Prepping Fresh Shitake Mushroom For Later Use

I have been cooking noodles for a while, not the instant noodle type. And I tried to make my noodles healthier by adding more ingredients. I saw mushroom and have been wanting to get it, but it's quite big for me. Anyway, after an ok experience with freezing the carrot, I want to try freezing mushroom, it's same theory. 

Normally, my family bought the dried mushroom instead of fresh one. So I was very surprised when I opened the packaging, it's so fragrant, much nicer smell than the dried mushroom. No wonder there's mushroom powder seasoning. 

fresh Shitake Mushroom

I washed it and cut into small pieces. Well, after cutting it, I felt that the quantity is actually not that much. Then I added some cili padi flakes into the mushroom because some people in reddit said that one could season it while blanching. 

cutting into pieces

add some cili padi flakes

After that, I boiled the water in a pot, and after boiled, I poured the mushrooms into the pot and off the induction cooker power, waited for 2 to 3 minutes. The water used to blanch the mushroom was very fragrant too.

blanching the mushroom

Then, I transferred it to another pot with iced water. And let it be to stop the cooking process.

ice bath

After that, I laid the mushroom on a plate and put the plate in freezer section to prevent it to clump together. 

laid on the plate in freezer section

I only put these in a container the next day. Due to I didn't drain the water away, the mushroom is covered with ice, but it's still ok, at least, not clump together. 

transfer to a container

I tried to cook with the frozen mushroom 2 days after. Well, it's still ok, not mushy. OK, next time can try other vegetables for freezing. Hahaha!

noodles cooked with frozen mushroom, edamame, fish balls, carrot

Documentation of the Sweet Potato Growth

Here to document the sweet potato growth.

From the left, grow from vines cutting, middle from small chunk of sweet potato, far right from a small sweet potato tuber.

Early June

13th June

In just a couple of days, the one from sweet potato grew so much from nothing! Can observe many leaves, looked healthy too. The middle one was ok, the leaves were bigger compared to a week ago. The one grew from vine cutting is not so healthy though, barely surviving. 

19th June

It's 27th June and all 3 grows so much over the week.

27th June from Side view

27th June

It's 4th July and the growth is not visible from my eyes. It's growing sideways.

4th July

11th July and there's no visible growth from a week earlier. 

11th July

I purposely singled out the one grew from vines. Although the total leaves were lesser than the other two. It's growing, the leaves looked healthy too.

11th July - grew from vines

18th July, the pass one week was quite dry, no rain. So, I think it didn't grow much.

18th July

Side story, I planted the stems of Malabar Spinach (I know the Chinese name is 皇帝苗, the English name is from Google) along the edge of the pot, and it grew! Apart that it's edible, it's a good looking plant. I like the shape and colour of the leaves. 

皇帝苗 18th July

25th July and the plants looked similar to last week. I read in a novel that one needed to clear some leaves to let the tuber grow. So I pluck some of it. 

25th July Sweet Potato Plants

25th July plucking excess leaves

For the spinach, more leaves are visible. Growing fine. 

皇帝苗 25th July 

1st August, the plants looked so so ok.

1st August

But the spinach looked good. With more leaves.

皇帝苗 1st August

Today is 8th of August. There's no rain for the pass one week. The leaves are a bit yellowish. 

8th August - the leaves looked dry

As usual, the 皇帝苗 looks good though.

皇帝苗 8th August 

Ouch, I have forgotten about this. Today is 29th Aug. It have been 2 weeks since I last updated. The pot is plastic and slowly degrading. The one I planted with a small sweet potato is coming out from soil. And yes, the one planted with small potato didn't grow with new babies. So sad, should have just steam it in the rice cooker and eat it then. 

sweet potato plants 29th Aug

the sweet potato coming from the soil after the pot crack

And below is the last photo for now, we already harvested the leaves. It grew from stem also. 

皇帝苗 29th Aug 

Ouch, I have been busy. So for 19th September. Below are the conditions. The 皇帝苗 have been growing again although we harvested all the leaves. The healthy one is growing well, those that was not so healthy still same, just a few leaves. 

皇帝苗 19th Sept

the neglected sweet potato plants

Well ok, it's 18th October 2026, I plucked all the sweet potato plants, there's no sweet potato tuber on all 3 plants. LOL, I really don't know what triggers the growth of the sweet potato, when I watched all the videos on the planting of sweet potatoes, it's so easy, so effortless. OK, it has been a interesting 4 months though. And spinach is an easier plant. 

Commuting to Work in Sungai Way Free Trade Industrial Zone (2)

I have been using public transport to work in Sungai Way Free Trade Industrial Zone for few months. And I found another way to reach the FTIZ. I couldn't believe that I actually ignore the Sunway BRT for so long. After taking public transport, I tried to leave company before 7pm, however, there's one day that I got caught with an issue and by the time I reached the Setia Jaya bus stop and I checked Rapid Pulse, the next 772 bus is like 45 minutes away. And it's getting late, actually I did considered booking Grab. 

Then, I saw the BRT, it's been there all these times. And I checked it do reach USJ7 LRT Station from Kelana Jaya line and it's covered by MY50. So, instead of waiting for the bus, I decided to take BRT. 

BRT Sunway Setia Jaya Station

I have very good impression on BRT. I think I rode this type of bus in Taiwan before, sadly, I heard it's stopped in Taiwan already. This type of bus will not be stuck in jammed road, so the bus schedule will be more reliable. However, for me, my aim is to reach Glenmarie Station. So,  I was actually going farer than Glenmarie and then detour back. From Setia Jaya BRT Station, I have to go to USJ 7 BRT Station, then transit to USJ7 LRT Station, ride to Glenmarie Station, then transit to Glenmarie2 LRT Station. The time taken will be longer but more easy to estimate. For the bus, it's much more unreliable, but the route is shorter, but even with Rapid Pulse, sometimes I didn't know when it will reach the bus stop. 

Sunway BRT line is still reliable, but lately Kelana Jaya line is not. There were multiple times in my short commuting experiences that the coaches had issues and the commuters had to leave the coach and waited for next train. Last Thursday 24th September around 7pm, the train towards Putra Height had issue, and the commuters had to leave the coach and waited for next train. And I was waiting for train towards Gombak, two trains passed us without stopping, I guess it had issues and had to be sent for repair.   

USJ7 LRT Station towards Putra Height

USJ7 LRT towards Putra Height

Anyway, I hope Kelana Jaya line fast fast settle the train maintenance issues and all commuters including me can have a more seamless commuting experience. Dear all, we can reach Sungai Way Free Trade Industrial Zone from BRT Setia Alam Station, just need to cross the road.

Silver Jewelries

Well well, I love gold, I love silver, I love beautiful items. Hahaha! However, gold is too expensive nowadays. So instead of gold, I got myself silver jewelry, and some questionable rings from Lazada China based shop. I only stopped like recently, because I am not wearing it, and I couldn't justify buying to keep. I should invest my money in shares, maybe? 

silver rings with cubic zirconia from KC Jewelry

Anyway, looking at all these beautiful stuffs occasionally makes my day. 

side view of the rings

the ring comes with a thick plastic pouch

Other than rings, I bought also bracelets. However, it's still slightly bigger for me, although I did measure the diameter of my hand before placing order. I did try to buy silver bangle in jewelry shops before, however, they did not carry silver, only gold. Maybe need to try in shopping mall instead. But I am a bit afraid of going into a jewelry shop in shopping mall, the sales personals were so 'passionate', I felt bad if I didn't buy anything. Hahaha!

bangle from Jewellry Shop JY

silver bangle

Next, I bought from a slightly bigger brand, Wah Chan. It's beautiful too and came with certificate with the weight of the silver stated. The bracelet is rhodium plated silver based. I am not sure, but I felt that the rhodium plating makes it feel like stainless steel. Still, shiny and I think worth it. 

bracelet package from Wah Chan

WAH CHAN S925 ITALIAN Silver Bracelet

Finally, my first silver jewelleries from Tomei. It's much more heavier. Hahaha. I started to buy from 2024, silver was not that expensive then. I just checked in Lazada, two out of three items are not available anymore, and the two not available now are still my favourites. 

the price for the bracelet and necklace

Below is still my favourite bracelet, it is around 13.52g, and it's around RM196 then, I think it would cost much more nowadays. The silver price is increasing due to the AI boom. In the invoice, only mention silver bracelet, but checking back the Lazada history, it has a beautiful name to match this beauty, "Sonata bracelet". Although it's already like 2 years old, I didn't wear this though, only left in the box in a drawer, even the white box already became yellowish, the bracelet is still so shiny, so beautiful. 

Sonata Bracelet

Another no more available item is below "Frosty Faith Laser Balls (All) Wave Necklace", Hahaha, also never wear this. Still it is still as beautiful as when I got this. 

Frosty Faith Laser Balls (All) Wave Necklace

Another necklace that I bought is normal, simple necklace. I paired it with a charm that I got online too. It's from a China brand, I am not sure it's true silver or not, it might be true silver because it's not that cheap. 

Tomei Frosty Faith Unisex Box Chain + BAMOER Heart Petals Clover Dangle Charm

Actually I got a Habib silver bracelet too, however, I forgot where I stored it, it's still somewhere in my house. Also beautiful. 

Finally, very cheap fashion jewellery that I thought I would wear. LOL. I didn't. The one on my ring finger is the most expensive, around RM20, the others on my index and middle ringer are less than RM10. For the one on my index finger, the material description for the rings was brass, but I feel it's more like stainless steel I think. Brass should be copperish in colour. The one on my ring finger is silver on the description, but it's less than RM10, well I can accept that it's stainless steel. The ring on my middle finger, I like the least. It's too bulky, also made of brass according to the description, well, I cannot imagine how brass is turned into this colour. 

confirmed not sterling silver rings, I think

After summarizing the items I bought, and I did the math, ouch! I could have got a gold item around 2.5g in today price. Still, it's beautiful and it smooth my mind. Maybe will continue buying.......

Prepping Carrot for Later Use

Ok, I was not thinking properly when I bought a packet of 5 carrots. I only regretted a bit when I reached home. Obviously I couldn't eat a carrot a meal. And I read and watched on some prepping videos. I decided to prep the carrot for freezing for use later. 

First, I cut the five carrots into pieces. 

clean and cut into pieces

Then, I put all the carrot pieces into a pot and poured boiled water into the pot. Set timer for 2 minutes. I read that it's called blanching. 

pour all the carrot pieces into a pot

boiled water

blanching

After blanching, have to put into the ice bath to stop the cooking. In metallurgy, similar activity, it's called quenching. LOL, finally something from what I learnt in Uni. I didn't have ice cubes. But I did have ice block that I kept inside a ice cream container. Well, I did that because I thought doing this could save electricity. However, there are other opinions that mentioned that in order to make it into ice, more electricity are being wasted, it's easier to make the air cooler again. Well, whatever!

ice

I removed the carrot after 2 minutes or slightly longer from the pot and put it into the plastic container with the ice block. Then I left it and ate my dinner. 

ice bath

Well, after that, I arranged the carrot pieces in a plate, bowl and container lid. and put that inside the freezer. I read that this is to prevent it to clump together, if it's frozen first, it will be individual piece. Anyway, I don't have the space and tools, so I use whatever I have. 

frozen in individual pieces first

After around 3 or 4 hours, well I had work to do, I slept on 3am that day I think, I put all the carrot pieces into the ice cream container and called it a day.

frozen carrot

Well, I think I didn't blanch it correctly. Although from appearances, it's still ok. But it's quick soft, not crunchy after cook. Nevermind, can try next time, at least I didn't wait until it's dried up before I do anything.

in freezer section after 2 days

Below shows cooking with fresh carrot. It's still sweet and crunchy.

dried mee with fresh carrot

dried mee with fresh carrot

Below is cooking with the frozen carrot, it's quite mushy.

frozen carrot and frozen edamame

cooked with frozen carrot

Cooking involved so much knowledge, I am learning and trying to become better everyday!