Dinner at Ember

 

Simian and I went to Ember on our annual pilgramage there. We know there aren't a lot of vegetarian dishes - but every vegetarian dish is always great, from the cold angel hair pasta to the veggie pasta. The desserts were also really good - the Tiramisu was wonderful and the lychee sorbet that came with the nougat was fantastic.

Fish in pond.wmv

Simian took this video using my new Aquapac sleeve!

Sewing Lessons

 

Simian, Mom and I went to Seven Sensations for lunch. Of course we had the yam soup and the yogurt. Mom also had the portobello mushroom, Simian had the buah keluak (which I shared) and the brown rice and I had the rainbow Maki. Then we headed to Mustafa. Mustafa now has membership cards! I was so excited - till the people at the registration counter said they had no idea what exactly you could redeem the points you get for spending money there.

We came home and Simian got a sewing lesson from Mom. He's taking her spare sewing machine home. He's really happy with the machine and it's good someone learns to sew! :)

Pressies!

 

Some of the cool present that I got this year. Thank you everyone! I don't think Impy is too pleased with me though since Planetofsound played with his stylophone all afternoon. I'm still trying to decide if it's a sign of a successful party if three different people fall asleep at it - or if it was just too much good food :)

I also loved the postcards Imp and Planetofsound brought back - complete with notes from Imp and a wonderful little poem from Planetofsound

River

River
Originally uploaded by ariel1511976

Poor River - the thunderstorm today spooked him. He hates thunder and spent a lot of time trying to decide if he should hide under Mom's bed or spend time with us outside. In the end there was a compromise - he hid under the table with us.

Christmas Lunch

 

Every year since we turned 17, M, D, J and I have met for Christmas lunch. The venue has changed (from Hard Rock Cafe to Mexican food to our house), and the gathering has come to encompass significant others and other friends. The only thing constant is that the people who come are the people who mean the most to Simian and I.

We meet now every year at our home in Singapore and everyone brings a dish. Or in some cases (like Planetofsound's!), THREE dishes. Everyone eats too much because the food is always excellent and then we hang out and catch up after not seeing each other for months.

Today's lunch was just as wonderful despite some glitches. These included : Scout somehow not being in my Mom's room and being frightened and hiding under the sofa all afternoon; River getting so excited he threw up and the downpour that near flooded the dining room. Even though Phoon Huat was out of confectioner's sugar I needed for this recipe and the packet I did have was rock hard meaning I had to McGyver it. This meant the icing turned out much oilier than I liked even though I cut down on the amount of butter (and sugar) used in the recipe. Also, I wasn't used to the timer and the tart base was a bit burnt.

In the end it didn't really matter because everyone was already stuffed from the curried carrot and coriander soup, the lemony potato with creme fraise, the huge salad, rice pilaf, pasta with chantarelle mushrooms, chickpea and tomato in a curried sauce, saukerkraut, ham, etc, etc. Not to mention the alcohol care of Imp and Planetofsound.

BURP.

Merry Christmas!

Cardinal
Originally uploaded by ariel1511976

Merry Christmas everyone! We're thinking of all of you who aren't in Singapore and hoping you guys have a wonderful day!

Vegetarian Laksa

Vegetarian Laksa
Originally uploaded by ariel1511976

Got in yesterday morning - simian watched five movies on the plane! I only managed a measly two - and finished half a book!

I went for a facial when I got home - and bought yummy vegetarian food home for lunch.

New bird feeder

 

Here's the new, large bird feeder Simian built. I hope it will hold enough food (as it should) the time that Simian is away. A red-bellied woodpecker has also started to appear.

Simian managed to log on to our webcame and check out the happenings in the garden!

Bye Maryland!

We're on the way back to Singapore. Saw your post Impy - despite the snow which meant we had to drive (or rather Simian had to drive) instead of taking our train, we managed to get to Newark. We're in the lounge where Simian has already started on the alcohol! He says he doesn't want to be too hydrated on the flight :) I think he's planning to also watch every movie.

We also managed to set up the giant bird feeder before we left - photos to come!

Thanks suntaneye and husby for offering us a ride too. Bye everyone in Maryland and see you soon!

And to everyone in Singapore, see you sooner!

Aftermath

 

We had a beautiful sunny day today and everyone was dealing with the fall out from the storm. People were shovelling all over - and I went out and shovelled too, till Simian told me to stop. My neighbours came over with their snow blowers and plows in the evening and dug us out. Thank goodness too as it was hard going. Simian still had to shovel some of the snow to clear a path to our garage door as their truck couldn't reach the area but thank goodness for the Ds!

I also cleaned the house and made another batch of canneles - final verdict : the oil doesn't really matter.

Some of the snow melted - but the area is still a mess. Newark is apparently a big mess too (and their website is no help - they only recently posted that there were delays because of the snow) - and Amtrak has a bunch of cancelled/late trains, so I hope we manage to make our flight!

Cannele Batch 2

Canele Batch 2
Originally uploaded by ariel1511976

After speaking with my Mom and Simian, I decided to try different methods with my new batch of cannele. With one lot, I coated the moulds with olive oil. With another, truffle oil. With the last, I used honey to coat the cannele batter itself.

Simian and I think the olive oil best approximates cannele - though I actually like the honey too!

Snow

 

We went out to frolic in the snow a little - but the snow isn't as compact and nice as our last snow. This snow doesn't compact, so no snowball fights. The snow came up to the top of my boots and it was more wading into the yard than walking.

Thank goodness for the snow plows that are clearing the roads. Even so traffic is light - people are mostly keeping off the roads. Simian and I tried to get tyre chains last night but the store was closed. We're probably going to stay in till we need to leave anyway so it's not a biggie.

The snow was up to our fence line and it's really piling up on our deck and our front stairs. And it's still snowing. We're all waiting to see if we set a new record for snowfall! I couldn't leave food out in the squirrel feeder because it's almost buried! Simian tried to shovel but I told him to forget it. Since the snow is falling at the rate of a half inch to an inch an hour, there's really no point. Plus there's so much of it, shoveling will take hours. Our neighbours have promised to come back tomorrow and shovel us out again. Simian has instead been weather proofing the house, insulating doors and building a bigger feeder for my birds when we're away.

You know it's a bad storm when the shopping malls close on the biggest shopping day of the year!

The whole place is absolutely gorgeous though. I've been spending a lot of time just staring out the window and admiring the wintry beauty.

Birds in the snow

 

Simian took most of these shots (except for the photo in the bottom right hand corner). The birds were out in full force today - they were cold and hungry.

Snow Storm

 

We're right in the midst of what some people are saying may be one of the top ten snow storms in Maryland ever. Marylanders are not very good with snow - and for some reason, whenever there's a storm, the joke is that we head out and get eggs, toilet paper and milk. We had to stop by and get some stuff at the supermarket yesterday and funnily enough, those items WERE selling very well.

So far we've gotten almost a foot of snow. Our neighbour came in his snow plow to shovel our driveway and he helped to blow all the snow off the sidewalk with his snow blower an hour ago. It's all gotten snowed under again - but every bit helps since there'll be less to shovel when this is over.

Baltimore is now under a blizzard warning, and Maryland has declared a state of emergency. As long as the power holds, we're good. Let's just see if we can make our flight out on Monday!

The Cannele experiment

 

Canele or Canneles? Who knows? I do however know, as I described it to Imp, that they taste like poetry melting on your tongue.

So of course when I got my mould in the mail yesterday, I proceeded to whip up some batter, and put in the fridge to bake this morning. Believe me when I say I trawled through a bunch of recipes - I settled on one that didn't look massively difficult and involve tons of beeswax since I was using silicone. Also the guy had a French name - so that scored points :) The only thing that I took away from everything was the absolute necessity of storing your batter at least overnight.

Verdict? They were nice but not exactly right. I have more batter - tomorrow I'll try and bake them even longer till they brown. After all, we're going to be spending all day at home tomorrow because we're expecting a big snow storm - possibly the biggest one in years. My neighbours have said that they'll come round with the snow plow on Sunday because we might be getting FEET of snow.

Christmas Baking

 

I made these for some of our neighbours for Christmas. The rolls turned out nice and moist and nothing beats the smell of cinnamon rolls in your kitchen. I used the recipe from Pioneer Woman's cookbook - the website version is slightly different (she recommends just letting your milk mixture get 'lukewarm' in the book instead of saying how long it would take, for example) but the ingredients are all the same.

BIG warning if you try this recipe - I LOVE sweets. Most people find that my sweet tooth is way sweeter than theirs. However, the sheer amount of butter and sugar in this recipe frightened even me. I cut all the butter and sugar by half and it still came out sweet enough for me.

The kitchen counter looked like a disaster area - but clean up took faster than I thought it would!

Cannele

I have one general rule when it comes to baking - if the equipment used is something that I'm only going to use in this one recipe, then I'm not making it. There's no point my buying every pan/tart/mould, use it once and then pile it in the cupboard. Most of my equipment is pretty basic and I use it over and over.

But I just broke my rule because I found that they now make cannele moulds in SILICONE! No more beeswax. Just bake and pop them out. M, my cannele pusher, knows I can never say no to cannele - and now I MIGHT be able to make them at home. Might because canneles are apparently very hard to get right, but the ingredients are simple and cheap (that's rule two of my baking rules - if it involves frou frou ingredients or anything too expensive, I substitute. Hence no vanilla bean in the recipe for me - plain old vanilla essence will do as well). It also apparently takes time - you need to let the dough rest. I can't wait!

Robots

This made me laugh because it reminded me of Simian and myself and our love-hate relationship with our Roombas and Scoobas. Scooby has proven to be more troublesome and hence my relationship with Scooby is more fraught - Roomby is usually always more hassle free.

Simian on the other hand HATES the noise.

Cooking and Pressie

 

I finally made an Asian dish :) We had tofu that expired today so I made a grilled tofu with vegetables in a marinade from Gourmet. YUM! It's funny that when I finally made an Asian recipe it was from Gourmet - and the sesame oil and soy sauce were given to us by a German friend who left B-more :)

I also made this chocolate sheet cake from the Pioneer Woman's Cookbook. There was so much sugar in the icing though that I cut the amount in half - and trust me, it was already way sweet. Plus I made ORCs - Simian just wants ORCs - he's easy to please that way :)

Thanks Imp and Planetofsound! I got your little pouch!

Bread and Butter Pudding

Bread and Butter Pudding
Originally uploaded by ariel1511976

Not the most attractive photo but Simian swears that this is the best Bread and Butter Pudding I ever made - mostly I think because the bread was also home made. Also, some people suggest serving B&B pudding with whipped cream or maple syrup. Those people are wrong. It has to go with Creme Anglais and that's that.

Also, Megabus is giving free seats away to NYC! I booked seats for Simian and I for March. Who knows what we'll be doing then - but at a fifty cents booking fee, who's complaining? We'll leave early in the morning and return the same night.

In other news, Jersey Shore is like a train wreck - and that's possibly why I am so utterly fascinated by it. It's bizarre because a friend had just told us about the Guido lifestyle a few months ago - he's from Noi Jorsey - and now it's all over the place!

Pie crust and Pie chain

Pie crust and Pie chain
Originally uploaded by ariel1511976

This came in the mail from M. Thanks M for my Christmas presents - part deux :)

I asked for pie weights - and then saw a pie chain online and told M I was going to go buy chains from Home Depot. M however had already read my mind and got me these!

I baked today and the kitchen was a complete mess when Simian came home :) I tried to make the almond cookie again - should have read the reviews which said it was very watery. I did chill it but it was still watery. The problem might also have been that I tried to make my own almond paste. It turned out ok but was a bit watery. I also made bread and butter pudding and creme anglais. I used the bread that I made the other day.

Simian just ate the cookies again and he said they hardened up nicely and they taste exactly like the ones he likes. However they don't LOOK alike somehow!

It's cold outside and tomorrow is going to be colder - don't think it will even get as high as zero degrees Celsius. Thankfully we aren't in Montana though which hit minus thirty degrees FAHRENHEIT two days ago.

Present!

 

Will and A carried all of this back from Nashville for me! It was from K and looks fantastic. Thanks guys!

Lab Party

 

Simian's lab's Christmas party was this evening and it was held at Lemongrass again. I'm not sure if it was just the food ordered but again, I wasn't impressed. It didn't taste very Thai - it was too sweet and not spicy at all. Plus apparently the place is quite pricey. They also kept running out of food and/or plates. I guess they weren't expecting the lab and their respective hungry spouses/partners/friends :)

The lab also had their annual party games - the winner walked away with a cool $1000, and the runner up $500. And in case, you were wondering, no those aren't real orchids.

Pie Book

Pie Book
Originally uploaded by ariel1511976

Thank you M for this wonderful Christmas pressie! I read the first chapter already and it has great tips. He's very clear and helpful - though I think if I had used this book when I made my first pie dough, I'd be intimidated.

Raisin Cranberry Bread

 

I took a photo of the tracks from the bedroom - sorry the screen was on so it's blurry, but you get the idea!

I also baked my raisin cranberry bread. I thought it wasn't sweet enough but Simian thought it was just right!

Babies, baking and Below Zero!

 

We went to visit J, our friend's R and A's new baby. I brought one of the apple raisin breads I baked yesterday and while I did like the taste, it wasn't what I was going for. Hence you can see the dough I'm leaving to rise overnight to make experiment two of the raisin-cranberry-pecan bread.

J was cute - and a super quiet baby. He didn't wake up once in the two hours we were there to cry. Apparently he's been a dream baby and even the labour was easy! What a change from the usual horror stories :) A tried hypno birthing - the second person I know who did it - and who swear by how it relaxes them.

We also saw Jade, who came to stay with us sometime last year. She has taken very well to the baby!

Simian and I also went by to visit our old neighbour's M and L. M had a fall, and we also took one of the apple raisin breads to them. M is fine - just had a bad fall and had temporary amnesia. We also saw their dogs and played with Bob, their new dog!

We dropped by to see Suntaneye and her husby to drop off Suntaneye's Christmas present since she already gave me HER present. Since Suntaneye seems to have a short memory, I'd like to refresh it by reminding her what she already gave me!!! No more Christmas presents Suntaneye!!!

We came home and went for a run - first run in sub zero weather this season. We bundled up but even though I had gloves on, I couldn't feel my hands by the time I got home. These are the same gloves I used last winter though - maybe it's acclimatisation because it wasn't much colder (though the sun had just about set). Maybe I just need to buy new gloves :) My toes were cold too - and my phone started acting up when I came in. It did that too last night - maybe it doesn't work outdoors in below freezing weather!

Went out to leave food for the animals - and tonight the yard is like a train station. First the fox came - which made Simian and I very excited as we haven't seen him or her in a while. Then the deer arrived.

Simian made 10x and I made my bread dough and this almond biscuit. There's an almond biscuit Simian likes - and I was pretty sure it would be similar to this. The taste was right but it was more dry. This biscuit may need to be baked even less than what some of the reviews on the site said. Will try it again.

These are Simian's socks by the way - after he 'sorted' through the socks and threw out a bunch yesterday. They've been leaving fluff all over the house. No idea how these made it through!

Snow Day!

 

Simian woke up at 8 am and said there was no snow yet. I got up to go downstairs and turn on the Robots and when I turned around, the snow started to drift down! Went back to bed (yes I get up to turn on the robots so they'll be done when we go down!) and by 10 am, we had snow coming down!

I had told Simian yesterday that if he was lucky, we might get a hawk at our feeder - and when I looked out the window, there was one. It's the first time Simian's been home to see a hawk at the feeder. We sneaked up with a camera but I moved and I think it saw me and took off so Simian only got a quick, blurry shot. I did however take a photo of the imprint of the hawk's butt in the snow for you to admire :)

Simian said he didn't foresee a lot of snow so we went out to 5 Guys and to get some groceries. We also got a $10 card to spend at Kohl's in a mailer - smart move to get people like us, who never go, into the store. We got a new Wii game :)

The snow today was perfect - it was soft and fluffy. There wasn't much black ice at all. Plus it wasn't very cold - it was just around freezing. Best of all, though we got around 4 inches, it was all mostly on the grass - hardly any stuck to the roads or sidewalks so there was no need to shovel. I want snow like this all the time! Simian and I went out and had a snowball fight - he won, of course.

I have had a hankering for the fruit and nut bread we used to get at Gardenia's. I'm pretty sure I can re-create it. I think I need a bread recipe and then I need to put in fruit and nuts - plus the bread must be slightly sweet. I did find this online - and while I didn't think it'd give me the texture I wanted, but it didn't need proofing and was so easy to make. It did turn out more cake than 'bread' but it smells really good. Will try some and see - if not, I have a recipe in mind to tweak.

Cars

It's still fairly warm - fairly warm meaning that it went up to 10 degrees today. So I went to get my oil changed because it was time to do that. While I was there, they asked me if I wanted my tyres rotated and my radiation fluid changed, along with other things. It sounded pretty important, and I couldn't get Simian on the phone so I went ahead and told them to do it. This is despite the fact that Simian had told me NOT to get any additional services done. I just wanted to get my little car the best - and then Simian dropped the bombshell when I told him what I had done. The people at Jiffy Lube are not real mechanics! According to him, they only specialise in oil changes. Now I have no idea if this is true - they sure looked like mechanics to me, and they did all these things under my car that looked mechanic-y. I know nothing about cars. Nada - except that I love mine.

I also picked up some groceries and then headed home. We're getting a snow day tomorrow and so even though I topped up my bird food and I'm preparing to stay in, I'm pretty sure I'm going to go out and run around when it comes down. Unless it rains - which they say it might - in which case I'm staying indoors.

Dinner

 

Simian came home early to do yard work and also to work from home. I cleaned the house, and then went to bake. Note to self : when making two batched of dough, mark CLEARLY which is which so you don't get confused as I did - ditto with the timers!

Also I was lazy and 'patched' a piece of dough that broke when I rolled it out. Bad move - it kind of deflated in the oven. Still Simian enjoyed the tomato pie and the almond grape frangipane tart very much!

Busy Day

 

I went down to meet Suntaneye for lunch and we went to Samos where the food was lovely as always. Of course after assuring suntaneye that I knew how to get there, I ended up taking a wrong turn and getting lost and going round in circles. The GPS didn't work too because it was so cloudy! That left poor Suntaneye out in the cold too! Sorry Suntaneye!

After lunch, I went to Simian's lab to see JH's thesis defence. She didn't know I was coming so it was especially sweet that she thanked me in her acknowledgements!

A bunch of us went out afterward to celebrate for dinner. We went to Dave and Buster's where we played video games and air hockey. Also Will and the rest decided to try and win JH as many coupons as possible - which she redeemed for a coffee maker. Simian and I went and wasted money playing shooting games.

Cooling down

The weather is starting to cool down - I've spotted juncos on three separate occasions, but only a single one each time. I know I've been taking less photos of birds - but it's not because I enjoy watching them any less. My instinct is no longer to run for the camera but to enjoy the moment. We had six deer in our yard last night, and I watched one nuzzle another - lovely :)