Happy Birthday Daddy!

Today is my Dad's birthday and I wish him a very happy birthday and most importantly, good health!

Family photo snapped on 6/6/09 at Fai bro's wedding. Eek... everyone looks awful! >.<
Gonna devise a family photo taking session soon!

O... Btw, I'd made a trip down to Alan Photo at Sim Lim Square for enquiry on the price of LX3.
One of the salesman quoted it for $660. All right, it's not bad as there is a sag of S$20 as compared to the price a few months back.

Silver LX3 is more resplendent!
 I'm SOooo going to get it and it'll soon be mine! :)

Oreo cheesecake

I'd attempted on chocolate oreo cheesecake preceding without refering to recipe. * Wow, I'm a prodigy!
This time round, I'd made good of similar cake- oreo cheesecake.
The method for process is almost identical  with the exception of chocolate.

This cake held a meaningful and signficant value which was made for my dad's 48 birthday celebrated in advance.
The only somberness was the absence of mum who was away to M'sia :(

Nevetheless, I insisted to devise a mini birthday celebration for dad.

Base for oreo chocolate

Melt butter using double-boiler method or microwave.

Grind oreo cookies to powdery stage. Divide it into 1:3 portion.

Pour in the melted butter to the bigger portion of grinded oreo cookies. Mix till it forms a smooth paste.

Spread the oreo paste on the base of the springfold pan. Place it in the fridge.

Oreo Cheese filling

Coarsely crushed the remaining oreo cookies and set it aside.

Whip whipping cream to the mousse stage. DO NOT over whipped as the fats content may separate from other content.
Store it in the fridge for the time being while preparing for other ingredients.

Combine cream cheese, sifted icing sugar and milk to form a smooth paste.

Stir in coarsely crushed oreo cookies.

Dissolve gelatine powder with water using microwave or

A double-boiler

Pour in dissolved gelatine solution to the cream cheese mixture and combine well.

Fold in whipped cream to the cream cheese mixture.

Pour in the oreo cream cheese filling into the springfold pan with prepared oreo base.

Sent it to the freezer to chill.

When it was semi-solid, took it out from the freezer and coated it with the 1/3 portion of finely grind oreo cookies.
Place it to the bottom fridge for 2 hours to further solidify.



Was it the completed look? No way!
A birthday cake should be adorned with at least a "Happy Birthday" words on it.




I was cognized that my decoration was not up to the mark but at least it was part of my endeavour.

Time for cake cutting session!


Dad with his cake

Both of the same kind- Diminutive! Haha.

The 3 of us.
Quite pathetic when 2 of my brothers were not there to sing birthday song for my dad.
Hmm... in fact Edmund was at home but was too sick to get up.
For danny, another bum who devoted his time more to his own activity rather than family :(

A feeling of euphoria! Dad was contented with his mini cake :)

Blowing out the candle!


A happy man!
After the cake cutting 'ceremony', we headed to Vegetarian Villa with Wanyi and Eng Yijiong to have dinner.
Well, a scumptious dinner for us, the ravenousness!

I'm contriving a second birthday celebration for dad when mum is back which means I have to bake another cake for him!
Hmmm... something special, for instance- durian cake? Sounds not bad right?

Oatmeal Raisin cookies

I always love the Subway's oatmeal raisin cookies whenever I ordered a 6-inch bread as a complement.

With a tang of cinnamon and zest of raisins with the accompaniment of healthy oatmeal completes a gusto!

 

For those who have sweet tooth for Subway's cookies, you may have a fervent for them.
As for me, I do not have a relish for sweet things.

I'd made a moderation for the sweetness of oatmeal raisin cookies. :)

 

Add brown and white sugar to butter. Cream them till smooth.

Crack in egg and add in vanilla essence.
Beat it to light and fluffy stage.

Sift in flour, baking soda, cinnamon powder and salt to the egg mixture. Stir well.

Lastly, stir in oatmeal and raisin and combine the mixture.

Drop the batter onto baking tray and make sure that the batter should be  spacing in between each drop.

The cookies were redolent in the process of baking. Yums!

Crunchy!

 

All right, divagate to another point.

Seriously, I'm coveted for a 13-inch Macbook Pro, better to equip with Adobe CS5! Blah, sounds avaricious!

On August, I'll be inducted to NTU's ADM and it will be opportune if I can get one. :P

 

I'm not alibing for my possessiveness when I'd concrete reasons for justification.

 

1st - My current laptop isn't working in proper condition (couldn't administer my user account ) and the RAM is inadequate to run proficiently ( Due to some retards from NP's IT helpdesk who had pilfer my external memory! )

 

2nd- I'll be more competent if I get a Macbook Pro to work on when dealing with graphical subject.

It's ineffectual to superfluous cupidity, the pragmatic way is to slog myself and earn more $$$!

Mian Fen Guo

Mian fen guo（面粉粿）is a requisite chinese staple food that is basically made from flour along with other complements such as eggs, water, salt and oil.

It is actually processed from the same ingredients of 'ban mian' (板面）or flat noodle except they differ in shapes which Mian fen guo is a flat piece of iregular shape noodle. I was equivocal which is the predecessor for one. :P

 

Make a well in the center of flour.

Add in egg.

Add in oil and water. Mix all the ingredients till it form a nice smooth dough.

Continue to knead for 15-20mins for gluten development.

Grease some oil on the surface of the dough if you intend to place it in the fridge to prevent the surface from desiccating.

 

Using your bare hand, take a small piece of dough and stretch as long as you can and release it into a wok of boiling water.
When the dough float on the water, it manifested that the dough is cooked.

 

Add in some minced meat that augmented tang to it, relished with scallion,  fried shallots and seasoning. Doesn't it look like korean type of 'zha jiang lamen'? :)

My brothers love nuggets and I added in!

 

All right, I'm digressing to unrelated stuff. Since 2 years ago, there had been a frenzy and rave for Panasonic Lumix LX3.

I'd stumbled across Xiaxue's blog on an entry for LX3, and Oh Gosh! I was astounded and enraptured by the quality of the photos taken.

 

The semi-pro camera took vivid coloured pictures and what's more, it has a ultra wide angle len which is a WIN WIN!
The con is the zoom range that is quite limited and macro photos may not be well taken.

What more can you ask for when it is so compact and almost a DSLR quality?

 

Source

In fact, talking about DSLR, i'm avid for Panasonic GF1.
From its appearance, it strikes an immense difference from other DSLR cam which looks hefty and sturdy.
Irrefutably, it was the smallest and most compact DSLR cam!

 

Source

It comes with the attractive red colour, super gorgeous!
However, it costs a wholly S$1499 which is far too exuberant.

 

It was not a whim that I was so ardent and 'so-going' to buy another cam. My canon IXUS80IS really 'CMI' on photos without flash and it processes blur photo which I had to retake copious of times to attain a slightly better one. * VEX *

My verdict: I'll purchase GF1 when I strike lottery tomorrow :P 
(O.S: Day-dreaming!)

Waffles!

I'd made a trip down to the town area and came across a little waffle machine selling it at S$24.90. It was definitely  affordable for a student like me.
I was enticed by it and contemplated whether I should purchased it.

After much excogitation, I paid for it and it's now of one my valued possession. :)

I knew that this is insignificant as compared to
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A professional waffle maker
Nevetheless, I was satiated with what I'd got.

To prepare waffles,

Sift flour, baking powder, salt and sugar together

Add in egg yolk to milk.

Subsequently, add in vegetable oil or melted butter to the milk.

Add in milk mixture to the dry ingredients.

Beat egg white till stiff.

Fold the beaten egg white into the batter till it is just incorporated. DO NOT overmix!
Pour the batter onto a preheated waffle maker.
This machine took less than 5 mins to cook a waffle. Isn't it impressive?


Plain waffle as snack

Served it with ice-cream as dessert

Waffle with maple syrup and butter for breakfast!
You can almost eat it with anything, just be creative enough! It's a wholly all-time favourite!

I'm still finding a perfect recipe for my waffles albeit this tasted good.
However, my family is inclined to crispy waffle.
Try to improve on my recipe!