Most of the time I do not think ahead of what to cook too as I will only plan after my visit to the market. The reason is, I don’t always get to find certain ingredients which I have in mind so I don’t want to put myself in a situation where I felt unhappy for not able to find these ingredients. I rather keep my options open. Sometimes I will just purchase and keep them until I have a suitable recipe to dish them out.

Like a few weeks back, I found some frozen chicken thighs in my freezer. My initial plan was to prepare curry chicken but I did not have any chili mix and coconut milk so I have make some changes and come out with other chicken recipes. Therefore, I have to think of something fast so I can use up those chicken thighs. And I want to share this with all of you today…

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Grilled Turmeric Chicken Thigh

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Sometimes I will go search online for suitable recipes too as some of these sites give good ideas. One of them is MyDish.co.uk. They even have many recipes from their community where people from all over the world share their recipes so you can get pretty good ideas with certain ingredients which you might have in mind or readily have on hand but not sure what to do with them.

Well, soon it will be Christmas and if you still can’t find the any recipes for your Christmas eve dinner or party, why not go peek at MyDish.co.uk and see if they have something perfect for the occasion?

As the queue was pretty long (we waited almost an hour) so we walked around and started reading whatever information they have, either booklet, leaflets and even notices that they stuck on the wall. We did not know we can actually apply home improvement loans from them! This was indeed a very useful piece of information.

Too bad they are not offering any car loans or personal loans, if not I am sure there will be heaps of people applying for that rather than go through loan sharks! I can’t remember if they are charging any interest rates for taking the loans.

Well, if we really need to do renovation to our house, then we might want to consider taking the loans as it is definitely better than getting that through banks as we will sure to pay higher interest rates.

Since my cousin has been staying in the other rented unit for quite sometime, he has accumulated quite a huge bit of stuff… or junks as my uncle put in. Now my uncle has to find some removal companies company to get a removal quote before he decide what to do next based on the best quote.

In fact we went to have a look at the new unit a couple of days ago when they moved in unofficially with some new furniture. The place looked pretty well done up as my uncle has installed air conditions to the entire unit with built in cabinets and a kitchenette too.

My cousin is damn lucky to has his parents taking care of everything for him. All he needs to do is just moves his butts in!

I don’t want flowers or another pigging out session this year… what I really hope he will give me is one of those lovely designer jewellery from Astley Clarke. It has been a while since I last indulge in costume jewellery and I am thinking of having some new pieces to add on to my collection… killing two birds with one stone! hehehe

Currently most of my collection are made up of gold jewellery which I got for my wedding but I don’t look too good with gold jewellery now and prefer to put on silver jewellery instead. Lets hope I will find a box like the picture above inside my stocking on Christmas day….

I will normally surf for cake recipes as those I got from the recipes books do not have any reviews so I won’t know if the recipes within are good or not. It is not easy to find good cake recipes that are suitable for us as we have very different taste buds. We prefer our cakes to be less sweet so that’s really challenging.
In fact I found a lot of interesting recipes online which are really good as compared to those found in cookbooks. The truth is, those recipes I found online are more reliable and the finishing products are very close to the descriptions which I really like.

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Like the cupcakes I prepared for Darrius’s birthday, both the recipes, the ideas as well as the inspiration were from online resources. I tested them and they turned out great so I decided to keep and use them.

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For Chinese custom and tradition, the grandparents will normally give gold jewellery such as necklace, bangles or anklets to the newborn during the full moon celebration. When Darrius was a month old, he received quite a few sets of gold jewelleries from all his grand uncles and aunties besides both grand parents.

So far I’ve never put on any for Darrius as it’s quite dangerous to wear gold these days more over he is still a small kid. My mom did suggested that we get him a silver anklet instead. I did went around some silver jewellery shops to search for one but till now I have yet to get for him…. lazy me… always procrastinate!

He don’t own that many pieces of formal shirts now as compared to last time as he is allowed to wear T-Shirts to work now. He also seldom put on his casual shirts as both of us are lazy to do the ironing… we don’t have the time really!

Over the weekend, we went around the few malls here and started our Chinese New Year shopping… yeah, it was kind of early but PiggyBeng don’t like to squeeze with people during the last minute rush. He preferred to shop now and happy to buy shirts of his choice.

I tried to shop for mine too but did not managed to spot any items that I fancy so I ended up with nothing. Bought a few casual wear for Darrius though as he has out-grown those old ones. That boy is growing!

I must acknowledge the hassle that involved whenever I need to change address whenever I to move from one place to another. What I dreaded most is the change of address and redirecting mails procedures since I need to inform all the important parties such as the banks, the company I worked in, the credit card companies and etc… so that they could ensure I get my letters and other imporatant documents delivered to my new place.

Hopefully we won’t have to move again soon as I really can’t imagine all the work involved since we have a little toddler now. Losing some of my precious ’stuff’ during each move is one thing I hated most as I have to get rid of them since I might not have the space to keep or store them. So much like losing an ‘investment’!

We have seen many people letting themselves get caught up with all sort of debts. Mortgages, car loans, study loans, credit card debts and gambling loans which the Ah Longs (loan sharks) are more than happy to extend. Some (often the youngsters) even suffered bankruptcy after they failed to make repayments.

I find that a lot of youngsters now (especially those in the early twenties) are so prone to bankruptcies simply because they do not know how to manage their finances. Most will continue to pile up their debts despite the fact they can’t make the repayment. Recently some banks are beginning to offer debt management information to all their clients in the hope they do not get further trapped with mounting debts and also to curb the escalating bankruptcy rates.

That’s why PiggyBeng and myself will clear all our credit card bills and do not let it lapse to avoid paying the high interest rates. PiggyBeng is very particular and always remain debt free if possible.

Both of us shared a joint saving account as this way it will be easier for PiggyBeng to keep track of our financial flow. Though we have our personal saving accounts, we still linked them to our joint account so that we can help each other to manage or rather he helped me to manage all my finances… Since I am a stay at home mom, I don’t have that much saving now as ompared to those days when I am in the corporate world so there’s nothing much for me to ‘manage’.

So far we have not taken up any loans. Though we almost wanted to take a loan when PiggyBeng was about to purchase my car but he decided againts it as he did not want to pay the high interest rate so he rather pay the car agent in cash.