We had friends (my co-workers) over for a super late lunch (3 pm) yesterday. It’s been a while since I had friends over! It was a fun afternoon. Must. Do. Again.

Pre-lunch: The guys preparing the steamboat stuffs

Lunch included steamboat, homemade chicken pie, salad and snackies. For my usual salad, I threw together some two types of lettuces, rocket leaves, cherry tomatoes, mint leaves, mixed nuts & raisins, balsamic vinegar, salt and olive oil … Alas, I totally forgot to add in the cucumber, apples and carrots!  Duuhhh… No wonder the whole time I was eating my salad, I felt like something was missing! O.o

[Edit - I've posted the Chicken Pie recipe on Ti Pomme D'amour]

I and the hub finished one of the crisp white wine bottles after the guests left heehe. It’s a mild white wine (9.5% alchohol) and even the taste is mild. I like it :)

I haven’t posted a picture of my cat in a little while … So here’s Mikey

What’s your plan for the day? The husband is out attending courses for most part of the day and I am just gonna relax  in my Little Space. Oh I need to do the laundry too. Have a nice day ahead! And in case I don’t get to blog this week (due to laziness or after-work activities or busy schedule), I wish you all a good week!

***

I received this in my inbox and thought of sharing …

Everyone has God-given dreams and desires. We all have goals we want to accomplish and situations we are believing will be turned around. Sometimes it seems to take longer than we originally thought. Sometimes, things don’t work out the way we planned, and it’s easy to lose enthusiasm. If we’re not careful, we’ll get discouraged and end up just settling where we are. But God doesn’t want us to settle, He wants to take us higher. But many times, people miss out on God’s best simply because they give up too soon. They don’t realize how close they are to their victory.

Friend, don’t let that be you today. Don’t give up just because things seem hard. You’ve invested so much, and you never know, just a few more days of believing, another few weeks of doing the right thing, another few months of staying in faith, and you could see that situation turn around. Remember, God is on your side! Keep standing and keep believing because you are closer than you think to fulfilling every desire He’s placed inside of you!

The bedroom is where I spend most of my time. Next is the kitchen… I love to maintain our small kitchen. It must always remain tidy and neat (if you want to know why, scroll down to the end of the post). I think I maintain it way more than our bedroom! The counter top near the hob always  remains clear and uncluttered. After I cook something I will always clean the hob immediately.

Before when we were still doing the kitchen …

And after … photos taken today. A little dark because I didn’t switch on the top lights. Natural light is the best right :)

This is the other side of our kitchen. I wish our kitchen was bigger. I would have loved an island kitchen! Guess where the dishwasher holder is hiding? Well it’s inside that cabinet on top :) I wanted to have the dishwasher holder directly above the sink, but with a window right above and in front of the sink, this wasn’t possible. I like to keep things behind closed doors. Again I try not to keep so many things on the counter top. Less is best.I like a minimalist look.

Can you spot my “Nigella Feast” book? hehe :) I have more cooking books but they are still in boxes.

If I could turn back time, I would have changed a couple of things to our current kitchen:

1. Get a granite or marble counter top instead of a solid surface counter top. I didn’t really know much about granite vs solid surface counter top a year ago but now I can tell that it’s important to get a granite one if you cook regularly!
2. There’s more to cabinetry than just good looks. A functional storage is very important. Get some pull outs — easy to reach for spices  or other cooking items. Make a customised pantry too.
3. Don’t get a white counter top if you plan to keep a lot of stuffs on the counter top. Despite not keeping a lot of things on mine, I still ended up with some yellow marks (thanks to a mango!!) which can’t be removed even with “Cif” cream! But it’s not very visible, so it’s still okay. If anyone knows how I can remove that stubborn yellow mark, please let me know :)
4. Don’t get glossy black cabinets if you can’t maintain them. Well I haven’t had any problems with mine so far. You just need to know how to open the doors without leaving fingerprints hehe.
5. Get cabinet downlights (below the top cabinets). The kitchen will look warmer  :)

I think that’s all I would have changed :) We moved in only a year ago, so maybe in a couple of more years the list will become longer! I will save that for my next kitchen hehe.

I use the “Oven Power” to clean the oven and to remove grease from sticky surfaces. The “Cif” really removes a lot of stubborn stains trust me. The “glass cleaner” is obviously for glass surfaces like my black glass backing, kitchen door and windows.

The reason why my kitchen must always remain tidy and neat …

Before we moved into our current house, I was renting an apartment which was vacant for more than 5 years and was already housing a LOT of cockroaches (especially the kitchen) prior to moving in. I had called the pest control but their sprays didn’t help as there were cockroach eggs hidden somewhere. Everyday for one year I would see one or two (and even more) dead cockroaches in the kitchen. It was very traumatizing! I never dared to keep anything inside the cabinets and the fridge was empty most of the time. Needless to say I was not cooking at all except for a few smoothies or some simple things using my portable electric cooker. If you have been following my old blog (which is not available anymore),  you must have seen couple of photos of those cockroaches! Click here to see one of those photos and another one when the pest control people came.

So the morning household chores are done.

• Vacuum the house
• Mop the house
• Dust-off the shelves and other dusty stuffs
• Clean & scrub the toilets and bathrooms including the shower screens and floors
• Clean & scrub the balcony
• Throw away unnecessary stuffs

All shiny now :)  The living room looks dark in this picture because of the strong light in front. Mikey is scared of the vacuum cleaner and the mop hehe.

I am blogging from the tiny balcony right now and having a late breakfast. Speaking of the balcony, did you know that we were almost planning to make it an enclosed balcony with window panels around? Good thing we didn’t!

I didn”t want to eat until I was done with everything — I did grab a couple of grapes though. Last night I shifted the wireless router from the living room to our room because the signal is always low when we access the net from our room, making the connection unstable. Just now I had to shift the router back to the living room because I couldn’t get any signal from the balcony!

It’s egg whites and fruits on the plate and a strawberry tea in the glass. I don’t like egg yolks. So before I fry my eggs I remove the yolk, which I either freeze for later use or throw away. But it’s better to freeze :)

Well other than the household chores, I went for an 8 km run at the back of my place first thing in the morning. I ended with some resistance exercises back in the home gym.

I brought a small camera along to snap this!  This is where I normally do my interval runs or runs that are less than 10 km. The whole stretch is only 2 km long but I always run back to back twice.  There are distance markings on the ground, so it’s easy to figure out the distance without using any distance sensors.

The weather is lovely so far  — cool and breezy. I am preparing lunch later. Probably a noodle soup.

A couple of things that I want to do this weekend:

• Plant catnip and corriander
• Bake a condensed milk cake!
• I also need to look for a skirt but I am lazy to shop for clothes …
• Watch the dvds that the husband rented (Marley and Me included!)

Tonight we had guests over and I prepared chicken pie for dinner. Puff pastry was used for the topping instead of mashed potato like the previous two times.

The white sauce and chicken mixture can be made well in advance. That’s what I did. The original recipe (adapted from Nigella Feast) called for double cream but I used thickened cream instead. There’s not much difference in terms of texture. However I find that it’s tastier with double cream. Of course the fat content is higher too :)

I also made some small chicken pot pies in the cute ramekins that I bought last week :) The topping was a mixture of shortcrust and puff pastry – the leftovers that is. They were enough for just 3 small ramekins.

Desert was mini Cream Cheese Fruit Tarts – first time baking these and they turned out great. One cream cheese tub down, two more to go before they expire later this year!

Not that “mini” after all! They are the same size as my hand! I made two cream cheese peach tarts and two cream cheese mango tarts.

More yummylicious photos below followed by the recipe for a Cream Cheese Fruit Tart

Recipe for 4 hand size Cream Cheese Fruit Tarts

Ingredients

• 250 g shortcrust pastry (I used half a 5oog block of “JustRoll” shortcrust pastry)
• 1 package (8-ounces) cream cheese, softened (I used Philadelphia full fat cream cheese)
• 1/4 cup granulated (caster) sugar
• Pinch of salt
• 1 large egg
• 1 teasoon vanilla
• 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour

For the Fruit Topping

• A few tablespoon of jam (I used raspberry jam)
• 1 ripe mango diced into cubes
• About 5 slices of peaches (I used those canned ones)

Method

Press the chilled dough into a hand size tart pan with fluted sides and removable bottom, starting with the sides first. Return to refrigerator for another 20 minutes. Meanwhile , preheat oven to 350° F (177° C). With a fork, prick some holes in the bottom of the chilled crust. Cover with foil, pressing lightly into the bottom and sides. Fill with pie weights or dried beans. Bake for 30 minutes. Remove the foil and bake another 7 minutes, or until golden. (If using dried beans, cool and store for future pie crusts. Do not try to cook for beans.)

Meanwhile, make the filling. In a medium bowl, mix together the cream cheese, sugar, egg and vanilla with an electric hand mixer until smooth. Add the flour and mix until blended. Set aside until needed. Remove the golden crust from the oven and add the cream cheese mixture. Return to the oven and bake until the custard is set, about 30 minutes. Check with a table knife. It should come out dry when inserted in the center. Remove to rack and let cool completely.

When pie is cool, top up with a very thin layer of jam followed by the diced mangoes or peaches.

What I did was:

• 1o x 5 sets half squat
• 15 x 5 sets barbel bent-over row
• 8 x 5 sets Barbel Military press
• Planks (front and side)
• Boxing
• 20 x 3 sets push-ups
• 250 crunches and sit-ups

For dinner I prepared  rosemary grilled chicken with corn mushroom. Healthy and delicious! The rosemary herb was freshly plugged from the pot.

Dessert was a delicious homemade Brownie léger poire-chocolat (pear-chocolate light brownie ). I will blog the recipe soon! I actually videoed the steps but I’m not sure if I’m gonna publish it :)

I wish all my family and friends a happy and successful year ahead!