Pandan Leaves?

My organic chilli plant had motivated me so much that I wanted to next plant 'pandan leaves'! Whats pandan leaves?

Pandan leaves = screwpine pandanus.  Pandan leaves is used in alot of Asian cooking typically to add flavour and smell to savoury and sweet dishes. It is really one of the most commonly grown leaves in any household for reason that it is easy to grow and that it is hugely used! Since young, my household had used Pandan leave for cooking most desserts eg : barley water, barley smashed beancurd, aballing, cakes, jellies and much more.. 

I am excited that in future, I will just need to pluck whatever pandan leaves I need from my small little garden! I need not pay 10cents for them from the market! Yippie!!!!



Transferring a bunch of pandan leaves over to a new pot



My new pot of pandan leaves



My Chilli Plant

Have you ever planted anything in your life?  Does the thought of seeing small seeds turn into leaves and bearing fruits delight you? 

The only plants I grew were bean sprouts (from green beans) during my primary school days for science projects.  Otherwise, I associated plants with time (alot of time required to have them full grown), mess (the soil, the fertilisers..), and patience (I plant them and they take forever to bear fruits!).  So, needless to say I never tempted to grow anything else thereafter. 

Recently, my hubby out of fun took some chilli seeds and throw them into our few pots of bamboo plants which is used for fengshui purposes (to ward away the bad omens).  1 fine day, we noticed that small little plants are growing out from the seeds.  The feeling is nice and rewarding.  It feels like.. "wow, your efforts are reciprocated".  From then on, we studiously water the plants and watch it grow.  TIme passes by and before we even know it, a huge plant has grown out from those chilli seeds.  These plants slowly bore flowers and these flowers slowly turn into chillies!  many many Green Chillies are budding out from the flowers!  Each stage seems so fast!  Its nothing like what I used to think - That it takes forever for plants to bear fruits!

Just 3 days back, I was asking my hubby when our greeen chillies will turn red so that we can pluck them and have it for our organic meal.  Know what?  here is what I witness this morning : YES my chillies are turning red!!! all ready to be eaten!

I am not sure - Have I grown older and in the process cultivated more patience?  Have I been too busy that time just flew by?  Something which I thought takes forever to bear fruits now seems to be able to bear fruits at a speedy rate?  Or maybe this is the 1st time I see the fruits of my labour and the wait doesn't seem too long since there is always something to look forward to?  1 thing I am sure is that planting can sure be fun and rewarding! you too can get to eat your organic chillies...!! so...what should I plant next?






Yummy Yummy Chillies!!! Aint they cute???

 


Ready to be eaten! pluck them all out!





My organic chillies :)



Kids below 6 are banned from some restaurants

We never had this in Singapore and in my memory, this Japanese restaurant situated in Great World City is the 1st to put forth a rule whereby kids below 6 are not allowed to dine.  When this was first announced, there were much uproar about this especially from community with young kids.  I love the comments that since the government is encouraging and taking measures to increase childbirth and improve family bonding, this ruling certainly doesn't help!  Of cos, I too hear the other side of the argument whereby kids will scream and shout, disturbing other diners who wanted to have a quiet meal.  Both makes sense to me...Thus, really I am sitting on the fence and going with the flow...However, I am keen and curious to try one of these restaurants..

I made a reservations for Kuriya at Great World, to experience what it will be like to dine in a place without kids below 6.  In my imgination, it should at least not be noisy (well, they say kids disturb other diners!) and for the price that they are charging, I would expect decent food.  From the outlook of the restaurant (from the outside), I thought it looks decent and is all ready for a good meal.

When I finally did have my meal there, I was really not too impressed.  Many diners there spoke much louder that my son! Somehow, the place sounds like a food court without the kids! The interior decoration was not too impressive too.  Really, I do not see why any kid should not be allowed into this restaurant!

I must say, the food is decent and taste OK.  Its really not fantastic but do-able.  There were supposed to be renowned for their sashimis.  I was not too impressed.  Its Alright.

I came to the conclusion that reastaurants who wanna ban kids below 6 years of age should really do so with a good reason.  If your restaurant setting is supposed to be fine dinning with quiet corners, I totally support your rules.  However, if somehow your restaurant is not anything near fine dining, where you know your cohurt of diners are loud and big, than banning kids below 6 REALLY DOESN'T make any sense!

Sharing my picutures of the meal :



Sashimi and sushis - nothing too different from other Jap restaurants



Seafood Chawanmushi - just like seafood soup with toufu...haha!

Salmon Cheek - this is really good.  Cook to the right degree, soft and sweet

Birthday Party

Children these days are very blessed with yearly birthday celebrations.  Usually, these celebration lasted for the entire day! or even over couple of day.  1 celebration in school with school friends, and 1 celebration at home with family and friends.  Year on year, I realised that I am always wondering how to celebrate Ricco's birthday.  Should I throw a major party inviting family and friends?  Or should it be a small celebration amongst family members?

Ricco's birthday always falls around the Chinese New Year dates and thus, this is really busy times for me.  Almost straight after the CNY celebrations, I need to prepare for his BD.  Cake must be ordered (sometimes prior to CNY since shops open for business only 3rd day of CNY and some even later), menus decided, format of party decided. 

As like the past, I get a cake for him to celebrate with his school friends in school.  This year, I get a Bengawan underwater theme-3D cake.  Its a vanilla cake with strawberry.  Compared to many places who provides 3D cakes, the ones sold at Bengawan are really value for money.  For 110SGD I get a 2kg cake.  The cake is really YUMMY.  I prepared some nuggets and sausages and nuggets for the children too.  With the intention of making it like a real party.  The kids had fun singing BD songs and blowing candles (yes, the candles went off couple of times even before the song sang).  This is really one of the most organised BD parties that I have seen.  The kids go to crowd around Ricco when the teacher call them by their groups.  So green, blue, pink...they take turns.  They were then positioned nicely in a semi circle around Ricco (so that nice pictures can be taken).  Than they sing... and clap.   They were then asked to queue up for the cake... WOW.. what organisation! Its not easy being a kid!

The Underwater World theme 3D cake for school

Ricco singing loud and clear!

And the queue for the cake

Another cake is organised for a small celebration at home.  The plane cake is a vanilla longon cake.  It tastes really GREAT.  Something adults will enjoy.  As this is still the Chinese New Year, Ricco's yearly celebration always include "Lao Yusheng". 

The 'Plane' - Vanilla Longon Cake

Before we cut the cake, we need to LAO AH

Happy with his cake...before unwrapping the gifts!

Chinese New Year Gathering

Chinese New Year (CNY) is really a time to go visiting families, extended families and friends.  1st and 2nd days of CNY is usually reserved for families whereas the rest of the CNY will be time for friends!  And what do you do during visitation?  Eat, chat and catch up! I missed a long time friends gathering party on Sat.  Friends who meet just once a year.  We all thought that major gatherings should be organised more frequently! I have a "Pai Nian' Party at my place on Sunday.  For long time friends. I did some very simple dishes - fried bee hoon and baked chicken wings for the group.  Good reviews on both items :)

Preparing the Lao Yusheng Ingredients

Lao ah... heres good luck and prosperity to everyone present!

We have a cake for the BD boys too!

while we have a lot of fun catching up, I cant help but wonder why is it that with many friends (especially old time friends) that we meet up ONLY once a year (yes, during CNY ONLY).  Are we all soooo busy with our everyday life that we do not even have that 1 or 2 evenings to meet up for a meal, for a chat, for a catch up?  Don't we all used to meet up like 5days in a week in the past, yaking about everything and nothing?  OK friends, we should meet up more this year :)

Chinese New Year

This year, there is more rain than usual on the days building up to the Chinese New Year.  This did not dampen the Chinese New Year mood however.  Families are still out buying loads of goodies and food to welcome the year of th Rabbit.  Just that with the rain, more shopping are done in shopping centres and indoor rather than outdoor shopping at places like Chinatown.


Packed with goodies



Pamelo - a sign of prosperity

 Chinese New Year eve dinner is a big thing in the chinese culture.  This meal signifies reunion of the family when families gather for a big huge meals.  We call this the reunion dinner.  A chinese steamboat dinner is the norm in my family.  The "Yu Sheng" is also tossed.  The "Yu Sheng" (raw fish) is also a symbolic dish in the chinese culture.  The "Yu Sheng" is tossed together with many ingredients including the fish (signify 'nian nian you yu' - abundance), pamelo (da ji da li - luck and auspicious value), pepper (zhao cai jin bao - attracting monies), oil (cai yuan kuang jin -wealth from everywhere), carrots (hong yun dang tou - blessing of good luck), green raddish (qing chun chang zhu - eternal youth), white raddish (feng sheng shui qi - prosperity and promotion), peanuts and sesami (sheng yi xing long - business prosperity) and flour crisp in shape of golden pillows (pian di huang jin - everywhere filled with gold).  The action of tossing this mixture of ingredients signifies tossing of the good luck.  While you toss the 'yu sheng', you are supposed to shout out words of prosperity.

After adding the Golden Pillows

Yusheng before adding the 'golden pillows'. Yummy aint it?

Chinese New Year Preparations - Nursery Visit

The Lunar New Year is THE event of the year in the chinese calendar.  Prior to the arrival of the big day, many chinese families will be busy with home spring cleaning, purchasing of chinese new year goodie items, preparations for the BIG chinese new year eve dinner and not to forget, brighten the house up with lots of chinees new year plants, flowers and decorations.

A visit to the nursery is a MUST for my family as we pick some auspicious chinese new year flowers/plants to welcome in the year.  The 4 seasons lime; a chinese new year potted plant sold once a year is a MUST BUY for my family.  This signifies abundant luck and wealth.

Ricco's happy with the purchase

4 seasons lime safely in the trolley :)

The 4 seasons lime inside my living room

On top of the 4 seasons lime, there are always many many various interesting flowers and plants on sale just for the Chinese New Year.  This year, we bought the carrot plant too.  Carrot is known as "cai tou" in chinese.  And the chinese phrase "hao cai tou' actually means good start!  And since rabbits are so closely linked with carrots (rabbits love carrots), this cute little carrot plant became popular too!

cute aint it?