Cornflakes Crispies for our Daddies

It had been a good week at work. For those of you who know me, you know what I do. For those of you who don't, you would just have to keep guessing, or you might have already guessed from bits and pieces on my blog.

We made cornflakes crispies two days ago and all of them could not wait to taste it. It was the first time we all made it and we were all anxious and excited at the same time. While we all had fun mixing all the ingredients together, I did most of the scooping of the crispies into the cupcake cups. Oh! I had fun sprinkling the hundreds and thousands too! :)

'Baking' it was a little tricky though for we only had a toaster oven to work with. The first batch got quite burnt and my colleague had to watch the over the oven after that. It was really nice though for after that, we put them into nice little packages to bring them home, to our Daddies!! It's after all going to be Father's Day this weekend! Oh! We made simple cards to go along with it too!

You know you are addicted when...

...You cannot wait to go home and switch on your computer to check whether your food is cooked and ready to serve; Or that you cannot wait to wake up so that you can again check whether your food has been cooked and ready to serve; you were calculating the amount of time to cook your food or the time when your food is ready until you almost forgot to get off at your mrt stop.

That is the level of obsession that I am in right now, but I am trying to control myself. I am trying to convince myself that these games actually keep me at home and away from shopping (i.e. spending money).

There are two games that I am playing consecutively now. One is of course, Cafe World, the other is Hotel City. The latter is a game whereby you gain money by building rooms and other such facilities to let people come in to occupy. As they stay for the night (about 2 to 3 minutes) they pay you money and thus allowing you to make more money to build more rooms or other commercials rooms like the gym room, restaurant, swimming pool, bar and such.

Oh! Last but not least, you know you are addicted when you talk about the game even when you are outside with friends and asking them to help you complete your spice rack and trying to convince another to join the game as well. You know who you are. Haha!

Happy 'cooking'!

Instant Noodles

It has been awhile since I ate instant noodles as I find that it makes me grow fat rather easily. Recently, as mentioned in my previous posting, I watched this Taiwanese programme that happened to be talking about instant noodles. They were asking some artistes when their poorest period was and how did tney manage to keep themselves full. It was instant noodles of course, and the artistes also went up to cook their own style of instant noodles to let the rest try.

Woah! All that cooking on t.v. made me drool and tonight, I went to buy myself some more instant noodles. This time though, I decided to be a little healthier and bought some vegetables and fish dumplings to go along with the food.

I realised that the Indomie brand of noodles have changed packaging. I think there could have been some sort of merger or something for there was a new brand added on top. Or it could just be Singaporean venture or merger of sorts. For what I saw next was rather surprising too as Nissin, the mother and father of all instant noodles in the world has commissioned some Indonesian company to manufacture and come up with the brand, Mi Bagus. It has a very South East Asian slant to it and its tag line, "makan already?", which means "eat already?". Hmm...all the marketing tactics and strategies.

Anyway, back to my dinner. I finally cooked my dinner using the Nissin orignal flavour, which is the sesame oil one. It used to be my favourite. When I opened the packet, the very first thing I noticed was that the packet for the powdered seasoning has changed. Or rather, the colour for the packet has. Next, I sort of noticed that the sesame oil packet seems to have shrunk. Maybe it was just my own illusion. They might just have made it rectangular in shape instead of the usual squarish shape.

Upon eating, I realised, to my (sort of) dismay, that the taste has changed too! The seasoning, albeit less salty, is not as fragrant and tasty as before. I miss the old taste already!

Anyway, I consoled myself that it will always be my favourite brand of instant noodles, followed by Indomie Goreng, followed by Myojo Charmee and then the Korean noodles. well...let's just say that I am a bit of an instant noodle connoisseur of sorts.

More pasta

Since I am on the subject of food and cooking, thought I should have this posted up too. It was dinner that I cooked some weeks back for my Dad and myself. It was sausage and mushroom linguini tossed in lemon and olive oil. It was topped with lightly browned garlic.

Yes, Linguini is my new favourite pasta since I was doing more tossing sauces and such. I did not need the fusili to hold the gravy :)

The salad seen in the second pic is romaine lettuce topped with the Japanese salad sauce called Kinnogomadare.

What's for dinner?

Dinner was Basil & Champagne Ham Linguini tossed in Balsamic Vinegar Dressing. It was topped with grated Parmesan cheese to lift the flavour of the ham while the basil gives the dish a nice twist. The shaved ham is readily available at Cold Storage. In fact, this is a housebrand and therefore much more reasonable than other types. I was eyeing the Prosciutto ham but they were just too expensive to stomach. This dish is simple and easy to prepare and yet, oh so delish!!

The 'hardest' part was cooking the linguini and chopping up the basil. The rest was just a breeze! I was also lucky enough to catch the promotion the last time I bought Parmesan cheese. They gave away free pasta measuring equipment and now I just have to stick those noodles into those round thingy to suit the number of servings I want :)

I dare not say that my cooking is fantastic but what I can say is that it is slowly improving and it's especially satisfying to eat stuff that one has cooked for oneself.

Bon Apetit a moi!

Next stop: Stadium

After brunch, I convinced Dad to take the new Circle Line to the stop called "Stadium". I had wanted to alight there when I brought Grandma on the Circle Line trip on the 18th (of this month) but she did not seem too interested and we had alighted at Bras Basah instead.

This time around, I was determined and Dad was agreeable as he did not want to drink the coffee from the coffee shop that we took porridge in (read previous post) and off we went, taking the NEL to Dhoby Gaut and switching to the Circle Line there. Dhoby Gaut is now super busy, it being the interchange of 3 different lines.

When we arrived at Stadium, this was what we saw:

One of the two stations with natural sky light. The other station is Bras Basah.


See the far end of the escalator on the first picture? This is what I can actually see, except that I had to walk nearer in order to get a nicer picture.




We shopped a little at Kallang Leisure Park and had our coffee at Wang Cafe. I ended up buying groceries from the Cold Storage there and as I was about to leave the place, there was an announcement to grab goodie bags as long as we have a minimum spending of $10. I quickly retraced my steps to collect my goodie bag and was happy that I got 2 of them! Reason being that my spending at Cold Storage was over $20. Wow! What a great day it was turning out to be!

I was happy too soon though for when I tried to top up my ez-link card at the new top-up machine, it failed to do so. I panicked as I did not see any station control except for this counter that looked more like a store room than anything else.

Thank goodness there were instructions to speak via an intercom to the officer. I pressed. Waited for about 12 seconds before there was a response and after briefly describing my plight, was told to wait for an officer to assist me. It was a good two or three minutes before I saw a figure of an officer, half running towards me. I soon got to know why.

The station control was right at the other end of where I was and I tell you, it could have been a 100m dash or maybe even 200m!! No wonder she took so long to reach me! I was breathing a little heavily after I was told to go there to get my card checked. Turns out that mine was not an isolated case. Ha! Systems. Do I know about them! I used to have to explain all the system boo-boos to customers and from that experience, I have learned that I need to give these staff a little trust and let them do their thing.

Apparently, if I used the old General Sales Machine (GSM) to top-up, they would have been able to check and re-fund accordingly (if any). But because this new top-up machine is by NETS, there is no way for immediate action. Forms were being filled out by the CSO (customer service officer) I had to fill in some personal details myself and then I had to wait. For two weeks. I suupose, they need to check with NETS and then ding dong a little before they find out whether money had been deducted from my NETS card.

I emphasise again, that if I did not work in a similar environment before, I would have screamed and shouted things like "I want my money back NOW!" or "How do I know that you are not cheating me of my money" or "Now that you have taken my receipt then what proof would I have that a transaction did take place?", etc, etc. Instead, I just smiled, nodded my head as she explained away and was very cooperative.

After that, I took a pleasant ride back to where I live. Happy and excited, as I was already planning what to cook for dinner.

New oven: part deux

There is no doubt that there is going to be a "part trois", "part quart" and so on, but I am just so excited that I needed to pen this down.

The first items I toasted were of course, the breads from the bread shop and then this morning, I popped in some streaky bacon that I had bought from NTUC yesterday (see previous post) and two slices of bread.

I would say that I made myself a decent breakfast eating apples, one sunny side-up, two slices of bread, bacon and a cup of coffee. Aahhh...life is good, and cooking at home is good.

Last night, managed to re-constitute food taken from work (fried macaroni) into my own dish. What else but bacon and garlic? I feel that bacon is a cheap but delicious way to raise the value of your food. Just need to add a little to make your dish more classy and yummy. Garlic is so fragrant when browned that it really lifts the dish to new heights. Hehehe... I am starting to drool already and I should perhaps go work on a cooking show or something.

I also managed to make myself a quick and simple side dish: french beans with bacon bits!! I simply cut the beans into half and boiled it in salt water. Drain and add some yummy Japanese salad dressing called Kinnogomadare. Sprinkle freshly fried bacon bits just before serving. YUM!!

I intend to make more of the same salad for lunch this afternoon to go with the beef ribeye that I also bought from NTUC yesterday. Am missing some condiments like black pepper and cooking wine but what the heck! Going to make do with whatever I can find at home.

Looks like I am a Western girl, no? Well, in a way, they are easier and less messy to prepare. Will try Asian cuisine once I am a more competent cook.

New oven!!!

Told you I was getting more and more housewifey! Finally got the oven that I needed. Not too big, not too small. Just right to roast a chicken, bake some cookies and perhaps make a small cake.

This is mostly Nigella Lawson's fault, I must say. No, really. The maternal and housewife instincts are setting in. Except, I am not a mother, neither am I now a wife. But I do have a whole bunch of kids that I can teach baking to and make chocolate with. I think it is going to be fun trying out recipes before teaching them. I must say, I am a green horn myself, when it comes to baking.

I do not know what I want to bake yet but I have re-toasted my breads from Bread Talk and they are so yummilicious!

Anyway, the next thing would probably be a mixer, so that I can beat the eggs and flour together with. Kekekeke....