Cooking: Meals in a Box

Mama doesn't cook.

Thankfully the kiddos have great grandparents who ensure they are well fed and not starving. Which is a big reason why Mama never had to cook.

Another big reason is because Mama dislikes the preparations and shopping involved when it comes to cooking. Jamie Oliver makes it look so easy because everything is at hand — just toss this in, sauté that and add a drizzle of olive oil.

Not so in real life. There's always a missing ingredient, a mad rush to the grocery store, and leftover fresh produce that ends up rotting in the fridge.

So when I heard about Urban Stove, it seemed like the solution for lazy people like me. All you need for 3 home-cooked meals packed in a box and delivered to your doorstep.

I decided to try it out and ordered the Thai Green Curry, Ayam Masak Kunyit and Linguine with Chicken Cacciatore — stuff I would normally only dream about cooking at home.

Meals in a box. Like take-out. Only not.

Each meal packed and labelled separately for easy storage.

Since it was the school holidays, Girl and I decided to make it a parent-child bonding activity. We started with the Thai Green Curry.

So you know what everything was ... including idiot-proof instruction sheet

Fresh vege and basil leaves

Girl, being the more culinary-skilled of the two of us, did most of the work while I supervised and tried to make intelligent-sounding comments.

Some washing and chopping and putting it all together

And we were soon done (after fixing a hiccup of the rice cooker cable that was not pushed in properly).

Lunch is served! Portion for 2 but enough for 3 medium eaters 

It was a fun cooking experience. The curry was a little too spicy for our liking though — probably something in the paste — but Girl was enthusiastically and encouragingly eating up her portion in between mouthfuls of cold milk.

Parks: Walking with Elephants

I've heard a lot about the Kuala Gandah Elephant Sanctuary in Pahang but never made my way there. After all, it's in a different state, and I really didn't know what to expect.

Thanks to my friend who made all the arrangements and allowed us to tag along with her family this past school holiday.

It was a pleasant and relatively easy 1.5-hour drive from PJ, mostly down the Karak Highway with a 10-km trunk road to Lanchang. There is a huge sign right after the Kuala Gandah toll so you'd know to turn right.

Nice scenic drive

Hard to miss this

There were several packages available for visitors. If you just wanted to bathe the elephants (the main touristy attraction), it's RM10 per adult, RM5 per kid, plus RM50 for a guide fee (for a group of up to 10 pax).

Since it was our first visit, we decided to take the educational tour package for RM120 (we took 2 packages because of our large troop). This included a guide, a chance to get up close to the baby elephants, food preparation and feeding. The elephant bathing was an optional extra. There were different coloured stickers stuck to our ticket to show what we paid for.

There were several informative exhibits near the reception lobby.