It's Christmas!

I love december. It is the month of christmas, my favourite holiday in the year. But one month is simply too short to celebrate this occasion in my opinion so I always celebrate christmas for 2 months. Hence, decorations were put up immediately after halloween!


Festive mood

 

My favourite corner

 

Sitting on top of the fire place



Stockings and reindeer

Snowmen!

The only thing left to be done is a gingerbread house, which I intend to do it with Aiden as our christmas project one week before the actual day. It is my first attempt at a gingerbread house and I'm so excited about it! I have a good template in mind and have also bought back some edible candy decorations from Australia when I went back recently. Stay tuned!

The powerful mind

I was thinking about depression this morning. Not that I'm depressed or what, although I do know a few people who are dealing with different levels of depression personally.

A friend posted this as her status on facebook recently: depression is not a sign of weakness, it is a sign that you have been trying to be strong for too long. Do you agree with this? I used to think that depression will only hit the weak-minded people but now I'm not so sure anymore. Especially after going thru Aiden's first year where he totally brought out the most vulnerable side of me and threw me off my line. I was the last person I thought would ever get depressed. Even my mum used to joke about how I would only make people around me depressed (thanks mum). Now, I am convinced that depression can hit anybody and there can be many reasons why it happens. But even though it may not be a sign of weakness, I don't believe it happens just because you have been trying to be too strong either.

I used to follow a very popular blog that documents her daily life as a mother of 3. Her blog is very inviting and full of positive energy. At one point, it even made me wonder if it was really true that her life is only flooded with sunshine and rainbows. I stopped reading not because I was jealous or being a sour grape. I just felt that everything she wrote appeared to be too try hard, staged, and well, simply unreal. But recently, I went into her site just to check (and I had nothing else to read on the internet) and read a post where she came clean about how she actually has been suffering from depression (varying degrees at different times) for the past 5 years! Was I surprised? Not really. but I do give her credit for confessing. What I am now wondering is, all the great, beautiful, positive stuff that she has been writing about on her blog, are they written as a cover for the negative feelings she has inside her? Is she doing this as a form of self-therapy? Did she feel the need to write about only the good stuff so that she could remind herself that life is beautiful?

Don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to determine if she is right or wrong. There isn't even one in the first place. Everyone deals with their problems differently. But what I do know is, our mind is a very powerful tool. Whenever I feel down, I go in search of the resilient heart inside me. When I find it, I calm down to re-focus. I follow a path and seek my way out. If you are in some kind of depression, you lose your way. That was what happened to me in that first year of motherhood. I was lost for the very first time in my life. When you are lost, you fear. When you fear, you frantic. When you frantic, you start to spin. And that is when all negative emotions set in. If you keep holding on to the bad feelings and unpleasant experiences, you will never get out of the maze. In the more serious cases, people sink.

Yesterday, I was reading a blog that I came across recently. She is an american with 2 young children, of which one is suffering from down syndrome. She only found out about this when the child was born. It was of course devastating but it seems like she came to terms very quickly. She accepted the fact and now writes this blog where she focuses about enjoying the small things in life. She did admit the fact that she sometimes cries when things happen, she uses her mind to overcome it. In her own words, she wrote "Every time I begin to sink, I remind myself that I am a rockstar. And rockstars know that life is beautiful. Life has challenges. Life teaches you things. And life is all how you look at it."

Will she ever breakdown one day? Has she really accepted and come to terms with the unfortunate situation? Not denying is one thing, but totally accepting and feeling okay about it is another. Is she saying the above becasue she needs to hear it herself? That she has to constantly remind herself that this is how she should look at life. She is not a friend but I do wish her all the best.

I don't what had called for this post. Perhaps it was because I had an accident where my car collided with a bike this morning and felt shitty about it. I'm physically ok but the man on the bike had to be sent to the hospital. Not unconscious or anything. He was hurt on the arm and leg and so couldn't walk. So after I came home, I felt so lousy about the whole incident. I didn't like the fact that this had happened after I have been driving with no bad records for more than 10 years in Singapore and Australia. I wondered if the man is fine. I kept replaying the whole accident in my brain and tried to find an answer to whether or not I was entirely at fault. I kept wondering if I could have been more careful.

And all of a sudden, something reminded me to search for that heart again. The mind is indeed a very powerful thing. I calmed down and let go. Let go of the thoughts and let go for the negative feelings. My heart is no longer heavy and my mind is clearing up. Re-focus. That's what we always have to do in life. Imperfections are what make life beautiful. And most importantly, learn to love yourself.
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Beautiful colours of Fall

In case anyone is wondering, I'm not dead yet. Just been busy preparing for x'mas and getting back into routine after my husband's grandparents left a week ago. And I have another group of guests coming in a week's time which means I have to get the guestroom ready again.

Will update soon. But before I go, here are some recent photos. It's Fall, my favourite season of the year in Japan!

Inner garden, Meiji Jingu Shrine, Tokyo

View from Tokyo Tower

Imperial Palace, Tokyo 

Fallen leaves, Imperial Palace, Tokyo

Red maple leaves

Yamashita Road, Yokohama



A moment to remember

My little 3 year old boy did something that touched my heart and brought a tear to my eyes tonight. And I have to pen it down in this journal so that I will always remember this special moment.

Aiden has been toilet trained for about 6 months but he is still on nappies at night. I have read and heard from many experienced mothers that boys generally take longer than girls to be fully toilet trained - day and night. In fact, many boys still incur "accidents" in bed right up to the age of 10 (omg)! Hence with Aiden, I really haven't been too fussed about training him at night. I figure that he will just do away with night nappies when he is ready, whenever that may be.

Now, the problem started a couple of nights ago. I don't know what the reason is, but his pee has been leaking out of his nappy and wet the bed in the middle of the night. For 3 nights in a row. And it drove me crazy. We do not have a protector for his matteress as we haven't been able to find one in Japan so imagine the work I have to do when he wets his bed at night. The standard operating procedure for wet bed situation is this:

•  All his soft toys have to be cleared from his bed
• the sheets have to be off and washed
• the quilt cover has to be pulled off and washed
• the quilt has to be cleaned and left on the balcony to dry and air
• the dirty patch on the matteress has to be cleaned (a damn hard chore by the way)
• his pyjamas has to be soaked before they can be washed with other laundry
• clean new sheets to be put on again at night before he goes to bed

And it happened 3 days in a row! All of the above chores multiply by 3! Seriously, all I remember doing for the past few days is washing. MANY loads of washing.

So my husband and I decided to tell Aiden that he can no longer pee in his nappy by explaining to him that he is growing up so fast that his nappy can no longer hold the increased quantity of pee. He took it well and was even guilty of the fact that he wet his bed and made a mess.

This morning, my husband woke up and discovered that the toilet door was ajar and the lights were on. Aiden was still asleep in his room so my husband asked if I used the toilet in the middle of the night, which I didn't. So Aiden was the one who used it! We asked his later in the day and he admitted waking up to use the toilet as he needed to pee. We were so proud of him as we really didn't expect a 3 year old to remember waking up from his sleep to use the toilet just becasue we told him to.

But the special moment was tonight. After reading to him and turning off the lights, I asked if he needed to use the toilet. He said he didn't need to and I reminded him to try not to pee in his nappy when he sleep. Then I left him to go downstairs. Our bedrooms are all on 2nd level and Aiden knows his dad and I are still downstairs watching tv while he is alone upstairs trying to sleep. 1/2 hour later, I heard some noise from the child monitor so I went closer to the stairways and heard him opening the door of the toilet, and subsequent flushing followed by some rustling sound which I presume was him pulling up his nappy and pyjamas bottoms. Then he went straight to bed again! When I checked on him just then, he was sleeping soundly and even had himself tucked under the quilt!

Allow me to enjoy this special moment and bask in pride. If you are not a parent, this may not mean anything special to you. But for me, this is a very special milestone. My baby is growing up. And he is really developing into a mature and independent child. And may I remind you that he only turned 3 less than three months ago!

Toddlers are capable of pushing your buttons and can be very defiant. They also tend to develop fears out of nowhere - fear of monsters, fear of the dark, fear of being alone etc. So for what Aiden did yesterday and tonight, I am truly very proud of him. He is a good boy. And I just have to keep reminding myself not to expect too much from him all the time. Afterall, he is only 3.
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What's for dinner?

I know I just did a What's for Dinner post recently but I can't not share this (actually....I just wanna boast about this so indulge me OK).

So like I mentioned in my latest update, I attempted my very first Bouef Bourguignon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beef_bourguignon), Julia Child's version. For those who cannot be bothered clicking on my link to wikipedia on a detailed information, this is basically a beef stewed in red wine in a french way. It is one of the most well known and classic french dish. I love stews, especially in cold winters and I have made my own versions of beef stews many times, occasionally with red wine, and other times just in stock and herbs. But a good friend of mine sent me a dvd of the movie "Julie and Julia" earlier this year as a surprise gift (thanks babe!) and I was so inspired after watching it. Julia Child was an american lady who lived in France in the 1950s as her husband was based there as a diplomat. She was trained at the famous Le Cordon Bleu cooking school and became an expert in french cooking.

I have always been intrigued by french style of cooking and have heard of the famous classic boeuf borguignon before but there was never a motivation to challenge this. So after watching this movie, I was all inspired and raring to give it a go. My sweet hubby then bought me 2 of Julia Child's cookbook - Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume 1 and 2! Boeuf borguignon HAS to be the very first dish that I try. My husband's grandparents are visiting us from Perth and staying at our place at the moment so I made this a couple of nights ago.

Boef borguignon accompanied by 2 side dishes - sauteed onions and mushrooms, and buttered peas. I also prepared some plain rice to go with it as the stew itself is a very intense flavoured dish. And buttered peas are recommended as a preferred side dish.

The star of the dinner. My boeuf borguignon!

The truth is, I have never eaten the dish cooked by Julia Child of course and I don't really know how an authentic boeuf borguignon should be like. I followed the recipe and this just tasted like a really good beef stew. And the flavour is very very intense and unlike any other beef stews that I had made in the past. In fact, I have to say it was the best stew I have ever eaten! But the recipe is not so straightforward and cooking time is long. I doubt I will be making this dish again like an everyday dish.

And the dessert after dinner!

 

I made this berry tart because I saw gorgeous punnets of black berries, raspberries and blueberries at costco the other day. Straightaway the bulb in my head lit up - berry tart! I will not be putting up any recipes today as I doubt anyone is interested anyway.

So the dinner went well. Everyone seemed to love it. Either that or they are just entertaining me by boosting my ego. I'll take any compliments that come my way. I don't care!

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Hyperactive?

I'm talking about me, not my 3 year old!

Yeah.... I suspect I'm suffering from hyperactivity. I can't sit still, I have to keep doing things, and I multi-task really well. I haven't been sleeping alot lately, not that I have slept much in the past anyway. I just happen to be a person who doesn't need alot of sleep to function. Bedtime is usually around 1am and I'm often up around 7.30am as Aiden goes to school several days a week. And when I'm up and running, my days here are often packed with errands, activities, appointments with people and god knows what. Today is one example of a busy busy day in my life here in Japan.

7.45 - 9am
Woke up. Made breakfast for Aiden and prepared his bento (rice, potato fish cakes and salad) for school. Washed dishes and cleaned the kitchen. Got both of us dressed for the day.

9am - 12pm
Dropped the boy at school. Sent clothes to the drycleaners. Went to the local shops. Bought some x'mas giftsfriends, grocery for the next few days and flowers for the grandparents who were arriving back today from Hiroshima.

12pm - 1.45pm
Arrived home. Set up the flowers. Did laundry. Had lunch. Made the crust for a fruit tart that I was planning to bake (I had planned to finish making the tart before leaving the house again but didn't have enough time to do everything).

2pm - 4.15pm
Picked the boy up from school. Hanged out at a friend's place while the kids played.

4.30pm - 5.30pm
Arrived home. Aiden went down for a nap. I continued making my berry tart (crust was cooled and ready by then).

5.30pm - 6.30pm
Started cooking Julia Child's recipe for Boeuf Bourguignon (my first attempt!). It was meant to be for dinner tomorrow night but this dish needs about 4 hours cooking time so I thought I better start today and finish up tomorrow. It was alot of work.

6.30pm - 7pm
Boeuf Bourguignon was cooking in the oven. I cleaned up the kitchen - wiped the stove top, mopped the floor, wash and dried the dishes, checked that my berry tart was setting well in the fridge. Aiden had woken up in the meantime. Let him watch some tv while I went upstairs to tidy up the bathroom and vacuumed the floors.

7pm - 7.30pm
Made dinner (simple dish of pasta) for Aiden and myself. Sat down to eat and talked about the day.

7.30pm - 8pm
Washed the dishes and cleaned up the kitchen again. Vacuumed the floors in living and dining room. Gave Aiden some yoghurt for dessert.

8pm - 10 pm
Decorate our fireplace with x'mas ornaments. Husband arrived home with the grandparents. Caught up with them. Took Boeuf Buorguignon out of the oven.

10pm
Took Aiden to bed. Read him 2 books.

10.30pm onwards
Ate a slice of the berry tart. Took photos (for my next blog post, hehe). Go online (catch up on international news, emails, facebook, update blog, research for our trip to Hiroshima, Osaka in december and Hokkaido in february next year, catch up on my regular blog reads etc).

See what I mean? After a long busy day (most of which I brought it upon myself I know. I didn't have to bake a berry tart and cook a boeuf bourguignon on the same day), I am amazed that I am still bursting with energy. Life has been busy but good. I actually really like it this way. I guess I just enjoy stretching myself like that. A little crazy I know. Perhaps I am really suffering from hyperactivity disorder. Am I too old to get a professional diagnosis??

Oh, and amidst my hectic schedule, I managed to find time to shop. For myself. I picked up a new Longchamp yesterday! See, I always allocate time for shopping. No matter how busy I may be. Muahahaha!!!
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My handsome boys

Photo taken by a professional photographer at my husband's brother's beach wedding in Perth recently.

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What's for dinner?

As a diehard foodie, I love experimenting (and eating of course) different types of cuisine. But on days that I feel lazy, sickly, moody, busy, or simply uninspired to cook, I always turn to my comfort food. I am a Singapore born chinese but my paternal grandparents migrated from Canton in China to Singapore many many years ago. So growing up, dinners were always typically cantonese style soup accompanied by 2 vegetable and meat or fish dishes. And rice of course. Gotta always have white rice.

When I first moved to Australia a couple of years ago, it took me a while to get used to the fact that rice would no longer be my staple food. I also had to learn how to cook as I didn't like the takeaways type of food. Chinese food was the first type of cuisine I tried to pick up simply because it was the most familiar to me. It was my roots. And although I can now cook the more exotic kind of cuisines like thai or indian, chinese food will always be my comfort food. The food that brings me fond memories of growing up.

A couple of nights ago, I felt like eating my good old chicken and mushroom claypot rice - a recipe that was created by my mother. I don't often cook chinese food for dinner because I don't think my husband fancies them that much. But he does like this dish and I cook this every now and then. And sometimes on days that I don't have much stuff in the fridge. The main ingredients are chicken pieces and shitake mushrooms. Super easy.

The picture doesn't really do this justice but believe me, it is a very, very delicious dish. And it doesn't take long to cook at all. But I'm not sharing this recipe today as I can't exactly tell you how much ginger juice to add, or how much chinese cooking wine to use for the marinade. Everything is by estimating and that was how my mother taught me. I have kinda gotten used to that and everytime I cook this dish, the taste turn out to be about right. My mother will be so proud of me :)

Comfort food - the food that brings you fond memories. It may not mean much to you who are living so close to home but to someone like me who is always living so far away from family, cooking a meal like this is very heartwarming. Believe it or not, a lot goes on in my mind whenever I prepare my comfort food. And I often do so with a smile on my face.
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Bento Update: My name is AIDEN

It seems like I haven't done a bento update in a long time. It isn't that I have been lazy, just that my schedule has been rather crazy with all the travels, occasions (Halloween) and preparing for guests arrival. My 3 year old goes to pre-school 3 times a week and I have been letting him have sandwiches in his lunchbox for at least once a week. Not that he is complaining though. He loves it when he gets to take a cheese and ham sandwich to school because that's what most of his good friends have for lunch. Talk about peer pressure!

A couple of days ago, I woke up feeling inspired to make him a good bento for school that day. But I am getting a little sick of all the teddy bear, animals and smiley face bento designs that I have been making so I thought why not try out the brand new set of alphabet cutters that I recently acquired (from a bento haven in Tokyo). I put on my quick thinking cap and came up with this idea:

A personalised bento!

Aiden has just learnt to spell his name (he knows how to identify his name for a long time but spelling it is only recently) and I thought this can reinforce it. Besides, playing with letters is always fun and this bento is a refreshing change from the usual ones that I have been doing. Don't you think so?

It didn't take me long to prepare this bento. The rice was cooked the night before and was warmed up that morning. I always prepare these meat patties in a big batch and freeze them in portions. I took 2 of these out of the freezer the night before to thaw and they were ready to be cooked that morning while the rice was being warmed up. So the total time I took to prepare this bento from warming up the rice, cooking the meat and assembling them was really just about 25 minutes.

The letters were cut from a piece of cheddar cheese and I had originally placed them on the rice before realising that they couldn't stick well. So I cut some nori in the shape of the letters and stuck the cheese letters on before sticking them onto the rice. Nori sticks well with rice and cheddar so the whole rice ball can hold together well. I think this idea turn out great as the colour of the nori served as a border framing the letters and making them pop. A little 3D effect!

My husband's grandparents are in town and staying with us at the moment. I showed them the bento and they were very impressed as they have never seen any lunchbox like this before. It was the talk of the day!
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My anyhow berry crumble

I love to bake but I have never actually made a crumble dessert before. I guess it is because everyone talks about how simple they are to make so it was never on my to-bake list. But my husband's grandparents are visiting us from Australia and I know they love a good crumble so I went on a hunt for a good recipe.

Now, when it comes to baking recipes, I find myself relying on Nigella heavily. She is not a trained chef but from my experience, she does have very straightforward recipes that usually deliver good results. I found a berry crumble recipe from her cookbook, Nigella Express, and went on a berry crumble making trial one night. I made the dessert in 2 ramekins, one for my husband and one for myself.

The verdict? Quite a disaster I have to say. In fact, even my husband who normally can't even tell if a cake is under or overcooked said it tasted like green tea (I believe he was trying to be tactful and green tea was the best description he could use). I was disappointed. I make tiramisu, and I bake fancy cheesecakes. How hard can a berry crumble be? Seriously?!

I went online and googled for lots of crumble recipes. And I flipped thru all my cookbooks again. In the end, I decided to make another berry crumble that same night (yes, that is how crazy I can be when it comes to cooking and baking). But this time I was going with my instincts and decided to not follow any recipe.

The result:

It was heavenly. Okay that may sound like I am boasting but really, it was a good berry cumble. I forgot to take a picture before my husband started gobbling it down so this is a half eaten crumble. I would have served it with vanilla ice-cream on top but I wanted to taste the crumble and the berries to make sure that they did turn out the way I had hoped for.

So here's my Anyhow Crumble Recipe:

Topping (I did not make much changes to the original recipe from Nigella)

100g plain flour

50g cold unsalted butter cut into cubes

1/2 tsp baking powder

3 tbs soft brown sugar

- Rub the butter into the flour and baking powder with your fingers until the mixture resembles coarse sand.

- Mix in the brown sugar.

- Put the mixture into a ziplock bag and put it in the freezer.

Note: Always keep a bag of such crumble topping in the freezer so that you can put together a berry crumble dessert easily.

Berry Crumble

- Put a good amount of mixed frozen berries in a ramekin (about 3/4 full).

- Sprinkle a good amount of icing sugar to coat the berries (you do need a quite a bit of sugar here as berries are usually tart and you would want the berry crumble to come out sweet rather than sharp).

- Put crumble topping to fully cover the sugar coated berries

- Put the berry crumble in the preheated oven (at 200 deg C) for 15 min. The dessert is ready when the crumble topping turns golden brown.

- Serve warm and topped with vanilla ice-cream.

This is a really fuss free dessert that can be whipped up within minutes. The crumble topping can be made in a big batch and kept in the freezer so anytime you want to have a berry crumble, it will only take you literally 5 minutes to assemble the topping and frozen berries together and just 15 minutes to bake. You don't even need to be an experienced baker to make this delicious dessert. Anyone can do it! I made this for a friend who was hanging out at my place the other day and she asked for the recipe. It must have been gooood.

And the lesson I learnt from this crumble making episode?

Sometimes I just have to trust my instincts and believe in myself. :)