Mid-Autumn Festival

We did not not do anything fancy on the Mid-Autumn Festival last Monday. Parents in law just came back after a week of shopping trip to Thailand (Haadyai and Samui Island). MIL fried beehoon and we ate the 'steamed salted chicken with Chinese herbs wrapped in paper' that they bought on the way back from Ipoh. (I do not know that actual name for that dish)

The weather here was quite hazy and luckily I had already let the kids play with lantern a few days ago.

The girls playing lanterns with neighbours' kids last Saturday

On the actual Mid-Autumn night, we just brought out some kids tables and chairs and had some moon cakes and Chinese tea. The girls carried their lanterns around but they got bored after a while and would rather eat.

About moon cakes, we did not buy fancy and over-priced moon cakes with weird ingredients from those advertised famous bakeries and franchises. However, we did have some friends who gave us moon cakes.

'White butter skin pandan sweet corn paste' moon cake given by MIL's friend. It was exchanged through some points for going to Sentosa's Casino in Singapore. It was nice, fragrant and not too sweet.

However, we were used to traditional flavoured moon cake like red bean paste and lotus paste with egg yolk. Therefore, we bought from a bakery in Kluang. The moon cakes there were so popular that people from far would go there and buy in boxes, not to mention they were cheap too. No gimmicks, no advertisements and simples boxes that consumers were just paying for the moon cakes. There was also no preservatives added and we had to put the cakes in refrigerator after 3 days if not consumed.

Red bean paste moon cake that cost only RM13.00 for 4 in a box

Lotus paste Shanghai moon cake with double salted egg yolk that cost RM24 for 3 in a box

Too much durians....

Hubby grew up in kampung with plenty of fresh durians to eat. Even now he has an uncle (FIL's brother) and an aunt (MIL's sister) who have durian plantations nearby. So what does that mean? He has become a durian gourmet (snob). He only eats durians within 24 hours after they dropped from trees. He does not even want to taste durians with ends that are split (the flesh would not be dry) and he certainly would not touch durians packed in polystyrene packs at hawker stalls or durians that has been kept in fridge as that would be too inferior for his taste buds.

During this durian season, we had relatives and family friends who would give us durians but they always gave too much and due to hubby's expectations of durians, we ended up having A LOT of leftover durians that I would pack in freezer to eat after durian season ends. This year, due to pregnancy, I had to control myself from indulging too much (I normally could have about 20 plus seeds of durians at one sitting) because I was worried about effects of heatiness so I had only about 6-10 seeds each time.

Freshly dropped durians given by relatives.

This is the best type of durian I have ever eaten, called 'Shen Xien' in Mandarin and translation in English would be deity. I prefer this than those 'Mao Shan Wang' (Musang King) sold around JB.

The durian supply kept on coming and our consumption could not keep up with it and our freezers were full with durians. Coincidentally, we watched a program about a visit to Thailand and it showed how durian cakes were made. Simple. Just scrape the flesh off the seeds, stir in the wok over low heat and add sugar.

Durian and sugar in the wok.



After left to cool for a while, I wrapped the sticky dough into plastic cut lengthwise and tied the ends with rubber bands. Tadaa! Homemade durian cake with natural ingredients and without preservatives and chemicals.

Accidents in young children. Are they preventable?

I read a very heart wrenching news yesterday in the newspaper. A 1 year old plus toddler was thrown out off a car that he was travelling with his parents when collided with a vehicle. Another vehicle coming from the other side of the road could not stop in time and crushed the boy to death. The incident left the parents in shock and they were unable to provide any information required by the police after that.

I pity the family but one question that popped out in my mind was, 'Why was the 1 year old boy not safely strapped in a car seat?' That would have prevented the boy from being flung out of the car when the accident happened.

Many parents will think that car seat is only needed when there is nobody in the car helping to hold a baby. When they are other adults in the car to supervise/ carry the toddler/ baby, why bother with the car seat?

Of course I would think differently because I have had a few minor accidents before (who won't if you stay at JB and people are driving at a speed as if rushing for re-birth) and once with my 4 yo in the car and luckily she was strapped to her booster seat although I was just fetching her home from her pre-school.

I am the one who will insist to strap my kids properly at the car park even with drivers waiting impatiently to park at our space. It takes time as I have 2 kids to strap but if people want our parking space, they just have to wait patiently, right? If we need to travel using another car, I will insist to take our car seat (for our 2 yo) and booster seat (for our 4 yo) from our car to another car that we will be using. I will only forgo car-seats and booster seats when we are travelling to another state and I can only pray for our safety.

Conclusion: Use car-seats/ booster seats whenever possible because we are not able to predict accidents.

One Night in Kuching....

I was in Kuching from end May to mid June (school holidays) with the girls and we stayed at my brother's house. My mum was in JB so she helped to accompany me to bring the girls back to Kuching and hubby went there one week later so that he could enjoy himself and accompany us home.


One night, my brother took out a red wine from my dad's collection for hubby and I to try out. He said if they were good enough, he would use this brand for his wedding at the end of the year. Nothing grand about the brand and the red wine was from Spain (not France or Italy where red wines were supposed to be more well known). To our surprise, the red wine tasted really nice. Smooth with a tinge of sweetness.


Hubby wanted to have some food to bring out the taste better so we raided my dad's cupboard and found a packet of straight dried shrimps. We ate some and finished that bottle of wine.





On the next day, remembering the dried shrimps I went to nearby grocery shops to buy shallots, chillies and lime and used them to marinade a bowl of dried shrimps with a bit of sugar. Hence, we had an extra dish to go with rice that day. I liked this dish as my mum used to prepare this when we were young.

So my dad gave me some of the dried shrimps to bring back to JB but before I could make another round of dried shrimp with marinade, I had 'accidentally' finished eating them all as snack. Whoops!

Tian and Tao's Birthday!

Today is Tian's 4th Birthday and Tao's 2nd Birthday two days later but we celebrated the girls birthday together last Sunday.

I had quite a hard time planning their cakes as I did not want them to share a cake for candle blowing (superstitions?) so I had to find a way to buy a cake for eating and another 'spare' one just for candle blowing (My hubby and his parents do not like sweet stuff so I know I will end up having to finish up 2 cakes and it would be a waste if I was not able to do so). Tian mentioned she wanted princess cartoons on her cake and Tao was into anything Mickey Mouse at the moment so I decided to order a black forest cake with a Mickey Mouse as decoration and I more or less forced the bakery to sell me a sugar/ icing thingy with princess cartoon. Then I bought a normal sponge cake from another bakery, did some chocolate frosting for the sides, sprinkled some colourful sugar rice onto the cake before pasting the cartoon on the top. So I got another cake for Tian according to her request at a cheaper cost and to her satisfaction. Heh!

I cut out their names from coloured A4 paper and it was too tiring so I decided to print the 'Happy Birthday' wordings from computer and cut them out.

Tian's Princess birthday cake. She thought I made the cake for her but in fact I only decorated the sponge cake.


Tao's Mickey Mouse birthday cake.


Jelly made from Dutch Lady strawberry flavoured and chocolate flavoured milk. I wrapped the packet drinks with coloured paper and pasted Disney cartoon stickers and the girls were happy to drink from their favourite cartoons.

'Mee Suah' in red yeast wine chicken soup. Foochow people in my home town practise cooking this for birthdays and we have adapted to that culture.

Tian and Tao getting ready for candle blowing.

My 2 sweet girls: One is 4 years old and another one is going to be 2 in 2 days time. I hope they grow up happy, obedient and healthy.

More vegetable planting....

My father-in-law was 'invading' more and more land for planting vegetables. Haha! Actually, those were public land at the side of the road, in front of TNB sub-station etc. It was no easy job to turn those barren soil into plantable land. He had to remove all those rubbish buried by contractors when houses were built, condition the soil with fertilizer (chicken feces) and turn the soil every few days before actual planting could start.

Those small vegetable patches are now full of variety of vegetables.

Sweet Potato Leaves. This is Taiwanese species as the shape is different with the normal types with pointy edges. More tender to consume.

Okra. Our favourite

'Di Wang Miao'. I don't know the English name for this vegetables. Holes can be seen on the leaves because we do not apply pesticides on our vegetables.


Chilies. This species is extremely hot and we end up seldom using them for cooking. Using half for one dish is more spicy than 'cili padi'.

Aubergine. We plant our own because aubergine and chilies are two types of vegetables with most pesticides if we buy at market.



Our little helper helping to carry our harvest.

Things they did

On most Saturdays, Hubby needs to go to work (although self-employed) and I am stuck at home looking after my 2 girls as my parents-in-law will go back to their home town nearby for a break.

I try not to 'work' but try to accompany them as much as possible. I will also get hubby to buy simple lunch like chicken rice or fish ball vermicelli so that I can skip cooking. Sometimes when I need cook lunch for them, they will end up watching TV and I think the time is better spent on bonding time with them.



Several Saturdays ago, I did some simple crafts with them. I helped to cut out shapes from coloured paper and Tian could do her own pasting. I would deliberately leave some details undone, in this case, the ladybird's spots so that Tian could colour by herself. After the bug was done, I pasted it onto a straw and she used it as a magic wand.



I also bought a 'pool' so that they could play with water without having to go to beaches or swimming pools.

They had a great time playing but Tao (my younger girl) could not understand why she needed to come out of water after playing for about 20 minutes and she would cry for more than one hour. Every time she peeked outside and saw the pool, she would cry again. Since then, I have kept the 'pool' in storeroom until she could understand "Enough is enough".

I know it is unfair to the elder girl as she kept on asking me when she can 'swim' in the pool again. Maybe one day, when hubby is at home and can help to keep an eye on them, I will let them play once in while.