Happy Valentine's Day

It is a few more hours to Valentine's Day so here's wishing all of you a Happy Valentine's Day.

Well, Valentine's Day isn't just for couples. It is a day to show your love to your family and friends and even to strangers. Spread the love, give a little love like what I shared on my blog the other time.

As for those who have yet to prepare anything, are you running out of time to hand-make some craft or bake some cookies? Why not whip up something simple? I've collated some really simple Valentine's Day ideas coz me being so lazy, I can't even bother to read till the end of the ingredients list for some Valentine's recipe that I found on the Internet.

So lazy people let's unite and read on!



~*Love Toast Bread*~



You need:
- bread
- heart-shaped cookie cutter
- egg

♥ Press the cookie cutter down onto the bread.
♥ Place the bread onto a lightly greased frying pan on low heat.
♥ Crack the egg into the hole.
♥ Cook the egg according to the doneness you like.
♥ Serve with sides like ham, bacon, fresh garden vegetables.

Be creative with your love toast bread and have fun!



~*Sunny Love Up Eggs*~



You need:
- egg
- heart-shaped egg mold

You don't even need me to tell you how to fry a sunny side up egg, do you?



~*Heart Boiled Eggs*~



You need:
- egg
- milk carton or any juice carton (cut open, washed well and dried)
- chopsticks
- rubber bands

♥ Cut milk carton and fold it in half lengthwise.
♥ Make a hard boiled egg.
♥ While the egg is still warm, peel the egg and put the egg on the milk carton.
♥ Place a chopstick on the center of the egg and tie rubber bands on the both ends.
♥ Leave it to cool for about 1 hour.
♥ Take the chopstick off and cut the egg into half.
♥ Now you have heart boiled eggs for your egg salad or as a finger food.
♥ Serve with a dash of creativity.

If you are not a textual person, this video would help a lot!





~*Strawberry Nutella Crackers*~



You need:
- sweet crackers (those airy kind)
- strawberries
- nutella (or any chocolate sauce)
- mini heart-shaped cookie cutter

♥ Cut strawberries lengthwise to resemble a heart.
♥ Using the smallest heart-shaped cookie cutter, press into crackers and peel off the flakes within the heart.
♥ Cut strawberries to fit.
♥ Drizzle nutella into the hole and press strawberry in.

Note: This is my own directions from what I see in the picture. I sure hope it works coz I've not tried it before.



~*Heart-Shaped Butter on Muffins*~



You need:
- muffins
- butter
- mini heart-shaped cookie cutter

Noooo!!! I'm not gonna give directions on how to make a muffin. This is for the laziest people around who  would just pop by the store to buy some raspberry or cranberry muffins and cut heart-shaped butter out from cookie cutters. Such a cheat right?



~*No Bake Pots De Creme*~

This is the only one that requires more steps and for the full directions, please click here.

It is supposed to be simple as it doesn't require baking. However upon reading the directions, lazy me simply gave up though I would still love to share this with my more hardworking readers who could whip up a feast in the kitchen.

Happy Snake Year

Happy Lunar New Year to all my Chinese readers! 新年快樂!

身體健康

心想事成

一帆風順

And to all my Singaporean Chinese readers, enjoy these 4 days of visiting, feasting and spending time with your loved ones. To my non-Chinese Singaporean readers, enjoy the break! Yeah, we lost 2 days due to the weekend but still, 4 days away from work is worth popping the champagne bottle.

Have fun!

Jac's Birthday Celebration at The Coastal Settlement

"The Coastal Settlement - a casual dining restaurant, cafe and bar, provides you the one of its kind village home-like environment, with a view of Mother Nature’s plantation of greens and a peek of the sea. Take a break and extricate yourself from your hectic metropolitan lifestyle and allow yourself to enter an aura of relaxation in a halcyon atmosphere. Come, relive the old days gone by with your family and friends, there will be much to talk about..."




It was my second time to The Coastal Settlement in the day and even though I love the rustic charm of the place by the day, I would really love to go there at night for I often hear from my friends that it is really lovely by the night as well.




Last Sunday, we were there to celebrate Jac's birthday. Well, actually her boyfriend's birthday was in January too so we celebrated both their birthdays together.




We could help ourselves with the packets of biscuits.




The packet contained our childhood "flower biscuits" and a cheese cracker. When we were young, most of us would eat the sugared flower parts and toss the biscuits away. For me, I would always eat the biscuit part first and lay all the flowers in a row grouped according to their colours as I pretended to be a florist. Super lame now that I'm saying this at such an age.




Things you no longer see around except as props.




Old school music player. I don't even see this when I was young. This must have dated back way before.




These are moulds for making traditional kueh. These are still pretty much in use as we still have those kuehs around.




Who doesn't love a classic Vespa? Speaking of Vespa, my bro-in-law just bought a classic red vespa after selling his mint blue one a year ago. Now I'm kicking myself for stopping my riding lessons.




It was already afternoon but we were still in time for brunch as brunch is served till 4pm. TCS does know how to cater for lazy people.




While waiting for everyone to arrive, we shared some side dishes all of which were delicious.

Portobello Fries lightly crumbed with truffle mayonnaise dip... Yummy! Crisp on the outside and juicy on the inside.




Calamari with a unique passion fruit mayonnaise dip.




Truffle Fries... Makes me wonder how I could eat other types of fries after being addicted to truffle fries.




Some chicken which I didn't get to eat.




Mac n Cheese. This is the best Mac n Cheese I've ever eaten. There are three different types of cheese and I could taste gourmet cheese in there.




For mains, more than half of us ordered the Steak and Eggs with our eggs done scrambled style. I've never seen beef steak and eggs on the same plate before but that didn't really deter us from ordering it. It was one of the best medium rare steak ever! I'm never a fan of fats in meat but the fats in this steak simply melts in your mouth.




The rest had the Smiling Eggs Benedict.




Daddy, Mummy and Belle.




Happy family photo bomb by kh. Belle was watching her Elmo show on the iPad which was dragged away from her to get her to look at the camera but to no avail.




The hubby is usually good with kids but somehow, the chemistry between him and Belle just doesn't match. Belle never ever smiles with him around and she even cries.




In fact, Belle is so shy that she seldom smiles or laughs when with us as a big group. She has the cutest smile ever but it is just very difficult to make her smile.




After Daddy monkeyed around for a few minutes, Belle finally let out a toothy grin for my camera.




I wanted an individual shot of Jully but kh didn't let it happen, leading to having his ear pulled by her.




Jerm wore a super funny Black Bear + White Bear = Fight = Merged into Panda T shirt. Panda is all the rage in Singapore now with the arrival of Jia Jia and Kai Kai -- the panda pair in our zoo.




The birthday couple and their accidental couple T shirts. They claimed they did not agree to wear the same colour.




Couple not. SL's cousin-in-law from Canada joined us for the brunch before he flew off that day.




The newly wedded couple for the day. I can't help marvelling at how they look like twins with their eyes, nose and smile and especially when they have their glasses on.




The flat hair couple. I dunno why both our hair looked super flat that day.




Jully asked me to pull kh's ear while she pulled the other side for the next photo. These 2 ah, always at loggerheads since their schooling days. Can't be helped as kh is one of the most annoying person ever. He could pit against The Annoying Orange.






After our meal, it was time for dessert in the form of Jac and Jon's birthday cake.




The lovely couple. Happy birthday Jon and Jac!




Make a wish, give a kiss, cut the cake. May your love continue to blossom!




A parting shot...




And another with the attractive vintage props behind as background.




Outfit of the day:
♥ Denim Dress from Cowboy Series
♥ Salvatore Ferragamo bag




Btw I wore the denim dress on purpose as I bought Belle a Zara Baby denim dress. When daddy WL and mummy B took out the dress, they went, "So cuuuuuuuuute!!!" I bought it in a bigger size so that Belle could wear it when she is bigger since kids grow out of their clothes very quickly but guess what? The dress could actually fit Belle now. Daddy WL watsapp me these pictures and it was my turn to exclaim, "So cuuuuuuuuute!!!" WL said that if Belle wears the dress during any of our outing, he would make sure he let me know so that I could wear the demin dress too.




It is so rare to see Belle smiling like this. Flor could not make it for the brunch that day though she visited the Chan family that night. WL could not help but send this picture to provoke kh. The secret weapon to carry Belle and make her laugh? ELMO!




The hectic week concluded with a lovely brunch with friends, lots of catch up snooze and the start of spring-cleaning for the Chinese New Year.

See all of you during CNY!

Danger when shopping solo

This week whizzed by with 4 to 6 hours of sleep almost every day. There were so much work to do, so much after work commitments to fulfill and there wouldn't be a stay-indoors-and-chill day for this weekend. However, I don't mind not staying in at home this weekend because what it more important than to attend and celebrate friends' wedding and birthday?

The hubby had also been very busy this whole week too due to some important work commitment that required him to be on standby for 24/7 and hence we are both burnt out in what we call our most exhausting week ever.

In between our friend's wedding and his final call of duty today, we had some time to go shopping. When I was shopping with the hubby for 1 hour plus, we wound up not buying anything. Once he left me alone to run his errands, I bought 1 pair of Tory Burch shoes, 1 pair of Lanvin shoes, 2 Affliction T shirts all at a discount.

When the hubby returned, he sighed, "I regret leaving you there."


I bought the shoes from On Peddar. On Pedder is Asia's foremost source of designer footwear, handbags, fine jewelry and fashion accessories.




I'm someone who do not own many shoes like most girls do. I love to look at shoes and admire them well knowing I could not wear them. I have problematic feet and toe nails and could not wear many types of shoes. Ballerina shoes, pumps, all sorts of covered shoes without straps simply slide off my feet even if they are of the right size. The smaller ones would not slip off but they would bite and leave my toes all painful (due to the nature of my toe nails). Hence when I find shoes that fit me without much problem, I would not hesitate to buy them.




My hunt for ballerina shoes that fit my feet ended today when I discovered how comfortable Tory Burch and Lanvin ballerina flats are. They are definitely worth every single cent I paid for and what's more, the Lanvin were on 50% off while the Tory Burch were on 40% off. Guess which 2 pairs I bought in the end?




I bought the Tory Burch and the Lanvin on the left. While the Tory Burch looks a lot prettier with the flower, I must say the Lanvin is more comfortable. It is like walking on cushion with no biting edges.




On Peddar was having a promotion of an additional 10% off total purchase of 2 items and 15% off total purchase for 3 items. I very nearly bought a Stella McCartney bag as it was on 60% off. Can't really see if it is worth it in percentage? It was selling for SGD$832 when its normal price was SGD$2080! A lifelong vegetarian, Stella McCartney does not use any leather or fur in her designs. I'm amazed at how the bag looked so much like it was made of leather.

I did not buy it in the end as even though it was a huge discount, $832 could buy me a lot more. I don't need another bag.

I bought 2 biker rock style T shirts from Affliction too. I really ought to be shopping for Chinese New Year clothes instead! These are so not suitable for CNY.


After being chided by the hubby for the 4739303243409th time for spending (MY OWN) money, we had light dinner at CineCafe and caught Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters. I really love twisted fairy tales and am glad that I knew the original version as a child in order to appreciate and fall in love with the twisted ones. I cannot imagine any child thinking that Hansel and Gretel went round blasting witches' heads and guts and leaving bloody mess everywhere.




On a separate note, my eldest sis watsapp me the new bottles of Absolut Vodka she has added to my bed's headboard from her few trips recently. Absolut Vodka is indeed trying to squeeze collectors dry of their money with all their new collections. We have to find a new place to house all these vodka soon as my headboard is running out of space.




I never knew Bottega Veneta has champagne till my sis bought them. So atas ah? I wonder how the taste of luxury is like.




The days ahead look set to be even busier with CNY approaching and more tasks at work. I only hope I could at least get my 6 hours of sleep every day.

~~~

Thank you all for dropping by and leaving me lovely comments. I would get down to replying them soon