Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

Last day of August. What happened to all these days? I finally made some oatmeal chocolate chips, as requested long ago. I wanted some myself. I love oatmeal cookies. Actually, I like them without chocolate chips, so I made some without, just for myself. The rests can be for my two little troublemakers. These days, I made things in smaller portion, like a half of the recipe. Just enough for three people for a couple of days.



See you in September!

Monday, August 30, 2010

RIP Marigold

We are so close to ending August, I can hardly believe it. So many things happen and time goes so fast. We are soon about of enter the fourth quarter of the year and I am trying hard to stay afloat with everything and so many things happening around me.



Sadly, I had to say goodbye to another marigold plant this morning, after seeing it drying and browning with no hope of recovery. I still have a couple of plants in the garden. I love marigold, they produce so many lovely bright colored flowers that last for many days. It is too bad that I still have not been able to grow many new plants lately. My recent effort so far have merely produced one new plant, right now it is about three inches tall. I guess I have to start planting more seeds again soon and hope that some will grow. Please....

Friday, August 27, 2010

Imitating Domino's...



What's new? Picking up the mails from the mailbox and finding tons of junk mails stuffed in there among bills and statements. Among them, the one from Domino's Pizza caught my eyes. It occurred to me that I should really make simple pepperoni pizza like that and I knew that I had some sliced pepperoni left in the fridge. The ocean of cheese was a combination of provolone, cheddar and mozzarella cheeses. Underneath, I tucked and spread chopped fresh tomatoes, simply because I had them and they would enrich the taste of the pizza anyway. Nice and easy.

Thursday, August 26, 2010

Catching The Moon...



The sky was clear last night, allowing us to see the full round moon with no possibility that the cloud would hide it from our view. By the time I caught a glimpse of it, it was already a little distance from the building. I always want to take a picture of the a scenery with the moon being not too far up, it should look like postcard pictures that I have seen. But these are not too bad too....

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Getting Ready ...



We have some Adenium Obesum plants at home. They are potted, so they are rather slow growing and having them really has been a learning experience for me. They need quite close attention, different than others that we have. After a long wait, I finally found a plant with some flowers getting ready to blossom. I am keeping my fingers crossed as some leaves are turning yellow.....

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Plait!



When my girls were small, I used to plait their hair. Nothing fancy, just some basic simple ones with a couple of variations. All of them had long thick hair and it was fund to play with when time permitted. As they get bigger, they got impatient and were no longer willing to have their mother do their hair anymore. It's called growing up. It's time for mummy to find other objects to plait.



I learned 5-plait technique recently, from a program on Discovery channel on bread making. Nobody has to plait their bread. Anybody could shape their bread the way they want to, but I like mine plaited. 5-plait, not 3. It's fancier with five. I made them a couple of times before, but I was not able to make it without looking at the note. My bread was wholemeal with flaxseed. Eat it warm with Lurpak spreadable. So good. Just like that.

Monday, August 23, 2010

Laser Lights



During the duration Youth Olympic Games, Marina Bay is reportedly having the displays of laser, water and lights every night. On weekends, they have some fireworks too. What we can see from our place is something like in the picture, on nightly basis, every some 15 minutes beginning around 8:30PM. I have stopped watching.

Saturday, August 21, 2010

Salad, In A Cup



The cups of my salad were made from wanton wrappers and the salad dressing was my same-old-same-old recipe with additional crumbled feta cheese and topped with prosciutto. The presentation did make the difference.

Thursday, August 19, 2010

The Odd One Out...



These are flowers from the same plant, the flowers of which are mostly white with some pink spots and some tinges of pink. Today we had a complete bright pink one out in force. It definitely caught my eyes. I find it interesting that this sort of thing takes place, it's refreshing and breaks down the monotonous life. IMHO.

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Conchiglioni Ripieni Al Forno



We have these conchiglioni (jumbo pasta shells) for a while and did not really do anything about it until recently and boy-oh-boy,..... we like them....! We used the recipe at the back of the box which is very similar to so many recipes that can be found on the net and added a little variation here and there to our liking.



The shells were stuffed with a mixture that consisted of ricotta cheese, bacon, porcini mushrooms and a few other ingredients, topped with homemade tomato sauce and baked in the oven for 8-10 minutes. I like to sprinkle some grated mozzarella prior to putting the dish in the oven.

Sunday, August 15, 2010

It Begins...



The inaugural 2010 Youth Olympic Games (YOG) was officially opened last night with lots of fireworks in between and of course, at the very end. On my part, I was happy to get this opportunity to practice to take some snaps of fireworks using my 7D, armed with Manfrotto tripod and my new Canon remote control. The tricky parts were the facts that I had no idea when they were going to have this fireworks and from which directions. They popped up from many tall buildings around Marina Bay too. They were great.



In most parts, our living room TV was on English Premier League, i.e simply soccer game s were on and I did not like the idea of standing by the whole two hours waiting for the fireworks. They had fireworks here and there after certain parts of the program and I just had to get as quickly as possible to get the camera on and ready for clicking. I just knew that the ending would be around 10:15 PM and they would have fireworks again and I was ready for that.



Let the Games begin. The sky was quiet after it was all over. 10:24PM.

Saturday, August 14, 2010

Closer Snapshot!



I am still enjoying my new toy, my Canon EF-S 60mm f/2.8 Macro USM. I can take picture so close to the object and still get a very sharp image.I have been taking pictures quite a lot, learning to get to know both my rather new 7D and this lens as well. I could almost say that it's worth every penny spent..... The object above is Yellow Alder.

Friday, August 13, 2010

Being Nice ...



I sensed that DH wanted to have Japanese yakitori at Nanbantei for lunch last Wednesday, but nobody seemed keen to join. It's still holiday, many of us had late breakfast and by the time he got his lunch break, it was too early for the rest of us. He's been working hard and I felt bad for not being able to accompany him, so I offered him pasta for lunch, which he accepted and he added that he wanted chicken with it. I cooked him tagliatelle with tomatoes and basil with cheesy, creamy sauce and topped it with sliced pan-grilled chicken breast. That's his special lunch!

Thursday, August 12, 2010

Breaking Dawn...



6:46AM. This was more than an hour after I woke up this morning, upon finishing watching Horatio Caine solve crime and find the bad guys on CSI Miami. I kept on waking too early these days...

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Ich Liebe Pork Knuckle!

Before last Monday, I had my pork knuckle (SHWEINSHAXE) in Germany some five years ago or so. We were in Schwarzwald or Black Forest, in Baden-Württemberg, southwestern Germany. Our children were too small to appreciate the goodness of some food and were not very keen at eating this gigantic piece of meat on the bone. My eyes, however, were only on the pork knucles that were being carried around by the waitresses. There were other dishes being served, but I can't remember what they were. Pork knuckles looked tempting and I just had to have it. And it was really good. I fell in love so completely.

Now and then I saw the display of the dish here, in this country. Some supermarkets carry them too. I always wanted to buy, but the size of it intimidated me. The thought of having to eat the whole thing all by myself was just scary. Always.



On Monday, when the four of us had lunch at Brotzeit, another opportunity arose. But still, nobody really committed into helping me eating them. I knew it was still too much for me. This time, however, I got a little encouragement. My kids said they would eat a bit and kept on saying, "take home the leftover!", which my heart and soul sided on as well. So there we go, I ordered it and had it. It was served with sauerkraut, which I am not a fan of and their potato salad, which I found too acid-ish. The most important thing was that the pork knuckle was quite good. We were not able to finish it, but only less than half was left and taken home. Satisfied is the word!

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

New Baby!



With the arrival of our first daughter - from the USA - for a short holiday before starting her new semester at the university founded by Thomas Jefferson, came also my new baby, Canon EF-S 60mm f/2.8 Macro USM. We have done the testing and simply love it, it's like having a new toy. It is so much fun to play with. The result is fantastic, here's one of those that we took today.

Monday, August 09, 2010

To The Spätzle We Go ....

My spätzlemaker has arrived. I ordered it from US Amazon and was brought back by the one that kept on popping up at our door very often despite being sent thousand miles away from here to get further education. I always try to make the best use of the so much money we spend on her flight, by ordering stuff from Amazon that are priced rather crazily here, but very reasonable on their side. I went all the way to Kraft grated parmesan cheese and cocoa powder. I also had my dried porcini bought online, sent to her place and carried back home. I bought a couple of new Canon lenses from there too. I am a happy woman.



This afternoon we had lunch at Brotzeit again and the kids were drooling over their Käsespätzle. I tasted some and I thought it was delicious. We'll see when we will begin using our own spätzlemaker and made our own yummy pasta.

Saturday, August 07, 2010

What A Catch!



Here is Masato Akamatsu of the Hiroshima Toyo Carp scaling the wall and catching the ball hit by Shuichi Murata of Yokohoma. Amazing.

Thursday, August 05, 2010

Before Sunset



I started taking pictures of some basil flowers that I let grow. This was taken before the sun went down the other day.

Wednesday, August 04, 2010

Fry Them!



Occasionally we spoil ourselves and fry our food. Forget the badness of the oil and just enjoy the greatness of deep fry chicken breast coated in flour with many different herbs...... Aw, yummy! Finger lickin' super good!

Monday, August 02, 2010

Basil Flower



It is reported everywhere that pinching basil flowers will be good for the plant as it will be able to put its energy on producing leaves. Once basil plant flowers, it tends to produce a more bitter taste in the the leaves. Nearly on daily basil, I go around my basil plants and remove the flowers. The plant in the picture is having such a neat flower that is still in the early stage. I might let it grow and keep the seeds to be planted later. As of right now, I have many basil plants around the garden......

Sunday, August 01, 2010

Acrobatic Rehearsal



Contrary to the nasty wet and windy day today, yesterday was such a lovely and hot Saturday. There was another rehearsal for the National Day Parade and these are the jet fighters performing acrobat in the evening.