It's all about eating feasts in JB!

BunnyBoi and I crossed the causeway last Sunday with my family and we as BunnyBoi has mentioned.. It's all about feasting when you're in JB!

Here's half of our dimsum breakfast! It's my first experiencing the traditional way dimsums are served - the server will carry trays filled with many different dishes and you'd get to choose! 

Next, we went to some kind of hyper market and got our baking supplies! I love love them and I can't wait to start baking cupcakes soon! :)))

We ended off the short trip by having a sumptuous feast of fresh seafood! There's fresh oysters, clams, steamed prawns, Indonesian curry prawns, salted egg yolk crabs, chilli crabs, water snails, steamed seabass and mantou buns for the chilli crabs! 

The bill totaled up to be about SGD260 and it was shared amongst all 11 of us. Super worth it!! But can't do this every week else it's gonna be very, VERY sinful!

I love times spent together with you honey! Hope you enjoyed this trip as much as I did! <3 

Home cooked with love

BunnyBoi came over yesterday and we had oven roasted salmon & asparagus for lunch! :))

I'd wanted to do a crispy skin but soft meat but the skin was burnt really badly as the flame we used was too hot and too much oil was used for this dish. 

Overall I love love baked salmon and I'm glad that BunnyBoi enjoyed this meal we both prepared together. We'll cut down on the oil in future! 

Next, we both successfully baked a chocolate ganache cake for our first attempt!! 

I got the recipe from joyofbaking.com and it's really a "mix-in-the-pan-cake". 

I altered the recipe to my own preference as her recipe is really toooooo sweet.

Ingredients include: 

- 195g all purpose flour

- 50g caster sugar

- 25g unsweetened cocoa powder

- 1 teaspoon baking powder

- 1 teaspoon baking soda 

- pinch of salt 

- 240ml warm water 

- half a lemon, squeezed

- 1 teaspoon vanilla essence 

All we did was to add the ingredients listed 1 by one and then manually whisk it! 

By the time it was of a consistent texture, we lined the cake pan with butter and flour, and pour the mixture in!

Oh and before that we had to preheat the oven to 180deg Celsius and placed the cake pan in the centre of the oven for 35 minutes. The toothpick inserted in the centre came out totally clean!!! 

Due to time constraints, we cooled the cake at room temperature for 30mins, and proceeded on with our chocolate ganache frosting.

Chocolate ganache ingredients:

- 1 whole bar of Van... Baking chocolate 

- 1/3 of Bulla thickened cream

- 1 tablespoon room temperature butter 

Melt the ingredients over a double boiler and adjust thickened cream to your liking. 

Once time's up, pour chocolate onto cake and freeze for 30mins. (We later learned from BunnyBoi's mum that it can be cooled in the normal fridge section to harden)

And..... Viola!!

I've always wanted to bake with my boyfriend and I'm so so glad that it's you that I'm doing it with. I'm looking forward to many more cookings and bakings with you honey. I love you. <3

Happy anniversary once again!

Met the boy last Friday to celebrate our anniversary and I can finally say that I've tried Just Acia! 

We ordered creamy chicken & salmon teriyaki pasta + chawanmushi to share and I'd wish that the salmon fillet was a thicker slice. Overall, I think that the teriyaki and cream sauce don't really go well together. Its still a good meal with BunnyBoi anyway! :)

"You're the one I run to, the world I belong to. You're still the one I want for life."

No bake oreo cheesecake

I had a sudden craving for cheesecake after browsing Instagram and hence I went to do this yesterday! 

I didn't want to use gelatin so I substituted it for condense milk and in the end it didn't turn out well. Shall use gelatin in future!

Also, I followed the wrong recipe! Lolol the website that I followed uses 3 packs of cream cheese but I only used 1, in the end the oreo cheesecake turned out SUPER DUPER SWEEEEEET.

Here are the ingredients I used, and overall I spent S$14.30 in total! 

*P/s: As I was craving for oreo I used up all the Oreos for this no-bake cheesecake.

For the base :

- 6 packs oreo with white cream removed - finely crushed

- Melted butter 25secs in microwave or double boiler 

For the filling:

- 5 1 tablespoons sugar

- 1 tablespoon condensed milk

- 1 teaspoon vanilla essence

- 250g / 1 block of Philadelphia cream cheese @ room temperature

- 1 pack of oreo, white cream removed - crushed lightly using fingers 

For the topping:

- 5 packs oreo, white cream removed - finely crushed as done for the base

Here's the step by step pictorial!

For the base:

First, I placed the oreos in the bag and used a hard object to smash it. You could use a food processor too but that calls for more cleaning up and water & electricity wastage, but the crumbs would definitely be finer. Hahaha and that's #rexmyboy feeling down as he wasn't able to eat them oreos. 

Afterwhich, melt the butter in a microwave for 25secs, or using stove. Initially I placed it for 1minute and it turned brown! So I did for 20secs, and 10secs and this was what came out:

With the butter melted, it's time to gradually mix it into the crushed oreos! The texture you should be looking out for is "wet sand". Notice I didn't discard the white cream straight away as I placed some of them together with the cream cheese filling. 

Time to line them onto the tray! I used a rectangular 2x7" metal tin as that was the only container I can find at home. I lined it with aluminium foil as I read that it's much easier to remove the cake and indeed it was! 

Oh and another point to note is to use a flat object to firmly press the crumbs down as it serves as a base for the cake. If not done well, or if the crumbs are not fine enough, you will notice that the base cracks easily.

I placed it in the freezer for 1hr30mins before adding the filling onto it. 

For the filling:

Using a mixer, combine sugar, vanilla essence, oreo bits and cream cheese and beat till smooth.

Then place the filling onto the pan & top with finely crushed oreos.

Gently tap the pan onto the table to remove any air bubbles and freeze again for 3-6hours. 

 

After 2 hours, I went to check on the cake by placing a toothpick into it and it didn't come out clean, hence I froze it till about 4 hours later....

Because I didn't use gelatin, the cream cheese tend to melt easily once it's out of the freezer and hence I went to slice the bars into bite size pieces. 

It's the next day today and the cheesecake were still in the freezer, though it is harder to chew now, but it's still edible!

Apart from my first attempt being too sweet and omitting gelatin, I will definitely follow the recipe carefully in future! :)

Air purifier & ionizer

I've recently purchased an air purifier $14.80 (left) and an ionizer $34.80 (right) from Qoo10, previously known as Gmarket Singapore during their time sale + $3.90 Qexpress delivery.

I would say that this is the fastest experience in Qoo10 that I've ever received! The item came 2 days after I've ordered and it was delivered on a Saturday noon. 

The smaller one was bigger than I'd expected and I used that for my room while the bigger one with ionizer that's known to trap heat I've placed it in my grandma's room! 

The good thing about this purchase is it is affordable and definitely cheaper than those sold in the malls, but the downside would be that it's quite noisy as you can hear the motor sound churning when the switch is on. Oh and another redundant point is that the ionizer has a blue LED light that doesn't switch off until you off the main power, which makes sleeping at night harder due to the loud motor sound and the blue light.

Overall, I'd say it's a good buy though what you pay, is what you get :)

Hopefully the ionizer will work as shown in the video as the haze these days are getting higher:

You can find other items and aromatherapy oils from the seller here : 

http://www.qoo10.sg/GMKT.INC/Goods/Goods.aspx?goodscode=413909457

Penny University

The boy brought us to Penny University for a late brunch yesterday and it was really accessible by taking bus 10 from Tampines! We alighted just after Caltex and it's within 10-15mins walking distance to Katong 112.

Here's what we ordered: eggs benedict with smoked salmon and smoked chicken breast sandwich to share. 

I wasn't a big fan of eggs benedict as I didn't like that the yolk oozes out onto the food, one which the boy loves much more than I do. However, I like that the bread that came together with this set was easy to cut into, as the previous one which we had at Eggs & Berries weren't.

The smoked chicken breast sandwich was tasty too as well however the toast was slightly over-toasted(?) and it was kinda un-glam and I had a hard time trying to cut it.

Both dishes would definitely be better if they served it with more cherry tomatoes as only 1 were given.

We also ordered iced chocolate due to some reviews and it was actually milk with chocolate fudge. Tastes alright though I will definitely order the coffee drinks on our next visit!

Passionfruit meringue tart

Dessert was passionfruit meringue tart and the boy said that it was much better than the lemon tart! The crust was really thick and crunchy and the underneath the cream was the passionfruit filling that is sour and sweet at the same time. 

We went walking around Katong 112 and Parkway Parade and watched Non Stop after that starring Niam Neeson and the plot is about the air marshall receiving a threat saying to remit U$150m else he has to race against time to save the lives of each passenger every 20 mins.

Thank you for planning this date out and never giving up on me. I love you honey! <3

The Time Keeper ; Mitch Albom

I love reading books like these.  It makes me think back and realize that our lives are truly precious and we should treasure it before its too late..

I'm gonna borrow another book to read. One at a time. :)

Tears are in her eyes

Sometimes all we needed was just someone to hold and to talk to.. 

I'm beginning to see the sadness in your eyes yet I'm unable to be patient enough to stay on.. I wish I could've been better, made you feel happier..... 

"The emotion that breaks your heart is sometimes the very one that heals it" Nicholas Sparks.

Lunch deal @ Nihon Mura

Went Nihon Mura for lunch at Tampines swimming complex today and all I can say is....

It's really value for money!! :))

We ordered chicken teriyaki rice and salmon teriyaki rice for myself. For sides we had chocolate eclairs, salmon sashimi, cream puffs, mochi and agedashi tofu. Oh and it's much better if you ordered their cold drinks as it comes in a can! Really super worth it cause 1 can of drink from the coffeeshop is already $1.50 haha.

However the downside would be that they serve the desserts together with the mains. So by the time we finished our rice, the desserts were semi-melted.

Oh and I like that their rice is served in the stone pot! There's some harden rice that tastes great too.

Wouldn't mind coming here again for the lunch deal again next month! 

Thai Express

Had Thai Express for dinner last night and we ordered the set meal which is value for money! 

There's another dish where it's roasted chicken but the soup served is winter melon. Hence, we didn't order that as you can get winter melon soup from those Chinese soup stalls like 老火汤.

We ordered both the green curry (not in picture) and the tamarind fish set. 

For the tamarind fish set, the soup was supposed to be seafood Tomyam but apparently all we found were mushrooms lolol. 

The soup is too spicy for our liking and for the fish, only 2 pieces were served. I liked how the sweet sauce complimented the fried fish but it would've been better if maybe an additional piece is provided though their rice portion is just nice for 1 person.