My Cooking Experiences

Sydney Food!

2007-06-02T03:38:00.000-07:00

I went up to Sydney to visit my boyfriend and bring him back to Melbourne. Unfortunately not as many food pics as I should have gotten because it was a very short trip and we mainly ate fast food haha. I won't disappoint that much though - here are some pics:

Ikea:

Two of Ant's friends: Dippy (Dennis) and a very surprised-looking Aaron. Ikea breakkie @ AUD 2.00 only! I was telling Ant how Ikea Singapore and Malaysia have pretty decent, cheap main meals. I will never forget Ikea Singapore's fried chicken wings.

This is what you get for AUD 2.00. A sausage, two hash browns, a rash of bacon and scrambled eggs. Unfortch for us, we didn't get the sausage as they ran out. This is from Aaron's plate b/c he ate first.

Bondi Beach - the birthplace of Oporto!

Me and Ant @ Bondi

Me and my regular Bondi meal. It comes with a drink, generous serving of chips and a two-grilled-chicken-patty burger (if that makes sense), served with the 'famous' Oporto chilli sauce and cheese.

Ant actually took me Oporto-ing at QV in Melbourne about a year ago. That started off my love for Oporto because I got sick of McD's burgers, plus the fact that they're so freaking expensive here in Melbourne (btw, KFC wicked wings are up from AUD 1.95 for three pieces to AUD 2.20! Just in the space of six months!). Oporto, while slightly pricier than McD's, is actually much more filling, and dare I say, 'healthier' because the chicken is grilled. Haha

Before Justin concert, dinner at a Korean BBQ resto in Chinatown:

Five of us: Ant, me, Ant's cousin Ken, and Ken's two friends occupied one table and ordered about AUD 75.00 worth of meat and a plate of veggies. Pretty worth it.

That's Ken on the left, just about to cook the meat.

*Sssssss...sizzle*

JUSTIN IN CONCERT! :D

Yup that's about it! :) I have more personal and concert photos coming up in my personal blog as well :).

Baked Rice

2007-05-17T03:34:00.000-07:00

I tend to come up with the strangest ideas, or maybe my housemate just naturally thinks I'm funny. I live with two other students: a girl and a guy.

The household freezer. Most of what you see belong to Scott, courtesy of his mom.

This was his dinner that night.

Hi Scott! I think that was chicken and veggie soup.

Back to my adventure:

I had leftover steamed rice and a can of pumpkin soup. I also had a bunch of frozen mixed veggies, a cheddar cheese block, and milk.

I boiled some rice first just in case it wasn't enough. The jar next to the rice bowl is my 'rice jar'. I washed and recycled a 700ml bottle that used to have pure tomato puree. It was for my spag bol but unfortunately I didn't think of taking pictures back then.

While the rice was boiling, I sauteed the veggies: celery, red capsicum, peas, corn, and onions. I didn't cook them fully because I was going to toss them into the oven later. Overcooked veggies = mush :(. Not good.

I put the veggies aside and tossed in the pumpkin soup. It came straight from the can and all I did was heat it up. I also added a bit of milk to make it creamier. I suppose you could put in cream as well, but it might be a bit heavy.

Rice into soup! :)

I made sure the rice was mixed really well. There are a couple of white bits here and there, but a little stirring put it right.

The rice and veggies were mixed and then placed in a baking tin. I then shaved off bits from the cheddar cheese block. Unlike mozzarella, cheddar doesn't melt into nice, stretchy, strands. It turns into a golden crust like the cheese crusts on buns. I then placed the baking tin into an oven at 230 degrees for about 20 minutes, and then 15 minutes on a medium grill to brown the cheese.

The result! :)

Mayo squeezed onto rice haha.

All in all, it was a pretty good meal. Maybe next time I should use mozarella instead of cheddar so that it gets more melty and is less salty.

About Me

2007-05-16T17:03:00.000-07:00

Me: Uni student studying in Melbourne.

Hometown: KL - Malaysia. I've also lived in HK, Singapore and Indonesia.

Interests: I enjoy reading, writing, listening to music, watching movies, TV series (NCIS, Scrubs, Family Guy, CSI, Law and Order, NUMB3Rs...you get it), and cooking! While I don't get to do much cooking on the account that I'm a uni student and trying to save money, I do experiment a little with food.

Favorite Food: I can eat pretty much everything! However, being in Melbourne always makes me miss Malaysian food and Mom's home-cooked food. Whenever I'm back, I gorge myself on curries, roti canai, nasi lemak, loh shue fun, chao choy (tze char) ... everything and anything Malaysian under the sun.

My First Floggers' Meet!

2007-05-16T17:00:00.000-07:00

My first ever food bloggers' meet! :D How exciting! I've been inspired to stop being a silent reader and finally start a food blog :)

Even more so because the guest-of-honor, Swee San was around! One of the more popular Malaysian floggers around, and up-and-coming pastry chef - do check out her blog and vote for her.

I met three other lovely bloggers: Mel, Thanh and Shirley. Mel and Thanh are both popular Melbourne foodies and Shirley has just started her new blog, so it was a great pleasure to share the evening with them. More photos can be found at their blogs :).

We started off with a serving of crusty bread, olive oil and sea salt.

First appetizer of the night - baked swordfish (AUD 7.50). Don't be fooled by the size of the photo. The servings were very, very small - about the size and width of my pinky.

These are stuffed artichoke hearts on a bed of rocket, wrapped in prosciutto ham (AUD 7.00). Again, quite a small portion but not bad-tasting.

Red emperor carpaccio with vegetable pesto (AUD 8.00). It looked like and had the consistency of a soft-boiled egg.

Risotto of pear and gorgonzola piccante (about AUD 24.00). Mel ordered this and we found it very interesting. The cheese was quite strong, but the pear pieces were quite sweet, so it helped balance out the taste.

Thanh ordered a saddle of rabbit with rabbit leg, stuffed with onion and thyme (AUD 32.00). We all thought this was pretty good and was a reasonable portion. The meat was tender as well.

Swee ordered slow-braised lamb with red wine, cloves, juniper berries and Vincotto Originale on farro, chives toasted pine nuts and cheese (AUD 29.00). Thanh says that it tastes like hot cross buns as it was quite sweet. I thought it was very unique and the 'rice' seemed like barley grains. It's something I would share with others but would not be able to finish on my own, due to its sweetness.

This is mine: Saffron risotto with slow-cooked veal shank for about AUD 29.00. It reminded me of mac and cheese, but the veal was succulent and in quite large chunks.

Shirley ordered this risotto with leek puree and blue swimmer crab meat. I can't remember the price, but it would be around AUD 30+. It was pretty average and tasted like Chinese congee, because it wasn't a typical creamy risotto.

Choice of 3 sorbet! Lemon, plum and strawberry, I think, with caramelized orange slices. Very, very nice :)

The tiramisu was pretty big as well, and look at the fork dusting! It was great tasting with the right amount of bitterness for me, because I don't really enjoy tiramisu with too much coffee aftertaste.

Have to love this one: Vanilla zabaglione - more of a creme brulee sort of thing, with caramelized toffee on top :).

All in all, it was a lovely evening spent with lovely people :). Thanks, Swee, Mel, Thanh and Shirley! :)