Of Tarts, Cooking and New Year’s Resolutions

Ah, so the tarts were a big hit I do have to get the pictures off Amanda when I next see her. In total it took 8 hours work to actually cook the pineapples, cool the pineapple jam, roll it into little balls, mix the pastry, set the pastry, roll the tarts, glaze the tarts and bake the tarts. If you include the buying of ingredients, blending, getting organised, getting cooking consults via webcam from Malaysia and deciding which recipe to use, I’d say we’re looking at 10 hours minimum. I’m thankful this is only a 1 year thing. From now on, I’ve learnt my lesson: buy premade pineapple jam, cooking it for 5 hours is can kill even the most patient of people. I started making the jam at 11am on Friday and didn’t quite finish till 6pm that day. And as if that wasn’t enough, I cooked instant noodles with my right hand while stirring the pineapples with my left hand and then ate the noodles with my right hand (I am ambidextrous at time but there is a limit to my ambidextrousness) while cooking the pineapples with my left hand.

Psst….I let you in on a secret:

I wore an apron! I feel so like a housewife now, making pineapple tarts, cooking lunch, doing laundry in between things and packing my room up. Now all I need is a baby and then I can be the ultimate housewife….Hahaha….Good grief, the ideas that come into my head now. I think I miss blogging so much that I’m starting to mesh reality with imagination

*Slaps self awake*

Anyways, blogging about all this food is making me slightly hungry. Lucky I don’t have the pictures yet or I’ll be drooling all over the computer at uni, not a pretty sight. Why am I at uni when I don’t have uni till March you ask, I’m paying my insurance and I’m damned well going to pay it today so I have one less worry on my mind.

Last Friday it was so fun at cell! It was quite big since quite a few more people have come back since the last cell and its 4 cells combined so its a massive cell. We got into a discussion about the meaning of the words faith, trust, believe and hope. I haven’t laughed like that in a while, with Chester being the walking dictionary that night it was great fun. And then after cell, the best part came around: the guitar playing! Being so called serenaded by 4 guys who between them know how to play a variety of songs, from the Bee Gees’ repertoire, to BSB, Westlife and Mandy Moore and to parodies of songs (”I’ll settle for you” —> Best song ever! :P) After that we just ended up hanging out at church office since it was our last cell combined with all 4 cells, was great talking to everyone outside church and uni, creates an illusion that I actually have a life outside work and uni. So after a while we decided to have supper at Makan Makan on Albany Highway, but by the time we actually got there it was 10.45pm and they were shutting at 11pm, so we got teh tarik and ended up at Amanda’s place, playing taboo and black jack. Now that is one black jack game I will never forget, since we were playing with poker chips and not real money and it was the last game all of us went all in. I ended up with black jack, dealer got 21 and everyone lost except me…Muahaha….Never in my life will I go all in with real money, I love my money a bit too much to gamble it away like that. Must say, Taboo is such a fun game to play, I’ve realised girls are actually quite good at guessing if the person explaining is good as well LOL

Anyway, all that aside I’ve come up with 2 New Year’s Resolutions. I know they’re a bit late but better late than never, right?

So I’ve decided that this year, I’m going to cook and bake more often to practice and develop cooking skills for the future. If you want to be from the best, you learn from the best, so I’m learning of mum and dad and every person that will spare me recipes and be willing to try my culinary concoctions Come on, I won’t poison you! My pineapple tarts and chocolate cake were great! So watch out for more food to eat as the year goes by!

And the 2nd resolution I had was to lose that weight this year. It’s prime time this year because:
1) I’ve had enough of being fat
2) I’m finishing uni (Dad, remember what you said to Aunty Siew Lian about losing weight and dating? :P)

So, that’s that from me now. I’ve typed up an hour’s worth of thoughts and I’m still dreaming about my car and when I can drive and I do need to go do what I came to uni to do: pay that bloody insurance. TTFN!

EDIT: Pictures are included now

Just as I put the thing to cook

After 2 hours of cooking it still looks so slushy. Took 6 hours to cook this thing, so I’d say be VERY patient when trying this

Looking so retarded in the apron but it was either that or get pineapple pastry all over my shirt

Caught by Amanda

Version 1.1 before getting redone

The end result of 6 hours of cooking the jam. 5 cans of pineapple reduced to this

Into the oven they go!

The 2 bakers of the day!