2020. Who the heck ever thought that this year will turn out like this? Never did I ever expect that I will witness a pandemic occurring in my life. This shit is real.
Malaysia has been under a Movement Control Order since March 18, where everyone is required to stay home. School is cancelled and people are required to work from home.
It so happened that I left my job right before the MCO and I have no idea how I’m going to look for one in an economic condition like this. To be honest, I still have not started looking for one yet.
Meanwhile here’s what I’ve been up to lately.
Been spending more time making meals and trying out new recipes.
Yogurt, banana and homemade granola. The yogurt is sour but the trick is to drizzle some honey over the whole granola bowl. Yummy and healthy.
Recreated this childhood favourite along side mom! We usually only get to eat this as a kid during school holidays if mom was feeling nice to cook it for us, or whenever we head to Port Dickson for a family holiday. Basically it’s bread pan fried in margerine, bacon, sausages, fried eggs, lettuce, tomatoes and cheese.
Bacon is from The Meat Expert! A pleasant surprise as it is an eatery near my old office and when I saw it on GrabFood and showed mom, she was saying that the prices are very very reasonable. 1kg of streaky bacon for RM49 and they were having promotion of free delivery with using the code “MART2U”. Wanted to reorder it but our housing area is now out of delivery coverage.
During the initial weeks of MCO, went for a grocery run twice and went to the ingredients shop once. Subsequently did not get out of the house, so you can see at first I’m pretty gung ho about cooking. I enjoy making my breakfast/lunches. This is sautéed mushrooms, scrambled eggs, ham on sourdough toast and a side salad.
As you can see, repetitive ingredients but presented in a different manner. Made Japanese style salad by adding in onions and topped with sesame dressing.
Made kimchi jigae too. With the exception of no gochujang. I substituted it with mom’s chilli paste though. Hahaha. And used chicken. Will be nicer if it’s with pork.
Big breakfast! Missing mushrooms here because I was too lazy to sauté them. As you can see my sunny side up egg is abit overdone because I struggled to move the egg from the pan to plate LOL. Sausages and ham are from Village Grocer during my grocery run there.
This one, helped mom with making ang ku kuih, was her first time making and it turned out pretty successful. Found out that kuih is actually really really unhealthy because it uses a lot of oil.
Made pancakes topped with banana. However here my pancake isn’t perfectly brown because I added oil. The trick is to use a non stick pan and cook the batter without any oil.
Made almond and pumpkin seed florentine cookies, pretty easy to make, just florentine powder, almond flakes and pumpkin seeds spread evenly across a baking sheet. And bake for 13 minutes or so. Take it out of the oven and immediately cut it into slices before it cools down.
Korean bean paste stew, something like Japanese miso soup, really easy to make. Boil an anchovy soup base with chopped garlic in it, add in bean paste, onions, potatoes, zucchini, mushrooms and tofu. Garnish with spring onions and enjoy with a hot bowl of rice alongside.
Made the viral Apam balik recipe on Facebook! Turned out pretty well and the steps to make the Apam balik is pretty simple.
Made banana cake but I think it’s a little too moist? Recipe said to bake for half an hour but I had to bake for almost an hour. Taste-wise it turned out pretty alright, but dad said that the texture was nice for a banana cake.
Scrambled eggs, iced black and home made granola.
Oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, taken this recipe from Jane Chuck’s Instagram and it is pretty delicious. I finished the cookies in a day and decided to bake them again the next day, I added half portion of raisins and half portion of chocolate chips which makes it yummier.
Been making my sourdough bread too, think I’ve baked it for 2-3 times. I’ve recorded the process on my Instagram videos so maybe you can have a look if you’re interested to learn how to make sourdough. Recently have introduced spelt to my sourdough baking routine and am trying to get used to it.
Made sourdough tortilla from scratch and I feel like an idiot paying for RM6 mission wraps every time I’m craving for tortilla. the night before, have to make the dough where 1 cup of plain flour, 1/2 cup of bread flour, 2 tablespoon of the fat of your choice, 1/4 teaspoon salt, 1/4 teaspoon baking powder, 1/4 cup sour dough starter and 1/2 cup or less of warm water.
Leave to rise for at least 4 hours, but I left it over night and this is how it looks the next day.
Divide into 6 equal pieces and roll it out flat (I need more practice with this)
Heat up a pan with medium high heat and put the dough in without any oil. Once it starts to bubble then flip it.
It will look like this, cook till desired done-ness and remove from pan.
As for my tortilla fillings, I just decided to use whatever that is left in the fridge. Made paprika chicken and vegetable fajitas. Of course when you make more different types of filling it will be nicer. For the chicken, I’ve seasoned it with salt, pepper, garlic and two tablespoons of paprika powder. For the vegetable fajitas, I used half an onion, half of 1 green bell pepper and 1 yellow bell pepper and garlic and onion powder.
As you can see my tortilla wraps are abit too small. So I ate my tortillas like how I ate tacos. The tortilla wrap will definitely taste more flavourful as compared to ready made wraps, plus it is healthy too.
During this period, can’t go to the gym and attend my favourite classes at all. But I’m grateful for instructors who continue to teach classes through Instagram and Facebook live! For the first few weeks before I screwed up my sleeping schedule, I was pretty consistent with morning vinyasa yoga. To attend an 8am class, I got to wake up at 6.30am to get ready and eat breakfast. Also challenged myself to do 108 sun salutations A and B. 108 sun salutation A is still doable but B was really really challenging. Not long after, I started sleeping late so I cannot wake up for morning class, in the evening, I’ll usually attend Ray’s core exercise and body movement and later on martial art HIIT class.
My friends also got on to the bandwagon of doing tabata and we will do it over the Houseparty app! I think we done it for almost 2 weeks straight? They’ve also challenged me to a wear a T-shirt upside down challenge but I can’t even handstand by my own so I’ve started training for that. I wanna be able to touch the wall.
I’ve been working out on a daily basis and only taking 1 rest day off a week? To be honest I’ve never done so many burpees, squats, push ups and sun salutations so frequently before until this MCO.
Ordered dumb bells online on Shopee during the 2nd phase of MCO but until today it has yet to be shipped out so I cancelled the order. I really dislike how non responsive the seller was and some lousy explanation where they kept blaming the delay on POS Laju yet to collect the parcel. They did not mention on their page that this was a pre order so I’m not entirely sure whether it’s a lack of stock or really they can’t sort out their logistics properly. The name of the store is bestpricestore. Best price but lousy service. Can you imagine, this is a local seller. On the same day, I ordered resistance bands from China and it has already arrived? While the dumbbells are probably still sitting in this seller’s warehouse.
Recently started a 21 day meditation with my friends too and did day 1. Honestly during the first time of meditating for 15 minutes I found it hard to focus on my breathing, especially at the last 5 minutes. But it’s okay, I will practice more and see how this journey goes.
I’m currently on an Instagram and twitter cleanse where I get off it for two weeks. I seem to be pretty dependable on social media on a day to day basis. Look at the amount of stories I’ve been posting! Need to impose some self control on the amount of time I spent online and mindfulness of what I post.
Been watching a lot of YouTube and TedTalks though.
I have been doing thorough cleaning too. I think I’m going crazy. Been vacuuming and mopping the floor about 2-3 times a week. Washed my bathroom, changed my sheets, regularly done my laundry. Cleaned the food cupboard downstairs which was full of lizard droppings and threw out a whole lot of expired food. Deleted old and unwanted photos to make space for my phone. Even dismantled the freezer to wash. Bored in the house bored in the house bored.
I may go to the extent of taking up one of those free online learning courses soon.
Been keeping in touch with my friends via Houseparty where they have this fun trivia/guess my drawing games and we have also resorted to karaoke!
Of course, couldn’t resist some deliveries too. Initially my parents were really paranoid about the viral GrabFood video of people spitting in food that were circulating on WhatsApp, but I reassured them that I only ordered from eateries who ensured that the food was securely packed.
Been seeing these roll cakes from KITA Coffee on Instagram and couldn’t take my eyes off them. Held back for awhile before finally ordering them when they opened for tumpang to my housing area. Tumpang happens when let’s say 5 other people in your housing area wants to order from KITA Coffee too and the delivery charges can be shared among the 6 of you, hence lower delivery charges.
I ordered two roll cakes and a hot matcha with milk. As Kepong is quite a distance away from KITA Coffee which is located in Fahrenheit 88, the drink was cold and not as enjoyable as it was in store. But the roll cakes were really really delicious!
Matcha hojicha roll cake.
Dark chocolate sea salt roll cake.
If you know me, One Half is one of my favourite cafes to visit. It’s all the way in PJ, and currently during this MCO period they are doing free delivery only in PJ area. They also have the option for GrabDelivery and when I checked for my area it was a whopping RM17 in delivery charges, hence I held back on ordering. After enough drooling on a daily basis, I was telling my mom about how expensive the delivery was but she said for such a distance, RM17 is reasonable......
So I ordered it!
Ordered the Baker’s Choice (an assortment of 9 pastries for the day) and also an oat milk latte. Added ice to it to make it iced oat milk latte. Oat milk gives the coffee a nutty burnt flavour which I like. The coffee was secured properly and the Baker’s Choice came wrapped nicely in this white box which was very very insta worthy.
In terms of pastries, I guess it really depends on what the baker feels like offering for the day? From the photo above left to right - plain croissant, pain au almond, pain au chocolate, oatmeal and sea salt chocolate chip cookies, lemon tart, lemon drizzle cake, cinnamon cardamom bun, lotus and seasalt bun and lastly citrus morning bun.
The first row of croissants are buttery and flaky, when I talk about flaky, I mean croissants that are able to be peeled layer by layer. Almond croissants are my favourite and it reminds me of my childhood where dad used to bring us to SOGO every weekend and we will eat at Delifrance and I would order this! But One Half’s almond croissants don’t have that custardy taste in the almond croissant. As for the chocolate chip cookie, it is RM5 for a cookie. At first you’d be thinking why do I need to pay such an amount for a cookie? But the next time you walk into the shop you confirm order this cookie again, it is addictive. Not too sweet, crispy and at the same time it crumbles in your mouth.
For the lemon pastries, it is pretty refreshing if you haven’t tried it, but personally it is not really my cup of tea. Cardamom buns are really just bread. And again something I’m not really into, prefer crispy pastries, but certainly cannot resist the lotus and sea salt one. And for the citrus morning bun, it is made using croissant leftovers, would say that this has a unique taste and texture and it is coated with sugar.
So you can roughly tell that the first row is my favourite. :p But it’s nice to order if you have always wanted to try out One Half’s pastries which are made with love. Was listening to ome.space Instagram live that day, and the owner mentioned that what he bakes, is what he tries to recreate from what he personally likes from the bakeries he has visited in London.
Mom was kinda disappointed I didn’t not order the banana loaf. She loves it a lot! I should make it a point to bring her there once this MCO is over. Really miss being able to visit a cafe and enjoy the coffee and the atmosphere.
Ordered ice cream delivery today as well, from Forty Licks, who has free delivery to areas within 10km radius of Desa Park City, can’t wait to receive it!
This is what I’ve been up to lately, hoping everyone stays safe and that this pandemic will calm down soon.
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