Saturday, December 31, 2011

Clearing Up....

The walls we build around us to keep out the sadness also keep out the joy. Jim Rohn


After weeks of gloomy weather, sunshine came and the blue sky re-appeared this afternoon. Looks like there will be no problem with the fireworks tonight to greet the new year.

Friday, December 30, 2011

Double Hibiscus


We are back with getting these pretty flowers nearly on daily basis. They are pink, big and beautiful!

Shortly Before 7....


It's the view from the same spot in the morning, sometimes it's just plain dull, something it's more interesting, occasionally it's very pretty and many different adjectives can be used to describe it. These pictures were from this morning, merely a couple of minutes before 7AM. I went down to the kitchen and tidied up the mess by someone who used the kitchen early in the morning and I saw a beautiful painting in the sky that urged me to pick up the camera and start taking some pictures. Two days to 2012!

Thursday, December 29, 2011

Turkey Sandwich...


We still had leftover turkey, although a couple of us really put a strong effort into finishing them. This evening, I had a rather small but tall sandwich with turkey, avocado, spinach, sliced tomatoes and the best part is........ (drum roll please.........) honey mustard! I have fallen in love in honey mustard, thanks to Miss K who introduced it to me. Honey mustard makes everything tastes better................



Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Turkey Pot Pie


We had some turkey leftovers, with some carrots, celery, onion, potatoes and herbs, I made these turkey pot pies. These are warm meals that utilize the leftovers well. We still have more turkeys left though!

Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Before Wicked...

We enjoy warmth because we have been cold. We appreciate light because we have been in darkness. By the same token, we can experience joy because we have known sadness. David Weatherford



It was in the evening of 25 December, the children had their tickets to watch Wicked at Marina Day Sands' Theater. The theater is located inside Marina Bay Sands Shopping center, where the casino is also located. Go figure, being Christmas day, the place was so full of people.... DH and I dropped them off at the theater and went off.


Our car was parked at the Ritz Carlton Hotel, just minutes away from MBS and we walked there passing the Helix Bridge that was quite packed with visitors as well. We got to view the stunning scene around there at night.


Christmas lights were  lit up along the street and looked very lovely and brightened up the area. It was a pretty scene.

Monday, December 26, 2011

The Bird And The Leaves


The family got together for a Christmas meal and we had the turkey above. We chose the small one available but still ended up with a rather gigantic bird, it was 10 pounds! There was no smaller one available, unless we picked chicken. The turkey was already pre-cooked, which really helped a lot, but we still seasoned it with a mix of olive oil, minced garlic and rosemary from the garden. Miss K prepared the spinach salad with caramelized onion, dried cranberries and mozzarella cheese with whole grain mustard salad seasoning. 


We had ham and mashed potatoes too. Apple Cinnamon Crumbs for dessert and gelato and sorbetto of various flavors should one wished to have. They were more than enough to stuff ourselves and left us with lots of leftover....... One beautiful day to be grateful to God considering many people in some parts of the world do not have enough to eat! Five more days to the end of the year.... Yay or nay?

Sunday, December 25, 2011

Early on Christmay day...


In the early morning on Christmas day, to be more precise, 1 AM, we were at the Changi airport, waiting for the arrival of Miss L. The airport was very crowded, many planes arrive at these hours apparently.....

Saturday, December 24, 2011

Practice Makes..... Better


The children, big children, but they are still my children irregardless what age, decorated more cookies a couple of days after the first try. They did it with more knowledge of what to do and more familiarity of the materials. We saw more exciting results here..... Credit to Miss P for the nice picture above.

Three more hours to Christmas.......

A Holiday Wish!


Wishing everyone a wonderful and safe holiday! God bless us all! Merry Christmas to you and your family!!

Friday, December 23, 2011

Puff Night!


Three of us went into the kitchen around 5:30 PM and started making something using puff pastry. Mine was pizza, with sliced tomatoes, onion, and cheeses.  It was so simple because I practically did not have to do anything with the base. One layer of pastry and that's all. They looked really tempting, especially if you are hungry!


Miss K was on her mission to make Cheese Twists, but changed her mind half way as the process was time consuming. She made some rectangular shapes using the rest of the dough. Miss P was determined to used the salmon fillet that we have thawed. We do not have the pictures, but I can tell you that the salmon pockets that she made with ricotta cheese were yummy too. 

Thursday, December 22, 2011

Returning To Chatterbox


I had no intention to return to Chatterbox for their Chicken Rice, I was simply not interested.  But Groupon cleverly emailed my hungry and rather food obsessed daughter and passed that to me. Well Groupon made it sound so interesting, a deal worth $98.70 would only"cost us $36.52 plus 10% service charge and 7% GST.  For the damage, we got 1/2 chicken, 2 bowls of rice and one serving of vegetable, also free parking during the time selected.


It sounded good, but it actually was not that good. The drinks were either soda or beer, neither of which we cared. The vegetable was beansprout. Ouch! None of us wanted it. The chicken did not taste great, we could easily get better ones at cheaper price. Thank goodness we ordered an extra dish. 


We ordered an outrageously priced Nasi Lemak ($24 before tax and service charge) and we were stuffed and promised ourselves to never return. Let's see if we can keep our promise. 

 

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Cheese Scones


It's nearing Christmas and it's only right to shape the scones that we made in Christmas shapes..... We are warming up to Christmas.....!!!

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

It's Beginning To Taste Like Christmas......


We kicked off the festivity with Christmas cookies making and decorating. It was messy but fun and we managed to pass a few of them to others ...... Yes, we had the fun and passed the calories around.

Monday, December 19, 2011

Looking Golden....


Here are the fries made using Air Fryer, they looked golden and crunchy on the outside. I did not take good care of them well when I was cooking them, because I was busy doing other things in the kitchen as well and neglected the fries. I turned the fries practically just once when according to the manual, I was supposed to turn them for it a few times. But result was not bad at all.......

Sunday, December 18, 2011

Airfryer


I could not find the Tefal Actifry that I wanted but found Philips Airfry instead. It is a bit similar in concept, cooking without or with very little oil. It's healthy, so why not? The fryer circulates hot air to cook the food inside, that's the basic. It's like mini oven. The unit comes with cookbooks too that mostly tell you many different ways of cooking potatoes. And a few other dishes too. Haha. So far, we tried the easy ones, French Fries from scratch. We use a little olive oil and rubbed the oil all over the cut up potatoes. The result was satisfactory. I hope to get the pictures of the food up soon.... Interesting.

Saturday, December 17, 2011

Angels

Hold your eyes on God and leave the doing to Him.
St. Jeanne de Chantal



When things get tough..... and we try to make it through the rain....

Friday, December 16, 2011

Pain d'epice

Everything around me is so Christmas-ey these days and I feel so way, way behind everyone else. I'm not even sure if I plan to decorate the house at all. Yes, that bad. I feel so tired and so beat and I just do not feel like doing anything other than things that I need to do. I have baked some Christmas cookies for school last week. I also have sent some Christmas cards to selected number of people in Australia, California and Oregon.That's about all.


I found an interesting recipe for Spice cake last night, it's a French cake called Pain d'epices.  Originally they are  baked in loaves, but I love mine in smaller bundt molds like the recipe that I saw. Noticeably different than other cakes that I normally make, this one uses a combination of honey and brown sugar to sweetened it. The smell.... it's the spice smell... it's beginning to smell like Christmas........ Hohoho...

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

They're Back....

I hope there are always hopes for everybody and those that persevere. I know that there are so much sufferings around the world. The technology  has made it easier for anybody to help out, with one click you can donate to any chosen charity. We can donate to charity far away while sitting in front of the computer. It only takes willingness and a bit of your money and you help make the world a better place. I particularly like this Boys' Brigade Share A Gift for Christmas this year. It's so handy. 

 

Talking about perseverance, this double Hibiscus is a one tough chick indeed. At some point, I really thought that I would lose this plant for good. I am glad I was wrong, it made an excellent comeback. The leaves have grown much more and greener than ever and the flowers have started blossoming. If you have a rough day, try to hang in there. I know it's hard, but just try, a little bit longer. Hang in there. Hope things turn out well soon. Cheers!

 

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

What Customer Service....????

When some things do not go so well, we'll try to have them out of our chest......

I could not help but feel the urge to write about this woman. She came to our house without introducing who she was. I was aware that the visit had something to do with the problem that we had with our terrace. It was her responsibility to come. Having been asked, she replied that she was a Senior Customer Service of the company.  It's a big company that developed the project. I could smell the arrogance from a mile away. Her mannerism spoke it all.  She refused to imagine her being in our position and went on with her announcement that she would issue a letter to rectify the mistake that her company made without giving a workable solution to potential problem that could seriously affect our place. I could translate what she said into, "It's not my business to care what happen to your house!".

Such a sad thing that someone that is in the position of customer service to be so unwilling to help and really lacking of compassion. I see many of this kind of people in this place.  It blew my mind away that just the night before I watched CNN heroes, I saw many people that are willing to go extra mile and away to help others and today I had to deal with someone that is completely in the opposite side of being a hero.

Let me put it this way, she is making her bed and one day she will have to sleep on it. In God I believe! He's been so good to us...

Bali Thai...


Our search for Actifry took us to Millenia Walk this weekend. We could not find any stores that carry Tefal Actifry but found Philips Air Fry, the one with very similar concept. We did not get one that day, but ended up with a juicer and a new toaster, of course. Then came lunch, we crossed to Suntec City and had it at Bali Thai restaurant where DH met his favorite stuffed wings.


We had, of course, Chicken Pad Thai and Green Curry too.  We finished up the Pad Thai but had to take home some leftover green curry chicken.



We saw the picture of Grilled Chicken on the menu, served with glutinous rice and was attracted to order one too. I find the chicken to be on the tastier side that even dipping the piece of the provided sweet chili sauce, did not help much.

Monday, December 12, 2011

Disappearing Act.....


We had a rare treat last Saturday evening, having the opportunity to witness the Total Lunar Eclipse, right from our terrace.  I took lots of pictures, some were good, many were awful. These two pictures were taken within 25 minutes of each other. It was such a good thing that the sky was very clear that night.....

Friday, December 09, 2011

Buried With Cheese...


On some cooler days, it is so nice to have grilled ham and cheese bread .....

Tuesday, December 06, 2011

Potato Mushroom Soup


I never made Potato Mushroom Soup before last week-end, but there are so many recipes available in the internet and I did not need to worry about it. Basically, I put together my own version, as usual. I also put in a stalk of rosemary from the garden and served the soup with grilled homemade bread. It was so good to have them when the weather was cool.... it brought the warmth to your heart and..... tummy....

Monday, December 05, 2011

Skinny Pizza


There were signs everywhere in Great World City announcing the presence of this new restaurant, I was told by Miss K and I did not even see one. DH and I went through the mall to go to our church, but I simply walked pass without looking. Miss K suggested the place for lunch after church, supported by DH and my Chicken Rendang lunch had to be postponed for another time. The above, the first pizza that came to the table was Wild Truffled Pizza. If you like thin crust pizza, this pizza could be for you. The crust is thin and crispy like cracker.





We could use some salad so I decided to order one of their salad, it's Thai Crispy Beef salad. It was quite nice, but mind you, the beef was not anywhere near crispy. In terms of the balance of flavor, it's there. It's a smallish salad, though.




DH' order was American Sliders served with Truffle Fries and Sweet Potato Fries. We gladly helped him with the Truffle Fries, they are really good.


Finally, the last order we had was Grilled Figs with Parmesan Crumble Pizza. They threw in some slices of Mandarin orange as well and we like it. We definitely were so stuffed, we had over estimated our capacity. No dessert this time. Way too full!