Beef and vegetables stew

I've been busy. Well, I'm in a tired state majority of the time as I havn't been having enough sleep for quite a while.

The weather lately has been erratic, considering that Singapore is (or is it still?) a tropical country with a hot and humid climate - especially in the mid-year months where it should be summer. However, I feel that there has been more than the usual expected rainfall as compared to the past years. Global warming?

One of those weekends when it was raining, it so happened that I was making some beef and vegetables stew. Such perfect weather to enjoy the hot stew.

 Beef and vegetables stew

Black sesame orange choux puffs

I've been on a black sesame desserts spiel lately. This is just going to be the first of a couple of black sesame desserts to come. I've always loved Japanese flavours such as matcha and black sesame (kuro goma 黒ごま) and somehow I've not yet baked as much black sesame goodies as matcha ones as I felt that the key to good black sesame flavour always start with black sesame paste (instead of just plain black sesame seeds, or powder). And I rarely have black sesame paste in my pantry, compared to say, black sesame seeds. So armed with a bottle of black sesame paste, i set about to rectify that!

 Black sesame orange choux puffs (黒ゴマオレンジ シュークリーム)

Privé (revisited)

My girlpals and I, we've been friends for ten years already. Not to sound cliché, but my my, time really flies by. For our tenth anniversary to celebrate our friendship, you know, we had such big dreams. We were going to book ourselves a hotel room, and spend our time chillin' out and doing girly stuff. Guess what. As usual, plans took forever to formulate, and time was a tickin', so we resort to scrapping our pretty plan, and just meeting up for brunch instead. What can I say? After ten years of friendship, some things just really never change, does it? :)

Brie-licious Burger

Arancini (Fried Italian risotto balls)

Remember previously when I had cooked mushroom risotto, I said that I had specially saved some leftovers? Yeps, these were the results.

Arancini are fried rice (risotto) balls coated in breadcrumbs. It is said to be of Sicilian origins and can be filled with a variety of fillings, the ones that I've made here are stuffed with loads of mushrooms, bacon and wrapped with brie cheese cubes.

 Arancini (Fried Italian risotto balls)

Group Therapy Cafe

Singapore's absolutely swarming with so many new cafes and coffee joints. I've added another ten or so more of names to my to-visit list of cafes.

Some time back, I managed to have brunch at one of the cafes on my list. That's good. I'm slowly making my way through to strike every name off my list. :)

Group Therapy Cafe