happy birthday, SINGAPORE!

We celebrated the nation's 42nd birthday with a bbq, which lasted from lunch till dinner.... got ourselves a spanking new bbq, a belgian national made by Barbecook, and in daddyji's own words, " I love our new barbeque!".
Mummyji baked a batch of chocolate cupcakes, and frosted them with whipped cream sweetened with a couple of tablespoons of powdered sugar, and dolled them up with strawberry slices... loved the white and red combi, which was intentional, as that was the theme of the day.
The kids blew up some red and white balloons, almost everybody was garbed in red or white, or shades in between. The kids were given tattoos of the national flags, which Mummyji wore too, on the arm.

Even the tablecloth's red & white checks!
We saw the flypast in the distance, from the airbase nearby.... we heard the loud bangs, but unfortunately, couldn't get any view of the fireworks from our roof...
anyhoos, we had a lovely bbq, great food, great day, and all were happy and well-fed.
Daddyji's nephew was made to recite the national pledge before he could have a cupcake... we had a good giggle over his poorly-delivered rendition....so mean! hahaha
Mummyji wants to wish Singapore Peace, Harmony and prosperity forever... and Mummyji's proud to be Singaporean!

cupcakes

Mummyji's been hunting for passion fruits since the Danang trip. U see, at the resort, there was this lovely passionfruit jam served at breakfast, and on the dessert table, there was always a plate of passionfruit cakes, and needless to say, they were just plain gorgeous. Mummyji found some indonesian passionfruits at the tekka market last week, but they don't have the tartness and gorgeous orange pulp as the aussie ones.. Mummyji also chanced upon some passionfruit jam at an organic food store, but the jar was really near expiry so it was a no buy. And finally, yesterday, when mummyji n daddyji were at raffles place settling some banking stuff, we walked into a fruit store, Sun Moon (or something like that) and found these lovely purple fruits, 3 in a tray, for about 2 bucks. After seeing daddyji off at the airport (to a golfing trip in Jogja), Mummyji drove to toa payoh to pick the babes up. As there was another hour before 4pm, mummyji popped in the Fairprice to browse through the interesting shelves of Phoon Huat. And Mummyji found a bottle of 10 varieties of sprinkles, with butterflies, leaves, hearts... so pretty that Mummyji wanted to dash right home to bake some cupcakes to decorate..
Mummyji searched through the recipe books at home, and finally, decided to improvise and baked some passionfruit cupcakes.

Here's my recipe, to share..

1 1/3cup SRF
half tsp salt
1/3 cup sugar
1 egg
1/4 cup greek yogurt
60g unsalted butter
1 fresh vanilla pod
pulp of 1 passionfruit

Sift the flour n salt into a bowl, Mix in the sugar, and make a well in the centre. Lightly beat the egg, mix in the yogurt, vanilla and passionfruit pulp. Melt the butter and add to the well, pouring in the egg mixture as well. Stir everything with a wooden spoon till just mixed, be careful not to overstir.
Mummyji used the pretty pastel paper cases bought at Daiso, but they turned out pretty disappointing as they were soft and thin, which means they don't hold the shape very well. The cases were placed into 2 6-muffin tins, and a tablespoon of the batter was plonked into each case. The cakes were baked in a preheated oven at 175 deg C for about 12 minutes.
Voila, 12 cupcakes baked in less than 30 minutes!
Mummyji tried to do a whipped cream with icing sugar topping. It's either the sugar used(sugar powder) or the cream was whipped too much, cos everything turned into a liquid, and separated. Mummyji quickly dumped the mixture into the blender, and everything melded back again, but was still too liquidy.... so mummyji cut some butter, dumped that in, and blended the whole mix again, and got a thicker shake-like mix, and chucked that into the fridge for about half an hour. Mummyji had to send the babes for revision class at the aunt's, so the three of us quickly iced the cooled cupcakes, and decorated the tops with the pretty sprinkles, Mummyji's already mentioned that the cases were weak and the icing spread out a bit, but all in, we thought it was quite a good first attempt.
Mummyji's now thinking of turning the pumpkin the MIL brought home from malaysia into a pumpkin bread tomorrow.
Gonna do some recipe research now!

espresso cheesecake brownie

Mummyji's very pleased with her latest cake, baked specially for Mahmahji's birthday. It's a delightful combination of both mummyji's favourite bakes, cheesecake and brownie. The recipe's taken from Dorie Greenspan's Baking. There are plenty more yummy recipes in that wonderful book, which mummyji intends to explore each weekend, or where time permits. Mummyji skipped the last step of adding the sour cream icing layer though, thinking it might be too rich for the folks. The cheesecake layer calls for only 1 block of cheese (Mummyji used philly), 2/3 cup sugar, 1/4 cup sour cream, 1 tablespoon flour and 2 eggs. And of course, the coffee (1.5 tbsp of instant coffee powder dissolved in 1 tbsp hot water). There isn't much flour in the bottom brownie layer, which has 2 eggs, about 100g of dark chocolate, 75g butter and 1/3 cup sugar. The original recipe calls for 1/2 plain flour with 1 tsp baking powder, which Mummyji changed to just using 1/2 cup of organic self-raising flour. Mummyji also substituted the 1 tsp pure vanilla extract to using 1 fresh pod of vanilla bean instead. Pure vanilla extracts has some percentage of alcohol which might render Mummyji's cake un-halal, so it's fresh vanilla beans for her cakes!
The pretty thing about this cake is the marble effect on the top, which was the part which mummyji enjoyed most. Globs of the brownie batter was dropped onto the cheesecake layer and a sharp knife used to swirl and lovely patterns were created as a result. It was not unlike the henna tattoos that mummyji's drawn on the babes's hands for hari raya. Of course Mummyji didn't use a sharp knife to do the henna tattoos on the babes' hands, those were piped from the henna cones bought from Arab Street...
The next day, after about 12 hours in the refrigerator, the cake was taken out for mummyji to embellish. There was a great plan to melt some chocolate, spread it out on a foil, cool it in the refrigerator while mummyji made some icing with icing sugar and milk to write the words, happy birthday, on the chocolate piece, then place it on top of the cake. As it turned out, the icing was too runny, so when the words were written, the icing spread out and turned into 2 thick squiggly white lines...So it was think-on-your-feet cake deco for mummyji then, who in between eating up spoonfuls of dark choc glob with white icing lines, mixed some melted dark choc with cream cheese and piped that around the cake's base. There was a box of chocolate-coated coffeebeans, which mummyji had bought earlier from Candy Empire, as well as some choc mint sticks, from the same temptation-filled store.
This is the result of Mummyji's art attack on the cake... Ta Dah!



The bigger round chocs are Meiji macadamia chocs.

In her excitement to present to Mahmahji the cake, mummyji'd forgotten all about birthday candles....and yea, the white liquidy stuff the choc coffee beans sit atop is some of the disappointing runny icing, used here to stop the beans from rollling around.
Anyway, Mummyji was pretty pleased... Best compliment of the day? Z saying that it looked store-bought!


and here's a beaming Mahmahji, who sang several rounds of the birthday song for herself, who's gleefully proclaimed herself as a full hexagenarian, even though she is rightfully only 59..
And we thank Mahmahji for all the yummilicious Saturday night dinners she's lovingly prepared for all of us and we pray we have many many more of these dinners to enjoy!

gratitude

Daddyji's flown off to exotic Marrakech, Morrocco for his annual company meet, and then to Paris later in the week. The fella's already gone shopping in Marrakech n bought us a tagine, just as Mummyji had envisioned him doing so, the foodie that he is. Now the question is, how in the world is he gonna cart the fragile piece of pottery home safely? According to the ingenious spouse, that's not a problem, he'll just have to buy a couple of rugs or carpets n roll the tagine in between!
Sigh, Mummyji wished she could have gone too, but...
well, it's exam season, (for the babes, not Mummyji) and we've just moved, so there's plenty to do!
Mummyji's finally unpacked all her boxes, the last of which was her treasured shoes. And guess what? they fit the shoe cabinet in the basement! And yes, there's sufficient space in there for the rest of the family too, ok.
On Sunday, before Daddyji flew off, Mummyji was warmly touched when the firstborn S, smiling very sweetly, whispered in her ears,"thank you, Mummy, for making my dream come true."
"hmmm, you'r most welcome, but what dream was that?" clueless Mummyji asked.
"the dream to live in Shaughnessy!" with a big wide grin.
Aw, how sweet...
then as she bid adieu to her beloved father, she revealed another dream.
To visit Paris before she turns 12.... which leaves us with a little over 12 months!
hmmm, better start saving now then!

Grace Kelly

http://www.completealbumlyrics.com/lyric/131207/Mika+-+Grace+Kelly.html#video

Mummyji absolutely adores this tune... it's a so-carefree-n-chases-all-morning-blues-away, so Bohemian-Rhapsody, so get-up-and-dance-around, or if in enclosed places like the car, just swing-upper-body-head-and-shoulder-and-tap-your-feet kinda song.
Even those sad separation emotions experienced last evening in SP were effectively erased after listening to Mika's happy tune on the way to TP this morning...
Mummyji is happy again! ;->

separation anxiety

mummyji is a sentimental old ninny.
Went back to Seasons Park today to retrieve our stash of cheese, butter n such, as well as a whole basket of snacks, our knives, bread board etc..
looking around in the old apartment in which we have lived a decade, where our babes spent their formative years, the babes' room where mummyji n daddyji spent many backbreaking hours decorating, the tiny dining area where we held many feasting sessions, the compact kitchen where many a meal was cooked, Mummyji couldn't resist shedding some tears.
It is exciting to go home to our new place.... Mummyji loves her new bedroom - boudoir l'amour, she's dubbed it. And the babes love their spanking new room, which is twice the size of their old one.
But still, the sadness that overcame Mummyji back at the old apartment lingered. Mummyji feels as if we've left behind a family member.
Silly it may sound, but mummyji just couldn't bear closing the door behind her just now.
There are still stuff to be transferred back to our new home and we'll also have to clean up the old apartment, spruce it up before putting it up for rental, so Mummyji'll definitely have to return to SP.
Hopefully, by the time we hand over to whoever rents our apartment, Mummyji'll have gotten over the mushy stage.
Sigh...

meandering thoughts

At dinner tonight, S asked Mummyji the meaning of "thought-provoking"...
hmmm, coincidentally enough, there've been a couple of thought-provoking quotes which have been bugging mummyji for the past week, other than thoughts of lights, water-features, mirrors, bedsheets etc.
Last week, Mummyji read an article in which the author describes how difficult it was to "love thy neighbour", and had quoted Bono, "to love thy neighbour is not a suggestion, it is a commandment." It struck Mummyji deeply as she'd been thinking of how impatient she really is with many fellow humans.
Mummyji really tried, with God as her witness, during the week to love the people around. Man, it's really tough!
If you knew Mummyji, you'll know she gets really upset with moronic drivers, especially those who hog the right lane, take their own sweet time in switching lanes after indicating for ages, then cut into the lane when Mummyji decides to overtake.... well, these were the very people Mummyji tried to love. Actually Mummyji just tried not to get angry with them, which was difficult enough. And then, there were those extremely idiotic ones who push their way into the lift even before Mummyji has a chance to move out. You would have thought there was a free buffet in there which closes in a minute... Mummyji tried to forgive them for their crude behaviour and blindness. That too, was a mighty struggle.
Then, today, Mummyji finally uncovered a couple of journals on her desk hidden beneath piles of papers and scantily browsed through them (deadline for passing them on to other colleagues almost due). In one of them was a thought-provoking quote (what else?) by George Bernard Shaw. Not exactly verbatim, but it goes something like, "to hate someone is not evil. It is indifference that is the true evil. To not care about a fellow human is truly evil"... or something to that effect.
Well.... as has been said afore, Mummyji gets really uptight and freaked by many fellow humans, so that probably constitutes caring-Mummyji cares that people do not care, and that is why she gets upset... Does that make sense?
Thought-provoking, huh?
Or are you like Z, who put it very succinctly just now, with a raised eyebrow, "Hey? Whacha mean?"
for Mummyji's answer to S's question was, "that which causes one to ponder"... which got the babes pondering...;p

And so, Mummyji'll keep reminding herself (or is it the Guardian Angel at work here?) to love her neighbour. Yes, even the fat boy next door who bangs on the electric organ late at night with his rendition of "Yellow polka dotted bikini". Not gonna miss him though, when we move!

Right now, Mummyji has another challenging thought to ponder over... destination for our june vacation!

and here's something for you to ponder over. It was taken from a window sign in the Stone Forest Hotel in Kunming, China.