Our Life Stories: December 2010

For the Love of Cooking (Christmas & Post-Christmas)

Christmas morning, all is calm, all is bright.

Had a brilliant recipe to use up my leftover sage leaves.

Along the way, just decided to do some onions with bacon bits.

Lovely start to a quiet Christmas :D

Post-Christmas pie-making

Hubs had a brilliant idea not to waste the mashed veggies & chicken meat that I had used to make the Christmas gravy. He said let's make a pie!

Thank God we fitted this electric oven in our nifty kitchen. It's bringing us so much joy. really.

We were delighted with the end result. Will do more pies in future.

For the Love of Cooking (Before Christmas)

Preparing for get-ahead gravy. Thanks, Jamie for recipe! Using my last sprig of thyme in the pot.

While I was busy in the kitchen, Fred was busy decorating our Christmas tree, a task that he has a natural talent for. Boy, am I glad. And another very important man in my life was relaxing & house-sitting for me later. I love my daddy!

Brilliant gravy!

I am never the one killing the crab. God have mercy on my hubby!

MY GOODNESS - BEST CRAB WE HAVE EATEN SO FAR! no kidding folks. It's so easy & fuss-free to make as we followed the recipe card Daddy collected for me from Fairprice: The Wan & Only's Golden Claws. All you need are fresh milk, butter, cheese & sour cream. How simple can this get?

Grilled mid-joint wings are always fav bites for parties :D I love making them, easy & tasty!

I love being organized!

I really have my mum to thank for this permanent trait of organization. Undoubtedly, it runs in my blood. If I were to be disorganized for a day, I would probably become prone to depression & begin to think of life as meaningless. Heh!

So this Boxing Day, as I opened my present from a wonderful pal (ok, Christmas has been crazy busy), I was thrilled at what I saw: a bag organizer!

Of course, only a fellow thoroughbred-organized person will ever understand the great innate need to keep things in their right place -- the absolute virtue of close-to-godliness character & the ultimate expression of intellectual & aesthetic power of the human race!

And that can only come from my esteemed friend. Am I lucky or what to have such powerful association? (thank God in Heaven!)

This is by far one of the best thoughtful gift I had ever received. Funny how some presents we received actually transform our lives forever (one such gift was Jamie's Dinners, a birthday gift from my best friend many years ago, that's another story totally). This bag organizer fits right in with every bag I currently own. Except my Samsonite carrier, which in any case IS already an organizer-bag in itself (so this is not a huge problem at all). With this bag organizer, I no longer need to painstakingly move my items one by one from my Aldo to my Coach or to my Gucci or back and so on and so forth...

This gift is awesome! So awesome I just have to document the impact it is having in my life.

Thanks, J!!! My wonderful, organized, fabulous girlfriend. Big hugs. I love you always ;)

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Christmas Eve Lunch at Jocelyn's Home: No turkey but lots of warmth & laughter!

Jocelyn's home was the perfect location for our Christmas eve lunch gathering. It's a cozy, lovely, well-kept home filled with children's playful, innocent laughter. We had a great, relaxing time together!