Recipe: One Pot Cheesy Ranch Meatball Pasta

I'm going to start compiling recipes of the things I've cooked that are husband-approved, or daughter-approved, or both.

Prep Time: 5 minutes
Cooking Time: 30 - 40 minutes

Ingredients:

1. Unsalted Butter
2. 1 pack Beefballs
3. 1 Cup Fresh Milk (prefer Full Fat)
4. Chicken stock (soup form) or water.
5. 1 Beef Stock Cube (optional)
6. Kraft Buttermilk Ranch dressing (Kraft brand)
7. 4 tablespoon cornflour

Steps:

1. Boil your pasta as pasta pack instructions - keep to al dente. Mushy pasta no good. After cook, strain and keep just a little of the pasta water.
2. Heat two tablespoons of butter over low heat in a pan.
3. Brown your beefballs in the heated butter, remove once cooked.
4. In the same pan, add five spoons of butter. Wait until melted.
5. Add cornflour (tepung jagung) to the melted butter. Mix well.
6. Add in the fresh milk.
7. OPTIONAL: Add beef stock, stir well.
8. OPTIONAL: Add chicken stock (soup form) if you have any.
9. Add the pasta water from the pasta you strained earlier.
10. Add in the Kraft Buttermilk Ranch Dressing and stir well.
11. Add in your cooked beefballs and pasta, stir well.
12. Season well.

Notes: I added some steamed broccoli for some freshness because this dish is really really fattening. Shouldn't eat this every day as the sodium from the dressing and frozen beefballs can be alarming but memang finger licking good la haha. The Kraft bottle looks like below.

Happy One Year Old Imaan!

We celebrated Imaan's first birthday at Chili's Paradigm Mall. No brainer, we love to eat there as it's close to home, everytime I go there I will order the Honey Chipotle Chicken (even though it's crazy easy to just make it at home) and kids get to eat for free (free chicken for Imaan).

 With the birthday girl who seems more interested in her free cake.

"Ma, are we done with phone? Can I eat my cake now?"

We love you so much Asiya Imaan. You've been a blessing to our lives and it's been mommy's greatest privilege to take care of you. May you grow to be someone caring, loyal, always joyful and optimistic, and of course take care of your mom when she's old..

Okay we're done with dinner because someone's a little cranky.

Pregnancy: Ujian Air Gula

My second trip to the doctor's was to complete Modified Glucose Tolerance Test (MGTT), or Test Air Gula as it's more commonly known in Malaysia.

Generally, women with high risk (based on family's medical history, miscarriage, too much body weight increase in one month of pregnant) are required to take MGTT. I had put on 4 kgs after my first trimester as I was constantly hungry, and my BMI was relatively high, so I had to complete MGTT. In addition, I saw many women taking their MGTT, regardless of body size and height.

You have to fast from eating and drinking from 10 PM onwards the night before, with the exception of small sips of warm water until they take your blood test, which is roughly around 8.30 AM the following day at the clinic.

The nurse took my blood sample (to determine my resting glucose level) to determine my Fasting Sugar Blood (FSB) around 8.30 AM. Then she gave me a large cup of sugared water - I believe it had 80 grams of sugar, which the nurse commented was roughly the same amount of sugar you would find in a typical Malaysian breakfast, such as nasi lemak with teh tarik. I would recommend drinking it slowly, as you are drinking on an empty stomach, and if you vomit the contents, you will have to repeat the test again.

The nurse informed me that my number would be called again in two hours, and I had to stay at the clinic, as she mentioned that some patients might faint after taking the MGTT. So that was a lot of sitting, sighing, scrolling through phone, and reading the newspaper haha. 

At 10.30 AM, the nurse took my blood sample again.

The normal reading after 2 hours of drinking the glucose water was below 7.8 mmol. The nurse informed me that they would call me within a week after receiving my results, so she scheduled a date for my next appointment.

This was approximately during my 16th week of pregnancy.

Read more:
First trip to Klinik Kesihatan Kelana Jaya
We're pregnant!