October babies

First and foremost, it is LSD's birthday today. I sent the dear girl a text message a stroke or two after midnight this morning to wish her a happy birthday. Happy birthday, my dear girl! May the "goddess with an attitude" have a purpose-filled year ahead and may she not forget the "stepping stone / last stone" theory.

Gosh! Other than LSD, I know of several other persons whose birthday falls in October 2008:-

(a) 3rd - my mother's 2nd sister - happy birthday, aunty! I wrote a post dedicated to you on 3 October 2008.

(b) 4th - my dear secretary - thank you for being so supportive and putting up with me all these years.

(c) 5th - my friend who is now based in the United States of America - sorry, girl, that I was not able to meet up with you for lunch the other day when you were in town as I had a meeting that day.

(d) 5th - my friend whom I have been trying to introduce to BH.

(e) 12th - Big Foot - we missed you at dinner today.

(f) 14th - Da's cousin who lives in Brisbane, Australia - hey, we have not seen you in several years. When are you coming to Singapore for a visit?

(g) 15th - my penpal who lives in South Carolina, United States of America - hi there! I am very happy that we have resumed our correspondence.

(h) 18th - Da's papa - happy birthday, Dad.

(i) 18th - my penpal who lives in San Diego, United States of America - hi there! What is your latest email address? My handwriting is now very atrocious and it would probably be easier on your eyes if we were to communicate over the internet.

(j) 19th - Tiki - my fellow blogger. How is it that your boys seem to have more visitors to their blogs (than us)? grrrrrr

(k) 27th - Supercute - my dear boy, do not open your present until your birthday.

Da and I invited Big Foot and the family of The Three Musketeers to our home for dinner tonight. Unfortunately, Big Foot had a prior dinner appointment and could not come. Not to worry - we each ate an extra share on behalf of Big Foot.

As I had another appointment this morning, Da and I decided to do our grocery shopping last night. We went to Giant Hypermarket at Parkway Parade last night and came home heavy-laden with groceries.

When I came home late this morning, I started the preparations for dinner by making a durian custard cake.

While the cake was baking in the oven, I made some otah-otah. The otah-otah went into the oven when the cake was done.

I had originally wanted to cook a fried udon dish. However, Da and I did not see any udon at Giant Hypermarket last night and it must have slipped out mind as well. Fortunately, we have spaghetti noodles and fettuccine at home. As such, I boiled both types of pasta (separately, of course, as their cooking times are different) and tossed them with olive oil and seaweed.

Da had suggested last night that I make a lasagne for today. However, we came across baked beans when we were browsing the canned food section at Giant Hypermarket. As such, I decided to make a dish using baked beans as the base. The gravy that you see in the photograph below looks thick because I added some beaten egg towards the end of the cooking (a technique that I learned from my mother's eldest sister - thanks, aunty!).

Last night, we bought a can of tropical fruit cocktail and I decided to make a prawn salad. I still had some thousand island dressing in the refrigerator, so I decided not to buy coleslaw dressing (which Tiki uses for her prawn salad). A big thank you to Supercute and Blackninja for helping to add the salad dressing and the bacon bits!

As I was about to start frying the ingredients for the pasta noodles, ET arrived. He is an accomplished chef and he gallantly offered to help toss the pasta with the ingredients when I had finished frying the ingredients. I gladly accepted his offer because by the time the pasta was added to the frying pan, the pan was almost overflowing and I did not have the strength (actually, I do not have the skill!) to toss the pasta with the ingredients.

The problem with my family is that we do not know how to cook in small proportions. As such, I had some ingredients that simply could not fit into the frying pan when I was frying the ingredients to be tossed with the pasta, namely, beijing cabbage, marinated shrimps and marinated chicken pieces. ET fried these 3 ingredients together to create a new dish. The beauty about cooking is the ability to be versatile. What started out as a simple stir-fried dish comprising these 3 ingredients ended up as a kimchi dish, all thanks to ET who made full use of the numerous spices that we have in our spice rack. Hey, you are simply amazing!

Dinner time! Everyone sat down to a sumptuous meal accompanied by mock champagne that I had concocted. The drink is bubbly like champagne and even tastes like champagne.

After dinner, I made a pot of Masala tea (with ET as my drink-tester) and we enjoyed the vanilla puffs and eclairs that Supercute had thoughtfully brought to our home.

I also cut the durian custard cake for everyone to sample.

As usual, we had too much to eat. Burp!

I enjoy cooking and baking. However, due to my busy schedule, I do not have time for complicated cooking/baking methods and as such, I am always on the lookout for easy recipes containing ingredients that I can find easily in the supermarket. I like trying out new recipes and getting my "food-testers" (ie. my family and friends) to give feedback.