Iced Coffee

Ingredients:
Vanilla Escence
Vanilla Sugar
Instant Coffee powder (black)
Milk
Ice


spoon 2 teaspoons sugar, dash of vanilla, and 2 teaspoons of coffee powder in a mug.
add 1/4 mug of hot water
add cold milk.
pour over a glass of ice.
serve quick!

best taken on a warm weekday afternoon with lots of work to do. Refreshing and caffeinated!

Bruschettatatatatatata~~

this is from a night with super random cravings for tomatoes and bread. den i remembered one of all time favourite appetisers. Bruschettas! really simple and delicious!

ingredients:

tomatoes

oregano

salt & pepper

olive oil

chopped garlic

bruschetta bread (or baguette or wadeva u prefer)

1.dice up the tomatoes as chunky as u want.

2. put them in a bowl and add chopped garlic, oregano salt and black pepper. drizzle a little olive oil. mix well.

3. toast the bread till lightly brown at the sides. personally i use a frying pan turn up to high. and let the bread sit on it till its crispy on one side, flip it over, heat up the other side.

4. spoon tomato dressing over bread, sprinkle with more oregano, pepper and salt to taste.

when i'm really hungry and lazy to cook. go to ur supermarket and buy 1/4 of a roasted ready chicken. shred the bird and just sprinkle the tender meat all over ur bread. AWESOME!!!

Baked fish with cream sauce

I tried this the first time, and it was awesome. 2nd time was a little under cooked. 3rd time felt a bit flakey. so this recipe is still a little raw =)

this was inspired by a recipe i found online, but i didn't have all the ingredients. improv is the way!

http://www.cooks.com/rec/view/0,1826,150184-237200,00.html

ingredients:

1 tablespoon fresh chopped parsley

chopped celery

2 large onions

salt

pepper

butter

powdered sage

oats

cheddar

fish fillet ( i used barramundi )

mushrooms

buttor

flour

salt

pepper

milk

heat over to 250 deg.

in a pan. melt butter, add celery, onion and saute till tender.

remove from heat. stir in parsley, sage, oats and cheese.

season raw fillet with salt and peper. lay fish in greased baking pan/tray.

spoon dressing over the fish.

in another saucer. melt 2 tablespoons of butter.

add mushrooms cook until lightly brown.

blend in flour, salt and pepper.

gradually add milk till it thickens.

pour over fish in pan.

sprinkle top with shredded cheddar.

bake until fish is tender or when cheddar is browned!

mini Lavender pancakes with blueberry sauce

Everything should be made from scratch! Where's the fun if u just go out and buy the pancake mix?

this was inspired by the lavender farm in Tasmania!.. here's a pic of the original!

honestly the lavender ice cream is abit weird.. to eat. i'll make do without it!

ingredients:

plain flour (and/or with buckwheat flour)

bi-carb soda

1-2 eggs

milk

salt

vanilla sugar

culinary lavender

blueberries

and lots of exercise after this!

mix 1 1/2 cup of flour, 3/4 teaspoon bicarb-soda, eggs, 1/2 cup of milk, dash of salt, 3-4 teaspoons of sugar and 1/2

teaspoon of lavender in a bowl.

Whisk till u get ur smooth sticky pancake batter.

over a medium-low heat. use a tablespoon to place batter on a frying pan... when u see bubbles, it's time to flip it over!

do that for the entire bowl of batter.

sauce:

cook a handful of blueberries in a saucer until blue berries are tender.

add 1/4 cup of water and squash some of the blueberries.

add 8 heaped teaspoons of sugar

stir.

and stir.

and stir.

drizzle over mini lavender pancakes.

awesome!

here's a pic of the normal mini pancakes without blueberry sauce and lavender. eat with traditional maple and butter!

beef & mushroom Fetuccine Bolognaise

Bolognaise is the only form of pasta that cooks the noodles separate from the sauce. I think. Well at least that's how I do my bolognaise.

For this base sauce i normally use canned diced tomatos and use the other ingredients to flavour my sauce. but for convenience sake, i'm just gonna use Dolmio's pasta sauce (any tomato base kind).

Ingredients:

5 star grade minced beef

1/2 diced large onion

sliced cup mushrooms

shredded cheddar

salt

fetuccine

olive oil

canola oil (optional)

Cook fetuccine until Al dente

(for u newbies out there, that means it's still firm when bitten not soggy and soft)

drain hot water, toss pasta until dry.

add a little olive oil so they don't stick to each other.

over a medium heat, cook diced onions until soft.

Add mushrooms.

Add minced beef.

When beef is 75% cooked. (mostly grey in colour with little red parts, over cooked beef is horrible to chew)

add pasta sauce.

cook to a boil. stir and serve on top of fetuccine.

simple!

Marinated BBQ pork ribs

one of my favourite recipes. and so easy to do. picked it up from my mum who received the recipe through a friend in the United States 10 years ago. I can't believe i still remember it.

Ingredients:

Mixed herbs (oregano, thyme, parsley, rosemary)

Paparika powder

Tumeric Powder

Salt & Pepper

Soya Sauce (optional)

pork spare ribs 6 pieces

defrost spare ribs (ofcoz)

pour mixed herbs over ribs until amost full covered on both sides

sprinkle paprika and tumeric on both sides (not too much, because this gives a acquired flavour)

season with salt & pepper

dash of soya sauce

Marinate for 1/2 - 1 day

BBQ on grill (or roast on roasting rack in the oven at 250 deg) for 10mins, flip over and cook for another 10 mins.

serve with bbq sauce, sweet chilli sauce.

Since no one visits.. this blog is not going to waste!

I'm going to upload recipes up here! in the simplest way possible ofcoz.

almost a daily food journal of how i made my meals in melbourne.. yeah. so maybe 5 years down the road and i suddenly have the craving for 'the baked fish that i cooked at hans place' i can flip back to this blog. and 're-live' my foodie experiences!

ok for today. i'm going to be doing 1 desserts, 3 full meals and a nice drink.

first things first:

THE VANILLA ESCENCE (home-made)

this is important... one of the easiest things you can do for yourself in your free time.

ingredients:

2 vanilla beans

1 bottle of brandy or vodka

method:

slice along vanilla beans to expose inside beans

drown both sliced vanilla beans in a bottle of brandy.

leave to ferment for at least 2 months for best flavour without opening.

you could use used vanilla beans to flavour brown sugar to get vanilla sugar as well. I use it all the time in making drinks and desserts. works wunderbar!

NDP from Melbourne!! Trailer only...

GREAT BARRIER REEF

Started something new!

Is this the new way of teaching? Public tutoring, yet with a touch of privacy? Coaching with a dab of freedom?

Well, this idea of mine recently sparked off a new interest in me. Teaching on the internet through blogs. I think it's quite fun. and it's a OTOT way of doing things.

The student is a working adult. She has a full time job and a daughter to take care of when she comes to work. She requested some sort of English tuition. I feel I don't have the experience nor the calibre to conduct 'tuition lessons' so I suggested blogging instead.

Created a private blog and i started to post questions and encourage the student to blog. At least through blogging I can correct her mistakes and maybe through time she can get the hang of proper grammer and get rid of that chinese-translate-to-english sentence phrases..

oh well. it's a private blog. so no Peeking!

Mell week

No that has no relation to hell wee.. it's like melbourne-week. haha. ...

For those that do read this blog. i'll be in melbourne snooping around from today till 31st May.. so don't call my hp unless it's really important.. or like it's a life or death situation. It's expensive.

That's if there are ppl who still follow this blog.

So ya anyway. 16 apartments to look at. 5 days. food, travel, food and ST KILDA FILM FESTIVAL..

er. ya. so mindice will take over blogging for now. 7m 29s left at the free internet kiosk at Changi Airport T3.. oops. 7m 10s alr. haha..

Mindice:

hihihi... i think my feets are killing me... just bought a pair of socks... feel like the olden day ladies, 3-inch feet bounded up... pain... obviously my feet are not just 3-inch... hope i will not get to rip off the socks one of the coming 5 days. hahaha... still worried for my exams... haiz...

Ok back to me. as in WL not ME. haha. okok
4m 47 secs. took 3 mins to type 3 sentences? ok...

See u. whoever 'u' means.

and to HL. prepare for good food soon! boarding liao boarding liao!! SQ 227! bbbbbbbbbbb

Dirty Job @ Youtube

Wrote some songs

Just uploaded some songs that i wrote, and composed..
the singing is really terrible.
SORRY bout that.. waiting for some one to sing it properly for me..

wrote most of this on impulse and worked on some of them in camp... haha

Silence..

Silence is consent? Silence is golden? What is silence??

Silence is avoidance. I'm avoiding it too.
Maybe not avoidance. Maybe it means that we're too busy with our own lives to care.
Maybe it means that it ends here. Or does it?
Waiting for someone else to approach me about it, if ever.
Cause I'm tired of waiting.
and I'm tired of giving in.

I'm grateful to some, so far. But what has happen to the rest. especially two I've always looked up to and respected.
Where have you gone to? Why have you gone there. and to the other. Why have you gone back there? and have you? I have no idea.
All I know is that I'm contented. But I wish for things to be better still.

So be it. will see who bothers to ask about my sending off.

-blog's are for ranting aren't they? -
-as if anyone reads this -

AMBUSH

sometimes i feel it's a rather unfair world. alot of people go out of camp to do nothing. just to spend money and enjoy life. Some others like me actually have things to do outside. but we just have to be kept in here. For wad? seriously.

zero six five three. which means 6 mins more to gather.

you know sometimes you just feel like blogging about lots of things. but you just can't. Coz you're afraid to blog about 'restricted material'. most of these things are emotional things. oh well.

Starhub is screweing with my reception. quite frustrating really. Can't wait to get out.. feeling sick. really. everything makes me sick here. the smell, the look, the people.. especially a few in particular. haha. But seriously. Nose and stomach not feeling too good at all..

write, written, wrote.. really just random. haha.

I'm on medical leave again today.. yup.. so spent some time editing at home.. Already finished Ron & Reo's.. just waiting for them to send the music over.. i guess i'm actually quite production.. max i need for a full day vid is prob 2 days.. that's inclusive of digitizing, editing, dvd authoring,burning and designing the label.. most of the times is the client's that drag the collection date because they can't send me their stuffs early.. oh well..

Currently listening to: FACE DOWN -RED JUMPSUIT APPARATUS

i think i can edit much faster with some sort of music in the background.. not too familiar music ofcoz, if not half way through I would have this itching temptation to go practice my guitar.. or violin.. or piano.. haha. oh play around with garageband.. or blog. like what i'm doing now.. think i'm gonna make it a point to blog more often.. whether or not people actually read this.. coz after all it's something i'd like others to read.. it's worth making a journal of it. at least a few years from now i can actually look back on this and LAAAAAUGH.. (quoting garfield and jon)..

been indulging in red jumpsuit apparatus and some old matchbox 20 songs recently.. been watching a lot of violin tutorial vids online.. which reminds me i really need to get practice before that next violin lesson.. (which is when?). Well Jay said that he could see i know what kind of sound or standard I want to achieve.. so he can safely teach me new stuff every lesson and trust that i practice.. well.. i agree with him, i know what sound i want to achieve every lesson so i will not go for the next lesson if i can't achieve that sound.. wad for waste the money and time you know? hahaha..

Curently listening to: Closing Time - Semisonic

semisonic.. truthfully i never really heard this actual song until i heard weird al's polka medley in his running with scissors album many many many years ago. hmm.. that's something different from me i guess. i actually listen to weird al. haha.. I don't think i know anyone amongst my friend who listens to comedy music.. i actually kinda like flight of the conchords.. (eunice, haz, james likes them too.. )

Currently listening to: Bella Lullaby - Twilight OST
Too slow for tonight..

Currently listening to: Jasey Rae - All time low (punk goes acousti 2)

acoustic punk.. the acoustic-ness actually takes away alot of the immaturity in that kind of music.. probably is less whiny. haha. kinda nice.

Been getting quite used to my LG renoir.. i realised that Bing Lu is a LG supporter.. hahaha.. but the sad truth is that LG really has a lot of restrictions. It's not a very user-friendly, personal kinda phone.. You want that, you can go for Sony Ericsson..

Currently listening to: Hysteria - Muse

as you can see i'm spending quite a lot of time blogging.. i like my posts to be very lengthy and random.. with specks of my thoughts every where. hahaha. anyway about the phone.. the renoir needs more firmware updates and more downloadable applications man. the games, themes are really limited.. but yeah.. it's all i really need in a phone. 8mp camera with a rather good strong flash.. on top of my unlimited sms/mms free starhub plan.. it's really snap away.. and send! organiser is alright.. and WIFI is good really.. any government related areas all have wireless@sg so i really can connect to the internet anywhere.. PDF and document reader is there.. so i can open all my files, ebooks, word, excel, ppt, documents.. why not? for less than $100 after everything is sold, traded in, arrangements made.. i guess it's really good. If i decide not to sell my k800i.. it's like spending below 200 for 2 phones..

Currently listening to: Megalomanic - Incubus..

about the new band girl.. she's like 19? and her schedule seems more packed then my NS,videographer life WITH hazry's police officer life added together. and she has like a curfew at 10pm everyday. Wad the? 19 year old JC student with a 10pm curfew? WOAH my bass sub woofer suddenly got really over powering.. anw. yah. hanyuan claims she's good. but we haven't had a chance to jam with her yet. actually i feel looking for a singer is really a waste of time and an excuse not to have practice seriously. i mean we can continue if whatever we intend to do without a new singer wad. We've wasted like 2 years searching for one already. it should be something done concurrently with practicing and writing.. not done seperately? i dunno.. anyway.. just hope that we would be able to perform regularly before i leave for melbourne.. starting from lovetheworld CAFE at the flyer..

but that's not main concern right now. Got so many things to settle.. really gotta sit down and think about what i should or should not be doing right now.. wait for my COE to be sent over.. prob this week.

i think i'm wasting a lot of energy on getting angry and frustrated at things in camp.. first it's the e4 thing.. now it's camp. haiz. wad's wrong with my life man.. certain ppl think that by doing certain things a certain way it'll be better. what he doesn't know is that all he did is piss everyone off and no1 would wanna do those certain things his way and worse, even not the way before. haha. good luck to him man. big tree's gonna catch on fire and die off soon. just wait for the right temperature to trigger off the right kind of 'bush-fire' haha.

thinking of whether it'll be wise to get a laptop at this weekend's it fair at suntec...
tried playing a little bit of bright lights on the piano today.. really forgot how to already. hahaha..

that's it for me today.

currently listening to: next year, baby - jamie cullum

love this song too.

A post about TV...

Well i'm down with gastric pains and a cold.. well lately i've got a lot of things going on.

There are some flying emotions back there.. I can't say who or what in case I get into trouble for blogging about restricted material. Don't want that to happen eh. I'm just happy to know that I'll be out of there in less than 100 days... 

Anyway i'm on medical leave today so I managed to catch abit of the new and overly promoted 'Happily Ever After'. Hmm.. trust Jack Neo to name a Singaporean made TV drama after a Disney Hollywood film based on Snow White and the 7 dwarfs.. oh well.

The straits times did a write up of the drama serial last week.. you can check out the link here:

http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking%2BNews/Lifestyle/Story/STIStory_343184.html

oh when I say 'you' i actually imagine that people read this blog.. hahaha.

anyway, i don't understand what the big hoo-haa is about this particular drama serial that they have to spend so much time and money to advertise it so frequently on Okto... Oh by the way, the trailer's  is really similar to the typography and style used in the trailer of 'The Wedding Game', i almost thought it was.. Oh and they took the liberty to tell the whole world that the show was shot in HIGH DEFINITION. oh 'wow'. 

So i was having  my breakfast at the table in front of the TV and I saw my mum and aunt watching the 'new jack neo english show' ( that's what my parents call it, they don't really remember show names). There I was with high hopes for the TV serial directed by the high profile Producer/Director Jack Neo.. only to be disappointed totally by a lot of things. And then it made me laugh. These thoughts were going through my mind, or rather my mouth:

HD? What HD? hahaha.. I can get the same quality shooting with SD on DV. 

The lighting, it's different... I can see the attempt to make it more real.. I understand that the DOP is trying to steer away from the very standard and common BRIGHT lighting techniques that has been used for all Singapore made dramas.. but really.. it still looks flat and it lacks depth. Sound wise, horrible! i could practically hear the air con in the restaurant scenes. I mean come on man.. spend more time paying attention to detail.. 

Ok, cut them some slack. Maybe they didn't have the proper budget.

But worse of all.. the casting. The 'calefare' aunties and some actors just sounds very unnatural speaking in English. What's more- standard English.. not the english that we use to communicate in everyday life. Somehow it just feels like the scripts have been translated directly from a mandarin script. When the parents of the lead actress started speaking in Mandarin to each others.. suddenly it seems like the show turned professional again.. hmm.. I think the producers could have spent a little more time and money to search for better speaking casts.. ok, fine maybe Neo wanted those aunties to be very er... Auntie. But Auntie's who are very Auntie don't speak perfect english. I felt they were almost reading from a script with weird stops in between sentences and over exaggerated emotions...

Infact, I've been noticing that English TV shows produced by Singaporeans are done quite amateurishly... I know.. the main reason is budget and time. I guess it'll still take some time for producers to break this barrier... They need to get out of the mentality that shows made for free-to-air english TV needs less attention that shows air-ed at a 9pm slot on Channel 8. Stories can be told, scripts can be written, but as actors and directors.. you really need to get into the character and really feel what it's like to be that character. Directors should dare to alter the way things are being written in the dialogue of a script... 

Remember the Leap Years? that was a good story. But the writer didn't try hard enough to convert her Novella into a Film Script. Maybe she didn't bare to, or maybe the director thought that keeping it that way would be something new? Maybe she thought it would inject some sort of artsy fartsy feel to the film? anyway, whatever the reason or the motive, I wasn't feeling it. It you mean to do something, you gotta make it more obvious. 

The actors talked like they were reciting a prose from some literature text. I don't wanna go into Qi Yuwu's acting... haha. He was fantastic in 881. But he was a mute, with his voice only being heard in the narration. 

When was the last time I really enjoyed a good Singapore made english show? I guess the most memorable would be Under One Roof and Phua Chu Kang.. The kind of shows where Singlish was allowed to be used.. and the actors seem more natural and comfortable speaking that way. 

Up till now i still stand for Singlish as a Singaporean identity.

It's not a kind of English, just a way of speaking that everyone in Singapore can understand.

Probably it's time for the people behind that speak-good-english movement to take a look at the english TV Industy and ask.. WHAT HAVE WE DONE?

http://windwaterwinter.blogspot.com/2009/02/thinking-in-my-shower.html

talking about me eh... well. we thought we gave u wad u wanted. Here's the chat with u on msn on 29 Oct:

10:51:28 touched to the heart (jq_normalguy@hotmail.com): seeya this sat!

10:51:51 Wei Liang: okok

10:51:55 Wei Liang: wad u want for birthday?

10:52:09 touched to the heart (jq_normalguy@hotmail.com): hmm.

10:52:12 touched to the heart (jq_normalguy@hotmail.com): don't know

10:52:18 touched to the heart (jq_normalguy@hotmail.com): oh

10:52:25 touched to the heart (jq_normalguy@hotmail.com): i want a part-time job

10:52:27 touched to the heart (jq_normalguy@hotmail.com): haha

10:52:38 Wei Liang: hahahahaha

10:52:47 touched to the heart (jq_normalguy@hotmail.com): nowadays no money liao

10:52:50 Wei Liang: haha

10:52:53 Wei Liang: den i give u money ba

10:53:01 Wei Liang: everyone wants money nowadays

10:53:03 touched to the heart (jq_normalguy@hotmail.com): wah, sounds good

10:53:04 Wei Liang: veri broke

10:53:14 touched to the heart (jq_normalguy@hotmail.com): oh ya, dice's gift

10:53:16 touched to the heart (jq_normalguy@hotmail.com): i think i bao hongbao lah

10:53:21 touched to the heart (jq_normalguy@hotmail.com): 10 bucks

10:53:22 touched to the heart (jq_normalguy@hotmail.com): haha

10:53:40 touched to the heart (jq_normalguy@hotmail.com): i'm going broke soon

cool huh...