Happy birthday, MJ

I love lazy saturdays when I have the whole day to do nothing or to busy myself in the kitchen. Invariably, I will potter around in the kitchen or do some springcleaning of the house in the morning while Da is at work.

Da and I have an unopened packet of carrots in our refrigerator. As I did not plan to do any cooking this weekend and I was not sure whether the carrots would last another week in our refrigerator, I decided to use the carrots in my baking instead.

First up, carrot and oat cookies.

This was followed by a moist carrot cake.

As I was taking photographs of the goodies that I had baked so far, I heard someone call out "Auntie". Turning my head, I saw at our door the three handsome boys who live opposite Da and me in our apartment block. The boys were going out for their spelling class. They informed me (when I asked them) that their swimming classes are on sundays and not saturdays. I must have mixed up the dates. I seem to recall that they have swimming classes on saturdays.

As I waved goodbye to the boys, I heard one of them mention bread. That gave me an idea. I decided to bake a kiddy loaf for them. To make the bread more nutritious, I added grated carrots. To tempt their tastebuds, I rolled out the bread dough, sprinkled liberal amounts of chocolate rice and rainbow rice before I rolled up the dough and placed it in a loaf pan. This is the loaf that came out from our oven:-

For Da's and my bread supply for the coming week, I baked a loaf of carrot and pistachio nut bread.

As it has been some time since I last made ice cream, I made pistachio cheese ice cream. I had grated some hazelnut chocolate (thanks, Tuayi, for the chocolate which you bought from Melbourne, Australia!) with the intention to add it to the ice cream. However, I changed my mind at the last minute and decided to add chopped pistachio nuts instead. That left me with grated hazelnut chocolate. I was debating what to do with it when I looked into our packet of carrots and realised that we had several carrots left. As such, I used the balance carrots and the grated hazelnut chocolate to bake some muffins. The muffins turned out very moist. However, I would recommend that you roughly chop the chocolate instead of grating them as the taste of chocolate was not distinctive enough in the muffins.

When Da came home from work, we decided to go out for lunch. Before we left the house, I packed some goodies for the three handsome boys. The sliced kiddy loaf is hidden at the bottom of the container on the right hand side. In the left container are several scoops of homemade peanut butter ice cream.

When Da and I went to our favourite coffee shop at Jalan Tua Kong for lunch, our favourite stall was closing for the day. As such, we went to Glory Catering at East Coast Road instead. We ordered mee rebus, mee siam, teh tarik and kopi tarik. The drinks cost S$1.50 each whereas the mee rebus and mee siam cost S$3 each.

We also ordered three types of kueh-kueh. I was pleasantly surprised that the three pieces of kueh-kueh cost only S$2.

After a very satisfying lunch, we went home and did some springcleaning. Goodness me... how did we accumulate so many items over the years?

In the evening, we went to the home of the Three Musketeers for dinner. When we arrived, we heard the distinctive voice of Michael Jackson belting out his hits on the television. It is Michael Jackson's birthday today and as a tribute to him, our local television station broadcast his concert that was held in Munich, Germany in 1997 as part of his HIStory world tour. Everyone was singing along to his songs as he performed and I must admit that the women present at the home of the Three Musketeers were in danger of swooning at times during the amazing performance.

(photograph source: television screen)

As everyone's eyes were glued to the television, pizza home delivery was ordered from Canadian 2-for-1 Pizza. I had also baked some chicken wings and brought them to the home of the Three Musketeers.

Nining is only three years of age but she can sing along to Michael Jackson's songs. She can even mimic some of his moves. We had all a good laugh when it came to the song "Beat It". Nining bent over and gamely beat her own backside!

Coffee time! SY had baked cheesecake today. It was delicious! Hi SY, please post the recipe in your blog soon!

We also ate the carrot cake and the carrot muffins that I had baked today.

Supercute and Tau Suan decided to stay up to watch the Manchester United vs Arsenal English Premier League soccer match. As it was late, Nining decided to call it a night.

Happy birthday, MJ! May you moonwalk on streets of gold in heaven always. Rest in peace.

Shaloam,