The Apple's Diary!

Today marks the 1st Anniversary of us staying in our own house. During this first year of staying together on our own, it was really trial and error to keep the house clean, neat and tidy. From the very first day of moving in to now, we have finally purchased everything we need for the house. A 2nd set of Curtains Curtains don't come cheap. Storage and cleaning are something to consider too when doing up curtains. I chose not to do a full length and opting for organza material in rooms that don't face the next door. This helped in saving some cost. Magic Seal Because our unit faces the greenery, it means that we have a lot of uninvited guests. At first, we bought a lot of gadgets to ward off these insects. In the end, we decided to install netting to keep the insects away. We called up MagicSeal company to help us install these magnetic netting. It is easy to remove for cleaning and from far, you can't tell there's something blocking. The best is no more creepies. Yeah!...

This year, we didn't manage to book in time for restaurant reunion dinner and we had no choice but to go with a 4 pm dinner at Pu Tien. It would be our 1st time having dinner at such weird timing. To entice customers to dine at 4pm, Pu Tien is giving a 10% discount. I do hope the dishes are good enough to make forget that I am eating dinner at 4pm. I guess it might not be too bad after all as I have another dinner with the in-laws at 7pm. Spring cleaning is going to be more intensive starting today. I hope I have enough time to do some last minute shopping. Wish me luck!

My piano student, Jane took up voice singing for quite sometime. Last Sunday, her teacher had organized a recital for his students and Jane was to perform 2 songs. She invited me to this recital that was held in the afternoon at Republic Polytechnic. I didn't really know what to expect, except that she would be performing " Come and trip it" by G.F Handel and "The sun, whose rays" by G. & A. Sullivan I had no idea what kind of styles were all these songs. So when 2 young performers started a duet as opening, I was blown away. In between opera and contemporary music, they delivered such clarity in their pitch and voice. When Jane came to the centre stage, I was amazed how this young lady transformed. I didn't know she could sing with such vibrato! I was glad that I came to this recital and opened my eyes that how many young talents were out there. I was even more amazed how young people would actually choose to do voice singing and have so much passion i...

Finally, I got it! My own Aglio Olio. This round, with new pointers from colleagues and internet source, I made some changes to the recipe. 1. After cooking the pasta, I drained off the water and added olive oil, a lot of it. Kept tossing around to make sure that the pasta was all covered with the olive oil. Then I remembered to add salt to enhance the flavour. 2. Stir fried garlic with my mushrooms, mussels and prawns. When they were done, I scoped them up and set them aside. 3. Stir fried more garlic now with olive oil and add in the pasta. I kept it at low heat to allow the pasta to absorb in the garlic fragrant. Then I put in all my seafood and kept tossing around in the wok over low heat and this time with the chilli padi. I was excited that I finally got my aglio olio but I had a problem with the plating. Hence the photo didn't look appetizing. But I regarded this as technical problem. Haha.... but why look when it tasted good!

Last weekend, I had craving for baked salmon. I wanted to go NTUC to buy my salmon fillet and made it myself. But on the thought it was nearing dinner time, to save the trouble, we drove out to the nearest Jack's Place @ West Coast Recreation Centre. This was my 2nd time dining in Jack's Place and my opinion of them was just so-so. I flipped through the menu and decided that their Grilled Salmon might be a better choice than their baked salmon. So here's my grilled salmon covered with garlic. The taste was not bland, just that I found it too oily and wished that there was some sauce or gravy I could go with. Darren always ordered a safe choice which was the seafood spaghetti. Looking at his main and mine, I felt that I could save this dinner money and cooked up a storm myself. So we ate our dinner and left the restaurant unimpressed.

This was my first attempt in doing Hainanese Chicken Rice. My recipe was a mix from my mother's instruction and online recipe. First attempt was passable but there was room for improvement. Lesson leant : 1. I should just boil the chicken for 1 minute to cleanse it. Then quickly drain it. Change the water and boil my chicken again. This round, I can then safely use the chicken stock to cook my rice. And using this new step would make my chicken more tender. 2. Using the 1st time chicken stock to cook my rice would make my rice more fragrant too. But pandan leaves are recommended for that extra touch. 3. Even for veggies, I could steam it to retain the nutrients better and it would taste better than boiled veggie. Now, with these pointers from my critics, I'm ready to take on the challenge again.

I finally got round to unwrap all the Xmas gifts. Thank you, all my dear friends and colleagues and my lovely students!

is shoes and more shoes... A shopping trip at Orchard belt had gained me 3 new pairs of shoes. Totally luv it! And I made a count. 33 pairs to my name. What a shoe-ly heaven!

I don't really watch CSI faithfully but I am really interested in forensics science. I feel there's more excitement than doing research. So when the producer of CSI decided to bring the CSI Experience to Singapore, how could I miss it? So on New Year's eve, we went for our own CSI experience. What I didn't really expect was the crowd and the ticket price. Entrance fee is at SGD 20 per adult. The good thing was that we could exit and re-enter the exhibition on the same day. In a summary, there were 3 scenario for us to work out. We were given a set of questions for each scenario and would have to go to different stations to gather evidence. After the 1st scenario, I was already tired and hungry. Left the place for a quick lunch and after that, I just rushed through the 2nd and 3rd scenario. The crowd was getting bigger, so it became harder to gather the evidence. Once you had the answer, you would proceed to submit your report and then you would be issued a Diploma. Over...

I met my mum for lunch during the Xmas season. It was a weekday, to be exact last Monday actually. We decided to go Bugis Junction for lunch and I checked through the store directory. Wongkok Char Chan Teng caught my eyes and I brought my mum there. It was both our first time. The service was so-so, the food was so-so, but I liked their menu arrangement. It was a replica from Hong Kong Char Chan Teng where there were many different sets. 2 set lunches cost me less than $30 which I thought it was truly value for money. Most importantly, their 絲襪奶茶 Hong Kong style milk tea came in such big serving. Even I, such a die hard fan of milk tea, couldn't finish it. By the time I called for the bill, I still had half cup half. This Char Chan Teng definitely earn my next visit.

Another year has passed. Before I start to gripe about the flying times, I am reminded by Chris Tomlin's (How Great Is Our God) .... "Age to age He stands, Time is in His hands" That's right! This year will be a year of God's goodness bumping into us everywhere. Hallelujah! Apple's diary is starting the new year by recapping the events that took place quite recently.... December was a month of jolly feasting and for Xmas, we had roasted chicken from Cold Storage. When we collected our package, the food was cooked but cold. So we had to heat it up at home before serving. Together with our roasted chicken, we had pork ribs. And not forgetting the ever popular champagne ham. The only mistake was that we didn't know we had to specify for ham to be sliced during ordering. So we had to do it ourselves which turned out to be quite a disaster. My mum tried out a new recipe with yoghurt fruit salad. Wow! She used the finest ingredients like the raspberries and blu...