One day

Last week Jan had 3 days off from school because of UPSR.  So I did not needed to wake up so early and could sleep till around 7am. 

I woke up to prepare breakfast for hubby and Jay and then I brought the other 2 kids for breakfast outside. But one day, I decided to finish up the pancake mix and made some pancakes for breakfast.

How happy was Jan to have pancake for breakfast. 

And by 10am, she told me she was hungry so we went out to do some errands and had early lunch in Xing Xing Food Court.

Jan has roti telur from the Malay stall. Again, she would go without rice for luncj.

I had this Cantonese stir fried kway tiaw from the zhau chu stall for the 1st time. I quite enjoyed it. The kway tiaw was stir fried before the egg gravy and ingredients poured over it. 

Jay requested fried rice for lunch so I tapau-ed this delicious fried rice from the same stall.

And since we had some spare times before going over to pick Jay, we went to Sunny Hills for its soft and delectable ice cream.

Since we all just had our lunch, we shared this bowl of sundae with nuts for RM2.95.  Love the nuts. I basically digging for the nuts and its caramel sauce. Lol. Nice to have on a hot haze day.

Grilled chicken thigh with basil dressing

Last week I cooked this sweet Mediterranean-inspired flavour grilled chicken which incorporated basil and fennel. I love both herb and spice so much!! Basil and fennel go really well with chicken. The chicken was so succulent and flavourful till the last bite.

I am glad that I have this beautiful and healthy lemon basil plant and I could use it any time I want. Some day, I just snip a stem or two and leave it in my living room; act as natural 

Ingredients:

1 chicken thigh

Handful of fresh lemon basil leaves, cut lightly

1 tsp fennel

3 tbsp olive oil

5 cloves garlic, chopped

Salt

Basil dressing:

Handful of fresh lemon basil leaves

1/3 cup olive oil

5 cloves garlic

Lemon juice from 1/4 lemon

1 tsp sugar

1/4 tsp Pepper and 1/2 tsp salt

1. In a bowl, add the olive oil, cut lemon basil leaves, chopped garlic, fennel, and salt. Rub the chicken thigh with all the ingredients. Covered with cling wrap and let it marinate in fridge overnight.

2. For basil dressing - Blend all the ingredients together. Add salt and pepper more, to taste.

3. Grill or oven grill the chicken thigh. I cooked mine in my flip pan for about 15 minutes on each side.

Now, how do you like my grilled chicken with basil dressing, and vegetables in vinaigrette?

Basil dressing

Broccoli & Carrot with bacon bits in vinaigrette

Tasty grilled chicken

The chicken was so tasty and tender that it tasted good by itself. The basil dressing is an added bonus. *wink wink*

At the hills

Last Sunday after our church service, we went to Hills Shopping Mall for a walk and lunch. We seldom come here as nothing really attractive or to see and buy there. However that day, hubby wanted to buy some toys for the kids.

So after done with the toys in Toys"R"Us, we decided to have our lunch in one of the food outlets here. We chose Kim Bay. To our surprise, the outlet was empty. Or you could say, the whole mall was rather quiet. Like walking in a deserted place where you hardly could see a single soul. Sigh!

Anyway, we decided to get our lunch here (rather than drive and go some place else) so we placed our order accordingly.

While waiting for our food, the kids were excited and couldn't wait to play the toys. Meant to be shared by both boys, they got 3 different types of construction trucks to play with.

Jan also got the toy that she wanted. A Rubik's cube.

I were not feeling well that day so I had its mushroom and roasted duck porridge. It came in small bowl for RM5.00 and I shared this with Jamie.

The kids each had their kids meal set. Look delicious, right?? Not bad for RM9.90 plus a cup of Ribena. They have fried rice with chicken ham on top, 2 big chicken sausages, 1 hash brown and few broccoli and carrot slices.

And this got to be our biggest surprise. Chicken salad. They were so generous with the grated cheese. For the price of RM11.20, it did make a big difference. The cheese did make the grilled chicken bits, hard-boiled egg and lettuces tasted great.

The kids ate their lunches, which included Jamie. He quietly fed and ate his porridge. I guess with rewarding them with toys, the kids were very well-behaved at that time. *wink*

After filling up our tummies, we decided to check out this newly opened outlet, Mr D.I.Y.

Thought we just "look look see see" but ended up buying stuff and spend over RM200 there. And hubby said, "That's it. All done. No more shopping for the next few weekends!"

Well, the kids got their toys while hubby also got his "big toy" that day. I didn't buy anything at all for myself! Lol.

In this swelter

It is coming to mid-September but looked like the haze and heat still followed suit from August. And it is getting worse!

It isn't easy to find great comfort in this swelter but here are some survival tips to share with you.

*Image courtesy of a cousin*

1. Stay indoor as much as possible

Do your best to stay indoor. If not possible, please wear face mask when you are going out.

2. Stay hydrated

Drink a lot of fluid (not those coffee and tea, ok? ^^) to keep yourself hydrated.

3. Switch on that air purifier

Keep the air clean with air purifier. If you do not have air purifier, boil some water and let the steam purify the air in your house. Add lemon or lavender essential oil for that added benefit!

4. Healthy diet

Keep a healthy diet and eat your fruits before each meal. If possible, avoid spicy or oily food.

5. Stay hygienic

Keep hands clean at all time by washing with soap and water. Bathe few times to keep cool and hygiene. 

6. When going out

Bring along hand sanitizer, wet tissue, eye drop and mask when you need to go out. And drink enough fluid and try not to stay under the sun for too long.

Hope you find this post useful. Anyone would like to add any tips, you are most welcome to leave your comments.

Happy weekend, guys! (haze-free weekend *fingers crossed*)

New kid on the block

Good news, Kuchingites! We are now having a new pizza franchise in Pezzo, an international brand from Singapore hitting the market. Guess what? Our well-known local food franchise, Sugarbun has acquired the license and will be opening Pezzo kiosks within the outlets.

1st kiosk in Kuching is in Sugarbun, Emart Batu Kawa, which opened on 8 August. How excited could we be?? You can mix and match and it is sold by slices or you could opt for the 14" per pan compared to 12" pan elsewhere!

Okay, together with my pizza hunters, we gone to check this kiosk more than a week ago.

We ordered 3 slices to takeaway for RM20.

We had 2 slices of pepperoni party and 1 slice of meat munchers. They were much bigger slices than the other franchise pizza outlet. Taste-wise, it was nice. Very big chunky meat slices on top with generous tomato sauce on thick bread dough. However I would prefer more cheese topping for my pizza but still it was good and filling.

The meat munchers is quite a pizza. Consists of ground beef, beef salami, beef pepporoni, turkey ham, beef bacon and sausage.

Meat munchers 

Will try out other flavours when I come here again.

Very nice Merdeka brunch

It rained very heavily in the early morning of National Day. Thunderstorm with strong wind but what a nice weather to sleep in. I woke up around 8am and the boys were still snoring peacefully in their beds. A very peaceful morning to start off with.

By the time everyone woke up and ready, it was mid-morning and time for brunches. The rain even has stopped by then.

It's been a while since I've talked about dim sum over here.

Saw this National Day's dim sum promotion from Verynice Restaurant on the eve and I told hubby about it. And he was happily to bring me and the kids the next day to try its dim sum.

Never been to this restaurant in Rock Road for dim sum although we did been there once for roasted chicken & duck rice.

Image taken from Google

I did missed dim sum. Love to pick those steamers and got to eat one of each. Talking about varieties, Verynice Restaurant does have quite a selection of dim sum to choose from.

We were first few customers having dim sum. It was a Monday and public holiday so no stalls were open. Only dim sum stall. I believe they did this one-off promotion that day to attract customers.

What we had for our brunch.

The deep fried : Sesame balls and yam puff

Fresh prawn filling with translucent skin in Har kau

Soft and well-seasoned steamed pork rib

Others in the steamers: Char siew paus, lo mai kai, Shanghai pork buns and bamboo rolls

Personally hubby and I agreed that the sesame balls, har kau and lo mai kai were good. Others were so-so.

Lo mai kai

And when we just about to finish our dim sum brunch, my parents, sis, bro and sil came over. They also read on the special offer and wanted to try the dim sum.

By then the place was almost packed so it took quite a long time for their order to come. The cook made the dim sum based on order so it was fresh.

They ordered almost similar dim sum as ours except this juicy chicken feet. I did not taste it as I were already full and could not eat anymore.

That was our National Day's brunch. It wasn't really that great but it was very nice to bump into my family. Hubby paid the tab. We seated and chatted with them while waiting for their food to arrive before we excused ourselves.

Coconut-flavoured mojito

Pronouned as mə hi təu, mojito is a Cuban cocktail that consists of 5 ingredients : white rum, lime juice, sugar, sparkling water and mint.

Hubby made this cocktail on the eve of Malaysia's National Day, so you can say, we had it as our celebration drink to go with my avocado salad that evening.

Hubby bought this rum with coconut flavour few days ago so he used it to give the cocktail a different twist. We used these big limes for the cocktail.

Big seedless limes

Serves 2

1. In a big glass, squeeze juices from 2 big limes. Add 1 teaspoon of fine sugar. Add in about 2 oz of rum into the glass. Slowly pour in 325ml soda water. We used 1 can of F&N soda water
2. Give the ingredients a stir.
3. In 2 serving glasses, add in 3 mints into each glass. Slowly pour the mojito into the serving glasses.
4. Add in some ice cubes. Garnish with lime wedges.

Verdict : the coconut flavour overpowering the lime juice and mint but it still taste good and refreshing!