Trifle

I decided to make trifle for a friend's party tomorrow for Chinese New Year. This is a recipe for an assembled trifle with "agak" or guessimate proportions - I have no idea how much it feeds at this rate, but it would be good for at least 10 folk depending on how much they eat.

Start with one Sarah Lee All-butter pound cake (available in large supermarkets in freezer section) or some confectionary cake shop swiss roll. Cut into small chunky pieces or slices and cover with the pieces with some sweet jam (strawberry or cherry or raspberry). Then line a deep bowl with the cake pieces. You could also sprinkle sherry (or orange juice) on top of the cake to make it boozy. This is the first part.

Next, top the cake with fruit - sliced peaches from a tin, or boozy strawberries (an earlier recipe in my blog) or mix fruit cocktail (again from a tin) or whatever inspires you.

You can also add some jelly on top of the fruit or just make the jelly and pour over the cake to set - make a complementary flavour such as strawberry jelly with your strawberries, or lime jelly for some tangy contrast to the sweet flavours.

Make a portion of custard with Bird's custard powder and let it cool. Then pour the cooled custard over the jelly and chuck into the fridge for at least 1 hour to chill.

Before serving, top with whipped cream (either DIY or from a can) and sprinkle almonds as a garnish.

QED! Yummy too!

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Chinese New Year

The start of the new lunar year of the ox started on 26 January 2009. Yeah, a little too early for me because we don't get any public holidays till April I think.

Anyway Chinese New Year is a totally non event for me. I don't really clean house, chuck out stuff, decorate or do anything special. I only get all the goodies because I WANT TO EAT THEM! So I get macadamia nuts, pineapple tarts, macadamia cashew sugee cookies and love letters as my snack stash to keep me happy.

No need for bak-kwa because it gets so expensive that I eat it all year round except at Chinese New Year when the price goes through the roof. I don't need to show face with visitors.

There are no visitors because all would have expected HH and I to have gone home to our parents. Haha! we are hiding at home with our two dogs and 3 cats with total bliss.

I have to get red packets ready because there are those who celebrate Chinese New Year and would expect me to give out these packs to their kids. So I prepare a stack of these and hand them out freely to all the kids who appear.

We went to a friend's home for the reunion dinner - a small event with her father, aunty bee, the maid and us, just 6 people who don't really celebrate much. No "traditional" food - just simple food because she insisted that we go over.

Otherwise HH and I have had roti prata at Jalan Kayu or Kentucky Fried Chicken for our dinner as our "reunion" dinner. I shocked one Malay boy a few years ago with my excellent Malay on Chinese New Year's eve by telling him "Tiga keping ayam mesti ada satu keping sayap" translated as "3 pieces of chicken and 1 of those pieces has to be a chicken wing"! He couldn't make out whether I was Chinese or Malay because of my cheena-pek face and my excellent Malay accent!

We went over to my father's cousin's home for dinner on the first day of Chinese New Year. Aunty Florence had insisted that we go over to join in the melee of humans in her small granny flat in Bedok North. There we met my cousins, aunts and uncles and the nephews - I only see them once a year. Of course the aunts, uncles and cousins would know us, but the kids are just happily taking ang-pows from me and forgetting my "aunt" status.

Our forays out of our apartment are just for fresh air to take the doggies for walks, otherwise we spend the time at home reading, watching TV and glued to the computer to check out what is going on in the world outside.

It is a good way to relax over Chinese New Year - just relax lah.

Lift Upgrading

A couple of years ago during the General Elections of Singapore in our constituency of Aljunied GRC, there was no mention of any lift upgrading program for our area. I believe they were too busy fighting or rallying over other things.

Suddenly in 2007, we had these HDB officers going round to tell us that there will be polling for the LIFT UPGRADING PROGRAM or LUP, in Singapore's love for acronyms. HH and I received the circulars on the roadshow, but we don't get any say because we are both not Singaporeans.

Sometime after that polling event, they started the LUP as quickly as possible onf the other blocks. Then on 1 December 2007, the contractors blockaded the area designated for the lift in our block. They put up barricades, netting, cordoned off a large area for about 3 days then STOPPED WORK! Nothing was done again for another 11 months to the chagrin of our poor downstairs neighbours who had to put up with the inconveniences of their mindless blockade and NO WORK IN PROGRESS.

The contractors started work on all the other blocks. One day, I accosted some engineer who was inspecting our work site and asked him how long the upgrading program would take. He said something like another 2 years and I looked at him incredulously in horror. ANOTHER TWO YEARS OF THE BLOODY DIN AND MESS!!

Anyway, the contractors finally surprised me - they started work on our lift shaft and lift on 1 December 2008. YES! One year after the blockade, barricades, netting and mess they started work on the lift shaft and the lift. One day in mid-January 2009, I walked up the stairs and met a lift engineer perched on the top of the carriage. He said to me "Aunty - your lift come before Chinese New Year". I must have been tired because I don't take kindly to the AUNTY title, but since the lift was coming, I just smiled andsaid thank you very much and walked back to our apartment.

Amazingly, they worked and finished the whole thing and handed the lift to us residents on 23 January 2009.

So now we had better make full use of this piece of equipment since we are being charged $30,000 for it for being non-citizens!

Boozy drinks

Some of my favourite drinks are Kahlua and Bailey's Irish Cream - drunk very simply with ice or "on the rocks". Sometimes with the Kahlua, I add some milk or cream - totally yummy!

Of course I throw either of these two boozy liquers onto freshly hulled strawberries for another utterly decadent dessert and top with cream.

So far no complaints from friends who shared my concoction.

Cheater's fruit cake

I was hankering for some boozy fruit cake just before Christmas and wondered how I could get my grubby greedy fingers on some. I was too lazy and busy to bake anything. The thought of getting out the baking equipment was enough give me a migrane.

So I figured the cheater's way of getting some boozy fruit cake with minimal effort.

I headed to the supermaket and bought 2 boxes of Big Sister Fruit Cake - a light one and a dark one. Got home and cut them both in half. Put half a dark cake and half a light cake in a large plastic container. Then did the same for the other two halves.

Then the magic came out of the bottle. I poured brandy onto the top of both cakes into one box and some wonderful 12 year old premium scotch whisky into the other.

Warning - pour the booze on top so that it can drain to the bottom by gravity otherwise you get soggy cake with boozy flavour at the bottom and nothing on top!!

I covered the two boxes and marked them "brandy" and "whisky" and chucked them into the fridge to soak.

5 days later - VOILA! wonderful boozy fruit cake without the hard work.

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Junior's birthday!

JUNIOR'S BIRTHDAY!

Junior with his silly toy on his head,

fast sleep whilst Papa does his work!

Junior very comfortable on the bed

Junior and Torrent in a very cozy cuddle

Junior with Papa

Junior lying on his Mama's stomach;

and feeling very content with life

This is in celebration of Junior's birthday - he is 8 years old today!

Cooking - some basic tomato pasta sauce

A guy friend said to me the other day - I have no idea how to cook but I am quite domesticated because I can clean and do other stuff. He said he could do "cooking" stuff like toast his bread and boil water for his Maggi mee, but nothing particularly high tech or high end cooking.

So this recipe for some sort of basic vegetarian tomato pasta sauce is for Julz who made this confession. This method of cooking is what I call the guess or "agak-agak" method for the proportion of the ingredients.

Ingredient list:

olive oil or any sort of cooking oil

1 or 2 large onions, chopped

3 cloves of garlic, chopped

1 large can of chopped tomatoes

3 or 4 celery sticks

2 carrots

italian seasoning

salt and sugar

Method:

Chop the onions, garlic, celery and carrots. No particular method except that they should be in small bits about the size of peas.

In a large saucepan, heat about 2 tablespoons of olive oil and add the onions and garlic and cook till translucent. Stir with a wooden spoon to prevent burning or sticking. Add the large can of chopped tomatoes and add 1/2 can of water and bring to low simmer. Add the italian seasoning, chopped celery and carrots and simmer for about 20 minutes till the vegetables are soft. Add some salt and sugar to taste.

To serve:

Add freshly chopped basil and scatter over sauce and pasta with some fresh ground black pepper and grated cheese.

The sauce will taste better the day after it is cooked.

Not so difficult actually - I wonder if Julz knows how to boil pasta. Maybe Maggi mee could be upgraded at this rate!!

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Puncture!

I had a puncture today with the Goo - there was a flat on the left front tyre. It was there the whole day whilst I was in the office and never spotted it till the security guard in the office complex informed me - PUNCTURE LAH!

I looked that the tyre calmly and then thought to myself: OK get ready to get your hands dirty and getting all sweaty. Sigh!

I DO KNOW HOW TO CHANGE A VEHICLE TYRE JUST IN CASE ALL YOU PEOPLE THINK I AM SOME HAPLESS FEMALE!!!

So I took out the wrench and started trying to undo the nuts. I struggled with the nuts, then some guy came along and used his large shoe and foot to step on the wrench. I am not going to spoilt my wonderful Ferragamos to step on that wrench. :-p

After that I managed to loosen all the four nuts and went to the back of the Goo to undo the spare tyre from the bottom of the Goo. There is this nut and bolt system securing the spare in some bracket under the Goo. I had to undo the nut to drop the bracket that kept the tyre and the jack. Then I had to sit on the road to figure out how to undo the latch that was securing the bracket. Voila! The whole bracket dropped and I dragged the spare and jack out.

Then I managed to secure the jack to the reinforced bit and started the tedious process of raising the Goo. This is actually the OK part of the whole job - just tedious because the wrench does not rotate the jack in a full rotation. I had to take the wrench out then fix it back then turn it in a semi-circle and start over.

I also have a problem bending over because I get dizzy, so I had to stop many times to catch my breath and let the blood flow back in the normal way - away from my head.

Some guys from the medical company in our building saw me struggling with this wrench to raise the Goo and they offered to help. But this liberated char-bor declined their assistance saying that I can do it. I think they were a little amazed at my gung-ho attitude.

When the Goo was sufficiently raised, I managed to pull the flat off. I rolled it and chucked it in the back. Then lugged the spare to the front. The tedious part of trying to lift the tyre and aligning it with the nut and bolt holes. Hooray for my colleague J who came down and aligned the holes for me to put the nuts in to secure the tyre. After that came the next tedious part of lowering the jack and the Goo. The exact reverse of trying to jack it up and the wrench does not move in a complete circle.

I managed to get the whole process over and done with in about 3o minutes with my hands and fingers totally grubby after that.

I think I did quite well today - changed the flat and gained some reputation as some capable female who can change her own tyre with the guys in the office building, Heh heh!

Next question - will these same guys come to my rescue if there were a creepy crawlie (snake or centipede or worm or scorpion or lizard) around and they hear my shrieks of terror???

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