Exploring Vietnam

If you haven't figure it out yet, my next project is based in Vietnam. Hence the fascination with Vietnam recently in my blog post. In fact, I will be spending half of next month there working and holidaying. I wonder if I should pick up Vietnamese. I'm really excited about it and looking forward to going back, but this time, on my own alone... So I have been trying to read up more about it, and I got these two books from the newly open Bedok Library. I love Singapore library. Me going there is like me shopping in a bookstore where everything is free! 

For a start, I am headed back to Ho Chi Minh in November for work, and I look forward to explore it on my own. Top of my list is actually Vietnamese massage, and Bahn Mi. Lol. Plan to stop by the market and supermarket to shop for coffee and stuff as well. And on the web, I found back Mark Wiens' webpage that has a wealth of information. I used to watch his YouTube on Japan last time when I was planning my trip there. And now, woohoo, he has full information on Vietnam too. I especially love the 25 Dishes to Try information. Thank you Mark!

Next, I'll be headed to Hanoi, finally going to Sapa for some tracking, and Halong Bay to cruise the beautiful scenery that looks like they came out of some fantasy world. I am really looking forward to it. Not only that, I've also exchanged all my sky miles for a Business Class ticket back via Singapore Airlines. Between getting a round trip to Taipei, and a Business Class ticket, I decided I wanted to experience something new. I sure as hell wasn't going to pay for a Business Class ticket myself, so this was my chance to experience it for free (kinda, I still have to pay cash for the taxes which totals to around SGD70). Now here's hoping they will upgrade me to First Class with any luck!

Interestingly, I've also booked a cruise from Hong Kong to Singapore next year December 2018! I know I know, it is only 2017.... But I just love cruises, and so does my husband. It was a motivation for me to stay on in my job since I have to pay for the cruise. It is a 14 day cruise, and it will stop at 3 location in Vietnam! Hahaha. See, I told you next year is a Vietnam year. So looking forward to being bored on a cruise! So if you're wondering what I am up to most of the time, yeah, this blog kinda says it all: making and eating food, and planning my travel :)  

Ref:
23 Things To Do In Saigon
25 Dishes to Try in Saigon

Vietnamese Ice Coffee

Ok, as all stories goes, it started with me watching YouTube. YouTube is a dangerous channel that gives you funny ideas! So I was well, I couldn't remember why I was on YouTube.... Oh yes, I was watching bento making videos cause I have started packing my lunch to work again. So to get some ideas, I go to YouTube for inspiration. One thing lead to another, and I was watching Bahn Mi videos, and that lead to Vietnamese Ice Coffee Video cause I didn't have the necessary ingredient to make Bahn Mi and I wasn't going to settle without making something! But I'll leave the Bahn Mi video below for future reference. So let's continue with making Vietnamese Ice Coffee! What you need as shown above: Vietnamese Coffee Powder, ice, and condense milk! Easy!

I have a post on Vietnamese Coffee before, so you can refer here to read more on how to make it. Usually I drink it black, but YouTube convinced me that I had to have a cup of ice coffee now! And since it was 9pm at night, I went easy on the coffee and made a weak one. But I did add 2.5 teaspoon of condense milk in it. It was kinda diluted cause I don't like sweet drinks. 

Voila, ice coffee. I need to make it thicker, or with more milk at least, although it was already too sweet for me. And I needed more ice. Or let the coffee cool before pouring it to the ice. The other alternative I saw on YouTube was to make a cold brew coffee, but that would take hours! Maybe next time. 

This is what is left of the coffee powder. And I use this as a body scrub. It is kinda rough, so I only use it maybe once a week. Just mix it with water and apply on your skin. It's kinda acidic and feels really clean after use. It's gentle enough to use it on your face as well, or at least, I do use it on my face. It's great for getting all those stubborn blackhead off! I've stopped buying commercial scrub after using this cause it feels better, and more natural. For softer or milder feel of it, you can mix it with yogurt or milk before scrubbing. I'm just too cheap to waste perfectly good milk, so no. I will leave that to the spa expert when I go there. 

Ref:
So it started with this video cause I really really miss the Bahn Mi in HCM


Reason for this post was caused by this video


Cold Brew Option


Btw, I love her videos!

Popcorn Experiment

Popcorn is ridiculously cheap to make on your own. I have tried it for the first time making it here. But the problem was, how to make it as tasty as the commercially bought type.

So above is the type of commercial popcorn that I usually buy for my popcorn craving. My favourite is cameral, although I will also eat the cheese and dark chocolate flavour. This brand is kinda hard to find somehow, but it only cost around SGD1.50 per pack. And I only need one pack to stop my craving that comes around maybe once every few months. But sometimes, I can go thru 3 packs in one week.... But the thing is, corn kernel are really cheap. Like a whole bag for SGD1? And you only need less than a cup of it to make a huge amount of popcorns. So even though my first experiment wasn't as successful as I expected it, at the back of my mind, a devilish voice kept echoing: caramel syrup can cure everything!

Yeah, so one sunday at Liang Court, I decided to splurge SGD10 for two bottles of the above: Caramel Syrup, and Chocolate Syrup. They were kinda expensive for such a small bottle, but I didn't want a big Hershey bottle and let it sit in my fridge forever. Plus, I had this delusion that Japanese products are better. Regret..... the caramel syrup tasted like cough syrup and was kinda watery. After the first use, I decided to keep them in the fridge in the hope that it will help thicken them up. I really didn't  mind the cost of them at all cause apart from popcorn, I can also use them for waffles, ice cream, french toast, and maybe flavoured milk or coffee! Actually just yesterday I was thinking of chocolate baked chicken.....

So making flavoured popcorn is dead easy. Above just combine everything together! Duh. But I did add a bunch if truffle salt to my popcorn before adding the sauces. I don't really use my expensive truffle salt that much, so I didn't mind throwing them into my popcorns. It tasted really awesome with the caramel sauce! Hence the flavour: salted caramel! Wahahaha. 

They do look pretty when you drizzle it as per photo above. Kinda gourmet looking! Too bad the sauce was kinda watery. My hands were covered in sauce after that. Even the bottle of the container was covered in sauce. And just to add, in my previous post, I put half a cup to make one serving. In this post, I actually used less than a quarter cup. Maybe half of a quarter cup to make one serving. And even that was too much popcorn for me! So I can actually reduce further! Maybe just one or two table spoon of kernel is actually sufficient! This is so economical! Popcorns are also healthy snacks! And keep you really filled up with air! hahahaha. Bye now!

21 Days Blogging Challenge

One of my goal when I retire is to maintain this blog full time. And one of the challenges was whether I was able to update it on a daily basis. Well if you have noticed,  I have been posting one post a day since September 2017. But I stopped after 21 days or so. They say that once you do something daily for 21 days, it will be come a habit. Is it true? Na! Old habits are hard to change. But yet here I am, blogging again after reflecting on that. Will I continue to blog daily? Maybe not. But I'll probably increase my blogging cause I realise, I really like blogging, and I really like reading my own blog. It is a place for me to keep all my memories and useful information. It is like my own personal reference page on the internet. And best of all, whatever I put here can be reuse and share with people. So yeah, even though I don't earn any money from it (yet), it is kind of a passion to continue doing it. And one day when I am dead, this may still remain....

So yeah, just to show you what I do alone when I am blogging, above is actually how I am blogging right now. Seated on the floor, home alone, with Marcus my macbook, my Little Cordy Notebook, and a pot of germaicha. All my favourite things :)

Ajin-Demi Human

Have you ever gone to a cinema not knowing what you will be watching? And after the movie, you just come out going "Wow! That totally blow me away!". Well recently me and my friend went to watch a Japanese movie just because we miss seeing the main actor in movies. We were fans of Takeru Satoh since the Kenshin Movie (which was awesome by the way!). We watched all three movies, and was rather sad when we went to watch the last one. So fast forward a few years, I told her that one of his movie will be showing in the cinema, let's go watch. I gave her a link to an unimpressive trailer of the movie. The story line was kinda like Tom Cruise's where he had to reset himself by killing himself.

Anyway, we both got tickets and went to watch it last Saturday, and we came out blown away. Not wanting to give anything away, I would say, GO WATCH IT! Not everything in the movie make sense, but hey, we all enjoy Kingsman, right? This one was much more serious, and bloodier, and just wow. Many plot twist, and also sympathy for the bad guys. I laugh more in Kingsman, but I thought this movie was much better in terms of storyline. Although I love the dancing disease scene in Kingsman, that scent look like a cool MTV!

Anyway, let me leave some trailers below for your reference. 

Kingsman

Ajin-Demi Human

Rurouni Kenshin

Rurouni Kenshin: Kyoto Inferno

Rurouni Kenshin: The Legend Ends

Magazine Scrapbooking

I'm on a crusade to eat healthier whole food currently, and I turn to my loyal scrap books for reference. In this post, I will share with you what I do with magazines and unwanted insurance booklet.

I love reading magazine. I used to subscribed to them. At first it was ladies magazine, but I found that most fashion magazine are full of ads and full page fashion photos which I am not interested in. Why would anyone pay SGD6 for pages of paper you have no interest in? So I decided to only buy magazines that has more word content, or at least some useful information for me. I downsize to Women's Weekly cause of the recipe they provided, and Shape magazine for health, and also recipe. In fact, I used to take part in SHAPE run every year just so that I could subscribe to their magazine for SGD2 per copy! (and also buy ridiculously cheap milk and cereal during their events etc). But after a while, you realise the article just repeat itself, so I've stopped since. Now I only buy them if I'm in a roadshow, and they give goodie bags when you purchase a magazine. 

So after spending so much money on magazine, do you just read and then throw them away? Of course not. So what I do is, I actually save up all the articles I am interested in, and make them into a compact scrap book. So above photo shows a few of the scrapbook that I have. It is a lot of work, but it's a great way to spend your afternoon what you have nothing else better to do. Most of the magazine goes into the trash as per expected. I will only keep contents like: recipe, health tips, travel tips, life hacks, cleaning tips, deco tips. My scrapbooks are categorised by the content as well. So it's pretty neat knowing that my money doesn't go to waste. All you need is scissors, glue, and books you don't want. I use insurance diary which my agent keep giving me and I don't use them. As they are all the same size every year, it's pretty neat to use them as scrapbook. I like small compact books anyway.

So here is my collection of scrapbooks. Pretty cool huh? Actually only the first 3 are filled up with content. The rest are still waiting to be used. I have one A4 size magazine clipping that is still pending to be process into these little books too. And whenever I am free, or need reference or a need to buy magazine, I just go back to these little treasure of information. I do own a few recipe book which I buy from the store (mainly Penang and Peranakan recipe book), but somehow these scrapbooks are more personal to me. Cause I only keep recipe which I think I will make. 

By the way, just to share, that is my gold Hello Kitty coin bank! It only contains SGD1 gold coins!  So whenever I come across an SGD1 gold coin, I keep it and put it inside my coin bank. And whenever I want to buy something but can't really justify for it, I sometimes take out money from here to purchase it. For example I recently bought a waffle making machine which I can't really see any reason why I needed it. It cost SGD59, and I actually have a similar sandwich maker like it. So Hello Kitty to the rescue! No regrets!

Houjicha Latte

You know how I was mentioning about my addiction to Houjicha in my previous post? Well after writing about it, I decided to YouTube recipe for Houjicha, and was inspired enough to make my very first Houjicha Latte at home! I will leave some of YouTube clip in my reference section below. After drinking it, I was inspired enough to start taking photos and decided to post a tea entry here in this blog. So above photo shows my tea canister. The dark blue tin is actually from Tokyo Disneyland, and I use it to store my raw tea: tea bags SGD2 from Daiso, tea scooping plastic spoon (note to self: I should get a wooden one). Currently I have two type of tea inside the can: one is Genmaicha which my ex-colleague got me from Hong Kong. They originate from Kyoto actually, but it is good to know you can buy them from Hong Kong cause guess what, I'm headed to Hong Kong next year end! Woohoo! The other tea is Houjicha which I got from Hokkaido if I am not mistaken. Thankfully for it, I can now make my own Houjicha latte at home!

I remember when was the first time i fell in love with Houjicha latte. It was at a Starbuck. To be honest, I hate the coffee at Starbuck. So being social, I ordered their Houjicha latte, and have been stuck with it since. The fragrant of it was just wonderful! On my shopping list next should be Houjicha Powder! I know they exist cause I saw them on YouTube!

Anyway, to make Houjicha latte, boil hot water with Houjicha tea leaves for at least 3 minutes. I just added boil water to my tea leave. It wasn't as strong as I would have like it to be, cause my tea bags are usually packed for just plain tea. To make latte, you usually need more tea powder, or tea essence. So when my tea was ready after 3 minutes, I add full cream milk into it and the colour just turn a very light brown, almost white! Looking at it, it didn't look very promising. But when I took a sip, the distinct fragrant of the tea just hits you, and everything was alright again. I was happy, cause my version has no sugar in it. Although next time, I would make the tea a lot stronger. And maybe even heat up the milk and make some foam.... 

By the way, if you are wondering why you see a container of the famous Taiwanese milk tea in the first photo, it's because I use them to store my tea bags. I love it that they are so colourful, and since they are colour coded, I can remember which tea is in which container. So black is my Houjicha, pink is some left over tea which I think is green tea, green is my Gemaicha, and the light brown one is actually oats which I add to my hot milo. I really love them cause they are airtight, and easy to carry around. So if I feel like drinking tea in the office, I just throw one of these into my bag and bring it to the office. They store around 10 or so tea bags and look pretty on my table too!

Ref:

Houjicha Latte


Houjicha Pudding

Monday Blues - Cure for Depression

You know what always makes me feel calm? A day at the onsen. And that is where I run to these days whenever I need some "me" time. I usually go on a weekday, to avoid the crowd. It seems I needed a lot of "me" time recently. Seems like my life decided to turn up-side-down for some reason the moment I turn 40. So this post is about things that cheers me up when I am down, and needed some time, or some pampering for myself. I don't really treat myself much except for the usual backpacking adventure. So when I'm stuck in Singapore, what do I do to cheer myself up? Well, one, is the onsen. But I just ran out of entry coupon, so need to wait for the next round of roadshow sales to get some together with my colleagues..... Above photo was taken on a day off to see the doctor. After he cleared me of my sinus infection without having to do any further procedures, I was so happy I spend the rest of the day here as I have taken a full day's time off in anticipation of the visit to the doctor. 

Little small joy in life, KFC porridge chicken, eat on the morning before my doctor's appointment. I was one hour early as I hitched a ride from my husband. So a hot bowl of porridge was just the thing to sooth the soul. It reminded me of the days I use to have this for breakfast while I was working in my previous company. 

Recently I have been rather addicted to coffee. Good coffee was expensive to buy outside, but this one is quite a delight! From Mr Bean, this is Vietnamese coffee, with soya milk !  simply love this! And it only cost SGD1.60, and the cut is so pretty too, with the beautiful words to remain you of life's simple pleasure.... Whenever I feel down during weekday, I will grab a cup of this, and it somehow make the day feel better... A small treat, since I can't afford Starbuck coffee... lol

Although I hardly buy any snacks, always referring to them as junk food, from time to time, I have this urge to just take out one whole SGD10 bill and just go crazy. So one day after gym, I decided to visit some Japanese and Korean snack shop and ended up with this haul: Honey Popcorns (honey potato chips are actually nicer), Yogurt Potato Chips (ugh but I just had to try it), Sakuto Macaron (whatever that is, it was delicious!), and Mikan Jelly. 

And my recent indulgence: houjicha flavoured anything. It started with Starbuck Houjicha latte which I love, but cost like SGD6 per small cup. Recently I discovered this Houjicha swissroll and Houjicha shots from Together Cafe @ Bedok and they taste so heavenly! I really need to find out how to make Houjicha latte at home, since I have a bag of Houjicha tea leaves at home! I tried making matcha latte the other day, but it didn't turn out as I'd like it. Better try next time!

Yam Paste and Penang Fried Koay Teow

28-May, my Japanese colleague came over to my house for some cooking session! I remember the date cause I happened to save the marketing list as per photo above. So we are making Yam Paste and Char Koay Teow for that day. Initially she has asked to make Penang Laksa, or Fried Oyster, but I had to turn her down cause I wasn't sure if I could manage to make those complicated dishes. (I did manage to make Fried Oyster after that! Check it out here). But I was happy to make yam paste cause I love eating them. I heard they were also complicated to make, but the recipe she shared to me looks simple enough. I'll leave the recipe at the reference link below.

Yay I got some snacks from Japan from her! Look at all those beautiful wrappings! If you want to know what is inside, you can refer to my post here. What surprises me was, they have dried natto crackers inside! Yummy! I actually like eating natto. I heard they are full of collagen too! Great for the skin!

Anyway, I started cooking before she arrive by preparing lard for the yam paste and fried koay teow. Lard is relatively cheap to make. Just go buy some pig's fat (I got a lot for SGD0.80), and slowly fry them over fire. You will get a lot of lard from it! They are not considered healthy by some, but trust me, they make the yam paste so smooth and silky, and the koay teow so fragrant! Actually I wasn't sure if Japanese will even eat lard, so I was prepared to make a version for her without it. Thankfully she didn't minded the lard! Hurray! The yam paste was laborious to make, with a lot of smashing of steamed yam taking place. Interestingly, I didn't know spring onions are used in the recipe! They really add a nice scent to the dessert! 

Above is our end product! I added some steam pumpkin for sweetness, but it wasn't really necessary. I also added ginkgo nuts and some milk to make it creamier, but really, the yam paste was good on its own! To me it was delicious! But it will be a while before I make these again. I need someone to help me smash up all those yam! Or maybe I'll made these for CNY next year!

The fried koay teow didn't turn out too bad either. Looking at this makes me crave it more, especially since I just came back from Penang without having any! Maybe I'll make these next weekend! If you want to know how to make these, you can refer to my post here. 

Lastly, here is our full meal, top up with a steam fish just in case she can't eat any of our cooking! Got to have some contingency, right? Thankfully we managed to eat everything! And I'm happy to say, they were all delicious! Just thinking about it is making me hungry again! And no, I didn't purposely get flowers just for our guest. My husband decorates the house with flowers from time to time, and it just so happen that pink flowers look really nice with pink places and pink table mat! I really love this photo! It's one of those where you didn't plan it, but everything just looks perfect together! Thanks for visiting me Akimura-san! Next time, please teach me to cook Japanese food when I visit you in Japan!

Ref:
Yam Paste Recipe

The Story of Snacks - Part 2

Continuing on the story of snacks, today's post is on snacks I made at home. I love my kitchen. And the above photo is a hint of what my kitchen looks like. It is filled with art work from places that I have visited that inspires me. So a bakery sheet from France, a Italian looking shops from Burano Italy, or some Chinese ink painting. They all make the minty green kitchen just more wonderful to be in. And the handmade sandwiches in front. When I say handmade sandwiches, I meant even the bread are home made. I really that some of my colleagues actually thought when I said home made, the bread was bought from store. No. We made our own bread with a bread machine. Cause I love bread!

So here are some of the things I can make at home which are simple and lovely to eat. Top left, apply waffles served with maple syrup. Great for breakfast or afternoon tea. Or top right, french toast with slice banana drizzled with condense milk. It taste as lovely as it sounds!

Actually a few items are always available as emergency snack in my home. Bread when I make them, eggs, and red beans. Standard emergency meal is always two fried eggs and a small can of red bean. That can be my breakfast, or a full meal. You will notice that although I love steaks, when I eat at home, my meals are usually quite meat free or have minimum about of meat. Healthy by nature!

There was one time, I kept cooking the above snack for dinner. I try to eat less during dinner as much as possible. The move is actually corns with eggs! And you can add condense milk for taste as well, but really, it is good on its own too. I try to keep mixed cube vege, corns, or edamame in the freezer for snacks as well.

Sometimes when I happen to be at Giant Supermarket on weekend, they have these cut down price croissant which I love to buy and make Tuna Mayo croissant, or Egg Mayo croissant and pretend I'm eating at DeliFrance. They taste just as good, and a whole lot cheaper too! Above is actually my breakfast, serve with orange juice, espresso coffee and milk, and dragon fruits.

I make the above photo larger cause I love the color of it. Fried egg on a slice of toasted bread, strawberries for sweet, and dark black espresso coffee. All of these makes the photo look so classic somehow. 

I tried keeping frozen gyoza in my fridge one time, but I really don't like frozen meat at all. Even those Japanese friend chicken nuggets that I sometime buy from the store, are kept to a minimal. But Top right, bread with cheese, tomatoes and green are always welcome! Top with meat of parma or salmon is always good! My favourite brownie for sweet, and as always, espresso.

Above is a traditional Singapore/Malaysia breakfast, coffee, bread and half boil eggs. I love this photo as well cause my husband made those black and white looking bread, and they look so great in the whole with the mat that is also black and white, and the egg white with black soya sauce! Don't you just love it when everything comes together so beautifully?

And last photo is Tuna Mayo on toasted bread serve with some potato chips. I love how chunky those tomatoes are. I love tomatoes! I can't live without them. I can't without eggs either! 

So that's enough about snacks. for now. I am actually going to go have a snack after posting this. I made lychee jelly, and I'm gonna serve it with watermelon. Both are cooling food (Chinese has these concept of heaty or cooling type of food). I am eating these snacks cause I got sunburn on my face, and my skin has been breaking out quite badly recently. So in order to regenerate out new skin, I have been drinking tonnes of ice green tea, cutting down on coffee and alcohol, and just eating more cooling stuff. If nothing works, I'm gonna be drowning myself in orange juice next cause Vitamin C is the fastest way to heal broken wounds, and will, grow new skin :) Just remember, food is medicine! Eat well, live well!

The Story of Snacks - Part 1

As per yesterday's post, I wanted to share with you the wonderful snacks in my life in pictures. I am from a place where snacks are an everyday thing. In Penang, you can find snacks everywhere. People eat them for eat break, work break, study break, catch up with friends, catch up with family, anything! But in Singapore, snacks are a bit hard to come by. Portion served are so big and so expensive that the only proper way I can have my snack-fix is by doing it at home. That, and because I'm cheap :P But after reading through this post, maybe you will change your mind, and start creating snacks at home too! So let's start with non-homemade snacks! Above is one of my favourite photo of a perfect moment. My favourite brownies from a a Malay bakery that is super thick, super sweet that you can feel your blood pumping! And they go so well with just plain milk! I was reading a book while eating these, and the chapter I was at was "Love". And I look around me, and this was when the universe and the stars are align moment. Everything was just in place, and so I snap this photo :)

Next, two photography of Chinese New Year snacks. On the left is Kuih Bulu or egg buns? On the right is Kuih Kapit, also made of egg batter. The kuih is the round cigar looking thing soak in the coffee. But these are usually only available in my house during Chinese New Year period. Both are kinda sweet, so they go well wit black coffee.

Above some japanese snacks that my colleague gave me when she visit my home this year. I will blog about what we did in another entry. But these crackers are really nice, and they are healthy too. But I bet they are expensive, as all japanese snacks are.... But I think it's nice to get some, especially when you are visiting Japan, cause snack time can also be a time you remind yourself of that wonderful holiday you had in Japan! Wash that down with lovely green tea!

Speaking of Japanese, my favourite Japanese bakery is Johan for their lovely Canele, but above photo is of their mini croissant. Their chocolate croissant just melts in your mouth! Also goes well with black coffee!

Recently I've also been addicted to matcha powder a.k.a. green tea powder. They look like the green drink in the above photo. I love how they smell, and how they taste, like kinda seaweed like. They are sugarless, so I guess they are suppose to be healthy. A bag of 40g - 50g will cost you around SGD7 to SGD10 depending on the quality, but they can last quite long. I have been drinking one bag for maybe a month now. If you buy them in Japan, they cost SGD5. They go well with sweet stuff like macarons! Oh how pretty they look!

Even simple stuff can be make into beautiful snacks. Magnum mini with fresh strawberries. They look so vibrant in colour. Or matcha(again) flavoured Crunch with espresso coffee.  Life is too short not to enjoy your snack. But keep the portion small!

Snacks can also be gift from friends! Left is a pineapple tart from my colleague in Taiwan. Or right, a Christmas present from an ex-colleague, weird looking tea bag from Korea! Simple things like these brightens up my day.

Or that time when I first join my current company and they gave us discount to buy Hokkaido Snaffles Cheesecakes. I got these like there were no tomorrow in original and of course, matcha flavour! 

And from time to time, I have a craving for strawberry shortcakes. Mainly because they reminded me of a beautiful cake in Kii-Katsuura in Wakayama.

But I think my point is, you can have all these beautiful moments at home, instead of spending tonnes of money outside in a cafe. Buy good quality tea, coffee, plates, cutleries, and just get the snacks you love and enjoy them at home. Not only is it cheaper, it is also much more relaxing.

Stay tune for Part 2, where I will show you some of my homemade snacks. They may not be so pretty as what is shown in this post, but they are just as yummy and make me just as happy!