Haze Holiday (Wednesday, 18 Sept 2019)

Sherilyn received a Whatsapp message from her school teachers at around 9:45 a.m. yesterday informing her that school's out for a day caused by the worsening haze. Like most school kids, she was overjoyed!  So was I!  School holiday = NO school run and NO mad rush cooking dinner!  She quickly removed her school uniform and donned on her outing clothes and to Mid Valley we went for retail therapy 😎

Again, I gave her the liberty to pick a restaurant of her choice for lunch and she chose Japanese.



The API breached the 200 level yesterday. It's worse today with a reading of over 300 at some areas in KL. We could smell strong acrid smog inside our house and outside was choking!



Cass and Alycia's schools were the remaining few schools in the Klang Valley that were still open yesterday.  We spent the whole day checking the Education Ministry's website and on the API reading to see if KL's API reading has breached 200 (API of 200 would mean closure of school). Finally we received notice from the respective ministries that all schools in the Klang Valley will be closed for 2 days (Thursday and Friday). Someone was too happy 😏

Sherilyn spent the entire evening practising the pieces on her guitar for a librarians' farewell party to be held this Saturday. Check out the hazy skies.




Dinner was grilled cajun, black pepper and turmeric chicken wings and ribs (organic Pineapple chicken), mash of carrots + sweet potatoes + cauliflower, cherry tomatoes and sweet corns.



For more information on organic Pineapple chicken, have a read here.

Sherilyn also made a healthy crispy vegetarian pizza using her homemade tortilla and homemade pesto, Camembert cheese, onions, cherry tomatoes, walnut and almonds.




Healthiest mash ever composed of sweet potatoes, organic cauliflower and carrots, seasoned with organic grass fed butter, salt, black pepper and fresh milk.   Dump everything into a mixing bowl and blend with a hand blender.  You can also blitz it in a blender.  With a hand blender, cleaning up is slightly easier.


Do give this no-guilt mash a try. It's healthy, wholesome, lower in carbs, full of fiber and vitamins and pretty easy to whip up!

Beating The Haze

The perennial crazy hazy dizzy days are back in Malaysia. Thank God I don't have any asthmatic patient in the house though we all have rather sensitive upper respiratory tract.  Everyone's been downing coconut water, chrysanthemum tea, honey, hydrogen water and popping supplements. And my diffusers are working hard in my bedroom and in the dining area where my work place is.





There's no way we can completely escape the haze. I can even smell the smog inside the house.  However, there are ways to reduce your discomfort and alleviate your symptoms. Here are some of them:

1) Avoid exposure.
Avoid exercising in the open. Aerobic activities make you breathe deeply, hence you suck in pollutants deep into your lungs. If possible, try to reduce being outdoors as much as you can.

2) Stay indoors and keep the air clean
Stay indoors as much as possible and keep the doors and windows closed. If you have an air conditioner, switch it on and ensure the air filter is clean. The use of suitable particulate air filters (air filters which remove solid particles from the air) within an enclosed area can also help. When the outdoor air quality appears to be worsening, close doors and windows. This will help to reduce the rate of haze particles entering the home. Portable air purifiers and HEPA filters may reduce the number of irritating fine particles in indoor air.

3) Protect Yourself Outdoors
If you are sensitive to the smog, it is best to wear a mask when you are out and about to act as a filtration. While this is not a foolproof method, but every little action counts when it comes to keeping as much pollutants out as possible. When you have to be outdoors for several hours, an N95 mask can help filter out haze particles, including PM2.5 particles.

4) Stay hydrated.
Drink lots of plain water but you can opt for unsweetened green tea, herbal tea and Chinese tea to help you detox.  Keeping hydrated reduces the amount of smoke that can travel deep into your lungs. A minimum of 2 liters a day is what the doctor ordered. However, the more the better as it will help to flush out the toxins naturally.

5) Diffuse with essential oils
Diffusing is simply the process of dispersing essential oils into the air. The aromas from the essential oils fill your room or an area with natural fragrance, thus removing the burnt scent from the haze. Use only therapeutic-grade essential oils as you don’t want to breathe in toxic fumes diffused from synthetic oils.

Taken from the 5th floor of our condo at 7-ish a.m. on a public holiday on Monday, 9 Sept 2019:



While everyone was still in lala land enjoying their public holiday sleep in, I got up early as usual to get chores done and made everyone a cup of chrysanthemum tea with goji berries. Mine is with red dates for the added boost of iron.

Grandmother In Her 40s

Last week I had a chanced encounter with an ertswhile classmate's sister who is 2 years my junior at the supermarket.

Our eyes met and then that stranger who looked terribly familiar smiled at me and asked if I was Shireen. She then introduced herself as KF, KL's sister. I was so happy to be able to reconnect with a long lost friend and we jawed away incessantly for about 15 minutes.

The two sisters used to car-pool with me in my parents' cars almost throughout our secondary school years.  We lost contact after leaving school when we were 17 years old. That's 29 years ago!  And to think that she still recognizes me after almost 3 long decades, I must definitely be still looking the same! 😊😉 ahem!!  She looks almost the same too, except a little plumper, but still as pretty.  And she has 4 kids - 3 grown kids studying in college and university and the youngest daughter is in primary school.  She got married young and now at 44, her eldest has graduated from university already! How envious of me!

And then the shocker. She told me that KL, my former classmate is already a grandmother to 4 grandkids! Her eldest child is 26 years old.  I didn't ask how old her grandchildren are but being a grandmother in your 40s is something that's uncommon in our country in this generation. I think she must be the youngest grandmother amongst our group of classmates. WOW, I am so happy for my friend! The Chinese would call this 'good life' when you have grown up and independent kids and you're still so young. I can't imagine myself being a grandma now or even 10 years down the road when I'm 56 😂  though my mum was already a grandmother at 57.    Today I finally have the time to send a Whatsapp message to KL to reconnect with her and we've been chatting just like how we used to back when we were teenagers.

Here's what Sherilyn whomped up during the recent public holidays. I know it's totally unrelated to this post but I realized that my blogs have inadvertently morphed into a food blog 😄 and my readers are liking it as I've been receiving many messages from them asking me about restaurants and food.

Chocolate cookies made with sugar-free dark chocolate:






Strawberry smoothie with strawberry yogurt, fresh milk and fresh strawberries.

Quick Home-cooked Dishes & Healthy Breakfast

The mil has been away in New Zealand for a month and I've finally gained my cooking momentum. Practice makes perfect and this applies to everything including cooking.  Every time the mil goes away for several months, I always have a hard time to condition my mind and body to like cooking in the first few days that she's away. And when I finally get a handle on the spatula after a month or two, she's due to come home again. And then I lose the momentum  and get lazy again when she's around and the whole process repeats when she leaves again 😐

Here are some very quick, simple and wholesome dishes that I whipped out this week.

Braised pork shoulder with hard boiled eggs in the Philips Pressure Cooker (PPC)


Ingredients: Pork (preferably with some fats so that the cooked pork will not be dry), unpeeled garlic (1 bulb), 1 star anise, 1 cinnamon bark, Lakanto calorie-free sugar (keto compliant), pepper corn, soy sauce, dark soy sauce, sesame seed oil, dash of Chinese cooking wine.

Instructions: Sear pork in PPC with star anise, cinnamon bark and add all the sauces, sugar, water, garlic and seal vent (choose beef).  Turn off switch and manual release vent.  Add in hard boiled eggs.  Press warm and flip the eggs until all sides are browned.











While the pork is cooking in the PPC, I did a quick stir fry of vegetables with shallots, garlic and homemade fish balls in the wok.




Yesterday, I dished out lemon rosemary and herbs grilled chicken. My first time cooking this dish. I watched a few recipes on You Tube, tweaked the recipes and techniques and came up with my own grilled chicken. The chicken was so juicy, tender and yummmmsssss!



Chicken thighs (5 huge boneless ones) are marinated for at least 3 hours with coriander powder, few sprigs of chopped fresh rosemary, black pepper, salt, sprinkles of cajun and turmeric, mixed dried herbs, garlic powder, 1 tablespoon Lakanto sugar and olive oil.

Instructions:
Sear chicken thighs in 2 batches in the PPC with butter and some olive oil - 3 minutes on each side or until slightly browned.
Thickly slice one whole lemon and add on top of the thighs.
Transfer to lined baking tray, drizzle olive oil over chicken thighs and bake at 180C for 15 minutes on each side.
10 minutes before removing the chicken from the oven, drizzle palm sugar syrup (gula Melaka) on the chicken.

The juice from the zesty lemon makes the chicken thighs super juicy!  And the intensely flavorful fresh rosemary gives a phenomenal flavor punch to the chicken. Dried rosemary doesn't have that intense flavor.

With the remaining chicken juice, oil and butter in the PPC, I made an easy sauce with a little soy sauce, Lea & Perrin sauce, water and fresh button mushrooms. Thicken the sauce with a little corn starch (optional).  Actually the chicken is so juicy I don't even need the sauce.







Two thighs kept for the fussy king and for Cass' lunch the next day.



Can you see just how juicy the chicken is? Searing the chicken briefly in the PPC and the juice from the lemon do wonders to the chicken meat. The kids sometimes comment that grilled chicken thighs are dry without sauce but this method of searing and adding a whole lemon into the baking tray make such a great difference.!  Plus the zesty lemony tang gives the chicken that extra little za-za-zoom!

This healthy yogurt bowl was prepped by Sherilyn for breakfast. It's composed of sugar-free skinny yogurt, one large sugar plum, Amazin' Graze kaya granola and Amazin' Graze 100% pure almond nut butter.



This health freak Dancing Queen sure knows how to use all my expensive stuff to whomp up a luxurious breakfast for herself.   Her breakfast are usually very appetizing and not to mention, over budget!

Today she made herself a luxurious pork burger using organic minced pork, onions and garlic. She also added an egg, cheese and avocado to the pan-fried multi-seed bun to curate a delish gourmet pork burger without letting me know while I was out shopping for groceries 😐



We love this almond nut butter from Amazin' Graze. It's stone-ground from 100% almonds without any added sugar, salt, oil or additive.  It's so good that my health freak Dancing Queen and I finished the entire bottle in a week! Time to get more nut butter from my favorite store again soon!

Saturday, 31 August 2019

Today has been a very relaxing Merdeka Saturday for me! No school runs, no tuition, no rushing out for lunch or dinner, no one to rush me for anything and best of all, I slept until 7:45 a.m., something which is SO rare. Absolute bliss! 😍

Brunch was at PappaRich again.  I love the food there.




After brunch, we walked to the newly opened Family Mart at our neighborhood to try their new Belgian dark chocolate sufoto and we all loved it! It's very chocolaty, not too thick and cloy but with the right consistency for the perfect soft-serve ice-cream and most importantly, it's not sweet but slightly bitter.  It tastes even better than Häagen-Dazs' dark chocolate ice-cream, which I find a tad too sweet and rich.

After dinner, we went to Family Mart again!  This time to get the Belgian dark chocolate sufoto for Alycia who missed it during the day as she was in school with her team mates to practise perfecting their volleyball skills for their upcoming physical education assessment.



Someone has been yearning for days to get her hands on the Belgian sufoto since its launch several days ago! She walked to Family Mart with her friends after school yesterday but the ice-cream machine had conked out. Thank goodness the ice-cream machine is fixed today. There's been a long queue at the sufoto counter since morning through night. The opening of Family Mart at our neighborhood has been the main talk of our neighborhood Facebook group members since its opening early this month. I wonder what's all the rage and craze about Family Mart besides the sufoto? I guess it must be the curried oden and ramen as well but we don't eat them and have never bought them for our girls. Seriously, are the ramen and oden really that good? I think they're just junk food. Oops, sorry for raining on your parade if you're a fan 🤐

Addicted To Online Shopping

Who's with me? I know my 73-year old mum is a huge fan of online shopping 😁.  These days online shopping is made so easy and affordable that shopping for just about anything is such a breeze.  My mum is a champ when it comes to online shopping. She's bought everything from kitchen gadgets to luggage bags to a fitness tracker smart band that looks something like a Xiaomi Mi Band 4 online to help track her heart beat, as advised by her cardiologist. My mum wears her smart band fitness tracker all the time, even when she sleeps as the tracker will let her know if her heart beats are normal and whether she's clocked in enough shut eye.




The other day, I watched a short talk show hosted by Chui Ling about a man who transformed his second-hand almost dilapidated house with only RM50k!! Not RM500k but only RM50k alright.  And he did everything on his own, without engaging a contractor.  His secret? He shopped for all the building materials, interior decor and furniture online from China. Then, he hired several wage workers to help him with the installation job. And his transformed house looks just awesome, inside out, like it was designed by a high-end interior designer.

Recently, the table lamp in my bedroom conked out.  I couldn't wait for the hubby to get it fixed, so I bought a new wireless smart LED touch control table lamp online, which didn't cost an arm and a leg like the old one we had. The table lamp is so cool that my girls oohed and aahed over it.  Speaking of table lamps, the smart bluetooth WiFi touch app control Xiaomi lamp is something so cool that it's now in my wish list!  The lamp is controlled either by your Apple gadgets, iPad, Apple smart watch and Siri via tap or voice.



Since I'm on Xiaomi, did you know that Xiaomi is not only about smartphones (they are currently the world's fourth largest smartphone brand) and smart watches, they have manufactured millions of smart devices and household appliances connected to their platform? One can even find Xiaomi sports shoes and Xiaomi luggage at the NewChic International site.  Another two items on my wish list are the Xiaomi robot vacuum cleaner and Xiaomi smart WiFi refrigerator! 😁  Both items cost no more than RM2k each, which I think is reasonable.

Never heard of a smart fridge? Smart refrigerators feature a touchscreen interface and ability to connect to the internet through Wi-Fi to provide a number of additional features.  Smart refrigerators include internal cameras, more flexible user-controlled cooling options, and the ability for you to interact with its features using your smartphone or tablet when away from home. Some smart refrigerators can even connect with other smart devices in your home; such as speakers, smart TVs, and even your smart dishwasher or smart microwave! Some models have sensors at the bottom of the unit that respond to foot gestures to open the fridge door for you. And if the door isn’t closed securely, the sensors respond and automatically pull the door shut to keep your food fresh and prevent cool air from getting out and running up your energy bills.


If you are one who still prefers shopping at brick and mortar shops, it's time you try switching to online shopping to keep up with the times and to experience the thrill and joy of shopping in the 21st century when everyone is talking about eCommerce.  Most online shopping platforms, like NewChic International site, offer everything under the sky from clothes to household appliances,  digital gadgets and much more.   Once you get the hang of online shopping,  I'll wager that you'll get hooked to it for life, like most of us. 😙

Thursday, 28 August 2019

Our part-time helper called to inform that she's not coming today. Since today will be very hectic for me with many rounds of chauffeuring the girls until late into the night, dinner has to be something that's super easy, quick, mess-free to prep and with minimal washing and cleaning up.

So we had sandwiches ~ pan-fried homemade chicken sausages and pan-fried eggs using my Philips Pressure Cooker. I like pan-frying with the PPC as it does not splatter oil onto the stove. Plus, when the sausages are slowly sizzling in the pot, I can do other stuff like washing, cleaning and slicing the cucumbers and tomatoes.









After dinner was prepped, I had a quick bite with Cass before rushing off to fetch Alycia from school. Traffic was horrendous. At one stretch, traffic was reduced to a bumper-to-bumper crawl.




In the mad snarled-up traffic, all of a sudden I heard sirens wailing away and thunderous honking from behind me. I had to inch my car to the extreme right of the road, with my car tires almost grazing the curb, to give way to the ambulance and fire engine.




That's how bad the traffic standstill was - that I even had the time to snap photos! 

After fetching Alycia from school, I rushed back to pick up Sherilyn from school and was terribly late. Everyone had almost gone home and the poor teacher in charge of watching the students had to stay behind to wait with her and the remaining few students.  Back home, after gobbling down her sandwich, Alycia had to attend another tuition, which only ends at 9:30 p.m.   After dropping Alycia at the tuition centre, I went to get some stuff from the mart for Cass and Sherilyn's experiments in school.   And this is going to be my once weekly hectic routine until Alycia completes her SPM in 15 months' time 🤪

Simple, Nutritious And Quick Homecooked Meals

These days, I start cooking dinner as early as 2:45 p.m..  On Mondays and Tuesdays, Cass and Alycia are home at 4 p.m.  So I cook dinner from as early as 2:45 p.m.   On other days, I start cooking at 4 p.m.  When the girls are back from school, I see a pack of hungry feral dogs who have not eaten for days, ransacking the kitchen to find food. If there's no proper food on the dining table, they satiate their hunger with snacks -- ice-cream, biscuits, chocolates and other junk.  So I make sure that when they are back from school in the afternoon, their dinner is ready.  And so the three of us have our dinner at 4 p.m!  Sherilyn and hubs have dinner later in the evening.

Dinners churned out are always simple - one meat and one veggie.  Most times, I add eggs and fish cakes / fish balls / fish paste / fresh mushrooms into the vegetable dish.   No fancy schmancy dishes. I allocate 1 hour daily for whipping up dinner, sometimes 1.5 hours, before my Ahmad duty resumes in the evening till late evening on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays.

These are some of the dishes that I dished out since last week:

Asian beef bowl and blanched broccoli.





Sauteed vegetables with fish balls; reheated frozen braised pork belly with shallots.  The mil cooked the pork belly just before she left for New Zealand 3 weeks ago.  I saved her frozen dishes for reheat on evenings when I do not have the time to cook a meat dish, like when Alycia has a dental appointment or Cass has replacement piano class.




Steamed organic pearl sweet corns for dessert.



With the leftover braised pork belly with shallots, I blanched some organic spinach noodles for lunch for Cass the next day.




Organic dinner ~ sauteed mini king oyster mushrooms with organic Pineapple chicken breast and organic miso, steamed organic sweet corns and sauteed organic spinach with minced garlic.




Organic Pineapple chickens are fed with pineapple enzyme chicken feed and this brand of organic chicken is new in store at our neighborhood supermarket.

Thai Basil minced pork sans the red chillies.







When I realized that the organic Thai basil that I bought from the night market 2 days ago had all shriveled, I had to pluck sweet basil from the pot in my balcony garden!  A week later, I learned from the organic vegetables seller that basil cannot be stored in the fridge. The stalks of basil have to be placed in a cup of water, else they will shrivel and turn brown in the chiller!  Luckily I have backup in my balcony, albeit it's not Thai basil.  😁



Portion kept for Sherilyn who only ate her dinner at 8:30 p.m. after Muay Thai class.

Neighbour's Coffee Bar @ Happy Garden KL

The hubs hasn't fully recovered from an inflamed Tonsillitis (Musang King is one of the culprits!) and wanted to have something that will not flare up the tonsils. After sending my car for service, we went to Neighbour's Coffee Bar @ Happy Garden for brunch.   The cafe, with whitewash walls and minimalism interior design is usually full-house during noon and weekends. When we arrived at this cafe tucked inside the Happy Garden neighborhood, it was 10-ish a.m. and we were one of the first few customers.

What enticed the hubs to this cafe were the super fluffy-jiggly-yummy-looking Fuwa Fuwa pancakes photos that he saw from friends' social media pages.  These super airy and melt-in-the-mouth Japanese Soufflé Pancakes are served with caramelized bananas and a scoop of chocolate ice-cream.  There is a variety of accompaniments for the pancakes --fresh strawberries, soft-serve ice-cream, red bean and matcha and much more. Without our three bottomless pit piranhas, we couldn't finish the pancakes. I personally prefer the pancakes to be a tad more firmer with more texture and less sweet.





Smoked salmon with egg benedict and hollandaise sauce on a bed of fluffy English muffin:




Apple Wardolf salad and chamomile tea:









Outside the cafe, you'll get to enjoy the scenic view of KL city and there's ample parking space all around.



Overall a decent cafe with a relaxed environment. Hubs and I may visit again (sans our 3 piranhas) in one of our usual breakfast dates to try their burnt cheesecake, butter cake and other breakfast menu.


Neighbour’s Coffee Bar
Address:
A-G-1, Seri Gembira Avenue,
No 6, Jalan Senang Ria,
Happy Garden,
58200 Kuala Lumpur.
Business Hours:
Mon – Thu (9am – 6pm)
Fri – Sun (9am – 11pm)
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/neighbourscoffeebar/

TenMaya Japanese Restaurant

After dropping Sherilyn and Cass at their tuition centers, hubs and I went on a date to grab some quick grub. We had less than two hours to get our lunch before picking them up from the tuition centers.  Alycia had gone to watch a basketball match with her friends again. This sweet 16 girl of mine has been hanging out a lot with her friends lately.  She's been going out with her friends almost everyday the past one week of the school holidays.  Guess this will be her last year in high school for doing this before her SPM next year... speaking of which I can foresee that next year is going to be an extremely busy year for the girls and me as all three of them will be sitting for major exams *STRESS*

Coming back to foodie talk!  Hubs asked me what I wanted to eat but I wasn't hungry at all as I'd just had breakfast at home with the girls.  As he's now on a diet free of red meat (elevated uric acid!) and nursing an inflamed throat (too much of Musang King!), we went to Bangsar South to have Japanese.  The three dishes that he ordered were almost oil-free but still high in protein and purine!  He just can't give up on his proteins, which ain't very good for his elevated uric acid levels.






The raw quail's egg gives the matcha noodles a silky texture and accentuates the natural attributes of it but hubs omitted it. We don't eat raw eggs.


The gourmand hubs scarfed down everything you see here and later chomped down a matcha soft serve ice-cream from Family Mart without sharing with me.  I didn't eat much, save for a couple of slices of sashimi.  I'm not one who would force feed myself just because glorious food is placed in front of me. If I'm not hungry, I won't stuff anything down my throat, thus my size 😇

Today's lunch, though quick, turned out to be my sushi-maniac bon viveur's version of nirvana - super fresh raw fish served to him in delight with no hungry piranhas pecking on his platter 😁

TenMaya
Unit 1-6 Level 1,
Nexus Bangsar South City
No 7 Jalan Kerinchi
59200 Kuala Lumpur
+60 3-2242 3268