Social Responsibility & MC

Last Thursday as Anthea was still on her medical leaves, I decided to let her rest at home. In the evening, I went to her tuition class to inform her tuition teacher of her absence and also to collect her holiday worksheet from the teacher. Her tuition class will be having a short break from 18 May to 06 June 2009.

I met one of her tuition classmate mother and she asked me where was anthea? I told her “她发烧所以让她休息“I told her. Then she said “哦，我儿子今天也是发烧，高39度。我给他吃退烧药，现在好了。“

I took a look at her son and he does look a little listless. I was thinking because a few days back she told me her son was having fever and he took medication and was well. But it seems to me his fever has been going up & down.

I thought to myself that as a mother, perhaps the boy’s mom should have kept him home to rest rather than to bring him to public places. As he was still recovering, I believe somehow, he may still carry the virus with him. And in an air-conditioned classroom, virus may be passing on to other children.

With the H1N1 virus being spread like wildfire, the ministry has advised individual to be socially responsible and should one be sick, he/she must refrain from going to crowded area. I know Anthea’s classmate is not having H1N1 but still being sick, it’s better to rest home and recover well.

I just hope that the boy’s mother will exercise more responsibility and be considerate for other children.

MC here is not referring to Medical Certificate; it is referring to MILO COOKIES…hehe.
An ex-colleague of mine has been sharing some very interesting recipes with me. Each time she emailed me a recipe, I am sure to try it the next moment. Simple reason being she has 2 boys and when her recipe works out well with her boys, I would think it will work out well with Anthea and Anders too, as her children age gap is about the same as mine.

Last Sunday, I tried the Milo Cookies recipe and it turned out well. Anthea and Anders love them and we had them handy for breakfast and tea break. During this week, I feedback to my colleague about the cookies and my only concern was the cookies turned out too big & flat and I told her it’s like Subway’s cookies.

Then she gave me an important pointer – don’t shape it too flat and her son did the cookies into bite sizes. Notes taken and will remember to do the same for the next bake. Today, I decided to give it a 2nd attempt and followed her guideline accordingly and the cookies turned out PERFECT , just like famous amos (FA cookies) except ours is "AF Cookies" (aces family cookies).

Anthea tried them at lunch and she told me “mommy, next time every week you must bake some cookies for us, ok? “ I look at her and said “I will try but not cookies every week, mommy will try other recipe too…like nutella muffins.”

Yes, I received this from my colleague too and I am keen to try them soon.. : )

Easy Bake Recipe

Now that Anthea is in morning school, I have to plan her breakfast. To me, breakfast is a very important meal for the day, especially for school going children and working adults too.

There are simple options like – bread, cereal and cornflakes. To add varieties to her choices, I would add waffles, steamed buns and muffins for her breakfast. In the morning, before Adrian leaves for work, he would have breakfast too. So I am actually preparing for 2 of them.

Gone were those good old days of Childcare centre breakfast. Now it’s my own preparation.

My fridge is stocked up with lots of eggs/ham/bacons/tuna and cheese because these are essential items for simple sandwiches and eggs dishes.

Last week while shopping for grocery at NTUC, I came across a Wing’s Chocolate Moist cake pre-mix recipe package. I read through the instruction and found that it was quite easy. All I need to add to the premix are eggs, butter and water. I bought a packet to try.

Yesterday afternoon as I had some extra time on hand, I decided to bake the cake.

After mixing the premix in a bowl with the ingredients, I used the electric mixer to give it a better mix, as stated on the instruction. Then I put it in the oven and baked it for about 30 minutes. The cake turned out very, very nice. This is the first time I am very satisfied with the baking. I think the new over is justifying it’s value too... : )

Anthea had a slice of the cake for her tea break after her afternoon nap and she said it was delicious.

Our breakfast was the Chocolate moist cake which I warmed up while preparing Pizza for Anthea’s snack box.

As the cake was quite big, I shared ½ of it with my parents. This morning I received a compliment SMS from my 大哥 and he said “the cake is getting better. Can open bakery in 2 years”….haha. I confessed to him that I used a premix recipe, so it’s really not my credit…. : P

Now that I get positive feedbacks on the cake, I think next time I will try their other flavor. Or I should start looking at my cake recipes again…hee : P


Just read that one of my blogging friend - Clement was warded in TTSH and went through a minor op. Hereby wishing Clement a Speedy Recovery !!!

Muffins Sunday

Today adrian is on his Sunday work duty.

My MIL came in the morning to fetch Anthea for their weekends swimming sessions, thus i am home alone with Anders.

Anthea has been looking forward to this Sunday where she can stay at my In laws place during the day. Louis, Eve & Faith are doing their weekend relaxation trip in Bintan. So my MIL need not babysit Faith.

After lunch, Anders had his usual afternoon nap. Without any disturbance, he slept quite immediately.

This leave me FREE to do my own chores. So i baked a dozen of Blueberry Muffins. This is my 1st attempt at Blueberry Muffins. I realised my mistake - too much sugar. The recipe asked for certain amount of sugar and Blueberry. Overlooking that i am using Blueberry fillings which are already sweetened, i should have 1/2 the sugar content..hee : P

Well, overall the Blueberry muffins turned out nice on the texture. For this round, i used cake flour which i think helps. I bought cake flour for the cheese tarts recipe and since i still have balance of the flour, i thought might as well used it. Glad that it was a right choice.


Baking without my "sou chefs" are so much relaxing and faster. When they are around me, i tend to be a bit off focus as i need to keep watching out for them.

So this baking session was quite an enjoyable moment for me.

Anthea was so cute, yesterday after eating the Blueberry cheese tarts, she said : "mommy, you bake more and sell them for money." What a compliment..haha.

i told her mommy's baking standard is only good for self consumation and not for sale, people will asked for their money back. : P

We had dinner with my in laws at 香港珍街 near our place. It was another nice and simple dinner. Father in law shared his experienced on property with me at dinner table. Hopefully, one day i can be just liked him...(Daydreaming again...)

Cheesetarts & Meeting Tom

In the morning, after settling lunch for the children, i went to NTUC Extra to get some ingredients for my 1st attempt to bake Blueberry Cheesetarts.

Since the last time i baked muffins, i have been thinking to do cheese tarts. Reason being Anthea love the Blueberry cheesetarts that we bought from SL II from Golden Mile Hawker.

I googled and managed to find this recipe which was quite easy for a beginnner like me. So with this recipe, i bought the ingredients. I was not able to get the Blueberry fillings from NTUC, so i went to Phoon Huat and luckily there was 2 can left on the shelf. I bought one of them and also at the same time, i bought a muffins tray.

When i reached home, i started preparing the pastry and both Anthea and Anders busied themselves as my "sou chefs".

After preparing the pastry, they had their lunch. I started preparing the fillings while they were having their lunch.

Then i started baking the tarts. The final results came out like these :


I am quite happy with my 1st attempt on Blueberry cheesetarts and now i have some Blueberry fillings leftover, i am considering to bake some blueberry muffins.. : )

We had dinner with my in laws at Tim's Restaurant & Cafe. It was recommended by one of my MIL's colleague and i had also read from some blogs about this cafe.

When we reached the cafe, we had a sweet surprised. The owner Tom Shretha, is none other then the restaurant Manager of a restaurant that our family always frequent at Novena Villa. It was meeting a good old friend... : )

Of course, we were served by Tom and his friendly staff. His recommendation of his food was excellent and we truely enjoyed our meal.

I know i will be back for more goodies since this place is near to my workplace..haha.

After dinner, my in laws went for their two-some time. MIL said it was a rare opportunity..hee : )

( always envy my in laws for being so loving and romantic, after all the years that they are married)

Self Indulgence

This weekend has been a fulfilling one for me. Since our domestic helper left us in April, all my weekends are “burnt” up by house chores and taking care of Anders as Adrian was involved in the NDP 2007.

On Saturday, Adrian helped me in cleaning the house (ps: must thanks my guarding angels for answering my prayers....hee : ) so I was left with more time for other stuff. I managed to clear some of the filing things and paid off bills via online.

Late afternoon, I even managed to give our car a long deserving car washed. Dinner was at Waraku Japanese restaurant at east coast with the extended families. Don’t really like this place, find it to be too noisy with all the waiters/waitress shouting all over the place. Nowadays prefer to dine in quiet places, thinks age is really catching up…hehe..

As it was raining, after dinner, we headed home. We were in time for EPL match between Liverpool & Sunderland. It was a good match and Liverpool won by 2 – 0.
A sweet dessert for us.

Sunday morning, I went to NTUC Extra and bought some ingredients for my trial baking of Muffin Cakes for the upcoming Teacher’s Day. It was quite a success but taste wise, still not satisfying as I find it to be a bit on the drier side. I was thrilled by the chance to be able to BAKE again…so the rest is really – practice will perfect it.

When I finished baking, I went to my hair salon for a treatment. Dinner was at my In-laws house with combination of home cooked food and tze char takeaways.

For the longest time, I have not indulge in such luxuries and having my own time to do my own things. I feel so ME again.

Lego Toys Sales
On Friday, Lego had a sales at Safra Toa Payoh organized by Toy R Us, so at lunch time, a few of my colleagues and myself dropped by to take a look. I have never buy any Lego toys for Anthea and Anders before, so since we were there, I pick up 2 items, one for each. The sale was not that fantastic and the stocks were really limited. They don’t have the blocks stuff which children can use their imagination to build up different things. Anyway, will watch out for their next sales.