The Kop Comes to Asia (26th July 2009)

Thanks to Sam for giving me the ticket, and to Sam's kind friend who bought the tickets as his birthday present. :)

Spaghetti with Parmesan and tomatoes

As the recipe looks simple and fast enough, I decided to try it out one evening for a one-person dinner. There was no need to make any trip to the supermarket as I had everything on hand, including the cherry tomatoes I had left from the garlic toast previously. I was quite surprised that, despite it looking quite plain from the photo, the dish was tasty. As for the pecorino romano cheese mentioned in the original recipe, I did some research for a substitute and, what did you know, grated parmesan was the chosen one.

Spaghetti with Parmesan and tomatoes (Original recipe from here)

4 servings

- 1 (14.5 ounce) package multi-grain pasta
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper
- 3 cups halved cherry tomatoes
- 1/2 cup finely grated parmesan cheese, plus more for garnish
- salt

Directions :

1) Bring 4 quarts of water to a boil. Cook according to package directions. Strain pasta but reserve 1/2 cup of the water.

2) Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat, add pepper. Cook 1 minute. Add tomatoes cook 30 seconds.

3) Pour reserved pasta water into the skillet. Return pasta to the skillet, sprinkle with 1/2 cup parmesan cheese. Toss continually until cheese melts. Add salt if desired. Cook 3 minutes, the water should absorb. Sprinkle with a little more cheese and serve.

Note : I didn't add any salt to this dish as I know the cheese will be salty enough for me.

To the cinema : Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

Is it just me, or what? It seems like the movie blockbusters of late were quite disappointing. First was Transformers 2, now is the Half Blood Prince. I got to admit that I felt Ice Age 3 was slightly better than these two, even though it was a little non-sensical (ice age together with the dinosaur age?!), it was still quite funny and enjoyable.

I got to admit that I missed the Order of Phoenix (which I didn't know if there's any continuation from that movie to this), and I didn't read any single book of Harry Potter. But I did enjoy the first 4 Harry Potter movies, and my favourites are The Chamber of Secrets and The Goblet of Fire. Compared to those two, Half Blood Prince seemed to have lost all the magic, suspense and thrill. Oh, and did someone forget to pay the electricity bill for the movie? Coz it was all so dark and gloomy most of the time, that I guessed that was why the boy sitting behind me found it more interesting to kick at the back of my seat rather than to watch the movie.

But there was a first for me when watching this movie. I kept turning to the husband and asked for the time. When I realised that there was about 30 mins left, I thought there might at least be a climatic ending to make up for the almost boring previous 2 hours. But there was nothing! It was not until Professor Snape came up to Harry Potter and said in his usual monotonous voice, "Yes, I'm the half blood prince.", that I realised that I already didn't care who was the half blood prince anymore.

The focus also seemed to be lost, or rather divided between the budding romance among the teenagers and the problem with the bad guy. I do appreciate a little romance in a movie, but somehow in this case, I felt that it was a little too much that it bordered on irritating. Or maybe it was written like that in the storybook? Only the Harry Potter faithful reader at home can tell me. I guess for the next few movies, I would have to depend on her reviews to see if they were worth the $10 ticket price.

Tomato Garlic Cheese Bread

For this quick breakfast, I didn't really follow any recipe. I took a bit from different recipes here and there to come up with this. Actually, the tomatoes should be the big ones, instead of cherry tomatoes. However, the tomatoes at the NTUC at my place were all green and unripe, so I had to make do with cherry tomatoes. And for the bread, I bought the Gardenia Multigrain Country loaf for a change instead of a baguette. The multigrain loaf might not turn out to be as hard as a baguette after toasting, but I really like the final taste of the whole thing.

Tomato Garlic Cheese Bread

serves about 6 slices

Ingredients :

- 1 tablespoon of garlic and herb spread
- 1 teaspoon of mayo
- a handful of cherry tomatoes, cut into cubes
- bread
- shredded mozzarella cheese (amount depends on how cheesy you like your bread to be)

Directions :

1) Preheat the oven. (I did it at 100 deg Celsius)

2) Mix the garlic and herb spread together with the mayo, and spread it onto the bread.

3) Scatter the tomatoes onto the spread, and then cover it with mozzarella.

4) Lay a sheet of aluminium foil on a baking tray and place the bread on it to toast. (There is no specific time for this, but I took the bread out once the cheese melts.)

Strawberry Sorbet

I've been wanting to try making strawberry sorbet ever since I stumbled upon it on My Kitchen Snippets, a blog I read regularly. But it's not easy to find cheap and good strawberries in Singapore. So, when I saw the US strawberries on offer in NTUC, I made a grab for 5 boxes immediately.

I must say the sorbet turned out good (at least for my own standard), and not too sweet. As I didn't have an ice-cream maker at home, I had to follow the instructions to stir every hour to get rid of the ice at the sides for 6 hours before freezing it completely. I found that this method, though abit tiring, worked quite well for the final texture of the sorbet, as compared to the Cantaloupe Sorbet.

Strawberry Sorbet (recipe from here)

Ingredients :

- 1 cup water

- 1 cup sugar

- 3 pounds of strawberry

- 1/3 cup fresh lemon juice

- 1/3 cup fresh orange juice

Directions :

1) Put water and sugar in heavy saucepan over high heat until sugar dissolves. Boil 5 minutes. Leave it to cool.

2) Puree strawberries in food processor until smooth. Add strawberry puree , orange and lemon juices to cool sugar syrup; stir to blend. Cover and refrigerate until cold, about 2 hours.

3) If you are making the sorbet in ice-cream maker process strawberry mixture in ice cream maker according to manufacturer's instructions or place mixture in shallow container and freeze, stirring every hour until set, about 6 hours.

Chicken Meatballs with Spaghetti

Since I had some unexpected off days this past week, I decided to try something new instead of the usual spaghetti with sausages and ham. And so, here are my chicken meatballs draining on a kitchen towel...


Chicken meatballs may not sound as tasty as beef or pork meatballs to some, but this is really quite good though abit dry as expected. I don't really know how to cook beef, and there is this really 'piggish' kind of taste in the packaged pork selling in supermarkets, so I always go for chicken.

However, I felt that meatballs are not that easy to be pan-fried. So the next time I try this again, they will be in patties, not balls.

Chicken Meatballs For Spaghetti (from : Recipezaar)

4 servings

Ingredients

- 1 lb ground chicken
- 1 egg
- 1/2 cup parmesan cheese
- 1/2 cup breadcrumbs
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 2 teaspoons fresh oregano (or the equivalent dried)
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 2 tablespoons olive oil

Directions

1) Place ground chicken,egg,1/2 cup Parmesan,bread crumbs, garlic,oregano and 1/2 tsp salt in a medium bowl.

2) Knead mixture together with hand till evenly combined.

3) Form mixture into 1-inch balls.

4) In large non-stick skillet,warm olive oil over high heat.

5) Place meatballs in pan,up to 8 at a time,and cook until all sides are browned,approximately 8 minutes for each meatball.

6) Remove with slotted spoon,and add to your favorite spaghetti sauce.

To the cinema : Transformers : Revenge of the Fallen

After nearly 2.5 hours of blurry transformations of machines, confusing and long fight scenes, and the actors shouting at one another most of the time, I got to say that Transformers 2 is disappointing. Ok, the entertainment level is there, but the storyline is plain old school and expected.

And apparently, seems like everyone, except for Mikaela, in the movie has something to do to try to save the Earth from the aliens, even for Sam's room mate, Leo, who obviously is introduced just to bring in humour to the movie, brought them to the RoboWarrior.

So, what, exactly is Megan Fox's role in this movie? Other than being shown as Sam's girlfriend and a sexy mechanic, and waiting for Sam to say "I love you"? No offense to those oh-i-think-Megan-Fox-is-damn-hot fans out there, but she has absolutely nothing to do in this movie. Ok, maybe to attract more male movie-goers who are not Transformers fans to boost the box office sales, other than that, her role is completely unnecessary compared to Transformers 1. And surprise! There is a Transformers 3, presumably coming out in 2011, and I wonder what will she do in there?

And then there is the contradictory part at the start when the chaos started in Shanghai. I thought the army guy said that the civilians are evacuated, then how come there is the old man still happily eating his dinner when the bad and mean machine tore through the house?

Also, those unnecessary scenes, like the one where Sam's mother innocently took too many drug-laced cookies and became high and ran crazy around his campus; the one where the twin cars fought and Bumblebee accidentally hit the wall when we all know that the key is behind that wall; and the battle scene at the dessert while waiting for Sam and Mikaela to run to save Optimus Prime. It was a longest, noisiest, messiest and most boring scene. And, the part where Optimus destroyed the Sun Harvester and the Fallen, it was so anti-climatic!!!!!!

Sorry, dear... if there really was a Transformer 3 coming out, maybe look for someone else to watch it with you? I can patiently wait for the DVD to be out and save on the movie tickets to buy tidbits to go with the DVD.

Aaron Kwok De Show Reel Live In Concert 2009

Please do not comment on why there is a Superman

underwear stuck upside down onto his chest.

I wonder about that too.

I know, I know. This is a super overdue post. Was actually thinking whether or not to even post about the concert at all, coz I could hear Mama's voice at the back of my mind : "So old already still crazy over Aaron Kwok?" Then I recalled all those uncles and aunties, and one old grandma among the crowd at the concert, I realised that there was a high possibility that 20 years down the road, if the 60 plus year-old Aaron Kwok can still perform, I'll still continue to support his concerts. Haha. And also recalling Spyder's enthusiasm at the concert, and now, as I'm typing this entry, he's watching the DVD of the concert for the 3rd (or 4th?) time since we bought it about 1 and a half weeks ago, I would be letting him down if I didn't record our experience at the concert.

But come to think of it, as with most Aaron Kwok's concerts, you have to be there to feel and experience it. It was not something to be put into words easily. One thing for sure, his dancing and entertaining abilities were still exceptional, though I cannot say the same for his singing. There were some songs whereby I could hear the key has been changed to accomodate him. Maybe age is catching up... can't sing and dance at the same time for too long. However, this time round, he spoke more in Mandarin (though still not good at it) than Cantonese compared to his past concerts, much to the delight of the Singapore audience and Spyder.

Actually, with my lazy personality, if something didn't appear here after I've done it for about 2 weeks or so, then I didn't plan to post it up at all. But why this now? Because the stage he used this time has claimed the Guiness world record, and I can also irritate those anti Aaron Kwok readers. Heh.

Of all his concerts (only one previous was recorded here) I went to, our tickets (S$188) this time brought us closest to the stage.

And yes, for this concert, photography and videography were allowed, as long as professional equipments were not used. The above miserable picture was taken by my acclaimed 5-megapixel camera phone. I gave up after a few tries since I know there will be many people who will be uploading their photos and videos onto the Internet.

Like this very kind soul who has put together the photos of the concert onto Youtube. Don't you just luuuuurve the Internet and Youtube???!!!

Unfriendly forces?

For the past 2 months, we have been contemplating whether to install a CCTV outside our door. It started when we arrived home one evening, to find the leaves of our plants plucked to clean some dog poo and were left lying outside our door.

Then it was followed by the disappearance of our Ikea $6.90 wooden shoe rack. Most likely it was much newer looking than the rest of our worn slippers.

A few weeks later, a pair of less than $10, pasar-malam bought slippers (belonging to Spyder) also mysteriously disappeared. I could practically see steam coming out of his ears. Yes, he was damn freaking frustrated.

Then came the latest...

Somebody apparently, and purposely broke the stems of our plants. When I saw Spyder's face, I seriously thought he was going to steam at his ears and roar the whole block down at the same time. But it was really super duper frustrating that such things are happening. Spyder wondered if it was specifically targetted at us. But I thought it might be a random act since we stayed on the 7th storey, and kids can always run up and down the stairs to make mischief. Oh, and don't even get me started on the kids playing around this area.

Where has the neighbourly love gone??!

Life, it's ever so strange

It's so full of change

Think that you've worked it out then BANG

Right out of the blue

Something happens to you

To throw you off course

and then you

Breakdown

Yeah you breakdown

Well don't you breakdown

Listen to me

Because

It's just a ride, it's just a ride

no need to run, no need to hide

It'll take you round and round

Sometimes you're up

sometimes you're down

It's just a ride, it's just a ride

don't be scared

don't hide your eyes

It may feel so real inside

but don't forget it's just a ride

Truth, we don't wanna hear

It's too much to take

Don't like to feel out of control

So we make our plans

Ten times a day

And when they don't go our way we

Breakdown...

- Just A Ride, Jem