Sweet + Sour

That is how I feel now.

I know that "sweet" and "sour" are generally used to describe taste but it is how my heart feels.  Sweet, because I feel happy and delighted.  Sour, as in bitter like a sour lemon.  Let me explain here then you would understand my state of feeling.

Sweet

 

• Hubby is been offered a new post in Sibu.  He may be transfering to Sibu in June.  And it means if the position is confirmed, the whole family will be relocating to Sibu for a year or two the least. I am happy that hubby finally able to get this promotion and it would be a great opportunity and breakthrough for his advancement in the future.
• The kids are excited because it is in Sibu and they can have more times with their favourite aunt.  And grandparents can visit more as Kapit is just a river away.
• A new place and a new adventure.  It means more places and food for me to explore in Sibu.

Sour

 

• Although the kids are excited about moving to Sibu, my daughter is anxious about moving to a new school. She told me that she would like to stay in Sibu but would not want to go to school there.  I am as anxious as her about her fitting into new school. However after much coaxing from the grandma and aunt over the weekend, she has finally agreed to relocate to new school.  So my SIL will help to register both kids in new schools over there since we would only be going there in June. 
• There would be a lot of things that I would be missing about Kuching. My parents.  My home. Kuching's good food.  Kuching's weather.  The comfort of staying in Kuching all my life!!   I know I would be homesick.  I honestly want to stay back in Kuching and do not want to disrupt the kids' schooling, but a part of me would like to be there for hubby as this position he is taking is a big one.
• My baby would be born in Sibu and have my confinement there.  Luckily I have my SIL to help me, as in finding confinement lady and get around here and there. 
• Not many people I known stayed in Sibu as mostly move out from the town. But I do have a female cousin which I have lost contact many years since she was married and stayed in Sibu. So it is a good opportunity to get in touch with her again after all those years.

 A big step for the family.  But if we stick together, everything will be okay I know.  Because God is always there for us, I know.  :) 


Philippians 4:6-7

Don't worry about anything; instead, pray about everything; tell God your needs, and don't forget to thank Him for His answers. If you do this, you will experience God's peace, which is far more wonderful than the human mind can understand. His peace will keep your thoughts and your hearts quiet and at rest as you trust in Christ.

Advice needed

I have a problem here.  I told you on hubby's stained shirt on my Thursday rant , and I could not remove the pen stain from the pocket.  After all those bleaching, it does not help at all.  Anyone encountered such problems before??  How to remove the stain??  Still can save the shirt or not??? 

 

Advices needed.  Thanks in advance.

Weekend Menu # 47: Another dish testing

Weekend is here.  And it means noisy moment, with both kids are home and messing around with books, stationery, games etc.  But the house couldn't be merrier without their voices.  *wink*

It is raining rather heavy outside while I am writing this post. Hope it will stop soon as I need to collect my girl's birthday cake around 5pm from the bakery. We spent our day at home today. Lazy to go out as the younger one is still down with flu and my laundry was piling up. *Sigh*

I made a dessert for the family.  Sweet corn sago dessert in coconut milk.   Yummy!! Like the chewy sago in the sweet dessert. 

And not only dessert I am making.  I used my Chefel flip pan to cook lemongrass chicken for lunch. I would like to clarify here that I am not using any HCP like most food bloggers are.  I know that most Singaporeans used HCP and is very popular there.  Mine is Chefel brand from Korea which I bought from Cosway last week.  Basically they are the same, I do not find any difference between them.

Alright, back to my lemongrass chicken.  I used to have a pot of lemongrass but it does not grow so well, so hubby used them all up during a BBQ early this year.  So when ever I need lemongrass, I would get few stalks from my mum.  Last week I used 2 stalks for my chicken rice and I left with 2 stalks in the fridge.  Seeing them are still fresh, I used them for this recipe.  It has been a while since I cooked this dish.  I have marinated the chicken pieces overnight, so they are very aromatic with lemongrass scent.  Nice appetizer if you ask me!

Less oil with Chefel pan (I did not add any oil at all; the oil is from the chicken itself) and the meats are still tender after 30 minutes cooking time (flip once after first 15 minutes into cooking time).  For recipe, go here. 



Go purple for the weekend!

What do you think of my pastel-theme nail art? 

Weekend is here and we will definitely be busy this weekend.  My girl's 7th birthday is this Sunday and my MIL and SIL will be flying over to celebrate with her.  And since purple is one of my girl's favourite colours, I have chosen a purplish flower theme for my nails.  *wink*

My Thursday rants

It started off on a wrong note. Did not have good sleep last night because of hubby's snore and middle of the night I moved to my girl's room for a night. Only fell asleep very early in the morning. 

This morning after sent my kids to school, I washed my car and car porch and made some ngoh hiang for tonight dinner. Almost back to my normal mood but when bring out the laundry from the washing machine my solemn mood is back again. Hubby forgot to take out his ink pen from his white shirt pocket and it stained his shirt. Not only that I also got some ink stain on my hands and nails. Sigh!  The pen is still in good condition but the shirt I am not so sure.  It was tailored-made and hubby likes this shirt very much.  Now it was still soak in bleach, so finger cross. **Double sigh**

When I was washing my porch this morning I cleaned up so many dried leaves and dead bugs.  As it is warm season over here, the problem is not so serious.  But when we moved in and coincided with the monsoon season last year, almost every days, I have to clean after bugs in and outside the house.   Any type of bugs you can name, can be found in my house.  Sometimes one or few cicadas creeping into the house too. 

I guess my house's feng shui is pretty good.  In the front, we are facing a little river about 500 metres away, while at the back, we have the Matang hill standing majestically as the backdrop.  On a nice day, the hill is a nice sight to be seen. 

As we are surrounded with much greens, I guess having bugs as our visitors are pretty common here.  Mostly creeping from the bathroom window and the little window on the high wall on the family hall on 1st floor.  Glad that less bugs now, but now I have a different insect problem.  Ants!  Really annoying insect.  A little bit of crumb on the floor or table, in few minutes an army of little yellow ants will come.  Sigh!

Okay on a good note, I fried fish for lunch today.  Pomfret again.  We have black pomfrets almost twice a week, till my daugther complained about my menu.  Lol!  But eating fishes is better.  I am always a fish eater, till I earned my nickname of "Cat" when I was small.  *wink* And in my old company I got the nickname "Miss Fish" from my colleagues.

Fishes now are pretty expensive now.  Thanks to my mum I always have some supplies of fresh fishes from the markets.  Last week I have 3 black pomfrets from her. 

I usually just fry my black pomfret after rub some peppers and salts over the fish, but today I add a bit of twist to my fish. I got a big sized pomfret from my mum and I have been thinking of making sweet sour fish.  But last minute I decided to make cameralised onion instead.  Because easy to make and using less ingredients.  Some other day, I will make my sweet sour fish.   



Ingredients:

1 medium black pomfret
Salt for rubbing on the pomfret
3 slices of ginger, julienned
1 big onion, sliced
1 tbsp black soy sauce
1 tbsp sesame oil
1/2 tbsp sugar
Oil for frying

Methods:

1. Deep fry the pomfret in a pan.  Drain and put aside.
2. Pour the oil away and leave about 2 tbsp oil in the pan.  Add in ginger, onion and 1 tbsp sesame oil into the pan.  Stir and fry for few minute till onion turned brown.
3.  Off the heat.  Add in sugar, and black soy sauce and stir well till the onion is cameralised.
4. Pour the cameralised onion onto the fried pomfret and serve!

Passing my times

This is what I do when I done with my houseworks and have some spare times to spend. 

 

Playing some online games.  Need to sharpen my brain, otherwise I would be slow and sluggish, as my hubby complained about me sometimes. 

 

Scrabble games!!  Loved to play this board game during school days.  Now it is so easy to play online, right at your finger tips.  But still, playing with other players would be more fun than playing alone in front of the pc screen!! *wink*

 

 

 

A relaxing game of a burger making process.  A nice game to spend the times.

 

 



 

This morning, my daugther has remarked to me that a pot of flower is growing with 2 little purple flowers blooming.  Very pretty indeed. Don't ask me what plant is this because I really do not know and I do not remember where I got this plants from.  Lol!

 

So happy to see that my flowers are growing and I can finally said that I do have a pair of green hands.  Never interested in gardening before but since moving into my current home (it has been almost 7 months now), I grow fond of gardening.  Probably the result of the efforts I that put makes everything worthwhile.

My Monday

Hi!  How was your weekend going? It was a great weekend and nothing is better than to spend quality times with the family.  Check it out over here. 

 

 

I had a mee suah for my breakfast this morning.  Cooked some chicken soup last night and there is some leftover, so make a mee suah soup for hubby and myself.

 

After the breakfast and no one is at home, my Monday is continued as usual with cleaning and laundry routine.  And as tired as I am with my current condition but I still enjoy my housework.  I get some satisfaction from there.  Seeing my house is clean and tidy, and able to enjoy a cup of 3-in-1 Milo is worth of all the sweat.  *wink* 

Managed to catch some online news on the current GE13 campaign. In most parts of the city, there were some banners and buntings been hung and my kids could not help but asking what is this and that. So got to explain to them on the on-going GE.

 

And a sad news captured my eyes when I was reading the Star online.  A mother was stabbed to death while jogging with her daughter in a park.  How pathetic!  The mother risked her life for her daughter, and while the daughter gone for help, the mother was stabbed to death by the robbers.  What is happening in our society?  It is no longer safe to go outside.  Sigh! 

 

Okay, got to log out.  Time for my beauty sleep.  *wink* And then, need to get ready my cooking list for the evening.  Chow, everyone. And have a great Monday!

Oh my lasagna!

Hi guys! It is Friday and weekend is here again!!!

 

Just came back from lunch and grocery shopping with my girl few minutes ago.  Now I have some times to blog and upload some food photos over here.

 

It has been a busy morning over here as it is my "cleaning day" on Friday.  Also laundry and cooking day as usual.  Yesterday was a cold and rainy day without much sun so my laundry has been piling up.  Even on weekday, the dirty clothes are piling in the laundry basket, waiting to be washed.  And on weekend with the kids and daddy around, more clothing need to be tended to.

Yesterday I were cleaning and clearing the kitchen cabinet and fridge.  Found some stuff already expired and cannot be used or consumed anymore.  Noticed that I have some Prego sauce and lasagna sheets left and luckily they are still edible, so I was thinking of making lasagna.  Luckily I have all the stuff in the shelves!!  So better used them up before they are expired. 

 

My mum bought a lot of tomato cherries over the weekend and some are already soften.  Since I do not have any canned tomatoes, I used up fresh tomato cherries instead. 

 

I am still not familiar with the Samsung oven so I estimated the baking time. The oven does not come with temperature meter but using watt instead.  How silly of me when I bought the oven!  Did not look at the specification properly.  Some more I am an oven dummy, should get a simple oven with temperature meter.

 

Back to my lasagna.  I baked for about 20 minutes and my lasagna turned out not so sticky.  And probably I do not put enough cheese and milk that my lasagna did not look so cheesy.  But taste-wise it is still nice.  Still have some leftover in the freezer maybe will get hubby to finish it up over the weekend.

Happy Friday and enjoy the weekend guys!!!

Steamed chicken rice for lunch

When I was small, my mum used to cook chicken rice using rice cooker.  Love her aromatic rice and I can finish a plate of rice with a few dash of dark soy sauce on my steamed chicken.  But mum has not been cooking chicken rice since then.  Because of the long cooking and hassle of cleaning up.  *wink*

 

Like every other kids, my daughter also enjoys taking chicken rice.  She can finish the whole plate of chicken rice (sometimes without the chicken).  After reading Peng's Kitchen on cooking steamed chicken rice using HCP I decided to give it a try using my flip pan. 

 

It is very easy, convenient and fast!!!!  I never knew cooking chicken rice can be so easy and fast till now!!! 



(Recipe adapted from Peng's Kitchen)

 

Some of the ingredients i.e 2tbsp ginger juice, 4 cups water, 2 knots of pandan leaves, 3 slices of ginger, lightly bruised lemongrass (1 stalk) and lightly pounded garlic (4 cloves) 

Fry the garlic, ginger and lemongrass in the flip pan till fragrant

Add and mix the rice and pandan leaves together

 

Leave for 5 minutes without locking the pan, then add in the marinated chicken. Lock the pan.

After simmer for 20 minutes, my chicken rice is ready!!

I love the rice crust formed at the base of the pan.  Yummy!!!

 

 

 

My potted friends

After more than 6 months my garden has grown more with potted plants.  Glad to see that most of them are growing and turn out nice.  

I like this one the most.  Its leaves are beautiful and look like butterflies with little white pinkish flowers.

Mixed plants in the pots

These plants are donated from my mum and now they are growing bigger

Another plant donated by my mum.  *wink*

Notice the nice orange flowers??

Fungal infection



Psst!  A personal (and womanly) problem want to share with you but I know most women would encounter such problems in their lives once or more.  It is very common. I know, it is annoying and embarassing condition but cureable.

I have suffered vaginal yeast or fungal infections in the past but nothing chronic.  Just a visit to my gynae and the tablets that gynae inserted into my vaginal do the wonder. 

I suffered from a fungal infection during my 2nd trimester in this pregnancy.  I have a lot of discharge and it get more during nights. No itchiness, just unpleasant smell.  Last Thursday during my pre-natal check up, I informed my doctor on my condition and she prescribed tablets to me.  Actually I never inserted a tablet before so it took me quite some time. 

3 tablets per box.  Insert one tablet at night for 3 consecutive nights. It comes with an applicator but end up I used finger to insert the tablets in as deep as I can.  Much easier than using the applicator.

After the first night, I found that I have less discharge and the smell is not so unpleasant anymore.  My condition is improving although it is not overall cure. Just hope that the infection did not get worse.

Experiment with my new toy

My first experiment with my flip pan on Wednesday evening.  Cooked salted chicken for dinner.  I marinated the chicken thigh with salted chicken seasonings for an hour. 

 

Then just throw in the marinated chicken and potato cubes into the flip pan.  Cooked for 10 minutes on one side before flipping over the pan and cook for another 10 minutes.  I repeated this process 3 times.

 

 The marinated chicken and some potato cubes in the pan before cooking

 

After 30 minutes cooking

 The chicken did not brown all over but still I like this dish.  The chicken turns out tender and juicy and the potato cubes are tasty from the chicken dripping.

 See how tender my chicken meat is?? 

 

And one thing I like is that my kitchen is much cleaner and less oilier.  The pan is easier to clean too.  Happy that I bought it after been considering for a long time.  But still need to take times to learn how to cook dishes using the flip pan. 

A quickie and my baby

Fixed myself a quick breakfast today since I am due for my pre-natal check up in the morning.  Used my newly bought Chefel flip pan this morning to fix my breakfast.  Fried my sausages and egg in the flip pan.  No oil added and so simple to prepare with my flip pan.  *wink*

 

 

Baby is doing fine.  I am now going into the 17th week.  Went for the Tetanus injection and scanning besides the urine test.  My blood test that I did previously turned out good and doctor is satisfied with the report.  Baby was moving so much in the worm that doctor was having hard time measuring the baby.  I can see the head, arms and limbs moving around. 

 

 

 



I am gaining 1 kg, weighing 51.5kg.  Still need to gain some weight in the next few months.  Still not much appetite to eat a wholesome meal but obediently taking my 3 meals a day.  Once a while I will munch on some breads or went for supper at night. 

I still wear most of my pre-pregnancy clothes so not many people knows that I am pregnant but few people that seldom saw me noticed that I have a baby bump.  Soon I will have to start wearing my pregnancy clothes.   

Sleeps become slightly difficult for me at nights now.  Do you have such sleep problem or is my case slightly early???  I don't know but I would keep tossing around on my side till I feel comfortable and able to doze off.  Not much problem during my 1st 2 pregnancies till later stage but again, each pregnancy is different I guess.  So I would enjoy this pregnancy as much as possible.  *wink*

Busy in the kitchen

Hi there!!  Happy Wednesday guys!

 

My day started off with nothing but breakfast.  Cooked my hubby's power breakfast this morning!  It is his Power Breakfast because this would last him till breakfast.  Hubby is currently on diet and taking kim chi for dinner.  He has been taking it for a week now.  I don't fancy kim chi that much but hubby quite enjoy the sour spicy taste of kim chi!

 

 

Since there is some leftover rice from last night, I fried rice for lunch.  A simple fried rice with mixed vegetable and char siew is what I like.  

 

And I know I will be more busy in the kitchen for the remaining week because I just bought a new toy for the kitchen.  A flip pan!!  *wink*

 

 

Cannot wait to cook my first dish using this flip pan.......So watch out for my next post, ya??

Slow like snail

My internet line at home sucks!!!  It so slow that it takes more than a minute to upload a page especially when you just log into the internet.  Even after ungrading my Streamyx package it is still slow.  Wonder when Unifi will be available in my area???

 

Not only that, the telephone that the Telekom gave us also cannot function.  Totally not working at all.  And I have to change to a spare phone that we had in previous house but I found out last week that it has spoilt.  Totally no dial tone.  Sigh! 

 

 

How life goes

It is an eventful week so far for me. 

 

Monday started slow as usual, nothing much except doing my housechore.  Tuesday was a mix of happy and sad feeling for me.  Started off with happy feeling because I went for breakfast with my old friends.  We had great 2 hours breakfast-ing and chatting.  Missed those old days when we were gossipping about others in the office.  Lol!

 

And then in the evening, I received a shocking news from my babysitter.  Father of my old friend passed away on that day from cancer.  It has been more than a year and heard from my friend that the father was not doing well, not much help from those treatment and chemo, but did not expected that he would gone that soon.  I still remember those old days when her father prepared his signature "Hakka mui chay pork belly" for us to taste.  Will miss and remember him as a humble and kind man.

 

And today my eldest is not schooling as it is Ching Ming festival. So this morning after sending Baby Jay to kindergarden, me and my girl went for our breakfast.  It has been a while since I tasted laksa and I was craving for laksa for few days. So we went to Blossom Cafe for its super tasty Sarawak Laksa. Of course my girl takes its Kolok Mee since she doesn't take spicy food.  I enjoyed its laksa because of its soup and chicken feet.  Lol!

 

What are we going to do later? Planned to go to bookstore hunting some stationeries then pick Baby Jay from kindergarden since baby sitter is taking leave today and we have our lunch someplace.  If the weather permits, I shall bring both kids to the Pasar Tani in the evening. 

Wonderful Friday and Blessed Easter

Happy Monday!  And it is 1 April!  Happy April Fools too!

 

School starting today and both kids are happy to be back to school.  No crying or hesitation from both kids today so I guess both are eager to go to school.  It has been a great weekend as we celebrate our Good Friday and Easter Sunday in a very meaningful way. 

 

On Good Friday

 

Let's start with how we spent our Good Friday on 29 March.  Since the school holiday was almost come to the end, we decided to bring the kids for some outdoor activities. So without any plans, we went out carry some clothing, towels and toiletries and just drove wherever the roads took us. 

 

After our brunch, we started our journey at 11am to Matang.  At first we plan to go to the Wildlife Centre or Matang Family Park but as hubby drove along, we were in the Sampadi-Lundu route. 

 

 

Kids full of energy and enthusiam after their brunch of chicken rice

The route we took after passing Matang.  We are very near to the South China Sea then.

 



 We need to use the ferry along the route.  First time the kids riding a ferry and both were so excited to get out from the car to stroll in the ferry.  RM1 per car charge.

 After passing the ferry, we saw a lot of farms (vegetables and trees), oil palm plantation and swiftlet house.  This yellow house is one of the swiftlet houses where they collecting the bird nests.

 And one of the common thing we saw along the road is bridges.  We have to pass so many bridges that we lost count of how many bridges we had passed through.  Those steel bridges were made by army many years ago and during those old days only army trucks used this road.  Those bridges have been there and still stand strong after all those years!!!

After almost an hour ride, we reached the junction of Sematan-Lundu.  Since Lundu is nearer we decided to turn right to Lundu and see where it brings us.

 

 Nice view of Lundu mountain and weather along the way.  It took us less than an hour to reach Lundu town.  We managed to visit a friend who operate a Cosway shop there and asked him for some advice on places of interest.  After a short chat with our friend, we decided to go to Siar Beach Retreat Resort.  It is operated by Bank Worker Union and since hubby is a bank employee he can get some discount on the facilities.  Since we did not bring enough for a night stay we only pay for its day facilities which cost RM30 only.  We can use all its facilities except the room.   

View of the main building from the beach

The main building where the swimming pool is

One of its chalet which cost RM250 per night

Beach view

 We spent almost 2 hours on the beach, playing with sand and sea water.  The kids were busy building sand castle which I were busy looking and collecting shells on the beach.  Now it is hard to find nice and big shells, where I remember during my younger time, there were many big and shining sea shells.

We have a lot of fun in Siar Beach Lundu.  Maybe the next holiday we will come back and stay overnight. 

The sky was so clear and beautiful on that day!!!!

 

And we reached home just slightly passed 6pm that evening.  We were too exhausted so we have instant noodles at home.  As on Saturday we hardly out from the house.  We spent our day watching DVDs and play games indoor as the weather was pretty warm.

 

 

On Easter Sunday

We are reborn on Easter Sunday!  A new life just begin.
 

Easter Sunday this year is a memorable day especially for me.  After married my hubby for almost 8 years, I was finally baptised and become a Christian.  Together with my 2 kids we were baptised yesterday in our Methodist church.  It was a wonderful experience and I am proud to say that I am a Christian now. 

The whole process went smoothly. Started off with the children ceremony, followed by adults.  Both kids are obedient when they stand and kneel at the altar rail except once a while Baby Jay was restless and making noises.  There was one time when both of us need to take the stand at the altar rail and Baby Jay was tagging along with my hubby.  Baby Jay was holding his bun and eating away and suddenly he just put a bit of his bun on the rail and ran back to his bench.  What an embarassing moment!!!  We were seated in the front row right in front of the Pastor lectern. Pretty hard to quiten Baby Jay so we kept feeding him food.

It is still a long way to go as the Chief Pastor said, but I will take it day by day and let God leads the way for me and my family.  I know.  It is just the beginning. 

Picture taken from Pinterest