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.