Chocolate Chip Cupcakes

I made Chocolate Chip Cupcakes with Cheese Filling on Saturday but did not take any pictures because my camera ran out of battery and I have not been able to charge it because my charger is at my apartment. Anyways, RH did not like the cheese filling. His actual words were:

RH: Hunny, your cupcakes are delicious.........would be more delicious without the cheese

Dang, so much for wanting to make a "special" cupcake. Hahaha. Was gonna follow the cupcakes with cornbread muffins but my parents came back a day earlier and they wanted to have bah kut teh for breakfast instead. Maybe this weekend then.

I got baking appointment with DC. She is the queen of baking in our small group at least. And she is gonna teach me how to make Apple Pie with cheese toppings....

Nope, I am not obsessed with cheese.

SKS Bookstore

One of the perks of being an outdoor salesperson is that your boss cannot track your whereabouts. Dat means that we are allowed to "eat snake" for a while and there is absolutely no repercussions, whatsoever.

So, on a lovely Tues evening (yesterday), I decided to visit my customer who conveniently was located in the same building as the SKS Bookstore. Probably the largest Christian Bookstore in Singapore.

Came out early from meeting and went browsing in SKS. Bought a book highly recommended by my Marriage Preparation Course Facilitator. "Love and Respect" by Dr. Emerson Eggerichs. Will update when I finish reading.

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Later I went to Phoon Huat to shop ingredients for my Chocolate Chip Cupcakes. I am going to hone my baking skills this Saturday and trying my hand at baking cupcakes. YES! I dunno why everyone is baking cupcakes these days. Its absolutely the craze! Heard of chocolate n spice this in Tanjong Pagar?

I spent 29.75 in Phoon Huat yesterday (heartbreak). Suppose to be saving money for Korea trip in Oct and I am spending money to outfit my kitchen..... :(

Initially thought of baking a simple Chocolate Chip cupcake but end up searching for a recipe for a cheese filled cupcake. Will update after this weekend.

Potluck Picture Update

I decided to make Pad Thai and Eggplant afterall. Went to the Thai Supermarket at Golden Mile Centre at Beach Road. The supermarket is really very cool. It has a large selection of Thai fresh products, sauces and snacks. Yummy! And as you mak eyour way to the ground floor, there are also a number of Thai restaurants and Thai provision stores which are kinda cool.

Poor everyone had to make do with all the food on the very small table, had to get my TV box to extend for a longer table.

Sticky Rice and Mango Dessert....SY made that and its sitting on my beautiful Corelle plates.

The guys sitting on the sofa.

My newphew ZH, eating on the floor. He even got the tissue paper to clean up the floor when he spilt some rice.

Anyways, here is my Pad Thai recipe. Got it off the internet. Quite tasty.

SUKHOTHAI PAD THAI

Ingredients:

½ cup White Sugar

½ cup Distilled White Vinegar

¼ cup Soy Sauce

2 tbsp Tamarind Pulp

1 (12 oz) Package Dried Rice Noodles

½ cup Vegetable Oil

1½ tsp Minced Garlic

4 Eggs

1 (12 oz) Package Firm Tofu, cut into 1/2 inch strips

1½ tbsp White Sugar

1½ tsp Salt

1½ cup Ground Peanuts

1½ tsp Ground, Dried Oriental Radish

½ cup Chopped Fresh Spring Onions

1 tbsp Paprika

2 cup Fresh Bean Sprouts

1 lime Cut into wedges

Method:

To prepare Pad Thai sauce: In a medium saucepan over medium heat, blend sugar, vinegar, soy sauce and tamarind pulp. To make Pad Thai: Soak rice noodles in cold water until soft; drain. In a large skillet or wok over medium heat, warm oil and add garlic and eggs; scramble the eggs. Add tofu and stir until well mixed; add noodles and stir until cooked. Stir in Pad Thai sauce, 1 1/2 tablespoons sugar and 1 1/2 teaspoons salt. Stir in peanuts and ground radish. Remove from heat and add spring onion and paprika. Serve with lime and bean sprouts on the side.

Potluck

We are having potluck tomorrow and the theme is Thai Food. Yooo Hooo....

However, we are having the potluck at my under furnished apartment......dang! Anyways, I have not decided what to cook but this is what I shortlisted so far: 1. Pad thai 2. Thai Eggplant 3. Grilled Fish 4. Beef Salad 5. Fish Cake Well, I think I am required to cook two dishes so its kinda hard choosing from this list. You will know when you see pictures.

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My washing machine broke down.....lousy machine.....I only used it 4 times but really after the repairman cam down this morning, its really our fault.

When the Best Denki guy came to install the washing machine, he did say that the drain was too high and that we should saw the drain. However, after 3 weeks of travelling, naturally, I forgot all about it especially since, the machine did fine on its first run.

Bad news, the water in the machine was not able to drain fully and thus obstructed the spinning process and I think that the machine kinda overheated and caused a sort of burnt smell comign out of my washer. Hee hee....

You can totally tell that I am a first time home owner, right? Well, we gotta fail to learn, right?

Tried the much raved (Singapore Brides forum) about Magiclean..the first time I used it, kinda not effective. Maybe cos my place has just accumulated too much dust for it. It did not pick up all my hair like I expected it to.

Anyways, I decided to give it a second try after sweeping my whole house. Its great! the head of the magiclean is so flexible that it can really sweep into tiny crevices. Really have to study how they designed it. This time, it picked up the hair although I had to move over the same a few times but at least the dust does not fly as soon as I sweep. the house felt quite clean. Can't wait to try the new wet wipes....

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To continue for my USA trip

{Times Square}

{Broadway....}

{Empire State Building}

{Night view from ESB}

{What is a trip to NY without visiting the Statue of Liberty}

Update on USA Trip

As you know, I went to USA for 3 weeks. Thank goodness I went there in July. Imagine if I had to go now, it would totally be horrible because of the extra security measures. A 24 hour trip might end up being 30 hour trip.........

2 hours of security checks for each transit..... (scary thought).

Anyways, the first two weeks were quite boring. Training in a small town, Three Rivers, Michigan. All the trainees were stuck either at the hotel or at the training grounds. The schedule was really really packed. 6:30 breakfast, 7:15 leave hotel, 5pm come back hotel, 6pm eat dinner.

My hotel room. They gave me a smoking room which smelled but they compensated with the sleep number bed. That remote control on the bed adjusts the firmness of the bed. Hahaha!

{Factory and campus for my training.}

This is the interior of the factory. I guess the owner has a sense of humour. Imagine working in such a place evryday. Cool.
{They even had a chapel and full time pastor in their plant.}

{They served us mini bagels and muffins. That is a tennis ball size ball beside it. I am a sucker for cute mini stuff. :0}

{We had dinner at one of the employees home.....he lives by the lake, how lucky is that?}

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One training weekend, we decided to visit Southhaven (a city in Michigan that overlooks the Michigan Lake). When you are in Michigan, you have to visit Lake Michigan, right?

Well, my sisters drove up to Kalamazoo (where our hotel is) and we drove down to Southhaven (1.5 hours drive). It was really cool to find a beach in central USA.

{Nope, I checked, no naked people.}

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Finally the exciting part comes.....3 days in New York City........

At the airport....what is visiting New York without some I LOVE NY merchandise. We did not end up buying it lah.

{Lexus Cab?}

{NY subway......}

{Metropolitan Arts Museum}

{Rockerfella Centre}

{DC, in front of some Versace shop, I presume....}

Eating roadside hotdog and and posing in front of a mini SOL. The hotdog cost a freaking 2 USD.

{Grand Central Terminal}

I know the picture is kinda small. Started with small and thought it was too small but lazy to reload, switched to medium size, and it was taking so long to load and now I am just really tired so I have to continue loading next time. Tata.

Lazy!

Its almost going home time and I am soooo lazy to continue working. Thus, I decided to update my poor blog.

A rare thing happened last Friday. I managed to have dinner with sis SY, just the two of us. Its normally kinda hard to have just the two of us for dinner cos there is always someone else and a weekend is just impossible.

Anyways, RH had a company thing going on and I so I planned to have dinner at home, meaning my parent's home (read last post). Except that when I got home, NO ONE was home and there was no dinner waiting for me. Everyone apparently thought that I had plans too.

Lucky for me, I called SY and boom, she did not have plans either. We decided to have dinner and found a new place at Siglap called Blue Lobster. I would not bother putting down the address and phone number because although it was a fancy restaurant, it really did not serve good food.

Anyways, here is what we ordered.

{1. Baked Oyster with Moray Sauce 2. Steamed Oyster with some Asian sauce}

{3. Crab Cakes}

{4. Lamb Rack}

{5. Sole Fillet 6. Chocolate Mousse}

Sorry about the names, I do not remember the fancy names. Imagine if they had these names on their menu....hahahaha....they would probably have less customers than the few that they had.

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We celebrated my birthday at Ah Orh last night.........

回娘家

Sooooo many things to blog and soooooo many things to update!!!!

Hurray! I am going back to mom's place to sleep tonight....HURRAY HURRAY HURRAY!!!

Yes, yes, I was tortured with whips and not given any food by RH..... boo hoooo.......booo hooo.....made to slave and do all sorts of housework, chained at home with no key and no means of escape......

Hahaha, the above is not true la. How can RH torture me like that. However, the housework part is true though. I have been doing housework and more housework the past week. Having no maid is a torture........at least for a spoiled gal like me.

Btw, that reminds me, I need to buy color bleach (oh no, I am sounding like a housewife already). I was trying to do my ALL my laundry at one go and I also forgot (haven't used the washing machine for eons) that I need to separate out the whites so I ended up laundering all my clothes together. Guess what? My whites are not white anymore. :(

So, I am terribly terribly excited to go home to the comfort of my childhood home. :)

Here is a picture of my beautiful bedsheet. As you can see, its my mattress is kinda lying on the floor. No furnitures yet, people.

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Anyways, its my birthday this coming Sunday and I was suppose to have a surprise celebration from my wonderful small group. However, something came and I found out about it.

Me and RH were suppose to go for Bible Study last night but could not make it because my relatives were in town and they wanted to meet RH. So, we initially decided to split up. RH go dinner with my relatives and I go Bible Study. Alas, I changed my mind and decided to go dinner. Hence, RH called me:

RH: Why don't you go Bible Study tonight?
ME: Why? Its ok. Go dinner with you lah.
RH: Yeah, but I don't think there is anything terribly important to talk about during dinner and not many people are coming for Bible Study so you should go.
ME: Really? But I called SL to tell her I am not coming already.
RH: Yeah, you should go.
ME: No lah, I told SL liao and I don't wanna call her again. Its ok la.
RH: Ok, then maybe we can go there after dinner. Anyways, they usually end kinda late.
ME (smellign something fishy): Ok lor, if you want. See what time we finish dinner lor. Why are you so insistent that I go to Bible Study? You normally don't care what?
RH: Why? I ALWAYS care what!
ME (snort): Yeah right!

Anyways, I finally figured that they were gonna surprise me with birthday cake and all with regards to my impending birthday. Hee Hee. I think I know RH too well. I always know if he is acting out of character. He blew the surprise for me but I am still so touched that they actually bothered to do that for me.

Delicious peach and cream birthady cake. Thanks to YL......love you and your jewels. Hahaha.

{Me & RH}

{Everyone.....}

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Things are not going so well with me at work though. Getting kinda stressed with Dad pushing me for results. Really dunno what to do. Hmm, poor RH is getting all the stress though. :)

Although he did owe me cos I prepared a steak dinner with candles and wine........but he was late coming home from work despite telling me that he was able to come home earlier that day. We ended up having dinner at 9:30 pm. Wished I had taken pictures of it.

Back from the USA.....

Yes, I am back. As you can probably tell. I have not been updating my blog. Totally not my fault.

If you read my previous post, its actually about my Honeymoon to Koh Chang. You can also probably tell that there are not many pictures........that is really because there was somethign wrong with blogspot and any pictures that I have edited with Photoshop cannot be uploaded to my blog.

Thus, it totally destroyed my motivation to blog but alas, I have decided to abandon just that one blog and move on to greener pastures.

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I am finally moving into my new house after all the procrastinations. We were suppose to move in after our Honeymoon but Grandma sternly informed us that we are not allowed to move in unless it is on an approved auspicious date. Thus, we decided to move in July 18 (approved auspicious date) but RH moved back to my parents' place the next day cos "he does not want to be alone". *Snort* More like he does not want to leave the comfort of my parents' place.

Who can blame him? I miss it too. That was why I went back to my parents' place on Tuesday after just one night in my new home. Hee Hee. But alas, all good things come to an end and the inevitable has arrived. I have to finally move into my new home.

Reason being: My parents in law are coming tonight and I can't possibly lug them all (Father in law, Mother in law and Sister in law) to my parents' place nor could I just leave them by themselves at my new home.

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The arrival of my in-laws has also managed to create lots of stress for me. What amI going to cook for them next week? There is no hot water in the house. There are no curtains. There are no beds or table. The TV is not set up. There is no rice cooker. It seems that they have to do everything on the floor. This is the impression I am gonna create for them on their first visit to my home.

ARRRGGGGHHHHH!

Adding to that, my husband just absolutely do not understand why I am so stressed. Anyways, I did the best I can.....

1. Got the hot water working
2. Got part of the curtains done (bathroom and master bedroom)
3. Gonna chug a table and some chairs from my parents' place
4. Bless my mom! She got me plates, cooking utensils and rice cooker
5. Grab mattresses from my parents' place

I just hope that everything will be alright. Here is a picture of me and my mom at the Indonesian Wedding. Just a preview....