Thursday Lunch

It’s just my daughter and myself for lunch today, as Mr T has a lunch appointment, and DT has to be in school for an extra-curricular activity. I decided on sandwiches, as I’ve not had them for a week, and also, I wanted an excuse to use my new bento boxes.

As far as breads were concerned, we were spoilt for choice today. Apart from homemade wholemeal bread, we also had a very nice white loaf (courtesy of Signore Marcello of Grazie), and last, but not least, naan breads given by Kpenyu. The naans were delivered piping hot, and not only did Kpenyu deliver it, he even sliced them in quarters for easier “toasting”, wrapped them up in foil, and threw into the freezer.

TT wanted the white breads (a real luxury for her!), while I decided on the naan breads. For TT, her sandwich fillings were:

• egg, salt and pepper, butter and dijon mustard mix;
• lettuce, slice of SPAM “Golden Honey Grail”, strawberry jam, and butter.

I gave her some dark chocolate M&M’s which she ate in between her sandwiches, and some edamame.

My sandwich fillings were more or less the same:

• curried egg, butter, tomato slices and lettuce;
• lettuce, slice of SPAM “Golden Honey Grail”, strawberry jam, and butter.

My other box which we shared had pineapple pieces and orange slices in one section, and edamame beans and star-moulded hard boiled egg in the other.

I used my new Lock&Lock Lunch Box set, and the set looks like this – it comes complete with 2 X 510 ml lunch boxes (one box with a 2 section divider), 300 ml juice/water bottle, and insulated bag. At the inner lid of the bag, there’s a pocket for cutlery, tissues etc.

This one is specially for Kpenyu – thank you for the naans. If you feel like having my kinda sandwiches, let me know, and I’ll prepare them for you one of these days, 24 hours notice, please! 

SPAM-ed

So, SPAM. My son asked what this is, and isn’t that something you definitely do not want in your emails. I have to say, he had a taste, and now he’s SPAM-ed. Actually, I re-discovered SPAM again recently. I remember seeing them in supermarket shelves years and years ago, but my memory only served up SPAM “Turkey”, which I ate maybe three years back. I remember it was scarce, and when I wanted to buy another (then), it was no longer in stock.

Ta Kiong now brings in a few varieties, including “Hickory Smoke”, “Lite”, “Garlic”, “Original”, and if I’m not mistaken “Hot  & Spicy”.  I bought “Bacon” from Cold Storage in Kuching, and that was  extra nice. (I usually have “Lite”, when I indulge). Tong Hing supermarket in KK has a very decent selection as well, including “Cheese”. I quickly snapped a pic of the SPAM shelf in Tong Hing. (Kpenyu, this is NOT illegal, right?  JW was walking around, but I was rather quick!)

I suppose there are many ways of eating SPAM, and I’ve used them for sandwiches, also for breakfast fry-ups, and really my favourite, in fried rice (credit to tfp). For those interested in the origins of SPAM, go here. I am trying to be careful about the levels of sodium nitrite intake, and they are in most canned foods, and this is no exception, so I try (keyword!) and limit my intake of canned foods to not more than one a fortnight. However, I had a bit of an OCD moment recently with SPAM, and ended up with this:

The “Garlic” is really aromatic, and I used it (diced up in cubes) for fried rice. I could still smell garlic on my hands a couple of hours later. That first one on the left read “Golden Honey Grail”, so I guess it’s honey flavoured, maybe something like “honey-cured ham”. When I try that, I will provide feedback.

The fried rice was a hit, when I made it for dinner a few nights back. My SIL commented that she hasn’t had fried rice with so much meat in it before. I had to cook to suit my metabolic type after all (i guess the rest can pick out the SPAM bits, but didn’t see any evidence of that, of course). My kids fought over the leftovers the next day! My very special fried rice with SPAM, corn kernels, diced carrots, endamame peas (i thought it was green peas in the freezer), and eggs.

I think this has got to be my favourite fried rice at the moment. Well, maybe it’s a tie with my other version, instead of SPAM I would use diced roasted pork belly and char siew. I also prefer to use briyani rice, love that  it’s less starchy, and the grains separate nicely, too!

SPAM, anyone? Would love to know how others eat it.

Ps. I miss doing bentos a little, but bought some nice boxes! Can’t wait to use them!

KK Eats – WK Restaurant (Dim Sum)

The buzz was that a chef from Guangdong was hired for the dim sum at WK Restaurant, along Jalan Bundusan. KK has seen many dim sum restaurants come and go, in the last year or so, and I have yet to hear a new one flourishing. There was a good one in Towering (Penampang), but that closed down a few months back.  Currently, it seems the best one is WK, and that was where we found ourselves for lunch today.

There wasn’t much of a lunch time crowd to speak of, considering it’s a saturday, but the crowd could have already dispersed, as dim sum is more a brunch meal. There was no food cart, and we had to order a la carte, but the service was pretty good, and we didn’t have to wait long for our food. Here’s what we ate:

Siew Mai – one of our favourites.

KK Eats – Kedai Kopi Tong Fung, Inanam

I first heard about this place a few months ago, from friends who visited KK, and had rave reviews about this place. When the locals say a particular coffeeshop has excellent food, you can be fairly certain that the shop itself will look run down, and it seems all such establishments subscribe to “substance over form”.

This is where we lunched:

There were just 4 of us, and we ordered the shop’s signature dishes, a “mixed fish” soup, and the hong shao ( red hot) fish, plus kan lau mee (dry haul noodles) for everyone.

The “mixed fish” soup,  had fish meat slices, fish balls, fish maw, tofu, tomatoes, and chinese celery.

The hong shao was up next, and there’s two shots of the dish. It was that good!  This dish was also highly recommended by Kpenyu, whom I spoke with on the mobile, while I was on the way to lunch.

Am normally not a fan of  KK’s version of kan lau mee , but for some reason, (and I wasn’t that hungry either), this one was very good. Although the shop has a sign saying “Serve No Pork”, I could’ve sworn the noodles were “larded” at some point. It was very very yummy!

And this little girl obviously thought so too!

Saturday Eats

The day started with brunch at Kim Joo, my favourite kolo mee coffeeshop. The last time I was here was when the Dimong sisters were in town, and I have been thinking about the coffee. Brought my daughter along, as she is fast becoming a fan of kolo mee, as is her brother, who reckons Kuching kolo mee is “the bestest”. Until recently, my daughter was not keen on having meals, in particular, breakfast, outside. Now that she has discovered “iced Milo”, and kolo mee, she happily tagged along.

My daughter had the kolo mee, while I ordered char kway teow to share with two other breakfast buddies. One of them also ordered kolo mee pok, which is like a flat noodle, only slimmer.

Notice how the portion of char sau served was substantial, compared to the norm. Even the slices are thicker. I actually specified that I wanted “half the noodle portion, but add extra char sau“. This is how I normally order ever since I got metabolically typed. Even though this was for my daughter, I thought the “half portion” noodle was just nice for her. We also shared a soup, better known as cheng, which if I am not mistaken, means “without noodles”. Maybe stp can clarify it’s meaning.

My friend commented that the char sau tasted different than other shops, and proceeded to ask the seller how it was prepared. Apparently most, if not all, kolo mee sellers now just add coloring and seasoning to the pork, and then steam the pork. By definition this is NOT char sau. Kim Joo still barbeques their char sau the traditional way, over charcoals, and they do this at least twice a week, and sometimes thrice, if business is better than usual. We learn something new everyday, eh?

Their menus:

Kim Joo is at 73, Ewe Hai St, just further down from Carpentar St.

Dinner was a simple, all-in-one dish. Baked a chicken with bacon rashers,  roasted some vegetables, and dinner rolls to go with it.

Hope everyone is enjoying the weekend!

For Lindy1

Today, I finally cracked open my tin of corned beef which I bought from  the Ta Kiong (TK) supermarket more than a month ago. Lindy 1, my cousin, said this particular brand, “Celebrity” is one of the nicest she’s tried in recent times.

The egg was a hard-boiled egg, uneaten from breakfast, so decided to add to the corned beef dish;

Lindy1, have to agree that this brand of corned beef is yummy! Lina also fried some cabbage (with dried prawns), so everything went very well together. This was my plate.

Does anyone else have other easy ways to cook corned beef?

Ps. Just in case anyone’s interested, TK has recently brought in three more varieties of SPAM. So now they have “Original”, “Lite”, “Sodium Reduced”, “Garlic” and “Hickory Smoke”. Yet to see SPAM “Bacon”, but it is available in Cold Storage. Maybe will blog about this next time.

Scent of a home

I consider Kuching my hometown, but I was born in Sibu. My family moved when I was about 5 years of age. As both parents’ family were in Sibu, I got to visit Sibu almost every school holidays, and those visits were the highlights of my pre-teen school years. In Sibu, I stayed with my paternal grandma and my two unmarried aunts, my absolute favourite people in the world at the time, especially my Aunt Gertrude, who was also my godmother (all three are deceased).

The best holiday would have to be the end of year long break, and if I was lucky, I would get a six weeks stay in Sibu. Year end also meant the season for fruits like durian, mangosteens, cempedak, dabai (local black olives), rambutans, local longans, and a couple other fruits. Grandma had a fruit orchard across the Igan River (thanks stp!) , and she (together with Kawi, her orchard-keeper)  would cross the river with a sampan to collect the fruits. I am sure she had durians and dabai, as these were the two favoured fruits, and everybody’s all-time favs! I got to follow her a few times, and it was absolute fun, and positively memorable.

I remember very distinctly grandma’s house smelling perpetually of local fruits blend, and the overpowering ones would be durians (of course) and also cempedak.  For some inexplicit reason, just the scent of cempedak wafting through the air will jolt feelings of nostalgia, and it brings me back to grandma’s house, specifically the back patio/verandah.

It is year end, and we’re starting to see the abovementioned seasonal fruits (durians not so seasonal anymore of course). I saw some cempedaks, and bought one yesterday. So there I was driving back with one single cempedak in the car, and reminiscing about gran’s house, gran, and my aunts, ma-ko and sa-ko. Good times, indeed!

As far as I’m concerned, am not a big fan of cempedak, not the fruit itself anyway. I told Lina I just want to have cempedak fritters, and the boiled seeds. A couple of hours later, after running an errand, I came back to the smell of cempedak fritters! Joy!

And the pièce de résistance, for moi:

Random bentos

Have been packing brunches for three weeks now, and it’s still fun. Am trying to get this to be a routine, especially when school term starts again in January. With the school holidays round the corner, my routine is going to be completely different, thus bento boxes will not be used for a few weeks.

Was going through my photos, and found some unpublished ones, so here are the more appealing ones.

(Mixed fruits in upper box; leftover fried bee hoon with clams, baked chicken, quail eggs, and pumpkins in lower box)

(Have always loved curry egg mayo sandwiches, the middle one is a spam and mushroom sandwich)

(KFC mix (from tfp) sandwich, with one kaya sandwich, and mangoes and prunes in upper box; chicken, cheese & rocket salad in lower box)

(This was today’s box, tamagoyaki and leftover fried rice in upper box: mangoes, grapes, orange, papayas and mini cheese cubes in lower box.)

And here’s my little carry bag for my brunch!

Cuteness overload….gah! 

First attempt

When dining in a Japanese restaurant or eatery, I will always order the tamagoyaki, egg omelette roll, and have always lazily wondered how that’s made. Googling for the recipe proved easy enough, and there are even some video demos on youtube. It’s actually quite simple requiring only eggs, mirin, dashi (stock), sugar, soy sauce and sesame oil.

So I tried and it turned out okay, although it’s a bit “burnt”:

The reason why it’s on the sushi mat is for further shaping, ie, wrap it up tightly, and then secure with a rubber band, and then you let it cool like this:

Ta da! (still needs some work!)

Yums!

the 80/20 rule

……in this particular context refers to nutrition plan, specifically mine. I don’t like “to go on diet”, as for me, it is doomed from the start, promising only failure, this, based on many many years of experience. It may all be semantics, but “nutrition plan” just seems to make more sense to me. With a family history of hypertension and artherosclerosis (my father passed away from complications of this condition), I have become more careful, to help reduce risk of heart disease. As I am already genetically predisposed with this health risk, I can only control my lifestyle (including nutritional choices).

Anyone who watches Oprah will have noticed that her favourite physicians Dr Mehmet Oz and Dr  Michael Roizen, come on her shows quite regularly to offer health and nutrition advice. Dr Oz has his own talk show now, under the umbrella of Harpo Productions of course. The Hallmark channel is supposed to have a 6 hours Dr Oz marathon this month, and I hope to catch that (note to self: check astro for scheduling). Anyway, I have read “You on a Diet” written by Dr Oz and Dr Roizen, and it was the most interesting health book I’ve read, after Paul Chek’s “How to Eat, Move and Be Healthy!”. Both books talk about food choices, and eating well. Do check them out if you chance upon either one in the bookstores.

Moving on, my 80/20 rule entails eating well (read healthy) 80% of the time, and then I get to “cheat” 20% of the time. Normally, I schedule my cheating for the weekends, when I can indulge in anything, and also time to reward self. Sometimes it backfires, and the rule gets bent, or broken, but I’ve been good last few weeks.

It’s Saturday today, cheat day, as far as I’m concerned. The day started well, with a 50 minute cardio-only session in the gym. Brunch was responsibly healthy. Mid-afternoon, I wanted a sweet, specifically a tall cake with a nice cup of brewed coffee. Here, decent tall cakes means going to “Secret Recipe” for a decent selection. This was afternoon tea, literally, as “Secret Recipe” ran out of coffee, I kid you not! (I still can’t get over how they can run of coffee….who is supervising the outlet?!?)

Save for the cream, I finished the slice in its entirety.

Feeling slightly guilty, I went to check out a cruiser bike, as I’ve been yearning to have one for a few months now, but not willing to put a dent in my pocket. Am still undecided, but just take a look at this:

Should I? It’s soooo tempting! I rode around the block of shops twice! It is very comfortable, none of that mountain bike feel.

Had to buy dinner tonight, as Lina is down with the flu, and with my guilt easily erased (on account of cycling, decided to order pizza from Pizza Hut. They’ve got this new pizza “world pizza” or something, but I just got two countries….heh.

I am still not a fan of Pizza Hut, enough said.

80/20 rule? Huh? Wha dat?