Chicken Pie

Today I tried to make some chicken pies. Got the pastry recipe from http://www.recipezaar.com/18103.

1 nine inch pie crust (change servings and units)
Change to: nine inch pie crust US Metric
Ingredients
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (I used 6 cups of flour)
2 tablespoons sugar (didn't use)
1 teaspoon salt (4 teaspoon)
1/2 cup oil (250gm butter)
2 tablespoons milk, cold (6 tablespoons)
Directions
1. Sift flour, sugar and salt into a 9" pie plate.
2. In a 1 cup measuring cup, whisk together oil and milk and pour over the flour mixture.
3. Using a fork, mix until completely dampened.
4. Press the dough evenly over the bottom of the pan, then up the sides and over the rim.
5. To use as a baked shell, prick the surface of the dough with a fork several times and bake in a preheated 425* oven for 12-15 minutes; cool and fill as desired.
6. To use as an unbaked shell, just fill with the desired pie filling and bake according to the filling directions.
7. NOTES: If you want to use the crust for beef pot pies or with any other savory filling, just eliminate the 2 tablespoons sugar.

Ingredients for pie:

1 stalk celery, chopped

1/2 carrot, cubes small

1 medium size onion

2 potato

1 chicken breast meat, cube

some butter

handful of mushrooms, sliced

1/2 can of wild mushroom soup

1/2 pack of sauce (for ikea's meatballs) add milk and water

Stir fry onion in butter, then add mushroom,, carrots, celery. Then add chicken breast meat. Add sauce and mushroom soup. Simmer and add potato. Simmer till done. Set aside to cool.

Verdict on these pies: I find the crust a bit too thick and hard. Perhaps added too much milk. But as I need to make it into dough instead of just crumbs, i added the milk.

Friends.

When I was younger, I envisaged having a place and asking friends over to enjoy a nice dinner and a drink over the weekends. Hai, it never happened at all. Having children and tending to them, making sure they do their work already exhaust me those 5 days of the week. Come Saturday and Sunday, I would only want to sleep late and laze around. Where to find the energy to organise party in the evening? On top of that, friends started to have their own family and visiting in laws in the weekends or shopping trips or outings with their children or tuition during the weekend.

Over time, I lost touched with my friends. I married earlier and have children earlier than most of my friends. When they are still working and partying, I was grounded at home changing diapers and singing nursery rhymes to my children. When my children are big enough for me to be out, my friends are stranded themselves with babies. Thus, the distance and eventually lost of friends.

You can say my world revolves around my family. Nothing else, totally boring. If my family is broken, I might become broken as well. Who cares about me? Who think of me? Who loves me? I think I already know the answer. But I have to be strong, I can still go out to make new friends. Do you know that a person could still be lonely with thousands of friends around? Do you know that some could be at peace with only a friend?

Friends can not fill the void just because they are physically there. Yet, friends are needed everywhere. Are you friend to ur closest one? Or merely there physically for appearance sake?

LOL, my closest friend is Belladonna, she is with me most of the time, I am so glad I bought her even though she cost me S$1500. She is my best friend now.

Yellow butter cake recipe

Got this recipe from http://www.grouprecipes.com/22479/yellow-butter-cake.html.

Ingredients
1 1/2 C butter (room temp) no margarine I used 250gm of butter
2 1/2 C granulated sugar ( I like to use raw sugar in this one) I used 2 cups of sugar
5 eggs
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
3 C all purpose flour (for a lighter cake, use 2 C flour and 1 1/4 C cake flour)
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 C milkDirections
In mixer, cream butter and sugar on high speed until light and fluffy.
In seperate bowl, wisk together flour, salt, and baking powder.
Set aside.
On medium speed, add eggs, one at a time, to the butter mixture,
making sure each egg is mixed in before adding the next.
Scrape down the sides and bottom of bowl and mix again.
Mix in vanilla, or any other flavoring you want (almond, orange, lemon, rose water).
Add flour mixture and milk to the wet ingredients, alternating the two, starting with the flour. (1/3 flour, then 1/3 milk...etc.)
Scrape sides and bottom of bowl again and give it another quick mix.
Pour into your greased and floured pans.
Bake at 350 for about 35 minutes, until the middle is firm, the top is golden, and the sides pull slightly away from the pan. A toothpick should come out clean (about 160 degrees in the middle). I baked at 180 degrees celsius in my oven for 35 minutes.
This makes about 7 1/2 C batter, which will fill two 8 inch rounds or one 6 inch and one 9 inch. This would fill one big rectangle.
When the cakes are finished, let them sit in the pans for a couple of minutes, and then turn them out onto wire racks to cool. Be sure to use cardboard or another wire rack to flip the cakes over. If you try to pick this up while its warm, it will break. I like to turn my cakes out onto a cake board and then turn it onto the wire rack so that the top side of the cake is up. Spray your wire racks with non stick spray so that you can easily move the cakes when they are cooled.
When you grease your cake pans, be sure never to grease with butter. Butter burns. Always use shortening. I like to use non hydrogenated shortening and the baking sprays with flour in them are wonderful and fast!. My cakes never stick when I use the sprays.


verdict for this cake: YUmmilicious

3 mobile phones all in a day.

Wah! Never in my life to get 3 all in a day. 1, Samsung Soul U900 was bought 4 days ago by my sister who passed it to me today. Then, we went to a PC show at Suntec city and bought one more, Nokia 6500 slide, recontracting my hubby line. This mobile is to be given to my daughter. Using a $50 rebate voucher. When doing payment, we got a surprise when we were told to choose either another phone, Nokia 1208 or a $50Robinson voucher. We chose the formal. Thus, today, we got 3 mobiles in a row.

Now to source for prepaid cards, as both my daughters will be carrying a mobile phone each.
My eldest using my old phone. Nokia 1208 will be giving to my mum as it's really a very basic phone.

14/6/2008, Saturday

Saying it through writing

Some people are so good expressing their thoughts verbally, some just could write them down. I think I am the latter. Most of the time, trying to verbalise what I felt in front of the person makes me tongue tight. Some people are so good at extorting presents from others by being very subtle. Before one knows it, the idea already registered in ones mind to get for them. Those are really good. So what kind are you? Could you articulate your feelings well?

Wrong date and timing for the past posts

My time and date is 11.30am, 12 June 2008, Thursday. This date 12 June, reminds me of my dead cousin's birthday. He was so young and handsome, yet, he committed suicide, jumped from his bedroom's window. All must die, but just how many years we get to live. Some like it short, some like it long. When the society is harsh, a weak mind can't handles the pressure. Though they appear weak, they are so strong to take their own life. This astounds me more. Usually, when I face pressure around me, I would just grind me teeth and tell myself to pull it through. It is our determine mind that is resilience. As we age, we need to die cause our body deteriotes every second. Even if our mind is resilience, it could probably give us a few more years. Nothing could stop our body from deterioting.

Virtues

My daughter is back from Japan Home stay programme. For 11 days, she was away from us. She made it without any hiccups. Extremely wonderful.

Well, what made me extremely pleased with her was her thoughts and actions. She may be young of age 11years old, but she carry herself with grace already. It was thoughtful of her to think of a walking stick for her grandpa. She got almost everyone something. That includes her granny, her aunties, her sister, her daddy and myself. That's not all, she had something for some of her friends in school as well. With all these actions, one can see that she thinks of everyone even when she is enjoying herself.

She even sacrifice her soft toy to the host family's 6 mths old baby girl when she realised she has no time to get one for her.

All these are virtues she accumulates for herself, which makes me very pleased to know as a mother.

Virtue, is it inborn or learned?
Good virtues brings good karma. I hope she has a very bright future.
Opportunities avast, but one must grab them to assist themselves in achieving their life long goals.