Preserved vegetable soup @ kiam chai thng
Mummy has been away for the whole day so it was up to me to arrange dinner. So you know me lah, sipeh kiamsap one. ( i picked this vocab from the foochow one). Some morehuh , you knowlah the prices at restaurants are going up. I decided huh to cook something, anythinglah but ayuyuh I hadn’t gone yet to the market. There was aduh so little left in the refrigerator itself.
I ended up experimenting with kiam chai thng. I dumped in everything I could find. I used 3 leaves with stems included of preserved vegetables, one large tomato, one big onion, a few pieces of chicken, left-over corn, a very very small piece of red chilly and a few slices of fish cake. Surprisingly it turned out very well. I boiled it for ninety minutes under low heat.
I suppose anything will work for this dish but in my opinion, a large part of the taste comes from the onion, tomato and chicken. The rest is up to you.
Benghui saw the preserved vegetable soup and bitter gourd and immediately announced he wanted to cook maggi noodles 
. After grumbling some and then some more, I cooked the deep fried chicken for him.
When I was a kid, I was lucky if I could get a proper dinner at all. It is my fault actually. He hasn’t experienced hardship before. Maybe I will formulate a plan whereby he does certain chores in the house and this will earn him income in the form of pocket money. Then, perhaps he will understand. Do you think this is a good idea?
He keeps reminding me he has the Rm50.00 ang pow from Auntie Bengsim still in my wallet. I teased him that I would use it to pay for his piano tuition 
He immediately replied I could not. I asked him why. He replied that Auntie Bengsim had told him it was for buying a birthday present of his own choice. I really ought to google to find out the price of a degree in law in preparation for when he is grown-up.
Anyway he has told us he wants to use the money to buy a birthday cake when the day comes He plans to bring the cake to Sunday school but I doubt the Sunday school would like that. Anyway that is his ‘grand plan’
Bengbeng | Benghui, Food related
Am I the first one here? So unlike me! Hehehe.
I would love to have dinner at your house every night. So healthy and nice home cooked meals. Eh, you copy me ah? I also made kiam chye soup but nothing like yours. Let Benghui have instant noodles and I will have his share of your home cooked food.
Benghui is so generous. Most kids will plan to use the money on themselves and expect the parents to pay for his birthday cake to share with his friends at Sunday school.
I think he loves the bit where people sing happy birthday song for him. it gives him a very happy feeling a high that lasts a very long time.
Wuah, you so rajin, fried chicken somemore and two dishes. I oso served fried chicken today, but only chicken. No rice. Eat roti.
I agree with you. Everything is so expensive, one meal for us cincai cincai will cost RM50-RM200 if we eat outside. So, I mostly cook nowadays. It is not so much the money only but the hassles of going out to fight with the crowd for a space and also the MSG and oil not healthy mah.
when i was in penang, i loved the food but i hated the hassle of driving around looking for parking spaces n the illegal jaga-kereta and some of them looking menacing too sometimes unkempt. msg is a turn off but some people do depend so much on it. i used to go eat at a coffee shop near the Choong Nam theatre in Air itam. An simple place with chu char where people come to eat and then leave. Don’t know if it is still there. Expensive places with a bit of ambience are for special occasions n not for eating out experience on a regular basis for me in Penang. Sibu is different. The prices don’t vary so much. if they price themselves too high, they will close down in a few months. Simple economics
aiyo I lau nuah looking at your dinner wei! I had pizza tonight leh..:(
wow…you can cook…kiam chye thng look nice with a lot of ‘liau’….fist time i see jagung in kiam chye thng…should learn from you…today i cook ABC thng….
kiam chye thng add in bee hoon also very nice and makes a one-dish meal!