Inspired by my mother , I decided to take on the challenge of pulling the classic Hakka abacus beads dish from scratch. This is my version of the recipe (adapted from My Kitchen Snippets ) To make the dough for the abacus beads: 450 grams taro/yam, cleaned, peeled and chopped 170 grams tapioca starch ½ teaspoon salt Steam taro until soft (about 20 minutes) and mash while still hot. Mix in tapioca starch and salt. Allow mixture to cool slightly then knead to form a soft dough. Adjust consistency by adding a little water if it’s too dry or more tapioca starch if it’s too wet/sticky. Pinch off marble sized pieces of the dough, roll into small balls, then press gently in the middle to make a small indentation. Bring a pot of water to boil, then drop in beads one by one. The beads will rise to the surface once they are cooked. Removed them with a slotted spoon and set aside. For the stir-fry, the ingredients can be varied to your preference, but here is a general guide on what you ...

Last week on one of my SAHM days , I decided to take advantage of the free school holiday activities at the nearby shopping centre. The highlight for that week was a Dirt Girl World gardening activity – each child got to decorate their own pot and plant a little seedling to take home. As a general rule I do not like gardening. But I thought it was a good opportunity for Nathan to explore the wonderful world of dirt and soil without me having to worry about cleaning up the mess afterward. Here are some photos I snapped at the activity… This is little oregano seedling I chose for him to plant He helped to scoop the soil with a trowel and gently pat down the little seedling the assistant placed in the container Nathan getting engrossed in marker colour choices   Once we arrived home, we transferred the seedling into our garden (as advised by the assistants at the activity corner) The transplanting of the seedling to our garden was not part of my original plan. But I did wa...

So today out of the blue during lunch, Nathan pauses mid-bite and says to me “ poo-poo ”. Now he’s learnt how to say “ poo-poo ” for a while now to tell me when he’d done a poo. So I get up to sniff his bum and peek inside his nappy. No poo. After a minute or so, he paused and called out “ poo-poo ” again – a little more earnestly this time. But after another check, still no sign of poo. I was a little puzzled. Then on a whim, I decided to whisk out the potty set I had and plonk him down on it. He was midway through a poo as I plonked him down, but he managed to make a small deposit successfully. I cheered and hoorayed enthusiastically after he finished and let him examine his poo afterwards. He was extremely fascinated with it. My potty training attempts have been fairly erratic over the past few months since I got this potty set . I had read up on early potty training methods , but always found it challenging to make Nathan sit still in the potty whilst waiting for something to...