离开的快乐？

Yesterday was R.'s Singapore Farewell Party at the Equinox with many of his cute friends. I did enjoy myself very much until the moment I saw Marc across the street when we were walking to Chinatown. Already the farewell party was like sad and happy at the same time and everything just went downhill from the moment I saw "you-know-who".

我会永远爱他的。他可能是我唯一最爱的人。所以当一个你最爱的人离开时，我想你也会很伤心吧。那就是我的感受。

A Grave Dug Up For Myself?

Exams are coming again. And this is the first time I am so worried. I did not do well in the mid-semester exams and that pulled my coursework grades down. So now, I am really studying my butts and brains off. Every night when it hit 10 pm, my brain cells will be totally dry and useless. I want to absorb more and fast!

As long as I can pass this semester and go to year 2, I will be the happiest man boy on earth. This semester is really tough. I just want to get into the kitchen and do what I wanted to in the first place: Cook! Please please please, let me get through this semester!

Food Seduction...

I know, I have not been blogging for quite a while about myself. But who's reading? I doubt anyone will be reading this. Okay, lets get down to the food business. 

We finally went to the Top Table. For those who doesn't know what it is, it is a restaurant run by the students of Culinary and Catering Management. Normally we just go there to look at the facilities and never to sit down and enjoy the food, or hear about how they will torture us next semester but always telling us not to worry.

Okay okay, back to the food. It was a 3 course meal and for the appetizer, I had tomato soup which was just pure pure pure! No msg, no colouring, just plain tomato! The best I have tasted so far I would say.

The main course would be the chicken with ham wrapped around it, with rocket lettuce and salad dressing. That one was a hit also. They used herbs which just go so well with the chicken, just divine! From this angle, it looks like something else, but it sure taste nice! :P

The dessert was really worth dying for! Chocolate pudding. The chocolate was just oozing out from the outer shell, fighting to come out. A flow of dark plight, so dangerous that you don't dare to eat it. Actually, it looked so damn nice that I didn't want to eat it hehe.

Oh those were the many times when the food seduced me so much! I would like to have it over and over again :P

Home-made Pineapple Tarts...

I am not going to write any introduction about this because you just HAVE to try it for yourself and surprise yourself!

FILLING

Ingredients

• 2 medium-sized pineapples, skinned & cut into small pieces
• 120g sugar

Method

1. Put pieces of pineapple into food processor and blitz until it becomes mushy.
2. Put the mushy pineapple on a clean cloth and squeeze out all the juice.
3. Cook the remains (not the juice!) of pineapple in a saucepan over low heat (keep stirring).
4. After 5 minutes, add sugar to it gradually. Mix well.
5. Continue stirring over low heat for about 30 minutes or until the mixture looks dry.
6. Cool the filling before putting it into the fridge for 20 minutes.
7. Remove from fridge, take a teaspoon of it and form a ball with your palms. 
8. Set them aside.

TART

Ingredients

• 250g butter, room temperature
• 1 teaspoon vanilla essence
• 1 egg yolk
• 440g plain flour 
• 1 tablespoon milk
• 1 egg, beaten (for glazing)

Method

1. Preheat oven to 165 Degree Celsius.
2. Cream butter and vanilla essence on medium speed for 4 minutes.
3. Add egg yolk and continue mixing until well incorporated.
4. Mix in dry ingredients on low speed until a coarse, crumbly texture forms.
5. Add in the milk.
6. Place dough on a surface and knead for 2 minutes.
7. Seal it with cling wrap and chill it for 30 minutes.
8. Remove from fridge and pull out some to form 2.5 cm diameter ball.
9. Flatten ball and put pineapple filling in.
10. Wrap the dough around filling and make it into a ball.
11. Brush pineapple tarts with egg wash.
12. Bake for 15 minutes.

Makes about 40.

P.S. While waiting for the filling to cool, you can start with the tart. Just put both the filling ad the tart in at the same time and after 20 minutes, take out the filling and start rolling. By the time you finish, the tart will be ready to be taken out.

P.S. Brush as much egg wash on them as possible, it will give them a very nice golden-brown colour. 

For Those Cookies Lovers...

I was making this yesterday using the "Professional Chef" book. It was called "Chocolate Chunk Cookies". However, I was out of chocolate chips, so I decided to change it to almonds. And I added a twist to the recipe. Hope you guys like it.

Ingredients

• 163g flour
• 3 teaspoon of cocoa powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 pinch of salt
• 100g butter, SOFT
• 35g sugar
• 25g light brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract/ essence 
• 7 - 10 pieces of almonds

Method

1. Cream butter and sugars on medium speed, until smooth and light in colour (5 minutes).
2. Mix eggs and vanilla essence in a small bowl.
3. Chop almonds to tiny pieces.
4. Add to butter-sugar mixture in 5 additions, until fully mixed (scrape down if needed)
5. Measure dry ingredients.
6. On low speed, mix in dry ingredients and chopped almonds.
7. Mix till just incorporated.
8. Prepare a sheet of cling wrap. Scoop the batter and put on cling wrap, wrap up, put in the freezer. Freeze for 30 minutes (or until it is hard enough to roll on your palms)
9. Chop any chocolate into 1.5 cm wide, roll each chocolate into a ball of cookie batter.
10. Flatten cookies with a fork (that will create a pattern for the cookies also).
11. Put into oven for 12 - 14 minutes, 190 Degree Celsius.

Makes 25 (depends on the size of each cookies)

P.S. Adding the egg-vanilla mixture to butter-sugar mixture in 5 additions will help the eggs incorporate better. Mix till it looks a bit fluffy.

P.S. If the cookies are still a bit soft on the underside after cooling, don't scream! Just flip them over and bake for another 6 minutes in the same temperature.

Two Birds With One Stone...

It has been such a hectic weekend and hectic monday also. We (group members) stayed in Changi Airport from friday night all the way to saturday afternoon just to complete the HT Marketing report. And I must say, it has really paid off BIG time. 

We had 2 presentations today. One is Food Hygiene and Safety, the other one is Marketing in Hospitality and Tourism. So had to go through both of the presentations and familiarise myself with them in just one night! Just too rush, but I managed to familiarise 85% of both of the presentations. 

For the Food Hygiene presentation, we have not gotten back any comments from our teacher yet because there was one group who has yet to present to the class due to the lack of time. For the HT Marketing, although we exceeded the time limit which is 15 minutes per group, we received excellent remarks from our teacher. "Very detailed and good research and the promotional ways were really interesting and that is the main focus of the report, Well Done!" We were SO proud of ourselves. 

So today is quite a stressful day but very VERY enjoyable!!!

Incredibly Stupid...

This week is just a horrible week. All the papers from mid-semester tests have been given back to us and I must say, I am terribly disappointed in myself. Nothing more I could say.

I really need to study hard and study smart from now on. No more distractions or what-so-ever. Just go go go until the end.