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