New Year's Day - A Complete Devotion to Cooking

New Year's Day of 2009. Here's what I prepared for breakfast. A hearty breakfast is always a good way to start the day. Particularly on an off-work day.

Honey-baked ham (leftover from Christmas, panfried), topped with shredded cheese, fresh olives and honey mustard.

Baked beans with french toast.

All these downed with healthy carrot juice.

Lunch was back to basics, Teochew style porridge cooked slowly with scallops and minced pork. A generous sprinkling of spring onions is a must! Salted eggs complemented the porridge in a great way. The flavours are sheer oriental & reminds us of those childhood days.

Dinner was an uncommon combination which worked out nicely - a pleasant surprise.

Herbal soup double-boiled for a healthy constitution - to 'warm' the system.

I decided to combine bittergourd slices with sliced mushrooms. I added lots of cracked pepper to spice up the dish (was afraid it was too boring a dish) but managed to retain the flavour of the mushrooms and the bittergourd added crunchiness to the bite. Turned out not too bad!

With herbal soup and a healthy vegetable dish, the third dish has to be more savoury with a good blend of sweetness. So dark soy sauce and dried scallops soaked to softness provided the savoury-cum-sweet base. Pork shreds and sea cucumber slices were the main bite. It was extremely palatable. Of course, the most expensive dish as well, with the scallops and sea cucumber.

It was a nice stay-home New Year's day with a rare accomplishment.

Celebration Dinner - Soul Food for Difficult Times

Times are hard since the collapse of Lehman Brothers in the United States in 2008. The shock waves of this global financial tsunami has reached far and wide and Singapore's financial industry is definitely not spared. The foreign bank that Fred works in has also announced job cuts globally. In the midst of such unsettling times, one consolation we have is receiving news that Fred will be promoted, albeit in bad times like this, a pay raise is a pie in the sky. But if one holds a long-term perspective, a promotion is still heartening and will open doors previously closed.

To give ourselves a boost in the arm, I prepared us a celebration dinner.

Fresh strawberries with a sprinkling of sugar sweeten the main course.

Fresh salmon is always our delight!



Mussels cooked with chopped garlic and chilli in white wine, light sour cream and butter is simply heavenly! We love this receipe, which is also a winner with dinner guests.

Deep fried Shishamo


A toast to greater tenacity to ride the storms ...

... and hope for better times.