Sunday

Had pancake again this morning specially made for my hubby as he hardly has the chance to eat my pancake. What to do...he is at work when I prepared lunch for kids during school days. I prepared double portion and ended up could not finish the batter. All my kids and hubby like the pancake. Did not take any photo on the pancake since I have posted the photos and steps on how to make pancake in my earlier post, except that I used a new Tefal non-stick cookware today.

The new Tefal non-stick cookware was bought on yesterday to replace my old Tefal non-stick frying pan which I have used for about 10 years! I like Tefal mainly due to its non-stick coating. I have other stainless steel frying pan as well as wok bought from Buffalo (which I have used for more than 10 years without any wear and tear!). I used the Tefal frying pan most of the time as the other stainless steel cookware stick! Although they are very long lasting, but I have to use more oil to cook. Even that, it still stick. I hate to fry mee hoon or mee (even fried rice) with my stainless steel wok.

Here is my new toy, Tefal Preference non-stick stir fry pan. It can be used on induction cooker.



And a comparison with my stainless steel pan.


I prefer stir fry pan which is much deeper than the frying pan as I use it to cook everything from pancake, fried egg to vegetable or meat (avoid crab for non-stick pan). The non-stick coating is safe to use, according to Tefal.


Actually before buying the Tefal, I was eying on Green pan which is more expensive and 'green' (eco-friendly). But I finally decided on Tefal when I read about the user review on Green Pan after using for few months.

Exam in July

There is an exam for my 9 years old girl in July. We knew about this scheduled exam long ago as the exam schedule was given in January when the school started, but we didn't start to prepare for it until somewhere around mid July. We should have prepared earlier, say in early July. But as usual, drag until close to exam time. Now, we have to rush on the revision to cover all the area to be tested in this exam. As of today, we have revised English, Maths, Science, Bahasa Malaysia and Chinese text books. Moral being the last subject to be tested, has yet to be revised. Gosh... she has yet to do some practice for these subjects especially Chinese and Bahasa Malaysia. :(

My girl is not those type of students that take initiative to study as she only study PROVIDED THAT her mommy accompanying her (except for homework which she will do on her own and only ask us when she is in doubt). Haiz... Today is Friday and the exam begins next Tuesday. Well, will try to cover as many as possible within these few days, then...wish her luck.

J.En's art works

I seldom take picture of my kids art and craft works as I always forget to do so when they showed me their master pieces! Few days ago J.En showed me some of her drawings marked by her school teacher which normally scored A or A-. She was not happy as her latest craft work only got 'B' and she could not understand why she only scored 'B' for that piece of craft work. I just told her that her arts were nice, but there are always room for improvement for her and there are other nicer arts/crafts by her friends and schoolmates. Hope she understand that. To make her happy, I took picture of all her arts and crafts in school (my the other 2 girls were also happy when I took picture of their drawings or craft works..I guess this is important to the kids). Here are some of her art papers.

The usual lunch

I cooked noodle for the girls as lunch today. As for me, I like rice noodle. Here are the noodles I used today; vegetable rice noodle made from carrot, rice, corn starch and multigrain Ramen made from organic multigrain powder and unbleached flour.


I always ensure I have enough various kinds of noodles at home as my 3 girls like noodle. I seldom buy the famous local brand instant noodle nowadays (I used to eat a lot especially when I need something fast to fill my stomach) except for Korean spicy mushroom noodle (so so delicious and yummy!). My kitchen cabinet is full with noodles that I bought from organic shop, such as pumpkin noodle, enzyme noodle, kombu noodle, spinach rice noodle and full grains slim noodle (mee sua). I have to ensure the variety of the noodles so that my girls (and my big 'boss') won't get bored, right? ;p

I use chicken broth and add fresh mushroom, cabbage and carrot into the soup. Healthy meals for the kids (and myself). This is for the girls.


And this is for myself.


For their snack in school, I prepared sandwich with Tuna spread and fresh tomato slices. Both my girls started to eat the sandwich when I sent them to school..can't even wait until their snack time!

Homemade pancake

Once in a week, I made pancake for my girls as lunch and snack to school. The girls like my pancake so much that they always request me to made for them. As I prefer to prepare different meals for them every day, I only fulfil their request no more than once in a week. The making of the homemade pancake is very simple and not much preparation work required (5 minutes for the preparation of batter and another 10 minutes to made 10 pieces of pancake at low heat). Since I already added sugar into the batter, the pancake can be eaten without any topping. Anyway, my kids and I love to eat the pancake with honey (small amount as the pancake itself tastes sweet). So yummy and delicious! You can serve it with any topping you like, say banana? I will try that one day since everyone in the family love banana!



The ingredients I used are simple:

1 1/2 cup of unbleached flour
1 1/2 cup of low fat milk
2 eggs
2 teaspoon sugar (optional)
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
Butter

Note: I like my pancake in full of milk flavour. If you don't, you may substitute the 1/2 cup of milk with 1/2 cup of water. The ingredients above should be able to make 10 pieces pancake.

And so are the steps:

1. Sift the flour into a mixing bowl.
2. Add milk slowly into the mixing bowl. Stir well.
3. Add eggs, sugar and salt into the batter and mix well. Set aside for 20 minutes.

4. Heat up the non-stick frying pan with small amount of butter. Set at low heat.
5. Pour a ladle of batter into the pan and move the pan clockwise so that the batter occupies the whole flat area of the pan.
6. When bubbles start to appear on the surface and the edges turn golden brown (the edges are normally crispy), flip it over. When done, remove to a serving plate.

7. Continue steps 4 to 6 for another piece of pancake until all batter used up.
8. Serve with honey or kiwi jam, or any of your favourite topping.

Give it a try if you like pancake too!

I don't want my sisters

The kids are squabbling everyday. I had few days so called quiet moments when my second girl went to stay with my parents for weekend. When she came back on Monday, they started to squabble again. Feeling very tired to entertain them when the girls shouted and then came to me to complaint each other. The last minute they were playing happily from living room to guest room then study room, but in the next minute, they started to quarrel and fight. Here is the conversation after their fight:

J.En: *sob*sob*I don't like you. You beat me. (This 9yo girl is my No.1 crybaby. I could not recall any single day that she didn't cry. She cried even I went out to work without waking her up and said bye to her. And of course she cried when I scolded her.)
J.Shan: I don't like you too. You beat me. (This 3yo girl seldom cry. But I always raise white flag when facing with her stubbornness.)
J.En: You started it first!
J.Shan: No. You started it first!
J.En: I am not happy *sob*sob*(talking to me). Why must I have 2 'mei mei' (younger sisters)? I wish I am the single child. I like to be alone. I don't like both of them. Always fighting and noisy. I can't do my work quietly.*sob*sob*
Me: You have no choice. They are your sisters. Without them, who play with you?
J.En: I can play with my friends!
Me: But they are not staying with you and play with you all the times.
J.En: I can go to their house to play with them. I don't want my sisters.
Me:....speechless....(don't know what else to say, anyway, I am sure next moment everything will be as usual again, as if nothing happened.) LOL

Fresh Chinese Yam Porridge

I saw some fresh Chinese yam, also known as huái shān (淮山), shān yào (山药), or huái shān yào (淮山药), selling at Tesco @RM9.90 per kilogram. I remembered fresh Chinese yam can be used for soup. So, I bought one fresh Chinese yam about 6 inches long (cost RM2.20). While my initial thought was to use it to cook soup, I came across a porridge recipe from The Soup Queen blog (http://soupqueen.blogspot.com) using fresh Chinese yam. So, why not give it a try? Since my J.Shan is having sole throat, porridge is easier for her to swallow too.

The ingredients used by The Soup Queen for her porridge are rice, fresh Chinese yam and minced pork. Since I have a chicken bone body, I put that in too, as chicken stock for the porridge. And the outcome is my porridge taste super good! Anyway, I am not sure whether it was due to the chicken bone or Chinese yam.

Steps:

1. Wash rice (I use white rice mixed with Sabah organic red rice). Add a bit of salt, garlic oil and sesame oil to the washed rice. Set aside.
2. Marinate the minced pork with light soy sauce, sesame oil and a bit of corn flour for 10 to 20 minutes.
3. Peel the skin of the Chinese yam, then cut into slices (about 1cm length each).
Note: The inside of the yam is slimy and the liquid sticks to the hand may cause itchiness. I used the plastic bag to hold the yam while I peeled off its skin and cut into slices to avoid direct contact with the inside of the yam.


4. Blanch the chicken bone body in boiling water.
5. Boil separately another pot of water.
6. Put the rice, Chinese yam slices and blanched chicken to the pot of boiling water.
7. Cook at medium heat for 10 minutes, then lower the heat to simmer for another 30 minutes.
8. When almost done, use a teaspoon to scoop small portion of minced pork into the porridge as little meat ball (not exactly in round ball shape).
9. Add a teaspoon of salt (or up to your own preference) to taste.
10. Cover the lid and wait for at least 5 minutes before serve.

The porridge taste good and my kids love it! I also cooked omelette with tomato just to make sure there are vegetable included in their meals (my kids love this dish). I shall buy another one to try the soup recipe (using spare ribs, fresh Chinese yam and red dates only) next week.

SAHM

Being a SAHM, I could be very busy some days. There were few days (take note that I have started as a homemaker just few days ago...since 1 July) that I didn't even have the time to switch on my laptop and the TV for the whole day and the newspaper was untouched! Hubby and I are the type of person who must read the newspaper (Sin Chew) everyday. For public holidays without newspaper (I guess about 8 days in a year), we just felt uneasy. I am a fan of Sin Chew since I was in secondary school. Gosh..that was more than 20 years ago. I used to read newspaper every morning (my hubby still), but after having 3 kids, just imagine, I could not even sit at sofa and read my newspaper quietly without being disturb by any one of the girls. They will need me to read with them or play with them (especially the youngest). So in most of the days, my hubby is the one enjoying by reading his newspaper quietly for about an hour and the mommy has to entertain her 3 girls.

As for TV, we are not the TV type person...meaning we can live without TV. There were days where the TV was not switched on at all, despite we subscribe to Astro. Anyway, we only subscribe to the family package mainly for AXN, Asian Food Channel and AEC (news especially).

As for internet, well, we hate the days that we could not connect via streamyx. Can't search for information we need, can't read from web and can't do any online transactions. Without the internet, I guess the life as a SAHM may be a bit bored (for me lah, at the moment. Don't know about others).

Since I become SAHM, I cook twice a day. Not 2 full meals. I normally cook something light for the kids before they go to school (i.e. pancake served with honey, dry or soup noodles with some greens and meats). Sometime I pack chicken and cha siu (aka barbecue pork) rice and I add on some other food for them. At night, I cook full meal. 2 to 4 dishes, depends on the serving size. We eat out once in a while. All I want to say is that so far my main responsibility is to cook healthy food for my hubby and kids. When I was working, we used to eat out almost every night (lunch time with colleagues while my kids had their lunch at parents-in-law house). My MIL didn't cook meal for them which may due to the short gap of about 2 hours between breakfast and lunch. They normally had bread for lunch before going to school.

Apart from cooking, of course there are many other duties as a SAHM. I have yet to spend more time to read with the kids (other than their daily school homework and revision). I have also yet to allocate time to do exercise and let the girls have some fun time at a park nearby on daily basis. These are in my to-do list. Well, I will complete all the items in my to-do list, one by one. Target: end of this month.

Messy day

After about 1 week plus as a SAHM, I still have not settled and got into the routine. Things were a bit messy some days.

I am feeling very guilty now as I didn't tie up my J.Ying's hair for school today! J.Ying asked me to tie her hair before we left the house to school. I was busy preparing her snack (honey pancake cooked by me) for her tea time at school, and I knew later we will have some free time at her jie jie school as normally we reach J.En school pretty early at around 12 noon (both the girls' school hours start from 12.30pm). Normally we park at the school car park and chit-chat awhile before J.En walks into her school. Then we will head to J.Ying school which take less than 5 minutes drive. So, I thought today is just another school day and I thought I can tie her hair when reach J.En school. BUT the traffic was not smooth due to TODAY IS FRIDAY! Some schools ended earlier, and I was shocked when I was about to reach J.En school as I saw long queue of cars! My last experience was my car stuck in such long car queue for 15 minutes for less than 200 meter in front of the school.

I was wondering what's the reason for such a bad traffic at the school area as Chinese school won't dismiss early on Friday. Then I saw a big poster hanging at the Secondary school stating today is the Education Fair. Now I know why it is so jam. I have to drop off my J.En at her primary school main gate without heading to the car park. Then I rushed to J.Ying school while worrying about the traffic since it is Friday. The traffic was not too bad towards J.Ying's school. After some normal queuing time, I dropped off my J.Ying. I suddenly realised that I didn't tie her long straight hair when I saw her walking towards the school gate! It was too late as I could not ask her to get back to my car, neither I can find a parking lot to park my car there or nearby (This school has only about 10 parking lot nearby and most of the time are parked by the customers or owners of shops nearby...which mean parking is almost impossible!).

I am full with guilty feeling now. I am such an unorganized person! I should have tied her hair before we left for school. Not sure whether she will be scolded by her school teacher for that. I need to check with my girl when I fetch her from school later.

This is not the only disorder incident today. This morning I drove to fetch my J.Shan to her kindergarten without bringing my handbag! Luckily I was not stopped by police as I have no Identity Card and no driving license! I only realised about that when I reached home and wanted to take my handbag out from the car. I was panic when I couldn't find my handbag in the car, thought that I had left it some where. I felt so relief when I found it safely at home. What a woman!

Updated at 8.30pm
I did another ridiculous thing for the day. I left the house to fetch my girl from school with my grill door unlocked! My hubby came back from work and saw the keys and padlock hanging at the grill door. My dear hubby took a picture just to show the evidence to his careless wife! Not only him, but I also wonder what was wrong with me today?!

Clay craft

I like art and craft. J.En too. We bought some non-toxic clay that is safe for kids few months ago and we did some animal clay craft following the instruction given in the pack. We didn't take any picture and the horse clay made by my eldest was destroyed by her youngest sister. J.En cried badly for her hard work being ruined. Actually that is not the first time my J.Shan did that on J.En's craft. Anyway her big jie jie would normally forgive her after crying. Then we stopped playing the remaining clay as it was exam time for J.En in May.

We took out the clay again in the June school holiday. This is a picture of clay craft that we made together for her daddy on Father's Day. I contributed one butterfly at the bottom left and the ladybird. The rest were made by J.En .

My 3 angels

I started this blog as I have something to say about my kids. I have 3 little cute princesses. They are the greatest gift from God.

My eldest sweetie girl is J.En (恩-恩典,感恩). She brings so much joy to us. Being the eldest, she had enjoyed 3 years of full attention from her parents and grandparents. I always remind her about this when she complaint about our attention to her younger sisters. Actually I believe that the eldest is the most 幸福 (blessed) as she gets more years with her parents than her younger siblings.

My second sweetie girl is J.Ying (颖-聪颖). Being the middle child with 2 sisters, she does all kind of things to get our attention. I understand the reason of all her naughty behaviour. She is a very sensitive child. I have to always tell her that I love her as much as I love her sisters.

My youngest cutie pie is J.Shan (善-善良). Being the youngest, she is the precious baby to us as well as her grandparents. Please don't get me wrong, I love all my 3 girls and all three of them are very precious to me. This lovely girl of mine is so cute and smart. Perhaps she has 2 elder sisters as example, she learns pretty fast on everything.



They are my 3 angels, 3 little charlie angels. I wish them good health and happiness. I love you, my girls!

Own time

This morning was raining, which is good as a relaxing time (and sleeping? :P). I woke up early together with my hubby. While he got himself ready to work, I had a relaxing moment writing this post while having my coffee and listening to my favourite musics. I did not prepare any breakfast since we already bought some breads yesterday night when we brought our girl to clinic. J.Ying is sick and could not go to school today. My girls woke up quite late this morning, thus I had 2 hours of own time, without their noise. :D

For I can do things at my own pace today, I really appreciate and thank God for what I have now.

A new beginning

I have always long wanted to scribble something for my kids, myself and things happening around us. I was a full time working mom until yesterday. Today mark the new beginning of my life as a full time mother. So, I choose today to start the blog.

The thought to become a SAHM has been in my mind since my first girl was born. It is always in my mind. However the living cost of my family of five (yes, five, as I have 3 princesses), is our most concern should we opt to depend on single income. I have been struggling for the decision for months. Finally, I have made up my mind, as the kids won’t wait for us to grow up. Time flies, my youngest girl is now age 3. I just can’t afford to lose or give up the chance to spend more time with her and her 2 jie jie anymore.