Dinner was a quick and simple stir fry noodle. Not a fan of noodle or rice but I have not grocery shopped in awhile, so I had to use what I had on hand. I have not been in the cooking mood ever since I came back from the vacay — post holiday blues maybe??

Mushroom + mussels + achard de legumes + piment MAZAVAROOOOO

Guess what I bought yesterday :)  Oh btw, excuse the horizontal lines — I need to change my camera …  I’m considering getting either a basic DSLR or a compact camera. Which one to get? I am still wondering …

Me holding huge and ripe honey Thai mangoes! 4 pieces for $10 only! I also bought 1 kg ($4) of China litchi (not pictured) …

Can’t believe it’s already Thursday (tomorrow)! Where has this week gone? I’m hanging out with the co-workers tomorrow while the hubby practises muay Thai (maybe).

Goodnight!

Anyhoo … Happy Friday! It’s a public holiday over here. I started off my day with some yoga.

Still working on those poses. Look at my cat (below), he likes to disturb me.

Last night I met my friend for a movie. We watched Prince of Persia. After the movie, I met another friend to catch up a little. We hung out at Outdoors cafe & bar at Peranakan Place.

We had wine, chicken wings, potato wedges and pizza

I had 2 glasses of vino

Ham and mushroom pizza

I think I need some more rest today! Have a nice weekend ahead!

Gorgeous green isn’t it. Breadstick + Hummus = <3

Ingredients

• 1 (410g) can garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed
• 3 jalapeno peppers
• 1 cup boiled or wilted spinach
• Olive oil or EVOO (I didn’t add too much)
• Salt to taste

Method: In a food processor add beans, jalapenos, spinach, salt and puree until smooth . With the processor running, slowly add olive oil in a steady stream through the feed tube. Process until mixture thickens, about 1-2 minutes. Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator. Bring to room temperature before serving.

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I bought a box of Grissini bread stick ($2 after discount) and Kashi 7 whole grain pilaf ($3.50 after discount) from Cold Storage. Both items were on sale and price reduced by half, because they are close to hitting their expiration dates. I guess there is more than enough time to consume them before they expire :)

I’ve never eaten Pilaf until today.

After 25 minutes of cooking (1/4 cup pilaf + 1 cup of stock), it becomes like this. They are pretty chewy and tasty. Nice with stir fries etc.

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Look what I bought the other day :)

Honey Thai Mangoes — $1 for 1 piece (quite fleshy) — I bought 9 pieces!

I actually baked mango muffins last night but they didn’t turn out that good. They became too moist (due to the big ripe mango chunks) even after having baked them for at least 45 minute! In my opinion, ripe mangoes are best eaten fresh or in smoothies.

I bought this 3.5 kg seedless watermelon on my way back home. It costs me only $2.50.

Expect to see much of this juicy fruit  in future posts.

Yesterday’s fruit platter – Thai mangoes, Fuji apples and Korea strawberries. The strawberries weren’t that sweet. I think  Korea strawberries were sweeter last year.

On Sunday night, I made minestrone soup for the week. Delish.

Tonight we had simple omelette - 2 eggs + salt + pepper + spring onions

And some of this pasta which was added to the minestrone – bought it in Malaysia last year at an Iranian mini mart

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Did ya think I’ve forgotten about the Double Chocolate Brownie??

– If you’ve missed my Bittersweet Cocoa Brownie, you can find it here. –

A different recipe was used for the double chocolate brownies. They are cakey and light. I like them better than the bittersweet ones. I think I prefer cakey brownies over fudgy & dense ones!

Some chocolate oozing out …

Recipe follows … Have a great day or evening!

Double Chocolate Brownies adapted from one of my Baking books.

Ingredients (make 12 brownie squares)

• 80g (2 2/3 oz) butter
• 40g (1/3 cup) unsweetened cocoa powder
• 72g (1/3 cup) caster (superfine) sugar – original recipe calls for 2/3 cup which would be pretty sweet!
• 2 eggs, room temperature
• 60g (1/2 cup) plain all purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 100g (1/2 cup) semi-sweet chocolate chips

Method

1. Preheat oven 180 Celcius (350 F).
2. grease a 20cm x 30cm(8″ x 12″) shallow baking tin and line with baking paper
3. Melt the butter in a saucepan, then stir in the cocoa and sugar. Remove from heat. Add the eggs, stirring to combine
4. Sift the flour, baking powder and a pinch of salt into the saucepan, then stir to combine
5. Add the chocolate chips and stir to combine
6. Pour the mixture into the tin and bake for 30 min or until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean. Remember though, the chocolate chips may have melted and if your skewer hits one of those, it might look as if the mixture is still wet
7. Allow to cool in the tin, then remove and cut into brownie pieces

Nutritional Data: Per brownie square - 150 kcal, 8g fats, 9g sugars and 2.5g proteins.

Homemade ones are so good!  I never ever used to buy off-the-shelf bars  — I guess I wasn’t a fan and people around me never ate them. Also, the husband dislike those cereal bars  (he can’t dislike mine of course hehe). Anyway I am experimenting with different flavours and ingredients while keeping them ‘healthy’.

Tonight will be an easy workout session. Maybe elliptical and stationary bike. Back to work now!

Yeah, none other than our cat, Mikey!

If you haven’t seen how he wakes us up, check out the video below which I taped about two years ago at my previous place. This video has received around 166,703 views and the comments keep coming in.

How he wakes us up:

• Purposely steps on (or scratches) my long hair. It hurts! Remember, it’s like 7-8 kg load on your hair.
• Stands on the head board and jumps onto me! Like someone slapping you! Again, it’s like a 7-8 kg load suddenly falling onto you. But I must admit sometimes I like him to step on me as it’s like being given a massage haha :)
• keeps meowing (my mum once told me that my grandmother used to say that cats are very whiny … because”meoooowww sounds like whiiinnneeee”
• Scratch the bed — I will immediately wake up upon hearing this because he’s damaging the bed!
• Bites (but not swallow) whatever plastic he can find in our bedroom — this noise is definitely very irritating!!!
• Scratches the door – again more noise!
• Runs and jumps onto us.

I think all cats would do these to wake their owners eh! :) As I am typing this, my cat is sleeping beside me. Maybe it’s time for revenge! I should disturb him :)

So …

The husband woke up first. I continued to sleep till around 8 AM. Of course I wanted to sleep more but I couldn’t. I wasn’t tired. It was still early and the weather looked great. I suggested we go get some fresh air outside and do a run-cycle i.e I run while he cycles.

It was a short 6 km run and I enjoyed every step. We used to do this last time when I do my 2-hr long run — he  was my water man and my motivation to keep going hehe.

Brunch was at Ah Mei Cafe.

I had Kaya Toast and he had  egg & onion roti prata (not pictured).

Kaya is is a local jam made from eggs, sugar and coconut milk, and is flavoured by pandan leaves, and later sweetened with sugar. Kaya toast is made after the cook slices a single piece of toast into half, and spreading a generous amount of kaya followed by a slab of butter.  It is then covered up together and served hot.  The slab of butter and the taste of the jam is what made this toast popular.”

I always request for no butter and sometimes less kaya in my kaya toasts. It’s just too buttery and sweet for my taste.

I wanted to have the egg whites but they were too uncooked. I forgot to request for fully cooked eggs.

We did some groceries after brunch. Bought chinese baby spinach, baby carrots, peanuts, broccoli, cauliflower, mushrooms and lettuce

Red grapes, longan, litchies (not pictured), sandwich bread, milk and condensed milk

Crackers, fried mixed nuts, char siu sauce for marinates, sweet & sour sauce and beef steak (not pictured)

And some king prawns too – $18 for 9 prawns, much cheaper than eating these outside. We are having them for dinner tonight. Love those huge prawns :)

The husband bought some huge honey Thai mangoes at $2 each the other day. See how big they are?

This is the Black Chicken Herbal Soup that I made on Monday. It was really tasty.

And yesterday, after our workout (I did 600m x 10 sets intervals), I prepared a quick curry noodle. We also had some carrot celery soup from the previous day.

PS: Today I ate the last piece of my ugly but amazing chewy oatmel chocolate chip cookies! I think they taste better as they get older!!

I hope you all had a good weekend. Mine was good. The weekly chores and groceries were done on Saturday. Breakfast was at China Town on Sunday, followed by an hour of food reflexology. How relaxing! No long run for me on Saturday morning as I couldn’t wake up after Friday’s late night, even though I was back by 2 am  :( On Sunday afternoon however, I worked out at home while enjoying the air con & & Mariah Carey DVD live concert. I’ve watched that particular DVD zillion times and I’m still not sick of it. It’s Like That, which is the first song, always gives me the kick!

Anyway here are a few random photos …

We bought some herbal stuffs at China Town. The black chicken ($5.10) is from Giant supermarket. I’m pretty newb to those herbal & ginseng stuffs. I just grab those “chicken soup” herbal packets (3 for $8) and the husband grabbed the seedless “red dates” packet ($1.30).  Tonight we are having black chicken herbal soup for dinner, plus another dish.  I’ve already boiled everything since yesterday.

On Saturday, we bought some USA Blueberries and Strawberries.  Blueberries are chock full of antioxidants because of their dark color. “All foods with dark colors in them have some of these really protecting antioxidant chemicals in them. Blueberries lead the charge.” — Dr. Oz

Fruit platter on Sunday as an afternoon snack.

I also made a banana blackberry almond milk smoothie for us. [Side note: I gotta retouch my hair. The black roots are getting too long).

One banana in each packet. They are kept in the freezer for smoothies :)

I saw this Betty Crocker Super Moist carrot cake among the Reduce to Clear Items at Cold Storage. It was going for only $1.60 (UP: $5+). The expiry date is some time in July. So why not just get one and bake it before it expires! I’ve never bought this before anyway.

We are having plenty of veggies this week! Broccoli, cauliflower, celery, carrot, tomatoes, chy sim, lettuce and watercress… Meat-wise, it will be chicken, salmon and prawns.

I love Weis’ Mango Sorbet more than the mango & cream.

Your whole day depends on how you greet the morning. As long as you welcome it with energy and high spirits, everything will go okay. So start the day with cheers and smiles :)

A 30 minutes run or other form of exercises also do  wonders. At least  for me, provided that I have had enough rest at night. Do you know that you need to do at least 30 minutes of aerobic activities everyday? This can be in the form of walking, climbing the stairs instead of taking the lift, running, swimming, cycling etc. This is really good for your health.

You should  incorporate some weight bearing activities to increase your bone density because as we age,  osteoclasts, which is the breaking down of old bone, gradually takes the upper hand, and we lose more bone than we gain. When you exercise, you stresses your bones and more osteoblasts (building of new bones) are formed.  So your body increases the pace of osteoblast production when you lift weights or go for a jog.

Whenever we talk on the phone, I will ask my parents whether they have been going to the mountains and I also remind mum to do some resistance exercises.  Do some half squats, push ups etc.  Use your own body weight to create some resistance and if you can’t get a dumbbell, you could always fill a bottle with water or sand :)  Mum have you been doing? hehehe

So to all couch potatoes out there, be active and stay active!

Anyway ….

Milk + Weis’ Mango & Cream ice cream + 1 fresh mango +2 ice cubes = A delicious mango smoothie this morning :) Skip the ice cream for a healthier version hehe.

I took the picture above this morning :) Singapore Circle Line (CCL) officially opens today — only five stations (Marymount, Bartley, Serangoon and Lorong Chuan) begin operations for the public today.  CCL is Singapore’s 4th Mass Rapid Transit line. More on Wiki and take a look at Singapore MRT map if you are interested. CCL is the yellow line.

I couldn’t wait for the CCL to be opened, as this meant avoiding the terrible jam along one particular road everyday during the peak hours (evening especially)! So this morning I took the yellow CCL. The train was rather empty (good thing isn’t it). The journey to office was faster. From one of the CCL stations, I can either opt to walk for 15-20 minutes or take a bus to office. I might walk in the morning and take a bus in the evening. If I decide to walk everyday, that would be a total of 54 minutes of daily walk for me! 7 + 20 + 20 + 7 = 54 minutes. What a good way to get some daily exercise eh :)

Last night …

Dinner was a baked rosemary chicken with baked asparagus and  baked beans. The asparagus was over-baked and had lost it’s nice greenish colour.

We had a fruit platter after dinner. Here’s the mangosteen that I bought during the weekend.

Mangosteen is a tropical fruit that is grown primarily in hot, humid climates of southeast Asia such as Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, and Indonesia.

The fruit platter that we shared consisted of Sunkist oranges, mangosteen, Red Globe grapes and honey mangoes. I’m pretty much into grapes nowadays. Kinda sick of apples and pears. I like big grapes (unlike the ones in the picture) with seeds because I like to eat them slowly.

What could be better than start the day with a delicious Blackberry Smoothie? It’s a great way to get your nutritional and energy boost in the morning.  I think I’m gonna have this every morning! The frozen blackberry on the left looks pretty doesn’t it?

Last night I added frozen bananas to my blackberry smoothie but the strong banana taste killed the blackberry taste. Today I only added some low fat milk, 2 big ice cubes, some sugar and some frozen blackberries. It tasted so good!

And on another note …

My waffles (which I made last night) didn’t come out as pretty as the smoothie … I used another recipe this time. If you want to see my other post on waffles, click here. The difference between the two recipes? This one uses an extra half cup of ground almond, much less oil and one egg less. The waffles were actually very fluffy and light and they tasted pretty good too. However I had a hard time getting them done and the end results were urm not very attractive as you can see …

What a mess!

The 1 teaspoon of oil inside the batter wasn’t enough and I didn’t spray enough nonstick cooking spray to the waffle irons — I only sprayed once to be exact (actually spraying only once during the initial stage should be enough shouldn’t it). When I opened the waffle maker, some parts would stick to the top and bottom. I think I was in a hurry to get these waffles done. The one with half its top removed (picture above) wasn’t cooked enough! And some were burnt. These waffles are now in the freezer. Waffles freeze well. They don’t taste exactly the same as when they are fresh, but it’s pretty close.

Off to the waterfalls tomorrow.

Not quite …

Well I haven’t had fresh litchies for a long time and when I saw that Fairprice was selling fresh ones, I bought some. For $2.00 I got 30 litchies. They are delicious! I love litchies!

That’s not all …

I dropped by Phoon Huat (a leading supplier of bakery, beverage and confectionery ingredients) which is located inside the same supermarket and I bought a couple of baking stuffs which I will definitely be using sooner or later. I love going to Phoon Huat and browse through baking stuffs. What I got:

• Ground almond – 1 kg ($15)
• Gelatine leaf  – 50g ($2.40)
• Pasta lasagna 500g ($2.70)
• Frozen rasberries – 500g ($5.65)
• Frozen blackberries – 500g ($2.90)
• Unsweetened mango puree – 400g ($2.78)
• Vanilla Essence – 90 ml ($3.61)

The frozen blackberries and ground almonds are definitely a must buy! I am looking forward to making some berry smoothies :)

Celery, 3 big carrots, 1 bringal / eggplant, a bunch of round spinach (didn’t have baby spinach), 1 lettuce, 4 peckham pears, 3 dragon fruits (on sale 3 for only $0.90 because they are ripe!), 5 bananas, castor and icing sugar, 1o instant noodles (for lazy days), 2 cans of corn, 1 can of button  mushroom, 1 coke zero,  250g of mozzarella cheese, 1 can low fat sweetened condensed milk and 10 eggs.

And later when my husband came back, he brought back mangoes and more bananas! Yes we have too many bananas at home now! Good thing they can be frozen and used in smoothies. Last week’s fruits have all been consumed by the way.

I also dropped by Daiso $2 dollar shop (I love going to Daiso! There are so many little japan-made-products and each at $2) and I bought 4 little pastel ramekins that are oven proof. I can make some chocolate mousse now :)

For dinner I cooked a lasagna-style chicken moussaka. Moussaka is a greek dish that includes sliced eggplant baked in a ground beef sauce and then smothered in a thin white sauce. The eggplant replaces the lasagna sheets.  In my version I used chicken instead of beef. I didn’t draw out the moisture from the eggplant first, making mine a little runny. It was still delicious though. I will make a vegetarian version next time i.e use mushroom in place of the chicken.

Dessert was one ripe dragon fruit and mangoes. I still have two of yesterday’s pear-chocolate light brownie in the fridge but I will save them for another day.

I may be going for overnight cycling tomorrow with a few mauritian friends. I am so looking forward to that!

PS: Watching American Idol 8 now :) Adam Lambert is my favourite!

• 3 Mangoes (3 for $2.50 — his favourite )
• 5 Fuji apples (5 for $2.45)
• Grapes ($2.45 per punnet)
• 5 Peckham pears (on sale $2.85 for 5)
• 6 Pink guavas ($2.50 per punnet of 3 — I love those type of guavas)
• Longan ($5.20 per punnet — his favourite).

I still had frozen bananas and cranberries in the freezer.  So I made banana cranberry smoothie for us. Frozen banana is great in smoothies!