Wednesday, September 30, 2015

Pancake With Homemade Mixed Berry Sauce

I had these pancakes a while ago, on the same morning when I decided that I should clear many of the frozen berries that I had in the freezer. Simultaneously, I prepared mixed berry sauce. That's just about all. They were great together and did not take too long to prepare.



Tuesday, September 29, 2015

Ru Ji Kitchen, Fishball Noodles Breakfast

I like thin noodles or mee kia, more than wider flat noodles or mee pok. So, whenever it is possible, whenever the choice is there, I would rather have those tiny noodles for my consumption. This bowl of noodles is from a stall in Holland Drive called Ru Ji Kitchen. I really hope, I got the right name, because the truth is I never buy the noodles myself. We would go and I will get a job that I am good at, i.e. choosing a clean and comfortable place to eat, near the stall that sells the coffee that we like. 

There tends to be long queue, but the noodles and the fish balls are delicious.



Monday, September 28, 2015

Apple Cinnamon Galette

I made pie crust sometime ago and used only one half of it for my Spinach galette. I stored the remaining in the fridge and I planned to make another galette.

One fine morning, I took two green apples and peeled them and sliced them, added a little bit of corn flour,  some brown sugar and cinnamon to make the filling.  And I baked this beautiful apple cinnamon galette.... 





Sunday, September 27, 2015

Putien, Ion

Not long after having lunch at Putien in Vivocity, we went to Putien in Ion for lunch. We were drooling over their Bee Hoon and we wanted to try different dishes as well. Mission was accomplished, we even tried their desserts. 



We had  this Spinach with Salted Egg and Century Egg  as our choice for vegetable. The spinach was well cooked and the gravy was very creamy and delicious. 



Pan Fried Yellow Croakers were very tender, but somehow it would not be something that I would order again. It is just not something that I prefer to have.


Putien's Fried Hingwa Bee Hoon remains our favorite. The bee hoon is so light and nicely flavored with clams, pork, prawn and green that work together very well. We were a bit greedy and ordered a medium size that turned out to be too much for the two of us, because we had other dishes and desserts too.




Their chili sauce is to die for. I had it with my veggies, fish and beehoon and I had a lot of them.



This is DH's dessert, Chiled Putien Loquat in Herbal Jelly. There was no complain and he cleaned it up. I suppose it was a good one.


My dessert was sweet potato with pumpkin cream, which was presented very prettily.  I admit that I chose based on the picture presented on the men and I was also curious about the taste of it. I did not enjoy the flavor of the sweet potato but the potato cream was really nice. It scored higher on the look than the taste. 

Saturday, September 26, 2015

Spinach Galette

I had been thinking about making this galette for a long time and one day, I finally made it. 

I like making galette. It is rustic and it is free form. It can be sweet or savory. This one was for breakfast and I put in spinach and crumbled feta cheese with an egg on top. The crust was wholemeal. 




Friday, September 25, 2015

Coconut Chia Pudding



My breakfast this morning was prepared last night. Easy and delicious, this was put together and kept in the fridge overnight, stirred a couple of times. In the morning, I took it out from the fridge and put whatever I want. Breakfast was ready, just like that.

I used coconut milk instead of almond milk that I normally mix in. It is creamy and tasty.




Wednesday, September 23, 2015

Lunch At Fat Cow

I am pleased when we try a new place to have a meal and their food turn out to suit our taste well. This is one of those.  Fat Cow is about beef, so I chose Foie Gras and Wagyu beef (Fat Foa-gura don). DH chooses sushi, because he likes sushi and he does not want to eat much beef. Whatever. 

Both of us picked their set lunch and the meal began with salad, miso soup and chawan sushi. I love the dressing of the salad and the soup, but there's not much love for their chawan sushi, just not my kind. 


They also gave us a plate of momotaro sashimi salad (tomato salad) which was super delicious. The sliced tomatoes were fresh and sweet and the dressing was very nice and refreshing. I could have more of this.





As part of the set lunch, we had honeycomb ice cream for dessert, which was superb as well. We had an extra bonus of mochi that was equally delicious.



Tuesday, September 22, 2015

If

If you care enough about someone, you will always have time to ask how are you.

If you respect the people that care about you, you will always have the time to let them know that you are alright. 

You have time to chat with your friends, check you Facebook and surf the Internet, you are for certain have a minute for the people that love you unconditionally and have given so much of their time for you. 

It is courtesy, it is respect. 

Homemade Bakmoy



Bakmoy is quite widely known in Indonesia, it is a Chinese-Indonesian dish, originally made using pork, but more and more people make it using chicken. Bakmoy is a sweet soy sauce soup based dish, eaten normally with rice. The stars of the dish are the cubed meat and beancurd. Very simple to make but tasty. 

Monday, September 21, 2015

Cantonese Style Wanton Noodles, Holland Drive

This is another wanton noodles from a stall in Holland drive that we sometimes get our noodles from. It's a Cantonese style Wonton noodles and it is quite delicious. It's the right size and good price at $3 per plate. 



Sunday, September 20, 2015

Corn Pancakes

I thought I tried to make some corn pancakes for breakfast. Aside from corn, I put in some sliced green onion and flour with some salt and pepper to season. It's a quick breakfast and they were not  bad. 


Saturday, September 19, 2015

Haze

Woke up this Saturday morning, feeling so tired. My body ached from the body massage that I had last night. The girl was eager and her English is worse than my Mandarin, it was a challenge to communicate with her.

With the wonder of the Internet, I found out that the haze had not gone away, PSI level indicated an unhealthy level. I could see bright, but grey sky from the windows of my room. Depressing. All around was great and visibility was limited.  All I imagined was coffee. Hot coffee. I wish someone could bring over a cup of coffee for me. It was one of those days when getting up was hard to do. The day had to start somehow. My weekend just began.




Friday, September 18, 2015

Hakka Noodles, Holland Drive


Just in the recent months, I have become more willing to go places for breakfast and try different local food in the country. One of the places that we go to is Holland Drive Market and Food Centre. There are a few noodles shops that I get my breakfast from, one of which is Hakka Noodles. The above is only $3 but they fill me up and make me quite a happy person. It came with a bowl of soup with fish ball, dumplings, tofu and a few other items. Such a bargain and quite delicious!

Thursday, September 17, 2015

On Her Birthday

Dear mom,
Many buckets of tears and many boxes of Kleenex later, I still miss you and wish you were here.

You are in my heart, always. ❤️❤️❤️
Happy birthday! 

Wednesday, September 16, 2015

Healthy No Bake Granola Bars


Writing recipe has not become something that I like to do, but here I am trying to. 

These granola bars require no baking because some of the ingredients are pre-cooked. Separately, toast a cup of rolled oats, 1/4 cup of sesame seeds, 1/4 cup of grated coconut and 1/4 cup of sliced almond. Process six Medjool dates, after removing their seeds, using food processor to simply have them chop in small pieces. Add the toasted ingredients, 2 tablespoon of coconut oil (optional) and I used around 1/8 cup of honey for this recipe. Mix them using food processor until they become thick paste.

Transfer to the pan. This makes 4x8" bar, I used half of the space of 8x8" dish. Press down and shape using a scraper. Put in the fridge for 30-60 minutes to set before slicing them.  I made 9 delicious bars altogether. Slice according to your liking.

Ingredients:

1 cup rolled oats, toasted
1/4 cup sesame seeds, toasted
1/4 cup grated coconut, toasted
1/4 cup sliced almond, toasted
6 Medjool dates
2 Tbs coconut oil
1/8 cup honey

Tuesday, September 15, 2015

Putien Vivocity, Lunch

We went to Putien restaurant once before, a long time ago. We liked the food, I am not sure why we do not eat in this place more often. The only dish that I remembered well was their Bee Hoon (fried vermicelli)lunch, . 

Just the two of us, two people with little ability to eat much. We only had two dishes, the first of which was their Bee Hoon. We ordered a small one. Despite is ordinary look, this dish is delicious. 



My favorite of all is their super yummy chill sauce. It is spicy, sweet, salty and sour at the same time, just the right balance and the sauce is good with every dish I had. 


DH always loves Soon Hock and he wanted to try their Braised Claypot Soon Hock. It was a delicious dish, but every single piece of it has bones that made it so much less enjoyable to eat. I don't think we will order this one again in the future. 





Monday, September 14, 2015

Wagyu Beef Stew

I made beef stew using wagyu beef a couple of weeks ago or so, it was delicious. What I have in the picture below was practically what I had left. There were celery, carrots and potatoes on the stew and I like to have them with grilled bread. On the side was sweet beans, their sweetness went well with the stew. 


Sunday, September 13, 2015

About Living Away From Home For College


Living thousand miles away from home has its perks. Freedom. Freedom. Freedom. In random order,  whichever pops up in my head, here they are:

1. Sleeping business, I can wake up and go to bed whenever I want and nobody comes to my room to bug me and tell me off. Bonus point, there is no need to tidy up the bed.

2. I can miss my classes or arrive late and my parents would not know that.

3. I can fail on my exams and my parents would not know because I am above 18 years old and they can't find out about my grades without my consent.

4. They pay for my tuition and room and board and I don't have to work to earn a living as long I am enrolled.

5. I can buy and eat whatever I want, as much or as little.   I can have so many different snacks in my room and have all of them opened and my parents would not know.

6. I can wear my contact lens longer than 12 hours and nobody tells me to take them off.

7. I can rewear my clothes and my underwears as many times I wish and my parents would not know.  I can dress the way I want and nobody tells me off. My shorts are too shorts or my tees are wrinkled, who cares???

8. I can go out and go home anytime I want. No curvew.

9. There's so much joy I have and can give by telling my parents that I am studying, having a group study, reading my text books or doing my homework. It's a nice gesture to text them, that I am in the library. (Techincally, I am inside the library, that's it.)

10. I don't have to pick up their phone calls as I could be in the class or studying in the library, or sleeping, because of different time zone.

11. If I don't reply their email and text messages and my parents can't do anything about it.

12. I can spend all day and all night with my special friend, friends, watching whatever one after another and nobody tells me off.

13. Back to laundry business, I don't even have to do my laundry. I simply keep the dirty ones  and bring them home and someone else will do it because she can't stand the sight of them.

14. I don't have to do the dishes if I do not want to. I just leave them out there until there is a need for them or the desire to clean up, comes. Whichever comes first.

15. I can let the dust piles up as tall as Empire State building and my parents would not know and tell me off.

16. I can miss most of Sunday masses and my parents become too tired to tell me off and I can continue missing Sunday masses

17. There is always a way to turn things around and make them my parents fault, for example if they, from time to time remind me to go to church or not to do certain bad things, I could say: "You tell me that so many times already!!"

(You see, I am actually saying, you are nagging me! I know I never reply to my parents, despite repeat reminders.  It will be okay, parents' love is unconditional. They will still love me!)

18. If they start threatening me with cutting off the fund or relationship, I can always attack them and say, "You always threaten me! I don't say anything bad.". This should make them feel bad because good parents do not threaten. Good parents kindly give terms and conditions like banks giving out loans.

19. Technicality. Reply only what is asked. I do not volunteer unnecessary information that reveals my lack of work ethics that are not in line with my parents value.

20. I can always go home to a super clean and tidy room and a house full of love and food, totally the opposite of how I left it.




Friday, September 11, 2015

Chock Full Of Beans, Breakfast

Sunday morning and DH felt like driving a long drive up to the north for breakfast. It would be my first time to Changi Village and second time for DH.  It was definitely interesting to see different side of Singapore. 


I have read so much and seen the pictures of Latte Arts from Chock Full of Beans and was excited to experience it. I thought I should begin with their Cappuccino. DH had a glass of orange juice. Sadly, no pop up cute things for him.  Mine had a cute latte art on it.


DH had plain bagel with ham and cheese that came with eggs and more. I selected Portobello Benedict with a small salad on the side. Breakfast was good. 





Wednesday, September 09, 2015

Gado Gado


I seldom make complicated dish. This one is a little time consuming but it is not hard to do. Most the vegetables need to be blanched or boiled separately. I normally pan fried the beancurd instead of deep frying them, to make them healthier. Cucumber and tomatoes are served fresh. I also make the peanut sauce at home from scratch, although they are readily available in the super market as well.


Tuesday, September 08, 2015

Fried Rice with Prawn And Broccoli


Because it was really easy to make Fried Rice, I made it again. The variations are endless. In this one, I tried to put in more vegetables to make it healthier. I put broccoli, carrot and spring onions. Eggs and prawns were the stars of this dish. 

About Having Kids

I came across a written thought by someone about how people without kids have empty lives. The writer stated that she respected their decision not to have children but she thinks that they miss out the joy of loving someone unconditionally. Under the article, I noticed some of the labels were babies, parenthood, having kids.  Further down, there are  more than 2000 many comments that basically say that the writer was ignorant. I did not read all the comments, but many of the recent ones, are not in the same position.  Let me begin by saying, she is entitled to have her opinion.

It seems rather obvious that this person talks about babies and toddler. She is probably not aware that cuteness stops at 5 years old. She is likely has not gone through teenage years as well. While many are good, some teenage kids are really nightmare. Some decide to quit school and just hang around.  I read, just a couple of days ago, some children behaved well until they turned 18. This boy, moved out of the house, decided not to go to college and made a 16-year old girl pregnant. Yup, there are drug and alcohol problems too. Some people blame that on the parents, some view that it is not parents' fault. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. I believe that everyone's thought is largely shaped by the experiences they have collected. But the world is large, the data population is enormous. There are so many, too many different cases. I would say anything is possible, it's hard to put all in one box. It's like a blind man concludes that elephant is flat simply because he touches the elephant's ear  only, instead of the whole body.

And wait till the kids hit 20s! You think that they become mature and things start to get better? Not necessarily. Some of them go to bed so late and get up when the sun is up and I have had two meals. Their second parents, named Internet and peers, help them justify everything they do. It does not matter that the parents have set up excellent example of living a proper life. These kids, at 20 something, think that they know EVERYTHING, more than they parents do. They just, sometimes, do not have money and they do not have job. They also have no house yet, so they have to stay with you and ask for some allowances every now and then. They do as little chores as possible, if not zero.

It's not over yet until the fat lady sings, at least for some. There are some ungrateful human beings out there. Some "children" continue to be problematic even after they reach 60. I have seen a few around me, some 60 plus that continue troubling their parents and siblings. Endless problems of theirs become someone else's problems too. The minute no help is given, they start terrorizing family members. When ultimatum is given, they call it a threat and they turn things around and make it like it is your fault and you are a bad, bad, really bad person. They continuously create problems for the people that love and care about them.

I never knew the challenges that I could have with having kids. I was very young and naive. I was under the assumptions that kids are all about joy. It seemed like it was part of my culture to have kids after you get married; that was just the next thing.  I have learned, however, that the pains were not just on having contractions and giving birth. The pains were not simply on feeding and lack of sleep. The babies do not come with a manual that prepare you to be parents or better parents. It doesn't caution you to be prepared of, in some cases, the hurtful words hurled upon you when she/he can speak and when they think they know everything and you know less. Also, there is no warning that sometimes your heart could be so wounded and you could start questioning yourself if you are out of your mind for feeling that way.

Would I have kids if I knew what it takes? I say yes, because I simply have known my kids and would not want otherwise. It is not their choice to be brought into this world, it is our choice to have them. Having said that, we also have to take what's given, we can not choose which ones to have.  Big eyes, shorter legs, with great talents or no talent at all, dimple or no dimples. So, we look after them. We take good care of them whether they want it or not. We are human, we are not perfect. We can only try our best. We deal with what we have, until we can not deal anymore.

Monday, September 07, 2015

PS Cafe Petit Dinner

This was about three weeks ago, before Miss K returned to Berkeley. Summer holiday went by so fast and it's time for her to go back to California before classes start. She needed to move in to her new apartment and get everything she could use. It was a very busy Summer for her. 

PS Cafe is located very close to our place and they have reasonably good food. Just the three of us. DH's pick is never far from pasta and seafood, and if a restaurant have both of them one dish, he would select it. It's way too easy to guess. His dish is called Shrimp, Crab and Crumb. It is spicy spaghettini with sugar snaps, spinach, crab meat, shrimp and garlic crumbs. The size suits well for people with big appetite. I had a little bit of it and I thought it was a good one.



Miss K chose Panini Slim, called Truffle Cheese Mushroom. The name is very descriptive of what's inside the grilled sandwich.


Finally for me, I had Vegetarian Moussaka. I tend to try something new or something that I rarely or do not make at all at home. This dish seems to have good reviews online and I was curious to try. I actually am not a fan of pumpkin and pumpkin is one of the ingredients listed, aside from capsicum, celeriac, spinach, mozzarella and smokey tomato jam. Looking at the items that make the dish, I should have known that it is on the sweet side, which doe not suit my preference too well. The size was a bit too big for me as well. 



Sunday, September 06, 2015

Fried Rice Noodles


Over the past many years, we always have a comfortable level of rice noodles at home. My mother in law constantly sends us a high pack of them when it is possible for her to bring or someone else to bring them over. In the early years, I was stunned at the amount, it took a big space to store them. I hardly cooked using rice noodles and they simply did not go away. Saying no to my mother in law is pointless. She insists and she trickily puts the pack inside our car somehow.   At the beginning I redistributed most of them to other people. However, the people that I was comfortable of giving the noodles to, are not nearby. Far away. They only want whatever they are given, to be sent to their place. After a while, I feel bad to DH for the trouble that I cause and I stopped giving them away.

I started cooking more and more and as I as getting more familiar with making the noodles, I began to make a different dish too. I have just realized that actually I only make two types of fried noodles using this type of noodle. One of them is the one here, using sweet soy sauce (kecap manis). For this particular one, I added prawn, with lots of sliced cabbage and julienned carrots. 


Talking About Time

Some of us are employed and need to work 10-20 hours a day, some of us have no job or simply work on their own and have the privilege to work as as and when they like.

Each of us, no matter what, has 24 hours a day. It is up to each individual, how he or she uses every single second of them. I am talking about priority here. It is about what we think are the most important things to do. We probably won't go to work unless the situation makes us do so. Those who work for people and get paid by their employers, have less freedom in using their time. But still, there are lots of hours left every single day that they can use for sleeping, eating, drinking and doing whatever they want. People that are not employed can be also busy too. Stay at home mothers have tons of work and they basically never stops.

Many of us say that we don't have time. The truth is rather, many of us do not prioritize the task or whatever that needs to be done. Did you know that it takes only two second to say "hello"?  Go ahead and press the record button on your Whatsapp or Viber! I have tested that, it's merely two seconds. Send that to your parents and friends and they would know that you are still alive. It's so handy isn't it?

What's your priority? Keeping in touch with your loved ones only takes seconds or minutes, just to ensure that everyone is breathing and well. You can text, call, email or snail mail. We live in such a great era in technology. Congratulations. Wifi is good in nearly everyone, it's hard to make it as an excuse for not communicating with people.

If you loved ones are no longer loved ones, maybe you want to tidy your room or house so that you can find your missing hairbrush and your other missing shoe? Set the timer in your mobile phone to 10 or 15 minutes and start working! You'll be amazed at how much you can achieve in that period of time.

PS: In order not to waste anyone's time, simply tell the people, especially those that were close to you, that you do not wish to communicate with them anymore. It's small thing that would be highly appreciated. 


Saturday, September 05, 2015

Just Like Heaven

I do not watch too many movies, but when I do, I always like happy ending movies. I am aware it is unrealistic, but I figure, life is hard enough, I need to have a happy story for those fictional characters. I love movies that reunite lovers and family, movies where the good guys live on and the bad ones either got eliminated or are remorseful and become good people.

I wish everyone could be happy and get whatever good things they wish to have. You can add idealistic to label me, I don't mind that too. I know that reality is so much different. Everyone struggles, everyone has something that they are not happy about. Many of them manage to put brave face, at least in public. Many of them lie to everyone and tell the whole world that their life is wonderful when in fact they suffer deep inside. We need to have a mental holiday and let ourselves go to places that otherwise we would not go.

I had dinner alone at home last night. I turned on the TV while enjoying my home alone dinner, something that I barely do these days. Right there on the screen, was Reese Witherspoon and Mark Ruffalo on Just Like Heaven, around 30 more minutes to finish. Both movie stars looked so young.  I remember having watched this so long ago, I just could not remember much about it. I saw beautiful San Francisco and Golden Gate bridge on the scenes and I was mesmerized and had to watch it until it finished. I was so glad that it had a happy ending. I was happy for the characters. Now I have to watch from the beginning and my life would be complete, temporarily.

Friday, September 04, 2015

Bukit Timah Market

Our time to revisit dental clinic was due, we got an afternoon appointment. The three of us.  When we arrived, there was an emergency that required the dentist to attend to the case first before seeing us. One of us needed to have the filling fixed as well. So time kept on stretching. After all the of us were done, it was way past lunch time, it was nearly 4 PM.

Bukit Timah market was in the neighborhood of the clinic, but still had to drive and parked our car. But coming so late in the afternoon has its perks. Parking car was a breeze and getting a table is a piece of cake. I guess, someone was hungry. We ended up having so many dishes, one of them did not make it to this post because its appearance was not appealing.