Chicken tikka masala and garlic butter naan

As a continuation to my determination to cook more, I decided to make chicken tikka masala and garlic butter naan. An ambitious feat as I rarely eat Indian food, and when I do, it's always when I'm dining out, I've never actually attempted to cook any sort of Indian food before.

Ingredients for making masala

Oso Ristorante

The girlfriends scheduled a belatd birthday dinner for me some time back. We planned to eat Italian (I'm forever trying out new Italian places with that bunch of girlfriends...ha!) and one of them booked a table of four for Oso Ristorante.

Pardon for the really bad photos below...the lighting in the restaurant was dim, and I still haven't figure out how to properly shoot food photos in a night setting indoors. You would notice that the colour lighting for all the photos below look really different. Sigh.

Various breads (and breadsticks) for starters

Mushroom risotto with toasted panko

I was thinking of cutting back on baking, not because my love for sweets has diminished, but I think my waistline will thank me for this (in the long run!).

The kitchen's still my favourite place to be, so what can I do about it? I guess I should turn to cooking instead than. As my Sis aptly pointed out, "You still gotta eat your three meals, don't you?"

 Mushroom risotto topped with toasted panko

Togi

For my birthday dinner, I checked out a new Korean restaurant with my Sis, her boyfriend and my cousin. Thank gosh for the Internet, which led me to this gem of a restaurant that was tucked away in the Chinatown area.

Togi

Candied kumquats lemon tart

Remember when I spoke of the orange jewels previously? I made some candied kumquats as I knew I could keep them longer in the fridge before actually deciding what I should do with them.

Candied kumquats lemon tart