Kluang Bak Kut Teh

Bak Kut Teh, or herbal pork rib soup was never a big deal to me until I moved to my current residential area at Bedok South. There is this uncle who operates a Kluang Bak Kut Teh just outside of my home, and I have been eating it for the past 9 years. It's just a perfect blend of herbs and pork. I tried making it at home, but it never come close. But still, when you're desperate, this recipe isn't so bad on a rainy day.

I got my packet of spice from Malaysia, specifically Kluang Bak Kut Teh to ensure it's the herbal type, instead of the white pepper type which are very popular to the Singaporeans. I only like the herbal kind. And basically all you need are some black soya sauce, garlic, salt, pork ribs and water to make a delicious pot. Whatever else you put into it is your personal business.

For my pot of deliciousness above, I put in pork meatball for the saltiness, soya stick cause I'm a soya addict, mushroom to soak up all the soup, and quail eggs to make it more exotic. I serve mine with brown rice and some you-tiao (fried dough). Bak Kut Teh is actually a pretty healthy meal to have! Try it!

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Bak Kut Teh

Sewing Staffed Charms

Catching up with my post, I'm clearing up last year's activities. When one of my girl friend went to Taiwan for a holiday, all the other girl friends in a group of 4 to 5 got a postcard with a piece of cloth on it and instruction on how to sew it into a little stuff charm. (refer 2nd image on what the postcard looks like). I thought they were adorable!

 The first one I did was the rabbit. It reminded me of Miffy the rabbit. It took me around 60 mins to 90 mins to make one, depending on how wrong I get the sewing. They were really really small so it's kinda hard to put them together. Plus the instruction was kinda dodgy as well, being translated from chinese and all. My favorite part of it was stuff them with synthetic cotton and watching them come alive! The end product is really cute!

 

My other friend who didn't like sewing passed me hers and this was the end result, a little stuffed dinosaur. I needed the tag that says "Feed Me!" on it and left it at her table when it was completed. 

Another friend made her own with the piglet postcard she got and posted the above picture of it in our whatsapp. It looks kinda cute too! Hope you like this post, it's making feel all woozy due to all the cuteness!

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Miffy

UP by Jawbone

 My company has this habit of giving us CapitalLand voucher as reward from time to time. Last year I received a SGD150, and after giving away SGD50 to  my husband, I still have SGD100 left, and for some unknown reason, I decided to get a Jawbone up cause it looks so cool and I thought it would help me to lose weight. I actually wanted the minty green colored UP, but at that time it was new in Singapore and they only have black and navy blue I think. So I settle for the black one. My colleague SW got a matching pair.

 I managed to take some photo of the box before the actual unboxing. The UP cost me SGD189, so I did top up some cash for it. I thought it was a cool technology to wear, and it sync with my phone to keep track of my steps per day, and my sleep hour. It can also track my exercise, and food intake, but those are kind of a pain to key in as it's based on your own data entry.

 Here are some UI of the UP on my phone and my colleague's phone. I named my UP CordyLifeBand, and my profile is a photo of Sapon from Sentimental Circus. Maybe I should change it to something more motivating? Lol. I used it from April to August 2013 at first. Keying in the food in take was the most painful task. After a while, i just gave up. Now I only update the food intake during weekend when I feel like it cause it looks cool. The feature to scan food product and get the info is kinda cool, and so far it worked for US and Korean products. But Singapore local product is quite a pain to input on a go. It just takes too much time. There is a library feature where it keep all your entry, but there is cache to that and it's still a pain to repeat something you have not had for sometime. You can add friends to your UP which I did. To date I only have two friends, and they hardly update their UP  :( I stopped using UP from Sep to Nov 2013. I find it doesn't keep a memory of my activity when I don't have a data plan to upload the day's event. So it kinda screw up my tracking while I was overseas. Anyway, I started again in Nov 2013, and have been using it daily so far as I wanted to be more active and sleep more. 

Here's an image of a day I actually managed to achieve my goal! My sleep target is 8 hours a day, and in a week, I'll be lucky to hit it once or twice. Only so its really  my own fault when I don't get enough sleep. UP is a tool to show it to me visually so that I'll be guilty enough and do something about it! My daily step goal use to be 8000, increase to 10,000, and now I've set it to 12,000. I find that the steps are easier to achieve since I love to walk anyway. And it has motivated me to move more. These days I walk to the train station from home. Since I came back from Italy, I managed to survive Christmas, New Year and Birthday month without actually putting on any significant weight. In fact, I have managed to maintain my weight thus far, and hope to decrease it slowly as Chinese New Year comes and go. Good luck to me!

Here to share a sadly uninspiring ad on UP found on youtube. You'd think they could come up with something better for such a cool gadget. Anyway, I'm targeting an Android watch next, something that can interface with my phone!



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UP Jawbone

Italian Inspired Christmas Meal 2013

 

Like it or not, Italy did something to  my cooking style. I wasn't exactly fascinated with the food while I was there. In fact, it all looked so simple that I'm starting to cook them at home. It's not hard to make food tasty. So let me share with you our Christmas meal for 2013. Top photo: A toasted bread with mozzarella cheese, tomatoes and arugula, match it with my transit to Frankfurt of a German Sausage with Sauerkraut and mustard (from Paris :P ), and wash it down with a mocha made from milo powdered and CBTL espresso. The above is like recalling wonderful memories of my trip to Europe all over again. Got the serving board from Rome too!

  
For lunch I roasted some chicken with carrots and tomatoes after marinating the chicken with some Maggi seasoning sauce. While baking it in the oven for an hour (turning it every 15 minutes), I was also grilling some potatoes on my Happy Call.  Garnish with arugula again and serve with my slight obsession while I was in Italy - San Pellegrino Aranciata Rossa. Heavenly!

 And lastly for dinner, let me show you how I transformed the packet of instant Gallo risotto into that wonderful plate in front of it! All in 30 minutes only!

First, start grilling eggplant, onions and pork sausages. And in another wok, sauteed some onions, then add mushroom. I think I added some butter as well. Once they started to water, add water and instant risotto and cook for 20 minutes. Off the fire and shave in some Parmesan. Garnish accordingly and another meal is serve. Mushroom risotto goes well with white beer as it brings out the flavor! Heavenly!

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Sauerkraut
Happy Call
San Pellegrino Aranciata Rossa
Risotto 
Gallo

Soup Mania

I love soup. But I always thought those Western soup were hard to make. Well I was wrong. When one of my colleague told me that Soup Spoon's soup ingredient are available from their mobile application and that with that you can use basic soup technique to replicate the soup you like at home. One day while out walking around NTUC after lunch, I saw that a wedges of pumpkin was only SGD0.80. So I bought it and started my journey of making homemade soup!  So far, I've only tried two. Here's to share with you my soup adventure!

The first soup I made was pumpkin. Ingredient: 1 wedge of pumpkin, 1 small apple, and 1 cup of milk. That's it! That made me one bowl of awesome soup! I cut the pumpkin in cubes of similar size, same with the apple, and steam them for 20 minutes. After that, while they are still hot, I put them in a blender, added some milk and voilà! Done! It was still warm when it was done, so I ate it all up there and then. It you have been following my food journey you'll know that I don't put sugar or salt in my cooking most of the time, cause really, who needs them when you can taste all the bursting flavor of the natural ingredient? The pumpkin was super sweet, and it was so smooth too! Will definitely make it again in future!

 

The second soup I made was only this week - Tangy Tomato. This was my favorite soup from Soup Spoon, so of course I need to give it a try. The ingredient are listed in the image above. This is also an easy to make soup cause I was mopping my floor while making it. I cut the pepper, tomato and garlic into wedges and just toasted them in my toaster. While I waited, I mopped my whole house clean. Once they were nice and burned, I put them all in a blender and blended them. In a pan, I sautéed some chopped onions, dump in the tomato puree and basil leaves, add some milk and wait for it to boil. This soup tasted ok, but didn't have the body you get when you have those from the shop. It could be due to me using milk instead of cream. It could also be the tomatoes which had high water content. I have no idea! But it tasted ok, just light. I serve two bowls for lunch with some leftover corn bread, and kept the rest as pasta sauce! I'm sure if I thicken it up with some Parmesan, it would be just lovely!

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Soup Spoon
Parmesan