Happy New Year. December was wonderful, except for the floods that brought massive destruction affecting many that I know too. At our home, it was a restful December. I did finally take the opportunity to catch up with close friends over outings and food.  In between, we baked gingerbread cookies, watched family movies together, shared songs on spotify, played more board games, read more books, checked out different restaurants and went on short trips.

The highlight I guess, was a week's getaway to the highlands with close friends. It was lovely to get away from the city, to breathe in crispy fresh, cold air, watch the morning dew on flowers, catch beautiful sunrises and sunsets, laugh, play silly games. 

                                                        Christmas Eve dinner in the highlands

Danelle and I made these together,
she being the perfectionist arranged them neatly in rows.

Jo and I made this. She of course made the beautiful
pandas, while I have no patience with
food decoration. So the ugly pink alien
in front and all the ugly lumpy 'tang yuan'
were made by me. 

                             

Some new year goals: Take more nature photos, paint more, write music, continue to keep fit, family time and bonding. Hopefully some travel, get back to some letter writing and journaling, tidy up the garden that's become a jungle! 

@poundthegarlic.blogspot.com 2022

                                                                

     

~Jo bakes and crafts

You've been fattening me up with quite a few good bakes! Not good for my tummy Jo!!

Like this  super delicious Chocolate Torte that was devoured in two days...

And this beautiful cake that you baked for yourself. You had K over, and together you did the decorations together. What a beautiful cake!!! Love it that you're now independent enough to make your own!

You've also been crafty and doing a lot of art. Here's something you did for Doodle for Google. Yours wasn't selected, but I think it's still beautiful and unique. Keep going in your art, you're getting better and so good at it!

And one last picture, you asked me to purchase you a glue gun, and the first thing you made was this beautiful waterfall piece for me.

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@poundthegarlic.blogspot.com 2017

We made macaroons!

It is lovely having Junee back with us. She's finished her studies in India n will continue the rest of her studies in Malaysia. 

To celebrate we attempted macaroons n succeeded! There were cracks in some but overall they just tasted delicious when fresh out of the oven. A lil crunchy on the outside n warm n fluffy in the inside. 

@poundthegarlic.blogspot.com 2017 

My first painting for the year

The space between time I paint is getting wider and wider...I hardly produce anything nowadays it seems. but nevertheless, I managed to paint something in between preparing CNY food for the family. Am happy that at least, I've so far managed one painting this year. 👀

Acrylic on paper

Traditional Heng Hua mee sua, which I prepared. Lots of hard work, but worth it!

Home made pizza with smoked duck and other ingredients

@poundthegarlic.blogspot.com 2017

The way to a Man's heart and a Child's Heart

Lately I've been  baking breads. One loaf and sometimes two a week. Today I decided to bake herb bread, and roast chicken to go with it. All hubby, Jo and Nel were overjoyed.

Jo commented, "You know mum, there are two things that send me to bed with a smile on my face and a warm feeling in my heart and tummy. One is a good good book, and one is a delicious meal like this.."

Yup so it's proven, they say, food is the way to a man's heart, but looks like it's the way to a child's heart too. :)

I marinated my chicken with butter (softened and mixed with thyme, oregano, salt and pepper) rubbed under the skin. Added tumeric, paprika, salt and pepper. Placed chicken over lots of onions, covered with more onions and carrots. The carrots really added flavour to the gravy which I made after.

@poundthegarlic.blogspot.com 2016
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Grandpa's birthday

We had a special birthday celebration for dad's 70th birthday. It was a gathering of family and our closest friends. Both Nel and Jo choreographed two dances together with their cousins. Rock around the Clock (which they made everyone dance) and Wind Beneath my Wings. The second was a really touching and beautiful performance. At the end of the dance they held up cards with the message, "Ah Kong, You are the Wind beneath my wings." Then they all ran and surrounded him with hugs.

Girls doing the Rock around the CLock dance before changing into beautiful dresses for the second dance.

Jo baked a cake for her beloved grandpa. Though she's a beginner, she did it well. It was moist chocolate cake with cream and deco all done by her.

Certainly they really love their grandpa, and they are blessed because he loves them even more.

@poundthegarlic.blogspot.com 2016

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Some highlights from 2016

With the girls in preteen and teen years now, there seems to be so much more activities, and so little time left to blog. Whatever free time I've left, is spent vegetating doing nothing, resting, reading, or perhaps doing a little art.

Trying to catch up on blogging is tough. Just some highlights from this year so far:

1) Girls have been baking a lot, sometimes having little challenges with each other or a friend.

Sweet Potato Kuih which girls made for Chinese New Year. Turned out great!! :)

2) Together with two good friends, they're doing a cool but slow going survival project. All self learnt... with a little help from Mr. Google. We learn it is hard going experimenting with survival stuff. Easy when someone shows how it is done. Hopefully we get somewhere with this.
Stuff girls and friends have tried so far:

• Starting lots of fires of course.
• Whittling to shape a fish hook
• Making pancakes from nuts with nothing but rocks to pound
• Smoking fish to preserve
• Making an axe
• Boiling water with nothing but mud and hot stones

Girls built a tripod, and attached rope to dry fish which they cut cleaned and fillet. With lots of patience, it turned
out quite tasty! (though we burnt one or two.)

Yup...it is tough going as they've realised. NOthing is easy without practice.

3) Jo after bugging me for years about archery began lessons this year and has finished her first cycle. After three months of classes and still lovin it, she decided to part with her Chinese New YEar angpow money to get herself a brand new bow!! Oooh yeah!


4) Girls participated in Science fair...and won one of the Best Booth Award. The other award went to their good friend K. In all fairness, I think all the kids at the fair were fantastic! Homeschool rocks!!
Girls worked hard on their project, The Science of Fragrance. Since it is a project that takes time, patience and persistence...it wasn't always easy going. Lots of mistakes, redoing, and stuff that went wrong. Lots of learning and going into related information. Perhaps, I'll let them write a post on this another day.

to be continued.......

@poundthegarlic.blogspot.com 2016

Was just feeling totally tired today...no energy and I asked Jo, "Could you please cook today? Feel free to use anything you find in the fridge."I heard the fridge opening and shutting....Several times she ran out to the hall and lay flat on the floor coz her eyes were burning from chopping onions.....I heard the stove going click....and then some time later, walla she served out two dishes with rice. 

I asked Nel, when she would cook me a meal. At first she replied, "She hoped rather, to find a man who could cook." Cheeky answer. But the next day she surprised me with this, baked beef with cheese which was really delicious!

@poundthegarlic.blogspot.com 2015

Making Tangyuan -

Today, for the first time as a family, we made Tangyuan (glutinous rice ball in sweet soup) together. Tangyuan is usually eaten during the Winter Solstice and the 15th day of Chinese New Year. Apparently it is supposed to represent family closeness. 

When I mentioned that to my mother, she said that was particularly true in her younger days. In her childhood days, making Tangyuan was a village affair. Everyone would wake up as early as 4am, and come together to pound rice into rice flour. Then they would make Tangyuan together and feast together. Nowadays, flour can just be purchased at the grocery shop and Tangyuan made in a really short time.

As my children and I made these (with lots of fun), I wondered how it all started and found the answer on Wikipedia (where else.) What a touching story about the longing of a maiden to meet with her parents.

According to a legend, ^[2] in the Han Dynasty, there was a maid of honor who was called Yuanxiao. She missed her parents a lot but she could not leave the palace, therefore, she wept all the time and even wanted to turn to suicide. A minister knew her story and promised to help her. What Yuanxiao needed to do was to make lots of Tangyuans, which was the best cuisine she could make, in order to worship the god on 15th day of the first month in the Chinese calendar. Finally, Yuanxiao did a great job and the emperor was so contented; therefore, Yuanxiao was permitted to meet her parents, Tangyuan was named as Yuanxiao and the 15th day of the first month in the Chinese calendar was considered to be Yuanxiao Festival. (Wikipedia)

Well here's our version of Tangyuan. We decided to use natural colours. Thus we made ours out of glutinous rice flour mixed with yellow sweet potatoes, orange sweet potatoes and red dragon fruit.

We made the soup by putting gula melaka into boiling water with pandan leaves and slices of ginger.

Then we had family members over and had Tangyuan together, first time ever at our place. Perhaps this might be a good tradition to keep.

Happy Cap Goh Mei everyone,
 may God bless you and your family 
and give you family closeness throughout the year 
and in the years to come.

 @poundthegarlic.blogspot.com 2013

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Making Kueh Kapit

With Chinese New Year around the corner, we were invited over to a friend's house to join in the fun of making Kueh Kapit (Love Letters) together. According to my mum, years ago, it was tradition for cousins and aunts to come together to make cookies and kueh kapit  in anticipation of the joyful celebration of Chinese New Year. I guess, this is a dying tradition, and were were really fortunate to be able to experience this together with our friends yesterday.

Started making batter at 9am. Ingredients are family secret, so will not post here, but you can find some online. However, it mainly consists of rice flour, coconut milk, eggs and sugar.

Prepare mold by applying cooking oil

Heat up mold on BBQ pit before applying batter

Pour batter from top to bottom, just once will do, or it will be too thick. (Mold MUST be hot when applying batter.)

Once done, place molds on pit in sequential order, and turn from time to time, check. Doesn't take very long before cookie is done. They are ready when colour is brown. Just scrape sides, gently pull love letter out and fold immediately. (If not folded immediately, cookie will harden.)

Kiddos helping put batter and turning mold.

This s what happens when molds are not checked on time!!

Delicious Kueh Kapit. Yummmm.....

This was our first ever experience at making Kueh Kapit. I'd say, it takes TREMENDOUS patience to apply batter, look after all the molds, turn them, scrape the sides, pull out and fold. It was back breaking for me, although I only sat there for about 2 hours. My hats off to my friends who sat there from 9am  to 8pm!!!

To chill off after our morning kueh making, we went jungle trekking.

Can you spot the kids?

Chilling out at the river..

@poundthegarlic.blogspot.com 2013


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Baked Eggplant and other random things.

Of late, words will not come to my mind. I wonder where have they gone. Perhaps I'm over tired, especially after teaching, and then helping my own children with subjects such as literature. So another short picture post today.

 The yarn art from previous post has been turned into a simple turtle. Next time we will try weaving the yard onto wires to try shaping it, perhaps into an umbrella or a better turtle.

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Friends...
Kids had some friends stay over. Jo had a wild time in the baby pool with the little guys. They were a RIOT! doing all sorts of stunt jumps into the pool,shooting at each other with water guns. Of course they had to walk into the house, leaving puddles of water everywhere.

Nel and her gf decided they were too old for this, and spent time playing Tinker Bell fairy games online, and practicing ballet. They also decorated Nel's doll. Nel stuck yarn on her doll's dress, and added her ballet skirt. Then they painted the rest of the shirt using crayon for fabric.

That night, little guy friend wanted to do some art (paper cutting.) I asked what picture he'd like, naturally he said "CARS." So my very first car kirigami. He coloured it all carefully and stuck them in his book. :)

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Fund Raising.........
Some time back, I blogged about my children raising funds for the poor. Well, Jo actually made lemonade and cookies on her own to sell. Here, she's put all the money in an envelope and passed it on to her grandpa who will use this money to purchase food stuff. 

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Baking Eggplant......
My children have a dislike for eggplant, which I typically stirfry with dried shrimps, or chilli and black salted beans or salted fish. I asked Nel, what would motivate her to try some. She suggested cheese. So  I tried this today,

- season eggplant with salt and bit of paprika, drizzle with olive oil. Top with pasta sauce and bake at about 210C till soft.
 -Remove pan, add a spoon of plain yogurt on each eggplant, top with light cheddar cheese, bake till melted.
 Well....Nel gobbled them up pretty quickly. :)  As for Jo, just 2, not bad for a start.

I had my eggplant with bread, and added shitake mushrooms, lightly sauteed with paprika, and bit of salt.  Together with salad, it made an absolutely delicious sandwich.

Here's to a good weekend everyone. Cheers.

@poundthegarlic.blogspot.com 2013

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Ginger Bread House

Dec has been busy, jolly and wonderful for us. It's come and will be gone way too soon. A dear friend who reads this blog reminded me that I should still take more time to rest. Thank you for the dear reminder Jen, your voice rings in my head when the days get too busy. :)

 Anyway, just a short post to wish everyone a very beautiful and blessed Christmas. Also to upload this year's Christmas craft. Last year we attempted figurines made of bread dough and ginger bread men. Well, this year we decided to try a Ginger Bread House. It certainly was a lot of work, from making the dough, to measuring and cutting out the wall and roof pieces and then making them stick together and decorating.

 Both Nel and Jo helped me throughout, coz which kid doesn't love playing with dough. :) As for the decoration, they did it on their own. Our house looks like an olden house from Bethlehem, simply coz I cut the sides wrong, and totally forgot the triangles, thus a flat roof. haha..

Decked with marshmallows, candy, chocolates, jelly beans, skittles and sprinkles of sugar.

The other side of the house

As you can see, errr....the decorations started off well...but soon they were more focused on eating the candy rather than sticking on the candy. haha... Still, a house done from scratch. :) We'll be sharing it with family and friends during thanksgiving reunion on Christmas day.

Blessed Christmas all, and a Happy New Year! :)

@poundthegarlic.blogspot.com 2012

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Baking

With holidays here, the girls have been baking/cooking more than usual.

Nel and her cousin made these delicious scones for tea last week. Well, it was a wee bit harder than the ones we've had at restaurants, but I think great for a first attempt. As soon as it was fresh out of the oven, we gobbled these warm scones down with some melted butter and raspberry jam. Jo served us some lemonade she made. Altogether it was a lovely tea time. Yumm.

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Jo's been at it too. She bugged and bugged her daddy to get her to the groceries. Their intention was just to get ingredients for some pancakes, but father and daughters (Nel tagged along too) ended up buying several bags of groceries for further experiments at cooking. Will blog about it as they experiment. Items in the bag included several cartons of milk, different sorts of cheese, wild forest ham, bacon, maple syrup and all sorts of delicious goodness. "My goodness, exclaimed dear hubby upon returning from the grocery store. I didn't expect to buy so many things!" haha. But well, hubby didn't have to work hard. It was Jo, Nel and their cousin Lyd who did all the searching, running from aisle to aisle while hubby just stood in a corner with the cart (so I heard from the children.)

Well, Jo made these entirely on her own. They were golden, and simply delicious. We had these with maple syrup and some iced chocolate drink.

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Just last weekend, Nel still very inspired in the art of baking, baked Savoury Parmesan Puffs. She's really happy with the outcome, and we had it over dinner together with some beef stew I made. If you love cheese, this is delicious and takes so little time to make.

The recipe is really easy and we got it from the following book which we borrowed from the library.

The Great Big Cookie Book: Over 200 Recipes for Cookies, Brownies, Scones, Bars and Biscuits 

Although the title says The Great Big Cookie book, it contains tonnes of mouth watering stuff to make, from savoury scones and puffs to sweet brownies, and even includes baked gift ideas. Nel REALLy loves this book, and I will have to look into purchasing one, since ours is borrowed from the library.

 The recipe to this simple puff was so easy. -Basically first sprinkle baking tins with parmesan.
-Then in a separate bowl beat 2 eggs, 1 cup milk and 1Tbsp butter, add 1 cup flour and some salt till smoothly blended.
-Pour batter over the parmesan. Bake at high for 15 mins, sprinkle with more parmesan and bake further at lower temperature for about 20 mins. So simple, and really delicious.






@poundthegarlic.blogspot.com 2012

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