Category: Home-cooked food

I looked at my desktop calendar to see what MCO day number it is today and next to today’s date, I’d earlier written down Cass’ Diagnostic Exam date on today’s box. Had La Corona not invaded our lives unexpectedly, Cass would be sitting for an exam that would last the entire week! And she escaped this exam and the major one in September. My Corona batch girl is rejoicing and so am I .😁  Anyway, the Primary 6 students will still be tested, in another form of assessment, to be decided and announced by the Education Ministry in the near future.

Miss Lazybones again sneaked back into the house after stairs climbing with me but daddy didn’t let her off the hook. He dragged her to do 20 minutes of stretching exercise before she’s let off for breakfast 😆

Our baking queen dished out her maiden spectacular lasagne dish today, just in time for tea time as we’d all skipped lunch. We had pau and siew mai for breakfast.

I took almost an hour to slow cook the beef bolognese sauce to perfection and she spent the entire afternoon in the stuffy kitchen to shape the pastas to perfection and we took less than half an hour to nosh it down.😬

The salmon that hubs ordered from his supplier arrived today. The girls are so happy!

For dinner, we had salmon fish head cooked in Assam sauce, which is insanely delish.   The flavour of plain fresh salmon is already lovely but the tangy and spicy Assam sauce with kafir lime leaves just puts this over the top from tasty to exceptional. We can have this dish everyday and never get bored of it.

Other dishes for our evening include braised tofu with minced meat, lotus root soup, sauteed cabbage and stir-fried chicken tenders with sesame seed oil, ginger, black fungus and Shiitake mushrooms.

With our everyday lives dramatically transformed almost overnight, self-care has also transformed from nice-to-have indulgence to must-have necessity.  We must look after ourselves because if we don’t, then we can’t look after anybody else. That’s the reason why throughout the MCO period, I still prioritize exercise everyday.

We can’t control La Corona but we can control exercise, diet, sleep and keep in touch with loved ones and friends via virtual meetings and positive behaviours. And reward ourselves for doing them by self-administering dopamine, a molecule released when you hit a goal, which in turn motivates you to repeat those behaviours and makes them easier to do. This can be as simple as telling yourself well done for going for that 20-minute run along the corridor of your apartment unit or doing a group Tabata / Yoga / HIIT with your buddies via Zoom. Because if you keep eating and stay sedentary, after the lockdown is lifted, you definitely can’t look down 😆

Stay healthy and active and stay safe at home peeps.

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I started off the day at 6:45 a.m. with the usual house chores while the entire family was still in lala land and then dragged Cass along to exercise with me at around 9:30 a.m.   After walking up the stairs to the 18th floor and back to the 5th floor, Ms Lazybones didn’t want to proceed with stretching and jogging at the corridor.   Hubs didn’t let her off the hook and dragged her to do 15 minutes of stretching and then had a ball game with her at our corridor before breakfast.

During the MCO, it’s really easy to fall into a lazy rut, even for adults. When there are no online classes, the girls are glued to their devices. I have to think of activities for these dopamine frazzled zombies to detach their eyes and fingers from their idiot gadgets.  Sherilyn will be experimenting with recipes in the kitchen when she’s overdosed with everything that her device could offer. Alycia spends most of her free time working out in front of her phone. And Cass, this brat is addicted to online games, which I am trying with my might to break her addiction.  I’ll get her to fetch things for me and to help to do some chores, besides having to do her duty, which is pretty easy – keeping the dishes after her sister has washed them and dad has dried them.

We had toasts with chicken mayo (from leftover roast chicken breast), French butter and Emmentel cheese for breakfast.  For lunch, Sherilyn cooked instant noodles with kimchi, spinach and lady’s fingers for her sisters and herself.

My parcel from Shopee finally arrived today. So happy that despite the MCO, delivery wasn’t badly delayed, though longer than usual. Hubs forced me to bring along the bottle of PECA disinfectant water to the lobby to spray on the parcel before bringing it into the house.  I am expecting another parcel from Shopee, which is a yoga mat, shipped from China. I hope to receive it by next week.

I had a sudden craving for haw flakes and Mamee today. I think I just need something sentimental from my happy worry-free childhood days to give me some comfort to pass these forlorn days.  My late maternal grandma used to order these from our neighborhood sundry shop as treats for my brothers and me in the late 1970s till 1980s.  Simple treats like this was a luxury for us.  It only cost 5 sen each (or maybe cheaper) back then.

Another long forgotten snack that we used to indulge in back then was fresh lotus root seeds which my grandma would buy from the wet market. We would while away our free time at night peeling lotus seeds skin and core one by one before popping these sweet and healthy seeds into our mouths.

Dinner: sweet and sour fried mackerel fish slices, leftover sweet corn soup, steamed organic chicken with assortment of fungi and red dates, stir-fried mustard greens with fried foo pei and sauteed bean sprouts with red and yellow capsicum.

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Today is exactly one month that we’ve survived our country’s partial lockdown and home quarantine.  Congrats to all our fellow Malaysians!  We’ve all made it this far and we’ve got another 11 more days to go, hopefully.

The total number of new cases have now gone down from triple digit to double digit for two days already.  But we must not let our guard down. We must continue to practise the MCO protocol and hygiene that we’ve been doing since the MCO started. God willing, we will all win this war (which I call WW III).

Hubs cooked breakfast for everyone again today! We had something luxurious and cafe-styled:

Crispy sourdough tartine with smoked salmon, French butter, avocado and scrambled eggs atop.

What lifts up my mood in the evening is when the hubs comes home with a loaf of sourdough bread with my favorite almond cake ❤️

Thank God for our organic vegetables seller whom we’ve been patronizing at the neighborhood park for the past decade, she is now delivering her farm produce to us once a week.

Whenever I need to be ‘outdoor’, I saunter to the kitchen and gaze outside to admire the view, practise deep breathing and people watch — the diligent guards patrolling our condo and fellow residents walking to collect stuff at the lobby.

Whenever I go down to the lobby to collect our parcels, fresh produce delivery or the newspapers, it warms my heart to see my neighbors.   We can’t see each other’s facial expression from the mask but we bow and wave to each other. Some of them are Japanese whom we have barely talked to before but during the MCO, we have suddenly developed such joy to see each other.

Parcels are now placed on a long table outside the guards’ control room. Delivery guys can no longer go to the individual units to send parcels. Residents have to collect them at the lobby after getting a call from the guard.

And today, I finally see hand sanitizer placed at the entrance of the main door. Bravo to our condo Management for taking heed after I sent them an email on this matter.

Today Yamaha finally started online piano classes and it’s Cass’ first online piano lesson. My phone is placed on the far left corner of the piano, propped up with decks of cards.

Sherilyn, who must have been influenced by Alycia who is intoxicated by an excessive of Korean drama, whipped up kimchi fried rice with spam meat, topped with fried eggs.

Dinner of steamed fish, organic slimy Malabar spinach egg drop soup, sauteed organic bitter gourd with chicken and sauteed organic French beans with leftover beef steak.

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The lockdown blues is really biting into my temperament. Everything and everyone seems to get on my nerves. It does not help that we are staying in a condo and besides my room, I have no where else to let off steam.  When I am at my nadir, my way of disinfecting my mind of all the codswallop and pent-up negative emotions is through exercise.  I did something unfathomable yesterday. Right  after my shower last night, I decided that I needed to exercise and I did 20 minutes of lower abdomen exercises and planks on the bed, right under the fan in my birthday suit as it was terribly hot and humid. Right after the exercise, I was drenched in sweat  and showered from head to toe again! At least I got my dose of endorphins for the day.

I have two yoga mats and both the mats have been hogged by the fitness enthusiasts in the house since the start of the MCO. Thus you see why I have to exercise on the bed.  I am going to get myself another yoga mat from Shopee and when it arrives, I am going to stash it in my room!

Our brunch on MCO day 27:

Fried hor fun with bean sprouts, fish cake, pork slices and eggs. The girls and I like our noodles with kimchi for the sour and spicy kick.  We now have one last packet of precious kimchi in the fridge.  Ever since the MCO started, kimchi is one of the hottest selling items at our neighborhood supermarket.  I was at the supermarket  yesterday and the kimchi shelves were all empty!

When I told Alycia that she has a dental appointment (change of braces wire and rubber), she was elated! And so was I. Going to the dentist’s office has never felt this exciting and happy for us.  The police can’t arrest me for having another passenger in the car as I have a valid reason! And while Alycia got her braces fixed, I indulged in a super quick retail therapy at two supermarkets and pharmacy.   Payment for all my purchases at the two supermarkets and the pharmacy was contactless, via Boost.

It’s Alycia’s first time out of the condo since the MCO started almost a month ago!

For tea time, Sherilyn made a healthy and aromatic low carb lemon cake using organic almond meal, BG22 oat bran powder, lemon juice, lemon zest, eggs, organic coconut sugar, extra virgin olive oil, milk, baking soda and turmeric powder (for the natural coloring).  The half cut cake (half was already in her tummy) is baked in a mug in the microwave oven and the cupcake is baked in the toaster oven.  I like them both. This creative baker can certainly earn a decent sum of pocket money selling her healthy bakes to fund her college fees next time!

Dinner of pork ribs + fish porridge for the porridge lovers and chicken rice for those who don’t fancy porridge.

How has the lockdown been for you? I hope you’re keeping well and having your sanity in check.  We will definitely win this third World War. Only time, patience, obedience and discipline will bring us out of the war safely.  So hang in there. Love to all. Thanks to all the heroes / frontliners. 😘

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Some of the pet peeves that really vex me during the MCO:

The littlest rascal hoarding my phone to attend online lessons whenever #2 hoards her dad’s laptop to attend her online lessons.

Not only does the littlest rascal hoard my phone, she hoards my desktop PC simultaneously too, as she says she has to submit her online homework immediately via Google Classroom to her teacher whilst they are still engaged in Zoom class.

#2 instructing me to turn off the radio whenever she attends online tuition / classes conducted by school teachers.  She also instructs Cass not to practise the piano whenever she attends online tuition and online dance classes.  Yesterday evening, she instructed everyone in the house to remain as silent as a dead mouse for almost an hour as she had to record a dance move for an online dance teacher in Australia to review.

So what am I going to do when I have no phone, no music, no PC and no newspapers to read?!  And I can’t frigging get out of the house to exercise or dump all the negativity from my mind or indulge in a little window shopping! I can’t even sneak on a Magnum ice-cream without the littlest rascal taxing half of it.

And oh, those nagging from some insensitive people on silly trivial matters, trifling as a smell-less silent fart. Oh. My. Gawd.  I am going bonkers!

When the MCO ends, there’s bound to be an increase in mental cases, domestic violence and divorce (already happening as reported in the papers) and diseases from eating too much processed foods, deli meat and canned food and from lack of exercise.

So when I am about to dial 999 for help, I just lock myself in my room, cuss, swear,  breathe in and breathe out and pray that this MCO and damn virulent pandemic will completely come to an end pronto!

Our MCO day 20 dinner:

Braised pumpkin with dried shrimps and minced garlic, lotus root + arrowroot soup again, 12345 pork ribs, leftover foo pei from lunch and sauteed cabbage with turmeric and fish cake.

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Our condo Management issued a new circular to all the residents yesterday, with some new restrictions added to the already long list of prohibitions at the condo throughout the MCO.  The new restriction prohibits residents from doing all forms of recreational activities within the compound of the condo!  With this restriction, I can confirm that I will go bonkers and can check myself into Tg Rambutan if the MCO is further extended!!

Can you imagine being cooped up in a 1,500 sq ft unit with kids, mil and spouse 24/7 without being allowed to even walk within the compound of the condo?  It can get really depressing on some days.

Today (4 April) I finally got out of the house to our neighborhood supermarket to do grocery shopping. It’s been exactly 7 days since I last went out of the house. Driving my car felt weird and I thought that my car felt bumpy and strange 😆 Thank God my car could start!

Brunch on MCO day 17, 3 April 2020:

Oven-grilled pork chop with Gouda cheese and croissants that our neighbor gifted us:

Sherilyn who is also bored to the core offered to cook dinner. She grilled organic chicken thighs, made a yummy creamy mushroom sauce to pair with the grilled chicken, grilled celery and carrots and made a mash of potatoes, carrots and orange sweet potato.

And grilled gigantic Portobello mushrooms seasoned with olive oil, minced garlic, salt and ground black pepper.

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Hubs and I went to town on a motorbike yesterday to get some groceries. Under the second phase of the MCO, only one person is allowed in a vehicle when they are out shopping for food and essential items. But we were both on a motorbike, defying the law blatantly.  We were courting trouble and trouble did we court. We were stopped by the police and then all of a sudden, I was left near Dataran Merdeka alone. My mobile phone battery has gone flat and I couldn’t call the hubs. I was waiting for the public bus to get home but the crowd was unimaginable. I didn’t have a face mask or sanitizer with me. I felt terribly insecure without my armor. Suddenly a lorry came to pick up people stranded on the street but I didn’t want to get up the overloaded lorry for fear of getting infected by the Virus. I was scared of humans, of the crowd, of being alone in a sea of people. And my dang phone is now useless. And my dang useless husband left me stranded in town while he went back to his office! I was fraught with fear and anger!

Thank God it was only a bad dream that I had last night!  I was jolted up from my sleep by this terrible dream and got up with a crick in my neck and shoulder blade.

This fear of crowd and going out is so immense that it has gotten into me 🥶 I think this phobia will stay with me and most of us for a very long time. Thank you very much Covid19.

Alycia must have been so dang bored cooped up in her room attending online classes and tuition that she got up early to cook breakfast for us. Never in her life has she done that before! That’s one of the plus points of this pandemic and partial lockdown.  It has pushed a reset button in all of us.

Alycia pan-fried spam meat with eggs. With both my eyes closed, Cass and I shared a piece. Both of us cringed as the spam meat is SO salty.  Imagine the amount of sodium and nitrite used to preserve the meat in the can for years! Why did hubs buy spam?!  Spam meat will only spam our health  😫

I  chugged down a huge mug of hot matcha to wash away the salty after taste in my mouth. So did Cass.  But I am glad that Alycia took the initiative to cook for us.

Fortunately mil cooked pork ribs porridge and the spam meat didn’t taste that salty when paired with the porridge (no salt added).

Dinner was delish Sarawak curry laksa that hubs bought to support his best friend’s Nyonya restaurant, Lima Pulo, Baba Can Cook, during this difficult time where most retailers and restaurants are hit hard by the MCO.

MIL also dished out steamed fish, braised turnip and radish soup.

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This morning I had a craving to eat bitter gourd pork noodles but there was no bitter gourd or fish balls in our fridge. As I’d skipped exercising in the morning, I decided to go to our neighborhood supermarket instead to pick up the items for our bitter gourd pork noodles tonight.

The thought of the SOP for pre and post groceries shopping trip often turns me off going shopping these days. I used to look forward to doing my groceries shopping everyday but now it feels like a chore and a tall order too. And the fear of bringing  the Virus back to my family is numbing.

Before I left the house, I sprayed Sodium Hypochlorite disinfectant water all over my body and grabbed a face mask. The mil who wasn’t convinced that I’d sprayed enough of disinfectant came towards me and slathered more SH disinfectant water on the back of my arms 😆  I think she was more worried than me.  Suddenly going groceries shopping felt like going into the battlefield!

I reached the supermarket at around 8:15 a.m.  I was lucky that I managed to get a parking spot right outside the supermarket the moment I arrived, thank God!  The queue into the supermarket was already building up. All the shoppers had to queue outside the supermarket with a 1 meter distancing from each other. Our temperatures were taken too and hand sanitizer provided.  Each time a shopper exits from the supermarket, a new shopper enters. Even with this controlled entrance, it was still crowded inside, particularly the fruits and vegetables section.

Within 5 minutes after I queued up, I turned back and saw a long queue that spilled onto the road, at least 30 people deep. Thank goodness I was 5 minutes earlier than them!

Once back home with the groceries, I quickly wiped down each item with Sodium Hypochlorite water, sprayed the shopping bags with SH water and wiped the kitchen tops and floors with disinfectant wipes.

Today hubs prepped breakfast of fried eggs and boiled sausages.

Lunch was quiche that hubs bought yesterday.

Dinner was bitter gourd pork noodles with fish balls, fish cakes, ‘fu pei’ and cabbage in anchovies soup.

In the evening our neighborhood pau seller delivered the assortment of frozen pau and siew mai that I ordered to my condo, which I collected at the lobby.  I ordered over RM100 worth of these via Whatsapp and paid via online banking last night.

And again, as per our usual SOP for bringing new food items into the kitchen, I wiped the plastic packaging of all the paus with SH disinfectant water.  It’s so tedious having to carry out this sanitization step on all our newly bought food items every single time.

On my birthday tomorrow, I will eat these paus and siew mai for brunch and don’t know what for dinner and then slog in the kitchen washing and cleaning up 😁 It will be my first time celebrating my own birthday in my beautiful country that’s in a partial lockdown.  Cass will also be celebrating her 12th birthday in similar fashion next month. 😅

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Today the girls cooked brunch!

Sausages are such a rare sight on HFM’s blogs but since the head of the family is now tasked to do the shopping, he buys not only what’s on the shopping list but also all his happy food items… like chips, sausages and instant noodles 🙄

Here’s our brunch menu today, not the healthiest of food but still better than food delivery, in my opinion:

Sherilyn cooked ramen using Korean instant noodles. She added pork chop, fresh corn kernels, lady fingers, fish balls and onions to her ramen. The ramen eggs aka ajitsuke tamago were made yesterday and left in the fridge to soak in the  marinate sauce.

Alycia was tasked with boiling the sausages and Cass made the scrambled eggs and toasts.

These food safety steps have now become an SOP in our kitchen:

1  The head of the family comes back from grocery shopping. He stands outside the unit and I spray sodium hypochlorite water all over his clothes, hands, legs and shoes.  Sometimes he washes his clothes and shoes before leaving the clothes in the laundry basket for another round of thorough wash in the washing machine. Sometimes he showers.

2  He leaves the groceries on the kitchen floor. I rope in the girls to quickly remove all the items from the shopping bags and bin the bags immediately.

3  Things wrapped in a packet are wiped with antibacterial wipes and canned food items are washed with soap and water and left to dry.

4  Once the groceries are cleared, the kitchen floor is immediately wiped with sanitizing wet wipes.

5  For takeout food, the plastic bags are sprayed with sodium hypochlorite water before placing them on the kitchen top.

6  Fruits are washed with soap and water before the skin is peeled off.

The scene is akin to one at the hospital ER. Everyone works swiftly as though there’s an emergency but our mission is to safe our own lives. 😆

I won’t even let Cass peel the banana skin herself. I carefully peel the banana skin for her, cut off the top part of the banana flesh and squirt the banana out of its skin onto a plate.

It is SO tiring doing all these steps after every shopping trip. But no complaints.  Since our movements are really limited during the MCO, all these crazy activities help to burn some calories, else everyone will be seated at their nest, comfortably hibernating with eyes and hands glued to their devices.  To hit as many steps as I can each day, I have now become an OCD, moping the floors 5-6 times in a day. I. am. so. tired! But this is nothing, absolutely nothing compared to the front liners all over the world saving people. My absolute respect for them.

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