November 2020

November blues. The 2nd anniversary of my father's death. November is not my favourite month cause I am often moody in November. This year is no different, even though I try  my best to keep myself busy. It was still Covid-19 all around, so there was still no travel in sight. 

It would have been the 2nd month I spend with my Thermomix. My hubby invited me to a meet up where he said there will be demo of the machine. So I went. And met with a bunch of food lover. Mainly they belong to a baking group. From this group I got to try some Panetonne from one lady. It was nice and sweet and look so pretty. I got to try it one more time later, and another one for Christmas. 

This is what her Panettone look like. At first I though it was just a very cute looking muffin. It kinda look like a smurf house. When I was told it was a Panettone, the mystery was broken. Anyway, Panettone is basically bread with fruit bits in it. I plan to make some the coming week since there are what the Italian traditionally have for Christmas, and if you bypass all the traditional steps, it isn't that hard to make using modern day short cut. But then again, I haven't done it yet and may think other wise after. 

My husband was also adventurous with the Thermie and he made a few jar of pâté  which was totally smooth and delicious. I am not sure whether it was because these were homemade and fresh, but the taste of it totally took me back to France. I love it and hope he will make more in future. The ingredients  are relatively cheap since they are made of chicken liver. But I guess the process of it is really time consuming. 

With the pâté , I also made my banh mi, and from my mother-in-law I got some rescued bread which is totally delicious even though we don't know which shop they come from. The bread went well toasted with the liver, or even with some nice dessert cheese and green apple. 

Above is some note of all my Thermie cooking experiment. I initially wanted to record down all the recipe that I've tried and adjust them along the way. But as I am writing this blog in December, I've forsaken that path, and now am just totally YOLO with any recipe I wanted to try. I can even do last minute recipe these days, or compromise with the ingredient. And yes, apart from cooking and eating, I've also started my vegetable garden. To date I have harvested nothing after my first few batches of spinach. My surviving succulent has however look like it is doing well with one baby coming out. And my air plant  has two pups coming along too! My chillies are growing nicely, but not fast enough. My ladies are also growing nicely. But December is just not a good time to start planting anything as the sun is just not strong enough. I hope my cherry tomatoes and my spinach make it!

One unexpected event in November was having a fermentation introduction workshop for a colleague of mine and his family. His son was interested in fermentation, and since my colleague follows my husband's Instagram account, he asked for some starter to start his Kombucha. We invited him over for some tasting instead. Above are the equipment you would need to start fermenting at home. I learned that from my husband. To date I still stay away from his fermented drinks and food. I prefer my food fresh! 

We even set out the cups and tasting glasses for our guest. It was fun, and I also learn along with them. However I find it all so troublesome. But it was nice seeing my husband sharing his knowledge with people who are interested. 

My colleague gave me a homemade cake when he was visiting. It tasted so homely and old style that I really love it. It tasted like something I would have eaten when I was young and in Penang, and it was Chinese New Year. Very nostalgic cake. It had character this cake, none of those fluffy empty cakes on sale today. This was old school!

2020 was also the year I spend the most money on online shopping. I've always wanted to try Hook Coffee, mainly because the packaging was so pretty, and it was from a Singapore company. It is always good to support local. They have a Christmas Advante on sale, and with the baby goose kettle, it cost me around $75sgd. I bought a set for myself as one of the Christmas gift for myself. Sadly 3 days later during Black Friday sale, it was selling at $60sgd! Bummer. 

Anyway, part of the profit also went to a Special Art School, so I guess I was ok with it. The design of each package was different and individually designed. They looked so professional and really brightens up my day whenever I am drinking them. But sadly, the coffee were too weak for me. So I guess I will go back to my Japanese coffee after this. At $2sgd per pack, they were the most expensive drip coffee I have ever purchased. I would like to support local, but sometimes, it just doesn't make any economical sense... 

Near the last day of November, I attended a cooking class I have booked in advance. I really enjoyed my drip coffee course few years back, and wanted to repeat that experience. So I browse through the OnePA website and found a middle eastern food class for only $5sgd! Granted that it was only a demo class, but still $5sgd was hard to say no too. Especially when you know you get to do food tasting later. The class was held at a Halal Kitchen in a CC in Tampines, so I was expecting a lot of Malay to attend. Surprisingly it was mainly Chinese. 

The main course was Chicken Mulukhiyah and dill rice. The aromatic of the spice was heavenly in the room. I would very much like to be able to cook this in my house! The aroma was so strong that after the class, I went to Simpang Bedok and bought myself a Lamb Bukhari Rice that cost me $30sgd because I have craving for spice rice and middle eastern food. In fact, the following week I was glad I was going to a Turkish restaurant to get another taste of these lovely food. 

Dessert was this super sweet and unhealthy Milk Cake with Cardamon Cream. It was super easy to make, but oh so sinful. 3 cans of evaporated milk and condense milk went into it. But it was so rich and also aromatic. It tasted so exotic that I wanted to try making it at home. So I went looking for Cardamon powder, and with my dyslexia, bought a pack of Coriander powder instead. Major fail! Now I need to go try cooking coriander chicken. 

OK, that's all for November. 2020 is about to come to an end soon. Hope I'll be able to blog the December post by next week. And hope 2021 would be a better year (although work wise I doubt so). I am currently on a super long one week leave as I slowly end the year in leisure. This would probably be the 2nd best week of 2020, first being one 2 weeks cruise in January! Hahaha. I am so glad I took that cruise in January. Imagine without it, I would not have travelled at all! But because I took the cruise, at least I clock in a few countries in 2 weeks! So please always live life as you want to, and without regret!

October 2020

It's December 2020 now, and I am catching up with my monthly post again. I will try to catch up till November by today. To date, it has been more than 10 months since I left Singapore. Am I going mad yet? Not really. Although there are times that I really crave looking at majestic mountains and listening to the rain drops hitting the stones, or something silly like that. Being surrounded by concrete makes me mentally and emotionally unstable at times. It's like I am not living in the real world.... What have I been up to besides work? (Yes I am still working....)

Well, one of my major achievement for the month of October was actually recreating Horai 551 Nikkuman! I know! Crazy right? But you have no idea how much I crave these buns ever since trying them in Osaka last year. And it wasn't something you could find in Singapore either. So after much researching and watching of youtube, I decided to make an attempt at it. I declare one Sunday as dough day and started out by making Siew Mai for breakfast, and Nikkuman for lunch, and Gyoza and Ramen for dinner. My favourite of the day was of course these sweet Nikkuman. I must confess that I did put in more onions than called for. But they were heavenly! Too bad we only got to eat 4 each. Will definitely make again in future. 

The next new hobby I got was taking care of my garden. I started out getting some air plants, and then tried some cheap succulents which I got from Giant. I even started some vegetables in my small garden. Although I tried to read up on my succulents, one of them died on me and I got discouraged. I put the other one out in the sun, and surprisingly it is still alive and going well today!

These are the succulent I got from Giant at only SGD $2.50 each. Sadly the short one died on me few weeks later. But before that, they do make lovely photo taking at home. They also make my home cafe look like a genuine hipster cafe! So basically, I was happy to get them. Might try again in future to get more. 

The air plant experiment was a lot more successful. I got this one from Garden By The Bay gift shop at only SGD $2.70. After a few weeks, it started to bloom. When I bough it, I purposely pick one that looked like it can be separated into a few. So I actually have two now. I separated them after it bloom hoping that some pups would come out of it. So far nothing. But having to airplant hanging on my window frame looks pretty satisfying. I give them a bath every Sunday and hang them out for some sun. They seems to be growing well for now. 

The seeds from NPark also kept me occupied. The tomato seeds didn't make it. But these micro bak choy did, and I did harvest them as garnish for my soup later on. It wasn't exactly the Xiao Bak Choy I was expecting, but they do look lovely in this white pot. 

Lastly I got two spinach seedlings from my friend. And I wasn't having high hopes for them, so I casually just put them in recycled milk bottles. To my delight, they grew quite well! And I have harvested the leaves three times to date! Each time was enough to maybe make one omelette or one portion of instant noodle. 

Above is the most bountiful harvest so far when the leaves were plump and big. It made a nice instant noodle serving. Now, the spinach are glowing slowly and with small leaves. But no worries, I got a whole pack of seeds for them in my second NPark seed distribution! And I've also started to grow Chillies and Lady's Finger in the garden! Hopefully they all make it to harvest time! Probably by next year!

Since there wasn't any hope of travelling, we did go out for shopping from time to time. We went to Meidi-ya at Great World City one day, and woohoo what a productive day! I got a hail of Japanese stuff from there and felt so happy. I really miss Japan. And the best buy in the picture above is actually the green apples! I got them at the reduce to clear bin for only SGD$1.00 for 5! Lasted me more than 1 week worth of eating! Who knew I got get cheap and valuable stuff from Meidiya!

I am also in love with this Canelle I got from a bakery at Great World City. I saw it during my previous visit, but when I went to buy it, they were sold out. So on this trip, I bought one the moment we were out of the carpark and into the mall! And they did not disappoint. The only thing is, they cost almost SGD4.00 EACH! I found a recipe for them later, but it seems complicated to make. Maybe I'll make an attempt at it one day.... Apparently they contain rum in them! Maybe that's why I love them so much. They smell heavenly to me. 

The other notable thing to highlight is my husband got us a Thermomix machine. He said he wanted it for his fermentation. I was sceptical of it at first since it cost like SGD2k++. But the very first thing I cook with it pretty much convinced me that Thermie and I are destined to be best friend after that :)

A Thermomix is basically a cooking robot. And you can link it to an online recipe repository call Cookidoo which is subscription based. You get a 6 months free subscription when you first bought a Thermomix. With the recipe linked, you can just select the things you want to cook, and the machine will guide you on the steps to make magic happen!

Here's what it looks like. It's a step by step guide. You first need to get and measure all the ingredients you need. Then just read and obey. It helps you to weight in everything along the way too. And you don't have to remember the speed or temperature when you cook if you are using the Cookidoo recipe. You just turn the  knob. If you are not cooking with Cookidoo, you have to manually program the speed and temperature etc to cook. 

Some of the beginner stuff we made were Lemonade and Soya Milk. I love the soya milk. My husband have made it for me 3 to 4 times now. And We've only had it for two months so far. I kinda cut down on my cow milk now. But the only thing is, my husband follows the recipe that requires sugar. So now I am asking him to cut down on the sugar, cause I don't really like sweet drinks at all. And all the sugar is also contributing to my weight gain!

The reason my Thermie is now a family member is because it cooks curry for me! From scratch! As in it makes the paste, and saute it and all. So the very first curry I made with it was actually fish head curry. And the smell of the rempah filling my house was convincing enough for me to confess my love for it. The taste of it was another amazing thing. It smells and tasted like home. But sadly, my husband can't stomach curries every week. So maybe I'll try making it twice a month? So far I've made Curry Fish Head, Curry Capitan, and Ayam Masak Merah. The Sambal Kangkong I made last week was also a winner! I even have belacan in my kitchen now! And now I can cook with galangal, bungah kantang etc. 

The other thing I use Thermie for is making cakes! I've made two castella cake, and one to-die-for brownies. I am planning to make banana cake today since I got a bunch of bananas (5 banana in a bunch) for SGD$1.00 this morning at the market. I've also gone pretty mad on nuts and spend SGD$25 on nuts yesterday just to make more brownies and some Christmas goodies that are coming up soon!

On weekdays I try to use the Thermomix to make soup for a lighter diet. It made making soup so easy. I just throw all the ingredient in and voila, blended so soup and taste so delicious! The first soup I made was mushroom. And I made enough for a few meals. The photo on top is mushroom soup topped with pork floss which I also made using the Thermomix! My homemade pork floss is like meat flavouring for me. I add it to my soup to make it tastier and with more texture.

The next soup I tried was pumpkin soup, and I love these the most and have made it twice so far. I love how cheap it is. The pumpkins are never more than SGD$2.00, and I can make like 3 to 4 bowls of soup with it. I also add cashew nuts in them, so they are quite filling. It feels so nourishing to eat home made soup from fresh ingredient!

Above is the 3rd soup of Bell Pepper and Tomatoes. This one was a bit watery and took a long time to finish. I also added cashew nuts and for some reason, I got rashes after having these. Not gonna make these any time soon. 

Now that it's December, I've also made Leek and Potato soup which finishes in a day! I joint a few Facebook group and people were recommending it so much that I decided to give it a try. It smells so heavenly and taste so good! I also made onion soup two weeks back. They tasted ok too. Sometimes I guess I need to adjust the recipe a bit to my liking.

So with the Thermomix, I spend most weekends at home cooking up different recipe to try. I've learned to adjust the recipe along the way, as I realise I like my chicken cooked till juicy and not dry. I've also cut out a lot of sugar or salt recommended in the recipe. And if it's a chinese recipe that calls for ginger, I will just ignore it. But if it's curry or rendang that calls for ginger, I will add it in. I don't really know why that is. Lol. 

Am looking forward to Christmas to make more goodies! I got myself walnut, pistachios, hazelnuts, pine nuts and almond yesterday for my Christmas bake-off! I'm taking 3 days off after Christmas to play with food :)

September 2020

2020 has been one hell of a year. September ended, and I have officially not left Singapore for the past 8 months! Probably my longest for a very long time. As Malaysia government officially announced that the country is closed till end of 31-Dec, I decided to start utilising my leave since I wasn't going back to Malaysia till next year. In total I cleared 3 days in September, spending it eating, shopping and visiting places I normally don't. 

My monthly schedule book seems to be heavy on the right where all the weekends are. Notably I have started to slowly go back to the gym this month, clocking at least 1 session per week. Hopefully this will increase to 2 next month, and also to increase the intensity as I find that my weight is harder to go down these days. I am not sure if it is due to the increase in process food I have been eating since we stocked up so much of it, or was it just old age. A part of know the answer, but it is just too hard to change habits....

One of the most satisfying accomplishment I achieved in September was finally finishing up my Italian Riviera paint-by-number painting. This painting was started like 7 or 8 years ago! When I try to finish it, most of the paint already dried up. So I used some of my extra water painting just to fill in the colours. This painting was definitely worth it's value as it inspires 2 Italy trips before it got completed, and totally changed my perception of Italy. It is currently sitting on my study room desk. In future I'm gonna bring it back to Penang with me to hang in my retirement home :)

The other first for me was ordering and paying for a 100drip coffee from Japan to be delivered to me as my coffee supply runs low. I was trying to find ways to cut my coffee habit cost, and have grown to like Fujita drip coffee which was like 40cents per pack and I tried it during the start of Circuit Break. But sadly every site I search shows that it was out of stock. However I saw this Doutor coffee which I've tried before and like, selling at Qoo10 for 31SGD for a 100packs. With delivery charges, my coffee now cost 35cents per pack, which is an improvement! The only downside is, the coffee varies in quality. Some packs are fragrant, some are not. 

And in case you are wondering, this is what a 100packs of drip coffee look like. It was delivered to me on a Saturday night and I was so happy to receive it cause it would mean I don't have to worry about sourcing for coffee again until at least next year. Hopefully by then, the borders are open and I can go to Japan and buy $30kg of coffee home using my Krisflyer Gold Class privilege, lol.

September also saw me starting to expend my garden. I got a cute air plant on my 2nd visit to Garden By Bay for $2.70SGD. Original price was $3, but with the appl, you get a 10% discount. And the holder was from Daiso for $2SGD, something I got long before cause I already have a vision of an air plant in my home. I took a picture of it last weekend, and just love this photo of it. I hope it will last and propagate. I also got two small spinach plant from my friend, and bought some pots and soil to start my vegetable garden outside. I have sow the seeds of tomatoes, chillies and also xiao bai cai. Some seedlings are already coming out. I hope they can grow to harvest cause that would be so exciting!

The rest of the pictures are of food adventure I had that are worth mentioning for the month of September. My first leave was on an adhoc basis when my ex-ex-colleague/weird friend ask me to take leave to go out with her. Heck, why not. We went to a French Restaurant at Tras Road for a set lunch. It was rather expensive, costing around SGD$58 per person or something. We also added a cheese platter. She treated me for the meal, so all was good. The name of the restaurant was Fleur De Sel. I don't think I will making a repeat visit there. I much prefer my usual Bistro Du Vin which I will be headed next month for my anniversary. I was last there just before Circuit Breaker started, and the beef there was just lovely!

Speaking of beef, I got to know about this place call Yakiniku Like, and have been in love with it since. I've been there two so far, on continue Friday when I am off. The queue is always long, and they only allow you to dine for 40mins, but I just love this place. Probably because I get to cook my beef on a fire grill to my own liking. The look, the smell, and the taste is just so heavenly. I even tried their wagyu set at almost 30SGD. The juicy meat from grill to mouth is hard to beat! Will definitely go back again. I don't need a chef to cook for me, I can do it on my own!

And on the other extreme, I also found a vegetarian restaurant that I love, somewhere in the very ulu place call Boon Keng? The restaurant is call Boneless Kitchen, and it is a social enterprise, so I am more than happy to continue returning to it. The food was excellent with almost minimum or no mock meat at all. In fact the only mock meat I found was fish cake which they threw into the Soondobou. I don't even feel that it was needed. The tofu was good enough on it's own. This place serve eggs, so it's totally suitable for me! I may love beef, but I am also a natural vegetarian even though most of my friends won't agree. 

That's all for September. I might post more on local context as I have been visiting so many places lately, and all the photos need to end up somewhere! Else what is the point! 

August 2020

 

Another month has past. Same old same old. Usually in August, I'd be back in Penang celebrating my Dad's birthday. But the border between Singapore and Malaysia has not opened for leisure traveller yet, so I am stuck in a small island. The latest update from Malaysia side is, border will be closed till next year. Bummer. 

So how did I keep my sanity in this tiny island without going mad? Well luckily, the month of August is also National Day month. So we get a holiday, and lots of promotion to keep me sane. I will share more. Please read on. The other silver lining for me was that the gym was slowly opening up, increasing the number of participant in the class. I was so happy to be back doing slow yoga and zumba again even if the competition was stiff. 

One of my accomplishment for August was finishing one of my creative project, a pencil colouring picture of Tokyo. Since I had so many half done project lying around, I told myself that I'm gonna at least complete something in August. And since I missed Japan so much, I decided to complete this 2SGD drawing I got from Daiso. If I use a water brush to paint over it, it actually transformed into a water painting. But I'm too lazy for now, so it will remain as a colouring picture for now. 

I was so proud of it that I went to Ikea to get two frame to put them in. I have another drawing of Kyoto which I am also looking forward to complete one day. So above is where I kept the painting, above my bed in my bedroom. Hopefully one day, they will hand beautifully in my new home in Penang, reminding me of my beautiful memories in the land of the rising sun. 

Just for fun, while I was decluttering, I also came across a mooncake box that I couldn't quite bare to part with. So I made the above two Japanese dolls to put them in and decorated it to make it into a frame. Pretty cool huh? I love the fact that the black background is actually shinning in material. I call this, autumn scene with sakura flowing down from the trees.... hahaha. 

Before all this Covid started, I actually planned to go to Kyushu in August. One of my new joy in visiting Japan now is to buy Japanese books. But since that plan is being scrapped, I decided to give myself 50SGD to splurge on Japanese books in Kinokuniya. So one day on my half day off, I went book shopping and got these two delightful books. I love these books cause they make me so calm reading them. It's like reading about my soon to be lifestyle! Hahaha. 

Since there was the National Day long weekend, I also decided to use the time to cook up all the food that I was craving. A week before, I had went to a yakitori izakaya with my friend, and had a nice lunch that cost me over 90SGD. But I wasn't satisfied as they didn't make their chicken skewer juicy enough. So I decided to make my own. And it was a success! Probably cause I tend to undercook my food, so the leek and the chicken was just nice and juicy. I plan to make this again cause it's the only way I get to really eat as much awesome food I want without bursting my bank account!

I also decided to cook Sarawak laksa one day. I got these sauce while on my two weeks cruise around South East Asia. The first stop was at Kota Kinabalu. I made a bee line to the supermarket and got two packs of Sarawak laksa for my souvenir! Because I was deprived of Penang food for the past 6 months, this dish was a welcome comfort food for me. 

As I mentioned early, August tend to have lots of local flavoured promotion for the residence of Singapore. National Gallery decided to give all residence a one-year insider membership for free. So I signed up and went to activate my membership on my half day off. I have visited the place twice since, and each visit, I discover a new thing to see, experience and explore. It's a nice place to go for some quiet time whenever I am in town. 

Garden By The Bay decided to give residence 6-month free entry if we buy a 20SGD ticket for two observatory. It was a worthwhile deal. I've been once so far, and I love the smell of all the plants inside. I will take this as my forest bathing 6-month treatment, and plan to visit it at least once a month till February. Hopefully I will get to see the autumn fest, October pumpkin, christmas, and Chinese New Year decoration. 

Just to finish off. I am having a slight coffee crisis here. I am running out of drip coffee, and the brand that I want is out of stock in Singapore. Bummer. But I also bought myself a Devil's Brew one day while taking a break from work one day. It was so good! I signed up for their loyalty program for 20SGD, which gave me an total value of 22SGD, and 20% off purchase. So far I have drank 2 cups. Each cost around 4SGD actually. I found a breakfast promo which I can get half a sandwich or a scone with the coffee at 3.50SGD, so that's going to be my Friday treat until I ran out of money in my e-wallet.

So that's all the updates I have for August. September should be quite fun as I would be starting my leave clearing. By November it would only be a weekly affair. I wonder what fun things I would entertain myself with. Since I can't travel, I tend to have a lot of cash to spend in Singapore. Even if it's staying at home and cooking up a storm. Stay tune! And Stay Safe!