Shots of the weekend

The last time I was on an airplane was to Kerala, India.

There is a sense of peace when you’re in the air looking at the sun’s rays over the clouds

We are celebrating our 3rd year wedding anniversary and Valentine’s Day in Borneo soon. Can’t wait.

In the meantime.. Here’s more love..

Christmas dinner.. We had non alchoholic sparkling champagne from yup, you guessed it, Mustafa. We didn’t bring out SLR and the Samsung did not take any forgiving pictures of the poor turkey so I shall just leave you with a glimpse of the table.

I rushed to see Zhimin and Lincoln exchange marriage vows before our cousin’s solemnization at the other end of Singapore. I’m definitely someone who doesn’t cry easily, I think I got it from my mom, but I couldn’t help tearing when they exchanged their vows. It was wonderful seeing this couple get together in medical school and the romance ad love shared between them.

We all graduated in the same year, it was nice to see all the boys after years spent working in different hospitals (can’t believe how time flies) together and in uniform.

Zhimin looked gorgeous, and the gown she designed herself was beautiful.

Quizas, you looked stunning too! And I’m a sucker for dresses with big fat bows.

Congratulations again Zhimin and Lincoln, our cousin Idris and Haza (photos coming soon..) and Elia and Ridwan. I’ve been to more weddings this weekend than the entire year! It was exciting and really fun. Now it’ll be your turn next Mel.. Thanks for the little congratulatory note and the sweet gift.

 

On a separate and equally exciting note, I’m getting the keys of our new flat on the 9th of January! We’ve been blessed with a truly good year with H’s recent promotion, my offer for traineeship, clearing both Part 1 and 2 of the exam in May and in December, the new house.. I feel incredibly lucky, 2008 would be a year I would remember and I hope that 2009 would be even better for all of us! Can’t wait for all your 2008 round up posts..Remember to link it here if you do, I’ll love to hear how your year went!

My Samsung and a reply to some comments..

A tin of “Earl White”, a gift from my mom. Its similar to Early Grey but much more potent. I think it’ll be good in bakes like Earl Grey Madelines, yum.

White tea is the uncured and unfermented tea leaf. Like green, oolong and black tea, white tea comes from the camellia sinensis plant. White tea is fast-dried, while green tea is roasted in an oven or pan (while kept moving for even curing). Oolong and black teas are fermented before curing.

Trying out our new Samsung L100, we’ve decided a DSLR is great but too big to lug aorund most of the time. The Samsung is equivalent to the weight of my handphone. This shot was taken at night with quite low light. We’re pretty happy with the performance of this camera so far, but so far its compact size is its biggest plus point.

Lots of comments have been spammed in the last week, my apologies. When I de-spammed some, they seem to have disappeared. So here is to my aunty Zu: Thanks for dropping by! I haven’t seen you for some time, hope you’ve been well. Yes, I do some editing to my photos and the ones in Kerala. I increase the colour and sometimes decrease the brightness.

Sunday was spent working then sleeping, Saturday night was great as we broke fast with my newest friend and colleague Raz. Its pretty rare to have a Malaysian Malay doctor working in Singapore, and it is sad to be away from home during Ramadan, so we had her over for a home cooked meal with the family. Of course, I was really cooking behind schedule so I recruited her help in assembling the thin crust pizzas we had. On top of the prawn and saffron cream spagetti, noodles, sweet and sour chicken, lamb stew and spring rolls. I showed her a little around our neighbourhood and I had my first caffeine fix at a nearby cafe that night after so long! Photo above taken by H with our Samsung

To Mel, I’m sorry you’re going thru a hard time, my thoughts and prayers are with you!

Pandan tea for tea

Pandan grows wild, it needs no maintainence at all. It is a hardy shrub and will multiply like crazy if given the space. Pandan is used in all sorts of Asian cooking, sweet and savoury. I love my cup of pandan tea and the fragrance just drifts throughout the house when its being made. Besides being used to flavour food, it has wonderful properties like repelling insects. Its placed in larders and kitchen cupboards. Putting a bunch in the boot of the car is a natural air freshener as the leaves dry out and release their fragrance for quite some time. I had my pandan tea with pieces of “putri salat” a 2 layered malay cake of sticky glutinous rice cooked with coconut milk with a layer of custard infused with pandan.

 Pandan Tea

Serves one 

Ingredients

200 ml boiling water

2 teaspoons sugar

1 stalk pandan leaf cut into pieces

1 English breakfast tea bag

 Method

Pour boiling water over pandan and leave to steep 2-3 mins. Microwave on high for 1 min for a stronger pandan flavour. Add tea bag and leave according to your taste of strength. Remove tea bag, stir in sugar and enjoy!

My new MOKA

I have a mild obsession with Starbucks. Yes, I am among the thousands who have helped turn Starbucks from a single café in a sleepy town in America to a multimonster billion dollar company it is now. My love for their vanilla ice latte has required me to spend tens of dollars weekly. I spent my days thinking of it, and my evenings hunting for it. I began my quest of making the latte at home by first buying the coffee grinds from Starbucks. The espresso roast is the base for most of their drinks, so that’s what I got. The store that I went to was unfortunately out of the espresso roast which comes in vacuum sealed 250g packs which they open and grind for you. The size of the grind depends on the method you use to make the espresso. I vaguely remember having a drip pot at home so they ground it for me in the coarsest size. Since they were out of the vacuum sealed bags of espresso roast, the barista used the store’s supply from their machines and put it in an ordinary paper bag, throwing in another 120g free. This is in keeping with their wonderful customer service policy that you’ll only fully understand after reading this book. Anyway, I brought the grinds home, couldn’t find my drip pot and experimented with ways to make a shot of espresso. All which failed, too hot water extracts the bitter oils in the coffee. I looked at some espresso machines online and went to Robinson’s to look at them. Finally, the cheap and easy solution.. My MOKA pot! $60 for the 3 cup size from Takashimaya. Refer to diagram below: Just fill B with the grounds, A with water, put on stove and wait about 5 mins and C will fill with freshly brewed espresso. A general rule of thumb for making the ice latte is 1/3 espresso, 1/3 milk, 1/3 ice. Add sugar to taste into the hot espresso before ading cold milk and ice. Now H and I are enjoying our daily latte fixes! Now the only problem is how to drink 320g of coffee grinds in the 3 day limit Starbucks recommends you use their coffee by after they’re ground…

 

A green milkshake

I couldn’t resist buying these huge avocadoes from Indonesia at the Geylang market. Indonesian avocados defer from the expensive Sri Lankan or Australian ones found in supermarkets. These are huge with smooth green skin, not wrinkled purplish brown skin like the others. The flesh is thick and perfect when pulped and whizzed into a milkshake. This drink is a little hard to find retailing. And its harder to find the real McCoy. Fruit stalls tend to sell this drink with commercially available avocado pulp and that doesn’t taste good at all, trust me. Anyway, this sure satisfied H’s avocado shake craving. Though temporarily I think.. He doesn’t like it with palm sugar though, I stir through 2 teaspoons of condensed milk instead.

Avocado milkshake

Makes 5 servings  

Ingredients

7 avocados, pulped 

400 ml fresh milk

100 ml Palm sugar syrup

Ice shavings

Method

Blend avocadoes with milk. Pour about 2 tablespoons palm sugar syrup into a tall glass. Pour avocado blend and top with lots of ice. Serve with long spoon.

Sunday morning hot chocolate

Hot chocolate is a lazy Sunday morning ritual for H. It’s the prelude to sometimes the only home cooked meal of the week. Its been made more special with a nifty tip from Jamie Oliver. Heating the milk till boiling, and then shaking it vigorously in a tightly capped bottle produces a lovely froth as good as any on a cappuccino without the need of expensive espresso machines. The trick is to only half fill the bottle, tightly cap it and shake it as long and as hard as you can. Its important not to fill the bottle completely or there’ll be no space for the foam to form. A mineral water bottle will do but it tends to be bent out of shape after. Keep is specially for this purpose. Hold it with a dish cloth as it gets really hot. When you uncap it, be weary of the hot steam. Its best to uncap loosely first. This is the recipe adapted from Jamie’s recipe.                                   

Hot Chocolate

Makes 1 

ingredients

2 tsp cocoa powder

2 tsp sugar

¾ mug of fresh milk 

Method

Heat milk till boiling. Microwave on high for 3 mins or in a saucepan on the stove top. Put cocoa and sugar into mug. Spoon 2 tablespoons of the hot milk into the mug and stir well. Pour the rest of the milk into a bottle, cap tightly and shake hard for 3 mins. Pour into mug and heap on the froth. Good with marshmallows on top and a sprinkling of cocoa powder.