Christmas mood..............IMM - Westgate@Jurong

It was a sunny Sunday. Kids and I took our first ever walk along the stretch of  J-link from IMM to Westgate Jurong East. As usual, my LG phone camera "clicked clicked clicked" along the way....

Taking photos of reflections in the shiny balls is one of my favourite things to do

Do you see me?

Ng Teng Fong Hospital 

Decoration in Westgate

Christmas decoration in IMM

Let's sit down for some hot and spicy beef noodle soup. 

Pumpkin Buns

I have steamed a big chunk of pumpkin and it was sitting in the fridge. After the morning run (GE Womens Run) and an afternoon nap, I felt that I must do a little something while the kids are busy studying (playing). So I jumped straight into action, and selected this recipe from Carol's website for my pumpkin buns. It was simple and easy to follow, and the resulting buns were simple fluffy and oh so yummy and soft, with the aroma of butter and pumpkin. I think the little ones including my niece would love it.

Great Eastern Womens Run 2015

A few friends and I had our "virgin" run at the annual Great Eastern Womens Run. Having registered a few months back, we constantly encouraged and "nudge" each other to train for the actual run (haha..... via whatsapp..... whatsapp only.....:)) And then, with the worsening haze condition in the recent months, it's a wonder we could be enjoying a clear blue sky and sunny weather on this beautiful Sunday morning, in the heart of Marina district.

Pancake with maple syrup and cranberries

Pancake for dinner!
That was what I decided to have after running out of ideas...
Happened that I bought some fresh cranberries at NTUC Extra Supermarket, added these to the pancake drizzled with maple syrup, the sweetness of the syrup and the sourness of the cranberries merged into one heavenly meal......yummy..........
The kids loved it, and so did I (forget about the calories, tomorrow is the Great Eastern Womens Run anyway, the calories would be burnt by then..........hopefully....)

Baked Egg in Ham cup

Sometimes we just need to use a little imagination and efforts to make school day breakfast more exciting....

Method:

Lightly brush 2 Ramekins with olive oil, and line each Ramekin with 2 ham slices.
crack an egg into each and lightly sprinkle with salt and pepper, then chopped spring onion.
Bake in a preheated oven at 200 deg C until the eggs are set.

Enjoy!

A Ride Back in Time

Saw the video clip on YouTube about this sponsored event called 'A Ride Back in Time' last week, Without hesitation I signed up for it, and brought along baba and the kids. The event was held at The Fullerton Hotel.

Simple Meatballs

Bought another batch of minced meat. This type I made a lot of meat balls and baked them in the oven.
Same as before, I packed the meatballs into portions enough for a few servings.

Another October birthday

Wow, Children's Day, 2 birthdays, October is never boring for the kids. Just a week ago we celebrated gal gal's birthday, now it's the boy's turn:)

Look at those lovely lychees sitting on the Lychee Martini cake from The Pine Garden (again!)

Their cakes are definitely a hit with the kids!

Wanton (Pork dumpling) with Hong Kong Baby Greens

Busy weekdays meant dinner preparation needs to be fast and simple, sometimes it is also a good thing to prepare certain ingredients in advance.

I go for groceries marketing during the weekends, often buying enough for half a week of even a week's dinner supplies. Today's dinner is lotus soup that has been slow cooked while we were out for the day, and home made dumplings with green vegetables. 

Childhood Memories......(1)

I love looking at photos of the old times. As we all know, once long long ago (maybe not THAT long ago), in the 70s to even the 90s, cameras were considered rare and priced gadgets. Films were expensive, and came in 24s or 36s per roll. Each click was so precious, that our parents had to get us ready , I mean REALLY ready, before smiling and flashing those little grins and teeth, so that the end results (usually have to wait till after the last photo was taken for each roll before getting it developed at the studio) was (near) satisfaction. we as kids would crowd around our parents when the photos were fresh out of the packaging at the photo studio. And we would carefully label each with dates or names of places on the photos before arranging them orderly in the photo album. Oh.... those days...............

My father was the cameraman in the family, mostly because cameras were precious and could only be handled by the grown ups. Thanks to my dear father, we have a rather good collection of photos since our growing up years.

After all the years of hiding in the albums, many of the old photos have since been scanned by dear baba. I was elated to get a copy from him.

I would like to share some of these old photos, photos of places we had been to when little, places that remains today, however changed in so many ways, as a result of city and business development everywhere.

Here are 2 old photos of us back in the little town of Mantin, in Negri Sembilan, Malaysia. I think I was only about 6 months old....

That was me! Standing proudly on Baba's first car...

Our pet cats, as adorable as the 'baby'....(.kekeke)

A night at the centre

I love Jurong East, have I mentioned this before?

When I want to have a quiet evening, I will spend quality time at home; when I am in the mood for some people watching or window shopping, I will go to Jurong Central. With so many shopping malls and endless list of food outlets, hawker centres, coffee shops, and eateries..... and the library of course........ city, I mean, neighbourhood-life is never bored.....

Westgate, Jurong East

Madeleine

Finally, I found a (one and only one) standard size Madeleine baking pan at a baking accessories shop near my workplace. I was like ‘Ohhhh!!!!" and bought it without second thoughts.

I have used it a few times and found it very easy to use. Still testing a few Madeleine recipes to decide which is our favourite one:)

Added some passion fruit pulp on some of the Madeleines

Simple Weekend, and a birthday

My kids love the cakes from The Pine Garden at Ang Moh Kio. My gal chosed the Hazelnut Chocolate Crunch cake for this year's birthday celebration. Nothing fanciful for dinner, so we can indulge in the pure chocolate delight.

Homecooked Nasi Lemak

Nasi lemak is one of Singapore's heritage food, and a popular one. Long queues can be seen at most hawker stalls selling good Nasi Lemak. The fragrant rice cooked with coconut milk, topped with crispy fried anchovies (Ikan Bilis) and peanuts, sambal chili, plus a variety of other choice of toppings such as fried fish, otah or fried chicken wing, that really packs a punch.... (try not to think about the calorie at this point)

My home-cooked version is very much less in fats and calories, as i roasted the Ikan Bilis and peanuts, and I use roasted chicken breast meat, and reduced fat coconut milk. This way I can create guilt-free dishes for my kids to enjoy at home...

Muah Chee with peanut/ soya powder

Here is the method I used for making homemade Muah Chee (sticky rice bites)

Method:

Add 2 Tbsp caster sugar to 1 Cup of Glutinous Rice Flour (I also added a teaspoon of Matcha powder).
Add 1/2 Cup water and stir till well mixed.
Steam until cooked. I used the traditional rice cooker to steam.
Get ready a plate or container with powder peanuts with sugar.
When the Muah Chee is still hot, use fork and scissors to cut the cooked dough into bite size. It is easier if you cut a chunk from the big lump of Muah Chee and place it on the peanut mixture to cut, as the coating will help to reduce the stickiness and make the cutting much easier.

I reserved another portion to be coated with soya bean powder, yummy!!!

Muah Chee (sticky rice dough ball)

Muah chee......... chewy, sticky and "QQ"........ always found at the night markets and small eatery stalls at the shopping malls. It's a snack we grow up loving and are familiar with. 

Recently we tried the Injoelmi Bingsu, which is basically shaved frozen milk, topped with chewy (glutinous) rice cake and soy powder at Nunsaram, Westgate Jurong East branch. We loved it so much that we visited twice that week. I decided to give it a try, making at home.

Family Sunday

A simple home prepared dinner for my father's birthday celebration.

My Jurong...

The view from our old block, it is a nice view where I could see Jurong East Central, MRT station, the library, IMM building and the old Jurong Entertainment Centre. Photo was taken about 7 years ago....

This is where my heart is...... right now.

A beautiful west side town on the Little Red Dot.

Jurong was developed into an industrial estate in Singapore in the 1950s and 1960s. The coastal region was also developed into sea ports. Housing estates were developed as a result of expansion of industrial sectors, partly to house the people working in this region.

It is now Singapore's 50th year of independence, so much has evolved, not only for Jurong but also the rest of the country. High rise housing blocks, condominiums, tall majestic city buildings. I remember when I first moved from Malaysia 25 years ago, the west side of the island was quiet and "sleepy". So much has changed over the years!

I have taken so many photos as I walked along the streets and around the neighbourhood. Now I just would like to share some old collection as well as recent photos of this little BIG town where I live. Hope my readers especially those around this neighbourhood will like them.

I will also add some references about Jurong that I have come across,  these sites are very good and are very interesting, some even tells us the history and development of Jurong and Singapore and some have nice, hard-to-find nostalgic photos.

I hope you will enjoy!

Jurong Lake - Chinese Garden

Spent a lovely morning jogging along the trails of Chinese Garden on this Sunday morning. I jogged from my house it took less than 15 min to jog leisurely to reach.

Took many photos of the garden and surrounding, the most beautiful views were from the Pagoda, where the staircase spiralled about 6 storeys above the hill top.

I could see the nearby MRT stations, Jurong East Central, Singapore Science Centre, as well as Taman Jurong, Bukit Batok and the Jurong Coastal areas.

Simple tomato omelet

This is a no fuss, simple breakfast omelet I prepared for the kids before school the other day, in fact it was so simple that even though I missed my alarm clock and woke up later than usual, I managed to have this ready within 20 minutes, plus carried on with my washing up :)

A collection of recent cooking adventures

Too much to do, too little time.........

I always do not have the time and energy to pin down the exact steps and ingredients used, sometimes it's a little hard to keep track of things and notes...

Here are just a few of the dishes I prepared for everyday meal...



Simple noodle with mixed vegetables, crab stick and topped with Goji Berries and parsley

New School Term........

June holiday is over..... it's back to early rise n shine for us all.

And time for healthy breakfast before school:)

 Choice of tuna or jam for the croissant

tuna spread on homemade pumpkin bread

lemon honey with mint leaves from my erm...... flower pot.....