Feel like it

When we woke up very early in the morning, we will go out for breakfast. By 630am we will be at the coffee shop and dine-in with ease and pretty much no crowds at all. 

Usually we would be at our usual coffee shop, enjoying its kolo mee and buy some fried fritters home. The place is nearer and cleaner, and since we are early birds, no long waiting for us. The coffee shop is very strict as there is a waiter at the check-in point, checking on customers' MySejahtera app. Only those fully vaccinated and complied to SOP are allowed to dine-in. Those who are not vaccinated and children are not allowed in. Kudos for the strict SOP. 

Dumpling soup (kiaw th'ng)

One morning, I had these with my man. We shared one bowl of meat dumplings soup.  And I had it with kolo mee hoon. I mostly prefer kolo mee hoon when I diner at this coffee shop. Rarely have its kolo mee. 

Kolo meehoon

When we feel like it and we have ample time (no rushing on weekdays), we will go to another coffee shop. Over here, not only we can have handmade noodle and laksa but we found another decent kolo mee stall. Now the coffee shop is called Old Bank Cafe. 

Teh c

We tried the kolo mee stall here before but found it wasn't that good. However that was long ago and we recently gave it a try again. Somehow, it has improved since then. Taste better although the cook still takes his sweet time preparing and serving his noodle. 

Pork liver soup

One Saturday, we went there to have its pork liver soup with ginger slices. Hubby liked its liver soup. Not much Chinese wine added but it tasted decent enough. 

Kolo mee red

Red kolo mee for a change for hubby. It was actually the char siew oil, made the noodle tasted sweeter and looked red.

On the other hand, I went for its seafood noodle. First time had his seafood noodle and I liked it!!! Quite a portion too and I had hard time finishing it! 

I like the fact he added some pork lard cubes in his noodles. That's why it was tasty and addictive, I guess. Now not many stall operators add pork lard cubes in their noodlle; specifically in Sarawak kolo mee.

In the box

On the Mid-Autumn day (21 September) I received a parcel from a runner. That was a surprise. I did not order anything recently so I wasn't expected anything at all. 

The recent purchase I made was for this cream for Jamie. My sis recommended to me few months ago, a product from China. First order, I bought 3 to give it a try. It turned out good, Jamie's skin has improved since then. Applied on the eczema and affected parts, and now, Jamie rarely had any red patches or wound on his skin since using this cream. 

My 2nd order which was early this month, I bought 10 of it. 15g each, so it wasn't much, so I bought more for keeping as can be used for most skin condition and problems.

So back to the mysterious parcel, I found out it was from my sis from KL. Hmm, wonder what was she sending to me this round.

A box full of stuff!! There was stuff for everyone! Thank you sis, you are the best!!

Chocolates, and drinks. The kids enjoyed the Kit Kat gold and Julie's chocolate wafer chocolate very much.

Suu Balm for the skin. Heard of this brand from Singapore. Good for dry, sensitive skin.

And cosmetic and face masks!! My belated birthday gifts. 

Thank you sis once again!! 💕

Cooking with papaya

A neighbour passed us 2 small sized papayas one Sunday morning. She recommended us to cook it with either meat or anchovies. That evening, I decided to cook the smaller one for the very first one. I have never done any cooking with papaya so I was not so adventurous in my first experiment.

Cute and small unripe papaya

Even if I failed or it turned out a disaster, I guess it was fine. I still had another bigger papaya to try next round. No one can blame me since it was my first time. Lol.

Droplets of papaya milk?

Once I sliced it, there was some drips appeared, and my first instinct was "papaya milk?" Sorry, first time seeing and cooking unripe papaya so I was curious.

Inside

Even the seeds were white. Don't think we can grow papaya from such seeds, right? The neighbour mentioned her papayas taste better in cooking. It doesn't taste nice when it ripes!! According to my neighbour....

So that was how my own recipe of cooking raw papaya with whatever I could find in the fridge. Actually, nothing hard about it, few ingredients for this recipe are needed.

Ingredients:

1 small sized raw papaya, skin peeled, flesh cut into cubes

Half portion of carrot, cut into strips

100g minced meat

3 garlic cloves, chopped

1 shallot, sliced

Half portion of big onion, sliced

Cooking oil

1 tsp Light soy sauce

1 tsp cooking wine

2 tbsp oyster sauce

Water 

Salt, sugar and pepper to taste

Cornflour

Chopped spring onion for garnish

Methods:

1. Marinate the minced meat for few minutes with soy sauce, salt, pepper and cornflour.

2. Heat up a pan with about 3 tbsp cooking oil. Add in garlic and shallot, saute till fragrant. 

3. Toss in raw papaya. Stir and let it cook for few minutes before add in big onion, carrot and minced meat. Cook for few minutes till meat changes colour.

4. Add some water and let it simmer. Cook for about 5 to 10 minutes to soften the papaya. Season with the sauces, salt, pepper and sugar.

5. Dish out and garnish with spring onion.

The dish was surprisingly pleasant. No, I am not being boastful here (he he he), but the whole dish was sweet and tasty. The raw papaya was sweet and crunchy, although slightly tough. I should add more water and simmer it longer to soften the fruit next time.

In time

They came in just in time for the Mid-Autumn festival. A friend passed these lovely mooncakes gifts last Saturday. 

Oh my!! Mooncake set from The Westin KL!! So exquisite, so classy packaging. 

I super loved the packaging. The round  bag-like box with 4 mooncakes in it.  

4 flavours were creamy milk tea, golden emerald with single yolk, Shanghai with single yolk and lotus with single yolk mooncakes. 

Another mooncake set from Exal Malaysia, made by Ali & Jin's Patisserie and Boulangerie.  More cute Shanghai mooncakes in this set.

2 Original Shanghai, and 1 each of  osmanthus and yam flavour.

Alright, now we need more time to enjoy all these mooncakes. Thank you once again, friend for the mooncakes. 

Happy Mid-Autumn Festival!

Nurturing sport passion with Milo® Champions Clinic

This post summarises the 1-week school holiday for the boys.

I enrolled the boys in Milo® Champions Clinic (MCC) a week before the school holiday started on 11 September. Option of futsal and badminton was given; the boys chosen the latter sport. 

The kit arrived a day before school holiday, which consisted of 1 Milo training jersey, 1 badminton racquet with bag, 6 cones, and 6 synthetic shuttlecocks for each participant.

It is a 5 weeks of at-home training, where each week, the children will learn basic skills at home by watching a video clip, submitting homeworks to coach, then followed by a weekly online coaching session with an experienced coach, where the progress will be monitored to ensure that they learn the right techniques. So, from 11 September, my boys have been watching the Week 1 training clip, and learnt the techniques at home accordingly.  

Both are enthusiastic to learn, as one is a novice  and  of playful nature while another has exposed to the sport back in school previously. With the current pandemic, it is hard to get the children to sweat and get active while cooping at home, but thanks to Milo® Champions Clinic, there is a new way for children (age 7 to 12 years old) to learn and pick up sports, safely at home during this difficult time. 

Yesterday, the boys had their first live e-coaching session with their coach via video conferencing. It took around 15 minutes, where 3 participants interacted with their coach. Over 200 participants this round, where they are divided into groups of 3. Each group is assigned to one coach and a specified time for e-coaching every Saturday. 

I like the fact that the e-coaching is more personal, as not many participants so the coach could guide each participant well via video conferencing. The boys had chance to show the coach what they had learnt; and correct tips and points from coach were given. 

Over this 5-weeks of home training and e-coaching session with Coach Tan Shau Heng, I hope my boys not only have a fun time but at the same time, learn new useful, practical techniques through this programme.

Thanks to Milo® Champions Clinic, this school holiday isn't totally spent and wasted on TV and online games, but getting my young, growing boys to stay active and nurturing their passion for sport. At the same time, this mummy also get to practise along too!!! Years have passed since I picked up a badminton racket!! 😊 The boys' eldest sister also joined in the fun, playing with them! A nice bonding time for family, away from TVs, phones and gadgets.

If any parents are interested to learn more or want to sign up their children for the next session, please log onto Milo website.

Over the moon

It was so expensive that we initially didn't want to buy any this year. But somehow we felt like uphold the tradition of having it once a year so we bought 2 mooncakes in the end. 

We tasted Baker's Cottage mooncakes few years ago, so we remembered it was quite nice. When we had our shopping in Emart Hypermarket on National Day, we saw a section of Baker's Cottage mooncakes right at the entrance of the hypermarket. So we choose 2 mooncakes (our favourite flavours of pure lotus single yolk, and low sugar white lotus).

Low sugar white lotus (RM18+) was what I chosen. No, we can't wait for the actual day to taste it so few nights ago, we had this for a night snack.

White lotus mooncake, my favourite. 

Hubby wanted a single yolk in his mooncake so we took 1 pure lotus single yolk (RM17+). Different lotus pattern on top. Both were pretty.

We took it last weekend. I was not so crazy about the yolk so I scrapped it as much as I could, and enjoyed the pure lotus. Sweeter than the white lotus though. The sweetness did balanced out with a little bit of the yolk.

So that was the first 2 mooncakes that we got to taste. Fortunately we bought another 2 flavours from Baker's Cottage when we went shopping this morning in Emart. We couldn't find any with yolk so we ended up with these two.

Pandan lotus (RM14.40 after discount) and Mixed Nuts (RM15.60 after discount). Can enjoy them this weekend at home. The kids may have grown up and no longer crazy about lantern but it never stopped us from buying some paper lanterns to hang. Lol. 

No one gave us any mooncakes as gift this year unlike in the past, we received quite a lot that we were having hard time finishing them. Time must be bad. Have you tasted any, and what flavours?

Happy Mid-Autumn in advance to all my blogger friends and readers!!

How was the taste

It was a Saturday. I did not go anywhere other than tapau breakfast early in the morning, so I cooked lunch and dinner at home. 

Now I saved more time in kitchen by whipping more or bigger portion for lunch so I do not need to cook much for dinner. Dishes are more or less the same for both meals.

Hubby bought a pack of petai (stinky beans). It was already peeled so only the beans. I never had cooking experience with petai in the past so not too sure what to do with it.

Anyway, I used this prawn sambal that I had in the fridge to go with it. Just slices some garlic, big onion, and my petai dish was ready. When I asked how was the taste, he said it was alright. I thought the petai was still on raw side, could taste the heat but somehow he was fine with it. The sambal udang was on spicy side, so covered some of the petai taste.

Other dish that I whipped up was this steamed Japanese cold pressed tofu. Served with minced meat topping.

Stir fried kangkong with garlic was my favourite. I rarely cooked with belacan as this was heathier version of the vegetable.

Another favourite on the table was fried chicken wings. Marinade would not be the same all the time so no one will get bored of it. That day, I used Kentucky curry flavour powder for my meat. It gave that more golden look as well.

Second order

After my first order from this restaurant in Stapok , I made a second order soon after that. I forgot to mention in that post that the restaurant offered 20% discounts on their fried noodle, do that was the reason I ordered them. So, a reorder was made since they still have the discount in Food panda app.

This round, I decided to taste its tomato crispy noodle. I liked its well deep-fried crispy noodle and the ingredients and gravy were pretty generous. Taste-wise it was sour and sweet. 

Tomato crispy mee (RM8)

Meanwhile, Jan had fried rice, with special instruction to add salted fish in her rice. Smell and looked good.

Fried rice (RM8)

The first time, the boys had its fried kway teow so this time, I ordered fried kolo mee for them.  It was rather tasty and big portion. No egg request from me for the noodle. 

Fried kolo mee (RM9.50)

Price-wise it wasn't that cheap but considering the discount and big portion, I don't mind ordering them once in a while.

 *Prices stated are after discount.

No Merdeka for me

On 31 August, hubby and I went for our morning walk. We walked all the way to this coffee shop to buy our breakfast and then we walked back.

After our breakfast, both of us went to Emart Hypermarket Batu Kawa for our grocery shopping. It was not yet 9am but the place was pretty packed. Public holiday I guess and everyone was as early birds as we were. Anyway, we spent about an hour there, bought the necessary.

As for lunch, I decided to cook since we didn't know what to buy or eat for lunch. Hubby caught a big mackerel with 2 roes in it a week ago so I took out a pack of mackerel slices and its roes early in the morning, waiting for them to defrost. And we bought this preserved mustard pork belly from Emart non-halal section for RM19+.

It was simple to prepare. Just boil a pot of water, toss the whole pack in (everything intact), close the pot lid and let the water boil for 20 minutes. Take out from water, open up the pack and place onto a serving plate.

Mui Choy pork belly, not bad. Salty and fragrant. Those that love the fatty part of pork belly slices would like this. 

The other dishes that I cooked were fried mackerels, fried mackerel roe, steamed egg custard with preserved radish topping and 2 vegetable dishes. Quite a lot of work in the kitchen, not much of a Merdeka Day for me. But the end result is always satisfying. Family enjoys what I cook and we can eat at the comfort of our home. Definitely worth all the sweat.

This was how we spent and what we had on National Day this year. Last year, we went for a short outing to a dam and had lunch in a food court. Read my entry over here.