Flowery Social Media Icons

Spot this at Changi Airport Terminal 3. Never a fan of social media but like how they made the icons pop with clever use of flowers.

Home Made Bread Crumbs

So a few days ago I made a booboo on the bread. And after leaving it overnight the crust has hardened into a rock like texture and the insides are now dry and somewhat stale. Since it's not edible as a breakfast bread, I'll make the best out of it by using it as bread crumbs. The dryness actually is essential for bread crumbs as it may be harder to crisp soggy bread.

So in to the food mixer blender attachment it goes to break it down. This is also the first time I'm using a blender, ever. And the results don't look too pleasing. Somehow there were still a number of mid to large pieces left. Oh well, I suppose that's what you get from not using a dedicated machine.

Next I threw it on a pan of oil and pan-fried it. The key is to constantly move it around so it doesn't burn. Put it on low heat so the bread will dry up and turn brown. But as you can see below, the bigger crumbs have not turned brown as I couldn't get them to the heat on the pan since the smaller ones just filled the bottom.

To test whether they are good, I whipped up a quick lunch of spaghetti and bratwurst mixed with the bread crumbs. Because the bread had garlic in it, it brought the aromatic taste to the pasta as well. Ok not too bad, the bread crumbs do bring a different texture sense to the pasta dish. Yes it'll do fine as a ingredient of sorts for a salad. Yeah for not wasting food!

Baking Blunders - I Need New Glasses

I took the recipe for a ciabatta from the squarish "500 breads" book I bought recently. The ingredients and preparation steps looks easy enough. 510g white bread flour, 440ml + 2tbsp warm water, 1/2 tsp sugar, 1 tsp salt, 1 1/2 tsp active dry yeast, 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil. I was ambitious and decided to put in a few cloves of finely chopped garlic. Garlic ciabatta, sounds yummy.

Well as usual things didn't go as planned. As I started to mix all the ingredients together except for the olive oil, the mistakes slowly unravel.

• I didn't have enough bread flour so it was a mix of bread and all purpose flour. Ok should be fine.

• I poured all the water into the bowl ... should have let it in slowly while the food processor kneads it. A pointer to remember next time. The mix does seem wetter than I like. I should pour more flour in to thicken it.

A very wet dough, early signs of things gone wrong haha

• Hmmm ... wait a sec. Tsp ... that stands for tablespoon yah? ... No wait wait ... !!! tbsp is tablespoon and tsp is teaspoon! Oh no, what have I done?! Oh boo-ey ... I've messed up the proportions ... sigh~.

Oh well, its too late to correct it now. Might as well go ahead and see what monstrosity of a dough I can conjure up with this mix. And to go with my resolution to be more optimistic I took stock of the extra's I've put in. Ok, extra sugar ... that should be fine, the bread would taste sweeter which may not be a bad thing. Extra salt, that's fine, it'll balance out the sugar. Yeast, wait the portions I put in are the same as the recommended amounts on the packet, so in essence I should be fine? :p

1 sachet to 500g of flour, well that's what I did 'mistakenly'

Although I've managed to convince myself it's not that bad, at this point I'm resigned to failing. That said, since there was no harm in putting this into the oven, I let it rise for an hour and pop it into the oven.

The mass of wet gooey dough after an hour of rising

45 minutes later, presto ... a half-decent looking bread. The good: it actually turn into a bread of sorts! The ok: crust was pretty good, the garlic helped with the taste. The bad: bread inside was too dense. Too much moisture I think.

Looks can be deceiving

Not flaky, too dense

I'm keeping this loaf overnight to make a bread crumbs recipe I saw on TV a few nights ago. Why waste food yah? I'll definitely try my hand at this again. I just need to remember to clean my glasses the next time I do this ;-)

The Evil TT

TT, my evil nemesis. Makes the most irritating sound known to humankind. And a snarky smile to boot. I will hunt you down~!!! 

Gummi For Study Assignment

Bought Gummi's for assignment ingredients for a Food course on Coursera. Became a 菜头, paying $4 for it. I doubt the store will survive with such pricing practices.

Blogging: Going The Distance

One fine afternoon I was bored and decided to check out random blogs. Naturally I clicked the "Next Blog" on the Blogspot navigation top bar to see if I can chance on interesting blogs.

After scrolling through maybe about hundred odd blogs, I sense a pattern. Most blogs run for about 4-5 years, typically starting from 2007-2008 and their last post end around 2012-2013. For those which look to be popular, the authors leave a post redirecting the visitor to their personal domain website address. For the rest, the posts simply taper off at the end with sporadic entries over several months and then nothing.

With that I started to reflect on my own experience of blogging. I can appreciate the time commitment it takes to blog. It's not as simple as writing stuff on a whim. Well you can do that but after awhile you would also want to write meaningful (at least in your own opinion) content so it doesn't become monotonous. I know over the years there have been many occasions where I've stopped blogging regularly due to work and studies. So the authors of the dormant blogs may have faced the same challenges, became tired of blogging or have been waylaid by real life. It's a real pity though, some of these blogs are very well written, even if their content is simply about their daily personal lives.

Another reason for the dormant blogs could be the lack of readership. Many bloggers write in hopes that people will appreciate their content and form a credible reader base for advertising income or branch into other revenue streams. Others want people to peek into their lives and create social connections. But the fact is, many do not succeed. And hence they drop off  when their motivation to blog is no longer fulfilled or supported by the number of audiences. 

I'm coming up to year 8 of blogging this July. And I feel good that I would continue to blog. I write not for the audience or advertising income. I take this blog as a diary and an avenue to express my daily life, my experiences, my history. Even now, looking back at the old posts from 2007-2009 brings back fond memories and a smile to my face. This is what drives me to continue to blog. May this blog bring more smiles to Meimei and I (and others) in the many years to come as we continue together on our journey through life's pleasures and pains.

A Free Way To Learn

I recently discovered an unparalleled resource for online learning. It's not the youtube do-it-yourself guides. It's an online setup which offers university entry level courses to the masses. All you need is an internet connection.

Like most folks I had the initial impression that the courses were simply a touch of the actual classroom course and I could breeze pass. How wrong I was ... these courses are build with rigour. I literally had to study the textbook and sit through the online lectures to answer the quizs and work through the labs.

Brilliant! A free online source to learn business topics, all in the comforts of home. And difficult enough that spending the time on it means something. I applaud the people who put this together and the time and efforts of the professors offering these courses. Some of the online lectures and materials are of an even higher quality than those you get in a classroom setting. I'm truly impressed.

I highly recommend anyone who have a little time to check the courses on offer at Coursera. You will find a whole new world of structured learning and opportunities.

Mouldy Bak Kwa

I think it turned bad over the weekend. It already lasted longer than normal since we put it in a Lock & Lock container. No preservatives, good.

This Must Be A Bio-Degradable Specs

I broke my spectacles frame while drying it with a towel. I was little shocked when it broke as I thought I had only replaced it recently. And I really liked this pair, it changed my nerdy look and brightened my face.

I don't think I was heavy handed, I simply did my normal weight on the rubbing. I've only had this pair a little over a year, and its the first plastic one since secondary school. 

I recall the ones in secondary to be extremely tough, it would take you considerable force to break the frames. So I was surprised this pair broke so easily. I suppose thats what you get for going 'green' these days. You can pass off inferior, non-durable products with a positive spin and generate repeating revenue for an otherwise one time only sale.

Meimei checked and confirmed that I changed to this part about 15 months ago. Ok, so I was more than a year old ... but still isn't it too soon to break already? I know jogging shoes will disintegrate in a year, but a spectacle? Sign ... sorry green folks, it isn't that I don't support recycling or health of our planet ... but when things spoil so easily and yet the product are priced just as expensive, it really turns me off on the whole 'go green' concept. I'm sure the cause is noble, but the execution leaves so much to abuse and corporate greed.

Ok after that rant, I'll have to say I'm not turning back to a metal frame. I really like the bright colours of the spectacles. I'll be crossing my fingers and hope we find a more durable pair.

P.S. thank you Meimei for helping to put it back together with super glue *muach!

Vase 303 - 2014 22nd Feb

A single pink rose. Classy, striking and delicate.

Home Made Bread

Armed with an oven and kitchen mixer, we finally made a successful attempt at baking a loaf of bread. This is a good start and one of our to-do's when we were contemplating getting an oven.

The mixer helped a lot too. We had a previous attempt that didn't turn out as well, I suppose due to lack of effort in the kneading process. My right arm was limp after a 5 minute kneading workout. So with the mixer we could now let it run as long as we like with minimal effort.

Also getting the right recipe really helps. There are a lot of recipes online but many of those don't really work right. So it takes some trial and error to get a suitable recipe you can work with.

I think the next attempt would be a baguette. I've always liked baguette, being able to make my own would be marvellous. Let's see how that goes.

My Kitchen Assistant - Bosch MUM54W41

An addition to our already cluttered kitchen. But this is something we had to have. This sure beats having to knead bread by hand. With it's multi features of juicer, bender and an array of cutting blades, it makes sense to make space for this wonderful tool.

We did look at other models but what attracted us to this was the kneading hook. Other cheaper models offer the plastic kneading tool which we were skeptical about. Hopefully the 900watts would be adequate to do most of what we needed done, which is primarily kneading and chopping. We'll know in a few months if it's as good as it's made out to be. But at the moment, it's a reasonably priced model for its published capabilities.

Big Brother Is Watching

New big brother camera at the lift lobby. Never noticed unsavoury characters at my block but welcome the vigilance of a camera.

Vase 303 - 2014 3rd Feb

No idea what these pretty reds are but they bring the bright festive cheer into the house.

Orchid Gardens 2014

I've been to the Botanic Gardens sparingly over the years but never stepped into the famous Orchid Gardens. So when Meimei ask if we would like to go with Sis, Papa and Mama, I was more than game.

It was CNY and we were granted free admission to the gardens. The current attraction was the Zodiac inspired orchid decorations. And since it was the year of the horse, it had it's own special design.

I actually prefer the decorations for the other zodiac animals to the horse centrepiece. Less tacky I suppose.

There must be hundreds of variants of orchids in the park. And all so delicately manicured.  

I wouldn't mind coming again. You can never get tired of all these pretty orchids!