Skechers offer at OG

Chanced upon this National Day offer, and was able to buy two pairs for $110, when the usual price was $109 each. I already had enough shoes, so we decided to buy both pairs for YX. Pictured here are her pairs at size 6.  

Unboxing Mayer Breadmaker MMBM12

Hubby told me there was a Mayer atrium sale near his workplace and snapped a pic of the Mayer Breadmaker (MMBM12) on sale. It was going for about 50% off (compared to online sources and other retailers like Parisilk), so we jumped on the offer and bought it.

Y went with me to purchase it and she was so excited about the new purchase that she actually helped me carry the box (4.5kg) home from our basement carpark!

Naturally, Y continued to harrass me to open and bake bread immediately, so we did just that. 

Opening the box, we found the operating manual/instruction book and a glove(for protecting your hand when removing the inner bread barrel from the machine body). Inside the bread barrel, there was the stirrer, a measuring cup, and a dual measuring spoon.

Unboxing Kenwood compact oven toaster MO280

We were at Robinsons Raffles City checking out the sale promotions when I saw this on sale. I had been tempted to replace the current Philips toaster (which only toasts sliced bread and warms pastries atop the toaster), with a small toaster oven. I wanted to be able to make simple puff pastry items and pizzas for breakfast/lunch without having to use my built-in oven or airfryer (which blows all the shredded cheese everywhere when in use)

I liked this model as it has a crumb door at the base to clean crumbs/messes. Function-wise, it has temperature control and timer. I can also choose function (whether to have only top heating, or both top and bottom heating)

Hubby had some vouchers to use on hand, so we decided to buy this for $49.90.

I am looking forward to more grilled breakfast items!

Top (from left): Slide-in wire tray; instructions manuals; tray/dish handle (hidden below manual) ; cooking dish.

Unboxing Philips noodle maker

Finally got down to blowing the dust off the Philips noodle maker that hubby had bought during a Philips staff sale event in Dec 2014 (did I ever mention half my kitchen appliances are from Philips cos he has a friend working for Philips?)

The unit came with the basic cut moulds for 

A) Angel hair/ Mee Kia 

B) Penne
C) Spaghetti/ Yellow noodles
D) Fettuccine/ Ban Mian

Our first round was disastrous as I was happily admiring the machine at work after pouring in the flour and water, when hubs popped round and asked why I did not add an egg. I had quickly browsed through the instruction manual and only breezed thru the table showing the difference in ingredients for egg vs normal plain noodle. I remembered the liquid measure was different for egg, and ASSUMED it was simply the original amount for plain water, with an egg added in. So I just quickly beat up an egg and added it into the mix before the kneading cycle ended. 

THAT WAS THE MISTAKE!

What originally looked like breadcrumbs texture ended up like a thick sticky muffin batter. I tried adding in more flour but still couldn't salvage it. I had fitted the thinnest cut disc, and the extruded noodles looked like extra-strength electrical wires (you know, those that coil around each other, forming one thicker band of wires?). Hubby tried to manually knead the dough we dug out of the chamber, by hand. and tried extruding again, without much success. But we still managed to cook them anyhow, and ate them for lunch. They were pretty decent, and chewy....

And that is why this post is on "unboxing" rather than the final product. Haha.

Bye MBP, Hello Mac Mini

I had been using hubby's Macbook Pro for a while now, and it has been "degrading" somewhat. I was facing problems like slower speed (which was to be expected), unusually hot surface (the internal fan was probably broken), and a totally dead touchpad (which wasn't a problem since I was mainly using it as a desktop and used a separate USB mouse anyway).

Purchasing a new Mac-based system for use as a desktop had been on my mind for quite a while. I had put off the purchase for a couple of IT fairs/expos by now, and I was getting a bit more fed-up with the performance lately, as the surface was getting really hot, and it shuts down on me without warning.

I decided to just get a simple replacement, looking for size rather than portability, since I didn't have a real need for a portable machine. After some online (and store) research, I decided to get the Mac mini since I was still more accustomed to the Mac (rather than Windows) interface and programs.

It was the weekend of the quarterly IT fair, but there are usually not any good discounts offered for the Mac family machines. Thus I got the Mac mini from Challenger, where I could chalk up membership points and see what other discounts they could offer. We managed to get a good offer on software.

For the other hardware, it was all bought from COMEX 2015 at Suntec. YX followed us rather obediently (although she did grumble a bit about the walking and the crowds) as hubby helped me select and purchase a suitably-sized (and priced) monitor and keyboard.

Bye MacBook Pro (Top picture), Hello Mac Mini (bottom picture)

My buys - Cake turntable

I finally got my hands on a more proper cake turntable! 😋

I was using an improvised one for a couple of months, using a small/short plastic turntable from Daiso that was merely 1-2cm high, and slapped on a nonslip mat between that and the cake base cardboard. 

My selfie stick purchase

Finally got down to buying a selfie stick (from qoo10). The purchase came in via normal mail safe and sound, and looked sturdy.

I made the mistake of opening the package in front of YX, and so she was bugging me for it the next few days once she saw it.

Here are some pictures taken by her.