Lava Queen

The countdown has begun. The year gone by will soon be only a thing of the past to be remembered... Looking back at the old days that went by in this year, 2016 had been a pretty good year for me: I've done a pretty good job (I believe! Haha!) being a SAHM, for 2 years now. This blog turned 1 and it's still well and alive (And... growing)! Got to travel quite a bit - brought LO to Japan, Phuket, Hong Kong, Kota Kinabalu and a couple of nearby road trips. Received the Delivery of Vacant Possession for our investment property :D Attended a gathering (Organized by a Facebook cooking group that I'm in) with total strangers - totally out of my character! Got promoted to an 'Aunt' - not once, but twice! (To Brother-in-law's baby girl and cousin sister's baby boy) Went to my first Big Bad Wolf book fair Lol! - I don't normally go to fairs coz they are way too crowded. Still remember my first was to a Baby fair when I was pregnant... After like 15 mins,...

I still have a bit of leftover cranberry sauce sitting in my fridge, staring right back at me (I'm guessing there are others who are just like me, right around this time :P), so I thought of using it to substitute jam and make some buttery thumbprints for snacks today. These Buttery Jam Thumbprints are so tender and delicious! They're also super easy to make and need only a handful of ingredients. These butter thumbprints are tender, melt-in-your-mouth buttery, and filled with yummy homemade cranberry sauce :D They are pretty addictive too! One bite and we were smitten... LO and I ended up eating more than a couple when they were still warm!! Ingredients: (Makes about 20-25 cookies) 100g unsalted butter, softened 3 tbsp icing sugar 3/4 cup + 3 tbsp all purpose flour About 1/4 cup jam of your choice (I used homemade cranberry sauce. You can find the recipe here .) Preheat oven to 160°C and line a baking tray with baking paper. In a bowl, beat butter and i...

Happy Boxing Day, everyone!! Now that Christmas is over, everyone seems to be busy preparing and getting ready for Chinese New Year; buying gifts/decos, changing new hair styles etc etc. Chinese New Year is in a months' time and I still haven't got any suitable new clothes yet!! Heard that the H&M store in Evolve Concept Mall is fairly large and since we haven't been there before, we decided to pay a visit yesterday. Evolve Concept Mall is one of the newer malls located in the Ara Damansara area - had its soft launch last year. The four-storey shopping mall is still pretty much empty and quiet, especially on the top floors, but my main purpose was to visit the H&M (one of the mall's main tenant) store, so it didn't matter.  After spending some time in the H&M (finally managed to get a top, a pair of shorts and a short dress... Phew...), we thought of having a cup of coffee and put our feet up. With no mall directory in sight, we just walked towards t...

Hong Kong is definitely one of my favorite cities - It is not only a shopping paradise for shopaholics (like me), but also a food haven for foodies (also me! Haha). From street food to Michelin-star restaurants, tourists are definitely spoilt for choice. I've been there a few times but never once got tired of the food. My last trip there was like a few years back, so I was really looking forward to our recent one. All the food... Yumzzz... Even thinking bout them makes me drool :P Deng deng deng... Let me present to you my Top 5 MUST EAT whenever I visit HK: 1. ROAST GOOSE What is a Hong Kong trip without a meal of good roast goose? Roast goose is definitely one of the not-to-be missed food when you are in Hong Kong and my favorite place for this is Yung Kee Restaurant. Though Yung Kee lost its one Michelin star in 2011, I still think they sell the best roast goose in HK. Their roast goose is crispy, tender, juicy and gamey! Dip the meat in their sweet plum sauce... Mmmm ~ heave...

Yesterday was the Chinese Winter Solstice Festival or Dong Zhi. It is one of the traditional Chinese festivals, which usually falls on, or around the 22nd of December (The only Chinese festival celebrated based on Western calendar, and not following its own lunar calendar). The ancient people think that winter solstice welcomes the return of longer days, the Yin will disappear gradually while the Yang or positive things will become stronger and stronger, so it is regarded as an auspicious day to celebrate. Occurring only five/six weeks before the Chinese New Year, the festival has its own significance for many people. As the old saying goes, " Winter Solstice is bigger than Chinese New Year" . Many Chinese around the world, especially the elderly, insist that one is 'a year older' right after the Dong Zhi celebration instead of waiting for the lunar new year.  Traditionally, the Dong Zhi Festival is a time for the family to get together. Old traditions require peopl...

Due to some maintenance work at the water plant, there's a scheduled water disruption at my area for a few days. So I'm trying to minimize water usage by preparing simple meals. This is another one of the rice cooker meals. Easy preparation: stir fry a bit, dump everything into the rice cooker and let it does its work :D My grandma was a pretty good cook. However, when I was young, she never really let me or my mom into the kitchen when she cooked. It's either she wanted us to just sit comfortably til the meals are ready (her way of showing her love), or she thought we were in the way... Lol. Because of that, we never got to learn her recipes and we don't get to eat most of those dishes anymore. I do try to replicate some of them from time to time, based on memory and adapting from online recipes, but somehow the tastes were slightly different. Perhaps, like my friend said, the taste from childhood is always the best because it not only fulfills our taste buds, it als...

Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all da way ~ Christmas mood is in the air. Made some cranberry sauce to go with a chicken dish and meatballs. This sauce is really simple to make and tastes amazing. You can do it a few days ahead so you won't have to worry about it while you're cooking lunch or dinner.  I like it a lil sourish and it is so much better than the canned ones :D Ingredients: (Makes about 1 1/2 cups of sauce) 1/2 pack of fresh cranberries (170g) 1/2 cup brown sugar 1/4 cup fresh orange juice 1/4 cup water 1/4 tsp orange rind In a saucepan, boil sugar in orange juice and water, stirring til sugar is dissolved.  Stir in whole cranberries, turn to low heat and simmer for about 10 mins til the cranberries pop.  Remove from heat and stir in orange rind. Let cool before popping into the refrigerator. The sauce will thicken as it cools.

There's a scheduled water disruption at my residential area for three days (Started at 8am this morning), due to some maintenance work at the water plant. It's gonna be 3 days down, 1 day up and then 2 days down again before the work is completed.  Bleh . In order to avoid too much washing-up, guess it's just simple meals and one pot dishes during this period of time >.<  Today's afternoon snack: Red apple tarts. Took me less than half an hour to whip up, using 4 common ingredients (You could leave out the ground cinnamon and it will only be 3). Simply cut, arrange and sprinkle while waiting for the oven to heat up, pop into the preheated oven, and 12 mins later, done! Fast, easy and taste good :)  Sprinkle more sugar for more glaze. I didn't put much coz my LO was gonna eat it. Ingredients: (Makes 4) 2 sheets  of  10cm x 9.5cm frozen square puff pastries, thawed 1/2 red apple Ground cinnamon and brown sugar, for sprinkling (More sugar fo...

We used to patronize the Tropicana City mall in the past, before Atria Shopping Mall came along, but now it is just somewhere we'll go only when everywhere else is crowded or there's a heavy traffic to somewhere further >.< With the school holidays and Christmas just around the corner, everywhere is crowded on the recent weekends and we had trouble finding parking at One Utama Mall the week before (Took us quite some time to get hold of one). So, last weekend we decided to head to Tropicana City Mall instead since I needed to get a few grocery stuffs and contact lenses. Had to pre-order them (coz they didn't have the right corrective power last week) and went over to collect today. It started raining heavily right after we reached, therefore we thought we might as well sit down to have a cup of coffee while waiting for the rain to stop, and this Caffe Pascucci looked like a pretty nice place to chill. The waiter brought us the menu (which looked like some newsletter...

This is one of the soups to calm upset stomachs resulting from irregular sleeping routines. It is said to be suitable for those who often stays up late at night, with weak blood and often feels lethargic.  Ginseng is effective in protecting lungs and enhances Qi. Angelica root invigorates blood and regulates menstrual cycle. Chinese wild yam tonifies spleen and augments stomach. Dried longan nourishes blood and calms spirit. Black-bone chicken replenishes blood, enhances yin and brightens eyesight.   A soothing clear soup with a mild bittersweet aftertaste from the ginseng :) Ingredients: 5 maces (Approx 18.9g) ginseng 5 maces (Approx 18.9g) Angelica root/dang gui 5 maces (Approx 18.9g) dried Chinese wild yam/huai shan 5 maces (Approx 18.9g) dried longan 2 large slices of ginger 1/2 a black-bone chicken, skin removed Scald black-bone chicken in boiling water for 5 mins. Rinse and set aside. Rinse all ingredients and set aside. Put all ingredients in a pot ...

Christmas is in the air. Bought a pack of fresh cranberries a couple of days ago to make cranberry sauce, which was way more than what I needed. I used some in my salads, but I must admit, raw cranberries do not taste as nice as the other berries. Some are sour, some are a little bitter, and my LO wouldn't eat them. She tried one, refused to take a second one and ran away the next time she saw me holding one. Haha!  It's the weekend. We were planning to take our LO for a dip in the pool but it started raining. Then I thought, why not try making some cranberry muffins for teatime since we were just chilling at home the whole afternoon. After browsing through some recipes, I decided to go with this one. They turned out pretty good and I really liked how the walnuts complimented the cranberries :D  I really liked the walnut taste. Gonna add a bit more next time :) They are light and moist too. -Adapted from an online recipe- Ingredients: (Makes 12 mini muffins)...

TGIF!! Needed to make some snacks for LO's teatime <But mommy's lazy mode is on>, so I chose something really simple and fast: Cinnamon twists! Recently I like to keep some frozen puff pastry in my fridge from time to time. They really come in handy when I need to whip up some snacks like turnovers, puffs or even today's cinnamon twist, at the last minute. I know, to some people, this might not be exactly 'healthy' food for my LO, but hey, it's OK to let loose a lil and let her indulge once in a while, am I right? After all, it's Friday! :P Simple, crispy and yummy! They are quite addictive too :P LO snuck and ate a few when I was taking photos. She kept saying, "Mmmm, crispy" . :D Maybe next time I should make some plain ones, dip in melted chocolate and eat them like Pocky stick snack! Hehe. Ingredients: 2 sheets of 10cm x 9.5cm frozen square puff pastries, thawed 1/2 tbsp butter, melted 1/4 tsp castor sugar A pinch of g...

December is a month of celebration and gatherings. Two days ago, I met up with a very good friend whom I've not met for quite some time. It was a long-postponed meetup, due to busy schedules, but we both decided it was time to meet before we kiss this year goodbye and jump into another busy year ahead. Thinking of somewhere not too noisy where we could relax and have a good chat, I suggested we go try out this Sis & Co. cafe, which opened a few months back (July, if I'm not mistaken).  Sis & Co. is a family-run cafe/restaurant located on a street that's primarily populated by car workshops in Kampung Kayu Ara (Between Petaling Jaya and Damansara). It's actually pretty near the famous Pantai Seafood Restaurant - most seafood lovers would know this place! The rustic-style cafe is operating in a two-level warehouse space. Its interior is a little similar to the Bean Brothers @ Sunway Damansara (You can read about the review on Bean Brothers here ). The exterio...