Pizza Bread

It was last week after school sports day, they were all sweaty after the event, it would be more comfortable to get refresh and settle for lunch at home.  Our girls agreed with having pizzas for lunch.  We had to stop by the supermarket to get some ingredients on our way home. 

This time we tried using bread as the base instead of pizza dough.  We chose the thick sliced white bread to hold the toppings.

I sliced and chopped the basic toppings like sausages, crab stick filaments, capsicum and onions and my girl help to grate the cheese through the Tupperware grater.

my girls and my niece placed the toppings on their own bread, the one with onions & capsicum is mine, ready to put into the oven.  It is hard to convince our girls to have a piece of vegetable on their portions.

I placed the pizza bread at the middle level in the oven with only the upper heating element on.  Here are the baked pizza bread hot from the oven...

my eldest girl added parmesan cheese on her serving as she complained that her pizza bread with lots of cheese has been taken by someone else.

and steamed sweet corns as side dish 

Hor Yan Hor Gold Herbal Tea for Sore Throat Relieve

Surrounded by flu and cold viruses both at home and at work, I finally caught a cold.  I have been having headache and stiff pain at the back of my neck for the past few days.  My younger brother even advised me to go for a check-up as few of his friends who are younger than me have had strokes not long ago.  Sound scary.  

My headache has slowly went away but came with a sore throat and nose irritation.  Trying to avoid taking medication, I try Ho Yan Hor Night Tea and Gold Tea this time, a packet of each came free with the purchase of a box of Ho Yan Hor Original tea.  This is the first time I tried the Gold one. The taste is much stronger than the Original one as it is blended with 29 natural herbs to cool down the body heat.  The main ingredient is Pu-Er Tea Leaves (普洱), Pericarpium Citri Reticulatae (陈皮), and Angelica Pubescentis (独活), and 26 others.

Ho Yan Hor Tea can be taken hot or cold anytime of the day.  I still remembered when my parents were not feeling good they used to drink a cup of this tea with smashed small onions and a pinch of salt or salted plum and covered under a thick blanket to sweat out, they felt better after that, that's their experience.

my cup of Ho Yan Hor Gold Tea with a piece of salted plum to taste, it blends in very well.

I also packed a packet of Ho Yan Hor Original Tea & a piece of salted plum to the office this morning, hopefully it will help me to release both the heat and the stress from work as well (blame it on GST).

Beaufort Mee 保佛面

There are several districts in Sabah have got their signature mee.  For example Tuaran mee, Tamparuli mee, Tenom Mee and Beaufort Mee.  To me there are similarities among them which at times make me confused which type of mee we are eating.

Today, I would like to introduce our girls' favourite mee, the Beaufort Mee...

Lots of sawi with slices of char sau and pork in starchy gravy

I was told that these yellow spring noodle is handmade locally

I am not a mee person so I opted for meehoon instead

with the same gravy and cooking style, I could enjoy the Beaufort style fried meehoon.

There was one time we drove to Beaufort to look for the authentic Beaufort mee, unfortunately it was a public holiday, the coffee shop was closed..now without much hassle, we could easily find Beaufort mee around KK.

Beaufort is a quiet town some 95KM away from KK.  It is about 1.5 hours drive on the highway or 2 hours by train from KK city. Here is where Beaufort is located in North Borneo, you can read more about it via Sabah Tourism's website here.

GreenMax Purple Yam & Black Soybean Powder

Have you heard of drinking or consuming black soybean will gradually turn gray hair to black again (if you are born with black brown hair :D).  How I wish it is true to reverse my increasing gray hair.

There are several types of Greenmax products selling in the local hypermarkets here, we chose to buy a  packet consist of 14 sachets of the purple yam & black soybean powder cereal drinks obviously it's because of the Black Soybean Powder content. 

 

The instructions are at the back of the packet which simply open and pour the fine powder into a mug or bowl and mix with hot water.  Use the spoon to mix gently till smooth. 

 

Don't be deceived by the cup of purple colour drink on the packet, it is actually more to dark gray colour like the one below, probably because of the black soybean powder that make it turn into dark grayish colour.  

It is very fine and smooth, the sweetness is just nice. I use a rice bowl to serve instead of a mug.  It is ideal for breakfast, tea break or even supper.  I like it hot and dip with plain bread.  We have tried the GreenMax Golden Germ Vegetable Drink too, check it out here.

Home baked pizzas

We were out and about the whole day time yesterday.  We bought some ingredients on our way back in the evening to bake own pizzas at home.

No time to make pizza dough to wait for it to prove, we used the ready made ones.

We made 2 pizzas.  Our girls' job to load the toppings, just tomato puree, mozzarella cheese, sausage, capsicum and white fish filaments as toppings.  Our girls dislike having onions on their pizza.

the 2nd pizza was loaded with extra onions and minced beef

the crust is a bit hard and crusty

not as cheesy as the ones from the shop.  We are OK with it.  At least it is not that fattening. 

It was our first trial of baking pizzas at home, we need to improvise the recipes before we could consider having Pizzas Party at home, :D

Munching After Meals 饭后甜品

Each time after meals, I have the urge of having a cup of hot drinks and something to munch.  I prefer hot coffee more than anything else, so I have to get ready packets of coffee mix and some biscuits in my drawer.  

 After a cup of coffee and something to munch, my meals is complete and satisfied, be it in the office or at home, this is one of my habits, pretty much like a dessert after meal for me.

My ''munchies" after meals can be like these :

Munchy's oat krunch and a cup of hot coffee 

 

wafer biscuit and a cup of hot coffee 

Mashed potatoes, the simplest method

I am impatient to handle tedious and time consuming recipes.  My girls loves to eat mashed potatoes, the easiest, simplest and fastest way to prepare mashed potatoes that I discovered is to use the packet soup as base.  

I have tried Vono brand Mushroom Cheese soup

and also Campbell's mushroom soup, both are well received by my girls

in a small pot, mix water (I never measure how much water, just agak-agak (own estimation), some milk powder dissolve in water, add in some butter.  The milk and butter are optional.

bring the water mixture to boil, with small fire, add in the mashed potatoes flakes bit by bit, I have tried Western Family and Hungry Jack Brands, both are good. 

stir with eggs stirrer or spatula till the mashed potatoes flakes are well mixed in to the desired consistency, if it is too runny just add more potatoes flakes bit by bit, add a bit of water if otherwise.

It is easy to prepare, usually I will let my girls to handle the cooking under my supervision

they like it plain

relaxing with a bowl of mashed potatoes.  Ideal for weekend snacks.

Grumbling away

Back to work after a public holiday break in between the week.  Everyone should have recharged with full batteries for the remaining working days ahead.

Our work life have been made difficult with the implementation of GST.  It is another quarter due for submission and payment of GST.  We are in the job that forcing ourselves to get it done before the due date with our minds and mouths grumbling and cursing away to... you know who.  Our accounting software we thought to be reliable and friendly has becoming unusable because the modules meant for GST have so much restrictions.  

But still, I am grateful that I have a job that fill our rice bowls, my commitments and our daily needs.  Grumbling aside, I need a cup of coffee to start the day.  Just a cup of Indocafe Coffeemix will do which I bought a few weeks ago that came with a free container.

Nuffnang Commission

My commission cheque from Nuffnang has finally arrived through the post yesterday exactly 1 month after I requested for payment.  This is the first cheque that I received from them,  it is the accumulation of commission generated from this humble blog of mine from November 2010 till November 2014, I noticed that there isn't any more commission coming from them after that.

  Besides blog advertisements, there are other activities offered to its community but all happenings are concentrated in West Malaysia.  I hope they will extend some to East Malaysian's bloggers.

 

 

Health Supplement Biogrow Chlorella Plus

It is hard to get my mum to take health supplement.  She always tells me that she is taking so much medicine from the hospital why she has to take additional medicine.  She has the wrong perception that all kinds of tablets/capsules are medicine. 

It was when I brought her to visit the doctor as she complains of severe body itchiness that affecting her sleep.  Unfortunately the doctor's office was closed on a public holiday Saturday.  We went to the nearby pharmacy to look for some sore throat medicine for my better half and my mum wanted to get some other medicine that might help to stop the itchiness.  Instead the pharmacy introduced us a supplement that cleanse the body, my mum has been suffering from constipation, I thought this supplement might help her to go to the toilet smoother and thus helps to detoxify her body.

  

I bought the BIOGROW CHLORELLA PLUS for her which contains Chlorella, Spirulina and Dunaliella which she has to consume 2 tablets each in the morning and night after meals.  

Hope she is consistent in taking her supplement on a daily basis, and at the same time I also have to take mine too. What are the supplements are you taking? Are they effective ? 

Sashimi at discounted price

Japanese cuisine is one of my favourite food.  I will always take the opportunity to buy some discounted sushi or sashimi from the supermarket if we happen to be there at the right time of the night, that is 8pm onwards.   They are having an offer of 40% - 50% discounts on selected items.   These sushi and sashimi are selling fast,  there isn't any left after half an hour.

got this about RM8.00 after 50% discount 

40% discount on this sashimi for RM8.30 at the nearby Pick & Pay Store 

We got to finish everything as soon as we reach home.

Sweet Potatoes Soup / Dessert

 My purple sweet potatoes have sprouted after a week or so after I bought them from the market.  Are the sprouted sweet potatoes poisonous?  We have tried, they are not poisonous.   

Nice and healthy shoots.  I believe it will grow into healthy plants if I were to plant them.

But I bought these load of sweet potatoes for dessert. Thus, the shoots are removed and sweet potatoes as sliced into small chunks and into the pot. 

Here is my purple sweet potatoes dessert / soup after boiling for about an hour, add brown sugar to taste.  It has cooling effect (relieve body heatiness according to Chinese). It is our favourite weekend dessert.

My favourite dish, Bitter Gourd

Bitter Gourd is top of my favourite dish among the vegetable-fruit, though many dislike its bitter taste but to me the bitter, the better and it possesses many health benefits.

It doesn't matter how it is cooked, I like it anyway.  This is home cooked plain bitter gourd with garlic. 

My kids simply refuse to eat bitter gourd, it is understandable that kids do not like bitter stuff.  Sometimes me and my better half could not finish the whole vegetable fruit in one meal, I will keep the remaining for lunch in the office the next day.

  

Just couldn't resist stuffed bitter gourd with minced pork every time I see them in the shop.   

Bitter gourd with pork and black beans, simply delicious.