Half-Boiled Eggs That Are Still A Tad Raw

Cass loves half-boiled eggs but I can hardly get the right consistency, i.e. one that is not too runny with egg white that is not transparent. I used to fry the half-boiled eggs that are still a tad raw but ever since we were maidless, any frying would mean washing and wiping the stove for me.  And I hate washing and wiping! So lazy me found a better way of getting the half-boiled eggs right whenever they turn out too raw... by steaming the egg for about 5 minutes.




The half-boiled eggs that are still a tad raw...





After approximately 5 minutes of steaming the 'quarter-boiled' eggs...



The eggs are now in the right consistency, with smiley face some more... which Cass just loved!  She eats 1-2 free-range eggs a day... brain-power boosting food for her :D

Music To My Ears

What's music to my ears is when my daughters perform well in their exams.  Today was by far one of the best days for me when Alycia told me that her position is 4th in class. I really did not expect this as I think her marks for several test papers have gone down.  But I must say that the test papers were very hard for most of the subjects and I guess most of the students did not get 90% and above, so Alycia stood a good chance in climbing up the numbers in the class position.  Her position in the entire standard improved by the leaps and bounds too.  I am really happy for her.  I think I worked harder than she did.  I think she could have done much better if she had been more careful. Yup, this girl is an extremely careless girl and so is Sherilyn.   Despite the hubs and I being yellow bananas and cannot help her in her subjects where Chinese language is used, Alycia can still perform satisfactorily is already an achievement.  I am not expecting a position of top 5 from the top in class as I know her capabilities and limitation in her Chinese language. Yet she proved me wrong.

Alycia and Sherilyn are as cool as cucumbers.  Had I not been such a tiger mum to them, I know they would be like a lalang (wild grass) and would not even bother to do any revision.  The moment I turn my back on them, I am rest assured that they would be up to something, other than poring into their school books. 

It looks like Alycia now stands a chance to go to the top class next year.  She was streamed to the 2nd best class this year.  With this position, I think she would be moved to the cream class and I am hoping that this will NOT happen. I know I will be 100% more stressed up if she's in the cream class and I do not want this kind of stress to plague my life and that of Alycia's.  2nd best class is good enough for me and tough enough for her. Now, I am curious to know what position Sherilyn is placed in her class.  I am not placing too high a hope on this fella.

Long Weekend

It is a long weekend for us as there are 2 public holidays before the weekend. We had planned to check into Hilton Sentral for a short getaway but the rooms are fully booked. So we shall visit the shopping malls instead, to do some retail therapy as well as tummy therapy. I know the foodie hubs will be one very happy man if we can join him in his food adventures to try out new eateries. Besides retail and tummy therapy, the hubs also needs to check out some cigar deals for a VIP client.

A Productive Morning

This morning has been a pretty productive morning for me, outside the house.  I managed to settle some banking issues that I had been procrastinating for over 7 years since my Southern Bank and Renong Group days!  In fact, had I not receive a letter from the bank to advice me to claim my money asap before the money goes to the Unclaimed Monies in BNM, I would have procrastinated to heavens know when!  This is one of my weaknesses - I tend to do things that I like to do but important things like this which involves so much money, I will just push it aside until some punitive action / warning is taken. Oh well, that's just me.  Anyway, I am glad that I managed to close my current account at this bank located in the busiest part of KL -- that's the main reason why I kept procrastinating going to the bank as I hate to be in this part of the city, albeit I had worked in that area for almost a decade.  Then, with the cheque that this bank had issued me, I went back to my neighborhood bank to deposit into a Fixed Deposit account.  At the same time, I withdrew some USD (converted into RM) via Western Union issued to me by Google Inc. and dumped it into the FD as well.  All these $$ would go towards funding the 3 girls' tertiary education in years to come.  While waiting at the 2 banks, I managed to get some work done on my Samsung Galaxy Note.     Next, I went to the organic shop to get organic soy bean powder for Cass and organic almond powder for moi.  And then went to pack lunch and picked up Cass.  Very happy now that I had finally settled this matter that I had pushed to the back-burner for so many years, though I had to pay a penalty and a service fee to the bank.



This Lilo thumb drive adds to my latest collection of thumb drives. The hubs got it for me, cute eh?

Science Experiment For Alycia - Mixing Substances With Vinegar

A few days before Alycia's Science in Mandarin test last weekend, my mil and I did some experiments with her in the kitchen.  I always believe that seeing is believing and we will remember something more prominently and effectively if we see it as opposed to just reading about it. It is pretty tough for a 8YO+ kid to remember what will release bubble, what will precipitate and what will become lumpy when mixed with vinegar.  So here we are experimenting with my Primary 3 daughter...



Alycia pouring the vinegar onto the mixtures by herself...





Baking powder when mixed with vinegar - releases bubbles.

Char Siew Sandwich

My baby girl enjoying her lunch of 'char siew' sandwich. If only my girls have no complaints eating sandwiches for lunch everyday, part of my stress will be resolved. I can use different fillings for the sandwiches everyday from egg mayo to tuna-egg, sardines, char siew, roast chicken breast meat, ice cream, kaya, butter, meat floss and the list goes. While #2 and #3 may have no complaints, #1 will surely put on a long, black and sulky face if I were to tell her that we're having bread again!

Cassandra's Very First Concert

A week ago, my baby girl participated in her very first pre-school concert. It was an Alisan dance (a Taiwanese mountain dance). Watching her dance on stage made me emotional and teary-eyed. I seem to get very sentimental each time I see my daughters perform. I felt the same when I watched Sherilyn dance during her concert cum graduation from pre-school last year and during her ballet performances. I have never watched Alycia perform in any of her concerts during her pre-school years as I was too busy and preoccupied with Cass who had a very difficult and painful babyhood. Anyway, it's not late. I still have plenty of years ahead of attending my daughters' concerts and performances.

 Cass with her bestest friend, Sasha, who looks like a living doll due to her pint size...

 

Something funny happened just minutes before the 4YOs were to go up stage.  A student cried, which seemed to be really infectious and then another kid cried, and another and then like a chain reaction, about 10 of them were crying.   The girl next to Cass was crying for a good one hour and thank goodness she stopped short just moments before she went up stage.  And thank God the crying spell did not infect Cass, phew!!

 


Cass with her handsome classmate, Ryan

Alycia's Officially A School Prefect!

Alycia passed her 3-month probationary period and was accepted on the school prefectorial board last week. She was given just 2 days' notice to buy the prefect uniform, which is a blue top and dark blue skirt with black socks and black shoes!  Eeeeek, looks really weird for a 9-YO girl to be donning on this uniform, especially the socks and shoes but oh well, she did not mind a wee bit.  In fact, she was really happy that she passed the probation and was in a cheery mood for a few days since the announcement.  Daddy had to rush home to bring her to Professor @ Mid Valley Megamall to get the uniforms on the same day that the teacher announced that she passed the probation and gave us like 0 notice period to buy the uniform.  Thank goodness the MIL was around and she had to spend several days removing Alycia's name badge and school badge from the existing school uniform to be sewn onto the prefect uniform.

So here she is... my precious baby in her oversized school prefect uniform on the first day of being an official school prefect. 

And do check out the princess wannabe in pink jacket - she is always seen in a different change of cardigan and jacket and prefers to hold her fanciful lunch bag (dangle on wrist some more, GAWD!) instead of stashing it into the school bag. What a vast difference in characters these 2 sisters have.

Subway Craze

A trip to Tesco for shopping will never be complete if daddy does not stop at Subway to grab a sandwich. This foodie daddy seems to have an affinity with Subway, just like he does with those branded franchise doughnuts and colorful cup cakes @@ DAMN F-A-T@@!  Did I tell you that my hubs has the letters F, A, T (in this order some more!) in his Chinese name? :D

Here the girls were having a light supper of Subway sandwich after shopping at Tesco. And just about an hour ago, we all had dinner at one of those restaurants in Tesco! What makes my man happy is FOOD and having his loved ones eat and enjoy the food with him! This, I always tai chi the job to the 3 angels, who will gladly accompany daddy  and all 4 of them will stuff themselves full haha!

Quirky Yet Adorable Habit

My 4.5 YO baby girl has a quirky yet adorable habit.  She loves smelling my clothes!  Not just any clothes but worn ones and stinky ones which has mummy's scent!  Just a moment ago, after showering her, I removed my partially wet nightie and threw it on the floor.  My baby girl instinctively picked up my nightie and held it to her chest, lovingly as if telling me "why throw this on the floor" and smelling the dirty nightie as if the dress had some really sweet smelling perfume that could comfort her body and mind!

On some days, Cass would rummage through my drawer to fish out the nightie with the strongest mummy scent so that she could hold it to sleep at night. She would fish out each nightie - sniff it, put it back, fish out another one and sniff it... and continue doing this until she finds one that has the strongest 'perfume'!  Usually, she would pick up the oldest nightie with my body smell deeply embedded in the fabric. None of my girls has done this in the past and I guess this closeness that Cass has to me is contributed by the 3 years of breastfeeding her and having her sleep with hubs and I for 3 frigging long years! :)

Mid Autumn Celebration 2012

For Mid Autumn Festival, there is really no 'formal' celebration for us and this year is no exception. On the eve of the festival, I brought the girls to the lobby for them to walk around the pool area with their lanterns. Yesterday, which was the celebration, we had dinner at the Japanese restaurant at our condo. No lantern playing yesterday as the lanterns were all partially spoilt after playing with them just one time. Alycia and Sherilyn's lanterns were handmade lanterns, which their Art and Craft teacher taught them during their Art class on Friday. The lanterns were made from used fresh milk bottles, felt, glitter paper and other craft materials. Cass' lantern was a disposable paper lantern which cost only RM2 -- which is what I want. Play and throw and get a new one next year :)



 



 Alycia and Sherilyn posing with their own-made lanterns.

 

Post Concert Day Holiday

Today is a one-day school holiday for Cass as it was her school concert yesterday. Her kindergarten always declares the post-concert day a holiday. With her 2 elder sisters in school, my baby girl was pretty bored today. After breakfast and shower, I allowed her to play with the iPad while I get some online work done. Then she started to get bored with the iPad and I had to think of some fun activities to placate my baby girl. I looked around the house and saw the 2 broken hand-made lanterns that Alycia and Sherilyn made on Friday. I removed the angel’s wings, tiara, hearts and pom pom balls from the lanterns so that I could recycle these pretty craft materials. I told Cass to make Alycia a birthday card. It is not Alycia’s birthday just yet but I wanted my very bored 4-YO daughter to do something that she loves so that her time is kept occupied and I can complete some of  my work without interruption.  After showing her how to create a fairy-themed birthday card with wings, tiara, hearts and all that jazz, my baby girl sat quietly at the dining table to work on the birthday card for her favorite sister.  Soon, it was lunch time and we had chicken porridge.

When Alycia and Sherilyn were back from school, Cass could not wait to show Alycia the card she had made for her! I should have kept the card as soon as Cass had finished working on it. Now, there is no more surprise for Alycia from Cass on her birthday in 2 months’ time. Oh well, it’s ok. I shall get Cass to prepare Alycia another birthday card. By 4pm, my baby girl was so jaded that she dozed off while ‘reading’ some magazines, including one on Nursing 2013! That Nursing 2013 mag is a critically acclaimed award winning journal which my nurse friend left in my house when she came to visit me recently. She is now a senior nurse at a private hospital and has plans of pursuing her studies in this fraternity.

Check out what sort of magazine my baby girl was reading here. I have no idea how she got hold of her daddy’s magazines for men. I guess that magazine must have bored her to slumberland haha!

Foodie Baby

This baby girl of mine has the foodie genes in her.  I eat to live but she lives to eat, just like her daddy.  She appreciates good food and savors her food.

Check out what she likes to do...

She likes to dip her food into some tomato ketchup on a small sauce plate. She must have been greatly influenced by her grandma who always dips her food in soy sauce with cut chillies on a sauce plate.

But dipping fish balls in tomato ketchup??  It does not really go well but oh well, she enjoys the dipping part more than the taste I guess.  Yesterday, she did the same thing.  She poured out some tomato ketchup into a small sauce plate and dipped her steamed salmon fish and long beans with it! 

Homecooked Dinner

Here's another simple homecooked dinner by the mil :

Steamed chicken drumsticks for the girls, chicken cooked in rice wine, wood fungus and ginger for the adults and stir-fried leek with roast pork







Quinoa salad (boiled quinoa, pine nuts, carrots, celery, cucumber and multi-colored bell peppers) prepared by the girls' koo por who lives a few floors beneath ours:

Very healthy indeed eh?

Healthy Instant Noodles For Dinner

Sunday is usually a no-cooking day for me. It is normally an outing day for us and without a maid's help now, we normally take away food for dinner too after our lunch outside. But hubs was busy yesterday and will be busy for the next few days preparing for the Rat Race mega catering function, so he has not much time for us. Feeling lazy, I told the girls that we should just have dinner at the Japanese restaurant at our condo but Alycia suggested instant noodles which got strong back up of approval from her 2 sisters. So instant noodles was what they had for dinner yesterday!



Instant noodles for the girls, cooked with a healthier twist yet, tastes just as syiok as MSG flavored ones. I added Bunashimeji mushrooms (brown beech mushrooms), organic tomatoes and 3 free-range chicken eggs. I used home-boiled fun kok soup as the soup base.  My most pernickety and critical daughter had absolutely no complaints and slurped down her big bowl of noodles.  When I was about to bring the pot to wash, she stopped me, then used her chopsticks and fished out the last few strands of noodles still sitting in the pot and slurped it tastefully into her mouth ! :D

Silly Me

Yesterday evening, the girls waited very impatiently for daddy to fetch them to Cass' pre-school lantern party.  After a long wait, daddy finally called my mobile phone to ask us to meet him at the lobby. I, as usual was busy on the computer, trying to reply some emails. 

Alycia - mummy, it's daddy!  He said to go down to the lobby now.

Me - OK, let's go quick. We are very late... and left the PC, grabbed the house keys and walked to the door.
(I was still in my nightie - yup I work in my nightie and it's the most comfy clothes ever!).


Alycia - but you haven't changed!!



Me - who hasn't changed yet ?! (my mind was still scattered everywhere in the house and was not listening to Alycia 100%.  And I could feel fangs descending from my gums as I thought that it was Miss Dilly Dally who hasn't changed yet and wanted us all to wait for her again)

Alycia - YOU!! You are still wearing THAT!

Without saying a word, I quickly walked to my bedroom, feeling  really stupid on one hand, yet wanted to burst out laughing my heart out! MUAHAHAHAHAHA!


Sherilyn with her bestie, Berlyn.  I think they had earlier planned  to wear identical dresses to the party but none of them wanted to admit that.  Sherilyn and Berlyn were classmates for 3 years in the same kindy and are now classmates.

My Earnest Helper

In our house, there is a very reliable helper.  My 4yo baby girl loves helping out with the laundry and can even wash her own cup.  She is also in charged of helping me watch the water level in the kettle whenever I fill it up with filtered water.  Have I ever told you that I need to boil water 4x a day in a large whistling kettle?  Yup, we all drink water like a camel.

Yesterday, I did not ask Cass for help as she was doing something else and the result was disastrous!  The entire kitchen top and cupboards were flooded with water.  The problem with me is that I am always too ambitious and want to do several things at one time.  After I had turned on the tap and switched the water filter to alkaline water mode, I  went to the PC to answer one of my customer's query.  When I was back in just less than 2 minutes, the entire kitchen top was flooded, shiats!! I had forgotten that the hubs has just changed the filter and thus, the filter is working more efficiently and takes a shorter time to fill up the kettle.  As I was cleaning up the mess, I told Cass what had happened and she responded thoughtfully : "why didn't you ask me to help you?!"  I told her that I did not want to disturb her, to which she said that she does not mind helping me at all.  What a thoughtful and sweet little girl my baby girl is!

Clumsiest Girl Ever!

Rascal #2 is the clumsiest 7-YO girl ever. She drops practically everything that she is not supposed to drop.

These are some of her boo boos which I can recall:

1) My iPad!! She was keeping the iPad several days ago and then all of a sudden,we heard a loud thud!! I SHOULD NOT have asked this clumsy pot to keep my iPad of all the girls!

2) My celo tape dispensers and she broke all 4 of them over a span of 1 year! The latest boo boo was last week when she dropped the tape dispenser right in front of my eyes. I could not believe what I saw as she broke all the previous celo tape dispensers too! A record-breaking of breaking 4 celo tape dispensers in just 1 year, LOL!  Thank God the heavy dispenser with a sharp teeth did not land on her feet, else....

3) Knocking off drinking glasses filled with water whenever we dine out, thus causing a mess on our table.. not to mention causing a scene too.  And yes, she always spills drinks and drops food at home too.

4) Just a moment ago, she dropped a Chinese soup spoon and miraculously the spoon did not break as the drop height was not very high. I should take a closer look at the spoon later, just to ensure that there is no crack on the spoon.

5) Just a moment ago, she dropped her mechanical pencil cover into her bowl of sweet potato sweet dessert.

6) Last night, she wanted to pack some biscuits into her lunch box for recess today. I normally pack for her but since I was busy, I allowed her to pack her lunch box herself but had a strong hunch that she will drop the biscuits. A mother's instincts are always correct. The moment I walked out of the kitchen, Alycia announced on top of her voice "mummy, Kay Yi dropped the whole packet of biscuits on the floor!!!" I went back to the kitchen and was raging when I saw the mess. I told her to clean up the mess herself but her indulgent daddy helped her clean up the mess.   That's one of the reasons why my girls are disobedient as daddy hardly reprimands them and this is driving me bonkers!

7) Dropping her tumblers and cracking them

8) My mobile phone. She is now banned from touching my Samsung Galaxy Note.

9) Cups and plates

I know there were more fragile things which she had broken in the past but I cannot recall them at this moment.  Sherilyn oh Sherilyn, when will you ever stop dropping things huh? Mummy hates to call you clumsy pot and butter fingers.

Do you have a child who keeps dropping things too?

Dragon Door Steamboat @ Taman Segar

A few Saturday nights ago, we had charcoal steamboat at Dragon Door Steamboat, aka Yit Sing Restaurant @ Taman Segar, Cheras. Initially we planned to have dinner at Farmland Porridge steamboat again but hubs' friend suggested Dragon Door for charcoal steamboat, which is steamboat with an ancient Chinese touch! We were all already very famished as we left home at 8ish pm and luck was not on our side -- the traffic jam was horrendous. By the time we reached Dragon Door, it was already 9ish pm. And the restaurant was still packed with steamboaters at that time.

When the pot of steamboat was finally ready with an assortment of balls and meat in the clear but tasty soup, our tummies were  growling ferociously and we were gobbling down our food and burning our lips with the piping hot balls and meat, haha! There was no regret. The steamboat ingredients, soup and dipping sauces were all worth the traffic jam and long wait.
 
Dragon Door (Loong Moon) restaurant is designed and constructed to resemble a motel during the ancient China days. It's a hidden gem - good environment and good food.  Even the toilet  has an ancient China touch to it.

 

 The interior decor, with a bamboo staircase to the floor above....

 

The restaurant setting and ambience are similar to those eatery cum motel in the olden China days, just like what we see from those TVB fighting shows.

 

Steamboat using charcoal.  If you have young kids, make sure your kids are seated far away from the pot as the initial flame to heat up the soup can grow big and really hot, as shown in the pic below.

 


Some of the raw ingredients. Our pot of pork soup cost RM18.

 


 


 My bowl of yummy balls with lots of chopped spring onions and coriander leaves.

 

Tasty sauce for dipping.  There is a counter just for sauces and you can mix a concoction of sauces of your choice.

 


 

At the end of the steamboat meal, my jaw almost dropped when hubs told me that there was still more meat for the BBQ and pan fried style on the side table next to our table!  Our friend did the cooking on this traditional mini stove using charcoal but I was too full to try.  And it was already way past 10pm.  Health freak mummy does not eat after 8pm, what more fried and bbq meat!  The next time we decide to go to Dragon Door again, I'll make sure we leave our house at 6ish pm as this place is pretty far from where we stay.

 

Lastly, the damage for 6 adults and 3 kiddos was RM351.45. This included drinks and beer. I think it's pretty reasonable as we ordered quite a bit of raw ingredients and there was beer too.    

 

Would I go again? Most definitely but we must make sure we leave our house early this time.  And oh yes, be prepared to leave this place with a souvenir of oily smell of BBQ meat and steamboat on your hair and clothes after your meal. So do not even bother to have your nice smelling bath before you go to this place :D  We all had to shower again when we reached home, close to midnight!

Dragon Door Steamboat
No.18-1, Jalan Manis 4 (Taman Segar), Cheras, 56100 Kuala Lumpur,
Tel : 03-9130 1062
A-La Carte Charcoal Steamboat, Fresh Ingredients With Tasty Soup, Ancient Style With Excellent Environment!

Our Merdeka Day - 31 Aug 2012

This is a way overdue post, a post which I have kept forgetting to post due to busyness, as usual.

We had lunch at our favorite Casa Del Cocco Cafe on our country's Independence Day on 31 Aug 2012.  Casa Del Cocco @ Taman Danau Desa is a cafe that serves delish Italian food, cooked the healthy and wholesome way -- with fresh mushrooms and herbs used generously in most of the dishes.  If you are a regular reader of this blog, you would have read my earlier post and review on this cafe :)


Can you recognize who the leng jai in the background is who is talking to Alycia?  Anyone??





While waiting for the food to arrive, I taught my 4.5YO baby girl how to do addition.  She was hooked on it for a few days!





Health freak omelette.  Smoked salmon and fresh herbs are some of the ingredients used to cook this egg dish.





Wood fired in stone oven thin crust Formaggi pizza.  I did not quite like the strong flavor of the white cheese on the pizza (not sure if it's Ricotta or Feta).



Yummy and creamy Classic Carbonara, specially for the girls.



Chicken chop served with mushroom sauce.



Pork chop served with mushroom sauce.





Love this biscotti which has loads of crunchy pistachios in each slice.  We first ordered 3 slices but was hooked on it and ordered another 4 slices to nibble with our coffee.





Miss Storybook worm munching on a pistachio biscotti whilst reading Diary Of A Whimpy Kid...



For 4 adults and 3 kiddos - here's the damage. Expensive? I think it's pretty reasonable, given that we ordered quite a number of dishes.