Sweet 16

The youngest of the family is turning 16 tomorrow. Yes, our dear YongQi, a 16-year-old teenage boy, just done with his 'O' Levels, started on his very first holiday job, and ready to take on the world. Haha.

He was this tiny, adorable boy one moment, and after a few months without meeting up, he was suddenly a tanned, taller-than-me teenage boy, looking all cool and "you-think-I-care" attitude, and a brooding look on his face most of the time. You know, the typical teenager look these days.

Well, seems like everyone is growing up fast these days. Or maybe it's just me that is getting old faster. Hmmm.

Ginger Salmon

Haven't been cooking for a while now. Can't remember when was the last post showing off my cooking. Heh.

Anyway, cooked a simple dish tonight - Ginger Salmon... together with a packet of instant pasta.

Well, the salmon turned out well, except that I think I used too much honey, so in the end, the honeyed sauce that flowed off the salmon onto the baking tray got burnt quite easily. But all in all, quite a difference from the heavily-flavoured salmon that I used to make. For this dish, you can actually taste the flavours of the salmon and the honey-mustard quite distinctively.

This is a very easy dish to make, and all the ingredients are simple and most likely already readily available at home. However, I can't be quite sure what would be good to go with this... certainly not the chives and sour cream pasta I did tonight.

Ginger Salmon (from : allrecipes)

4 servings

Ingredients:
- 2 teaspoons olive oil
- 1 tablespoon honey
- 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
- 2 teaspoons grated fresh ginger
- 1 pound salmon fillets

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).

2. In a small bowl, blend olive oil, honey, Dijon mustard and ginger

3. Brush salmon fillets evenly with the olive oil mixture. Place in a medium baking dish. Bake 15 to 20 minutes in the preheated oven, until the fish flakes easily with a fork.

Auntie tips (5)

Tip 1:
Do not throw away toothpaste after you've finished with it. Cut the tube in half, squeeze out the remnants and use it to clean the switch, the surfaces of the rice cooker and thermal flask. Then wipe with a wet cloth - the items look brand new again. It also cleans away the stickiness on the surface of these items.

Tip 2:
To peel potatoes, put them in a pot of water and boil vigorously. Then remove spuds and quickly soak them in a bowl of ice water for ten seconds. Drain. You should be able to pull the skins off easily.

From : Simply Her - July 2006

Happy marriage to Yun & Zhihao

Dearest sister of mine is finally married. It's a completely different feeling when you see your own sister getting married, compared to those of close friends. Can't really explain the feeling... it's like seeing a little girl getting married, though she's anything but little anymore. But I guess as the eldest, I will always think that my little sisters are still little in some ways, and then suddenly, she is married... someone else's wife, someone else's daughter-in-law. And with all these, she's a grown-up entering another new chapter in her life.

I was just chatting over MSN with auntie Koh that day about feeling weird seeing Yun married. Then auntie Koh mentioned that the real weird feeling will come when the piglet gets married. Wow. Imagine that.

Anyway, I have to say that I'm really glad that she has found someone who she loves and can spend the rest of her life with. Although this new brother-in-law of mine can be a little blur sometimes, I know that he will take good care of her.

P.S: At least now there'll be another one getting nagged at to start the reproduction factory going other than me... heh...

Nasi Ayam Penyet

Happened to see Makansutra recommending this "flat chicken rice" stall at Changi Village and decided to give it a try last night, since the husband and I were meeting some friends there.

As expected, there was a queue in front of the stall since you have to self-serve. Luckily we did not have to wait long. Within 10 minutes, we were ready to eat. Guess I was too hungry then to remember to take photo until we were halfway through and the husband reminded me. By then, my fried chicken thigh had already gone through my merciless attack and was unfit for any photography.

But being the kind-hearted soul as I am (ah-hem!), I went through a few local food websites to get the picture to show here.

The chicken comes separate from the rice on a traditional-looking wooden plate, with some vegetables at the side and a heap of extremely potent sambal, yes, with all the tiny little chilli seeds included.

The rice was cooked just right to how I like it, topped with my favourite fried shallots. The chicken had a hint of spice, and according to this article, the stall uses Indonesian spices to cook the chicken, as this dish originated from Indonesia. The taste of the spice seemed to permeate throughout the whole chicken thigh, from the crispy outside, to the tender meat inside.

One thing I like about this is that the portion is just right. There was not too much rice to make you feel too full, and the chicken was fried with the right amount of oil, not too much to make you feel queasy halfway through the meal.

To be honest, this is only my third or fourth time eating Malay chicken rice so I had nothing much to compare it with, since I cannot remember how many donkey years ago did I last had one.

I have to admit that beneath all this hoo-ha, it is just another chicken rice stall. But sometimes, seeing normal everyday hawker food being presented in another way, can make the eating somewhat more enjoyable.

Auntie tips (4)

Tip 1:
Add one cap of fabric softener to 15 caps of water. Dip a rag into the mixture and give your household items a wipe - this keeps dust away longer than if you just use water.

Tip 2:
Has your favourite nail lacquer dried up? Mix two drops of nail polish remover with the nail lacquer and gently swirl the bottle between your palms.

Tip 3:
To clean hard-to-reach interiors of bottles, fill with water and crushed eggshells (or rice grains). Shake the bottle well and rinse.

From : Simply Her - June 2006

To the cinema : Stardust

It's been some time since I last watched or read any fairytales. If not for the free tickets from Chris, I don't think I would ever pay to watch this movie.

Anyway, as far as fairytales go, 'Stardust' basically fulfill all the compulsory fairytale-need-to-haves:

1. The Hero(almost there)
- Not really my type of Prince Charming. Well, he did looked a little better after the magical haircut to change his really dumb-looking hairstyle (thank goodness!), but he's still not good-looking and sauve enough for me. But it was good enough that he didn't have to go around being a hero with that stupid nerdy hairstyle.

2. Damsel-in-distress ("in danger" in this case)
- Claire Danes! *whistles whistles*

3. Bad guy number 1 - Wicked witch
- She has got to be my favourite character of the movie! Michelle Pfeiffer played the wicked witch really well. The evil look on the face, in the eyes, and the way she casts the spells... sounds like the real thing!

4. Bad guy number 2 - Septimus

5. Ghosts (must have!)

6. A beautiful girl that all guys loved, who, in the end, turned out to be a real bimbo

7. The him-bo who will always be the cool one, the one who is a real male chauvinist, but turns out to be the real loser in the end

And last but not least,

8. Romance... *sigh* + happily-ever-after (er... not too sure about that)

All in all, a not-too-bad show. Maybe age has made me more of a skeptic for this type of show, but I did have a few good laughs. My favourite scene is the one where Tristan was in the stable and asked what was the name of the "girl" who sent him the drink... and a very manly sounding "Bernard" came out from the "girl". Wahahaha.

Oh, one last thing. Did anyone, besides me, feels that the guy who acted as young Dunstan Thorn (Tristan's father) is much much better looking than Tristan himself?

Charlie Cox as Tristan

--> hmmm... ok la.

Ben Barnes as young Dunstan Thorn

--> Oh My Goodness!!!! *faints*