Sunday Morning Snapshot – Puzzle Time

Sunday Morning Snapshot – Puzzle Time

We found an old box of puzzle. 54 pieces. 宝贝’s been pretty pro at assembling the 20 pcs jigsaw puzzles. I’ve been meaning to buy more complicated ones when I’ve the time. So, as you may have guessed, time is never enough. This box was from Auntie Evelyn.

宝贝 assembled it all by herself. That means I’ve to go and find an even more “chim” one for her…

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From sitting upright, posing with the floor puzzle to….

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She claimed she’s all tired out from the intensive puzzle assembling. ? sigh…. Strawberry generation. ?

Just Pretend I’m NOT here!

Just Pretend I’m NOT here!

630am Either the mechanical alarm clock starts its incessant ringing or the human alarm clock bounces into the room and announces in her bright and chirpy voice, “Wake up! It’s time to WAKE UP!!!”

Today it’s the former.

The Hub : Eh! Wake up leh! Have to get her ready for school.

Me : *nudged the baby towards his daddy* (he happily crawled over) I’m very tired. Your son kept disturbing me last night. I want to sleeeeep….

The Hub : How am I going to manage with 2 kids?? Must get her ready for school and feed both of them!!!

Me : How do you think I handled both of them in the morning when you were on your business trip to India?! Just do what I did! If I can do it, so can you!!!!

The Hub : ah…

Me : go go! Just imagine I’m not here. Ok ok! Now I’m on a business trip to India. You don’t see me at all!! (Covered my head with the blanket)

He carried the cooing baby to the next room.

Peace…….

For 5 miserable minutes…..

A loud wail was heard from 宝贝’s room. No… I’m not going over. I’m in India, remember??

It grew louder…..

Wa Lau! What the heck is going on?! World War 3?!? Liddat how to sleep?!??

I rolled over and got out of bed.

Simi dai ji?!?! Ok ok! I am back from India Liao!!!! What’s wrong?!?!

What’s the world going to be like without Mothers around?! *grumble*

怪叔叔 (weird uncle)

怪叔叔 (weird uncle)

Yesterday evening…

宝贝:Daddy can you come home earlier tomorrow night?

Hub: Ok. I’ll try.

宝贝 :(she thought for a while) can you come home at 11 o’clock? (She usually sleeps at 8).

Hub : Erm. Ok. (Turned to me and whispered) I thought she said early. She used to tell me to come home at 6. Why did she say 11 o’clock this time?

Me : Well she is not an idiot. It shows how low her expectations of you has dropped to. And you never get home by 6 anyway. All the disappointments she suffered every day. (I gave a dramatic sigh.)

I swore he looked a trifle guilty.

Me : (giving him a final punch) the next thing you know, she’ll point to you in surprise and say, “Who is this 怪叔叔 (weird uncle)??”

Hub : ok ok! I’ll come home earlier.

Today… She’s already asleep. Still not home yet!! Fine! The scare tactic didn’t work at all. *mutter* I must start getting her to call him 怪叔叔 tomorrow.

怪叔叔来咯!

Sunday Morning Snapshot – Calligraphy

Sunday Morning Snapshot – Calligraphy

We woke up to a cool Sunday morning. Dashed was our morning swimming plan. Alternatively, 宝贝 practised her calligraphy. Looked more like drawing to me though.

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A very serious calligrapher she was.

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My mom has been practising with her on this word for a long time. Can you make out what it is? Her surname – 梁. A lot of room for improvement.

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She’s better with her ABCs.

Next year she’s supposed to be able to write her full Chinese name. She’ll need lots of practice. Thanks to her sadistic parents.

Char Bee Hoon (Liaoful, Bee Hoon Less)

Char Bee Hoon (Liaoful, Bee Hoon Less)

I did my first Char Been Hoon (fried vermicelli) yesterday. Looks like I’ve been over zealous with the liao. You can still see a few strands of bee Hoon if you squint hard enough at the picture.

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As usual, my char bee Hoon (Liao-ful bee Hoon-less) was atypical. I just had to make do with the ingredients I could come up with when I raided my refrigerator. And I had to also take into consideration 宝贝’s seafood allergy. So no shrimps (I love them! Ok lar… Reduced contribution to bad cholesterol), any form of seafood and oyster sauce.

My refrigerator rummaging yielded half a white cabbage, some minced meat shiitake mushroom mixture, roast pork, eggs, soup stock.

Next – idiot proof steps for the uninitiated like me.

Soak the dried vermicelli in water for 30 minutes. Prepare your ingredients. It takes about 30 mins to do all these…. If only someone buys me a James Oliver food processor… On top of my already numerous kitchen gadgets. Hehe.

The roast pork went into the air fryer for 15 mins at 200°C. I love Sio ba with crispy skin. I beat up the eggs and fried them. Then… Chop everything up, including the roast pork.

Fry some garlic and shallots until they are slightly brown. Add the softened vermicelli (without the water… Mind you). Add the condiments eg light soya sauce, oyster sauce, salt, pepper, wine etc to taste. I only added a little soya sauce and wine. Stir fry the vermicelli until they are evenly coated with your sauces. I added my soup stock and simmered the vermicelli and the chopped cabbage in it until the cabbage was softened and the soup was absorbed by the vermicelli and cabbage. Throw in every thing else. Mix well. It’s time to serve the food.

Sukiyaki Egg Cups

Sukiyaki Egg Cups

This is an extremely easy dish to cook. You can google bacon egg cups and everyone on pininterest is pinning it.

I tweaked it a little and substituted the bacon for sukiyaki pork strips. I’ve cut down a lot on processed meats such as bacon, sausages which are high in sodium and preservatives. I’m sure it’d taste a lot yummier with bacon but I didn’t like the idea of hastening myself and the family to the grave.

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You just need the following :
A muffin tray
Sukiyaki pork strips (or bacon strips)
Egg
Cheese (optional)
Salt and pepper and herbs (to taste)

Line the muffin tray cavities with the pork strips. Crack an egg into each cavity. Add salt, pepper or herbs to taste.

Pop the tray into the oven. 15 mins at 200°C. Or when the egg sets. Sprinkle cheese bits over the eggs.

宝贝 gave it a thumbs up and declared that the “jellied” eggs tasted fantastic!!

Blogging Hiatus

Blogging Hiatus

It’s been a month since my last entry. I was “gang banged“(Teacher says no using of this word, in case there are under 18 readers) work-assaulted (There! More decent words) from left, right, top, bottom and have just repaid my sleep bank debt. I’m hoping to accumulate some surplus on the sleep bank, in vain.

It all started before the Australia holiday. There were tonnes to do just before taking off for 2 weeks. And of course, during the 2 weeks of holiday, everything was left undone. That took another few weeks AFTER the holiday to set right.

I was just jokingly telling people that everyone has a holiday radar. Somehow they know that I’m on holiday and suddenly everyone wants a piece of me at the same time!! Argh!

I’ve lots of things to blog about. But everything’s in draft form here and there. Hey! I know I’m not the nearest person on earth. That’s my new year resolution for the last 3 decades. To finish all my unfinished projects. Can you imagine the backlog?? *shudder*

And now my beloved iPhone has gone bonkers. The screen’s not responding to my feathery touch, no matter how hard I rub or tap on it. And I guess I must have been over zealous in pressing my power button, it’s gone dead from fatigue.

I’m a heavy phone blogger. Now I’m blogging on my old iPhone. So no photos for the time being. Until I finally find time to sync and backup everything and get my butt down to m1 to get my phone replaced.

Is it a signal to switch to the new iPhone 5s??? *ponder*

Cooking with 宝贝 – Butter Cookies

Cooking with 宝贝 – Butter Cookies

I’ve been keeping this simple recipe so that I can bake this with 宝贝. I can’t remember where I copied it from though. I usually copy and paste interesting recipes into my phone notes.

She’s been clamoring to bake cookies ever since she did it at school and at Totts. She even went shopping for baking stuff with me. We bought a couple of cool gingerbread boy and girl cookie cutters which have been idling in the drawer for months.

We needed to bring food for her school’s pattern party and the same day was also Teacher’s Day so I thought, why not?? We made one for everyone in class, including her 3 teachers. We even made 2 more for her “bus” friends. We even had a lot of dough leftover for our own consumption.

The butter cookies were of the right texture – not moist and with the right crumbly taste. Pretty yummy actually and neither were they overly sweet. Definitely a recipe for keeps.

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I set her to the task of measuring out the ingredients. It trained her motor skills and it helped her with recognizing numbers in the hundreds. She diligently measured out the ingredients and set them aside. I only measured out the butter which was too difficult for her to cut up.

I kneaded all the ingredients into a big chunk of dough. Then it’s over to her again. She took the dough out bit by bit, flattened them and cut the shapes out with cookie cutters. I helped her lay them neatly on the paper lined baking trays as they were too soft to be handled by her. See all the misshapen ones out there!

We were mighty proud of the end results. :)

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Check out the little gingerbread boys and girls, pigs, rabbits and birds.

320g Butter (I used unsalted butter)
600g Self Raising Flour
150g Icing Sugar (I used normal sugar as I didn’t have icing sugar at home)
1 egg (lightly whisked)

Simple right? Just 4 ingredients. You can add crushed nuts and dried fruits to it. Or you can decorate the cookies with frosting after they are baked.

1. Mix the flour and sugar in a large bowl. My largest bowl was too small. I resorted to using my steel soup pot. :p

2. Add softener butter into the flour sugar mixture. Add the egg in.

3. Knead until the dough is formed.

4. Roll the dough. Flatten it. Cut out the dough with cookie cutters.

5. Bake them for 13-15 mins in a preheated oven for 180°C. If you are using an air fryer, bake the dough for 10 mins at 180°C in the baking tray. I used both because I was trying to finish the baking as soon as I could.

6. Once they are baked, leave them on the cooling rack. Store them in an air tight container when they are cooled. Or eat them all up! Very addictive. :)

Easy peasy. If 宝贝 and I can bake them, anyone can!