Autumn

It’s finally starting to feel like autumn! The temperature has dropped below 30 degrees, the air is definitely cooler and I even dug out a light coat to wear during the weekend. While I’m glad that the super hot weather is gone *fingers crossed* there’s something a little gloomy about the darker sky, the quietness and the slight chill. Everything suddenly feels a lot more serious.

Now that the weather has grown cooler, I’ve started craving hot sweet desserts such as this hong dao sa (red bean soup) with sago and tang yuan, glutinous rice balls. I’m also wanting to make hot tau fufa with ginger but somehow I’ve never been very successful at it. I will try again this winter.

There was lots of leftover rice which I made into Thai pineapple fried rice the next day. What I like about this dish is the myriad of flavours and textures, there’s the slight sour sweetness from the pineapples, the crunch of cashew nuts, the mild curry flavours and the pungent saltiness of fish sauce.

I had a bad tonkatsu over the weekend. I knew my luck with good Japanese restaurants was bound to run out sometime soon (-___-).  The bad tonkatsu however inspired tonight’s dinner of crumbed chicken fillets with generous lashings of japanese mayo and tonkatsu sauce, japanese potato salad and tofu miso soup.

At least Bad Monday is over (^__^).

Sunday bulk cooking

Long gone are the days when I cooked different meals everyday. I still remember that I used to decide on the menu depending on what was looking good in the grocer’s on my way home from work. Nowadays, with the long working days and part time student life,  I have *gulp*succumbed to bulk cooking. As in preparing the week’s lunch bentos and dinners in one day. Sundays have now become my study cramming plus bulk cooking days.

Don’t get me wrong, I still enjoy the cooking process. But I do miss the fun of designing and planning each day’s dish in advance, of buying my ingredients daily and scouting new recipes and lunch bento ideas. I always pack my lunch bento in my little red checked lunch bag that my mum bought for me, it’s just so cute and happy and I do believe in the slogan that that it’s a pleasure to eat lunch.

So what did I cook today? A whole roast chicken! It was juicy and tender, a large bird enough to go around for a few dinners. 

Also a large pot of sweet corn chicken soup. Despite this being one of my favourite soups, I’ve never actually tried cooking this from scratch and have always had it out of a can or at restaurants. It’s actually super easy to make and obviously much nicer than the Campbell version.  (^___^).

This is my ‘ quick and easy’ category of lunch bentos, stir fried sweet soy pork fillets with tomato and spinach omelet.

This one is not so quick and easy but very sinful and tasty for an otherwise terrible work day (haha already predicting my work week in advance). Thai style slow braised pork  belly with mixed vegetables and tofu slices with rice.

Leftover roast chicken slices with roasted carrots, braised soy half boiled egg and szechuan pickled vegetables with rice. East meets West style lunch bento.

I love souvenirs from interstate! Adriano Zumbo’s macarons. I’m not a big fan of macarons and have never been into the macaron craze that’s hitting Perth.

Rose flavoured macaron. These macarons were quite nice and interesting with different flavours, I remember eating a eucalyptus one thinking it was green tea because it was green in colour! I still think the ones that my foodie sis Jan brought over from Paris were much nicer though, I can’t remember where they were from though. Was it Pierre Herme? or Laduree? Jan?

Sigh… and the weekend is over again.

Ugly cakes are delish

I didn’t know what to do with our big bag of plums and nectarines that were getting soft so I googled for a plum cake recipe and came up with this Plum and Vanilla tea cake.

The cake turned out really ugly, sunk in the middle with oozing plum and nectarine juice . I couldn’t take a good photo. I thought ‘oh oh… disaster’, then I had a sample bite, and another. The cake was moist and creamy, the topping of the cake was like a  polo bao, sweet, crispy and crumbly. Ugly cakes can be yummy too! I think I might like baking after all.

Lunch bento tomorrow is Thai green curry chicken with turmeric rice! Don’t know what to do with your leftover coconut milk? Add it to your rice cooker (^___^)Y.

Ok, I’m going to get fat and have another slice of cake. Hehe.

The Maze

It’s funny how one can feel so lethargic and listless on Mondays when the weekend was filled with energetic bursts of activities.

Hot milky coffees and buttery crumpets for breakfast are such a nice way to start the weekend.

Then there’s running around and getting lost in the timber maze. My preference was the pine maze which made me feel like I was walking in a scene from wuxia novels. Why two completely directionless people would enjoy getting lost in the maze I have no idea. But it was fun (^__^).

The biggest koalas I have ever seen, and this one was nursing its baby. Followed by rounds of mini golf which was lots of fun, except I am possibly the only person who actually gets worse at each additional round. So much for practice makes perfect. Doesn’t apply to daitaohas.

Then it was Wendy’s birthday bbq on Sunday which was a lovely way to catch up. It’s Gerry’s birthday today, happy birthday if you’re reading my friend!

Back to boring workdays of thinking up sickie excuses and thinking of what to cook for dinner. Tonight it was thai pineapple fried rice and ayam pongteh (chicken and potato stew). I tried being productive tonight and thought I would do a bit of packing, I packed one box of books. Which brings my total number of packages so far to TWO BOXES. Yes, I packed two boxes in two weeks. I am the epitome of procrastination. I know I shall live to regret this.

Anyone want to do my packing for me?

Yellow and orange

I can’t believe it’s only Thursday tomorrow, it’s been a hell of a work week and I feel really quite terrible. Which might explain the amount of baking and cooking I did over the week, for some reason all the cooking turned out in shades of  yellow and orange, cheery colours but I was mostly feeling blue .

It was also the week that Gerry did a bit of cooking! Both my male housemates are pretty good cooks so I feel safe turning over the kitchen to them when I want a rest. Supper one night was tong sui  (sweet soup) of egg, white fungus, lotus seeds, and lily bulbs, very nice and comforting.

Gerry is also now in a prawn mode, buying kilos of prawns over the weekend. This is his specialty of very garlicky prawns, he wanted to invite Jo and HC over (coz Jo loves his prawns) but unfortunately she couldn’t make it. Don’t worry Jo,still a kilo of prawns left in the fridge!

Nasi kuning aka yellow rice which is really tumeric spiced coconut milk laden rice, very fragrant and goes well with curry.

More yellow rice, only this is Thai pineapple rice which I garnished with fish floss shavings.

The leftover pineapple, I used in my pineapple beef dish, my favourite and food proof stir fried beef dish.

Mini portugese egg tarts made with frozen puff pastry in my mini muffin pan, I should probably have rolled the pastry thinner for more custard filling, I think next time I might make them normal sized, but mini ones are so cute and as Jan puts it, handy to share around with work colleagues.

Some of the pineapple also went towards tonight’s carrot cake muffins, I am learning how to wrap my own muffins with baking paper instead of using muffin wrappers, saves money that way and I am foreseeing lots of cupcake/muffin baking in the future. The carrot cake recipe was pretty good with the muffins chockful with chopped walnuts, shredded carrot and crushed pineapple.

My mum’s famous fried sharksfin dish except mine was fake sharksfin with vermicelli instead. I used lots and lots of bamboo shoots in mine because I love the crunch of bamboo shoots.

I hope I make it to Friday and the weekend.

World Cup and Wii nights with the new housemate

We have inherited oodles of noodles and leftover sauces (not to mention leftover furniture, books and miscellaneous goods) from the movers and goers.

This was a combination of using up the sauces and noodles, Zha Jiang Mien anyone?

This is what happens when you fall for the “2 cauliflower for $1′ sales pitch and end up with two gigantic cauliflowers that you don’t know what to do with. This baked cauliflower cheese dish used up a whole cauliflower so I was happy.

Friday nights are slowly turning into steak nights.Guess what are the orange bits garnishing the dish ?

Chicken in marsala and onion sauce, I think I might have taken this recipe from the Masterchef book that Wendy sent me.

Gai Yang aka Thai bbq chicken with kailan miso soup for dinner.

The return of the salad lunch bentos! Gai Yang two ways, I used the leftover chicken to toss up a salad made of baby spinach leaves, mandarin oranges and grape tomatoes. Dressing was a bit of the Gai Yang marinade with mandarin juice.

Dessert of vanilla icecream, mandarin slices, banana chips and pan fried bananas scallops (which I pressed in cinnamon sugar before hand). In case you’re wondering why I’m mandarin crazy, well mandarins are in season and mostly, we’ve been given lots of mandarins by Richard’s colleague (= ^^=).

I think my new housemate is settling in. He commented the other night that he’s beginning to get the ‘home’ feeling, I think he’s trying to say that I remind him of his mother, saying ‘where are you going?’ when he grabs his keys and asking ‘when will you be home? will you be home for dinner?’ when he goes out.

Because he works at Mcdonalds part time, he has been bringing home lots of tasty treats. This is not good for my diet (T___T). In case Jo is reading this, do you know they now have Frozen Green Apple?

In 2006, we had a memorable World Cup night when Gerry came back from work and brought a whole stack of Maccas for me and the boys. I particularly remember the three layer Filet-o-Fish he made for me that night and have been teasing him these few years asking him when he’s going to make me another one. Zip four years later, during one of our World Cup watching sessions, he brought home a FOUR layer  filet-o-fish ! I couldn’t conquer it that night but thought about it all day the next day.

I finished it (with some help from Richard). But I felt sick afterwards. Will Gerry bring back a five layer filet-o-fish during the 2014 World Cup? Will I be able to conquer a five layer filet-o-fist? Most importantly, will we still be watching World Cup matches together? I think so (^__^).

Now that World Cup is on a mini hiatus, the boys have been entertaining themselves with the Wii, and I almost cracked a rib last night laughing at their hilarious entics. Even now I can hear odd sounds and grunts emitting from the living room. I think I’ll stroll outside for a laugh.

Mid week cooking

Almost the end of June, also reaching the end of my working life with my current organisation. I’m a little sad but mostly excited and looking forward to the future.

It’s getting really cold in Perth, minimum temperature tomorrow is 3 degrees, brrrr. But it also means we can indulge in hot soups such as our tomyum noodle soup for dinner.

My  Pear Tarte Tatin which I’m quite pleased with because I made it without a recipe (^__^), possibly the easiest dessert ever. I only wish we had a scoop of vanilla icecream to go with the sweet warm tart.

Going to the zoo and Sunday brunch this weekend, can’t wait, what a treat!

Back in the kitchen

I’m back in the kitchen again (^___^).

Thai panang curry, I don’t think the authentic version has potatoes in it, but curries and potatoes go so well don’t they?

Loh bak with fried tomato egg for lunch bento. My idea of comfort food.

I love new recipes! This was supposed to be a Thai pomelo prawn salad, but since I couldn’t find any pomelas, I made do with navel oranges instead. It was yummy, I reckon if I went to Bangkok I would be eating Thai salads for every single meal, so good. The dressing was made of fried shallots, garlic, dessicated coconut flakes, coconut milk, fish sauce, lime juice and roasted peanuts. Really appetising.

I also love old recipes, especially my mum’s recipes. This is my mum’s sweet and sour prawns, usually she serves it on a bed of omelette but I ran out of eggs, hehe.I will try cooking her sambal prawns soon, prawns are on special in Australia at the moment

I love cooking!

Project November wrap up

Today I helped my colleague hang up Christmas decorations around the office. My colleagues were amazed when I said I’d never hung Christmas decorations before except for the odd Christmas tree. So they insisted that I hang up the tinsel around the walls to get into the Christmas spirit, I secretly think they were just finding an excuse to make me do the work (=-____-=).

It’s almost the end of November and the end of 2009, amazing how time flies. Project November has been very successful so far, I think we have a budget surplus so I’m hoping to cook an extra special dinner on the 30 Nov, seafood and steak perhaps?

I think it started with rock sugar spareribs and tofu.

I revisited an old favourite of cabbage and fishball soup, so easy and comforting.

I had an idea of grilling chicken skewers. So bento lunch was Japanese chicken and leek yakitori, tamagoyaki and rice.

For dinner I made a Thai/Malaysian inspired chicken satay with cucumbers and rice. I quite liked my first attempt at the peanut satay sauce but I think I will try an authentic Malaysian recipe next time.

I’ve discovered these mee pok lookalike noodles at my local veg store and it even tastes like mee pok too. So this has been used in several variations of breakfast noodles. This version was just a simple dry noodles tossed with sesame oil and chilli which we had with soup.

My first attempt at Jansson’s Temptation, a Swedish anchovies, potato and onion baked casserole. The problem with cooking something you’ve never eaten before, you have no idea what the casserole is supposed to taste like! This one took some time to bake and was a bit too runny for my liking, but the potatoes came out light and tender.

For dessert I baked a upside down caramelised pear tart. I thought the tart was a bit too sweet for my liking even though I had already halved the sugar ingredients in the recipe, but with puff pastry it went pretty well and I’m sure it would be better with a scoop of vanilla icecream. Maybe next time.

Foochow mee sua which I cooked with rice wine, sesame oil and lots of ginger. Something we usually have during Chinese New Year and birthdays but I just felt like cooking it that day. Richard and HC liked this one because they’re both Foochow.

We had a few different versions of chicken wings this November because chicken wings were on sale, haha. Jo cooked Coca Cola wings, exciting or not? This one was baked sweet chilli and garlic wings, yummy.

My mum told me about cooking this dish and enticed me into cooking it as well, Nonya Ayam Pongteh which is cooked with gula melaka and yellow soy beans.

Ok, lots of cooking stuff, I promise to put up a restaurant review soon, I have so many I don’t know where to start!

Long time no bento

I have been neglecting my blog. (-_______-). But that’s because life is so exciting, fun and happy right now.So that’s a good thing right? (^____^)Y

I just had the most memorable long weekend, Perth Royal Show was especially nice this year because Rabbit, Mingsian, Jason, Wendy and co. were there as well and it was their first Perth Royal Show. Also, Jo won so many toys this year (or should I say HC won them for her, he is a very sharp shooter)! Even I received a Nemo from Richard, but it was a very cute Nemo (=^^=).

I haven’t put up pictures of my home cooking for a while. This is a Thai inspired basil chicken bento with half boiled eggs.

Mee goreng which Jo liked very much, she said it reminded her of the mee goreng back home, haha, happy. The limes were given to me by one of my managers who left them in my apple cup at work while I was away, so nice.

I hadn’t cooked this for soo long, I think it has been almost 3 years. This is a copy version of the infamous Alice Springs chicken with roasted herbed potatoes and carrots. The chicken is glazed with honey mustard mayo, topped with bacon, mushrooms, tasty cheese and baked in the oven. Bad for the hips but oh so sinfully good.

It’s been a season of change this year, and today is probably one of the biggest change of the year, good or bad, I’m not too sure but I’m prepared for the adventure, surprises and *fingers crossed* happiness ahead. Wish us luck ok? (^__^)