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 :)

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!

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!

Me getting ready

With the hubby

Live band performances

With our friend, Roger

***

Anyway, how is your Sunday going? We had brunch cum newspaper-reading-time at the coffee shop this morning.  I was craving for a bowl of laksa, so I bought one.

Yesterday (Saturday) I made a microwaved cinnamon raisin apple in the morning to kick-start the day. It does look like a bloody apple eh, like your could make that for Halloween. He thought this apple looked like a rotten apple O.o It is good, trust me :)

Cinnamon + raisin + apple. Microwave on high for 3 minutes. Serve warm!

Did you know

You can toast nuts inside the microwave: Use 1 teaspoon of butter for every 1/2 cup of nuts. Cook on high 2 1/2 to 5 minutes. Stir every 30 seconds. This can be done without the butter. Even granola can be made in the microwave! If you give it a try let me know :)

***

I also made a cake in the microwave (the traditional one)  real quick. It was a 5 minute chocolate mug cake. What a nice and a fun way to make a small cake! Plus you don’t have to worry about over indulging :)

Can you tell how light and moist the cake is?

Couldn’t wait to dig in!

5 Minute Chocolate Mug Cake.

The recipe is adapted from Not Quite Nigella and this is my modified version.

Ingredients (Makes 2)

• 4 tbsp flour
• 3 tbsp sugar
• 2 tbsp cocoa
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp cream of tartar
• A pinch of salt
• 1 egg
• 3 tbsp milk
• 2 tbsp oil (I used canola)
• Splash of vanilla extract
• 2 microwave safe coffee mugs or ramekins

Method: Mix all the dry ingredients in a big bowl. Add in the milk, oil, vanilla extract, egg and mix well. Pour mixture into mugs (at the halfway mark) and place the mug on a plate in . Microwave one mug at a time. Cook for 1 minute on medium heat. It will bubble and rise as it cooks, so make sure you provide ample room for that. Leave it for a few seconds, then microwave for another 30 seconds on medium again. The mixture will solidify, but still look a little molten. That is fine because it will continue cooking on residual heat. Overcook it and you get a chocolate rubber ball.

Last night dinner was at  The Soup Spoon, one of my favourite place to eat. I ordered a set meal that comes with  soup as the main +  salad + drink. Total spent was only $11 + I think.

I chose a regular size minestrone soup <3 <3  I gotta make some minestrone soup again soon!

And a garden salad. It was my first time trying their salads. For my drink, I chose a hot tea.

Me (left) with Laifun. Well she’s heading back to Australia this Sunday.

And with another friend of ours

***

Later in the night around nearly 10 pm, I joined another bunch of friends at Giraffe. They were there earlier for a birthday celebration. Soon after, the guys decided to move to Liquid Gold, so we just followed them. Didn’t stay too long (probably left at 2 am) as I was feeling too sleepy :D

At Giraffe with the birthday girl in the middle.

L-R: Me, Gynette and Eunice

The giraffe is way to tall haha

Live Band at Giraffe

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.

Warning: Intensive photo loading

Day 1

It was pouring when we left Singapore

We reached Perth at night. This is where we stayed for the next 6 days … at Perth Ambassador Hotel. The room was quite spacious. I had a single bed and my parents got a king bed.

Relax corner

Day 2

Day 2 was our full  day touring on the 4-Wheel Drive to The Pinnacle Desert, Caversham Wildlife park and some sand boarding adventure. Total distance traveled was 600 km!

We awoke at 0600 and ate breakfast. The hotel’s buffet breakfast was pretty simple — more or less the same food everyday – either fried rice or fried noodle, steamed tomatoes, hash brown, pork bacon, sausages, muffins, bread, cheese,  fruits, cereals, yoghurt, coffee, milk, tea, hotcakes etc. etc

The following was my typical breakfast for the next 6 days.

Their hotcakes were soft and fluffy. I always topped mine with maple syrup hehe :)

And then we were off. We headed North through Swan Valley to Caversham Wildlife Park where we stopped to view and photograph koalas and hand feed kangaroos. It was fun to be surrounded by so many kangaroos!

Can you see that cute baby kangaroo? :)  SO  adorable!

We could also touch koalas

White kangaroo

Lush greens

We stopped for our picnic lunch before heading to The Pinnacle Desert.

Food is spread on a table

My plate

Then headed to The Pinnacle desert. With mum inside the bus

At the Pinnacle Desert

Beautiful scenery

We then experienced 4-wheel driving in the giant 4WD over massive Lancelin sand dunes and the chance to try sand boarding. It was awesome and super fun!

Gorgeous sunset

We reached the hotel at 2000 hrs. I was dead tired! Here are some of things that we ate that night. The first is an entree … some Turkish food …

This was my main … Roasted chicken with couscous

And dessert which we packed because we were too full

The husband called me later that night but I don’t remember having talked to him because I was way too tired I think. He said that I mumbled for 50 secs. LOL.

Day 3

Day 3 was our Free & Easy day. Good thing we didn’t have to wake up that early! Breakfast was first thing in the morning. Then we were off to Perth’s shopping area. We had buffet lunch at Miss Maud, a Swedish restaurant. Food was good, especially their Swedish meat balls … ooooo so good! Love the sauce! I forgot to take a picture :P  The restaurant setting was cozy and colourful. I was able to meet my 2 ex-colleagues and my cousins on the same day. I was also able to bring my parents to Edith Cowan University — my university at Joondalup.

With dad

In the evening we met my cousin, ate at a Chinese restaurant and visited their house

Day 4

Day four was a full day touring at Margaret River, Mammoth Caves & Xanadu Winery.

The weather was lovely

We visited Xanadu where we tasted couple of wines. My favourite was the sweet wine :)

After that we headed to South West Hunting and Conservation

Had Picnic lunch there

And this

After that we headed to Mammoth Cave

All my pictures came out like this

And finally we visited the  Lighthouse

Awesome view behind

And on our last day in Perth, we attended my convocation :)

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.

Should I follow them to Bali this August?? I am considering!  They booked their tickets since last year (at such a goooooood price!!!) but I didn’t because back then, I wasn’t sure of my 2009 plans — the husband thought of going to Thailand together in August and then, I thought that my convocation (in Perth) would be in August. Well I still have a couple of more weeks to decide. A lot of people are going to Bali eh!

I brought some homemade flourless moist orange and almond cake for them to try. I baked the cake before joining them. I will blog about my cake later!

On a completely different note …

As of today, Singapore has 14 number of H1N1 flu cases so far. My girlfriend told me that the second confirmed Swine Flu case (May 28) is the colleague of her flatmate. Nothing to worry about though! The patient was quarantined. I didn’t know that when you are quarantined, there will be a camera placed inside your house and you can get $200,000 fine if you leave your place.

• 1.5 oz  – 97 calories for a shot of Tequila (10 x 97 = 970 calories)
• 1.25 oz – 81 calories (10 x 81 = 810 calories)
• 1 oz  – 65 calories (10 x 65 = 650 calories)

Alcohol is full of worthless empty calories. After my 8th shot I was ready to hit the dance floor. The husband preferred to sit, relax and listen to the music. Not that he doesn’t like to dance –  sometimes we will just dance at home  :)

I wasn’t drunk and was far from being drunk.

Some random shots that I took with another smaller camera

Upon reaching home (5 am), the  husband immediately hit the sack. As for me, I drank 2 full glasses of water and cooked myself  instant curry noodle because I was so very hungry! .

***

The morning after

Woke up at around 9 am, drank another 2 full glasses of water followed by this Weis’ Mango & Cream ice cream! I didn’t suffer from any bad hangover. I was just feeling hungry.

I wanted to try Weis’ ice cream, so I bought a 1 Litre tub the other day at $7 after discount.

I don’t like the cream i.e the part that is white.