draw or throw

Sometimes I am not sure whether my son says "draw" or "throw". Both sound similar to me from the way he is pronouncing them. It sounds like this " dhow".

There are times he mischievously calling mommy as babi making be feels like being called a pig. He short formed daddy to "deeee" too whenever he likes.

He is frustrated when we didn't understand what he was trying to convey like last night he woke up at around 3am then had been fussing for 5-10 minutes pointing towards his drawers. I was trying to shove the pacifier into his crying mouth but he refused. . He pointed to the milk can when I was filling his tumbler with water but I know he wasn't hungry. He was just distracted by the milk can. I let him sip water and put him back to bed, patted his back for a while and he came back screaming. I touched his abdomen and realized that the head of his pants was wet from his own pee. His pee shot up and wet the pants! Now I got it why he was pointing to his drawers where I put the diapers on it. So I quickly took out his pants and he stopped crying immediately. Changed diaper and put a clean, dry pants on and I've got a sleeping toddler.

I hope he can communicate better to us so he can be understood :) One day, he will.

Long bean rice

Since  we introduced the box of pencil colours to our boy, he loves "drawing" very much. He said "draw" each time he wants to make some mark on paper. He simply make some random colouring on the paper according to his liking however he learns each of the colour from this activity. He loves saying purple and he says it cute like "popur". This picture shows the daddy trying to impress his junior on his drawing skill. and the junior seems to be intrigued by the stunt.

A dear friend called on last weekend for afternoon tea. We met up in a restaurant in a new area called Four Season place in Air Itam. Short but nice to meet up. This is my first time having this beautiful art coffee. Felt so nice.

2 weeks ago we had a great rainy weather. Don't misunderstand me by thinking I love the rain, I just love the temperature! It felt like staying on the highland, Cameron Highland! Even by not switching on the fan, the weather is very chilling indoor. How nice was that. But it only lasted for a week. Now we are back in the oven. I am still cooking most of the days and I made this yesterday. It is something that my mom used to cook every once and then back when I still live at home. We call it "dou jiao fan" which translates to "long bean rice". I wanted to make it earlier of the week during working day but we kept coming back home later than 6.15pm so I can't make it on time for dinner at 7pm. At last I managed it on weekend. It is not too hard to make just that it's not as easy as just drop everything into rice cooker and turn it on.  Here what my mom usually did was to cook everything in the wok then transfer them into the rice cooker to cook.

What you need is :

2 cloves of garlic, flatten them using the side of knife

2 tablespoon of dried shrimps, washed and drained

3 chinese mushroom, soaked in water to soften then sliced

A handful of long beans, washed and cut into 1.5cm length

200g of pork belly, cut and season with corn flour and soy sauce

1 cup of rice, washed and add enough water for cooking

Heat up wok with oil , saute garlic till fragrance and add in the dried shrimps and mushroom. Stir fry for a while until the ingredients dried up then add in the pork. When you see the pork is sticking to the base of wok, you can add in the long beans. Add half bowl of water, 1 teaspoon of dark soy sauce, 3 tablespoon of light soy sauce, 1/2 teaspoon of sesame oil, salt and pepper to taste. Let the long beans simmer for like 20 seconds then pour in the rice and water mixture. Let simmer for another 20 seconds and scoop the rice out first into rice cooker followed by everything else. Let it cook following your rice cooker manual. 

ABC soup

I like to cook soup because it simplify my kitchen tasks during weekdays. It means I just have to stir fry a vegetable dish to go with the soup and rice. The best is the one that has vegetables and meat together because I can eat all the goodies in a bowl. This is a common soup that many of us think as comfort food as we drink this since young. ABC soup is named as such because of the variety of ingredients that provide multi vitamins to the soup. ABC is just a way to represent the many vitamins you can get from all the vegetables. Tomato-vitamin A, carrot-vitamin B, etc..

This time I use the thermal cooker to boil the soup because no electricity and minimal gas are used . I just put everything in the pot and boil for 10 minutes or so before I go to work. Usually I washed and cut the ingredients that can be prepared a day before to save me some time. 

Ingredients that can be cut a day before:

2 large onions

1 potato

1 carrot

Cut them into cubes.

Other ingredients:

Soft bone pork/Pork ribs

2 tomatoes

2 teaspoon of peppercorns.

Salt to taste

Alternatively you can also use slow cooker or stove top to boil the soup. Stove top will take  about 2 hours.

Baked chicken wings

Today a friend commented about my lack of update on my blog. I told her I am too busy to update as I have too much errands to run and need to take care of the home. Since it's public holiday today and I've got some extra hours after the monster is asleep, I can update today's cooking.

I made this extra slurpy baked chicken wings that my hubby loves so much using the oven. We didn't get to join any barbecue nowadays so I have to create this at home. It is as good as the barbecue ones. The secret ingredient is HONEY!  yet I don't need to stand in front of the hot red charcoal to bbq the chicken wings. So easy! I make this pretty frequent. 

You can cut the whole piece of wing into drumettes and other part or leave it as a whole piece.

Marinate the wings for at least 2 hours using these:

3 cloves of garlic, chopped

1/2 teaspoon of sesame oil

Salt & pepper

2 tablespoon soy sauce

2 tablespoon honey

Preheat oven to 200c. Put the wings on aluminium foil and place on the tray. Save the marinate. Usually I use aluminium foil to save time from scrubbing to clean the tray after use. 

Bake for 40 minutes. Every 10 minutes, brush the wings with the left over marinate and turn them around. 

You will get something like below after 40 minutes, equally good as barbecuing. 

Pizza week

Last week I made pizza twice. Okay I didn't make the dough, I bought ready made one from the store. I don't have enough time to make it myself since they were weekdays. First pizza , I forgot to grease the pan before putting it in for bake in oven..so the base sticked that I had to scrap the base and cut the pizza half to get it off the pan. It didn't look too appetizing afterward. For the second pizza of the week, I remembered to grease the pan so the pizza turned out excellent.

Pizza 1 toppings: tomato, parsley, spring onion, tuscan mushrooms, black pepper sausage, garlic
Pizza 2 toppings: tomato, pork, dried seaweed, button mushrooms, onion

Must top with generous amount of cheese! I used mozzarella.

Ginger and scallion chicken

This is one of my hubby's favourite, jiang chong ji which directly translated to ginger and scallion chicken. It is quick to prepare on normal working day. The reason is the cooking time is short  because of the use of boneless chicken or chicken breast whichever you like.

Ingredients
2 chicken legs
2 tbs corn flour
2 tbs vegetable oil
3 stalks scallion julienned
1 piece ginger sliced
2 tbs shaoxing wine
1 tbs Oyster sauce
2tbs soy sauce
Salt and pepper

Steps
Get chicken leg and deboned it or you can use chicken breast. Cut the chicken into smaller strips. Mix corn flour and vegetable oil to chicken to seal the juice.

Heat oil in wok. When oil is hot, saute ginger and scallion for 20 seconds.

Add chicken and stir. Add all other ingredients and a bit of water so there is gravy.

Stir fry for few minutes until chicken is cooked. Scoop and serve hot with steamed rice.

Enjoy!

Baked pork rib in oven

I cook Chinese food like 90% of the time. On Wednesday I made a more western side of meal. I bought 2 pork ribs from market at weekend and told the boy not to cut them into smaller pieces this time. Just chop each rib into 2. I go to wet market every 2 to 3 weeks to replenish ingredients like pork, red snapper for my boy's porridge, fish balls and "lao shu fen". The rest I will get from Aeon, cheaper especially on chicken and vegetables.

I found some recipe online to marinate the rib but I don't have much of the ingredients so I made up my own.

Marinate
2 Shallots chopped
2 garlics chopped
2 tbs Soy sauce
Few drops of worchesteshire sauce
2 Tbs white vinegar
3Tbs ketchup
Pinch of salt and ground pepper
4tbs brown sugar

The ribs were marinated overnight.

When I came back from work, I will on the oven to heat it up.I turned the knob to 60 minutes and 240 celsius. Dripped off the extra sauce and placed the ribs on aluminium foil and waited for 5 minutes before placing the ribs into oven.

Take the ribs out and rub the marinate sauce every 10 minutes.

While doing this, prepare mashed potato, salad and soup. When the time is up, serve and enjoy your food!

Lastly, here is a picture of my small mushroom boy

Stir dry tofu with pork

These days the sky is not clear. The west side of peninsular Malaysia is attacked by haze that comes from open fire burning by our neighbour, Indonesia. We are not happy about it because it affects our daily life, everyone stays indoor to prevent inhaling too much of the toxic and smelly air. More and more people are using air conditioner. I heard air purifier is selling fast in the store. Every brand is snatched, everyone is trying to the best protection for their family members.

As usual we eat at home most of our dinners. I cooked this dish 2 days ago.  It is easy and tasty.

Ingredients
1 piece tofu cubed
Minced or slices of pork, seasoned with soy sauce and corn flour
1 egg
2 Shallots
Spring onion for garnishing
Half bowl of water
2 tbs Oyster sauce
2 tbs soy sauce
Salt and pepper
Tapioca starch

Steps
Heat up 2 tablespoon of oil in wok. Saute shallots until fragrant. Stir fry pork for 10 seconds and add tofu. Add water leaving 1/4 over for later . Add soy sauce, oyster sauce and salt. Let it simmer until tofu is soften about 3 to 5 minutes. Mix tapioca starch into the left over water and add into the wok. Let it simmer a while and off the fire. Break an egg and mix. Garnish with spring onion and serve hot with rice. Enjoy!

Seafood ramekin

It was lazy Saturday and I wasn't very hungry approaching lunch hour. After feeding my boy, bathed him and put him to nap, I tried to put something together to fix a quick lunch. Anyway, it wasn't too quick . I think I used about an hour to make this for lunch.

1. You can use any seafood that you have. I used squids, prawns and fish. Melt up 2 tablespoon of butter in pan. Add onions. Add the seafood, salt, pepper and wine. Stir fry for about 4-5 minutes. Scoop up and set aside. 

2. Boil 1 cup of milk

3. Melt 3 tablespoon of butter into skillet and dissolve 2 tablespoon of flour in it. Add the boiled milk and stir vigorously until everything mixed properly. Add the seafood into the mixture.

4. Preheat oven to 200celcius

5. Pour the mixture into ramekins

6. Top with bread crumbs and Parmesan cheese. I don't have parmesan so I used Cheddar :p

7. Bake in oven for 20 minutes.

I feel like eating clam chowder when eating this. It was yummy

Mango lassi

I was craving for some mango desert few weeks back but we didn't have enough time to enjoy desert outside because we have to rush back each time after buying groceries/outing because our little boy need to nap. Luckily I grabbed 2 mangoes under sale in AEON! I only used 1 of them for each time I made the mango lassi. It's super easy. Just mix plain yogurt, full cream milk and ripe mango chunks into your food processor and process them. It's hard to tell the measurement here because I simply add them according to my likeness. It was a little to the think side but I can always dilute the drink down with some milk. I let my boy sip from the glass and he loved it! 

Mihun in chicken curry

I was in US for a couple of weeks. Then Aichee's husband cooked curry chicken during picnic at Salem. I told myself that I am going to cook this when I am back to Malaysia. So here it is, curry chicken with tauhupok (fried tofu). It is not as good as his one, but I am satisfied. I added long beans into the curry and ate with blanched mihun.

Spring! Oregon 2013

I came to Oregon for business trip before but I never get to visit a lot places because I was always there for short 2-3 weeks trip. However this time, my trip is a little longer but I still can't find suitable time to visit Crater Lake. ;)  Ai Chee and Chun had being such a good host for taking me out for few of the weekends to join them in their family outing with his shy little boy. 

We went to Mount Hood, now skiing but I had fun seeing the snow and the mountain in such a short distance. 

(Pic credit to Chun)

It's spring time! I am feeling so lucky to be here this time around April time because I got to experience the blooming of cherry trees. This is the cherry blossoms moment in State Capitol of Oregon which is in Salem. 

 (Pic credit to Chun)

It was a sunny bright day, we all sat down and had picnic. Chun cooked super good nasi lemak and curry chicken with "tao hu pok"! I am going back to Malaysia and cook this on the coming week I am at home.

 (Pic credited to Chun)

It's not easy to get hold of Locky. Here in the picture he's looking away because he has a very shy personality.

 (Pic credited  to Chun)

I managed to snap this rainbow that goes across the water fountain at the front of the state capitol building.

Last week Yvonne was here. She is my baby sister who had turned into this tall young lady. She flew all the way from east coast to meet me in between her school exam and class schedule for a weekend. I love you!

I took her to a few places. We went to Wooden shoe tulip festival in Woodburn. It is a largest tulip farm in Oregon. There's other small farms around but they are not as happening as this one. It wasn't a sunny day but we still had a good time photographing the colorful field of tulips.

I drove her along the scenic route at Columbia River Gorge. We went to a few of the falls and the tallest one is the magnificent Multnomah falls.

We then drove up to the Vista House to view the beautiful gorge with  a river running between it.

During the weekend she was here, the weather wasn't very good. It rained a lot. We went to Seattle and it rained too. It made the travelling on foot harder and it was so cold because of the wind. I didn't take a lot photos there. We visited the Pike's market. We had seafood feast at the Crabpot. Then took a picture at the Space Needle and few other places.

The basically summarized most of the weekends here and I am going home soon to my baby! I miss him

cold. freeze. snow

As some of you might know, I am currently in Oregon. It's cold up here comparing to Arizona which is about 23 c when I was there last week. Here the average temperature is about 9-10c. Ai Chee asked if I would like to join her and her husband with their little boy to somewhere near Mt Hood. This is the first time her son going to see snow. I took a colleague with me too.  We went to the goverment camp near Mt Hood. It required snow park permit which is pretty descent $5 for a car. So we went there and played snow, build snowman and took pictures. I didn't take much as I hope Ai Chee's husband will have nicer pictures of me using his DSLR. I am a little disappointed that I didn't bring my Columbia parka along this time to this trip. I took it with me last time but I didn't go and play snow.  The temperature is about 3c and snow chain is not needed because the snow on the road had melted. But luckily there is still snow here where we went. So tired now.. Bye.

In Chandler again

So guys, I am in Arizona. The state at the south west of United States. It's sunny since the day I arrived. The temperature is around 23 celcius in the day which is good to go without any jacket. That's the hotel I am staying in currently. See the blue sky? That's how the sky looks like here.  

Ate this for dinner yesterday after starving the night before because I forgot how to start hybrid car engine again. But I got it after many attempts of trying. The delay is also contributed by the long queue to get our cars. I treated myself with 6oz of steak with lobster tail! and 2 sides. Yummy to end the day like this.

After familiarizing with the car and road, I invited my colleague to join me to a visit to Saguaro National Park. I was so tired because I drove all the way there and back. We didn't do much things there basically just drove on the 8 miles drive path and see cactus. Really, we only see cactus and nothing else.

Small flowers survive in dessert. I hardly can find anymore plants with  bright color like this.

Another yellow on top of the cactus. And  do you know digi sucks apart from the low quality and slowness of it's data line, it has something else that made my head ache? I didn't activate my roaming system before I came oversea because I thought it's activated by default. Luckily my dear buddy Suet Yin is available in whatsapp and she helped me to contact them  regarding this.

Another species of cactus. Don't look down at the thorns. They are deadly sharp. I poked my finger when trying to remove a part of it that stuck to my shoe and left in the car. I think the cactus in Malaysia does not have sharp thorn at all.

A different flowery species of cactus

And last but not least, Saguaro cactus! This is one of the giant ones

I am drop dead tired now. I need to rest to recharge for work tomorrow.

Ginger and scallion squid

This is a common dish among the Chinese. We have"Jiang Chong ji" as ginger and scallion chicken but I cooked the squid with the exact same ingredients. Earlier I purchased some shrimps and squids for my mother in law to cook when she is coming next week. I made a better decision to have used the squids to cook this dish. It is yummy because the ginger and  scallion taste really mixed well with the seafood. Ginger will overpower the usual sea food stink smell. The only additional ingredients I added is the black fungus. The squid, scallion, ginger and black fungus are great as a team. I definitely will make this again when I am back to Malaysia.

Ingredients 1:
2 squids, cut into rings
1 stalk of scallion, cut into 2 cm long.
medium size ginger, sliced
black fungus, julienned

Ingredients 2:
Salt , 1/2 teaspoon
1 tbs corn starch diluted in 1/2 cup water
1 tbs Shaoxing wine
1 tbs oyster sauce
1 tbs soy sauce
Pepper

1. Mix ingredients 2 together
2. Heat up a tbs of oil in wok
3. Saute scallion and ginger  until fragrant
4. Mix ingredients 2 and black fungus and let simmer for 10 seconds
5. Put the squids in. Do not cook to long to avoid rubbery texture. When the squids turns white, off the fire
6. Serve hot with white rice

Enjoy your meal! I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

Sui kow aka prawn dumpling

I woke up this morning and thought of the dumpling I ate yesterday for lunch opposite BJ mall. The difference of that with other usual dumplings that I ate before is that it used black fungus as one of the ingredients as filling. So coincident I need to go the wet market today to stock of some meat, seafood and dried kitchen ingredients for those that going to use them during my upcoming business trip. I made myself collecting the items required for today's menu.
There is no exact measurement of each of them because I don't measure, as usual.

Filling:
Black fungus (soak, cut into small short strips)
Chinese mushroom ( diced)
Spring onion (chopped)
Minced pork
Medium size prawns (cut into 2 or 3)

Steps:
Marinate the above with soy sauce, salt, pepper, tapioca flour and sesame oil. Keep in fridge for about 1 hour.
Scoop about one tablespoon of filing on a skin.
Wet along the skin edge with water to make them stick when both sides are enclosed.
Fold in along the enclosed edge of the skin to secure the closing.
Boil water in pot and put your dumplings in . Drain after few seconds. This exercise is for the purpose of removing the excess flour on the skins during packaging to avoid them from sticking to each other.
Now you can put those dumplings onto the soup.
You can keep the remaining that are not cooked in freezer. Do not stack each dumpling together to avoid them from sticking to each other.
Enjoy!

Macaroni salad

This is lazy food because it's damn easy to make. I made macaroni salad for Sunday lunch. It's a cold dish so you will have to chill them before eating. Ingredients include 

1) 1/3 can of razor clam (boiled)

2) 1 stalk of chinese celery (chopped)

3) 1 tomato (chopped)

4) elbow macaroni (grabbed a bunch :p)

5) 1 medium onion (chopped) 

Cook the macaroni in salted water until al dente. Mix all ingredients together with mayonnaise  salt and white vinegar. I don't have the measurement because I add according to my preference. Chill before serving. Easy peasy

kung pao chicken

I think I haven't been posting anything about food lately. I am cooking but nothing is interesting to talk about. However yesterday I tried to make kung pao chicken. The only difference is that I use chicken leg cut into smaller pieces rather than boneless chicken. So it took longer for them to cook. I have to cover the lid and let the chicken to simmer for a little longer and in this case more liquid is needed. The photo that I took using my cellphone somehow deleted  so I snap a photo from my hubby camera in order to post in this blog. 

I refer to recipe from here but I didn't follow the exact measurement. I merely just see what ingredients is needed and adjust accordingly. I use cashew nuts instead of peanuts as recommended in the page. Kung pao chicken is a very appetizing dish as it is very flavorful, consists of  sweetness (sugar in the sauce), spiciness (dried chilies), sourish ( black vinegar), crunchiness (cashew nuts), fragrant (spring onions). Just pair with white rice and you will never forget this special dish!  Oh and I had to stir fried peas with carrots or else my hubby will complain about no vegetables. He is a vege lover.

Birthday cards from baby J's cousins

The parcel from my sister came on the day before baby J's birthday. Inside, they are a pair of clothes and 2 cards. One from each of his cousin sisters, age 5 and  4. They drew a rainbow in the interior of the cards. Cheryl knows how to write therefore the letters on the card however it's wordless on Celine's card. Hahaha

They are innocently cute. We are happy to receive the gift from my sister's family

Baby J is One: Celebration & People

This is the birthday boy! He is a year old now. I posted this write up in my status in facebook on his exact birthday.

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He didn't give me morning sickness during pregnancy, made my skin glows and hair so voluminousness. He is a good baby since I carried him, only back pain because of my weak back. This time a year ago, my baby just came out to the world smelling fresh. We are happy parents until today though there are times whining and fussiness are all over him, but it's normal for a baby who is as active as him. He has been crawling, walking with support and without support since becomes mobile. He laughed when daddy played with him. He looks for mommy when he is sleepy and hungry. He remembers where he hid his toys and sit there hours to retrieve them although they fell into unreachable space. He smiles at daddy when daddy flash the camera at him. He has 8 white shinning teeth that can eat full solid food. There are many more fond memories of his little actions and baby mischievousness and we hope for many years to come. I hope he still let me kiss him when he grew up. Mommy and Daddy love you very much. Happy 1st Birthday to our little man! 

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Baby J mingled around. We invited 11 people and it brings to total of 23 adults and 7 babies/kids.The guests came with spouse and I counted myself, my hubby and in laws.. That's how the number came up to 23. The house was very crowded. I would like to invite more but it's impossible to fit them in our tiny home.

The Sii brothers

I like this picture because it shows the decoration I put :)

Baby J with Terry and Kai lin

Tze Yee took the camera and snap picture of the Wong's family. However he meant to show himself in the pic because we can see his reflection in the mirror. Look, there is FF and HH too !

My buddy, Xiao Wei and her lovely hubby Leo

Group photo <3>

Baby J was so excited when daddy sang birthday song for him!

Another excited baby J photo. He loved it when we put him in the paper bag for a photo. Thanks to everyone who came and gave baby J presents and angpow! The presents are lovely and the money can be put to good use for baby J.