Be my valentine

Valentine's Day is celebrated on 14 February each year throughout the world. It is a day when people express their love and affection for each other. Although the tradition is for lovers to express their love on Valentine's Day by giving each other Valentine's Day cards, flowers, gifts, etc, as the years go by, it has extended to expressing affection for good friends and relatives as well.

When I was in Junior College, my school celebrated "Friendship Day" on 14 February so that the students could express their friendship for each other on that day. There would be many activities in school on that day, including exchanging of gifts, singing telegram, etc. It was quite an experience, actually, especially if you are the recipient of a singing telegram.

Da and I decided to host a Valentine's Day dinner at our home. We invited the family of the Three Musketeers and Da's cousin (MT). As Da had to work this morning, I was at home the whole day, making preparations for the dinner. We decided to have a Japanese themed dinner today.

We have just bought a Tefal convection oven to replace our Moulinex convection oven (which decided to go into retirement after ten years of constant usage). The retail price of the Tefal oven is S$400+ but the shop was having a 4-day promotion and we managed to buy the oven at S$200+. Isn't this wonderful?

When the family of the Three Musketeers arrived, they proceeded to the swimming pool for a swim. In the meantime, Da went to fetch MT from a bus stop along Marine Parade Road.

Before dinner was served, a bowl of tortilla chips was brought out for everyone to snack on. Supercute requested for salsa sauce, which we had in the refrigerator.

Oishi! Dinner-time! Would you like to hazard a guess as to what we had for dinner today?

I made a Japanese pizza which I baked in our new oven (yes, I could not wait to start using the oven!). I spread tonkatsu sauce on the pizza base but you can use okonomiyaki sauce as an alternative. I could not find the latter sauce at the supermarket, hence I bought tonkatsu sauce instead.

I also fried yaki udon. Fortunately, 3 packets of udon was sufficient for 9 persons as I added a substantial amount of ingredients. When I asked Nining whether she wanted a second helping, she nodded and used her thumb to point to her plate, as though trying to tell me, "Put it here!". *grin*

I put our steamer to good use and made chawanmushi. Da and I could not find any chawanmushi cups when we browsed some shops at Marine Parade last night and hence I made do with coffee cups.

In line with the Japanese theme of the dinner, the soup that I cooked was miso soup. For the soup base, I used dashi miso paste (instead of buying dashi stock and miso paste separately). The miso soup came in handy because I set aside some of the soup to cook the pizza ingredients and the chawanmushi ingredients. We were all so busy chatting and having a good time of fellowship that I forgot to take out some small bowls for the soup until Tau Suan reminded me.

The children of ET and SY enjoy eating finger food. Hence, I baked some chicken wrapped in seaweed, chicken wrapped in beancurd and satay in the oven.

For dessert #1, we had green tea sweet corn custard. I could not find any matcha (that is, green tea powder) when Da and I went to the supermarket last night. Fortunately, Da's eyes are sharp and he spotted the packets of matcha displayed with some Japanese snacks. When I made the green tea sweet corn custard today, I also poured some of the custard into three small yoghurt containers (that is, the type that comes with a foldable plastic spoon attached to the underside of the lid) and I gave them to the three handsome young boys who live opposite Da and I on the same floor in our block. (By the way, thank you very much for the chocolates, boys. It is very thoughtful of you.)

Dessert #2 was more elaborate. In each bowl that you see in the photograph below are two slices of green tea banana and prune cake with cookies and cream ice-cream topped with raisins. I would have liked to make green tea ice-cream but we do not have an ice-cream maker. Do you have any ice-cream recipe that does not require the use of an ice-cream maker? If so, do let me know.

Nining is getting quite proficient at using a digital camera. At the rate she is putting her skills into practice, it will not be long before she starts blogging and attaching the photographs that she has taken.

On this Valentine's Day, I wish to say to Da, my family, my relatives and my friends - you're the best! I love you lots! May this year bring forth a harvest for all of us in every aspect of our lives.