Thursday 25 October 2018

Lucas' favourite porridge

Lucas' favourite porridge
2018 Oct

Over the last few weeks the boys have been coughing. So one of the weekends I decided to make porridge for them. No meat, no seasoning. Surprisingly Lucas really liked the porridge. Since then he has had it around 5 times. 

As usual I put in whatever I have in my kitchen. On one of the occasions I decided to document the recipe because the ingredients are so random and I might not be able to reproduce it in future. It's a really huge thing when your son says he likes the food you cook! And on this day Lucas said this is his favourite porridge. What luck!

Usually around here I tend to put a photo of the final product. But my pea brain must have not been working that day. One day when I make it again and my pea brain is functioning I will put the photo in!


Serves 4 bowls - think 1.5x Chinese rice bowl size.

INGREDIENTS:
- Brown rice - Approx 3/4 cup. 
A trick is to think how much each person will eat. E.g. if the person will eat a bowl of porridge, half of it will be the ingredients, half of it will be the cooked rice. Now when cooking porridge, the rice grains will more than double in size, so take away two thirds of it. So in the end you only require less than 1/4 bowl of grains per pax. Multiply the number of pax and you have the total rice amount. 

- Ikan bilis - Approx 1/2 cup
- Dried shrimps - Approx 1/2 cup
- Sweet potato - 1
- Carrot - 1
- Celery - 1 stick
- Broccoli - a handful

Note: Just go with your feel on what and how much of each ingredient you want to put. I sometimes add 1 potato too but I ran out of potato that day. I think I also added tomato before...Let your creative juices flow!


METHOD:
1) Chop up all the ingredients. 

2)Wash rice two times. Yell for the children to come and take the rice water to the plants.


3) Put rice in a pot and fill it with 4 times the amount of water. Remember you need to allow for evaporation. Put on high heat.


4) Wash the ikan bilis and then you see, I have this neat little teabag meant for tea but I use it for putting the ikan bilis. The ikan bilis is not tasty nor easy to chew after being boiled for long and I feel they make the broth bitter if I leave them in for too long. So this little bag allows me to remove them from the pot easily after a while.


5) Wash and add the dried shrimps.


6) Wait 5 minutes. I don't know if it works but I am allowing the ikan bilis and dried shrimps flavour to be released into the pot before I add the other ingredients.

*At any one time when the pot starts to boil, turn it to low heat.


7) Add the sweet potato and carrots.

8) Wait 5 minutes. I am allowing the sweet potato and carrots to soften and the rice grains to expand beyond normal rice size. 

** When the ikan bilis look like they have expanded and completely been soaked, remove them.


9) Add celery and broccoli. These are last because they are the softest and cook fast. Plus I do not want to cook too long until the brocolli becomes yellowish.

10) Boil for another 5 minutes and turn off the heat.
Lastly I just want to rave about this pot that I bought from the petrol station many years ago. It's light and thin so it heats the contents fast. It also has a lid that I can invert, allowing me to put the spoon on top after each stirring. In this position it doesn't close completely so the contents doesn't boil over too.

Enjoy while hot or warm. My mother always says not to eat cold porridge else you will have wind in your stomach. 




Sunday 15 July 2018

A weekend in 2018 July

A weekend in 2018 July
15 July 2018

This is considered a busy Saturday and a usual Sunday.

Saturday
Morning
The boys wake up at 7 plus in the morning as usual and usually we ask them not to disturb us until 8.30am. The children ate chocolate steamed mantous for breakfast and watch OKTO in the living room.

Lucas, or I, have invited two classmates from 2I to our house at 10.30am to play Nerf guns. I woke up at 9am and ordered HonestBee groceries so that we have some drinks and snacks for the guests later.

The friends came and the boys played the nerf guns. Around 12.30pm, the pizza lunch arrived and the boys sat down to lunch. After that his friends left.

Afternoon
Lucas is into badminton and I booked a court from 2-4pm. We rested, packed and changed and then left for Yew Tee CC. The badminton courts here are normally available on Saturdays. Ethan came along this time, so we spent the two hours at the court. Lucas is getting more decent with his service and concientiously practiced. Luis is fooling around and having fun. I hurt my lower back a few weeks back and was still not recovered to properly run about. So I just played minimally with Ethan and KP.

Evening
After badminton, we headed home to shower and change. Lucas had to squeeze in his lang3du2 for Tien Hsia class the next day. After that we went to Uncle Poh's house. A few of our friends also gathered there, the main highlight for the night was durian, which was at a low price due to the low demand in the previous month due to Hari Raya. We left around 9.30pm and by the time we washed up and were ready for bed, the boys were really tired and fell asleep fast.

Sunday
Morning
KP dropped us at Tien Hsia for the 9am class. Normally I would drive to and fro but he needed the car today. I went to McDonald's to drink a cup of Cappuccino, then went to NTUC Fairprice to buy fruits. Then I went for my 10am massage at Spaze. My body was really aching for the past week and I had a good back massage.
11am I went to pick the boys up. Usually we will go straight home in the car and pass the car to KP to drive to work. But today we didn't have the car so we did some shopping. 
First we went to Giordano to purchase NDP t-shirts. Our friend, PC, had extra tickets for the preview and we were very excited. Expensive polo t-shirts at $39 each but we purchased them anyway. Next we went to Sketchers to purchase a pair of shoes for Luis. His feet were growing and the Under Armour shoes we bought in December in Sydney were getting too small. He chose a black pair, like Lucas' school shoes. Then we went to Watson's to buy toothpaste because Lucas' toothpaste is finishing. There was a 20% off with minimum $38 spend so we bought loads of toothpaste. And I also let the boys choose a tidbit each. Lucas chose M&Ms and Luis chose Oreo. And finally the boys made a pitstop at Kiddy Palace to look at toys for 5 minutes.

Afternoon
We took the train home. I first gave the boys fruits, which I usually do before lunch. Then I quickly heated up the pizza from yesterday for lunch. Lucas also likes fresh milk with Milo powder so I made a cup each for them. Because the pizza was so small I also let them eat a banana each.
Went down for swimming at 1pm. Lucas has his class at this time. Luis and I played in the pool while waiting for his class at 2pm. Then Lucas and I played in the pool while waiting for Luis to finish. Lucas saw some older children playing with water guns so he went over to join them.
Luis finished his class and together with two other boys, they all went to the rock pool to play. 10min later we went upstairs around 3.40pm. Boys played and showered in the bathtub while I prepared the waffle batter.
Made waffle with the Giant $9.90 waffle maker. Boys ate them with maple syrup given by Eric when he recently came back from New York. Today Luis also ate it with strawberry jam. Then they took their nap. Finally I had time to rest by soaking in the tub and then watching Grey's Anatomy on Netflix.

Evening
Boys woke up at 6.30pm and I started to prepare dinner. Sunday dinners are always late around 8pm since they are really quite full from tea break. Today I cooked cauliflower fried rice. Usually they take quite long to finish and I gave them 30min to finish with a cane warning.
Now at 9.30pm, Luis is doing his K1 homework while Lucas is reading Diary of a Wimpy Kid next to me while I type this out on the computer. Soon they will go to bed around 10pm.

















Sunday 8 July 2018

Half boiled eggs

Half boiled eggs
8 July 2018



I  have been eating at least two eggs a day for lunch. Sometimes I also eat them for breakfast. Luis likes half boiled eggs too. One Saturday we were at home and I was going to make the eggs for myself and Luis. I have made them before but I always do not remember how long I'm supposed to put the eggs in the water. And if it comes out too runny then I don't really like them. So here I am, documenting the very simple yet very forgettable steps so I don't have to trial and error each time.

METHOD
Note: These are for eggs that are at room temperature. I used Seng Choon eggs which are medium sized.

1) Bring a pot of water to boil.
2) When boiled, turn the fire off.
3) Put your eggs into the water and cover for 7 minutes.
4) Remove from the water and crack your eggs

You should get eggs as you see above, where there are no translucent egg whites and the egg yolks are partly runny partly solid.

Enjoy with dark or light soya sauce and a heavy dash of pepper.

Thursday 3 May 2018

Righted by Lucas

2 May 2018 Wednesday

I had a gym session last night at 8pm. Reached home to change and then Lucas wanted to go with me. KP already brought Luis to ICR earlier. 

Since Lucas already finished his homework and Luis really likes Lucas to pick him up, I thought why not. So we took the bus to J10.

The bus was very jerky. Lucas was sitting and I was standing. Feeling bitchy for some reason:

Me: next time don’t drive like this driver. It’s very jerky. 
Lucas: maybe it’s the bus, not the driver. 
Me: ..... yes you are right, maybe it’s the bus. 

Monday 29 January 2018

My junior chefs

My junior chefs
28 Jan 2018 Sunday
Lucas 7.5 yo
Luis 5 yo

I want to capture this day before I forget it. 

So I was lying on my bed and it was around half past six. I was having a headache. The boys have woken up from their nap. Luis was playing in the living room and Lucas came in to lie down with me. I asked him if he was hungry, he said yes, I said what shall we eat and that I have a headache. I jokingly asked if he can make dinner. Then he said “Okay. Tell me one thing I can use.” I said “salad”, because thats what we have been eating for our Sunday dinners. And off he went. 

The following conversation took place:

Lucas (talking from the kitchen): Luis, I’m going to make dinner. Do you want to help me? I will cut the pomegranate and you can squeeze the orange juice (into the salad, like what he did last week).”

Luis: I’m still playing. 

Lucas: Ok you come when you are done, ok? But remember to wash your hands first because... (can’t hear the rest from the room).

I was a proud mama. Lucas is a caring boy who takes care of others. All those cooking sessions I did with them prepared them well to be independent. Of course there’s still a long way to go. 

Apart from Lucas, Luis is quite the chef too. That afternoon he made movie snacks for us. Yoghurt with frozen fruits. He was so professional, I was not allowed to add more yoghurt or do anything extra to what he was preparing. 


Starting their dinner preparation. Lucas loves pomegranate. 


The dinner. Luis loves sweet potato. He added the sweet potato left over from lunch, which he cut with his fork. 


Luis preparing our movie snack immediately after coming back from Tien Hsia, cutting banana with his fork. 


Our afternoon movie snack. By the way, we watched Monsters vs Aliens. 



Sunday 28 January 2018

Balestier road

One day our family was driving along Balestier Road and suddenly I felt a wave of sadness. It was really weird and I was wondering why. So I looked around and then I saw it. We passed by the animal hospital which we used to bring Bobby once every two days. 

How amazing, that my emotions were associated with Balestier Road at such a subconscious and deep level. It has been two years since Bobby passed away. Thinking back, those last few months of Bobby’s life were really tough. He had seizures and his subcut sessions were so painful that he sometimes howl. 

On one occasion, I brought Bobby to the Boon Lay Place vet for his subcut where he’s injected with liquid, somewhat like kidney dialysis. At the vet he had a seizure and the vet advised me to bring him to the animal hospital. I was alone and afraid he would have a seizure in the car so I requested for one of their nurses to follow me. That was the first time that we brought him to this animal hospital on Balestier Road. He had to stay there and I was crying buckets when the nurse at the reception desk asked what was the limit we want to incur if Bobby requires emergency treatment. I called my husband and he said we will pay whatever was required. What made it worse was that I had to fly to Europe for a business trip that night. At night we went to visit Bobby before I flew. Thereafter my husband visited Bobby the next two days and sent me updates of his recovery. 

That was one of the painfully memorable times. After that we often brought Bobby there for his subcut because they were fast, the nurses were helpful and they open 24 hours. Which was really important for us during that time partly because my mother was also hospitalised and my husband and I had to juggle so many things. 

When I had my realisation and I told my husband, he confided that he also thought of Bobby a while back and teared. Bobby was an important part of our lives. We adored him loads but guiltily less when the children came along. But he was always there and we see him in many of our photos and videos :)

You are the best, my dearest ‘mi mi’.