Team Building @ Sunrice

My department had a Team building session with the cooking school, At-Sunrice yesterday. I had never attended any hands-on culinary lesson before (If you count out the Home Economics lessons during Secondary school days) and this is definitely exciting for me!

At-Sunrice is located at Fort Canning Park and has this big spice garden! There are so many kinds of spices and really make me go WOW throughout the spice hunt game we had before commencing into the cooking lesson.

We did a 3 course meal, consisting of an appetizer, main course and dessert. It's a fusion cuisine actually. A blend of Thai, Western, Chinese and Japanese can be seen in all the 3 dishes. The food we cooked were awesome. I love the main course best!

The chef decided to hold a "Plating competition" for our appetizer and we are expected to make use of the available ingredients for garnishing. My team won and we got each a $100 Sunrice voucher which also entitles One-for-One. I am definitely going back!


For your delight, the pictures shall do the sum up :)

Baked Macaroni Cheese

Makes 9 Servings
Ingredients	Amounts
Elbow Macaroni ( 9 servings)	1 packet
Diced onions	1
Butter	150g
Plain flour	100g
Grated Mozzarella Cheese	-
Salt, Pepper and mixed Herbs	Taste appropriately
Chicken stock	2 cups

1. Bring the elbow macaronis to cook in a pot of boiling water. When cooked, drain and set aside.
   
   
2. Add the butter into a sauce pan and cook over low heat. When butter melts completely, stir in the plain flour and blend well. Make sure that it is not lumpy.
   
   
3. Add the diced onions into the flour mixture and mix well. Add in a little chicken stock and stir well.
   
   
4. Pour the cooked macaronis into the mixture and combine fully. Add in the remaining chicken stock and season with salt, pepper and mixed herbs.
   
   
5. Fill the macaronis into a casserole pan and top it with shredded cheese.
   
   
6. Bring to bake at 200 degree Celsius for 15 ~20 mins.

First of all, pardon the pictures as this is the best I could take! You can see that the Baked Macaroni Cheese was already half finished by the time I get to snap pictures. My buddies could'nt wait no longer to eat it! LOL

The aroma of this dish is simply irresitable. All of us just can't stop scooping for more servings. I love how the baked cheese on top bring out the taste of the macaroni. It's just so awesome. Try it out because its real EASY!

Happy Birthday Sweetie

My best friend, Miss Gladis Lee happily celebrated her birthday on 23rd Feb every year. This year kind of different as she will be emerging into her mid twenties! LOL! She's been complaining about how time is racing with her and how she so wanted to be 21. Dream my girl, dreaming makes one happy too ;)

Without fail, the buddies normally celebrate her birthdays with her every year. This year, since she's so busy on her actual day of birth, we decided to do a belated birthday party for her today at my house. I am most willing to volunteer myself to bake a cake for her.

I have to admit that I'm still a very super really novice baker. I still excel better in cooking so creaming the whole cake today was tedious. At least it was much better than my previous attempts since I now know how to roughly make the cake nicer :P

SO everyone, here goes the cake for my birthday buddy ;)



I ran out of strawberries and had to replace them with chocolate drops.
The cake base was the one I used for my swiss roll and I bought the lady fingers from Cold storage after I got so terrified by my self-baked Lady fingers from the last time I did Charlotte cake.

The Prince Charming of mine went out to helped his friend with some photoshootings and so, I had to take these pictures using my phone since my Camera ran out of battery.





I hope the birthday girl love this cake and yes, I hope the rest of my buddies love this too! I'm making Macaroni Cheese for the girls. Shall post it in my next entry, and most importantly before I ends this post, HAPPY 25th BIRTHAY, Gladis girl! Opps, did I just flashed out her age? XD

Happy 1st ROM Anniversary

Today marks the 1st Anniversary of Prince Charming and my ROM anniversary! Yes, we got legally bonded at Registry of Marriage a year back on this day (22-02-07). How time flies~ It just looks like I only got ROMed yesterday and man it's already 1 year!

Does that mean that I'm going to get another year older again?!?! Anyway, drop the age issue and back to my mini celebration. Well, as usual my muddle headed Prince Charming forgotten about our ROM Anniversary. Okay, I am not supposed to blame him because we promised each other that our wedding anniversary will be on 1 July every year (that's the date of our customary) and there are simply too much anniversaries for both of us to remember. Birthdays, courtship anniversary and wedding anniversary. Remembering my parents and siblings' birthdays is already one tedious part not to mention another pile of anniversaries to be added. Well, well well, I would thought he'll remember since its the 1st year but oh well, men! They are just not as detailed as how women are.

I wasn't angry because I predicted he'll definitely not remember it since he's already in need of omega and memory pills. LOL. Forgiven! Anyway, it's lucky that today's a Friday as Friday is actually our "courtship" day where we will not go out for any appointment and spent romantic moments with each other, so we had already planned to dine at Pasta de Waraku at The Central.
Food was okay only. It wasn't up to my expectation as usual. I ordered Seafood Spaghetti with Tomato sauce while Prince Charming had his all-long favourite Creamy Spaghetti with Fresh Clams. Mine was almost tasteless! The tomato sauce was so diluted that it just looks like 2 pots of water were cooked with only 5 Tomatoes. I had to add in Tabasco to enhance the taste. Prince Charming's Creamy Spaghetti was average, at least not tasteless. The spicy soft shell crab on the other hand was crispy and oiishi. Out of them, dessert was the best. The soft ice cream would just melt any girl's heart! :D

Frankly speaking, price at Pasta de Waraku is considered affordable but I guessed I wouldn't patronise it again. I would rather have my pasta at Takashimaya Foodcourt. They served nice pasta! I still prefer Waraku Japanese Cuisine compared to their fusion cuisine. Guessed they need to improve their skills in pasta.

Some picture for sharing:
(Pictures may be unclear due to the resolution taken from a Camera phone)

Meme

I was tagged by my Baking-Blogger soul mate, Aimei from My Baking Cottage to do this Meme. Seriously, this is the 1st time I've been tagged on blogger. It looks really fun! Here goes my meme:

5 Facts about you:

1.) I'm a newly-wed lady who really love Culinary and Baking so much that with my own kitchen now, I can do whatever I want without my mummy nagging at my ears. I would very much love to have a bigger kitchen though, since my kitchen is as small as a pea. An kitchen Island in my kitchen would be perfect!

2.) I gets very paranoid when someone comment that I put on weight or I looked fat. I used to be an obese girl of 130% overweight but now, I'm just okay. Of course, I would love to shed off some further weight say, 7kg?

3.) I am always looking up for baking courses and "jio-ing" accompanies, but I never seems to register for them anyway. Is that the reason why my girls are giving me that grumpy face when I asked if they would love to take up baking courses with me?

4.) I can get emotional at times, especially when I watched serial dramas or variety shows that showcase sad stories. My Prince Charming always laughed when he see my face wet with tears while watching TV or movies. I'm just emotional not a cry baby okay?!

5.) I am a very family-oriented person and I truly love my Prince Charming, Daddy and Mummy, my siblings and my niece! I just can't live without them in my life! I have the most wonderful parents on earth and my siblings are always there even though I tend to throw my tantrums at them. My Prince Charming totally changed my life and without deny, they all form a part of me.

That's all for my meme. Now, it's finally time for me to tag others! Yohooo!
I'm going to tag:

• Amanda from I'm held by your love
• Miss Chew from 幸運小豆もち
• Rachie from 夜空の北極星
  
  

Welcome to Taiwan

As promised, here goes the pictures taken in Taiwan. It was tedious sorting them out since we took so many pictures during our 1 week stay! Nevertheless, it's worth the trip even though its freezing like hell :)

Now, I need to get them adjust to the correct color adjustment and send them for developing before my mum starts nagging at my ears again. She just can't wait to see her photos! I really resembles my mum, look at our Universal Victory sign.


My loving parents on 捷運 to 淡水


My mother-in-law with me on 捷運. MY SHORT HAIR!


Posing in front of the 早餐店 in the neighbourhood


Inside 美麗華 Ferris Wheel with my Prince Charming


With my Baby brother inside Ferris Wheel


At 伍角船板餐廳. God, the renovations were amazing!


My loving parents at 九份


Posing at 中正紀念館. Last glimpse of my long curly hair :'(


小籠包 from Auntie Ah Hoon


蛋餅 and 米漿, another complimentary from Auntie Ah Hoon


蘿蔔糕 from Auntie Ah Hoon!


蔥油餅 from Auntie Ah Hoon again.

The food from Auntie Ah Hoon were very delicious. We just couldn't stopped eating and furthermore its FOC! Auntie Ah Hoon is very close to my Mother in law and dotes on my Prince Charming so everything were there for us. We could just take anything we want and bring it to our table. That's soooooooooooooo cool right!

Of course, that's not all I have. There's still many pictures to go. I shall only post up these since I really need time to adjust the colors of the rest of the pictures.

Clam Chowder Baked Rice

Makes 2 Servings
Ingredients	Amounts
Clam Chowder Soup	1 Can
Honey baked ham (Cubed)	100g
Cooked rice	2 bowls
Grated Mozzarella Cheese	2 handfuls

1. Pour the clam chowder soup into a pot and bring to cook on medium heat.
   
   
2. When soup starts boiling, add in the cubed ham and cook for 2 mins.
   
   
3. Scooped the rice onto the plate and pour the soup over to fuly cover the rice.
   
   
4. Cover the rice with lots of Mozzarella cheese and bring to bake at 180 degree Celsius for 8 mins.

I would say this is the simplest meal I have ever fixed in my life! It's like less than 15 mins and you get a pipping hot and delicious dinner. I never have to crack my brains when my Prince Charming asked for baked rice now. LOL.

As usual, both of us fall sick after touching Singapore. I guessed it's probably the climate problem, since Taipei is freezing and Singapore is burning. I was so restless that I hardly had any energy to cook but not wanting to walk out, decided to make do with it. Never expect that it was so marvellous. I think its way nicer than the outside ones, even my Prince Charming find it so! LOL

Anyway, pardon the pictures because it was taken using Prince Charming's phone. Hes's just too drowsy to help me get them done the usual way. Forgiven!

Taiwan Trip II

Finally back in Singapore! I terribly miss the weather here and the delicious spicy food. It's so hard to find sambal chilli in Taiwan and it's so horribly cold.

We took many pictures in Taipei but I haven't got the time to sort them out yet. There are TONNES of them and many candid shots too. I bet I need at least 3 days to filter all the good shots out from the bad ones.

Anyway, 楊宗偉 is so famous in Taiwan that everywhere I went, everyone's playing his new songs. It's like 西門町，五分埔，淡水 and even on the 捷運 I can see people playing his songs. Btw, I miss my culinary sessions. Shall try to cook and bake more!

Taiwa Trip Part I

Hello folks! I finally have some "lonely" time to do some bloggings. It seems like I don't really have much time to switch on the PC and not to say doing my entries! The schedule that my Mother-in-law planned was just super super tight. We travelled throughout the whole day and only able to reached home at around 12am everyday.

All of us were extremely exhausted from all the travellings especially my parents. Furthermore, its freezing in Taipei. My brother-in-law commented that this is the worst winter they had because its too cold for them and not to mention us. The temperatures normally range from 8 to 12 degree celsius and worst of all, it rained almost the whole day since the day I reached Taipei.

One very big shocking surprise is that I CHOPPED OFF MY HAIR :( I no longer have any long curl hair, it's gone, ALL GONE! My mother-in-law owns a hair salon in Taiwan and is a quite well-known stylist in the neighbourhood. She has this equipment that could analyse the condition of your scalp and sadly, she found out that my scalp has been badly polluted by the on shelves shampoos which we can get in any supermarkets locally. She told me that those shampoos are not good for both our scalps and hair and might need long term treatment if it's not diagnose early.

Lucky part was that my scalp condition was diagnosed early and hence I will have to go through special treatment of using salon shampoos at the moment. Because of that, it will be better if my hair were short as it would be much easier to apply the treatment gel and so... there goes my hair. It was'nt a bad thing after all since my mother-in-law gave me a Bod hair style which I wanted so badly the other time and some senior "STYLIST" at REDS wouldn't cut for me because she says I have very thick hair =.=

I like my current hair style very much because everyone complimented that it look goods and it makes me look younger and fresher. One thing is that I really need to train the techniques of blowing my hair the correct way. Bod hair style has this very troublesome problem where you need to blow your hair using a round comb so that your hair gets very volumous and curvy. I'm still mastering that! Anyway, shall post up the pics taken in Taipei asap once I reach Singapore.

Till then, Take care and miss me loads alright!

Nothing very serious but quite important

I'll be leaving on a jetplane to Taiwan with my Prince Charming on 6 February 2008! Might not be posting any entries during this period of time.

Please pardon my absence and welcome me back on the 13 February! I have nothing to worry about except that I am hoping for this:

" Please give me a lean figure

when I return from Taiwan"

See ya all on 13 February! Will post up about my trip ;)

Reunion Dinner 2008 @ Hotel Royal

Without fail, me and my buddy girlfriends met up for CNY Reunion dinner today at Hotel Royal. This has been on going for a few years and has now been part of our yearly tradition.

We used to frequent Tze Char stall at the nearby kopitiams for the past few years except for today. Our "event Organizer", Ms Gladis Lee decided to have a switch for a "posher" option! LOL~ In the making for future tai tais I guessed ;)

The husbands and boyfriend both came too. My Prince Charming was gobbling himself with the drumsticks and I was gobbling with my "god daughter", Angela the deep fried yams which was later place into the stew for nicer soup base.

I don't really like the soup base from that restaurant because it has this very strong "Pork" smell. It's like even putting all the ingredients like the seafood and corns couldn't shoo that taste away. No wonder nobody really drank the soup! The so called "Special Pork Balls" tasted raw too :( I felt like throwing up because it was with this very strong pork smell too! The only nicer food were fried rice and drumsticks. Other than that, it was just ok.....

Nevertheless, though the food tasted not as good, the atmosphere was extremely great! We caught up with each other about our recent life though we met up quite often :P Tracie brought her little princess along! Everyone were just engrossed in playing with the princess :)

Anyway, I'm gald I've got this bunch of great buddies who've stick through with me for near to 10 odd years! They never fail to brighten up my days ;)

Thank you girls! I'm glad I've got you all with me :)