Cantonese Egg Tarts

"Are we making anything today?"  MyGirl asked me.

"We could,"  I replied.  "What do you want to make?"  

"Egg tarts,"  she recommended.

I knew we had flour, butter, sugar, milk and eggs so I was quite confident we'd be able to whip up some egg tarts.  All we needed was a recipe we could work with.  

"Done.  Go look for a recipe."

The last batch of egg tarts we made required puff pastry which we didn't have.  I figured making the pastry from scratch wouldn't be too difficult.

MyGirl showed me a recipe but when we got to part indicating how many eggs were needed, we both shook our heads.  (The recipe required NINE eggs.)  

I let MyGirl go through some more recipes.  When she had found one she wanted to try, I told her to copy it down so that we could refer to it as we baked.   

The recipe called for evaporated milk which we don't normally have in our pantry.  I had to re-check whether we could substitute regular milk before we could proceed.  (Seems evaporated milk has less water, since it has been 'evaporated' thus the name.)  Fortunately the recipe called for the sugar to be dissolved in hot water, then for the whisked egg and evaporated milk to be added.  I figured this meant I could just substitute regular milk for the 'water plus evaporated milk' combination. 

I re-read the recipe and asked MyGirl if she had copied it down wrong because it said that we were to  'Cut dough with a cookie cutter that is just a bit smaller than your tart tin in size'.  

"Shouldn't we cut dough with a cookie cutter that is BIGGER than our muffin pan hole?"  I asked MyGirl.

"No," she insisted, "it says 'smaller'.  I think it is right."

I wasn't convinced so we decided that we'd do half the dough her way (smaller than the muffin pan hole) and the other half my way (bigger than the muffin pan hole).  

After she had made the pastry dough, she divided it in half and worked on one muffin pan.  She made six big ones her way and I made six big ones my way.  With the left-over scraps, we made ten smaller ones using a mini-muffin pan (six small ones from her scraps and four from mine).

They turned out beautifully, if I may say so myself except for two of the tiny ones which got stuck to the pan and crumbled away.   

The big ones are in the back.  Can you see the difference in the thickness of the crust?   

 

The ones on the left were from my batch while the ones on the right were from MyGirl's. 

Since the tarts were distinctively different,  I asked MyGirl to allocate the tarts already so that it would be fair.  We each got an sample from each of the batches  -- a big one from MyGirl's, a big one from mine, a small one from MyGirl's and a small one from mine.  (MacGyver and I each had a bonus tart since there were a dozen big ones). 

She sorted the tarts and made labels for each person.  Then she made a sign to make sure people knew they   had their OWN allocation.

At them moment, I have stashed my share in the refrigerator and these are the only ones left on the counter.

In other words, the recipe is a keeper.

The Not so Tiny, Very Busy Spider

The eensy weensy (aka the itsy bitsy) spider went up the water spout
Down came the rain and washed the spider out
Out came the sun and dried up all the rain
And the eensy weensy (aka the itsy bitsy) spider went up the spout again.

It has been raining all week so the clothes had to be hung indoors when we did the laundry.
Although it was sunny yesterday, we didn't have enough clothes to run a wash load.
I remembered the weather report (according the elevator last Friday) had a sun hiding behind clouds for Sunday so I decided to run a load and that could hopefully catch SOME sun.

When I checked outside to hang the clothes, this is what greeted me.

As you can see, our backyard spider has been busy.

For some odd reason, RD and MyGirl know two different versions of the nursery rhyme.
RD knows it as the ITSY BITSY spider while MyGirl is convinced it is the EENSY WEENSY spider.
I have a feeling MacGyver taught RD the song because my first instinct is with MyGirl and  'eensy weensy.'

Calling on my siblings ... itsy bitsy or eensy weensy?

Titanic : 100 Years Past

A hundred years ago today, the RMS Titanic disappeared beneath the surface of the Atlantic Ocean.

Who was to know that the Titanic's maiden voyage would be its last?

The Titanic left Southampton England on 10 April 1912, a Wednesday. It was headed for New York. It is said that there were more than 2,200 people on board the Titanic. There were over 880 crew members and over 1,300 passenger. Of the passengers, there were about 330 in first class, over 280 in second class and over 700 in third class.

At 11:40 PM on the night of 14 April 1912, the Royal Mail Ship Titanic struck an iceberg. It sank less than three hours after, at around 2:20 AM on the morning of 15 April.

Of the 2,200 or so people on board, only about 710 people survived.

There was a documentary on TV the other night which featured letters written by Titanic survivors about their experience. They had descendants of these survivors to read out the letters some of which described what they recalled about the ship itself, and the experience before, during and after the tragedy.

Reportedly, the Titanic had the capacity to carry 64 life boats but there were only sixteen wooden life boats and four collapsible ones. Legally, however, this was four more than the number required for the ship (based on its design, the sixteen watertight compartments, etc.). The Titanic was a passenger line, a luxury ship, and it seems they had stuck to having a lesser number of life boats because the additional life boats were deemed an eyesore on the ship's deck. They had thought the Titanic was unsinkable. I suppose they didn't think they would really need the life boats.

In the documentary, they had quoted the cost one of the first class passengers paid for his ticket at £35 (in comparison, second class and third class tickets were quoted at about £15 and £8, respectively).

It struck me that death is truly the great equalizer. The man who had paid for a first class ticket was in the same sinking ship as the man who was at third class.

Are we not all like Titanic passengers in this life?

We never know when an "iceberg" will come and change our lives.

We sometimes ignore warnings that our sent our way.

Our decisions in times of crisis determine whether we will survive or not.

We know not the time and day when our maker will call us.

When the time comes, it will not matter if we are rich or poor.

In the end, we will leave everything we physically own behind.

Everything I Need to Know, I Learned from the Easter Bunny…

Got this in my mail today. Happy Easter, everyone.

Everything I Need to Know, I Learned from the Easter Bunny ...

Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.

Walk softly and carry a big carrot.

Everyone needs a friend who is all ears.

There’s no such thing as too much candy.

All work and no play can make you a basket case.

A cute little tail attracts a lot of attention.

Everyone is entitled to a bad hare day.

Let happy thoughts multiply like rabbits.

Some body parts should be floppy.

Keep your paws off other people’s jellybeans.

Good things come in small-sugar coated packages.

The grass is greener in someone else’s basket.

An Easter bonnet can cover the wildest hare.

To show your true colors, you have to come out of your shell.

The best things in life are still sweet and gooey.