Marvellous Soft Muffins - I DID IT!!!!

Orange Breakfast Muffins by Nigella

Honestly, after umpteenth failed attempts, I had about given up. But then, Cat Angel introduced me to this recipe from Nigella.

• 75g unsalted butter
• 250g self-raising flour
• 25g ground almonds
• half teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 75g caster sugar (I just used brown sugar)
• zest of 1 orange (omitted)
• 100ml freshly squeezed orange juice (I used Ceres packet)
• 100ml full-fat milk (I used my home-made brown rice milk)
• 1 egg
• 12-bun muffin tray lined with 12 paper cases

Preheat the oven to 200 deg C. Melt the butter and set aside. Combine the flour, ground almonds, bicarb, baking powder, sugar and orange zest in a large bowl. Measure the orange juice and milk into a jug and whisk in the egg and then the cooled, melted butter. Now pour the liquid ingredients into the dry ingredients, mixing with a fork as you go. The batter will be lumpy but that's as it should be: you want everything to be no more than barely combined. If really too dry, add another tablespoon of milk or orange juice (I did). The whole point of muffin mixture is that it must never be overworked. Spoon out the mixture equally into the muffin cases and cook for 15-20 minutes. Remove, in their paper cases, to a wire rack and let cool slightly (but not completely) before devouring.Makes 12.

This is the VERY FIRST TIME my muffins have turned out non-hard!!!
P/S Tin Hang Zai says it's not sweet enough for him - but it was for me - and this is supposed to be eaten with jam.

Doc Green Gourmet Salad

This place serves grills, sandwiches, soups and salads.

Nothing out of the ordinary - but for $14.90, I had a quarter chicken, quarter-slab of BBQ ribs, and the best salad I've ever had.

Tiny tangerines, grapes, cranraisins, sliced almonds and baby spinach leaves tossed in a tangy orange dressing. Yum!

This place is blah

The Canton Pixie, Miss Intellectual and Lasik checked out this vegetarian place at Beauty World for a girls' outing today.

Green+On+Earth was supposed to have had some good reviews in the press for supposedly being able to churn out salt-less, MSG-less, totally health-freak food that was supposed to taste superb.

When Tin Hang Zai heard where the 3 stooges were huddling at, he went 'Gross!'. Lasik said that Ching Wan-Timberlake would have had the same response.

Lasik agreed that this Pixie is really a food CRITIC - but this place deserves a 5/10! Urgh! My olive fried rice - I can't remember tasting any olives - and it didn't taste fried, and had tasteless bits of carrot, yam and overcooked-celery mixed in it. With a side dish of kelp - urgh!

Coming from someone who can stomach oats cooked in water (no milk, no sugar, nothing!) for breakfast EVERYDAY, I think this place really deserves a blah rating.

I didn't bother taking the name card - so no further details.

Supermarket Stress

I must say I find supermarket shopping quite stressful nowadays.

I was at Market Place, and only wanted to buy less-unhealthy snacks.

Read: Trans-fat-free, preservative-free, artificial flavouring/colouring-free, yeast-free, soy-free, lactose-free, MSG-free.

Result: I spent 1 hour searching and this is all I bought:

1. Kettle's Brand Organic Corn Chips (Sesame-Blue Corn)
2. Mountain Bread flat bread (more worth it than destroying my wok trying to make torteeyahs.
3. St Dalfour Jam (ok, just found out that NTUC sells the same thing at $1 per jar less than Shop N Save and Market Place!!)

Healthier Scruffy Murphy's Breakfast

Nowadays, Scruffy Murphy's is too far for our comfort, and the last breakfast we tried at Breko's was just awful.

My last attempt at this was using AMC - and I thought the luncheon meat looked so gross. So I'm so happy that this attempt turned out so nice - using the Goose's seasoned Chinese wok.

The recipe is a no-brainer. Heat wok. Pour oil in. Cook everything. Salt, to taste. Oil, to taste.

Doesn't this look pornographic!?!?!

Airport asked me to collect this from his demure-looking friend who works in Fei Yue. This is actually a bicyle gel-pad - AKA Jewel Protector!!

I didn't know that such things exist!

Nice visitor to Pixieville!!

Earth Rain

I seldom recommend stuff, but I bought this Earth Rain CD out of desperation for Tin Hang Zai's insomnia.

And, I'm now addicted! It's SGD30.00, and I must say, it's worth every cent I paid for it! It makes us both feel relaxed, I DO sleep better and so does he!

And sometimes I just 'sun' myself with the Gnome's expensive sunning machine, listen to the CD and drift off to bliss...

You can get it here at Ben Kim's Website.

RGS Banter

Lasik and I had a good laugh over the following:

1. We both have the 'irritating' (as described by Airport) RGS accent. (please don't ask why, because both of us are from Mandarin-speaking homes).
2. We both perpetuate the 'brainless girl' stereotypes because our favourite computer game is that Bubble Game. (Miss Intellectual, another fellow RGS girl, is not impressed by this!!)
3. Everyone who is not a girl is considered a "non-girl".
4. Both our SAHMs have bought all the stuff that only guillible SAHMs seem to buy - AMC and that Japanese U-Like Steamer.
5. We both can't stand people lying on the bedsheets in outside clothes.
6. We both like corny jokes.

MILO Godzilla

Pixieville hosted another Prison Group gathering last Friday.

We were extremely honored to have Mr Timberlake grace us with his presence. Sans paparazzi. I decided that Timberlake reminds me very much of Lau Ching Wan. So Lasik, it's Timberlake-Ching Wan. :)

I made everyone Tin Hang Zai's trans-fat free version of the McDonald's milkshake. Despite using stuff like corn oil, REAL milk, and non-stick cooking spray, Timberlake-Ching Wan and Lasik felt it tasted like a sorbet, and more specifically, a MILO-Godzilla!!!

I still can't figure out what caused the sorbet-texture.

Night-time Coughs

To stop nighttime coughing in a child (or adult as we found out personally), put Vicks Vaporub generously on the bottom of the feet at bedtime then cover with socks. Even persistent, heavy, deep coughing will stop in about 5 minutes and stay stopped for many, many hours of relief.

Not sure if it works, but I thought it's interesting to put it up here.

P/S Cosmo, it's from Merilyn!

What are your values?

The typical Pixie image was that of a busy bee, running around like a headless chicken, feeling stressed out doing lots of things and accomplishing nothing.

After I read this book, I understood that the feeling of mounting desperation about not spending time on 'things that matter' (despite functioning like a hummingbird) was because the activities I used to splurge my time on weren't really reflecting my values.

So here's the template I followed:

• What issues do you get on your soapbox about? What values do they reflect?
• What makes you cross? What value is being violated to make you feel this way?
• If you asked your family and friends to describe you, what words would they use? How do these descriptions reflect your values?
• What is something that you would never do, lines you would never cross? Which values would you be violating by crossing those lines?
• In the past, when faced with tough decisions, what actions have you taken? What values did these actions reflect?

Sneak Peek:

Tidiness is NOT one of my values, but I think it IS one of Lasik's.

Epicurean (but NON-Ascetic!!!) pursuits is definitely one big value of mine. The Sun, the Sea, the Stomach and the Shops.

Smashed Pomfret Rice Set

Can't resist blogging this. Lasik's look-good-but-lousy lunch at Marina Food Court. Urgh!

Easy-Peasy Scones are Easy

Recipe:
225g self-raising flour (sorry, this was from a UK book)
50g butter
150ml milk (lactose-intolerant - I substituted with home-made brown rice milk)
1 pinch salt (can be more)
1 tblspoon baking powder
Any amount of dried fruit or cheese you like - I used raisins.

Preheat oven - 180 deg C
Sift dry ingredients (if you don't know which are dry - you'd better not bake at all)
Rub in butter (learnt in Sec 2 Home Econs)
Add in milk gradually, stirring with knife until mixture comes together.
Knead lightly, roll out to 2cm thick and divide into 9-10 portions
Bake for 12-14 min (I think I ended up baking them for half hour).

Little Pixie just loved them. Tin Hang Zai said they tasted good with cream cheese. They are my first baking success - my muffins are still cookie-like.