The Day Before The Rabbit Year Begins....

Today is the eve of Lunar New Year. If you go out to certain places here, you could feel that some places were really hectic. People grabbed food and more food, shopped and shopped . It's like deja vu for me. I had similar experience on 24 December in Sydney. It is the day before the big day, when a lot of places are closed and many restaurants that are open, are fully booked. The days that give excuse to over-eating will begin tonight.

I finally made the time to bake some cookies, just in case they were needed. Cookies with strawberries jam, it's the redness that count these days. Hopefully, they are suitable for the occasion. We did not expect any guests to come, but who knows? Someone could decide they want to drop by and we'd like to have some decent things to offer. If not, we could gobble them ourselves too. Anyway, my cookies will be gifted to my in laws. I will be making more tomorrow, I think.

Bak Kua Time!

It's another snack that is associated so much with Chinese New Year here and in Malaysia, it is called Bak Kua or loosely translated grilled sliced pork. I don't normally think much of Bak Kua and hardly bought it on impulse, but with the Lunar New Year being so close, I suddenly had carve for it yesterday. Unfortunately, I forgot to get some when I went out.

The good news is, my dearest daughter who went out this morning to exchange the dress bought yesterday, went back to get the correct size and remembered that I wanted to have some and asked whether I wanted any. That was sweet wasn't it? It certainly does not happen very often. So yes indeed and we have now a few slices of the delicious sweet pork. Yum.

Flying Chillies....

It's getting so close to the end of January, 1/12 of the year is nearly gone. Gone. Just like that.

The school is on the break, which is designed to coincide with Chinese New Year, therefore they all have a full fat week off. We all know that the classes only started three weeks ago, but being an international school set out in a country with Chinese as majority in population, that works fine as well.

Miss K and I tried to shop, we needed to buy a few things and we were glad we found what we were looking for. Unfortunately, when we got home, we found that the lady gave us the wrong size of dress for my dear shopping buddy. What a bummer! That's one more thing to sort out!

We headed for late lunch, as usual, after shopping. That's around 3PM. Just great, most of the restaurants were not packed. Our choices were between Italian and Thai at 313 Somerset. After viewing their menu - as if they were accurate prediction to the greatness of the food - we went for Thai.

It is the place where DH wanted to try but has not got around to, called Flying Chillies. We, being really boring at the time, went for our typical orders. Fish cakes for appetizer, Chicken Pad Thai, Green Curry with Chicken and Sweet Tapioca with coconut milk for dessert. Yes, it was the same old one. Completely super boring.

I personally did not find both their curry and the tapioca appealing. The rests are ordinary. As always, I have to say that I have to try before I know whether a restaurant is worth a return visit. For this one, it is a maybe.

Fresh...

Occasionally I like to put my indoor plants outside to get some small amount of water from the sky. I pick the day when the sun hides behind some thick layer of cloud. It has been raining a lot here. The weather has been mostly pleasant. It drizzled and rained lightly yesterday and I thought I should put my Boston Fern outside to freshen up and brought them back in in the morning. They looked good.

Unplanned Chicken Rice

We had our annual visit to China town, in conjunction with Chinese New Year, last Monday. We just wanted to see, actually it was DH's idea. I, simply, did not care as much. We did not want to buy anything or do anything other than sightseeing. He said, it was supposed to be the largest ever, the newspaper said. To us, it looked the same like previous years'. Except, more rabbit things, as of course, the next Chinese year will be Rabbit Year.

We were done after 10 minutes and we decided to have lunch at the popular Tian Tian Hainanese Chicken Rice stall at Maxwell Road Hawker Centre. We were there around 3:30PM, naturally most people would have had lunch. There was no queue that normally everyone has to suffer through at lunch time. For S$3 per plate, it was a great value for the money.

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

These cookies are so good, but I can't take the whole credit though. Thanks to Betty Crocker's Peanut Butter Cookie Mix that I still had. All I needed to do was adding an egg and a few tablespoons of oil and water to the mix and stirred them well.

Of course, I poured in just enough chocolate chips before scooping them to the baking pans and baked them. They are chewy and addictive.

Soaked....

It rained so much today, it practically rained the whole day. It looked rather gloomy and depressing. But, I must say, it is nice to have cool weather here sometimes as we do have some torturing heat at at times. We could make use of our cardigans. Yay.

Our Yellow Alders were blossoming really nicely this morning before the rain came. They are all wet and soaked now. Don't be dishearted, there will be more flowers tomorrow. Happy thought!

Chive Dumplings

There's always a special place in our heart for dumplings. They are easy to prepare, particularly if you buy the ready-made-frozen ones. A-ha! (Ssshhhhsss....)

Simply pan fried, then add a little amount of water and let them cook until the water runs nearly dry. The meal is ready! Talking about fast food. It's so fast indeed.

Hot Dog!

Why not? It was my lunch today. It would not be my first choice but I got a bag of four hotdog buns for free when I bought a loaf of bread yesterday. The last time we got a some hot dog buns, we had them passed expiration date and I had to toss them away. Nobody seemed to be interested. They were gift too. That should have been turned down, but I would not know unless I took them home first. This time, we will do our best not to waste them. Therefore I had it for lunch. O-yum!

Red Anjou Pears

Miss K initiated buying a red Anjou pear about a month or two ago and we practically have been stocking some at home ever since. I am looking into making some tarts using the pear, looking for the good old recipe around......