September 2018 – HEALTH FREAK MOMMY

Hungry Girl and HFM’s Exercise Regimen

My 13-year old dancing, fighting and drama queen has a voracious appetite. I am in awe at how her digestive system can process food at such amazing speed as she eats every two to three hourly! She usually has a pretty heavy breakfast at 8 a.m. or 9 a.m. and by 10:30 a.m. or 11 a.m., she eats lunch with me before going to school. Before going to school, she prepares another heavy snack for her recess at 4 p.m. Her dinner is of course heavy too.

This is what she prepped today for her 4 p.m. recess:

2 slices of bran and wholemeal bread with poached chicken breast, a fried egg and avocado.

Her breakfast today comprised of her own DIY Mediterranean salad (lettuce, avocado, tomatoes, onions, nuts and a poached egg) and 2 slices of bran and wholemeal bread with avocado. Lunch was poached kampung chicken rice and a few pieces of stuffed brinjal with fish paste and fish ball. The hubby and mil went to Ampang for Yong Taufu with hubby’s visiting heart surgeon uncle from London.

On the fitness front, I’ve recently ramped up my strength training by adding 15-20 minutes of lower abdomen exercises and bodyweight movements before my 30 minutes power walk and jog. And it is definitely speeding up my declining metabolic rate up a few notches.

One of the reasons why I started to add lower ab exercises is because my 3 daughters with flat tummies are asking me why I still have a jiggly tummy though I exercise and don’t eat carbs!

That’s because I’ve stopped working on my abs ever since Cass was born. Plain lazy. And it is after the birth of Cass that I developed a jiggly tummy.

Besides working on my abdomen in the morning, I also do it in the evening (together with Cass) and if I am not too frazzled, I do it again before bedtime. Lower abdomen exercises are pretty fun (can be painful though) as you can even do it on your bed. I do it on the pool side deck chair and bed. But once you get the drift, your body gets used to it and you can easily do 30-40 times for each movement and then repeat.

With the addition of lower abdomen exercises and bodyweight movements, I get hungry faster and I can see a slightly flatter ab. Am I imagining things I wonder? haha!

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One Pot Porridge For Three Meals

Dancing Queen is feeling a little under the weather with a slight fever and on the verge of losing her voice. But she insisted that she wanted to go to school yesterday as she has to rehearse for a drama. Told her to call me if she could not hold on anymore. Her classroom is not air-conditioned (unlike her primary school) and being in the afternoon session, her classroom can sometimes transform into a sauna on a hot afternoon, which ain’t very good for someone running a temperature. Thank God after downing Izumio and Super Lutein and sleeping almost the entire morning, she was better today. This is one of the perks of being in an afternoon session. And she has another year of honeymoon next year before she goes back to the morning session.

While Dancing Queen slept like a baby until 10-ish a.m., I quickly made a pot of porridge in the rice cooker, then made a quick trip to the supermarket to get some minced pork for the porridge. I had about 2.5 hours to get the porridge ready for the sick girl to eat before she goes to school.

This bowl of goodness is composed of minced pork, carrots, kombu and a piece of dried shell fish (I have no idea what it’s called but the mil bought it from Hong Kong); seasoned with sesame seed oil, salt, pepper, organic soy sauce, coriander and seasoned Korean seaweed. We had this for lunch and dinner. Cass says she wants to have a bowl for breakfast at 5:30 tomorrow morning before going to school and there is still another small bowl for my breakfast tomorrow. What a convenient and economical dish this is that can last us for 3 straight meals. And it’s yummo too!

No. of times viewed = 36

Busy Her, Busy Me

Stole these photos of my badass 13-year old dancing queen last night. She just got back from her Muay Thai class right after school and it was 8:30 p.m.

On most nights, this dancing queen only has her dinner after 8:30 p.m. after her dance class (twice a week) and Muay Thai class. After her dance competition, she may join the kickboxing class at night. Which means, poor me, the GRAB driver that gives free rides has to work every single night 5x a week!

I wanna bawl and go on a strike!

No. of times viewed = 121

Mid Autumn Festival (Monday, 24 Sept 2018)

As in previous years, it is a school-declared holiday for Cass today as she’s from a Chinese school. It’s a normal school day for Drama Queen and Alycia.

The mil whipped up a few simple dishes for dinner. We had sauteed petai (stinky beans) with shrimps, Three Cups Chicken (a Taiwanese dish), Huai San and carrot soup, sauteed celery with fish slices and braised jicama / yam bean / turnip with cuttlefish. Sorry no picture to share as I had totally forgotten about it! Was too busy rushing off a few assignments for the advertisers and then rushed off to fetch Drama Queen back from school. And my Drama Queen, in her dramatic fashion as usual, made my time stand still for 10 minutes when I picked her up from school today. Shall write about it in my other blog. All the dishes tonight were right up my alley, including the stinky beans but I loathe the aftermath, thus I abstained from it with steely willpower 💪

Unlike previous years where it rained on the 15th day of the eighth lunar month, this year’s Mid Autumn festival fell on a perfectly dry day, surprisingly, as the past few days had been wet and chilly. The night was exceptionally clear with hardly any cloud and very, very breezy. Cass had a hard time keeping the fire on the candle of her lantern alive.

This year’s mid autumn moon is also exceptionally HUGE, shiny and majestic.

Drama Queen lit up candles to post on her Instagram page.

This year, over 10 kids from our condo gathered at the pool area to play lantern. Cass and Sarah are the oldest of the lot. The kids together with their parents and grandparents walked the jogging trek / jungle path at our condo with brightly lit lanterns in tow, some emitting deafening music.

Cass waited eagerly for exactly one year to play lantern with Sarah again, a girl her age who lives on the penthouse of our block. They met on Mid Autumn festival last year. Sarah is an only child, thus craves for friends to play with. Each time they meet, they would remind each other of their Mid Autumn festival lantern play date. It’s really heartwarming to see these 2 little girls talk, play and walk rounds after rounds at the condo like the best of friends. I hope that Cass and Sarah will keep this tradition alive for many more years to come and grow up still being good friends from the same condo.

I wonder whether Cass still wants to play with a lantern next year. Most kids outgrow the lantern by eleven or twelve. Some has an everlasting love for lanterns. I asked Cass if she still wants to do the same thing next Mid Autumn and she gave me a shrug and said “maybe”. I’ll see…

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Baked / Grilled Squids

I bought a bag of calamari (squid / ‘sotong’) from the pasar malam yesterday. My three piranhas are big fans of the ‘sotong’. No wonder they can be quite a ‘blur sotong’ at times 🦑

I told the girls that I’d like to try baking the squids in the oven but we would have to wait for another day as their grandma had already cooked dinner. But my drama queen could not wait to try out prepping this new dish.

Once we got home, I cleaned the squids before storing them in the freezer. But this eager beaver chef wannabe quietly removed one squid from the freezer, cut it into rings and off she trotted to her phone to Google for an easy recipe to bake/grill the squid in the oven.

She found a very simple Mediterranean recipe for baked squids and only a few basic ingredients are needed:
1. Salt
2. Olive oil
3. Black pepper
4. Lime juice

Direction:
Just marinate the squids in the above seasoning, place the squids on a rack (rack over an oven-proof tray) and grill/bake at high temperature (200C) for 5 minutes. Be careful not to over bake the squids or they will turn chewy and rubbery.

Remember, only 5 minutes at high temperature.

And the baked squids were PERFECT : al dente, not chewy at all, juicy and the lime juice gave it a very zesty tang.

Yummy, the girls and I love the baked squids! This recipe is a brilliant back pocket recipe for busy nights.

Sorry, other than this picture, I don’t have a close-up picture of the baked squids. Had I not quickly snapped this picture, there would not even be a single piece of squid left for me. Remember, they are merciless piranhas when it comes to food!

Not even a minute out from the oven and the 3 piranhas dashed over to the tray to attack the hot sotong! Thank God no one had burnt tongue 😛

No. of times viewed = 65

Big Rat In The House

Someone did it again. After sneaking out my favorite Whittaker’s hazelnut dark chocolate bit by bit on a daily basis and finishing almost the entire bar, she left one itsy-bitsy piece of chocolate in the Tupperware container for me.

Because she was scared I would reprimand her for eating chocolate everyday and say that she’s a greedy little girl, because she was lazy to wash the container and because she had an itty-bitty piece of conscience left that made her feel bad. Thus the pathetic piece of chocolate left in the container for me!

That frigging bar of Whittaker’s chocolate cost RM25 and gone in days!

Next time, I have to stash all my chocolates or buy a container with a padlock to keep all my favorite food out of bounds.

The hubs is right. We have reared piranhas!

No. of times viewed = 21

Harry Potter Fanatic

Cass turned into a Harry Potter enthusiast early this year. It all started when her classmate loaned her a Harry Potter book. She was instantly hooked to the thick novel. Since then, she was determined to get her hands on the entire Harry Potter series, which consists of 7 books! That would cost over RM300 for the entire series. In her collection is now 3 books; two books were her reward for her last exam and another a gift from her Hong Kong aunt.

Last Friday, she chanced upon a very old Harry Potter book in her school library. When she alighted from the school van, I saw her holding an enormously thick book which resembled a dictionary. I thought she was reading one until she told me that she found an old Harry Potter book in her school library. She was ecstatic. But the book is without a cover and a broken spine. The book is easily 15 years old with yellowish pages and stains.

This JK Rowling fan spent her long weekend getting herself lost in the old HP book. She brought the book along with her everywhere that she went. When she was at the kopitiam and restaurant waiting for her food, she got lots of double takes from strangers. They must be wondering what a book worm this girl is, engrossed in such a thick book with super teensy words. But I’m not too proud of Cass at all as she is neglecting everything else that’s more important. Besides sleeping, Cass is spending 80% of her time on the HP book. Final exam in 3 weeks? This girl is totally lost in her Harry Potter books! I shudder to think of her grades this time.

Within four days over the long weekend, Cass is almost reaching the last few pages of the Harry Potter book today (Monday).

Yesterday we were at Popular bookstore to get Alycia some revision books and Cass saw selected Harry Potter books with a 20% discount. She went berserk over the HP books! She begged me to get her one but I told her NO as her exam is 3 weeks away. She promised me that she would use her birthday angpow given to her by her koong koong and granny to pay for the book. She promised me that I could keep the book and release it to her after her exam.

Deal.

The new Harry Potter and The Cursed Child book is now kept at the highest cupboard in my room. In a month’s time, the book shall be released to Cass.

No. of times viewed = 11

Breakfast

My breakfast today consists of a small bowl of Amazin’ Graze salted Gula Melaka granola with Yoplait vanilla yoghurt, a banana, half an avocado, an orange and a small cup of coffee. Also popped 3 caps of Super Lutein, my most trusted antioxidant and vitamins for my eyes.

This is my typical breakfast on most days.

Once in a blue moon, I get to indulge in my favorite childhood Indian dessert ~ Putu Mayam, if I happen to catch the Putu Mayam seller when I buy the newspapers at 7 in the morning. The seller will give me extra freshly grated young coconut and palm sugar at no extra cost. You must be wondering why Health Freak Mommy is tucking into such empty calories but how can I resist it?! Putu Mayam is a combo of my favorite things (coconut, meehoon and palm sugar) packaged into one! This definitely won’t hurt! Plus point ~ Putu Mayam is one of the most magical and economical foods in the whole world. It’s a no-frill, no chi- chi delicacy. Two pieces only cost RM1.20!! Can you believe it? I wonder how much the poor seller makes in a day selling Putu Mayam and Vade. Now bring on the old strap bag and dig into a stack of Putu Mayam babe. Any time of the day!!

On some mornings, I hang out at the kopitiam with the hubs, mil and Drama Queen to feast on Malaysian hawkers fare. I normally enjoy a bowl of keto minced pork noodles or pan mee with vegetables and eggs, minus the noodles. Sometimes I have tomyam noodles, without the noodles. When I crave for some carbo, I take a pinch of vermicelli from the stall and tell the seller that I only want this much of noodles, which is just a forkful of vermicelli. My milk tea is sans sugar too and sometimes less sugar.

On some cheat days, after a good workout, I pop some of these Royce maccha almond chocolates into my mouth after my breakfast! *swoon*

The sil from Hong Kong got this box of Royce chocolates for me when she visited last month. Best chocolate in the world, after Whittakers! In my world 😋

No. of times viewed = 34

Online Shopping

These days I buy many of my stuff online ~ from witch hazel toner to laundry detergent, computer table, essential oils, personal care products, food stuff, supplements, clothes, bags and my latest purchase was a stand fan. Online shopping really saves me a lot of time from having to brave the horrendous traffic jam to finding a place to park my car in the congested city that I live in.

Online merchants are competing against one another to offer the lowest prices, best deals, best shopping apps and some even offer cash back. I now have over RM20 in my cash back account ever since I joined this online merchant late last year. The more I shop, the more cash back I’ll receive in my account.

Online stores now have shopping apps that make our online shopping experience so much more easier and convenient. In addition, we get extra discount if we use the merchant’s app to shop. One such app is the Tidebuy app, a shopping app by Tidebuy, a global online retail store offering trendy clothes, shoes, bags, bedding, kids clothing, jewelry, wigs, etc.

All you have to do is hop over to the App Store and download the app. Within minutes, you can start shopping already. New users of the Tidebuy app get $138 off coupons! Try them today!

No. of times viewed = 34

Chocha Foodstore and Merchant’s Lane @ Petaling Street, KL

On our Awal Muharram public holiday today, the hubs took us to one of the most happening touristy places in KL for brunch. I always have this holiday feel whenever I step foot into Petaling Street. Today I felt like a tourist walking the streets of Petaling Street and hopping into two quaint cafes that I have never been to for brunch.

Our first stop was at Chocha Foodstore. Chocha is Hakka for sit and drink – the tea culture is alive and well here, with steaming-hot pots of Aged Fujian Shui Hsien from Mount Wuyi (RM18; served with chestnuts) & other representatives of the dark or scented classifications. You’ll also find cold-brewed tea – Taiwanese Dong Ding Oolong & Yunnan Black Tea with osmanthus flowers & star anise (RM16 per bottle). We had a pot of aged Liu Bao (RM18) to wash down our appetizer of Kerabu Mango Rojak and CFC (Cencaluk Fried Chicken).

I had a deja vu of sorts when I walked into Chocha Foodstore. As I walked to the back of the cafe, the deja vu got stronger. I felt as if I had been there before and then I remembered that the structure and design of the colonial shoplot with a long sunny court yard, its interior and decor were somewhat very similar to that of Mugshot Cafe @ Chulia Street Penang, a cafe that we went to two years ago.

Chocha is another brothel-turned-cafe that’s rather similar to Merchant Lane, the next cafe that we hopped into just minutes later but this one looks more “raw” and unchanged. I’d definitely get the creeps if I were to walk right down to the back of the cafe where the toilets are at night! 👻

Love this tantalizing and very delightful Kerabu Mango Rojak (RM20); I can chow down the entire plate myself!

The CFC (Cencalok Fried Chicken) (RM26) with the aromatic flavor of fermented shrimp sauce is succulent and well balanced by a sweet and sour fresh summer salsa of tomatoes and pineapples, plus thick, kitchen-made tomato chutney.

This part of the building upstairs will definitely look creepy at night!

Chocha is housed at the now defunct Mah Lian Hotel. This is one Instagram and Facebook worthy cafe to pop by for camwhoring while tucking into some very good food and sipping tea. Good food, good ambience (not at night though, for me!) and reasonably priced morsel.

Chocha Foodstore
156, Petaling Street, Kuala Lumpur.
Opens from Tuesday – Sunday
Opening hours: 11am-9pm.

After our appetizers at Chocha, we segued into Merchant’s Lane located just a few steps away, for our main meal and desserts!

Merchant’s Lane is beside a stationery shop run by a friendly old couple. The mil later bought a 2019 calendar from them.

I got fooled by the tiny door leading up to Merchant’s Lane Cafe. Inside, you’ll be amazed to see how spacious and huge it is. Old colonial buildings tend to have a very long hallway, leading to the bathrooms at the back.

Just like Chocha Foodstore, Merchant’s Lane is yet another former Petaling Street brothel, reincarnated as a crazy-atmospheric cafe that has launched thousands of Instagram and Facebook photos.

Merchant’s Lane is an intricately crafted cafe (its designer has links to the group of Sekeping Retreats) and is an irresistible magnet for cafe enthusiasts.

This is a pork-free cafe, thus you’ll see a good show of Malay patrons.

Patrons queuing to be seated:

Our breakfast set:

Taukay Burger with juicy meat pattie:

Kuli Eggs with crispy Roti Canai. The half boiled eggs are cooked with potato dhall and served with cheese so that when you scoop it up from the clay pot, the mixture gives you the ‘pulled’ cheese effect.

Hot chocolate for Cass:

New York cheese cake ~ very yummy:

Dessert named ‘Better Than Sex’ but we did not find it orgasmic enough to be named so. It is composed of pandan flavored Roti Jala served with ice-cream, strawberries and toasted almond flakes. I find the Roti Jala a tad thick and dry with not enough syrup and ingredients to go with it.

The menu:

The damage:

Merchant’s Lane KL

First Floor,

150, Jalan Petaling, Off Chinatown,

Kuala Lumpur.

No. of times viewed = 102

Smoothie Bowl

Drama Queen whipped up a big portion of smoothie bowl for dinner for herself last Sunday.

The vibrantly colored smoothie bowl is composed of: half a frozen banana, home-boiled roselle tea with Manuka honey, frozen organic blueberries and an orange. All these ingredients blitzed.

Toppings: sliced bananas, organic passion fruit cranberry cookies, granola, raw macadamia nuts, organic chia seeds, toasted almonds and organic blueberries.

Have you heard the new thing about smoothies? You can put them in BOWLS and with the addition of toppings to make them into even more of a complete meal that’s really filling, nutritious and yummy!

No. of times viewed = 10

Staying Cool in the Dredges of Summer

The Summer Transition
After the main summer holidays have passed, it’s common to assume that the weather will begin to transition into temperatures befitting fall. For many, they expect to wake up and head out to work in chilly temperatures. However, just because school has started and summer hours are over, that doesn’t always mean the weather is as cooperating or timely. In fact, the hot temperatures of summer can drag through most of the September month. As such, if your home or business suddenly finds its AC unit isn’t working properly, it may be worth it to have it repaired.

A Comfortable Work Space
AC repair Conroe is especially important in the work place. Maximum productivity is noticed when employees are at their most comfortable. If they’re too hot or too cold, their workflow is interrupted in order to attempt to deal with those temperatures. In the case of hotter temperatures, it can make an employee sick if they don’t continue to hydrate themselves throughout the day. It can also make tempers flare or their patience shorten, and if your employees have to deal with customers on a regular basis, then you want them cool and collected.

repair ac

As such, hiring a professional repair crew is key to a successful work day. The team at Air On Time AC is just such a team to ensure that your AC unit is working at tip-top shape. It can be easy for an inexperienced person to further damage the AC unit or to not even fix the real problem. This inexperience could end up costing you even more money if you need to hire someone else to fix an even bigger problem. As such, you should have the job done right the first time by hiring the experienced team at Air On Time AC.

Your employees, not to mention yourself, will be grateful for the optimal working conditions. To ensure your business is running efficiently, have your AC unit examined.

No. of times viewed = 2

Testing: Can You View This Image?

Imgur, my free photo upload site is down today. So I Googled ways to upload photos into my WordPress blog without utilizing my limited bandwidth and space storage and found a video on You Tube that teaches noobs like me how to do it.

Before I can declare that it works, can someone please let me know if you can view this InstaWeather picture below?

By the way, it’s pretty chilly today as it’s been raining all day. Love it!

You can leave a comment here or send me an email, message on Messenger or Whatsapp me.

Thank you dearies!!

No. of times viewed = 46

Merdeka Weekend

I only realized today that this blog has not been updated for a week! I have been too caught up with my online businesses and busy slothing around during my free time. Have I told you that I am a champ at slothing? 🤩

These days at every free time opportunity that I have, all I want to do is to catch up on my beauty sleep. Or simply plunge myself on my massage chair while I browse the internet. I do not even feel like braving the horrendous jam to go to the shopping mall. And that’s partly because I do most of my shopping online now! I excel at spending $$ 🤑 and work hard in bringing in the moolah too.

I realize that as our girls grow, I get busier and busier without slowing down. The speed just gets faster. My chauffeuring duty only ends between 8-9-ish pm each day. If I am lucky, the hubs will help to pick up our dancing queen from the studio. She is having extra classes since last month until October to rehearse for a dance competition. I realize that my most enjoyable time with the girls was during their toddler years. The moment they entered Primary 1, I was suddenly tossed into a fast lane with very little opportunity to slow down~ physically and financially! Gen-Z kids are really expensive to raise and maintain. Not that I am keeping up with the Joneses. I don’t think we can afford to anyway but I try to provide the best for our girls.

Anyway, back to my updates on what we have been up to over the long Merdeka weekend.

On Merdeka day (Friday, 31 Aug), we got up early to attend a Save Malaysia fund-raising carnival at our neighborhood park. The funds will go towards helping Malaysia pay off part of her debts. There was a fun run, which I had skipped as all I wanted to do on a precious public holiday was to sleep in! The hubs went for the run. We joined him at 8:30 a.m. to have breakfast at the park where food stalls were set up.

I paid RM5 for Cass to take part in a short art and craft lesson and at the end of it, she got to take home her own hand-made bookmark.

Dinner was at Restoran Wai Kei, Old Klang Road. It’s the hubs’ favorite Hakka ‘tai chow’ restaurant.

Assorted fried Hakka ‘yong liu’and steamed free-range chicken.

Stir-fried vegetables and pork trotters in black vinegar. All my favorite dishes, yummo!

Steamed fish

The next day (1 Sept 2018) was another regular Saturday for us. Alycia had full day school and an exam to sit for. It’s her PT3 trial exam week and the last day will be on Friday. Poor girl has been cramming till the wee hours of the morning and getting only a few hours of sleep the past one week. Nonetheless, she’s still as cool as a cucumber 🥒🥒 . She de-stresses herself by watching dramas on You Tube 🙄 during breaks and working out for 1-2 hours in the gym everyday.

Our breakfast bought from church on Sunday : homemade waffle with ice-cream and burger with homemade pork pattie. Money from the food sale will be channeled to the Girls and Boys Brigade for purchase of musical instruments.

After lunch in Pudu on Sunday, we dropped by Tong Kee Bakery in Pudu to shop for Chinese pastries for the big girl who was still cramming at home. She loves pastries and is a carbo-addict. She knows white flour and carbo are unhealthy but like any kid, she couldn’t give a hoot about it yet. Thank God for her 1-2 hourly sessions in the gym daily.
Our loot ~ the “best of the worst”: egg tarts, almond tart, coconut tart, chicken pies, walnut cookies and coconut oat cookies. At least these snacks have some protein in them and are not empty calories 😁

Thank God for the much-needed heavy downpour. The skies in KL are clear of haze for now. Let’s pray that it remains haze-free until the next monsoon arrives.

Picture taken from the 5th floor of our unit at around 7:30 p.m. on Saturday.

No. of times viewed = 8