March 2019 – HEALTH FREAK MOMMY

46th Birthday

After I touched the 4 series, I often lose track of my age! I often have to use my birth year to calculate my age in the current year 🤫 🤭 I wonder whether I’ll still remember my age when I touch the 6, 7 and 8 series. Do you face the same issue as me?

The original plan for my special day was to go to My Town Shopping Center – a movie for the girls and retail therapy for myself. But late yesterday evening, I received a bunch of writing assignments from my online boss 🤑 So I had to cancel my plan and have been cooped up at home and writing all day since last night. But no complaints from me and the girls. Work comes first. Entertainment has no deadline. While my fingers were glued to the keyboard, the girls had their fingers glued to their devices. This is what happens when I am busy with work – the girls morph into dopamine-frazzled zombies!

It’s a quiet day at home today. Alycia has gone to her friend’s house to work on a school project and the mil has gone out with her visiting daughter from Hong Kong. I feel no pressure at all rushing off my assignments as I have no driver duty to do, no errands to run and no need to cook today. I needn’t even have to drive out to buy lunch as Sherilyn settled all my meals!

She cooked broccoli + scallion omelette and sauteed organic mixed fresh mushrooms with butter and cajun. Both dishes were yums and right up my alley!

For dessert, she made salted caramel apple crumble for the birthday mum, with no specific recipe. She assembled the dessert with leftover whipping cream that she used for my birthday cake and the salted caramel apples were for her oats this morning. She whacked several pieces of plain crackers to use as the crumble.

Yesterday Sherilyn whomped up a mango cake for me, in under two hours.

Fresh mangoes were used to decorate the cake into the shape of a yellow rose. The cream is made from fresh whipping cream and matcha powder.

Dinner will be at Stone Nine by Jiro Shabu again, a place that I’ve fallen in love with after our first dining experience last weekend.

No. of times viewed = 111

Just For Laughs

Someone is super duper bored being cooped up at home during the school holidays. She’s got no where to release her Energizer Bunny battery. Whilst checking her school holiday homework (English subject), check out what I found!

Initially she wrote a different answer, which was the standard polite answer that it should. Then she erased it and wrote a different answer and asked me “I can write this too right? The answer is not wrong!”

Yeah, it’s not wrong but you can’t write such blatant and curt answers that are not acceptable in a test! 🤪

Check out the next answer:

The second answer got me into a fit of laughter. She’s picking up a line that I always use whenever she asks me to buy her stuff that are totally unimportant, which I will never buy, like a Harry Potter magic wand.

Call me an evil mother. But I asked her to pass up the English homework unedited just to see what reaction she’ll elicit from her English teacher.

Nah… just kidding. You think I really encouraged her to? Being called to school by her teacher for a meeting is the last thing I want! 😆

No. of times viewed = 33

Sunday Lunch at Stone Nine by Jiro Shabu @ Old Klang Road, KL

We had a sumptuous lunch of Japanese hot pot at the newly opened Stone Nine by Jiro Shabu today. Upon entering the restaurant, we were awed by the awesome interior decor. The center piece of oranges in a steamy pool was breathtaking. The restaurant covered in shades of wood exudes a sense of tranquility while the dining utensils were elegant.

As expected, the price tags are hefty. Do expect to spend a minimum of RM40 onwards per person (depending on what item you choose from the menu), with the cheapest beverage (Green Tea) priced at Rm 5 (but it’s refillable). The dining experience is exclusive and we enjoyed our lunch so much that I have already requested for the hubs to bring us here again on Thursday for my birthday! Alycia was so disappointed that she was left out in today’s lunch as she has a 3-day camp in school, which only ends tomorrow.

Everyone gets to savor his/her own personal hotpot and the ingredients are impressively fresh. You can choose from a variety of different flavored soups from chicken to winter melon, miso, spicy miso, seaweed, tom yum and much more.

When the raw meat arrived, we were again awed by the impeccable presentation and quality. The premium New Zealand Scotch fillet was both top notch in quality and the presentation was superb.

Hubs ordered a plate of Iberico pork that’s fed with acorn and the meat tastes delicate and superb.

We ordered 3 pots of soups (chicken, winter melon and spicy miso). Each pot costs RM6.

Plenty of choices for toothsome dipping sauce and condiments to go with the meat.

Handmade pork balls with cheese within and house-made fish paste.

Sea grouper slices

Watermelon and lime juice, on the house..

The damage was RM317.45. Pretty expensive for a lunch but worth the price as the ingredients were of good quality and fresh. As the portion of the food was pretty small, we were not overly stuffed. In fact, I wasn’t exactly full after lunch 😬

The food passed my very sensitive throat test too, i.e. NO unquenchable thirst after lunch, though I’d guzzled down a lot of soup and yummy dipping sauces.

Address:
Stone Nine by Jiro Shabu
C-G-1, Southbank Residence.
No 179, Jalan Kelang Lama
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Thus, we could still have a very meaty and heavy meal of Ba Kut Teh for dinner! And walloped everything clean!

Have a great week ahead all and sundry! It’s no holiday for me though it’s the school holidays. Tomorrow I have to wake up at 6 a.m. for school run! 😩

No. of times viewed = 2810

First Term School Holidays & University Hunting

Today is the last day of school for the first term and the week long school holidays begins. But this school holidays ain’t a holiday for me. Alycia has to be in school for three days from Saturday through Monday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. (until 6 p.m. on Sunday) for her drama club camp and the hubs and I have to take turns doing school runs, even on Sunday! I was looking forward to sleep ins during the holidays but it turns out I have to do even more as the transporter is off duty during the school holidays😩

Guess what I’ve been up to for the past few days?

I’ve been researching local private universities for Alycia 😁 I know she’s only going to sit for her SPM next year. But I’m just being me – super excited that my first born will be going to college / university in less than two years and I can’t help but to find out what her pre-university options are.

UEC (Form 6), Foundation, Matriculation, A-Levels, SAM, MUFY (Monash University Foundation Year), IB, ADP, Diploma…. just which one will Alycia choose / be eligible to?

Cost is the main determining factor on which college / university we will settle on. And of course, on Alycia’s SPM results.

I am very keen on a 3+0 degree program in Monash University (ranked top 10 in Australia, 59th in the world) – Malaysia campus and so is Alycia but the cost is O.M.G.! We have 2 other children to plan for of as well.

With Monash, we will have to fork out a minimum of RM150,000 for 1 – 1.5 years of Foundation and 3 years of degree program, all done locally, excluding cost of accommodation in campus. This amount will be an additional >RM50,000 should Alycia decide to study another year for the Honours.

My other options are Sunway University and Taylors University. God willing, if Alycia does well in her SPM, she will be able to do her one year pre-university (UEC) in her current high school, which only costs about RM600 a month, excluding books and other miscellaneous fees. This will give us a savings of at least RM10,000, which is quite a bit. A-Levels costs at least RM25k in better quality colleges/universities.

By this year end, I can only imagine Alycia and I visiting education fairs and me being the CFO, doing a lot of calculations 🤪

With 3 kids going to university that will cost over RM600k, I wonder whether we will be left with any savings to enjoy our so-called dream retirement of traveling the world 😱 For this reason, I keep telling the hubs that he has to continue running his catering business until he is AT LEAST 70 years old, so that we can travel the world and enjoy our sunset years. It also doesn’t make sense to stop working altogether now that we’re no longer considered “old” in our 60s or 70s and are still physically capable of making money. In fact, it would be a disadvantage to stop working as that would give rise to cognitive decline. Just look at our dear prime minister!

I am just wondering, do you have a plan to save a certain amount of money every month for your kids’ college and university funds? I am also very interested to know where you intend to send your kids for tertiary education and the costs involved. Any comments will be much appreciated ☺️

No. of times viewed = 149

The Fastest and Least Expensive Way to Cater For Your Next Party

Who doesn’t love the freshest delivery pizza with the best pizza toppings delivered to your doorstep on a lazy day where you don’t feel like moving a muscle? Over at our household, we have delivery pizza on the eve of the girls’ exams, when the girls have their friends over to work on projects or when I feel as if my hands are on a strike and don’t feel like cranking the kitchen stove or oven. We also like to order pizzas and fried chicken when we have a party at home. Pizzas are almost every kid’s favorite party food. My 3 girls can live on pizzas!

Throwing a party at home or in the office does not necessarily have to be costly. If time is not on your side and you need to throw a party on a tight budget, there are ways to go about doing it. You can call a caterer and order the cheapest menu available. However, some caterers have a minimum order requirement. Another way of organizing an impromptu party with a small budget is to order the freshest delivery pizza from Papa John’s, along with the crowd’s favorite finger food – fries, chicken dippers, pasta, burgers, doughnuts, taco, just to name a few.

We usually take advantage of the best pizza rewards program around. Some pizza restaurants have a buy one free one promotion and some reward you with a free personal pizza or appetizer after you’ve spent a certain amount on their large pizzas.

You can earn pizza delivery discounts when you order from Papa John’s. It’s one of the best pizza rewards program where you earn points each time you order. The more you order, the more points you earn and you can redeem your points for yummy fresh pizzas.

When you throw a party at home or in the office, there will surely be one or two people who need gluten-free food. Papa John’s has gluten-free pizza crust that you can order to cater to gluten intolerance guests.

Have you tried Papa John’s new buffalo chicken pizza with the best pizza toppings? I am craving to try this new flavor now! Don’t worry if you can’t take gluten. You can ask for gluten-free crust ingredients.

The next time you’re tasked with organizing an impromptu party, chillax and order online from Papa John’s. You don’t have to leave your comfy chair to organize a party. Everything can be done online at your fingertips now!

No. of times viewed = 60

Helloooo!

Hey everyone, HFM is back! Sorry for the lack of updates. I haven’t been out of town but have been hibernating at home, dishing out not dishes but close to 40 articles for my online boss. That’s an average of between six to eight articles a day. This marathon of assignments reminds me of the good old days of 2007 – 2009 when I had to write up to 20 articles in a day. I remember holding a newborn baby C with my left hand whilst she suckled to her heart’s content and with only the fingers on my right hand, tapped the keys on the keyboard to finish 20 articles in one afternoon before the job offered expired! That’s how hard my job was and still is. My brain is often squeezed to the last drop of creative juice whenever I have to write over 20 posts on the same product, over and over again in a different style and flavor. But I have no complaints. It’s a blessing to still be able to earn some pocket money from what I love to do most.

Last night, we tasted the most expensive pizza in KL at Pizzeria Dihyang @ Yap Ah Shak Road! But we were a tad disappointed with everything from where we were seated to the pizzas. And the bill came to a whopping RM276.10 for only 2 medium sized pizzas, 2 glasses of Draught beer and 1 plate of salad!

Insalata Caprese salad with buffalo mozzarella cheese, flown in from Italy.

Salsicce Friarielli pizza – toppings of watercress and sausage and cheese flown in from Italy.

Verace Margherita pizza.

As we did not make any reservation, we had to be seated outside the restaurant. It was pretty uncomfortable in the current heat wave but our consolation was we could dine under the moonlight, though it was still very dim.

The damage! And we were not even satisfied with the quality and taste of the pizzas, albeit we’ve read rave reviews on how good these sticker shock pizzas each costs – a choking RM88 and RM86 respectively.

We were however consoled by the fact that the ingredients were flown in from Italy – the ingredients are either – DOP-certified San Marzano tomatoes, buffalo mozzarella DOP, and Parmigiano-Reggiano DOP. The long-fermented pizza dough that comprises a high-protein wheat flour mix are meant to fulfill regulations set by Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana.

As everyone was still hungry after our pizza dinner which was akin to our appetizer, hubs brought us for Japanese for supper and by the time we finished eating, it was already close to 11 p.m.!

We also had Chawan Mushi and Udon and dessert of Inside Scoop ice-creams but I was too drowsy and sleepy to snap the photos as it was already way past my bedtime! 😬

No. of times viewed = 39

Different Kind of Hide-And-Seek

There’s a different kind of hide-and-seek game in our home. It’s a “mum hides gadget, mum soon forgets hiding place, kids look high and low for it and finally gadget pops out when you least expect it” sort of game. All the time. Because mum has too many things to sort out in her mind and her grey cells are depleting so fast that she experiences short-term memory deficit on trivial and unimportant things.

The gadget that I usually hide are the iPad, mobile phone, power bank, TV remote control and story books. Just because some people won’t listen. I hide them at lightning speed just when they turn their backs on me. With a million drama to deal with and chores to do every single day, who has space in the brain left to remember where those gadgets are hidden, right? Right?

Just the other day, I hid the TV remote control in the mil’s room when she was overseas. Weeks later, I forgot where I hid it… until the hubs asked for it. When he hollered for the TV remote control, the girls said “mummy hid it!” But I have no frigging recollection on where I hid it! Then the four of us (girls and I) went hunting for the TV remote control, to no avail of course. 🤭

Fast forward three days later. When the mil was unpacking her luggage bags and putting her clothes back into her wardrobe, she found the TV remote control! After 1.5 months of missing in action! The house was a barrel of laughs when we saw the hidden and found remote control 😆

Does this happen in your house too?

No. of times viewed = 132

Dealing With Generation Z Kids

Yesterday, for the first time Sherilyn had to walk to school. On her own. I know it’s no biggie for most 14-year olds as the school is only a 10-15 minutes stroll away from home. But I do not trust this girl of mine to walk to school alone as she can be pretty impulsive, careless and accident prone. Our residential area is also a super busy business centre where roads are always congested with vehicles. Would you believe it if I told you that our Drama Queen had gone to the ER complete with X-ray done every single year for the last 3 years? She also had another X-ray done when she was 1.5 years old when she squashed her own thumb with the steel kitchen door and ended up with a chipped bone in her thumb and the nail eventually dropped off from the thumb.

Yesterday was my annual pap smear and ultrasound scan at my gynae’s clinic. The hubs had an eleventh hour meeting with a client and could not fetch the girl to school. Sherilyn was very adamant that she wanted to walk to school. She’s always asked me if she could walk to school just like many of her friends do. After all, the school is just in the neighborhood and she may very likely bump into a school mate on the road while walking and the both of them walks to school together.

But the hubs said NO to walking to school. Instead, he said to me to ask her to take Grab!! Though it’s just a mere 5 minutes drive to school 🤣

The hubs is very protective over his 3 princesses. He hardly ever allows his girls to go out with their friends. His opinion is: their friends can come to our house anytime but his girls can’t go to the friend’s house. No party, no mall gallivanting, no sleepover (this one I second) and no trips with friends. He says that the world out there is too ruthless (which is very true, especially in a notorious place like KL) and with daily news on how young teens loose their lives to rape, murder, kidnap and accidents, he just doesn’t trust his girls to hang out with friends without us around, until they are at least 18 years old I guess.

Long story short, the girl finally had her first experience walking to school yesterday. In the blistering heat wave at 12:45 noon. I allowed her to walk to school on condition that she Whatsapped me before she leaves the house and to call me with the pay phone in her school once she reaches school. Honestly, I had doubts that she’ll call me. She always finds that I’m over-protective of her when her friends her age are already walking to school and taking Grab to places on their own. She doesn’t get it why she has to call me even though she’s just walking one block away from the tuition centre to the gym for taekwondo on some Saturdays. She never called me anyway on those Saturdays when she had to walk from the tuition centre to the gym, which never fails to make my blood boil! And I don’t get it why it’s so hard for her to call me!

Anyway, I was surprised to receive a call from an unknown number on my mobile phone whilst I was waiting for my turn at the gynae’s clinic. The Drama Queen kept her promise and called me from school to report her arrival! 😅

Last Saturday this girl with a silver tongue, begged me for permission to attend a gathering with her former primary school classmates at Mid Valley Megamall. After a bit of drama with me as usual, I acceded on condition that she calls me when she’s in her friend’s mother’s car and to show me photos of her at the mall.

Here she is, a photo that she Whatsapped to me, with that shit face of hers, as proof that she’s still alive and kicking 🤣

With Drama Queen, a girl who prefers walking on the wild and risky side instead of walking on safe grounds, I have to be a tad strict with her. She’s quite a polar opposite from her two other sisters.

No. of times viewed = 61

Chicken Pongteh Cooked In Philips Pressure Cooker

We had a belated CNY gathering with our usual group of Ipoh friends at Overseas Restaurant @ Jalan Imbi yesterday as we could not find the right timing to have one during CNY. As usual, we chatted about everything under the sun but guess what the hottest topic was? College and university for our kids!

It wasn’t too long ago when we were all holding our little babies and all we talked about back then was everything about our babies. That was 16 years ago and I can still remember vividly when our friend had her first baby and she and her hubby brought their baby out in a baby carrier when the baby was just a month old. I even remember where we had our dinner that night. Now, we are talking about finding for the right college and university for our eldest. And whether we should all do a colonoscopy together and ask the doctor for a group discount! 🤩 🤔

Ok, back to foodie talk!

The next few homecooked dishes posts that you’ll see will be my last few as the mil will be back from Hong Kong today! So glad that I can pass the spatula back to her 😆 though the kids mentioned that they will miss my cooking. They miss grandma’s cooking too. There are some dishes that I can never seem to cook just like hers. She cooks the tastiest fried rice, fried noodles and fried fish. Till today, I can still not pan fry a fish nicely. She puts in a lot of effort, time and perfection into each and every of her dish while for me, I always find short cuts and rush off the cooking for all of my dishes before school and tuition runs in the evening.

I have not cooked Chicken Pongteh for almost a year and that’s how long the mil had not gone overseas. I almost forgot about this dish until I stumbled upon it while I was watching some cooking channels on You Tube. I used to cook this dish with the wok and it’s a pretty simple and straightforward dish. You can use any part of the chicken but for best results, use drumsticks.

With a pressure cooker, it is even easier to cook this dish. First, the oil does not splatter out onto the kitchen counter top when the chicken is being seared in the pressure cooker, unlike the conventional wok. Second, when the chicken is being seared, I can do other stuff like prep other dishes or wash the dirty dishes. Third, the meat of the chicken is tender and juicy. Lastly, it is easy to wash the pressure cooker pot, which is light and does not stick.

You can find tons of recipe on this dish from the internet. I like to go to You Tube as it’s always easier to remember the steps if you watch a video of the cooking.

You just need basic ingredients like tau cheong / taucu (fermented soy beans), dark soy sauce, light soy sauce, Gula Melaka (palm sugar), potato, mushrooms, carrots, garlic and shallots. For me, I used organic miso, organic dark soy sauce, organic shoyu, organic Javanese coconut sugar and palm sugar syrup.

Total time needed on the pressure cooker is around 10-15 minutes for searing the drumsticks and another 10 minutes for cooking under pressure.

Juicy seared chicken drumsticks with a quick braise, smothered in the most incredible Gula Melaka and miso / taucu sauce that go really well rice or noodles, this is a brilliant back pocket recipe for busy week nights!

No. of times viewed = 67

Thursday (28 February 2019) and Friday (1 March 2019)

Thursday, 28 February 2019

The heat wave is on and I’m back to my days of showering 4 to 5 times a day! Every activity that I do that involves moving vigorously from moping the floor to hanging the laundry, changing the bedsheet to cooking sends me to the bathroom for a quick 5-minute shower. Even my Drama Queen who is in the afternoon session in school, who is usually very tolerable to heat was torqued off when I told her that I was bringing her to the open air kopitiam to have lunch. She didn’t want to go to school feeling like she’s got a wet plastic cling wrap on her body and asked if she could have lunch in an air-conditioned place.

So here we were yesterday, enjoying our expensive lunch in the supermarket, just so we could enjoy the air-cond:

She had grilled Shishamo smelt bento while I had half a packet of economy meehoon and a cup of milk tea. See, the mother eats like a maid and the daughter eats luxuriously. I never had such luxury growing up. My girls are lucky!

I have not wiped the ceiling fan in my bedroom myself for years. Well, easily for the past 10 years as I’ve always had a live-in maid and part-time maid to help me with it. But since our part-time helper is now pregnant, I have to do this chore myself, with some extra large antibacterial wet wipes. And I ended up with a crick in my neck yesterday after trying to elongate my neck like a giraffe to reach the top most part of the ceiling fan. I can’t even turn my head properly now when I drive. Dang it!

Friday, 1 March 2019

This was my keto brunch today (chicken, steamed egg and vegetables) after 15 hours of fasting for my yearly blood test for cholesterol and blood sugar:

Hope the readings for my cholesterol will be better this year. If you don’t already know yet, I have Familial Hypercholesterolemia, which is genetic high cholesterol. No matter the diet and exercise regimen that I’ve tailored into my life, my cholesterol level is still slightly elevated. Thus, I can’t be the hardcore carnivore that I was many years ago. Wish me luck in my blood works results!

No. of times viewed = 44

Preventing UTI Naturally Without Antibiotics

A low dose antibiotics or prophylactic antibiotics is usually prescribed to patients who get recurrent UTIs. This has to be taken orally for at least 6 months or even longer. But despite being on oral antibiotics, some patients still get frequent UTI attacks. In this case, the patient has most likely developed an antibiotic-resistant UTI, which is extremely common these days. Wouldn’t it be God-sent if there was a daily UTI prevention pill for recurrent UTI sufferers without the nasty side effect of antibiotics? The answer is YES and you can find your relief from Uqora, the manufacturer of UTI prevention products made from natural ingredients.

About 25 percent of women with acute UTIs experience another attack within six months of the first infection. If you’re an otherwise healthy person, this means the bacteria weren’t totally wiped out from your urinary tract, and these pesky bacteria have regrown to once again wreak havoc on your urinary system (and life). Assuming you’ve taken the entire course of antibiotics prescribed by your doctor, that means the strain of bacteria you were originally infected with is now resistant to the particular antibiotic you took. Your doctor then fixes this by having your urine cultured so that he can select a second round of antibiotics that’s known to be sensitive to the offending bacteria. But if you are unlucky, it may take two or more rounds of antibiotics to knock the UTI from your system. By this time, your body is already weakened by the antibiotics and the next time you get another round of UTI, the antibiotics would have already been resistant to the bacteria. This sounds like a never-ending nightmare if you suffer from recurrent UTI.

There is now a UTI prevention drink called Target made from only natural ingredients that has proven to work for many UTI sufferers. Target is composed of such natural ingredients as D-Mannose, Vitamin C, Vitamin B6, Calcium, Magnesium, Potassium, Natural Lemon Flavor, Citric Acid, Organic Stevia, Silicone Dioxide, Beet Juice Powder.

D-Mannose is scientifically proven to be effective for treating urinary tract infections. It is even more effective than cranberry juice. Mannose is a natural sugar (not the kind that causes symptoms or yeast overgrowth) that is excreted promptly into the urine. E. coli bacteria, the “fingers” that stick to the bladder wall stick to the D-mannose even better. When you ingest a large amount of D-mannose, it spills into the urine, coating all the E. coli’s little “sticky fingers” so that the E. coli are literally washed away with the next urination.

Target, which has D-Mannose as an active ingredient, binds with UTI-causing bacteria and increases urinary flow to flush them out of your urinary tract while boosting your immune system. All at the right time. With Target and other UTI prevention products from Uqora, recurrent UTI sufferers can now heave a big sigh of relief!

There are plenty of methods on how to prevent UTIs naturally without resorting to antibiotics. The next time you feel a UTI coming, take these UTI prevention steps immediately including a UTI prevention drink or pill from Uqora to stop those pesky bacteria at their tracks before they cause another havoc in your system.

No. of times viewed = 55