Doing something I love for a good cause? Yes please! Where do I sign up?

Today, I am going to use a sentence that all kids between the ages of 6 to 8 (myself included when I was that age) love to end their essays/composition writing with.
'... and we went home feeling tired but happy.' The end.



(I used to love writing The End at the end of my essays, it made me feel accomplished for some kiddy reason but my teachers told me that real essays don't end like that and all the cool kids didnt have that at the end, so 'the end' became a thing of the past)



But that statement so accurately describes my exact feeling now. I could possibly make it a little more grown up by adding 'and satisfied' and scratching 'the end' but just let me go back to being 6 years old again for awhile? Being an almost-adult is hard. Decisions, responsibilities, obligations and challenges. But we shall save that for another time yes?
Today is all about tired and happy(:
(but I still am up doing this big pictorial post, figures. hahaha)
I'm liking this space more and more!
*check out the cute red pepper kitchen timer wheee



6 hours of sleep last night + early morning wake up alarm would normally bring the inner grumpy dwarf out of me but today held purpose and the incentive of breaking the daily routine.
I was going to see my silly little brother graduate from basic military training. For the life of me I cannot imagine or even begin to picture how that silly little boy who used to irritate me to no end could don the smart 4, operate a rifle, do a 24km route march and pull off a parade.



Decided to brave the boat ride (I tend to get seasick!), the heat, and impending smellyness that just wafts all around you, I cannot even begin to describe the smell of boys in uniform after 24 click. Please imagine.





And being the good student, yes I brought notes along. Tragic or dedication? You tell me.
We had to be seated by 2.30pm and the parade was only going to start at 3.45pm.
1hr 15min of sitting and sweating. Its like watching the National Day Parade (minus the fireworks)



I brought cookies!
(:



But they werent for me. Decided to bake them for the graduating little kid since I didnt have time to do them last week. Chocolate and coffee. I have no idea why he likes coffee so much since he doesnt have anything to be done pertaining to the need of caffeine but yeah I did make those mocha chocolate babies. Did the pre-chilled dough yesterday at 1.30am, which came together in less than 20 min. After much cookie making, I have concurred that the ideal cookie making time is at night. So the dough can be chilled and ready for the next day to be popped into the oven. Easy peasy. Throw away the cling wrap and heyy! no washing! haha(:




Had some quality time with my notes and it was time to take out the camera to have some fun!
But first, mum had go all law abiding on us and filling out the survey form. Who even does that! With super long comments on the section of 'Additional comments'
She suggested that they provide refreshments. Welldone mum, welldone.
I was amused to say the least. I think she was bored. But I know she meant the refreshments bit. Really.
Look at her go. She had fun.



Had a game of 'find the little green son/brother' and a slew of photos ensued. Some, not by choice but by insistent orders of a very excited mother 'take this!', 'look there!', 'take, take, take'.
Okaaay I'll just keep clicking then..



FOUND! hahah(:



Some formation and drill thingy



Ooh look, no hair! haha



Then came the 'putting on the cap for the son' bit which we had to brave the smell. Oh gosh. I wanted very much to be a dolphin/seal for 10 minutes so that I could hold my breath. Hahaha ok I kid, dolphins are smelly too!



Then comes ceremonial cap throwing.
So my kid brother has survived 9 weeks of the army. He looks quite happy with the cookie you think! Yay. Now he needs a bath.



Quite worth the late night and early morning wake up to make these cookies to see people eating them like this. The cookies were pretty yum if I may say so myself. If the chocolate + coffee combination doesnt float your boat or give you an instant boost I dont know what would.
End of parade! Spot the difference. Before and after.



O for Orion. Which my dear mother thought stood for O for Onion.
Does look pretty alike but a whole world of difference. Needless to say I got a good laugh out of it.
'Hi, I'm from Onion company' joke much!!



And then it was 6pm! So we spent 5 hours waiting around for the 45min parade. eeeesh
He needed a bath, so home it was. Then dinner at Everything With Fries. Awesome.
I was super hungry by then. 1 pc bread + 2 oreos the entire day. Ravenous now! Stuck my head out of the car to try and snap the pretty sky outside the ferry terminal. Very unlike usual Singapore scenery.



Tried to get mum to take a decent photo of us and the pretty sky. This is what I got. Total fail. Mum's are awesome and all but behind a camera, yep this is as good as it gets. hahaaa. WHAT IS THIS!



And then onto dinner!



This time I got to try all the different fries cos I made them order different flavours heh.



And after that 4 of us demolished 1 nutella tart in about.....1 minute, literally.
Please excuse the blurry picture, people were impatient. Quite understandable if you're sitting in front of this.



It was so fast if you blinked three times slowly I promise you, you would only get a bite. But sharing desserts is (: A little sweet end to a meal which I love but not too much till you dont want it anymore.



Came home, decided to go for an impromptu run which turned out to be sprint intervals and hill climbs. Legs totally game over after that but the feeling of conquering hills and sprints is pretty cool. 5.6km worth of that, now I just want to sit and never get up.

See, 'tired and happy' pretty aptly describes the day aye! And if you need an instant perk-me-up. Please make those cookies, they would make anyone happy. Even grumpy the dwarf(:
I got the recipe from Kim@Lovintheoven and yes if you love coffee like I do my starbucks, please add all 3 tablespoons of instant coffee. No regrets there(:



School tomorrow. I can almost smell the weekend.

The End(;

What can I say, I love the combination of oatmeal + raisin in anything. Anything except cooked rolled oats and raisins added in. Those are gross.

Cooked oats, like the kind you would eat for breakfast is icky.

So when making the previously mentioned oatmeal walnut cookie balls, rolling the cookies in oats left me with 1/2 a cup thereabouts of oats.

Throw or keep? Obviously the mother didnt fancy the former and suggested she made cooked oats for breakfast the next day.

Hello! EW!

So I would like to think I saved these oats from become breakfast, instead took the liberty of making my favourite cookies.



I love how my house has all the basic stuff that I need for baking cookies on a whim. And I love how the trusty oven hasnt let me down in the past 8 years! Quite amazing if you ask me.

This has got to be the fastest I've thrown together a cookie recipe. <30 class="media" id="fullSizedImage" style="WIDTH: 559px; HEIGHT: 381px" alt="oatmealraisin4.jpg picture by classifiedramblings" src="http://i160.photobucket.com/albums/t188/classifiedramblings/oatmealraisin4.jpg?t=1266903867" galleryimg="no">

Ok, now let me talk a little about these cookies. I used the same recipe, but they're different.

Well, its my fault but they still turned out great, if not better than the normal ones that I always make. Its just that I know this recipe almost by heart and I just routinely took out all the ingredients I needed and went with the flow.

But, theres a but!

I forgot to add the egg!

(I normally read and re-read the recipe over and over again and am pretty good with following recipe instructions! but I think I was either day dreaming or sunk so deep into routine mixing that when I realised, it was too late, must be the pre-school blues rawr)

eggs! are essential in making the texture right and the batter creamier! and thanks to flour that has already been sifted in, my cookies are now going to turn out, eggless.



So I sifted in the flour and saw the silly brown egg sitting there. I even took it out beforehand and I knew it was in the ingredient list but remembered it a little too late, sigh!

But judging from the consistency of the dough I figured that the dough would still come together pretty nicely although it is a little stiffer than cookie doughs that I've put together.

Oh well! A little experimenting wont hurt right, anyway its a small batch plus I love anything oatmeal and raisin so its gonna be alright!(:

Turns out I kinda love this recipe that I accidentally created, not the usual chewy cookie that I usually get, more of the crispy kind you get with a cup of coffee at restaurants and cafes. And the fact that I made it mini sized, really made it look like it could go very nicely with a cup of hot coffee. Loves!



But I'm still gonna make some adjustments to this recipe though, like soaking the raisins beforehand in water or milk to make them fat and juicy:D Never done that before though, so I'm one step closer to finding that perfect oatmeal raisin cookie, I hope!


(how everything looks when its all over)

Yay for rolled oats and raisins(:

Oatmeal raisin drop cookies
(makes 30-40 mini cookies)

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
1/2 cup firmly packed light brown sugar (100g)
1 egg
3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups rolled oats
1/2-3/4 raisins (depending on your taste)

Preheat oven to 350°F (180deg c)

In large bowl, beat butter and sugar until creamy. Add eggs and vanilla; beat well. Add combined flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt; mix well. Add oats and raisins (& nuts if using them); mix well.

Drop dough by rounded tablespoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets.

Bake 10 to 12 minutes or until light golden brown. Cool for 1 minute on cookie sheets; remove to wire rack. Cool completely. Store tightly covered.

mmm tastes like butter cookies, oh wait, not butter cookies, more like butter cookies with nuts, Actually you know what, tastes almost like cereal prawns, especially of the crunchy crispy bits of cereal often strewned abundantly over the prawns or squid or whatever seafood there is.
Wait, how can the taste of butter cookies evolveto cereal prawns within the span of 4-5 chews.
dont ask me, ask the cookies. dont look at me, its not my fault! its theirs!
*conveniently shifts all blame to the cookie for being difficult.



Aha cny brings about the mother going on a massive cookie spree. much like me during christmas time and aftermajor exams. I guess the apple doesnt fall that far from the tree in relation to this(; Its a good thing though, so no complains here. Cookies, big or small are pretty much good friends with mix-ins of any sort, most commonly being chocolate chips but that in itself brings about numerous variety for those who care to look.
dark, white, milk, semi-sweet,bittersweet, mint chocolate. ah chocolate.
BUT, onto that another day.



That said, we mustn't forget nuts. Although here in singapore the most commonly found and well, readily available nut (in non exorbitant prices) are almonds.
A trip to redman or phoonhuat can bring you face to face with an entire shelf or shelves of almonds.
Almonds done in every way possible. chopped, diced, silvered, whole, blanched, unblanched, powdered (ooh almond powder = macarons!), sliced, salted, unsalted. You get the idea. And its relatively affordable as well. Second to that is probably walnuts. Peanuts dont count here, those are for teasing your perfectly manicured fingernails with during cny or coupled with beer and pizza on a saturday night. or in my parents case, snacks to go with red wine..hmm no judging here.



But we're not here to talk about peanuts or almonds, its walnuts! hello! About $16/kg give or take. Sigh no farmers markets here to go to for pecans, macademia!, walnuts, brazil nuts and all other forms of nutty delights. Hence the obvious lack of nuts in my food endavours.but well, since these cookies have nuts as a key ingredient and I didnt have to fund these myself, hah walnuts it is!
200g of walnuts can make a whole lot of very-walnutty cookies. and very awesome i might add. so thats more than half a kg of walnuts for me to play around with in the near future. double yay.



The chopping up of the nuts could well be done by a food processor - yet again. But chopping them by hand (something not done by me) is definitely the easier way to quality control the size of the nut chunks. so it is recommended, by me(: Besides, food processing does ruin the fun, whizzing everything up into a food blur, plus the washing! haha.



Walnuts + oatmeal + cookie. i think this is my new favourite cny cookie. Still cant hold a candle, though, to my favourite cny snack(s) which grandma has perfected through years and years of making them. More on that sometime in the next post. I think this is what a cross between cereal prawns and a butter cookie would taste like.



Ah chinese new year, I really dont know whether to love or hate you.