Journey 45

Swimming at Serangoon Swimming Complex

2011-08-06T20:30:00.000+08:00

I just bought a new swimsuit and goggles and finally went for a swim after so many years. Here's a photo of me at Serangoon Swimming Complex on a Saturday afternoon :) There are only 2 pools there and it's relatively quiet compared to other public pools like the one at Sengkang which is really crowded on weekends.The water here seems cleaner too!

Puppy Dreaming

2011-06-17T22:41:00.022+08:00

This is one of my favourite videos which shows a puppy dreaming. Super adorable! Remember to turn up the volume to hear the cute squealing of the puppy :)

Black Pepper Chicken

2011-05-22T11:35:00.001+08:00

Cooking dinner on weekdays tends to be challenging for me as I usually only get home from work after 7pm and am too hungry by that time to spend a long time cooking dinner. I recently tried out a packet of frozen chicken pieces with black pepper sauce (CP Pepper Kicks) and found it rather tasty and convenient to use for weekday dinners. It can also be used on days when you are too tired and just want to cook a quick and simple meal.

Here's what I did for the dish as shown in the photograph above. I have also used red bell peppers and onions and they worked well too.

1. Cut the cauliflower into small pieces. Parboil in salted water till desired doneness and remove from boiling water.

2. Defrost the chicken in the microwave.

3. While waiting for the chicken to be defrosted, cut the green bell pepper into small pieces.

4. Place chicken in a pan and stir-fry. I added a bit of water as the black pepper sauce is rather salty.

5. Add green bell pepper and cauliflower to the pan.

6. Serve!

What a Friend We Have in Jesus

2011-02-28T21:03:00.006+08:00

I never liked the song "What a Friend We Have in Jesus" very much and always thought it was just a song for funerals. Recently, I just happened to pay attention to the lyrics while listening to this song on my iPhone and was surprised at how meaningful and appropriate I found the lyrics to be. Since then, this song has become a great encouragement for me.

Many versions of the song can be found on YouTube but I like this one.

WHAT A FRIEND WE HAVE IN JESUS

What a friend we have in Jesus,
All our sins and griefs to bear.
What a privilege to carry
Everything to God in prayer.
Oh, what peace we often forfeit,
Oh what needless pain we bear.
All because we do not carry
Everything to God in prayer.

Have we trials and temptations?
Is there trouble anywhere?
We should never be discouraged,
Take it to the Lord in prayer.
Can we find a friend so faithful?
Who will all our sorrows share?
Jesus knows our every weakness,
Take it to the Lord in prayer.

Are we weak and heavy laden?
Cumbered with a load of care?
Precious Saviour, still our refuge,
Take it to the Lord in prayer.
Do thy friends despise, forsake thee?
Take it to the Lord in prayer.
In His arms He'll take and shield thee,
Thou wilt find a solace there.

Chinese New Year 2011

2011-02-03T20:23:00.002+08:00

Happy Chinese New Year! It's the year of the Rabbit in 2011. Here's wishing everybody 新年快乐！心想事成！

Happy 2011!

2011-01-01T09:00:00.000+08:00

I'm posting a photo of the happiest place on earth (Tokyo Disneyland) to wish everyone Happy 2011!!!

Goodbye 2010!

2010-12-31T22:29:00.003+08:00

Time flies and 2010 is coming to an end so soon. It seems like it was only yesterday when we moved into the 21st century and now a decade has already passed.

Here's wishing everyone Happy New Year and may 2011 be a better year for everyone! Btw, that's a photo of a camel taken when we visited Petra in 2006 :P

Tri-Colour Dinner

2010-12-29T23:44:00.000+08:00

Here are the baked beans. Beautiful colour, wonderful taste and super easy to prepare. Just open the can and pour it in a bowl!

Teochew Style Steamed White Pomfret

2010-11-08T21:14:00.008+08:00

This is Teochew style steamed white pomfret and making it was easier than I thought! I used white pomfret, ginger, salted vegetables, salted plum, shiitake mushrooms, tomatoes, soy sauce, mirin and water.

All I did was to arrange the ingredients under, on top and around the fish, add soy sauce, mirin and water and steam it for 15 minutes. We had it with white rice and it was a simple and wonderful lunch.

Kenny Rogers Corn Muffins

2010-08-23T22:19:00.005+08:00

I love Kenny Rogers' corn muffins and have been looking for a recipe to make them at home. I finally decided to try this recipe from AllRecipes.com and it was a success! Ok so they don't look like Kenny Rogers' muffins and taste about 80% like the ones from Kenny Rogers but hey they still tasted good. They were nicely moist, sweet and crumbly because of the cornmeal and honey. I will probably make them again because I now have a big box of cornmeal and I don't know what to do with them :P

Baby Japanese Chocolate Sponge Cake

2010-04-09T15:49:00.005+08:00

I saw these cute baby Japanese chocolate sponge cakes from the Japan Fair at Compasspoint and couldn't resist buying some to try. These chocolates ones are selling at $3.50 for 10 pieces. The plains ones are $2.50 for 10 pieces.

See!! So cute! :P

This is what it looks like inside. It's soft and only very lightly sweet.

Origami Paper Cup

2010-01-11T23:26:00.004+08:00

What a mess!

What's that?

Origami paper cup! Made again from used magazines. This can be used to serve snacks like nuts. Learn how to make this useful cup from this video.

Origami Box with Lid

2010-01-10T22:01:00.002+08:00

What is that rectangular thingy?

It's an origami box with a lid! I made this with the pages from a magazine and it's great way to make use of old magazines that are just sitting around collecting dust and taking up space. I think it can also be used as a gift box if you use nicer-looking paper.

Learn how to fold this origami box from this video posted on Videojug.

Just a closer view of the box......

Pillow

2010-01-07T22:11:00.000+08:00

Bought a new pillow! Seahorse was having some 50% sale and I got this memory foam pillow for about $32.

This is what it looks like. Nothing special. It was quite hard but was surprisingly comfortable.

First Day of Work

2010-01-04T22:13:00.005+08:00

It's the first day of work in 2010 today! Did you also bring a new desktop calendar to office like me? I was given this calendar and saw an error on this page. Can you spot the error?
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Where is 26 April?!?!

Family Lunch

2010-01-03T18:57:00.003+08:00

We had a family lunch today at Ban Heng Restaurant at Boon Keng which serves ala-carte buffet. Food was pretty decent but service was not. We probably won't be going back there again :)

Crystal Jade @ Terminal 3

2010-01-02T23:49:00.000+08:00

On the first day of 2010, we visited Changi Airport Terminal 3! It was beautiful and very fun to walk around. There were a number of restaurants there and we ended up in Crystal Jade restaurant. Check out what we ate.

Here's 300g of live prawns cooked in Hua Diao wine. Looks good!

I had the pork ribs ramen. The pork ribs were good but the soup tasted rather 'porky' (??) and unlike the ones at the other Crystal Jade restaurants.

Hello 2010!

2010-01-01T13:01:00.004+08:00

Hello 2010! I had a great start to Year 2010 with this Melty Cheese Omelette made with 3 egg whites, 1 egg yolk and a slice of cheese. This thing took me just 1 minute to make and it tastes great! To learn how to make an omelette, you can view this video from the ieatishootipost blog.

Happy New Year everybody!

Goodbye 2009!

2009-12-31T19:56:00.005+08:00

Today is the last day of 2009! I just wanted to share this photo of my pretty glass bead "aquarium" to wish everyone a Happy New Year! May 2010 be a beautiful year for everyone!

Laundry Station

2009-11-28T12:31:00.007+08:00

Here's my laundry station! I finally decided to consolidate all of the laundry products on top of the washing machine for convenience. Now I no longer have to bend down to pick up detergent, softener etc. from the kitchen cabinet. Everything I need is right in front of me.

Here's another view showing my washing machine and dryer.

Do you have a laundry area/station/room too?

Pooh Bear Cookies

2009-08-08T16:40:00.010+08:00

So cute! I love silly old Pooh Bear so I had to buy these cookie cutters when I saw them at BHG.

This is how the cookies look like before baking. See that flattened Pooh at the bottom right? Looks a bit weird so I replaced it. Anyway, the Pooh bear image looks cute and clear before baking...

After baking, not as cute anymore!! But at least they taste decent :)

Cheesy Chicken Baked Rice

2009-05-02T21:39:00.006+08:00

Finally had the time to try making Chicken Baked Rice at home. I always order this when I eat at Swensens :)

See the inside!

Black Vinegar Chicken

2009-05-02T20:48:00.009+08:00

Long weekend means time to cook and experiment with new recipes! Here's the Black Vinegar Chicken I tried over this May Day long weekend. Looks good! Taste wise just ok. Maybe the proportion of the black vinegar, sugar, dark soya sauce and water needs to be tweaked a bit more to suit my taste.

Singapore Curry Chicken

2009-04-08T23:30:00.014+08:00

I became a fabulous chicken curry cook thanks to Prima Taste "Singapore Curry" paste. It was a breeze to make this curry as you only need to add chicken, potatoes and water!

The "Singapore Curry" pack looks like this and it comes with 1 packet of curry paste, 1 packet of premix and 1 packet of hot powder for those who prefer a spicier curry.

All I had to do was to cook the curry paste with water....

Add in the chicken and potatoes....

Mix the premix, which was actually dehydrated coconut milk, with water...

Add the coconut milk to the pot and let it simmer for a while till cooked.

Let the curry rest for a while before serving :)

Happy Valentine's Day 2009

2009-02-14T22:05:00.006+08:00

Happy Valentine's Day to everyone! This year we decided to cook our Valentine's Day dinner at home as we realised that homecooked food is actually more special for us than a dinner at some restaurant outside. Weird but true for busy working people like us who have most of our meals outside. The Husband had the Ribeye Steak with fries and salad while I had this......

Baked Teriyaki Chicken! I thought the chicken tasted better than the steak (ha!) cos I so don't know how to cook steak properly.

And here's what we had yesterday because I couldn't wait till Valentine's Day to eat it...

Chocolate Cake from Awfully Chocolate, which tasted better than I expected :P Here's a picture of how the cake looks like inside...

And here's a photo of the cake box which we just took for fun :)

Sesame Seed & Hazelnut Cake

2009-01-14T22:38:00.007+08:00

Woo hoo! Here's my first bake for Year 2009 - Sesame Seed & Hazelnut Cake! I baked the cake into muffin sizes for faster baking and more convenient eating. The cake smells great because of the black and white sesame seeds used. There's also ground hazelnut in the cake but I thought the hazelnut flavour didn't come through that well. The cake smells great but was a tad too dry for my liking. Anyway, I had 2 of these for breakfast and think this is a great start to my baking/cooking for the year

REDONDO Luxury Cream Wafers

2009-01-11T20:04:00.003+08:00

I just discovered this chocolate wafer. They taste good, the packaging makes it look expensive and it retails at only $2.90 from NTUC Fairprice. Quite a good deal! I bought the chocolate one but they also have other flavours like vanilla, cappuccino, chocolate mint and chocolate hazelnut. Recommended for the upcoming Chinese New Year! :)

Happy New Year!

2009-01-09T23:34:00.006+08:00

Happy New Year! I'm posting this message to remind myself to cook/bake more in 2009 so that I can blog more! Stay tuned for my Chinese New Year bakes.

Sausage Bun

2008-11-04T23:11:00.005+08:00

Have you ever eaten sausage buns? I love them, especially the ones from Breadtalk :) Recently I read from a magazine that an innocent-looking sausage bun packs some 244 calories! This evening I jogged hard on the treadmill for 30 minutes and when I checked the calorie loss, I realised it was still less than the 244 calories from a sausage bun. How freaky is that? I'm staying off sausage buns and will stop donating money to Breadtalk.

Happy Deepavali!

2008-10-27T10:38:00.005+08:00

It's Deepavali today and it's a public holiday for those of us who don't celebrate it. I was searching through my food photos and realised that I've never cooked any Indian food! Anyway, since Deepavali is also known as the "Festival of Lights", I thought I would share this photo I took of the beautiful sunrise I saw at the top of Mount Sinai in Egypt.

Breakfast in Nikko

2008-10-26T22:43:00.004+08:00

I haven't been cooking anything decent recently. The photo you see above is a photo of a breakfast I had in Nikko when I was there earlier this year. Breakfast is my favourite meal of the day and these toasted ham and egg sandwiches, served with juice, yogurt and a slice of honeydew were simply delicious.

Zaru Soba

2008-08-23T20:56:00.002+08:00

Can't believe it's been like 3 months since I last updated this blog! Anyway, I made Zaru Soba today because the Husband got hooked on Zaru Soba during our recent trip to Tokyo and kept asking for it!

Check out the ingredients for this simple dish. The only cooking required is the boiling of the noodles. The rest of it is just arrangement of the ingredients. Ha!

Chocolate Orange Cupcakes

2008-05-23T22:48:00.007+08:00

I just baked these Chocolate Orange Cupcakes and I think I have found my favourite cupcake recipe! There are NO EGGS & BUTTER in this recipe! The cupcakes are very moist with a rich chocolate taste and mild orange taste from the orange juice and orange zest added. Yum!

Here's another shot of the yummy cupcakes.

This is a must-try recipe taken from Baking Bites.

Pan-Fried Tofu with Broccoli

2008-05-18T23:00:00.002+08:00

Egg Mould

2008-05-09T23:29:00.003+08:00

Whenever I step into Daiso, I always end up buying something! Anyway, these are the cute egg moulds that I just bought from Daiso.

Grilled Sambal Stingray

2008-04-12T22:09:00.004+08:00

Chocolate Madeleines

2008-03-29T15:16:00.007+08:00

Finally had time to do some baking today and I made these chocolate madeleines. Baked them this morning and they are all gone by now. The Husband gobbled them up without the need for me to ask him to try one :)

I baked them using these cute baby blue silicone moulds I found at Daiso yesterday. See!

I used the recipe found in this blog. The recipe (with my conversions) is reproduced below for my ease of reference for future bakes!

Chocolate Madeleines
2 eggs
67g sugar
42g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
2 tbsp cocoa power
60g melted butter

Whisk eggs and sugar. Sift flour, baking power & cocoa powder and add to egg mixture. Fold in melted butter. Spoon batter into greased madeleine tray (do not spread the batter in the tray after spooning it in). Bake at 180C for 10 minutes.

Miso Soup

2008-02-17T18:22:00.011+08:00

I love miso soup! It's actually quite easy to make your own miso soup and I bought these 2 pretty bowls from Daiso just to drink miso soup at home :) Take a look at this video which shows you how easy it is to make miso soup.

How To Make Miso Soup

All the ingredients can be found easily at either Daiso or supermarkets like Cold Storage. I used ready-made dashi powder and dried wakame bought from Daiso. Miso paste, tofu and spring onions can be bought from Cold Storage.

Sweet Soy Pork and Egg Rice Bowl

2008-02-09T18:33:00.002+08:00

Happy Chinese New Year! As usual, I had lots of leftover ingredients from my steamboat reunion dinner again this year. I had a pack of sliced pork which we didn't even have the chance to eat! I flipped through my recipe books and found a recipe to use up my leftover pork. The recipe uses minced chicken but I tried it with sliced pork and thought it worked well too. Try it if you are interested. The recipe is reproduced below for reference.

Sweet Soy Chicken and Egg Rice Bowl
From Quick & Easy Japanese Recipes (Periplus Mini Cookbooks) by Angela Nahas
Serves 4

1. Combine 3 tbsp soy sauce, 4 tsp sake, 2 tsp sugar and 2 tsp mirin and set aside.
2. Fry 250 g of minced chicken with 2 tsp sesame oil until just cooked. Season with the soy sauce mixture and continue to cook until all cooking liquid has evaporated. Remove and set aside.
3. Beat 3 eggs with 4 tsp mirin. Heat 2 tsp sesame oil in a frying pan, add the egg mixture and scramble it. Remove and set aside.
4. Fill bowls with rice. Spoon the scrambled eggs and minced chicken on top of the rice.
5. Serve immediately topped with sliced spring onions.

Oats Cookies

2008-02-03T23:53:00.000+08:00

Do you have a pack of oats at home that you can't seem to finish eating? You can try making these oats cookies to use up the oats before they expire! :P

This is a simple recipe using only oil, sugar, egg, flour and oats. You don't need a mixer and don't even need to get your hands dirty. Just mix the ingredients, shape the cookies and bake it for about 15 minutes.

Here's another photo of the oats cookies on the baking sheet.

Chocolate Madeleines

2007-12-25T15:51:00.000+08:00

I just baked a batch of chocolate madeleines and they taste surprisingly good! I don't have a madeleine pan (yet!) so I used my mini muffin pan just to try out the recipe. The madeleines were ugly (no madeleine pan!) but very chocolatey, moist and yummy.

I'm so going to buy a madeleine pan.

Baked Black Pepper Mustard Chicken Wings

2007-12-24T22:34:00.000+08:00

Who doesn't love chicken wings? They are so fun to eat and you can cook them easily in so many ways. I just made these baked black pepper mustard chicken wings for my Christmas Eve dinner. I marinaded the chicken wings with some Dijon mustard, coarse black pepper and olive oil for about 1 hour. After that, I baked them in the oven at 180C for about 40 minutes. Took quite a while! Think I will bake them at a higher temperature next time (maybe 200C). It was my first attempt and it was quite yummy!

Meiji Melty Kiss

2007-12-09T22:03:00.000+08:00

Have you tried this chocolate yet? I heard that this is only available during winter. I got this from Watsons at a promotion price of $6.50 for 2 boxes. Here's what it looks like when you open the box.

The chocolates are individually wrapped.

Mmmmmm.....There are 2 other flavours (Milk and Green Tea). Think I will try them too!

Steamed Grouper

2007-11-10T21:05:00.001+08:00

We had steamed grouper for dinner tonight! This is me, arranging the ginger and spring onions on the fish before pouring the sauce on the fish and putting it in the steamer.

Ta-dah! Steamed grouper for dinner!

Edamame

2007-11-10T10:51:00.001+08:00

Edamame is one of my favourite snacks. It's healthy, tasty and easy to prepare. I usually buy it from the supermarket because it's so much cheaper than ordering it in a Japanese restaurant. You can get a huge bag of healthy edamame for just $2.85 from the supermarket.

Watercress with Pork Ribs Soup

2007-11-08T22:26:00.001+08:00

Watercress soup is a soup that I cook so regularly at home that I didn't even think of blogging about this soup...until today :P I love this soup because it's so easy to prepare and you only need a few ingredients (pork ribs, watercress and wolfberries) to make this healthy and flavourful soup. It's also said to be very nutritious and cooling, which makes it suitable for our hot weather in Singapore. Here's a recipe if you are interested in making this tasty soup.

Steamed White Pomfret

2007-11-08T22:25:00.001+08:00

It's a public holiday today and I had time to cook dinner! I've been wanting to try making steamed pomfret for a while but never got down to doing it. I used this recipe and the photo shows the finished product. Verdict? Tastes pretty good and I think it is very manageable even for weekday dinners. All you need to do it to arrange the ginger and spring onion on the fish, pour the seasoning over the fish and steam it for about 10 minutes. I'll definitely be cooking this again.

My Jog

2007-10-28T20:05:00.000+08:00

I went to the gym today and I'm very pleased that I finally managed to complete a 5km run! Total time taken was a super slow 45 minutes but hey I ran 5km! I'm super pleased with myself. Bwahahaha!

No Posts!

2007-10-06T16:36:00.000+08:00

No posts recently because I'm too lazy to cook and too busy playing with Facebook.

Here's just a photo of me doing something other than cooking :)

Chilled Tofu

2007-09-16T23:39:00.002+08:00

This is a wonderful appetizer that looks and tastes fantastic. There is also no cooking involved. All I had to do was to assemble the dish!

Teriyaki Chicken

2007-09-01T20:22:00.003+08:00

Did you know that you can make your own teriyaki sauce for teriyaki chicken at home? I just learnt how to do it and it actually tastes quite good. My homemade teriyaki sauce was made using Japanese soya sauce, dashi powder, sliced ginger, Japanese scallion stalks, water, lots of sugar, dark soya sauce, and thickened with corn starch.

To make the teriyaki chicken, I marinated the chicken for an hour, pan fried the chicken and then popped it in the oven to bake for another 10 minutes. Before serving, I just heated up some of the teriyaki sauce and drizzled it over the chicken.

No need to order teriyaki chicken from restaurants again :)

Stir Fried Japanese Udon

2007-09-01T20:22:00.001+08:00

My first stir fried Japanese udon! Quite easy to fry but preparing all the ingredients was hard work! Look at all the ingredients that went into this dish.

For the stir fried udon, I used eggs, garlic, fresh shiitake mushrooms, sliced onions, shredded carrot, sliced cabbage, sliced red pepper, sliced green pepper, tonkatsu sauce, worcester sauce, japanese soya sauce and udon.

Melting Moments

2007-08-26T09:25:00.000+08:00

I made these Melting Moments cookies last night and they turned out great even though it was my first attempt. The texture is very soft and fluffy and they simply melt in your mouth. It's also not very sweet and you can eat a lot at one go :)

Here are more photos of my Melting Moments.

Many thanks to Connie who shared this wonderful recipe at Cuisine Asia.

Thai Pineapple Rice

2007-08-19T21:54:00.000+08:00

Tonight's dinner was Thai Pineapple Rice! I used another spice paste from Asian Home Gourmet.

It's another super easy dish. I added the spice paste to the uncooked rice to cook in the rice cooker as usual. When done, I just added pineapple cubes to the rice.

Although it was really easy to prepare and was fairly tasty, this pineapple rice spice paste was not that great and I probably won't buy it again.

Vietnamese Chicken Curry

2007-08-18T22:03:00.000+08:00

Here's my Vietnamese Chicken Curry. Mmmmmm. It's quite tasty and suitable for people like me who can't take spicy food :)

It's really easy to make because I used a ready made Vietnamese Chicken Curry spice paste from Asian Home Gourmet.

All you need to do is to fry the spice paste, fry the chicken, and add some potatoes, carrots and milk. Bring it to a boil and then let the curry simmer for about 20 minutes. After that, leave the curry to rest for a while before enjoying it with plain rice. Yum!

Grilled Fish with Chopped Garlic

2007-07-28T21:07:00.000+08:00

Here's a really easy and delicious dish to make. First, marinate the fish with some soy sauce for about 15 minutes. Second, pop it in the oven to grill for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, put some chopped garlic on top of the fish and continue grilling for another 5 minutes. Next, enjoy the fish!

Herbal Chicken Wings

2007-06-24T20:57:00.000+08:00

After Saturday's Oyster Sauce Chicken Wings came Sunday's Herbal Chicken Wings. It was my first attempt and it was a success! The chicken wings were first marinated with chinese wine, oyster sauce, soy sauce, sesame oil, red dates, wolfberries for about 1 hour and then steamed for about 30 minutes. How simple is that!

The recipe from Cuisine Asia actually included some herbs but I didn't have them in my kitchen so I just did without them. I was also supposed to wrap each chicken wing in aluminum foil but I also ran out of aluminum foil (I need to go shopping!) and just steamed them in a dish.

Oyster Sauce Chicken Wings

2007-06-24T19:19:00.001+08:00

I've been terribly busy at work for the past 2 months and haven't had the time or energy to cook. Tired of eating out and itching to cook again, I bought 1 kg of chicken wings from my neighbourhood wet market yesterday and happily cooked my favourite oyster sauce chicken wings for dinner. This is one of the very few dishes I can whip up fairly quickly and easily.

I also tried making a tofu omelette that I've been wanting to try for a long time. This was made with 4 eggs, 1 packet of silken tofu (cut into small cubes) and 1 tbsp fish sauce.

I had some trouble trying to flip the omelette over but thankfully it turned out very well. Here's another view of the omelette.

I used half of the chicken wings for Saturday's dinner. The other 1/2 kg was used for Sunday's dinner for another chicken wing dish :)

Mini Buns

2007-05-19T22:34:00.001+08:00

Check out these mini buns or 'xiao man tou' as they are called in Chinese. I remember eating them when I was young. They are slightly sweet and really tasty and fun to eat. Crunchy at first, you can either crunch on them immediately or pop some in your mouth and wait a few seconds while they melt into a yummy powdery paste :)

They are usually sold in really small packets of maybe 10 - 15 pieces so I was excited to see such a large packet being sold at this shop at Telok Blangah Crescent. They make good office snacks because they are so small you can pop them into your mouth without leaving crumbs on your office desk.

Happy Birthday!

2007-04-29T21:28:00.000+08:00

Happy Birthday! I just celebrated my 30th birthday last week with a super yummy chocolate fudge cake from Jane's Cake Station. I just love their chocolate cake which is so moist and chocolate-y. Mmmmm...