Japanese Cotton Cheesecake

This is my forth week out of work. I felt great and enjoying myself very much! Taking a long break from work is different compare to just taking a few weeks of vacation when you know that there will be work piling up for you after you vacation. But I don't have to worry about this work. No one will wait for 6 months for me to come back and finish the work.

Since I am at home now, I picked up responsibilities to send my son to day care and pick him in the evening, cleaning up house, doing laundry, cooking, washing dishes, bath my son, putting my son to bed etc. Sounds busy huh! My hubby was very satisfied and happy since he no longer needs to help to do these tasks now and he can relax after work.

Last weekend before he went to bed, he told me that he is craving for some desserts like chiffon cake or cheese cake. Guess what, the next day when he back from work, he got what he asked for - Japanese cotton cheesecake which is a cheese cake that has the texture of a sponge cake. It is light and soft. Both my son and hubby love it.

I got to know this recipe from my friend Yen Ping. Here is the recipe that I used from http://www.dianasdesserts.com :

130g fine granulated sugar 5 egg whites 5 egg yolks 1/4 tsp. cream of tartar 45g butter 8 oz. cream cheese 100 ml/3 fluid oz. fresh milk 1 tbsp. lemon juice 60g/2 oz. cake flour /superfine flour 20g/1 oz. cornflour (cornstarch) 1/4 tsp salt Instructions: 1. Melt cream cheese, butter and milk over a double boiler. Cool the mixture. Fold in the cake flour, cornflour, egg yolks, lemon juice and mix well.

2. Whisk egg whites with cream of tartar until foamy. Add in the sugar and whisk until soft peaks form. 3. Divide the egg white into 3-4 portion and add the cheese mixture one portion at a time. Mix well before adding the next portion of egg white. Pour into a 8-inch round cake pan. 4. Bake cheesecake in a water bath for 1 hours 10 minutes or until set and golden brown at 160 degrees C (325 degrees F).

Fun conversations with my son

My son is talking more and more each days. He is learning a lot of new words and can talk to us in full sentences instead of just words. We talk to him in Mandarin at home and he is using English in day care. So he learnt a lot of English words and always surprise us with those new words he learnt. Recently he is using the following sentences that he learnt in day care:
"Mummy, I need help!"
"What are you doing mummy?"
"What's going on?"
"Is not working!"
"Come on mummy!"
"Let's go mummy!"
"Wake up"
"Bless you"

Since he started to talk more, he also started to negotiate with us. My son loves bus for some reasons. He will be very excited and happy if he sees a bus on the way to day care. So every morning, we will look out for him for school bus and point to him whenever we see one.
There is a kid tv program named wheels on the bus in Netflix which my son loves so much. He wants to watch it at least one time each day. So last weekend, he told me that he wanted to watch that movie:
ZaiZai   : "Mummy, I want to watch Wheels on the bus".
Mummy: "Okay, only one time."
ZaiZai   : "No, three times.".
Mummy : "No, only one.".
ZaiZai started to cry without tears: "I want three times, mummy".
Mummy: "No, only one. if you want three times, mummy is not going to turn on the TV".
ZaiZai continue to cry and after seeing me not moving, he said: "Okay, only one".
Mummy smiled (thinking that I won). I started to turn on TV and before I started the show, I asked my son again: "only one, right?".
He gave me a cunning smile and said: "No, three times". (Sweat!)

I sent ZaiZai to day care every morning since I am on leave now and Chun can directlly go to office. My son started to ask me why daddy didn't follow us to day care. I told him that daddy needs to go office to work. My son doesn't understand what office is and he was thinking that it must e a fun place that he can't go.
So he started to tell that he doesn't want to go day care and wants to go office instead. Today on the way to day care, my son said me: "Mummy, why daddy goes office everyday? I don't want to go day care. I want to go office, daddy goes day care". :)

This morning when we were having pancake for breakfast, my son's hand was full maple syrup. so I told my son:
Mummy: "Your hands so dirty. Who is this dirty little guy?"
He used to admit said ZaiZai is dirty little guy. but guessed what he replied me this morning: "Mummy is dirty little guy".
Me and Chun can't stop laughing.
I asked him again:" What about daddy?"
ZaiZai: "Daddy is dirty little guy".
Mummy: How about Zai Zai?"
ZaiZai smiled and said: "ZaiZai eats pancake." Smart huh!

Playing with daddy wireless headphone.

Bed time story

My son is so obsessed with trains, fire engines, cars, bus and trucks. If he sees books or kids tv shows that are related to these vehicles, he will get so addicted. We bought him some train tracks and train engines from IKEA and those kept him well occupied at home. We also borrowed lots of trains/cars/trucks related books from library. Mummy had to read to him those books before putting him in bed. There were a total of 6-8 books that he needs me to read to him everyday before he willing to go sleep. Sometimes he wants me to repeat each book more than 1 time. Since I went through those books more so many time, I can even remember the sentences without looking at the book.

My first knitting product

My first knitting project finally done. It is a scarf for my son. I showed him when it was done and asked him if it is beautiful, he said yay. I asked him again if he wanna wear it, he said "No!". (-_-)""

I also trying out some knit stitches:

single color knit look dull to me now. the next thing i wanna try is color knitting! starting my next project - double knitting.

Pineapple cookie

Chinese lunar new year is around the corner. This year we don't get to go back to Malaysia to celebrate. I missed the celebration with family and friends so much and really wish to bring my son back next year so he knows what people usually do for this festival.

CNY is a big festival in Malaysia just like Christmas in US. There is a lot of preparation to do for this festival. We need to do spring cleaning, decorate our house, change curtain and sofa cover, made different type of cookies, cook dishes, shopping for new clothes/shoes and also praying. I especially love the baking part. I used to help my mum doing that. We did a lot of cookies like kuih kapit, peanut cookies, pineapple cookies, coconut cookies, butter cookies etc. We usually did the cookies in a large amount as we need to give to our neighbors and relatives. Imagine that we only can do one cookie from morning to evening and with ~5-6 people to help up.

I missed the family gathering we had during this festival. Missed the time when we helped my parents to put money in Ang Pau packet, eating CNY eve dinner, playing fire crackers, praying and visiting relatives.

Another thing I missed a lot is friend gathering. We used to have gathering on 1st day of CNY starting at Shuan's house and then do house visiting for the rest of the day. It was really fun to meet everyone and catch up. Not to forget the lou sang dinner together. Time flying, I think we had been doing these gathering for more than a decade. But ever since I moved to US, I no longer able to join them every year. Gals, I missed you all so much! 


Wishing all my family and friends to have a great CNY celebration and all the best for coming new year!

This year I decided to do pineapple cookie for CNY. Here is the recipe adapted from rasa malaysia:

Pineapple filling:
2 pineapple
sugar to taste

For the pasty filling2 1/2 cups (350g) all-purpose flour2 sticks butter1/4 teaspoon salt2 egg yolks4 tablespoons confectioners’ sugar/icing sugar2 tablespoons cornstarch1 egg yolk (lightly beaten for egg wash)
Method:1. Cut pineapple into smaller cube and blend it until it is mushy.2. Cook it using medium heat till all liquid evaporated. it took me about 2 hours.3. Sieve the flour, cornstarch, salt and sugar into a bowl. Soften butter to room temperature. Add in egg yolks. Knead to form the dough. If dough is dry, add more butter.4. Flatten the pastry dough with palms and put the pineapple filling in the middle and cover the filling. Use your palms to round it up and shape it into a roll acout 1.5 inch long. Use fork to make criss-cross pattern and brush it with egg wash.5. Preheat the oven for 250F and bake for 20-25 minutes or until light brown.
Yummy!

Ingredients

Pineapple Jam

before bake

After bake

Wonderful twos

Since Loke turned two, he started to learn more vocabulary and started to communicate with us more in words.  He always surprise us with new words he learnt or new thing he did. I remembered a couple of them and wanted to list them here:

Moon or banana?

We always went for a walk during summer time in the evening after dinner. One day, I pointed to moon and asked my son, what is the that? He said: "Banana!". Both me and Chun can't stop laughing. I corrected him that it is moon. 

We have a few week of clear sky for winter last year and we can see moon so clearly at night. One night, I pointed to the full moon and asked my son again what is that. He said:"Is moon with lights on!". He thought that the moon was lit up just like the Christmas tree in our house. :)

Passing gas (放屁吧了）:
I smelled something stink one day when i wanted to put my son to bed. So i asked him: "仔仔，你大便啊？（Did you poo）?". "没有， 放屁吧了！（No, I am just passing gas）!".

All Done
My son always use "all done" when he is done with his meals or he is done playing with something. One day before he went to sleep, Chun told him: "给爸爸抱抱 （Let daddy hug hug!)". Guess what my son replied: “No 抱抱, all done 抱抱 (No hug hug, all done hug hug)." (>_<)

Vegetable vs leaves?

Last year when fall came, Chun had to sweep the leaves that were dropping on our lawn every week. My son loved to help. So he learnt the new word: leaves. He kind of thinking that all leafy plants are leaves. So whenever we go for grocery, he will say: "去买叶子（Let's go buy leaves）". Whenever he saw us eating salad or leafy vegetable, he will say :"爸爸妈妈吃叶子！（Daddy and mummy eat leaves）!". It sounds like both of us are some kind of herbivore. 

Traffic light:

I taught him how to read traffic light. Red means no go, green means go. White with a people walking sign for pedestrian light means walk and red with a hand sign means no walk. So every time we stopped at the traffic light, I will ask my son can we go now? 

One day, on the way back home, Chun turned left when the traffic light for turning left goes GREEN while traffic light for those want to go straight remains RED. Then i heard my son shouted : "Daddy,  is red, no go!". (>_<) He was sitting at the back in his car seat and didn't notice that there is traffic light for turning left. So he don't understand why we took the turn. And he kept repeating the same sentence till we reached home. :)

In US, the traffic light is actually more than just green for go and red no go. we were allowed to do right turn even though the traffic light still red, we also can do a left turn as long as we yield for coming traffic and the traffic light will be blinking. My son got confused and we gave up trying to explain to him for all possible cases.

"Daddy drove fast fast"!

Chun made a turn without slowing down a little bit. My son felt that and he shouted from behind, "爸爸架快快！（Daddy drove FAST FAST）". 

People always mentioning a famous term "terrible two" which refer to a child development stage which occurs around the age of two in which toddlers often saying no and throwing temper tantrums. They wanted to make their choice independently and often disagree with what parents say. This was a little hard for us initially as we were not sure what Loke wants and i think he himself sometimes doesn't know what he wants too. But as we learnt to be patience with him, we actually enjoy this and instead of saying terrible two, I would say wonderful two.

My son's 2 years old birthday. I baked the cake for him.