It goes away but it’s always there

Funny how emotions work. 

I haven’t thought about my Ma for a long time. There I am, sitting on the bench in the gym, drying my feet after shower and staring blankly in front of me. Someone left a water bottle and lotion behind. The lotion tube looks familiar and then I remember. 

One time Ma and I were in a pharmacy. Why and which one I don’t remember. But a salesgirl targeted my Ma and sold her a moisturiser that can reduce black spots or make her skin better. I don’t even remember the details. But I remember that I thought Ma is already so old and why this matters. It’s a side of my Ma that I seldom see. My Ma thinking of herself and not her children. My Ma buying something for herself to make herself happy. 

And I wanted to cry at the memory because I miss her. And so I did. It’s been four years now, and I miss you, Ma. The other day I have forgotten how I used to greet you and I sounded it out but it felt unfamiliar. 

The sadness, the missing.  It goes away but it comes back and catches you off guard. 

Apple pie-like bread

Apple pie-like bread (vegan)
26 March 2019

I had difficulties naming this because it's neither apple pie nor bread pudding. I had too much bread left and I wanted to make bread pudding but I don't like the sogginess of it. So I created this. Smells and tastes like apple pie, bread was not soggy. You can tweak the sweetness with the amount of honey and raisins you add. I found mine a tad sweet so I have reduced the honey from 1.5 to 1 tablespoon below. 
Note though that there is nothing holding the shape so it will fall apart after you bake it. If you want it to be presentable, you can consider making it in a cupcake cases so you can eat directly out of it. Overall it's a will-make-it-again kind of recipe for me.


Makes 1 round 8-inch cake pan.

INGREDIENTS

For the base and filling

• About 6 slices of bread
• 2 apples (I used 1 apple and 1 pear, that's what I had)
• 1/3 cup raisins
• 1 tablespoon of honey
• 2 teaspoons of cinnamon
• 1 cup of soya milk
• 1/2 cup of water/soya milk (for adjustment to be added only at the end when all are mixed together, depending on whether you have enough excess liquid to wet the bottom layer of bread)

For the topping

• 1 cup of regular rolled oats
• 3 tablespoons of brown sugar
• 1/4 cup of olive oil
• 1/8 teaspoon of salt

METHOD

1. Cut off the sides of the bread.
2. Line the bottom of the cake pan, should use about 2-3 slices.
3. In a big bowl, mix the remainder of the bread and all the ingredients (EXCEPT the water) together.
4. If it looks too dry, add the amount of water/soya milk needed so that you have about 1/2 cup excess that can be used to soak the bottom layer of bread in the cake pan.
5. Pour all into the cake pan.
6. Mix the ingredients for the topping. Put on top.
7. Bake at 165 deg C for 50 min.

New year new resolution

New year new resolution 

2nd Jan 2019

2019.

Be a better wife. 

More quality time with husband and kids. 

Be a better leader. 

Continue a healthy lifestyle. Achieve 52kg and maintain it!

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. 

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.

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.

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.