Polka dots ..

..and Earl Grey tea

My to do list

Make jam.

 

Homemade apricot jam from Switzerland, a little gift from Aunty Faridah. Sweet with just the right touch of sour and just all round fruity. Perfect on toast with French butter which I’m still eating very very slowly. My mom came and I served her bread and butter. She was disappointed at first, but then had several slices of very good crusty baguette and this butter. Lightly toasted till the bread was crisp and the butter bubbly yellow pools with pale white centers which I think are the milk solids.

I’ve done it!

The article at least, now I’m just down to writing the conclusion and compressing it so it fits the 1200 word cut off. As a treat, here’s that cookie recipe:

World Peace cookies

Excerpted from Baking: From My House to Yours by Dorie Greenspan (Houghton Mifflin, 2006). Copyright 2006 by Dorie Greenspan.
Makes about 36 cookies

I once said I thought these cookies, the brainchild of the Parisian pastry chef Pierre Hermé, were as important a culinary breakthrough as Toll House cookies, and I’ve never thought better of the statement. These butter-rich, sandy-textured slice-and-bake cookies are members of the sablé family. But, unlike classic sablés, they are midnight dark — there’s cocoa in the dough — and packed with chunks of hand-chopped bittersweet chocolate. Perhaps most memorably, they’re salty. Not just a little salty, but remarkably and sensationally salty. It’s the salt — Pierre uses fleur de sel, a moist, off-white sea salt — that surprises, delights and makes the chocolate flavors in the cookies seem preternaturally profound.

When I included these in Paris Sweets, they were called Korova Cookies and they instantly won fans, among them my neighbor Richard Gold, who gave them their new name. Richard is convinced that a daily dose of Pierre’s cookies is all that is needed to ensure planetary peace and happiness.

• 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 stick plus 3 tablespoons (11 tablespoons) unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 2/3 cup (packed) light brown sugar
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon fleur de sel or 1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 5 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped into chips, or a generous 3/4 cup store-bought mini chocolate chips

1. Sift the flour, cocoa and baking soda together.

2. Working with a stand mixer, preferably fitted with a paddle attachment, or with a hand mixer in a large bowl, beat the butter on medium speed until soft and creamy. Add both sugars, the salt and vanilla extract and beat for 2 minutes more.

3. Turn off the mixer. Pour in the dry ingredients, drape a kitchen towel over the stand mixer to protect yourself and your kitchen from flying flour and pulse the mixer at low speed about 5 times, a second or two each time. Take a peek — if there is still a lot of flour on the surface of the dough, pulse a couple of times more; if not, remove the towel. Continuing at low speed, mix for about 30 seconds more, just until the flour disappears into the dough — for the best texture, work the dough as little as possible once the flour is added, and don’t be concerned if the dough looks a little crumbly. Toss in the chocolate pieces and mix only to incorporate.

4. Turn the dough out onto a work surface, gather it together and divide it in half. Working with one half at a time, shape the dough into logs that are 1 1/2 inches in diameter. Wrap the logs in plastic wrap and refrigerate them for at least 3 hours. (The dough can be refrigerated for up to 3 days or frozen for up to 2 months. If you’ve frozen the dough, you needn’t defrost it before baking — just slice the logs into cookies and bake the cookies 1 minute longer.)

Getting Ready to Bake:

5. Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Line two baking sheets with parchment or silicone mats.

6. Using a sharp thin knife, slice the logs into rounds that are 1/2 inch thick. (The rounds are likely to crack as you’re cutting them — don’t be concerned, just squeeze the bits back onto each cookie.) Arrange the rounds on the baking sheets, leaving about 1 inch between them.

7. Bake the cookies one sheet at a time for 12 minutes — they won’t look done, nor will they be firm, but that’s just the way they should be. Transfer the baking sheet to a cooling rack and let the cookies rest until they are only just warm, at which point you can serve them or let them reach room temperature.

I started eating these in my balcony. Then it just got waaaay too HOT, so I had to seek refuge inside.

So it continued, with my glass of Farmhouse milk. I’ve been drinking lots and trying to remember to take my calcium supplements. While the baby will never be deprived, she’ll just take the calcium from your bones, nails and teeth, my nails started to chip lately so I’ve been trying to up the calcium intake. Of course, this is a great excuse to have some cookies! What would go better with a glass of cold milk than these.

The texture of these cookies were not as described though, they were not crunchy at all. I think that has something to do with the heat Singapore has been experiencing lately. I made these twice and both times my chocolate just melted into the dough and the end result was a cookie that tasted like small brownie bites. Which isn’t a bad thing. But it was just  a  little unexpected. I’m a crunchy cookie kind of person so my quest for the ultimate double chocolate chip crunchy little cookie continues. 

 

little note:  the linen napkin was from Barang Barang. I love the red thread border.

This weekend was spent:

At the Robinson’s sale, I had a birthday shopping spree treat (you know I love you H.. with or without the spree. But it did make the birthday sweeter!). Anyway the sale is really worth waiting for, we got some really great deals including the cutlery set we were eyeing for quite some time, it was down from a thousand dollars to a mere S$160 for a set of 60. We spent some time after coming home just looking at the set. We wanted a set for so long because our cheap set from Aussino actually started to rust (??!!). I hope I haven’t poisoned anyone yet. So far we are both very much alive.

Other things were a really really soft lilac bed set, kitchen towels, mugs, really cute mini quiche ramikins, soup bowls and a set of coffee mugs. Yup, things got pretty wild as you can guess.

I bought 2 gravy boats too, yes this whole roasting thing has been on my mind.

We had roast fillet of beef with a morel mushroom sauce for a dinner we were invited to.

I was to make the croutons, the Caeser’s salad dressing and the dessert. The dessert which almost made me tear my hair out! I’m so glad my mom came to the rescue. I really really wanted to weigh out the ingredients for the recipe for these homemade croutons but I was too harrassed. I really wanted to share it with you but well, perhaps another time. I make my croutons from stashed leftover french bread in the freezer. Because H loves bread as much as I love rice, we usually have a supply and sometimes can’t finish the bread, it doesn’t taste great after a day so I store odd nibs and ends in the freezer which then comes out during the weekend to be made into crunchy croutons. We store it in an airtight container and they’re good for soups and salads. They’re simply tossed with olive oil, salt, pepper and dried herbs and then baked at 180C for 10 mins and left to cool then stored airtight so they keep their crunch. Homemade is always better, it just tastes of good olive oil.

There it is: chocolate pudding cake from Sherry Yard’s Desserts by The Yard. I’ll type the recipe soon, its really LONG..

Another salad, tomatoes waiting to be dressed.

 

Other things I did:

Played with a farm of cats, photos to come

Tried to write that roast chicken recipe, still to come (the method is too long!)

Took that Sunday nap, more tired after than before, so we skipped our Sunday swim

Watched my tummy move, much to H’s delight. He felt the first kick too!

Cleaned my kitchen, cooked some congee for breakfast for the weekdays in my thermal pot, messy kitchen photos to come

Outgrew more clothes

Welcomed June! I’ll be in a small dedicated stroke unit. Keeping my fingers crossed for more weekends..

When life hands you Sunday rounds..

You make Sunday roast..

..recipe from your favourite cookbook..

..read between cool sheets with the air conditioning on (can anyone stand the mid year heat and humidity in Singapore now??)

..Tea was homemade Valrhona cookies after a long nap with a glass of very cold milk.

 

More to come with recipes..  And photos of the mess in my kitchen after cooking a meal. I’m exhausted from all the cleaning rather than cooking!

Sunny sunny madelines

I realize that when life doesn’t meet expectations, disappointment is often the end product. I had expected two things from my new rotation, one was a lighter workload and the other was less weekends at work. When I learnt to let go of both expectations, I started to cope a lot better. I only have one day off in 3 whole weeks so will be going to work again tomorrow (it’ll be a Sunday), my only day off this month of May would be next Saturday. Then again, work is a 3 minute drive and the patient load isn’t so bad so I shouldn’t be complaining. I’ve been trying to teach my new house officer the ropes so the first week has been a bit of a struggle but I’m happy to report that he’s improving a lot so the days have become better.

I had an unexpected visitor which is really the type of visitor I like because there’s no fuss in what to cook or serve but rather I just hunt around the kitchen and try to whip something up based on whatever is around. I keep a few staples at hand and there really are a lot of possibilities. I dusted off my silicon madeline pan and pulled out my 1 kg bag of ground almonds which I’m still slowly using up (I don’t think I’ll buy another kg of almond flour in a while) and decided that madelines it would be. My madeline pan had survived the packing and the move but had unfortunately developed a hole in one of the shell shaped hollows. I suspect it was a roach from our previous home. So far no household pests in my new kitchen I really hope it stays that way! I was then down to 8 madelines per pan instead of 9 and having just one mold, it took 3 batches to bake this batch. I think I need another madeline mould and this time I’ll make sure I’ll protect it well.

A handy kitchen tool which I’ve been dying to share with you is this digital weighing scale I bought from Phoon Huat. It has a button that says “tare” meaning that whenever you press it, the scale reads zero no matter what’s on it. This makes baking really easy as everything can be measured and stirred in a bowl. First I put the bowl on the weighing scale. Lets say it weighs 200g, I then press “tare” and the scale reads zero again. I then shake in some sugar from my sugar jar till it reads 100g, I press “tare” again and it read zero. I then do the same thing to put in 50g almond flour, 90 g of cake flour and thats all the measuring I do. A teaspoon of vanilla, a teaspoon of baking powder, 3 eggs stirred in and half a 250g block of melted buter (thats 125 g melted in another bowl in the microwave) later, its a one bowl easy batter (actually two, plus the melted butter bowl to wash but I guess that’s still an ok amount to wash). Recipe here, just with a little less butter, 125g instead of 160g as I wanted to use up whatever I had without unwrapping another block.

You can stir everything with a spoon. I use these great mixing bowls from Ikea which I love as they have lids. So I rest my batter covered in the fridge when I make it in advance. I find it good for marinating meats then keeping it in the fridge as the lid is airtight so the smells of the meat and marinade don’t float thru the fridge.

The guest was my talented Quizas with an early birthday gift. Let’s play guess what’s in the box again!

 

Thanks Wen, you really made my day sunny.

thank you

I reached home just in time to catch some sun

And have a cup of tea

Earl grey

In a Narumi teacup, thanks Quizas! You know you have a really good friend when they buy you your housewarming gift a year in advance. You know I love fine bone china teacups.. You’re the best! If you’ve been reading this blog, the secret in the box that Quizas gave me is finally revealed! 2 months later.. A little late but I felt today was the right day to have tea in my new cups. The set also came with a beautiful cake plate and flat serving spoon.

And isn’t old wood so much better than new wood?

the slow conversion of the man room..

..and the resistance that ensued.. (see the stack of man clothes on my scanteak bookshelf) Its made of old recycled teak from old furniture. Some pieces still have nails embedded in them, of course smoothened and sanded down when this piece was made. I’ll wait for some daylight and take a photo for you one day, the wood is full of character.

 

I thought rather than a shock and conquer approach to converting the man room to a girly study room, I would slowly add in pieces of furniture and the hundreds of books I own in stages.  So I started with this bookshelf which I’ve put lying on its side on the bay window. Its a great space saver as it makes use of the bay window which was a space that was not used. The shelf has see thru holes too so when the blinds come up, light still comes in thru the spaces of the book shelf. Soon to come would be my “study desk” also from Scanteak who has promised to deliver soon.

 

Time really flies.. Its Friday and she’s 21 weeks. This week I managed to sleep without needing to get up to pee during the night as the uterus grows into the abdomen and lifts the pressure off the bladder in the pelvis. The indigestion got slightly worse as the stomach is pressed a little bit more. The kicks are getting stronger and is felt when I’m absolutely still. Otherwise walking and activity during the day lulls her to sleep. Its nice to feel kicks when you’re most relaxed, eating, lying down, watching tv, blogging, doing nothing. Its a welcome distraction during a boring lecture too, it makes me feel like nesting, cooking, housework, cleaning, laundry, staying home..

 

What I plan to do this weekend: some baking.. perhaps a pizza.. Test run thermal pot part 2, part one was successful but I rather learn it better before sharing it with you. The Japanese are so smart don’t you think? Its such an AMAZING device. I feel like making a quiche with a beautiful stoneware quiche dish I received (thanks Razlyn!). Plan to take a walk in a park and perhaps some pscafe, I miss the trees.

 

Eat words #2: I decided to opt out of ICU(the intensive care unit). I stayed a day behind an N95 mask, touched some ventilators, looked into the eyes of a patient, looked down at my tummy and thought what was I thinking.. There’s always a better time.

Sunday came..

..and Sunday went.

Clockwise from top: homemade cantucci (though mine didn’t look as pretty as Linda’s, somehow they were not as “holey” as hers but still delicious and I was happy the recipe had no butter! I think I didn’t read the recipe properly and did not knead thoroughly. I’m always afraid of overworking biscuit doughs), hot vanilla latte for him and ice vanilla latte for me! Finally pulled out my stovetop espresso and used the vanilla syrup from the Blogging by Mail event. Since I’m over the first trimester, I’ve pounced back on the caffeine with a vengeance. Well, just about 2 espresso shots a week. Which I think is fair. Right..

 

I really really miss “on my table” shots. I watched an episode of Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations which was on Greece and they had a series of gorgeous table shots throughout the show. What I like best about the shots is it involves no food styling, its really what’s on the table. Anyway I got my cork flower coasters from Mustafa for a few cents each. I’ve not been there for ages. And aren’t you shocked Mustafa has an ONLINE store?? And who decided to call it “Mustafa Online” is a genius. What creativity.

 

This week I’ll be stuck at home writing a thousand plus word article for a magazine, did I ever tell you that whenever I volunteer for something I always feel some regret whenever I actually have to work to get it done. Things always sound like such a GOOD idea initially. Now, its like hmm.. a thousand words.. on healthcare and burgeoning costs.. I really really just feel like blogging. And sleeping early. After a good rub of tummy butter. (Now you know what I’m doing when I don’t reply to sms, my phone always seems off..) At least when I blog, I know someone is reading.. erm. Right..?

My weekend plans

My weekend plans involve trying out my new thermal pot (thanks Husaini!!), I have a couple of cuts of beef and I’m contemplating between a stew, a braised soy sauce dish, a curry or just a simple soup. The base for all these dishes are the same, some ginger and garlic. The rest depends on the seasoning, tomato paste for the stew, soy for the soy beef, curry powder for the curry and just lots of water for the soup. The other things I’ll throw in which will work with all the dishes would be a couple of carrots, potatoes and onions.

 

The other plan would be to get some exercise.. Probably some swimming to aid in my natural birth plans. For all my friends whom I have neglected totally these last few months, I’m 20 weeks now and its going to be a girl! Some activity would be good to keep my weight in check, I have gained more than expected so its really time to get active. I reflected on my weight gain and I think several factors contributed to this. My obs kept on asking what I was eating, but I think its because our lifestyles have changed slightly since we moved to our new apartment. We used to take almost daily walks in the lovely neighbourhood we used to live in. Since moving to the apartment, I just don’t know where to walk. Around the flats? I’m also a little bogged down by housework and by the time the cooking and the dishes are done after work, I need to put my feet up. Well, apparently housework isn’t really working the calories off for me. We’ve also been pretty much stay at home squirrels, nesting and hoarding food in the fridge when grocery shopping so we don’t have to go out and deal with the crowds! My fridge and freezer is stuffed! Erm, and I’ve also discovered french butter recently. Don’t mind paying 2.5 times the price for your block of butter? I think its worth it! Well, I guess my waist and coronaries may be complaining.

 

I think the other reason is Milo. Sometimes my appetite is really poor while working and I feel almost faint from the lack of food so I drink Milo. Pretty often. This stuff must be packed with calories. If you’re not familiar with Milo or are dying to find out the history behind that drink you’ve been drinking since you’re a child, go here. A Polish colleage once asked me if Milo was the national drink. I’m not sure but he felt Singaporeans were just drinking Milo wherever he turned, well in the hospital wards at least..

 

Another quick update would be that I’ve moved hospitals! After 2 long years in the General Hospital where so many hours of my life was spent. I’m in a smaller more intimate hospital now, about 5 minutes from my new place. Its a huge change in a way, the people, the computer system, the way things run.. I’m still finding my feet. But I think I’ll be happy. I was a little apprehensive at first as the small hospital was were I spent my first few months as a new doctor. Part of me felt like that person was still around, feeling unsure, insecure and being WATCHED by older more experienced eyes, quick to point out a mistake. I can’t believe so much time has passed. I’ve rotated thru haematology, internal medicine, renal and of course the unforgettable Blood Bank so I guess erm, I did learn a few things along the way. (well guess I hope I did). I’ll be starting my ICU rotation next month before, erm I get too huge to set lines and pump CPR I suppose. It’ll be a little scary and exciting in a way. I’m getting quite “old”, its been 3 years since I graduated and a couple of my friends have turned registrar so I guess its time to get things moving. I hope with this change too, I can start replying to emails, sms, comments on this blog.. All the things that have remained neglected for some time.. Perhaps some cooking, recipes and food blogging would be good too..

 

Can’t wait for the weekend!

 

Vanilla Sky

I commented to H that some parts of the sky if it were a watercolour painting would be painted using a dry brush technique. See the horizontal strokes at the middle top. The lower part would definitely be wet on wet with a graduation of colours. Sometimes I think of all the things I miss and did, painting, scrapping, making homemade and handmade gifts. When I made Mel a card in the car (don’t ask) I thought of where all the time went and how we have such little time for little pleasures.

If there’s one thing I really appreciate and use, it would be my oven toaster. I use it all the time, for toast, to heat up cake or pastry and lately to toast small quantities of nuts when I feel like some.

This is a teensy cup, though the perspective makes it look large.

The spoon is a small teaspoon, I think indulgence should be in small quantities, don’t you think so?

I think Ben&Jerry’s vanilla ice cream with vanilla beans is really yummy. The other ice cream which I’ve been hunting for is Haagen Daaz melon ice cream. Its orange and tastes of pure cantaloupe.