This is not curry.

I don't really know how chefs would name their dishes. My theory is that the name derives from the ingredient(s) that stands out. 

So I'm just gonna call this... 

Turmeric Cola Chicken

It surprisingly tastes good, almost like Thai Green Curry. 

But it's not green. And I didn't use any curry powder.

Here's what I did:

1) Dice the chicken thigh.

2) Marinade it with 1tbsp turmeric, 2tbsp chili bean paste, 3tbsp lychee syrup, 1cup coke, mixed herbs, salt.

3) Heat oil in pan and sauté sliced onions until soft, then add chopped garlic. I like to put the onions first so that it'll turn soft and release its sweetness before I add the garlic. Otherwise the garlic will be burnt by the time I soften the onions.

4) Add the entire chicken and all its marinade goodness in. Give it a stir. You can even cover it to make the chicken cook faster. 

5) Add 3tbsp tomato sauce and chili sauce (my favourite brand is Lingham Chili Sauce).

6) Add 1 tomato (cut into quarters).

7) Add condensed milk (about half a cup) and bring to boil. I was looking for coconut milk but I didn't have any. So I just used condensed milk instead. I wanted to use some low fat milk, you know, the kind that you pour in your cereal. But I figured it probably wouldn't bring out the flavour as well as the condensed milk. 

8) Taste. My dish was slightly on the sweeter side and I liked it that way. If not, you could simply eliminate the lychee syrup or the chili sauce.

9) Serve. :)

The thing about this dish is that it was made out of leftovers in my fridge. I have tons of ingredients that I keep buying but haven't been utilising to its maximum potential, namsayiiiinnnnnn. That lychee syrup was from the lychee cordial can that I opened a few days ago. That chicken thigh was saved from my open house that I had for my family a few days ago (raw, of course). The tomato was from last week that I haven't used till now (still can eat okay. My fridge damn good I tell you)

So you see, magic can happen with leftovers and I'm pretty sure I'm not gonna be able to recreate this dish again, even if I wanted to. Haha 🙊

Tis' a season to be experimenting.

Happy holidays all!

In case you do try this dish out, let me know how it turns out!

Mwah mwah!

New beginning, new change.

I'm looking forward to an amazing beginning with you.

*cues "At the beginning" from Anastasia OST*

Cheesy.


Anyway, updates from the last time I posted.

I have finally settled in to my new place.
It's now week 8 of school. Two more weeks to holiday!
And I feel more inclined (or hardworking) to prepare breakfast now.

I was thinking back the other day when I saw older pictures of myself; I actually look a little more chubby than I am now. Maybe it was because of the daily breakfast that my ex-boss always asked me to buy for her.

Some people may say that I'm pretty lucky to stay in this shape. Alhamdulillah, I have my good genes to thank. But it comes to a point when you could literally feel your body break when you miss your footing or when your body starts to ache because the metabolic rate is too high that food gets burnt. And you have an annoying cramp because the body is telling you that you need more "nutrition".

So I'm starting a change. Right now.
We'll start small. With breakfast.
They say breakfast is the most important meal of the day. I am beginning to see sense in that.

It's a habit I need to kick. I used to shy away from breakfast because I believed having breakfast would give me a terrible tummy ache and I'm not one to use public toilets if I have something serious to attend to, if you know what I mean.

But thinking back, all these workshops that I attended provided me with breakfast and I don't recall rushing to the toilet afterwards. Maybe it's just what you eat. Stay away from dairy. That's all.

I'm currently underweight. I aim to reach an acceptable weight and a healthy BMI. Well that's a start. I'm gonna try to achieve this by the end of the year. If it doesn't happen, we'll bring it forward to next year.

Ledsdoodisss.

I've had two proper breakfasts ever since I moved in. Let's hope my breakfast journey becomes a success, In Shaa Allah.

Home is Where the Heart Is

Well, let's see...

My neighbours are awesome and I honestly think we'll be living here for quite a while. People here are friendly and I couldn't have asked for anything better. We're situated pretty close to the west "town"; JEM, JCube, IMM and West Gate.

Our house is almost complete. We're just left with bathroom mirrors and storage for the household shelter.

Alhamdulillah for the new home.

Still trying to make a habit to keep things in place. I'm a messy person by nature. Hah. My cats are adapting well, so that's good. Mika just complains every now and then to ask us to let her out of the kitchen so she could chill in the living room with us. But for now, I'll let her chill with her kids first as long as they're around.

I haven't gotten a really good picture of everything yet, but here's a picture of what my beautiful and simple home looks like.

This was taken right after we got the carpets. Oh so soft...

Get them online! Much cheaper there :)

Here's Hiro chilling.. 

Oh, my sofa's made of microleather so it's practically scratchproof (almost)

Will upload pictures taken by the professional photographer soon, once they're up!

Till next time, 

Mwah mwah

Kids these days are so lucky

I think children these days are really privileged. I clearly recall not getting any Lego sets in school. 

Back in my day, I had to beg and/or work my butt off just to get one Lego set at Toys 'R' Us or Kiddy Palace.

Never mind me, what about our parents? Toys were a luxury. It really shows how much we've grown huh. As a nation.

I wonder what kids will get in school in the future. Won't be surprised if primary school kids get a laptop or an iPad for free. 

On a side note, here are some of my masterpieces from the free Lego set that we received in lieu of SG50.

Can't wait for the long weekend though.

Long Weekend

Here's to the long weekend.. and a hectic week ahead. 

As usual, Sarah baked while I cooked. Here was what I whipped up.

Roti kirai, chicken curry and churros. 

The best chicken curry I've ever made, in my opinion. The churros batter was a little hard but it turned out okay, though the squeezing part was a little difficult. Took two pairs of hands to squeeze and cut them.

AND it took me about 4 hours to finish cooking the entire roti kirai batter. O.M.G.

Only one side of my stove was working. Pfft. Can't wait for a functional double or triple stove-top.

There were mini donuts that Sarah made too, but we didn't take a picture of it, unfortunately. By the time we finished glazing the ENTIRE thing, we were too tired.

Haha! How to jualan like that?

Oh and if you're wondering, here's my simple recipe for the chicken curry.

I'm just gonna skip the ingredients list and go straight to the method.

Ingredients are underlined. 

Your welcome.

Directions:

1. Heat oil in pot (I covered the base of the pot in oil) and pop in 1 cinnamon stick, 2 star anise, 2 seeds of cardamom. Fry until fragrant. Here, I threw in a few curry leaves.

2. Throw in blended paste. 

(I used 1 medium yellow onion, 2 medium-sized red onions, 3 small shallots, 4 garlic, 1 stalk of lemongrass --> only use the bottom part)

3. Add 1 tablespoon of chili paste (boiled, drained and blended red chili) as well, for that slight fiery kick. You may add more if you please.

4. Fry the paste until fragrant. Oil should separate.

5. Add about 6-8 tablespoons of curry powder. (I used Baba's chicken/beef curry powder)

6. Mix well with the paste. You should be able to smell it. Keep stirring and don't let the bottom burn. It'll spoil the entire dish.

7. Add water. Little by little. My first time making this dish turned out to be a disaster cos it was too diluted. So, yeah. Bit by bit won't do you harm. Bring to a boil.

8. I added about 12 chicken pieces (I cut the 3-joint chicken wings into 2 parts) once I'm satisfied with the amount of water in the pot.

9. You can add in potatoes here too. I didn't though. Totally slipped my mind. Cover the pot and let it boil some more.

10. Taste with salt and sugar.

11. Add about half a small carton of coconut milk. 

12. Here's the adjusting part. You could tweak it to your taste. I like mine slightly sweeter, so I added a bit more sugar.

13. Serve.

Alhamdulillah, took me less than an hour to finish making this dish.

You could enjoy this dish with rice and some kick-ass sambal belacan.

You can google the recipe for making the roti kirai batter. It's THAT easy. It's only tedious to make.

Anyway, hope everyone is having a good weekend ahead. I'm listening to Celine Dion, Backstreet Boys, Mariah Carey, Bryan Adams and all the 90s' hits while doing my work and blogging at the same time. Talk about multi-tasking.

Till next time,

Mwah mwah!

Part 1 & Part 2

PART 1

Two days ago, I made a simplified and modified version of Ayam Lemak Cili Padi.

Here's what I did.

3 medium sized onions, 1 inch of lemongrass, 6-7 cloves of garlic, 3 bird's eye chilli (cili padi), 8 stalks of green chilli (You may adjust the amount of chilli to your desired level of hotness). OH, please add 1 whole candlenut (buah keras) if you have. Mine's finished.

2tbsp of turmeric powder (serbuk kunyit). Don't mind the amount on my spoon. This is just for picture's sake. Blend everything.

This is about 2tbsp of chopped Laksa leaves.

Saute the blended mixture. Once the oil separates from the mixture, add the laksa leaves.

I added water and two cubes of chicken stock here.

Finally, when everything has set, add the chicken and half a cup of milk (I used Magnolia's Full Cream Milk to replace coconut milk HAHA and HEY IT WORKED TOO OKAY) and cover until the chicken is thoroughly cooked. Season with sugar and salt to taste.

Verdict: I liked it! Husband approves as well. Maybe next time I'll try blending the laksa leaves with the other ingredients to see how it'll turn out.

PART 2

Budae Jjigae (Army base stew)

This was prepared yesterday when our friend, Sarah, came over for a baking session. I wanted to try cooking Laksa for lunch since I had all the ingredients. But when Sarah told me to look this Korean dish up on Google, I was hooked. 
Looked a lot like steamboat.
Steamboat pon steamboat lah.
Laksa can wait.

The huge problem with this dish was the soup base. We needed to use "Gochujang" (red pepper paste) but we had a hard time looking for a halal one at NTUC. All, or most brands out there, have wine/vinegar thing as one of their main ingredients.

God knows if there is even a halal one in our Singapore supermarkets.

Thought of making it from scratch but it was so tedious. 

Wanted to give up but then.. wait. Fermented soybeans. Isn't that taucho?
We found this!



Cool. We could work with this.
Since Gochujang is slightly pungent, sweet, salty and peppery, I could add maple syrup (or honey) and some pepper to make the soup base.

So here's how I made Budae Jjigae in 8 simple steps:

1. Bring a pot of water to a boil. Add dried anchovies and kelp. (I also added beef slices in this pot so everything boils together and you'll get some salty beef stock. Mmmmdap.)
2. For the soup base, add the chilli bean sauce, maple syrup, ground chilli powder, white pepper powder, chopped garlic, soy sauce, fish sauce in a bowl and mix well.
3. Strain the boiled anchovies, beef and kelp and you'll get the broth for your soup. This broth is salty as it is, so you don't have to add salt.
4. Arrange whatever ingredients you have in your steamboat.
5. Put two dollops of soup base in the middle of everything.
6. Pour over the broth.
7. Stir.
8. EAT.

Verdict: I'm making this again. And again. And again. Maybe this will become a staple when I have guests. Or no guests.


 Hope y'all are having a good weekend.


Mwah mwah.

Birthday Specials

I had a great time turning 24 this year. I couldn't have had it another way.

Since I was working on my birthday itself, we celebrated my 24th on a Sunday instead. The husband is really terrible at keeping secrets from me, so he told me the plans he had for my birthday instead. 

Here was what went down..

Sedap siol.

Here was breakfast. So good. And filling.

Pout pout. Tak menjadi.

We were pretty tired from all the walking. Yes, I told him to leave the bike at home. It was public transport day! Here's a quick cut-off selfie at Starbucks while waiting for the right time for the next activity...

Escape Hunt @ Concorde Hotel Singapore

...which was this! This was the highlight. He booked an intermediate room and we took about 62mins to solve the puzzle. It was so exciting that we booked an advanced room immediately after the intermediate room. Guess how long we took to solve the advanced room - 56 mins yaw! BOOYA.

And I thought I'd be a pro at this because I downloaded almost all the escape room games from the Play Store.

Shopping!!

And what is a birthday celebration without shopping? Husband let me roam free in Sephora, being so patient and letting me take my time. Yippee!

First time seh. Got myself a few brushes, a bronzer and a makeup brush cleaner.

In the evening, we went to a salon to make some changes to Hadi's hair. After that, we had sushi dinner at Ramen Ten and then we headed back.

It was a simple celebration. Fuss-free date with my other half.

On the actual birthday itself, I spent time with my family at home. My mum made roti kirai and rojak salad for the birthday girl. Here was what was real cute:

My niece, Emma, gave me a present. Now, we would expect gifts from kids to be gifts that were bought by their parents or something. 

I got home, looked for my niece (who locked herself in the room with her mother) who eventually came out wearing her Elsa dress (which was meant to be worn only on her birthday) and handed me a gift. When I opened it, there was a box with one of her favourite toys and two packets of Mamee. Packed in a pre-loved make-up box.

Can it get any cuter? 

Of course, teacher toy for the teacher aunty. I couldn't stop laughing.

Omg I love this girl to bits.

So after that, we headed home (in a slight rush) and started cleaning the house (a nightly routine) because somebody wanted to get an early rest since he's working the next day. Somehow the cleaning was more intense and I figured that le husband simply wanted to REALLY clean the house (rajin mode, y'know).

Only until our friends came with cake and pizza and cupcakes that I realized we cleaned the house good for a reason. HAHA.

I totally didn't see that coming.

Thank you God for letting me live through another day, month and year and blessing me with great people in my life. Thank you to the people that made things happen. Thank you my families, friends and colleagues for wishing me an awesome birthday.

World peace yaw.

Mwah mwah.

Stationeries.

Have I ever mentioned that I'm an absolute sucker for stationeries?

Stickers

Labels

Markers

Papers

Pencils

Labels

Paper clips

... you name it, I love it.

Browsing the Qoo10 website is definitely time-consuming and frustrating.

MUST. RESISSSSSSSST.

Well anyway, I'm in the process of coming up with something that I was supposed to work on last year. But I stopped working on it because I told myself that I didn't have enough resources to get things going. 

But now, I decided that it's a brand new year and I should get up and get started. Make do with what I have, y'know.

Let's all hope and pray this will turn out to be a success :)

May take some time though, I'm only at the planning stage.

Bismillah.

I was thinking of changing my logo too. Maybe until I figure something out, it'll remain as that.

Mwah mwah!

Till next time, 

Leila

The biggest box and fish. Lots of fish.

Reading the articles online about warehouses gave me the impression that there were only 5 in Singapore. Um, nope. There are more, in fact.

I'm here to share about my trip to the newly opened Big Box and Jurong Fishery Port. I'll begin by saying that I'm a VERY happy girl today. *beams*


Big Box is located at Jurong East with a linkway from Jem. How convenient.
Unfortunately, Hadi and I only ventured around the first floor cos by the time we were done with our shopping, there were just too many things and we didn't bother exploring the other levels. Yet. 

Big Box is big.

Here are some pictures I took. (excuse the funny angles because I was trying my best not to look like a tourist while taking the shots.)

There is even a Garden and Home section IN the supermarket itself.

I like how every aisle caters to only 1-3 items. So there's a large variety of stuff there. I personally like the shampoo section.

This is the start of the frozen goods section. The entire row at the bottom right side of this picture is solely dried goods. I would have spent my time looking for individual herbs to make my bak kut teh, but I'll leave that for next time.

Here's the middle section of the dried goods.

My favourite - vegetables and fruits.

Here's the seafood section. Let's see, when I was there, there was a sale going on. 2 Black Tilapia for $5.90. Whuttttttt.

One particular buy that I was truly happy with was the Apple Cider Vinegar which was halal. Yes, it had the halal logo on.

Have you any idea how hard it is to find such things which are halal-certified?!

Anyway, when you're there, I suggest you comb each and every aisle to get the most out of the Big Box experience. 

OH, and just outside the hypermarket, sushi is going for 50cents per piece.

OKAY, that's that for Big Box.

Later on at 1am, we headed out again. This time, we went to the Jurong Fishery Port with our neighbour and her little one.

Once you reach the entrance, you need to exchange your IC for a temporary pass that will grant you access to seafood goodness.

Oh, I read somewhere that when you go there, you should expect to wade through ankle-deep fishy waters. But nope. 

The water wasn't ankle-deep. It was merely slipper-deep.

Here are other things to take note of:

The smell wasn't too bad simply because these are fresh catch.

You can't expect tip-top customer service either. People are pushing and pulling trolleys, ferrying their goods to their respective stalls. They will HONK at you to move. Not ask. Honk. Using their voices.

You can try a little bit of bargaining. Most of the time they won't entertain you. What I did was to ask for the price. Then I leave, make another round and ask a different guy when I got to the same stall. He gave me a cheaper price. :)

Ensure that you recce the entire place before deciding what to buy. You may find better deals as you walk along.

Don't wear shoes. Everywhere is really wet. EVERYWHERE.

Time to do some seafood stock-up.

Fish are "arranged" on the floor. 

Some may come in styrofoam boxes.

I saw some men cleaning and cutting the fish. Not all stalls will provide such services. You need to ask them.

Oh. My. God. Prawns as big as my entire palm. They're huge.

3.2kg of stingray that I shared with my neighbour. My chopping board is roughly the size of a 15-inch laptop. I had a hard time cutting this baby in half. They don't cut it for you.

Generally, the prices are cheaper than what you find in Sheng Siong or NTUC or even at your local wet markets.

If memory serves me well, the prices are as follows:

1kg of selar kuning for $6.50.

1kg of flower crab for $10.

1kg of squid for $10.

1kg of large tiger prawns for $24.

1kg of stingray for $8.

*The above prices vary from stall to stall.

Now my fridge is full. 

Happy girl is happy.

*Keep a lookout for their trolleys!

Much love,

Mwah mwah

*All pictures taken with my LG G3. Unedited.

What's up, 2015?

Move aside 2014, cos 2015 is here to stay.

At least for now.

The start of the new year was pretty hectic. Thankfully so, cos I know things will cool off and pretty much settle down soon.

2014 for me was like... eons ago. Only because I can't remember what really happened. 

I just knew that I went to Bali, cooked a few things and that's it.

HERE'S TO REMEMBERING EVERYTHING IN 2015!

Maybe not.

***

Putting pressure on 2015 because I'd like to think I'm more matured (turning 24 in 3 weeks), a little bit wiser and a better cook. I still hate cleaning though, that doesn't change.

I'd gone through the first 3 days of school and it was nothing like how I imagined the first 3 days to be.

The primary 1s are too adorable and annoying at the same time. We even had to teach them how to sit down.

Have you ever taught anyone to sit down?

Other than babies?

NO. 

Because NIE didn't teach me how to.

heh.

You see, there's more to being a teacher than just the theory and application modules they provide in NIE. Most of the things I learnt to be a better teacher was the on-job trainings in school itself. 

I've opened my eyes to such experiences when we had to teach them what we thought were the simplest things. It was then that I realized that there were DIFFERENT kinds of admin matters to settle. But who's complaining? I get to teach something different and I see visible results in time to come.

I'm having fun.

So please, parents, if you wish to make things a tad easier for the teachers, the things to prep your kids before entering Primary 1 are these:

1) Make sure your kids can read and write alphabets.

2) Teach them how to take turns.

3) Teach them basic manners like "Please", "Thank you" and "Sorry".

4) Make sure they know how to go to the toilet independently.

5) Teach them how to count.

6) Teach them what to do if they get bullied.

BONUS: Teach them the national pledge and anthem.

hahahahahaha.

Touching on number 6, I encountered a small bullying case just now.

During recess, a girl came up to me and said that a boy was running after her when she was playing with a friend. She got scared and she started running. It turned out to be a game for that boy.

So the conversation went like this:

Me: Why don't you tell him to stop?

Girl: I asked him to stop but he kept running after me.

Me: Okay. Next time you should stop running and look at him and say, "I don't like what you are doing. Stop it now or I will tell the teacher."

(She thinks to herself, probably imagining the conversation that she would have with that boy)

Girl: Okay, I'll tell him that.

I didn't hear from her after that. She probably told him off, I guess. Hmm, maybe I'll find out from her tomorrow.

But yes, kids these days need to be told off by their own friends. Teach these kids how to repel bullies PROPERLY and not with profanities.

I've heard and seen my fair share of kids as young as five hurling profanities (even those that I forgot about) at the void deck on weekends.

Seriously?

Can we teach kids of this generation to be respectful and kind?

Let's begin this practice at home.

Till next time,

Mwah mwah