Tantalizingly Tangy Meatloaf :)

I have always wanted to try making meat loaf, when I found a nice recipe so simple, yet so yummy..I decided to just do it! The End result? "The One" and I did enjoy it :) Taken from the website, allrecipe. Its named Tantalizingly Tangy Meatloaf by the author/chef Stacey B. of the recipe

I did made some adjustment to the recipe..just how simple? you can easily find the ingredient in the kitchen

Ingredients:
500g ground meat (pork /beef)
1/2 onion (chopped into small pieces)
3 cloves garlic (chopped into small pieces)
1 beaten egg
1 slice bread (make into crumbs)
few dash of Worcestershire sauce

Steps:
Preheat oven to 350oF (175oC)
Mixed all the above ingredients together with your fingers
Buttered your baking dish
Pat the meat mixture and form into a bread loaf shape
Put into oven and bake for about 30-40 mins

Separtedly, prepare the sauce:
3-4 tablespoon ketchup
3 tablespoon white sugar
3 tablespoon Pineapple preserved Juice (from those pineapple cubed canned)

After baking in there for about 30 mins, pour sauce over meatloaf, bake for another 20 mins before removing.

There, you got your own Tantalizingly Tangy Meatloaf! ;) The only constructive comment "The One" had was, "more sauce will be nicer"..so if you like more sauce on the meatloaf, perhaps you might like to double up the quantity of the sauce

Enjoy!

Cheerios and Keep Smiling!
With Love From PoohBear

p/s: Realised that I'm not good when it comes to taking pic of my dishes..keep forgetting. Until the time when I thought of taking pics, usually it has already become a "messy" dish of food! hahaha

Photo courtesy of http://www.allrecipe.com

Pachelbel's canon in D Major - Classical version

For those who has not heard the original version of Canon in D Major, sit back, close your eyes and enjoy this beautiful music to the ears..

Cheerios and Keep Smiling!
With Love From PoohBear

Cannon Rock (JerryC)

I know some of you guys might have already seen this taiwanese JerryC guy playing the Canon In D Major in his Rock style. Since his guitar playing is shown on YouTube, there has been others who followed in his path, (he's the original as alot of people mentioned). I do love this Canon In D Major (both rock or classical), for those who have not heard this beautiful Canon In D Major, enjoy this Generation Y version!

Cheerios and keep Smiling!
With Love From PoohBear

Food of Arts ~ 2

Food of Arts ~ 1

A friend send me an email that I thought was really interesting..and will like to share with all of you...lets call it..Food of Arts. I'll divide it into a 2 sections. Hope you all will enjoy too :)

Cheerios and keep smiling!
With Love from PoohBear

Just Reading...No Comments

I realised that sometimes when I chatted with mom, bro or friends, they all seems to be able to bring up something that I wrote on my blog ;) Although many will realise that my comments 'boxes' are almost always empty but it is a joy to know that what I wrote is actually being "secretly, invisibly' read! hahaha...Even "The One" do read them at times too hehehe I, myself am guilty of being 'comment-less' at times when I visit blogs, is it my "don't-know-what-to-write" or "I-just-enjoy-reading-and-not-writing" mood? For whatever reasons that I might have been comment-less when blogging, for all those bloggers out there who are blogging, seriously, there are real people who do read your blogs!

One of the purpose of setting up this blog is to keep in touch with all my loved ones and friends all over the world and I'm glad that it is serving its purpose :) I hope I have not bored any of you who do read my blogs and thank you for taking the time to 'stop over' :)

Have a great day today!

Cheerios and keep smiling!
With love from PoohBear

Picture courtesy from http://www.genyvoodoo.com

Taiwanese Drama on YouTube - Hana Kimi and Wei Xiao Pasta

As I mentioned previously, I missed all those Chinese TV programs especially those of Taiwanese drama serials; until a friend told me about watching it on YouTube. Since then, I've finished with 2 of the serials.


Hana Kimi (Hua Yang Shao Nian Shao Nu, its a Japanese adapted serials) starring Ella (from S.H.E) and Wu Zun, a story about a girl who likes and idolises this guy, for him, she actually disguise herself as a guy, transferred to the same school that he's in and from then on..the story unfolds..It is a pretty hilarious show, I really enjoyed watching this



Wei Xiao Pasta starring Wong Xinlin and Zhang Dong Liang. If you guys have watched the Korean drama serial "Full House", the story line for Wei Xiao Pasta is very similar to "Full House" where the guy is a singer and the girl is a simple folk, by 'accident' they met, they 'pretend' to be lovers, the bickering, the things they do for each other and then eventually they fall in love and become real lovers.

The current one that I'm catching is It started with a Kiss..will let you guys know if its a good show to catch when I've done watching it okie..:)

I like watching Taiwanese serials for they can be hilarious at times, romantic especially when the guys profess their love for the gals (Ok Ok, I'm a romantic at heart ;P) and it just have that appealing, magnetic reasons to 'hook' you on the show and wanting to keep watching it...

For those who liked Taiwanese serials, do catch these shows :) Too bad, "The One" didn't have a strong understanding of the Chinese language (they don't come with English subtitles, just Chinese subtitles and somewhat the romantic Chinese words just cant be substitute with English words, for it will lost its beauty. The "Feel" is just not the same, isn't it?), if not, I'm sure he will enjoy it as much as I did.

Do Enjoy...

Cheerios and keep Smiling!
With Love from PoohBear

Picture courtesy from http://www.wiki.d-addicits.com

The day I made Roast Pork!

As always, I love to try and source for easy and nice food to make..and Winnie PoohBear reporting for update, sir! yesterday, yours truly made....


ROAST PORK! (we called it sio ba (in Hokkien) or siew yuk (in Cantonese))

Yup, you heard me right, I made Roast pork :) With freshly ground red chilli and slices of cucumber with Rice, "The One" gave it a thumbs up for it too! ;P Although the supposedly Crispy skin got a bit hard hahaha but then, still got that 'crunch' when u bite in..not bad huh :) I followed the receipe that I googled and got from a fellow blogger, CucinaRebecca and yup, it is THAT SIMPLE (any GUY can do it and I do mean GUY, MAN, BOY, HUSBAND...), as she mentioned, "difficulty level slightly higher than boiling water" so if you will love to have Roast Pork belly for dinner tonight..give it a try!

Sorry, had to "borrow" pics from CucinaRebecca's blog (although my final product didnt turn out as beautiful as CucinaRebecca's hahaha) coz "The One" and I finished it faster than I can say, 'I wanna take a picture of the Roast Pork!" hehehe



Cheerios and Keep smiling!
With Love from PoohBear


Photo courtesy from http://www.deliciousasianfood.com and http://CucinaRebecca.blogspot.com

Spring is here

Just heard on the morning news that tonight at 8pm, it will be officially SPRING of 2007; today is the last day of WINTER 2006/2007. The weather today is still VERY WINTER-LIKE, in the minus degrees, hmmm, wonder how will the temperature raise overnight to reach spring temperature ;)

Thought I'll share a nice quote I read today...

PoohBear Quote of the day:

The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails.

William Arthur Ward

I guess for me, I take a stand from a bit of all three! ;) Usually in the beginning, I'll be the pessimist, after which most of the time I'll become the optimist pretty quickly before the realist side of me kick in and give me a wake up call

There are times when it goes backwards too..I saw the reality instantly, I try to be optimistic but once a while, I'll go into depression and become pessimistic about the situation..

hmm..complex? well, I'm human ain't I? and a WOMAN at that too...;)

Cheerios and keep smiling!

With love from PoohBear

internet surveys & contest

There's one interesting thing here in Canada that I discovered..that is Internet Surveys. Started as I was home and cant work, so I signed up for some Internet surveys to do surveys and so far..other than answering surveys, we also had free samples to try :) We tried new products such as cereals, DIY self popping pop corns and there's even one that offer cash incentives for sending in some 'term and conditions' of certain in-store cards that we sign up for..cool huh? ;) For each surveys that we do, most will give you 'free' entry for draws, some even offer up to $5000 in cash, who knows, next time we will win some cash from the draws!

Actually here in Canada and ALOT in USA, there are websites that allow you to use the internet to earn some incentives, coupons, cash for doing surveys, sign up or enter contests to win prizes. There has been an TV interview even with a "Contest Queen" who just keep entering contests and has won sooo many prizes (even free trips to Europe tour) that now, she even wrote a book , has a website and is doing consulting job!!! Entering contest is just a hobby for her she says geeee...:) sweet hobby hehehe

As she says, 'you cant win if you don't enter'!

Cheerios and keep smiling!
With Love from PoohBear

Picture courtesy from http://www.library.thinkquest.org

Huh??

Have you ever had times when your brain is thinking faster than your mouth can say?? or some words just doesn't seems to registered in the brain of yours? Let me give you incidents that happen to me...

The other day, while having dinner, "The One" commented that I always 'swallow' my food (I can finish my dinner in 5 mins and I'm not having porridge hehehe) that I'm not chewing and slowly eating my food. At that moment, the TV was showing a cat food commericals and he asked if cats chew their food? I looked at him and said "yeah, they fish their food!" which I actually meant to say 'yeah, they chew their fish!"

This other incident is one that "The One" always laugh his head off whenever we think and mentioned about it..that is, I just can't seems to get certain words right! There is this WOODSIDE SQUARE (a mall) that is just beside our apartment. However, in the past I just can't seems to register this name in my brain! I'll say all sort of name WOODSQUARE MALL, WESTWOOD MALL , WESTSIDE MALL (I think it might be because there used to be a WEST MALL back home in Sg that I keep linking it with), instead of WOODSIDE SQUARE..."The One" will teased me and say, "You really put the "SIDE" in WOODSIDE ASIDE huh?" :P Hahahaha

Cheerios and keep smiling!

With Love from PoohBear

Photo Courtesy from http://www.gocollect.com

Chinese, Chinese, Chinese...

I was born and raised in a country which celebrates diverse cultures and races, I was privileged to have always enjoy multi-languages television programs in Singapore. Mediacorp (Sg largest media broadcaster and provider) has 4 basic channels in the English language, Chinese language, Malay language and Tamil language..sometimes when I got bored with listening to the English language, I will switch to watching Chinese shows, once a while I'll even switch to watching Malay cooking shows hehehe (of course I'll be reading the subtitles and picking up some words here and there) :)

I realised that whenever I'm away from Home, one of the things that I missed most other than family, friends and food is the Chinese languages TV programs especially those of Taiwanese Variety programs, drama serial (as well as those from Hongkong but dubbed in Chinese language), basically just CHINESE languages programs!

Over here in Canada although there are lots of channels, most of them are in English, it's soooo 'mono-language', it gets to me at time and I'll just switch off the TV. Recently I was chatting on MSN with a friend and he gave me a site on YouTube that I can watch a Taiwanese TV serial. Hooray! I wasted no time, jumped on the site to begin watching the serial and got some comfort listening to the familiar language that I've always grown up with, I'm really enjoying it...that's the power of Technology in the 21st century :) bringing one a little closer to home...

Cheerios and keep smiling!

With Love from PoohBear

Photo courtesy from http://www.en.wikipedia.org

Dear, how come...?

This afternoon, there were 2 short power failures in the apartment, made me recalled a funny incident that happened just 2 days ago when we had a power failure too..

That night, I was on the net watching a Taiwanese serial on YouTube when the power failure occurred. "The One" was playing his online game in the living room while I was in the room, suddenly everything went dark and quiet, I called out to "The One", he came in the room and comforted me. At that point, I think I was a little scared and asked him a very silly question..."Dear, how come my laptop is still on while everything else is off?", "The One" looked at me, grinned and said, "It's running on the battery, what do you think?" hahaha...

Now, every now and then, "The One" will still teased me about this Blur like Sotong incident and we will both burst out laughing at my silliness ;)

Cheerios and keep smiling!
With Love from PoohBear

Photo courtesy from http://www.ackadia.com

Daylight saving

Daylight saving has started..yeah you're right, it started officially on March 11 at 2am, 3 weeks earlier than the usual...WHY you asked? Well, because the Canada govt decided to just FOLLOW what the USA did and start daylight saving 3 weeks earlier. What the news said was the change in earlier daylight time saving was to save energy, however, there were doubts too, some debate about how effective the change will be at reducing energy consumption.

Early daylight time means less shut-eyes and to counteract that, "The One" and I decided to sleep in early too (so 'officially' we had to start adjusting ourselves on Sunday). Yesterday evening, I suddenly remembered I had to cook an hour earlier and have our dinner earlier as we have to get into bed earlier so that we can catch up on that one hour sleep..and before we do that, we had to reset our clock, watches, hand phones, laptop & microwave timings hahaha what a chain of reaction that is with that "little" one hour of daylight saving! Wonder if there's anything else that I missed out on resetting...;P

Enjoy that extra hour of daylight!

Cheerios and keep smiling!

With Love from PoohBear

Picture courtesy from http://www.courier-journal.com and http://www.auburn.edu

Share a Hug today!

Havent been blogging for the past 2 days as I was sick. Being sick makes one miss home even more..."The One" had to go to work and I'm alone at home, laying in bed. Apart from being alone, I miss the pampering of mom who will make me soupy stuffs and 'cooling tea', nursing me back to health. Sometimes when no words seems right, a hug is all one needs to make you feel better and today, I'll like to share a little hug with all of you too...

Have a wonderful day today!

Cheerios and keep smiling!
With love from PoohBear

Increasing oil prices & bluetec emission technology

Recently in Toronto, Gas pumps have been running dry and gas prices going up; the price of oil has went past the $1 per litre mark, a sharp increase from the the time when you can get oil at $0.77 per litre (that was like just one month ago!) Woo..for motorist that drives V6 engine vehicles and those who need to travel long distance to work, to school, and especially now in the winter season, when most people DO need to drive travelling in this cold, that is quite some rise..

The rise was supposedly due to reasons, one, a CN railway Strike by the workers (that causes a delay in the delivery of the gas), two, due to a oil refinery fire and at some gas pumps, they even limit the amount of gas customers can pump.


Recently at the Toronto automobile show 2007, there was the introduction of its Bluetec diesel emissions control technology, available now on the 2007 Mercedes-Benz E 320 Bluetec luxury sedan (MRSP around CAN$67,800, subjective to changes). The Bluetec emissions control technology includes a particulate filter and a new extended-life nitrogen oxide catalytic converter with on board ammonia generation. Check out this site if you wanna read more about this bluetec emission control technology.

In another 2 weeks, spring will arrive, hmm..if the temp starts to warm up, probably I'll try to persuade "The One" to go green (save money actually ;P) and take the bicycle to work! hahahaha..so MEAN of me huh ;P

Cheerios and keep smiling!
With Love from PoohBear

Picture courtesty from http://www.tiki.oneoworld.net/energy/energy.html and http://blogs.motortrend.com

Mother Nature shows her power

This week, alot of 'unexpected' events have been piling up in Toronto due to the unleashing of the power from Mother Nature!

There was the falling ice from CNTower story that shuts down busy Toronto street and expressway (if you want to see the chunks of ice formed on the CN Tower, follow the link and you can get a good picture of it), where sections of the Gardiner Expressway area; one of the main express way serving the downtown Toronto city area were closed due to fears of ice falling from the CN Tower at speeds of more than 300 kilometres an hour as the sun warms up and torn off chunks of ice! There were even news of fallen blocks of ice falling on the window panes of cabs and pedestrians are wearing helmets as they walked on the street for fear of the fallen ice.

Yesterday, on Highway 400, visibility is down to 0 and there was a pile up vehicle accident involving more than 75 vehicles! Luckily, no one was killed in this tragic event. Paramedics, firefighters, hazardous material crews and polices worked through the night to help victims and clearing of the roads.

This morning there is an extreme cold weather alert, temp of -21oC with windchill, an extreme coldness of -31oC from the cold artic air. In this kind of weather, you can get frost bite when skin is exposed to the cold air in mins! Hopefully as Springs gets nearer, Mother Nature will be more merciful and Spring temperature will appear soon...

Cheerios and keep Smiling!
With Love from PoohBear

Photo courtesy from http://www.tiki.oneworld.net/energy/energy.html

WEF- travel & tourism competitiveness index

I was reading the World Economic forum first-ever travel & tourism competitiveness index which is an index that measures the factors that make it attractive to develop the travel and tourism industry of individual countries.

The Top 10 countries and their scoring:
Switzerland(5.66), Austria(5.54), Germany(5.48), Iceland(5.45),United States(5.43), Hong Kong SAR(5.33), Canada(5.31), Singapore(5.31), Luxembourg(5.31), United Kingdom(5.28)

As I looked at the list, I'm so proud to see Singapore ranking in 8th with the same score as Canada and Luxembourg with Hongkong and Singapore being the only 2 Asia countries that are ranked in the top 10! :) No matter how small Singapore is, I'm always proud to say I'm from Singapore and I'm a Singaporean! Congratulations Singapore :))

Go Singapore, Go!

Cheerios and keep smiling,
With Love from PoohBear

PoohBear Quote of the day

For some time, I have always wanted to share some quotes/statements that I feel have some impact on me that I have heard, read, seen either from the media, articles or just while chatting with people. Today I decided, I'll do a little "PoohBear Quote of the day"* whenever I can..so here it goes:

PoohBear Quote of the day :
"In a relationship (r/s), its not about each person giving 50%:50% but giving 100%:100% of each other to make it work" - Dr. Phil show

I first heard this from Dr.Phil when he was hosting his talk show on TV. When I heard that, it made me realised that alot of time, people, including myself will say "oh, you do this and I'll do that (50%:50%) then it will be fair". When I heard what Dr. Phil said, I realised he's right..in a r/s, one should always be putting 100% of yourself into the r/s just as you will in doing anything important, how can you be doing just 50% and expecting a result of a 100% work?

I really enjoyed when hubby and I do household chores together (not doing 50%:50%), when eating he lets me have more of something I like/I let him have more of something he likes (not 50%:50%), he gives me more hugs/I give him more hugs (not 50%:50%), I'm more tolerant with some of his faults/ he's more tolerant with some of my faults (not 50%:50%), when making decisions, we take in view each other's opinions, sometimes I go with his/he goes with my decision (not 50%:50%)


I believe this concept of giving 100% of yourself goes to any r/s, even with friends, family and co-workers :) Alot of times, its about giving and taking but each time giving 100% of yourself to your partner(s), making it a learning process which will help the r/s grow and glow.

Cheerios and keep smiling!
With Love from PoohBear

*Please do note that the quotes might not be 100% exact word for word but it is what I remembered from what I heard/seen/read.

Picture courtesy from http://www.chw.org

Yuan Xiao Jie Kuai Le! (Happy Chinese Lantern Festival)

Time passes so fast, it seems just yesterday that we celebrated the arrival of the Year of the Pig and today marks the 15th day of the lunar Chinese New year (Yuan Xiao) which is also the last day of the celebration of CNY. On this day, traditionally, "Riddles lanterns" are hang up. Riddles are hang at the end of the lanterns for people to guess, the ones that got the correct answers are usually rewarded with a prize.



Other than this, the traditional food to have on this day is Yuan xiao (or better known as tang yuan), it is a kind of sticky sweet dumpling made from sticky rice flour stuffed with sweet fillings (sometimes peanuts, red beans or sesame); simply made by boiling it in hot syrup water and eaten as a dessert. It symbolizes family reunion, completeness (Yuan man), happiness and a sweet life.


I remembered when I was little, my parents and us (Jie, kiddo and I) used to go to the community centres or basketball courts where the residential community (RCs) held these festival celebrations. I'll try to "look smart" staring hard at the riddles while having no clue what the answers to the riddles are hahaha...Mom used to make these tang yuans at home and as usual the KPO (busybody) me, will want to 'help' her roll the tang yuan, hmm, somehow the tang yuan that I rolled always turned out ovalish rather than roundish hahaha Fond memories :) This year, I'll be keeping the tradition, but instead of rolling the tang yuans myself, I'll be boiling and treating "The One" to a feast of nicely rolled sesame and red bean filling tang yuans brought from the Asian groceries. Perhaps, next time when I have kids, I'll do the traditional tang yuan rollings so that they too will have fond memories like I do...

Yuan Xiao Jie Kuai Le!

Cheerios and keep smiling!
With love from PoohBear

Photos courtesy from http://www.chinapictures.org and http://www.chinapage.com

My first Video clip

Back to the Past

This morning when I woke up, I felt as if I'm in "Iceland" with the Snow Queen as well as back in the age with no television..the branches of the trees were frozen with ice and television had "no signal", I guess today will be a "TV-less" day for me. Good thing I have my Ipod that my jie and KC (my bro-in-law) gave me for my birthday, and hmm..I'm sitting here with my laptop writing a blog.. hahaha, suddenly hit on me that in this 21st Century, my life is so surrounded by (probably dependent on) advanced Technology!

My water was boiled using an ELECTRICAL KETTLE, my food was kept fresh in the BIG REFRIGERATOR, cooked using ELECTRICAL STOVE, warmed up using the MICROWAVE, showered with HEATED water, kept warm in the house by HEATER, cooled with AIR CONDITIONER, washed my clothes with WASHING MACHINE AND DRYER, entertained by FLAT SCREEN 27" COLOURED TELEVISION, LAPTOP with HIGH SPEED MODEM INTERNET CONNECTION, listened to music with my IPOD, took photos with DIGITAL CAMERA, called using my MINI CELLPHONE, play ONLINE GAMING..think back 20 years ago..

My water was boiled using an POT KETTLE on the stove USING A GAS LIGHTER, my food was kept fresh in the SMALL REFRIGERATOR, cooked using GAS STOVE, warmed up using the STEAMING/STIR-FRIED-HOT METHOD, showered with the water HEATED FROM THE POT KETTLE, POURED INTO A TUB, ADDED WITH COLD WATER and SCOPED using a small pail, kept warm in the house by HEATER (in Sg, we didn't have to do that :)), cooled with HAND HELD BAMBOO FAN, washed our clothes with WASHING BOARD, SOAP, SCRUB AND HANG TO DRY, entertained by 14" BLACK AND WHITE TELEVISION (who ever heard of Flat screen, Plasma TV?!) , BULKY DESK TOP with DIAL UP INTERNET CONNECTION (had to plug and unplug telephone line), listen to music with my RADIO, taking photos with FILM CAMERA, called using 'LOAN SHARK BULKY BLACK' cellphones, played "zero-point", throw "five-stones", "thief and police" catching, "eagle catching chick", flying plastic bags out of the window ;P We sure came a LONG way in technology in 20 years!

"Eagle catching chick" game, the brave mother hen in the front protecting the little chicks...When I looked back now, I still remembered fondly the day when we were young in that age of technology transition. I wonder when its our kids turn to think back, will they have such wonderful memories like we do?

Cheerios and keep smiling!
With Love from PoohBear

Photo courtesy from www.flickr.com/photos/fayeyu/page8