My packed lunch - udon

Today I woke up at usual time of 6.30am - quickly ate my breakfast, read the Straits Times before starting to prepare the food and stir frying udon with egg, sausages and green leafy veggies. It took me 30 minutes The experiment turned out to be quite successful. Mum was very nice to help me wash up the utensils, so that I won't reach office later than 9am.
I had as lunch after my yoga class @ work. Hopefully, with more practice, I can churn out more yummy food.

Peanut on me and the sofa

I will normally start Peanut's exploration by letting him walk on my hands, then my stomach, legs before putting him on the sofa. He would be sticking his head behind the cushion. After a few minutes, I will put him back into his house as he will get a bit wild :)

My Sunday lunch

When Mum told me she bought portobello mushrooms the day before, my heart was already quite set to have them for lunch on Sunday. I just put pieces of cheddar cheese on top of the mushrooms and baked them. They looked a bit disgusting but with juices oozing out of them, they tasted quite good like mushroom soup.

Chocolate coffee walnut cake

Since I am spending the whole day @ home, I thought I should try a new recipe and bake a cake. I came across the recipe from the baker's blog and the cake looks yummy.

I used 100g of walnuts instead of hazelnut, 200g instead of 250g of brown and white sugar, 250g of dark and milk chocolate and hershey's choc chips. The rest I followed what were required by the recipe and I had to bake for about 1.5 hr.

This is what the cake looks like before baking. And I also sprinkled some cranberries on one side of the cake.

The cake turned out to be quite rich, loose and nutty as described by the baker. It tastes something like brownie but more moist. It's quite nice but it's not something that I'm looking for. I want something lighter. This cake feels so rich that it can give me a heart attack :) I will bring some for my friends @ work to try. I'm also looking forward to my food tasters - my family's review!

Eyesore :(

I don't understand why people can't keep their surroundings and the park clean. If they can walk from their house to this pavilion in the park, why can't they walk the short distance to the rubbish bin, instead of just dumping the unwanted stuff on the ground?

*Shake head* This morning, I found rubbish where I was feeding the cats. Everytime we feed the cats, we will see rubbish (empty beer bottles, plastic bags, sweet wrappers, etc). Mum and I always remove the uneaten food from the ground. It's really disheartening to see how some people treat their environment.

Our beautiful community cats

I feel happy that our community cats are healthy and safe. The encounter with the poor cat yesterday kind of makes me feel a bit sad but I think it was for the best that I called SPCA to pick it up.

They say eyes are like the windows to our souls. I always like to look at the cats in their eyes. Look at Bush. He is the youngest of the lot and is still very playful and wild at times. Bush likes to jump on the stone chair to check out the cat food bag. Here it seems like he was growling at the bag :)

In the past, Fat Cat would be freaked out when I started taking photos of him. This morning, I was surprised that he didn't flee from my camera . Fat Cat looking up at me while eating his breakfast.

White Neck likes to rub his head against our legs and he likes me to give him head and neck messages too. He's very affectionate. Like Bush, after sterilisation and with time, he seems to mellow a bit. Another reason could be that he sees us everyday and knows that we don't harm him and always feed and sayang him. There are some of his napping poses:


Shadow can be quite elusive. She would appear to eat a few times and retreat to somewhere where we can see her but not like the other cats who would eat and hang around the shelter with us and let us pat them. However, whenever we leave the park, she would try to follow us for a short distance.

Some group photos of the cats:

Bush and White Neck just lying around

Fat Cat resting in the bush and Bush staring up Fat Cat's favorite scratching post.

Whenever we left the shelter of the park, Fat Cat would also make his leave and hang around a block near the park and go hiding in the bushes or under a car in the carpark behind the block .

Noisy who lives around the carpark near our block as usual will meow very loudly when he sees or hears us approaching. After eating her food, she would sometimes linger for a short while or go hiding under a car.

Poor cat

After Bam's party ended in the afternoon, one of her friends messaged her that she saw a tortured looking, blind cat @ the void deck downstairs. I then went down and walked around the block but didn't see any cat. When I was about to give up, I looked across to the next block and saw something like a cat lying near the rubbish chute behind a shop. I walked towards it and was shocked to see it in such bad conditions. It hissed a little @ me when I moved nearer to it.

I went back to Bam's place and after some discussion, I called SPCA and understand that I should try to confine the cat before they can come down to pick up the cat. I went to the nearby provision shop to buy some canned cat food and dry cat food. The cat showed no interest in the styrofoam plate of food. I gently used the edge of the plate to nudge its chin but it didn't open its move. I think it was scared of me as it started to very slowly moved away and crouched down again . I thought it was blind until I saw its beautiful green eyes full of discharge . A housefly landed on its back and it didn't attempt to swipe it away. The whole time except when I tested its patience, the cat just crouched in that position. I called SPCA again to tell the lady that the cat just stayed put where it was and looked very sick. She said SPCA would treat this as an emergency case and its driver would come to pick it up. I waited at Bam's place and 30 mins later, I didn't see the cat there and got worried and called SPCA. The lady said the driver was already out and she would call him. 15 mins later, I called again and I was relieved to hear that the cat had been sent to the clinic. However, the lady said she won't be able to disclose the fate of the cat.

I hope the cat is no longer suffering.

Bam's sweetie pie's birthday party

Bam invited friends and me to her daughter's 2nd birthday party yesterday @11.30am. As usual, I made my shepherd pie . Bam's mum cooked her yummy fried bee hoon . Tea eggs and chicken wings by Bam, pasta for the kids (and some adults like me) by Agatha, chicken salad by Flying Raisin. It was a feast of delicious home-cooked food!

Tin Hang, Agatha's son likes to check out my camera :) Bam's girl would happily jump or twirl around sometimes. We are not sure if she knows we are celebrating her birthday (in advance) but she looked like she was having fun, eating and playing.

Bam ordered Cedele Depot's walnut carrot cake. As the icing they did for us didn't come out right, they gave her a plain one and she did her own decoration on top of the cake which I think looks nice.

Sweetie pie looked happy with the birthday gift (block puzzle) I got for her and she had fun opening her other presents. The next time when the adults are cooking at home, she can do her own cooking too :)

Dinner @ Pasta Cafe

I had dinner with the girls, Fion and Lee Choon @ Pasta Cafe on Fri evening. That was my 2nd visit there. The first time was before its new look. I chose this baked chicken pasta with cheese on top and veggies. Not bad.

Genesis

My colleagues and I went down to Lor Telok off Circular Road for lunch @ Genesis, a vegetarian cafe yesterday. We has salad and pan fried dumplings to share. The fried dumpling is good and comes with chilli sauce (similar to chicken rice chilli sauce).

My "tuna" sandwich

is made of mushroom. The others had "bak kut teh", claypot rice, olive rice and japanese rice set.

For drinks, 3 of us had almond rice drink

(a bit like Horlicks with tiny bits of rice in it, tasted malty) while one of them had black sesame drink (a bit like our chinese dessert ZhiMaHu) and another had aloe vera honey lime drink. The colleague who drove us there was quite amused by me taking photos of the food :)

The price is reasonable - $4.50 to $5plus for a main and the drinks are $2.50 each. I only paid about $9.30 for what I ate and drank. Most The food was yummy, not too oily and tasty. I will definitely visit it again.

Apocalyto

I watched Mel Gibson's Apocalyto on Thurs night. it. It was rather violent due to some killing scenes. However, I like the movie for the messages behind it. One of them is that we must remember not to take too much from our environment and to treat others with respect and compassion.

I found 2 websites reviewing this movie:
http://www.beyondchron.org/articles/Reassessing_Mel_Gibson_s_Apocalyto_4074.html
http://movies.monstersandcritics.com/reviews/article_1228862.php

I will read them when I'm free.

The reason to be home for dinner

Yummy home-cooked food prepared by my parents. On Wed, we had fish, my favorite long beans with minced pork and eggy fish ball golden mushroom soup.

Gift from Esther

I met Esther after work to return her the Black Powder War book (the 3rd book of Termeraire series) as her sister is hooked like Esther, my sister and me. She gave me a package in a Christmas gift wrapper. When I opened it @ home, I had a pleasant surprise. It's a kit to get me started on scrapbooking on my community cats. It's so sweet of Esther who said she enjoys reading about the cats in my blog. Thanks again, Esther! :)