Understanding Your Brain

Your Brain Usage Profile:
Auditory : 50%
Visual : 50%
Left : 52%
Right : 47%

You are one of those rare individuals who are perfectly "balanced" in both your hemispheric tendencies and your sensory learning preferences. However, there is both good news and bad news.

A problem with hemispheric balance is that you will tend to feel more conflict than someone who has a clearly established dominance. At times the conflict will be between what you feel and what you think but will also involve how you attack problems and how you perceive information. Details which will seem important to the right hemis- phere will be discounted by the left and vice versa, which can present a hindrance to learning efficiently.

In the same vein, you may have a problem with organization. You might organize your time and/or space only to feel the need to reorganize five to ten weeks later.

On the positive side, you bring resources to problem-solving that others may not have. You can perceive the "big picture" and the essential details simultaneously and maintain the cognitive perspective required. You possess sufficient verbal skills to translate your intuition into a form which can be understood by others while still being able to access ideas and concepts which do not lend themselves to language.

Your balanced nature might lead you to second-guess yourself in artistic endeavors, losing some of the fluidity, spontaneity and creativity that otherwise would be yours.

With your balanced sensory styles, you process data alternately, at times visually and other times auditorially. This usage of separate memories may cause you to require more time to integrate information or re-access it. When presented with situations which force purely visual or purely auditory learning, increased anxiety is likely and your learning efficiency will decrease.

Your greatest benefit is that you can succeed in multiple fields due to the great plasticity and flexibility you possess.

Try understanding your brain at MindMedia.

What is Your Child's Talent?

What is your Child's Learning Talent?
by Montessorimom.com

Which type of Supreme Pizza are you?

You are a Chicken Supreme Pizza!
Be it spicy, roasted or ham, you love them all! Just like your attitude towards friends, you accept and love your friends for who they are. You are also faithful to your family and friends; someone who can be trusted and depended on. One bite into this pizza and you'll love it for life!

Which type of Supreme Pizza are you?
Brought to you by Pizza Hut

Heheh, that's my personality above! I heard about this Super Monday deal where you get a free Garlic Bread and 6pcs Sweet n' Spicy Drumlets with every purchase of regular or large pizza from the Supremes range. That led me to the Pizza Hut's website and in turn to the Personality Test above.

I wanna eat pizza today! *drool* But I don't want the Chicken Supreme. I wanna try the Seafood Supreme on a lime mayonnaise base sauce. My first choice would always be Super Supreme. But as YH does not take beef, I shall try the seafood one then and on the new Cheesy Bites Stuffed Crust!! Yummy!!

Soursop Juice/Drink

A refreshing drink on a hot day. Just mix soursop with sugar, lemon juice and water. Then chill in fridge and its ready to be served. This time round as its my first attempt at making this drink, think its too diluted. Shall mix in less water next time.

Baked Chicken Wings

My sis doesn't cook often and since she tried out this recipe first with good results, we shall be gracious and term this dish one of her specialty!! Surprisingly, although the chicken wings are baked and not deep fried, they are still crispy. Think we shall adopt this recipe since baked wings use no oil and are more healthy... or are we just deluding ourselves...For our version, we marinated the chicken wings in chinese wine, soy sauce, pepper, sesame oil for overnight for best results. Then just before baking, dredge the wings in plain flour mixed with some chicken seasoning and pepper. Then place onto a rack and bake at 200 deg C for 20 mins on each side or till crispy and browned. This recipe is quite versatile and you can try adding whatever marinade you fancy: 5-spice powder, oyster sauce, etc. But one thing I've realised is that the taste changes subtly if ginger juice is added and the chicken tastes better.

I've found another baked chicken wing recipe on Kuali's website although I haven't tried it out yet.

Baked Wings/Drummettes

Ingredients
600g wings / drummettes, (about 15 pieces) washed & drained in a colander

Marinade:
1 tablespoon young ginger, ground finely
1 clove garlic, ground finely
2 tablespoons honey
Juice of 1 calamansi lime
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 teaspoon chicken stock granules
1/2 teaspoon salt to taste
1 teaspoon dried chilli flakes (more if you prefer spicier wings)
6 kaffir lime leaves, sliced thinly
1 tablespoon corn flour

Method
1. In a mixing bowl, combine marinade ingredients together.

2. Toss the wings/drummettes in marinade and mix well until evenly-coated. Cover the bowl with cling film and leave marinated chicken wings in the refrigerator for 3 hours or overnight.

3. Pre-heat oven to 200ºC and grill for 20 minutes or until wings are golden in colour.

4. Serve immediately.

(Source: http://kuali.com)

Chicken Noodle Soup

Yesterday's dinner was a fruitful one as we experimented with some new dishes: Chicken Noodle Soup, Baked Chicken Wings and Soursop Juice!

The Chicken Noodle Soup is one of the dishes taught by Chef Yong too. Although we all find it a bit strange as it is an English kinda soup, with chunkier pieces, very unlike the chinese kinda noodle soup we are accustomed to. However, taste-wise, it rocks!! Chicken Noodle Soup
(Serves 4)

Ingredients:
2 whole Chicken Thigh
2 tbsp Oil
1 tsp Chopped Garlic
120g White Onions, diced
60g Carrots, diced
60g Celery, diced
200g Button Mushrooms, diced (can use fresh or canned ones)
1/4 tsp Tumeric powder
2 sprigs Fresh Thyme (I used dried thyme, approx. 1 tsp)
2 pcs Dried Bay Leaves
1L Water
100g Spaghetti or Vermicelli Pasta
4 tbsp Maggi Concentrated Chicken Stock
1 tbsp Chopped Parsley (I used dried parsley)

Method:
1. Heat oil in pot, add the chopped garlic and onions, saute till fragrant. Add the carrots, celery and mushrooms and cook for another minute. Sprinkle in tumeric powder and ass the thyme and bay leaves.

2. Pour in water and add the chicken thighs. Add the pasta (break into half) and bring soup to the boil. Simmer for 20 mins until chicken is tender.

3. Remove chicken from soup and shred the meat. Discard bay leaves and fresh thyme stalks. Return shredded chicken meat to soup. Add the Maggi concentrated chicken stock and adjust the seasoning of the soup further with salt if necessary. (To make the soup thicker, add cornstarch water to thicken)

4. Serve soup with chopped parsley.

Baked Rice with Bacon and Mushrooms

Recently, me and my sis attended a cooking class by Chef Yong at Cairnhill CC. We were taught Deep Fried Prawns with Wasabi Mayo, Chicken Noodle Soup and Baked Rice with Bacon and Mushrooms. As the recipe from the Chef is cooking the rice from scratch and is much different from the easy lazy way which I've always cooked my baked rice, I decided to replicate the Chef's recipe and try whether taste-wise, it's the same as what we've tasted in the cooking class. Ta-da! The end product tastes every bit as good as what we're tried in the class. Yummilicious!! I've cooked only 1 cup rice for me, hubby and baby, thus halved all the portions. However, I realised that the cooking time remains unchanged even though the recipe calls for 2 cups rice and I've only used 1 cup. So that's something to note.

Baked Rice with Bacon and Mushrooms
(Serves 4)

Ingredients:
Rice
1 tsp Butter
60g Chopped Onion
2 cups Jasmine Rice (I've only used 1 cup)
3 cups Chicken Stock (Use 2 tbsp chicken stock concentrate to 250ml water)

White Sauce (Basic cream pasta sauce)
300ml Milk (UHT/Fresh Milk)
100ml Cream
2 tbsp Maggi Concentrated Chicken Stock
2 tbsp Cornstarch or Potato Starch
4 tbsp Water

Others
200g Streaky Bacon, diced
1 can Button Mushrooms, halved or quartered (I used fresh button mushrooms)
100g Fresh Shitake Mushrooms
100g Mozzarella or Emmental Cheese (I used Emmental Cheese)
Chopped English Parsley
1 Whole Tomato, diced

Method:
1. Wash rice and drain dry. Melt butter and saute onions till fragrant. Add rice and pour in the chicken stock. Bring to boil and cook over slow fire for 15 mins. Alternatively, bake rice, covered, in a preheated oven at 180 deg C for 40 mins (20 mins for metal tray). Allow rice to rest for 10 mins before fluffing. (I used glass tray and baked the rice in the oven, covered with aluminium foil)

2. Combine milk and cream together. Bring to boil and add the concentrated chicken stock. Mix starch with water and thicken the sauce with it. (Just enough for the sauce to coat the back of a spoon, runny consistency)

3. Heat oil and saute bacon until fat is rendered. Add the mushrooms and cook for 2 mins. Transfer cooked rice to a casserole. Sprinkle the bacon and mushrooms over the rice. Spoon the white sauce over the rice and sprinkle with some grated cheese.

4. Bake rice in a preheated oven at 220 deg C for 10 - 15 mins. Sprinkle with chopped parsley and diced tomatoes before serving.

Horlicks Doggie Cookies

On the spur of the moment, me and my sis decided to try baking these doggie cookies yesterday during lunchtime. Looking at the recipe, it looks pretty easy. But I'm still amazed at the speed of which we completed the baking. We only took a mere 30 mins to bake these cookies from scratch, from the creaming to the shaping and to the decorating! Isn't it amazingly fast!! Taste-wise, it's not too sweet as no sugar has been added. However, the cookie has a crumbly texture, quite similar to that of Melting Moments. Most of all, they look very cute! Rows after rows of doggies' heads looks just too good to be eaten!

Horlicks Doggie Cookies
(Makes 48 cookies)

Ingredients:
180g butter
80g Horlicks
100g chocolate chips
200g top flour (I used cake flour)
25g cornflour
25g milk powder
Koko Krunch

Method:
1. Sift the flour, cornflour and milk powder.
2. Cream the butter and Horlicks for 3 minutes at low speed. Do not overbeat.
3. Add the sifted flour and beat for about one minute to form a dough.
4. Divide dough into 10g each. Embed 3 chocolate chips into each piece of dough and roll into a ball.
5. Insert 2 pieces of Koko Krunch to form the ears and 1 chocolate chip as the nose.
6. Bake at 140 Deg. C for about 25 minutes.
7. Cool before storing.

(Source: http://www.kitchencapers.net/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=62711#62711
Contributor: Rusti)

Sik Wai Sin Eating House

We went to this Sik Wai Sin Eating House in Geylang on Sunday for dinner. We ordered all the house specialty: Steamed Grass Carp Fish Head, Steamed Minced Pork with Salted Fish, Tofu with Prawns, Stir-Fried Kai Lan and Braised Bittergourd with Spareribs.

We had to wait a while for the lady boss to find us a table. The waiting time is quite OK with me as the drivers need time to find a parking lot too, which wasn't an easy task in Geylang. I was abit worried about the temperature in the shop as some articles in the net said that it is the hottest place in Geylang! I find the heat in the shop still OK. Maybe its night-time then and abit more cooling.

About the food, I like the dishes though they were a wee bit oily and salty. But this is homestyle cantonese food, so that's typical of the dishes. Everybody agreed that the tofu with prawns was nice. The fish head was very fresh abeit too many bones. Overall, I like all the food. But the price for the dishes seems a wee bit expensive. For 5 adults and 1 child consuming the 5 dishes, together with 5 cans of soft drinks, the price comes up to $80+.

Well, I don't mind coming back again... but there's so many other eating places I've set my eyes on, so till then then.

Sik Wai Sin Eating House
287 Geylang Road (Just after Lorong 15)
Tel: 6744 0129