Jungle Retreat @ Ratu Rening Residency (10 - 12 Dec 2016)

Our jungle retreat at Ratu Rening Residency over the weekend was the girls' first ever wilderness adventure stay. We were upclose and personal with  nature for 3 days 2 nights. There were bitter sweet moments but more sweet than bitter :)

Our family and friends (total 17 of us) stayed at Ratu Rening Residency, which is an Air BNB villa. We had never heard of this place before and had initially planned to rent an Air BNB bungalow in Fraser's Hill but it was fully booked. So the next Air BNB property available that met all our busy schedules was at Ratu Rening Residency.   We had no frigging idea what we would be expecting nor where this place was. What enticed us were the charming pictures of the rustic villa set in a forest reserve in Ulu Yam, Batang Kali (near Genting Highlands).   We had no idea that this stay would be like a camping trip... but in style.  We read from the Ratu Rening Residency Facebook page that there are only 2.5 bathrooms for the 17 of us and this dampened my enthusiasm right from the start, to be honest.  Despite the inconvenience and creepiness of having to walk up and down slippery steps in the rain in the forest at 1am, 3am and 7am to visit the bathroom, we enjoyed ourselves very much, especially the kids.  Cass was terrified of all the jungle insects that stayed with us in the bedroom and bathrooms throughout our stay there.  On the bright, Cass had sort of overcome her phobia of flying insects as she had no choice but to sleep on a bed with visiting insects, as well as to pee, poo and bathe in a bathroom with lizards, moths, ants, dragon flies, jungle roaches and other insects all over! hahaha!

Enjoy the pix that we took during our stay at Ratu Rening...





The gazebo-like hut on the left is an open bedroom (much like a luxurious tent with Jap style bed).  Our couple friend took up the challenge and occupied the bedroom. I bet they had a great time enjoying some suspense in the open :D





We had to cross this jiggly bridge to get to the kitchen and bathroom from our bedroom... even when it rained.  However, umbrellas are provided.







Fruit platter - some of the them were provided by the host.





Kids playing badminton outside the villa...






On the right is an open bathroom. When it rained, we had to shower in the rain!  We had to cross the bridge from our bedroom to use this bathroom.




The kids had a blast playing 'masak-masak' cooking eggs and instant noodles.



K helping the kids retrieve a frisbee from the pond.




The water looks muddy but the kids and adults couldn't resist jumping inside to swim. Thankfully, no one had itchy body after the dip.




The hubs was the cook throughout our stay there. He brought along an MPV loadful of food and essentials to last us for 3 days.  Everyone enjoyed his superb BBQ ribeye steak, lamb chops, chicken chops, prawns, sausages, etc.







Almost ready for dinner...




View at around 6ish pm...





View around 7ish pm... we occupied the bedroom on top. Below is another bathroom, which we had to climb down some steep steps to reach. It was a hassle at night and especially in the wee hours of the morning when it rained and the steps were really slippery.  On the left is another open bedroom, which another adventurous couple occupied.




The kids enjoying their BBQ dinner and indulging in lots of forbidden food - sausages, instant noodles, fried nuggets, fries, chips M&Ms and other junk haha!




My dinner, cooked by my man...



My big princess helping to wash the dishes. Really a rare moment for her to wet her royal fingers in dish washing liquid ha!  But everyone had to help out during our stay there.




The adults enjoying a sumptuous BBQ dinner while it drizzled. It was pretty chilly that night with lots of jungle insects joining in the fun with us!



Drama Queen helping to cook...




Supper was super spicy Korean Udong noodles where the kids and adults had a 'spicy noodles challenge'.




The kids had a funtastic time in the wilderness, albeit the discomfort of having to queue up to use the bathrooms, walking in the forest in the wee hours of the morning in the rain to use the toilet, sleeping with annoying insects on our beds and a grueling 3-hour hike to a magnificent waterfall.

Kitchen Helper

Thank God for Drama Queen. Without her, I would have to slog even longer in the hot and humid kitchen each day. Wish I can say the same for the other 2 girls, who prefer to do their own things instead of helping out every evening. Each day I would have to holler at them to come and help out, like today. And all the big girl and littlest one did was to help me peel the shells off 6 hard-boiled eggs. That's it. Can you beat that, can you?! And to them, it's a big deal *shake head*!!!




On days when Drama Queen is in a cooking mood, she would help me to cook the rice, soak the vegetables, chop /slice / grate the vegetables, cut spring onions and lime leaves, peel garlic and onions, fry omelette and saute the meat.  I wish our kitchen was bigger so that I can drag the other 2 girls into the kitchen too, to do the rest while I put my legs up, sit on my massage chair under the fan, do my own work and just holler at them, giving them instructions to do this and that. I am very good at delegating jobs. But dream on la...

My Precious Baby Is Officially A Teenager Today!

I can't believe my eldest, a precious baby, officially turns 13 today!  Since yesterday, I have been relating the blow by blow account of how Alycia was 'created' to the girls, who were totally amused, albeit hearing the story umpteen times. From the day the hubs and I went to see the fertility specialist to the day Alycia was delivered, the girls couldn't get enough of the beautiful story :)

5 Dec 2003 will always be the happiest day of my life.  Alycia is the baby that I longed for so badly.  The sound of her first cry was the most mellifluous sound to me.  My pregnancy was fraught with never ending problems, threats, worries and loads of jabs and meds. I was very negative and moody throughout my pregnancy. I was also put on bed-rest for several months and had to take no pay leave from work. But when I saw Alycia for the first time, all the pain that I went through just melted away.  Alycia is the most beautiful baby I had ever seen and she still is beautiful up until now.

Below - Alycia only a few hours old with me, the happiest mum in the whole wide world.  Check out her deep dimple. She has a very deep dimple on each side of her cheeks. Her skin was white as snow, lips were red as rose bud and she had blond hair as a baby. She's just perfect from head to toe.





Our simple celebration for her today was at BRU Cafe. We chose this cafe simply because Alycia is a pizza lover and BRU has one of the best pizzas in town.










Baked escargot and pasta...




Two types of pizzas...







Seafood pasta...




Lamb chop...




Happy birthday to you my precious baby girl. I know you hate it each time I call you precious baby but you will always be daddy and mummy's precious baby girl, Alycia. You will also always be your grandparents most adored first granddaughter, their pride and joy.

Dearest Alycia, may God bless you with good health, wisdom, obedience and happiness always. I know you'll be reading this post ;)  Smile :D  xoxo

Homecooked Mee Siam / Tomyam Noodles

I cooked mee siam / Tomyam noodles for the first time recently and I must say that it was a huge success. So yummy was the mee siam that I must claim that it is my signature dish now :D

Mee siam is everyone's favorite in our house.  This recipe is a stunning showstopper that is not too difficult to prepare if you are not in a rush.








Refer to written directions at the end of this post. Pictures come first...






































Ingredients: 
1) 1 packet of Way brand Tomyam paste
2) Taucheong - around 1 tablespoon
3) Chopped garlic
4) Chopped shallots / onions
5) Carrot - julienned / sliced thinly
6) Tofu pok - 1 packet and cut thinly
7) Sugar to taste
8) Salt to taste
9) Chicken fillet - marinated with Thai fish sauce and pepper
10)  Eggs
11) Cooking oil
12) Dried shrimps (har mai) - blitzed in blender
13) Kaffir lime leaves - cut thinly
14) Bunga kantan and lemon grass - I did not manage to get these 2 items. If you can get hold of them, the mee siam will taste even better.
15) Kaffir lime - for the juice


Directions:
1)  Fry the eggs and remove from the wok
2)  Pan fry the chicken fillet and remove from the wok
3)  Blanch the meehoon / vermicelli in another pot for about a minute. Remove from the pot of water.
4)  Brown the garlic, shallots and ground dried shrimps (har mai)
5)  Add in the entire packet of Way Tomyam paste and mix with the garlic and shallots
6)  Add water, sugar and salt and let simmer for about 15 minutes
7)  Add in the tofu pok and let the tofu pok soak in the sauce. That will take 10-15 minutes.
8)  Add in the meehoon into the sauce and using a spatula and pair of chopsticks, mix the meehoon well with the sauce.
9)  Add in the julienned carrots and kafir lime leaves and cover with the meehoon for about 1 minute.
10) Add in the cooked chicken fillet and fried eggs and mix everything well.
11) Add in the kafir lime juice and mix well.
12) Plate up, decorate and serve immediately.


You can go to You Tube and watch how mee siam is cooked. Visual helps a lot for me.

My mee siam recipe is tweaked from a few recipes that I googled.  It tastes like a million dollars and yet is pretty simple to make and made with ingredients that are inexpensive and easily available. I can't wait to cook this again. Now you really got to try cooking this too!

Homemade Dream Catcher

If you follow my blogs, you would already know that my second born is a right-brained person. She is creative, imaginative, emotional and often random. She is constantly thinking of creating stuff like baking or building something from scratch. She would paste cloth scraps onto an inexpensive note book to beautify it or wrap the book up with black paper and then draw on the black paper using glitter pens. That would be her gift to her friends. She used to learn sewing on her own using cloth scraps.

Last Sunday we attended a friend's daughter's 10th birthday party. I had already bought the girl a gift and hubs roasted a leg of lamb for the party. Yet, Drama Queen wanted to make something special for her friend.  She made a Dream Catcher!





What is a Dream Catcher?
Dream catchers are arts and crafts of the Native American people. The original web dream catcher of the Ojibwa was intended to teach natural wisdom. Nature is a profound teacher. Dream catchers of twigs, sinew, and feathers have been woven since ancient times by Ojibwa people. They were woven by the grandfathers and grandmothers for newborn children and hung above the cradleboard to give the infants peaceful, beautiful dreams. The night air is filled with dreams. Good dreams are clear and know the way to the dreamer, descending through the feathers. The slightest movement of the feathers indicated the passage of yet another beautiful dream. Bad dreams, however, are confused and confusing. They cannot find their way through the web and are trapped there until the sun rises and evaporates them like the morning dew.






To make this Dream Catcher, I had spent a considerable amount of time bringing her to many stationery shops to buy the materials, consisting of a large steel ring, feathers, yarn and ornaments. She also recycled some of the bling bling jewelries that she had but never wore them.  She spent a few days making the Dream Catcher.

So, what do you think if Drama Queen were to make Dream Catchers (picture above) to sell at RM35 each? Would you buy it?

We saw some handmade Dream Catchers for sale at a kiosk at Avenue K selling at over RM80 each. This girl with an entrepreneur mind is already making stuff like yarn fluff balls and slime to sell to her friends.

Visiting A Doctor For Headaches

It's normal to have a headache every now and then, especially if you have a stressful job or if you have a lot of stress at home. However, there are times when you want to see a doctor about your headaches after you have tried some of the remedies at home with no relief.

Managing Without Pain Medicine
There are a few things that you can try when it comes to headaches without relying on medication. Try sitting in a dark room as bright lights can sometimes cause a headache to be worse. If possible, lay down on a bed with a cool cloth on the forehead to help relieve the pain from the headache. Instead of sleeping on your days off, keep the same schedule that you have during the week. If you sleep too much, you might find that a headache develops faster than if you were to have a routine with going to bed and getting up in the morning. Examine the diet as there are some foods that can trigger headaches while others relieve the pain. Eat foods that have a high amount of iron and other vitamins while avoiding items that have a lot of sugar.

When To See A Doctor
If you have tried a variety of remedies at home with no luck of relieving the pain from a headache, it might be time to see a headache specialist Houston office to see if there is anything else going on with the body. You want to seek help if there is any kind of confusion or altered speech with the headache. This can sometimes be an indication of a stroke, especially if there is weakness on one side of the body. You also want to seek treatment if there is a high fever or vomiting associated with the headache. Talk to the doctor about the frequency of the headaches or if they are more severe than usual at certain times of the day. Headaches should not prevent you from your daily activities. Your doctor can perform tests that can help to see if there is anything going on inside the brain that would be causing the headaches.

Healthy & Low Calorie Snacks

My latest favorite snacks to quell hunger pangs throughout the day...

Cooked baby beetroot from Love Beets, Australia.   If you love beetroot but hate the peeling part and the red stains on your hands and clothes, you really got to try Love Beets. These tender, naturally sweet and flavorful baby beetroots are so addictive that once you've tried them, you'll love them to bits!! They are free from salt, sugar and preservatives.  I could nosh down 2-3 baby beets at one go.









Boiled chickpeas. The chickpeas are boiled for over 2 hours in water, home-grown curry leaves, a mixture of curry powder, ground cumin powder and pink Himalayan rock salt.

Simple Poached Chicken

I have always been in awe each time this grandma who is an awesome home cook from a daily homecooked meal closed group on Facebook dishes up steamed chicken. Her steamed chicken always appears perfect from color to doneness to how the chicken is chopped meticulously.  One day, I asked her what her secret was and she told me that she poached the chicken, not steamed. She poached the whole chicken for 10 minutes, turn off the flame and let the chicken sit in the pot of hot water for another 10 minutes.  The chicken is then removed from the pot and chopped.




This week I tried cooking poached chicken using my own method. I used only chicken drumsticks and ribs.  I have never chopped a whole chicken in my entire life, can you beat that?  And I don't think I can ever bring myself to chopping a whole chicken, especially raw ones.  Each time I cut meat, my imagination runs wild! haha!

Ingredients needed for the poaching liquid:
1.  Carrots - diced
2.  Big onions - diced
3. Tomatoes - diced
4.  Celery, potatoes and whatever vegetables / herbs that you fancy


Directions:
First I boiled the carrots, big onions and tomatoes in a wok for about half an hour. While the vegetables are boiling in the wok, I cleaned the chicken drumsticks, ribs and washed vegetables.

You can flavor the poaching liquid with whatever aromatics, herbs and vegetables you have on hand.  The poached liquid can then be drank as soup. My poaching liquid is ABC soup which turned out to be really sweet, rich and yummy as I didn't use a lot of water like I would when boiling ABC soup.

When the carrots turn soft, put the chicken into the wok / pot. Set your timer to 10 minutes.

After 10 minutes, turn off the fire. Let the chicken sit in the poaching liquid for another 10 minutes.

I removed the ribs first as and then turn the fire on again with the drumsticks still inside the wok as the inner part of the flesh looked red. I poached the drumsticks for another 5 minutes and removed immediately from the wok.

Pan fry some garlic and drizzle the garlic and oil on the chicken.  Flavor with organic shoyu, chopped scallions and sesame seed oil (optional).

The result of my poached chicken was excellent!  The girls loved it very much. For someone who does not like steamed chicken, I loved my poached chicken!

I'll definitely be cooking this again very soon.

Our dinner that evening -
Poached chicken and onion omelette.





ABC soup and sauteed organic vegetables with minced garlic.



Our juicy, smooth and aromatic poached chicken. So delish!!




Poached chicken can be your pick-me-up dish on busy week nights.  You can add lots of vegetables into the poaching liquid and have a rich chicken broth with vegetables as sides.   This won't take you more than an hour to prepare :)

Alycia's Second Tennis Lesson

Alycia is LOVING her tennis lessons!   Today she attended her 2nd lesson and she's really getting a hang of it. A stranger watching her play would never have guessed that today is only her 2nd lesson as she was hitting more balls than missing them.

Hubs already has a tennis racket, so we'll only need to get one more for Alycia and Drama Queen to practise during the month-long school holiday which starts at the end of this week.






After tennis practise with the coach, she had to do some zig zag running exercises.





While Alycia attended tennis lesson, Drama Queen jogged at the tracks while Cass helped to pick up balls - helpful as ever this girl :)

Despite having to put up with a kitchen and bedrooms that are a tad squeezy, I have no complaints living in a condo. We get to enjoy the pool, tennis court, running tracks, gym, function room, BBQ pit and most importantly 24 hours security.  If I have the wherewithal to buy a property, I would still stick to a condo with full facilities.

Pretty Prom Dresses At Affordable Prices

Prom nights are important and special because they are the best night of high school. They are the night that every teenage student looks forward to. Every girl wants to look her best that night in her killer prom dress and princessy hair-do.

www.dressfashion.co.uk carry a wide selection of glamarous, unique and affordable wedding, prom and event dresses. Do check these dresses out if you are hunting for one now.

Baking & Craft Saturday - 19 Nov 2016

One likes art and craft and the other likes baking and cooking.  Now that exams for this year are over, Cass and Drama Queen have started to indulge in their hobbies.

On Thursday evening, I brought Cass to the stationery shop to get art supplies for her to make burger pinatas with tutorial from US You Tuber Rachel Fong.  She spent the entire Thursday evening making burger pinatas.

Yesterday the magic clay that I ordered from my supplier arrived. Cass was delighted. Even I could not help burying my fingers into the super soft magic clay to sculpture something funny!

Cass spent her Saturday today sculpturing emojis and social media icons after practising the piano.





If you have an art and craft fan like Cass, you can get the magic clay from my online store too. Just give me a tinkle at shireenyong@gmail.com OK! :)




While Cass kept herself busy with clay sculpturing, Drama Queen spent a couple of hours in the kitchen baking a gluten-free cake, using the remaining gluten-free flour that we bought to make my mum a cake for her 70th birthday two months ago.

Picture below shows her heating up some chocolate chips in the microwave oven to make chocolate sauce to drizzle on her cake.




While I was in piano class with Cass, Drama Queen Whatsapp-ed me the picture of her cake and asked me if it looked ok and I said it looked awesome!





This girl's got so much talent in the kitchen yet she tells me that her ambition is not to be a baker or chef but something else.   Err... an architect or interior designer.





And this sugar-reduced gluten-free cake with chocolate sauce, fresh orange slices and kiwi slices is just fantastic. Soon, she'll be able to sell her bakes too.