January 2016 – HEALTH FREAK MOMMY

Hydrogen Water and Carotenoids To Reduce Cholesterol and Blood Sugar

Recently, I shared my friend’s joy when her latest medical check up showed that her cholesterol and blood sugar levels have gone down after consuming hydrogen water and carotenoids.

Here’s her testimony:

Had my annual medical check up done recently and excited to see improvements in my readings particularly my sugar n cholesterol level which have gone down. Those close to me will know I don’t exercise (at all) and I love my cakes and brownies and chocolates A LOT. I don’t have any pantangs and I eat everything and anything. I just love food!

I did a full medical check up a year ago right before I started on Iz**** and Super L*****. In fact, the reason why I did the medical check up was to see if these products really work. I don’t take any other supplements and I have not taken any before. I’ve always been healthy n don’t really see any need to. But after I hit 35, I figured I should start looking after myself and that was the main reason why I got started taking these products.

Fast forward exactly a year later… And my results are fantastic. Couldn’t be happier. I can continue eating my cakes n brownies n chocs!!!

Within this 1 year.. I’ve actually eaten more chocs and cakes and brownies than ever. But I’ve also taken Iz**** and Super L***** consistently, daily 3 Iz**** per day and 9 caps of Super L*****. When I don’t feel well, I will increase my dosage.

I’m so excited I’m going to order some brownies to celebrate! Thanks Dr XXX for the awesome consultation!

To learn more about the products, do drop me an email at shireenyong@gmail.com

No. of times viewed = 2

Throes Of Motherhood

Sorry for the lack of updates in my blog for the past 2 weeks. These days, I try very hard to force myself to be in bed by 10pm as I have to wake up for my ‘night duty’ at 2am. It’s agonizing ok, to force yourself up from your beauty sleep to do your motherly duty.

Cass is still recuperating from a bout of UTI attack. I do not want her to hold back her urine for 8-9 hours during bed time. At 2am each day, in the still of the night when everyone else in the house is in their deep slumber and oblivious to what’s happening outside their bedrooms, I carry Cass who is still deep in her sleep, from the bed to the bathroom, as if she was a sack of 23kg rice. While she pees, I quickly fix some Izumio with Waterfall D-Mannose in a glass and gives it to her. After she’s done drinking this potion, I wash her bottom and we go back to bed. Thank God, I can still get back to sleep but 2 1/2 hours later, I would have to force myself out from bed again to do my next round of motherly duty at 4:45am. This is torturous and I am so bushed. But I hope that all my pain and effort will pay off well. The best gift for me would be to see Cass recover 100% from UTI with no recurrence and be 100% diaper-free by this year.

During the day, I would either be in school to check on Cass for a couple of hours or stay home to do some work. In between, I need a short power nap to recharge my batteries.

Tonight, I have broken my own rule. It’s already 10:30pm and I am not in bed yet but at the computer. Tomorrow is a Saturday but my motherly duty continues. I have to do this every single day until Cass is weaned off the diaper at night. Life is tough but I am very sure that I will reap the sweet fruits of my labour very soon.

I better end here instead of rattling on and on. G’nite world! 🙂

No. of times viewed = 2

Designing The Cover Of The Menu

The menu of your restaurant is one of the first things that customers will see when they arrive. It should be one that is memorable and one that is unique in design for the business. There are a few tips that you can keep in mind for selecting and designing custom menu covers. One idea is to have a few ideas in mind so that you can change the appearance on a frequent basis, perhaps having a different design for each season.

Look at what other restaurants are doing in regards to their menu covers. Don’t use the same ideas because you want your cover to stand out from others. Develop something that gives a little insight as to the type of food that is served or the personality of the business. Don’t add a lot of pictures or words as there should be a balance of the two. Descriptions of dishes should be on the inside with one or two special courses on the cover.

When the general idea is in place, you can start thinking about colors and the kind of font that you want to use. Select a font that matches the atmosphere of the restaurant. Don’t choose a comical design for an elegant restaurant as it might not be taken seriously. If the restaurant is one that offers kid-friendly selections and items that are family-oriented, then consider brighter colors and fonts that are more playful. Make sure the words are easy to see no matter what font you use. Large letters can be overwhelming for some, so you want to design with something that is of an average size. Avoid using the fancy scripts as the letters can blend together.

Add details on the menu cover that focus on the logo of the business. If the restaurant offers Mexican food, then consider adding a sombrero and a few peppers on the front with Spanish words that have the English translation below. The colors should match as well in regards to the type of business. Red and yellow borders are an idea as they are easy to see and can sometimes trigger an emotional connection with eating.

No. of times viewed = 5

Wednesday Breakfast – 27 January 2016

My breakfast today to fuel me for a long, long and tiring day…

No automatic alt text available.

Half an avocado with a drizzle of maple syrup. This is so refreshing and delicious. A friend taught me to eat avocado this way to mask the slightly bitter taste of avocado. You gotta try this way of eating your avocados. Maple syrup is low in GI, so a teaspoon won’t send your blood sugar spiking high. You can also use palm sugar (gula Melaka), which is also low in GI. Chill the avocado if you wish and it would give you an extra kick to the already delicious syrupy avocado.

A slice of wheat bran bread with crispy meat floss from Taiwan and homemade acar, YUMS!

No automatic alt text available.

I munch on Acar and Korean kimchi (with added probiotics) whenever I do not have the time to prep fresh veggies. Our girls love them too. I have jars of Acar and kimchi in my fridge and they are fast moving too, so I replenish them regularly.

This is filling enough to last me through to lunch at about 2pm. My breakfast is always the heaviest meal of the day, lunch is light and dinner is the lightest with only soup, lots of veggies and a piece or two of meat.

No. of times viewed = 2

Communion Dresses

Chinese New Year is just a week away. Have you done shopping for all your CNY clothes and paraphernalia yet?

We went shopping for our girls’ clothes on Monday, which was a public holiday. Surprisingly, the shopping mall that we went to was unusually and unbelievably quiet. We were speculating why this popular shopping mall located in the heart of KL was so quiet on a public holiday. Could it be that times are bad and people are shunning the malls in a move to cut down on spending? Or could it be that people are apprehensive of the alleged terrorist threat targeting popular spots in KL? Thank goodness these days you can shop online for anything and everything under the sky to save you the hassle of driving downtown to the shopping malls.

I noticed that many people, including yours truly are shopping online these days. Many items like apparel, household gadgets, electrical items, bags, air tickets, groceries, just to name a few, are slightly cheaper when purchased online. My mum is now hooked on online shopping and has been purchasing quite a bit of stuff from online stores. Her latest purchases were some luggage bags and kitchen appliances.

Just yesterday, some gorgeous Communion dresses caught my eyes. I did not even know that in some countries, little girls dress up to their nines on their first communion.

Cass would look so resplendent in these Communion dresses on her future baptism day.

These elegant Communion dresses can double up as flower girl dresses too. I am so in love with them and if you are too, you can check them out at Jesusspeaktome.

No. of times viewed = 5

Update On Cass’ UTI & Incontinence – 26 January 2016

Sorry for the long silence. As I have mentioned in one of my earlier posts, if you do not see any update in my blogs for more than 3 days, I am either suffocating in my busyness or there has been a crisis at the home front. This time, it’s both the reasons again and because of this, I have lost my mojo to blog 🙁

I told myself today that no matter how busy I may be, I just have to steal at least 20 minutes to update my blogs today.

After staying at home for a week to recuperate from a Urinary Tract Infection, Cass went back to school today. I swung by her school for about 2 hours to talk to her teachers as well as to the Assistant Principal to explain to them why I have to be in school for the next 1 – 2 weeks for a couple of hours.

While waiting for Cass to come out for recess, I waited at the canteen. Did I tell you that I love observing people? I observed many things and am really appalled with the food that the canteen serves — sausages, ham on fried noodles, nuggets, bottled and canned sugary drinks, doughnuts coated with thick layers of colorful cream and sugar and other junk. Students are also made to sit on the very dirty floor, right outside toilets and next to the water fountain with wet floors, gawd!! I guess that’s just the way of life of students and teachers in a public school.

Cass didn’t want me to photograph her in her school uniform, thus the back pose here…

Image may contain: 1 person

I waited for 2 hours in school today as I wanted to see if Cass would do what I have advised her to. Well, she remembered a few and forgot a few. She forgot to drink water and only took her first sip at 10am! I asked her how she could even forget to drink water!! And she is still nursing a UTI and has to drink lots of water to keep flushing out the bacteria. Good thing I was in school as she pooped in school today and I helped to clean her up. One of my greatest fears for Cass when she’s in school is that she won’t know how to keep her down under clean after pooping. E.Coli bacteria originates from poop and the last infection was caused by E.Coli bacteria.

Do not even try to think that I am mollycoddling Cass by attempting to keep her as sterile as I can. I know we all need some degree of dirt / germs in our bodies to get immunity from them. You will never know what I am going through unless you have a child with an abnormal urinary tract with recurrent UTIs. We cannot afford to risk her kidneys being eaten up by bad bacteria anymore. And definitely cannot cope with spending a minimum of RM5k on hospitalization bills each time she has a UTI attack. Our insurer has still not approved our latest submission of claim totaling over RM5k in November 2015.

On a positive note, I am glad to say that Cass’ incontinence issue is slowly but surely improving. She is weaning herself from diapers as she hates the feeling of the diapers poking her. As torturous as it is, I am now waking up at 2am every day to bring her to pee. I’ve bought another alarm clock yesterday (making it to 3 alarm clocks in my room!) and have set the clock to 2am. Though she’s still on diapers at night, the diaper remains dry when she wakes up. This is a significant improvement and I am praying that Cass’ urinary tract will keep healing. Yesterday we were out at Avenue K for half a day and she was sans diapers. She only wore a pad and it remained dry. 🙂

My baby girl achieved another milestone yesterday. She managed to solve the Rubik’s Cube!! Though only single color at a time, she is definitely getting a hang of it. All she needs is 5 – 10 minutes to solve one side! And she happily told me that waiting for me to shop for clothes is not boring anymore as she has a new hobby to keep her occupy now 🙂

Image may contain: 1 person, smiling

No. of times viewed = 11

Update On Cass’ UTI – 20 January 2016

This morning Cass told me that the pain level at her bladder region is at 0.5/10 and by evening, it is zero pain, woohoo!! Am praying fervently now that the pain does not return tomorrow.

I’ll still be keeping Cass at home tomorrow to allow her urinary tract to heal completely before she goes back to school either on Friday or next Tuesday (thank goodness Monday is a public holiday!). I am going to be a nervous wreck when she goes back to school. Though I hate to spend my mornings in school, I guess I have no choice but to spend 2 hours a day in school to supervise Cass on her water intake, to give her the bunch of anti-UTI potion and to ensure that she pees every hourly.

The other thing that Cass has to do to prevent another UTI attack, besides not holding back her urine and to drink water like a fish is that she has a list of trigger food to avoid. These are the foods that will irritate her bladder and are mostly acidic food. Among them is spicy food! She has to give up eating spicy food *SOBS*! Which means that I will also have to steer clear of spicy food whenever she’s with me, to remove all the temptation from her sight 🙁

I am now more well prepared in handling a UTI and should the very first tell-tale signs appear again, I now know what to do to prevent a full-blown urinary tract infection from happening. But knock on wood. I hope Cass will never have another bout of UTI attack, ever again!

If you’ve been praying for Cass’ recovery, I thank you from the bottom of my heart for your prayers 🙂

No. of times viewed = 4

Another UTI Attack

Can you believe it took me 3 days to draft this post and finally be able to publish this post? The past 3 days have been a suspense for me with lots of heart stopping moments. I’ve not had much time to sit at my work desk.

On Sunday morning I got a major heart attack. Cass told me that she felt pain when she peed. I knew instantly that it was another UTI attack. I could see it coming since a week ago. All the classic symptoms were present. The ‘time bomb’ finally exploded on Sunday. Cass told me in the morning that she felt pain when she peed. I felt like I had just been hit by a lorry. Each UTI would cost us at least RM6,000 and would risk her kidneys being eaten up by the nasty bacteria. Scarring of the kidneys would cause kidney failure.

No one would understand the fears and feelings that ran through my numb mind. If the UTI turns out bad with flank side pain, fever, nausea and loss of appetite, Cass would require a hospitalization with antibiotics given via IV line. Just 2 months ago, Cass was hospitalized for a UTI. It was her first UTI attack in 6 years. Our submission of claim from the insurance company is still pending, after being rejected 3 times *WAILS!!* 🙁 🙁

IF Cass requires another hospitalization, that would cost us another RM6k!!! Even RM600 would hurt us, what more RM6k! We would also have to be in the hospital 3 times a day for antibiotics jab to be administered at 9am, 5pm and 11pm.

I tried to remain calm so that I could think sensibly what I should do to prevent the vile bacteria from going all the way up to the kidneys. I always look towards natural remedies first and if they fail, we will turn to the doctor. But I am still not in favor of antibiotics. Cass was on oral antibiotics since 6 weeks old till about 16 months old. Every single day. On some bad days, she had to be on antibiotics drips in the hospital. On a few occasions during those UTI attacks when she was a baby and toddler, the bacteria were resistant to all the safe antibiotics. There were several times where she had a bad UTI attack and none of the safe antibiotics were sensitive to the bacteria. And my most trusted pediatrician had to make a tough decision to give her a random antibiotics (for UTI) with both of us praying hard that the antibiotics would work on the bacteria. But the antibiotics only managed to offer short-term relieve. Several weeks later, the bacteria in dormant mode would spring back to life and attacked her urinary tract again. Those were my deepest darkest days in the hell hole of the hospital. I do NOT want to re-live those hellish days. No one should go through these days in the hospital with their child, not even my worst enemy.

Anyway, after 3 days of research on the internet, I am certain that the bacteria in the previous UTI attack in November 2015 were not 100% wiped out from Cass’ urinary tract. I found out from my research that antibiotics would only offer short term relief. If the antibiotics fails to completely eradicate the entire clan of bacteria from the body, there would be a recurrent UTI attack. The only way of completely removing the bacteria from the urinary tract is not through antibiotics but through a more holistic way. If you google the risk of antibiotics overuse on your body, you will be shocked to read the findings. The bacteria can be flushed off from the urinary system through drinking lots of fluids and eating an alkaline diet. When I say a lot of fluid, it really is a lot! And one must be drinking the right kind of drinks. I have been busy planning and reminding her to drink different kinds of potion every hour of the day, round the clock!

For the past 3 days, I have been feeding Cass with these:

1) Waterfall D-Mannose (WDM) – every 2 hourly. I got up at 2:30am and 4:45am to feed her with this and to bring her to pee for the past 2 nights. Bacteria attaches to WDM and gets flushed out from the urinary tract. I bought this product online from the UK.
2) Izumio hydrogen water – 4 times a day
3) Manuka honey + propolis – twice a day
4) Fresh coconut water
5) Ural – twice a day
6) Lots of barley water. Barley is alkaline and good in cleansing the bladder and kidneys.

Yesterday I asked Cass how she would rate the pain in her bladder area when she peed and she told me 5/10. This morning she told me that it has gone down to 4/10 and gradually to 3/10. Later in the day today, she told me that the pain has been reduced to 2/10 to 1/10 and finally 0! But hours later, she told me that she had a 3/10 – 4/10 pain level again at her bladder and private part area. Her yoyo pain level is driving me nuts!! This girl is tagging me along for an emotional roller coaster ride with her. Can’t blame her but I am so emotional now. My eyes are burning now from weariness.

Apart from the pain only when she pees, Cass is otherwise as active and cheeky as ever. Appetite remains unchanged. No fever and no nausea. Thank God! I pray that Cass would continue to heal.

I am still very worried of Cass. It can be easy to treat a non-severe UTI with home remedies if one has a normal urinary tract. For Cass, she has an abnormal urinary tract (duplex right kidney and dilated right duplex ureters), which makes it harder to eradicate the bacteria completely. She is going to skip school for the whole of this week. Even when she is totally pain-free (hopefully by tomorrow or Thursday), I will have to be in school to watch her like a hawk for 2-3 hours a day. She still needs to drink fluids like a fish and pee regularly to keep flushing out the bacteria. I suspect that she is holding back on her pee ever since school started early this month. I know she is embarrassed of having to seek permission from the teachers in the presence of all her classmates, every hourly to pee.

Can everyone pretty please pray for Cass’ complete recovery from UTI without the need for hospitalization and antibiotics?

No. of times viewed = 4

Fried Minced Meat & Potato Curry

To all my Muslim readers, this is a non-halal post. Apologies!

Two nights ago, I created another new dish for my curry-loving kids – minced pork curry with potatoes and tomatoes. And it was so delish!

You can also use minced chicken or minced beef to cook this dish.

No automatic alt text available.

Direction for Minced Pork Curry:

1) Heat oil in wok. Shallow fry cubed potatoes. Once there is a tinge of brown on the potatoes, push them aside of the wok. (I used 3 washed potatoes)
2) Saute minced garlic and onions until fragrant.
3) Add minced pork and fry till aromatic. Add salt.
4) Add in cubed tomatoes (I used 2 medium size organic tomatoes)
5) Add in 2 tablespoons of curry paste. I normally buy Tean’s Gourmet Chicken Curry Paste or Mak Nyonya Curry Paste. If you want spicier, add more curry paste.
6) Add about 1 cup of water.
7) Add sugar (optional). I added 1 teaspoon of brown sugar.
8) Cover wok and simmer contents for about 5 minutes.
9) Plate up contents and decorate

No automatic alt text available.

Fluffy Korean rice cooked with pandan leaves to go with the curry dish. Today’s rice is cooked with pandan leaves as I had plucked extra leaves in the morning to cook it with red bean sweet soup.

No automatic alt text available.

Nourishing soup of Chinese Yam (Wai Shan) + Solomon’s Seal (Yuk Chuk) + Carrots + red dates + goji berries + 2 pieces of Sakura chicken ribs. I did not intend to put carrots into the soup but another packet of chicken ribs that I bought from the supermarket in the morning smelled really foul, so I binned them. With only 2 pieces of chicken ribs and definitely insufficient, I threw in 2 Australian carrots for the sweetness. The soup turned out to be really sweet and tasty. It’s salt and sugar free. I’m going to boil this soup again on Monday.

No automatic alt text available.

I deliberately cooked an extra portion of minced meat curry for the girls’ lunch the following day. The next day, I cooked rice and blanched a head of organic broccoli.

No automatic alt text available.

While the girls had rice, I paired my curry dish with broccoli and Korean kimchi.

No automatic alt text available.

This will probably be the second last dinner that I need to cook. The mil will be back from Hong Kong on Monday and the role of chief chef will hence be relegated back to her, finally! LOL!

No. of times viewed = 2

Earning Passive Income From Home

Last month (December 2015), I received 2 Whatsapp messages that made me reel. One was from the girls’ private Mandarin tutor. The other was from Sherilyn’s Saturday class tuition center. Both the messages were on fees increase. The former stated a fee increase of over 30% and the latter – a 100% fee increase!!!!! I felt giddy just having to recalculate how much extra we have to pay each month. With Alycia now in a private Chinese school, we are already paying an additional RM400 per month. This is NOT inclusive of her tuition fees yet. And her books, which are mostly imported are frigging expensive!! I am now trying to convince Alycia that she can study on her own so that we need not have to fork out another RM500 – RM700 a month just on her tuition fees, which means she MUST study on her own everyday, on her own accord. Let’s see if that works. I know she is capable of doing it BUT BUT BUT… sigh, this girl needs so much pushing… which causes me undue STRESS!

I want to bawl 🙁 🙁

I want to have more moolah. But I can’t go back to the workforce and work full-time. The girls need me at home. Shallow as I may sound, I actually prayed to God to help me to get rich. HAHA! But I can’t be rich if I don’t do extra in addition to what I am currently doing now. RIGHT?

A few days ago, I logged in to my NP account and what do I know? I got a big surprise! I saw that I have earned over RM3,000 in only 2 months, from October through December 2015. And I have not been doing much, except from sharing testimonies and the goodness of hydrogen water and carotenoids in my blogs. When someone signs up as member, I get a bonus. This is my passive income. And I pray that the amount keeps increasing so that I can afford to buy the products for my entire family’s consumption forever. I still swear by the products. My mum who was initially very skeptical about the products now has full confidence in them, having had seen some miraculous recoveries from some pains and aches. Her immune system is also stronger now. Recently, a gigantic and painful lump in her breast shrunk after she consumed an additional dosage of hydrogen water and carotenoids supplement. On 2 occasions.

Below is the print screen of my bonus from my NP account from October – December 2015:

The amount of my bonus is only a tiny drop in the ocean as compared to what my immediate upline and my upline’s boss is earning. They are earning 5-figure bonuses each week! But the bonuses don’t come easy as well. They work very, very hard to get to where they are now. Sometimes I wonder where my upline gets the energy, positive vibes, enthusiasm and constant flow of brainwave that generates so many ideas for all her articles. She runs a few groups in Facebook as well. I guess it must be the high dosage of hydrogen water and carotenoids that she pops each day that’s giving her the endless energy and brain power.

Back to the hydrogen water and carotenoids supplements business, if you are interested in this business, all you need is an investment of RM5,330. This will give you 15 products and a membership. Besides consuming the products for your health (which you will begin to notice), you can now start to do the business once you have signed up.

All you need to do is to share the goodness of the products by word of mouth to friends and family members.

This business works very well for me because:

1. It is flexible – I can work from home. I don’t really have targets to meet. We do have once or twice yearly targets for all-expense paid overseas holidays. If I set my heart for it, I know I can achieve it, just like last year where I met my target and won an all-expense trip to Japan. However, I could not go and I received a full package of 15 products worth RM5,330 in exchange for the trip.

2. The products are amazing. I can only say this much about the products. You have to try them yourself to see the difference in your health.

3. Once you are in this business and are working hard, you will get to consume the products for free, whole year round, in addition to receiving bonuses in cash form.

4. I have a good team and good bosses who give me the support that I need.

Sounds good to you? If it does, do drop me an email at shireenyong@gmail.com and I’ll be pleased to explain at length to you.

No. of times viewed = 21

Babi Pongteh / Pork Pongteh

I had a sudden craving to eat braised pork belly with soy sauce and star anise the other day. But I found out that my bottle of organic soy sauce in the fridge wasn’t enough to prepare braised pork belly. Plus, I had some carrots, tomatoes and eggs that had been sitting in the fridge drawer for over a week already. With all these ingredients on hand, I had a brainwave and switched menu to Babi Pongteh / Pork Pongteh instead!

Babi Pongteh is a Nyonya dish, just like Ayam Pongteh. It is best cooked using pork belly with its strips of fat in between the layers of meat. But I’ve never been a big fan of pork skin or any fats but I still buy them as this dish needs the fattiness (collagen? lol!) to give it the nice thick stew consistency for the sauce. I’m happy with eating just 30% of the lean pork.

No automatic alt text available.

My Babi Pongteh consists of pork belly and pork ribs. Cass has a phobia of seeing thick fat pork or chicken skin, thus I bought some ribs just for her.

For recipe of Babi Pongteh, you can follow my recipe for Ayam Pongteh, which I cooked just a week ago. The only difference is that I did not add potatoes but added hard-boiled eggs. I stewed the hard boiled eggs with the pork for about an hour, in low flame.

No automatic alt text available.

I also added unchopped garlic, in addition to lots of chopped garlic and onions. I love eating stewed whole garlic, which is soft and aromatic.

With the left-over Babi Pongteh from dinner, I blanched some vermicelli and veggie and boiled some eggs for the girls’ lunch the next day…

No automatic alt text available.

Above – Babi Pongteh with vermicelli. Smoothie of the day – black grapes + orange + pineapple.

And it tasted even better the next day. This dish is heaven! It goes really well with just about anything — rice, vermicelli, instant noodles or bread. Try it and you’ll love it 😉

No. of times viewed = 75

Lamma Island And Hong Kong Disneyland – 11 December 2015

Our 6th day in Hong Kong on 11 December 2015 was the most exciting day throughout our stay in Hong Kong.

In the morning, we set off to Lamma Island. We took a bus to the city, then took an MTR to the harbour.

Below – While waiting for the ferry to arrive, the kids played ‘hot potato’ ball game at the quay. And the kids on the ferry on our ride to Lamma Island.

Image may contain: 1 person

Upon arrival at Lamma Island, the kids were famished. We bought fish balls for them to munch while we walked around the island to hunt for a restaurant to have lunch.

Image may contain: 1 person

Image may contain: 2 people

Image may contain: 1 person

Below – We had lunch at Andy’s Seafood. I wonder if this restaurant belongs to Andy Lau? Haha..

No automatic alt text available.

Our lunch…

Image may contain: 1 person

No automatic alt text available.

This lunch consisting of simple dishes cost us a whopping RM500+ for 6 adults and 6 kids! But it’s by the beach and it’s a holiday resort, thus the justification for the price I guess.

Below – at one of the piers at Lamma Island, after lunch. The kids, their uncle Dick and aunt Sarah were in awe, watching a man fishing. He had a bountiful loot in his basket!

Image may contain: 5 people

Below – after lunch, we had to take a half-hour stroll to the beach. There were several groups of tourists on single wheel electric scooters traipsing the island.

No automatic alt text available.

We saw this cute doggy on our walk to the beach…

Image may contain: people standing, dog, shoes, child and outdoor

After a long and breezy walk, we reached the beautiful beach. Walking along the island village reminded me of my camping days at Lumut and Pangkor Island about 30 years ago, when I was in my early teens.

No automatic alt text available.

Below – the kids playing at the beautiful beach of Lamma Island.

Image may contain: 1 person

Whilst the kids played at the beach, I sat under the tree and enjoyed my bowl of ‘tau foo far’ which is a specialty at Lamma Island. We saw many tourists queuing up to buy the ‘tau foo far’ at a small stall along the way to the beach…

No automatic alt text available.

We left Lamma Island at 5ish pm. By the time we reached Disneyland, it was 7ish pm. Only Cass, my eldest SIL and I went to Disneyland. We took the MTR from IFC Mall to Disneyland. The rest of the kids commented that Disneyland is too kiddish for them. Plus the rest of the kids had been to Disneyland several times. I thought Disneyland would be too boring and kiddish for me too initially, but when I was inside, I didn’t want to leave. It was so magical there!! I loved the ending where there was a fireworks display, a parade of all the Disney characters and lastly, the release of fake snow for a good 15-20 minutes. All my favorite childhood characters came to life and with this visit, my childhood dream of visiting Disneyland has been realized 🙂

Below – the MTR to Disneyland is Disney themed. The railings, handles, windows, etc are decorated with Disney characters.

Image may contain: 1 person, sitting

I wanted to snap many pictures but it was pretty quite dim inside Disneyland. Plus my phone camera does not work well at night and in under dim conditions.

Image may contain: 1 person

We watched the kick-ass fireworks display but could not capture the pictures on my phone camera. I did not want to spend my time fidgeting with my phone and miss watching the fireworks.

The Hong Kong Disneyland fireworks and night parade pictures below were taken from flickr.com. Yup, they were this awesome, complete with blasting Disney music. It was very surreal. When the fireworks display was over, fake snow was released.

We only had our dinner at 9:30pm after the fireworks display and snow fall were over. We were never that hungry before and had never taken a dinner this late!

No automatic alt text available.

Above – check out Cass’ Disney themed dinner. So enticing and very tasty too.

Below – my vegetarian lasagna, which was delish too. Perhaps we were so hungry that all the food tasted superb to us, haha!

After our dinner, we took the MTR back to IFC Mall, by which time my eldest bil was already waiting for us to fetch us home. It was close to midnight by the time we reached our hotel.

It was a long and tiring day for us but thoroughly fun-filled and memorable 🙂

No. of times viewed = 2

Short Cuts Around The Kitchen

Here’s one of my many ~~lazy~~ innovative ways around the kitchen. I try to cut down my time in the kitchen as much as I can.

My kids love fried ‘wallet eggs’ (hor pau tarn) but eggs cooked in this fashion takes a longer time vs scrambled eggs as each egg has to be fried separately, unless I have someone to help me fry the rest of the eggs using another pan on another stove. Fat hopes.

If I were to cook 3 wallet eggs, that will take me approximately 5 minutes multiply by 3 eggs = 15 minutes.

So I take the short-cut way out by breaking 3 eggs into a bowl and gently slide them into a non-stick pan and cook them together. All it takes to fry 3 wallet eggs is about 6-8 minutes or shorter, depending on how cooked I want the yolks to be. For runny yolks, it only takes about 5 minutes for 3 eggs.

This is how the 3 wallet eggs look like, fried together on a non-stick pan…

Once that’s done, I plate up the eggs. And using a pair of scissors, I cut them into 3 equal parts, like this….

Here’s our wallet egg + pork chop open faced sandwich for lunch…

Yummeh!!

No. of times viewed = 3

Home-cooked Dinner – 7 January 2016

Here’s our home-cooked dinner on a busy Thursday night, on the first school week of 2016 🙂

Image may contain: food

Tomato omelette ala Fong Lye Taiwanese Restaurant
Grilled fish cutlet with curry paste, topped with potato curry sauce.
Chicken soup with green radish and organic cabbage and ‘foo pei’ (fried bean curd skin)

Image may contain: food

This is the first time I prepared grilled fish with curry paste and it’s yummeh!

I had wanted to cook something fiery but just too lazy to dish up a tedious and messy curry dish. Thus, I came up with this idea. It’s super easy and fast too.

Directions for grilled curry fish:

1. Marinate fish with curry paste and soy sauce in the morning. Put in ziplock bag and keep in fridge for at least half a day or longer.
In the evening…
2. Wrap fish in aluminum foil and base it with some oil to prevent sticking.
3. Grill in oven at 160 degrees Celsius for 20-25 minutes
4. Unwrap aluminum foil and grill for another 5 minutes or until you get a nice glossy golden brown color on the fish.
5. While fish is being grilled in the oven, heat up non-stick pan with oil. Brown some chopped garlic and onions.
6. Add cubed potatoes and lightly fry for about 5 minutes.
7. Add in the leftover curry sauce used to marinate the fish into the pan and mix well.
8. If you prefer your sauce to be spicier, add more curry paste. Add some water.
9. Remove fish from oven and transfer onto a nice plate.
10. Pour potato curry sauce over fish and decorate.
11. Whip up camera, snap pix and quickly share picture via Whatsapp, Instagram or Facebook to boast about your new creation 😀

This dish is perfect for a busy weekday.

Happy trying!

No. of times viewed = 2

Ayam Pongteh For Dinner – 6 January 2016

I had a sudden craving for Ayam Pongteh since weeks ago but only got into the cooking mood at full swing a few days ago. Yeah, after the December holidays, celebrations and feasting with almost a month of hiatus in cooking, I needed a few days to get the momentum going.

The last time I dished this up was yonks ago, when we still had our dear kakak Dyah. She helped with all the tedious prep work and I only did the cooking. These days, it’s me who does all the prep work from chopping to cooking and washing, on days when our part-time helper is on leave.

Thankfully I still remember the ingredients for this dish! And my Ayam Pongteh turned out yummylicious!

Ayam Pong Teh recipe
(Nyonya-style Braised Chicken with Potatoes)

I tweaked the recipe a little by adding carrots to add a touch of color to the otherwise dull one-color dish, for the fiber and carotenoids. Instead of using block gula melaka, I used ground gula melaka. Lazy me. I am always finding short cuts and easy way out as I hate tedious processes. Chopping hard like rock gula melaka is so not me 😀

Ingredients:
1 bulb of garlic, peeled and chopped
5 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
1/2 cup peanut oil (or vegetable oil will work too)
2 tablespoons of taucu (brown bean paste)
1-2 Tbsp dark soy sauce
1 Tbsp soy sauce (taucu is very salty, so go easy on the soy sauce)
2 Tbsp palm sugar, chopped. I used ground palm sugar.
Chicken – I used 4 pieces of chicken thigh
3 potatoes
2 carrots
1 cinnamon stick
2-3 star anise
2 – 3 cups water

No automatic alt text available.

Method:

1. Heat oil over medium heat, add shallots and garlic and saute for about 1 minute, making sure not to burn them, else the entire pot of dish will be bitter.
2. Add taucu to the shallots and garlic and saute for another 1 minute.
3. Add in chicken piece and fry until they turn golden brown.
4. Add potatoes and carrots and saute.
4. Add soy sauce, dark sauce, palm sugar and water and bring it to a boil.
5. When the water boils, reduce heat and simmer, stirring occasionally, for about 30 – 40 minutes. Add more water accordingly, if the sauce is reduced significantly.

The final product…

No automatic alt text available.

The girls loved my Ayam Pongteh. Cass wrote me this note of appreciation half way through eating her dinner 😀

No automatic alt text available.

Do give this recipe a try and I am very sure that it’s going to be for keeps in your kitchen 🙂

No. of times viewed = 13

Bijas Vegetarian Restaurant @ Hong Kong University

With the continuous year end celebrations and feasting all over now, I am going to continue with wrapping up my 6 – 13 December 2015 Hong Kong trip postings 🙂

Now where was I already?? I had to go through my photo albums and scroll down to check which was my last posting 😀

On our 4th day in Hong Kong, which was a very wet and chilly day, we went on a tour of Hong Kong University (HKU).

HKU is rated 2nd best in Asia in year 2015. Did you know that there are also 3 other universities in Hong Kong rated as top 10 universities in Asia in 2015? And what happened to all the universities in Malaysia? *shrug shoulders*

Image may contain: 1 person

After our tour of HKU, we had lunch at Bijas Vegetarian Restaurant. This restaurant is located within the campus of the university. It was super packed with students and professors on the day we had lunch there.

This was our menu for lunch…

No automatic alt text available.

Below – Vietnamese spring rolls.

No automatic alt text available.

Below – assortment of yummy dumplings.

No automatic alt text available.

Below – deep fried crispy tofu with raw green pea sprouts.

No automatic alt text available.

Below – double boiled aromatic soup with an assortment of mushrooms and natural ingredients. Though totally meatless, it was nonetheless full of flavors.

No automatic alt text available.

Below – Bean curd sheet spring rolls (not in menu) but added last minute.

No automatic alt text available.

Super crispy rice puff with a super healthy and yummy dipping of pureed carrot and potato.

No automatic alt text available.

Below – stir-fried mock meat. Also an added dish, specially for the kids.

No automatic alt text available.

Below – sauteed asparagus with macadamia nuts, fresh lily bulbs, baby sweet corn, shimeiji and red bell pepper.

No automatic alt text available.

Below – mixed vegetables fried rice with pine nuts and red yeast. The rice with a very chewy and nice texture paired really well with the mock meat.

No automatic alt text available.

Below – dessert was deep fried sesame balls

No automatic alt text available.

Below – house-made soy bean milk with black sesame pudding.

No automatic alt text available.

Though the meal was meat-free, it was nonetheless very enjoyable. Every dish was amazingly executed and uniquely flavored though no meat was used, not overly oily and there was no aftermath of insatiable thirst, which was evidenced that not much or perhaps no MSG was added into the dishes. I would love to return to this restaurant in our next trip to Hong Kong.

Below – after lunch, my eldest SIL treated the girls to some souvenirs at the HKU souvenir shop.

Image may contain: 2 people

No. of times viewed = 3