It's Selina's (Calvin's eldest sister) birthday on 26th Jan. So we planned a gathering to celebrate her birthday in advance. We've been cracking our heads on what to prepare for dinner. Home delivery and ta-bao food were not in my list of options. We finally decided on a simple, easy-to-prepare menu for a table of 5.

~ Table for 5 ~
Selina, Corinna (Calvin's 2nd sister), Dexter (Calvin's cousin) and of course, us

~ Fruit Salad in Yoghurt ~
Recipe from Chiew Hoon.. it was a hit!

~ Tomato Soup ~
Our all-time favourite with tomato chunks added

~ Grilled Beef Burger ~
Home-made beef burger served with chips and sauteed vegetables

We made our own beef patties! It was an achievement! Calvin marinated them and they taste sooo good! Yum yum... and this is sooo easy to make.

~ Happy Birthday Selina ~
Strawberry Jelly Tofu Cheesecake from Bakincow

We invited Calvin's secondary school friends over for a gathering: to pass them our "red bomb" or should it be "black bomb" (haha); and to thank them for the mixer. So, I thought it'd be good if I could prepare some food using the mixer as a gesture of appreciation.

With Yuxiang's recipe, tips and encouragement, I decided to give the Billy's [Eric's] Vanilla, Vanilla Cupcakes a shot. [Esther, next up will be the mini min cheesecakes that you dedicated to me.. hehe]

I've always loved the pretty, cheery look that cupcakes exude. But, friends who know me will know that I don't eat cakes. The only kind of cakes that I eat are chiffon cakes [pandan cake is the best!]... at best, non-creamy cakes. So, I cracked my head a bit to think about how I should decorate my cupcakes. Cos I definitely want to eat my own cupcakes... I found the chocolate that I used for fondue and I decided that is it! Chocolate toppings for my cupcakes! There you go... My 1st attempt at baking (alone!).

Made some mistakes and learnt from them... Practice makes perfect. (^__*)

Well, of course I can't serve just cupcakes to my guests. Knowing how limited my skills & experience are, I resort to the easy way out... Pasta! Haha... easy to prepare.

We love the bacon rolls we had at Ikoi. They had bacon rolls with cocktail sausages, which we felt is a bit too meaty. So we did it with aspagarus & golden mushrooms. The vege kebabs definitely have lots of room for improvement. But overall, I'm happy if my guests are happy! :D

One other thing to work on: Food presentation!

erm... the mini cook was too busy being a cook that she forgot to take pictures of her guests. Thanks to Esther... click here to visit her blog for more lively pictures from the gathering. :p