Baby is now full term and is the size of a winter melon, according to most baby websites.  I think I frequented over 10 different sites to see what they said about baby at week 37, to see if there's anything different.  The suspense of when baby will make an entrance into our world is killing me.  The anxiety, the anxiousness, the excitement of our meeting, the anticipation of contractions...it`s not fun at all.

I haven't have much sleep the past couple of weeks.  Even while working, I was functioning on 3-4 hours of sleep.  I felt fine though.  I still have lots of energy but moving around is starting to get difficult because baby head is down.  I need help getting up and rolling out of bed  :-)

I`m on "vacation" this week, and then mat leave will kick in the week after.  I should be resting and getting ready for baby but I just can't.  I find myself looking for things to do !  I find myself login into work, re-organizing stuff around the house, reorganizing my closet, and have to stop myself from wanting to vacuum all the time.  I feel at lost when I`m not doing concrete work, it feels like my day has no purpose.  When baby come it will be a different story but for now, I am not liking this very much.

Where are the kiddos ?  one is in school and one prefers to play on her own !  Lovebug was all about Lego and Playdoh.  We get to play a bit here and there which helped me with my sanity.  We napped together and also went out and play with the little snow that fell last night.  Come to think of it, I really only have about 3 hours where I wasn't doing anything...yet it felt like it was a long period of nothingness............When everyone is home I'm a happy clam !!!  Hubby told me he's happy to see me at home too, he said "It's nice you're home, because it's less worry for me, because I know you're safe!".  I know what he's saying, I don't want to go into labor in public either !!!  I just need to myself busy for the next short while...

There should be no gap between the meat and the wrapper !  Roll and wrap it tight. 
These are made by our girls so they are loose :-)

I'm almost 38 weeks pregnant so right now, cooking isn't something I enjoy very much at the moment :-)  I just want to eat and sleep !  We are planning on a quiet night in on New Year's eve.  We already have the virgin bubbly and dessert for the count down celebration but dinner ?  oh I don't know what to eat for dinner.  All the Christmas meals are still fresh in our head and we long for comfort food.  C suggested I make springrolls because he likes the way I make it.  Springrolls wrapped in crisp lettuce sounds wonderful so I said to him that I'll do the mixing IF he does the rolling and cooking. 

A little over an hour prepping, rolling and cooking, we were rewarded with tasty crunchy spring rolls with tender hot meat filling inside !  oh how I miss eating them.  It was so worth the effort.  Hubby and kids happily gobbled them up !  

Here's the recipe !  It's my own recipe as this is how I remember the taste of springrolls in my childhood years.  I got the base ingredients from my aunt Ninh, who's the best cook in my mom's side of family.  Hubby and the kids likes it and even my picky mom said it's good.  I wanted to write this recipe for my girls as I hope they can make it and pass on to their kids.

Feel free to play with the recipe, experiment with ground chicken or turkey, add in a little shredded jicama or taro.   

As taste are subjective, TASTE TEST the meat before committing to roll all the rolls !  Take a bit of the meat mixture, either microwave or pan fried them, then taste to make sure it's to your liking.  Adjust by adding more fish sauce, salt or sugar.  Good luck :-)

INGREDIENTS: 
*makes about 50 of 4" X 1" rolls

- 2 lbs of lean ground pork
- 1 pounds of tiger prawn, chopped finely into small pieces (little more or less is ok)

- 2 cup of shredded carrots (loosely measured, don't pack it)

- 2 bundles of dry bean thread noodles (also know as angel hair or glass noodles), soak in boiling hot water for 3 min. to soften, makes about 2 cups, use scissor to roughly cut it into short length, about 1 1/2 inch

- 1/2 of a medium white onion, finely chopped

- 1 tablespoon of black pepper

- 3 tablespoon of good fish sauce (Red Boat or 3 Crabs brand)

- 1 teaspoon of salt
- 1 teaspoon of Lee Kum Kee chicken bouillon powder (if don't have it, add 1/2 tsp of salt)

- 1 1/2 teaspoon of organic cane sugar (white sugar is OK)
- 1 egg
- spring roll pastry wrapper (pack of 50, brand I used is called Spring Home, bought frozen, takes about 2-3 hours to thaw in room temperature)

The ingredients below can be omitted if you don't have them or don't like them !  I think they are for texture more than taste anyways.

- 1 cup of wilted bean sprouts (soak fresh bean sprout in boiling hot water for 5 min. Then pour into a strainer, rinse with cold water to cool then use hands to squeeze all the water out of the bean sprout.  They need to be as dry as possible.)

- 1/3 cup of thinly chopped wood ear mushroom (other names are cloud ear fungus or black fungus)

Cornstarch sealant (glue for the spring rolls)

- 3 tablespoon of lukewarm water
- 1 table spoon of corn starch 

INSTRUCTIONS:

In a bowl, mix well the carrots, angel hair, bean sprouts, and wood ear mushroom together.  Then add in the prawn, pork, pepper, fish sauce, salt and sugar.  Break in an egg to bind the ingredients together.  Mix well with your hands.  I have yet to find a way to do this without using my hands.  Fork and chopsticks just doesn't mix it as good as I like.

Once mixed, set up a rolling station !  in a bowl, mix the lukewarm water with the corn starch, this is your sealant for the spring rolls. 

Open the pastry pack, peel out 1 sheet of spring roll pastry and lay flat on plate (the pastry should look like a diamond in front of you).  Take a spoonful of the meat mixing and put it near the mid mark of the pastry, even the meat out to about 2 1/2 in length.  Fold up the bottom the pastry, it should look like a triangle.  Roll it once tightly, don't put too much pressure, just enough to make sure there's no air pocket, then fold in the two sides to close it like an envelop.  Roll it up to where the 2 sides end, you should now be left with a section of pastry, looks like a triangle.  Now dip your finger into the bowl of cornstarch "glue" wipe across the top two section of the triangle (like how you would seal an envelop).  Roll to the end tip and the cornstarch should seal the spring roll.  Repeat with the rest of the meat filling !

In a deep fryer (or a deep pot), fill with enough vegetable oil to fry the spring rolls.  If using pot, fill it with at least 3 inches of oil.  When oil is bubbly hot, with a thong or a pair of wooden chopsticks, slowly lower one spring roll at a time into the oil.  Don't over crowd the pot, the spring rolls won't cook evenly.  Lower the heat to Medium.  Keep turning them over until they turn nicely golden brown.  Usually it takes about 5 - 10 min. depending on the size of your springroll.  

When the spring rolls are done, you can put them on a rack to drain the excess oil or put some paper towel in a deep bowl and stand the spring rolls in there.  Give them a few minutes to cool down and you can cut them up and put over cooked vermicelli noodles, pour some Vietnamese dipping sauce over them and a side of sliced lettuce, cucumber, cilantro and basil.  Another way to eat these are to wrap each roll in a leaf of lettuce and dip in the Vietnamese dipping sauce.  

Recipe for the dipping sauce is here:  http://www.tracycollin.ca/2013/09/how-to-make-vietnamese-nuoc-mam-dipping.html

TIPS:

- to test for when the oil is hot enough to fry, take a wooden spoon or wooden chopstick and stick it into the pot.  If bubbles formed around the stick then it's ready !

- you can freeze the rolled spring rolls for deep frying later on.  Just make sure you freeze them in single layer.  You can stack them in layers if you separate each layer with plastic cling wrap.  If you are using other brand of pastry wrapper, make sure the rolls doesn't touch each other.  This is to ensure the pastry wrap doesn't get stuck to each other and rip when you deep fry them.  When ready for frying, remove spring rolls from freezer and you can deep fry them in their frozen state, no need to thaw.  Add a few min. to cooking time.

- I've also have tried deep fried all the rolls first then freeze them once they cooled down.  The one I want to freeze, I fry them to a light brown, not golden.  Since they are already cooked, you can freeze as it, stacked up, no need for single layer or keeping them separated from each other.  When you want to eat them, reheat at 350 degrees for about 12-15 min and they're good to go !  Depending in toaster/oven brand/model and the quantity of rolls in it, it might take a few min. less or another 5-7 min. to completely heat up the spring rolls.  Please taste test your spring rolls for hotness.  

We're heading out soon for candle light service at church.  I enjoy this quiet time at Christmas, a time to reflect on the year and be thankful for all He's done for us.  I must say while I enjoy candle service, a small part of me I also miss church Christmas production.  Our current church isn't into those kind of thing.  I'm sure there's a reason but I hope they consider it in the future.  Growing up I love singing in choir at Christmas time or play the shepherd or an animal at the manger.  The excitement of opening night and the relief of successfully doing your part.  It's nice to see the church come together, young and old, putting on a production.  I never seem to get bored of the manger scene, the King of the universe came to save me in the most humbling way.

We had some time so I took some pictures of the girls !

My best friend and I are both pregnant and due about 2 weeks of each other !  It's quite a nice coincidence as we get to be both at home together and our kids will have each other to play with (like our first born, they were 3 months apart).

Over the weekend we had a shared baby shower at our place.  I went into baking mode the night before and was making cookies and cupcakes and more cookies and then burnt some and changed my mind on others and then on the morning off, went and made taro tapioca pudding !!!  My husband reminded me that my friends are not into western sweets like pastries and cakes and cookies, the kids like them, but our friends like asian dessert more.  He asked me "how many times do we ever finished a cake ?  even a small one ?", he's right, there's always so much left over cake.  I love it though, I would eat it for breakfast/lunch the next day :-)  No loss here.  But in this case, hubby meant that I shouldn't bake too much as it's a lot of effort with little yield.  And he's right, few cupcakes and cookies and eggrolls (purchased) went but the taro pudding went fast !  I made a huge pot and the bowl was scrape cleaned.  I must admit though, the taro roots I bought was good (luck of the picking as you can get not very tasty taro) so it was very nice with the coconut milk.  I highly enjoyed it.

I myself likes tea party !  As you can see from past photos, we do a lot of tea parties around here :-)  it's pretty to look at and fun and easy to set up !  Some sweets and/or some savories and some teas and you're set.  Anything goes !  So naturally I thought we should have a tea time after our meat heavy lunch.  While bestie, my kids and I sipped teas, our friends were distracted !  I think if it is a sans kids party, we all would be seating and sipping tea and giggles, but that's not the case with a full house !  Shortly after, I found myself refereeing 2 kids and then everyone else was attending to theirs.  It's normal and natural and expected.  But in the mist of all the busyness, we still managed to talk, to vent, to laugh and eat and drink !  Us women are queen multitaskers :-)  At the end of day, it was nice being in companies with friends while our kids get to run around and have their own fun.  Best part is after 7 hours together, the kids are all worn out and ready for sleep !

For me, I always have a great time with everyone over.  It warms my heart to hear people talking and laughing, kids yelling, and seeing emptied cupboards.  I like seeing my friends enjoying themselves, I like hosting and think it's helps that I have great friends who always lend a hand to clean up during and after the party.

Week 32, baby is the size of a jicama !

I'm tired.  So so tired.  I haven't been able to sleep much.  It's normal apparently.  I guess this is how our body is preparing for the arrival of baby, for sleepless day and night.  I used to be able to sleep 8-9 hours but lately it's between 3 hours or 4 hours.  Part of it is my aching back and restless legs.  There's so comfortable position to sleep in really.  Once I'm up my brain wasted no time to wind up ! I start planning about work, about what we need for baby, and worrying about adjustments between the kids and the new member !  I can't seem to stop all these anxiety.

Not only I can't sleep, the transit ride to work is tiring !  My blood pressure is low so I get dizzy and out of breath once or twice during the ride and I panic because I don't want to pass out !  I would try to stand right at the door to get some cold air when that happened.  Top up all these, my nausea is creeping back slowly.  I don't want to eat, no interest in food :-(  I hope baby will be ok.  Arggggh, I am so ready to go, I wish I can just take off work early but there's still much to do and a new staff to train.  I have vacations time to take too, aish !!!  I might work less days.  I know, first world problem here :-)

Day off from work and I'm craving some sweets but there's no chocolate around.  I decided to make some cookies to satisfy this growing tummy !  I typed into google "easy chocolate chips cookies" and this one caught my eyes !  Over 7000 ratings can't be wrong right ?  I love ratings !  so I decided to try it out !

Here's the recipe and my remarks, as I didn't have all the ingredients on hand but it still turned out amazingly good !

Original link:  http://allrecipes.com/recipe/10813/best-chocolate-chip-cookies/

INGREDIENTS

• 1 cup butter, softened 
• 1 cup white sugar (I used only 1/2 as I didn't want it to be too sweet and plus I added Skor bits which will make the cookies sweeter, hence I thought to cut back on the sugar)
• 1 cup packed brown sugar 
• 2 eggs 
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract (I didn't have any)
• 3 cups all-purpose flour 
• 1 teaspoon baking soda 
• 2 teaspoons hot water 
• 1/2 teaspoon salt 
• 2 cups semisweet chocolate chips (I only have 1 and 1/2 cups)
• 1 cup chopped walnuts (I didn't have any so I added 1/4 cup of Skor bits)

INSTRUCTIONS

- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).

- Cream together the butter, white sugar, and brown sugar until smooth. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then stir in the vanilla. Dissolve baking soda in hot water. Add to batter along with salt. Stir in flour, chocolate chips, and nuts.  Mix batter together by hand.  Drop by large spoonfuls onto ungreased pans.

- Bake for about 10 minutes in the preheated oven, or until edges are nicely browned.  

The cookies hold their shapes well, so if you drop it in a big round blob it will look 90% like that when baked !  I flattened my cookies out with a spatula (you can see the marks in the picture) !  

When the weather turns cold, hot soupy meal is one I long for.  It's been pouring rain here lately and the temperature also dropped a few celsius.  Sick at home with nothing to do but napping and wandering around from front to back of the house, I told my mom I want to make something soupy.  She mentioned some beef stew she had and I thought of chicken ragu !  It's perfect for today.

This dish is quite easy to make, doesn't consume too much time other than prepping really.  Here's the recipe:

Vietnamese Chicken Ragu

Serves 6-8

Ingredients:

- 16 chicken drums sticks, cut in half (or if you use breast or thigh meat, about 2.5-3 pounds of meat)

- 4 cups of homemade chicken stock (or 1 carton of organic chicken broth)

- 3 cups of water (my mom suggested 1 cup of coconut water but I don't have any.  The coconut water will tenderize the meat, use it if you have coconut water around)

- 6 medium russet potatoes

- 8-10 baby carrots (the type that comes in a bunch with stems intact) OR 4 medium carrots

- 1 can of Hunts tomato sauce (12oz)

- 2 stalks of lemon grass (use the white part), bruised with the back of your knife

- 5 cloves of garlic, smashed and minced

- 3 bulbs of scallion, finely chopped

- 1/2 medium white onion, chopped coarsely

- 1 teaspoon of raw cane sugar

- 1 teaspoon of paprika

- 1/2 teaspoon of mandras curry powder (or curry power if you have any)

- 1/2 teaspoon of five spices powder

- 2 teaspoons spoon of sea salt

- a bunch of green onions

- a bunch of cilantro

- fish sauce for marinate and seasoning

- black pepper for marinate and taste

Marinate:

- Clean and cut the drumsticks into 2 pieces

- Put chicken pieces into a pot, put in 2 table spoon of fish sauce, 1 teaspoon of salt, 2 teaspoons of pepper (less if you like), minced garlic and scallions, mix well and let sit for 30 min.

* while the chicken is marinating, peel and cut potatoes into big chunk (I cut mine into 8), clean the baby carrot and cut into 2" size pieces.  If using the larger carrot, cut into 1 inch bite size.

Cooking instructions:

- In a hot pan, drizzle some oil and sear the chicken pieces.  Since it's a lot of chicken, I have to divide the chicken into 2 and sear them in 2 batches.  When the chicken is seared, pour in half of the Hunt's tomato sauce and coat the chicken in it.  Do the same with the second batch of chicken.

- Put all the tomato covered chicken pieces into a big pot, pour in the chicken broth, the water, and the lemongrass.

- Bring the pot up the boil and let it simmer on low for 25 min.

- Add in the potatoes and let it cook for 15 min.

- Add in the carrots and white onions and let cook for 10 min.

- Add in the paprika, curry powder, five spices, raw sugar, sea salt and 1/2 tablespoon of good fish sauce.

- Bring the pot back to boil for 5 min., taste the broth to see if it's to your liking.  Season more with fish sauce if desired.

- Serve stew in a deep dish or bowl, garnish with chopped green onions and cilantro, and a plate of sliced french bread or baguette for dipping.  My mom likes to eat it over rice !  Bon appetit !