Loopie - Joop

it's been a while since i've posted. sorry folks. nothing much has been happening, just the usual mundane things that i thought i should not bore you to tears with. so here're some not so boring things i'd "saved up" during this time. i received a call yesterday morning that delivered some good news (finally!), and i'm feeling a bit excited about it. can't really say what it is about here, cos this is an open blog, and i don't want some people to know... but i sure hope things would turn out fine. christmas is in less than 1 month's time! have you guys been busy buying presents? orchard road should have lit up by now right? the streets here in town have also been decorated with colourful lights. obviously not as lavish as those we have at home, but it is still nice to see christmas trees and lights all around. ah... the magic of christmas. i've been busy sourcing for ingredients for a christmas bake fest. decided to bake some cooki...

Hi everyone! apologies for the lack of updates. have been busy catching several shows online, hence the distraction from blogging. heh. here are the shows i'm watching: 学警出更 (TVB) 秘密花园 (Japanese) 斗牛要不要 (Taiwanese) 铁嘴银牙 (TVB) Very busy with these 4 shows, in addition to the taiwanese variety shows like: 女人我最大 康熙来了 我猜我猜我猜猜猜 天才冲冲冲 完全娱乐 超级星光大道 模范棒棒堂 yes, they keep me sane while the weather continues to wreck havoc with my temper. i'm in a bad mood, hopefully i'll feel happier after being well entertained.

Pretty huh! Got the recipe from here and made them this morning cos it's C's birthday on sunday!! cookies are moist, with a rich peanut butter taste and not too sweet, just the way i like them. ooh... i gobbled a few while baking them...

Some things i read on the net that piqued my interest: an article on bbc.co.uk - "A sexy swing of the hips may attract admiring glances, but it is not a covert sign a woman is ready to breed, according to researchers." in fact the opposite may be true! catherine lim's open letter to PM . i've read her books. just didn't know she's actively commenting on politics as well. i'm not at liberty to comment on it here cos of the four-letter word starting with "f". hmm.. sounds like what's in the letter, no?! okok, NO FURTHER COMMENTS. heh. this concerns something i didn't manage to read on the net. can someone please tell me why the new amendments for our CPF savings which i keep hearing about, are not on the cpf 's website? argh... and what happened to s377a? err... actually nothing! have a read here and here

today's monday. again. it used to get on my nerves on sunday afternoon at 4pm... the agonising waking up process... the "i can't believe it's a new WORK week" nonsense running in my head... the horrible trudge to take the train, sealing in my fate with the rest of the working population of "tiny island" for another 5 perilous days... absolute torture. these days, i'm a little luckier cos there's no 8.30am train to catch at tanah merah nor rush for the 9am (oh please! yawn!) meeting. i wake up at 7.30am and catch the morning show (cept now it's not cna but abc) till 8am when it's time to wake the man. just getting hao-e out of bed, which is in itself an abominable task involving many a time, some cajoling and even raised voices and threats. during this short time, i'll be busy making breakfast (currently rotating between waffles, bagels, toast, honey bunches of oats, and quick-cook oats), matching his tops to his bottoms and shoes,...

last night's poker night was cancelled. just as well cos the weather was really unpredictable, and i wasn't too keen on driving out in the wind and rain. now we have all the cookies to ourselves. haha! this morning, we went to mass 1 hour early! we'd forgotten to turn back our clocks one hour for daylight savings. super confused when we saw people leaving the church when we got there! turned out those were from the 9am mass and we'd turn up 1 hour early for the 11am mass. haha! so if you're confused like i was, let me say it out loud. we're now exactly12 hours behind singapore. btw, i've made some minor adjustments to this blog. doubt any of you would have noticed them. but of course i do. oh! and scroll down to the bottom of the page to find out when i'll be back in singapore!

we're going to poker night tomorrow so i was surfing around for new cookie recipes yesterday. this one is aptly called "fabulous brownie cookies". ooh... just the sound of the name gets me all excited... melting the chocolate and butter together... couldn't resist tasting it, and i assure you, it was H-E-A-V-E-N! me and my trusty USD20 mixer, beating up eggs and sugar... the finished batter with extra choc chips added... look at that... ah... had a hard time stopping my wandering fingers from dipping into it and tasting it... preparing the parchment sheets and spooning batter onto it... into the hot oven... voila! presenting the finished product! the tops cracked like brownies and they were chewy inside. IRRESISTIBLE! i baked like 120 cookies in all, took me the entire morning from 10am - 1pm to finish baking all 10 batches. can't be helped cos i only have one baking sheet for cookies, so it's 12 at a time or i risk them coagulating into one other. you k...

DSCN1586 , originally uploaded by hypnotiq_joop . sorry, i'm unable to phonetically spell out the name of this cake in the romanised form i'd learnt in college. it's only been 3 years but i've long forgotten it. talk about short-term memory. anyway, i'll make a bold attempt to explain the 4 really weird sounding words. if you break them up individually and literally, they are "water", "steam", "egg", and "cake". get it? it's one of my "fun" projects this week, scanning the web for "oriental" recipes on "non-oriental" websites. this dessert is apparently a favourite among the cantonese speakers hence the cantonese name. it's not baked but steamed instead, as with most chinese cakes. didn't know what to expect but the pictures posted on the website were fairly attractive. so i tried it and i wasn't disappointed. the cake turned out really soft and spongy and once i ...

DSCN1584 , originally uploaded by hypnotiq_joop . Pretty eh? I don't know about others, but the cheesecakes i've baked so far tend to crack on the surface. it's just a matter of HOW cracked it turned out. was fretting about these cracks which just refuse to disappear (like wrinkles and fine lines), when i chanced upon this recipe which called for a "mask" on top of the cheesecake. so the cracked become filled and it adopts a fairly smooth surface. the sour-cream made the cheesecake even creamier (ooh.... just talking about it makes me salivate), and just that little bit of lemon juice and zest plumped up the flavour and texture of the cake. total enjoyment.

it's halloween. how are you guys celebrating it? there are loads of kids dressed up in all sorts of costumes tonight trick or treating. neighbours' music is blaring too.