white truffles - a journal of daily inspirations, musings, devotions, cooking, motherhood etc, etc, etc...

December 14, 2009

new ice-cream shop: taste matters @ cluny court!

recently 2 other new ice-cream shops have opened around this area.

this is nicer compared to the newly opened marble slab which is quite expensive.

this new ice-cream place at cluny court 2nd level is worth trying and visiting again besides island creamery.

this very small ice-cream shop offers more exotic and refined ice-cream.

the farm mural wall certainly prevented me from feeling claustrophobic in the tiny shop,

what a clever idea!

we tried lavender and ginger sorbet!

the former is creamy and lightly fragrant.

the latter is really very refreshing and special! :)

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Filed under // interesting places

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December 14, 2009

a happy and normal weekend!

finally marissa was well enough to go out!

here we were at PPP again.

we had our usuals and we were fortunate to have tried the coffee of the year - carlos imbachi - microlot

well, it's not bad, fruity and light.

easy to drink but french press is not my favourite unfortunately. ;}

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December 12, 2009

how do you know that you have h1n1?

it was thursday.

marissa was still having fever on and off,

she was having a very bad running nose and cough.

so we brought her back to the pediatrician.

this was his advice:

if i want to let sa sa take the H1N1 test, i haave to bring her to the hospital and it will take 2 days to know the test result.

if the test result is negative, there is a 30% chance that the test is wrong and she could actually be H1N1 positive!!!!

but if i do a flu test in his clinic first, it will only take 15 minutes to know if she is influenza A or B positive.

if she is tested influenza A positive, the flu she is having is most likely to be H1N1.

but if the result is negative, there is still a 30% probability that the test is inaccurate and that she is H1N1 positive!!!!

oh mind!!!!!

the probabilty of inaccuracy is a little too high isn't it?

so how do you know that you have H1N1?

the answer is: you may never know!

anyhow, he put her on antibiotics - augmentin and she seems to be recovering as her fever has stopped coming back and her running nose better.

as my in-laws are 60 yrs old with chronic diseases like diabetis and high cholesterol, my hubby has high cholestrol as it runs in his family, and we all have sinusitis problem, we are all considered high risk!!!

so we all took the H1N1 jab that day except for sa sa.

as for lizzie, she remembered how painful the flu jab was, so we literally had to clamp her down in the clinic and she attempted to kick the doctor!!!!

he commented that my girls are really fierce!

well but lizlet had a big cone of ice - cream after the jab! so she is looking forward to her second dose next month!

wish the doctor all the best!

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December 12, 2009

mister's surprise bday party

it was wednesday;

the day after mister's bday;

we attended his company dinner at mimolette restaurant the night before;

mister had recovered from illness;

but marissa was still having fever after 3 nights;

i had interrupted sleep for 3 nights;

and he asked: "shall we go out for dinner as a family to celebrate my bday?"

i answered: " no, marissa is still very sick. we shouldn't go out."

ouch...i felt so sorry for mister who had been so busy at work,

so sick over the weekend,

called back to army on his bday,

and not being able to celebrate his bday with his family due to sick marissa and an exhausted wife.

so i decided to plan a surprise party for him after he left for work.

it was a fun and brilliant idea as it kept Lizzie and marissa very occupied and excited the whole day!

we did some grocery shopping,

decorated the house with balloons.

i baked his favourite beetroot cupcakes.

Lizzie coloured the "happy birthday daddy" sign.

she even came up with party games and decide what to cook for dinner: spaghetti so i had to cook!!!!

and she kept herself really busy and excited before and after nap!

i really thank GOd for giving me the energy and ideas!

when mister came home in the evening, he was pleasantly surprised.

and we were glad to have celebrated his bday as a family.

planning for a small party like this was a good lesson for lizzie.

she learned to be more other person centered and that a bday party need not invite so many people, and be filled with presents and sweets.

she learned that her daddy is contented with just a small party like this! :)

but she still wants a big party for her bday...which is coming soon...wish me all the best!

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December 9, 2009

Dinner at mimolette

haven't really had time to post anything. I was quite sick 2 wks ago. Then my mister fell really ill last weekend. While he was recovering, poor marissa fell really ill with high fever. She is still quite ill. it was my mister's bday yesterday but he had to report to the army camp early in the morning and didn't come home till evening to pick me up for his company's Xmas dinner. The poor girls hardly saw their father on his bday! But the dinner was quite a gd break for us. We haven't gone out by myselves without the children for quite a while. Anyway, mimolette which is just next to riders cafe at bukit timah saddles club, is beautiful. I couldn't helped it but took a few pics. The food is not bad! I'm not sure abt the price though! ;p hope u had a better weekend than me!

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December 3, 2009

truffles in the kitchen: baking cookies with children

it's really fun making these.

the statement above probably applies to me more than to my children and their friends this afternoon.

this is what i did:

1. i prepared the dough beforehand using the christmas tree cookies recipe from the 500 cookies recipe book by philippa vanstone.

this could be done when the children are napping. about 2 hours beforehand so that you can refrigerate the dough till it's firm.

recipe

ingredients:

190g plain flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

pinch of salt

115g unsalted butter

100g caster sugar

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla essence

method:

sift the flour, baking powder and salt together. Beat the butter and sugar till smooth, add egg and vanilla essence and stir in the dry ingredients. Mix the dough with your hands. Roll the dough into a log, wrap with cling foil and refrigerate until dough is firm.

2. i also prepared the icing beforehand by mixing a bit of water to a lot of icing sugar! Then i dyed the icing with food colourings. It's much more convenient to use royal icing if you have. Moreover, my homemade icing is too watery and the colours do not stand out after being applied on the cookies. Perhaps melted (white) chocolate might work better!!

3. when you are ready to start, preheat the oven to 160 degrees, get the children to wash their hands with soap, then dry thoroughly, and dust their hands with flour, then give

each child a flat plate that is lightly dusted with flour on which they can work on their cookie dough. (alternatively, give them baking paper)

4. give each child a handful of the dough and get them to roll it into a small ball, followed by flattening it with their palms to get a 6 mm thick slice of dough before using a fun shaped cookie cutter.

5. transfer the cut cookie dough onto the baking tray laid with baking paper and give the child more dough to work on.

Note: the dough is sticky so it's necessary to shape the cookies with lightly dusted hands and plates. alternatively, you may use baking paper to flatten the dough instead of using bare hands

6. bake the cookies at 160 degrees celsius for 8 - 10 minutes till golden then remove onto wire racks and allow to cool. (we made the cookies too thick so it took us 15 - 20 minutes to bake them)

7. when the cookies are cooled completely, get each child to decorate the cookies with icing and sweets! we simply drizzled the icing onto the cookies using teaspoons.

my afterthoughts:

the cookies without icing taste good, not too sweet. but after coating them with icing and sweets, the cookies are SWEET!!!!! VERY! i wondered why i've deteriorated to letting my children consume such sweet stuff!!! i still remember my earlier post: sweets about how i tried to influence lizzie not to consume so much sweets when she was about 2 years old!

today, marissa is barely 1 and a 1/2 years old and i allowed her one of these sugar laden cookie!!!!!! i need to repent!!!

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Filed under // kids activity truffles in the kitchen

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November 30, 2009

paper goods from ikea

i'm loving this set of paper i bought from ikea.

it's cheaper than those from an art and craft or scrapbook shop!

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Filed under // craft paper goods

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November 30, 2009

daily inspiration and reminder: practice being godly

i don't know about other parents.

but our children only let us play their cds in the car!

so we had to buy something that will bless our souls as their songs end up playing in our heads again and again for the rest of the day or even weeks!

we were glad to get lizzie to like colin buchanan and here's one of our favourite songs:

here's the tune played on a toy accordion on utube! cool!