first

My female owner had another run away weekend. Three weekends ago, she stayed over at SOF/SOF’B house. Two weekends ago, she did a SOF/SOF’B + Noosa Heads getaway. Last weekend, she stayed over at I-Fren’s house. Hmm.. didn’t realise how much she had been away, until now.

The sleepover at I-Fren’s started innocuously, with a simple aim of learning to pitch a tent. Unbeknownst to her, it morphed into a full weekend of experiential learning and many firsts. It started off with a dinner hosted by his mum on Friday night. My female owner rarely sits at a table, having a family-type dinner, especially with the conversation centred on direction in life/God. No wonder she was struck dumb. She also never spoken to any parent at such great lengths. Back in Singapore, it was always her friends who came to her house and wound up chatting with her mother.

Then, exposure therapy to her fear of dogs. It was either she stayed in the car for the night to avoid the dog or come out and be uncomfortable. She was forced, literally, held by the hand, to stand (trembling) in the dark and allow the dog to sniff her. She was then forced to pat the dog on the head. What horrors!

Saturday came and they picked up I-Fren’s friend (who was visiting from Melbourne) at the Gold Coast before heading to Lamington National Park for a hike. Her first time at the acclaimed place, south of Gold Coast. The drive up to Lamington was therapeutic and calming, especially when compared to the driving she had to do in Tasmania. For once, she could enjoy the sights, cows and wind as they went into the mountains and farms.

The initial plan was to do a 5-6km hike. It morphed into a 12.7km hike. Not that my female owner had any issues, coz she loves hiking (with ungirly people). What she didn’t expect was that the Melbourne friend (whom I-Fren hosted till Sunday evening) was a mega big camwhore. The trio ended up spending heaps of time posing with nature. From hanging off tree branches, to sitting on them like a swing, to crawling into a cave, and standing on rocks, to squeezing into tree trunks and checking out bums… they did them all.

And unexpectedly but gleefully, half-way in the hike, my female owner managed to turn the table on I-Fren and got him to do some rudimentary exposure therapy at the edge of the cliff, all in the name of confronting his fear of heights. Evil her.

The last 5km was unexpectedly difficult for my female owner. She started to slow down and to tail behind the guys. Her foot was developing a blister and she could feel quite painfully, the uneven terrain beneath her shoes. Nonetheless, walking through that long stretch of track alone, praying and humming worship tunes, my female owner had a spiritual conviction that this is how she wants to lead her life, always worshipping and praying even if times are hard and lonely.

Plan for the night was to make Ondeh-ondeh. Another first! Both I-Fren and her were clueless about what it meant to “cook tapioca flour until transparent” but nonetheless did their best to follow the recipe. Instead of getting green balls, they ended up with paddle-pop looking balls, no thanks to green, red and yellow food colouring. So cute!!! Another unexpected exposure therapy happened when my female owner was asked to light the stove with a match-stick and she had no choice but to confess that she can’t light a match-stick…. out of fear. I-Fren could not contain his surprise. His eyes widened so much, my female owner knew she was in trouble. She ended up having to practise lighting matches…. with him holding on to the box. Oh well… uncompleted therapy.

Sunday came. The original plan was to pitch a tent, remember? Well, it never materialised, because they went to attend a bridge opening. Another first! Yes, the Kurilpa Bridge, which links South Bank to the City across the Brisbane River was opened to the public that morning. An impromptu jio expanded the trio to five persons. They ended up lunching together in the city… and taking a walk to the Botanical Gardens…. Which was another first for my female owner. Yes, after 1.5years in Brisbane, she finally made it to the Botanical Gardens…. And discovered that there was actually a bridge (Good Will Bridge) that linked the Garden to South Bank.

And for the first time in her life, she climbed up a tree. Well, not exactly. She was pulled up by her friends. But it was fun for her, as she sat up in the tree, looking at things around her. Hmm, she could have stayed there the whole day. She also found clusters of bamboo in the Garden which she immediately gravitated towards. Bamboo! She adores them.

The day of sight-seeing (remember, they were actually hosting I-Fren’s friend) ended back at South Bank as they explored the landscaping and man-made beach. My female owner didn’t realise how tired she was, until she woke up from an 11-hr sleep this morning.

Yes, thanks to the two guys, she has heaps of photos... which she is too lazy to show me! One day, she says.

axe

My female owner says that the more things she learns to cook, the less options she has when it comes to eating out. This is because she rather not buy food that she can cook. So far, this includes all kinds of fried rice, chicken curry, mapo tofu, stir-fry meats/ vegetables, muffins, some types of noodles, pastas and one new addition today, porridge.

Yes! She cooked her maiden porridge, shredded chicken porridge today, coz she just felt like it. She’s quite happy with it, coz its clean, healthy and piping hot, just right for winer. She thought that it was strange that she took so long to do something so basic.

Still save from the no-order list (mainly because of the complexity of the recipe) are items like laksa, fried chicken wings, Coles's roast chicken (an all-time fave), sweet and sour pork and erm… most kinds of non-Chinese cuisines?

Although she can’t cook Hainanese Chicken Rice, it got the axe, coz she hasn’t found a place which sells it at a respectable standard (not to her cooking… but to her Singaporean taste-buds).

lentils

My female owner hasn’t been cooking for a while because of her schedule and soon-to-expire Mee Goreng (which necessitates urgent consumption). So anyway, she finally managed to crave out time to cook tonight. She was all set to do a macaroni in chicken and vegetable soup when she remembered that she had previously identified a soup recipe from Coles Winter Magazine as a new dish which she would try (remember she wanted to expand her cooking repetoire?)

And so, she learnt about the existence of a commonly used ingredient in soups – lentils. Yah, that’s the ignorant Singaporean gal for you. Even her Mandarin-speaking housemate could identify lentils by its English name when she saw my female owner washing it! Lentils are apparently good for you and my female owner reckons that she had eaten it before, without knowing its name. As you can see from the ingredients list, my female owner merely channelled the intended ingredients for her chicken and veg soup to this recipe.

Vegetable & Lentils Soup

1 ¼ cups green lentils
3 stalks celery, with leaves,chopped
2 carrots, peeled, chopped
1 onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, chopped
400g can diced tomatoes
3 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp tomato paste
grated parmesan and celery leaves, to serve

1 Wash lentils under running water. Drain well. Place in a large saucepan and cover with water. Bring to the boil on high heat. Drain, rinse and return lentils to same pan.
2 Cover with 8 cups of water and bring to the boil again on high. Add remaining ingredients, except parmesan. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Cover and simmer for 1 hr, until the lentils are tender and the soup has thickened slightly.
3 Serve topped with grated parmesan and a few chopped celery leaves, if you like.

This is how the soup is supposed to look like.

ouch

And so, my female owner claims that she forgot to bring us to Onli Fren's house to be cooked. Hence, they had to settle for ABC soup comprising of sweet corn, tomato, carrot, potato and spare ribs.

Pork with red peppers and onion (ironically, the pork came from Kangarooland)
the anyhow put together egg tofu with prawns
And no, they didn't cook Baby. Thought that I should put the first human face ever on my Turtle Pad. Anyway, my female owner had this fleeting thought to borrow Baby to show her aikido friends... claiming that it is hers...

Onli Frens tell you the truth, even when it hurts:

My female owner was whining to Onli Fren last night that she had no clothes to wear in Singapore because she grew fatter ... and Onli Fren offered to lend my female owner her maternity clothes!

Second Onli Fren was talking about how Onli Fren had progress in life, as compared to her or my female owner. My female owner replied to Second Onli Fren "at least you are younger than me!" and Second Onli Fren said "yah, you are really far behind, cannot deny that".

Ouch.

old friends

Two pairs of my female owner's friends got married when she was in Brisbane. Each couple had just established their homes in the northern part of Singapore. As part of my female owner's homecoming, the female half of Couple Fren decided to host a dinner. The menu was decided on the spot by her and my female owner at the supermarket. Cooking took about 3 hours. The dinner was attended by the two couples, my female owner and her Ex-Er-Zi who happened to be in town (currently studying in Denmark).

It was an evening of food, fun and fellowship. Catching up with old friends has always a joy for my female owner. In addition to the food featured below, there were various goodies from Japan and alcohol (my female owner's indulgence in Singapore). And the good old Tai-Di.

Quite obviously, they overbought.

My female owner's maiden attempt at washing squid.
5-spice Chicken that didn't turn out correct
Mapo tofu that...again...didn't turn out rightSambal seafood (that's where the squid went!)
Stir-fried vegs with mushroom. In her typical blurness, my female owner cut up all the mushrooms, except one.
The entire dinner (plus a pot of soup, eggs with sausage and pineapple rice). 7 dishes for 6 people! The traditional shot - one of the husbands was late in coming home.
A surprise birthday celebration for her Ex-Er-Zi. Yes, he is only 2 years old. =)

macaroni

One of my female owner's goals is to cook something new every week. This week, she decided to do up a Stir-fried Macaroni (with chicken). She not only loves pasta, she has a thing for macaroni (particularly because of what it's called in Chinese - tong-xin fen). Here's what it's supposed to look like (the ones sold in Singapore, especially in Malay stalls also look something like that).

Here's how hers turned out. =(

For one, she couldn't find macaroni in the supermarket, so she bought large shells. At least it looks more similar than spirals or bow-ties! Then, she decided not to use chicken but crab-meat and scallops. The household meal criteria states that there needs to be a veggie dish as well. So she upped the proposed "2 tomatoes" of the original recipe to include other things like mushroom (are fungus veggie?), carrot and chye sim. She didn't have seasoning soy sauce so that probably accounted for the pale colour.

She was supposed to cook for 3 persons, but ended up with so much ingredients (she also used the entire packet of shells which apparently serves 5) that she didnt have a wok big enough to do her stir-fry. So she struggled to mix the ingredients into the pot of pasta and erm... ended up what you see above. She found her dish quite odd - the ingredients were highly flavoured (oyster sauce, soy sauce and sugar) while the shells were more bland (just ketchup). Would have been better if she could mix the two together properly.

Some lessons she learnt:

• When the packaging says "Serves 5", it really serves 5. So either estimate properly or get a bigger wok!
• Use more oil. She was so reluctant to use oil (think "fattening") while stir-frying the ingredients that she ended up having to add water to the ingredients and they started to look weird.. especially when the eggs went in as well.
• Get seasoning soy sauce.

recipe

My female owner never believed in following recipes (which explains why she can't cook many dishes). There are many reasons for this. Firstly, she doesn't trust recipes which are NOT recommended by anyone (issue of trust). Secondly, because the recipes are not proven to be good, she does not want to subject anyone to potentially bad cooking (issue of responsibility). Thirdly, she never saw the need to learn to cook (issue of need). My male owner was famously fussy about food. He eats mainly egg, cucumber and rice. No red meat, no other form of vegetables, chicken is ok only if there are no bones, no spicy food (or chilli). While eating out, he usually eats roast chicken rice, Hawaiian pizza or sushi (with very selected fillings). Once in a while, he would compromise on tofu and bean sprouts (we turtles definitely take after him in this aspect!).

Finally, the strongest reason is that she grew up in an environment where her mother did not refer to recipes when cooking - everything was in her head (issue of upbringing). I can testify to that. From steamed chicken rice to laksa to pig trotters' soup to curry chicken to claypot rice... everything was recipe-free. (No, her mother never cooked turtle soup!)

Well, yesterday, my female owner undertook the module "Following a Recipe" 101 with her Intuitive Fren as tutor. Around dinner time, IF spied a suspicious looking bottle of shrimp fry paste (known as bagoong in the Illocano language) which had been sitting in her kitchen for weeks (her housemate won the shrimp paste during a church game). Since nobody in the house knew how to use it and is unlikely to use it, IF decided to use it to cook dinner. Acting on his spontaneous decision, he looked up the internet and managed to locate a recipe which required that paste.

My female owner was quite doubtful about using the paste, coz it smelt like turtle food to her. IF didn’t help matters coz he said it smelt like goldfish food. The paste was apparently pungent and pink. Following the recipe and modifying it somewhat, the end result (according to my female owner) was a surprisingly yummy and hearty dish of beef/ tomatoes/long beans/ eggplants/ onions/ garlic in shrimp fry paste (unfortunately, they didn’t take any photos of the dish). The dish had an explosion of taste – sour, sweet and salty – coupled with the natural flavouring of the heap of beef they used.

This was the first Filipino dish that my female owner ever saw created before her eyes and, which tasted yummy… the last time she went Philippines with her friends (potahto included), they didn’t manage to lay hands on any yummy Filipino food..

So besides having a proper dinner, my female owner learnt that there's nothing scary about using randon recipes (they cooked so much that they even had time to mull over how they could further improve on the taste). Maybe her housemates can now look forward to more interesting dishes when it's her turn to cook dinner. Other dishes, rather than the usual stir-fried vegetables in oyster sauce and stir-fried meat doused with cheat sauce.