BBQ feast

A few days ago, Da and ET arranged to have a barbeque session at the development where we live.

I have been watching the Asian Food Channel frequently and I have picked up some tips from chefs such as Jaime Oliver, etc. As such, I was eager to put the tips to good use. For tonight's dinner, I marinated:-

(a) baby potatoes

(b) chicken breasts

(c) salmon fillets

Last night, I made some garlic spread and I spread it on a few slices of bread. I then wrapped the bread in aluminium foil so that it can be placed on the grill.

I woke up at about 8 am this morning. As it was a good start to the day, I baked a mango cake. To create the mango cake, I adapted a recipe for banana cake that I had. We happened to have two overripe mangoes in our refrigerator and I decided to use them.

As Da and I were running low on bread, I baked a loaf of oat and banana bread.

I have been on a bergedel craze lately. As such, I baked some otah bergedel today using whatever vegetables we had at home.

For dessert, I prepared a jelly cocktail. The jelly portion was made using agar-agar powder with orange konnyaku jelly colouring. As for the fruits, I added a can of longan, a can of lychee, a can of peach slices and a can of fruit cocktail. The secret to irresistible jelly cocktail is in the lime. You need to add enough lime juice (freshly squeezed) to give some oomph to the dessert.

When Da came back from work, I took a break from the dinner preparations and we proceeded to our favourite coffee shop at Jalan Tua Kong. We had arranged to meet my mother, my brother (LG) and LG's girlfriend (ZT) for lunch at the coffee shop. Da informed me that his parents happened to call him to inform him that they were going to the same coffee shop for lunch as well. It was an enjoyable lunch with good food and interesting company.

After everyone parted ways, Da and I went home. I sliced the oat and banana bread before storing the bread in a tupperware bread container.

Ding-dong! The family of ET arrived around 5 pm today. They decided to take a dip in the swimming pool first.

While waiting for ET and his family to finish swimming, I baked some blueberry and banana muffins.

I also baked some chocolatey peanut butter cookies.

Dinner time! The barbeque pit that we had booked is located next to the swimming pool.

ET got the fire in the barbeque pit going while waiting for the rest of us. Supercute and Tau Suan helped to carry some of the food items from our apartment unit to the barbeque pit.

SY had prepared a delicious potato salad. Yummy! I like potato salads! I told Supercute that I can just eat the potato salad for dinner and give everything else a miss. The salad comprises potatoes, mixed greens, green apples, baby tomatoes, bacon bits and salad dressing (hi SY, did I omit any ingredient?).

ET was the chef for the night. He had brought marinated pork loins and marinated king prawns. The blue container on the bottom left side of the photograph below contains chicken breasts that I marinated using Italian herbs, dijon mustard, balsamic vinegar, etc.

While the chef was barbequing the food, the rest of us waited with anticipation of a great meal.

The baby potatoes were marinated by me based on what I saw in an episode of The Naked Chef (featuring Jaime Oliver). You will need salt, pepper, olive oil and fresh rosemary leaves.

As for the salmon fillets, I marinated them with salt, pepper, freshly squeezed lemon juice, olive oil, red cooking sherry and fresh rosemary leaves.

When the food was ready, it was time for a feast! We ate and ate and ate... and there was still so much food left over.

When he was done with the barbequing, ET took a dip in the swimming pool under the watchful eyes of Supercute and Nining.

To douse the fire at the barbeque pit, ET sprayed water on the grill. It was fast and effective.

Back at our unit, it was time for Part Two. The guests were offered the slices of mango cake that I had baked this morning.

Nining seemed to enjoy the jelly cocktail because she went for second helpings.

When one is overly full from a meal, the best course of action would be to become a couch potato. Everyone sat in the living room and watched a program on the Discovery Channel regarding the after-effects of a comet crashing onto earth. SY asked Tau Suan what he would do if a comet was scheduled to hit Singapore tomorrow. Tau Suan replied that he would be thankful for what he had in life.

Just when everyone thought that they could not eat another bite, Nining requested that we open the bag of tortilla chips as she was hungry. Ah... when you have a bowl of Doritos tortilla chips within your reach, no one says "no".

It was a very enjoyable day and I look forward to the next gathering.