Lately, very lately

I've been really busy (or at least, supposed to be) recently with writing my dissertation and catching up with tutorials, but I decided to take my time off today to update this space. It's been quite awhile since my last post, and looking back at old photos made me realise how much I did in this period - most of the time playing with (and eating) food, as you can see below.

Haven't been travelling much - going home for christmas holidays, Singapore, and visiting Yong Xuan in Dublin don't count here... what I mean is that I haven't been exploring places ever since I got back from America. I definitely want to go to new places, but I'll reserve those plans for summer. 

Brown french loaf with pandan kaya (from home) with berries

Left: Blended broccoli and leek, with balsamic vinegar and walnuts; Right: "Cream" of carrots with sesame oil

Left: Kaya and goats' butter on seeded toast; Right: First attempt at goats' cheese, spinach and sweet potato tart

Second attempt at gluten-free goats' cheese and spinach tart, and leftover dough turned to people biscuits by Ying Hui 

Left: Salmon, grapefruit and avocado salad & chocolate marble cake (note-to-self: you'll always need a hand mixer for baking...); Right: Pancakes with bacon and salted caramel sauce

CNY potluck with the housemates, and I made rice spring rolls with cervettes, basil, mint and corriander (prawns are so expensive here - bought 5 of these at £8! CNY the season to be jolly indeed)
Wendy prepared yee sang with raw sashimi-grade salmon
Our soup stock was the bomb 'cos we used salmon fish head and bones with ginger - yums!

Pasta, spinach and cheese for potluck at Alyssa's

Plum tomatoes, cheddar and dill pizza topped with walnuts and fresh kale

Left: Mung beans and sago hot dessert; Right: Raisins pancake with apple cooked in sugar, and salted caramel sauce

Potluck brunch at Raghavi's; I made red bean, longan and sago hot dessert
Raghavi made cous cous salad
Nishi made cooked oats with bananas and blueberries
San made pasta with bacon and cheese sauce

Chocolate muffins with salted caramel centres and sea salt flakes

Muffins sank in the middle 'cos I took them out of the oven too quickly (hee, impatient me), so I topped it up with more caramel sauce and sprinkled toasted almond slices to fix the look

If you're wondering why I'd used salted caramel in most of my food recently, it's 'cos I bought 2 jars meant for friends, when I planned to visit them in Ireland. Only later did I realise that I couldn't bring them on board with me as I didn't purchase any checked-luggage allowance. Silly me!

Going further back in time... I received the best present for my 22nd birthday (I still can't believe I'm already in my twenties), ever! I was struggling with my courseworks then, but it was very comforting to have my most favourite person in the world, by my side. Physically! Literally, by. my. side. HEE. Thank you, you.

Also I noticed myself wearing my blue, long-sleeved, light cotton top and the aztec dress a lot. But these are very comfy, so I can see why! It's soooo hard to find reasonably-priced tops that aren't t-shirts, or formal wear, so I can see why I dig this piece. Besides, I love wearing sleeves. Protects me from the sun, the cold, and- arms. Haha! As for the dress, I love how it can pull off the casual look, yet works fine for a dinner event.

Gotta love your guy when he happily agrees to have tea with you,

-cooks for you (just kidding), or even gets food for you!

And brings you out for brunches 'cos he knows how much you love having them!
BOTTOM LINE IS THAT HE HAS TO CONSTANTLY FEED YOU. YES.

We went to the zoo! My dress makes me look like a zebra! Rui Ling did my makeup (love it 'cos it's so natural)! 

Home is DEFINITELY comfort zone. If you have a mom like my mom, you'd hardly be tempted to dine out... unless you have cravings for roti canai. My mom is a classic home-maker, and I'd say that most of my meals are inspired by her. 

Homemade fried dumplings, even the dim sums. Stir-fried pumpkins, steamed fish, broth, veggies, and chocolate cake!

Being home for a month felt great - I got to catch up with Jasmine and Katherine, then Abi, Michelle and Shu Yee, and le papoy! I can't believe I'm a few months away from leaving this place, and I won't be seeing most of my friends I met here after this...

A date with piepoy

Till next time!

Savoury or sweet?

Cordycep flowers boiled with chicken and black dates

Lotsa herby chinese names in a bowl

Cordycep flowers soup is one of my favourites, besides water crest and some others. I don't know the name of the tong shui I made this week though, 'cos there are lotsa ingredients inside really. Black dates, longan, magnolia petals, the white soft strips and the yellowish crunchy strips - I can't remember the names now. All I do is switch my Skype on and my mom will instruct me around the kitchen, hee. 

But between chinese soup or dessert tong shui, which do you prefer?

Food Friday goes Asian!

Rinsing my herbs to remove dust

I have a healthy stock of Asian food and herbs in my room now, thanks to mom and dad's last visit. I made agar-agar with gula Melaka last night (to last for the week), and some Ba Zhen soup this afternoon. The trick to clear soup is to blanch the chicken to remove impurities first. You'll see some white foamy stuff floating in the water - you'll wanna throw that away. I waited for more than 2 hours for it to be ready, and voila! Cheers to a good Friday meal! 

p.s. I'm adding a Google Friend Connect widget on my sidebar, so please befriend me!  

いただきます!

Konnichiwa! These few weeks have been rather Japanese-themed for me. From the start of learning the language as one of my modules at uni this term, to having a slight obsession over anime films, here comes sushi-making lessons.

I now know why cleanliness is one of the main priorities in a Japanese kitchen - making sushi dishes requires one to handle the rice like Play-Doh. It also requires a lot of patience, as I was resisting the urge to put the food into my mouth before I am even done making my second piece.

Don't be fooled by these pictures, I didn't prepare the ingredients myself. Our sensei Hiroko-san brought fresh salmon, prawns and even made some yummy tamago (Japanese omelette) to the class. Apparently, people in Tokyo and Osaka cook their omelettes differently. Since Hiroko sensei is from Osaka, she makes savoury tomago. I thought those were delicious, but I love the sweet ones as well (although our teacher mentioned that she was almost disgusted when she tried sweet tomago in Tokyo).

I can't wait to go home for summer, then indulge in some good Japanese meals! Also, Japan is definitely on my must-travel-before-time-ends list!

Enough of fish for now

Strawberry ava-lunch

I need to pull myself together - it seems that I'm losing track of my days in a week.

I had been quite pathetic this week, I was out most of the time and the refrigerator wasn't really well stocked. One afternoon, I felt really hungry and the only thing I could find was a tubful of strawberries I bought from the Birmingham market. Also being too lazy to go downstairs to get some meat from Londis, I decided to make do with what I had. And tadaaah. Strawberries to go along -don't laugh- egg noodles and fried garlic, with balsamic vinegar and some soy sauce. Okay, you can laugh now.

I'm going grocery shopping tomorrow!!!

Tau Yu Bak

I remember mentioning that I was going to make sweet and sour pork for the potluck, but I was out earlier on that Saturday afternoon so I thought that the dish won't be crispy as it should if I had them fried in the morning. Instead, I made Tau Yu Bak - and my first time too!

I decided to make another batch for myself during the week, and I had white bread and eggs noodles to go with it. Definitely in the mood for Chinese New Year! Only later did I realise that chinese dried mushrooms were missing from that dish. Ah, home. 

Should I go home this summer?

Potluck tomorrow

Chinese New Year pre-celebration dinner at Ee Xuen's on Saturday night! I'm supposed to bring sweet and sour chicken/pork, but I haven't gone out to get the ingredients and I haven't actually tried making this dish before. Wish me luck! x

This week's party in the tummy:

Bread love

Fried noodles! 'Tong fun' that we bought for last week's steamboat 

Fishy meals

Steamed chocolate muffins

Delayed

I just realised in the morning that today is no longer Friday! I've been so busy getting things sorted: my room is now spick and span, I've seen my house for next year, and there was even a steamboat party and a sleepover at my place last night.

After Nicole's Calculus exam on Thursday, Wendy and I joined her for a post-exam celebration at the city - drinking cold ShakeAway's in an even colder weather, dinner at Jamie's Italian, and very long chats about anything and everything. We were supposed to go for ice-skating the next afternoon, but we were late and so we did some oriental food shopping for dinner instead. 

Surprisingly my little space could fit the party of nine, but no one could walk around when everyone was seated. Hayley made the delicious tomyam soup base, but it was slightly too spicy for John - who probably never had anything as spicy as that in his life before. Say hello to asian invasion!

This week, I decided to try something different and bought two jars of Patak's Indian sauce; korma and tikka masala. Chinese stir frys are starting to get quite boring, so the rich creamy flavours were a good change.

Fried rice for a quick meal before an exam

Classes start on Monday but I'm not looking forward to it just yet!  I need a few more days for myself, I need to sit quietly in my room and do anything I want before the rush starts all over again. x

Food Friday

Omg it's Friday already!

I would usually be excited that the weekend is here, but I'm in the midst of my exams and they aren't very exciting at all. The only bright side is that I've got two papers left. I don't usually drink coffee but I had a cup last night and another this morning just before the exam, and now I cannot take a nap even though I really want to.

In my efforts to organise things a little, I'm going to start dedicating my Fridays' posts to weekly homemade meals.

Breakfast this week was all about yoghurt, cherries, dried currants and shredded wheat.

Noodles are the fastest meals. I had two types of pasta - pappardelle and vermicelli, and some carrots, mushrooms, mincedmeat and pork rashers to go with it.

How I like my egg done

Homemade meatballs: mincemeat simply seasoned with sesame oil, salt and pepper

Since I anticipated a hectic week, I stocked the cupboard with all kinds of canned fish.  Tunas, sardines, pilchards (I've never heard of it before this, please forgive my lack of knowledge), everything. 

I'm not sure if canned food can be considered as healthy meals (to keep up with the new year's resolution), but because the facts of Omega-3 goodness of fish were printed on the labels, I didn't feel too bad anymore. Also, there wasn't any mayonaise in the fridge, so I experimented with yoghurt and yellow mustard - it tasted not bad I promise! 

Hah! And that was me surviving exam week with student meals!

Do you have January exams too? How did it go?

p.s. Staring out of my window today feels like staring into a snow globe. The snow flakes actually whirl around and get swept off by the wind, just like when you turn over the globe and turn it back upright.

Maybe if I look close enough I might be able to spot a snow fairy passing by. x