Circuit Breaker SG

I am finally back. Have been working from home for more than 3 months, even before the partial lockdown (we called it Circuit Breaker). Staying home 24 hours every day did not make me any freer. My enthusiasm in cooking went in full bloom.. not that I had a choice but I am definitely not complaining.

Like any one else in Singapore or rather, all over the world, staying home is our way of contributing to the society.

The 2 months of CB had also given me a good chance to spend more time in my floral interest. I used to buy fresh flowers for our home every other week but due to CB, it was not possible. So I ventured into preserved & dried flowers.

DIY side dish 1 – stir fried Korean fish cake

Hubz loves Korean food so a couple of Korean treats for him.

Besides salads, grain bowls, fried rice/vermicelli, cream soups which were the usual items in our every day’s lunch & dinner menu, these are some of the creations on weekends during the 2 months of Circuit Breaker (mainly local fare) …

Char siew fresh from the oven

Sparkling Saturday Brunches

Café Eats

des fleurs

We Are 14!

Celebrated our 14th anniversary last weekend.

We would usually go for a holiday as a gift to ourselves. But due to his work schedule, our trip would be early December instead. So we had a comparatively much smaller celebration over the weekend. I am not complaining since it would mean we are having a winter holiday!

Last year we did not go for an anniversary holiday as well because it was too close to our family trip though it was a short (I do not have enough days of annual leave!!).

On Sat, we went for afternoon tea at our favourite hotel. Ever since our first visit in 2009 (a dinner on our 4th anniversary) even before it was officially opened, this hotel topped our list of places for celebrations.

Dim Sum Afternoon Tea
at
Cassia
Capella Singapore

Mine ~ Eastern Beauty (Globe Amaranth, Jasmine, Chrysanthemum)

Dessert Time

Stayed for another 30 minutes after our meal, chatting while sipping the hotel’s handcrafted chinese tea (needed more tea to help us digest).

A very relaxing afternoon tea indeed. Delicious dim sum served by very attentive staff. Anyway, Capella’s service has always been superb. Whenever we needed anything, we would be attended to within a couple of seconds. And our teapots were constantly filled throughout the 2-hour afternoon tea (we drank a lot of tea by the way

After leaving Cassia, we still felt bloated so took a stroll around the hotel.

Enjoyed the Aesop hand products whenever we visited the washroom

I craved for some sparkling and some rosé so hubz bought a rosé champagne to pop that night.

The next morning hubz surprised me with a bouquet which was delivered to the café we having brunch at – Wildseed Café & Bar.

A fabulous weekend of celebrations indeed.

Chinese spinach soup

Chinese spinach soup, which used to be just a simple homely dish, started to make its way into the hawker centres about 2 years ago. My mom often made this when I was small as it was easy to make – just garlic & ikan bilis (dried anchovies) for the soup base, then chinese spinach. Ours was the vegetarian version.

Unbelievably the stalls can survive by just selling spinach soup. Guess most of us are now into healthier meals and that contributes to its popularity. But they do have a fancier menu by letting diners customise their orders – different choices of staples (rice / noodle / bee hoon etc) and meat, with/without egg ……

So I did a similar one for our dinner tonight.

Kelly’s chinese spinach soup
Our staple is the 18-mixed grains
Everything in a bowl including the 18 grains.
I must say the fried ikan bilis was the highlight
Carrots, shitake mushrooms, century eggs, salted eggs, minced pork (into meat balls), ikan bilis, chinese spinach.
Not in picture: lots of grated garlics & wolfberries