Talk therapy and girlfriends bonding

Many of you will remember that I am in touch with quite a number of my high school schoolmates. We call ourselves the “Golden Girls” (GGs) class of 72, and have been friends for over forty years! "

We meet up now and then for "talk therapy". Don’t get me wrong, we are not a whole bunch of depressed or bi-polar women. In fact, we are the opposite. 

Our "talk therapy" is good for the soul and it does not cost a dime. During the course of talk therapy we , of course, talk a great deal. Sometimes the actual topics are not the most valuable part of  the "therapy". We learn that we have common experiences which lets us know that we are not alone in experiencing the little challenges in life  that seem to crop up. For example, looking for one’s hand phone while holding it, or wearing a T-shirt backwards and wondering why people are staring;  or even better: putting a roll of toilet paper in the fridge. Oh we have many more, but some things are best left unsaid outside our circle. LOL!

It had been quite a while since I had last invited the Golden Girls to my house for a meal. So when one of my high school classmates, Soo Har, told me that she would be visiting Kuala Lumpur from her home in Australia, I thought it would be a good time to cook for the girls again. 

I prepared a very simple dinner. We started with some cold cuts, cheese and wine. I made the following dishes:-

a pot of bean soup

butter garlic mushrooms

steam cabbage, a pot of brown rice, some buns 

and

braised chicken drumstick in tomato sauce, recipe by Alexandra Guarnaschelli

The only ingredient that I replaced was the original specified chili flakes with my homemade chili paste.

I prepared two desserts:-

Sorry for the low quality of these photos because it is taken with my iphone.

cranberry pie  (recipe from Joy of Baking) and served each a small piece with vanilla ice cream.

and

Hokkaido Cupcakes with 

maple flavoured whipped cream filling. 

Filling Recipe

Ingredients:

2 cups heavy whipping cream

2 tbs maple syrup

1 tsp gelatin

2 tbs water

Method:

Chill a metal bowl in the freezer. Remove bowl from freezer and heavy whipping cream to the bowl. Beat cream in electric mixer. As cream begins to thicken, gradually drizzle in maple syrup. Continue beating until whipped cream is stiff.

Note: if you would like to have recipes of the above dishes and bakes, please click on the photo.

We are going to meet up again end of this month and I have received a popular request to make the Hokkaido chiffon cupcakes with maple syrup whipped cream filling again! 

Note: If you are interested in the recipes of the above bakes and dishes, please click on the pictures. 

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