Today I realised...

I was speaking to my good friend John and Ben today, and I realised certain things about my latest relationship and myself in relationships.

I have already decided long ago the kind of person/lover/friend/partner I will be to the person who I choose to be with. I am an idealist and an optimist, and I will always do my very best to be the best person I can be to my other half.

I have a very clear idea about how I want to live my life and how I want to love my partner, and I will never compromise those values, morals and ethics I hold dear to my very being.

Without these things, I won't ever be the same person everyone knows and loves me for, and even though it may hurt, even though it may be difficult, I will never stop trying and pushing forward in being the kind of lover I envision myself to be.

My friend Alex was right, I need to find back my focus, and start doing things for myself again. No matter what happens, at the end of the day, the most important thing is to be true to myself and to live for myself. Whoever is attracted to me, loves me and wants to be with me, will have to know that they fell in love with those exact things. Without those things, nothing would have happened anyways, so there's no way in hell that I would apologise for being those things.

Just last Saturday, I saw my ex, and it was a terrible terrible moment because I realised that things were no longer going to be the same again. There would be no chance to 'just be friends' or be open to possibilities of what could be in the future. Things were already different and I doubt my ex's mind would change anytime soon. I don't have the time to mope or feel upset, because I have already been doing that for the past two months.

I can only conclude that if my ex wants me back, my ex is going to have to work extra hard to even begin to convince me that it is going to be worth it.

I am not going to sorry about how I love, because no matter how I look at things, I have loved in a way that most people can only dream of. I say this not out of pride, or spite, but of a simple acknowledgement of how I have assessed and reassessed, over and over again, our past few months together. I honestly don't know how I will ever find a connection like ours again, but I just know that things won't ever be the same again.

It saddens me, but there's nothing else left for me to do. I wish things could have been different.

Sorry if I have been incoherent or rambly, but I just needed to type all this out. There's probably more, but I don't really have the words to properly express everything, nor do I want it all out here in full detail.

Farfalle and Prawns & Chocolate Chip Cookies

So today was a crazy food day for some strange reason...

I got the urge to cook the funky pasta I bought from this wholesaler in Tuas earlier this week.

So I got my good friend Ting An over to help me cook a pasta dish. In actuality, he did all the cooking this time... I just watched, and of course, ate, when the food was ready. We made Farfalle with Prawns, which tasted okay with a simple white wine sauce. But somehow, I felt the dish looked a little 'much' with all the colours clashing and trying to vie for attention. This is what I mean:

So after Ting An left, I was surfing one of my favourite websites, TasteSpotting, and was suddenly inspired to bake something. So I set about gathering the ingredients to make meself a nice, hearty batch of Chocolate Chip Cookies!!!

I don't own an electrical mixer at home, so everytime I need to cream butter and sugar, I get quite a solid workout. So after about an hour or so or careful work, I managed to produce a decent batch of cookie dough.

Then came my other dilemma - I didn't have decent baking trays/sheets. So I had to improvise using my oven's baking tray. This proved slightly unwise because the heat distribution was very uneven, and it was too good conductor of heat - resulting in several cookie casualties.

Fortunately, I managed to figure out to work around the temperature in the oven such that my dough stopped burning. I simply lowered the overall temperature of the oven and moved the baking tray higher up, thus avoiding the heat source from the bottom. Needless to say, it's time for me to get proper baking trays/sheets.

Here is the result:

Looks so awesome right? The bottoms are slightly charred, but once I get proper baking equipment, they should turn out fine. I am mighty pleased with myself today.

Yay-ness!

Homemade Chicken Stew

So the weather in Singapore has moved into the 'rainy season', which means showers nearly everyday, and the air being generally chilly. It also means my bitch-of-a-sinus problems are hitting me pretty hard every morning (and every time a frigid breeze passes by me).

So I felt that it was time for one of my all time favourite dishes - CHICKEN STEW!

It's really one of the best recipes ever, because it's just so damn easy. Potatoes, onions, carrots, mushrooms (and any other vegetable that stands up well to extended period of boiling is fair game) and nice, yummy chicken thighs! There are a million variations of this dish you can make, but it's really about making it your own. I mean, you ARE the one whose going to be eating it right?

Here's how I did mine (left to right, starting from the top left and move down the picture):

Steps

1. Peel/dice/slice/chop potatoes, carrots, onions, garlic and mushrooms. Quantity is really up to you to decide.

2. Brown the chicken thighs in olive oil over medium-high heat for about 10 minutes, or until you see that all the surface areas are cooked, and the skin is slightly brown, and you can smell the chicken-y goodness. Remove from the pot.

3. Sautee the onions in the chicken-infused olive oil until translucent and then add the garlic. Sautee until the garlic starts to brown slightly. Remember, don't burn the garlic or it will produce this acrid, bitter taste.

4. Tumble the potatoes and carrots in and 'fold' all the vegetables until they are evenly coated with the oil. 'Stir-fry' them for about 8-10 minutes.

5. Now add a litre of chicken stock (I used Heinz...was to lazy to make my own) and top up with water until the vegetables are just slightly covered. Bring this to a boil.

6. Add the chicken thighs and stir gently. At this point, sprinkle in any herbs and spices of your choice. I used black pepper, white pepper, rosemary and thyme. (There's also a pinch of oregano in it, but that's because I grabbed the wrong bottle.. silly me)

7. Add the sliced mushrooms and stir once more.

8. Finally, slosh in a generous amount of wine (I used red, but you can use white if you prefer) and give it a stir.

9. Let the entire stew boil vigourously for about 10 minutes. Then turn down the heat to a low setting and let it simmer/stew for an hour at least. (Longer stewing time just makes the stew taste even more awesome, so it's up to you. At this point I usually go take a nap or something and awake to a house filled with the smell of chicken stew...mwahahaha)

10. Serve this with your favourite carbohydrate (rice, toasted bread, etc)

I served mine with butter rice balls. Just boil some rice, add a dob of salted butter and mix it in. Then roll into ping-pong sized balls. Do this while the rice is still fairly warm, unless you fancy cold rice balls. For those of you who can't take the heat, well, suck it up... if you want to cook, you better training those hands to get used to higher-than-normal temperatures. =P

Yummy yummy... Om nom nom...

Hope you get to stewin' yourself. Cheers! =)