Cooks this week

Tried some new dishes this week. Sometimes I'm even sick of my own cooking. Run out of ideas what to cook with my "private limited" cooking skills...

Long bean with hei bi hiam.
Sambal is those bottled one. Hei bi hiam I made my own. Very easy dish :)

Served in the seldom-use dish which Mummy insisted that I should get it (part of the Partra family). K said I really know how to 废物利用. Does he really classify this nice dish as 废物?

What was served for dinner during 1 of the evenings:



















Fried bee hoon



















Vegetable curry. I used Prima premix this time and only a small amount of coconut milk. Think K prefers the Prima one.

Spam luncheon meat. I was so happy to see this one on offer at Cold Storage so decided to try it out. Gosh it's super salty. Wonder why the cotters were raving about it. Even K (who usually complains that my cooking lack of taste) says it's so salty that it's hard to eat.

Sambal kang kong. Just had it at the zi char stall downstairs the other day and I decided to replicate it back home. Not as nice as the zi char stall naturally but less oil and salt you see.

A bit too much of hei bi hiam... and I realised those kang kong we eat outside, they cut off a huge length of the stem so is like eating more leaves. Next round I cut off more maybe will taste better.

The "lengendary" roast pork. *smiles at my most faithful reader*
Overdose of dark sauce making it too salty.



















Diced chicken with celery and carrot. K gave a thumbs up for it. Cannot believe it right? He even asked me: "Not chicken breast right?" after 1 bite. I told him, yes is chicken fillet. He was totally impressed :)

Medley of vegetables soup with spiral pasta. I cooked this for my lonely lunch. Very easy to make. Just dump whatever veggies available in the fridge and boil with 1 pc scallop. Much better than to buy from downstairs. I'm sick of the food there already.

P/S: I kept my promise for my little Bean to cook 四神汤 once a week. She loves it soooo much :))

Keith's first Daddy's Day

It was K's day but he went out in the afternoon to run an errand for his mum and I secretly brought Beanie out to get some small gifts for him :)

K with his favourite girl in the t-shirt I got for him. The t-shirt says "Ordinary Man" which is like exactly describing K. Haha

Forcing a kiss on his favourite girl as usual...

The very nice chocolate cake from Swissbake.
First time trying out their pastry and it surely didn't disappoint :)) The cake came in a lovely 300g size. Just nice for our small family. Um... sorry Beanie maybe you get to eat a bite next year when you are older.

The slice of goodness. Glad that K likes the cake.

P/S: Bean decided to give her Dad a little pressie too. She wailed loudly whenever she sees her Dad leaving her side the whole of Sunday to show that she wants her DAD!

Mamil Gold to the rescue

Mama Cow (me!!) is on the way to retirement soon and our life saviour - Mamil Gold comes into the picture. Yes, for the past many months I was reluctant to give FM due to the excess sugar/fat contents and artificial flavouring. Call me obsessed or whatever but we were educated to breastfeed exclusively for the 1st 6 months of the baby's life. My initial milk supply really stressed me up big time. It was only after week 6 that I had enough to do total breastfeeding. To be honest, I was struggling with supply throughout this whole journey. There was once when Bean was about 5 months old and I decided to stay out a little later after work and leave Bean with her dad but it was kinda stressful cuz the breastmilk in the fridge was like running out any time and the girl's next feed would highly depend on the ebm I had in my cooler bag. Yes I was like a mad woman carrying a manual pump and a cooler bag with me EVERYDAY to work. To and fro on public transport. We tried to supplement with NAN HA1 around that time but the picky Bean refused it. Very strange cuz she had no problem with the same formula for the 1st 6 weeks of her life. Then we tried her on NAN Pro 2 when she was 6 months old. Same thing she refused badly. I won't even wanna go into the details of how she rejected it.

So my little princess had her fill of breastmilk till about 9 and a half months of age that Mama Cow really can't make enough for her and we decided to try a different brand this time round. Just for the record, there was a short period of time when we had a whole fridge full of ebm (bit of exaggeration here) and we nearly almost ran out of bottles to store, not forgetting I even had to label each pumped ebm with date and time. Not that MMC was such a great producer but because Bean drank lesser milk for that period of time. And back to the new brand of FM we got her - Mamil Gold. As usual it was not easy to make her accept it but slowly, she did. I mixed FM with ebm eventhough it was not recommended to do so but I will do anything as long as she drinks her FM. Can't expect me to keep milking myself for the rest of her life right?

And there you go, after going through 2 cans of 400g, we decided that we should buy the full size ones. Got these (2 700g + 1 400g) from a mummy whose baby was allergic to Mamil at $60. A good bargain :))

The next thing you might hear from Mama Jo in the near future will probably be complaining about 奶粉钱. *LOL* Luckily Step 3 which is to be given at 1yr old is cheaper than step 1 and 2. Phew!

A threat letter from SP Services

It was exactly 11 days after the bill is overdue and I received this letter from SP Services threatening to disconnect my electricity and reduce the water flow rate. Hello, I owe them like $163.09 for 9 days, Considering the letter takes 1-2 days to be mailed out? A delay of less than 2 weeks for bill payment could result in me getting my electricity disconnected? For the past 28 months or so we have always paid on time and just this once?

Little Miss Mischief

Friends who pop by once in a while should have noticed we keep the pram folded right outside the kitchen for easy access. My little girl who is very very mobile now with her high speed crawling simply cannot miss this "attraction". In fact just about 2 or 3 weeks ago she just had this very great fall from pulling the string that is used to adjust the seat level which resulted in the whole pram toppling over. I know, I should have kept the pram elsewhere... I'm blogging about this cuz (I think) K most probably won't be reading about it. He normally just scans the pictures quickly and ignore my lengthy text.

This time, she had a better time with the pram. See, she pushed it all the way from the left-hand side to the right. Isn't it amazing the things infants at this age do? I'm glad I'm with her 24/7 to be able to witness all these stuff :)

Cooks this week

Stir-fried Yong Tau Foo with veggies



















四神汤 which is especially beneficial for young children. Good for increasing their appetite. I'm considering to cook this once a week. XY loves it :)

I think K loves it too :)

Sengkang Central-style Char Kway Tiao which I was kinda proud of but K said not nice. As usual he is VERY critical...

Beanster family outing June 2010

I can't remember if I did the May outing. I think I did...

On this one, we went to the public pool at Sengkang Sports Complex. The facilities at SSC are very good. They have this huge slides just like the one at Chua Chu Kang. If I didn't remember wrongly, the CCK one even has a manmade wave pool (just like Sunway lagoon) but it's ages since I went so I'm not sure if that still exists. This time round, K and I didn't get to play the slides. What we did were quickly shower ourselves and Bean and bring her for water play and quickly dry ourselves and come home to shower. First time bring Bean to pool don't wanna stay too long. The next visit I make sure I go slide a few rounds :) Oh how can I not mention I had a free entry pass from the Milo 3 in 1 packaging. We had 2 actually but I didn't think we would use it so I dumped the other one. So sayang right?

The first pic K took for us. Me very courageous right? This kind of pic also dare to post... but I so wanted to show this pic. Bean looks so grown up here, quite different from her usual self.
Bean did a funny thing - she peed on me while we were taking this pic. We didn't have any swim diapers since it was an impromptu decision to go. I was praying hard that she don't poo. Luckily she didn't :)

Me in my Roxy (K said I am a lao goh here. hahaha very funny) and Bean in her Gymboree swimsuit (6-12months) and as usual, it's too large on her :)

To the wading pool Beanie went with her Dad. (Actually I went first but I came up to snap pics and K took over)

Trying to figure out what was going on...

Bean: "Mummy, I don't like it here..."

Bean: "On second thoughts, it's pretty cool eh!"

Bean: "Ok, I think I like it here :)"

Bean: "Some water got into my left ear la."

Hehehe enjoying...



















Some random pics from K's videocam...

Finally, a short clip of Beanie enjoying herself at the middle of the pool.



Stay tuned for the other video which I have yet to edit taken on videocam :)

Little girl and her cutie sleeping positions

Yes, I love taking candid shots like this :)

This one taken with flash during her night sleep. Super funny I saw her lift her left thigh out from the bar and the next instant, she put her thigh inside again!

Took this during her a.m. nap so that her Dad won't miss out anything eventhough he's at work :)

Cooks this week

Ok I decided I will not do a "Monday Dinner" series. A weekly series is better :)

Did some simple meals as usual and some were badly presented and some were repeats, therefore no pics of those. Not to boast but I did a pretty good job with yong tau foo with pasta (linguine) in sweet sauce. Too bad the presentation...

One of my new tries: Sayoh Lodeh - Indonesian vegetable curry. I used a premix from Asian Gourmet (hope I got the brand correctly) and added a whole carton of coconut milk. Very sinful. Hubby loves it.

I hate beansprouts so I made fried bee hoon with leftover cabbages from above dish. Was my first attempt with bee hoon after more than 1yr. Much nicer this time round. Secret: I used some lard leftover from frying the pork belly. I did pork belly my mum's style - fry till most of the oil is out, add lots of chopped garlic and dark soy sauce. This is so going to be my signature fried bee hoon :)

Dinner at Momoya

Been yearning for Japanese buffet and K was also in the mood for buffet. We had eaten once at Holland V Raku. The grilled gindara and tofu with century egg was so memorable but Raku was out since it is very expensive. Was considering Akira, Ikoi, Hanabi, Senki and Himawari but saw not so good reviews on Hungrygowhere so searched again. Been once to Minori at UE Square and it was quite horrific so it should never be considered at all. I was once treated to dinner at Ikoi and remembered they had such an extensive tempura menu that I always wanted to bring K (he loves deep fried stuff you see) but bearing in mind the very cramped seating and the forever ongoing reservation list, it was out of the question as well.

So, I found this Momoya place located at ulu Picardy Garden. Sounds very beautiful right? Is quite near to Expo and along Upper Changi Road actually.

The wait staff were very nice. I made a reservation for 730pm and we arrived at about 8pm. The moment we went in, 1 wait staff came to ask us if we made any reservation but before I could answer her, another quickly rushed towards us and signalled the previous to bring us to an empty table. I presume they were expecting us. It was a very nice feeling and the nice waitress immediately asked if we needed a baby seat without us requesting. While putting XY into the highchair, K noticed that they even took the initiative to wipe the seat before giving it to us as the seat was slightly damp.

Not going to do a review about the food. Not as if I am up to doing reviews :) Will just post some pics of some of the dishes we find it nice or not served at other Jap buffets.

We were served this huge plate of Sashimi Moriwase which is a big mistake cuz I don't eat raw fish and K was not a big fan of Sashimi. I thought the waitress is Chinese so I told her in Mandarin to serve 一人份. K told me later on (after the platter arrived) that she's not Chinese. He knew it but he don't say it earlier. Anyway K had a hard time eating this and he could only manage half of it. We must be the biggest joke of the restaurant. Not only not going for seconds but even unable to finish the first. As in picture is the Spider Temaki. Wow, I can't remember when was the last time I had handroll with crispy and not soggy seaweed. The softshell crab was hot and crispy, indicating that it was newly fried and not kept in the kitchen for long time. Chawanmushi was great but don't know why we didn't order another round.

The girl was given a pack of Baby Bites after she had finished her porridge dinner. See how is her sitting posture? Cannot make it la this girl...

1 of the dishes I loved very much. Out of 120+ items on the menu and I had to like this best. Haha what a joke. It's a buffet so I can like any dish you know! A very simple mesclun salad with Jap dressing topped with baby sardines. A bit reminds me of the mini salad served at Waraku Pasta which comes with every pasta ordered.

Stick salad with miso paste. Hm... wondering why did they give such a big "serving" of miso paste. As if can finish like that. The one at Raku was the best but I also remember the price they charge for this is CRAZY!!!

The guy who eat till his face is bloated. Struggling with the Sashimi actually cuz he said paiseh to return the plate with still so many pcs.

Me with little Xiang Ying. She's always seated next to me whenever we dine cuz porridge-feeding is my job. We gave her a carrot stick to "munch" on which is less messy than the Baby Bites. You see, she has not enough teeth and strength to really bite the carrot so it just served as a toy teether for her. As a bonus for XY, I gave her tiny bites of grilled saba. Her first taste of grilled fish. I think on our next visit maybe I will just bring plain porridge and take grilled saba for her. haha

Pickled lotus root. I didn't like it but as said above, I'll post pics of items rarely served at other Jap buffets.

Prawn gratin. Indeed very rare dish on the menu. In fact they have a whole list of western dish like pasta and baked stuff. This one is not too bad. Regretted not trying the cod roe pasta and I wasn't very full too.

Tako balls. I suspect this could be deep fried cuz the outer part is a bit crispy and the inside is piping hot and just like usual takos.

1 of the wall deco.

The girl who couldn't keep still. Started from yesterday, she did this new trick: Stand up from the highchair. Yes, you got it right. She got bored being confined to the seat that she simply stood up on her own. We were so shocked and quickly pulled her back into the seat. Just too bad that the baby chairs outside are usually not well maintained. The seat belt were usually missing or broken resulting in the child being unbuckled in the seat. Seems to me that Ikea highchair is the worst amongst all the highchairs we use outside and most dining places use Ikea highchairs due to the fact (I think) that Ikea highchairs are the most affordable in the market.

We took some shots outside the restaurant after dinner.

While K was trying to take another shot of me and XY, a gentleman passed by and offered to take happy family pic for us. We were surprised that such nice ppl exists. Then he told us he owns the place haha. The Thai restaurant a few units away also his. We will try the Thai food next time round.

I didn't stuff myself at all. In fact we ate very little but my tummy still very obvious. Very loose ma. Not my shorts very loose. I meant my tummy la.

Back at home... we removed the satin holder cuz these days XY has grown much taller and her tiptoe skills improved tremendously so she can easily reach it but that did not stop her from attempting at all. In fact she now challenges herself but going to greater "heights". *headache*

It's very difficult to capture a smiley pic of her these days. This will have to be the best of the lot.



















Ooh... 1 of my favourite shots. *love*

The overall experience at Momoya was good. Cost for dinner was $30+. No GST, yeah. But they do charge $1 per pax for green tea which I think is kind of calculative. No desserts or ice cream included either. Very calculative. They also do not have those kind of "complimentary" items which are only served once, whether you want or not they bring to you kind which is fine by me cuz I don't fancy those things much. Shall be back in future :)