Pleasures of Home Cooking

Cooking and baking for the family are really great pleasures for me. On Malaysia day, last Thursday, my brother and his family visited us at home. I decided to cook nasi lemak and thai green chicken curry with the green curry paste I bought from Chiang Mai. It was pretty good, a little too spicy because of the paste but still good. My brother and my sister-in-law seemed to have enjoyed it.

Then on the weekend, I cooked more stuff for the kids and hubby. For lunch on Saturday, we had Hot Soup (Hakka style). This is a very simple soup, made with chicken or pork slices or both. The soup based was made from anchovies. Ginger slices, 'tong choi', ground pepper and chinese celery are also important ingredients, none of them can be omitted. The result is a hot but clear soup, wonderful for clearing your nasal blockage (just my personal opinion).




For tea, I made egg tarts. I had made them previously but it had been a while. It was difficult to get the baked tarts out of the tart moulds but we finally managed to. I like the taste of it but I think I need to try a few more times to try making the pastry thinner and also find the correct technique to remove the baked tarts out of the moulds.

In the evening, we went to a close friend's house for a early mid-autumn celebration cum bday party for her daughter. Was a nice nite for gathering of my friends with some hubbies being dragged into the gathering as baby sitters, such as mine.

On Sunday, after church, we had my kids' favourite for lunch. No points for guessing correctly, yes, it was Mc Donalds. I also must admit I like McD too, my all time favourite is double cheese burger. I know they are having a promotion for triple cheese burger but I dare not order it, double is already bad enough! So I had my double cheese burger while the kids had beef burgers, chicken nuggets and fries coupled with large diet cokes (too much sugar is bad for you, hence diet coke. Fat ).

For dinner made pork belly with salted fish in clay pot (ham yu fa lum po) again and also thick taufu soup (taufu kang). Felt good that almost everyone enjoyed their dinner. I said almost because my little girl wouldn't finish her food :(. She is a picky eater but I am determine to change that, slowly :P.














Looking forward to try cooking new stuff when I can again.

Scare of my Life

Today at about 5pm, my mother-in-law gave a call on the the phone while I was still at work. It was scary news as I heard that my 2nd son had slammed the room door onto my two and a half years old daughter's fingers. My MIL described my daughter's 2 fingers were almost severed ('tuin' in cantonese to be exact). I was so horrified but I hoped that they weren't as bad as she described. I rushed home and all the way, I was super worried and tears were welling up. While driving, I was praying that her fingers will be able to heal, eventually, and they were not permanently damaged.

Thank Almight God for my prayers answered. Her fingers were a very scary sight, badly hurting but they looked to me to be no broken bones. She was sobbing a little but she was crying badly before I reached home. Her middle finger's nail was almost coming out and her ring finger was badly skinned. Her pinky had some minor bruises. I brought her to the clinic and she was treated immediately. As I expected, the finger were not broken, the kind Dr Chan dressed the wounds lightly and asked me to bring her back in 2 days to change the dressing. Some antibiotic and pain killer were prescribed to her. Her had stopped crying and seems to be taking it very well, I guess the most painful time had past. Her nail will eventually fall off and new nail will grow. I had a similar accident when I was very young and lost my fingernail but it regrew back normally. So I am quite sure there isn't any permanent damage. Thank God.

I tried to speak some senses to my 2 sons who were quarelling before one of them slammed the door that my daughter's finger were incidentally at the right place at the wrong time. They were no doubt being naughty but it was an accident. I tried to not make it a big deal, I didn't want to make them feel too guilty about it. I want to make an impression on them that they had caused much pain to their little sister and they have to be extremely careful not to slam doors in the future.

Sometimes, I am really at a lost. It seems like not too long ago I was a kid myself but now I am parent to 3 growing children. Adults don't always know what to do, but as parents, we all try our best. I appreciate that my parents also went through the same things bringing us up. They just did the best they could, that's all anyone can do really.

To all my friends who are parents, don't worry, nothing is perfect. You won't be the perfect parent and don't kill yourself trying to be one cause you will never be. Just do the best that you can, your kids will know and appreciate it when they are bringing up their own little ones. Happy parenting and I pray that God will bless all parents with the wisdom and strength to do their very best at all times bringing up their kids. Amen.

Kids' Activities, Cooking and Mooncakes

These few weeks are filled with public holidays. Upcoming is the Raya and then for the 1st time ever in the peninsular, Malaysia Day on 16th Sept. As usual, we have no plans. I think I really need to think of some activities for the kids, it's afterall also school holidays this week. Maybe a kite flying or fresbee playing will get them some exercise and fresh air. Or maybe we should go to Sepang for a half day trip which we planned 2 weeks ago but had to cancel since everyone was sick. I don't know yet but definitely we should do something out of the ordinary shopping in the mall thing.

Last Saturday, I suddenly decided to cook lontong when I saw the 'instant' ketupats are on sale in Tesco. My kids liked it very much and I also made sambal ikan bilis to add some spiciness to it since the lontong kuah is not spicy to accommodate the kids. As usual, I always cook too much. So my hubby took some to my in laws and I still have 3 packets of cooked ketupats in the fridge that will eventually end up in the trash can. My estimation is bad but I hate wasting food. I hope we can do something with the extra ketupats and not throw them away.

For Sunday dinner, as suggested by my hubby, I made 'ham yu fa lum po' (salted fish and pork belly in a pot) which turned out quite good. I even used the claypot and bought the authentic hua tiao wine for the dish. The 'ham yu' or salted fish I used was what I bought from Kuantan which is the really good quality type. I proudly give myself 8.5 out of 10. If I get a thicker soy sauce the dish will be better. So I will make sure I get 9.5 in my next try! We forgot to take picture of the dish before we digged into it, so there will be no pic of it on this post. Cooking or baking for the family is really a great pleasure. When I am in the mood, I really love trying something special and nutritious at the same time.

I was looking at the mooncake recipes but I think it might be a tough one, especially making the fillings and finding a mooncake mould. But in the event that I can get my hands on the mould, I might really try making some simple mooncakes. The prices of the mooncakes are really exorbitant nowadays and there are so many varieties of mooncakes in the market, it's really crazy. I still like the traditional types that are baked with lotus paste fillings and maybe one yolk. Plus it is pretty unhealthy stuff, I am not going to having that many slices.