These are the delectables cooked by Sherilyn on Sunday and Monday.
Sunday – Ratatouille.
Ratatouille – composed of zucchini, egg plant, tomatoes and traffic light colors bell peppers. A healthy dish for all and sundry. It’s labor intensive and time consuming but very yummy.
Monday – grilled chicken and baked smashed potatoes. Both dishes were decadent. If you like French fries, try making baked smashed potatoes. They’re healthier (and crispy too) and so much more yummier. Littered with herbs, black pepper, olive oil and a sprinkle of sea salt, the potatoes are really addictive.
When the chicken thighs were in the oven, the sides of the baking paper touched the hot inner walls of the oven and there was fire in the oven! I was out and when I came back, Sherilyn nonchalantly told me that she had to clean up the ashes in the kitchen coz she almost burnt down the kitchen 😲. I have been telling her repeatedly to be extra careful of the sides of the baking paper touching the inner oven walls but 🙄
Baked smashed potatoes – yummiest potato ever. Stans of potato must try this, which is a healthier version of French fries. The outer skin of the potato is super crispy and inner parts are soft.Fish head curry from hubby’s central kitchen, my favorite! So delish I could chomp down the entire portion 😬
Sherilyn grasps every opportunity that she has in between online classes and dance & guitar classes to cook. When one has a burning passion in cooking (and of course eating!), one will not find it stressful to slog for hours in the kitchen to churn out comforting food for the tummy. I notice this in many of my friends who love to cook, including my mom. These ladies are all busy yet they can squeeze out time to cook and bake everyday. Some even indulge in midnight baking. Unfortunately I don’t have this trait yet and I don’t think I will ever sacrifice my beauty sleep to bake 🥱 😴. Oh well many years down the road when I don’t have that much on my plate anymore, I think I’m going to spend my free time cooking and baking healthy foods. I’m waiting for this day to come 🤤
Chicken breast meat satay – tender, juicy and flavorful. And healthy too.New improved satay sauce with added blended lemon grass and shallots. This is da bomb! I enjoy my sourdough bread and sourdough pancakes by dunking them into this sauce. She made this quick onions and bell pepper omelette with oozing cheese for breakkie yesterday, just in time before her online class started at 8am.Check out the oozing mozzarella cheese. So cheesy and yummy! But not in favor of my fibroid and cholesterol 🙁Hainanese chicken rice with homemade ginger scallion sauce. I’m not a big fan of steamed chicken/white chicken but this is an exception!With the remainder chicken rice, she rolled up the rice into balls. And we had chicken ball rice!
It’s such a waste that this budding chef doesn’t want to be in the culinary / F&B industry in future. She’s got such amazing talent and creativity. Instead, she wants to study something that’s science related. I’ll see..
Sherilyn has been busy with back to back online classes, tuition, online guitar classes and dance classes & practice for an online dance competition, thus has not been cooking and baking as much as she’d like to. Yesterday she managed to squeeze out some time to prep Sukiyaki. She even made the Sukiyaki sauce from scratch as we ran out of Mirin. It was yums!
I love the seared big onions; they’re so flavorful. Onions contain a wealth of chemicals that help fight cancer and help lower cholesterol.
Today, our 18-yo who does not fit in well in the kitchen was in a rare mood to try out a new recipe – shredded potato meat-free and flour-free pizza! Like a fish out of water, she created quite a mess in the kitchen, but the saving grace is the pizza was delish and chomped down in a jiffy! 😅 It’s not my kind of meal though as it’s high in cheese (bad for my fibroid and cholesterol!) so I ate chopped raw kale, a hard-boiled egg and sourdough bread with nut butter.
Lately Sherilyn has not been cooking and baking as much as she used to. She’s been busy with dance rehearsals and online classes as the new school term has just commenced. She now sleeps at 10pm and wakes up at 6am to do her dance practice and feed Haru before taking a quick shower and off to online classes. She’s been rehearsing for an online dance competition with cash prizes for the winners. Our dancing queen is a sucker for dance competitions. Actually she loves taking part in all sorts of competitions and contests since her pre-school years.
Though Sherilyn hasn’t been trying out new recipes lately, she still does simple cooking several times a week. She’s not the type who would eat bread or toast with butter and jam or biscuits for breakfast. Alycia and I always lament that Sherilyn’s got a ‘high class’ palate and can’t lead a simple and humble life. While Alycia, Cass and I have no complaints with a slice or two of Gardenia or Massimo bread for breakfast or lunch, this girl with a royal papillae has to crank up the stove to dish out some fancy-schmancy dish with a touch of aesthetic on her food 🙄
Yesterday she prepped Gilgeori Toast (Korean Street Toast With Cabbage and Egg) for brunch. I was busy and forgot to snap a photo of the toast. It looks something like the one below:
Two days ago, she whomped up a quick sweet potato stew with onions and spices, topped with 2 eggs for breakfast (she shared it with me). She did a similar stew with pumpkin last week and I whacked half the dish for brunch as it was so yummy. This is my kind of healthy, wholesome and meat-free meal that I don’t mind having everyday.Dinner on 29 May 2021 ~ Sous Vide Chicken Breast with grilled pistachio crusted carrots. Our amazing teenage chef can transform chicken breast meat into juicy and tender gourmet chicken dishes infused with decadent flavors. Just one bite is all it takes to send your taste-bud spiraling in gourmet ecstasy. You’ll then be convinced to be a convert from chicken thigh to chicken breast!5 June 2021 dinner – A simple hot pot with two choices of soup – 1) anchovies + prawn shells and 2) Jjamppong (Korean spicy seafood soup)14 June 2021 dinner ~ Jjimdak (찜닭, Korean braised chicken)
My third chemical and pesticide-free veggie box from Farm To Home Delivery arrived! I always look forward to our weekly veggie box and the mil is even more excited that I am 😆
I ordered the usual favorites — Napa cabbage, siew pak choy, choy sum, ice plant, broccoli, French beans, cherry tomatoes, sweet potatoes, radish and Coral lettuce. They were all very fresh, just like the past few batches. The seller will inform me if the veggie that I’ve chosen is not fresh, which can be replaced with another type of veggie.Japanese sweet potatoes are always a staple in our home. They’re highly nutritious and are a great source of antioxidants, fiber, vitamins and minerals. Sweet potatoes support healthy eyes, promote gut health, may support immune system, brain health and may reduce the risk of cancer.
In case you’re wondering if we managed to finish so much veggies in a week, yes we did! Thus, it’s a breeze to order online from Farm To Home Delivery. You can choose to pay monthly, quarterly and 6-monthly and don’t have to worry about buying vegetables anymore for the rest of the month(s). I select our favorite veggies online and the veggie box will be delivered to me weekly. It’s so easy, fuss-free and safer than going to the market and supermarket in light of the surging Covid cases and the veggies are pesticide and chemical free. Win-win for us.
This week, besides stir-frying and blanching the green veggies, our in-house chef served the veggies to us in a variety of appetizing ways.
Soul satisfying salad composed of coral lettuce, ice plant and sweet juicy cherry tomatoes, topped with perfectly creamy julienned crab sticks, carrots and cucumbers in Japanese mayo. Perfectly crisp and juicy ice plant. Fresh coral lettuce with no black edges. It’s hard to say no to a bowl of the deliciousness no matter how much you dislike raw veggies, isn’t it?Pan grilled chicken breast bulgogi and onions wrapped with cool, crisp and super fresh coral lettuce that’s pesticide and chemical-free. I’m training our girls to eat chicken breast, which has lower calories and it’s been great so far, with Sherilyn’s superb cooking. We use chicken breast for making char siu, Bulgogi, making soups and pan/deep-frying.Breakfast of egg omelette oozing with melted cheese, served with juicy and cool ice plant and sweet cherry toms.
We used the radish for making pork bone soup, Napa cabbage for ‘luo hon jai’ and had boiled + grilled sweet potatoes for lunch earlier this week. I’m looking forward to receiving my next veggie box from Farm To Home Delivery next week!
Stay safe and stay at home my dear friends. We must break the chain of infection and infectivity rate from further surging. Today’s cases surpassed 8k!! If we don’t do our part by staying safe at home, the cases will even surpass 10k by next month!
Alycia has finally tendered her resignation from the international pre-school and after-school care center. Her last day of work will be 31 May 2021. She’ll spend her time working on her You Tube channel and most probably find another temp job before starting college in September 2021. In between, she’ll be having driving lessons. She’ll be sitting for her online ‘undang-undang’ test this Saturday at the driving school’s head office in Puchong.
Lovely well-thought of Teacher’s Day gifts from the mothers of the two boys whom Alycia’s currently tutoring at the center. The mothers of the two boys are very appreciative and thankful that their sons have shown marked improvement in their studies. On the left is a cookies and cream scented hand sanitizer and the gadget on the right is a Pocket Angel self-defense personal alarm. I think these are such wonderful gifts. Our dinner of Mee Siam and sambal sotong from hubby’s central kitchen, Catermate, yesterday.We also had pan-grilled pre-marinated chicken chop. The chickens that I ordered from freshayamking.com were sent to us yesterday; the chickens are free from antibiotics and growth hormones.Sides of pan-grilled king oyster mushrooms, onions and aubergine. Haru with her new scratch post toy. She’s now almost 5 months old, weighs 2kg and looks like a grown cat. She’s still playful but has mellowed down a wee bit. I miss our 2-month old Haru’s baby face. Her face has changed completely in just 3 months!Big girl already but still cute in our eyes.
My second chemical and pesticide-free veggie box from Farm To Home Delivery arrived! As with the first box, I’m very pleased with this one as well as the veggies are very fresh and clean. The veggies are pre-washed with Biolux ozone water. This is why I like getting my veggies from Farm To Home Delivery vs. from the market or roadside stalls. The veggies are free from soil and I can just store them in the fridge without having to clean them up first.
Leeks, plump and sweet cherry tomatoes, purple sweet potatoes, spinach, Siew Pak Choy, French beans, broccoli, ice plant, yau mak, Purslane and Choy Sum.The two packets of green veggies with tiny leaves are Purslane, a juicy veggie chock-full of vitamins A and C and antioxidants. It’s also beneficial for heart and bone health. We used it for salad.My favorite tuber – purple sweet potato! We usually steam / boil the sweet potatoes. We sometimes add them into the porridge. Did you know that purple sweet potatoes are a good source of beta-carotene but are an even richer source of anthocyanin pigments, which act as antioxidants that can help reduce inflammation and boost your immune system? Purple sweet potatoes have about three times more anthocyanins than the average blueberry.Some of you may be anal about the leaves of your vegetables and only choose flawless ones. I get attracted to those with holes coz it tells a lot about how the veggies are grown. If worms can graze on the leaves, they’re probably also safe for human consumption 😁
With so much fresh and crisp vegetables, we’ve been grazing on them everyday, from fresh salad to seared, blanched and stir-fried.
Sesame crusted pan-seared salmon with seared Siew Pak Choy. I love how Sherilyn decorated the salmon top with cute tiny Purslane leaves and thinly sliced cherry tomatoes.Dashi and kombu broth poured over the salmon.Crispy skin pan-fried salmon with juicy ice plant, purslane and cherry tomatoes.Mother’s Day salad which Sherilyn made.A salad with all my favorite veggies — ice plant, thinly julienned Japanese cucumbers, purslane and cherry tomatoes, topped with mozzarella cheese and a piquant balsamic vinaigrette dressing.A healthy cheese on toast with tomatoes and cucumbers.
We’ve already finished all the veggies from our second veggie box and I’m getting ready to order my 3rd box from Farm to Home Delivery for next week delivery.
Stay safe and stay at home folks. Our Health DG has made a clarion call for all and sundry to stay at home to break the chain of infection. Our country is in a dire Covid-19 state of pandemic now and if we don’t do our part by staying at home and practise vigorous SOPs, this pandemic will spiral out of control just like India. Are you not scared? I shudder to think of it. Just do all your shopping online and duduk diam-diam di rumah for the next two weeks. I’m sure we can all do it, just like how we did it in MCO 1.0 last year 💪
Alycia received her very first salary today and she’s delighted! It’s a 4-figure amount and paid to her in cash. Though not a lot and considered below the minimum wage, it is still a lot to a 17-year old girl in her first temporary job right after SPM and without any experience. My sweet girl immediately passed me RM100 in the car when I fetched her back from work 🥰.
Alycia still thinks that this job is not suitable for her and she dreads going to work everyday. Though she’s now primarily doing brand promotion via social media, she still has to tutor two Primary 1 kids who are very weak in their studies, help to watch two toddlers (she says thank goodness the babies are cute 😅!) and help other teachers supervise kids at the daycare. I can’t believe that she can come up with funny stories off the cuff to amuse those kids and put them to sleep! She’s a princess at home who has no interest in any house or kitchen work but still does them anyway cos everyone has to do them. She’s now on the lookout for another temporary job until she starts college in September 2021.
Braised Pork Belly (Dong Po Rou/东坡肉) that Sherilyn cooked last week.Our 4-month old terrorizer at home, tearing down things and biting us when she’s in a playful mode.Cass puts Haru in a bag and brings her down whenever she has to collect a parcel or food at the lobby. Whenever Cass is free, she’ll bring Haru down (in a shopping bag) when she does her evening exercise.I obviously can’t get enough of sunrise and I was greeted by a beautiful sky this morning! Today’s sunrise in beautiful shades of orange, yellow, blue and pink looked like an artist painted some koi fish swimming gracefully in a blue pond.
Sherilyn made Korokke (Japanese Potato Croquettes) for dinner today. They were super fattening but how can I resist when they’re so so delish and crispy?! I whacked quite a bit and then felt super guilty. All these will slowly come to an end when she goes back to school next week . We’ve all enjoyed a year of being her guinea pigs and will have to wait for the next school hols to try her new recipes again.
Hopefully there will be no more MCO and no more home quarantine, ever!
Hubby cooked these for a VVIP lunch event today:
Pan fried chicken chop.Pan fried salmon.
Do check out Catermate if you need catering or bento boxes delivered to your home or office.
It’s French and Italian fare today! Sherilyn whipped up crepes for breakkie and Chicken Cacciatore with mash potatoes for dinner. They were restaurant standard in terms of taste, quality and presentation. I better cherish all these before our chef Sherilyn goes back to school on 5 April 🙂
Banana and homemade chocolate sauce crepes.Sherilyn learned a new skill today – how to lollipop chicken drumsticks! The mashed potato was made by her too, assisted by the TMX6.
Sherilyn doesn’t cook and bake as much now than she did during the MCO months. However, she still tries to cook every other day, in between online classes. She loves trying out new recipes, especially Korean and Japanese cuisines. We’re all happy to be her guinea pigs. But all these new dishes will soon start to dwindle when Sherilyn goes back to school on 5 April 2021 after almost half a year of lockdown break. And if traveling abroad is safe again, the mil will be abroad with her daughters again and cooking will be back in my Job Description 😐. Fortunately I have a pressure cooker, an air fryer and a TMX6 to make my life easier. I better start to learn how to use the TMX6!
These are some of the new dishes that Sherilyn cooked recently:
1. Gamjatang (spicy Korean pork bone soup)
Another thing that I realized is this girl loves to use gochugaru (Korean chili flakes), gochujang (Korean chili paste) and her homemade kimchi in her dishes. Her spiciness threshold level is 9/10 and I always try to stop her from lapping up all the hot and spicy soup, to no avail. Spicy food isn’t the healthiest of food as it causes acne and may cause inflammation of the stomach lining. The skin on her face has now taken a toll on all the spicy food that she’s been cooking! And she’s not one diligent water guzzler.
Coming back to the Gamjatang. This is a one-pot dish that’s bursting with flavors, very hearty and comforting. It’s perfect for cold wintry weather but the weather here has been sweltering. We’re currently experiencing a heat wave lately. So after downing down the hot and spicy Gamjatang, we were all drenched in sweat and dribbling goo 😅
2. With the leftover Gamjatang, she made a pot of mouth-watering porridge for lunch the next day.
3. Braised kimchi and pork stew.
Told you Sherilyn loves using her homemade kimchi to whip up new dishes. This dish is composed of kimchi and fresh Napa cabbage rolled with pork belly. It’s another sweat-inducing dish that left everyone yelping and gulping down water, except our fiery chef.
4. Pumpkin puree
A whole pumpkin was used to make the puree. She chopped the pumpkin into half and roasted it with garlic and onions, then blended and cooked everything in the TMX6. It’s actually Western pumpkin soup and she used the puree to pair it with the seared vegan scallop.
5. Garlic sauteed mock scallop (meat-free)
Sherilyn used king oyster mushroom stems to curate a vegan scallop dish that tastes 98% like real scallops! The texture of the mushroom stems is almost like real scallops! This dish is a glamourous appetizer or can be used to serve with pasta. I can eat this every day and never get bored of it!!
She used her homemade pumpkin puree to pair with the vegan scallops but the mock scallops are so tasty it does not require any pairing sauce.
The weather has been crazy these days – it’s sizzling hot during the day and come evening, the skies will turn dark and ominous with thunderstorms.
Sherilyn whipped up some yummy Korean fare for lunch and dinner today: Tteokbokki or spicy stir-fried Korean rice cakes for lunch, all made from scratch. This is not my kind of meal as I don’t like starchy food, so she added hard boiled eggs and ‘foo pei’ for me.
For dinner, she cooked ttukbaegi bulgogi (stewed beef with glass noodles), Korean steamed egg and air fried Tteok-bokki. It’s our first time using the Airbot air fryer, a recent gift from my mum, who got the air fryer free when she purchased her 3rd unit of robot vacuum cleaner.
Sherilyn needs to create a vlog as part of her X-Culture program’s requirements and her cooking adventures will be a series in the vlog.
I realized that she loves playing with dough and whipping up cream for her desserts! This tastes almost 100% like the real deal. When there’s passion and love in one’s cooking or baking, it’s all evident in the final product.
We had Tteokbokki for lunch today, made from scratch by our in-house teenage chef. This is not my kind of meal as I don’t like starchy food, so Sherilyn added hard boiled eggs for me. For dinner, she cooked Korean beef stew with the remaining Korean marinate sauce that she made (for Korean marinated pork earlier this week).
Sherilyn needs to create a vlog as part of her X-Culture program’s requirements and her cooking adventures will be a series in the vlog.
Here’s Haru entertaining herself with a straw. Simple unwanted household items can keep her entertained and her favorite ‘toy’ are strings, ribbons, shoe laces, ropes, toilet papers and tissue papers 😸
We had Korean and Chinese for dinner yesterday, prepped by chef Sherilyn: ~ steamed mantou (dough mixed in TMX6) ~ Korean Bulgogi pork ~ roast duck (gift from a friend)
The texture of the mantou is 100% perfect — soft, fluffy and pillowy. Super addictive once you start to eat a bite. I tried hard to resist popping more into my mouth since it’s only empty calories.
The Korean Bulgogi tastes 100% like the real deal. Sherilyn marinated the pork for over 24 hours with fresh pear juice, sesame seed oil, soy sauce, sugar, onions, garlic and ginger juice. She blended the pear, onions, ginger and garlic in the TMX6.
As for the roast duck, I am not a fan of duck, so the mil and the girls who love duck had my portion. We gave some to Maria our part-time helper too.
Sherilyn dozed off with Haru on the couch last night and I had to jolt them up from their nap as Sherilyn hadn’t taken her shower yet. Haru gave us all a BIG heart attack today 😱. Read the story at my other blog.
We had a sumptuous lunner of Sukiyaki prepped by chef Sherilyn today!
The Sukiyaki sauce is made from scratch and it’s actually very simple. Only 3 ingredients are required: soy sauce, mirin and sugar. We omitted sake as we don’t have it.
This is really delish and not salty, unlike super salty ones from restaurants. Will definitely be cooking this again as it’s my kind of dish with lots of veggies (zucchini, mushrooms, Napa cabbage, carrots, leek and lots of onions) and eggs 😋
We used shabu-shabu beef.
Our chef chillaxing with Haru after cooking. Haru loves watching videos with her sisters 😹 😻
Alycia had a Zoom meeting with her teacher and classmates yesterday for the announcement on when the SPM Trials and actual SPM will be held.
SPM Trials will be held in school next Wednesday for 10 days, after which the SPM exam will be held 2-3 weeks later, towards the end of Chinese New Year.
Today’s Covid19 cases hit a high of 4029, the highest recorded in a day in our country ever since the pandemic struck early last year. Alycia is feeling jittery going back to school as we’re in a Red Zone with positive cases shooting up everyday. Her high school is very huge and there will be over 1,000 SPM candidates. This is excluding the teachers. Can you imagine what will be in the minds of all the SPM candidates? Jittery caused by both the exam and fear of being infected by the Virus by asymptomatic students and teachers. I’ve been sounding like a naggy mom, drumming into Alycia’s head not to get close with her friends and face mask must always be worn except when she’s eating. I hope she’ll remember the first SOP. I know she’s not the type who likes hugging or holding her friend’s hands but some of her friends can get very excited when they see her and will forget about the Covid SOPs 😯.
Anyway, we have to learn to live with Covid19 as it’s going to be around just like how German measles, SARS and other infectious diseases are still around and we have to take precautionary measures to prevent them from turning into a pandemic. We can’t be locked up forever. It’s damaging to a kid’s mental health to be devoid of social interaction. While some kids can manage isolation well during the lockdown, not all kids are the same. I can see the negative effects social isolation has on Cass during the MCO and how happy she is whenever her friends video call her. She was so happy during our small Christmas party last December and also when I brought her to the mall for shopping after her eye checkup at ISEC.
This is what Sherilyn cooked for lunch on Friday:
Oven grilled salmon (seasoned with black pepper, salt and lemon juice), sauteed buttered mushrooms with onions and Kongnamool (Korean Soybean Sprouts).
. We’ve all enjoyed a year of being her guinea pigs and will have to wait for the next school hols to try her new recipes again. 
