Category Archives: In the Kitchen

3rd weekend of May

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they are absolute darlings when they are not fighting…

Recently, my personal life have been quite fulfilling as we have slow down shooting to the extend of only having 2 shoots this whole month. Fulfilling as in I get to walk my life more laid back and spend more time with my kids. I also need not rush photos for customers. No pile up of photos to be edited. I even had time to sort out my photos of last year!! Keng!! I’ve also resort not to turn on my laptop when I’m at home, just use iphone to limit my time spent on the computer. Basically, I’m enjoying myself :) .

So what we did over the weekend?

Vyktore’s all time favourite stunt at home…joined by Faythe

Friday night, we went for movies: Furry Vengence. Introduced by my colleague, it’s a movie worth watching if you need some laughter to breakaway from office stress. More worth watching this than watching Malaysia got thrashed in Thomas Cup :P . Both of them enjoyed the movie and laughed so loud!! Nowadays, I usually bring them out myself or with my brother since they are old enough and easier to control. Don’t need to bring my black-face maid along.

doing her Chinese homework, sometimes can take up to 1 hour O.o.

On Saturday, I went to wet market late. After that went lunch with both of them behind the house. Then we spent our saturday noon finishing up their homework. After homework session, had the chance to play with my camera and took some photos of them.

Then we made jellies before we proceed to our art and craft project.

I’ve been procrastinating to start our craft project but at last we completed our mini crafted aquarium. No photo as we still have the frame not completed yet. Faythe was the big contributor to the aquarium. Vyktore was only drawing the eyes n mouth of the sea creatures and requesting for all sorts of creatures to be featured in our aquarium.

After that I drop Faythe off to art class and slave myself in the kitchen for 2 hours. Our dinner menu:

  1. Fried chicken fingers
  2. Honey baked chicken wings
  3. Friend noodles

My 1st time successfully fried noodles. Faythe was the biggest supporter.

When it comes to fried noodles, tell you the truth I’m a total failure. For as long as I’ve lived, I have never once successfully fried edible noodles. It’s either it’s too much noodles & lack of ingredients or vice versa. But last weekend for once it’s just nice. I goreng until my hand also pain.

2nd time frying these. A hit for Vyktore. I knew he won’t *hiu* my fried noodles, hence I made these for him. He finished close to half of this plate.

We had jellies for dessert :) .

On Sunday, I sent Faythe for art class again in the morning. I’ve signed her up for lifetime member, so she gets to go to class as often as she wants without additional fee hehe…

They wanted KFC for lunch, so when I fetch her we packed KFC home as well.

Sunday was more lazy, watched some TV after lunch. As for dinner, we had:

  1. Lotus Root Soup
  2. Honey baked chicken wings – again
  3. Fried rice

This the honey baked chicken. It’s a bit burnt at the tip and the alu foil cause my maid supposed to help me watch the api and glaze the chicken don’t know doing what and went missing halfway thru. Nevertheless it’s tasty!!

That was how we have our weekend. How was yours?

Here are more photos of the 2 of them taken over the weekend.

Erasing her homework

Whilst busy at work, sometimes she’d post for me as well.

Another pose from my willing model

After completed homework, Vyktore came by and show us his feet :P

Photo session turned violent LOL

Vyktore, posing for me rarely. He’s very impatient when it comes to taking photos, not easy nowadays.

2 of them again. I heart this ;) .

See my poser LOL. I don’t know where she learned to pose like this, but if you notice this whole post the photos she’s been tilting her head. Does your 5yo does that too?

Have a nice week ahead…

No TV Weekend…yeah!!

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(credits & details here)

Wow, I can’t believe it I actually wrote that. No TV for the weekend!! Usually they will spend like 2-3 hours watching their favourite show during weekends. I’ll try to limit as much as possible cause they are already watching loads of it during weekdays @ MIL’s place.

So what we did this weekend? Well, supposed to go for cupcake deco event, but Faythe’s age is below the eligible one, so end up didn’t go. Daddy was off on Saturday, and early morning he dig all of us up, for breakfast. Apparently he wants to go Sri Kembangan cause MIL is there at the other house. So, pack the kids and off we go. Faythe loves going to that house cause she can runaround in the huge garden.

So we had lunch there instead of breakfast. Then we reach home close to 3pm, everyone slept in the car except ME (the driver)!! Then we went for movies at 5pm. Movies are not cheap, so we got a cash advance and watched Golden Compass. Daddy didn’t go cause he claims that he’s having sore throat. So only myself, 2 kids & maid. Vyktore as usual, fell asleep half way thru the movie. Faythe finished the whole movie. She’s watching it 2nd time, she watched it few days ago with Daddy during his off day. She could even remember some scenes and tell me what happen….wahh…

Then dinner eermm…seriously I can’t recall what we had, but it was a quickie since Daddy is working on Sunday need to go to bed early.

This morning when I woke up, Vyktore was already wide awake, flipping the books in the room. I took him down gave him milk, thought want to sneak out to market alone, but Faythe woke up. so I brought her along with me to the market. Went to buy some stuff to cook for dinner tonight.

Then we went to tesco and gave my pocket a big hole, replenishing all the groceries. After that went home while Vyktore had a short nap. Reached home had a quick bite and off they went swimming in their inflatable pool upstairs.

While they were busy upstairs, I quickly boil the soup and prep the rest of the ingredients for the remaining dishes. We have very special soup today. Pears with lean meat…yum yum…After their pool session, I force them to nap for 2 hours haha…cause I can sense that Faythe is starting to be a bit cranky.

Woke up close to 5pm, started my cooking while the kids played ball at the garage. They had a great time there. When I finished cooking, Daddy came home just on time. Had our dinner and we drove out to get some medicine for his sore throat.

Came back, they packed up their toys..and all went to bed. Lovely weekend without TV!! Yahoo!!!

What did I cook?

  1. Pear soup with lean meat, add some oysters (hou see) & shredded dried sotong
  2. Bake brocolli, cauliflower & carrot with cheese topping
  3. Stew potatoes with chicken
  4. Steam minced pork with shredded dried sotong & tung choy

Verdict of the dinner – everyone loves it. Daddy is packing the leftover stew potatoes & chicken with some rice for tomorrow’s flight.

I sew my food…

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When it comes to cooking creativity, I don’t think anyone can beat me hahaha…Nope, I’m not saying that I’m very good with cooking, I’m definitely a so-so cook.

I was very tempted to try cooking Darrius Mom’s Stuffed Squid. So one weekend, I went to the market and bought 3 long squids. Maid cleaned it very nicely and stored in the freezer. I took it out the next day to defrost (didn’t check the inside). And of course I did all the preparation as instructed by Darrius Mom. When the time comes to stuff the squid…OMG..I almost fainted when I saw the squid.

My maid slit open all the 3 squids when she cleaned it!! So it’s now all wide open and I can’t stuff anything. Boy…and Daddy is on his way back from flight.
So I came up with a brilliant idea. Sorry lah, house no toothpicks, I couldn’t sew it together with toothpicks. I sew the squids with thread LOL.

Then I quickly stuff the ingredients into the sewn-squid and sew the top to prevent it from spilling.

This is how it looks after steaming…it taste very delicious. I gotta cut the thread and pull it out before I eat it.

My only regret..why didn’t I buy more squids??

East meets West recipe

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I cooked porridge for Faythe on one of those weekend. Just a slice of pork with porridge. It was cooked for more than 8 hours in the crock-pot. But doesn’t taste good still after 8 hours.

Went to dig for marmite, thought wanna put in some for flavouring, but I couldn’t find it. So this is what I did. Faythe finished the whole bowl of porridge hahaha…

One piece of cheese..tear into tiny pieces
Handful of raisins…sprinkle as you eat

Sprinkle the tiny pieces of cheese onto the porridge, and then stir. You will find that the cheese melts and gives the porridge a creamy look, but not chewy like pizza :P .

Once I announce CHEESE!!! Faythe instantly looked at me and came to me to take her first bite. She loves it LOL. Then I top it up with some raisins to give her some texture to bite. Yum yumm…I tasted it, err not salty, just creamy, but kids love it I guess..at least mine does hahaha…

So east meets west recipe = happy Faythe :) . Try it out, who knows your kid might love it too….

Baked Tuna Pasta

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Decided to try baking pasta on Saturday after getting the idea from Children’s recipe book. Here’s what we need:

Ingredients:

80g tuna (chunks or flakes), mash them up

3 oz pasta (any shapes)

5 oz milk

1 egg

4 tbs of grated cheese (I used mozarella)

Method:

Preheat to oven at 190 degrees C

Boil pasta till it’s cooked.

Mix the tuna with the pasta together.

This is how it looks like…

Then pour the milk into a bowl, break the egg in and stir

Add 2 tbs of grated cheese into the egg mixture…and here’s how it looks like.

Pour the pasta + tuna mixture into small oven proof dish.

Then pour the egg mixture into the pasta + tuna mixture.

Sprinkle the remaining grated cheese ontop, bake for 15-20mins.

If you bake for 15 mins, there will be some remaining juices after that, a lil bit of soup I should say. If you bake for 20 mins, it’s all dried up. Depends whichever you like, I tried both :) .

And here’s the final product. The top is crusty and looks burnt because of the cheese (if you don’t want it to be burnt like this, put the cheese much later – 5mins before ready).

And he’s the filling…yummy…Faythe finished 3/4 bowl of it :) .

Baking

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Mommy is definitely not a good cook as Daddy has often show his funny look when tasting Mommy’s homecook food. Well, what to do, my Mom died so early, all her secret recipe didn’t pass to me. I only manage to learn soups from her. The rest I do trial and error from all sort of sources. Most of the time, it fails..dunno why also lah, maybe never put the heart to cook haha…Last month, I decided to *request* for an oven, after looking at all the yummy recipes Twinsmom made with her oven. So I told Daddy, I want an oven for my belated birthday gift. Of course I slotted in some good words to make him buy for me :P . So he actually went to get it. Very good bargain indeed, RM90 for a Pensonic oven. Since I’m a beginner, better not get something too fancy. I’m really happy with the gift. *Muaks* *Muaks*Ever since then, I started using the oven day in and out. I would say, at least 2 times a week. And I find it so so convenient, of course minus the oily floor too!!I’ve tried many recipes, some are self creation, some are modified from recipe book, and some from blogger Mommies too. 

So here’s what Mommy been baking for dinner @ home. As for Daddy, he still show his OK face!! Everytime I ask him, he would just answer…OK lah…that’s all his comment on the food *kik sum*. But I can see that at least he’s more willing to eat my food haha….

HALL OF FAME…


Eggplant bake with Dory Fish…top up with cheese

Recipe: ownself > posted on cookblog


Tomato bake with Dory Fish…top up with cheese too..

Recipe: ownself, actually it’s the same as the 1st one, just change the toppings.


Portobello mushroom with onions and cheese topping

Recipe: 5xMom


Salmon with lemony cheesy sauce

Recipe: improvised from internet


Hong Xiu pork ribs

Recipe: Rachel, she braised the pork ribs, I bake instead :)


Garlic pork ribs

Recipe: ownself
Recipe: twinsmom

HALL OF SHAME…

sausages and carrot with cheese

recipe: ownself

why it failed: the cheese got stuck to the aluminium foil!!!

There are a few more hall of fame, didn’t took pics though :p

Tomorrow’s dinner: Bake threadfin (I think it’s mai yau) with banana leave and lemon slices. Lets hope I can get banana leave, or else will be back to aluminium foil.Next in line, shepherd pie. I’m going to get a proper oven-proof casserole dish first (from IKEA), then I’ll try it out hehehe…

Honey Chicken Wings

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It’s 2 days before Chinese New Year. I’m off today from office work, but got tonnes of to-dos to complete before Chinese New Year. While waiting for Faythe to wake up from her nap, let me blog this recipe, maybe you want to try it out during CNY :) .Ingredients:
6 Chicken wings, half it to the drummet and the wing itself
pinch of salt (for flavouring the chicken)
a bit KFC frying powder (for frying)
1 egg (beaten)
3-4 table spoon of honey
Oil for frying

Method:

  1. Marinate the chicken with a bit of salt
  2. Dip into the beaten egg to coat it a little bit and make it sticky
  3. Dip into KFC frying powder
  4. Put the chicken into the hot oil and fry till golden brown
  5. Dish out the chicken
  6. Take out all the frying oil, leaving just a little bit
  7. Return all the chicken into the wok
  8. Add in the honey, while constantly tossing the chicken so that the honey will not get burned
  9. Dish out instantly once all the honey has coated the chicken
  10. Ready to serve…yum yum…the photo looks a bit dark, cause we used dark pure honey

You may substitute chicken wings with spare ribs, I think it’ll taste the same too :) . Happy trying & Gong Xi Fa Chai

Wintermelon corn soup

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Last week, I bought some cookbook with Indon language for the maid to master her cooking. This is the 4th week we’ve been eating at home Mon-Fri. Sometimes out of idea for soups, especially when I try not to repeat it. But I quite enjoy this, and the maid also has more things to do in the evening. Here’s a very yummy soup that the maid learned from the cookbook, it’s pretty easy to make and children loves it.

Ingredients
1/4 – 1/2 winter melon
1 can corn in cream (can purchase from supermarket)
RM2 minced pork/chicken meat
1 egg
1-1.5 litre water

Method

  1. Boil water in a pot
  2. While waiting for water to boil, cut the wintermelon into cubes
  3. When water is boiled, pour all the wintermelon in, boil the wintermelon till soft
  4. Pour in the corn in cream while waiting for the wintermelon to soften
  5. Then add in minced pork bit by bit, can shape into meatball as well if you wish
  6. Cover the pot, put slow fire and simmer for 10-15 minutes more
  7. Use a fork to test the melon if it’s soft enough
  8. Add in the beaten egg and stir to get the flowery egg effect
  9. Add in some salt to your taste
  10. Ready for drink liao…yum yum..here’s a pic of the soup, the ones that looks like cubes n cubes of ice, those are the transparent wintermelon. The minced pork can’t be seen (sunken underneath). Daddy & Faythe loves the soup…finish the whole bowl hahahaha…..

Lemon Chicken

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Home internet for pass few days been extremely snail!!! I’m really getting so sick of it but I don’t have other choice :( . So I’m sacrifying my lunch time to blog…

So here’s the Lemon Chicken Recipe, happy trying. First time cooking and don’t think recipe a bit right, so try to adjust it as you want :)

Ingredients
10 Chicken Fillet (for 5 adults, 2 pieces each)
2 lemons
sugar (to your taste)
1-2 teaspoon cornflour (for thickening of sauce)

Method

  1. You can cut the chicken fillet into cubes if you want, or else just marinate with a bit salt, then cover with egg white and KFC flour and deep fry it till golden brown
  2. Set aside the fried chicken
  3. Squeeze lemon juice into a bowl. Keep some of the skin for cooking (you can shred the skin)
  4. Heat up the wok, lightly fry the lemon skin
  5. Pour the lemon juice into the wok
  6. Bring to boil, then add in sugar till it’s less sour. We added 5-6 teaspoon of brown sugar.
  7. Then pour some cornflour + water to thicken the sauce
  8. Once it’s at the correct taste that you want, pour the chicken into the sauce and fry it lightly so that the sauce mix together with the chicken (we skip this, we just pour the sauce over the chicken hehe)


That’s it, you have the lemon chicken, easy right :)

From Popiah to Chicken Rice

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1st Jan

Mommy woke up at 8am when Faythe woke up. The night before, Mommy has instructed the maid to perpare the popiah filling (shredding sengkuang & carrot). So after feeding Faythe and put her back to sleep with Daddy, we went to cook the popiah filling. It was muk yee, sengkuang and carrot. I forgot to put meat until much later.

Then maid fried omelette and shred them. Daddy came downstairs, asking what’s for breakfast. Preparing lorrr..Faythe woke up, so while Mommy wrap popiahs for Daddy, she was playing with maid. Popiah skin…with a bit of sweet sauce (bought from market)..add the fresh lettuce, then the popiah fillings….spread some egg omelette on top and wrap ‘em up. Here’s 3 for Daddy. He finished 5 popiah, Mommy had 2, HS & Aud had 3 (shared), maid ate 2.

Later Daddy was called for flight, so we wrap up all the remaining popiah for Daddy to bring on flight to eat.

We didn’t cook at night, went to have beef noodle and tapau for Daddy too.

2nd Jan
After drafting out this week’s dishes, we went marketing at Section 17 in the morning. Today we are cooking chicken rice. I read about the recipe in one of the cookbook, but the way they cook the chicken seems that it’s just boil chicken, no taste. So Mommy alter the recipe, made salted chicken with onion rice.


The salted chicken turn out so well, i ate quite a fair bit, left some for Daddy and maid. Maid cook ham choy taufu soup..Really salty day huh hahaha…As for the rice, Mommy dump some fried onion and oil into the rice when it’s cooked, it’s so fragrant, reminds me of the bak kut teh shop rice :) . As for vegetables, we just fried some taugeh. Simple dinner and yet delicious. Of course Faythe didn’t get to taste the chicken as it’s too salty for her. Mommy reserved some onion rice with the soup (quite bland taste without salt) for her dinner. She finished almost everything. She also ate some taufu from the soup.

Mommy now waiting for Daddy to come up and give 2 thumbs up hhehehe…*feel so perasan now*

The coming few post will be on all the recipes of the dishes I’ve cooked and successful pass few days. Stay tuned for those interested, for those not interested, sorry lah.

Suddenly I find myself on cloud nine cooking up food for the family :)