21st Jan~ My Birthday!

21 has always been my lucky number. Oh well, probably be'coz i'm born on 21st! :-) Remembers when i was young, or after i was 10 years old, i will always look forward to birthday, cuz there will always be a birthday cake for me.

As a child or traditional family where there are elderly in our family, my parents feels that it is not necessary for kids to celebrate birthday except the 1st birthday. Therefore, in my memories, i only remember having a 1st birthday celebration and that's it until i was 10 years old. Few days b4 my 10th birthday, Dad suggested buying a cake for me on my every birthday. I was overjoyed, thus looking forward to every years' birthday until i was sixteen. However, i feel that there's no need to celebrate after sweet 16th as i feels that i age as i celebrate more. haha.... Wouldn't it be better to leave my memories in having little birthday celebration instead? keke...

Though no birthday celebration, i still receive present from a close fren and my office colleague.

Blessings and wishes from everyone...

No candles for me but a lovely mini cake for someone who's on diet! haha... Thanks everyone for remembering my birthday!

辣酱干炒米粉

What to eat? What to eat? Well, let me search through my fridge and see we we've got? Erm... a handful thick rice vermicelli, 1/2 a stick of carrot, 1/2 packet of cuttlefish tolls, holland beans etc... Hey, that's more than enough for me to whipped up a meal. :-P

Ingredients;
Thick rice vermicelli
Beansprouts
Carrots, cut into sticks
Holland beans, cut into strips
Cuttlefish rolls, cut into rings
1 egg, scrambled
Oil for frying

Sauce,
1 tsp spicy sambal sauce
1/2 tsp chili oil
3/4 tsp oyster sauce
1 tbsp stock/water
1/2 tsp sweet soy sauce

Method,
-Scrambled egg in hot oil, push to side of wok.
-Fry carrots for a min, add holland beans and cuttlefish rings.
-Toss in thick rice vermicelli and sauce.
-Fry over high heat for 2 mins.
-Serve immediately.
-Enjoy!

A quick and simple dinner.

Assam Fish Head

Our family love fish head and we would always cook various kind of fish head. Since we have always love assam fish head whenever we eat out, we decided to have it for dinner at home tonight. To me, most importantly, the dish must at least have 2 kinds of veggie. I forgot to add in pineapples and tomatoes! So forgetful!

Ingredients;
1 fish head, halved
Brinjal, cut into sections
Okra, cut into sections
Onion, wedged
Oil for frying
Assam mixture
Grind chili paste
2 tsp homemade chili paste
Salt
Sugar
Stock

Method,
-Scald okra in hot water, drained and soak in ice cubes.
-Scald brinjal in hot oil, drained.
-Fry grind chili with 1/2 tsp oil, add chili paste, onions & assam mixture and stock.
-Add salt and sugar to taste.
-Add in brinjal, boil for a min b4 adding in okra. Set aside for later use.
-Steam fish head till cooked, pour sauce over and serve immediately.
-Enjoy!

Here's the assam sauce with veggie.

四大天王

I once ate a similar dish in JB and decided to give it a try with different kind of veggie. U can use any kind of veggie you prefer but more appropriate will be those with goes well with chili and non-leafy. Therefore, i selected few of my favorite veggie to be the 4 heavenly king.

Ingredients;
French beans
Holland beans
Brinjals
Okara
Carrots
Large ikan bilis
Garlic, minced
Chili padi, chopped
1 tsp homemade chili paste
1 tsp oyster sauce
Pinch of sugar
Pinch of salt
Oil for frying

Method;
-Scalded brinjal in hot oil for a while and drained.
-Fry ikan bilis in little oil till crispy and browned, drained & set aside for later use.
-On a clean wok, fry garlic and chili till fragrant, add carrots and fry for a min.
-Add the rest of veggie, give it a quick stir.
-Season to taste.
-Sprinkle with fried ikan bilis and serve.
-Enjoy!

A very tasty and delightfully dish. A simple dish with various kinds of veggie make dineer more exciting. :-)

*Reason to scald brinjal in hot oil b4 cooking is to prevent the change of colour.

Fancy Delights' Fanciful Egg Tarts

There's a trend of 'unique' egg tarts here in Singapore. Our normal egg tarts' pastry is low and with sweet custard egg fillings inside. However, these unique tarts' pastry are double the height of a normal egg tart, with assorted fillings to chosses from.

Sweet fillings will be like strawberry jam, mango, chocolate chips, blueberry etc... while the savoury ones are cheese, minced chicken, black pepper etc...

Assorted egg tarts in sweet and savoury flavours.

Nice and classy packing.

Here's how the logo looks like, try it.

Making of Pineapple Tarts~For the Chinese New Year

Chinese New Year is fast approaching and it's just like another 2-3 more weeks. Pineapple Tarts is a common and most popular snacks during CNY period, other than this will be Bak Kwa(roasted pork), love letters etc... Gosh, the names of all these goodies reminds me of the tons & tons of calories. haiz.... how to avoid like that? Lucky i'm not a fan of pineapple tarts but, i would love to bake them.
I help Tabby's grandma with her usual CNY bakings. Yesterday was the 1st day and we decided to start with pineapple tarts. Tedious job to do everything from scratch. We bought 90kgs of pineapples in order to bake and give away as gifts.

Lovely pineapple tarts. They do looks like mini sunflower ya?!

Using rubbing in method to prepare soft dough which comprises of flour, egg, butter and pinch of salt. After kneading the dough, let it rest for a short while.

Here's the cooked jam with grated pineapple, sugar and star anise.

Ready stamped out pastry, waiting to be topped with balls of pineapple jam.

1 tray is done and we have plenty more to complete.

Grandma is bz transferring the baked cookies to cooling rack. We have to ensure that the cookies are completely cool b4 packing them into containers, otherwise they will grow mouldy.

If you prefer crispy and flakey cookies like me, you can increase the temperature higer and baked them a little longer in order to have the brown effect. Crispy pineapple cookies are best eaten while hot. Hmm... pastry tart skin is crispy and fragrance, pineapple filling is soft and not too sweet. Yummy~licious!

Oh ya, dear readers, remember to drink more herbal tea in case getting sorethroat from eating all these heaty junk food. :-P

Yong Tau Foo With Special Gravy

Yong Tau Foo... Yong Tau Foo... Yong Tau Foo... The name of this dish was heard more than once everyday. Y? Cuz my colleague is on a diet and she eats yong tau foo soup everyday during lunch. Scary? yes, and it is everyday and this has been going on for 2 weeks.

I would crave for it occassionally and these 2 days, i have the feel. Since i had to work till late and wouldn't have ample time to stuff my own yong tau foo, decided to drop by the supermarket to purchased those ready made ones to satisfy my crave. I only need to prepare my own special sauce. :-P

Ingredients;
1 pack of yong tau foo
Some meatballs
2 leaves of lettuce
Fried shallots
Roasted white sesame

Sauce;
3/4 tsp hoisin sauce
1/4 tsp oyster sauce
1/2 tsp homemade chili paste
1/2 tsp chili oil
1/2 tsp sugar
2 tbsp braised sauce (卤汁)
1 tbsp water

Method;
-Simply boil yong tau foo in hot boiling water till cooked.
-Off heat and add in lettuce, let lettuce soak for 30 seconds.
-Drained immediately and place on serving plate.
-Bring sauce ingredients to boil over low heat, till gravy slightly thickens.
-Drizzle over yong tau foo , sprinkle fried shallots and roasted sesame seeds.
-Serve & Enjoy!

Here's my dinner for tonight! Simply yummy~licious!
It's been quite a while since i last snap and post a pic of food which i prepared. I better squeese out more time to cook those food on my "To Cook List" haha....

JB's New Shopping Mall~KSL City

When we were in JB the other day, happened to pass by the new mall~KSL. Thus, we've set Saturday as our "Chiong" day to explore the mall. Here we are at KSL.

New mall~KSL City
Nothing much in this mall, more of fashion clothing and bags and a cinema. Oh ya, 1st 2 hours parking is FREE!!! :-P

A few bubbletea shops is the mall. Seems like the trend is coming back. Plenty of selections...

TI and their receipt is cute ya!

Something interesting about the seal. Normally those which we come across is either the brand logo or those lame questions. However, T1 has cartoon images of celebrities.I've got Jolin Tsai while Tab has got A-mei.

DIY Hokkaido ice-cream.

Erm... something which caught my eye. I'm quite interested in these natural soup. It is something similar to Lush which i've come across in Hong Kong.

Hey, they have classes available too!

After our shopping, we went to the salon to find Aunty Margaret as we drop her off at the other shopping mall earlier in the afternoon. Oh i can't believe it, By time the "makeover' finishes, it's way past dinner time.

Time for our dinner! Erm... at 12+ am having our wanton soup with charsiew.

Wanton mee...

Ice jelly dessert....

Dim sum...

Century egg congee...
I'm so full! Guess these food won't be able to digest by 4am! Well, i'm not gonna sleep until i've digested these! haha...

Dinner Invites & Shopping @ Ikea

Something strange?! Aunty Margaret had been inviting me over to her house for dinner for the past 1 week. and in fact during the 5 days of weekday, i turned up for dinner on 3 occasions. Haha... not shy rite?! keke...

1st time cooking this dish~Scrambled fu yong egg with mushroom.

Teochew steamed fish.

Radish soup with spare ribs.

Home-made fish otah.

Stir fried french beans.

This is the design of pedicure which Tabby did the previous nite in JB. Isn't it cute?

And i reali love mine, especially the outline of the queen's head.

Close up of it with the glitters.

After dinner, we set off straight to Ikea for shopping! Naughty Merrill was with us and he wants to be in charge of whatever things we buy.

Last but not least, i've to entertain him by letting him play with some of the stuff. Oh by the way, the "hat" on his head was actually a soft basket meant for putting stuff in the bathroom. He looks so happy with it. :-)

Farewell 2010 & Welcoming 2011

Something seems wrong with blogspot account and i've encounter countless failure to blog. Haiz... what a disappointing beginning for year 2011. Thank God! i finally managed to blog. Alright, enough of sob stories.

Bidding farewell to year 2010 and welcoming year 2011, we decided to have a party at Tabby's place. We were invited by Aunty Khanni for a countdown party at her place. Wanting to enjoy some quiet moments to reflect on year 2010s' achievements and to think on 2011's resolution, we decided to give it a missed.
As Uncle Jo & Aunty Margaret will be going over for the countdown at 11pm, we decided to have the celebration earlier.

Here's our feast....

Jan's favourite salmon sashimi.

Knowing that we been stuffing ourselves with tons and tons of heaty food throughout the festive season, Aunty Margaret prepared some cooling drinks for us.

Something new rather than the normal char siew which we usually eat?! I prepared char siew skewers.

Some healthy boiled wantons drizzled with char siew sauce.

Not forgetting the hot favourite~fried wantons.

A main course for the nite~salmon fried rice.

My new creation~coffee pork bites.

New mixture of drink~sprite with apple juice.

Last but not least a HAPPY NEW YEAR! :-)