new year's eve's eve

With 2006 coming to an end, the five of us meet up for a little get-together for the new year!! I woke up early on new year's eve's eve, picked Bern up from Novena (she went there Abs/Butt/Thighs at California Fitness :D and some grocery shopping for our cook-off), and together we scuttled back to her place to get ready for action!

We started cooking without waiting for the latecomers. So yes, we kicked off the day with the Creamy ham and broccoli pasta!

Steps:

1. Cook pasta (We had vermicelli. The package said 4 servings but after cooking, we realised there was enough pasta to feed about double of that)
2. Prepare and cook broccoli. (I still haven't researched on how broccoli grows...okay mental note)
3. Prepare cream sauce.
4. Stir in pasta, broccoli and ham into sauce. Toss in some moz cheese.

It seemed simple enough. But disaster struck when we discovered that there was too little sauce for the vast amount of pasta, and we ended up with a ugly looking, dry concoction of vermicelli with a depressingly miniscule amount of ingredients. After much moaning and grumbling, we whipped up a new pot of cream sauce and added it to the dried pasta...and it tasted ok! Not THAT bad. We'll improve.

Then eggy distributed her christmas presents!! There was a cool adult-ish Mocha butter cookie thingy (right eggy? or was it called something else...oh well!) And also cute christmas tree shaped butter cookies with coloured icing. We didn't get a picture of that though. I'm holding the mocha cookie in the picture below. We tried countless times to take a artistic shot, but this was the best we could do. You can see Harry and Sally's red lights in the background!! (aka Bern grandma's altar. We nicknamed the Taoist figurines Harry and Sally. ) We also got to try out the merengue cookies eggy baked some time ago. Little drops of heaven!(with a slightly fishy smell)

This is maddy's strawberry creme...there's jelly, strawberries, strawberry cream, cranberries and a granola crust. I realised, after making it, that it was kinda like the strawberry shortcake from BreadTalk, except that i had too much jelly, too little cream, and a soggy crust. (not my fault!! blame...er...the cream) Eggy loved the jelly+strawberries, Maddy loved the cream+crust = Gone in a blink of an eye!


A cross-sectional view of the strawberry creme.



After lunch, we started work on our new year's giveaway. We wanted to make cookies to giveaway to random people on the street, aka old ahmas selling tissues and ahgongs singing christmas songs on erhu. Bern wanted something "hard" and "with pistachios" (she needed to use up her huge collection of pistachios from Greece). So tada!! Pistachio Biscotti!!


We slice the biscotti log after the first bake...


Even though we followed the instructions and made a 3"x10" log, the biscotti slices were still soft in the centre when we sliced them up.


After the 2nd bake, we created cool little crunchy biscotti slices! With pistachios too!


Chocolate for spreading...


The biscotti adventure: Future, Present, Past. (future-biscotti with chocolate, present-chocolate being spread on the biscotti, past-plain biscotti) There's a whole artistic vision guys!


The beautiful finished product...Bern's family loved it. So it must have been really good, or they're just nice, polite people.


Bern and I start working on the packaging for the biscotti. Eggy suddenly pointed out that we probably shouldn't put the plastic on the floor coz it would contaminate the biscotti. We lovingly brushed off her warning. :D And in the 2nd picture, the finished product! Adorable little new year packages for strangers!

Then it was time for the time capsule.

Yup. and I'm the Keeper of the Capsule...in charge of taking care of it for 5 years. I can't wait to see what's gonna happen to all of us...if the prophecies come true. Our paths kinda diverge from now on, and it's so exciting to predict where we'll all end up in the future. Where we'll go, what we'll be doing, who we'll be with...Hehe. Well HAPPY NEW YEAR everyone! Hope that your 2007 will kick 2006's ass, and remember to make vague new year resolutions so that you'll definitely keep to them. Wishing you good health and much love...

Maddy

white (after) christmas

Made meringue cookies after work today! I have no idea why I haven't made these before now, cos they're incredibly quick and easy! The whole process, from gathering the ingredients to storing the cookies probably took me about an hour, and only because the cookies had to bake for about 40 min. These are very light and crisp, and taste like a mix of caramel popcorn and marshmallows, great for accompanying those late night tv shows. My cousin polished off 15 in one go! So anyway, do try these out if you're looking for something simple and quick =) you probably already have all the ingredients you need in your kitchen.

So soft and white and fluffy! probably the closest I'm gonna be getting to snow in a while, haha.
I really like the random peaks that the egg white forms =)

This one was in the lower deck of the oven, so it wasn't browned on top. But it looks prettier.

You can see the crisp inside in this photo. The texture's very nice right!

This is one cool cookie, because while the inside is nicely crispy, the outside is slightly sticky. I have no idea why, this is my first time with meringue. I'm guessing it's due to the humid Singapore weather. But this means it packs a mean crunchy, chewy bite all at once!

The new year's coming all too fast. It feels like this year has passed more quickly than usual, no? In a few days, we won't be 18 anymore! And I feel like I haven't been 18 for very long yet! Quick Maddy, we've got to find some 18-ish things to do!

Eggy

MERINGUE COOKIES

INGREDIENTS:

• 2 egg whites
• 1 teaspoon white vinegar
• dash salt
• 1/2 teaspoon almond extract
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar

PREPARATION:

1. In a large mixing bowl on high speed of hand-held electric mixer, beat egg whites with vinegar and salt until foamy and doubled in volume.
   
2. Beat in almond extract and vanilla.
   
3. Beat in sugar, 1 tablespoon at a time, until meringue stands in firm peaks.
4. Drop by teaspoonfuls, 1 inch apart, on brown paper lined cookie sheets (ungreased)
   
5. Bake at 250° for 25 minutes, or until crisp.
   
6. Remove brown paper with meringue cookies to rack to cool completely, then remove from paper.
   
7. Store meringue cookies tightly covered. Makes about 5 dozen meringue cookies.

Sprinkles Cupcakes

I found these delicious cupcakes from Sprinkles Cupcakes, a little cupcake chain that has outlets in LA and the OC. I LOVE how their cupcakes are so simple and French chic. They don't try too hard to impress, but still come across as perfectly stylish.

I just read that there's about 17 more outlets of these popping up all over the US, and one in Tokyo!! Take a look at their storefront on the "location" page of their official site! Super stylish.

My mouth is getting itchy.

Maddy

happy boxing day!

My very first post! Credits to Maddy for doing all the technical stuff. I just bummed around giving very useless suggestions as to the layout while she did all the hard stuff =) Would like to talk about this year's Christmas (which wasn't all that eventful), but i'm way too excited about what's coming up next!

Check out these babies!

so adorable! and the extra detailing on the lil' strawberry bride's skirt makes it that much prettier =)
i simply love the colour scheme here. it's so gorgeous with it's blues and greys.


anyway, go see the rest at Beeyooteefool Food!

It's a pity that I had to go to work today, I didn't know that Boxing Day wasn't a holiday in Singapore! But I'm waiting to finally move on beyond making fruit juices, haha. Apparently they have a mousse machine and a soft ice cream maker in the lab I work at! There's just something about using these big machines, that makes it very different. Naturally handmade and homemade is more fun, but not everybody gets to be macho with mousse! Good things to come, haha.

First Post

Yay!! The layout is FINALLY done, after so many hours of messin' around! It's time to celebrate...yeah...with champagne, party whistles and confetti! Wheeee..... :D Too bad I'm alone in my room, and eggy's asleep already.

By the way, the hatch day (mad EGG...HATCH.. :D) of our blog coincides with the new moon of the winter soltice. The new moon is supposed to symbolise new beginnings, the start of new adventures...It's a great time to start to new projects and ventures...how appropriate! Let's see how long we can keep this blog going :)

Cheers!

Maddy