I'm a full-time mummy

I have been sharing some of my favorite angpow pieces on an angpow collectors group in Facebook and some members have been telling me to continue sharing my memorable stories and so I thought, why not write it down, that way, our kiddos can read about it when they grow up next time, eh?

For those of you who are not familiar or never heard of the words 'Angpow' (also known as 'ang pau', 'ang pao', 'angpau'), here is a quick definition:

Angpow = Red Packet (filled with cash inside) given during festivals

So for today's angpow story, it comes from this lovely piece of angpow:

When I first see this angpow, I remembered back when I was about 8 - 9 years old when during my school holidays, I would follow my late mum back to her hometown (a small village used to be well known with charcoal mining). I always cherished my childhood memories because these are the times when I get to roam free, enjoy my childhood with my cousins, catch grasshoppers, catch tadpoles, pluck plants and play 'masak-masak' (pretend cooking), cycling around my small little 'kampung' (means village).

Now what is so memorable with this angpow?

One time, I followed my cousins cycling to this small river further into our kampung. We parked our bicycles nearby and went into the small river trying to catch fish. Happily wading into the ankle length water we suddenly realised our surrounding became very quiet, so we looked up and saw a bunch of cows drinking water from the stream. The closest cow to us was about 10 feet away.

We continued playing but one of my cousin suddenly shouted that I was wearing a red colored top and kids being kids, we ran away as fast as we could thinking the cows are going to chase red colored stuff. We ended up going to another safer river to catch tadpoles, which became another childhood memories of mine as it was my first time seeing tadpoles too.

What a sweet childhood memories!

** Note: I have disabled the commenting feature on my blog engine thanks to all the spammers who happily spam my blog every day. If you wish to ask me any questions, you can find me at my Facebook page (I'm there almost everyday) or just drop me an email if you wish to maintain some anonymity.

Last year, I wrote about a look back into my home-cooked journey so far. Then shortly before the end of 2014, I wrote a post on my preparation when cooking. Then I thought, "Why not snap a picture of before start cooking and the final results after cooking?"

So, here you go..

Left part of the picture is the ingredients all ready to be cooked on 30th March 2015. From top left (clockwise): Spinach (washed, rinsed), a cup of sliced garlic (about 7-8 cloves), a bowl of anchovy base sauce, sliced pork marinated with sugar + sweet soy sauce, a bowl of chili sauce + curry powder + salt pepper,  sliced pork marinated with sugar + sweet soy sauce, a bowl of snap peas (ends removed, chopped into 1 inches long) and a bowl of sweet soy sauce + water + salt pepper.

My dinner dishes for that day? Click on the dish name to check out my recipe.

• Chinese Spinach Saute With Garlic in Anchovy Soup

• Stir-fry Spicy Pork

• Stir-fry Pork with Snap Peas in Sweet Soy Sauce
  

In case you are interested to view my other recipes, feel free to hop over to my Recipe Library page for more info!

** Note: I have disabled the commenting feature on my blog engine thanks to all the spammers who happily spam my blog every day. If you wish to ask me any questions, you can find me at my Facebook page (I'm there almost everyday) or just drop me an email if you wish to maintain some anonymity.

Our youngest kiddo (she's 1.5 years old btw) loves to follow me around. I can barely have a few seconds peace before she comes looking for me. One morning while I was preparing the ingredients to make soup for the day's dinner, as usual, Carolyn came along and refuses to let me do my work in peace. 

So I thought of just giving her some small little tasks for her to help me out rather than she walks around, clinging onto my legs or crying and whining for me to take her away. I got a chair and let her stand next to me on the chair. I was chopping and slicing some vegetables so what I did was I put the sliced ingredients into a small bowl which she can access to easily.

Then I guided her to take the sliced vegetables and put them into my slow cooker. With every sliced vegetables she put in, I cheered her on and complimented her for being a good helper! She was so happy to be praised and she kept saying 'amor!' (means 'somemore') so fast that I had trouble keeping up with her!

Now why this falls into the 'Teaching & Learning Moments!'?

* I get to teach our girl to help out with some housechores.

* I get to teach our girl to practise her motor skills and dexterity - to pick up the sliced vegetable and dropped them into the slow cooker.

* I don't need to hear her whine and cry while I'm doing my work.

* I get to boost her sense of accomplishments for being mummy's little helper!

Win-win!

** Note: I have disabled the commenting feature on my blog engine thanks to all the spammers who happily spam my blog every day. If you wish to ask me any questions, you can find me at my Facebook page (I'm there almost everyday) or just drop me an email if you wish to maintain some anonymity.