Miss Grumpy at Changi Boardwalk

I had wanted to bring Miss K and the dog to Changi Boardwalk for a while now, so when I saw that the weather was fantastic, I thought this day MUST be a great day for photos and a family outing ....

....I was soooo wrong. Miss K refused to nap on our way to Changi, she was all grumpy when we arrived, refusing to walk and sulking in most of our photos. Let's see, this was what she was like 90% of our time at the Boardwalk.

We managed to catch that rare smile at the boardwalk when I offered her my coke in exchange for some smiles for the camera.

The dog was much more manageable, she adorably just sat down and pose for the camera. Fuss free.

So, to add to the grumpy behaviour, she demanded to be carried almost all the way throughout the boardwalk; After carrying a sweaty 13 kg for about half the boardwalk, I tried to bribe her with a fruit bar, it worked for about 2 minutes...

...then its back to her refusing-to-walk "Mama, bao bao, BAO BAO!!!!" sobs which means, time for dinner then time to head home.

We had our dinner at this Peranakan Place:

Gd O' Times,
5 Changi Village Road.
Tel: 65422382.

As Miss K was still in her grumpy mood during dinner, I didn't have a chance to snap some photos of the Nangka Lemak, Ngor Hiang, Ayam Masak Merah and Babi Sio we had, but I have to say, very good nyonya food!!

I got this picture from streetdirectory.com and this is how the exterior looks like. We had an outdoor sitting because we had the dog with us. Total bill came to about $45 including drinks.

Miss K's new fashion accessory...& Wildrocket @ Mt. Emily

J and I love the set lunch at Wildrocket (and Relish).
We haven't been back there for a while, so we decided to bring Miss K along for lunch today.
The little one had a short snooze during the ride to Mt. Emily, so here's Miss K looking rather dazed after I plonked her onto her highchair.

If you have not spotted it yet, she is now inseparable with that  Minnie (Hand)bag which Aunty Mabel bought her from HK Disney! It took me a while before I could convinced her that no one will touch her bag if she place it on the table, and that I will place it far far away from the food so it will not get dirty.

I love, love, love this appetiser - Salmon Carpaccio. J had Bak Kut Teh, which was recommended by the waiter, but J said it was a tad too peppery.

I am a very loyal fan of their signature burger, so I had that for my main. J had the recommended Fish dish and it turned out to be the best "Fish Porridge" ever! The fish was cooked perfectly and the Chai Por at the top was sooo yummy, the broth was also full of flavour. Miss K walloped more than half of it!

Miss K stole my pappadum as soon as the waiter placed the dish on my side of the table. She ate the whole pappadum but only ate a small chunk of my burger. Argh! I shouldn't have ordered it well-done; I had always wanted my burger medium-well. This is how people always tell you that mums are most willing to 'sacrifice' for their child. Heh.

Their Cheesecake and the Sesame dessert with ice-cream (which came with my set) was incredibly good. Sad Needless to say, Miss K loved it too.

She was rather cautious about scooping the sesame while attacking the ice-cream at the beginning but half way through, she decided that the ice-cream tasted better with the sesame dessert, so there goes dessert #1. When the cheesecake arrived, guess who stole it away from us.

My lunch set which came with the Salmon Carpaccio, Burger & Sesame Desert was $28++ and J's Bak Kut Teh, Fish with Chai Por & Broth & Cheesecake was $35++.

Nice ambience, Good service. Average Price.

I give it a 8.5/10.

Oh, remember that (Hand)bag of hers? I think I must show you how she carries it around. Tsk tsk tsk...So Aunty!

Miss K's first visit to Bollywood Veggies & Hay Dairies

Breakfast in a farm in Singapore? That's exactly what we did on saturday!
Tuck in the north west corner of Singapore is Bollywood Veggies. Their Bistro, Poison Ivy serves fresh produce from their farm.
Sipping coffee and tucking into our breakfast, most of which came from the plants just 100 meters away from your table is something which I never thought would be possible in our city state.

So what's our pick?

Miss K's favourite would be the organic banana and tapioca chips which came with the nasi lemak (obvious, huh!).

My favourite would be the banana bread, kueh Bingka and Kueh Kosui.

J's favourite, his aloe vera drink!

Would love to come back here for lunch one day as they have jackfruit curry and organic veggies freshly picked daily from their farm. They use no MSG in their cooking and little salt. I have to add that they definitely got the right amount of sugar in their banana bread and kuehs, well done!

For those who wants to bring their pooch along, there's actually a dog run at the farm! On our next trip here, we will definitely be bringing Gigi along.

While walking around the farm, we saw this sign. 

I was seriously thinking of going in to check out the "sanctuary", but with Miss K refusing to walk and only wants "mama to carry" we had to make our way home.

So, here's my little koala, all fully "urbanised", refusing to touch any leaves, refusing to trod along the garden path. Sigh. I guess I have a long way to go in educating her to appreciate the countryside.

On our way home, we made a quick visit to Hay Dairies as I promised Miss K that we will go and visit some goats that morning.

I felt sorry for the goats. They were all caged up, looked thin and weary, (AVA does not allow feeding by public anymore, which they once allowed, I totally support this new rule)...and when I heard a few of them bleating away, I just felt sad for them. Having seen fat, healthy goats in Europe roaming free, grazing in the green pastures, I am sure these goats will be so jealous if they know that their europeans cousins are leading such a good life 6,000 miles away.

I had wanted to get Miss K to try some goat's milk, so I got a small bottle of chocolate flavoured one for her ($2) and suprisingly she loved it! Very fresh tasting, much fresher than cow's milk, actually. I love it too!

So, will I succeed in educating Miss K about appreciating the country side? Well, I can only hope...

Spargel

'Spargel' is the White Asparagus. Apprently, its in season now. J came home with 2 bundles of 'Spargel' from Germany. I think the Germans love these white asparagus to bits as they even have a 'Spargelfest' - Asparagus Festival once a year!

Well, I guess the fact that it is only available once a year makes it extra special. 

Miss K was rather perplexed with that bundle of asparagus, she was scrutinising it for a while, then turned to me and said "draw?" (I disrupted her drawing session, so she must have thought that they were new sets of crayons) - I told her no, its asparagus and its for dinner. Then she immediately said "mummy cook". Yes, well done.



A slightly different preparation was needed for these white guys, so it took me a while to search the web for the proper way to cook them before it ended up on the dinner table! Such a shame I totally forgot to take a picture of my creation, but it was yummy!

These white guys are definitely much better than their green counterparts!

My Little Food Connoisseur

Last weekend, we decided to have our yearly buffet at the Bar & Billiard Room.
The little one was oh-so-eager to sample the yummy range of food on display.
They still have a very good spread of entres and mains, but the dessert spread this year was rather disappointing.
So what did our little food connoisseur think about the buffet spread?
Below is Miss K's review:

She totally enjoyed the duck, she had 3 servings of it!

The duck was indeed delicious, such a shame I could not remembered the exact description of the dish, but the little one was definitely contented with her duck. The white bits on her plate is Black Cod in parchment. That was a little bland but the little one loved it too!

The wild mushroom and prawn spaghetti was rather tricky as she refused to have them cut into bits (tell me about the terrible twos!) She decided to ditch the fork and spoon; I guess they taste better this way!

 It got rather messy, so I tried to convince her that the spoon with chopped up spaghetti bits was a better option but she just gave me this cheeky grin. I conceded defeat! Argh!!

Our little food connoisseur insisted that she tried the dessert selection I had on my plate. Guess which dessert she liked best? Yup, guessed it right, the chocolate looking one. She ignored the rest!

J insisted that we should give Miss K some fruits to prevent her eating "more junk" i.e. chocolate looking desserts. I'm so glad she still love her fruits as much as she loved her duck, cod, spaghetti and choc-walnut-torte.

Ratings you say? Well, I'm not too sure about Miss K but I guess I will still give it a 7/10.

Cake Pops & Cupcakes

My newfound obsession or hobby rather, is baking.
I stumbled upon Bakerella's blog and that got me really inspired to try making Cake Pops.

Decided to make a small ensemble of cupcake and cake pops for a friend's birthday this Tuesday.

Here are a few of my creations.



Dark Choco Swirl, White Choc Heart Sprinkles & Dark Choc Mosaic Cake Pops



Mosaic Tree Cup-cake-pop



 Heart Sprinkles Cup-Cake-Pop 



My first try at making cake pops and am glad both Miss K and J loved it!

GiGi is 6 years old today!

Our little Westie came into our lives 8 months after we got married. She was 3 months old.
A very lively (and at times hyper) pup who taught us much about responsibility.
Since the birth of Miss K, we have been neglecting her - so much so that she now has no more weekends at the dog run, no evening walks at the park and I cannot even remember when was the last time I played fetch with her around the house...

Last week, I told Miss K that we will bake a cake to celebrate GiGi's birthday, and so we did.
The little one is still nursing a cough and fever, but was in good spirits, and happily helped out.

Gigi is now on a strict vet-prescribed-diet as she has some skin allergies, so I ditched the idea of making dog cupcakes.

We made vanilla cupcakes with chocolate cream cheese frosting and mango centre.



Miss K have been 'practising' the Birthday song in childcare, so she was all excited when I lit the candle and told her that we will be singing happy birthday to Gigi, then we will blow out the candles together.



There wasn't any decent pictures of Gigi with the cake as Papa's travelling and Miss K did not know how to handle the dog nor the camera, so this is the best picture of the dog with the cake (with the two humans trying to get the dog within the frame for the camera at the background).

Gigi, we will bring you out for a nice outing this weekend when your master returns!

Happy 6th Birthday!

Mother's Day with Love

Last year, for my first Mother's Day 'present' from Infant Care, Miss K (who was 9 months then) came back with this piece of artwork.

On it was written these words:

To my dearest mum,

Sometimes you get discouraged

because I am so small

and always leave my fingerprints and

footprints on furniture wall

But everyday I am growing

I'll be grown someday

and all those tiny prints

will surely fade away

So here's a little footprint

just so you can recall

exactly how my feet looked

when I was very small

After reading it, I teared; I felt so blessed being a MUM.

This year, Miss K came home with a Love Scribbled Balloon attached to a laminated picture card.

It is a very simple gift but being able to get to "see" the makings of this 'Mother's Day gift' definitely made the gift extraordinary~!
We get updates in the form of a blog written by her teacher-in-charged every week.
These photos are courtesy of Miss K's teacher, Cynthia.

On one side is  written 'Happy Mother's Day' and on the other, a picture of mum and daughter with a really nice quote from A little Spoonful of Chicken Soup for the Mothers.



The hubby brought us to this highly rated Greek Restaurant along Bukit Timah Road - Blu Kouzina for my Mother's Day Dinner.

We had the Spanakopita as starters which was really yummy, Miss K loved it.

For the mains, we had a Salamaki Souvlaki, a 800g Red Snapper which was really fresh and grilled to perfection and grilled jumbo prawns.

Ended the meal with a nice homemade Baklava.

That meal brought back memories of our courtship years in Europe and of our visits to Greece.

It was a wonderful Mother's Day :)

Rocky Road Brownie

Chocolate WAS a big no no for Miss K.

I do not want her to get too addicted to sweet things. No other reasons in particular, really.

However, when a toddler throws tantrums in a cafe and insisted on eating MY rocky road brownie, guess what I did - yes, I relented, I gave her a bite of my rocky road brownie.

I totally regretted as she wolf down the brownie and asked for more!

It did not help that she took half the time I took to slowly savour the rocky road brownie, so my planned-to-be a relaxing tea break was more like a brownie eating competition with a toddler.



Wash'em down with some warm milk

And my toddler is crowned the Rocky Road Brownie Champion!

Kuih Kapek

Mum makes Kuih Kapek the traditional way - over a hot slab of charcoal, every Chinese New Year in Penang.
One needs good judgement on how hot the fire should be and very quickly fold the hot piece into a fan like shape.
It is always fun helping with the folding of the hot pieces.
I did not help this year as I had Miss K 'koala-ed' onto me all the time!

What I love best is when dad don his satay-man 'hat' and charcoal-grilled about, not too sure how many, but it looked something like 100 skewers of pork and chicken satay.
This often happens after we make kuih kapek. Never let charcoal go to 'waste', Dad says.
It was a great night feasting on such yummy home made food - Fantastic Satay, Fresh Salad (with herbs from Granny's garden) and Aunt's signature Potato Salad (and of course Kuih Kapek for dessert).
Best meal in Penang!

The steps involved in the making of Kuih Kapek-
Step 1 to 8 from top Left clockwise.

Ella's Kitchen 'Baby' Brekkie

And I was rather surprised she still likes those mushy 'baby food'.
Ella's Kitchen must have made it super yummy!
Miss K had the Banana Baby Brekkie which had organic bananas, organic whole natural yoghurt and organic brown rice.
She finished the whole pack and wanted more!
Unfortunately, the sis only bought Miss K ONE of each flavour as she wasn't sure whether Miss K would still like mushy baby food.
This definitely made it to her favourite list.

Munching on rice snacks after a pack of baby brekkie

Food Finds

Finally managed to pop into Galbiati Gourmet Deli for a bite.
Their lunch set menu was quite good at $18++.

I had pumpkin soup for starter, was not as creamy as I would like it to be...but their pasta was cooked perfectly al dente with very simple ingredients.
Dessert of the Day tasted like German stollen crossed with pandoro with raisins, served with vanilla custard which was yummy!
My only grouse was the weak coffee!

They have a good range of desserts on display...will check them out next visit.

Miss K loves this home made bread with olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

Miss K's first Turkey!

It is such a blessing to be able to spend Christmas with my loved ones this year. 
It has been a while (1995) since I spend Christmas with mum, dad and lil' bro. Its Miss K's first Christmas with her PoPo and Gong Gong and am sure both grandparents (and Miss K) are enjoying it loads.


She had her first taste of Turkey this Christmas. She happily chomped down a fair bit of it last night.


Here's Wishing Everyone A Very Blessed Christmas 2010

(took this picture after dad 'partially' carved the turkey!)

Organic snacks

Its the feasting time of the year (again!) and Miss K has loads of organic snacks to 'feast on' thanks to my sis!
Miss K wants to say thank you Ee ee for the yummy snacks all the way from Ireland!

She has been happily snacking on these since arriving Kuching on tuesday (on top of the pomelo, red dragon fruit and fish keropok, which she kept on pointing and did the ever so irritating 'eh eh eh' sound and drooled over, so I allowed her to have a taste of it)

Look at the amount of snacks Miss K has:

(Delayed post for 22nd December 2010)

Yoghurt

Introduction to yoghurt:

6 months - Yoplait Baby Yoghurt
12 months - Yoplait Petit Maim
14 months - Adult Whole Milk Plain Yoghurt
(side note: Miss K is now drinking fresh milk, no longer on Formula)

Miss K loveesss yoghurt. Its 'finger licking good'!


Slurp...



mmmm...yummy!





Ahhhh, icky fingers!



Boats and Buffet

It was Miss K's second visit to the Ellenborough Market Cafe for High Tea Buffet. The standard has dropped quite drastically and the price has increased! Unfortunately, I might have to cross it out of my 'Buffet List'...used to serve really good value-for-money peranakan buffet, such a shame...

The Singapore River is a saving grace...Miss K loves to see the boats bobbing by...and its always very pleasant to stroll along the river on a lazy saturday afternoon;