Cooling Cucumber

Sharlene loves to eat fresh cucumber. Give her a plate of sliced cucumber, she would happily munch down all of them. But recently, she has found a new way of eating her cucumber. That is to add some salad dressing on top of it. Ever since she saw us dipping our vegetables on thousand island dressing, she has been requesting for this sauce to be added on her cucumber.

She's no longer interested in this plate of 'bland' sliced cucumber.


Now she likes it this way i.e. drizzle with lots and lots of thousand island dressing.


Enjoying her cooling cucumber

A Slice Of Cheese And Some Crackers

Sharlene loves cheese. One day while she was having her slice of cheese, I gave her a cookie cutter and some crackers. Ever since then she loves to take her cheese with crackers :)

Firstly, I showed her the way to use the cookie cutter. She was thrilled and wanted to play with the cutter straight away.

Needless to say, she did the rest of the work!

After that, she placed the cut cheese onto the crackers.

Yums! she loved it and even chomped down the odds and ends of the cheese.

Hari Raya Holidays (Part 1)

The week long holidays for us are coming to an end soon. Sharlene will be back to school and I will be back to work again next Monday. I think after this festival holiday, we won’t be having such a lengthy break again this year. So, where we went this time around? Hmmm, no where in particular, just took this opportunity to visit my parents again :)

We travelled back to my hometown last Sunday, leaving the house as early as 6.45am. Driving from KL to JB was a breeze...guess we made the right choice by travelling on the first day of Hari Raya. Sharlene slept through almost the entire journey there. I did wake her up earlier but she dozed off to la la land again when she’s in the car. Good for me as I got to rest too.

Sharlene was very well rested when she reached por por’s house. We then went out for an early lunch together with my parents, sis and aunty. Here’s Sharlene enjoying her chicken rice.


My aunt’s simple home-cooked food which we had for dinner on the same day. Fried fish in soya sauce, stir fried kai lan with fishcake, seaweed soup and yong tau foo, which were simply delicious!

The next day, we were out shopping the whole day. Sharlene enjoying her dose of computer games while waiting for us to get ready.

We reached Jusco Tebrau City at about noon time. After a brief walk at the mall, we decided to go for Japanese food at Kinsahi Restaurant. Here's what we had:

Udon for hubby

My set of udon that comes with a variety of sushi

Udon and sushi set for my mum ; and

My sis's Tom Yam Ramen

Once again, thanks sis for the fabulous lunch! :D

~ to be continued ~

Food From Bazaar Ramadan

~ Backdated post ~

We have been patronizing the bazaar Ramadan nearby our house for the past few weekends. We were already there to survey the stalls on the first weekend of Ramadan. Didn’t get much stuff on that day, only some malay kuih, roti john, murtabak, etc for tea time.

Murtabak which was so so only.

A mixture of malay kuih. All were delicious, not too sweet. And my favourite is seri muka!!

A few more types of kuih

My niece ordered this, it's called roti john and she didn't even finish half of it.

We did the same thing again last weekend. Aunty YK wasn’t at home and both SIL and I were too lazy to cook. So, we declared kitchen close and went to tapau some food from the bazaar for dinner. We had nasi lemak kukus last Saturday and on Sunday, we tapau-ed nasi briyani .

Finally, I've Acquired The Skill Of....

...wrapping bak chang (chinese glutinous dumplings) after numerous attempts of getting it right :D I was just so happy and satisfied that my dumplings look like this...

Thanks to my mum who patiently taught me the proper way to fold and wrap the bamboo leaves when I was in JB last month. Both my sis and I learn from her the same time but my sis mastered the skill way faster than me. At first, I was really lousy at it and I thought I would never have got it right. But with a never want to give up attitude, I finally succeeded!, a skill that I wish to learn for a long time. Hopefully, my memory won’t fail me when it comes to wrapping dumplings next year since we only do it once in a year.

Filling up the leaves with good stuff – the easiest part of all.


As to the fillings of the dumplings, here’s what we’d put in. This pix was taken by hubby when we were about to finish our wrapping session, hence he gathered all the individual ingredients into a bowl and snapped a photo of it.

Pun Choy

I’ve heard so much from my sis-in-law about Pun Choy and how various types of ingredients are cooked individually before being neatly arranged or layered in a big metal bowl. At that time I was really eager to try out Pun Choy.

Finally I had a chance to savor this dish 2 months ago, during my nephew’s birthday party. You may be wondering why we’d Pun Choy for kids’ party? Well, my sis-in-law ordered this dish especially for her friends, as most of them have not seen or eaten this before. She has to place her order a few days earlier from a well-known restaurant at Sg. Buloh.

Here’s the pot of Pun Choy ordered by her. We had it brought home and kept warm on a portable stove.



This dish can serve between 10 to 12 people and if I’m not mistaken, the price was RM238 for this platter. I heard there is another more expensive platter, which has abalones, shark’s fin and scallops as the main ingredients. I was really amazed by the neat arrangement of the various ingredients. At first, I thought everything all mix up together….haha. As you can see, the top layer consists of poached chicken, roast duck, fish, prawns and vegetables. And the bottom layer consists of braised pork belly, braised trotter, shitake mushroom, abalone mushroom, beancurd sheets, etc. All these were put at the bottom so that they could absorb all the flavours from the ingredients placed on top. Really amazing, huh? So many types of dishes into 1 big tray. Overall, it was tasty (thumbs up) but too much meat already. We were all stuffed!!

Besides Pun Choy, here’s some of the food we’d on that day –

Stir-fry vegetables from the same restaurant and a bowl of mixed fruit salad (by me).


An assortment of pizzas from Dominos, steamed siew mai and fishballs.

Bread For Lunch

I can never get bored with bread. I have it for breakfast and lunch almost every weekday and sometimes during weekends too. The other day in the office, I had banana cheese toast for lunch. Have you tried this toast before? Well, my colleague introduced this to me. And I fell in love with this toast the moment I’d it for the first time. So now whenever I’ve bananas at home, I will surely go for banana cheese toast :D

I didn’t take any pix of my toast that day as I was in the office. But it looks very much like the pix below. However, if you toast it in a sandwich maker, the bread will be much flatter. And you actually can’t see the melted cheese oozing out.

(Picture taken from the web)

If you are getting bored with your usual kaya and butter toast or peanut butter toast, do give this a try for something different!

Chicken Wings

I love chicken wings especially fried chicken wings. Oooo, the thought of those tasty chicken wings is enough to make me salivate now…hehe. The kids at home also love this very, very much and often one wing is not enough to satisfy their cravings.

At one time we used to have fried chicken wings quite often. Sometimes we even get it from the hawker stall nearby our house...the grilled ones! So very delicious but terribly pricey. However, we had stopped sinking our teeth on those juicy wings a few months ago - right after my sister-in-law told us about an email received by her on the consumption of chicken wings and its drastic effect. Just last week I received a similar email on this from a friend of mine. According to the email, chickens are injected with steroids to accelerate their growth and usually the shot is given at the neck or the wings. Therefore, it’s in these places that the highest concentration of steroids exists. Steroids have terrifying effects on the body as it accelerates growth. It has an even more dangerous effect in the presence of female hormones. It leads to women being more prone to the growth of a cyst in the womb.

We were rather paranoid with the contents of the email. Not possible to stop eating chicken wings forever, right? For sure I can’t….hehe. So, will just limit the consumption of it.


Lip-smacking: Simply too yummy to resist :)

Back To Office

I am back to work today after spending 5 consecutive days at home. It was a long stretch of holiday for me and during these few days I managed to get some shopping done. At least now I don’t have to worry about Sharlene’s CNY clothing. I’ve got her enough outfits and also a pair of shoes when we went to 1Utama, our favorite shopping mall again the other day. As usual I didn’t get myself anything. Tomorrow is New Year eve and in the event my bosses declare 1/2 day off tomorrow, I might just drop by the nearest shopping mall to get myself some new clothes. Yesterday we stayed at home the whole day and since CNY is just around the corner, we started spring-cleaning the house. Everyone in the house helped to clean up including Sharlene. I gave her a piece of cloth and she went around the house, wiped the table, chair, the wall and even her toys.

On the day after Christmas we made a day trip to Malacca. We reached there around noon, walked along the busy Jonker Street and stopped over at one of the less crowded restaurants for lunch. I bet you know what we had for lunch there. Yeah, you’re right...it’s the famous chicken rice balls.


Here's some of the dishes that we had on that day :

The Chicken Rice Balls - instead of serving the rice in its natural form, the rice is made into balls by hand.

A plate of roasted chicken and steamed chicken that was quite tasteless.

Steamed Otak-otak which was the most delicious dish amongst the lot.

Fish Balls and Wanton Soup. Sharlene didn't like the rice balls so she just filled her tummy with 4 of this huge fishballs.

She Is Eating Chicken Again

Sharlene started to eat chicken meat when she was 1 yr plus and she could really polished off a whole chicken drumstick, leaving only the bone. Further, she will not get down from her highchair unless she had finished sucking the bones. Everyone at home truly enjoyed looking at how she savors the chicken drumstick. So from that day onwards, whenever we have a chicken dish at home, we will definitely reserve a drumstick for her. I could still remember the way she pleaded my late mil to let her eat the chicken that was placed on top of the praying altar. She really looked like a ‘wai shek mau’ (glutton) at that time. Lol!

However, her passion for chicken has somehow declined sometime early this year and she has stopped eating it since then. Every time we offer her drumsticks or other parts of the poultry, she will either reject or spit out the meat after chewing it. Luckily, she's still eating fish. Perhaps, nowadays she’s lazy to chew her meat, as said by her nanny.

Last Saturday we attended a barbecue party at a friend’s house and that was when Sharlene surprised me by eating chicken again. The barbecued chicken wings prepared by the host were well marinated and very tasty. Sharlene took some ‘chu cheong fan’ (flat rice noodles), garlic bread and 2 chicken wings. After about 1 hour later, she asked for another chicken wing. So altogether she had 3 of them. Hopefully she is back to eating meat again after this occasion.

While she was busy eating, hubby snapped the following pix:


Look at how she relished the barbecued chicken wings with her hands. This was the 3rd piece of chicken wing she had on that night. She wanted more but I stopped her lah....so oily and fattening, plus the chicken wing was quite big you know.

omg, look at how she sits with one of her legs up like this.

I didn't even know that hubby had taken this pix until the next day. She looked really comfortable in this position.

Gion Danish Bread

I am sure most of you will be able to recognize this special bread called Bo-lo’gne Gion Bread. It can be seen in majority of the shopping complexes in Klang Valley. The first time I tried this was when they were giving out free sampling some time ago in 1Utama (in front of Jaya Jusco).

A few weeks ago, I bought my first full loaf at Atria (Damansara Jaya). As we were so hungry, we started to eat the bread in the car. It is good to eat as it is, straight from the bag. The bread is bigger size and heavier than the normal ones in the market, texture is very moist and delicately soft on the inside.

For your information, this Danish bread has no artificial preservatives, is made with vegetable oil and without any butter.

Directions For Consumption
1. Toast lightly to experience the delightful aroma and crusty texture of the bread.
2. Microwave to experience the soft texture of the fresh bread.

Storage
1. The bread has a shelf life of almost 1 week in proper storage. Refrigerate to keep for extended period.
2. Use the storage plastic bag when keeping inside the refrigerator.

Price
RM18.00 for a full loaf
RM9.80 for half a loaf


Back home Sharlene was excited to see the loaf of bread and requested me to give her a piece. Look at how she admired her bread. Funny expression, huh :)


My bread lover really loved the tasty bread and managed to finish 1.5 pieces at one go, right after her dinner. We kept the balance for breakfast the next morning and the whole loaf was finished up on the same day.

Look At My Pizza

Mummy, look at my pizza. I can see you from here. heeehee



Ok, I am going to eat my pizza now...ahhhmmm



Oopsss!! I've created another hole here. And now I can see you better, mummy..haha

Sharlene was having fun with her pizza when we were dining at Souled Out Café @ Desa Sri Hartamas last Monday (8/12) with hubby’s friend and family. This fussy girl had removed the toppings and only wanted to eat the crispy thin crust. I had a good time nibbled on the toppings left at the side of her plate...haha.

Besides the pizza that Sharlene and 2 other kids were eating, hubby’s friend ordered another wood fired pizza for us and according to him it is the café’s all-time bestsellers! The top of the pizza was loaded with slices of fresh salmon, cherry tomatoes, Japanese mayonnaise, lollo rosso (a type of lettuce with reddish-pink leaves) and a hint of wasabi. I loved it so much that I chomped down 3 pieces at one go. Oohh...it tasted so heavenly! As for hubby, he tried their Lamb Shank and it was very delicious too. :)

The 3 kids had dessert after their meal and they requested for ice cream. Sharlene chose a scoop of vanilla flavor ice cream with wafer. She only took some of the ice cream but finished 3 pieces of wafer. Actually there was only 1 piece on each ice cream but since she liked it so much and kept pestering me for more, Edmund kor kor (who is hubby friend’s 7yo son) was so nice to request another 2 pieces of wafer from the waitress just for her.


Hmmm...the wafer is so yummy. I love it!

My Little Food Monster

Sharlene likes food a lot and I think she really wish to have her favorite food EVERYDAY. She would ask me this question, “Mummy, do you have something for me?” the moment I step into the house every evening. Her 'something' means food, of course.

What happened was one evening I brought home one of her favorite foods (I couldn’t recalled what was the food I got for her as it was quite long ago) and I called out to her... “Sharlene, mummy has got something for you here.” I bet you know what was her reaction then. So from that day onwards she has been asking me this question (whether I bought back anything for her to eat or not) everyday.

When it comes to food Sharlene can eat faster and in more quantity than her cousin sister who is 3 years older than her most of the time. She will eat mostly what’s available at home. That’s why I try to stock up on healthy foods and prevent buying unhealthy ones. In addition to her main meals, she takes 3 full bottles of milk everyday and snacks in between her meals. After lunch or dinner, she would ask for some other things to eat. Her eating habit really worries me sometimes.

At the moment, I’m quite pleased with her daily food intake that mainly consists of carbohydrates (rice, bread, noodles), protein (meat, eggs and nuts), calcium (milk, yoghurt, cheese), fruits and vegetables. She also has her share of not-so-healthy food once in a while.

Hopefully, my little food monster understands the importance of healthy eating when she's older and also the reasons why I limit her intake of fast food and other low nutrient snacks.

Super Sweet Corn

Two weeks ago hubby’s aunty from Hong Kong went to Cameron Highland and she bought us some pearl sweet corn from there. The pearl sweet corn was so much bigger than the ordinary sweet corns. The wet market in my area sells this as well and the vendor said that we could actually eat it raw and it taste very sweet and juicy.


The sweet corn was as sweet as honey even after boiling it. And if you look at the pix carefully, it looks slightly different from the normal sweet corn. Sharlene and I like to eat sweet corn and we simply couldn’t resist those super sweet, crunchy and juicy pearl sweet corns. Try one today and I'm sure you love it!

Dinner At Marco Polo Restaurant

Last Saturday, we had dinner with the newly wed couple, Mollie (my brother-in-law’s sister) and Michael (her British husband) at one of the oldest Chinese restaurants in K.L, Marco Polo Restaurant. At first we had wanted to either go to a chinese restaurant near our place or TGIF at 1Utama. Since we wanted to show Michael the night scene of KL city, we decided to go Marco Polo instead.

Arrived there slightly before 8pm as it was rainy and we waited for hubby to be back from office. He works half day on Saturdays but so happened he had a meeting which ended quite late on that day.

As there were 9 adults and 3 kids, we went in 2 cars. Sharlene had a good ½ hr sleep during the journey to the restaurant. The food was served almost immediately as my sil had cleverly called the restaurant captain and placed an order with him while she’s in the car. She is a frequent patron of the restaurant.

Despite having forty winks in the car, Sharlene was not in a mood at all and she behaved very cranky upon reaching the restaurant. She refused to sit on the highchair given to her by the waitress and demanded us to change her chair. Then, she took off her shoes and made a fuss of everything that comes her way. Luckily I brought along a packet of Japanese rice crackers and that managed to stop her from complaining. Phew!!


A moment before the food was served. The 3 kids - Sharlene and her 2 cousins.


The very familiar and well-known chinese cuisine - Peking Duck. The waiter used a sharp knife to slice the crispy duck skin. Then, he rolled the skin with chinese pancakes and served it with green onions and hoisin sauce. Sharlene shown no interest to the pancakes but loved the crispy duck skin very much.


OOoooooo...look at the yummy big prawn here. Each one of us was served with 1 big prawn. My girl had a great time savoring her gigantic prawn...the pics below will show how my food monster relishes her seafood.








The whole process of licking, sucking and munching finally came to an end. Looking at the ways she handles the prawn, I was glad that she didn't stain her dress. But I really had a tough time cleaning and washing her dirty hands and mouth....Eeeewww!!

My Bread Lover

Sharlene loves to eat bread and she eats it everyday. To her, plain ones are the best. Look at how happy she was with just a plain slice of white bread. Her style of eating is - finish off the crust before gobble up the soft white bread.



As we do not have white bread most of the days, Sharlene will eat wholemeal bread instead. For me, eating wholemeal bread is a better and healthier choice than white bread. If she prefers to add some flavor, it would only be butter and peanut butter. She will take the butter dish from the fridge, the butter knife from the drawer and start spreading the butter on the bread herself. Then, she will lick the butter or peanut butter first before eating up the bread by folding it into half.

Whilst I like to eat my bread with cheese and sometimes fried eggs with onion, Sharlene prefers to take them separately. She will remove whatever is inside the bread and have them one by one. So unusual, right! But this habit of hers is fine with me as long as she finishes everything that are given to her on the plate.


She's showing to me her satisfying look here.