Category Archives: the 20 list

the 20 list / participate in a race. done.

As the Nike slogan goes, “Just do it!”

So I did.

This past Saturday, I ran my first race this year. Or my first race ever, for that matter. I ran the Nike Women’s 5K with my little sister at Wavehouse Sentosa.

My goal for this race was to have fun, which I accomplished. I made a bunch of newbie mistakes, like weaving past people, running through water points, and (possibly) missing my checkpoint. And I’ll admit, the adrenaline rush wasn’t quite as much I expected it to be. But now that I’m done, I honestly had so much fun; I would totally do it again (:

Altogether, I had such a blast taking pictures, running in the rain, enjoying the atmosphere of a race, and just being with my little sister (xo).

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nikerun2

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Now, this Sunday’s 10K is going to be the real challenge.

Happy Monday!
xo.

20 recipes / bacon & egg cups + pb & j swirls

Before the long weekend on Thursday last week, I tried out two new recipes to add to the list – one savory and the other sweet.

bacon and egg

The cups were like quiche, sans the crust. But I loved how it used bacon on the sides to hold everything together. I’ll totally make these again. And they’re good for bringing around too because they taste good whether warm or cold.

pbandjswirls

I decided to take a break from all the chocolate and did these instead. I loved the sweet and salty combination (: Although, maybe I’ll try a jam filling next time instead of swirling it in? Making these cupcakes made me realize how much I actually miss baking them. Maybe I’ll think about opening the shop again, hmm.

I found these recipes from these books, here and here.

11 down, 9 to go.

Blessed Easter! (:

20 recipes / Monkey Squares

Why, hello again!

I hope you had a super duper weekend. It seems as if the weekend flew by because it was so busy. Makes me wish for  longer weekends! Haha.

monkeysquares

I made these on Friday before the weekend. And they were so good!
But I was in a hurry, so these photos don’t do justice.

The cake was moist and the browned butter icing was delicious! Plus, the taste seems to get better with each passing day.

You can find the recipe here. I used a different sized pan and added more walnuts. But those are the only tweaks I made to the recipe. Although, I reckon I would probably cute down on the icing next time (unless you like yours really sweet) because the quantity yielded from the recipe would probably have been enough to cover two cakes.

In my opinion, I think they taste best chilled. But honestly, they’re good any way.

7 down, 13 more to go!

20 recipes / nutella sandwich cookies + wholewheat penne with cauliflower sauce

Today was completely unproductive from a to-do list standpoint.
BUT, I did accomplish quite a bit if you count in cello class, piano lessons, baking from two recipes, and making dinner.

I didn’t plan on accomplishing two of twenty recipes today. But I did.

cauliflower sauce pasta

We had this pasta for dinner, followed by nutella sandwich cookies for dessert.

nutella sandwich cookies

I think the recipe I had from Rachael Ray’s book was slightly different from the one I found on her web. And I made several substitutions to the pasta recipe because I didn’t have all of the ingredients. But the siblings liked it anyway, so it’s all good.

(I used regular penne instead of wholewheat, vegetable instead of chicken stock, dried instead of fresh rosemary, parmesan instead of romano cheese, and left out the veggies. Okay, too many substitutions, I know.)

I also made a batch of marbled chocolate brownies for a friend’s birthday this weekend.

Then I made the nutella sandwich cookies. I’ll admit, I tried to be ambitious and make my cookies with butterfly cookie cutters. But then I ran out of time before dinner had to be on the table, so I changed my mind and made round cookies instead. Maybe I’ll try butterfly shaped cookies another day when I have the luxury of more time (:

6 down, 14 more to go.

I hope your weekend is a-ma-zingggg! I’m quite looking forward to mine (:

20 recipes / chocolate cake with white chocolate ganache

If I ever judged how successful my baking is by how the food looks, then this would have certainly been an EPIC FAIL.

Because my cake looked NOTHING like the photograph in the book. Seriously. My cake had no delicious layer of white chocolate ganache like the picture did, no pretty patterns on the ganache. Zero, nada, zilch.

Thankfully, my taste testers eat my food despite the looks and I got rave reviews on taste. Thank you, dear taste testers (:

Chocolate Cake

This chocolate cake with white chocolate ganache I made this past weekend was from this chocolate recipe book, gifted by my sweet friend Ru for my 19th birthday (thanks, love!). All the recipes in the book look absolutely mouth-watering; I can’t wait to try them all!

I’ll be away for the next couple of days. See you when I get homeeee (:

OVER AND OUT.

20 recipes / lemon spaghetti

Lemon Spaghetti2

We had this for dinner tonight. And it was really not bad. I quite enjoyed the tang of the lemons. Although, if I made it again, I’d probably reduce the lemon juice a tad.

Pasta always makes me happy (:

3 down, 17 more to go.

20 Recipes / Chocolate Angel Food Cake

If you’ve read my twenty list, you’ll know that trying out twenty new recipes was something I set out to do before I turn twenty-one in September. I was honestly wondering when I would get started on this project, seeing how busy I’ve been. But since someone gave us a whole potful of egg whites this week, I decided that yesterday was time to actually get started. Since I’m not a huge fan of meringue, I googled and found this – Chocolate Angel Food Cake.

I was pretty nervous about this at first, because egg whites and Singapore humidity aren’t always good friends. But it all turned out pretty good, I must say (:

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The only change I made from the recipe was substituting cake flour with 1 cup minus 2 tablespoons of plain flour, because I didn’t have any of the cake flour.

Getting started is always the hardest part.
I’m off to look for my next new recipe to make! (:

One down, nineteen more to go.