Meeting of the 3 invigilators

Da and I invited two sets of guests to our home for dinner today. We had invited:-

(a) Da's cousin (MT) who lives in Brisbane, Australia and who is back in Singapore for a vacation; and

(b) the family of the Three Musketeers including their parents (ET and SY).

When giving the invitation, I already had in mind to order Kentucky Fried Chicken home delivery. Not only would it be a treat for the Three Musketeers, it meant less work for me in terms of cooking and er... less work for Da in terms of washing up. *grin*

However, the chef-wannabe in me could not resist preparing a little food for dinner. As such, I thawed 2 pieces of frozen Muar otah and cooked the otah with egg, mixed greens, mock crab stick and chicken sausage. My intention was to make an otah pizza. I did not have time to make the pizza base today and as such, I used a Mediterranean pizza base (which tastes a bit like pita bread and is more healthy than the commercially prepared pizza base) that I had bought from the supermarket.

I also baked a wholemeal banana loaf for dessert. This is the first time that I have used wholemeal flour to bake cakes / bread. The use of wholemeal flour gives your bread / cake a nutty-like texture. Instead of a walnut crumble topping, I decided to mix chocolate rice with cinnamon sugar as the topping to tempt the tastebuds of the little ones (and the adults with a sweet tooth, of course!).

Ding-Dong! The doorbell rang. It was the family of the Three Musketeers. They came prepared with their swim-wear for a cool dip at our swimming pool. In the meantime, Da went to the nearby MRT station to pick up MT (who has never been to our home as he left Singapore about 4 years ago).

When Da and MT arrived, we introduced MT to ET. There was a pause, then ET asked MT whether they have met before. MT did not think so because he has never been to our current home and as such, he was not present during our housewarming party. ET thought for a while and then he remembered where he had seen MT before. Da used to work in a commercial school offering tertiary and postgraduate courses from overseas universities. During examination time, the school would hire part-timers to be invigilators if there was shortage of manpower. As Da was, inter alia, in charge of the hiring of the invigilators, he had in the past ever arranged for ET and MT to help him out as invigilators during examination. ET and MT had therefore met during one of the invigilation sessions. What a small world!

Dinner was a light-hearted affair. The Chinese rojak that you see in the photograph below was bought by ET from the Dunman Road food centre. This rojak stall is very popular because the stall holder will prepare your dish only upon your order. You often have to wait at least half an hour to one hour for your rojak.

Ta-da! Here is the otah pizza that I made using my trusty AMC cookware. You can bake it in the oven if you prefer. Here is a tip to delicious home-made pizza - top the pizza with a mixture of grated mozarella cheese and grated cheddar cheese. If you have bacon bits, sprinkle it liberally over the pizza before baking it. (Thank you, SY, for reminding me that the last time that I made this pizza, I had also added egg to the ingredients. You can, of course, mix the ingredients without using egg. However, the use of egg helps to bind the ingredients together.)

I cannot believe how much Supercute has grown! I have not seen him and his siblings for 3 weeks and he is now taller than me! He is only in Secondary 2 (that is, Grade 8) this year.

Tau Suan, on the other hand, was happily making me jealous by describing how he has managed to lose 5 kg. As he said, losing weight is about discipline (he is now very careful about what he eats) and hard work (he exercises because he plays basketball in school).

Dessert time! I sliced the wholemeal banana loaf that I had baked. As I was slicing the loaf, I could smell the bananas (I had "pinched" the Dole baby bananas that Da had bought recently and used up all the 4 remaining bananas to make the loaf).

No meal would be complete without coffee. As I made cups of 3-in-1 white coffee with hazelnut, I offered a cup to little Nining (who is 3 years old). The dear girl never refuses an offer of coffee. Way to go, girl!

There was no mahjong session today but the gathering was enjoyable nonetheless. It is indeed a blessing to be able to enjoy the company of good friends and loved ones. Thank You, Abba Father, for blessing us.