So the four busy days are over and life is back to normal. It feels a little weird (!!) not to be busy anymore, not having to take care of a team (PNG). Oh and probably not having not to cook (buffet breakfast, lunch and dinner were provided at the hotel) — not that I don’t miss cooking (can’t wait to go to the supermarket). The past four days acting as a liaison officer has been a fun new experience. Friendships were made too.

With Toea

With Helen, Salome and Sharon

With Tuna and Donna

With Nelson

With Betty

Skene, Toea, Me, Sapolai, Kupsy, Mowen, Donna, Tuna and their team manager Mr Tony

If Toea can bench press 110 kg, she sure can carry me!

At the stadium with the PNG Team

With Naomi, their team coach

***

Thanks to email and Facebook, we are able to keep in touch. But I miss them! :(

On a happier note, I met another friend earlier that evening and we went to eat Japanese Ramen at Daikokuya (Paragon).

In town

Appetizer – Salmon Sashimi

Salmon Sashimi is only raw fish that I like. It was delish. By the way, there’s this place in Singapore (Woodlands area) called Fassler Gourmet Singapore, and they sell salmon at low price. I have not had the chance to check out this place yet!

For my main, I ordered a mini Sapporo Miso Ramen – topped with bean sprouts, corn, nori (seaweed), leeks, bamboo shoots, sliced cha shu (pork loin) and served with springy and curly noodles. The mini bowl is $9 and the big bowl is $14. I’m not a fan of noodles (had so much of left overs indeed) but I ordered it because it’s their signature dish.

My other main was a spinach and egg salad @ $7 ++ (I requested for hard boiled eggs instead of soft ones) with sesame dressing on the side. I didn’t know that this type of spinach could be eaten in raw form (I usually stir fry them). It didn’t taste weird at all. I think I might include this spinach in my big homemade salad bowl next time hehe.

My salad plate after.

Our other appetizer was fried chicken.

***

My biological clock woke me up at 0600 today. It’s been a week since I completed The Insanity 60-Day Total-Body Conditioning Program. I am doing month 2 again but this time I am not following the calendar to the T aka taking it so seriously.  I will try to do a complete review of Insanity soon …

Edited on 11-Dec  to add: Although my knees and legs are perfectly fine after the Insanity 60-day program, I gotta give my body a break from all the jumping and pounding! So I am not repeating Insanity Month 2 anymore. Instead, I am focusing on strength, once a week long run and doing other less intense AM workout DVDs — Jackie and Jilian are back into my life hehe.

I prepared:

• Tender & Crisp Chicken Leg
• Roasted Garlic & Rosemary Potatoes
• Salad Bowl
• Tuna May Dip with crackers
• Cheesy Corn
• Giant Peanut Cookies

Jamie Oliver’s Tender & Crisp Chicken legs with sweet tomatoes takes literally minutes to put together. It requires slow, gentle cooking of at least 1hr 30 minutes, which is great because I can do other things while waiting.

Recipes stored in my netbook

The ingredients for the Tender & Crisp Chicken dish.  Only 5 main ingredients needed. Not pictured was salt and pepper (and some last minute carrots).

I then season the chicken and throw everything in a big baking dish.

Then pop  into the oven. Or if you don’t intend to bake it immediately (like what I did), cover with a cling wrap and keep in the fridge. About 1 hr 45 minutes before your guests are due to arrive, take out from the fridge and bake in the pre-heated oven (180 C). Bake the chicken for at least 1 hr 30 minutes.

In went the potatoes too. Kill two birds with one stone. Note: The potatoes were pre-boiled on the eve.

Meanwhile, I prepared the salad – Corn Kernels, Pepper, Butter head lettuce, cherry tomatoes and mixed nuts

The tuna mayo dip

As well as the cheesy corn

I threw some homemade trail mix into small bowls and placed one on the coffee table in front of the TV.

At that point, I was basically done with all the cooking. So I had time  to relax and watch recorded MTVs while waiting for the guests, who were late. Well, you can’t blame Mauritians for being late :)

The table spread

Guests arrived and we ate

The chicken dish BEFORE

And AFTER

Looks similar to the picture on Jamie Oliver’s website eh.

More pictures

I baked giant peanut oat cookies the day before. They are bigger than the palm of my hands.

And made a K cookie for the (late) birthday boy

A final picture

Recipe for Jamie Oliver’s Tender & Crisp Chicken legs with sweet tomatoes

Ingredients (serves 5)

• 12 chicken legs (skin on)
• sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 2 packets of fresh basil, leaves picked, stalks finely chopped
• 2 packets of cherry tomatoes, halved, and ripe plum tomatoes, quartered
• 2 to 3 whole bulb of garlic, broken up into cloves
• 3 fresh red chilli, finely chopped
• 3 medium carrots, chopped into chunks
• olive oil

Method

Preheat your oven to 180°C/350°F/gas 4. Season your chicken pieces all over and put them into a snug-fitting pan in one layer. Throw in all the basil leaves and stalks, then chuck in your tomatoes. Scatter the garlic cloves  into the pan with the chopped chilli and carrots and drizzle over some olive oil. Mix around a bit, pushing the tomatoes underneath. Place in the oven for 1½ hours, turning the tomatoes halfway through, until the chicken skin is crisp and the meat falls off the bone.

If you fancy, you can add some drained cannellini beans or some sliced new potatoes to the pan and cook them with the chicken. Or you can serve the chicken with some simple mashed potato. Squeeze the garlic out of the skins before serving. You could even make it part of a pasta dish – remove the chicken meat from the bone and shred it, then toss into a bowl of linguini or spaghetti and serve at once.

On Friday (it was a public holiday over here) I threw a mini Birthday luncheon at my place among my siblings and some few friends. It was kind of a very last minute thingy, something that I planned 4 days prior to the actual day.

Well,  let the photos speak for themselves.

The food first? 99% of the foodies were home-prepared

I made my own version of Enchiledas. The sauce was a Mauritian based Rougaille

We had crackers and dips. Starting from the left: chickpea sausage dijon mustard dip,  avocado cheese dip, tuna mayo bacon bits dip and hummus with the forgotten garlic! ha. I made the dips in the morning.

The crackers were not homemade though :)

My brother brought finger food + mashed potatoes (not pictured)

Beef Fried Noodles from my sis

And I also made a HUGE salad bowl

These were TV snackies

Group picture with my family

Group picture with friends

My girlfriends wanted me to open this pressie in particular

After unwrapping :) I think my smile said it all hehe

And yeash, it’s a popcorn maker! Must have a popcorn party soon.

And of course we had to test it out immediately :) We had lots of fun in the kitchen! It was super easy to make popcorn.

Plain and healthy popcorn

Even my niece wanted some? Haa I kid.

Then it was time to do the whole singing-making-a-wish-and-cutting-the-cake

With the husband

It was a very yummy, mousse-y and chocolat-y cake

Goofing around with my camera’s Fish Eye mode. Out of all, I loved how this one turned :)

Testing my camera again

Birthday pressies, including my new camera (which took all these pictures) from siblings and hubby. The Belgian waffle maker was actually a very early birthday present and I haven’t had the chance to make Belgian waffles yet!

Thank you all :)

First things first … I got more bangs! Fringes that is :)

I like my fringes this time because there’s no layering (unlike last time). I also covered up the dark hair root. It’s been 3 months since my last haircut. I don’t have a regular hairdresser but I think I’ve finally found one now.

Now on to the Muffins!

The wet ingredients: 2 very ripe bananas, 4 tbsp of Greek yogurt, 3 tbsp of creamy peanut butter, 4 tbsp of honey, 4 tbsp of sunflower or vegetable oil, vanilla extract. They are actually pretty healthy muffins.

Stirring until smooth

I mixed  in the dry ingredients. Then filled the muffin liners.

Twenty Five minutes later. The house smelled sooooo good!

An hour later. When time is on my side and I am in the mood I enjoy having guests at home, cook and bake for them. Not pictured was my hot chocolate drink =)

Can you spot the ‘Biscuit Champagne‘? hehehe

An hour and half later

With our guest, director of Ugandan youth Track & Field Association, whom the husband met (along with others including the Mauritian team) at the Youth Olympic Games.

I will post my niece’s Birthday pictures another day.

***

Banana, PB, Greek Yogurt, Raisin Muffins

Recipe via here

Ingredients

• 2 very ripe bananas, roughly mashed
• 4 tbsp of Greek yogurt
• 3 tbsp of chunky or smooth peanut butter
• 4 tbsp of honey
• 4 tbsp of sunflower or vegetable oil
• 1 ad 1/4 C flour
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1/2 C of raisins

Method

1. Pre-heat the oven at 180 deg C and line  a cupcake tray
2. Beat together the bananas, honey, Greek yogurt, peanut butter and oil till smooth.
3. In another bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder and soda. Mix in the raisins.
4. Fold in the flour mixture to the banana mixture, a couple of tablespoons at a time, till everything is just moistened. The mixture will be quite thick.
5. Spoon the mixture into the muffin liners, till about 3/4 full.
6. Place the tray in the centre of the pre heated oven and bake for about 22-24 minutes or till the top is lightly browned and a toothpick inserted through the centre of the muffins come out clean.
7. Cool the muffins in the tray for a minute, and then transfer to a rack to cool completely before storing in airtight containers.

Last night I attended two birthdays. First one was at The Pump Room at Clarke Quay.

A starter plate

Calamari rings

Nachos

Chicken Drumlets

The live band started at 10.45 pm. After listening to a couple of songs, the girls and I hit the dance floor. I left around midnight to join another batch of friends for another Birthday at St James Power station.

Trying to get my friend  high as a kite … and this was after being already whiskyfied!

Then we hit the dance floor and danced through the night till the wee hours.

This morning I woke up at 9 am — yes NINE!! — with a headache and a queasy feeling. I was looking for my mobile phone like craaazy! But it turns out that I dropped it at the back seat of a friend’s car last night!  Thank goodness!!!

***

The husband went to collect Youth Olympics Athletics Tickets today.

Goodnight!

It happened so fast – My cat ran between my legs and the next thing I knew I was lying on the floor in tears and laughter! I also remember banging my left knee on the door edge as I tripped down. Thank goodness I never hit my patella! I couldn’t believe that a cat could  do such damage! The husband applied lots of ice on my (still) hurting knee and we both couldn’t stop laughing. It was a funny but unhappy fall and it happened some time before heading out to meet my girlfriends at Zouk.

Well I missed the POCC (Power Over Cervical  Cancer) biggest pink party in the end – I came when the event was over haha – around 10.30pm!!  But we stayed at Zouk and danced all night till mid morning :)

There was dancing, wine, screwdriver, vodka cranberry, broken shoes – MY shoes — Well it was a fun night. I probably had 4-5 glasses of wine. It’s been a long while since the last time I danced.

Sometimes you need to loosen up a little.

This is the shoe that broke

I suffered no hangover this morning. Didn’t drink any vodka or shots last night –  just a sip of that vodka cranberry –   so maybe this is why I am okay today.

Today’s agenda: Catch up on sleep. Have a lovely Sunday!

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!

Met the girlfriends on Thursday night and we went to ORGO (at Esplanade roof top) for drinks and tapas. I was told to check out this alfresco place, so it was our virgin visit. Love the ambiance and the splendid view of Singapore city from the top. It’s a nice place to chillax with friends or go on a romantic date :)

Orgo is short for “Organic Chemistry”. The entire Orgo experience revolves around the word “organic”. As a matter of fact, part of the menu will include drinks and food made from organic produce.

Singapore at Night

Upon arrival, they served us grapes in a cocktail glass.

We ordered Bruschetta, Grilled Kurobuta (crispy slivers of Kurobuta – pork – served with pickled cabbage) and Coq au Vin. I was disappointed with their bruschetta. I think it was the bread.

The girls seemed to have enjoyed that porky grilled Kurobuta thing (pic below) but not me.  Euh I do not know how to appreciate meat with thick layers of fat in them. On another note, Coq au Vin was delish.

Drink-wise?

Sometimes a girl just needs a Mojitos.

And Strawberry with Chili Salt Margaritas too. It was a pleasant evening with friends.

And then we do what we like to do. Take pictures my friends :)

And we took a few more shots.

Left the place before the stroke of midnight. Will I re-visit Orgo? Definitely. But not that soon with the girls because we want to try out new places! Brunch will be next :)

Up next: Lunch at my place with friends. Goodnight!

Today however, I reached home early (7 pm) because I went straight home after work. I may go out later for a drink but I am still undecided at this moment. We have stayed up too late recently (midnight is late for me), and I’m dead tired.

I am stuffing my face with this as I type, and relaxing comfortably on the bed. It’s an apple cinnamon pancake. I know what you are thinking — eating breakfast for dinner?

So what have I been up to this week?

Monday: Dinner at peperoni pizzeria with two co-workers. I’ve never been to Greenwood Avenue. My type of place, unfortunately it is far from my place. I ordered a tuna salad and we shared a thin crust prosciutto pizza.

Tuesday: Thai boxing lesson with the husband. He recently started Muay Thai lessons (for fun) and I decided to give it a try! My first official lesson was a sweaty but fun one. I learned the basic techniques — the punch, the jab, the hook, the upper cut, elbows, knees, kicks and on top of that we did circuit training (push ups, sit ups, skipping, knee lift etc. etc).  It’s $25 for a 2hr lesson, so don’t expect the place to be air conditioned haha. There is a boxing ring on the right.

We ate Thai food after the 2hr lesson. Ahhh that Tom Yum soup was delish!

As well as sweet & sour pork

Wednesday: Did a bit of grocery shopping, window shopping, bought a vacuum cleaner and a bar chair.

Thursday: Met the girlfriends for dinner at Marche (Somerset). It was a fun evening! Lots of laughter!

Each ordered something to share among ourselves

Crepe with filling inside (chicken, ham, mozzarella, sauce)

Pan Fried Salmon

On another note, I recently purchased Jillian Michael’s No More Trouble Zones (NMTZ) workout DVD and I tried it for the first time yesterday morning. Love the workouts!

The Workout Contains

• Warm-Up – Begin your workout with light cardio and dynamic stretching. (5 min.)
• Trouble Zone Circut – Broken into seven 6-minute circuits, these killer combo moves target the shoulders, chest, arms, abs, back, legs, hips, and glutes. (40 min.)
• Cool-Down – Reward your body with energizing stretches. (5 min.)

I’m planning to do this 2-3 times a week.

***

What’s the weekend agenda? Planning to make a trip to IKEA as I need to purchase a few things. I am also planning to sleep a lot and date the hub. Goodnight!

Oh Happy Saturday! What’s the weekend agenda? I am heading to office shortly. Afterwards I think I am going down to the city and look for a tea set (while the hubby sees the dentist mwahaha) and meet Hazel for a bite and drink. Then probably we are going to catch up on some sleep! Tomorrow we are meeting my siblings and my cousins (they are here for the holidays aka shopping)  for a Dim Sum lunch.

*** The past  week  ***

Japanese dinner with some of my co-workers on Thursday.

Japanese Food – I like their salmon salad (front)

Fish

Fried Tofu

On Friday I met another friend for a quick bite at Thai Express.

We  had some crispy pancakes – it’s not the typical flour and egg pancakes … these were more like a mix of minced meat and water chestnut …

Have a nice day ahead! Cya later …

I met the girlfriends at Brewerkz for dinner last night.  The guys were watching a live soccer match and we, girls were just busy yakking with each other. It’s been two months since we last met. After dinner the group headed somewhere else for a drinking session. I gave it a pass and headed back home as I didn’t want to mess up my sleep (and my body).

L-R: Me, Eunice, Sharon and Hazel — excuse the blurry picture. I kinda like this effect.

***

This morning it was raining when I woke up. I’m not too sure what they are building at that far end of that empty land.

Breakfast was this

Microwaved (three) egg whites topped with a tablespoon of nutritional yeast + mustard + ketchup. I love microwaved egg whites :)

And some very sweet watermelons

On a completely random note: Earlier on Saturday Mikey jumped up on the table. He wanted some attention (a.k.a food). I thought this was cute, so I quickly took his picture.

***

On  Friday, we had a very last minute unplanned early-birthday celebration for the husband. His birthday is actually on the 10th of April (next Saturday).

Related post: 1 year ago on his 29th Birthday

Group photo: With my siblings + cousin (couple on the left).

The birthday man.

Birthday cake that sis brought. It was spongy, light and not overly sweet.

Later at night I made a light dinner … fried eggs (1 egg and 4 egg whites) and prawns

***

My pen pal since high school days (from the Philippines) is visiting Singapore! She’s arriving tomorrow and will be here for 4 days. We’ve never met in person. I think it’s going to be interesting :)  Do you still keep in touch with you pen pals? Snail mail penpalling was so popular back in my high school days. I sill keep in touch with 2-3 of them (thanks to Facebook) but we don’t write letters to each other like we used to years ago.

On Friday night I met up with Haze, Eunice and the rest at Liquid Gold. Fun night and had some girly talks.

This morning (Sunday) I went for a run. It was such a warm weather! After that we ate brunch at a nearby coffee shop.

Laksa (above) for myself and Nasi Lemak (below) for the husband. I don’t eat laksa but you’ll be surprised that I ate the whole bowl  (sans gravy and egg yolks)! After the 8 km run my stomach was crying for food.

We also had iced milk tea

*** Few hours later ****

I bought some honey Thai mangoes yesterday – $8 for 4 pieces. It is the start of the mango season I think. Soon the price will go further down. I love honey Thai mangoes!

In the afternoon we headed to the West side. Didn’t meet sis in the end. But we did Thai massage. Dinner was a really delicious Curry Fish Head ($25 for a plate). It was really good! Not the coconut-ty type but rather  on the sour (tamarind) side, which is how I like my curries to be.

A cup of sugar cane juice

Off to relax … Weekend is over :(

Before I continue,  let’s rewind back to Saturday morning…

I overslept a little and reached work at 10 am. No one was in yet (I think they came and went out). I got some work done and in the blink of an eye it was already time to pack. I headed to the bakery store and bought a couple of things.

• 1 kg packet silvered almond ($14).
• 450g packet flax seed ($2.50).
• Plus two square molds and a pizza cutter.

In the late afternoon, after a long nap, the husband and I exercised at home. We did a couple of strength endurance exercises. After that we went to the nearby multi-storey carpark for plyometrics exercises. It was so breezy and nice! I remembered to bring my camera this time.

Some pictures of my neighbourhood. It was a sunny and bright day!

For dinner I prepared my homemade Pumpkin-Filled Ravioli Chinois. This time I steamed them. It was way less messier than boiling them!

Yum.

Dessert was dragon fruits.

By the time we were done with dinner, it was already 9 pm and I wasn’t sure whether to  join Siti and Hairol at Dempsey road for a drink and some late night snacks. They called me at 10 pm to check my whereabouts. Somehow, I managed to drag out of my bed, get dressed, take a cab and head to Dempsey road. I’m glad I did that because it was great to catch up with them after 2 long years!

We met at Ben & Jerry (I reached around 11 pm + ), then headed over to Dempsey House (Camp Bar), where we chilled out.

We ordered a cheese platter ($20 ++ ). There were three types of cheeses on the plate, one of which being goat cheese, which was my leeeeaaast favourite. We also ordered fries with truffle oil ($9 ++ ). D.E.L.I.C.I.O.U.S. But not the healthiest thing, I know. There was wine too.

I need some natural Vitamin D! I’m looking too fair these days. Don’t like.

Will definitely do that again.

After dinner we headed to a pub. I had an iced chocolate which was a tad too sweet, but nice.

Will see them again soon hehe.