McDonald's Chicken Foldover Ramadan Istimewa

Our Muslim friends have started fasting since 3 days ago on 23rd March. McDonald's has introduced the Istimewa Ramadan Chicken and Beef Foldover, a new menu for breaking fast.  I have tried the Chicken Foldover and I really like it.  It suit my taste, I love it immediately at first bite, this time for real that the staff said it is not spicy when I asked her. I can't take food that are too hot and spicy. 

will order the Chicken Foldover again in my next visit.  Hope McDonald's will keep this in their menu.

Pudding and agar-agar Mould

I finally used this jelly, pudding / agar-agar mould last week after keeping it since last year.  I bought this mould because I was attracted to some nice pudding and agar-agar photos posted in the instagram. 

My pudding + agar-agar came out good.  The top layer is wobbly pudding with more solid agar-agar as base.

This is the pudding premix I used, the texture is good.

I used Nazri brand for the yellow agar-agar base.   I reduced the sugar to more than half.  Since the pudding is sugar added premix, I do not want my dessert to be too sweet.  

It's a great help with the jelly mould, this would be one of the desserts I would do for the coming families gatherings, presentable and nice dessert.

 

Shopping for shoes

It's not easy to find a suitable shoes, I usually have to try numerous pairs of shoes before buying a pair and most of the times ended up not buying any.  It's even tougher to buy shoes for someone else.  

It was around Christmas time last year, there were parties to attend.  I have to shop for a pair of heeled shoes for my eldest who doesn't like to go shopping.  

After much nagging, she finally showed me a picture of the kind of shoes she prefers.

I whatsapp pictures of similar kind of shoes to her at the shop to let her choose

I even have to put the shoe on me for her to see whether it's ok.

She is ok with this pattern so I bought 2 sizes bigger for her.  But when she tried them on at home, they were too small for her (OMG!!)..At the end she has to come along to change to other pattern because stock has run out for the pattern I bought for her earlier. 

She only used them twice to the parties last year then safe keeping in the shoe racks until now.

A walk at the park, finally

Have been wanting to go for a walk at the park. My procrastination is the culprit.  I finally did it this afternoon.  Crystal is required to take some photos for her uni assignment, she would like to capture some nice outdoor scenery at Perdana Park.  We arrived at the park slightly after 3pm.

I took the chance to do my walking at the jogging track. The sun was shining bright, another hot day. There are 3 jogging tracks in this park. This track is in the middle ring.

This is the inner track nearest to the pond.  There isn't any shade, I didn't want to get sun burn walking there.

The park is just next to the State Library, it's a nice architectural building with green concepts. 

One side of the park is next to Kinabalu Golf Club, a 9-holes golf course which we are a member but hardly utilise the membership's facilities.

I recorded my walk using Strava.  I did 3.35 km slow walk on the middle and outer tracks. 

You know what ? 

We adjourned to McDonald's for an early dinner after that.  I had this Ramadan Chicken Foldover and a mocha.  I will order this Chicken Foldover again. 

Ice Cream indulgence - Cornetto Love Rose and Unicornetto

Ice cream is one thing that everyone like, irregardless of age.  

These 2 Cornetto ice cream cones were for me and my better half which I bought from the petrol station when we were out and about while our 2 girls decided to stay home having their beauty sleeps.

Among other ice cream in the freezer, I picked these 2 because I like the colours and it's easy to handle when eating ice cream cones in the car.

Sweet pastel colours ice cream.  I know they are artificial colouring,  it's ok, I only had this once so far, it was like more than 6 months ago.  

One night staycation near home

Sis-In-Law and her newlywed son invited us for a night staycation at Likas Square Serviced Apartment on Monday.  They have booked a 3 bedrooms Premier Suite just to chill and relax.  The check-in time is 3pm.  We went there after fetching our girl from school slightly after 5pm, she had her last SPM exam paper done that day, just right for her to unload the stress after about a month long SPM exams. We had potluck dinner with plenty of food.  I even tapau some home after the stay.

The spread of food

Me and my 2 girls occupied the master bedroom (with washroom attached).  3 of us shared a king size bed while my better half made himself comfortable sleeping on the long sofa in the living room.

This was the view from 5th floor overlooking Teluk Likas at around 6.30am.  Sabah Trade Centre is at the bottom left, the car park in front still pretty empty at this hour. Wisma Perindustrian and Bay 21 Condominium are on the left.  I am not sure what's the name of the tall building under construction.

  

These geometric paintings are hanging around the condo.  I couldn't figure out what these painting are about thus unable to appreciation them.  I took photos of them anyway. 

Overall it was a nice staycation spending time with family.  We were talking about  planning for another staycation soon. 

Reviews for the condo unit (my personal opinions) : It would be good if the cooking utensils can be replaced and there are water leakages in the kitchen (which made the floor slippery), showers need to be fixed for the bathrooms too.

Oscar Winner Tan Sri Michelle Yeoh

Based on the social media report, congratulations messages have been pouring in for Tan Sri Michelle Yeo as soon as she won the prestigious Oscar awards.  

It was in our local newspaper yesterday.  She has made our nation proud.  Malaysia Boleh. 

Home, Food, Family, Love

These are two of the decorative items hanging on our kitchen wall.  

The "HOME" cross stitch on top of the door to the backyard, was a present from my close friend, Viv, we have known each other since primary school, continued to secondary school and later colleague.  It's a very meaningful piece of cross stitch,  "HOME is where you keep your heart"

By the door, we hang a lovely piece of prayer, a Christmas present from family.  We could read the FOOD, FAMILY, LOVE from a distance.

Come closer, the verse goes "Bless the FOOD before us, the FAMILY besides us, the LOVE between us, Amen".  

Flying Noodles / Floating Noodles

Heard so much about the Flying Noodles or Floating Noodles in the social media.  This was last year around Christmas time, we went ot Suria Sabah shopping mall to do our Christmas shopping.  We seated ourselves for lunch at one of the restaurants in the mall, I noticed they have flying noodles in their menu.  Out of curiosity, I ordered one to try out.

The noodles are hard and full of starchy gravy, I find it hard to eat.  I made a bit of a mess eating it and I didn't finish it.  I still prefer the springy and chewy texture type of noodles.

I ordered a hot drink, it was Kopi Kahwin Tarik to help me send the noodles down.

Learning foreign languages

My better half has been wanting to learn how to speak good Mandarin. He mingled around with Hakka speaking classmates when he was in secondary school, and now in most business encounters with the Chinese communities, Mandarin is spoken along side with BM and English. He tends to mix up Hakka with Mandarin. Hence, my girls recommended their daddy to take up online Mandarin class from Duolingo which they have been doing so by learning Spanish and Korean respectively.  They have previously mentioned it before but we did not put attention to what they are talking about.  

Without further delay, my eldest opened up the online website, helped her daddy to register and start learning Mandarin the night itself.  As for me, I chose to learn Korean because my youngest is learning Korean from the same website but put her Korean class on hold to concentrate on her SPM exams revision for the time being.  Well, it would be an advantage if two of us can practice speaking Korean next time.

I have started my Korean lessons since 8th Mar'23

the lessons look like this. 

My daughters have been consistent in reminding us to attend our daily classes.

After few days into the lessons, I still haven't got a clue on the Korean language characters.  Will learn at a slow pace. No pressure (😄😄) 

  

Banana Recipe for Generations

Do you boil the Bananas ?  

Yes we do.  It is very common for us to boil the Pisang Saba even though we can peel the skin off to eat them like other bananas  My mum loves boiled Pisang Saba (Banana Saba).  She served us boiled Pisang Saba when we went visit her, she would ask us to bring some home if she has got extra.  

There is no special recipe for boiled Pisang Saba.  Just clean them and boil them in a pot of water.  The fully ripened banana taste the best (sweeter) after boiling.  The boiled bananas can be kept up to few days in room temperature and longer if store in the fridge.

the boiled pisang Saba turned softer and browned.

We also use Pisang Saba to make banana fritters (pisang goreng) and banana chips.  

We used to have banana trees growing over the fencing at the back of our backyard.  They are growing wide, tall and wild. They have grown near attaching to the roof.  I insisted to remove them when we did our kitchen renovation last year.  They will grow back overnight especially after the rain.  We have to trim them almost every week to prevent them from growing wild again.  The price of Pisang Saba is relatively cheaper than the other bananas of similar size.

Oats for breakfast

We have been frequent having oats for breakfast these days. It is quick to fix and healthy. Pearl likes oatmeal, she learnt from youtube/tiktok on how to prepare overnight oats meal for her next day morning breakfast before school.

I bought this pack of Oats with Omega 3 flax flakes, it is an Australian product.  Easy to prepare by adding hot water to soften the oats just like any instant oats.  The texture is good.

This is my Strawberry Oatmeal breakfast.  I also had some blueberries Oatmeal the day before to add more varieties to my breakfast.

Home Bakes - Cocoa Almond Muffin Cupcakes

My daughter was in the mood to bake cupcakes.  After baking the mini carrot cupcakes on last Sunday, she wanted to try out another cake with different flavour, I was a bit lazy but she promised to help out, she started to randomly flipped through a cake recipe book in the kitchen and found a coffee & walnut cake but I do not have instant coffee power nor walnut.  I do have coco powder and almond flakes which I have not been able to use them for anything yet, thus we have a twist on the ingredients and we had Cocoa Almond Muffin cupcakes instead.

It was supposed to be a cake as per the recipe book, since I have got plenty of unused muffin cupcake cases in stock might as well use them up.  We only made 7 medium size muffin cupcakes using this recipe, using smaller size cupcake cases will yield more. 

I included the ingredients in my youtube video description box for record.

Monday food stuff shopping and dinner

Yesterday Morning, after sending Crystal to Uni, we went to the wet market to get some fresh vegetables, we have totally run out of green in our fridge.  

These are what we bought 

This sawi and pak choi is RM2.00 per ikat

We bought some favourite kuih for our lunch & tea breaks and a loaf of bread for the next day morning breakfast as Pearl has got SPM's Accounting exam in the morning, we need a quick fix breakfast before rushing to school.

After the wet market, we went to the supermarket meant to get a can of evaporated milk for the whole grain desert that I boiled on Saturday.  100% of the time when we went into the supermarket we will come out with more stuff than what we intended to buy.

the evaporated milk and a bag of rice

some frozen food that come in handy for breakfast (the Mantou), lunch and dinner (the chicken meat rolls & Pork meat ball)

and a bag of 16 rolls of toilet tissues.  The prices of the toilet tissues have increased some much, this brand cost RM2.04 per roll, I find the quality of this tissue is satisfying.

To save us time from cooking lunch, we take out/tapau 2 Tuaran Mee for our girls from the shop we had breakfast.  

For dinner, we had the chicken meat rolls that we bought from the supermarket in the morning.  I fried the rolls in the air fryer

and cut them up, served them in a bed of green vegetable

3 dishes, very simple dinner