Black sesame macarons

I made black sesame macarons some time ago. Tastewise, they were great. Visually, I have something minor to gripe about - they aren't greyish black! They are more of a I don't know brownish black shade. That's what irks me the most, otherwise, everything about these were pretty good.

Long weekends are the best

I love long weekends. I wish every week was a long weekend. Since starting work, I feel tired all the time. Tired in the morning when I face the morning jam at the train station. Tired when I knock off work and face the evening jam at the train station. Tired as I make plans after work sometimes and end up reaching home late, and having to shower and sleep late as I have the compulsive need to check on my emails at night, which leads to more web surfing, facebook and the whatever nonsense one do on the Internet.

Perhaps that's why I fell sick this week (in my second week at work) sneezing and coughing. I'm feeling better now after a week of blowing my nose off using countless of tissues and sipping honey lemon water. On Thursday night (prelude to the holiday the next day), I started dozing at about 8plus after my dinner. In fact, I went to bed at like 9plus! Oh my gosh. And woke up like 12 hours later feeling so refreshed. Today was just a slight repeat, with me sleeping nine hours to wake up at 1030am.

Over the weekend, I got to catch up on watching videos, reading my library books, shuffling around in the kitchen, getting my nails done with the Sister (first time doing french mani on my hands!), facebook, basically CHILLING. Man, have I like already mentioned how much I love weekends? ;)

Some recent pictures from my birthday out with friends. We were supposed to go Relish for lunch, but it was too late (3pm) and they were not taking in lunch orders by then. How sad. So we walked over to Burger Shack for lunch. I was starving by then. Anything would have been good.

Burger Shack lunch

The beef burger was good. Tender meat and the size was just about right, not too big nor too small. The fries were crisp and their sauces were self-serve. I like, as it means you can grab any amount you want. Overall, it was a satisfying meal. But I still want to go Relish to try out their burgers...

Went over to Daily Scoop to find Jiani after lunch.

Birthday bouquet from the Sister. 

Sometimes, I think she can understands me without me saying a word. I was just thinking randomly before my birthday that I would like some flowers as flowers are so pretty (though frivolous and impractical I know). And she smsed me while I was still out to say she had something for me on my table. I reached home after a whole day out to find this lovely pink bouquet waiting for me. It had my favourite flower - gerbera! I love gerberas! Especially if they are in a whole colourful bunch. So happy looking. (:

Pretty shades of pinks - Rose; Gerbera;(no idea what flower!)

Sneezing fit

I have no idea what I have done to make me fall sick, but I so hate being sick. The continuous sneezing, blowing of nose (which results in a Rudolph-like appearance), the sore throat, the uncomfortable nights where you can't fall asleep as you can't breathe through your nose, THE EVERYTHING! :(

The sore throat is almost gone now with me dunking like at least two or three litres of water yesterday and the day before. Hello toilet! I'm seeing you very frequently nowadays...

On a random side note, I'm currently lusting after a few items. Mango jeans, C & K nude pumps (will be mine soon courtesy via Ade Ho and SY as a 22nd birthday gift (: yay) and New Look dresses (yeah yeah, their stuff is a little trashy, but if you sift through the racks, there are some pretty nice looking party/casual/work dresses that are droolworthy). Retail therapy is every girl's favourite activity. Right?

Vanilla salted caramel and chocolate mousse

I think I am more suited to making cake based desserts, I can't seem to succeed with the mousse (gelatine) types of desserts. The taste of these mousse, although good, were not moussey-like. They were more of a richer texture than the softer melt in the mouth texture I was seeking. I used the recipe from here, and managed to get six tiny shot glasses and three half-filled big glasses.

Lindt 70% dark chocolate; salted caramel; triple mousse verrines.

Pre birthday date with Siew at Canele.

I had a pre-birthday dinner date with Siew on 11 Nov at Sun and Moon, and then we went over to Canele for desserts. As Siew had to work the next day, we managed to reach home before 10pm. I can't wait for Mua to come back, we have loads of stuff to eat/shop/do!!!

Since I had brought along my SLR, I decided to play with it. We managed to get a couple cool shots outta the time spent chilling, eating and stuff. (:

Big me/Mini me.

Big Siew/Mini Siew.

No prize guessing which of the cakes is mine. ;)

Kim's Family Restaurant at Lorong Kilat

Lorong Kilat's been busy these days, what with the new shops that are sprouting along that small lane. Within the last few years, a Korean grocery shop (yay!), restaurants, ice cream parlours have opened there. Luckily for me, that area is within 15-20 minutes walking distance for me, and I find myself walking there more often for icecream, or even dinner with friends.

Banchans.

A Night in India

Since I have a ton of pictures on backlog, I'll be updating quite frequently these days, I've already pre-written these posts cos it's mostly pictures, no explanations required, so yay - no long absence of leave from blogging.

It's been some time since I last post some old pictures of not just food, but people. (: Here's some that makes me smile whenever I think about it. (:

Dinner at A Night In India for the last time when I was back in Brisbane for graduation.

Awesome wine chilling in the bucket.

Seeing RED!

THE BEST!

Interning at Saatchi Lab

Gosh. Nov 15 is a pretty happy day for me so far. Taking into account all the itty bitty nitty details that happen, add them all up, and the day just seem so much brighter.

1. Jos is back from Brisbane!
2. I got a call from Saatchi Lab, asking if I'm still interested in the intern job. I had went down for an interview on Friday for the position of intern media buyer. The job position and company seemed to be what I was looking for, just that the pay was really low. After weighing out the pros and cons, I decided to accept the job. I mean, anything beats staying home doing nothing productive rights? It should be good that I'm going out socialising, working my brain cells and learning new things. (: I'm starting the position tomorrow morning! Hope everything proceed along smoothly.
4. Driving seems so much smoother for me now, I'm working on smoothing out the rough patches (parking, finding directions) and with practice, I hope to become a better driver. I drove to Clarke Quay yesterday to meet my uni friends for a gathering - and survived (that's the main point. smirks.). It helped that I had a friend with me in the car to direct me cos I'm simply hopeless at directions.
5. I couldn't seem to find my Korean variety show for download anywhere in the past two weeks, but now, it's available on the website!

So, if you add up all the small little stuff in your life that happen in one day and write it down to reflect on them, who knows, it might cheer you up!

Blogger to Blogger Beta.

I've finally made the move to change my blogger layout to the new version, and I must say that it's a really simple, clean look that I'm really in favour of. It's so much easier to arrange things on the webpage, and I've also added the labels functions on the sidebar and meticulously went back a hundred or two of posts to label the posts painstakingly. I've gone back all the way to 2007 and I think I'm so over going beyond there. Anyway, my baking interest started roughly in 2007, so I don't think I missed out too much on the labeling side of things.

On the other hand, all my comments are gone, as I feel that the chatterbox function that I used to use was not visually matching to the new look, and I've decided to revert back to the old comments function. Hopefully, you guys will still leave me comments! (:

And, a side note, another 12 November has come and gone and I've again, aged by one year. How sad. Sometimes, it feels as though I'm still in my late teens. But when I look at the teeny boppers around me, I realize that unfortunately, it's not the case - I'm in my early twenties. How depressing. Many thanks to those who wished me Happy Birthday!

Grapefruit tarts and pumpkin apple muffins

Well, I've been lazy editing photos so I've a huge ton of photos left to do up. So far, I'm only touching on my food pictures cos I feel happy thinking about them. There's still pictures of friends and family to be posted. Perhaps on FB? Less editing to do thank god. (:

Here's some Grapefruit creme brulee tarts that were made when I was experimenting with dough and also, some pumpkin apple muffins that were made near Halloween, where pumpkins were in abundence. (:

Strawberry Shortcake

It was Daddy's birthday on Monday, I made a cake for him this year for his 51st! I compiled together different recipes to make the cake - the sponge cake from a website, the chantilly cream from a baking book, and the method of assembling it from yet another website.

This is my first ever whole layer cake, and I can't say it's that scrumptious (but hey on the bright side, at least I got some pretty decent pictures out of it! haha.). The sponge was alright on the top layers, but a tad dry and dense at the bottom layer. It could be that I overfolded the batter just a bit before baking. Bah. And it was a little tasteless on its own, it would have been nice if there was some vanilla or lemon zest added to the batter to enhance the flavour. But I learnt new stuff. So hopefully, my next layer cake would be an improvement!

Happy 51st Daddy and thanks for everything.

Cute ad

I found this commercial that I saw some time back, I forgot on whose blog. But I keep thinking about it cos I thought it was cute. So I decided on a whim to try searching for it and I found it!

Do look at it. It's sweet. (:

What goes around comes around

Sometimes, life is interesting. The smallest things can make you stop and reflect and thank yourself that you did something in a certain way.

The other day, it was raining heavily , I had just finished my driving lesson at BBDC and was across the road at the bus stop waiting for the bus, with my umbrella still open to keep the rain at bay (it was practically pouring torrents and torrents cos I got wet dashing across the road to the bus stop as there were many puddles on the ground - lucky me that there was no cars that splashed water on me as I would absolutely go mad).

This girl alighted from a bus and was looking to cross the road. She approached me and asked tentatively if I could shield her across. I hestitated for one second, debating with myself that the bus would not come in the minute I would take to fetch her across and back. (Issue aside, does anyone beside me find it really weird that it's a driving centre, where traffic is BUSY constantly, and there are no traffic lights for pedestrians to cross the road safely? People jaywalk all the time outside the driving centre and I have thought about it several times before - what is the accident rate for jaywalkers at the location like? Hmmm.)

I digress. I did brought the girl over (jaywalking yet another time, may I add). Although I got even wetter, I felt that it was okay, cos I did a (minor) good deed for the day.

Then, today, I walked out to the Korean mart near my place to get something, and it started raining heavily within a few seconds. I was without an umbrella, and walking anywhere was out of the question as there was no shelter from where I was to whereever I was about to go. Luckily for me, within five minutes of standing to one corner hoping desperately for the rain to stop, a kind lady wielding an umbrella (oh my angel!) approached me and ask if I need to get across. She sent me to the bus stop opposite the road and went about her way.

This really brings to mind the old saying; what goes around comes around. It's a small matter, yet it really made me think of how true this saying is.

PASSED TP!

Hello people.

JUST PASSED THE TP TEST! On my first attempt (no matter what someone might have said beforehand, that I'll sure fail one - you know who you are I shall not name you lest you appear mean hahaha.) I'm an official driver now! Woots.

Who really cares if I just barely made the pass with 18 points. It's still a pass anyway. On the first try. (: (: (:

It's such a beautiful day.