My mum's cuisines

From the eve to the 5th day of CNY, my mum has been cooking & cooking... She has to wake up early to prepare all the food for us. It's not easy for her to do all these herself, I have been helping her in the kitchen too so can understand how tired it is. She always the 1st to wake up & last to sleep.. so poor thing. Admire her endurance in the hot kitchen, she been standing and cooking whole day. Meals after meals just to make sure we have enough food & enjoyed family gathering. As our members multiples she has to cook even more.

I thot of taking family photos for this year, since we have not been taking it for years... But again I miss the opportunity, coz most of them came in different timing, mum busy cooking, I'm helping in kitchen...maybe we shld consider going out for dinner next year & give mum a break.

The most tiring day has come..An annual gathering on 5th Day of CNY. This is the day she will cook for 50-60ppl, and believe me the food can feed a small village lor : D. Since my aunties will be coming over to help her, hehee I got an excuse to skip out of kitchen and managed to take some pic of her signature dish. These dishes will always be on the top of list.

2 Large pots of Dark soya source Ti Kah. So sinful, but I can easily take 3-4pcs... hahha this weekend must work harder to burn away extra calories.

Deep fried pork lard, Bak You Pok ready for fried noodles later. Heard 1 of my cousin's wife took it as titbits.. eee... Here goes her Nonya style dried curry.

My power mum with her power curry. You have to keep stirring & stirring so that it won't get burned and at the same time make the gravy thick.
My 2 Aunts came to help out. The 3 power women, or power puff girls? :D
This is a typical Hokkien dish, if you're Hokkien you shld have tried this before. A dish passed down from generation to generation, from Granny to mum then came to our generation...hur hur..but I yet to learn.

Stir Fried sweet potato cake:
Step 1: cook the sweet potato flour in water.
Step 2: steam it for some time, (i think is 10mins)
Step 3: Once cooked, set it a side to cool. It will takes abt half a day.
Step 4: Once cool & set you can start to cut into small pcs

Step 5: Stir fried with chilly, spring onion & dried shrimps.

It's sound easy but the process is kinda tedious. The cutting part is the hardest part, quite similar to Korean fried Nian Gao, but I prefer this than Nian Gao.

The 1 & only Bag

A new hand made bag by mum : ) she's not only a good cook but also a good seamstress. Remember she has been making dresses for us when we were young.

Since I been nagging for having a small carrier to carry all my barang barang out during lunch break, so she decided to make me this bag.

Took some left over cloth from sis while she's making her new curtains haha.. and sis suggested that I carry some Tangerines in this bag during CNY "diao'' .... It does look like those Tangerines carrier tho.

I like it alot : ) thks mum & sis, will make full use of this bag.

Bottle Tree Park

This was the 2nd time we went there for dinner and was a special nite, it's mum Birthday. She was here the last time, so we were confidented that she would like the food since no complaint the last time : ) The kids enjoyed it too, it spacious for them to run around & playground just at a corner. We went for a stroll at the park before entering the Restn. and my chance to make full used of my cam.hehee...

Crab Crab we gonna eat you tonight hehehe... Before dinner commence.... all looked hungry & tired... It took them quite long to serve the food, but once it's served... it's like non-stop..super fast. Yahoo... 1st dish up on the table. Deep Fried Chicken, yummy I love this. This is a must try dish.

The Longevity YeeMee was specially ordered coz Mum's Birthday : ) Saw the red strawberries thingy on top? It's not strawberries wor.. peisay..hahaha.. it's actually 鸟蛋。I dun really recall how it taste coz everything moved so fast, 1 dish after another blurred..

Sis & hubby have to help cleared the food so that we have enough space for the next dish. All dishes were served in such a fast pace, we were running out of place to put all of them.

Oh oh.. my fave time.. Pork knuckles in dark source & steam bun. Kinda blurr in this pic, coz Fat Bro kept rushing me & asked me stop taking pic, he's so hungry can't wait liao : D

Fresh Steam Prawn, fresh & fresh what else : )

Chill Crab (SINGAPORE BEST LOCAL FOOD 新加坡美食), ofcoz good lah.

We actually over ordered, thot that the serving would be small so we ordered a few large plates & at the end we were overwhelmed with food. There's still some left over so have to pack home & eat for supper..: (

The kids enjoying the swings after dinner.

Petty Princess Nic & Viv also joined in the fun

Then the 老姐也来joined in....

Followed by a 肥老弟, hahaa..dun break the swing hor..

It's dark in this pic, can you see a lady sitting right behind with her legs stretched out. We asked Bro to lift up his hand to do some illusions..hahhaa to bad it's not very clear. We love the ambiance, it will be perfect if the food could be served in a moderate manner. But overall, it's still a great place for gathering and celebration. Another pity, no pic of our Birthday Mum & group pic...coz she was busy chasing our little monster.

What a relief!!

We were all having a heavy heart since last week, after knowing that mum was diagnosed with cysts and has to under go a surgery this week. But after a further diagnosed by SGH Gynae, she was told that no surgery required as it's just a skin infection coz by some kinda bacteria and not cysts....thks God... we felt so much at ease and relief.

Shaked head to the previous 2 DR.... alamak how they diagnosed without even go into details! 1st, She went to Polyclinic & was referred to CSH for a minor surgery then the DR at CSH said it's cyst so can't do it, and referred her to KK women's specialist. But due to some bad experience before with CSH, we decided to go for a recommended SGH Gynae instead of KK's...anyway we made a right choice...Well, we have to count our blessing tat CSH can't do the surgery otherwise it will be 冤枉lorh

'mistake over mistake' err... (think no more CSH for our family ever after...)

Bro fetched us fr SGH & offered to buy us lunch at Waraku, since mum is fine now & just needed to be under observation & medication, she deserved a small celebration isn't it : )

Bro ordered the sukiyaki (すくやき）for him & mum. He's too hungry...I think.... pour all food in before I would snap a pic of the beef, tofu, veg etc.. & left wit a Udon in front of me : S

$48 for 2-3pax

I'm not fond of sukiyaki (すきやき), it's too salty for me, so I had set lunch instead. A+B at $9.80, Unagi Don + ChaSoba, yummy.. ; )

Promo for OCBC & HSBC card holder, beside this S$10 return voucher, there's also a 1 for 1 Ramen and some other stuff. We only have UOB card but was also given a $20 voucher...so I guess it applies to all credit cards.

And not forgetting to Praise the Lord, for his mercy & blessing to mum. Hallelujah!!!

Mother's day

After a month then I recall this backlog : ) Mother's day dinner. We celebrated a day earlier coz I be leaving to NZ after the dinner. Always have Chinese or seafood cuisine so we decided to tried Western for this yr : p My bro commented I 'siao siao' going to NZ liao still want to eat western food hahhaa... Anyway we have chosen " Western Chow" at Lor Ah Soo, near my place so dun have to rush. (actual reasons: Recession must save, must save so go coffeeshop can liao...hehehee)

Fish & Chips, so small portion!!! can't compared to those in NZ ...
Black pepper Chicken chop, thumbs up : p and I like the veg too. Is better to order the veg than coleslaw, coz the coleslaw got some kinda foul smell.

Mum's fave Lamp Chop, nice too.

Black pepper steak for bro & viv. Taste good too, but the portion too small can't filled their stomach.

Beside all the above, we also ordered soup & beef stew. Nice food at reasonable price, worth it.

Dun know wat happened to our group pic...I only left with this half group pic : ( I must have been too excited for my NZ trip & miss it : D

Wonderful Mum

Saw this write up from a frenz blog....

"During lunch or dinner, she would be eating alot of fish, vegetables...drinking alot of soups which I felt they taste very strange to me.. hmmmm..I would prefer something better ..really......Seeing all these...this old chinese children songs alway plays in my mind..: "shi shang zi you ma ma hao...you ma di hai zhi xiang ke bao.." that lyric is very true.......and now i understand why and now i also realised that why mothers are so heart breaking when their children grow up and hurt them emotionally and physically. The kind of sacrifice a mother give right from the pregnancy till the moment a child is born till the day you live through many birthdays...she has been giving her selfless utmost and sacrifice to them..."

I started to ponder over it... yes being a mum is so wonderful & respectful.
Mum has done her utmost & sacrifices for us all these years she deserved our respect & love, Sometime, thou I do not agreed with what my mum has done but after all she is still my wonderful mum.

After Pa passed away, she has been taking up the role of a father. Everyday she will work til late hrs just to earn enough money for the 5 of us. We were all still schooling then.

I was a 'sticky' child when young, I would pester mum a lot & even followed her to work. Pa was still around that time, but his income alone was too 'thin' to feed the whole family. Mum has to come out to work. She used to be a confinement lady, cooked for a family & take care of the baby. In the evening she would worked in a restn as a waitress til midnite. I would followed her to work most of the time, just hang around her work place playing on my own or with some kids nearby. She has to work so hard just to earn enough to feed us.

When Pa was down with illness she has to work extra hard to cover all expenses & hospital cost. That was really hard on her. Remember once she was working for a construction site, and I went with her. We have to wake up early & went from site to site to plant the grass on the carpark lot. It's was a really very hot sunny day, I tot it was fun then, but after 1-2hrs in a squatting position & under the hot sun, I started to feel tried, dizzy, drained & sweaty.. but I saw her non stop doing the same task over & over again... occasionally,she would turned to me & asked me to drink alot of water & asked me to rest if I am tired, & she will con't doing the planting. I felt a sense of guilt & sadness at that moment. She would just sacrificed for all of us.

Looking back at what she has done for us, I really feel the guilt. I asked myself how much will I sacrifice for her, I don't know. Truly, when we grew up we wanted to be independent & leave our parent but is that really the best way? Will we be the same as her when we grow old? I hope I can be more filial and love her as much as she has loves us.