Keeping track!

Daisypath Anniversary tickers

Monday, December 29, 2008

Christmas Eve Dinner!

This post may come a little late..but the dinner was really good!

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE! AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!

DSC00756

Fish helped cook the dinner as well and so you see 7 sets of everything. I was really quite proud of my soup. Pumpkin Soup! I used a mix of 2 recipes.

We also made pumpkin balls and had sashimi - salmon, swordfish and kingfish. Fish also cooked a dish of rice with eggplant and bacon.

We went to NTUC to buy ingredients and boy is it a disappointment. I couldn't find anything that was necessary for the rice dish that Fish cooked. Originally, it was made using salami and good sausages. However, all we could find at NTUC was bacon and disappointing sausages so the dish didn't turn out as good as expected. It's ok! We will attempt to make this again with better quality ingredients!

I had the pumpkin recipe in my old blog which i have pasted below.

Ingredients
1. 600g Pumpkin or 900g Potato
2. 200g Chicken meat – add pepper, 1/2tbsp salt, 1/2tbsp mirin and sake
3. 1 onion or more if you like
4. 2 eggs
5. Plain flour
6. Rising Flour
6. Bread Crumbs

Seasoning
1. 2tsp salt
2. 3tbsp Potato Starch/Cornflour
3. Pepper

Directions
1. Cut the pumpkin into pieces, steam for 10 mins till soft, smash into paste while adding 3tbsp of potato flour.

DSC00738

2. Slice marinated chicken meat and onion into cubes.

DSC00734

3. Heat wok with some oil, fragrant the onion, add in chicken meat, and stir fry until cooked.

DSC00737

4. Mix pumpkin paste, onion, cooked chicken meat and seasoning in a bowl evenly.

DSC00739

5. Roll into balls. Coat with a layer of plain flour+rising flour (in equal quantities), beat egg solution and a layer of breadcrumbs.

DSC00753 

6. Deep fry till golden brown then drain well and serve with some tonkatsu sauce. - or, with Fish, its wholegrain mustard(tangy) and Japanese Mayonnaise.

pumpkin balls

The recipe for pumpkin soup may be a little vague cause i didn't really measure everything properly. =)

Ingredients
1. Around 600gm Pumpkin
2. 1.5 litres of water - i used veg stock but i think water will suffice
3. 200gm streaky bacon
4. 1 onion
5. 150ml whipping cream - any cream
6. Herbs, salt and pepper

Directions
1. Get rid of the skin of the pumpkin and slice into cubes - or whatever shapes you like.

2. Bake in the oven at 190 degrees for as long as necessary till the pumpkin is soft. I added extra virgin olive oil, salt and pepper.

DSC00747

3. While baking, fry the bacon and onions together. (Smells really good!)

4. In a pot, add water, the fried bacon and onions, herbs, salt and pepper and the roasted pumpkin together. Place the extra oil from the roasting pan, that really helps to give the colour of the soup as well.

5. Cook till it boils and then simmer it for around 30 minutes.



6. After 30 mins or so, the pumpkin should all be mushed up and breaking up. The soup would look really really pretty and golden colour.

7. Using a blender, blend the soup into a nice creamy soup.

DSC00755

8. Looks really good eh? Taste really good too!

N.B I used veg stock but i realised that the soup is made quite flavourful with the bacon and onions so it is quite possible that water on its own is quite enough.

9. After blending, although cream was not really necessary because the soup is quite creamy already, the cream adds a milky flavour to the soup which i really like and it lightens the colour. Fish added loads of herbs too. Italian seasoning goes very well with pumpkin soup.

Hope some of you try out these recipes! Guaranteed to satisfy!

Sunday, December 21, 2008

Bedok Fengshan and the Revolving Restaurant

Today was a tiring day for all of us including Fish. We were all at the warehouse packing and cleaning and attempting to tear up 7 years of documents. It was way too frustrating.

After that, we came home and some of us had a bath and then since we had to fetch Fish home, we decided to go to Fengshan 85 as Fish calls it. It's a hawker centre at Bedok North. We ordered 'orh jian' oyster omelette, hokkien mee, satay, porridge and tang yuan because today is some special occasion that i can't seem to remember. It was a relatively good eat and that clumsy Fish dropped his wallet twice and twice a good person would let him know that he dropped his wallet.

Haven been blogging much because nothing much has been happening.

Yesterday i went to dinner with Fish and his family. We went to the Revolving Restaurant to celebrate Fish's brother's birthday in advance. I didn't wanted to go empty handed and since Fish already bought his bro a Bose headphones, i decided to do what i am currently good at - baking brownies.

I tried to do something a little different. I bought those expensive chocolates from Lumont and added those in the centre of the brownies. However, it wasn't very well-received, everyone still preferred the original ones. The ones this time had a very nice crust which was crunchy yet chewy - don't ask me how i got that effect - i always seem to have a little surprise everytime i bake brownies - there's always a little difference. I gave Fish's brother 3 and so that Fish won't get jealous, i gave him 4. I hope he likes it - at least the original one.

We at the Peking duck at the Revolving Restaurant and it was really quite nice. The view was nothing much - it's only now that it is Christmas that you can see a lighted up Mount Faber and a huge Christmas tree at Vivo City. Fish's family really liked their Gou Pu Li Pao - a handmade pao with pork filling. There was a minimum order of 10 which we finished and they ordered another 10 for me to bring home. We had to wait 40 mins for that because it was freshly made only when we ordered - from the skin to the filling.

Fish's father then brought us to an ice cream shop in Clementi called 'The Daily Scoop', it was nearly 10 but there were still a lot of people eating ice cream in there. We loved their coconut flavour the most and we both got 2 tubs to bring home. The coconut ice cream is adorned with many bits of real coconut - which are fresh and really tastes like those of a fresh young coconut.

That's about it. What are my plans for tml? Studying Latin!

Friday, December 12, 2008

Borders and Enrolment

My dad brought us out to Borders to get some books and i bought 2. One is "Latin made Simple" and the other is "Practical Guide to Phonetics and Phonology".

Today is the start of enrolment and i chose 4 courses which i am interested in.

1. Phonology
2. Chinese Cinema
3. Social Contexts - Linguistics
4. Shakespeare; Stage and Text

BUT.. there is a clash between 1 and 4 and i can't decide which one to give up. So for now i can only cross my fingers and hope that they add more tutorial classes so that there might be no clashes.

>.<

Sunday, December 07, 2008

Brownies! Again!

I made brownies again the day before i left for Singapore. It was to eat on the plane but there were extras so i brought them back to Singapore. Turns out that they were a hit and everyone loved them! YAY!

This time i made a smaller batch and used better chocolates and made them into mini cupcakes for better presentation and transportation.

DSC00712

Do they look much much better? They taste really good too! Not for the faint-hearted though - they are definitely a treat.

Just in case you guys want the recipe again and this is truly a simple simple recipe from Nigella Lawson! Also, since this is my second time making this, i eyeballed alot of the ingredients which really makes no big difference. There are also some small changes that can be made - like the amount of butter.

Ingredients

300gm Unsalted Butter
300gm Dark Chocolate - either the small drops or big chunks
6 eggs
1 1/2 cup caster sugar - i reduced this a little as a few commented that it was a wee sweet
1 tablespoon of vanilla essence
1 - 1 1/2 cups of plain flour - depending on how cakey you like
1 teaspoon Salt - i actually forgot about this - so i guess it really isn't important?
Any amount of milk chocolate and/or white chocolate drops

Directions

1. Melt the butter and dark chocolate together in a big pot.
2. While melting slowly over low heat, whisk together the eggs, sugar and vanilla essence.
3. When the chocolate mixture has completely melted and relatively cooled, add in the egg mixture and mix together. (Make sure the chocolate is not too hot or else you will end up with chocolate scrambled eggs!)
4. Fold in the flour into the mixture carefully a little at a time.
5. Place into baking dish or muffin trays as you wish and bake.
6. For the small ones like mine, bake at 180 degree Celsius for 15 minutes - bake longer or shorter if you like it drier or gooey respectively. You can also insert a fork or toothpick to see if it comes out clean.

Comments

1. I use caster sugar which is finer and does not seem as sweet as white sugar.
2. The original recipe called for 1/2 a cup of white and 1/2 cup of milk chocolate drops - but you can add as little or as much as you like. I have not tried, but i'm sure you could add walnuts or any nuts for that matter as well.
3. I reduced the amount of butter but it still is quite an amount - haven't tried reducing it even more as i needed to clear the butter - if you tried it with a lower amount of butter - let me know how it turns out.  
4. Try to use good quality dark chocolate for the are the foundation of this brownie.

I hope you guys will try and enjoy this recipe because i know everyone has and i hope you will too!

Saturday, December 06, 2008

Back in Singapore!

Hello!

I am finally back.

It is SO hot!

I couldn't sleep with the air con and had to endure the heat. It is so hot here....ahhh....

Today we're having a family BBQ. Hopefully we will have a great time.

Can't wait to play the wii we have at home. I played it once and i'm kinda inclined to get one back to play in Sydney. =)

I'm having a great time now with my little nephews.

I woke up at 0730 this morning and went out to have breakfast with my parents. Then we went to fetch my aunt and nephews and went to a market to get the ingredients for the BBQ. We also bought mangosteens! I love them! Very Very Nice!

Can't wait to settle in and start going out and having fun!

Thursday, December 04, 2008

Converted Earrings!

I finally converted a earring.

I bought this earring at a shop for $3 and went about to convert it. It took cutting my nails, tweezers and a stapler to complete this mission.

The most complains heard about clip-ons are that they are uncomfortable and painful. That is not totally true. The converters i bought are amazingly comfortable. It all depends on quality. I bought a batch of clip-ons from a girl in UK and they were not of good quality which meant that they are not that comfortable. People also don't realise that you can manually widen the curvature of the clip so as to increase or release the tension.

DSC00690  DSC00679

This was a fish hook earring - so i went about to dismantle the fish hooks and the ring that you see on the earring is original. All that i did was to remove the fish hooks and put in place the converters. Takes a little thinking to find weird tools to do the job but it finally happened. I am so happy! Yay!

The converters are really good and i was thinking of maybe selling them or something. Anyways, if you guys have any friends who are interested in clip-ons and converters, LET ME KNOW!

One more thing, i have decided not to perm my hair but to go through the ritual of straightening then curling my hair whenever necessary. I don't do it as well as the hairdresser - but it will do - much better than if i were to leave it alone. =)

Monday, December 01, 2008

Haircut!

I just had a hair cut from the salon downstairs. It's called "Twelve Fingers" and its run by Koreans.

DSC00643

The hairdresser i got was really nice and friendly. This is the best place i ever went to get my hair cut. There were communication problems being that her english isn't too fluent, but it went well and i'm really quite happy with the results - so is fish. I have curls in the picture but that's temporary, it will be straight after i wash my hair.

It cost me $45 to cut - expensive by Singapore's standard, but i think its relatively worth it - they are very meticulous in their cutting - i was there for nearly 2 hours. I did a treatment which costs $50 - it's a very quick and simple one - they have an intensive one for $99 - but i decided on the normal one first since it was my first time there. Whether or not it is worth the money would be decided after i have washed my hair and see how it feels. Also i hope that my hair looks ok even after i have washed it.

Fish also shaved his hair which cost $18 - more expensive than Singapore's $8 but he said that his hairdresser was also meticulous and showed care towards how the hair looked rather than just shaving it down recklessly.

She also also gave me the complimentary curls and a small bottle "smoothing fluid". The products there are quite cool. This is it's description:

this bottle contains:
a whole bunch of waaaaaahhhhhhh, 36 long and misty glances from across the room, 28 neck cracking head turns, 2 solid job offers, 8 fancy a f@#k type suggestions.

It's called 'easy tiger'. As the tube says, it is a gift to those who want to stop blaming their genes for the erroneous ways of their hair. The brand is evo and their motto is 'saving ordinary humans from themselves'.

HaHa..very funky.

I will be cutting my hair from here from now on until the inevitable day i return to Singapore and never return.