Baked Tapioca Cake

Recently I bought a 1 kg packet of peeled tapioca which was vacuum packed from NTUC. Then I recalled that I had a recipe book on cakes and I found the baked tapioca cake recipe in it.

With 500 g of tapioca left, adjustments had to be made to the recipe's ingredients. I did not follow all the steps required but the tapioca cake turned out well.

Ingredients that I used were:

500 g tapioca
110 g white sugar
200 ml coconut cream (I used Kara brand)
1 egg beaten
pinch of salt
30 ml water

Steps:

1. Cut the tapioca into smaller pieces and put inside a food blender to grind them,

2. Combine the grounded tapioca with the coconut cream, white sugar, egg and salt. Mix well.

3. Brush the inside of the baking tray with vegetable oil. Pour the tapioca cake mixture into the baking tray.

4. Put the baking tray into a preheated oven at 200 degree celsius for about 60 minutes or until golden brown.

5. Wait till it had cool down before cutting the cake into smaller pieces

Shrimp Paste Pork Belly on Beancurd

I found this recipe on Youtube and tweaked it slightly. This dish was easy to prepare and not time consuming. 

Ingredients:

Pork belly 150g

Beancurd 1 pack (300g)

Ginger, cut into thin strips

Seasoning:

Sesame oil 1 tsp

Shrimp paste 1 tbsp

Light soy sauce 1/2 tsp

Wine 1 tsp

Sugar 1 tsp

Water 1 tsp

Steps:

1. I used the frozen pork belly bought from NTUC which were meant for Shabu Shabu. As they were already thinly sliced, I only need to cut it into slightely shorter/smaller pieces. After cutting, I put the pork belly in a bowl.

2. I used beancurd that was meant for steaming. I cut the beancurd into smaller pieces and placed it onto a plate that had some depth.

3. I added the ginger strips, sesame oil, shrimp paste, light soy sauce, wine, sugar and water to the pork belly and mixed them.

4. Next, I poured the marinated pork belly onto the beancurd.

5. Then, I placed the dish in my Tefal electric steamer and steamed for 15 minutes.

After 15 minutes, the dish was ready to be consumed. 

This dish was tasty and very appetizing :). 

Last Episode of "The Truth Seekers"

Last night was the last episode of "The Truth Seekers" .

There were quite a number of surprises that were slowly unraveled throughout the last few episodes.

As it turned out, neither Huang Deliang nor Bai Qingxiong was Huang Yuyang's biological father. Wang Kunxing was also not her father. So who was Yuyang's biological father? Drum roll...

It was Ye Rongtao (starring Guo Liang).

How did that happen in the first place?

Yuyang's maternal grandmother worked in a hotel owned by Rongtao's father. Rongtao fancied Xiulian in their younger days and he tried to date Xiulian but was rejected by her.

Huang Deliang, also an employee in the same hotel, promised to help him. He organized a party for all of them and got both Rongtao and Xiulian drunk. Rongtao ended up having a one night stand with Xiulian. Rongtao's father was subsequently blackmailed by Deliang constantly.

Anyway, Xiulian got pregnant and married Huang Deliang as she thought that the child was his. She only knew about the trap set up by Deliang and his friends when Yuyang was 12 years old. She tried to commit suicide but was saved by Wang Kunxing. From then on, Wang Kunxing helped her plan her revenge on Huang Deliang and his accomplice.

Wang Kunxing was resentful towards Xiulian and Qingxiong when Xiulian refused to accept his love after she met Qingxiong recently. He wanted to kill Xiulian and opened fire but Qingxiong shielded her from the bullet. The rest of the CCI members arrived to help Qingxiong and the police came in time to save them.

Related post :

Quote from Episode 13 of《真探》"The Truth Seekers"

“Our Humble Lodge” recipes - Salted Egg Chicken Wings - Toggle

This recipe looked easy to prepare and appetizing.

“Our Humble Lodge” recipes - Salted Egg Chicken Wings - Toggle: From the kitchens of 'Life - Fear Not'

Bird's Nest Soup

I had always thought we needed about 2 to 3 hours to cook bird's nest soup. This seemed to be confirmed from what I had seen from some blogs and websites. Some bird's nest even required cleaning/plucking of feathers, which was time consuming and tedious. 

Recently, I saw from Hock Hua Tonic E-Store that they were having a promotion on some of their bird's nest. Some of the instructions there stated that the bird's nest only needed to be soaked for 1 hour and then cooked for 45 minutes to 1 hours. 

Bird's nest was usually sold by weight. Since it was my first time trying to cook bird's nest, I chose the cheapest bird's nest available at that time as there was not much difference in terms of efficacy. I bought the 特选沙巴洞燕片 Super FS SABAH BCN-White (AA) at a Hock Hua Tonic retail store, which was sold at a special price of $50.00 for every 37.5 g (一两).  I bought about 42 grams, which cost $56. I also further confirmed with the staff on how to prepare the bird's nest. The staff advised me to soak the bird's nest for 1 hour, remove the water that was used to soak the bird's nest and double boil for 45 minutes. 

Their staff usually tell us to cook 1 to 2 piece of bird's nest for 1 person's consumption. This seemed to be a lot in my opinion and would be very thick in consistency. Maybe some people loved to eat bird's nest this way. 

I had previously researched on the optimal quantity of bird's nest to consume every day and found that it should be between 1 to 5 g. Below 1 g, it is ineffective. If we consume more than 5 g, the human body cannot absorb that much and, hence, it would be wasted. I bought six pieces, which weighed 42 g, so one piece was about 7 g. There are four of us in our family, so 7 g divided by 4 persons would be about 1.75 g per person. I think this was good enough for us.

Now that we have the Tefal Electric Steamer, it was very convenient for me to double boil bird's nest. After soaking the bird's nest for 1 hour, I removed the soaking water and put about 1 small bowl of water  to the bird's nest and steamed for 45 minutes.

Dried bird's nest

Cooked bird's nest

After 45 minutes, I added rock sugar to the bird's nest soup and it was ready for consumption. We were satisfied with the consistency. 

Last week, we saw that there was a stall at Causeway Point mall selling freshly double boiled bird's nest. Coincidentally, they also used the Tefal Electric steamer to double boil their bird's nest. :)

[S$50.00]HOCKHUA TONIC OFFICIAL E-STORE|福華官方商城|金牛特级冰糖洞燕配套（两盒）|Golden Cow Special Grade Birdnest with Rock Sugar 1 SET (2 BOX)|Store Pickup Available|

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SG Funpack

We were finally able to collect our SG Funpack last week. We received the dragon playground design tote bag. I was pleasantly surprised that the bag came with a partition inside and a zip on the outside. It should come in useful.

Sera especially loved the Singa figurine.

I used to be able to play the capteh very well when I was in primary school. Now, I can only manage one kick. Sigh. 

Capteh

We haven't tried playing Snap yet. Maybe we will try to play during the National Day weekend. However, I don't really remember how to play this game.

Some other stuff in our SG Funpack.

Thank you to the NDP committee for giving us this SG Funpack.

Fridge Organization

We bought a new refrigerator a few weeks ago. This new refrigerator was smaller than our previous refrigerator so it was a challenge to squeeze in the food, beverages and other items. 

We decided that we needed to do something to optimize the usage of the interior space. We didn't want to buy those stackable containers to use in the fridge because this would give us more work. We would have to remove food stuff from its original packaging and place them inside the container immediately after coming back from grocery shopping. We have to wash the containers before and after every use which takes more effort on our part. Furthermore, we preferred to leave the beverages, sauces and other items in their original packaging to prevent contamination and spoilage. 

For the lower part of the fridge, we thought we could get a drawer box, a rack or a metal partition/panel (to have another slot to put things) to fully utilize the vertical space. We did not find a suitable drawer for this purpose. Similarly, we could not find the right size for the metal partition/panel at Daiso. So, we settled for the small metal rack (green) sold at Daiso and bought another plastic basket. The basket worked somewhat like a drawer as we only needed to pull it out to take the item on the innermost corner of the basket. We no longer need to take out everything from that shelf just to get the item. This worked quite well, leaving the other half of the shelf space for tall bottles. We could also place some small items on the metal rack. 

On another shelf, I used another plastic basket that I already had to put packets of chrysanthemum, curry powder etc. as the packets were not stackable. This freed up at least half the space previously used. The extra space could be used to defrost meat and put other items.

Basket with packets of food stuff in it on the right

Another shelf with a tray

As mentioned in my post on Hitachi Refrigerator R-H350P4MS on Anne's Product Reviews Blog, it was a bit cumbersome to take ice cubes out from the freezer as we had to take the twist ice maker out before we could take the ice cubes from the transparent ice tray. To solve this problem, we bought another metal rack (white) with a shorter width from Daiso. So now, we could take out the ice cubes more easily.

You could see from the picture above that I had used another ice tray to put packets of frozen food. I used this instead of a plastic basket as I was concerned that the plastic might not be able to withstand the cold air in the freezer and might crack. So I thought using the ice tray was the safest way since it was meant to be put in a freezer in the first place.


Related post:

Hitachi Refrigerator R-H350P4MS (Anne's Product Reviews Blog)

《法证先锋III》（"Forensic Heroes III"）

I was looking forward to watch 《法证先锋III》（"Forensic Heroes III") ever since I knew MediaCorp's Channel U would be broadcasting it. This TV drama serial was the third instalment of the "Forensic Heroes" series but with totally different actors and actresses. 《法证先锋III》（"Forensic Heroes III")  debuted on MediaCorp's Channel U on 16 Jun 2015, at 10 pm.

This new sequel did not disappoint me. It was very interesting and amazing to see how the police and its Forensic Science/Pathology Division made use of the knowledge of science and technology to solve crimes. In the first three episodes, the forensic division gathered the evidence and other small details to re-enact the crime scene. They even used reverse ballistic construction to deduce that the bride who was murdered in the restaurant was not the target of the murderer. The person whom the murderer wanted to kill was actually the bridegroom. From then on, they could focus on finding the person who hated the bridegroom so much that he would want to kill him (the bridegroom).

In the fourth and fifth episode, the forensic division deduced that the murderer of a rich businessman Guo Fuhua should be having some skin problems after the murder because the murderer came into contact with some organism when he killed Guo Fuhua. Coupled with other evidences and technology, they managed to find the killer and the mastermind.

Looking forward to further episodes.

Quotes from Episode 2 of 《长辈甜心》 ("Super Senior")

《长辈甜心》 "Super Senior" is a MediaCorp TV drama serial that started airing on Channel 8 on 18 Jun 2015, at 9 pm.

Below were some interesting lines said by Dong Guanghui 董光辉 (starring Henry Thia 程旭辉, best known as 辉哥）during his conversation with his son, Dong Haoyuan 董浩元 (starring Aloysius Pang 冯伟衷)

董光辉:  “你老爸虽然只是谈过一次恋爱，但是，我有恋爱的秘笈, 你要不要？我pass给你啊。” (Your dad may only have had one relationship but I know the secret to love. Want to know the secret? I'll pass it down to you. )

董浩元: “什么秘笈? ”（Let's hear it.）

董光辉:  “其实很简单的。你制造一个意外惊喜，给她惊喜到死，然后就浪漫到死。再不然，就肉麻到死。总之，你要弄到她要生要死，她就会对你死心蹋地.” (It's really simple. Give her a surprise that will sweep her off her feet. Then romance her with something corny. Get her to become obsessed with you. Then she'll never leave you.)

These lines coming out from the mouth of 辉哥 were even more entertaining and made us laugh. :)

NDP 2015 Exhibition and Marina Square Shopping Mall

Singapore is celebrating its 50th year since independence this year. There are various activities for our community to take part to mark Singapore's Golden Jubilee. One of them is the NDP 2015 exhibition held at Marina Square Central Atrium, from 5 June to 14 June 2015. 

Last weekend, we brought our two kids to the NDP 2015 Exhibition. The Exhibition showcased the eight chapters of our NDP 2015. We were given a "Progress Card" upon entering the exhibition area.  It was not necessary to visit each booth in sequence. As long as we visited all the booths, we could get a goodie bag from the Majulah Singapura booth and take part in a lucky draw to win NDP tickets and other attractive prizes.

The designers of the NDP Totebag and the totebags

Sera posed in an SAF no. 1 Uniform

Photo taken with Captain Green

As we went during the weekends, there were some live performance in the evening.

After getting our souvenirs, we lingered around Marina Square Shopping Mall. We found this big retro TV and took some fun photographs.

Can you spot the little red dot inside the TV? This little red dot was something we bought at the NDP 2015 exhibition and was supposed to be put outside the car. The sales proceeds would go to 4 charity organizations. 

Was that a flying penguin on the right?

Egg Tarts Recipe

It had been a long time since I last made egg tarts so I decided to make some egg tarts on the last Saturday of the school holidays in March. 

I liked to keep things simple so I used a recipe that did not require many ingredients. We did not like our egg tarts to be too sweet so the amount of sugar and icing sugar used were less than that stated in the original recipe. So if you like sweeter egg tarts, you can add more sugar. I also increased the amount of flour used for the butter pastry.

The ingredients I used for the butter pastry were:

280 g salted butter
450 plain flour
1 egg
80 g icing sugar

The ingredients I used for the egg tart filling were:
300 ml water
100 g sugar
4 eggs
80 ml full cream evaporated milk

Steps to prepare the dough:

1. Pre-heat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius.

2. Mix butter, flour and icing sugar together in a bowl.

3. Add an egg.

4. Knead it into a dough. Refrigerate the dough for 20 min or until it is in a workable state.

Butter pastry dough

While waiting for the dough to be ready, we can work on the egg tart filling. 

Steps to prepare the egg tart filling:

1. Pour 100 g of sugar into 300 ml of water. Stir until all the sugar has dissolved.

2. Add milk and eggs to the mixture above. Beat and mix well.

3. Sieve the mixture two times to get a smooth egg filling.

Egg filling after sieving

Steps to prepare the egg tarts:

1. When the dough is ready to be used, take it out from the refrigerator. Knead it again. 

2. Take a small ball of the dough and press it into an pastry mould gently using your two thumbs. Repeat the process until all the dough is used.

3. Pour the egg filling into the pastry mould with the dough in it.

4. Bake the egg tarts in the oven at 200 degree Celsius for 15 to 20 minutes. The egg filling should still be wobbly when done. The egg tarts are ready if a toothpick can stand upright when poked into the filling.

Sera volunteered to help me make the egg tarts and she really enjoyed kneading the dough and putting it into the pastry mould. Towards the end, she also helped to pour the egg filling into the pastry mould.

Unbaked egg tarts in pastry mould on a tray

Baked egg tarts

We made a total of 30 egg tarts with diameters of about 8 cm each.

Eczema Balm

Sera had eczema on her left inner elbow. She didn't like the smell of the eczema cream I bought from a retail store so she refused to use it after applying 2 to 3 times. Normal moisturizer only helped to relieve the itch temporarily and was not able to clear the eczema rashes.

I happened to see this Theo10® Skin balm sold online and read many positive reviews about it. It could also help with minor cuts, burns, insect bites and nasal congestion. Since it could also be used for other purposes (in case Sera refused to use it), Ardon and I decided to give it a try. It was not expensive and was manufactured in Singapore. 

After about 3 applications, we saw an improvement on her inner elbow. Rashes started to clear and her skin felt smoother. According to Sera, the balm did help to soothe or numb the itchiness.

1st day after application

3rd day after application

The downside was this balm had a very strong peppermint smell. However, it was the premium peppermint essence that helped to numb the area to stop the itch. Fortunately Sera didn't mind the smell and was willing to use it. Her only concern was that Lynn could not stand the smell. So considerate!

• Qoo10 - ♣ All-Natural Eczema balm ♣ Moisturizing first-aid-balm♣ Help blocked... : Sports Equipment

Cast of 《信约：我们的家园》 "The Journey: Our Homeland"

"The Journey: Our Homeland" is the finale of the trilogy “The Journey”. It depicts the development of Singapore from 1966 to her era of prosperity in the 1980s. Click here for more information.

Actress Jeanette Aw would be reprising her role as Hong Muihui. Click here for more information on this. 

Rui En will play Yang Meixue, a straight-talking nurse who becomes good friends with Hong Minghui, a matron at Kandang Kerbau (KK) Hospital. Zhang Zhenhuan will play the character, Yan Yisheng - Yang Meixue's boyfriend. 

Shaun Chen, Andie Chen and Felicia Chin would be reprising their roles as a Zhang Jia, Hong Dangyong and Zhang Min respectively.

Romeo Tan will play dual roles as Hong Kuan and Zhang Yan (Hong Kuan's biological father). Hong Kuan is the first son of Zhang Min and the stepson of Hong Dangyong. Jeffrey Xu will play the role of Hong Rui, the second son of Zhang Min.

The Journey: Our Homeland also stars Rebecca Lim, Ian Fang, Julie Tan, Cheryl Wee and Shane Pow. Rebecca Lim will take on the role of Wan Fei Fei, who grew up in a poor family with her three siblings Wan Zi Cong (starring Ian Fang), Wan Zi Hua (starring Shane Pow) and Wan Fang Fang (starring Cheryl Wee). Julie Tan plays a tomboyish character named Yao Jia Hui. 

Click here for the other members of the cast of the drama serial.

The Journey: Our Homeland debuts on 6 July 2015 on weekdays at 9 pm on Channel 8. Looking forward to it.

Related posts:

《信约：我们的家园》 "The Journey: Our Homeland" - The Love Triangle between Zhang Jia, Meixue and Yisheng
Episodes 1 to 10 of 《信约：我们的家园》 "The Journey: Our Homeland"
Episodes 29 and 30 of 《信约：动荡的年代》"The Journey : Tumultuous Times" (Last Two Episodes)
《信约：动荡的年代》"The Journey : Tumultuous Times"
Cast of 《信约：动荡的年代》"The Journey : Tumultuous Times"
Last Episode of 《信约：唐山到南洋》"The Journey: A Voyage"
Episode 30 of 《信约：唐山到南洋》"The Journey: A Voyage"
Quotes from Episode 18 of 《信约：唐山到南洋》"The Journey: A Voyage"

Ebi-fry

A few weeks ago, I found this Ebi-fry in the frozen section of NTUC hypermarket. 

Big prawns are usually quite expensive but the price for this Ebi-fry (already marinated and coated with bread crumbs) was reasonable, so we bought one packet to try out.

Yesterday, I finally took it out from our freezer. There were no instructions on how to cook this. What I did was put some oil in a deep baking tray and coat both sides of the prawns with oil. Then I placed the tray into our convection oven, set the temperature at 220 degree Celsius and heated it for about 20 minutes. I am using our oven as a multi-cooker :p. 

After about 20 minutes, the prawns were cooked but I found them a bit too soft probably due to the oil. So I placed them onto another dry shallow pan and heated it in the oven toaster for another 3 minutes. On taking out the prawns, they were still a bit soft. However, when we ate the prawns, they were okay - crispy on the outside and soft inside. Tasted good too - not too salty and not too bland.

Ebi-fry

Perhaps next time, I should put less oil. They should turn out better after 20 minutes of heating.

《信约：动荡的年代》"The Journey : Tumultuous Times"

The Journey: Tumultuous Times ( 信约：动荡的年代) had started airing on Channel 8, on 24 Nov 2014, every Monday to Friday at 9 pm. We had missed the first 5 episodes of this drama as we were in Gold Coast that week. It took us a while to catch up on all the episodes.

To add on to my previous post on Cast of 《信约：动荡的年代》"The Journey : Tumultuous Times", Shaun Chen played the role of Zhang Jia, the son of Zhang Tianying and Zhang Huiniang. He was subsequently adopted by Hu Weiren (starring Chen Hanwei) and changed his name to Hu Jia.

This drama was great for teaching about Singapore history. It was certainly more interesting and exciting to watch on TV than by just reading about it on books which could be too dry at times. It would be a great start to get kids and even adults to get interested or recall their knowledge about the history of Singapore. The process and efforts put in by our pioneers for Singapore to gain independence were more vivid when the scenes were re-enacted on TV.

In the drama, Zhang Yan (starring Romeo Tan) was protrayed as a villian who was out to get rid of his political opponent- Hong Dangyong (starring Andie Chen) - from the leftists. Hong Dangyong was his childhood friend. Dangyong's girlfriend, Zhang Min (starring Felicia Chin) supported Dangyong and this caused much resentment and jealousy Zhang Yan had for Dangyong. Hu Jia was also always helping Dangyong to get away when Zhang Yan's subordinates were trying to arrest him. It seemed that Dangyong was a very self sacrificing person and was willing to die for a worthy cause; fighting for equality and independence. However, in effect, Dangyong's political party had created much social unrest by instigating workers to go on strike and students to protest. One such example was getting bus drivers to go on strike. This caused other workers to be late for work or not able to report for work at all. This would have a lot of repercussions on society and economy.

Since this TV drama was a historical drama, history could not be changed. So, ultimately, the two parties that Hong Dangyong and Zhang Yan belonged to were destined to fail.

What I am curious about is what will happen to the five main characters - Zhang Yan, Zhang Jia, Hong Dangyong, Hong Minghui and Zhang Min. With four more episodes to go, This is what I am guessing:

1. Zhang Jia will go back to the Zhang family to take over the business since he is the only man not in any political party. Being in the triad involved with many businesses，he had hands-on experience in handling difficult situations. He is also very smart.

2. Zhang Min gets pregnant with Zhang Yan's child (she was duped into getting intimate with him in order to save Dangyong) and Dangyong will marry her even though the child is not his. (After typing this, I checked the sypnosis on Toggle and I think I'm right on this)

3. Zhang Yan either become crazy or die.

4. If Zhang Yan dies, maybe Hong Minghui will marry Zhang Jia.


Related posts:

Episodes 29 and 30 of 《信约：动荡的年代》"The Journey : Tumultuous Times"(Last Two Episodes)
Cast of 《信约：动荡的年代》"The Journey : Tumultuous Times"
Quotes from Episode 18 of 《信约：唐山到南洋》"The Journey: A Voyage"
Episode 30 of 《信约：唐山到南洋》"The Journey: A Voyage"
Last Episode of 《信约：唐山到南洋》"The Journey: A Voyage"

Yam Paste Dessert (Orh Nee) - Alternative Method

We recently found that the NTUC supermarket at Hougang One sold peeled yams in vacuum packs of 500 g. This was definitely better as it can be kept in the fridge for a longer time. It will also be easier for me to slice it into smaller pieces as the skin of the yam was already removed. 

I used these yam to make a yam paste dessert (orh nee) on Sera's birthday since she liked to eat it so much.


Ingredients:

500 g yam (cut into slices)
200 ml of coconut milk (I used the "kara" brand)
150 g of sugar
3 to 4 pandan leaves (optional)
pinch of salt (optional)


Steps:

1. Put the yam slices (with pandan leaves) on a steamer rack and steam for about 30 min until the yam slices turn soft. 

2. Once the yam slices are soft, turn off the fire and mash the yam slices.

3. Add coconut milk, pinch of salt and sugar to the mashed yam. 

Previously, I also added some cooking oil and then put the mixture in a slow cooker to cook it further. It needed a a lot of time to cook to the right consistency. This time round, I steamed the above mixture for another 10 to 15 minutes (took less time). I omitted the cooking oil as I didn't really like the taste of it in the yam paste dessert. I also added a bit of water as I found the mixture to be too dry. 

It was then ready to be served.

Related post:

Yam Paste Dessert (Orh Nee)

Our New Kitchen Door

Our kitchen door could not close properly for more than a year. A few weeks ago, it finally came off its hinge at the bottom when Sera pushed it. Ardon managed to push it to lean against the wall and luckily no one was hurt. By pushing the kitchen door to the side, it obstructed the door of the storeroom and made it quite difficult to take things out of the storeroom. The kitchen door was a wooden bifold door which was quite heavy and already more than 13 years old. So it was about time to get a new one rather than just repair it. 

Old kitchen door 

Hence we began our search for a new door. I was attracted to the eco series from Ministry of Door and contacted them for some information. One of the staff then came to take measurements first and gave me some information about what types of door we could install at the kitchen entrance. Actually I would prefer a sliding door but, due to some design constraints, a sliding door was not feasible. If we really wanted one, we have to install the frame in the living room and it might not look good. The person who took measurements told me I could consider either a bifold door or a swing slide door. He told me the swing slide door that their company used was not from PD door. We can slide the door to any point up to the midpoint (not necessarily at the midpoint) and swing it open, unlike the PD door where we have to slide it to its midpoint before we could swing it open. So we fixed an appointment with Rachael at the  Ministry of Door to visit their showroom (by appointment only) so that we could test the mechanism of the bifold door and the swing slide door to make a better decision.

Rachael explained to us that the swing slide door could actually swing open 180 degrees (same as PD door). However, it does not have the mechanism on top of the frame that holds the two panels of the door together at midpoint that the PD door has (before pushing the door to swing out). I have read some online comments/reviews that the PD door often got stuck. We have also tried the PD door before in some relatives' home and realized that it was not so easy to slide it to the correct/fixed middle position to swing it open. We were glad to have found a better alternative (in our view, as some people may prefer it to slide to the middle fixed position before swinging the door open as it is more stable). We preferred the swing slide door to be able to swing open more easily so that our children will also find it easy to open and close the door. Since we were going to install the door in such a way that it would be swinging towards the kitchen, it did not matter even if we could not close it nicely in the middle position. I preferred something different since we were getting a new door anyway and I was reluctant to use a bifold door again. A normal swing door would require more space to swing open as the kitchen door would be quite wide. A swing slide door would be the best option.

Satisfied with the slide and swing mechanism of the door, we finally opted for it. The brand was SK brand. I had previously tried to look online for reviews on SK swing slide door but could not find anything so I thought it might be a good idea to share with you. The designs were more limited (eco series not used for this swing slide door) when compared with the bifold doors from Ministry of Door but we thought that the mechanism was more important than the designs. We could always decorate the door later if we wanted to. We could mix and match the colours of the acrylic panels used for the door. We chose frosted glass (it was actually made of acrylic) with cream acrylic in the middle. The frame was made of aluminium.

After paying the deposit, the door was ready to be installed about one week later. We had the door installed with the door swinging towards the kitchen and to the right looking from living room. 

View of SK swing slide door from living room

View of door swung open without sliding fully to the middle

View of door swung open with door fully slid to the middle

Top of door frame

Two hinges on the right side of frame

Side view of door

You can see from the last picture above that the door was quite slim. We couldn't swing it open 180 degrees due to space constraints. The sliding feature would be useful to open the door halfway when we wanted to open the storeroom door to get something. We do not need to close the door fully so anyone can still go into the kitchen without too much problem. 

Here is a video of Sera demonstrating how she opened and closed the swing slide door. I told her to open and close it gently and she was able to do so with ease.

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Lean Pork with Preserved Vegetables

I got the idea of cooking this dish from the MediaCorp TV drama serial,  "Spice Up" 《幸福料理》. I thought it was quite easy to prepare so I tried it out two days ago.

I did not follow every step exactly as it was shown by Gao Mingjun  (starring Patrick Lee) in the show. This was what I used.

250g lean pork (frozen pork)

80g preserved Vegetables

Steps:

1. I cut the lean pork into smaller strips. I used the preserved vegetables that were bought from NTUC. No further cutting was needed for this.

2. Then I added some salt, pepper, 1/3 egg white, sesame oil and tapioca flour to the lean pork.

3. I heated up some oil in the wok, added some garlic and stir fried them. 

4. I put in the marinated lean pork, stir fried until they were about 60% to 70% cooked.

5. Then I added the preserved vegetables to the pork and cooked until the pork was tender. 

6. I added some chilli powder to the dish. (original recipe used fresh red chilli). 

This dish turned out quite nicely. The pork was tender and the colour was white instead of the usual light brown. I believed it was the egg white that made the pork tender and white. Lynn almost thought it was chicken meat. The preserved vegetables wasn't as crunchy as Gao Mingjun's dish since I did not soak them and squeeze out the water like what he did. We didn't mind though. So overall, I would think it was an appetising dish. This turned out tender and tasty.

Episode 14 to Episode 20 (Last Episode) of 《祖先保佑》("Blessings")

Meiren had suspected Wenrou of getting a man ( Wensheng, who happened to be Wenrou's cousin) to stage the robbery that caused Wenrou to temporarily lose the use of her legs. However, Wending refused to believe that a nice girl like Wenrou would do such a thing.

Wending initiated a breakup with Meiren so that he could take care of Wenrou who was handicapped. Ouyang Xuan and Meiren's father came up with a plan and made Wending realise that he should be with the one he loved, i.e. Meiren. Wenrou was, of course devastated and decided to up the ante. She got Wensheng to splash acid on Meiren. Luckily he did not succeed. In the end, Wenrou wanted him to set fire to "Xiji". Meiren saw Wensheng walking past her nail shop and followed him to "Xiji". She saw Wenrou and Wensheng inside "Xiji". Wensheng was pouring kerosene inside "Xiji". Meiren told him that she had already called the police. Wensheng scurried off in fear.

After some arguments, Wenrou set "Xiji" on fire accidentally. Meiren tried to help Wenrou even when the fire had already spread but Wenrou pushed her away. Wending managed to get there on time and carried Wenrou out of the fire scene. So both Meiren and Wenrou were saved from the fire.

Wending kept having the nightmare of Daxi, Shuangxi and Alicia disappearing. This dream arose from the conversation he previously had with Alicia (his great-granddaughter). Alicia (the only one who believed that Wending travelled forward in time when he first told her) reminded him that if he were to stay in this era and marry Meiren, then Daxi, Shuangxi and Alicia would not have existed because he did not marry their grandmother/great-grandmother. He then brought up the topic of breaking up with Meiren again. He told her he was actually from the 1940s. Of course Meiren thought he was either bluffing or he was delusional.

Meiren then got Daxi to find out the truth behind Wending's reason for breaking up with her. Daxi and Shuangxi searched Wending's belongings and found an old box with a picture of their father, Mengyong (who had passed away a few episodes earlier) and their grandfather but the face of their grandfather was already torn off the picture. Based on the scar on the hand of their grandfather, they deduced that Wending could indeed be their grandfather. They also recalled that Mengyong had called Wending "Dad", Wending had mentioned a few times that he was their grandfather plus the DNA testing. They found it incredible.

They could not contact Wending. Alicia then mentioned that he could have gone back to the 1940s. She said he came to the present on the night of the Mid-Autumn festival last year, so he had to go back on the Mid-Autumn festival this year and all other conditions must be satisfied. After Meiren went out to look for Wending, Shini went into labour.

In the next scene we saw Wending jumping into the swimming pool where he first arrived in this era (2014). He came out of the pool wondering what had gone wrong. He wore the same clothes at the same place and the same time. Then Meiren came to look for him. At the same time, Daxi was praying to their ancestors at home to bless Shini with a smooth delivery of his nephew. At this point, a mysterious force pulled Wending away and, in the next scene, he was at the river and Xiaomei pulled him out of the water. After some confusion, he realised that he was back in his time (1948). He realized that he was only inside the river for a few minutes but it seemed like a year had passed. He told Xiaomei that he had a "strange dream". He learnt that if he wanted happiness, he should have the courage to pursue his love. Hence, he wanted to marry Xiaomei.

Fast forward to 2014 again.  Wenrou turned up with her boyfriend to congratulate Shuangxi and Shini on the opening of a new branch of "Xiji". Shuangxi and Shini had a son and a daughter (Alicia). Shini was pregnant with a third child. Daxi and Ouyang Xuan were a married couple, and surprise, surprise, Mengyong was still alive (unlike the strange dream that Wending had). There were reporters interviewing Mengyong. Daxi was an award-winning writer who had written many popular novels. Shuangxi was the able assistant of Mengyong who had created many highly popular new flavours. 

Mengyong told the reporters that his father always did things that baffled people. There was one year, whenever it rained, he would stay in the house and not go out. He was afraid that he would be killed by a falling tree. The reporter wondered if Wending could foretell the future. Ouyang Xuan then told the reporters it seemed that he could foretell the future. She mentioned that there was also once when he suddenly wanted to move house. Two days later, the old house caught fire. Wending did these because he learnt from his "strange dream" that he was struck dead by a falling tree on a rainy day at the age of 40. Hence, he would not go out whenever it rained in that particular year so that he would not die young. He moved house so that his wife would not get caught in the fire and hence, would not die too. In preventing his and his wife's early deaths, he was able to pass on his superb pastry making skills to his son and grandchildren. In doing so, "Xiji" was still enjoying a good business and reputation to this day.

Another surprise? Wending and Xiaomei were still alive in their 90s.

Old Wending was at the park and saw Meiren. Meiren was pregnant and her hubby was Yuanbing (her ex-boyfriend in Wending's "strange dream") Then, Xiaomei came to him. Both of them held each other's hands and walked off...

So did Wending just have a dream or did he actually travel forward in time from 1948 to 2014? Did he change history? I supposed it's up to us to decide or figure it out.

I really enjoyed this drama serial. My only dissatisfaction was that there was no mention of what happened to Xiulan, the girl whom Wending was supposed to marry. How did Wending get away with cancelling his marriage plans with Xiulan when his parents were so adamant in wanting him to marry a girl of equal status?

Related post:

Episode 1 to 13 of 《祖先保佑》("Blessings")