Thank you, It’s Good To Be Crazy Sometimes author behind My Crazy Life for the lovely Liebster Award Nomination. 

Mind you, this lady has more than 1200 followers already! That number in itself is already a testament to her blog and so, to have my blog being mentioned amongst her sea of followers, I feel terribly honoured to have made it to her list at all.  

You’ll just have to check her out. She does wonders in addressing the challenges in dealing with mental health and enjoys being quirky for most of the time. She’s also one of he most responsive bloggers I know. Follow her along!

As with most awards, this one comes with rules. One of the rules that had caused a slight delay in my response was the sheer fact of trying to find blogs that have less than 200 followers. It’s not always that easy to find. Plus, some of her questions she posed required a bit of a thinker. 

If your blog is mentioned below and you happen to have more than 200, don’t mind me. It’s just a shout-out from me and, I hope that there’ll be more people checking out your site.

Rules:

-Thank the person who nominated you and link back to her/his blog. Done
-Copy and paste the Liebster Award badge to your post. Done. Done.
-Nominate 10 new bloggers with less than 200 followers. See below
-Answer the ten questions the person who nominated you asked, and then create ten new questions for the bloggers you are nominating. See below
-Nominate 10 new bloggers by leaving a comment on their blog. Bear with me. I’ll get there!

Here are my answers to My Crazy Life‘s questions in response to the award:

1. If you could visit any planet in the solar system which one would you choose and why? Saturn. I’m fascinated by its rings!
2. Name something great about yourself. I’m great at misplacing things. It’s just what I do for being disorganised for most of the time. Strangely, though, I’m one of the most organised at work. At the home front, I suck! 
3. Have you done a good for someone recently? I went out of my way to deliver a bunch of heavy, second-hand items which I was selling although the agreement was for her to arrange a pick-up from me. She had already bargained hard on the prices which were set and even telling me that she could have gotten the same price if she had bought it from the US (to which I told her that perhaps she should have just bought a new one from there). She finally agreed on the prices and was appreciative for the personal delivery. She was pregnant. 
4. Have you ever been arrested? Nope.
5. What is the worse date you have ever been on? With a guy who has just broken up with his girlfriend days before he decided to call me out for a date. He then spent the whole evening talking about his ex; both fond memories and trashing her at the same time and broke down in between his stories. I’ve never seen such a confused man. He was clearly on a rebound and was such a sorry sight to watch too.  I told him to get back together with his ex.
6. What’s the weather like today? Hot, Hot, Hot!
7. Arctic Cruise or Hot beach holiday? Artic. it would not be so cold when you are inside the cruise ship!
8. Is there anyone near you. If so who? Silver Bullet (My husband)
9. Do you like rollercoasters? Used to. I’m too old for that shit these days. I think my heart would stop. 
10. If you choke a Smurf, what color does it turn? Red? Pink?

Here are my nominees:

1. Just Blue Dutch
2. The Anxious Dragon’s Blog
3. Out Loud Karen
4. A Texan’s View of Upstate New York
5. The Squirmy Popple
6. The Urban Life
7. Lisapomerantze
8. So Far So Stu
9. Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice
10. Really Vanilla

My 10 questions:

1. What’s your favourite go-to snack?
2. If a genie would grant you one wish, and only one, what would you wish for?
3.  What’s your favourite post from your own blog so far? Do share your link(s).
4. Who is your favourite blogger?
5. If you would cook a special meal, what would it be?
6. What makes you squirm?
7. What is the most annoying song?
8. Would you rather live in the city or the suburb?
9. What is your favourite quote?
10. Cats or dogs?

Congratulations to all the nominees! Hope this makes your day as it did mine. Thank you once again,  It’s Good To Be Crazy Sometimes!

First Anniversary blog buddy celebration.

12 monthly edition of good food.

Possibly more than 24 recipes between Gen over at Eat, Play, Clove and me.

All of which were accomplished and compiled as a regular Friday feature in the last 12 months and I don’t see either of us quitting anytime soon! 

Apparently I had inevitably made Gen hunt down for hard-to-find ingredients with this month’s challenge of  “country swapping” when she had to make a Singaporean dish. Ooops. Sorry, Gen! 

But I have to confess that while I know that some ingredients would be hard to find for her, I was also curious as to what Gen would use as a substitute if she had to. It is things like that which make cooking so much more interesting, don’t you think? Besides, I just know that Gen would love a challenge.  If she used any substitute ingredients in her Ayam Kapitan dish,  I don’t see them in her list of ingredients.

Gen has, like always, did very well with the use of exotic ingredients. She even grew some of the ingredients herself. How cool is that! Her choice of Ayam Kapitan – a rich, creamy and aromatic Malay-Chinese fusion dish. It’s a great choice of a Singaporean dish, usually served in a Peranakan restaurant given the fusion of culture we have.

Peranakan or Nyonya cuisine that comes from the Peranakans, descendants of early Chinese migrants who settled in Penang, Malacca, Singapore and Indonesia inter-marrying with local Malays and combines Chinese, Malay and other influences. Nonya cooking is the result of blending Chinese ingredients with various distinct spices and cooking techniques used by the Malay/Indonesian community. (Source: Wikipedia). 

Here’s what Gen has to say about it:

Back to my Singaporean dish – behold Ayam Kapitan. Yeah, I also had no clue. Turns out it’s a chicken curry, using interesting and exciting ingredients, some of which I wouldn’t usually use. Some of the ingredients I already had in my cupboard, others required a slight search. No worries, I enjoy a challenge. This dish uses some of my favouritist (that’s a word, ‘kay?) food – oh hi garlic, ginger, coconut cream, lemon grass (homegrown in my very own garden, no less) – basically I love every single ingredient. I’d never cooked with tamarind paste before, so that was an intriguing experience. I mean, I felt so *exotic*! Anyways folks, this dish is absolutely delectable. It perfectly fuses all of the ingredients to create a creamy, spicy (but not too hot), citrus-y beauty of a meal. By The Husband’s instruction (sometimes I allow him to think he has a say), I will be cooking this meal again. And again, and again, and then again.

Believe it or not, this is something which I have NOT made before. I mean, I know about this dish, I have eaten it many times over in restaurants but it has never occurred to me to make it. She puts the Singaporean in me to shame! :p

But that don’t matter. That’s why we have Monthly Mystery Munchies because we get new ideas to try out something new, forgotten or even something that we have not really thought of. For that, thank you, Gen,  for yet again being such a wonderful inspiration to home-cooked meals! This one is for you:

If you have not checked out Gen yet, make sure you pop over to her Ayam Kapitan recipe  and leave her some foodie love. She’s worth checking out. I should also mention that I love that creamy, yellowy marinade she put up on her blog. That marinade itself is almost a sure-fire sign of good food. Trust me on this one.