The hole where the viral wart used to be is healing well 🙏. Bleeding is minimal and there’s not much pain when I walk given that I am still tip-toeing on my left foot. I am hopeful that I can start to exercise again with brisk walking by next week.
Lunch and dinner for everyone today ~ air-fried ribeye steak, steamed egg, pumpkin and veggies. Cass added Mizuna salad to her bowl.
Hubby bought 6 thick slabs of ribeye steak and we still have 2.5 pieces left. The girls are very happy that they get to eat steak three days straight.
I just discovered that air-fried steak tastes as good as pan-fried ones and it’s so much easier with air-frying. There’s no oil splatter and washing is minimal.
Method: marinate steak with Lea & Perrins sauce, soy sauce, black pepper, garlic powder, McCormick Season All Seasoned Salt (optional). NO oil is needed for frying.
For well done steak, air-fry for 10 minutes at 190C. Turn off power. Let sit in the air-fryer for 5 minutes before serving. No flipping to the other side is needed.
For medium rare, air-fry for 8 minutes at 190C. Turn off power. Let sit for 5 minutes. No flipping to the other side is needed.
In the afternoon, hubby surprised us with a box of pastries from Dou Dou Bake . 💞
Cinnamon bun, chewy chocolate chunk sea salt cookie, rose pistachio escargot and almond croissant.Double chocolate tart.
Cass has figure skating class every Friday. She always eats something that’s not too heavy and low in carbs, yet healthy and yummy before the class. She then skates for almost 5 hours. She’s lucky she has a health freak mommy who supports her low-carbs meals and preps them for her 😁
As usual, Cass loves colors on her bowl, colors that come from the veggies and fruits. Yesterday I roasted pumpkin and shimeji mushrooms in the oven.
Roasted pumpkin and mushrooms on a bed of salad – lettuce, mizuna, raw four angle beans, purple cabbage, long beans and other veggies with roast chicken breast and a poached egg as protein.
I have been busy the past week – with work and house chores. As Alycia can only use one hand temporarily, I have to do almost everything for her, from prepping her food to washing all her dishes, washing her water bottle and filling up water for her, cut her fruits, do her laundry, and clean her room. I feel like her personal maid 😑. Maria is also back in Indonesia for her yearly holiday for three weeks.
My painful right tennis elbow is not getting any better with no rest of the hand at all. Alycia’s surgeon told me that it would take between 6 to 12 months for the hand to heal 😱.
I now get takeaway ‘chap fan’ dishes on most days. I find that buying ‘chap fan’ dishes is much cheaper than cooking at home. Things have gotten more expensive ever since the Government announced the cut in diesel subsidies. There are several ‘chap fan’ stalls in my hood and they serve really good dishes that aren’t too oily and salty. There’s also food from hubby’s kitchen almost daily. So I don’t cook much these days. But when I’m in the mood, I will marinate some chicken drummets and fish for air-frying or baking in the oven.
Marinated salmon belly for air-frying enough for the girls and me for two days.Sherilyn’s air-fried salmon belly and shimeji mushrooms with salad to bring to college for lunch.Cass’ grilled teriyaki saba with salad and avocado. After the announcement of cut in diesel subsidy, the price of this grilled saba fish increased by a Ringgit.
A dump of my camera crumbs to document the joyful moments here.
There’s Pang Cha everywhere in Bangkok but mind you, their signature shaved ice dessert is pretty steep (around RM30+ after conversion). I don’t mind paying just to try the delicious-looking cold dessert from this MICHELIN-recommended tea boutique but it looks really sweet too, which made me reluctant to buy. I told myself that I must try their milk tea or dessert but alas, I had to give it a miss as we didn’t have enough time. Another reason is there’s no one to share it with me. Alycia is lactose-intolerant and I couldn’t finish the entire bowl of dessert or entire cup of tea myself. The serving is huge. This photo was taken at the airport on the day of our departure.Pang Cha with condensed milk.Throughout our 3 nights in Bangkok, Alycia had late night supper of junk food in the hotel room while playing with her phone while I was in lalaland. This is what holidays and happy memories are made of – fun and junk food, all rolled up into one happy ball!
Next to go on a holiday with me will be Sherilyn!
I love the buffet breakfast at Novotel Platinum hotel. They have a good spread of quality healthy foods for health freaks like me. Every morning, I went to the coffee house to have breakfast at 8am while Alycia was still asleep. I started my day with some fresh fruits, cold pressed fruit juice, and a bowl of plain Greek yogurt topped with fresh acai berries, cut fruits, seeds, and nuts. This would be followed by the mains of eggs, greens, meat and some desserts. And not forgetting my must-have cuppa coffee. I tried their pulled Thai milk tea but it was too sweet for my liking.Coconut balls (onde-onde) are one of my favorite desserts at Novotel. Mushroom pasta with caviar, by chef Sherilyn during her semester break.Carrot cupcakes made by Sherilyn for Cass’ 16th birthday on 9 April 2024. The orange color on the carrots was made from real carrot juice while the green color was from matcha powder.Happy Sweet 16, Cassandra! May all your birthday wishes come true.
With a right hand that’s not 100% functional as I cannot lift heavy things, cooking has to be reduced to the bare minimum. Maria can only come to help me once or max twice a week now as she has other houses to go to, on top of her full-time job as a cleaner. She’s also going back to Indonesia for a 3-week holiday in June.
Carrying a heavy stainless steel wok and using a spatula would kill my right hand and only delay the healing. Thus, I’m using the air fryer and oven for most of my cooking. I still make quick veggie soups in a medium pot that’s not too heavy.
Today I cooked grilled cabbage in the oven and air-fried shimeji mushrooms. For the proteins, I bought roast chicken breast. There’s also food from hubby’s kitchen – green curry mutton, butter milk chicken, vegetables, and fried rice.
My lunch – grilled cabbage, air-fried shimeji and roast chicken breast. I can eat this every day. Cabbage seasoned with olive oil, all-purpose seasoning blend, black pepper, minced garlic and onions and grilled in the oven for 15 minutes.Shimeji seasoned with cajun seasoning, olive oil, black pepper, minced garlic and onions and air-fried for 15 minutes.
Today is the first day of the second last month of 2023! Soon we’ll be seeing Christmas decor in the shopping malls. It’s scary to see how fast time is flying by. And before we even have time to recoup from our Christmas shopping spending, then comes Chinese New Year, another very expensive festival 😁. Then welcoming me to the New Year are emails from my two older daughters’ universities, sending me the bills for their semester tuition fees. Cass’ high school will also shoot out their notice for school fees (they finally increased their school fees for 2024), book fees and a host of other fees 🤪
Ok, back to today’s meals.
Today’s dinner is air-fried salmon, blanched lettuce and roast chicken.
After shopping for groceries, I was famished when I reached home. I couldn’t wait for another 1 hour to air-fry the salmon and blanch the veggie. I microwaved some organic corn kernels and ate them with the roast chicken breast and cha siu that I tapau-ed back.
While I was gobbling down my meal, Haru who loves roast chicken breast kept climbing up the dining table to try to get her share. I had to put her bowl with the chicken breast in it on the floor next to my chair and we ate our lunch together 😸. That’s the only way I can eat in peace. Having a pet is just like having another toddler at home.
Air-fried salmon, roast chicken drumstick and blanched lettuce for dinner tonight. This is Cass’ portion. When she came back from school, she added half an avocado to this bowl of food and topped it with Korean seaweed flakes. She eats four servings of fruits everyday. Today she had red dragon fruit, Korean pear, two Clementines and a persimmon. I forgot that avocado is also a fruit, so she ate 5 servings of fruits today! Ouch, my wallet 🤪My lunch – organic yellow and purple corn kernels, roast chicken breast and skinny cha siu. I eat like a toddler, don’t I? 😁
As Halloween creeps around the corner, it’s the perfect time to whip up some spooky delights that not only look fantastic but also taste amazing. What better way to celebrate than with a bowl of Sweet Corn Pumpkin Soup? It’s vibrant, velvety, and utterly scrumptious, making it a bewitching treat for the whole family.
Ingredients That Cast a Spell (for 5-6 pax): • 4 cobs of fresh sweet corn (remove kernel from two cobs) • A quarter of a local pumpkin (local ones are cheaper than Japanese ones) • Lean pork • 5 chicken drumsticks • Filtered water enough to cover all the ingredients • A sprinkle of love and magic
Boil over medium heat for 2 hours. Add the pumpkin and chicken drumsticks into the pot in the last 30 minutes.
A bowl of Sweet Corn Pumpkin Soup is a magical journey of flavor, color, and texture. The sweetness of fresh juicy corn and tender pumpkin will cast a spell on your senses, and the hearty addition of lean pork and chicken will leave you feeling warm and content.
The best part is this bewitching soup requires no added salt or sugar – just pure, wholesome ingredients that come together to create a delectable Halloween treat. Even my finicky hubby loved it. Even Cass who doesn’t like pumpkin loved it. I’m going to serve this soup again soon when my organic corn supplier has a new harvest next week.
This week was a pleasant departure from the usual kitchen duties as I savored a variety of delightful dishes without having to slog in the kitchen. With food from hubby’s kitchen gracing our table almost every day, the burden of cooking was significantly lightened. In addition, Sherilyn, was home for a few days as her lecturers opted for online classes, giving us the delightful opportunity to enjoy her cooking.
Food from Catermate – French beans sauteed with turmeric, fried mackeral with fermented soy beans and shallots, and chicken Kuzi.From Catermate – Garoupa fish head curry with lots of veggies.Lunch for Cass – chicken braised with potatoes, sweet and sour fish, sauteed broccoli with carrots (all from Catermate); airfried Shimeji mushrooms with garlic prepped by Sherilyn.
Sherilyn’s cooking took the spotlight this week, and we were more than happy to be her enthusiastic taste testers once again. She has not cooked for a long time due to her busyness, first in her part-time job and now, in college. On one occasion, she cooked our favorite dish of air-fried shimeji mushrooms, proving that you don’t need complex recipes for a delicious meal. The mushrooms were seasoned with olive oil, black pepper, celery salt, and chopped garlic.
Two days ago, she transformed a humble box of Campbell’s beef broth and a mountain of yellow onions into a pot of delightful French Onion soup, topped with cheese and toasted baguette.
Delightful French onion soup. This is labour intensive as it involves a lot of work from peeling and chopping the onions to caramelizing the onions (she did this step in the Thermomix), boiling the caramelized onions with the beef broth and finally broiling the soup with cheese and toasted baguette in the oven.Onion soup with toasted wholemeal bread fingers. I love this pink Le Creuset plate in heart shape.Airfried crispy bread fingers
On my part, I decided to step into the kitchen on Monday and cook up a heartwarming dish of pumpkin and roast pork bones porridge. There’s something deeply satisfying about preparing a simple yet nourishing porridge. Even the finicky hubby liked it and ate a big bowl of porridge.
Comforting pork ribs and pumpkin porridge.
For me, a break from the kitchen can be a welcome relief, especially in the sweltering heat. It’s a chance to enjoy not only the food itself but also the freedom from the relentless demands of meal preparation and the aftermath of cooking from moping the floor to wiping down the stove, washing, drying, and keeping the dishes.
Sherilyn whipped up a big tray of grilled vegetables on Monday morning to make a simple Bibimbap bento to bring to work. I ate some of the grilled veggies for my lunch and hubs ate the remaining the next day. This is my favorite kind of meal and I can eat this every day.
Organic sweet corns, pumpkin, Jap sweet potatoes, shimeji mushrooms, zucchini, carrots, big onions and garlic, seasoned with ground black pepper, salt and lots of olive oil. My lunch. So delicious and impossible not to love this!
Our current favorite rice – organic red rice and black rice cooked with Japanese sweet potatoes. We have this for dinner almost every day.
Red rice and black rice are considered nutritious because they are whole grains that retain the bran, germ, and endosperm of the rice kernel, unlike white rice which has been stripped of these nutritious parts. This means that they are rich in fiber, vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants.
Red rice gets its distinctive color from anthocyanins, which are powerful antioxidants that can help protect the body from damage caused by free radicals. Anthocyanins have been linked to a reduced risk of heart disease, certain types of cancer, and cognitive decline.
Black rice is also high in antioxidants, including anthocyanins, which give it its deep purple color. These antioxidants have been shown to have anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer properties. Black rice is also a good source of iron, which is important for maintaining healthy red blood cells, and magnesium, which is important for maintaining healthy bones and muscles.
Red rice, black rice and Jap sweet potatoes cooked together in the rice cooker. The red and black rice texture is chewy (like glutinous rice) and the rice is imbued with the sweetness and aroma of the sweet potatoes.Hubs bought these sweet potatoes imported from Japan and they are so sweet, soft and delicious.Breakkie with the hubs at Makan La @ Brickfields – pork noodles, dry chicken curry noodles and fishballs.Breakkie with Sherilyn and Cass on a Saturday morning – I had char siu Hong Kong chee cheong fun (RM8) and Sherilyn had CCF with prawn filling (RM10). The CCF also had veggies and eggs fillings, but there were too little fillings and we were not quite satisfied with our plate of CCF. Cass’ delicious yee mee with loads of black fungus, veggies and minced pork. I’ve stopped ordering milk tea coz the strong tea is causing me insomnia, albeit drinking it in the morning. I’ve switched to fresh carrot juice with milk (RM6/glass) instead and it gives me almost the same satisfaction minus the sleepless night.Still feeling hungry after breakfast as she didn’t finish her plate of prawn CCF, Sherilyn made herself a plate of delicious salad and pan-fried buttered sourdough toast with avocado and parmesan shavings.Sherilyn made Turkish eggs with pan-fried sourdough for dinner the previous night. Turkish eggs, also known as çilbir, is a delicious breakfast dish that involves poached eggs served on top of garlicky yogurt with a drizzle of spicy warm butter. The combination of poached eggs, garlicky yogurt, and spicy butter creates a creamy and savory flavor that is irresistible.
Hubs is in Kota Kinabalu for 3 nights. Since it’s a Saturday night and we’re too lazy to go out, Shopee Food it is!
After waiting for 40 minutes with no update that a driver has been assigned, I knew that the order would be cancelled. It’s the first day of Hari Raya and as the majority of the delivery riders are Malays, this means that there would be an acute shortage of delivery riders.
True enough, an hour later I received a notification from Shopee Food that my order had been cancelled and they’d refunded me immediately.
With our dinner cancelled by Shopee Food, our teenage chef sprang into action. She said she can prep something yummy that’s easy and fast.
But this dawdler dilly dallied and by the time the Vietnamese spring rolls were ready, it was already 8-ish p.m. My last meal of the day is at 5pm and I don’t usually eat anything by 6pm.
The end result was a plateful of beautifully wrapped Vietnamese spring rolls that tasted as good as they looked. The combination of flavors and textures was amazing, with the freshness of the prawns, the crunchiness of the vegetables, and the tenderness of the chicken and mushrooms. And the dipping sauce was the perfect complement, adding a sweet, salty, and tangy kick to the rolls.
Since the Viet spring rolls looked too pretty to give them a miss, I tried half a roll. The fillings comprised of air-fried chicken breast, air-fried prawns, air-fried baby oyster mushrooms, salad leaves, and cucumbers.
Sherilyn also made a tangy dipping sauce for the spring rolls. Sauce ingredients (simplified version) – fish sauce, chopped raw garlic, chilies, lemon juice, sugar and water.
The mil has extended her stay in Hong Kong until mid May. This means that I have to continue with the extra chore of cooking dinner.
These days, I am not as finicky as I used to be with food served to the girls. Back in the days when the girls were younger, we used to cook 5-7 times a week, twice a day. Those were the days when we had live- in maids and a part-time helper who came consistently almost every day. I really appreciate having the extra help with cleaning up after cooking an elaborate dinner every day.
Now that we have no more live-in maids but only a part-time helper who comes in inconsistently (only when she feels like coming), we cook twice or thrice a week and for the rest of the days, I get takeaway or order from Shopee Food or Grab Food 😬. Sometimes we’ll just eat the excess food from hubby’s kitchen, which are mostly spicy food such as chicken rendang, beef rendang, curry fish, fried chicken and other spicy Malay dishes. As long as we don’t have to cook and clean up a greasy kitchen, I’m happy with any food given to me.
I’m pretty much easily contented with eating humble and simple foods. I can even buy a pack of vegetarian food and eat it for lunch and dinner, or fix a simple sandwich without any meat. I can even eat steamed sweet corns, sweet potatoes and pumpkin for dinner. But sadly, not everyone at home can eat the way I do. And this often creates a lot of unnecessary stress in me! You see, the people in the house who love cooking are not bothered with cleaning up the mess they create and this is driving me potty! Because I have to clean up.
This is my ‘cincai’ cooked dinner for Cass ~ steamed salt-baked chicken from Ipoh, steamed minced pork with egg (leftover from yesterday), blanched celery (seasoned with extra virgin olive oil, soy sauce, and fried garlic), air fried chicken breast and black rice with sweet potato. And this is what Sherilyn prepped for her work lunch box ~ salad, air fried baby oyster mushrooms, steamed sweet potatoes, and air fried Beacon chicken chop. My order of Lee Kum Kee sauces from Lazada arrived ~ 2 bottles organic soy sauce, 1 bottle chicken marinate sauce and free gift of apple cider vinegar and oyster sauce. Love the way LKK wrapped the bottles with super thick inflatable bubble wrap and came in a super huge box, which I initially thought wasn’t my parcel.My ‘customary’ selfie in the washroom @ Pavillion Bukit Jalil after sending Cass for her figure skating class. With 2 hours to kill and nothing to buy, I usually amble and dawdle in the mall, and always end up buying unnecessary stuff. This time I bought two eyebrow pencils from Guardian Pharmacy as they were on offer as well as some veggies and blueberries from Food Merchant.My usual coconut milk drink from Go Coconuts. At RM9.90 for less than 10 sips, I think it’s overpriced. It’s just packet coconut milk with coconut water. I can prep this at home too, which will cost me way cheaper than RM9.90 😬
Cass gave me a scare yesterday when she told me that she had a cold and headache. I told her to do a Covid self-test. The first time she did the Covid test, a faint line appeared on the ‘T’ window and seconds later the line went up and disappeared! I told her to do another test several hours later and it was a negative.
This morning she felt better but she did another Covid self-test just before leaving the house for school. Negative. Phew!
When she came home from school today, she told me that one of her classmates is down with Covid!
As of coming back from school today, Cass is feeling good with no more headache. She’ll be going for her figure skating class later.
Had this been the scenario two years ago, Cass and all of us at home would be ‘doomed’. We would be categorized as close contact and none of us could get out of the house for 14 days 🤪. I’m so glad that we don’t have to live those pandemic days anymore, with endless MCO, CMCO and RMCO and yet the number of cases were in the region of tens of thousands everyday.
Lunner for Cass today: air-fried turmeric Beacon chicken drummets and blanched broccoli. I also bought steamed pork, cauliflower and fried cabbage from our regular economy rice stall in the morning. Cass walloped six chicken drummets.
Of all the kitchen gadgets that we have, I find the air fryer the most useful. We use it every day, to toast bread, to reheat food and to grill chicken or fish. But I find my current air fryer a tad small for our family. I’m now eyeing a 2-basket air fryer so that more dishes can be whomped up simultaneously.
With rice added. Today I cooked a mix of organic wild black rice and 10-grain rice with Japanese sweet potato added. I love the glorious kaleidoscope of colours and textures in this meal.
Alycia and Sherilyn’s bonding time with granny in Ipoh today. Pix taken on my mum’s phone.
Mum treated them to a lavish lunch at V Life Cafe, a restaurant that serves healthy vegetarian food. Alycia discovered this restaurant while cycling in the neighborhood this morning. Yesterday they had dinner at Sushi Zento and lunch at Ipoh YMCA. Wish I was there to join them too!
The dish on the top right is my kind of meal – colorful, loaded with fiber and meatless.
Dehydrated apple slices.For Ipoh standard, with a lower cost of living than KL, the prices are considered on the high side
But everyone enjoyed the food, with the people whom they love and that’s the most important part. The experience and the memories that the girls create with their grandparents are more valuable than any material possession or amount of money. Cherishing these moments and making the most out of them is what truly matters in life.
The weather has been very chilly, windy and wet. It’s been raining non-stop in KL and in other states for almost 3 days now. It’s so cold that I don’t even need to turn on the air-cond or fan at night.
Besides getting to enjoy a cool weather for the past few days, the wet days have been very unkind to my laundry. As you may already know, I wash 5-6 loads of laundry each day 🤪. Alycia and the mil swims on alternate days while Cass, hubs and I workout and have sweaty clothes every day. And we wash our jammies and towels daily too 😜. Thus I am always busy with dirty laundry.
With the continuous rain and a kerflooey clothes dryer (the door hinge cracked and fell off), our dried laundry for the past few days feel cold and slightly damp, even though they are dried. I hang most of the clothes indoor, under the ceiling fan or next to a stand fan. I can’t wait for the sun to come out and scorch down on us again! I need the sunlight badly for my daily dose of Vitamin D when I do my daily jog.
With the mil still in Penang, an SPM girl who’s excused from cooking and the littlest brat who hates washing dirty dishes, I’ve only been cooking lazy meals, using the air fryer and oven. Today we had air fried marinated chicken drummets and blanched bok choy.
Yesterday we had air fried salmon and blanched French beans. Really simple meals whomped up by a really lazy and busy mom who finds cooking and washing dishes a chore and a waste of time.
Ok, Shopee Food, here I come tomorrow!!
Air fried salmon with crispy skin is really yummeh! I 💗 my air fryer.
I hope everyone is enjoying the Chinese New Year holidays with your family and loved ones. And for those of you who dread CNY and can’t wait for it to be over because it’s just so frigging exhausting with non-stop cooking, cleaning up, entertaining (hello nosy and insensitive relatives!), and traveling (darn the traffic congestion), hang in there. It will soon be over.
This CNY we’re staying put in KL as Sherilyn will be sitting for her SPM exam a few days after the CNY holidays and wishes to spend more time revising.
Alycia had planed to follow her grandaunt back to Ipoh by car on Thursday but on the morning of departure, she was down with food poisoning, fever and cough. She literally camped in the loo the entire night. The previous night Alycia had dinner of Moo Kata with her colleagues and must have eaten something that’s undercooked or contaminated that caused her food poisoning with persistent diarrhea. Thus, she had to cancel her trip back to Ipoh.
This CNY, there’s been quite a bit of ‘massive’ cooking by the mil for three days straight. While she enjoys all the cooking, I certainly don’t enjoy doing all the aftermath-cleaning up, especially the greasy stove, counters and floors 🤪
Our CNY Eve dinner at home. Hubby’s cousin joined us for dinner.Home-made Yee Sang, from a seller who operates from her home in OUG. She makes pretty good Yee Sang and we have been buying from her for years. Sherilyn learned how to prep Yee Sang two years ago during the lockdown, using a variety of healthy fruits and veggies. It’s really delish and fresh. We’re going to get her to prep it again next CNY. Sherilyn has not been cooking much lately as she’s preparing for her SPM exam.The sea cucumbers and abalones were prepped a couple of weeks earlier. It’s a tedious and time-consuming process to rehydrate and cook the dried sea cucumbers and dried abalones. It takes days of soaking and boiling before braising with other ingredients such as pork belly, fish maw and dried scallops.Our customary vegetarian dish on the first day of CNY.Our meatless lunner at Alexis @ The Gardens Mall on the first day of CNY – vegetarian spaghetti, vegetarian pizza, mushroom soup with garlic toast and mushroom risotto. Tiramisu, bitter chocolate mousse cake, pecan pie and flourless orange almond cake.
We invited some close friends over for lunch today (Chor 2) for ‘Hoi Nin Fan’ and it was another massive cooking and cleaning. I was so busy cleaning up the kitchen that I forgot to snap photos of the dishes. On the dining table were fried fish, fried prawns, steamed village chicken, lotus root soup, stir-fried snake beans, beef rendang and leftover vegetarian dish from yesterday.
I’d like to wish everyone a very prosperous year of the Rabbit. May you and your loved ones enjoy the heavenly favors of good health, wealth, and fortune all year through. Happy Chinese New Year!
I just realized that I have not updated this blog for 10 days. As you might already have guessed, I’ve been up to my eyeballs with work – house work this time. Maria our part-time maid of 10 years is pregnant with her second child and has been riddled with bad morning sickness. She’s not come in for work for two weeks.
With the mil still not 100% recovered from her second cataract eye surgery, I have to cook, though not every day. Cooking is not something that I look forward to do ever since my last live-in maid went back to Indonesia for good 11 years ago, but would still do it when I’m in the mood.
With Maria pregnant now, I can foresee that she may not come back to work for us. Even before she got pregnant, she’s been getting jobs from other employers who are paying her higher than what we’re paying her.
With this scenario, I’ll have to start looking for another part-time helper. I may even have to learn to live without any helper at all. It’s not that bad an idea as I’ll be able to save a lot of money each month. I can definitely live with dusty ceiling fans and windows 🤑
The girls and I are also happy with Shopee Food and Grab Food several times a week 😁 as no one likes to wash the dirty dishes and keep them after washing.
Alycia returned to college last Tuesday after testing negative for Covid. However, she’s still having intermittent cough and have lost her sense of smell partially. She told me that her food lacked taste a couple of days after she tested negative. I think this is caused by her blocked nasal. As of today, her olfaction has improved and she can taste her food better, though not 100%.
I totally forgot that I have a box of Lian Hua in our larder. I bought it 4 months ago when our neighborhood pharmacy restocked it. When I was looking for my vitamins, I stumbled upon it. But Alycia had already tested negative. I still gave her two sachets (1 sachet a day). She said the taste is bearable, not as icky as she had thought. A box of 6 sachets costs a frigging RM48!Something simple that I cooked the other day – air-fried butter and garlic pollock.Seasoned with melted ghee, minced garlic, pinch of salt and dried herbs, lemon juice and black pepper.My keto dinner – air-fried pollock on a bed of spinach.Cass made frozen yogurt bites and yogurt bark using Gippsland strawberries and cream twist yogurt. They don’t look pretty but are yums! I love it and it’s a healthier alternative to ice-cream.
Though it’s the school holidays, it doesn’t feel like a holiday for me as I still have school runs to do. I still wake up at 6.15 a.m. and have to be out of the house by 8.30 a.m.
Sherilyn has athletics training in school every morning throughout the holiday week, for the upcoming MSSKL inter-school sports meet. Thus, she won’t be able to follow me back to Ipoh tomorrow. So only Cass will be following me back to Ipoh by ETS tomorrow morning. And it’s going to be another super early day for me tomorrow. I will be up by 4.15 a.m. to complete some of the house chores before we leave the house for the train station at 7.30 a.m..
Later I will have to get Alycia and Sherilyn to take video of me teaching them how to use the washing machine. Can you believe they have never operated the washing machine before? Yeah, you can roll your eyes 360 degrees. Our girls are quite spoilt. I hope that when I come back on Friday, the house and the cat will still be around! I can’t count on the hubs as he’s at his shop more than 12 hours a day. For days, I have been like a broken record, reminding them what to do when I’m away.
Something that I cooked the other day – steamed herbal kampung chicken and blanched spinach.Nope I didn’t prep the chicken from scratch. I ordered this herbal chicken from a seller on Facebook and it’s super delish! But it’s pretty costly at RM45 for just half a chic and RM10 on delivery fee! As long as we all enjoy the meal and it can save me tons of time chopping and washing, I’m A-ok. Time and water are also $$, right? 😉
