Short getaway

I can't wait! My first trip to Bintan ever! In less than twelve hours. Jumps around excitedly.

Milk + Cookie crumbs

Friendship

"But friendship is precious, not only in the shade, but in the sunshine of life, and thanks to a benevolent arrangement the greater part of life is sunshine."

~Thomas Jefferson

Pecan date tarts

Can you believe that I've never tried a pecan prior to this? Yeah, I know, sad life right. Anyway, when I saw some pecans in the baking supplies store, do I need to even stop and consider what I was going to do with it? Nope. It's going to be the classic pecan tart for me. And yes, I've also yet to try an authentic pecan pie/tart in my life. I know. The calamity.

Pecan maple date tart

Salted caramel ice cream with caramelised cocoa nibs and roasted almonds

I think I need to buy an ice cream maker. Soon. I've been making my own ice creams so often lately that it's a bit scary. Hand churning ice cream every half an hour for a few hours is no fun. Not to mention time-consuming. I can think of several things to do in the meantime of having to set the alarm to remind myself to churn the ice cream when the time is up. Imagine if I had an ice cream maker...oh gosh. Okay, on second though, scrap that thought. That'll probaby result in me making ice cream like once every week. Or something. ;)

The weather was hot (a few months back, now, it's just rain and rain and more rain), so I was thinking of a cold dessert. Something that doesn't require me cranking up the hot oven. Salted caramel sounds like a good idea. The Sis loves salted caramel. I decided to make a salted caramel ice cream. But plain ol' salted caramel is just not good enough for me...I like my ice creams to have add ins. I was contemplating what I should add in, and browsing random websites for inspiration. In the end, I settled on adding caramelised cocoa nibs and roasted almonds.

Salted caramel ice cream with caramelised cocoa nibs and roasted almonds

Blood orange and grapefruit tart

Blood oranges. Doesn't that just sounds so good already? Scouring the Internet for recipes is sort of like a habitual daily routine for me. I love fruits. All sorts of fruits (most of the time). The citrus family are favourites - the lemons, the oranges, the limes. So when I kept seeing blood oranges in recipes, I was intrigued. Never before have I seen those red hued beauties. So when I read the papers on one weekend, reporting that blood oranges are in season and are available at selected grocery stores. Do I really need to say more?

In fact, I was so eager for a taste of these babies, that even though they cost a pretty penny, I bought two bags of them. The first was bought by the Sister, then several days later, after sampling the citrus fruit at home (wow), I got myself another bag (cos, who knows when they might come in season again...). Logical reasoning yes?

Bloody blood oranges

Garibaldi's

I had high hopes for this place. But people always say don't expect too much of something. You might be disappointed in the end. This is one such occasion. Sadly.

Garibaldi

Life should be...

Life should be enjoyment. This is enjoyment.

Image from the lovely site - Just Be Splendid

I want to have my own garden party. Someday. With classic tea sandwiches, miniature tarts and quiches. And small brownies, petite fours and brie cheese on crackers.

Bistro Petit Salut

I've been sick. It started last week with an itchy throat, developed a flu over the weekend and then finally culminating in a dreadful cough these couple of days. I finally took the time to go to the Doc on Wednesday and he gave me medication for the flu and throat infection I have, and two days of MC. Bliss. I spent these two days basically doing nothing much but sleeping (strong strong medication). In fact, my head is woozy NOW (it's like a combo of heavy head and droopy eyes) cos of the medication and I think I better head to bed after I get this post up...

A month of so ago, we just wanted to have a simple lunch for three over the weekend, so I suggested Bistro Petit Salut. I had previously tried the sister restaurant Au Petit Salut at Dempsey and thought it was not bad, just a bit pricey. BPS is a slightly cheaper counterpart, and has equally good food at affordable prices.

Bistro Petit Salut - The menu

Rose and cranberry cookies

Well, I'm still feeling a bit under the weather. I spent my whole Saturday doing some me stuff. I went shopping alone! It's been so long since I last did that. I was out hunting for a suit for work, but alas, I didn't find what I was looking for. Probably cos of the crowds in town, and my flu, I was a bit tired to really put more effort into my search.

Anyway, before the flu medication I took kicks in, I'm gonna share some crackies (cookies) pictures with you guys.

Rose and cranberry cookies

Wishing I had some lemony goodness now

This week has been a total mad week for me.

Tuesday - client meeting, dinner with girlfriends to celebrate belated birthday.
Wednesday - client meeting, boss's surprise birthday lunch @ Manna, movie date with Jos
Thursday - event 3pm - 11pm (ended early at 830pm! phew.)
Friday - event 715am - 330pm.

It's no wonder with all these late nights, and early mornings, and the feel of the rushing here and there, that I'm falling sick now. It started with an itchy throat on Thursday, then the throat and a migraine today, which then developed into sorta flu like symptoms after the event. I was feeling so horrible I took a cab home after the event cos I just wanted to get home and rest.

I was downing Korean Yuzu tea and barley water these two days to cool my body down. I made raspberry ice-cream, cos I wanted to use up my leftover cream from a dessert I made last week. At first, I wasn't going to eat it, cos I'm sorta sick, I was just going to get my Sis to try before she flies off to the US of A tomorrow morning :( But she was like, eat lar, it's cooling anyway. Me, being the very obedient sister I am, (heh), complied. ;) But only a small cup though. Mmmmmm.

Anyway, citrus is good for me right now, and it's no wonder I'm looking at these pictures and thinking "I need my dose of citrus now!"

Triple lemon (lime) cake

Hatched

Hatched was another one of those brunch places on my 'to try' list. Sis says she somewhat knows the owner? Apparently the guy used to be from her university or something...

Anyway, we visited the egg lover's paradise and well, it was certainly an egg-citing meal (sorry, can't resist the pun haha).

Hatched - the menu

Cafe Epicurious at The Rail Mall

I was catching up with an old junior of mine from secondary school some time back as she emailed me to ask about university courses. Our email conversations just flowed naturally from university courses to one topic I love and can converse long hours over - food. ;) We decided that since it had been a long long time since we last met, we should meet up to have brunch one day. As I wasn't working yet then, we arranged to meet on a weekday to have brunch at Cafe Epicurious at The Rail Mall (we are west-siders, yay to the westside people!), a branch of the popular brunch spot, Epicurious at The Quayside.

But after researching online, I discovered that the cafe served very affordable lunch sets ($10+ / $18+ lunch specials)! So we naturally rearranged our meeting to coincide with lunch time. ;)

Cafe Epicurious at The Rail Mall

Osvaldo's

Osvaldo's; Canned peaches

Black sesame ice cream

Back when in May I mentioned I had made some macarons (in April! haha...), it was because I was making black sesame ice cream. I had bought a small container of black sesame paste ages ago like maybe last year even, and I kept it and kept it and kept it. Then one day, I was like, oh yeah, it's April already. The paste expires in April. It was expensive and no way I would have let it gone to waste. The reason why I bought it was cos I wanted to make my own black sesame ice cream.

So, of course, that was what I did. (:

Black sesame ice cream