Pay a Visit to ..

Before my family went over to my mum's place for Hari Raya Haji, we visited Nicky and family at Lorong Melayu. Nicky is my sil's niece and she was born a day before Tihani. She is now based in Germany due to her dad's work commitments. Her family is now in Singapore for a 3 week holiday.

Tihani and her totally clicked like they've known for ages .. playing happily together ..

Dats Nicky and Tihani .. dun they look adorable .. cutie pies ..

Today was also Adriana's (my niece) bday today and sil bought her a bday cake. We got to savour ice cream cake from Swensen's before we left .. hehe

Dats everyone gathering around to sing a bday song before wish making and cake cutting.

Sil - dun forget to fix the date for the kids play together before Nicky leaves yah!

Easy Peasy Tiramisu

It is Hari Raya Haji today. My mum in law cooked some dishes which includes sambal sotong, sambal goreng, lodeh, etc. I decided to make dessert. I have been wanting to make Tiramisu and I have bought the ingredients a couple of weeks ago. So this is a good time to make it. This version is the easy one which is ready to be chilled in 30 mins.

Ingredients

1 pack ladyfingers (egg biscuits)
1 pack of instant coffee
1/2 cup boiling water
250g mascarpone cheese
170g cream
1/4 cup caster sugar
dark chocolate, grated

Method

Dilute instant coffee in water and let cool.
Meanwhile beat cream and sugar till soft peaks forms.
Then add in mascarpone cheese and beat for a further half a minute.
Dip ladyfingers in cooled coffee and lay them on a dish/ramekins.
Then put a layer of mascarpone cream mixture.
Do another layer and then chill it for about 2 hours or longer.
Before serving sprinkle with grated dark chocolate.

My 2nd brother in law and family got to taste it and they enjoyed it. Sil said that the coffee taste should be a stronger. Thanks for the comments sis. I will definitely improve on it the next time round.

Family Dinner @ Straits Kitchen

It has been quite a while since we had a Family Dinner together. I got my sil to plan a dinner and today is the day. We had settled for Straits Kitchen @ Grand Hyatt and reservations had been made a couple of weeks ago. Straits Kitchen serves buffet - mainly local dishes.

These were what I had ..

Rojak

Spring Roll

Satay

Steam Fish with Tofu & Chicken Noodle

Chilli Crab with Mantou & Oyster Omelette

There are loads of other food which I didnt evem try .. :-(

Dats my daughters monkeying around with their table napkins .. how embarassing!

Dats me & sis just outside the restaurant .. looking pretty .. hahah .. yah rite!

Almond Rocher

I was trying to delete old pix when I realised I havent update my blog about these yummy little treats. I invites my family for our wedding anniversary and I made these Almond Rocher .. whoa my anniversary was in May .. it is definitely a long overdue post.

Ingredients

almond nibs, roasted
chocolate couveture
aluminium tin foils

Method

Melt the choc couveture using double boil method.
Add in the roasted almond nibs and mix well.
Spoon in tin foils and refrigerate to firm.

Alternative, u may use other nuts, fruits like raisins, cranberries etc or even digestives.

Oh ya u've got to check out the price of these gems at branded choc shop. They are expensive. More worth it to make it yourself and best yet, it is super easy to make.

PS .. Look at the pic closely. Mine just came out of the fridge and it kinda sweat a little.

Pancake for BF and Spring Roll for T

My bil and nieces came this morning. When I asked them whether they had breakfast (BF), they said they had theirs at macdonalds.

Ahah .. dat gave me an idea of whippin Pancakes for my gerls .. i asked if they had space for more pancakes and the answer was yes.

I said these to my nieces "These pancakes aint nice as the ones at MacDonald's"
They answered "Yah"
And them being the goody goody gerls, they went further "But Auntie Murnie, this is homemade!"

Hehehe .. smart gerls who just didnt want to hurt my feelings. Dun the heart shaped pancakes look pretty?!?! (well, the pic dun do justice though) Well, they tasted good with maple syrup, nevertheless.

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups flour
2 tbsp sugar
2 eggs, beaten
1 1/3 cups milk
butter

Method

Mix flour with sugar. Make a well, and add the beaten eggs and milk.
Whisk well to form smooth batter.
Heat butter in a non stick pan and pour 1/4 cup batter in.
Wait till bubbles start to appear on pancake and turn over.
Serve warm with maple syrup.

For tea, I made Spring Rolls with Potato & Mince Meat Fillings. My mum gave me the fillings yesterday. She might have made the fillings to make something but I think she abandoned the idea and gave me them instead.

Since I have spring roll wrappers at home, I made them for tea (T).

And so we had these with hot cuppa tea on a cold rainy day.

Dinner @ Sakura International Restaurant

My sil gave us a dinner treat today at Sakura International Restaurant.The restaurant serves buffet and as the name suggests, it serves a wide spread of international food. It serves from local to Japanese to Western food.

The first station I headed for was the Japanese one .. I nicely placed lotsa tuna and salmon sashimi on my plate and a variety of sushi .. I just couldnt resist these that I jus chowed them down w/o even taking a pic of it.. how can I resist Jap food. They are my fave. The saddest part is that there arent many halal Jap restaurants in Singapore.

Then I had pizza, unagi, prawn and scallop tempura and also shishamo .. dun u think i'm kinda cruel!! .. I ate pregnant fishes .. hehehe .. but i cant resist deliciousness ..

Then I had some cold dish.

I also had Western food - medium well done steak with mixed veg.

And of kors, I ended my meal with a nice scoop of coconut ice cream and a cup of espresso .. ;-)

Thanks sil for the dinner treat and thanks for the dresses!

Kacang Phool

It is Sunday today and as any other Sundays, we would eat breakfast together. I prepared Kacang Phool. We ate this with this yummy stuff with warm baguette.

Ingredients

Condiments
6 limes, halved
2 onion, chopped
2 grean chillies, chopped
6 sunny side ups eggs

The beans
3 onion, 2 ground and 1 roughly chopped
5 pips garlic
1 cm ginger
5 cm cinnomon stick
1 star anise
1 tbsp ground dried chilli
1 tsbp curry powder
250 gm minced meat, precooked
2 cans broad beans
ghee
salt

Method

In a blender, grind onion, garlic and ginger. Put aside.
In a blender, grind the broad beans roughly.
Pound cinnamon stick and star anise in a pestle and mortar.
Heat some ghee in a pot and fry the ground and pound ingredients and curry powder till fragrant and crisp.
Put in minced meat and lastly the broad beans.
Add salt to taste and cook thru.

Plate the kacang phool and top it off with lime, chopped onion, chopped green chilli and sunny side up. Serve with warm baguette.

A Trip to the Bird Park

I spoke to my sis in law dis morning and she asked if we wanna go to the Jurong Bird Park. Her daughter, Adriana is performing in her school band. Why not? My daughters have not been there before anyway .. hmm .. actually Tihani had been there .. but she was still a lil baby then .. heheh

My angels at the entrance of the park.

We visited the penguins first to say our hellos.

Then we went to the waterfalls.

Then we walked around to see the birds. Are these pelicans?? .. duh .. how can I not know .. but seriously I dont .. hehe

I saw this stray bird and took a pic of it .. my favourite pic of all ..

Ahhhh .. pink flamingoes .. sooooooooo preeeeeeeeetty .. arent they??

Actually we didnt walk much .. it rained and it stopped and rained and stopped and rained at stopped .. and in the end we left and headed for Vivo City .. and guess wat??

We ate "birds" .. yeah Chicken Rice to be exact at the Chicken Rice Shop .. hehehe

What coincident!!

It Has Arrived .. Hooray

As I was resting this afternoon, watching MTV on cable, the doorbell rang and a postman stood by the gate. When I saw a box in his hands, I was elated. I knew that IT is the box that I have been waiting for .. the BBM Holiday Edition Package ;-)

Nicole of Attitudes are Contagious, Mine Might Kill You from New Jersery, USA had sent me this nice package full of thoughtfulness. I could see that a lot of homework was done before she put together the package.

These are what she sent :-

First up .. she had included in her package a pack of Organic Tortilla and a jar of Homemade Tomato Salsa .. oh yes, the tomatoes are from her own garden ..

Also included were a Xmas card full of explanations of each item she sent, a big jar of Chocolate Dip Pretzel Rods and Haribo Gold Bears Gummy Candy for my two angels. She had read in my blog that I have kids and had thoughtfully included those gummies for them.

Learning that I love to bake, Nicole had thoughtfully included too in the package, a box of Shaped Sprinkles, Swirled Dark Chocolate and Raspberry morsels + recipe cards (ooh .. i just cant wait to use these .. i havent seen these in Singapore) and Cookies and Bars recipe book (oh yes .. 349 recipes in that book alone).

Thank you Nicole .. I love each and everything u sent me and thanks for being so thoughtful. I could see so much love and care that is put in to prepare this parcel for me. My hugs and kisses to you lil son!

Thank you to BBM host, Steph of Dispensing Happiness .. u go gerl!

The Little Princess

We didnt really have any plan today. After mailing out my BBM package, we brought the kids to a warehouse toy sale at Lok Yang where my sil is working.

The kids got to choose the stuff they want to get. Tihani had chosen a princess set and Auni a barbie doll set.

Tihani got home and tried on her princess outfit .. presenting Princess Tihani ..

I got myself some arty farty stuff to do with the kids too .. hehehe .. well there's still the kid in me!

BBM Holiday Edition Package Sent

I had just manged to put together and sent out my BBM Holiday Edition package to my swap partner who is residing in the US. My apologies for the late sent out.

I hope the package will reach my swap partner in time for Xmas. The postal officer advised me that the package would reach the recipient in 11 days from today.

This time round, I baked a batch of Peanut Butter Cookies for my swap partner (half of which is plain and half mixture is mixed with choc chips).

Well, this a pic of some of the stuff (i included some other items after this pic was taken) that I sent out.

I really hope my swap partner will enjoy what I have put together for her.

BBM rocks!

To Siloso Beach We Went ..

My hubby and I brought our kids to Sentosa after Tihani's school orientation.

So went went, our bags packed with drinks, tidbits, extra clothing and toys for the kids to play with by the beach.

We head down to Siloso Beach at Sentosa. While me and hubby lay down our mats and sat chillin', my daughters played with sand.

There she is, Auni, enjoying herself, running on white sand amidst the lush green trees.

There are the kids, trying to build sandcastles.

After a fun time by the beach, I gave the kids a lil treat of Ben & Jerrys.

Dats Tihani enjoying her ice cream.

We left the beach when the skies turned dark and lightning started to strike.

Big Breakfast .. Kinda

My hubby and I went grocery shopping yesterday and saw baked beans and both of us commented that we havent had that for a long time now. So we bought a tin and decided to eat that for breakfast today.

This was our Big Breakfast which consisted of baked beans which I refried with some onions, sunny side up egg, onion rings, fish bites and toasts, we like ours toasted jus slightly.

Mum's Mee Soto

OK .. as mentioned in yesterday's post, I wanted to serve my guests Mum's Mee Soto and I did. Sifu Sainah (dats my mum by the way) .. hehe .. was at my house to give me a hand at cooking Mee Soto as it is my first time.

Ingredients

1 whole chicken cut into 12 pieces, cleaned
2 heaped tbsp coriander seeds
1 level tsp cumin seeds
5 - 7 big onions, roughly chopped
3 pips garlic, roughly chopped
3 cm fresh turmeric
3 candlenut
2 red chillies, roughly chopped
1 lemongrass
2 lime leaves
2 salam leaves
water
1/4 cup coconut milk
2 tbsp sweet soya sauce
salt and sugar to taste
oil

Method

In a blender, grind coriander seeds, onion, garlic, turmeric, cumin, candlenut and chillies with a lil bit of water.
Heat some oil in a pot and fry the ground ingredients till fragrant and crisp.
Press the end of lemongrass with a pestle and put in the lime and salam leaves and put them in the pot.
Add some salt and sugar then add enough water and leave it to boil on high flame.
Once it has started to boil, lower the flame and put in the chicken pieces and leave it to coook.
Add in the coconut milk and sweet soya sauce and leave it boil again.
Leave it for a moment and turn off heat.

Serve chicken soup hot with noodle or vermicelli or rice cakes and blanched beansprouts.
Top it off with condiments such as fried crispy shallots, chopped cilantro and spring onions and "sambal kicap" - made of ground birds eye chillies, garlic and sweet soya sauce.


Oh yeah .. Mum's Mee Soto was also a hit with the guests .. really kewl stuff.
This is my first time cooking this and surely not the last .. :-)

Sausage Bread Roll

My bro in law + family + his wifey's family will be coming over to my house tomorrow to pay my fil a visit.

I had planned to serve them mi soto and for the kids I made them Sausage Bread Rolls.

Ingredients

10 pcs bread
10 pcs chicken franks
glue, made of flour and water
1 large egg, beaten and seasoned with salt
breadcrumbs
oil for frying

Method

Roll bread to a thin layer using a rolling pin.
Place hotdog on bread and roll. Use "glue" to stick.
Then dip it in egg and lastly roll it on breadcrumbs.
Heat oil and fry the rolls till it is golden brown.
Serve hot with chilli mayo.

You may make the sausage bread rolls in advance and store them in freezer.

This is a pic of the flattened bread.

This is how it looks like before being dipped in egg and breadcrumbs.

This is how it looks like after being dipped in egg and breadcrumbs.

Updated on 2 Dec 06 @ 11.15 pm : I served the guests these when they came earlier and it was a hit .. not only with the kids but adults too :-)))