Wake Up and Smell the Cake

I am so so sleepy. Junior woke me up at 4 plus this morning and he didn't want to sleep. He only slept back at 6, which was already too late for me to go back to bed!! Here's some photos from the last few days. This is my mum's cabinet door that Junior dislodged. Don't ask me how. We're still puzzled. If he were an Avenger, I think he's The Incredible Hulk.  We had a wonderful family time weekend, just like how weekends are supposed to be like. We could tell Junior was enjoying his weekend too. This was at John Little Expo. Junior loves to sit at the empty racks cos he can crawl round and be free to move. He didn't want us to carry him away either! And I managed to find work clothes that are cheap (read: $15.90 only!!) and breastfeeding friendly!! The only downside is the dresses are long. Like below the knee long. Reminds me of my very kental days in secondary school where my uniforms were always oversized thanks to dad. Haha. And this foll

I know. I shouldn't be letting my emotions get the better of me. One of my biggest pet peeves is a disrupted pumping schedule. Today I forgot my valves so I had to take my valves at home blah blah blah. I want to eat chocolate cake with chocolate ganache. Or maybe have a go at Nigella's instant chocolate mousse again.

Finally I can sit down. It's not always that I have non-stop meetings but kinda like it when I do.   Managed to bake twice last weekend! Still have yet to use my cream cheese frosting but since it's sitting prettily in my ice cream tub in the freezer, I shan't disturb it yet. Anyway I have more pressing food items to clear such as my looooonnnggg overdue bread and overripe bananas. Hence I made bread pudding on Friday morning and banana chocolate chip muffins on Saturday. Before you freak out at the looonnngg overdue (read: 1 month old) bread, let me share a good tip for small households where bread doesn't run out that fast. I'm more of a cereal person. Whenever I buy bread, I keep it in the fridge. Lasts about a month or even more! It won't go dry, if it does, just heat it for 20 seconds in the microwave and it's soft like it was just baked this morning. And if you didn't manage to finish the rest of the loaf, fret not! Bread pudding always works!

Started day 5 with the usual chicken sandwich (new marinade!) and a little extra of banana and chocolate! Let's start with the chicken sandwich. Chicken cubes with lettuce and white bread, easy to prepare, good to eat! Day 1 and 2 I had the same chicken, boneless skinless healthy chicken cubes pan fried in honey bbq sauce, smoked bbq seasoning and black pepper. No salt needed. Was quite yums but I should have pan fried a little longer to get that charred effect. Yesterday I tried something different. The day before I bought dried basil and oregano and chili powder. Regretted not getting garlic powder too. I'm still figuring out basil so I tried the following instead: 3 boneless skinless chicken breasts 1 1/2 tbsp chili powder 2 cloves garlic, mashed & chopped 1 tsp dried oregano 1 tsp vinegar salt & pepper Was kinda good! But maybe I should've marinated longer so the flavours seep in. And probably can add a bit more vinegar too! I quite like stir fr

Day 4 of 29. I hope I can complete all 29! Shouldn't have procrastinated. Urgh. I have to fast like every weekday hopefully I can make it. And I hope it won't affect my supply too much. I think this fasting thing is making me more of a baking monster. Not being able to eat amplifies my need to look at these yummy cakes and frosting. Speaking of which, I wonder how my extra cream cheese frosting is doing in my freezer. Maybe I should have a look later. I feel like doing the red velvet cupcakes again! I love cream cheese frosting! I have been thinking of what cake I should make for my birthday. FFL says I shouldn't be making my own cake, but I like it and I can have whatever flavour and sinful goodies all packed into the cake, so why not! Right now I'm thinking chocolate. Lotsa lotsa chocolate. Haha. And a few days before that I think I will be making carrot cake with cream cheese frosting for Junior's birthday. His first birthday! Time flies. As I was bre

Weekend is here! I really really really hope there's nothing on for Sunday. I desperately need to clean the house. And probably fill up these mini baguette bowls!! Photo from Chinatown Foods . I got 6 whole bags (yes! That many!) free when I ordered five boxes of mini eclairs for a family event last Sunday. At first I thought it was a delivery mistake, then I saw on the delivery order, 6 packs of mini baguette bowls free. Awesome!! We are, after all, loyal customers huahuahua :D I have yet to think what to fill these with. I've already offloaded 3 bags to my mum. Was thinking along the line of spinach quiche, tuna, chicken something something, custard, that sorta savoury dishes. Or if not I'll crush them all and make into bread pudding, although that's quite a pathetic way of using these elegant little shells. Oh wells! I'll ask my sister if she's interested in mass production of quiche! Have a great weekend all!

Warning: angsty post ahead. I am freaking tired. And sleepy. My eyes are dry, I can't open them. I wanna go home. Home. I have LOTS of housework to do. Sweep the floor. Clean the fans. Iron tons of clothes. I have been lazy and wearing non-iron clothes to work. Haha. If only Husband can do the same. Sigh. Weekend was tiring. I'm still not over the lack of sleep. I need my sleep. I am becoming a pessimistic grumpy ol' fart because of this. I feel like punching someone now.My back is aching too, and my hair is irritating me. Actually everything irritates me right now. What the?! This sneezy fella is in my office and spreading GERMS. He has sneezed about 10 times. Okay now 12. Seriously! GO home! I don't need to get sick! I'm already feeling - thirteen, and blew his nose - tired. Fourteen. Seventeen. I have work to do. Damnit now I have headache too. wdbjo'robvosfnl;bfoerh K bye.

Haha this is funny!! Got this from here . Cracks (no pun intended) me up everytime!! :D What if the male Avengers posed like the female one?

Yesterday was one tiring day. Practically an entire day of attending to Junior. And he's at this clingy stage where he doesn't really want anyone else except dearest Mama. An almost 11 kilo baby will definitely tire out your arms no matter how much muscle you have! And I don't have any, hurhur. I always fail/just pass my chin ups for fitness tests in school. We went to a wedding, and surprisingly Junior fell asleep in my arms without nursing! He must be really sleepy. Husband had a meeting after that, so we spent our time at the mosque nearby while waiting for two and a half hours. It was a great place to just hang around, cos it was kinda empty and open, perfect for Junior to practise crawling! Which he did, of course :) And he was friendly to the other ladies at the mosque too! Haha Junior happily playing with his teething toy before he started crawling. And off he goes!! I used his teething toy and the water bottle as bait. Crawl crawl crawl. Stopp

Yup that's right. Together with my sister-in-law, we made red velvet cupcakes. The first time I made them was with my FFLs at the Pasir Ris branch. Hurhur. I can't remember which recipe we used cos I wasn't the one choosing it, but I know it was on epicurious. It was quite tedious, the recipe method was kinda lengthy. I remember there's mixing of cocoa powder with water, and then mixing was in batches or something, and we used a whole lot of colouring! Like two bottles! The cupcake wasn't that special, and it had a weird taste from all that colouring. I thought I'm never gonna make red velvets again since there's nothing special about them. Then my SIL wanted to make some cos she and her husband love red velvet. So okay, I went on the search for the perfect red velvet cupcake recipe, and I'm proud to say I am the queen of recipe googling!! Hahahaha. I came across this super moist red velvet cupcakes from The Alchemist, and it was amazing!

Lots of things happened with Junior last weekend! Saturday we spent almost the whole day at home. Glad we did, cos we witnessed Junior's first crawl! Yay! He was reaching out to get my handphone hahaha. It's the cutest thing ever :) And he didn't want to just crawl, he wanted to stand too. So the entire morning we played in his room, he used the shelves to help him stand, and we did some reading and learning of alphabets too! He now knows not to bite the books and cards when I tell him not to. Yay! Achievement for me! Yesterday Junior and I sent off Other Half to Jakarta for a work trip. I wanted to try and get him used to the car seat, but guess what. The whole journey home he was crying and crying! Only stopping for a while to catch his breath. I was speeding all the way and singing and trying my best to entertain him with weird noises but nothing worked! Poor boy :( Then we went to my mum's and he was much happier then. What's not to like, everyone

*** Edited! See bottom. *** Finally used my 6 sad bananas sitting dejected at the corner in my fridge. I decided to try a recipe I'm not familiar with, cos I have been baking banana cakes before and I totally love my mum's recipe, but it's time to try something different. I tried Dorie Greenspan's banana bundt cake . It has rave reviews, so I gave this a try. Did I love it? Well. Despite claims that it is the best banana cake recipe ever, I still prefer my mum's recipe. That is da bomb!! Ingredients (what I tweaked it to) 250g butter 350g cake flour 250g plain flour 2 cups sugar 2 tsp bicarbonate soda 3 eggs 250ml sour cream 6 medium bananas, mashed 2 tsp vanilla essence Cream butter and sugar together. I was lazy to take out my mixer so I mixed by hand instead. It is tiring mixing that much ingredients!! Add in eggs one at a time, mixing for about a minute before adding in the next egg. Add in vanilla essence and mix. Add in mashed bana

I'm taking a breather from work. Did quite a bit today, a rate I hope I can do everyday. Today I discover that I work well when I'm angry. Weird isn't it. But true story. Angry + pissed = replying more emails, clearing more papers. On to happy, frivolous stuff!! I do hope my bananas can wait for me while I find time to bake them into a banana bundt cake! I was sooo tempted to make them yesterday while I was working from home in the afternoon but I was kinda engrossed in getting my work done so I put off baking. That, my friends, is a shocker. Very rarely you see me choosing work over baking. But miracles do happen and I was in my workaholic mode (another shocker). Back to the bananas. Their skin looks so terribly brown already. But seems like that always happens when I put bananas in the fridge. Wait for me okay!! Only 2 more days to the weekend and I promise I'll mash you up and bake! That reminds me. I have 2 lemons still sitting in my fridge. Will be using some

Birthday celebrations are never one day affairs these days. We started off with the Battleship movie which I totally was against watching previously, but because it's the boy's birthday, I reluctantly agreed. And I loved it! The plot was kinda normal bang boosh shoot shoot stuff, but there's humour and I especially like the Jap guy who was made co-captain! His ideas are awesome. Oh! And the part where the navy veterans helped out too! Enjoyed the entire two hours haha! Birthday boy gave me that "see I told you it's good" look when the movie ended. Heh. Fine fine I'll join u in such movies again next time haha. Saturday, I planned for a morning picnic at Botanic Gardens and a visit to the farmers' market for some yummy cupcakes but it rained the entire morning so we had to change plan: lazed around at home for a bit and then off to the market to get ingredients for big feast (birthday boy's request). The rain subsided in the later part of the m

Just came back to office today after 3 days of MC. The usual throat infection fever cough running nose combo. Still have cough though. It has been an unproductive 3 days. The pile of work waiting for me at office and at home too. Only did laundry once and I spent most of my time at my mum's cos I was too lazy to go back home after sending Junior in the morning. Plus there's free food at my mum's hurhur. I was itching to bake, and when I finally decided to (same day as laundry), something last minute cropped up and my equipment went back into the cupboard. Bummer. I wanted to try out my expensive cocoa powder! Anyway. The blessing in disguise was getting to spend more time with Junior. Doing the usual, playing with pots and pans and the laundry basket. He loves household items very much. Watching us hang the laundry to dry fascinates him all the time. And something new he did: check what's under the ottoman! He is one inquisitive boy. He loves to practise sta

I can't seem to get my entire house clean every weekend, and I am seriously considering this as part of my house cleaning regime: I don't know where to get one, but I can always make one. I saw those yellow cloth thingy at sold at CK store and I'll just fix it to Junior's unwanted rompers. And off he goes mopping the floor with me. Mopping the floor is a must now, especially with lift upgrading going on, the floor is quite dusty. And whenever I hint to Husband to help me mop, he offers to get those weekend helpers instead -_-" Not exactly the answer I was looking for!! Okay. This shall be the project in the coming week! FYI this is not child abuse, this is called getting baby accustomed to housework.

Yup I bought another one. Haha. The one sitting at home (Cake Keeper Cakes by Lauren Chattman) hasn't been used either. I can't help it! Okay okay I'll stop at two only. Two cake books should suffice. I must use the one at home before this one arrives, which is at the end of the month. Plenty of time! Hurhur.

Season's here! Well it's been here for quite some time just that I haven't bought any. Today I bought two boxes, and I finished one (250g) in about 10 minutes. I could eat more actually, but I'm saving the other pack for tomorrow. Eating Korean strawberries always reminds me of my pregnancy with Junior. Same time last year, I was gorging down these sweeties almost everyday! Totally love them! Easy to eat, sweet and full of goodness. These are particularly sweet! I was thinking of making some cake or dessert with strawberries, but seems like these sweeties won't even make it to weekend for my weekly bakes. Heh.

It's one of those shitified days that makes you want to lock yourself away from everyone because everyone around you is being negative. Except Junior. Junior can sit with me in my locked up room. Oh and the locked up room should have lots of baking supplies and goodies and an oven and a mixer. But for an immediate cure, I need a good comforting lunch. Oooh yeah I've decided. I'm gonna stuff myself with Swensen's. Haven't had that for some time already. Good ol' mega burger hurhur. And some ice cream too if I'm feeling like a glutton. YUMYUM CAN'T WAIT FOR LUNCH.

I have always loved Beyonce. I love her songs, her strong vocals, her squeaky clean record, she is an artiste I respect. In the Hollywood & entertainment world where marriages don't last, her marriage with Jay-Z is a breath of fresh air. This might sound stupid but it would break my heart if they were to divorce. Then I saw this link on ivillage. I am Beyonce . Total love! Photos that are just sincere, fresh, heartwarming. Beyonce is just awesome.