Such a long title, no? :)
But hey, (although my tummy is rumbling and I want to make crepes so bad but there is no flour in the new kitchen: need grocery shopping asap) I am in a good mood to write now, a rarity these days. First of all, it just felt so good to be able to wake up, go to my kitchen, open the window, and say: selamat pagi semua!!! (good morning all!!!)
Loud and clear. Yeah!

Then cooking my first decent breakfast: a bowl of 5 grains porridge with slices of fresh mango, honey and cinnamon plus making a cup of java coffee. It felt…great! There are still many works need to be done in my new house, no furniture, the lighting is crappy, the windows are still covered with news paper, no hot water, we eat on the floor and my work place is on the top of the moving boxes, but I just love it. Lovelovelove it.

And we got our first guest too: kuro, our neighbour’s puppy who keeps visiting us since the first day we moved :) I called him kuro (means black in japanese) without knowing that his real name is really kuro. Super cute and curious. We are happy enough to have kuro here sometimes, as we are not ready yet to add a new fury family member since we lost charlie.

He really likes hanging around in our kitchen and garden, kind of hoping marco would pass him a tiny bit of that delicious salame from florence :). Btw, our kitchen is the only finished part of the house, I have transferred most of my kitchen equipment here, it felt like a victory! Such a hard work! Unwrapping all the pieces, and washing them one by one. Now they are sitting cleanly+neatly in my kitchen drawers :)

And the last thing: a simple granola recipe :) I promised to give this recipe to my friend Intan a while ago but kept forgetting about it. Sowie!
Hope you all have a good breakfast, everyday!
Hugs!

A Simple Granola

4 cups of rolled oats
1 cup of mixed natural nuts (I used almond, cashew and walnut), chopped
1 cup of dried fruits (I used raisins and dried apricot), chopped
1/2 cup of honey
1/4 cup of olive oil (I use coconut oil sometimes, when I can find a good one, like the one made at my village)
Opt: I like also to add one cup or two of puffed kamut, to give an lighter feeling to my granola :)

Preheat the oven to 150C
Line a baking tray with baking sheet, combine all dry ingredients in a big bowl, mix well. Heat the honey and the olive oil in a small sauce pan over a low heat, stir well then pour over the dry ingredients and mix well until everything is well coated.
Transfer to the lined baking tray. Bake, stirring every 5-10 minutes (so it will browned evenly) for about 35 minutes. Cool completely.
Note: I don’t like my granola too sweet, I always feel you can add a drizzle of honey or so when you eat it with yoghurt or milk if you are feeling on the sweeter side.

When I say this is one mean spanákopíta, I really mean it. Yes yes yes, my dear friend Aliki made one mean mean mean spanakopita :) It is a Greek spinach pie, spanáki means spinach and píta means pie. I really like the word spanákopíta. I think it is very cute.
We made it on one of those windy+cloudy+gray day in Milan, and it was just perfect. Thank you Aliki for sharing the recipe.

Spanakopita
2 medium leek, washed and finely sliced
500 grams of fresh spinach, washed well, blanched, drain very well
2 x 250 grams puff pastry
150 grams feta (or 200 grams if you really like it)
1 organic egg
some dill
sea salt and black pepper

Fry the leek on low fire with a few glugs of olive oil until soft but not coloured. Turn off the heat.
Preheat the oven to 250C.
Add the spinach and crumbled feta and dill, season with sea salt and pepper. Let cool abit, then add the egg, mix well.
Put one of the puff pastry on a pie pan, add the spinach mixture, then lay another layer of puff pastry on the top, trim the egg, and stab the surface with fork to avoid cracking.
Brush the pastry surface with olive oil then splash it with a few water.
Put in the oven for 20-30 minutes (until it turns golden)
Share+enjoy with friends!
Buon apetito! :)

I have been going to Singapore since 1995 and every time I return to my country people always ask me: did you try the chilli crab? and the answer has always been: no no no. This time, the answer will be: yes.
Basically, this time, I didn’t want to carry my camera, I just want to savour the experience (plus I was still jetlaged, and so tired), so sorry, no photos, next time when I return I will.
I have three places that I HAVE TO try (one of them is chilli crab):
1. Long Beach at Dempsey Hill for chilli crab
2. Ippudo Tao Ramen at UE Square because my sister works there and because many people said it is the best ramen.
3. Tatsuya at Scotts road for sushi

So, for number 1: Yes, I tried it, two days ago. And, it was…some kind of a torture for us. Well, first of all, none of us (me, marco and my sister) like crab. We are just toooooooooooo lazy to peel it. Then, I am not a big fan of spicy food. We went to the famous Long Beach restaurant at Dempsey Hill. We could not finished the food. For three we ordered the fried banana and scallop (strange combination, bad opening for us, not recommended), then chilli crab (1,2 kg), black pepper crab (1 kg) and 2 portion of fried bread and a small bowl of rice. The waiter looked very disappointed, but we couldn’t help it. It was not our cup of tea. That was the first and the last time I eat chilli crab. My conclusion is, don’t eat chilli crab if you:
1. Don’t like peeling crab
2. Don’t like spicy food
3. Are too hungry
4. Still jetlaged :)
We are those three. So, you can imagine. One more thing, the dinner was kind of funny. Seriously. It started with that fried banana scallop thing, that tasted so strange, so I told my sister: “if the waiter come and ask me about the food, I wouldn’t know how to answer it” then a minute later the waiter came and asked me: “how’s the food?” I couldn’t help laughing :P Then when the crab arrived, the waiter tried to help me cracking the crab, ended up splattering the sauce everywhere including my t-shirt, I wasn’t angry, it was just toooooooo funny! :D Then we tried, and the crab sort of ‘jumping’ everywhere. We made such a mess. I think they were relieved when we left. So were we.

For number 2: It was simply the best ramen I ever ate. Superb! The first time I went there was when we had a 8 hours waiting time at Changi airport, waiting for the flight to Milano, so we decided to go out and said hello to my sister. We had shiro ramen and I love it. Shiro is basically a tonkotsu ramen. We also tried the pork bun and the gyoza, it was so great. The portion was big, it was hard to finish it myself, I was toooooo full, almost couldn’t walk to the MRT to take the train back to the airport.
The second time I shared the kuro ramen and had lots of that skewer bbq food (forget the name) and always with the gyoza and pork bun. The best dessert is the cream caramel and they have 5 kind of umeshu, but the best is just the plain old choya umeshu. Ow, and the sakura tea was great too. Recommended.

3. Tatsuya. No word. SUPER. Amazing. Love it. Definitely my place. The sashimi was superb, melt in the mouth, and the sushi was great. All the fish are from Tsukiji fish market Tokyo and Fukuoka. Reservation is recommended. And you have to try the home made umeshu, it was heavenly. For the dessert we had cheesecake, it was simple buy yum! Loving everything. We went for lunch, but will come back for dinner for sure. Love love love.

Long Beach Seafood
Blk 25 #01-01 Dempsey Road
Tel: 6323 2222

Ippudo Tao Ramen
207 River Valley Road, #01-55/56 UE Square
Tel: 6887 5315

Tatsuya
22 Scotts Road
Goodwood Park Hotel
Tel: 65 6887 4598