One ling to rule them all...
One ling to find them...
One ling to bring them all... and in the darkness bind them...
We are the fellowship of the G.Sterling.
I'm going to start writing about the constellations, starting with the 12 that everyone most familiar with, the horoscopes. Basically will update once a month, about what you can see early everynight during the month. This month featuring the Scorpio.
It's not hard to know the scorpio as it's one of the few that really take the shape of what it represent. Most of the star in that constellation is pretty bright and the one at the "body" of the scorpio appear to be reddish. It's called Antares, it's a big red giant star. For those who still remember a bit from secondary school astronomy chapter, u know what it is.
It's even easier to spot the Scorpio now as the biggest planet in our Solar system - Jupiter is just right beside it. Just look to the East about 9pm at night, you'll see a bright star, almost not blinking at all. (I know some of you were told those that're not blinking are satelites, I was told that too but it's not true).
This dish has a very delightful shade of green, the type of green that used to be my favourite colour when I was young. It's not hard to make green curry from scratch. But if you are really an eventful person that you wanna save the hassle as much as possible, you can always get the readied green curry paste at the supermarket. Bear in mind that green curry paste that made by hand has a really vibrant flavour that a commercial product can never hope to achieve.
Sexy shade of green
Green Curry Chicken
Ingredients: 500g any chicken parts of your preference 250g potatoes, halved 1 cup chicken stock 1½ cup coconut milk 3 kaffir lime leaves, lightly crushed
Green curry paste: 4 long green chillies, seeded and chopped 1 cup fresh coriander (cilantro) leaves 1 tbsp finely chopped ginger 1 medium red onion, chopped 1 stalk lemon grass, smashed 1 tbsp fish sauce 2 tsp ground cumin 1 tsp white pepper 2 tbsp peanut oil
Garnishing: Coriander leaves
Yield: feeds 4 stomachs
Method: 1. Place all the ingredients for green curry paste into a food processor and process until smooth. Paste is ready and set aside.
2. Heat a frying pan with a little oil over medium heat. Add green curry paste. Cook, stirring, for approximately 5 minutes or until the paste is fragrant.
3. Add the chicken pieces to the pan and cook, stirring to coat, for 2 minutes.
4. Add the chicken stock, coconut milk, potatoes, kaffir lime leaves and a pinch to salt to taste. Simmer for 25 minutes or until the chicken is tender and the curry is thick.
5. Garnish with some coriander leaves.
Green Curry Chicken
If you are able to scoop out some time to make your own green curry paste, it's well worth the small effort required. And you will be amazed how flavoursome this dish turns out with the effort you spent.
Lastly, I personally think that GREEN curry is really sexier than the ordinary red one. :)
This is a very appropriate dish for potluck, as it goes well with almost anything. I made this as a carbohydrate dish in a BBQ party last Friday and received several favourable responses. It gives an exotic taste but the ingredients used are rather oriental. I simply used up some pandan leaves and kaffir lime leaves from my garden and voila!
Herbed Butter Rice
Ingredients: 2 cups long grain rice, washed and drained 1 tbsp butter or margarine 1 tbsp oil 1 big yellow onion, sliced 2 cloves garlic, chopped 3 cups water 1 lemongrass, smashed 2 pandan leaves, shredded and knotted ½ cup raisins 5 kaffir lime leaves, finely shredded
Seasoning: 1 tsp instant chicken bouillon granules 1 tsp sugar 2 tsp fish sauce Generous dash of pepper ½ tsp salt to taste
Garnishing: Chopped spring onion (I used chopped chives to give a more exotic flavour)
Yield: feeds 4 person
Method: 1. Heat up butter and oil in a wok. 2. Toss in garlic and onion and fry till they are soft. 3. Add in lemongrass and pandan leaves. Cook for about 1 min with constant stir. 4. Stir in rice and seasoning. Mix well to combine (ensure that the rice is cover with a layer of oil). 5. Dish the rice mixture into the electric rice cooker and add in water. Cook the rice as usual. 6. When rice is almost cooked and dry, add in the raisins and kaffir lime leaves. Stir well to mix. 7. Continue to cook the rice till it's fully cooked. 8. Sprinkle some chopped chives on top of rice before serving.
Elmo didn't get to taste this heavenly dish as it contains onion (due to the toxic ingredient thiosulphate) which can be harmful to dogs. But he didn't seem to mind as I compensated him with a hard-boiled egg. *wink*
It's said in a Chinese proverb, don't treat people they way you don't want to be treated upon.
I'm not an expert in this kinda fancy classical Chinese and I'm neither an expert in environmental issues. But I do enjoy the beauty of our mother Earth. Yes, this is one common mother we are sharing regardless our colour, our class of order in society or the language we spoke.
This is where we are born, this is the only island that we live and we don't have a second that we could escape to if anything were to happen on it.
Let's assume our neighbour planet Mars, we can live on it. Here is a visual how big is the Earth if you can see from the Mars.
That small little pixel is our Earth as seen from Mars. Now, how long do you take to travel half a globe? 13 hours maybe? Bravo, you just travel from one end of that pixel to another end. How long do you think it's going to take to travel to Mars? One of the nearest object to us that gives us some hope to escape to. Furthermore, how many people that we can transfer there? That 10 percent of the richest people and all of them are from the US?
As I said earlier, I'm not an expert in this. But one thing I know for sure, I don't want to live in a world without corals, without glasiers, without the rain forests. I don't want it and I'm not going to enjoy them now and let the future generation live in a place where they can only see those in TV. We can make a difference everyday.
While Elmo is growing elder day by day, his balancing skill subsequently become better and better. Few days ago when Elmo was placed high up on the piano stool, I swung a piece of treat above his head intendedly so that he would look up at me. Out of my expectation that he started to gradually raise his front legs, at an andante pace that he was able to balance his whole body so that he wouldn't tumble. I rose the treat even higher, and he stretched himself even further, till he eventually crunched on the treat that I initially thought he can never ever reach.
Elmo spotted the treat
raising up his front legs slowly, trying to reach the treat
Got it!
A moment ago while I was chewing on my not-so-much-left Craisins, as usual Elmo came in (after he heard the sound of the plastic bag) and begged to have some of my dried cranberries. Just when my hand was still in the bag trying to dig a piece for him, Elmo started to stand on his hind legs again! I held on the cranberries and tried to move around the room, he followed me around with 2 legs, just like how HUMAN WALKS!
I was so stunned and captivated by this act of Elmo, and this cutie never stop to amaze me since the first day he came into my life. And I think it's not a surprise if one day he can finally call me "Mama". Oh... my baby.
Ever since I started working, I don't get much chances to see the morning sky. As I always arrived at the office when it's still dark. When I see the sky again, it's probably at noon. Today's different, although I still don't get to see any sunlight when I came in. Darkness is turning to light and it's beautifully decorated with fish scale clouds. Although it's not so obvious here in Tropical, but the summer is near...
This is one recipe that I wanted to try so long, as I used to be an egg tart freak, and my highest record is to eat 4 tarts at one time. Generally there are two varieties of egg tart crust. One has flaky kinda outer crust, which is called puff pastry (酥皮 in Chinese) and has an extremely crisp texture due to the several layers of butter in the doughing process. Another type is shortcrust pastry, which has a cookie-liked texture with rich butter aroma.
The type of egg tart that I love most (so far) is with puff pastry crust, and that's the type of egg tart that I can eat 4 in a row. But last Sunday when a group of us had dim sum at The Home of Dim Sum, a few of them claimed that they prefer egg tarts with shortcrust pastry more. Since the making of puff pastry is much more complicated and time-consuming than shortcrust pastry, I didn't want to trouble myself too much in this tranquil afternoon; moreover I need to satisfy most of the testers. :D
Ingredients: For shortcrust: 3 cups of all-purpose flour 1 cup of caster sugar 1 cup of room temperatured butter (or margarine for health-conscious people) 2 eggs ½ tsp of vanilla essence
For tart filling: 2/3 cup sugar 2 ½ cup milk 10 eggs ½ tsp of vanilla essence
Yield: approx 24 tarts
Method: For tart shell: 1. In a large mixing bowl, sift flour. Add in sugar. 2. Add in butter and mix all ingredients with a spatula till resemble bread crumbs. 3. Add in eggs and vanilla essence into the mixture. Start mixing to form a dough. If the dough is too wet, add some flour. And if it's too dry, add a little bit more of butter. 4. Take an adequate amount of dough and place it in the tart tin (I used Teflon coated non-stick muffin tray) and push the dough all the way up to the rim to form a shell. If the bottom of the shell is too thin, patch it up with more dough.
** At this stage, you can start to preheat your oven at 200°C.
For filling: 1. Make sure all the filling ingredients are in room temperature. 2. Lightly stir the eggs with a fork and try not to produce any air bubbles. Add in the dash of vanilla essence into the egg mixture. 3. In another bowl, dissolve the sugar in the milk. The amount of sugar used can be adjusted to suit your own taste. Make sure that the sugar is fully dissolved at this stage. 4. Pour the egg mixture into the milk mixture over a sieve (to create a smooth texture of egg tart later on). Stir lightly.
To assemble: 1. Pour the egg mixture into the tart shells you made earlier. (I used a measuring cup with a pour spout to pour the mixture accurately into the shell.) 2. Place the tart tins in middle rack of a preheated oven and bake for 15-20 minutes (or till golden brown) at 180°C.
Personal note: ** Pierce the middle of the tart with a metal skewer or toothpick (I used a thin-ended chopstick) and it's considered done if it comes out clean. ** If you find out that the crust is too brown but the filling is still not quite done, reduce the temperature to 150°C and cook till done.
The first batch of 6 egg tarts came out to be too thick-skinned (just like me) and hence too little egg filling (Elmo didn't complain though). Therefore the second batch onwards, I made the shell thinner and everything turned okay. The tarts are really mouth-watering when they were just out from the oven, but the crust turned soggy after kept overnight. I woke up earlier today to reheat all the tarts in the oven, the tarts became crispy but again turned soggy when I reached the office. Arghhh, and I accidentally burnt my hand! *sob sob*
Elmo was trying hard to reach the egg tart.
Yummy!
Tell me what do you think of my tart? Feel free to leave your comment too. :)
