A Saturday morning

Pack..pack..pack...Last minute mommy busy packing her hospital bag and Little Ya Ya's clothes. LOL, and still not finalised till today. 

Yesterday marked the beginning of my Week 38, which means i have two weeks before Ya Ya' arrival. And let me share with you a horrible thing that happened yesterday morning. My stuffy nose bled for the first time!! I was in the toilet when blood started dripping; and almost got a shock of my life coz i thought i was going into labour; but then again the colour wasn't right (should be pinkish instead of bright red, bright red means miscarriage?). I started wiping my nose in horror to literally realising that blood was flowing from there. What a first time experience. I used to wonder why i never had nose bleed when i was young after seeing my classmates having them. LOL.

Everyone thinks i have too much 'heat' inside (thanks to the korean buffet, nuts, chocolates and oppppssss, did you drink a little coffee?). I blamed it on the dry air in the room (coz my nose tends to get stuffy in the morning) and maybe the 'heatiness' (have been having sore throat also). To cool me down, hubby got me more coconuts (yeah!), so he'll be opening one for me everyday! I want to eat watermelon too,  ya.... 

Anyway, despite what happened in the morning, i was glad i managed to fulfil one of my promises to hub. He's a quiche lover and every time he buys one from the cafe, i would tell him i would make this for you... not that hard....bla bla bla...my baker's crap. LOL. Well, finally the homemade vegetable and bacon quiche he has been waiting. Doesn't look very nice for a first timer but taste wise, my man is happy!

Parents are arriving in a couple of days! :-D

A simple Korean meal

Hubby has been going outstation for the last couple of weeks, n that means i was (and still am) home alone. Though it wasn't the first time he had to leave for work, i have to admit i still find it difficult to sleep well without him. I didn't realise this until the other day, a friend of mine mentioned how she couldn't sleep when her hub is away; and i realised i had the same problem! Lol.

And of course, apart from sleeping, i find cooking hard. Cooking for one, or rather for myself, is not something i am keen of, particularly when i have to wash, chop, cook, n wash; all for the sake of feeding myself. And it gives me headache just thinking of what i should eat; can't just have meat or vege dish alone; what's for starch or if  wat i'm about to cook is healthy enough as a meal.

I cooked this korean style stir fry beef the other day for lunch, and i thought it was a masterpiece. LOL. Not only was it easy, it was packed with colourful nutritious vegetables (i added carrots, red, green capsicums and onions) and the taste was superb! The beef was marinated with the korean spicy pepper sauce (sorry i don't know the name in korean) which i bought from a korean store just up the road.

And it goes well with rice of course! A simple and decent meal which now makes cooking-for-one less troublesome for me. Just fry the marinated beef with onions and carrots till cooked and soft before finally adding the capsicum and ta-da!!, u now have a  proper meal.

Easter is coming in less than 3 weeks time, n i am pampering myself with lots of chocolate hot cross buns which i now find myself addicted to, to the point which i can't resist at least two a day! Now, how am i going to keep fit? LOL.

Before July comes

Have been waking up early since my hub started his work at MA. Preparing his lunch box, breakfast n tea treats is my responsibility and tat's how i start my day daily. At 8.30am, i send him off to the Park n Ride a.k.a. major bus stand to catch his direct bus to the city. Come home, clean, read, surf and cook. Thank God i'm having a break before my semester starts, and i'll be a student officially next mth! :-). At the meantime, i'm a housewife who's contemplating whether she shd join Mccain.

Every day i ask him what he wld like in his lunch box, and without fail, he wld answer 'sandwiches ba'. I am hoping that he wld bring some leftovers from last nite's dinner but i understand sandwiches are perhaps, one of the convenient meals. No need microwaving, or reheating; just pop n munch. And yeah, he's much slimmer now.

I try to make them as healthy as i can with lotsa salads n proper fillings. Sometimes it's ham n honey mustard. At times when there is chicken, it wld be chicken avocado. Or when the supplies are out, tuna or egg mayo comes into the rescue. Any more ideas ppl? I'll be searching for nice pork floss.

N they are often multigrain/ linseed soy bread. I became lenient these days, i gave him croissants. :-) If he grows slimmer, it makes me feel insecure (HAHA!).

And that's how bad i am. I wld fill his tea box with butter cakes or fresh egg tarts, depending on  what i baked the day before. That way he can last till a proper dinner at home.

Pumpkin butter cake - still trying out n modifying the recipe.

I have been pretty lazy. Wanted to bake buns, but somehow the tv looks more inviting. :-P

Battle: Level 2 (Known to be the toughest exam on planet Earth?)

My dearest hubby is sitting for a V.I.P (paper) tmr! The battle of CFA level 2 will kick off at 9am, tormenting pour souls for six hours 'zhun-zhun' (2 hrs lunch break in between) and i will be picking him up after 5pm.

Pretty tough; six books, six modules fitted into one exam in one day of six hours. My hub claimed he's losing hair ald. LOL

For the last lunch before the battle day, i cooked my first pot of lamb in my entire life!! Black pepper mongolian lamb!

A very ordinary spread of a typical chinese meal:

Now it's my turn to stress! Civil or Environmental?? What say you? I need to make an informed and justified decision!



In spite of that, i wan to wish hub the very best of all best - May God's wisdom, patience, good time management and ultimate favor be with you throughout your exam!! God bless you tremendously!! 

Seafood Marinara

My dearest hub cooked me another pasta dish the other day and i was overjoyed! Lol.

Seafood marinara in red wine basil sauce spaghetti...yummy. Has been long long time since i had fish! :-(

Ji Ku Ba Ku Teh/ Ba Ku Teh

Ahh, bak kut teh! One of our comfort food in the cold. Never realised how comforting the herbal rib soup is, especially during those chills. Hehe, tell you a stupid secret. I never really liked ba kut teh to be honest. Wouldn't fancy it in M'sia in that tropical warm weather. And did you know that ba kut teh in Singapore is ... well, very different? They taste like pepper soup!

Malaysia (as in Klang) has a reputation for best ba kut teh. According to one of my friends from Klang, they have ba kut teh for breakfast n lunch. They signify it as how the northern Chinese signified their dumplings. Slightly different, we Sabahans eat ba kut teh for dinner, and sometimes lunch? I didn't fancy the ba kut teh i had in Singapore (quite bad, i tell u) lol, but somehow, cooking their herbal sachet at home taste better than those from M'sia. The taste is more prevalent n stronger, wherelse the ones from M'sia are weaker. Funny thing is, it doesn;t taste like the true n real Singaporean ba kut teh. Go to SG to try their infamous 'rou gu cha' n u'll understand wat i meant.

We occasionally cook ba kut teh at home, using ready-made satches of spice. Tried the Klang version, but not strong enuf (yes, how ironic).  Once my uncle and his family came for dinner, i boiled a large pot of chicken drumsticks and pork ribs with this Seah's spices n it was super good. From then, i stick to SG spices.

Another thing i discovered was by boiling chicken n pork together, it produces a sweeter stock.  For this reason, whenever i decided to cook ba kut teh or 'ji ku ba ku teh', i always get skinless chicken drumsticks and pork spare ribs. The result: super yummy!

What can be better than serving with a bowl of plain rice! On a cloudy winter day ... i'm dreaming of ji ku ba ku teh!

Easy. Just boil the meat with garlic over low heat for the first 1.5 hrs, add the spices in the last 30 mins, followed by mushrooms n vege before serving! Enjoy!

Cooking

Sometimes i questioned myself why I didn't inherit any of grandma's cooking skills. My maternal grandma, who raised n cared for me when i was young, was one of the best cooks I've known in my entire life. I grew up eating her homecooked meals, n still did even when i was working back in KK. I remembered her cooking lotsa fish (anyone knows the name of the fish in english called Hei Chang? flat black one) and i guess that was how i developed into a fish fanatic. I can easily finish one whole fish by myself, regardless of what fish and i'm bitterly craving for one right now. How pathetic, i chose to settle in a metropolitan where fresh sea fishes are .. well not that available. U can get one, i believe somehow, but it'll probably leave a big hole in your wallet. Just the other day, i was so shocked by the asam steamed fish we had in one of the M'sian restaurants in Boxhill; fish in Mel is just .. no good. Apart from cod or salmon or tuna, i guess the rest are just simply frozen goods. And, please ... you can't steam a frozen fish.

It's quite ironic isn't it? My in laws who came to visit last Feb, was surprised to find out that, despite Mel is just mins away from the coastal line, there's no fresh seafish anywhere. By seafish i meant fishes we have back in KK, fresh, red or black n well, just fresh. Apart from seafood (which are mostly frozen), Ozzie is pretty well known for its beef products. Even their poultry n chicken meat are better than back home. No surprise. Better air and water quality, with minimal pollution is perhaps one of the contributing factors. I find chicken to be much tender here. They claimed no hormones were added, n everything is fed in the most organic natural way. So dun be amazed if you find KFC here 100% times tastier. My hub is one of the advocates!

Back to my cooking skills, I believe i have slightly improved from where i first started. Practice makes perfect. Obligated to cook our meals everyday makes me a better cook. How i wish i had spent previously getting tips n watching my grandma cook closely. Sadly, i wasted those opportunities and here am I stuck, n learning from square zero. Thank God, my hubby is a great cook by nature, and i learn most of the skills from him.

Like I've mentioned, beef is good here, n surprisingly cheaper than pork. Trust me, i think i've never eaten as much beef as i did here for the past 25 years back home! I cooked this pot of beef stew last week, an initiative to finish half a bottle of Jacobs Creek red wine which has been sitting in the kitchen, fermenting for 'i don't know how long'.

I try to maintain a healthy more vege to meat ratio at all times, therefore i would always add lotsa different coloured veges into my dishes. Not only are they pretty to look at, they provide the nutrients n variation for the day!

I'm a huge fan of broccoli, so yeah, a weekly diet of broccoli is a must. This time it was stir-fried in tomato juice (from simmering real tomatoes) with marinated honey sauce chicken.

A healthy and balanced meal! I realised being a good cook at home, not only taste is important but making sure a healthy nutritious n low-oil  meal is equally essential.

Ke Jia Yang Dou Fu

I was reading this blog just the other day, n my hub accidentally (or co-incidentally) glimpsed thru the title of the post. "Ke Jia Yang Dou Fu?" he asked. "Are you cooking me this dish?"

So i was bought. or sold. Not exactly at the first question, but rather, or "sort of", the statements he later on made which convinced me.

"You are a Ke Jia wo, with pure genuine Chinese blood. Purer than me. So you shd know how to make genuine Ke Jia dishes. That includes Yang Dou Fu."

He was smart; so brilliant i guess i have no choice but to put myself to shame for not carrying myself as a Hakka well. I admire these dishes i grew up eating; but to the extent of 'i don't know why', i just don't know how to cook one!

Well, after all the ding dong ding dang, i finally (yeah!) made Hakka Yong Tiu FU!!!

My first. Bought fresh toufu, and dug holes in the middle. Fresh minced pork marinated with oyster sauce, soy sauce, pepper, some seasoning and garlic. Garnished with lotsa scallions!

Pan frying the stuffed bean curd was a challenge for me. Had to make sure i do it carefully without squashing any of them!

I had some minced pork leftover, so made them into meatballs with the beancurd 'holes' and stir-fried with capsicums and carrots.

What a cookie day!

I think i'm insane. Or addicted. I made like .... well, a lot of cookies today. Sigh. This is what happens when i'm refrained from the oven for a long time. I tend to 'explode' or 'binge' when i am given 'free' access  to baking. In my own space.  **therefore, can't really blame me**it has been a looong time since i had my own personal space.

Rock cakes or Mini Choc Chip Scones.

Ready to enter the oven

Searched everywhere but couldn't find ready made pineapple paste so had to cook this from 2 ripe pineapples

No boob tarts, just normal pineapple tarts.

More peanut cookies

Peach tartlets but biscuits-like coz i baked double sides

Doggies, again

I forgot (or too busy) to snap them when they were just out from oven. Had to take from the container instead. Black sesame butter cookies, ginger pecan shortbread, n chocolate spiral.

My first give away!

My dear hub helped me cook lunch again (after seeing how busy i was) and we had pork rib soup with noodles. I nearly forgot abt lunch or how hungry i was (hub fell asleep on couch after cooking) and we only managed to eat at 3pm.

Yummy, being a soup person, all soups are yummilicious to me.

Hello to Saturday

Hello to Saturday. Has been a week since my in laws left. Sat is a busy day for me, coz it's house cleaning day and there are many many chores like laundry, sanitizing kitchen towels, toilet wash, and floor mopping. Goodie huh? For no reason, i seem to enjoy these chores. I just realised what a 'cleanliness' freak i am.

Anyway, i am here to write my daily meal diary again, n pretend i am a masterchef with great culinary skills.  LOL. I am so pathetic. I daydream everyday hoping i can whip up some excellent dishes for my hub, but sadly, my skills are, well, kinda limited. Here in my own space, i tend to materialise my dream. LOL. So here they are, simple but healthy (i guess) (if you wan to know how they taste, pls refer to Mr Jiang) :

Yesterday's very late lunch. Leftover ginger onion chicken, stir-fry lettuce with carrots, steamed rice n sweet potatoes.

N i managed to bake! 2nd masterpiece from the mini oven! Chocolate spiral shortbread. I was out of patience, otherwise they cld have looked better.



N the rockmelon dinner last nite.

Today was classic. Mr Jiang woke up late, so he ended eating brunch instead:

Tomato egg

Went with Shanghai noodles

N his daily milk tea

Sorry for the upside down pic. i 4got to rotate. Mr Jiang's bowl.

Dinner was some simple Joyce's styled fried rice.

Ingredients for fried rice include marinated mince pork, mixed vege, diced carrots, broccoli stems n overnight rice. Goes well with chilli oil. Yummy.