Sherilyn's Holiday Baking Projects

Apart from a trip back to Ipoh to visit their grandparents and several shopping sprees at the mall to get books (again!), the girls spent the rest of their two-week school holidays at home. Drama Queen spent most of her time googling for recipes and in the kitchen whipping up surprises for us!  Alycia had her dental braces fixed. My poor girl has not had a proper meal since last Wednesday, the day that the braces were fixed.

Drama Queen's first baking project was chocolate walnut brownie. Her second project was two batches of chocolate chip cookies, using different recipes, baked on the same day. She baked them on the eve of Alycia's B day, so that her che che could stuff herself silly with the cookies. Alycia's wish was  to eat all her favorite food before her B day, as she won't be able to enjoy them for a long time once the braces are up.

Once Drama Queen started baking the cookies, she couldn't stop the momentum and after cleaning up the kitchen, she decided at the spur of the moment to bake another batch of chocolate chip cookies, using another recipe!







After baking two batches of chocolate chip cookies, Drama Queen proceeded to cook  baked Mac N Cheese.  She sneaked out her grandma's Le Creuset French oven to use as grandma had gone on a holiday at Ipoh and Penang with her visiting daughter from Hong Kong.


While she cooked Mac N Cheese, I did a quick stir fry of broccoli and cabbage with egg and grilled curry and turmeric chicken.




Killing two birds with one stone in the oven...




Two days later, Drama Queen worked on her next baking project ~ minced beef and pork pie for her grand uncle who had just returned from New Zealand.



The plan was this : Drama Queen to work on the pie dough while I cook the filling but darn an annoying PMS headache, I told her that I'd take a cat nap and cook the filling later. When I got up from my nap 30 minutes later, the aroma of sizzling beef and cumin in the wok was wafting in the air! Surprise surprise! I almost drowned in the aroma!



Drama Queen's baking and cooking skills are getting better by the day. She started to bake when she was 10-ish and those initial baking days were really MESSY! Though the kitchen still gets messy and dirty, it's not as bad as it used to be. And her speed has definitely improved.


With the remnants of the pie dough, my creative 13-year old chef created a small batch of mini cheese puffs which were incredibly yummo and addictive! Within half an hour the cheese puffs were removed from the oven, they were wolfed down by her hungry sisters and crazy mom.






Later in the evening, I brought the pie to the girls' grand uncle's house and ate the pie together, sipped on Japanese matcha and munched on green apples that he harvested from the apple trees in his backyard in New Zealand.

Drama Queen's final baking project before the school holidays ended was lemon pie / tart. This will be in another post. Stay tuned 😊

Father's Day Lunch At CawanMu Restaurant @ The 1969 Business Suites Boutique Hotel, Ipoh

For the first time in many years, we celebrated Father's Day with papa and the hubs in Ipoh.  The hubs booked a table for the celebration at CawanMu Restaurant @ The 1969 Business Suites Boutique Hotel, a hotel owned by the hubs' childhood friends.




The two fathers in my life ~ my dear papa and loving daddy to my daughters.



Chocolate cake specially baked by Chef Chu, the hubs' long-time friend.




Papa and mum, loving as ever. Papa lost his mobile phone during his recent trip to Eastern Europe (he had lost it in Poland).  Back in Ipoh, he inadvertently locked both sets of the car keys in his car and had a flat tyre while driving to the wet market to get coconut water for us.  Hopefully our presence and celebration with him this Father's Day lifted him out from his doldrums 💗



One look and you'll know that these fancy schmancy picks are from the post-millenial girls:


Mushroom soup and Nasi Briyani:


Prawn noodles and grilled salmon:


Seafood pasta and lamb shank:










Tiramisu (which comes really close to the ones from Alexis, sans the alcohol and strawberry sauce) and hot latte with chocolate chip cookies:


Food is superb with 4 to 5-star presentation. Love the ambience and the tip top cleanliness. Price will certainly not hurt your wallet too. This is one restaurant that I will look forward to going back to in my future trips back to Ipoh. Great place for long catch ups with old friends.

After our delightful Father's Day lunch, we walked next door to the 1969 Business Suites Boutique Hotel to view the hotel's wall. What's so special about this wall is the fact that  it has just made it into the Malaysia Book of Records for creating a permanent backdrop in its lobby out of 53,592 1 sen coins. That's about RM535 worth of coins.  The coins were glued to the wall one by one to uniquely display  the hotel's name "1969 Business Suites" which won the hotel the title "Biggest backdrop display made of one cent coins" as reported by The Star.







The wall which measures about 5.73m by 2.62m is the brainchild of the hotel’s founders. Two weeks were taken for project coordinator.

For those visiting Ipoh, this hotel is worth visiting and the wall definitely Insta-worthy.









CawanMu Restaurant
No.1, Jalan Lapangan Siber 3
Bandar Cyber
Ipoh, Perak
Tel: 05-313 1969

Father's Day 2018 ~ 17 June 2018, Ipoh

On Father's Day, my dear papa went to the wet market early in the morning to get us breakfast while I slept in with the girls till 9 a.m.  It's extremely RARE that I get to sleep in till 9 a.m. and I can only do this when I am back at my parents where I am treated like a princess. My clothes will be laundered, meals settled, dirty dishes washed by my papa and chauffeured around.  Back in KL, I am the slave to my daughters who are my princesses. See the karma? 😂


It was Dragon Boat Festival (Zhongxiao Festival) too on Father's Day Sunday and papa bought Zongzi (sticky rice dumplings) from the market. He bought both the savoury ones with meat and plain ones. Back home, he quickly whipped up some Gula Melaka (palm sugar) syrup on the stove in a claypot with freshly plucked pandan leaves from the garden. This is my childhood comfort food and it's been aeons since I last indulged in this delicacy. 




Papa also bought lychees and locally grown avocados from the wet market, which we had for breakfast.  The locally grown avos are sold for a song at RM10 for 3 and they are pretty creamy, non fibrous and has a seed in the shape of a kidney.




While we were enjoying our breakfast, papa stood next to the hot stove for 2 hours, patiently stirring a pot of pandan + egg + santan + sugar  mixture to prep the best pandan kaya in the world for us to bring back to KL. Truly a labor of love from the best papa in the world. Thank you very much papa 💘😘  Papa will be 75 years old this year.






I drank the  remnants of the pandan juice with Gula Melaka syrup. Taste is slightly bitter and lightly sweetened with the aromatic Gula Melaka syrup.  Not exactly a delightful drink (though I love everything pandan-ish) but the health benefits are manifold.  Pandan (screwpine) leave juice detoxes the body, lowers blood pressure, is anti-diabetes, mildly laxative, good for relieving pain from Arthritis Liniment, is anti-cancerous, increases appetite, relieves insomnia, among other health benefits.





After a light breakfast at home, we had a sumptuous lunch at CawanMu Restaurant @ The 1969 Business Suites Boutique Hotel, Ipoh. I shall write  a separate post on our Father's Day lunch at CawanMu.

Holiday Activities For Teenagers And Tween

Cass had to attend half day school for the first 3 days of the school holidays, special thanks to her dedicated class teacher who volunteered to provide free Mandarin tutoring to the class. Cass also stayed back in school with her team members to work on their History project.

At home, after grandma plucked spinach (organic ones) for dinner preparation, I gathered a few stems with roots for Cass to plant in our little balcony garden.

 
Eager beaver Cass ~ her first time planting vegetables on her own and happy as a clam.



No prize for guessing who baked this chocolate brownie eh?

 

It's super yummo!  Drama Queen can bake while her mummy can't, more of lazy and no interest. I can get her to bake any cake or cookie that I feel like eating and she'll run to her phone to Google for a recipe and start working on it. My job is to buy her the ingredients and her job will be to experiment in the kitchen. She even cleans up after her mess.   She's going to grow up to be a fantastic baker and cook.  And a foodie too, just like her dad.

Yesterday Drama Queen whipped up Guacamole (avocado, tomato, black pepper, salt, onion, garlic and cumin) for breakfast and it was a hit with her sisters. Today she made it again and dipped it with 3 types of crackers.




After breakfast, Berlyn - her bff's mum came to our condo to pick her up for a day's outing at Sunway Lagoon.  Drama Queen and Berlyn have been bff since they were toddlers in pre-school.  Today is their belated birthday celebration. Their birthdays are a day apart ~ Drama Queen's on 16th and Berlyn's on 15th of the same month. Though they are in different high schools now, they are still besties. 

I've read that if you and your friend have been good friends with each other for 7 years, chances are the both of you will be friends forever. I think it's very true. I am still friends with my pre-school, primary and high school friends and we still keep in touch via Whatsapp, video call, Facebook and meet up when we have the chance to. When two of my ex classmates went to the USA recently to visit two other classmates who are now living there, they Whatsapp video called me and we had a great time chatting for almost an hour.

Weekend Food Marathon (9 - 10 June 2018)

Our makan marathon started with breakfast at our usual open-air kopitiam on Saturday. Cass and I shared a bowl of Tomyum noodles from a new stall that sells various types of Thai-style noodles.  The bowl of Tomyum noodles was yummo! But it was spicy and hot.  Slurping a bowl of piping hot and spicy noodles is not the perfect choice of food for breakfast on a hot, humid and sunny mid morning. I had to stop at intervals to wait for the noodles to cool down, huffing and puffing away before I could put anymore of the hot and spicy stuff into my burning mouth. After breakfast, I was clammy from the sweat and heat. I had my second full-body shower for the day when I got home.





Dinner was at a newly opened Japanese restaurant. But the girls were more keen on Domino's Pizza, which was just beside the Japanese restaurant. They begged their dad for pizza and their indulgent daddy gave them money to get takeout pizza and grilled drummets. While waiting for our food to arrive at the Japanese restaurant, the girls walked next door to get takeout pizza. Back home, the girls had pizza and grilled drummets for supper while the adults had Bak Chang (rice dumplings) hand delivered to us by a relative who bought them from Melaka. Supper is a strict no no for me; I quickly took my shower while everyone else had their supper. Out of side, out of mind! Can't imagine scarfing down so much carbs into my body at 9:30 p.m. and I ain't going to exercise the next day (Sunday).






Sunday Eats:

Lunch was at Drunk Cat Restaurant @ Kuchai Lama and it was during lunch that the hubs told us that he had booked seats for us at VE Hotel And Residence for a Buka Puasa buffet dinner with his staff. What?!  Buffet for dinner is another NO NO for me like since a decade ago.  How can anyone stuff so much food into the stomach and go to bed a couple of hours later? That's insanely bad for our health. But the girls were game for a Buka Puasa buffet dinner and were YAY-ing away.  After lunch, the hubs dropped another 'bomb' ~ he wanted something sweet for dessert and we walked a few shops away to Let's Joy Cafe for sweet treats. Oh. My. Gawd.  I don't have metabolic rate like a teenager anymore yo!









Snack attack:



When it comes to food, thank God I have very strong will power not to attack and indulge. My ultimate kryptonite however is durian. Thankfully the hubs' craze over durian has died down as he is more concerned of his health now.

About 3 hours later, we got ready for our next chow down session at VE Hotel And Residences @ Bangsar South.  It's been aeons since we last had a buffet dinner at a hotel.  The hubs and I realized that we could no longer dig like a pig like we used to 10-15 years ago. When Alycia and Sherilyn were still toddlers, we used to indulge in buffet lunches and dinners very regularly.  Using his hotel membership at the Sheraton group, we would enjoy buffets at different hotels every Saturday or Sunday without fail. Back then when there was a buy one free one deal from the hotel group, our toddlers ate for free while the two of us pigged out to our hearts' content.

Buka Puasa buffet dinner at VE Hotel And Residence @ Bangsar South:








Below : Bubur Lambuk. I can't even remember the last time I ate Bubur Lambuk, an iconic dish during Ramadhan.







My condition to Cass was to NOT indulge in sugary food, so she chose skewered green apples for the chocolate fountain.



When we got home after our hotel dinner, I smelled of roast lamb all over and had to have my 5th shower for the day!

Celebrities And Faux Hair

Celebrities change up their hairstyles on a regular basis, from wild shades to super-short pixies. But rather than chopping their tresses on a whim (and regretting it later on) or damaging their strands with excessive coloring, several stars turn to a more temporary solution: wigs and hair extensions. Wigs these days are made from human hair and most times, they look so natural that it's hard to tell if they are real or faux.

As proven by some of our favorite hairstyle chameleons, including Lady Gaga and Katy Perry, wigs are the easiest way to transform your look and make a major statement—no commitment necessary. From Kylie Jenner to Katie Holmes (whose blunt bob was so convincing, everyone thought it was the real deal), many other celebs love rocking faux tresses and peruvian hair on the red carpet.

There was a time when celebrities were the only women who wore, or could afford to wear hair weaves. Back then, the fact that the hair on their heads didn't actually grow out of their scalps was a hush-hush affair. Not anymore! Today, many women experiment with hair additions in every length, color and texture ~ from body wave to straight to bundles with closure.  Real Beauty Hair is an online store to shop for all your hair extensions and wig needs. They specialize in high quality human hair extensions.







Instead of just adding inches and volume to your style, hair weaves have become a way to introduce variety to your style repertoire. Plus, there are actually some useful benefits to wearing hair weaves.





If you want longer or thicker hair, there's no better option than hair extensions.   These extensions save your hair from damage from harmful chemicals of conventional hair treatment methods. You can wear them for special occasions or daily if you want. You can even try out bangs for a day or two. Synthetic extensions can look shiny and fake, so look for human hair extensions. Your stylist can even cut them so they blend seamlessly with your own hair. Aliexpress Store is another great place to shop for high quality 100% natural human hair products, such as hair weaving, closure, lace frontal, lace wig and etc.

Our First Prosperity Flower Bloomed!

Our very first Prosperity Flower went into full bloom for the first time today!  But only one flower  bloomed out of four.  The other three buds look like they are raring to spread out their petals to greet mama. Come here babe, come to mama💓

This beautiful sight greeted me in the morning today:




This is also our very first flower plant in our little balcony.  The rest of the plants are herbs. It won't be long before we transfer it to a bigger pot and perhaps feed it with some fertilizer so that it will bear more flowers!💐 🌷


This is my healthy breakfast today:



Organic cabbage with hard boiled egg drizzled with Beerenberg Creamy Parmesan Caesar dressing, fried onions and fresh ground black pepper; washed down with a packet of eye-loving high antioxidant wolfberry Red Ningxia drink from Young Living 💪

Monday, 4 June 2018

The weather for the past few days has been exceptionally hot and clammy. Shortly after  my shower, if I have to move around the house to do stuff like hanging or keeping the laundry at the balcony, I would be drenched in sweat again, which means making another trip to the bathroom for a shower!  I keep asking the girls if they are hot or is it only me who is having hot flushes all day long. My concern is whether I am going through perimenopause with hot flushes!  But my girls would always assure me that they feel the heat too and are sweating bullets 😅

On a sunny morning today, after dropping Drama Queen at the tuition centre, the hubs and I popped by at  my friend's newly opened kopitiam at Taman Desa.

The menu is pretty extensive and impressive for a small kopitiam barely a week old.  I have always have faith in my ambitious and capable friend, Cynthia, who is the owner of the kopitiam, with help from her brother, who is the cook.

The hubs ordered chicken curry noodles while I ordered my all-time favorite comfort food, pork vermicelli topped with a poached egg.


The chicken curry was so good that the hubs ordered a bowl of chicken curry as side. The fried wanton was super crispy and addictive. I only remembered to snap a picture of the wanton when it was about to be scarfed down by Drama Queen, who joined us later.


The milk tea was prepped to my prefection ~ less sweet and extra milky.




I will definitely be back at the kopitiam to try other items on the menu.

Congrats on the opening of your kopitiam, Cynthia.  Brick by brick, you have built an enviable new shop. I pray that year after year, you get more and more prosperous.  I am so proud of you my dear!

Kuen You is located at Taman Danau Desa, opposite 99 Speedmart and 2 shops away from Watsons. For those at Taman Desa and nearby areas, do drop by the kopitiam. The prices are very wallet-friendly.

Curly Or Straight?

I really have no inkling where Cass got her crimped hair DNA from.When she was  under a year old, she had straight hair from the scalp, all the way down and ending with big wavy curls on her shoulders. She was born with thick, jet black hair.  When she was about 6 or 7 years old, her jet black hair turned into brunette, naturally! The brunette DNA comes from me for sure. Alycia's hair color is brunette too. When Alycia was born, her hair color was 'blonde' as the maternity ward nurses reported to my mum, who was waiting impatiently outside the OT.  But her 'blonde' hair turned into brunette over the years.  The color of Alycia's hair has been drawing curious queries from her schools' disciplinary teachers who thought that she had dyed her hair 😆, which is not permitted in school.

Hair crimping is a method of styling usually straight, long hair so that it becomes wavy, often in a sawtooth / zig-zag fashion. In the Southern United States, it is usually referred to as crimping, but also can be called krinkles or deep waves. Hair crimping is usually achieved by treating the hair with heat from a crimping iron (also referred to as hair crimper) or by braiding the hair, often in multiple strands, then undoing the braids after a couple of hours. A crimping iron has parallel heated plates designed with a flat S-shaped repeating groove.

The zigzag on Cass' hair is so deep that one would have thought that she went for hair crimping treatment. It's quite rare for an Asian Chinese to be born with this kind of hair. When her hair is wet and let down, it looks like she has just stepped out of a hair salon with a perm. But she hates having curly hair and wishes for straight and fine hair instead.

The grass always looks greener on the other side and one is hardly satisfied with what one has. Those with curly hair dream of having straight hair and vice versa. Whether it is hair rebonding or perming, the heat and chemicals used during treatment may damage the hair and scalp to some extent. An alternative to rebonding and perming is hair extension or getting a brazilian body wave.










Hair extensions made from 100% virgin hair bundles seem to be the vogue now.  They are pretty easy to wear by clipping onto your hair and more comfortable than wigs. If you have thinning hair or desire your hair to look longer, hair extensions are the to-go-to beauty solution. They are available in wavy, krinkles, straight and in any color you fancy.  Having the hair of your dreams can be achieved in just a few clicks away.  Do click on the links above to see what this site can offer you for all your hair solutions.

Green Fingers

I seem to have green fingers 👩🏻‍🌾 as I recently realized that almost all the seeds and plants that I tend to grow pretty well!

It all started a few years ago when, out of curiosity, I threw a handful of papaya seeds from a Solo Papaya into an empty flower pot with soil in my tiny condo balcony, just to see if the seeds would sprout. A couple of weeks later, I noticed tiny green plants sprouting out from the soil. I was thrilled! And several months later, the papaya tree grew into a  meter tall with healthy looking leaves. That's when the mil suggested discarding the plant as there was no way a papaya tree could thrive and bear fruit, growing from inside a tiny flower pot in a tiny condo balcony. I didn't have the heart to throw the papaya tree away and I gave it to the girls' grand uncle who lives in a semi-detached house with a huge garden.

When I was back at my parents in Ipoh slightly over a year ago, I brought home some saplings of various herbs taken from their garden. When we were back in KL, Drama Queen helped to plant the saplings into flower pots.  I watered the plants diligently every day, talked to them lovingly and even pat them gently. And they thrived! My Indian Borage plant is thriving very healthily and beautifully and I swear by its effectiveness in treating cough and phlegm. I'd thank the Indian Borage plant each time I pluck leaves from its stem to chew to treat a cough or remove phlegm.



A year ago at a church fund-raising bazaar, Cass begged me to buy a potted plant. Cass and Drama Queen are avid gardeners and plant lovers. We bought a Prosperity Flower plant for RM20 and the church member who sold the plant to us gave us a Spider Plant for free.

When we first bought the Prosperity Flower plant, it was a measly looking plant with only 3 leaves. 3 frigging small leaves that didn't look like it was ever going to bear flowers or anymore leaves. But we watered the plants diligently everyday and our Prosperity Flower plant prospered!  Cass and I  rejoiced each time a new leaf shot out. We didn't really think that our plant would bear flowers until several days ago when I spotted tiny dark pink buds sprouting out!  From a miserable looking plant with only 3 leaves (with some of the leaves turning yellow and dropped), our Prosperity Flower plant prospered after a year. We are SO happy and enamoured!

Our Spider Plant is thriving well too. With only a few leaves when we first brought it home from church, the flower pot is now full of leaves and looking very pretty.


Left: our Spider Plant and right: our Prosperity Flower with pink flower buds sprouting. This picture was taken a week ago.





Picture of our Prosperity Flower plant taken today and the buds have grown longer. It is beautiful in my eyes, simply because I tended to it with TLC from a 3-leaf plant to a budding plant for over a year with no fertilizer ~ only lots of clean water, sunlight and TLC.



These are my mum's Prosperity Flowers in her garden and she is super proud of them. I wish mine will prosper like them too!