My Sister - Miaw

Was watching 馬上大搜尋 just now, the topic for today was about sisters.  It reminded me of my beloved younger sister, who passed away 16 years ago, when she was 20 years old, of cancer.

We had only 2 yrs gap apart, therefore, we were very close and shared lots of things together.  She was a lovely and pretty girl, had lot of friends and loved by most ppl around her, I was always very proud to have her.

During her stay at hospital, she was extremely brave, though suffered a lot, she seldom complained to us.  I was the one who always keep her company in the hospital, and I was the one to see her off in the family.  To think of it sometimes, it was a relief for her as she had suffered for 4 years (discovered when she was 15, under medication for 2 years, cured, but came back when she was 19), especially during the last few months.

Though it was oledi 16 years, I still felt extremely empty or lonely, envy and sad whenever I saw other sisters sharing their happy moments together.

We played together, shared lot of secrets, quarrels, clothing, jokes, friends, holidays, adventures....

I miss you very much, Miaw!

Honey Mango Muffin

I bought a few over-ripe with bit of black spots mangoes on Sun (cheap mah!), thinking of making mango enzyme, however, once I reached mum's hse, dad attacked one of the mango, later at the evening bro thought the mangoes were going to spoilt, so he got the helper to cut all the fruits.  Aiyah!  Everybody were drooling over those mangoes, but they couldn't finish all, left a big bag in the fridge.

This afternoon, mum asked me to proceed with the enzyme making with some extra mangoes she bought yesterday, however, since those leftover mangoes were cut n not fresh any more, I dare not try making enzyme.

In order not to waste those mangoes, I decided to google search for a mango muffin recipe, and lucky enough, I got it, a simple one too!

Mango Muffin

2 cups              flour

4 tsp                 baking powder  (I used 2 tsp only)

1/2 tsp              salt

1 cup                sugar or 3/4 cup honey (I used honey only)

1/4 cup            vegetable oil (I used corn oil)

1 cup                milk

1                        egg

1 to 1 1/2 cup  mango pulp (I used 2 cups of mango cut to chunk)

1. Cut and peel mango and reduce to soft pulp and juice

2. Combine flour, baking powder, salt and sugar in large bowl

3. In a separate bowl combine oil, milk, and egg

4. Mix liquid ingredients with dry until just moist and stir in mango pulp

5. Fill greased muffin tins or paper cups two third full

6. Bake at 400F (200C) for 15 - 18 minutes

These muffin smelt really good, the whole hse was infused with the honey aroma while baking.

The texture is a bit moist/wet, mum said it was due to the honey.  Soft and not too sweet, it's indeed very yummy!

KFC Fried Chicken n Tomato Snack Bento

Little girl is going to her pre-school for a Holiday Magic Fun Camp this whole week.  The camp includes a snack, but little girl is so use to bento, she insisted to have it during the camp.

So, here is the little snack bento for today - KFC fried chicken n tomato snack bento.  I used 1 leftover KFC fried chicken from the fridge, heat in oven toaster and tore to big chunks, then stuffed in between 2 white bread spread with mayo, honey mustard and a halved grape tomato.

She enjoyed it very much during breakfast, hope she'll like it for bento too.

Iced Chinese Tea n Pinky

Last Sunday, at Seremban Market...

LG:  Mama, can I drink "shi cha", daddy's favorite?

Me:  Ok, baby.

When the drink was taken to her...

LG:  Mummy, can I have the camera please?  I wanna take photo, to show daddy.

Me:  Ok, here u go.

... and she had fun snapping photo of the drink and her favorite toy - Pinky.

Another close up of the iced chinese tea...

... and Pinky.

A Trip to Pulau Ketam

Went to Pulau Ketam with parent and sis's family.  We went there for a lunch event held by The Pulau Ketam Hainanese Association which celebrating its 100th anniversary.

We left home at about 9am, took Komuter train from Subang Jaya station to Port Klang.  

The kids were all excited and energetic during the train ride.

We took this speed boat from Port Klang to Pulau Ketam, the journey was about 1/2 an hour.  They were showing CJ7 movie in the boat, kids were so delighted, they almost don wanna leave the boat when it reached the island.

This photo was taken by little girl of her cousins while we were in the speedy boat waiting for departure.

Once arrived at the island, we went straight to the Temple of 嘉應, as it's the birthday of Goddess 水尾娘娘, parent wanna prayed first.  Later, we set off to do a little shopping for some dried shrimps.  The above is one of the road with shops.

The luncheon event was held here at the hall of Hwa Lien Primary School.  We were told the luncheon would start at 1pm, but we waited and waited...  Kids were very inpatient, luckily there was this little garden here for them to play around while waiting.

At last, the VIPs arrived. at about 2.15pm, there was a crowd of chinese orchestra playing some music, and fire crackers were burned to welcome them.  The luncheon was finally started at 2.45pm, we were so tired and hungry.  

At 4.30pm, we had to leave the hall to the port, although a few more dishes were not out yet (the cooks were cooking slow too), as the free ride back to main land would depart at 5pm.  The above photo was taken at the port.

Immediately after boarded, little girl was asleep.  The boat we were taking was an opened concept boat, we were able to "enjoyed" some breeze and sceneries during the slow ride, about an hour.  The above photo was taken while we passed a fish farm (according to mum).

Looked at the boat, with wooden seats, and "open".  Notice the orange color life jackets?  All nicely packed and placed on the top.

We reached home at about 8pm, I was almost dropped dead of tiredness.

Pink Sisterhood Tag

Thanks 3lilangels for this tag! Here r some facts taken from Women’s Health:

* One in eight women or 12.6% of all women will get breast cancer in her lifetime.

* Breast cancer risk increases with age and every woman is at risk.

* Every 13 minutes a woman dies of breast cancer.

* Seventy-seven percent of women with breast cancer are over 50.

* Breast cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in women between the ages of 15 and 54, and the second cause of cancer death in women 55 to 74.

* Risks for breast cancer include a family history, atypical hyperplasia, early menstruation (before age 12), late menopause (after age 55), current use or use in the last ten years of oral contraceptives, and daily consumption of alcohol.

* Early detection of breast cancer, through monthly breast self-exam and particularly yearly mammography after age 40, offers the best chance for survival.

The rules:

1. Put the logo in your blog.

2. Add a link to the person who shared it with you.

3. Nominate at least 7 other blogs

4. Add your link to the list of participants below

5. Leave a message for your nominee on their blog.

Since 3lilangels taged most of the blogger I dare to kepoh with, I can only tag to Pekchek queen. Sorry!

Green Pea Cookie

Mum tried out this cookie with aunt this afternoon, super yummy, u don have to chew the cookie at all, it just melt in ur mouth!

Sorry, I can't post the recipe, god-mum bought the recipe somewhere, and they r going to sell it b4 CNY, so if u r interested, I can sell it to u :)

Strawberry Enzyme

SIL's younger sister bought lots of strawberries (actually we requested) from Cameron Highland, we decided to try out this very luxury enzyme - strawberry enzyme.

Used about 1kg of strawberries, roughly chopped...

1kg of brown rock sugar mixed with white coarse sugar...

... and 6 liters of water

After 5 days...

Look at the color, so beautiful!

It tasted great!  Not sour at all, sweet, full of strawberry aroma and refreshing, thumb up!

Potato Gratin

Baked 4 of this for little girl to eat after school and as breakfast the next morning at MIL's house.

Ingredients

4 small potatoes, sliced thinly, microwaved til cooked

1 packet Vono mushroom soup

200ml milk

1 bacon, shredded, fried til crisp

lots of cheese

1. Boil milk, mix in Vono mushroo soup, put in some cheese, stir til cheese melt

2. Place cooked potato into container, scoop over cheese mixture

3. Sprinkle some bacon and more cheese, bake in oven toaster for 5 minutes.

Chocolate Chips Cookies

Little girl's pre-school is holding a Children Day & Farewell Party today, all parents were asked to prepare some goodies to be shared among the children in their classes, so this was I baked - Chocolate chips cookies.  Little girl helped along during the making process which is placing those peanut butter M&M and colorful sprinklers on top of each cookie dough.

Look at those lovely faces!

Another batch with walnut and almond.

I wrapped 5 cookies in sling film and kept in this beautiful pink cloth bag, ready to go to school.

Chocolate Cat Tongue

Try out the cat tongue cookies with god-mum again today, this round we bake this chocolate cat tongue.  Got the recipe from here.  

Verdict:  not bad, but prefer the cheesy one more.

Fried Rice Bentos

It was a very busy and tiring day.  I made 2 bentos today, for little girl and me.  Cooking everything in scratch also gotta washed cookware and tidy the house in 1 hour made me rush like a mad woman, but I able to make it possible.

This was little girl's bento, top tier contains: different orange color fruits, ie plum, orange, persimmon and grape tomatoes.  At the bottom tier, it was fried rice (with tomato sauce and oyster sauce) wrapped in fried egg sheet on a bed of chopped lettuce, a bit of Korean sesame seaweed for garnish and a quick stir-fried chicken with garlic and oyster sauce on the right.

I had a similar bento, but I got Kimchi fried rice wrapped in the fried egg sheet.  Though this bento looked small, it was really filling.

Little girl had the same fruits again for her snack bento, however she has leftover about half of it.

Pre-Birthday Celebration

Little girl's birthday is on Christmas Day, yeah, 25 Dec.  Every month, she would ask me why her birthday is not arriving yet and she kept telling me she wanna celebrate it with all her friends in school.  Well, having a birthday in holiday meaning it'll be difficult.  Therefore, I let her celebrate it 1 month earlier, of course with her teacher's permission.

This is a cute 1/2 kg mix fruits cake I ordered from Bread Story.  The children love the cake so much, it turned like below in 15 minutes (about 20 children savoring it).

Little girl was very happy to have this pre-celebration, she has been telling everybody that she had her birthday in school today (or yesterday).  Birthday is such a happy thing/day for her :)

Cheese Cat Tongue (Lidah Kucing Cheese)

Well, this cat tongue is not from cat's mouth, it is a kind of cookies which is very popular in Indonesia.  How I come across it?  All thanks to my god-mum.  She went to Jakarta few months ago with ma and other neighbors, bought and tried this cookies there, loved it so much that when the tour guide said able to give her the recipe and bought her the molds, she went all in.  You know what, she bought 10 molds!  Managed to get the recipe 1 or 2 months later in a single piece of paper, like this (I copied exactly from the paper):

Cheese Cookie

150g   egg white

200g  coaster sugar

300g  butter

300g  flour

75g    grated cheese

3sdm milk powder/condense milk (don ask me what is sdm, we assumed it as tbsp)

Steps:

1. Add in all ingredient accept cheese into mixer, beat evenly

2. Stir in the cheese into the mixture

3. Bake the cookie til it turn golden brown color

That's it!  There is no baking temperature or time?  And how can u throw everything into mixer in 1 go?  There was so many ??? in this recipe, however, my god-mum still wanna gave it a try!

So on Mon, we did the 1st batch, and thanks to ma's suggestion, god-mum melt the butter, thus when the cookies were baking in oven, they were basically frying in a pool of oil!

The cookies turned out crisp but hard, and oily, it turned soggy too after a few hours.  God-mum said "Texture was not right, try again 2moro."

On Tue, we tried 1/2 of the recipe (afraid of failure again).  Beat sugar and butter in mixer 1st.  Beat egg white til peak.  Then gradually fold in flour, milk powder and egg white into butter mixture.  Lastly, fold in the grated cheddar cheese.

This time, god-mum satisfied with the texture, crunchy and melt in mouth, but tasted too sweet and color not correct.  Gotta try again!

I tried to locate the recipe thru the net, but without the proper or correct name, I got nothing.  I asked hubby to help out since he has friends in Jakarta.  He managed to get the correct name, and found 2 sites with recipe, here and here.  We'll try the chocolate flavor on Thu, keep my finger cross, hope it'll satisfy my god-mum.

Milk Cooler

Do u like milk?  What about lemon/lime soft drink like sprite or 7up?  But when this 2 get married, u'll have something like below, milk cooler!  Trust me, it is very refreshing instead of causing u tummy upset :)

I got the recipe during my stay at England again, either from TV or magazine.

Milk Cooler

1 glass milk

2/3 glass of lemon/lime soft drink

1 cup of crushed ice

Mix the milk and lemon/lime soft drink together, being careful not to make the soft drink fizz up everywhere, and pour over the crushed ice.

Easy, cool and delicious.

Mini Croissant and Duck Family Snack Bento

Today little girl requested mini croissant for her snack bento, I spread some cream cheese in it.  Then she asked to cut it into small pieces and chose the new food picks - the duckie family.

She had it with another 3 grape tomatoes.

After her school, she told me this:

LG:  Mummy, I gave HL (one of her best friend) 1 mini croissant

Me:  Oh ya?  I thought ur teacher said no sharing food?

LG:  She didn't see mah.

Me:  Ok, it's alright if u want to share with ur friend, so did HL like the mini croissant?

LG:  She said "hmmmm" after she ate it.

Me:  Very good! 

I was so happy to hear that her little friend likes her food too!

Photographing

Little girl's interest on photographing begin when I started taking photo of her food.  She likes to take photo of me and ....

... black, covered the camera with her hand ...

.... her feet ...

... her hand / fingers ...

... her slippers ...

... the ceiling fan ...

... her bags ...

... toys ...

and books.

Sometimes, I was amazed to see her photo, the way she placed things and angles she took, very interesting.

Guess What Is This?

Can u guess what is this?

I mixed it with some vege and meat ball in soup to become little girl's ....

and my lunch.

The hint is I played / experimented with this dough quite many time lately.  Ok, u got it?  Yes, the roti canai dough!

It was inspired by the show "Good Idea" again, the ladies in the show used their Taiwanese style onion pan cake to make do this "noodle soup".  The pan cake looked just like our roti canai dough so I thought why not give it a try. 

The verdict:  not bad, a bit soft but is very smooth ("hou wat" in Cantonese).  Little girl finished the "noodle" 1st b4 the rest of the vege or meat balls!

New Bento Accessaries

Received this package from Market Place this evening.

Had these in the box, children training chopstick, bath crayons, Hello Kitty food picks....

... and these, from top left: egg shell food cups, duck family picks, animal mascot picks, and animal story picks.

I shared these items with my SIL, who started on bentoing lately.  So, here are some close up of what I actually take home...

Hello Kitty training chopstick

Hello Kitty food picks

Animal mascot food picks

Animal story picks

Duck family picks