More than words

Came across this very interesting article about the power of words from the Feb issue of Reader's Digest. Luckily the list is not too long, therefore, I can put it up here for you. :)

- Aegilops - the longest word with letters in alphabetical order
- Queuing - the longest word with 180-degree symmetry
- Stressed and Desserts - the longest words that can be reversed
- Esophagographers - the longest word in which all letters appear twice
- Strengths - the longest word that has only one vowel
- Stewardess - the longest word that can be typed with the left hand
- Dermatoglyphics - the longest word without repeating a letter
- Latchstring - longest run of consonants
- Screeched - longest one-syllable word
- Honorificabilitudinitatibus - the longest word to alternate consonants and vowels

Picture of the day

Just to share this picture I found from a website. I really like it. :)


Source : Etsy

Spoiler!

Somehow, days don't go by "normally" if THAT woman didn't do or say something stupid or insensitive. Her voice was loud enough for all the 9 people in the office to hear...

She : "Are you expecting?"
Me (a bit sheepish and lowering my voice) : "No."
She : (giving her trademark irritating laugh) "Oh... haha. I thought you were. Looks a bit like it." *and she went on to touch my tummy like she was my mummy!*
Me : (trying not to slap her while pretending to laugh with her) "No la... I just got fatter..."
She : (still laughing that witchery laugh) "No la, no la. Must be those tangerines that you've eaten these days. Must have at least 30 of them inside."
Me : (still trying to hold onto my temper) "Hur hur... must be."

And I left the office without looking back. (and feeling fat!)

新年快乐

祝 大家

身体健康

心想事成

恭喜发财

Salt and Pepper Chicken

The weekend marked the first time trying my hand at deep-frying. Ok, I think it didn't really amount to a really "deep" frying, but it was enough to bring out a slightly disgruntled "why are you deep-frying?" from the husband, and had the smell of fried chicken in my hair for the rest of the night even after a long wash.

Despite me carrying the fried chicken odour around for the rest of the evening, I was really glad that the chicken strips actually turned out to be quite tasty. The difference between this and my previous attempt of baking the chicken strips is that the fried chicken still remained tender and soft compared to the oven-baked one. I might try this again, maybe with just normal shallow frying and see how it turns out.

Salt and Pepper Chicken
(adapted from Quick and Easy Workday Dinners)

4 servings

Ingredients :

- 1/3 cup (40g) plain flour
- 3/4 teaspoon five-spice powder
- 1 1/2 teaspoons fine sea salt
- 1 teaspoon ground white pepper
- 750g chicken breast fillets, cut into thin strips
- 1/4 cup (60 ml) peanut oil

Directions :

1) Combine the flour, five-spice powder, sea salt and pepper in a large bowl. Toss the chicken strips in the flour until well coated.

2) Heat the oil in a large frying pan over medium-high heat. Add the chicken in 3 batches and cook, turning, for about 3 minutes, or until browned. Drain on crumpled paper towels.

Aromatic Noodles with Seared Salmon

I've decided to give myself a treat by getting 5 tiger prawns for $2 to cook with the noodles, when in fact, the actual recipe suggests salmon. But as I was having brunch alone over the weekend, it was more practical to get prawns rather than a whole piece of salmon which I could never finish alone. I think it doesn't matter what kind of seafood you use. The main point is the noodles.

It might seemed a lot of ingredients just to fry the noodles, but it sure turned out good. I really like the distinct taste of ginger that comes along with every bite. However, I omitted the fish sauce as I didn't think it wise to buy one whole bottle just for this dish. So, I'm not sure whether there would be much difference with it or not. And I didn't buy soba noodles as suggested, but used my leftover noodles from a previous dish.

Aromatic Noodles with Seared Salmon

(adapted from Marie Claire : Easy by Michele Cranston)

4 servings

Ingredients :

- 7 ounces soba noodles

- 2 tablespoons olive oil

- four 6-ounce salmon fillets

- 1 teaspoon sesame oil

- 2 garlic cloves, crushed

- 1 tablespoon finely grated fresh ginger

- 2 large red chillies, seeded and finely chopped

- 4 scallions (spring onions), finely sliced

- 1 teaspoon lime juice

- 1 tablespoon soy sauce

- 1 teaspoon fish sauce

- 1 bunch garlic chives (about 1 ounce), snipped into 3/4-inch lengths

Directions :

1) Bring a large pot of water to boil and cook the noodles until they are al dente. Drain and rinse under cold water and set aside.

2) Heat a large frying pan or wok over high heat and add half the olive oil. When the oil is hot, add the salmon, skin side down, and cook for 1 minute. Turn over and cook for an additional 2 minutes before removing from the pan.

3) Drain the oil from the pan and return it to the heat. Add the sesame oil and the rest of the olive oil. Add the ginger, garlic, chillies, scallions, lime juice, soy sauce, and fish sauce. Stir-fry for 1 minute.

4) Add the noodles, tossing until they are nicely coated. Remove from the heat. Add the chives. Toss again. Divide the noodles between four bowls and top with the salmon.

Getting fidgety

I'm not sure whether it's the relief of getting rid of year 2008, or that year 2009 has gotten a quick "bite" at me. I suddenly feel the need to get moving. There is this button in me that is just slightly out of reach, waiting to be pushed. And I'm pretty sure that once the deed is done, I'm soooo going to move, run, jump, roll... whatever.

You know what I mean.

Goodbye 2008

To be honest, I'm not sorry at all that the year 2008 is coming to an end. If I were to think back over the past 365 days, besides what had happened around the world, natural or man-causing disasters, I can almost be sure that there were more unhappy stuff compared to happy ones, at least that is what I can say for myself.

I realised more than ever how true the statement "never judge a book by its cover" is. People can act nice and friendly in front of you, then when your back is turned, they will stab you from behind, and you never realised that you are dying of blood loss until it's too late. I thought I should have gotten used to such office politics by now, but then when it happened, I couldn't stop thinking about it. What is worse is not trying to find out who those bastards are, but realising that I have started to look at almost everyone with suspicions. WTH??!!

Too much had happened within just this one month, and I understand more than ever that life is never predictable. And whatever planned-ahead stuff usually never work out as how you expected. It's not me not being flexible, but the curveball that was thrown to me was sooooo curved that I couldn't even make out the path that it was travelling on, much less its destination.

But whatever it is, one thing I'm really glad that will not change is the love from family and friends. Thanks a lot, people.

So, goodbye 2008... I don't think I'll miss you much.

To the cinema : Bolt

I quite like how the way this movie starts - with an ordinary dog thinking that he has extraordinary powers, but in fact, was all just due to the magic of television.


Then the story took a turn when Bolt got accidentally shipped off, far away from the fantasy Hollywood world that he is living in, and also away from his "person", Penny, whom he loves a lot.


So, as expected, Bolt was anxious to get back to Penny, and along the journey home, met some interesting characters - an abandoned but sarcastic cat, Mittens, and a TV-addict fat hamster, Rhino, which moves around in a ball.


It was also along this journey back to Penny that Bolt realised he was just an ordinary dog, and slowly came to terms with it with the help of Mittens and Rhino.



The quirky personalities of each character was funny and in fact, quite real. You will suddenly find yourself thinking someone around you behaves just like one of them. And the humour not only appeals to the kids, but to adults as well.

Shrimp Wontons

Recently bought a cookbook on offer from Popular bookstore. It was going at $9.90 for members, compared to the original price of $19.90. As I was reading through it, I was happy to see that most of the ingredients for the dishes can be bought quite easily. I started off with the shrimp wontons recipe, as I have been wanting to make wontons for some time.

Looking at my first attempt at making wontons all by myself, I am glad to say that they didn't turn out too bad. Though wrapping 26 wontons is quite tiring, it was quite an enjoyable process, except maybe for the slight crick on my shoulder after that. Heh.

I was planning to have the wonton with noodles and some vegetables. But seeing the amount that I had come up with, I decided to forgo the noodles and just have 13 wontons each with vegetables. Haha. And maybe because I haven't been cooking for some time, I decided to make the chicken stock (recipe below) myself too, instead of buying a can off the shelf.

Anyway, like I mentioned, I managed to come up with 26 wontons with only half of the stated amount of ingredients (I used 14 medium-sized shrimps) from the recipe. I'm not sure if the author uses bigger pieces of wrappers, or uses smaller shrimps. Just make sure that there are enough wrappers at hand if following the actual amount in the recipe.

Steamed Shrimp Wontons

24 servings

Ingredients :

- 2 egg whites

- 1 cup ground shrimp meat

- 1/2 teaspoon sea salt

- 1/4 teaspoon Chinese five-spice

- 1/2 cup finely sliced scallions (spring onions)

- 1 teaspoon finely grated fresh ginger

- 24 square wonton wrappers

Directions :

1) Lightly whisk the egg whites in a large bowl. Add the ground shrimp meat, sea salt, five-spice powder, scallions, and ginger. Stir to combine.

2) Put a heaping teaspoon of the filling mixture into the centre of the wonton wrapper and then seal the edges by moistening them with water, then bring the four corners together.

3) Put the wontons into a bamboo steamer basket lined with oiled waxed paper. Set the basket over a large saucepan of boiling water and steam for 10-12 minutes.

Note : Instead of steaming, I cook my wontons by dropping about 10 at a time into a pot of boiling chicken stock. Cook them for about 3-4 minutes, or until they float to the surface and you can see the pink of the shrimp. Then add in the vegetables, and let the stock reach a slow boil and it's done!