He is here at last

I gave birth to a 3.5kg baby last Monday naturally without any instrument or epidural. My son's daddy said I am very tough because of the pain I endured for popping this 3.5 kg flesh and blood out. It was a 12 hours ordeal that I went through. I wanted to jot down a little memory here so later when I looked back, I still remember the moments I spent along the 12 hours on that very day.

On sunday morning, I had bloody show and I figured that the mucus plug had came off. I read that after the mucus plug came out, it can be within hours, days or weeks before baby its born. So I told my husband that we shall go and see my obstetrician the next morning. During the whole morning throughout the afternoon, I felt constipated every now and then. I phoned my sister and another friend to find out how contraction pain should feel like. Both of them told me it's almost like menstrual cramp but more severe one. For me, it's hard to judge because I don't normally has menstrual cramp. I just ignored it until about 6.30 in the evening when I started feeling the pain which is not so mild anymore. I had to stop everything I was doing whenever the pain came just standing there deep breathing until the pain is gone again. Something is wrong. I think this was a real contraction. I timed it was about 6-8 minutes apart. I already boiled a pot of soup since 3pm and I have to stir fry one more vege for dinner besides cooking rice. I didn't even marinate the pork that I was going to stir fry with the vege because I can't stand too long anymore. The pain was quite intense. Quickly after cleaning the kitchen and washed the wok, I woke my husband up for dinner (he was having evening nap) and told him I most probably going to give birth soon and we should eat quickly. I ate like thunder with in between I stood up and changed position trying to relieve from pain. I headed towards bathroom for shower and reminded him to wash and clean up after he finished eating while I shower first. I had to sit on the toilet seat to wash my hair because at that moment, I had trouble standing whenever the pain came. Around 8 pm, we drove to the hospital with packed bags and his beloved DSLR. One funny thing is that when we arrived at the parking arena, hubby pressed the parking ticket from the machine and shoved it to me. He told me to hold it. I was in such a pain that I had to ask him to simply just put it somewhere, don't give it to me. He wasn't aware I was already in real pain. We went directly to the birth unit upon reaching hospital. Nurses plugged me to the machine to monitor my contraction for 20 minutes. It showed my contraction lasted about 30 seconds and 6 minutes apart. Nurse said I should be staying here in the labour room for the night because my contraction is already quite close period. Nurse told my husband to go down to do the admission process while they continue monitor me because I have not even dilated for 1cm yet. At around 11pm, my pain became quite severe that they gave me pain killer jab. Since I had not dilated nurses estimated I will only give birth the next morning, I sent my husband back to sleep at home. He went home and spent some time cooking the red date, longan tea for me so that he could bring it with him later when he came. Around 3am, my membrane ruptured/water bag burst. I vomited the dinner I took the night before sure to the effect of pain killer. Nurses told me to sleep because I would need the energy to push in the morning but I could not fall asleep in this kind of pain. I texted my husband and he came again at 4am. From 3am until 6.30am, I was dilated until 8cm. Nurse said I can't give birth yet because my contraction doesn't last long enough to give the push. Doctor came at around 7am and I was still at 8cm. Doctor gave me a dip to fasten the contraction and making it last longer. I was in terrible pain and already feeling very weak. I had already been in intense pain for the last 10 hours. After he gave the dip,it was like in hell. My legs cramped whole times that my husband and the nurse had to massage my legs every time the contraction came. Both my hands were numb because I hold the railing of the bed too tight whenever it was so pain. I curled on bed like a caterpillar, shaking. My husband asked for the laughing gas (nitrous oxide) from doctor but he was reluctant to give because he worried I won't be able to push as the gas effect will make me drowsy. I told him I was already in pain for almost 12 hours now and if I can't relive from pain, I can't survive anymore. He gave in as I promised I would be able to push later. At around 8am, I can't wait anymore. They told me to wait until 10cm, but I can't. The baby was already almost out. They didn't believe me in the beginning because I had already told them the same thing that I had to push since 7.30am. One of the nurse asked me to try and she saw baby's head. They quickly called the doctor in and setup the bed for labour. At the 3rd time pushing, doctor performed a 2cm episiotomy which I could not even feel it anymore, baby came out at the 5th push at 8.08am. He was so adorable and I could not cry from happiness because I was still drowsy from the overdose off laughing gas. The gas effect made vomited until lunch time. I took too much of it but luckily I was still able to push and get baby out without the help of vacum or forcept.

The labour lasted 12 hours and he is finally out. Love him. My husband loves me more after baby is out, I can feel it, and I know why.

Fried crabsticks

I can't make pineapple cookies this year because it required too much effort. So I sent WL to get me 6 packets of crabsticks. I will just fry crabsticks this year. I need to have at least something to serve our families when they came over to visit us soon.

After the cutting and shredding for like an hour on 12X6 sticks, the frying needs another 3 hours. I am quite satisfied because it's one of his favourite snacks. He keep sneaking in and stole the freshly fried crabsticks to munch on when I was frying. So hot, sweat kept rolling down my tummy. Pity the baby because he was closer to stove than I was so I tried to stand facing the side when frying. The fried crabstick is a very delectable snack.

Chinese New Year in 2 weeks!

Roasted black pepper pork

I am not very sure if it's called roast or bake but I used the oven to do the job.

I marinated the lean pork which has slight fat with black pepper sauce, soy sauce and salt overnight. Be generous with the black pepper sauce and you will get very flavoured roast pork ;)

I just popped the 2 lean pork I have on aluminium foil, do not seal up so the dry heat can roast the pork just like char siew. There is a slight burnt on the skin outside which gave really aromatic taste after 30 minutes in oven at 240 degree celcius. The pork turned out very juicy too because of the little fat it contains. I am very happy with today's meal because it was really easy to make and tasty to the bud. Moreover, I don't need to stand there for hours to cook a perfect meal, and I don't want too at this rate of being pregnant.

Anticipating

There are 2 more weeks before my maternity leaves official starts. However I am not sure if I need to be off so early but that's what the labour's law says. So let's see. I am taking off 2 days to recuperate. So I am sitting here right at home playing jigsaw puzzle in live messenger with my sister. I have been putting up some gifts from friends over the months for our little sunshine so it's not fair if I do not post this up. This is a gift from my buddy Suet Yin that can fit the baby at later stage. A little to big for him at the moment. :D Thank you very much.

Merry Christmas 2011 !

I spent Christmas at home sick. I am already sick for a week and my cough doesn't seem to get any better yet. I cough until my lungs almost drop and baby keep juggling inside. My legs are also pain from standing. So I need to do everything very quickly.

So I got help from santarina aka hubby to prepare today's dinner. I cooked yee mee for lunch today so for dinner I want to opt for western style of meal.

I have salmon from Jusco yesterday but I do not have lemon (again). So what I did is to make use of orange I have in the fridge. I googled and found orange-honey glazed salmon recipe. Perfect. I did not use the recipe totally but kind of use it as inspiration.


Baked orange-honey glazed salmon
Ingredients
1 piece of salmon about 250g
parsley flakes
salt
pepper
1/2 orange -make zest
1/2 orange -make juice
1 tablespoon honey
1 slice of orange

1. Assemble all the ingredients together and place the slice of orange on top of salmon. Everything goes on a piece of aluminium foil
2. Prepare oven at 220 celcius and bake over 20 minutes
3. Heat up oven for 3 minutes before placing the tray of salmon into oven


Garlic butter rice
1. Heat up 30 g butter in pan, add in 4 cloves of chopped garlic and 1/3 of chicken bouillon cube
2. Add rice and water
3. Let cook for about 2 minutes
4. Transfer everything into rice cooker and cook as your rice cooker instruction

We used bean sprout and carrot for the sides. Cook as you like ;) We stir-fried bean sprout in garlic and salt and blanched carrot and sprinkled some basil on top of them later on.




Merry Christmas !!! Hope you having a great dinner now ;) We just completed ours.

Chicken rice by him

Q4'11 Teambuilding

I haven't been posting anything related to my work for quite some time for now. Here it is, the latest team building which just held yesterday at Hydro Hotel, Batu Feringghi. There are a lot photos but I will just upload this one piece which has everyone in it. It was fun and we had a lot laughters. I was so tired from laughing, for real...

Long bean rice

I have been lazy to update my blog for quite some time and tired too. Anyway, this is something that I make from time to time, not very often but not too little too. Roughly once every 1.5 to 2 months? It is the long bean rice. It has the fragrance of dried shrimp, shitake mushroom, garlic and pork belly ;) All the ingredients are cooked in wok first with the rice before being transferred into rice cooker.



Simple but appetizing dinner for today.

Toys

I was trying to search for some toys for the little one and everything seems so pricey. Anyway, I got him a flexi ball. Before this I bought a cloths book (fluffy chicks) and lamaze learning block from someone at work place. The condition of the 2 are still good and I washed them throughly and now are ready for the little one.



Here is the super big toy for him from Rachel ah-yi! He can only play this when he is older and I will keep it nicely until then :) thank you thank you.

Cute pieces from friends

We received a few more gifts from some friends for our little one who is coming soon. I took this when I was playing with my new phone retro effect apps, the terry bath towel with 4 washcloth from uncle Yee Seng.



A few sets of clothes from Ai Chee and Chun in US. It is so kind of them to have to pass the gift to me through their friend who was on business trip to US recently



I purposely snap this romper because it's so cute. See the butt piece? Piak piak!



Thank you my friends

Yong Tau Foo

It is a very exhausting day for me. I woke up in the morning to the market and came back with lots of ingredients and nicely packed and keep in fridge then to prepare the ingredients for yong tau foo. I had to quickly have my breakfast nasi lemak before I proceed to wash my room's curtains today too and hang them back to the curtain rod because that's where the sun will be every day. I told the aunty in the market that I want taukee for yong tau foo. She thought that I want to cook those soup yong tao foo which I never like at all and recommend me the fried taukee she had made. I didn't want. I want to stuff them my own. The fried one was so hard and "fried". How am I going to fry it again. She never understand what I want and I gave up with her.

I only used a few ingredients for the yong tau foo because if I use more ingredients, the whole bunch of the stuff will be really a lot. I chose 8 lady's finger, 1 medium egg plant, 100g tauhu pok and a few pieces tau kee. The stuffing is made of fish meat where I mixed with minced pork because fish is really very expensive. I mixed them well with salt, starch, soy sauce and pepper.

After washing and cutting the yong tau foo ingredients, I began stuffing them then fried them in hot oil. It took me so long to fry because I did them a few pieces a time to avoid the stuffing from coming out.



Then, the fried ingredients will be used for cooking. The sauce is made of water, tau chiu, salt, pepper and oyster sauce. I thicken the sauce using starch mixture. It took me around 3 hours for the preparation and cooking process but I like the end product. Satisfying lunch!



Tired, but still sitting here typing after cooking dinner for hubby and have to rush to get ready for wedding dinner tonight. Chao!

Photos gone..

I have a new android phone and I used the sync feature to sync everything from my google into the new phone because I uploaded my old phone's contact to google's contact. I didn't know that the auto sync will also sync my photos online into my phone. I have this blog for around 6 years and the photos I had uploaded all the while accumulated up to 2700++. When I saw the photos in my phone gallery, I was thinking what the heck, 2000 plus photos gonna eat up all my phone memory pretty fast. So what I did without thinking is to DELETE all the photos since I have them in my blog. How much would I know that these photos are exactly the same copies in my blog. A few seconds after I press the delete button, my mind was jumping like crazy, heart beating so fast. I quickly logged into my blog and see.. wwwwwwwwooooaaah, all the photos including my banner's all gone. I was deep depressed due to the lost. Any how, I manage to find some latest photos and uploaded them back into the latest posts. The rest, I have no idea when to find them. So, please be careful next time with your phone auto-sync feature. No more next time.

Chicken porridge

Yesterday I was telling 2 friends that I want to cook chicken porridge today. I want to make silky smooth porridge like what normally seen in dim sum restaurant. All my previous porridges were all not like that. One of my friend told me to buy ready-made rice which is finely crushed to achieve this kind of smooth porridge and she also said I can crush the rice myself using the back of knife. Anyway I do not want to use this option because it will take time to crush the rice and I don't want to hit or knock anything right now. The ready finely crushed rice is more expensive and I still have 10kg rice in my repository. So no way I am going to restock any rice at any moment now.

I opted for other method I found more towards my style. Since I am cooking rice for dinner yesterday, I cooked extra one more portion. Then I add just enough water into a pot with the cooked rice and start boiling. The rice will turn into porridge quicker this way since the rice is already cooked and I do not have much time to waste at night on a normal working day. After about 15 minutes, I managed to get concentrated porridge. I added just enough water so that it's not watery but is able to turn soft.

I let the porridge cool down a little and took my potato masher and mashed the porridge. When it's mashed and cool down completely, I kept the pot into fridge for today's cooking.

I came back from work and started working on the ingredients. I have salted chicken left from last week. I had already harvested the left over and shredded it into tiny strips. I also had a chicken leg from chicken corn soup that I cooked 2 days ago which I shredded too and kept in container. This is the main recipe for today's meal.

I added like 3 bowls of chicken broth into the pot with mashed porridge in it and boil the mixture. When it started boiling, lower the heat to the lowest, add a handful of groundnuts, all the shredded chicken, chopped carrot, 2 tablespoon of sesame oil and simmer for 30 minutes. Add water when you see it's drying up. Stir often. Add salt towards the end, and taste.

Serve hot, add some pepper on top and garnish with spring onions. It makes a great warm dinner on rainy day like this. I achieved the silky smooth texture that I want!

Sambal fried rice

Left over food is gem :) I always like to use the left-over and mix into rice to make all sort of fried rice.

This time I had left over sambal from Sunday lunch nasi lemak and the spicy marinated pork from dinner. What I need to do is just mix both of the left-overs with overnight rice, chopped carrot and egg, add a little soy sauce and there you go, sambal nasi lemak!

It was very spicy due to too many dried chillies used when I was making sambal but so divine. The outlook is nothing much difference from other fried rice because of the common ingredients used but with a little garnishing with cut spring onions. It makes a great lunch alone food :)

Spicy marinated pork belly

I was looking at this dwaeji bulgogi, korean spicy marinated pork and salivating. I do not have all sort of Korean's cooking ingredients in my kitchen so I figured out I will just sort of use the idea but incorporate what is available in my humble kitchen pantry.

I used thin slinces of pork belly and cut into 1x1 inch in size. I marinated the pork in fridge for about 6 hours using the below ingredients:

2 cloves of garlic, chopped
small piece of ginger, finger size, chopped
1 stalk scallion, cut thinly. I keep the upper part of the leaves for garnishing
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon korean chilli oil
1 teaspoon chili paste (cili boh)
1 tablespoon chinese rice wine
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon sesame oil


Cooking is fairly simple. Heat up a little oil in wok. Pour the pork in and stir in medium heat. When the pork is cooked, stir in higher heat until you see the edge of the pork is caramelizing. Scoop and serve hot. Garnish with scallion.

Spaghetti with Roasted Salmon and Garlic

Earlier in the week, I mentioned that I purchased 2 salmon steaks. I used one to make salmon teriyaki, it means I have one more left in freezer. Simple maths.

I tried google in the morning on some pasta recipe I can make with salmon and I failed to find any that I like. Most of them are using cream sauce which I dislike because I can never finish the second half of the cream pasta. I felt sick with the cream when I was at the half plate.

I came home and took about 5-10 minutes flipping my pasta cookbook. There is one recipe which I fairly interested in, by roasting salmon and garlic. I didn't use the recipe from the book but just used the idea of roasted salmon and garlic. This is how I made it.

Preparation of salmon:
1.Preheat oven to 200 celcius
2.Clean and dry salmon
3.Place salmon on a piece of aluminium foil
4.Brush some olive oil to the surface of salmon, sprinkle salt and parsley flakes.
5.Cut 2 cloves of garlic into very thin slices and arrange on top of salmon
6.Bake for 15 minutes


Ingredients for the sauce:
1 clove garlic, chopped
1 medium onion, chopped
1/2 carrot, chopped into tiny pieces similar to onion
6 cherry tomatoes
oregano flakes
tomato puree
1/2 teaspoon sugar and 1/4 teaspoon salt

1. Boil a pot of water, add a little salt and cook spaghetti al dente according to the packet's instruction.
2. Heat some oil in pan and slightly brown the garlic
3. Add onion, carrot and tomatoes in and stir till fragrance
4. Pour in tomato puree and add 1 can of water by filling the puree's can
5. Stir and let it boil for a while, add sugar and salt
6. Add oregano as much as you like and ground pepper then simmer for 10 minutes
7. By this time spaghetti should be already done, drain and toss into sauce, stir well
8. Take the salmon out of oven and flake it. Remove any bones
9. Mix roasted salmon flakes and garlic into spaghetti and do not forget to pour in any juice on the aluminium foil. That juice contains the real fish oil top with omega-3.


Serves 2
Preparation time: 15 minutes
Cooking time when all baking, cooking pasta and sauce are done at the same time: 20 minutes.


Note: There are a lot pot/pan to wash later :p




I asked WL if he wanted to have soup with the pasta and he said YES! So I requested him to help me open the can of campbell mushroom soup but he got away after pouring everything in a pot and ask me to stir the soup when it's boiling. That's the reason I didn't manage to debone the salmon properly. I was stirring soup and deboning salmon at the same time. There were some bones left in the salmon flakes but who cares, we are not kids. :p We could take it out while eating. The roasted garlic mixed into the spaghetti really well too. The taste is just perfect, something different from the usual minced pork spaghetti that I make. He started dinner without waiting for me when I was still in kitchen washing cooking utensils and I can hear him chanting "hao chi!hao chi!". This normally happen when I cooked something new for him. Bliss

Be healthy and see you!

I have not been talking much here about my feeling for the coming little one in our family. Some how maybe I should jot down a few lines so I can remember this joyful moment in any future. I am almost at the end of second trimester where people claimed is the most comfortable time during pregnancy. I feel the first trimester is the best :p

For the past few weeks, I have been experiencing a lot of little actions in my belly. He has been a footballer, swimmer and gymnast. Yesterday I tried to hold the little gymnast and wanted to let him know how much I wish to cuddle him right then. I caught him right on the fist or the feet, I don't know. Today we did a lot of high-five together. I had never feel this happy before for being kicked inside me. There are times where he surprised me with a stronger kick that makes me stood up all of sudden or woke me up from my usual nappy work hour. It is a miracle to think that I have a little man inside me and he is growing stronger and bigger everyday. I am loving this little gymnast everyday even more and can't wait to say hi to him. I look at the stuff we bought for him along the months everyday and feel happiness surrounding all over me.

Happiness still top over all other small uncomfortable things that I experience along the journey. I try swimming to relieve my back ache but it does not help much. We got a massage pillow to relax my back muscle 3 minutes every night but everytime I sit back again on the chair or couch, the back ache just came back. I started to feel the ache since week 15 or so, pretty early in the pregnancy period. It is affecting my outing time too like I cannot be walking in shopping mall for more than 2 hours or else I feel like my back is going to collapse if I don't lay down right away. After 4pm everyday is off hour for me. I do not want to sit in office anymore. Anyway, I still have to commit to certain occasions that required my attendance but to reject some of them which I think I can be absent to. So I hope friends will understand why I just can't attend some of the activities that they organized.

Other than the backache, it is the hugging a basketball to sleep feeling that makes me sleep light every night nowadays. I just cannot sleep sideways which I am forcing myself to right now or I will be pressed to a breathless point by the little gymnast and all the extra weight. So I spend longer time in bed to compensate for the missing sleep hours in the night.

Despite all these, I am still very happy. Both husband and I really enjoy having this little companion-to-be in our everyday life. So be healthy and see you!

Chicken rice

Yesterday when I mentioned to WL that I want to cook chicken rice on Monday, first thing he reminded me was that he wants coriander with the chicken. Okay, I hate the smell of coriander and I don't eat it. Then he gave me another option, how about scallion? Hmmm, I don't have any of the 2 vegetables he requested. This means that I have to make a trip to hypermarket on my way back from work today. So I packed my bag earlier before my normal off hour and dropped by the hypermarket on my way home. I looked at the basket of coriander and I was so glad that they were all either turned yellow, black or not fresh. yay! No need to eat coriander and I don't have to stand the smell of it! :P I searched for scallion and found a pack with 3 stalks for RM2.99. It's pricey for such a small vege and it's not going to be any main dish, just for garnishing but no choice, I have to buy it for the exchange of smelly coriander. I also grabbed a Japanese cucumber for the green later

I came home and started poaching the chicken when the rain started to fall. I felt so relieved that I am already at home admiring my kitchen.

Chicken preparation:
1. Clean 2 chicken legs and cut off excess fat and save for later use.
2. Fill water into pot with a teaspoon of salt , amount enough just to cover the chicken and start the fire
3. When it's almost at the boiling point, put the chicken in the pot and let it simmer. Control the heat so that the water does not boil. We just want to poach it for about 45 minutes.
4. Prepare a small bowl of salt mix with sesame oil and a brush for applying the mixture to chicken later
5. At the end of 45 minutes, take the chicken out from the hot water and place it directly into cold water to stop the cooking process. Save the chicken broth
6. Brush the salt and sesame oil mixture onto all sides of chicken
7. Cut into desired size and apply the left over salt and sesame oil mixture onto the chicken pieces.
8. Pour about 1 tablespoon of soy sauce and sprinkle some pepper on the chicken. Garnish with a lot of cut scallion

Rice preparation
1. Wash rice for 4 and set aside
2. Heat up the chicken fat that you saved earlier in wok until the oil is generated from the fat.
3. Saute chopped garlic (2 cloves) and ginger (small piece)in the chicken oil
4. Mix the rice into the wok and cook for a while maybe about 2 minutes
5. Scoop the rice into rice cooker
6. Scoop the oil layer from the chicken broth into rice cooker. Add the broth until desired water level required to cook the rice according to your rice cooker instruction
7. Sprinkle some salt and pepper into the rice cooker and start cooking
8. Serve rice with slices of cucumber on side

Soup preparation
1. Start boiling up the left over chicken broth
2. Put in slices of carrot as much as you like and some fish balls into the broth and let simmer for 5-10 minutes
3. Add salt and pepper
4. Garnish with scallion





Serves 2 with chicken but with 2 extra bowls of rice saved for tommorrow :p faint..

WL came back with a box of salted chicken in his hand and said it's from his colleague's baby fullmoon and he wanted to ring me to tell me not to cook so we can eat the salted chicken. But he also said my cell was switched off. There is a phone at home, and he forgot we have another phone that he can reach me. I switched on my cell and saw his misscall at 6.52pm. Hello husband, at 6.52pm, the chicken is already cooked. Can you not call me at 6.52pm and tell me no need to cook? Hahaha... Anyway, the salted chicken has to sit in the fridge until 2 or 3 days later because I do not want to eat chicken everyday :p

Salmon teriyaki

Yesterday I purchased 2 salmon steaks again from Jusco. I am eating salmon too often but I have not yet bored of the taste and I love the texture a lot. This morning when I was planning on Sunday's meal, I have breakfast, lunch and dinner in mind but suddenly I felt disaapointed because I forgot to get lemon yesterday. There goes my usual baked salmon with lemon. I have butter, but it's so boring to use butter. Teriyaki! Yes, that's it salmon teriyaki! I wanted to have salmon teriyaki for so long but everytimeI look at the price of salmon teriyaki in restaurant, I gave up. But the problem is I do not have teriyaki sauce too. :p Afraid not, I quickly went online and searched for teriyaki sauce recipe. Oh mine, it is so easy to make one.

Teriyaki sauce:
3 tablespoon mirin. I substituded with chinese rice wine because I don't have mirin.
3 tablespoon soy sauce
sugar/ brown sugar/ honey , as sweet as you like. I used 1.5 tablespoon of honey which is perfect to my liking.
1 clove garlic and 1 small piece of ginger choppped

Combine everything in a pan and cook till everything dissolved and mixed together. Set aside until it cool down before use.


Marinate salmon in the teriyaki sauce and refrigerate. Turn the salmon over in the half period of your marination time. I marinated since 10am and used it at 6.30pm. So I turned the salmon over in the marinade at around 3pm. I do not want to pan grill the salmon. I prefer oven as usual. Pour all the teriyaki sauce you used to marinate the salmon in the aluminium foil you folded with the salmon. Heat up oven for about 5min at 200 celcius and bake for 15 minutes





Perfect to serve with white rice! Yummy

Fried rice with green vege

I know fried rice is boring. The reason why I posted this is because it is the first time I fry rice with adding green vegetable.

See the ingredients? I have salted fish, carrot, "chai xin", chinese sausage, egg, onions and of course rice.




It turned out to soooo good, I even want to finish the other plate which belongs to WL.