Molton Brown

For Christmas a few years ago my mother in law gave me a molton brown travel kit filled with all sorts of goodies. I had never used their products before and I fell in love with this body lotion by them called celestial maracuja body souffle (the name itself is enough to fall in love with). The smell is heavenly and I feel so pampered when I put it on after showers. I just bought a new jar which spiked my enthusiasm to write this post. Seriously try it, or just buy some more for me ;)!!

Phuket

Here are some photos of our weekend getaway with the Batten's in Phuket, Thailand. We are both back to work this afternoon, very tired after such a fun filled weekend away.Justin always working :)

Eggplant Delight

Justin and I were watching a cooking show this morning and the chef was making an eggplant recipe. Justin loves eggplant and I am always on the look for ways to cook it, so we decided to recreate the recipe we saw only neither one of us remember what it was called! We grilled sliced eggplant that was drizzled with EVOO and salt and pepper. Then mixed together chopped rosemary, parsley, garlic and lemon zest. In a baking dish we stacked the grilled eggplant, some fresh buffalo mozzarella cheese then topped it with the herb mixture and repeated that again. The dish was placed in the oven on 150 Celsius for about 10 mins. We put the eggplant stack on a slice of toast and drizzled with a little more EVOO. Pretty yummy!! We enjoyed dinner over a few LOST episodes, we are catching up on the 5th season. We used to be die hard fans of the show with our friends Arden and Gary when we all lived in New York but have lost interest in the past few years. Last week we decided to give it a chance again and are completely obsessed.

Tennis in the morning and then off to Phuket in the afternoon. We are going there for a long weekend with our friends Ally and Vanessa from Dubai. Have a good weekend! xo

Creature!

This freaky creature tried to crawl in our house today. Justin tried to pick it up because he thought it was a leaf!! Good thing I wasn't home alone. SCARY! Look how huge it is!

Yet another unique wedding present!

Our good friends from Singapore gave us a gift certificate to a framer for our wedding photos. The framer is known for doing collages of your photos and I have always loved her work. I just picked up the frame today and couldn't be happier. I think it is such a beautiful way to display our photos. There are so many pictures I loved from our wedding and it is hard to choose which ones to frame, and this gift allowed us to display so many of our favorites without having separate photos around the house. Just need to decide where to hang it now.

Cooking Class

One of the most unique wedding presents that we got was a gift certificate for a couples cooking class. I have been looking forward to doing this for so long and we finally used the gift certificate last night and it was such a fun date night. We decided to go to the cooking studio instead of having the lesson at our house because our kitchen gets so hot! Our chef, Alicia, took us through and helped us prepare 4 courses of delectable food! Alicia was so sweet and made the whole night so fun. She is from Australia and has worked as head chef at some of the best restaurants there, she shared so many funny stories of her career in the kitchen. We started with cheese curls and salad. These were so simple to make, filo pastry with grated parm and pecorino cheese in between layers and then twisted and dipped in the cheeses again and baked.

That was followed by pumpkin stuffed ravioli with butter and sage sauce - my FAVORITE! This is me making the pasta! Takes awhile but I have never made pasta and loved learning the techniques from Alicia.

The main course was herb crusted pork escalope with charred peppers and rocket. Justin pounded the pork and then it was dipped in cheese, herbs and egg white and then pan fried.

And last but not least, Justin's favorite, creme brulee. Here is Justin torching the sugar on top and the final product.

Everything was surprisingly easy to make, some things were more time consuming but oh SO tasty. I am seriously still full 12 hours later. Can't wait for our next dinner party to try these recipes out again.

Obsession

Ok, so this post is mostly for my sister! She just wrote on her blog today about the oh so wonderful benefits of fiber. I wanted to share an oatmeal recipe that I have been wanting to make her the last few times I have been to California, but never have had the chance.

Before I get to the recipe you should know my sister and I are basically obsessed with fiber. In fact so many phone calls we have are laughing at the insane amount of fiber intake we had that day, or the new cereal we found with obscene amounts of fiber in it. Last summer I discovered my new best friend flax seed, which I try to share with everyone and I now seriously put it in everything. I have successfully converted my Mom and sister! Justin even laughs at how psycho I get at trying to add it to things (such as meatloaf!! haha). Basically you can add flax to anything and it has so many benefits to it including adding fiber to any dish.

So almost every morning, time permitting, I make myself the most scrumptious bowl of oatmeal you have ever had. I actually look forward to breakfast, and it is so healthy, filling and fiberlicious. Recipe below...

1/3 cup oatmeal (I'll use rolled oats but any type will work)
1/3 cup soy milk or skim milk (new favorite being organic low fat vanilla soy milk)
1/3 cup water
1/2 banana
1 tbsp of Bob Red Mill's ground flax seed (lets admit sometimes I go over this)
pinch of salt
dash of vanilla

Add the oatmeal, milk and water and thinly sliced banana to pan and put over medium heat. Leave for a few mins till it starts to bubble then you start to whip the oatmeal, making the banana's dissolve and make a creamy mix. Then I'll add the flax, salt and vanilla. I use vanilla instead of sugar, but you could of course use sugar. It is very surprising how sweet the bananas make this so I try to avoid using sugar if I don't need it. I usually top with blueberries and a splash of milk!! So good and so good for you!

Enjoy! xo

Rain, rain go away!!

So I guess my tennis coach was wrong when he said Singapore is having the driest few months in 100 years, because we woke up to this today!

I don't think these pictures even do it justice! It was raining so hard and it was windy so the rain was flying down sideways. Craziness. Normally I wouldn't mind rain, but living in a place where I rely on public transportation, and said public transport is a 10-15 min walk away, days like this suck! And don't worry it is still hot and humid out. Hello bad hair day. It will clear out soon, as all storms do here, and I am sure it will be a beautiful hot sunny day in no time, but the frizzy hair damage will already be done! Happy Friday. xo

Work

Today was one of those days where I really enjoyed my job!! I love those days. I have been teaching pilates for almost 10 months now, and there are up and down days with the job. Depending on the people who attend the class it can be quite challenging to teach a group of people with different strengths and different knowledge of pilates. So after some classes I just don't feel like it was the best if I saw some people lost or struggling, but then there are other days like today where I taught for 5 hours straight and every client and class seem to grasp the moves and have a really good workout. I left work in the best mood knowing I gave my clients a great start to their day.

Teaching pilates has really changed my life in Singapore. There is a confidence and buzz you get from working that I was lacking for the first year or so we lived here. Not working I enjoyed a lot of "me" time, learning to cook, staying active and finding hobbies to fill the days but I am so thankful to have learned a new craft while living here that I hope I will be teaching for many years to come. Here are a few photos of a recent photo shoot at our studio. If you haven't tried pilates on the reformer, you should!! It will change your life :)

And here is me hanging! My favorite move to do!

For your reference....

Singapore is currently 16 hours ahead of California time, 13 ahead of New York and 8 hours ahead of the UK. So if you are ever wondering what tomorrow is like, I can let you know! :) Happy Friday (in advance). xo

Happy Birthday Justin!

Yesterday was Dus's* birthday!!! It was a very stressful week for my hubby. He had clients in town from Denmark that have expressed interest in buying into his company. The build up to them coming was quite taxing on him, and then he was entertaining all week, meetings everyday, late dinners and so on. I wanted to do some extra things to celebrate since I knew it had been a long week. He was out till late Thursday night with them, so I decorated the house with a ton of balloons and hung a birthday sign. Which by the way, I have not blown up a balloon in I don't know how many years and forgot its not easy!! I hurt my jaw blowing those things up.

The first gift I gave him was a new tennis racket! We have been taking lessons weekly since we moved here, and he never bought a nice racket for himself. So he was presently surprised to find a new one wrapped in a bow before heading down to our lesson that morning!

It was a great lesson, and his new racket worked like a charm but it was so so HOT playing for 2 hours!! According to my tennis coach Gary, Singapore is expected to go through the hottest and driest few months in 100 years (that could have been slightly over exaggerated by him, but his words not mine). After tennis, we had breakfast and he opened a few other gifts from me. Some new shirts, books, his favorite face lotion, and gardening tools - yes we now harvest our own chilies and limes (recipes to come soon) and have quite a collection of plants and flowers on our balconies.


He had dinner with his clients last night but they finished early so we were able to meet for celebratory drinks after.

I should have some exciting news to share about us and the future of his company soon!!! Have a good weekend. xo

*in case you were wondering, I refer to Justin as Dus frequently. I have a few other nicknames that I use often but he does need to maintain some street cred so I'll leave those out.

Febuary 2010

February was a busy busy month for us. Saying that, life has been unusually busy for us since our wedding. I can't believe we are coming up to almost 6 months in April!! Crazy. I guess time flies when you're having fun.

The first weekend of February we took a mini vacation to an island in Malaysia called Langkawi. It was only an hour flight from us in Singapore and it was like we landed in paradise. We have traveled a ton in the past few months but this felt like our first "vacation" since our honeymoon. Our last few trips have been to visit family and friends, which is always great but not always relaxing. And relaxing is exactly what Langkawi was all about. Look at these views from the hotel restaurant!!

We mostly did things like this... laying out, reading, sleeping, eating and drinking!

But we also went diving! It was my first time diving, I have snorkeled a million times before and wasn't sure if I would like diving but I had the best time!! I have a slight fear of sharks to put it mildly, but was so calm under the water. We did two dives, the second dive we did was 40 mins long. We saw amazing white and purple coral and some crazy looking fish. I wasn't prepared with an under water camera, but next time we dive I will be sure to bring one. Here is Justin before our second dive.

We also managed to do some sightseeing. We took a cable car to the top of the highest point in Langkawi where they had built a viewing point and suspension bridge. I am not afraid of heights normally but my stomach was doing flips up there! Such amazing views though.

Since traveling in South East Asia I have become a lover of monkeys and elephants! Monkeys cruise all around resorts like this in Langkawi. Ever time I see a monkey run past I still get as excited as the first time I saw a wild monkey. Here are pics of one at the pool and one on our balcony.

Our last dinner there, such a great weekend!! Love traveling with Justin.

Valentines day was the next weekend. Let's just say Justin is not a "valentiney" person, never has been never will be. We made a tradition a few years ago that Justin would cook for me on Valentines day. He is an amazing cook, but with a stressful and busy job I usually am the one that cooks. (just on a side note I LOVE to cook and Justin does help clean and is always on dish duty so I am not complaining by any means) This tradition started after going to a restaurant on Vday while we were living in New York, it was a set menu that was way over priced and not only did we have to wait SO long in between each dish but none of it was good! So we vowed to never waste our money doing that again. As a special treat Justin now makes dinner at home on Valentines day. And I am not talking about any old dinner here, it's a full blown meal, champagne, wine the works. This year he made a starter of spinach and goat cheese risotto, followed by spicy sausage baked with wine, tomatoes and herbs served over grilled bread. Even though he thinks this "holiday" is a silly hallmark money making day, I look forward to his meals every year.

Here is Justin preparing the risotto, he hadn't made this in awhile and forgot how time consuming it can be!And below is the table set on our balcony, me enjoying the risotto (YUMMY) and the sausage.

And us after dinner, a little tipsy. :)

The last weekend of Feb we bought bikes!!! We have been wanting bikes for so long. We moved into a new apartment last summer and now live right along the river in Singapore. There are so many places we will be able to explore by bike that was too far to travel to by foot. We don't own a car so we thoroughly enjoyed our first weekend of cruising around from place to place on our new rides.

All in all, a great month. I promise my following posts will not be so long! Will try to post and update regularly, that is now in ink so feel free to hold me to it ;). Enjoy!!!! xo