Update semi fail

OMG I there is seriously sooooo many things for me to update and I’ve not been able to do so. I’ve been so busy is crazy. Over the past two weeks has been emotionally and mentally draining for me physically I’ve not done/moved much. I have a back dated post actually on that too. Maybe some day I will get to my back dated post. Mean time I really miss writing down my thoughts is crazy because I’m not much of a writer.

I’ve been so distracted that there is even not much pictures taken 😞😞😞.

Still baking bread and buns ever alternate days because we still got to eat amongst all that’s been going on.

I’ve been using autolyze method by Jeannietay but with a different bread recipe and like this method. I even managed to hand knead my dough successfully with this method which is something I’ve not been able to do before. I’ve been adapting other recipes but using autolyze method.

Darn I’ve already exceeded my media storage. I can’t upload pictures. I guess my pictures cannot do the “talking”. Now have to decide if I want to upgrade my website.🤔🤔🤔

Mr.5’s Birthday.

Mr.4 requested for a crane cake for his birthday this year but I’ve just been so busy and bogged down I had no time or do I know how to make him a crane cake. Since we were gone the weekend before his birthday I didn’t have much time to make him his cake. I rushed to make his cake late night Sunday so I can get it ready to frost it on the day of his birthday. I told the husband that he should have reminded me that it was Mr.4’s birthday and he said don’t I know when is his birthday which I do but I lose track of day and date. I don’t keep track of what date everyday unless I knew I had an appointment coming up. Maybe I now should set reminders to remind me.

My boy requested for a white cake with chocolate frosting and sprinkles. And since I didn’t make him his crane cake I decided to surprise him with a piñata cake. I messed up on the pipping so I had to wipe it off and pipe again which cause the top to be ugly. Luckily he’s not picky lol.

Lots of improvement on the frosting needed. I also didn’t have much time to make the cake because we were out half a day.

Peanut m&m’s inside

Thankfully my little customer is happy with his cake

Big boy wants to cut his own cake.

He wanted pizza for lunch so off we went for pizza. After that we got some ice cream too.

He was sneezing and nose was running. He caught a cold from the weekend so I suggested chicken noodles soup but he wanted creamy wild rice soup instead so that’s what he got for his Birthday dinner.

Happy fifth birthday my little guy. I hope you had a wonderful day. I hope you will grow up healthy and happy. we all love you very much 😘😘😘.

Instant Pot Creamy Tortilla Soup (Chicken/Turkey)

Today’s lunch is last bit of the radish cake so I made another bath of chai tow kueh. Wanted to use up the beans sprouts too. No green onions today because i’ve already harvested all my green onions and they haven’t grown back yet. Washed down with Thai Milk Tea bubble tea. Taste so much better than store  bought ones and is cheaper!

Making Creamy Turkey Tortilla Soup because I will be away this weekend so the family has food.

 

1) Press Sauté and put 1tbsp of oil/lard in the pot. When the display says HOT

2) Add one large diced onions or two small medium diced onions. Cook until the onions turns translucent.

3) Add 4-5 cloves of minced garlic and cook for 30 seconds and press cancel on the pot. 

4) Add a can of Rotel. This is Rotel because many people asked me what is Rotel. I got no salt added but you can buy the normal ones with salt if you want just adjust your seasoning when you make your soup.

5) Add about 2-3 cups of chopped organic carrots, 1 cup of organic corn (I use 3 cares of corn here),1 cup of organic red and yellow pepper and 1 can of rinsed black beans. 

6) Next add 2-3 cups of chopped cooked turkey/rotisserie chicken. depends on how much meat you want in your soup. My kids don’t care for them if I add a lot of meat so I don’t add as much.

7) Pour chicken broth/stock (I made this before I started making my tortilla soup) until it reaches above the vegetables and a little more. this depends on how big of a batch you are making. Mine is quite a big batch. Add seasoning:  2 tsp of smoked paprika, pepper and salt to season, 1 tsp of oregano, 2 tsp heap of cumin, 1/4tsp of cayenne pepper and 2 tbsp of homemade taco seasoning. 

8) Set Instant pot on manual high for 5 minutes and let it NR.

9) When is done mix 1/4 cup of flour with 4 cups of milk. Press the sauce button again and mix the flour milk mixture in the pot. If is too thick you can add a little more milk too. Saute until soup thicken. Add 2-4 cups of shredded cheese. Taste and season with more salt and pepper.

Instant Pot Turkey/Chicken creamy tortilla soup

Ingredients

1tbsp oil/lard

1 large or 2 medium onions diced

4-5 cloves of minced garlic

3 cups chopped organic carrots

1 cup of organic corn

1 cup of red and yellow pepper

1 can of Rotel

1 can of black beans

2-3 cups of chopped turkey or chicken

5-6 cups of homemade chicken broth

4 cups of milk

1/4 cup of flour

2-3 cups of cheese

Seasoning

Salt and Pepper

2tsp of cumin

1tsp oregano

2tsp smoked paprika

1/4 cayenne pepper

2tbsp homemade taco seasoning

Garnish (optional)

Avocado

Shredded cheese

sour cream 

tortilla chips

cilantro

Method:

1. Press sauté button on Instant Pot and add 1tbsp of oil/lard. When the pot indicate HOT add diced onions and sauté until translucent. Add chopped garlic and sauce for 30 seconds. Turn off pot
2. Add the rest of the ingredients EXCEPT milk, flour, cheese and garnish
3. Cover and cook manual high for 5 minutes and NR
4. Mix milk and flour. Uncover pot and hit sauté button again. Add milk and flour mixture and cook till soup thickens. Add cheese, check seasoning and turn off sauté button.
5. Scoop into individual bowls and garnish. 

 

 

Caramelized pork belly with garlic

Breakfast today was pretty acceptable (my standard) homemade greek yogurt, with sliced peach, chocolate granola and homemade peanut butter.

Coconut bubble tea.

Kids haven’t really enjoyed a meal that they love in a few days. I am not sure if they will enjoy this one but I think I will so decided to put in more effort to cook dinner tonight.

Made a back up dish in case. Warm up soft tofu in my #instantpot

At the same time cooked Quiona in the pot too cause I know I will be eating a lot of rice today so to be save I better cooked quinoa instead of basmati rice lol.

Today’s dinner which was later than usual. Missing a soup if I had that I think the kids would enjoy dinner more.

Highlight is this Caramelized Pork Belly with Garlic. Recipe adapted from Baking Diary

Ingredients

800g-1kg pool belly cut into bite size

4tbsp light soy sauce

3 tbsp organice sugar

2tbsp white vinegar

1tbsp chinese rice wine

6 dried chili

1 cup water

4 or more cloves of chopped garlic

Method

1. Place sugar in a heavy bottomed pan and cook over low flame. Stir it often till sugar melts but make sure the sugar don’t burnt.
2. Add pork and stir
3. Add water and the rest of the seasoning EXCEPT garlic and simmer until the liquid has drastically reduced for about 40minutes
4. Increase heat to medium heat and stir in garlic and continue to cook until sauce thickens
5. Dish out leaving the excess oil. 

 

Steamed tofu with fried garlic and soy sauce

Tonight’s complete meal with stir fry bak chow.

Instant Pot Taco Pasta and Homemade Radish Cake

I am so MAD!!! I updated everything yesterday and apparently the app and the website has problem it reverted back to save draft. EVERYTHING I wrote is GONE!!! Now I have to do it again if I’m not too lazy lol

Took the car in the dealership to get a recalled for my airbags. Was supposed to do it when the kids was still in school and life just has different things planned for me so this got dragged until now. Saw the letter they send AGAIN last week and decided to call to make the appointment. The kids love the little play area and the toys they have there so no complain. Mr.4 even want to go back there again. He likes it cause the ice dispenser for this toy fridge even makes noise!!! hahaha

The service took about an hour then I ran to target to do some grocery run before heading home to make lunch. Lunch was taco pasta with turkey the hubs made last Wednesday.

Instant Pot Taco Pasta

Ingredients

1.5 cups chopped turkey/chicken cooked

8oz of pasta (Elbow, Penne, Rotini, any kind you prefer)

2 Cups of Water/Stock/Whey

1 can Rotel

1 can Black Beans rinsed and drained

1/2 cup of frozen corn

1/2 cup of any color pepper (optional)

Shredded Cheese

1 packet of taco seasoning or homemade taco seasoning

salt and pepper to taste 

Garnish

Cilantro

Avocado

Sour Cream

Method

1. Put everything except cheese and garnish in the Instant Pot. Set manual high for 3 minutes. NR 3-5 minutes and fully manually release the rest of the pressure
2. Scoop to individual and garnish with shredded cheese and the rest of the optional ingredients. 

Summer hot months been making bubble tea at home. This one is Thai milk bubble tea. I was using the more instant tapioca balls and they only took about 5 minutes to cook this one that I got actually takes 20-30 minutes to cook but they do taste nicer! If I could make a big batch and slowly use them that would be perfect sadly you can’t make a big batch of tapioca balls and keep it because they don’t taste good after some time.

This is Thai Milk tea that I bought last week. I was at the Asian grocery store and I saw a girl jumping in joy when she saw this Thai Milk Tea. I turned around and asked her if it was really good and of course she said it was so I had to try. Not bad after I mix it with ice I think if not it might be a tad sweet for me. I would buy this again to make bubble tea because is just so much more simpler than making Thai Milk Tea from scratch.

Then also made a batch of caramel pop corn because I am a  fatty like that. The truth is we were at the once a year night market last year and we saw caramel pop corn the hubs insisted on getting it even though is expensive. Told him I hope it was worth it and I made some so he said he can compare apple to apple and see which one is better. His verdict they are both good WTF.

Egg White Sandwich Bread and Sarawak Butter Buns

I’m always looking for ideas to use egg whites because I “need” the egg yolks to make ice cream. I saw someone in FB posting egg with bread sandwich recipe and I tried it right away and have been using this recipe ever since. (well a week ago lol) I bake a loaf of bread every other day or every two days usually. If the whole family eats bread one day the whole loaf can be gone pretty quickly and I always try to make sure we have at least a few slices for the hubs to take to work the next day or in case the kids request for bread the next day when I’ve not had the chance to make any.

The first time I tried this bread I followed everything to the T except using coconut oil instead of butter.

I’ve changed to using coconut oil instead of butter in making all my breads because is healthier and it also smells heavenly. I also replaced the liquid with whey (from making homemade greek yogurt)

Look at how soft the inside of the bread is!!

This loaf I added chia seed.

When I was proofing I forgot to remove the cover and the bread already rose up top so I didn’t remove it and just let it bake. I used to aim for a PERFECT square loaf but with this recipe the ratio of flour is slightly hire I feel like with the cover it squishes the bread down instead of letting it rise and spread out. I’ve also started to appreciate and like the old style shape too.

Egg White Sandwich Bread recipe adapted from my little favorite DIY

Ingredients

2 eggs white

118g whey/whole milk

1/4 tsp salt

20-30g sugar

80g whole wheat flour

220g bread flour

5g or 1 tsp instant yeast

30g coconut oil

Method

1)Put everything in the mixer or bread maker to knead for about 10-15 minutes and everything comes together and smooth (depending on your flour sometimes it might be slightly wet so you might need to add a little more flour 1 tsp at a time). The dough should be still moist.

2) Add coconut oil and knead again for 15-20 minutes until you reach window pane stage.

3) Rest dough in an oiled bowl until the dough double its size. Now is summer here the dough rise very quickly in winter it will take a longer time for it to rise.

4) Punch the dough to remove the air. Roll out into rectangular shape and roll it back swiss roll. Put into your bread pan to let it rise. Let the dough rise 80% of your bread pan height.

5) Preheat oven 170C of 345F bake for 35 minutes. Baking times depends on the size of your pan.

6) Immediately remove pan from oven and take the bread out of the pan. Cool before slicing the bread.

4th of July throwback

The plan for 4th of July was nothing. Then the hubs and I was talking about going camping and so happen the projects at work is stalled so fil could cover calls so the hubs quickly tried to find some campsites so we could go for the weekend. He found a couple but it was a long drive and only Wednesday and Thursday available not weekend. Found one or two with the whole weekend but we held off on making a reservation (don’t know why)

Anyway Saturday evening Mr.4 started having a temperature and we had to give him medication because he said his head hurts so I thought he was dehydrated from being outside in the morning. He was fine on Sunday. I was very cautious in case Mr.7 got sick too so I didn’t push the camping matter.

On Tuesday morning Mr.7 slept in till 8:30ish which NEVER happens!! So I checked on him and he told me that his throat hurts. He had a fever too I didn’t check the temperature because I wanted his body to fight it.

Quickly used my #instantpot and made pork porridge for him loaded with carrots, cilantro and green onions from my garden for Mr.7. He ate a little and threw up a little for lunch. He was laying down all day. Finally he complained his joint hurts and he don’t feel good so I had no choice but to go give him a dose of Tylenol. He then took a nap and felt better because he was playing with Mr.4 after that.

We continued to monitor him and made him load up on liquid. Gave him another dose of medicine so he could rest at night. Hubs slept with him that night and said that he seems fine.

Towards the end of the night my throat started hurting a little and I was afraid it would be my turn. I guzzled loads of liquid and load up on viramin C.

Wednesday morning my whole body hurts and the hubs checked my temperature my fever was 102.3 FML I’ve never had such high fever till my body hurts (that I can remember) I stayed in bed most of the day.

Hubs told the kids you better take care of mommy if her fever goes higher that 104-105 she can die. Mr.7 said I cannot believe mummy is going to die 😂😂😂 it was funny the way he said it.

I tried to fight off the virus without meds too but my body was in so much pain I couldn’t even get out of bed so I summon the hubs to get me 3 Tylenol. Shortly after I took it I felt slightly better I could walk and not feel miserable. I took naps better too.

We had a turkey thaw and was going to cook it that day so I was able to get the seasoning ready season the turkey and hubs did the cooking while I rest. So dinner was turkey with no sides! I got a can of canberries and he cut up a tomatoe and they had a sandwich. I ate some turkey and called it good. Luckily I cooked ginko barley the day before and I was eating those all day.

Hubs also cut the watermelon and made sure everyone ate them too. Yes cause I always tell them to load up on liquid and eat lots of water melon.

Towards the night I was feeling crappy again. Mr.7 took my temperature and I was 103.3 I was freezing I had two blankets but I was obviously hot. Mr.7 made me remove the blankets (pay back is a bitch lol) cause he said I could get over heat 😥😥😥 I quickly eat another 3 Tylenol and rest while they watched fireworks on the deck. Mr.4 has been my “Doctor” for the day. Making sure that he would be there when I’m walking around “in case” I fall. Mr.7 was standing in front of the steps when I went to the toilet so I don’t fall and I told him he shouldn’t do that cause if I fall better I fall then we both fall. He was so worried he slept upstairs with me so he can “help” me in case daddy can’t hear me.

Another funny shit my husband said was (back track I had my eyebrows done like microblading but I had powder brows done is mix of microblading and machine last Thursday so I have to be very careful with it can’t go under the sun can’t wet it etc) oh your temperature is so high is not good for your eye brows too. I replied you know I think so too wtf #shitthehusbandsays

Thankfully I was sweating last night I think my fever finally broke but I got up with a slight headache. The husband wanted to make sure I was ok before he went to work. He did stay at the office today in case I am not. I did take the kids grocery shopping and to the library.

Not fully ok but didn’t feel miserable like the first day. I told the hubs he better be careful cause it feels like the older you are this virus is worst. Hopefully he don’t get it. Told him to load up on watermelon and vitamin c. I should go back to guzzling down my water kefir too!

That was how I spend my 4th of July doing nothing just resting 😥😥. I’m so glad that it happened during a public holiday so the hubs can help with the kids.

Homemade noodles

I usually like to make noodles when I have vegetables suitable to make noodles to try and sneak in extra vegetables. My kids don’t really have problem eating their vegetables although they complain and tell me that they hate vegetable sometimes but I don’t have problem with them finishing what’s on their plate.

In summer I usually like to get beets or kale and make noodles with it. @CPC tempted me to make noodles when she bought her new toy. Let me tell you again there is a difference between getting a cheap pasta roller compared to a name brand one. I’ve had this discussion with CPC and I’m sure she totally agrees with me.

I didn’t make as much pasta/noodles a few years ago because it was always so difficult to cut the noodles even with the pasta maker. I complained to the hubs that I suck at making pasta and he looked at the old pasta maker (no brand, cheap). Anyway he did some research because initially at that time I wanted the new Philips all in one pasta maker. I did try another brand and after starting it the first time that thing died. thank god for great return policies here. Anyway he suggested to get Marcato Atlas Pasta Machine since it has pretty high ratings in amazon and best of all is less than $100 compared to the Philips  $25which cost $250++!!!

I’m a noodle/pasta maker convert after getting my new pasta maker. I usually try and make big batches and dry them. We go though a lot of noodles because we love noodles in this house especially the kids!!

This winter I’ve not made much of vegetable flavored noodles because I didn’t buy much vegetables or have any stocked up from summer.

 

Decided to just make plain noodles. This batch of dough is slightly more wet than I would like because wetter dough like this I am not able to cut them with the small cutter unless I coat the heck out of them with flour.

It is very easy they just contain bread flour, salt and water. Just mix the flour together into a ball. When ready just run the dough in the pasta machine roller to achieve a smooth dough. Not much energy needed (great for lazy people like me) lol

Run it thought the pasta machine again to cut into desired shape.

Went to the farmers marker (finally they are open for the season) and picked up some beetroots. Peel and used my Instant Pot to cook the beets.

Once done put the beets and salt in the food processor to puree the beets

Add bread flour (depending on how wet your beets are) and pulse until the dough is like bread crumbs. Open the cover and take a pinch of the flour, press the flour together if they flour will stick then is ready.

Take it out and roll them together into a ball. Let the dough rest for at least 30 mins covered or until you are ready to roll them.

Managed to get cut into smaller one because this time my dough was much dryer (one of them slightly too dry) but they work.

Kids was requesting for red noodles after I made the plan noodles that’s why I had to go to the farmers market to get some beets. And yes the kids requested for skinny noodles too.

My hubs said I set the exception for food with them too high of a bar because when they request for something they expect to get them right away if not sooner. He said that my kids expectation for him is set very low so even when I’m gone and they have to eat the same thing they will complain. lol