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!

Tea Garden Paradigm Mall PJ

A good friend and colleague resigned from the company after 20ish years. That's very brave of her, the time I resigned from my first job, I have been there for more than 10 years, that took a lot of courage to resign. Hahaha! I am hoping she will fly and soar in her new job.

Anyway, since she has been in the company for so long, she had almost daily farewell lunches with many colleagues from multiple departments. And finally, it's our turn, this farewell lunch didn't include our bosses. Normally for our farewell, welcome lunch, we would gather in Paradigm mall or Subang Parade to avoid the parking issue. At least, confirm can get parking. We couldn't waste time finding parking, still have to rush back to work. Many of us had meeting on 1.30pm or 2pm. Well, I had meeting on 1.30pm, and I told my boss I will be late. 

The place that was being chose was Tea Garden in Paradigm Mall. My colleague had chosen all kinds of Kopitiam for her farewell meal. She mentioned that the variety of foods and the affordability are the main reason. Previously, sometimes we would choose Chili's or Serai. It's a bit more expensive than Tea Garden. 

Well, since she was in the company for more than 20 years. So many people wanted to join the farewell lunch. Finally, since she was resigning, she left for Paradigm Mall first and got the QR code for us to start ordering. The rest of us left for Paradigm Mall after the designated lunch time. Me and my other few colleagues decided to just take Grab to the mall. Don't need to waste time even to find parking. Hahaha. So before most of us actually reached Tea Garden, the dishes already started to show up on the table. We took 4 tables in Tea Garden, but one table was quite far away, we didn't reach early enough to secure all neighbouring tables. 

Quite beautiful to look at

Another angle

porridge set

chicken rice

fried yee mee (i think!)

radish cake

It's a joyful and sad farewell lunch. We ordered a lot, and ok, it's not even more than RM1k. I think Tea Garden will be the place to go for future lunches for the time being. 

the bill

Washing Machine Oxygen Blasting Powder 洗衣机爆氧粉 To Clean Washing Machine

I kept reading that oxygen based cleaner is good at cleaning washing machine. So when I saw one small tub is being sold at RM1.20, I bought two. However, the one I got is not powdery,  it's cakey. I think it's being exposed to atmosphere. 

Washing Machine Oxygen Blasting Powder 洗衣机爆氧粉

Anyway, I used it on my own Beko Washing Machine and my mom's Samsung Washing machine. The dirt that came out from both machines were different. A bit weird. The reason I used it on my Beko was I found that the filter have something like green algae, not big, small pieces after using the washing machine. After cleaning with the oxygen powder, there's a huge big piece of greenish, greyish dirt on the filter, it's quite disgusting to look at. 

filter for Beko Washing Machine after cleaning

filter for Beko Washing Machine after cleaning

For my mom's washing machine, after cleaning with the oxygen powder, there're dirts on the filter, but it's just small piece of black things. The thing was not being flushed completely. For subsequent use, there's small black thingy on the laundry. However, we just removed it, didn't do the laundry again. Lazy!

putting an used towel using tub cleaning

small black foreign matter after tub cleaning

Well, this washing machine oxygen blasting poweder is good for washing machine cleaning. At least the gooey stuffs are being forced out. Need to take care of the washing machine and avoid mold!

WW35'26 Food and Drinks

Another week come and go. I like to eat instant noodle and sometimes I felt that if I added more ingredients, it will make the taste from the seasoning packet get diluted or totally over powered. So, I bought a packet of air dried spinach noodles from Vit's. It came with noodles only. 

Mi keping Bayam

Well, I overestimated myself, I couldn't stand the noodles without any additional flavouring. Although I added lettuce and egg, it was so bland that I could hardly finishing it. So I bought chicken stock. Lol!

kuib pati ayam

Well, the air dried noodles are very sturdy, I boiled long also, it still hold its shape and texture.

noodles with frozen gyoza and egg

noodles with egg and lots of lettuce

noodles with egg and lots of lettuce, tomato

I also tested with the amount of the chicken stock cube, I was pretty sure 1 cube is too much for a bowl of noodle, so initially I only added a small pinch of the cube, well, so bland, so for the 2nd time, I added around 1/3, ok, but still bland. So for the 3rd bowl, i added the rest (around half of the cube) and kept the water level low. It was too salty, I should add more water. 

When I was eating this noodle dishes, I told myself, I need to get soy sauce!

note: my own house do not stock soy sauce, or other cooking ingredients, I have a small bottle of salt (which I got years ago) and a bottle of sugar (same timing as the salt, need to get rid of it, I think it had started to ferment), oh and a bottle of white vinegar which I bought to try to remove the smell of the socks! Other than that, I tried to finish up the vegetables I bought in two meals. I really need to get more basic ingredients. 

Souvenirs from Vietnam

My brother went to Vietnam for few times for work recently. And he bought coffee, sweets and chocolates. I am only surprised that there are coconut flavoured stuffs. When I watched the Vietnamese youtubers on village, forest living, I think I didn't see coconut from the videos. 

Coffee:

I didn't try the durian flavour coffee at all, but I did try the coconut and banana flavour coffee. All are instant coffee type. The coconut one is ok, a bit santan taste. But the banana one a bit chemical taste. 

Coconut and Banana flavoured coffee

Coconut flavour instant coffee

normal instant coffee (Trung Nguyen Legend classic 3 in 1)

Cappuccino Sau Rieng (Durian flavour)

Below is something like Kopi Luwak. Also like Kopi Luwak, the coffee beans were excreted by a civet. I think it is a drip coffee. My brother bought this in airport, I think it will be cheaper outside.

really expensive 45USD Cà phê chồn weasel coffee

Sweets:

Both are coconut sweets. It's ok, tasted similar to Malaysian coconut sweets. But with better packaging for the 2nd one. Sasco is an airport shop. 

Yen Hoang Green Tea Coconut Milk Candy

Sasco coconut candy

Chocolate:

Haven't start to eat this. This is for the kids. Hahaha.

Marou Faiseurs De Chocolat

Sasco chocolate gift set

Joyla So-Co-La Chanh Day Jelly

Biscuit:

Top Coco Coconut cracker. Looking at the picture, I feel that it will be delicious. I like the Malaysian coconut biscuit too. But I feel funny looking at the "export quality" label on the packaging.

Top Coco (coconut cracker original)

Me and my brother same pattern, we would buy food items for souvenirs instead of key chains, bags, magnet, etc. Yeah!