And I huff and I puff...

After making samosa the other day, another craving..hahaha..what's wrong with me huh? crave this, crave that..no, I'm not eating for two..no wild, nottie guesses huh :P

SO what do I crave this time? Curry Puff! yeah the old Chang Kee Curry Puff that I like to have once a while..no curry puff here, so what to do? Make my own! :) Never did any pastry stuffs before, first try...I do know curry puffs are fried but I dont really like frying stuffs, so I decided to do baked curry puffs instead.

Search high, search low, found a link from Chef Pearly's blog, so hop to RasaMalaysia.com (ya ya! found my curry puff recipe!) happy me..

While making the dough, suddenly realised..gee..I dont hv a rolling pin! arghh, ok now what, hmm, I'll use a cup to roll the dough flat hahaha (when "The One" saw me rolling, seems like such hard work, so difficult with that cup he asked so sweetly, "should I go and buy you a rolling pin?" (he asked me twice even) I was like, "no need, will make do for now" :P so sweet huh hehehe I know the signature 'wave' of curry puffs look really nice, but I dont have nimble fingers, so after few tries, they look really ugly. Went the 'cheating' way (that's what my mummy said when I told her :P), I just used the fork to make patterns hehehe

End result..

Before Baking

After Baking

yummy, although I have to agree frying does taste better, but I'm happy with my baked version. "The One" is happy with it (coz I put alot of fillings) and I'm happy not having to fry and get all greasy hahaha I had a fun time making these curry puffs. When I told my jie I made Curry Puffs, she was like "Can eat or not?" hehehe so see jie, how is it? good enough or not? :P

If you like to try this out, this is the link to the curry puff recipe from rasamalaysia.com. Rasa malaysia sure can cook very well!

Cheerios and keep smiling!

With Love from PoohBear

Digital Cameras

Technology has progressed so fast that almost everything is going digital. Remembered those days when we will take photos using our big bulky camera, having to purchase rolls of films, always cautious about exposing the film.

Our first digital Camera is a Canon Powershot A70.We always loved Canon Cameras, always reliable, always producing high quality products. For many years, we have captured countless wonderful moments such as birthdays, weddings, birth of our nephews, holidays and graduations all with this baby. As technology advances, I’ll definitely love to own a camcorder that can be use as a digital camera too. Which one? A small, compact, nice sleek designed model such as Sanyo VPC-HD1A High definition camcorder will be nice. It has a 10X optical zoom, build in image stabilization, superfast frame rate and what I love most? It is able to simultaneously captures 5.1-megapixal images and HD movie clips, both at the same time! How cool is that? I think I should start dropping hints to my dear hubby! Happy photo takings!


*this is a PPP sponsored Post

You Make Me Smile...

Tonite's the nite! when the moon is at its roundest and brightest (look hard to see if u can see a lady with her rabbit ok!) hehe Happy Mooncake Festival! :)

Was told by my lovely Pearly to hop to her blog and when I got there, i had a really nice surprise! :) ta ta ta ta...


nice or not! :) so sweet of pearly, not only to share mooncake and green tea with us, even this nice award. Thank you Pearly! *hugs hugs*

Nice things are meant to share around, I love to give this to some really nice people, (however, most of them Pearly has already given (like j.t., nyonyapenang, Uncle Lee) and Pearly, I will give it to u too! :)) so in turn, i'll like to present this to a lady who always make me smile with her infectious sense of humor...dear Firehorse :)

Hope I put a smile on your faces today! :)

Cheerios and keep smiling!
With Love from PoohBear

is it rectangle, square, hexagon? no, its triangle!

After Uncle Lee mentioned about the famous "Samosas King" 5 piece for $1 Samosas, I had a craving for samosas Hahaha..Remembered that I still have some Spring rolls skin (popiah skin) left from making popiah the other day. So what do I do?

Off to Google to search for a recipe! :)

After some searching, sweating (as what Nyonyapenang said), cooking instinct (what Pearly always have), this is the end result!

Now bad looking samosa, hubby give 2 thumbs up hahaha (I guess thats his way of encouragement so that I'll make some more for him the next time he request hehehe)

if anyone's interested..here goes:

Ingredients:

250g-300g minced meat

3-4 tbsp curry powder (or to taste)

1 tsp salt (or to taste)

1 small onion, diced

1 medium potato, diced

1 small carrot, diced

4-5 tbsp Cooking oil

Popiah skin / wanton skin

Method:

(preboil/microwave carrot and potato to about 3/4 cooked, if you like to add peas or other of your favourites, do go ahead)

1. Heat oil, Stir fry diced onion

2. Add minced meat, salt, curry powder, cook till meat is cooked

3. Add preboiled carrot and potato, stir

4. Removed cooked minced meat mixture and let cool

5. Filled popiah skin with cooled mixture, fold into triangle (or any other shape, as you like, whoever say you can't, right? :P)

6. Fried till golden brown, served!

j.t. (this is another recipe to add for your minced meat) hehe

Cheerios and keep smiling!

With love from PoohBear

Holiday Shopping Promotion

Time passes so quickly, with September coming to an end, soon October, November and December will arrive! End of the year is always filled with so many festive seasons. Thanksgiving in October, My birthday in November and Christmas, Boxing day both in December! Now is the time to start planning for shopping season, isn’t it?

Do you know that Black Friday (one day after Thanksgiving), major retailers will give discounts for their products to kick start the Christmas shopping season? I found out that on Black-Friday.net website, we are getting a preview of the offers now. Don’t have to wait till the Thanksgiving circulars to arrive before we know. I can definitely do some good planning for the gifts that I have been secretly admiring. I have been looking at some of the Best-buy deals, the prices look really attractive! Hubby has been thinking of LCD HDTV, how about Plasma TV or a Flat Panel TV; I wonder which one he will like. For myself, I will definitely love to have a camcorder. A Sony DVD camcorder sounds wonderful. My little nephews will surely love some toys at Christmas! Looking at the range of toys offered at ToysRUs deals, there are so many choices! Baby Einstein DVDs, Fisher-Price products, Disney’s products, Leapfrogs products and many more to choose from; It is so hard to make up my mind on what to buy! I’m going to have to call my sister to ask for her opinion. Happy shopping and happy saving!

*this is a PPP sponsored post*

Mooncakes, mooncakes I love you

Mom just remind me that the 'chinese lantern festival' which falls on the 15th day of the lunar 8th month is coming soon (on the western calendar that will be on the 25th Sept this year, another 10 more days to go).


Lantern Festival in Chinese Garden, Sg

Back home, there will be more celebrations..usually the little kids will carry their lantern and walk around the park. I remembered when we are little, the group of cousins, we loved to lit up candles in our paper lanterns and ah gong will bring us downstairs to the playground to walk around with our lanterns..giggling, laughing. It such a beautiful sights with so many lanterns. As we get older, mom will hang some lanterns on the balcony (we are too old and too shy now to carry them) hahaha

What is a latern festival without mooncakes! :) With the commericalisation of this festival, in Singapore, you can get almost all sort of mooncakes! All the hotel pastry chefs will be competing for the most innovative, most tasty mooncakes every year during this time..lets hv a look at this year's varieties...

Marriott's Hotel new flavour this year : Snowskin Blueberry cheese mooncake




Pan Pacific's hotel "Six Chefs, Eight Mooncakes, One Boutique Collection"

Imperial Golden Custard (Chef Lai Tong Ping, Hai Tien Lo Cantonese Restaurant)
Sweet Wolfberry & Wai Shan (Chef Lai Tong Ping, Hai Tien Lo Cantonese Restaurant)
Osmanthus Divine (Chef Lai Tong Ping, Hai Tien Lo Cantonese Restaurant)
Velvety Umeshu & Sweet Potato (Chef Hiroshi Ishii, Keyaki Japanese Restaurant)
Decadent Brandy Truffle (Executive Chef Joseph Martin, Global Kitchen)
Heavenly Red Wine and Chocolate (Chef Phillip Lee, Atrium Deli)
Ambrosial Honey & Ricotta Cheese (Executive Chef Dennis Sim, Zambuca Italian Restaurant)
Aromatic Cloves & Figs (Executive Sous Chef Vinod Kumar, Rang Mahal)

The famous D24 Durian mooncake from Goodwood Park Hotel

The traditional baked mooncakes, snowskin mooncakes including the signature D24 Durian and Cempedak Paste in Snowskin, and the new addition – Golden Mooncakes with Yam Paste or Durian Paste (cripsy texture)

Home's Favourite (L-R): 100% Black (Charcoal) Gold Durian Mooncake, Champagne Paste With Baileys Truffle Mooncakes and Pure Mango With Mung Bean Mooncakes



Of course there are alot more varieties in more hotels that I simply dont hv to remind myself that I dont get to eat them...here is our humble mooncake that we got here. The traditional baked lotus paste with double yolk (hmm, pretty small yolk compared to those that I used to hv) hahahaha



Happy Mooncake festival!

Cheerios and keep smiling!
With Love from PoohBear

Happy holidays!

Sometimes when I come home from work, feeling so tired that I just wished that I can take short breaks, even short weekend breaks will be lovely and relaxing for a quick recharge for the mind and the body.

I do love shopping, eating, enjoying the beautiful sights whenever I go for a holiday. City breaks might be just lovely too! Where better to enjoy all these with my significant other than in Europe! First stop, Paris, the world’s most romantic city; shopping, eating, drink and sharing a magical moment on top of Eiffel tower. Next we are off to Venice, taking a ride on the gondolier, exploring this beautiful floating city. Talking about beauty, how can we forget the world’s most beautiful ceiling in the Sistine Chapel of Rome! I still want to go to Barcelona, Prague and Nice too! With so many places that I want to go, I better start looking for cheap flights and holiday offers! Happy holiday!

To change or not to change...

Sometime back, "The One" and I went for a burger at a fast food outlet. After getting our order, we sat down to enjoy our crispy burger, when we took a bite..arhhh..the meat was cool. "The One" looked at me and said, "is yours fresh?" I looked at him and shake my head, "Not crunchy one"...He wrapped up his burger and tell me, "Give me urs, I'll go and ask them to give us freshly made ones". I told him, "hmm, its ok lah" He said its not ok, so I wrapped it up and handed him the burger.

After about 5 mins, "The One" came back with the freshly made burgers. Once u open up the wrapper, u can see the heat steam coming out from the meat and when u bite into it, 'crunchy crunchy' :) So I asked "The One" what happened? "Nothing, I just went there and told the cashier this is not fresh. No questions asked, she just turned to her colleague in the kitchen and told him, "You don't make fresh ones?" Threw the burger away, handed me these and said sorry for that" I looked at him and said, "oh, ok"

At the end of the meal, I was thinking to myself...I do understand the need to stand up for your rights. As in, you paid for a meal, and of course u should get fresh food. However when I think of that burger that was thrown away just becoz its not 'fresh' anymore (past their freshness by probably 15-20 mins) ; if that was given to a child in the third world country, he will have gobble it up as if he has found gold...

Such is the irony in this world...

Cheerios and keep smiling,
With Love from PoohBear

picture from http://www.doctorsweightin.com/

Over 5 Free Hours of International Phone Calls!

When you are far away from home and long to hear the voices of your loved ones, making long distance overseas calls can sometimes cost a bomb! Calling card is a great option to save, but some calling card companies have hidden fees and I dislike the fact that the call will automatically cut off when the balance reaches $0. Such a disappointment when you are having a great time chatting with your loved ones.

Now with Pingo, a pre-paid calling card service, there’s no hidden fees, no nasty surprise and it’s going to be a big saving on long distance calls! Pingo offers auto recharge and callers will not be cut off due to insufficient fund in the account. If you want to know if you’re getting the best rate in town, check out the” RateWatcher” feature on Pingo. It does the job of helping to compare rates and keeping a lookout for a lower rate so that they can pass on the saving to the customers. When you sign up with Pingo, you will get a free US$5 worth of free call and that’s not all, now there is a Special phone card blog discount coupon: “ppp3” valid for $3 off Pingo, receive $25 phone card for just $17 plus when you invite your friends to share this great offer; every time that each of them signs up, you earn US$5! Great things are meant to share with friends, isn’t it? Have fun calling with Pingo!

*This is a PPP sponsored post

I am loved by Firehorse (FH)

Always feel so nice to be LOVED and my dear Firehorse (FH) has given me a nice surprise by giving me my first award *hugs hugs* thank you FH :)



Love makes the world goes round and round, with love, there's always hope!

In turn, I'm giving this award to...tah tah tah tah...


Uncle Lee, Ruby, PiBani, j.t., Nyonyapenang, Pearly, Poohbearee, Daphne Ling and oh Yenjai bro, I wanted to give you too, but FH has already given you. :) see you're soo loved hehe *claps claps claps*


Cheerios and keep smiling!
With Love from PoohBear

Happy Birthday Maximus!

On a happier note, today is also the THIRD birthday of my Nephew, MAXIMUS!

Happy 3rd Birthday Maximus!

Your Birthdate: September 4

You have an extraordinary character - moral, responsible, and disciplined. Your sincerely and honesty shine through in almost every situation. Driven and focused, you rarely let your emotions get the better of you. You're level headed and rational. People count on your to look at things objectively. Your strength: Your unwavering loyalty and ethics Your weakness: Your rock solid stubbornness Your power color: Navy blue Your power symbol: Shield Your power month: April

What Does Your Birth Date Mean?

"The One" and I had a chat with little Max yesterday and it is always so good to hear his voice, we also spoke with his mama and was told that he had hoped for a football cake. Yiyi forgot to ask you American Football or British Soccer?? hehe so here it is, 2 Birthday Cakes for u!




Yiyi know u love "Thomas and Friends"...so here u go, "Thomas and Friends Railway" :)

We wish that May you grow up happy, strong and healthy! Keep smiling, Many happy happy returns of the day and may all your wishes come true!

With lots and lots of love from
Yiyi and Uncle

Electronic Closing

With the advancement of technology, most of the business transactions such as banking, application fillings are heading towards the paperless era. If you have gone through the traditional way of the paper-based mortgage process, you will know how much papers are involved. Now, the industry leaders are going the electronic way by using Electronic closing. Everything is done with the computers, no more tons of papers to fill in, saving time and money! Eclosing is the way to go for the future!

*This is a PPP sponsored post

End of summer

Today's the first day of school for the kids after the long 2 months of summer break. It also marks the end of the summer , autumn arriving meaning leaves will fall and soon winter will come. It just seems like yesterday that I have just escaped from the dark, cold, snowing weather and can't believe that winter is coming again soon! Arghhh..aint my favourite season of the year that's for sure. I'll miss the sun, the warmth and the greens of the tree and flowers of spring and am really looking forward to summer again!


Cheerios and keep smiling!
With Love from PoohBear