On her

My MIL is here. Few days into her stay, she suggested to go electrical appliances shopping. She wanted to get us an air fryer as she heard and seen how convenient it was. My SIL used it so my MIL wanted to get us one.

As you know, I have been contemplating to get one for quite sometime even before MCO. Counted our lucky star, my MIL brought one for us.

Philips Air Fryer HD9270 was our choice. Other than air fryer, she also bought us a new fridge. Midea brand. Our old Samsung fridge has gone, so we had space for one additional fridge. All bills on her. 

Thank you mum for the new fridge and air fryer!! 😘

The very first thing we did when we got our air fryer was testing!! With fries!!!

Not good 1st testing with French fries as we set the time too long. And our 2nd attempt was better as you could see from the above photo. 

Next we tried out on chicken wings. Oh, it was nice. Basically the gadget was automatically set with food  function as well as temperature and time for each food but we could adjust accordingly. 

As we grew confidence in it, we had our air frying pork belly for lunch one day. Turned out just nice. The texture was nice. 

More experiments with my new air fryer. 

On the eve

Back to Christmas Eve. Hubby and I had a busy morning as we went out for errands for few hours. 

Hubby's beef cheese and hash brown burger

No dine-out for breakfast that day. I made burgers for breakfast.  Then I cleaned my garden a bit. Felt good to work out in the garden. After took my bath, hubby and I went out around 9am.

First stop was the bank. After that we made a stop in Aeon Mall. We did a last minute Christmas Eve shopping. Bought presents for the kids, some bedsheet sets (since on offer) and pre-packed food.

Christmas Eve Selfie 😁

By then, it was almost 1130am, and we were hungry so we made a stop at this coffee shop. The only available stalls that operate were Malay fried noodle stall and laksa stall. Both of us went for the Malay fried noodle for lunch.

RM7 per plate

The fried noodle was nice and tasty but spicy. Really warmed up our tummy when consumed it. Lol. I love the way my fried egg like. Yolk was still runny and soft. 

Lovely soup

After lunch, we hopped over to a friend's house to collect her own rear free-range chickens. RM26 per kg, we bought 2. After that, we drove home, and the kids were preparing their own lunch by then. Cooked themselves noodle, while enjoyed it with sushi that we bought from Aeon Mall. 

Hubby and I were knocked out, too tired from going here and there. We took our afternoon nap for over an hour that day. My mum-in-law came and stayed with us the next day (Christmas Day), so we arranged her room after we woke up. 

In the evening, we had Western dinner. It has been a while since we had such, rice-less dinner. The roasted chicken was bought from Aeon Mall, so not much to prepare from my side.

Roasted chicken, jumbo chicken sausages and jumbo cheesy sausages, mashed potatoes and green and egg salad.

The kids had sleepover in the eldest's room, not sure what time they slept that night. I read some ebook while hubby had few drinks outside with friends. Occasionally, we would hear some fireworks at night.

That was how we spent our Christmas Eve. 

A walking distance

My man wasn't well one morning and our house just happened to be out of pain killer. So I went out to the nearby 7-eleven to buy Panadol. 

While I was there, I bought some snacks for the kids. There is always good to store some snacks or titbits in case someone is hungry or when you really need a bite!!

Total damage was RM36.40. Oh well, came for panadol but ended up with so many stuff!

I spotted some Eurocake croissants so I grabbed one each of different flavours. A flavour of honey, custard and butter. And also one chocolate molten cake.  

Since I was in the vicinity, and a short walking distance to this Malay roadside stall, I decided to walk over to buy some breakfast. I have cooked breakfast earlier at home, but I wanted to buy nasi lemak and curry puff from here.

I used to buy its nasi lemak and curry puff in the past but have stopped doing so for quite sometime. Rarely came here, so never did bother to stop and buy again.

I bought 4 pieces of its big curry puff home. RM0.50 each. Jay loves curry puff, so I knew he would enjoy these goodies.

Big chunks of curried potatoes in the puff. Quite nice, not too spicy. However I still prefer the one from here as posted in my previous post.

As for my breakfast, I ate this pack of nasi lemak.  RM2.00 only.

On the shelf

While we were at Choice Supermarket 2 weekends ago, we had a good browse at the non-halal section. They have quite a good selection there for canned pork and alcoholic drinks.

We were more interested in the pork produces. Meant to get some cans of our favourite luncheon meats there but we ended up with other stuff as well.

Porkies brand from Denmark, we still stay loyal to this luncheon meat. 

For China brand, we mostly bought Gulong stewed pork and minced pork but that day, we discovered its new product. Chicken mince with bean paste!! Have you try it yet?? We bought 1 that day, have yet to try it out.

We also noticed that this supermarket had this Singapore made luncheon hams from Kelly's. We grab some, of all varieties and hubby took few to Sri Aman. We only keep these 2 varieties in our pantry.

Last Saturday, I pan fried this Picante Pork luncheon ham for lunch. 

Lightly pan fried for about 2 minutes and serve!!

Sunday therapy

Hubby and I went for a Sunday date not long ago. It felt so good to go out together, spend a little time and enjoy each other's company, without the kids. Okay, no worry, the kids were alright with us going out, they rather stayed at home. And as long as we bought something back for them, they were fine. 

It was in May 2021 that we visited The Spring mall so 5 months later, both of us came back for our shopping therapy. We like shopping at this mall; the ambience and outlets are fantastic.

There was a simple Halloween decoration in the mall. 

We made a short stop to check out the decoration. 

Bats on tree branches, pumpkins, witch's cat and ghost were parts of the set-up.

Our next stop was the Japanese brand, Uniqlo. There was something for everyone. As there was promotion in the store, we spent quite some time there. 

Next we moved to Parkson to get hubby's personal wears. After done with our shopping, it was almost lunch time, and we were rather hungry since we took our breakfast around 7am.

So we had this Nasi Arab at the food court that we enjoyed in our previous visit. This time both of us went for the lamb shank.

After we were done and bought takeaway from Sugarbun for the kids, we headed back home. It didn't take long, less than 2 hours in the mall. 

3-minutes yee mee

On our monthly grocery shopping last Saturday, I bought 2 packs of this instant noodle (RM4.50) home. Seafood Tom Yum Yee Mee. That looked tempting, don't you think??

Who is this Pak Chan (old Mr Chan), I don't know but it has been his recipe since 1941 so I guess it would not taste that bad. Only RM4.50 per pack, so even it is otherwise, it would not be much of a disappointment.

Fonts too small for my eyes now. What to do, old lady so could not read the small fonts most of the times now.

I tried it out this morning. Once I unwrapped it, there was 3 packets of seasoning in it. The noodle was well packed in the plastic holder.

The instruction called for 3-minutes of boiling, so I boiled my noodle for 3 minutes before off the heat and added the seasonings.

Mixed well, and the smell of tom yum lingered in the air!! I also made myself a poached egg. Not so successful as you could see from the egg white but the yolk was nice and soft which I liked!

Added the Jakar fish balls and lettuces, my Yee Mee was ready. Very sourish and spicy, I hardly could handle and finish my noodle. Overall, it was nice, and for those who loves strong tom yum flavour, this is for you!!

From Jakar

When hubby was on the way back from Sibu after attending his grandma's funeral last Friday, he stopped by this Jakar coffee shop for a break.

He had brunch and toilet break there. While he was there, he bought some frozen stuff from the shop. He bought few packs of Jakar siu mai and immediately after he got home, he requested that I steamed a pack to enjoy.

So we enjoyed these tasty siu mai from Jakar as afternoon snack that day. 

Other stuff that he bought included the fish balls which we enjoyed. I used them in soup or stir fried with vegetables.

He also bought home these frozen food such as small spring rolls, stewed pork belly and preserved vegetable meat that we haven't tasted before. Looked good especially the mini size spring rolls. We tried its normal sized spring rolls, I remembered it was good, so I bet this small spring rolls would be equally nice.

The following day, I took out a pack of the small spring rolls, let them thawed before deep fried them. Taste?? Appetizing and satisfying. 

Another day to try these 2 pork belly dishes. Convenient too; just heat them up and they are ready to consume.

The best is still the Jakar siu mai. As of this post, we had eaten 2 packs, now left 1 pack in the freezer. The boys seemed to enjoy them now, unlike last year where they hardly touched them. Lol.

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!!

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.