6 weird things about me

Here is what I have to do:

“Each player of this game starts out by giving 6 weird things about themselves. People who get tagged need to write in a blog of their own 6 weird things as well as state the rules clearly. In the end, you need to choose 6 people to be tagged and list their names.”

So here goes:

1. I am neat, clean and tidy to a fault - I arrange money in one direction before handing over or putting into my purse.

2. I am terrified of birds; their feathers and beaks. I almost knocked my sister into a pond once as I was dodging a bird which I thought was attacking me. The sight of a feather duster gives me the shivers.

3. I find it difficult to leave the house if my toe & finger nails are not painted.

4. I must have 2 cups of Japanese green tea before I sleep at night.

5. My right foot is half (maybe a quarter) size bigger than my left.

6. Not only do I listen to sappy love songs, but I love techno/trance music - hehe - I sometimes stay in Unitek longer than I should if they are playing a particularly good trancey tune.

Who reads this stuff anyway - and I think most of the bloggers I know has been tagged so I won't pass this on. However if there are silent, or otherwise, readers who would like to participate, please do so - DBS?

Weds, 28th Feb 2007

So Room Service has just come and gone - I had Caesar Salad with Grilled Chicken.

The lettuce was lovely, they had picked out the youngest hearts of Cos. The Grilled Chicken was tough. The dressing - where shall I start? - it tasted of cream ONLY, I couldn't detect garlic, seasoning, mustard and where is the all important ingredient of a good Caesar dressing - the anchovies? I added some salt & pepper but still it was blah. Marks out of 10? 2, 1 for the real parmesan shavings and 1 for the lovely Cos.

On the 29th floor, with the bright lights of the city twinkling in the distance, I have no wish to venture out, but am loving the alone me time.

Next post : 6 weird things about me - thanks ( I think! ) for tagging me, ZT. :P

Weds, 28th Feb 2007

With so many magazines to read and my laptop with free high speed in-room internet access, sleep will not be high on the priority list tonight.

Friday, 23rd Feb 2007

Here's Friday's lasagna when it came out of the oven.

The topping was just nicely browned and the parmesan cheese gave it another depth of flavour.

Inside, you can see the still pretty well-defined layers,

and the white sauce gave great balance to the tasty meat sauce, chunky with carrots, mushrooms, tomatoes and simply bursting with flavours.

Here's Mark enjoying his lunch.

And Hazel's dinner portion, which is slightly splattery as I heated it up in the microwave.

And one last pic:

I hope all of you enjoyed this lasagna post as much as my kids enjoyed eating it (and as much as I enjoyed making it)! Have a lovely lazy Sunday.

Fri, 23rd Feb 2007

It's National Day and a public holiday today so I made Lasagna for my kids.

Step 1 - The Meat Sauce

First make the meat sauce. In a pan, add olive oil and finely chopped garlic and a chopped onion, fry till translucent, add minced topside and fry till lightly browned and dry. Add diced carrots, lots of mixed herbs, a bay leaf, dried parsley, salt & coarsely ground blackpepper and a tin of chopped tomatoes. Stir to combine, add a little tomato puree and some water and simmer gently till the meat is soft and the sauce thick and gooey. Add sliced fresh white mushrooms and simmer again and adjust seasoning.

While you are waiting for the meat sauce to finish cooking, make the white sauce or bechamel sauce.

Step 2 - The White Sauce

Put 2 tablespoons of flour into a saucepan, warm gently but do not let it brown. Add 2 tablespoons of butter and stir with a wooden spoon or whisk.

Add milk in a thin stream stirring continously. As you stir, the mixture should clump together. (Here, I wish I had a photographer to take over at this point as it's not easy to stir and click at the same time).

Don't be alarmed - just keep stirring till the sauce turns smooth and glossy.

Simmer gently and season with salt and pepper, parsley and a bit of mustard - a bit of veg stock cube does improve the taste. The traditional recipe calls for grated nutmeg but I wasn't going to buy a bag of nutmegs just to use one so I simply left this out! Put sauce aside.

Step 3 - Cooking the Sheets

Now boil the lasagna sheets in briskly boiling water for 2 to 3 minutes. Remove sheets gently and oil very very lightly to prevent them from sticking to each other. Now you have completed all the steps, it's time to start the assembly.

Assembling

Lightly butter a deep narrow roasting tin. Lay a sheet of lasagna (and do trim it to size), top with meat sauce, then white sauce and sprinkle a layer of parmesan cheese on top of the white sauce.

Proceed in a similar fashion till the layers reach the top of the roasting tin.

The final layer is lasagna

+ white sauce + cheese (omit meat sauce). Sprinkle surface with some parsley for flavour and colour.

And now bunk it in the oven for 15/20 minutes and put on grill function for the last 3 minutes so that the top is lightly browned and crispy.

Then all you have to do is cut a huge slice and put it on a plate, blow vigorously to cool it slightly and eat!

Mark really enjoyed this and Hazel said OMG!! when she tasted it. Wm said it was very very tasty and rich, and 'restauranty'.

I'm very happy with the result and Zippy, if you are reading this, I hope you like it too.

Next post - the lasagna when it came out of the oven... and closeups of the layers of lasagna on Mark and Hazel's plate.

Oh No Not Another (Ridiculous) Diet

I think I have definitely overindulged all month, and have run out of excuses how/why all my clothes (even the fat ones) have suddenly shrunk. So I am about to embark on another diet.

This diet is known by several names, none of which I will repeat here, but it has been around for simply ages. I do know of one or two people who have lost weight while on it. And yes, before I hear some tut-tutting and tsk-tsking, I do know:

- semi starvation diets as these DO NOT WORK
- you pile the lost weight back on (and more) the minute you stop
- you cannot 'trick' the body into eating less than it should - it goes into starvation mode and your metabolic rate slows right down
- all you lose is water (not fat) and at worst, muscle
- you will feel tired, hungry and listless

HOWEVER - it is only for 3 days and for the sake of experimenting and perhaps a slightly looser waistband, maybe it's worth me trying it out?

Here goes:

Day 1

Breakfast
Black tea /coffee
1 grapefruit
1 slice toast
2 tsp. peanut butter

Lunch
Black tea /coffee
4 oz. tuna
1 slice toast

Dinner
1 slice cold meat
1 cup string beans
4 oz. beetroot
4 oz. ice cream
1 small apple

Day 2

Breakfast
Black tea /coffee
1 boiled / poached egg
1 slice toast
½ banana

Lunch
Black tea /coffee
4 oz. cottage cheese
5 Ritz biscuits

Dinner
2 Frankfurters
4 oz. broccoli
2 oz. carrots
½ banana
4 oz. ice cream

Day 3

Breakfast
Black tea /coffee
1 hard boiled egg
1 slice toast

Lunch
Black tea /coffee
1 slice cheddar cheese
5 Ritz biscuits
1 small apple

Dinner
4 oz. tuna
4 oz. beetroot
4 oz. cauliflower
½ piece melon
4 oz. ice cream

· You must drink 5 × 8 fl. oz. water each day.
· Toast is to be dry, no butter or margarine.
· Tuna, string beans and beetroot can be frozen.
· Ice cream is vanilla flavoured only.
· This diet works on a chemical breakdown and is PROVEN - (hahaha - by whom, I wonder?)
· DO NOT VARY or SUBSTITUTE any of the above foods.
· Salt & pepper to be used – no other seasoning.
· Where no quantity is given, no restriction other than COMMON SENSE.
· This diet is to be used for 3 days at a time. It must be followed exactly to lose up to 10 lbs. - 3 days.
· After 3 days of dieting, you can eat normally BUT remember NOT TO OVER-DO it.You can lose up to 40 lbs. a month if you stick to it. (hahahahaHA. HA.)

Note: I am not endorsing this diet as you can clearly see from the heading but am merely sharing information which already is readily available from the internet with all of you. As always, before you think of embarking on any diet, let alone something, as totally unsubstantiated as this one, please check with your doctor.

Monday, 19th Feb 2007

And one more from Monday's lunch.

Mum bought some really fresh Tiger prawns and Wm decided to make Oaty Prawns out of them. It looked really easy and it was a very successful first attempt.

First, clean, devein, wash & dry prawns. Panfry in some oil till they are almost cooked.

Remove from pan. In the same oil and do add more if you need to, plus some butter, stirfry some finely chopped shallots, garlic, chillis and curry leaves till fragrant. Add oats (or Nestum), season with sugar, light soy and salt. Stir till the oats are crispy, add prawns and mix to combine all ingredients thoroughly and serve.

Here it is - yummy?

The prawns were lovely - fresh, sweet & juicy. The crispy mixture was very tasty too and we picked up every last bit.

And one last pic....

Mon, 19th Feb 2007

When wine is served at lunch,

and 2 grown men are egged on by a little girl to make silly faces, this is what happens:

Overworked:

Mon, 19th Feb 2007

Vegetarian dish, also cooked by Mum - let's see, what's inside:



- Tree fungus or 'cloud's ear', taufupok, long cabbage, mushrooms, black moss, vermicelli and beancurd skin cooked in preserved beancurd, garlic, and the usual sauces and white pepper.

I think you all can gather by now that my Mum is a fabulous cook. When we were growing up, there was always simple but beautifully cooked food for lunch and dinner everyday. When there was a special occasion such as a birthday, Chinese New Year or other significant dates in the Chinese calendar, the table will be heaving with 'special' (minced prawn balls, prawn on toast, deep fried pork ribs, braised duck, to name a few) dishes. Mum is also the master of Cantonese soups (her sharksfin soup is unbeatable) and she has passed this skill to all of us - Wm makes a vat of long boiled soup every Sunday so guess where I have dinner most Sundays??

I think my mum is one of the earlier super mums who coped with 4 kids, a household and a family plus a pretty active social life, without the help of an amah. I am woman - hear me roar!

Mon, 19th Feb 2007

Mum also cooked this.



It's a super fresh fish head, chopped into pieces, lightly coated in cornstarch and fried to get rid of water content and then cooked with chinese wine, oyster/dark/light sauces, pepper and spring onions.

The fish head came from a large live garoupa or grouper which KF bought from the Jerudong fish market. It was so fresh that there wasn't a hint of 'fishyness' and even though I am not a huge fan of fish head, I really enjoyed the meatier parts.

Next up, a vegetarian dish.

Mon, 19th Feb 2007

Mum made a super assorted dried seafood claypot dish which consisted of scallops, (she tied string around each of these perfect whole dried scallops to prevent them from falling apart)

sea cucumber, oysters as well as mushrooms, black moss and fish maw. All the ingredients came from HK. This is the result.

The seacucumbers and fish maw were prepared a week earlier. You have to boil them lightly in several changes of water, Chinese wine and ginger slices, and keep them immaculately clean, until they are softer but still maintaining their bite.

It is a lot of work but so delicious, the flavours are rich, tasty and the sauce almost sticky without the need to add thickeners. I was also told that fish maw contains collagen which is good for the skin.

This is my personal takeaway portion which Mum put aside for me. It's in the fridge now... I might have it for dinner tonight...

Sun, 18th Feb 2007

Went visiting today:

I had nasi lemak with egg, sambal ikan bilis, rendang, fried chicken and I went back again for more fried chicken cos they were tasty (oh no - I paid the price afterwards - had to drink 2 bottles of water - massive msg attack).

There was also fried noodles,

Chicken masak merah, Sweet & Sour Fish,

lodeh, cakes, satay and rotis with 2 curries (veg & meat).

Hello mamalobengs - saya hensem??

Sat, 17th Feb 2007

Since I liked the vegetables with abalone so much, I thought I should put up more pictures and give a little step by step although I didn't cook this.

So here is a tin of abalone (the pink tin from Mexico, which you can buy from Chinese supermarkets), take out the abalone, slice finely and put aside some of the liquid in the tin (abalone stock). I like abalone - it tastes slightly rubbery and fishy!

Add cornstarch and oyster sauce to some of the abalone stock.

Fry garlic in a very hot wok, add vegetables. Stir fry for a few minutes.

Push aside. Add abalone, stir and add cornstarch solution/stock.

Serve!

Sat, 17th Feb 2007

It's Chinese New Year's Eve and we had dinner in Seria. Lots & lots of food for seven and here is the menu:

1. Braised Duck with Dark Soy, Galangal, Five Spice Powder & Sugar. I really really love this. Had quite a bit. The spicy sourish chilli garlic sauce which went with this was yummy too.

2. Fried Fish - Plain and simple and lovely and fresh. Hazel's favourite.

3. Chilli Chicken - so so - just cornfed chicken, steamed, chopped into pieces and steamed again with chilli garlic sauce.

4. Vegetables with Abalone and oyster sauce- my favourite.

5. Chinese Sausages - Mark's favourite.

6. Meat rolls in beancurd skin. I didn't eat this.

7. Braised meat with dark soy and whole bulbs of garlic - served with belachan, lime & chillies. Oops - overexposed so no pic.

8. Chicken Soup with Lotus Root - No pic.

Sunday, 18th Feb 2007

I'm back. I'm back! Gong Xi Fa Cai, everyone. Lots of food pics ahead!

Sunday, 11th Feb 2007

Thurs, 15th Feb 2007

Today I cooked Ginger Chicken for my kids before I went to work. This is a very easy dish which they love (yes, my kids eat ginger too) and it has lots of tasty gravy for a nice steaming plate of rice.

First brown some shallots, garlic and ginger in a pan.

Add chicken (I deboned a chicken last night and cubed the meat (except the wing which I cut into 2 pieces/per joint - it just makes it easier to eat for me kids). Stir on high heat.

Add a pinch of salt, some oyster sauce and dark soy. Add half a cup of water. Simmer gently till gravy is thick is syrupy (it will because of the shallots & garlic).

Once cooked, I divided them into lunch and dinner portions. Here they are. You can't really see it but the gravy is thick, glossy and has a nice thin shiny sheen of oil on the top. I've covered and popped them into the fridge.

All the helper has to do later is prepare the vegs, heat up chicken in microwave and lunch is served as soon as my kids are back from school.

Ok, I'm going to work now.