It is terrifying how time flies. It is now November already and I haven’t felt that much has been done this year. Except that baby who has been getting louder by the day. Another positive note is that Christmas is coming and all the shops are going to be so pretty.

One of the quick and easy dish to make to accompany steamed rice for lunch at our home is carrot, jicama and beans stir-fry. The color of the dish is vibrant. White, orange and green are making the dish colorful and refreshing to the eyes. Of course it would do just fine if you are missing the beans. The Buddhist vegetarian version is prepared without minced garlic.

We usually couldn’t finish the dish in one lunch. I would use the stir-fry as filling for the sweet bread buns during my night time bread making session. They would be perfect for breakfast the next morning. Did I just sound too frugal? This is the recipe for the bun and just replace the filling with this. If you want to be as frugal as me.

Slice green beans diagonally, about 0.5cm thickness.

Grate carrot and jicama. Rinse them after grating using cold runny water and drain.

Our childhood memories do include powdered sugar doughnuts bought from street vendor. We consumed them vicariously not caring about calorie and sugar content and what it would do to our waistlines. Those were good days.

As more and more modern eateries scattered around town, these are quite hard to come by. Do not worry. They are easy to make. The only culprit is the frying oil. Use only clean and healthy oil. Grind your own powdered sugar using kitchen castor sugar if you wish.

It is great to spend Sunday afternoon with a huge plate of warm powdered doughnuts and some iced tea or coffee. If you plan on doing what we did last weekend, start working on the dough right after lunch. The sweet round treats will be ready by tea time.

Combine flour, salt, sugar, yeast, baking powder, egg yolk and milk in a mixing bowl.

One of the simpler and humble dishes we enjoy at home, like any other Chinese families out there, is the pork and mee suah soup. Mee suah is Chinese wheat noodle. It is white in color, sold in dried bundle form. It is always prepared in soup dishes and very fragile. When left too long in soup, it would become too mushy. The noodle has to be serve as soon as possible.

The pork is prepared into meat balls. It is seasoned as little as possible. Mother would add Chinese preserved cabbage into the minced pork. The broth is lightly seasoned with soy sauce and sesame sauce.

Our mee suah (wheat noodles) are bought in triangle shaped red paper container.

A quick update on what has been happening in the whole three month of the no activity here.

I went to the hospital. I gave birth. And yes it was long and painful. He came out all wrinkly and puffy. But we are thankful that everything that’s supposed to be there is, well, there. I did the 30 day Chinese confinement period as requested (or forced) by my mother. I had 30 kg of fresh ginger, prepared into drinks, soup and stir-fries. I survived.

The baby is three month old this week.We are slowly falling into a new routine with the small and loud addition to the family. I am now also finding a bit of free time hanging out in the kitchen, between screaming and diapering.

I turned on the oven and took the scale out for the first time yesterday and it was liberating.

You know when everything with spring onion and garlic is considered “Asian”? I made my version of Asian inspired burger, with chopped spring onion, garlic, ground chicken and Japanese mayo and spicy bottled sambal. It is easy, quick and satisfying.

It is quick when you don’t make the bun and mince the chicken by hand. Which I did both myself. It was a therapy for me.

The last week of waiting, hopefully, for the little person to arrive. It has been a very rewarding 9 months. I particularly enjoy the shopping bit. I ended up buying a lot of the wrong things and (hopefully) much more of the right ones. I got carried away and spent too much on things that will only  be used for a couple of months or so. So future mothers, please read up before heading to those cute stores. The other things that I enjoy as much are the pampering bit. And I later realized that pregnant woman could actually get away with a lot of things (that girls normally wouldn’t, except if you are as gorgeous as Miranda Kerr or as famous as the Kardashians). Free upgrade on flights and hotel rooms are the ones I would miss the most.

Nevertheless I can’t wait to feed him these Chocolate Chip Cookies from the famous David Leite’s recipe. I know it has been around for years and many great bloggers have featured it, but one more wouldn’t hurt. It is really that good. It puts all other recipes to shame. It is as easy as it is forgivable. It does come up to be slightly sweet, I usually reduce the amount of chocolate in my batch. And I couldn’t find Varlhorna feves, which I suspect would be just perfect sweetness of chocolate. But what else is new, right. You could find any freshest vegetables and spices you could think of. When you need something fancy or imported ingredients for baking, you would need to fly at least 1 hour to get them. I use combination of bittersweet Hershey’s chocolate chip and dark chocolate squares. They are finger-licking good.