Our first visit to Shah Alam Lake Garden

Being stranded at home almost on a daily basis with one or two days out to the supermarket/mall, we find it important for the kids to do some outdoor activities – especially Noelle who has outburst of energy in her! 🙄 We prefer outdoor because it is usually less crowded, does give us fresh air and allows us to sweat it all out. Also, outdoor activities are usually free – making use of the amenities established by developers or local councils! 

With some research, we found Shah Alam Lake Garden or more well known as Taman Tasik Shah Alam. If not mistaken, the children playground was nearly renovated/built last year. And yes, it has the best of equipments compared to the few outdoor playgrounds we frequent in Klang Valley. However, I would say that it is more suitable for kids above 3-4 years old. So, Noelle really enjoyed herself there. 

Probably the younger ones can play bubbles at the park (there are some stalls selling bubble solutions).

Besides ‘challenging’ herself to completing ‘challenge course’ at the playground, Noelle also made friends! So, we ended spending quite some time there! We forego feeding the fishes though we brought the fish feed. Also, there were other activities such as canoeing and boat paddling (which is the other side of the park) that we did not took park. We also see few families picnicking at the park that has quite a beautiful landscape. We only bought mineral water and ice creams from the stalls at the park. We will be sure to come back again as Noelle repeatedly said that ‘I like this playground!’ 

Video of Noelle enjoying herself <here>

As mentioned, entrance is free but parking is limited. Parking is free on weekends and public holidays. There are public toilets available with minimal fee. 
The wet water park is next door and we saw a long queue there!

Pork cutlet

While I don’t have a wonderful relationship with my mum, one thing that always remind me of her is the pork cutlet she makes for me when I was a kid. It has remain a favourite food of mine till now! As I won’t know how my relationship with my girls will be in the future, hopefully through sweet, sour or bitter – they would also remember me through homecooked food. And this is also the reason I would persist in preparing healthy homecooked for my kids! 

Here is the pork cutlet recipe:

– Minced pork

– Mashed boiled potato

– Chopped onions 

– Shredded celery

– Shredded carrot 

– Dash of Five spiced powder

– Dash of Black pepper

– Egg

– Sea salt (is optional since I used mainly high sodium natural ingredients) 

Mix everything and leave it for at least 10 minutes. Shape it and pan fry/ air fry/ bake! Your choice! 

Finger size ones for the little one! 

Thomas & Friends Adventure @ Sunway Pyramid

I got to know about this event from a blogger friend’s facebook. I wasn’t attending as a blogger; not sure if I received an invitation because I have not checked my inbox for sometime! 🤣

But the activities were rather clearly elaborated in Sunway Pyramid’s facebook. In short, we have to go through three obstacles before getting on the Thomas train. We queued almost an hour to go through the challenges – maze, rock climbing and jumping in the ‘galaxy’ to touch the stars – which took Noelle only 5 minutes. But the most disappointed happen – though we thought there wasn’t a queue on the train ride. They were putting people on scheduled rides – preset timing. And our turn for the free ride was two hours later. We can fast track by an hour only if we purchase RM150 and above. (so this is a ‘disadvantage’ if one wasn’t going as a blogger invite, I guess)! Anyway, all these activities were FREE if you and your kids have patience to wait! 

Video of her going through the obstacles <here>

Since we thought Noelle was going on the train ride (which we told her), she was deeply disappointed. If we have knew it, we would have allowed her to stay at the ‘galaxy’ jumping area a longer time.

Chi kut teh (imitation version)

On top: Kids version

Toddler friendly chi kut teh…imitation, of course using natural ingredients 
I actually planned this one pot in expectation of water disruption in some parts of Klang Valley. Glad that the water disruption didn’t happen. Instead, everyone at home had a yummy and hot meal on this rainy day! 

The recipe:

First, we need to make the broth:

-Chicken bones

-Carrot

-Celery (vital for chi kut teh taste)

-Garlic

-Tomato

-Star anise (vital for chi kut teh taste)

-Cinnamon stick (vital for chi kut teh taste)

-Shimeji mushrooms 

-Shiitake mushrooms (vital for chi kut teh taste)

-Red dates

-Wolfberries 

Boil them for 30 minutes.

Then add in chicken pieces (marinated with sesame oil). Let it boil for another 20 minutes.

At this point, I removed the kids’ portion.

For the adults’ portion, I further added ‘dong guai’, dark soy sauce, light soy sauce and oyster sauce. I boiled it for 10 minutes before adding fu chok and tau pok! Let it simmer and done! 

Onion rice: Just boil rice with shallots oil. I topped with fried shallots when it is done. 

I also made balanced vege with garlic sauce (garlic oil, oyster sauce, soy sauce and sesame oil).

For the toddler, I made macaroni for her with the kids’ portion.

The toddler chewing on the chicken bone <here>

The elder girl had the chi kut teh with rice:

Remember to spend time with your kids!

We swam before the downpour!

Self reminder: Out of busyness and tiredness, there’s need to take time off for the kids before lost opportunity!

Video of today’s swim time: <here>

I was actually kind of busy in kitchen and house chores. Noelle kept bugging me from going to playground to swimming. I told her too hot for playground and she suggested on swimming. I snapped on her! 😩😩😪😪 Feeling guilty, instead of waiting till the bed sheets are ready washed by the washing machine, I just changed them to swim suits and went down. It rained when we were almost done! 
Noelle was happy that she got the chance to run in the rain ☔️! 🙄 On the bright side for me, if I have waited for the bed sheets to be done and put them out to dry at balcony, they would have been wet again. OR, we lost the chance to swim completely! 
Seriously, some chores can wait; but time with the kids can’t really!

In the day, we did the cream cheese cookies again!

Here the 4y3m30d narrates on how to mold on the cookies <video>

Before baking:

Done:

Yums

Chicken and zucchini macaroni

The beauty of having a kid that enjoys ‘bland’ (as in with the least seasoning) is that you get to prepare meals for both kids of different age – one 4 year old and another 1 year old- the same kind of food! This certainly saves of time for mummies – be it stay at home mums or full time working mums.
By the way, ‘bland’ doesn’t mean it is less of nutritional values. As mentioned, it uses the least ‘processed’ seasonings but most taste comes from natural ingredients, i.e real food! 
Usually my elder girl will give me the ‘call’ as in if she prefers noodles, pasta or rice. Sometimes she will call for chicken, fish or pork. I would then figure out the actual ‘flavour’ of the meal. Just like today – she just mentioned ‘macaroni with cheese and egg’. So I topped up with chicken and zucchini into it. 
Meals are served in one big bowl for them/me to scoop in front of them -because the toddler has the tendency of wanting the same meal! 🙄 This, I got to thank Vanessa Lau for the idea! 😁😁

Ingredients:

– chopped garlic

– diced zucchini

– shredded cheese

– chicken meat marinated in sesame oil and pepper for 5 minutes

– blanched macaroni

– oil for cooking 

Steps: Stir fry garlic in heated oil. Add in marinated chicken and stir until almost cooked. Add in zucchini and stir. Add in cooked macaroni and cheese. Stir and ready to serve.

I added some quail eggs for my elder girl!

Both enjoyed the meal!

Video of both enjoying the macaroni: here

Sorry, not here to debate on quail eggs but just sharing my recipe. I did do my own research and there are many contradictory ones.
For example:

It would be a good habit of eating 3-5 quail eggs each morning to create a strong immunity and improved metabolism. You will experience a lasting amount of energy and vigor. After 3-4 months of regular consumption of quail eggs, you will see an improvement in our overall health. What is important, there is no “too much quail eggs”, you can eat even 20 per day, the only limit is not to have a vitamin A intake too high, so watch eating carrots, fish oil or other high A vitamin containing food, when you want to enjoy more than 10 quail eggs at once.
Source: http://www.glennjonesquailfarm.com/Health-Benefits-of-Quail-Eggs.html
For the matter of fact, I am not shy to say that my 4 year old ate all 6 quail eggs. My one year old doesn’t like eggs. By thinking that my one year old ate all by the pic, is somehow ‘judging’. 
And this has been ‘debate’ since my elder girl’s early days! 🙄
Anyway, just do our best and follow our own maternal instinct! Cheers!

Toddler friendly prawns 🍤 fritters

No exact amount of ingredients but they are:

Cleaned up mini prawns with shell (of course, you have the choice to remove it)

Cheese 

Spinach

Shallots

Egg

Milk kefir yogurt (you can use normal yogurt)

Rice flour and all purpose flour (ratio 1:1)

Tiny bit of corn flour 

Dash of pepper

Dash of baking powder (if you want it to be crispy)

Water as needed 

Mix and shallow pan fried

I served them with udon in mushroom chicken soup! So this was a side dish for their lunch!

Pureen warehouse sale

This is our first time attending Pureen Warehouse Sale at Glenmarie, Shah Alam (22-23 April 2017). The products are cheaper and of course cost and time effective if we buy more. The babies and toddlers’ clothes are particularly sold at a bargain! They were really as low as RM3. 

Besides the cheaper goods, I would particularly reckon that they were very well organised (at least on the day we went – Saturday lunchtime). They have anggota rela controlling the traffic flow, arranged purchases of light food and drinks outside the warehouse, standby ambulances, availability of shopping bags, a lot of cashier counters, efficient restock of goods and even trolleys to send bought goods to the car. Due to the crowd, vehicles have to be parked further away from the factory (this could also avoid the jam towards the warehouse)! 

Mini castle for the Princesses

Few weeks back, papa bought her Princess Anna (imitation, of course)! Last week, when Harper brought her Princesses set, she was thrilled playing with it. So today when mama went out alone, I got her Princess Cinderella and Nikki Princess Ariel (kononnya for Nikki but Noelle is playing with it most of the time). So tonight mama made her a mini castle for the three Princesses! 😁😁😁😁

Cheesy buns

I made two trays of cheesy buns two days ago. And today I have to make two trays again as both of my girls finished them up. It was also an easy-to-bring-out snack for them. In the two days, the buns did remain soft as initially. The last few pieces which they had this morning – I did toast it slightly with my air fryer.
There are many cheese buns recipe out there; but I am sticking to this – kneading made easier with my Tesco breadmaker. 

Ingredients used:

1 egg + fresh milk = 200ml 

1 tsp instant yeast 

30g raw cane sugar

40g unsalted butter

220g bread flour

50g cake flour

50g all purpose flour 

Pinch of seasalt

Using Tesco breadmaker, I used the (8)dough mode. 

After it stops for the first time, I click ‘Start/Stop’ mode again and repress the (8)dough mode again.

Then after it stops, I remove it and place it into a bowl and cover it for 45 minutes.

It will rise after the 45 minutes. 

I then remove the dough and knead on the mat. I simmer some bread flour onto the mat to avoid it being sticky.

The dough are divided into two trays.

The dough are top with some shredded cheese.

I find this Mozarella shredded cheese from Bake with Yen has low sodium (350g sodium per 100g) and it is cheaper than Bega cheese.

They are sent to bake after resting for another 20 minutes. They are baked for 30-40 minutes under 170 degree celcius (I find my Khind oven is slightly lower temperature than its actual temperature – so I baked longer).

With Mozzarella cheese, we have the pull effect! 

With great approval from the toddler: