2016年4月1日星期五

Feed The Mommy——Tuna Cakes with Lemon Dijon Sauce

Ever since I embarked in the 5:2 Diet journey, I hardly have to cook. Besides, my son is on a strike, instead of eating like a toddler, he went back to eat baby food like puree and cereal. It kind of makes my life easier really, I hardly do any cooking anymore. And groceries last me for a longer time!

Such a bliss!

Anyway, I still browse easy recipes every now and then. Recipes for one, recipes that is baby friendly (and edible for adults), recipes for lazy person, quick recipes etc. And my recent favourite is Mediterranean diet, they seem to be healthy and quick to prepare!

And I tried tuna cakes yesterday! And I love it so much I'm going to make more next week!

Tuna cakes in lettuce bed with lemon dijon sauce

I happened to see this recipe on Pinterest, and thought to myself, "This is simple enough for me!".

I do not measure everything accurately, I just made some estimation based on the recipe. And because it's my first trial, I made it with one can of tuna instead of two.

Things that I will like to change for my next trial:
1. Add more Dijon in the sauce
2. Crush in some garlic
3. I might want to add one egg for a can of tuna
4. Eat this with burger bun
5. Add a lot more chives! Chives is brilliant :P

If you are using tuna in olive oil, keep the oil aside after draining and use it for frying the tuna cakes.

Lemon Dijon sauce on tuna cake

The lemon Dijon sauce is the soul of this dish, so make sure you fine tune the taste of the sauce to your likings before serving.

Definitely a recipe to keep :)

2016年3月30日星期三

A Date with My Brother at Black Kettle Cafe, Georgetown Penang

Cafes come, cafes go. Good cafes with characters and good coffee stick around; Bad ones (or unlucky ones) got kicked out from the game.

We have our favourites (mine will be Cozy in the Rocket), but sometimes we like to try some new ones. After dropping off our eldest sister at the airport, we decided to head to Georgetown. The weather is too hot nowadays, the only criteria I set is to have air conditioned cafe.

Black Kettle is relatively new, both of us have never tried before. And we knew it's air conditioned. Good for us.

As we stepped into the cafe, we were surprised. We never knew the cafe is SO spacious!

The counter

The bakery

One of the nicest corner in the cafe, but you can be a little too close to the people at the next table, so we decided to sit somewhere else. 

Suitable for people watching

Posters in the cafe suggesting that this is a 4000 sq feet area. One of the biggest cafe I've been to in Georgetown. You can even book the place for events, I wonder at what price.

We have already had our light lunch at home so we didn't order any mains. We've got an affogato, a flat white, a slice of chocolate and cheese cake (called black and white), and a plate of fries with truffled mayo. The bill came at RM55.95. The coffee were both great, the cake was rich and not too sweet. But the fries are totally over priced at RM14, and not a tinge of truffle taste in the mayo at all. No more fries for me next time.

My affogato

The cafe is adequately lit. As usual, we took our turns to walk around the cafe and took some photos. And this, my affogato, was my favourite. (Note: I was pouring my espresso with my right hand, holding my phone with my left and took this with timer)

Maybe, next time I will try the pancake.

Address:
105, Beach Street, 10300, Georgetown, Penang

2016年3月23日星期三

I'm Fasting, Intermittently

Long time ago, when we still spent time in front of TV after dinner together (you got it, that's pre-baby time), we learned about intermittent fasting on BBC channel, from a doctor named Dr. Michael Mosley.

After that, The Man had tried this diet, and it helped him to lose a fair bit of weight. At that time I didn't bother to try. My food is more important!

After baby, we've all put this diet thing behind and never talked about it. Needless to say, we both gained some baby-weight. And recently, The Man wanted to go back to the diet again. There were also some sharing on Facebook, with menus for Asian diet.

This time, I went on board to the diet with The Man.

So what's 5:2 diet? If reading the lengthy article is not your thing, you can chose any two days of the week to go on fasting. But you don't have to go totally food-less, just lesser food. How little? Well, for men you are allowed 600 calories a day, while for women, it's 500 calories a day. That means, you're spreading calories of one meal from your normal day, and stretch it out for 24 hours. The rest of the five days, just eat normally. As simple as this.

This is my second week now. We chose Tuesday and Thursday as fast days, yes together because I'm preparing breakfast for the two of us everyday so having the same diet makes it easier for me.

On my first day, last Tuesday, I felt terrible. I kept thinking about food. Sometimes I thought of them when I felt hungry but most times, I was thinking about the sinfully delicious food for no reason. It's simply craving! But with some determination, I managed to survive. The next day, I ate normally.

And on the second day, Thursday, surprisingly the fasting went on pretty easily. No craving, no hunger! I think my body has got used to it. And after a weekend of eating and feasting, my second week of fasting still went on smoothly.

So come to think about it, we actually do not need so much food. We are simply craving!

So here, I just want to share what I eat on my fast day. These are my three meals yesterday.

Breakfast: Steamed sweet potato, baked egg with cherry tomatoes (I added a bit of mozzarella cheese for myself but not for The Man), a bit of grapes. And a cup of black coffee, without milk and sugar.

Breakfast 

Lunch: Cherry apple

Lunch

Dinner: A bowl of oat in milk, with some walnuts and raisins, and some steamed broccoli.

Dinner

In between, if I got really hungry, I munch a bit of walnuts. And also drink lots of water.

I am not super duper strict on sticking to 500 calories I think I ate about 500-600, closer to 600 I would say. But if you want to find out how much calories for each type of food you want to take, you can try this website

Some menu recommends boiled chicken breast for dinner. I think that's terrible, it makes me feel very sad to fast. I'd rather eat oat than boiled chicken breast seriously. If you want more Asian menu, you can try google 5:2轻断食.

To clarify things up, I'm not looking into losing a lot of weight (in case you're going to say anything :P), I'm just looking into losing some tummy fat from pregnancy. And hey, Dr Mosley said this helps in longevity!

Let see how long I will stay in this diet, with my typical 3 minutes enthu!

2016年3月2日星期三

轰轰烈烈以后

五个女人的美腿










搁着搁着,部落就这样被搁着一段时间。回家过年,一过就过了三个星期;还没有平伏过年的气氛,再去一趟台湾。

时间就在一场又一场的轰轰烈烈中度过。

现在,一切恢复平静。孩子睡了,整间家里,只有电脑和电风扇的声音。

这趟台湾之旅,来的不容易,要配合五个女人忙碌的时间真不简单。况且,抛夫弃子都得做适当的安排。一个下午通了700多封简讯以后,才得到一个大家可以出游的日子。



















旅行之时,我们都在幻想下一次该一起到哪儿去?不过,也不知道究竟下一次是几时?明年?后年?还是庆祝25周年之时?

时间到了,自然有答案。就等天时地利人和!

当时在外澳,我稍稍落后看着这一幕。心里有点抽着的感动,这感觉和以前简直是一模一样。这样的友谊,二十年了,还各分东西了这么久,原来感觉是不会变的。以后我们老了,也是一样这样旅行吧!

2016年1月23日星期六

Do You Sleep When Baby Sleeps?

Hah!

Really! Most of us don't. There might be a bunch of mothers who do that, but often I do see parents sharing comics of how mothers feel when baby sleeps. We're tired, but like our own babies, we refuse to sleep when we're tired.

Like mothers like babies, they just run in the genes!

When baby sleeps, we're so excited and at the same time trying to be as ninja as possible. Rolling out from the bed as quiet as possible, fear that any nanometers movements will set him open his bright eyes and smile to us (It's worse when they start wailing but really I'm trying to show you the sweet side of babies). When they do, we do sighs, pitiful of ourselves, and roll back to his side and continue the game of pretending to sleep.

Real. Life. Story.

Every. Single. Night!

Sometimes I get the question, "Do you sleep when he sleeps?". And whenever I told The Man, he would chuckle like it's a silly idea. Because even he's not at home quite that often. But when he does, he would sneak out after the baby sleeps. Claiming victory that he, the father has finally got the baby to fall asleep under his care!

We're terribly helpless night owls. Whenever baby sleeps, we will start munching away on titbits, checking out on phones, watching TV, reading, etc. Until we think it's really too late. Because that one-two hours is the only time we're capable of talking to each other.

Or, just do nothing at all.

Because doing nothing at all, has becoming a fairy tale. Parents sitting side by side and do nothing at all, is the closest thing to romantic.

Whenever baby takes a nap in the afternoon, I have a list of things to do. And they're in two categories, "things I do because I have to" and "things I want to do and because I'd be happy".

You should know by heart what are in the first category, laundry, vacuuming, mopping, dishes, cooking, preparing ingredients for the next meal, maintaining the water and hot water supply, did I mention laundry? Then, washing dishes. Then, did I mention laundry?

Then, there are things I like to do.


Coffee and crackers with peanut butter, mmm....

I make a cup of coffee when baby sleeps. It probably feels like popping champagne to celebrate. Then, I'll do whatever I am probably addicted or committed to at that moment.

It can be a comedy (There's only ONE comedy that I'm still watching, TBBT!)

One book after another, this is the second one in a week

It can be a novel! I missed the days when I go sleepless because of a book. Recently I got myself into this shit again, I got a few books from library. Seriously hooked, bad bad thing.

It can be an online course (I'm so proud of myself I actually completed an online course!!!)

It can be colouring, because as cliche as it sounds, it does take the mind off for a moment.

Stretching makes everything better

It can be yoga, because my tummy is showing, and because I'm more susceptible to neck and back pain since having baby.

It can be just reading some new things I want to learn, painting, drawing, typography, recipe...

It can be just blogging.

It can be mini project I'm doing, like my 30 days with 50mm.

And the list goes on forever and ever, because I never stop wanting to do things.

With luck I can have one hour to do the chores and one hour for my hobby. With no luck, baby wakes up too early for hobby.

With laze, I neglect my chores, and do whatever I like and pay back another day. And that absolutely feels so good, when I neglect, not when I pay back.

And when the happy hour ends, I usually sigh. Not because I don't love my boy, it's just I am really in the middle of something!

We don't sleep not because we're not tired. We don't sleep because simply we have a lot to do, whether it's for the house or just to keep ourselves sane.

Sometimes, I sleep too. Because the eyelids are simply heavier than the laundry basket.

So, do I sleep when baby sleeps?
Nah, it's happy hour, nobody sleeps during happy hour =)

2015年12月11日星期五

Feed The Mommy——整个番茄饭配牛油虾

最近比较烦。

烦什么呢?烦煮饭。儿子开始吃大人食物,而且越来越喜欢吃。从开始吃固体食物,他就对粥恨之入骨。刚开始是每喂一次就闹一次。我以为是口味不合适,煮了很多不同的口味,但没有一样行得通。所以,都是米糊、面包为主。后来还改吃意大利面。

后来,发现他会吃饭了,就偶尔给饭。白饭,淋汤,一点胡萝卜、一点豆腐、一点鱼、一点肉碎⋯⋯反正就看当天我煮的是什么。

听起来好像没有什么问题。

问题就在,以前他还在天天吃米糊的时候,我一周可能也只煮一两次的白饭。偶尔吃萨拉,偶尔吃三文治,偶尔吃面线,偶尔吃面,偶尔吃意大利面,偶尔吃麦片⋯⋯可以多懒就多懒。

现在,要想破头脑,什么比较容易煮(又好吃的),有没有鸡蛋的(孩子对蛋白敏感)⋯⋯逼的我最近煮饭比以前多,出门也吃中餐/日本餐。真的是,越来越麻烦!

想想,不如让他试试整个番茄饭,再另煲一锅汤就可以了。可是,我单单吃番茄很淡吧,不如试试弄点虾。

就这样,锵锵锵,我们的一餐就搞定了。

整个番茄饭,牛油虾,蒸椰花菜




材料(一人两餐份/两人一餐份):

  1. 一个番茄,切丁
  2. 蒜头,剁碎
  3. 牛油,少许
  4. 盐,少许
  5. 虾(你爱吃几只就几只嘛),剝壳去头,用一点点的盐腌制

做法:
  1. 用牛油把蒜头和番茄爆香,然后加入饭锅和白饭一起煮
  2. 用牛油把虾在平底锅稍微煎一下,切记不可煎得太久,煎老了不好吃。一边两分钟左右即可。
  3. 白饭煮好了,用筷子把白饭、蒜头和番茄搅合。
  4. 请慢用。


简单快捷的一餐

后来,我发现我忘了很重要的东西,炸蒜头!我妈妈给我一盒炸蒜头,我很爱用,太好用了,不管加进哪道菜都马上变香。


后来才加上的炸蒜头!

美中不足的是,要为虾剝壳,就是准备那里稍微多花点时间。