Quick and Easy Chicken Rice and Pickled cucumber

Pickled cucumber

 Chicken rice

Living overseas, I have to cook most of our home delicacies myself as we get very limited Malaysian restaurants.  So I experimented and look at some of the ingredients on the bottled chicken rice so here's quick and easy chicken rice.

Chicken Rice Ingredients

2 cups rice

500 ml chicken broth

1 teaspoon minced garlic

1/2 teaspoon minced ginger

2 tablespoon cooking oil

salt to your own taste (my daughter likes it salty!)

Instructions

Put all the ingredients into an electric rice cooker.  Stir it until it is all mixed up well and cook.

I am sure most of you will have very good recipes for roast chicken or steamed chicken as I do not have the time to roast chicken and normally just buy one from the supermarket!

But I love fresh pickled cucumber and experimented and come up with my own pickled cucumber which I love to eat together with my chicken rice.

  

Pickled Cucumber

Ingredients

1 medium size cucumber or half a telegraph cucumber

1 red chilli (optional)

1 lemon

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon sugar

Instructions

Slice cucumber thinly.  Deseed the chilli and cut into thin strips.  Put in a bowl together with the salt and sugar and squeezed the lemon juice into the mixture.  Allow to sit for at least one hour for the pickling process.

Enjoy!

Malacca, World Heritage Site

View of Malacca Straits from outside the chapel at ST. Francis Hill with the Taming Sari and the Eye on Malaysia in the foreground

Statue of St.  Francis Xavier who preached and died in Malacca and was briefly buried there before he was exhumed and moved.    

The remains of a chapel with numerous memorials to Dutch, Portugese and English parishioners of the past.

The bright and colourful trishaws available to transport tourists around Malacca town.

The only movable large ferris wheel in Malaysia which will make a tour across all the states in Malaysia starting with Malacca.

On our recent trip back to Malaysia, my close friend, Shirley invited us to visit her in Malacca.  I have not been to Malacca for almost 10 years so decided to take her up on her offer.  My two other close friends based in Kuala Lumpur drove down with us and we stayed overnight.

It is quite a change from when I visited last.  Going on a Sunday was also a no - no as there was traffic jam all over town as I understand the Singaporeans love to drive up to Malacca for the weekend.

We did a few tourist attractions including taking a ride on the Eye on Malaysia ferris wheel which is visiting Malacca for the year after being in KL for 2 years.  We did it at night and I must admit I do not advise a night ride as there was not too much to see in Malacca in terms of night lights.

We had a great stay catching up with friends and tasting the local delicacies including chicken rice balls, now everywhere in Malacca.  

What I missed was the trademark bullock cart pulled by buffaloes where we once took a ride around the padang as in place is now a shopping centre and no water buffaloes in sight.  The price we pay for modernisation!

International Air Travel

I have just got back from travelling back to Malaysia for about 3 weeks.  What I discovered was the inconvenience of air travel these days.  

First, Air NZ has restriction on amount of check in luggage, i.e. one piece per passenger and not more than 25 Kg.  And they worry about people breaking their backs carrying heavy bags!  Hand luggage is not more than 7 kg.

Next my girl decided she wanted to bring her skates and that she was going to hand carry them but nooooo!  At the boarding gate, we were told we had to check in the skates so I had to fork out NZ$15 for the extra piece of luggage as we had already checked in 2 pieces of bags.

When we got to the international airport in Auckland, we had to repack everything (because fo the skates) only to find out about the liquids in hand luggage limitations and at the last minute I had to open up our luggage  (we were checking in at the same time) to squeezed all the manuka honey jars into one of our bags.

Even then I missed out a half full bottle of shampoo which was still in the hand luggage so I told security he can chuck it out.  It just seems ridiculous the liquid rule only applies for international but not the domestic which means to say it is alright to bomb the domestic flights but not the international ones???!

As we were passing through security towards boarding our flight back to NZ, I saw a couple in front who got pulled over for having several big bottles of lotion and perfume in the lady's hand luggage.  Boy!  Did I feel sorry for her as I know that she will loose them all as I doubt they will check them in for her as everyone was already boarding the plane.  Even with all the notices at the check in counter people still do not read or following instructions and get caught up and lose money in the process.

Accidents - What does it mean?

According to Wikipedia:
An accident is a specific, identifiable, unexpected, unusual and unintended external event which occurs in a particular time and place, without apparent or deliberate cause but with marked effects. It implies a generally negative probabilistic outcome which may have been avoided or prevented had circumstances leading up to the accident been recognized, and acted upon, prior to its occurrence.

However, nowadays, people always try to put someone at fault so the idea of accident may no longer exists as someone always will be found to be the cause of the 'accident'.

Why on earth am I on about?

Well, a few months back some students and a teacher were swept away when a sudden flashflood occurred where the school trip was doing water activities. Now the school board is held responsible as they were told that they did not do enough to ensure that thorough risk management had taken place!

With that in mind, recently our school principal reminded all of us about doing our risk management properly and that if we went to bed and snored away because we had a drink, then we will be liable should a student sneaked out of camp and gets into trouble. One teacher was quick to ask but what if we did not drink but just snored away?! Then he said it was OK!

Then another teacher brought up the subject about being responsible for the students while on overnight trips or camps (very common in NZ) and that there seem to be no more accidents and people are always trying to find fault and place someone responsible for the so called accident and thus accidents do not exist. And with that type of possibility hanging over teachers' heads, many would not like to volunteer themselves for trips anymore as with age, their reaction may be too slow to prevent 'accidents' from happening and thus will be liable should something happen to a student under their care. That is quite a sobering thought, actually!

As teachers, we have to be careful about giving students lifts to anywhere because their parents should give their permission first in case anything happens. I only give lifts to my daughter's friends if I know the parents quite well and vice versa and I do not give lifts to my own students if I can help it knowing the consequences should anything happen. It is a sad world we live in nowadays because people will sue their friends or find someone to fault either to find closure or something to dull the pain they suffer. Ultimately someone innocent may get faulted as a result of a real accident!

National is the New Government!

Well, it is all over!  Or is it just starting again???  We now have a new government just like US has a change back to Democrat.  After 9 years we need a change.  All are predicting the National will have their work cut out for them in that Labour did not let the people know how much debt NZ is in.....

Well,  we will see!

New Zealand goes to the polls, too, this coming Saturday, November 8.

Do we keep Helen and the Labour Party in government.............OR

do we make a change and vote for John Key and the National Party?

Everyone seems to be going to the polls about the same time and New Zealand is no different.  We have been under the Labour party rule for a while now and a lot of people are unhappy with the high crime rates and very lenient sentences.  So will National win and take over the next government?  

As a permanent resident, I found that we are expected to vote if we have at least one year residence in NZ.  So I have to vote this Saturday...

What frustrates me is that the Labour government would dangle some carrot just before the election to gather votes every time.  The last was interest free student loans!  Now is parents' income will no longer impact on students' allowance  just to gain votes from university students!  Then there are there are the ridiculous ads on tv, too!

I am a skeptic in that do they actually carry out their promises???

I still haven't decide on my vote yet although my tween is telling me to vote for the National as they are the ones who understand the education system!  I find it amusing that she is getting into the campaigning and I am sure National would love to have her in the campaign!

Whatever it is, I have to vote on Saturday and we may have a new government come Monday.

Teenagers will be teenagers!

This is my 100th posting!  I have been wondering what to write about and finally something happened in school today which I thought amused me a lot.

I normally put my notes for my students to copy on powerpoint so today was not different.  Only the students were rather restless and noisy so I told them I am not going to wait for anyone who talks but will wait for anyone who does not talk and writes away.  Then some boys objected and I reminded them that they could not talk and write at the same time as 'boys cannot multitask'.... Well, of course I provoked them and got them protesting and calling me sexist!  But my point was proven when the loudest point started arguing with me using his writing hand to make his point and then, I happily pointed out to him that what I say was correct!  He was talking and not writing at the same time!  That was quite amusing as it got more of the boys to quieten down to copy the notes.  

Then another boy said, "I wonder if there was anything boys could do that girls cannot."  I could not help myself and said that I will enlightened them on some biology and that in the future when they and their spouses or partners could not have baby boys, then they should remember that only males have the Y chromosome and they are the ones responsible for not having any boys and not their wives.  It was amusing to me as it took them by surprise and it took about a minute before it click with them to absorb in what I was on about.....