Hard Decisions

I keep waking up before 7am, no matter what time I go to sleep the night before. As soon as there is a sliver of blue morning light at the curtains, I wake up.

After much flip flopping about in bed, I got bored and got up and had breakfast. Cereal! Yes, i was excited! I haven't had cereal in about a year. I kept buying healthy cereal flavours that were gross and I'd end up throwing a nearly full box out, so I stopped buying it. This one was really good though, Kelloggs Honey Cornflakes. Not quite as good as Crunchy Nut which they don't sell here, but nice enough.

I went over to my in-law's place after breakfast to give Pinkie her medication. The silly dog ate poison up at camp about a month ago(she went over to the adjoining plantation and ate poison pellets there). While she survived the initial poisoning, the poison damaged her kidneys, and kidneys cannot be fixed :( My father-in-law says we should put her down as she has lost a lot of weight and will have to be on meds for the rest of her life, but G and I want to see if she will respond to the medicine first. I'm just buying time really until I can figure out what to do. Pinkie has been a camp dog her whole life, but bringing her back up may not be possible as her medicine needs to be kept below 4C and the generator only powers the fridge at camp for 7-8 hours of the day.

So, we'll just wait and see for now. I actually googled "kidney transplant for dogs" the other day. I'm dreaming of course as a procedure like that for dogs in Malaysia is basically science fiction.

I was starving after playing with the dogs and went home and made a pizza. I used the leftover meatloaf as a topping along with ricotta, spring onions , cherry tomatoes, parmesan and fresh parsley sprinkled over at the end.

Dinner: Cold green tea soba and salad with wasabi-ponzu sauce.

Dessert: Can you spot my Meiji chocolate wrappers? Just lazing in front of the tv. Looking forward to G coming home tomorrow.

Ricotta Baby

I made two batches of fresh ricotta in the last couple of weeks and I've been enjoying this creamy mild cheese in just about everything, including pancakes. Bill Granger's Ricotta Hotcakes got a big thumb's up from G. I don't think I'll be making pancakes any other way from now on. The ricotta and the whipped egg whites made the softest fluffiest melt in your mouth pancakes I've ever had.

This morning I made baked eggs with ricotta, spring onions, marinara sauce and cherry tomatoes for breakfast. They puffed up like crazy in the oven (yay!) but quickly deflated when I took them out.( boo!)

They were a little tricky to unmould. Next time I'll just serve them up in ramekins. I had them with a little Japanese mayo.

Lunch was spaghetti with garlic prawns, ricotta and marinara sauce (the sauce was hiding underneath the pasta) with a little seven spice Japanese pepper sprinkled on top, and a simple salad of cucumber, cherry tomatoes, mint n spring onions with ponzu n olive oil.

I'm supposed to be going out to run some errands today but it's bucketing down so hard. December is normally rainy here in KK. I just realised this is the third December I've had living here. Time is really flying. I'm a lot happier here now, but I'm still looking forward to the day when we can move away, either back to Melbourne or somewhere else.

Update: My dinner. I admit, when I make up my own recipe, it can be 50/50. Sometimes it comes out great n sometimes it's just meeeehhhh. This made up tofu chicken meatloaf however was very moreish. No, I didn't put ricotta in it, I used parmesan instead. With egg, breadcrumbs, spring onions, garlic powder, parsley, dried thyme n paprika. Smeared with a tomato bbq sauce on top, then baked at 180 C for 45 mins.

For the love of games

Breakfast: Wholemeal crepes with sweet cream and blackberry compote; and iced coffee.

Oh my...getting fancy aren't we :) I would have had to wake up at 6am to put this breakfast together today, but I prepared most of the ingredients last night (whipped the cream, made the batter and chilled the coffee).

And ok, I lied, they're not really wholemeal crepes, I just added a tablespoon of wholemeal flour to the 2/3 a cup of plain flour that made up the batter. But they give the appearance of wholemeal crepes and that makes me FEEL healthier when I eat them :D

I think G has it pretty good in the morning these days. We wake up and he turns on the PS3 while I head to the kitchen. He plays his game while I cook. Then half an hour later I'll yell out "OKAAAAAAAY!" , which is Teaspoon-speak for "Breakfast is ready". I'm really trying to compete noise-wise with Jack from the apartment next door. He is this 4 year old boy who looks a lot older. When we first met him G thought he was 8 years old and that there was something "wrong" with him as he was banging his toy car against the lift door, again and again, like a....well like a 4 year old. Lucky I asked his dad how old he was and then we were like "Ooooooh" - that explains it.

G is currently playing 'Dark Souls' on the PS3 right now, and from a spectator/wife's perspective it is a relatively unannoying game. There are no repetitive voice overs and there's no whiney medieval background music like there is on so many role playing games these days.

There is one bit in the game though that was irritating. The other day while I was taking a nap, I could constantly hear this...

"Chink......chink......chink.......chink....."

Over and over again, like a dwarf mining for gold in a cave. The apartment below is currently undergoing some construction work and in my nap time stupor, I thought it was from coming from there, but the noise was too exact and to the same beat, a workman would have to have been a robot to be making that it. So I came out to the living room and found out it was just the stupid game!

Oh and another thing is that there is no pause function in the game. So say if a husband is in the middle of an intense boss fight and a wife happens to yell out something like "Hun help!!! That baby cheechak with no tail has come BACK!!!", there will be a very long and uncomfortable pause (uncomfortable for the cheechak and the wife who are standing there eyeballing each other) before the husband puts down the remote control to remove the baby lizard from the apartment.

No pause button? Game designers what were you thinking??

In all honesty, I love console and computer games. Playing them in a way is a lot like reading a really good book where you can escape into a story, only better because you are the main character and you can make decisions and affect the story line to certain extent. Actually, G and I played WOW for many years. We did the whole shabang: instances, pvp, end game raiding...(yes, I know, n3rds!) We eventually stopped because:

1) We got a puppy who did not care to share our attention with two computers.

2) I got tired of going to work red-eyed after gaming till 2am every morning.

3) We decided to get married. Then real life kinda took over.

These days I just spectate as G unwinds from work with a new game. While I love playing two player games with him on the PS3 (that way he can do all the thinking and I can just follow him around and be his sidekick, mindlessly killing all the baddies), there are so few good ones out there. Almost everything is for the single player. And with game designers so reluctant to seriously tap into the female gaming market, I just end up sticking to old skool games on my iPhone.

Rainy

Breakfast: Fried egg, spice potatoes, cherry tomatoes and orange juice.

My cheery new breakfast mug. It's so small, just the right size for my fresh juice.

Looks like there's a new sitcom coming out on cable next week called 'That Girl' starring Zooey Deschanel. I love her! It's been years since I got into a sitcom.

I also finally got to see Midnight in Paris last week. It wasn't what I expected but I enjoyed it all the same. And how gorgeous is Carla Bruni!

G got back from his overnighter this afternoon. I think he was tired and just wanted a simple dinner of basic Chinese comfort food so I made chicken soup with carrots, potatoes and pak choy, stir fried cabbage with enoki mushrooms and ham (I used BUTTER instead of oil. It was a good move. mmMmm!), and I defrosted some char siew (sweet roast pork) I made last week and we had that with rice.

Dessert was ice cream, chocolate for me and macadamia nut for him.


*You may have noticed that I removed that big picture of a chicken drumstick in soup because G said it looked disgusting. Haha. He is my unofficial blog editor.

Sunday

Breakfast: Last night's onigiri (rice balls) and orange juice.

This is the first time I've made them successfully after following Maki's excellent tutorial. I wrapped the seaweed round them Japanese convenience store style and stuffed them with tuna with mayo. They were good!

Lunch: Israeli couscous salad with grilled corn, char grilled capsicum, cherry tomatoes and raisins. (recipe to come!)

I made G a packed lunch. He's heading to camp on his own today. I decided not to go this time as it's only an overnight trip and the up and down travel really tires me out sometimes. Plus I really need to get a haircut and do something about my nails before our trip next week....

Do I sound guilty for not going yet? Heh...

Dinner: Couscous by candlelight.

Just me and the tv tonight.

Friday Feeds

Breakfast: 2 slices of Croque Monsieur and half a glass of milk

Lunch: Cold green tea soba with dipping sauce.

This is my go to lunch when I'm on my own as G for some reason doesn't like cold noodles. He also doesn't like lentils, cold chicken (unless it's in a salad), chawanmushi, chickpeas, kidney beans (any sort of legume really), snow pea shoots, Chinese jelly (though he loves jello) and risotto.

Today's grocery haul. Just a small haul. (Japanese rice, panko bread crumbs, organic wholemeal flour, pickles, oranges, corn, organic cherry tomatoes and seaweed) This time I'm going to keep the rice in the fridge because last time moths hatched out after a couple of weeks and I had to throw my expensive rice away. Apparently it's the humidity here that causes this :(

I had this great plan to make a miso-mayo baked salmon dish for dinner tonight but the salmon at my local supermarket didn't look too fresh so I had to make a quick menu change and decided to try my hand at onigiri (rice balls!) tonight :D. I'm a also hoping to do something with that corn as a side dish.

Keeping it Simple

Lunch: Stir fried pak choy with garlic and oyster sauce. That's it.

Just keeping things healthy and light in the lead up to our Singapore and Penang trip next week. We've already planned a chilie crab dinner for our first night (Friday), we have a wedding banquet on Saturday, Sunday will probably be Japanese, and for lunch on Monday, we're taking my 85 year old grandma to DB Bistro Moderne, Daniel Boulud's restaurant at Marina Bay Sands (that hotel which looks like it has a ship on top of it.)

My Nonya grandma, who's name is Nellie, Mama Nellie as we call her ( and yes she is as cute as her name sounds),no longer likes Chinese food and prefers a juicy burger and fries any day over a bowl of congee or a plate of chicken rice. "Jelak already!" she says, which means "I'm tired of it!" I supposed after more than 80 years of eating mostly Chinese food, I'd be sick of it too! Hence we are taking her to Mr Boulud for some French-American cuisine. As my grandma is getting on in her years and now no longer wants to travel, we don't get to see her as often as we'd like. So this lunch will be really special for my family as my mum and dad (who live in Perth) and brother (who lives in Sydney) will also be there. We just need my little sister (who is Melbourne based and sadly couldn't make the trip) there to make it one big reunion.

I've never been to Marina Bay Sands before so I'm excited to go check it out. I won't be lazy and I'll bring our proper camera this time for the food and family snaps (if you haven't noticed everything on this blog has just been shot with my iPhone 4, ha!).

Then on Tuesday we are off to Penang for four days of even more eating ... sigh, it makes me happy yet very very full just thinking of it.

Afternoon snack: Sabah tea, dried cranberries and butter cookies.

*oh dear...look at that crooked picture! Tsk tsk!

Thursday

Breakfast: Banana crepes with maple syrup & grapes.

Going thorough a bit of a crepe phase, I am getting quite good at making them now.

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Vanilla Scented Crepes
Makes 6 large crepes, perfect for 2 people
2/3 plain flour
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1 TBS vanilla sugar (or just use 1 tsp of vanilla extract and 1 TBS sugar)
Pinch of salt

Mix all ingredients well, cover and leave to rest for an hour (you can skip this step if you are super hungry - I normally make the batter the night before so the crepes are ready to roll when we wake up).
Heat a pan and butter very lightly. Pour enough batter into the center of the pan to cover about 1/3 of its surface area then quickly pick it up and use a swirling motion to cover the rest of the pan. You may need to re butter the pan half way through. Make sure your pan is quite hot for nicely browned crepes that don't stick to the pan.

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I used to make the crepes as we ate but I soon got tired of hopping back and forth to the stove between mouthfuls so I now make all the crepes in one go, stacking them up and covering them with foil to keep them warm and supple. Supple crepes....mmMmm!

I accidentally elbowed poor G in the face this morning as he scooted over for a sleepy hug and I reacted in my sleep by doing a stretch and my elbow smashed into his nose. So the first words out of G's mouth today was "Mmmmrrrrgghhhhhh..." and mine were "Sorry... sorry....sorry....zzzzzz" lol.

G and I keep waking up just before 6am every morning, this is really unusual for me as I normally like sleeping in. I blame our camp schedule as this is the time we normally wake up when we're there.

Cooking up something green for lunch...

Lunch: Creamy broccoli soup and bread

Deepavali

Breakfast: Takeaway Chee Cheong Fun (rice flour rolls) with sesame seeds and sweet sauce and cold green tea. I'm no chee cheong fun expert but I liked the smooth texture of the rolls, I think they were quite skilfully made.

I also had some nasi lemak but it was such a mess by the time we got home I thought I'd spare my newly hatched blog the ugliness and leave it out this time :p We ended up getting takeaway as today is Deepavali and a public holiday so there were no seats available at Foh Sang.

Deepavali- known as the "festival of lights" involves lighting small clay lamps filled with oil to signify the triumph of good over evil.

Lunch: Stupendous Chicken Salad (see post above)

Tuesday Eats

Breakfast: Crepes with butter, lemon and vanilla sugar. G had his with Nutella and banana.

Lunch: Roast Pork and char siew on rice with a small bowl of clear soup - RM5.50 ($1.80 AUD)

We had lunch for the first time at this little place called Corner Cafe at Karamunsing Complex. They do a mean roast pork which has a fantastic slightly charred flavour and crispy crispy skin. Now we know why they're so packed at lunch time.

Dinner: Risotto with chicken and mushrooms with Sauv Blanc. My favourite.

Schnoodles

This was my breakfast. Well, at least I'm determined to make it all I'm eating for breakfast. G is making it his mission to derail my healthy eating kick with his usual pleas for his favourite breakfast noodles at the local kopi shop. Sigh, I can't say no to him when he says "Let's have schnoodles!" while smiling way too cheerfully for 6.40 in the morning. Fine, we'll go to the schnoodle shop, but I WILL NOT have the delicious fried home made noodles with the tasty egg sauce and topped with slices of roasted pork. Likely I'll just sip my cold Chinese tea and shoot poo poo looks at G as he wolfs his plate down. bleh!

We won't be leaving for our little getaway till this afternoon so I'm hoping we will have time to pick up some reading material before we go :D

G's breakfast - Tenom Mee at the popular kopi place opposite Bintang Ramai in Penampang.

Friday

It was Aussie pikelets for brekkie. Pikelets are basically mini pancakes. We had them with butter and the yuzu jam we brought back from Sapporo. Delicious.

Half way through however I decided I wanted something savoury so I left G to finish up the pikelets and made myself a fried egg with curried potatoes. I put a squeeze of lemon on the potatoes as I was frying them and they were surprisingly good. So I bought more potatoes to take up to camp tomorrow along with lots of oranges, chicken, pork, strawberry yoghurt and cabbage.

So I get to spend my 32nd birthday up at camp on Sunday! I don't know why I put the exclamation mark in after that sentence because I'm not that stoked to spend my birthday at camp, but at least I'll be with my lovely Mr G and the doggies. We'll have to hold off the celebrations till Tuesday when we head to the B&B up in Kundasang. We've booked two nights at a place called Magic Mountain. I can't wait be there with a bottle of wine, a book,
a cardigan and enjoy the cool mountain air with G. It'll be lovelee!

Teaspoon's Curry Fried Potatoes
You'll need:
1 potato, diced into small cubes
1/2 onion, diced
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 teaspoon curry powder
Seasalt
Squeeze of lemon

Method:
Fry the onion in some olive oil, then add potatoes and garlic. Add in the curry powder and salt. When potato is nearly cooked, squeeze in some lemon juice. Serve hot with a fried egg for a scrumptiously different breakfast.

Afternoon snack: US Joanna red plum. Crunchy and sweet.

We get the most beautiful sunsets in KK. The sky turns amazing shades of reds, purples and pinks every evening. G snapped this pic at the traffic lights on the way back from the bank.

Dinner: Grilled prawns with cayenne, cinnamon and lemon and stir fry broccoli.

Dessert: Koko Black chocolate, a present to G from my sweet mum. G let me have the last piece!

Colour Me Thursday

I woke up at 7.15am today and made a leisurely breakfast for G and I. I stuck my no-knead bread in the oven, chopped some fruit, whipped up some Parmesan scrambled eggs and made ice coffee with lots of ice cubes. We've had three days of super hot weather in KK so I was craving something cold n milky, and the iced coffee was just perfect.

I picked up some trinkets from my recent Perth trip. A turquoise pendant necklace (I love the colour!) and a pale gold scaffold ring.

Patchwork Japan bag I found here. I'm like a magpie these days, finding myself drawn to all things colourful :)

Dinner: Homemade tortillas with beef and lentils. It was my first try at making tortillas and they were pooey and dry :( I don't think I kneaded the dough long enough. Rainbow heart plates are new and bought at Daiso today, yay!