Orange prosperity babies

This girl here has been having an upset tummy for the last five days. Thought that it was something wrong she ate, popped charcoal pills, proceeded to have constipation, popped bananas and yakult and prunes, normal bowel movements except that the tummy still hurts. So. Today was the final push to the Doc cos the pain was getting more frequent and prolonged compared to the past few days of on-off pain. Doc says it's probably gastric (hopefully) and gave me some medicine. It's weird cos we both can't figure out what is causing the gastric pains. I havn't been any drinking coffee, alcohol or eating spicy food (well, in moderation since I love my spice...). He said if it doesn't get better in four-five days, I should go back to him cos it might be some virus thing instead and they have to stuck a stethoscope down my throat. The horrors. Please let whatever is plaguing me to go away soon.

So, what's orange prosperity babies? That's their fancy name I've come up with. What they actually are are persimmon financiers. I know, I'm a sucker for financiers. I mean, when faced with leftover eggwhites, it's either that or macarons for me. And macarons takes up too much time so I favour financiers. I've a favourite recipe base I snatched off from this website and amended it accordingly to whatever fruit I am using. But lately, I'm getting tired of financiers already. Oh no. What else can I do with leftover egg whites???

Plump ripe persimmons

Nectarie

There was a dessert place near my old workplace. Michelle and I had walked by once and brought a cake to share during tea break. After that, we agreed that we were going to dine in there one day. During my last week working there, we dropped by there one day during our lunch hour, and proceeded to have cake for lunch. Who says you can't have cake for lunch? (:

 

Nectarie

Andes Teletransporter Booth

My girlfriend posted the video on her facebook page, I was bored. I clicked. It is pretty funny. Basically, the ad is for a beer company, who invented this soundproof booth that masks your environment sounds. They are mostly installed in hotspot bars and clubs in Argentina. So if girlfriends call, the boys can go into the booth, press a button and instantly, the surroundings noise changes to whatever they wish (say for example , a hospital machine beeping, or traffic jam, or babies crying) so they can make up whatever excuse they want. Then they go back to their drinking in peace. Snorts.

It's amazing what people can come up with nowadays.  If you're bored, why not take a look? (:

Old friends and some matcha sablés

Minhua, otherwise affectionately known as "Mua" and Tze Siew, otherwise termed "Siew" or "Siew Siew" have been friends with me for a very very long time. I can proudly say I've known Mua for 17 years, and Siew for 15 years, with us being the ripe ol' age of 23 this year. My my. That's a pretty amazing feat.

The last time Mua was back, it was during the summer hols, and in between her jetting off to other places for holidays, we did managed to catch up a coupla times for Korean food, ice-cream at Udders, and not forgetting a steamboat session during the CNY period at Siew's place.

It was our last meeting before she flew back to Canberra, and I wanted to make her something green tea-ish as she mentioned before that she liked matcha. But due to time constraint, I couldn't do anything nicer like a green tea cake, or green tea macarons. So I settled on a matcha recipe I saw previously on one of my favourite food blog, for matcha sablés.

Matcha powder; Matcha sablés

Rain rain go away

The world's weather clock is totally screwed upside down. Rainy weather in March in hot sunny Singapore? That's just wrong! Rainy season (technically) should have been in late October till December. We are supposed to be facing hot dry spells in our tropical island here now in March. Alas, I have no idea what went wrong and it has been raining so frequently this week that our water tanks are all full with rain water.

This is not necessary a bad thing, the rain I mean. It cools down the temperature and makes sleeping at night so good cos I can snuggle among my warm bedsheets. However, it's bad cos that means I can't exercise outdoors cos it's pouring like crazy. We gave Muay Thai a miss on Friday cos it was raining that night. Boo. And over the weekend, I was going to make up for it by going jogging. It rained on Saturday AND Sunday. Sulks.

Here's some oreo cupcakes I made in last month before I left SL. I made kahlua cupcakes too but I didn't think they were pretty so I didn't bother taking pictures of them haha.

Oreos; Chocolate cupcakes

Chocolate cupcakes topped with Oreo whipped cream and Oreos

The above picture was taken when they were still intact and looking pretty at home. The Oreos turned a bit nua after being smooshed on the Oreo whipped cream for the better half of a day inside the company's fridge. They were looking a bit sad too after I carried them to the office via public transport. So I had to make touch ups to ensure they didn't look too bad. Oh whatever, they are still edible hey? Haha.

Paella, Alice in Wonderland and some date cookies

Caught Alice in Wonderland with Siew last night at Jurong Point. Before that, we met outside Bakerzin. AND. I saw that macarons were their monthly promotion. Needless to say. There is going to be a seperate post on those macarons I ended up buying... ;)

Jurong Point has undergone a huge transformation over the years, with the addition of the new area, and everytime I head there, there seem to be something new - be it the connecting bus interchange, or just new shops. They have several shops I like - such as Mitju and Bysi. What a pity it is located right at the very secluded corner of our tiny island. Tsk tsk.

We settled on Ambush, serving fast European styled dishes at affordable prices. The place was really cute, and I regretted not bringing my camera out for a few quick snaps. They had four different types of single-serve paella! Most places require at least two person minimum to share the Spanish dish, and thus, I've never actually tried the dish before. I didn't have to think long on what I was ordering. Siew ordered sausages, which came with rosti and saukeraut. The food was not bad, considering their prices. The Ambush paella I ordered came in a really cute dish, had sausages, prawns, mussels, shellfish, scallop and was topped with colourful diced peppers. It was really moist though, I wasn't sure how authentic paella should taste like cos Siew mentioned she had paella before and her previous impression was that it was dry. Who knows? I shall attempt to make paella one day. My sister had bought me saffron from her trip to Nepal last year and even though I was so excited, I have no idea what to do with those precious red threads. Haha.

Alice in Wonderland. Now. What should I say about it? We watched it in 3D (My first 3D movie!) and were given really old-fashioned looking red glasses. So cute. There wasn't much of 3D effects, and the movie itself didn't make much sense to me, probably cos I forgot the original story plot (it was way back when I was a kid when I read the book). The Alice isn't even pretty! Hmpf.

Anyways, date cookies! Dates are really sweet fruits, so when baking with them, the sugar proportions can be reduced as the fruit acts as a natural sweet enhancer. These taste similar to my normal chocolate chip cookies, just a tad healthier without the added sugars. I still have some dates leftover, I am hoarding them still to make sticky date puddings. Soon. I hope. (:

The sweet sweet date...

Dates, chocolate chips, oats; Cookies

Granola chocolate chip muffins and a healthier lifestyle.

As always, there comes a time when I get sick of my blog layout, and decide to change it. It seems like the design is going from simple to simple-r. Simplistic is the key. From the multi photos collage designs I made from images I found on the web, to a handful of self-shot baking photos, to now, a single image design. Snorts. What next? ;)

Sigh. I'm still on the prowl for a job. Been sending out resumes and awaiting replies. It's getting hard to just sit by while your friends are all getting jobs. I'm happy for them, but at the same time, thinking, when is it going to be my turn? I don't expect alot from a job. Just that it pays reasonably well, has sufficient annual leave days, has a decent working environment, great learning opportunities and that's good enough. I mean, it's pretty realistic rights? I just got offered a job by a local F and B company. I really would like to accept it, but there are just too many cons to the job (mainly the pay and benefits). I'm in a dilemma but ultimately, I doubt I'll accept it. At the same time, I'm also afraid of not accepting it and no better offers come up. Sigh.

Anyway, have recently joined a Muay Thai class with my girlfriend and we've been attending classes several times a week (it's on every Monday, Wednesday and Friday nights). It's a great way to exercise cos you gotta do cardio, cardio, and more cardio. Burn those calories man. I'm all covered in sweat and the (whatever) muscles I actually have ache like mad after those sessions. I shall think of it as training for the coming 10k Sundown run in May since I havn't had the time to go jogging much, and has neglected exercise till I finished the SL intern.

Talking about a healthier lifestyle, here are some granola and chocolate chip (okay, not so healthy then) muffins I made two months back. I love granola, and what better than to add it into muffins to make it a filling breakfast item?

Granola and chocolate chip muffins

Home made granola

Tampopo

On one of the days of my last week at Saatchi Lab, Michelle treated Yee Hwee and I to dinner at Tampopo! On the very same day, because of a colleague's connections, we get half-price dining at Tampopo, so several of the SL people signed up for lunch at Tampopo a week before (Michelle and I included cos we didn't know we were going to plan our dinner on that very same night). So in short, the both of us had Tampopo for lunch AND dinner. Talk about oh mans. Well, it's okay since Tampopo has awesome Japanese food anyway.

I didn't bring my SLR out for the lunch outing cos there were many people around and I was shy. *coughs* Anyway, I ordered the Tonkatsu set for lunch, thus decided to give the Tonkatsu a miss during dinner time. Also, a few weeks ago, I had Tampopo with Jamie and I had the delicious ramen too. So I forego the ramen too. That's good. It means I can get to try new stuff. After staring at the menu for ages, I decided on the Kaisen bento box cos it had a variety of dishes. Michelle was still full after lunch, so she got the roll and cha soba. As Yee Hwee didn't join us for lunch, she chose the Tonkatsu set. Yay. I get to take pictures. Haha.

As YH is interested in photography too, it was no surprise that during our dinner, the two of us whipped out our SLRs and started snapping furiously, while Michelle was just shaking her head in exasperation and waiting for us to finish with our "photoshoot" before she could get to eat. Haha. It's quite fun to have a fellow photographer around me, it's no fun when I'm the only one frantically yelling "STOP! Do not eat first. Let me grab a shot of ______" when I dine out with friends. (:

Delicate tea cup; Sushi handroll; Soba dipping sauce

Ma Maison & Watami

As usual, I'm way behind in posting my pictures, and my friends have been grumbling (good-naturedly?) about it. Well, I think it's time to do something about it, so here are some pictures with friends who were back from Aussie. We met up like a month ago while I was still interning, and it was on consecutive days, at Clarke Quay's Central Mall (near my work place) and both Japanese dining places.

Mel was supposed to meet us on the night we were going to have Ma Maison, but she had something on, so she had to give it a miss (it's okay dearie, we managed to meet up the next day for lunch at Watami anyway!). So after work, I met up with the two girls for our catch up session at Ma Maison.

Yueying.

Jos.

Dining key

Ma Maison

The food was good, it's my second time dining there. Been there previously for lunch with a bunch of university mates, and thought that it was a really cosy place to be. Dining there at night brings the cosy-ness factor up a notch as the dim lighting brings a really romantic feel to the quaint restaurant. I was going to try the paella, but it was to be shared between two people, and the others already picked out what they want (I have lousy persuasion skills I guess sigh) so I decided on the beef hamburger dish. It was nice, but just a tad too salty. Oh well, meat dishes with sauce always tend to be salty so as to match the plain rice served alongside with them. So no complains about the food overall.

The next day, managed to meet the bubbly Mel. She's one girl I totally hit off right from the start of our friendship (through a mutual friend of ours). We don't meet up very often since she graduated from UQ and moved to a different state for her Masters (she's in Sydney, I'm in Brisbane; now she's still in Sydney, I'm in Singapore). So it was a real friend of her that she made the trip from her place in Bukit Gombak to have an one hour lunch with me during my lunch break at Clarke Quay. Awesome friend I say. (:

Mel's chicken dish; Salad appetizers; My bibimbap

We both ordered Watami's lunch sets, and proceeded to gossip non-stop. Or should I say from the moment I arrived, we started yakking away, had to focus to remember to make our orders, continue yakking, yakking through our meals, and yakking after we finished our food. Haha. Man, it was so sad we only had such a short time to catch up but it was definitely one of my best lunch hour during my internship. She made me laugh so many times over her sillyness. Lol. We didn't get the chance to club the next day cos I had some family matters going on, so that was our only meeting when she came back for the hols. I can't wait till her next trip back. It's going to be fun I hope. We keep saying we want to go shopping, shi-sha-ing and clubbing. Let's hope we get to do it all the next time round! (:

How times have changed

Lollipops turn into cigarettes. 
The innocent ones turn into sluts. 
Homework goes in the trash. 
Mobile phones are being used in class. 
Detention becomes suspension. 
Soda becomes vodka. 
Bikes become cars. 
Kisses turn into sex. 
Remember when getting high meant swinging on the playground? 
When protection meant wearing a helmet? 
When the worst things you could get from boys were cooties? 
Dad’s shoulders were the highest place on earth and mum was your hero? 
Your worst enemies were your siblings. 
Race issues were about who ran the fastest. 
War was only a card game. 
And the only drug you knew was cough medicine. 
When wearing a skirt didn’t make you a slut. 
The most pain you felt was when you skinned your knees, and goodbyes only meant until tomorrow? 
And we couldn’t wait to grow up.

~Unknown

Brown butter chocolate chip cookies

Nothing cheers me up like good old chocolate. In fact, chocolate is good for any occasion.

When I'm upset, my first thought - chocolate.
The week before my period, I crave - chocolate.
When I'm having period cramps, I reach for - chocolate.
When I'm happy, I feel like celebrating with - chocolate.
When I'm hungry, I desire - chocolate.
When I feel cranky, I buy - chocolate.
When I feel bored, I get inspired by - chocolate.
When in doubt, I choose - chocolate.

See? The list goes on. My love for chocolate shows for itself. I reckon if there's one thing in the world I can't live without, it's probably chocolate. How would I survive without knowing it? That's really too upsetting a thought. Let's not think about such depressing thoughts. Let's think about chocolate chip cookies.

This is yet again, another chocolate chip cookie recipe. Yet, one can never try too many recipes to find the perfect one. I can't say these are the best chocolate chip cookies I've made, but they're still pretty tasty nonethless. The brown butter brings out a lovely buttery taste. And with the addition of some coarse sea salt pressed into them when they are still soft from the oven, these cookies taste sweet and salty at the same time. Pretty addictive I must say.

Brown butter chocolate chip cookies

One Bite; Two bites; Three bites; Gone.

There's still an ongoing search for the perfect chocolate chip cookie. In the meantime, I'll slowly bake my way through my long stash of chocolate chip cookies recipes I bookmarked. Plus other chocolate- related recipes. There can never be too much chocolate. ;)