when the girls turn 18, 16 and 13 (OMG, all teenagers by then!).  I would probably be missing them at their age now.  Sometimes I wish they were all grown up and working so that I have no more stress of caring for young and growing kids and on some days I wish they were little helpless babies again. Ask any parents and you will get the same sentiments of stress - financial, emotional and physical stress of raising kids.

This is the ebb and flow of life - there are highs and lows. There is bitter and sweet, gloomy and sunshine days and it's all part of the package of life.  If it were peaches, sunshine and roses all the time, I guess we’d probably get bored or even worried of life being too perfect.  Agree?

Compilation Of Easy Home Cooked Dinner Ideas

These are some of the dishes that I rolled out on super busy days.  On these days, I just didn't feel like stepping into the kitchen.  But when the clock showed 6:30 pm already, I would get myself in a tizz. With super fast moving hands and legs working at full steam, I almost never disappoint the girls and even the fussy King of the house with my creations, ha ha ha!

Cooking indeed needs practice. No wonder the mil can easily wok up a feast fit for 20 people in under 2 hours with decades of cooking for a big troupe. The Yaps are from a HUGE family living in a big bungalow in Ipoh.  Practice makes perfect.

Dinner For Busy Evening #1:

1. Free-range chicken stew with celery, carrots, tomatoes, dried flower mushrooms, baby peas, loads of onions and garlic, bay leaves (I LOVE bay leaves. They add SO MUCH flavor to a dish) seasoned with organic shoyu, Lea & Perrin sauce, ground black pepper and organic brown sugar.   Basil leaves for decor are from our little garden.
2.  Sauteed organic 'por choy'










Dinner For Busy Evening #2

Soupy meehoon and dark sauce sesame oil meehoon.  Soup was boiled using anchovies, garlic, fish bones, carrots and tomatoes.  Pork balls, homemade fish paste, squid rings and organic veggies were blanched with the soup just before serving.




Dinner For Busy Evening #3

1.  Colorful and healthy fried rice with parboiled low GI rice, loads of garlic, onions, eggs, grated carrot, sweet corn kernels, baby garden peas and kafir lime leaves. Seasoned with organic shoyu and pepper.
2.  Taiwanese style chives with minced pork, garlic and shredded carrot.










Dinner For Busy Evening #4

1.  Stir-fried brinjal with organic 'lai park' veggie, organic miso, minced pork, tomatoes, scallions and kafir lime leaves.

2.  Steamed minced pork with eggs, salted egg and organic wood fungus strips.





My budget for each dinner costs no more than RM40 (sometimes RM50) for 3 big-eater growing girls and 2 adults.  If the hubs doesn't come back for dinner, the portion will be saved for lunch for Cass and me the next day.

Hailam Cafe And Seafood Steam Pot

Hailam Cafe And Seafood Steam Pot was opened in early October this year (2016).  For seafood lovers seeking a new way to enjoy steamboat, try this steam pot cum steamboat.  First, you savor fresh seafood by steaming them on a stainless steel tray with holes atop the steamboat pot. Then comes the usual steamboat items like fish balls, tofu pok, fish noodles, tofu, vegetables, noodles, etc.

Our first  seafood that came was lala. The lala was steamed on a multi-holed stainless steel tray placed atop a pot of soup boiling in the steamboat pot.  This is a novel way of enjoying naked seafood at its best, with nothing added. You can taste the natural sweetness and freshness of each seafood this way, while the essence from the seafood drips down to the pot of soup beneath.





The flesh of the lala and prawns were SO juicy, tender and sweet and not overcooked in any way.




When the prawns were placed on the tray, we could still see the life prawns wriggling their legs!!  I felt really, really bad and imagined myself being steamed alive. My tummy churned slightly and I had the familiar feeling each time someone orders suckling pig.  One day, just one day I will turn  into a vegan...




Steamed fresh scallops...








Steamed fresh king garoupa fish...




Steamed crabs...



By the time we polished off all the fresh seafood, we were already pretty full but my trencherman hubster ordered more food -- a tray of traditional steamboat items consisting of a variety of seafood balls, tofu, 'foo pei', yee mein and vegetables.








The cafe is very spacious and clean, as can be seen here...







Pick your choice of fresh seafood...





While waiting for the seafood to boil in the pot, the two sisters monkeyed around with   Instagram Face Swap...




My sweetie-pie helped me to de-shell the crab and fed me the crab meat coz she knows mummy hates to have stinky crab odor on her fingers :D




Chunky crab claw meat - all for me!!







After a course of steamed fresh seafood and traditional steamboat items, the final course was porridge  steamboat with the king garoupa head.  Gawd, we were so so full already!!  With so much seafood essence in the soup, the soup and porridge had so much flavors and  natural sweetness.  How could we reject a mean bowl of porridge knowing that so much goodness went into it?





We enjoyed ourselves thoroughly tucking into fresh steamed seafood and steamboat in this novel way. We will definitely be back again!




Hailam Cafe And Seafood Steam Pot
ICC Pudu
Jalan Kijang
Pudu
55100 Kuala Lumpur
Call 016-382 0889
Serves breakfast, lunch, dinner and drinks
https://www.facebook.com/Hailam-Cafe-Seafood-Steam-Pot-1599220910379690/

Sixth Sense

I have it!

Yes, the sixth sense.  And it's freaking creepy each time my eyelid or eyebrow twitches.  The more it twitches the worse off the presentiment of disaster that is about to strike us - my loved ones especially.

And it happens all the time. Well, 9.5 out of 10 times when my darn eyelid/eyebrow twitches. Scary eh?

Last Saturday, my left eyelid twitched and vibrated the whole day. The whole darn day, less the hours I was in bed. I just knew something bad would pop out from the Pandora's Box.  I kept telling the girls that they had better be careful in all circumstances - what they eat and do. They know that mummy has this uncanny 6th Sense with her Twitching Eyelid.  Cass seems to inherit this special ability too. And her eyelid twitched too.  Double whammy!

About 4 days later, the evil genie finally popped out from the bottle.  First Cass was left behind in school by her van driver and she gave me a heart attack when she used her class teacher's mobile phone to call me from school at the time when I was supposed to wait for her at our condo lobby. You can read about it here.

Next, the girl's grand aunt fractured her leg during her holiday overseas and is now in a cast and homebound.

Next up, our very dear and close family friend was down with a bad bout of kidney infection. We visited her in the hospital on Sunday and I brought along packets of Izumio for her.

Several days later, Drama Queen came home from school with high fever. She has inflamed tonsillitis. This girl has been slacking in drinking water and popping her Super Lutein lately and I have been too busy to keep reminding her to drink water like a fish.  On the day we went to our church fun-fair last week, I had warned the girls not to buy sausages and nuggets and absolutely nothing deep fried.  And this stubborn girl just had to go against me and bought a foot-long deep fried Frankfurter. Double trouble - deep fried garbage. And know what? She didn't bring along her water tumbler and did not drink a drop of water after chowing down the entire crap, right out from the pot of recycled hot oil.... all by herself.  When I found out that she had inflamed tonsils, I just couldn't help repeating "serves you right for disobeying your mother!"  I know it sounds evil of me but I did warn the girls umpteen times in the car on our way to the fun-fair to NOT BUY DEEP FRIED FOOD. And she just had to do it.  SIGH, why, why, why?!!

Now Drama Queen is on Cass' diet, which comprises of an alkaline diet, no deep fried food, lots of water, lots of Izumio, 2 capsules of Super Lutein a day, probiotics, Roselle kefir and propolis with manuka honey. I hope she'll get well soon in time to attend her school's bazaar and Children's Day.

Breakfast With The Big Girl

School was out for several days for the big princess to cater for students sitting for the UEC exam early this week.

Every morning during her school break, the big princess and I would have a short outing, either to the supermarket or to the eatery to enjoy breakfast, just the two of us.

Here we had breakfast at the Indian restaurant. She had her favorite roti tisu kurang gula (less sugar) and I had my all-time favorite tosai rawa lebih garing (extra crispy).  We enjoyed our high calorie and high carb breakfast very much and needless to say, we busted our carbs and calorie quota for the day. Lunch was just fruits and cucumber :D




I really wouldn't mind a wee bit tucking into this heavenly morsel everyday IF ONLY there was no such thing as carb, diabetes, calories and high cholesterol. IF only la...

Our Saturday - 24 Oct 2016

We attended a food and fun fair at our church last Saturday. The girls have been looking forward to attend this fund-raising event since the church announced it months ago.










The girls were not too keen to spend the coupons on food. They were only eyeing the games!
Drama Queen used up a lot of coupons on 2 rounds of this game where playing cards had to be aimed and thrown at two half cut watermelons. If the card sticks to the melon, you'll get a chop on your redemption card.  I don't know why she chose this game as it's one of the toughest to aim.




Alycia tried too but didn't manage to stick any card to the watermelon.




Cass trying her luck with throwing darts at the balloons. Not easy too.



Hitting tins with a ball seemed easy but it ain't easy too...




Fishing ducks from the pool also seemed easy but it ain't easy as well as the plastic ducks were too light and kept buoying in all directions. Towards the last few seconds, Cass managed to fish out 1 duck... which earned her 3 chops, YAY!

And for almost RM60 on these games, the girls only accumulated 8 chops, which qualified them for a gift redemption.  Cass was eyeing on some Pokemon plushies but they were all already finished by the time we were at the redemption counter.  What's left were  only some plastic food containers and car sun shades for redemption.   She was really disappointed. But it's OK I told her as we are doing this for charity. We can try again next year.





I used some of the coupons to get myself a bowl of homemade Foo Chow red wine chicken noodles.





Back home, Drama Queen baked a tray of chocolate chip cookies for her school Girl Guide's party.  She baked the cookies all on her own while I was away with Cass for piano lesson at Yamaha. When I was back, I helped her crank up the oven.  The cookies turned out pretty tasty and I think that it's very good for an 11-year old girl, who did it all on her own steam.

Compilation Of Home-Cooked Dishes

Some simple but yummy dishes that I rolled out last week:

Braised minced meat with potatoes and tomatoes; Sauteed brocolli with French beans, carrot strips,  minced garlic and onions.










Grilled giant Portobello with minced garlic. The girls' grand-aunt prepared this mushroom dish.





Braised pork belly with carrots, dried flower mushrooms and spices; sauteed organic yau mak veggie with celery and onions. It was fridge-clearing day, thus the weird combo of this veggie dish.









Grilled salmon head with sea salt and cracked black pepper; braised chicken drumsticks with spices and hard-boiled eggs; sauteed organic yau mak veggie.





It's Friday and thank God it's the long-awaited day of the week!!  Weekends mean that my kitchen is closed and I can have a respite from cooking, eat out (but not junk), chillax and sleep-in.

Have a great weekend and well deserved rest peeps. I know I definitely deserve a good rest after two stressful exam weeks. The big princess doesn't need to go to school until mid of next week but it's school as usual for the other 2 gals.

Cass Finally Learned How To Swallow Pills And Capsules

Cass has recently started to master the art of swallowing pills and capsules. That's a big achievement for her considering the bitter experiences she has had in the process of learning how to swallow pills. When I first purchased Izumio and Super Lutein primarily for her consumption last year in April 2015, we both went through a very rough time trying to get her to swallow Super Lutein.  She would store the capsule in her mouth and just couldn't bring herself to swallow it. The more tensed she got, the harder it was for her to swallow the capsule.  Moments later, she would spit it out, only to see that the capsule had half melted into a dark brown sticky paste. The all-natural dark brown paste contains 6 types of carotenoids, blackcurrant polyphenols, anthocyanin, vitamin E, B group vitamins, DHA and various other nutrients.  She didn't like the taste of it as it has fish oil and would stifle a puke.  She would have tears in her eyes trying hard to swallow the capsule but alas, the capsule would end up in the bin with her puking. We both got so frustrated that I stopped forcing her to swallow Super Lutein.  I gave her a break of over a year for her to get over her traumatic bitter pill experience.

Ever since Cass had a UTI attack in November 2015 and was given strong dosage of antibiotics via IV and oral, her immunity took a plunge. She would have a minor cold or flu every month on end. But she got well pretty fast too, thanks to Izumio. But we were both very frustrated that she kept getting bitten by the flu bugs every month.  It was so frustrating for her that she asked for Super Lutein as I have always been telling her that this supplement will strengthen her immune system. She wanted to try popping the small tear-drop like capsule again.

It was around July this year that Cass finally had the courage to try swallowing Super Lutein again. Before we started, I had a Eureka moment. I remembered how my mum used reverse psychology on the girls when they were younger to get them to drink water and milk by challenging them to compete with her to see who finished the drink first. I tried the same tactic on Cass.  This brat who is quite competitive in nature loved the challenge as she wanted to win me all the time!  By making pill-popping seem like a fun competition, the brat conquered her phobia of pill swallowing and voila, she finally swallowed her first Super Lutein without much fuss, and then the next and the rest they say is history. She now pops 2 capsules of Super Lutein a day. And would you believe it if I told you that she doesn't get colds and flu so often now? I shan't say more. As you know, Chinese folks are very 'pantang' (taboo) if a child is praised excessively. I kind of believe this taboo too.

However, the brat would only willingly swallow her Super Lutein only if I compete with her each time, which isn't a big deal to me. Most times, I fake losing to her :D   She gets the honor of winning the race and I have one less worry.  Life is so much more easier when your kids are healthy. This I am sure every parent out there would agree with me.