菊花山楂枸杞子茶

Cooling herbal tea to lubricate your lungs and helps to replenish fluid in your body in this horrendous weather.

Chrysanthemum to ward off body heat
Wolfberry for eyesight
Hawthorn to increase appetite

Mix all dry ingredients and boil till fragrant.  Add rock sugar and serve chill

PRIMA REVOLVING RESTAURANT

Chinese New Year is the festive season for feasting and drinking.  During this period when you feast well signify that you will not go hungry for the whole year.

How about dining high and revolve round the sky - Prima Revolving Restaurant which serves delicious Cantonese cuisine and an old legend.

Appetizer bites before the feast

Colorful and bountiful gems waiting for Kingfisher

Melt in the mouth egg whites sharkfins consume with dash of vinegar and soya sauce.

Crispy onion pancakes - Fragrant but salty and oily

Refresh palate with sharksfin broth

Peking duck wraps

"Duck meat fried with beansprouts and celery - meat was too dry

Lettuce wrap for the duck meat

Crispy and tender fish to accompany by sea salt and sweet-hot sauce

Mayonnaise prawns

Broccoli with abalone, sea cucumber and mushroom

Tasty glutinous rice with wax meat but too full to consume much

Refreshing and sweet longan with sea coconut to end the meal

A shot of Sentosa IR night scence

EVERYONE'S BIRTHDAY

Meeting up with friends usually falls on festive season and during the lunar new year.   Usually we will meet up during one of the festive weekends and this year it falls on an auspicious day which is the "Common Man's Birthday", traditionally the 7th day when everyone grows one year older.   It is also the day when most households toss yusheng and make wishes for continued wealth and prosperity.

We went to NUSS club "The Scholar" at Kent Ridge to celebrate.

Tradition Cantonese yusheng

Plentiful salmon fish with enough oil and plum sauce which make the delicious salad

Extra helpings

Braised sharks' fin with dried scallops, crab meat and golden mushroom

Crispy roast chicken with favourite keropok eaten with pink sea salt

Fresh steamed sea bass

Braised shell abalone and dried oysters in beadcurb skin with lettuce

Chilled mango cream with sago

INDULGE

Before subject myself to busy cooking during lunar new year let me indulge in the leisure of shopping and high tea first :

Sumptuous and to-die-for dessert plate of lemon pound cake, lemon bar, lemon sorbet and citrus fruits from the Royal Copenhagen Cafe in Takashimaya.  I like the tangy lemon bar and refreshing sorbet.

BIRTHDAY DINNER

To celebrate one of the children's birthday we had dinner at Crystal Jade Kitchen.  Everyone opted for a 6-course set meal.

Appetizer - Roast duck and sea cucumber

Appetizer - fresh vegetables and scallop

Appetizer - Char siew and fried scallop

Succulent and melt in the mouth char siew and crunchy jellyfish

Deep fried crispy scallop

Double-boil sharkfin in chicken broth

Sharkfin with mushroom and egg white

Abalone with broccoli and sea-cucumber in rich stock

Pan-fried crayfish in chilli and tomato sauce

Fried cod fish and vegetables

Stew pork and spinach

Vermicelli in rich fish broth and fish balls

Seafood mee-sua

Dessert - Hot double boil hashma with red dates and lotus seeds

Almond and avocado jelly with longan

GREENPEA COOKIES

Greenpea cookies is a trend for this lunar new year and everybody is making it.   I am no exception either.   Compare to pineapple tarts it is much much simple and time saving.

HOME-MADE

Took leave to make pineapple tarts.  I prefer to make than buy as home-made ones taste good, not too sweet and with more fillings.

The tarts are bottled and to be given to close friends and relatives

I make the dough without adding egg and it turns out crispy - 350g plain flour, 250g unsalted butter (I used dutch butter although more expensive at $4.50 per 250g), 2 tbsp icing sugar, 20g cornflour, 20g custard powder, ice water to mix in the flour mixture till dough come clean together.

Mould dough into shape

Manual pinch the design.  Place dough in oven for 3 mins and put in pineapple fillings.   Bake till fragrant.

Cool completely before putting into bottles