The last home cooked meal for our summer vacation

This is the last full 3 course dinner I cooked during our stay in the states...Guess what?? I ate too much junk in the afternoon, and didn't have any appetite to eat during dinner..hehe.

The steam tofu with minced pork is daddy and Jared's favourite. And like I said before drumstick is the cheapest chicken part in US, so my herbal soup is cook with drumstick...This soup is use more herbs, so taste slightly different from the rest of soup like winter melon, peanut+lotus root...We quite like it..

Agar agar with fruit cocktail and mandarin orange

Look at how nice my agar agar are...hehe..Spent sometime to arrange the mandarin orange and cut them up nicely...


Jared loves the cherry from fruit cocktail can food. He could never tahan till its made into agar agar before eat..So I always scoop up the cherry for him first..Its also my favourite from so many diff type of fruit in the cocktail.

As for the mandarin orange, it came from canfood too, we really like the taste..Jared had more than 10 pieces at one go.

Going home in 2 days time!

Time pass so fast, just as if we were here, step into the house, checking around everything we've seen from webcam and comparing the real thing...and now it's time to go home!

Things which I wanted to note down..

Weather

• Only the first 2 wks of June we could felt cold weather here, and after that everyday is nightmare if we have to stay outdoor!..Temperature goes up to 36-37degree, super hot till even evening 7-8pm...even 9pm after the sunsets, it is still hotter than SG. Luckily we stay at home most of time on weekdays, only go out on weekend...With the aircon on 24hours, it felt really shiock!...hehehe..More shiock is we don't need to worry about the bills.

People

• Utah is famous of Mormons..You should know or seen these ppl even if you have not heard about Mormons..they are those angmoh wearing white shirt and black tie with name tag on the MRT, and sometimes may come to you to talk about religion. Young boys in Mormons family are required to serve 2yr overseas like our NS to spread the religion..

• And being at a conservative place, this place is really safe and nice to stay. Ppl greet us when we walked pass by..The last place I go where ppl actually greet me was NZ 10yrs ago..for so long I've never been to a place where the ppl are so nice..

Cooking

• From not able, not required to cook at all when back at SG, now I can almost do anything if we have the ingredients and recipe..hehe..Well, except deep frying which I scared of scalding me..the rest are fine..When I say I'm not cooking in Sg, I really don't cook not even fry egg...For the past 2yrs+ ever since Jared borned, I only cook Jared's food and pasta occasionally when we were sick of outside food..Neither I know cooking was so easy unlike baking which requires precision..hehe

• Daddy said my claypot chicken rice, steam pai ku with beans, and steamed tofu with minced meat is the best of all..But he had also lowered his standard so much that he think simple dish are nice hehe..

• As for Jared, some of his food already have seasoning..especially when I do minced meat ball, I had to add soya sauce to marinate the meat. Then for dinner, I always cook soup and scoop out his share, but he will take some of our dish with seasoning. His favourite is kon loh mee, when daddy made him that sure to put a lot of seasoning like black soya sauce, oyster sauce etc.

Grocery shopping

• Certain things here are super duper cheap, Pringles @ USD1, a big stack of slice cheese USD3, Ben&Jerry/Hagen Daaz ice cream USD3, and my favourite avocado 50cents most of time..

• But at Walmart there's only few vege available, like celery, lettuce, cabbage, carrot, potato..for the first 6 wks of our stay here, we've been eating these few vege repeatedly till scared...
• Finally I gave up, and started to buy greens from Super China, the only chinese grocery store here, about 40mins drive...then I felt so good to eat chai sim, xiao bai chai, and kai lan etc again..hehe..Initially I don't like buying greens from Super China, cos it came in big pack and the price seemed so much more ex than greens from Walmart..

• Another funny thing here is, chicken breast more ex than chicken thigh and drumstick. Even at KFC too, they charge meal with thigh/drumstick cheaper than breast..

• Here do not have fresh fish supply, everything is frozen. I will get sliced Tilapia, salmon from Walmart and cook for Jared..but the quality are definitely lousier than in Sg, so he has been taking very little fish since here..Back in Sg, he take very fresh cod fish, salmon and had lots of them until my mother become poor..hehe..then here, I got conned at Super China for getting a super stinky cod fish at USD15...till now cannot finish, and need to throw away...so heart pain..

Shopping

• Oh I can only say I hate Coach! This coach make me felt sad many many time..hehee..

• I dun buy a lot of branded stuff, but my last trip to the states I bought a Coach handbag as a souvenier, so I thought it would be good to get another 1 as souvenier..(Dun want to be so stupid like last time go Europe never come back with LV as souvenier liao)

• Over in SLC there's no Coach boutique, only at Dillard shopping and outlet. When I first go, there were no discount, a big bag and medium bag cost 298 and 268. 2nd time I visited Dillard, there was 25% discount on the medium bag, so I grab immediately. 3rd time I go again, the big bag was having 40% discount...I got sadden immediately cost now it only cost 178 loh...

• Pai seh I could remember to price so well, cos if I had gotten the big bag at my first visit, I now rugi USD120...

• And that was not all, last weekend we went outlet, my medium bag was there with 30% discount..immediately no mood again and left the shop hehehe..

• Other than that, when they were having sales, price can really go down very low...had a crazy time at Gap last weekend shopping for Jared's clothes due to Presidential day sales...most of them are like 1.99-3.99 only. So we bought up to age 4..hehe..

• For myself, I didn't shop a lot, becos of my size now..hehe..but daddy has been very active in shopping loh, he has got himself 2 pair of shoes, few jeans, and many polo and t shirts...become more active when I come hehe..

Claypot Chicken Rice Using Rice Cooker

Made claypot chicken rice using rice cooker..my 2nd attempt..Did once when I just reached here using Lily's Wai Sek Hong recipe but I think the rice she used is not Thai rice, so the amount of water is not correct, ended the rice was too soggy. This round I cook the rice as per normal...and fry ginger and the salted fish...and the claypot chic rice turned out to be perfect!

It's for daddy's lunch tomorrow, cos tonight we having wan ton mee gathering for Jared and me's farewell :((, prepared by the housemate...But the gathering ppl was invited by the housemate, and I dun really know them..nevermind we just eat..hehe..Actually I dun really like this type of gathering, being the wife who stay hm, ppl expect the wife to prepare something...and everytime got this type of gathering I stressed! hehe...Anyway today I made agar agar with the last packet I brought over from SG.

Recipe for my own reference in future.. I modified the recipe to below based on what's available at home..

Ingredients: (Served 1)

3/4 cups rice, washed and drained

1 chicken drumsticks cut into pieces (bone in chicken pieces can also be used)

3 Chinese mushrooms, soaked, cut into sliced

1 cm thick salted fish, sliced thinly, fried till crispy

Shredded ginger

Marinade:

1 tbsp light soy sauce

1 tbsp oyster sauce

1/2 tbsp dark soy sauce (accidently put 1 tbsp this round, so rice turned out quite dark)

½tbsp sesame oil

dashed of pepper

1/4 tsp sugar

1/4 tbsp corn flour

Garnishing:Spring onion chopped

Method:

1. Mix chicken, mushrooms with marinade, season for 30 minutes.

2. Heat up oil to fry ginger, and salted fish, then mushroom and chicken

3. Scoop up the ingredients, pour in rice to stir fry a while in pan

4. Cook the rice normally with a dash of maggi chicken stock cube

5. When the rice is almost cook, pour in the salted fish, mushroom and chicken

Ta da!...you get a fragrant claypot chicken rice...served with lettuce for a balance meal.

What's cooking?

Have been trying new dishes from recipe were extracted from Kitchen Caper by Gina.

We bought 1kg of kuey teow from Super China and half them to cook char kuey teow and hor fun.

Hawker Style Char Kuey Teow




Ingredients:
1 kg kway teow(white, flat noodles)
300 g bean sprouts
200 g chicken fillet(parboiled in hot water, shredded) –not added
2 stalks of spring onions, chopped(white part only)
2 tbsp Sweet Black Sauce
1 tbsp Fish sauce(or Light Soya Sauce)
1 tbsp Dark Soya sauce
5 tbsp corn oil
1 tsp chopped garlic
200 g fresh cockles(optional, if unavailable in your country)



Method:
1. In a wok, heat 1 tbsp corn oil and add garlic to stir fry.
2. add noodles, and all the sauces(Sweet Black Sauce, Fish Sauce and Dark Soya sauce) and stir well to mix.
3. Add remaining 4 tbsp of corn oil to stir.
4. Add prawns and chicken, bean sprouts
5. Add 20 ml water and spring onions.
6. Stir to mix. Lastly, add fresh cockles and briefly stir for about 2 mins.
8. Turn off fire. Serve hot!

Comment: Daddy did all the cooking, despite only have beansprout, no meat, it tasted really like hawker style after we add in a beaten egg...


Hor fun



Ingredients:

1 kg ipoh hor fun noodles(kway teow)
300 chicken fillet(cooked, shredded) -not added, replaced with pork and some meat from drumstick, marinated with a little soya sauce and corn starch
400 g Chye Sim(or other green leafy vegetables)
500ml chicken stock(from cooking the chicken fillet) - Use 1/2 maggi chicken cube
1 tsp chopped garlic
2 eggs, lightly beaten
2 tbsp dark soya sauce
1 tsp salt and pepper
1 tbsp light soya sauce
1.5 tbsp corn starch, 3 tbsp water

Method:
1. in a wok, add 2 tbsp of cooking oil to stir fry garlic.
2. add noodles and 1 tbsp of Dark soya sauce.
3. Stir fry noodles till its well mixed with sauce and non-sticky.
4. Remove and set aside in a large casserole dish.
5. using the same wok(do not wash), add 1 tbsp cooking oil and stir fry meat
6. Add cut veg, to fry till cook.
7. Add chicken stock, and rest of seasonings. and cook till boiling.
8. Add cornstarch mixture to thicken the gravy
9. Then slowly pour in egg mixture..do not stir.
10. Turn off heat after 2 mins. Pour over noodles.

Comment: I did the cooking, pek chek, the gravy being soaked out by the noodles...so it didn't look as nice...

Fried Bee Hoon



Ingredients:
1 packet of bee hoon

Seasoning A:
3 tbsp Dark Soya sauce
3 tbsp Light Soya sauce
3 tbsp Sesame oil

Seasoning B:
3 tbsp Fish Sauce
2 tbsp Sweet Black sauce
400 g bean sprouts - replaced with shreded cabbage and carrot
40 ml cooking oil
1 tbsp chopped garlic

Method:
1. Use a large pot, add water.
2. Add Seasoning A to the water to mix.
3. Put whole pack of beehoon to soak for 1 hour(till soft).
4. Heat up wok with cooking oil.
5. Add chopped garlic to stir fry till fragant.
6. Add beehoon, 200 ml of black water(the liquid) and Seasoning B to stir fry.
7. When beehoon is well coated, add bean sprouts to stir fry for 5 mins.

Comment: We tried this once few weeks ago to bring to a bbq party..it turned out not as nice and needed to add a lot of water from Seasoning A, and a lot more soya sauce before it has taste. all Garlic were used to stir fry cabbage and carrot, no more garlic for beehoon, too little oil for beehoon too.

2nd round, I followed then recipe closer with the of oil, it turned out much fragrant and very nice.

Pack for lunch for daddy the next day together with egg and hot dog, doesn't it look like economical beehoon back home? hehe..

I can sing the rainbow! Sing the rainbow song!

It hardly rains here as its summer-peak summer, hot hot type..but after dinner at Arby(burger fast food) at Park City after a shopping spree at the outlet, look what greet us as we step out from the restaurant?

Its double rainbow!..I've been singing the rainbow song to Jared as his nap lullaby...I guess this is the first time he sees the actual rainbow..

Another playground

We found another playground in the area of the apartment one morning when walk around with Jared..Its at the other corner which is not visible from our place..

The ironman! Jared like to hang himself like this even at home at a corner at the kitchen table top..

New swim suit

Got Jared a new swim suit from Old Navy when they are having 50% sales...with the experience from previous swimming experience, we don't let him wear his shoe to the pool anymore..hehe

The angmoh kids and adult all dressed in this kind of pants when go swimming, but Jared is definitely over dress, cos the rest of ppl go on topless..So I felt pai seh when they complimented Jared's swim suit look nice..hehe..And most of all, dunno if this type of swim suit ok in SG pool???

Yellowstone & Grand Teton National Park Summer Road Trip 4-6 July Day 3

We visited Teton Village and took the gondola to visit the mountain top

Jared having breakfast in the gondola

Views from the gondola

On hilltop

Family pic

After get down from gondola

A lot of ppl doing para sail from mountain top, Jared like to watch this a lot

The gondola ticket included chair lift ride too, so we took a ride

The chair lift

Journey continues to Jenny lake

Grand Teton mountains


After lunch around 2pm, we set off for the long journey back to our place..another 6hr ride..

Yellowstone & Grand Teton National Park Summer Road Trip 4-6 July Day 2

Journey continues the next day to tour Yellowstone National Park..to visit the rest of the scenic point and most importantly in hoping to bump into the big black bear!

No bear but saw a bison taking a stroll by the road side

Some scenic waterfall in the park

On the tracking trail to explore Old Mammmoth Hot Spring, Jared insisted on concuring the trail walking on his own..climbing up so many stairs ...many ppl complimented him..hehe..Even I wanted to give up half way, told them I'll sit and wait and some shade area, he disallowed..ngeh ngeh force me complete the journey

Snap shots half way

Family pic

More walking, he walked with his daddy the whole trail holding hands..me walk fast fast to find shade and take a seat while waiting for them to catch up hehehe

Hilltop, cannot believe such a small hot spring ask ppl to climb so many stairs!..Taiwan got much nicer and better hot spring which you can dip in it loh!..And worst, we realised the spot is accessible by car, some ppl just drive there ...while we took the walking trail...then again, if we don't do the trail, I would not know Jared could be so persistent and high stamina..

On journey back to car, getting down stairs is tougher for him, and I think he was a bit tired too..so when he slip and fall, he refused to get up..hehe..

Cannot move at all, too tired..hehe

Journey to another look out point, up the slope..

More different view of the area

Picnic by the river, he found something to block his face when take pic, very happy..

After that, we left for another city Jackson hole, Wyoming to overnight as it's nearer to another national park Grand Teton. Daddy col highly recommended this city, true enuff it look beautiful but its too touristy, more tourist than locals, and few restaurants..the mains costing high USD20-30+ nevermind, the queue outside every restaurant is even more scary..(p/s most restaurant in Salt Lake the place where we stay main only cost slightly above usd10-20 never so ex one)..

What's up??

Ooops..time pass so fast that we are going home next Fri..luggage not pack, chocolates for cols not buy yet, blog regarding road trip not finish updating..everything not done! hehe..

What hv we been up to?

Ever since we got back from Yellowstone Road trip, I've been bz..with online shopping :) , cooking food that require more extensive steps, and just 1 to 2 wk ago, I began to chase cantonese drama series..hehehe...

For Jared he also started preparing to go home, by ...Eating less and less!!! Trying to lose the extra weight he has gain in the states huh?? When we just here, we couldn't believe how huge his appetite were

Breakfast - Yogurt with fruits+ 1 piece of cheese
Lunch - Big bowl of noodles
Dinner - 1 full bowl of rice with soup

And for the first time we heard him say "tai4 bao3" too full, and in fact he even vomitted because of too full..and reject milk feed...the first 900g Gain IQ formula lasted for 1 whole month as compared to SG, he would finish in a whopping 2wks...

But now, 2-3wks before going home..his breakfast reduced to 1 piece of cheese, few mouth of yogurt with fruits, few mouth of noodles for lunch, and rice for dinner..aiyo..And of cos the formula goes faster now..*headache*

Jared's Development
I couldn't get him do any colouring, nor I know any more new songs to teach him, we also don't have flash cards here to teach him.

But we got quite a no. of books to read to him daily..to our surprise, he could "read" most of the books now!!!

Why "read" ? - As usual he is clueless with reading words, but he has got superb memory..so he memorise the book!!...A whole book, and this time round the books contain quite long sentences unlike the caterpillar book which is 1 line in each page only.

Favourite Book:

There's no place Like Space- All about our solar system

->I'm the Cat in the Hat and we're off to have fun. We'll visit the planets, the stars and the sun.

->There is no place like space. I will prove it to you. Your mother will not mind at all if I do.

->Jump in! Here we go! We will fly up so high we can the dance on the moon and play games in the sky. We will sing past stars, and in case you have missed 'em, you'll soon see...

->the planets in our solar system! There are nine of these planets that circle the sun, and soon you'll be able to name every one.

...and more pages..

Each new paragraph (marked with ->) is a new page...and he could memorise almost the whole book now...and I really like this book as it introduces the solar system to him at this young age, and he never mixed up the planets name and can point to each planets accurately..He was the 1 to force us to learn which planet is which...

So I'm now bz trying to shop for more titles on Cat in the Hat Learning Library for him...

We did not get the famous cheap leap frog items for him, because he never will appreciate toys..and have been throwing around his Mega blocks Mack the truck, and all his toys...the only thing he appreciated is book..so told myself should not stingy on books hehe..

Behaviour Development

More Independent
- Now he put on and off his own shoe, back in sg, he would demand ppl to put on shoe for him including school teacher!
- Less selfish, he's willing to share his tv couch with us....back in sg, no one could sit on his couch if he want to watch tv
-Take off own pants and sit on potty to poo (Happened to realise he could do this when he couldn't wake me up from my nap to help him kekeke..)

Oh yeah, he also got a name for his coming little meimei..

Poccoyo, 张祥妹

and Jared's chinese name is 张祥毅
Hmmm..time to prepare dinner...

Yellowstone & Grand Teton National Park Summer Road Trip 4-6 July Day 1

We've been puzzling what to do for the long weekend on US independence day 4July..a shopping spree at Las Vegas? or stay at home? or the Yellowstone..Ppl who has just got back from Las Vegas told us that summer in Salt Lake is nothing compared to the one at LV. Its over 100F/ 40+ degree there now. We couldn't even tahan LA's summer what about LV..Then I figured out that driving 6hrs+petrol US100+accomodation US100...is not worth while for a shopping spree..But I do want to bring Jared to see the Bellagio's water fountain and Fremont Street Experience..that's why headache for so long hehe..

Anyway, finally we decided to go Yellowstone NP last min, few days before the big day..hehe..When I did a research on the accomodation it was almost full, and most ppl do a 4 day trip at YNP..while us only had 3D2N to spare..After 2 day intensive research, found our accomodation..it's the most ex throughout so many trips here...

This trip is quite special as it covers travelling through 3 states, Utah, Idaho and Wyoming. No shopping though, more on wild animals searching and sight seeing..




Beautiful scenary on the way to West Yellowstone, the yellow patch is formed by wildflowers



After lunch at Running Bear pancake house, we entered the Yellowstone National Park..






1st animals that greeted us..the Elk..






After that we saw a big traffic jam, and decided to join in the crowd....there's 2 bison by the river..






More elk






Drive in to nobody spot..






Forgot the place name..something related to painter pod..






Another painter pod with different colour






Geiser





Old Faithful Geiser, not the highest water fountain but most accurately predicted. It splashed water every 50min+/-10min..We were so lucky that when we reached <5mins>

Another Elk, this one has beautiful "headpiece" ...dunno what's the actual name.

River drive

After dinner, while waiting for 4July West Yellowstone's fireworks..I must said it's a boring firework after we watched the Disney one..Jared at first was looking forward so much to the fireworks..but cannot tahan the boringness and dragged us back to hotel.