人人生日

It was Day 7 of the Lunar New Year yesterday and I was hosting a dinner at my place for the 1st time ever. It also marked my 1st experience cooking a savoury meal for people in UK (I normally have salad).

The party comprised of Xicheng, Makiko and Jen. And boy, was it was GREAT dinner party. We had so much fun! And I had an amazing time cooking for them.

NB: Been DYING to cook for others and am incredibly happy to have been able to do so! :DDDD

So anyway, here's the menu for last night:-


Leeks w/ Crispy Luncheon Meat

Think I should've cooked more leeks. :S

Sweet Chilli Prawns w/Bell Peppers

Raw tiger prawns were on offer at Sainsbury's! Was incredibly lucky!

Traditional Fried Egg

Mmmm. This was a HUGE egg! And I managed to keep it whole too! Woot!

And I made a LARGE pot of chicken rice rice (yes, the traditional hainan chicken rice rice) =) No picture though! Sorry!

Oooooooooooooo. And the highlight for the evening.... Makiko-san's incredibly delicious berry jellies!

Piece of art.

Look at that! It's just soooo pretty! The best part: not only did they look AMAZING but it tasted AMAZING. Mmmm.

Hontou ni arigatou gozaimashita ne, Makiko-san!

I had such a great time. =D Let'do it again!

Jam Jewels

Was bored.

And tired.

And still on cloud 9.

Decided to bake while writing the ACT formative essay on misrep....

Wanted to bake berry white chocolate chip cookies but figured that I'm so experienced in those that I ought to try something new. So I did.

Made the jam (woot)!

Comprises of dried fruit and raspberry jam.

Mmmm. Smells wonderful. Hope it tastes as good too!



I love it when my room smells of sugared vanilla butter.

Peace out!

xoxo.

The Pink Box

It's 10.37am.

I have an Advanced Contract and Tort lecture at 12pm and am crying rather ungracefully over a Fed Ex parcel I had just signed for.

It was from Noel.

There was a sweet baby pink jewellery box inside the parcel with 2 cards accompanying it - the certificate of authencity and a handwritten love note.

I love the packaging. Especially the little silver bell on the black band.

Better than Tiffany's.

(And yes, that is Dixon for Land Law in the background. Now you know what I was doing before I started weeping)

Speaking of Tiffany's... I'm not a big fan of it just 'coz I think it's too commercial now and some of the designs just aren't that pretty....

Trust Noel to know me so well.

I can't remember what I was thinking then but I do know that my hands were trembling as I gingerly peeled the black elastic off the lid and open the box....

It's just too pretty.

The packaging is just too cute. I love the teddy bear.

Still experiencing a rather surreal out-of-body moment, I unwrapped the pink paper to reveal a really really gorgeous choker.

You can't tell from the picture, but it has diamonds on it too...

At this stage, I think I had officially burst into tears. The choker is perfect. It suits me, complements my character and is EXACTLY what I would've picked out for me. My boyfriend knows me too well.... And that is a great thing indeed.

Noel knows that spring ball is round the corner and that I was planning to attend. So in his card, I discovered that not only did he buy me a gown for the ball (which is in the Fed Ex box as we speak), but he purchased the choker to match the gown.

This is where I dissolved into hiccupping sobs. Haha. I don't cry pretty.

The certificate is dated 7 February 2010... a week before our anniversary and a week before my cookies arrived in HK. I remember speaking to him on the 11th and he apologised for not having gotten me anything.

Well, now we know he did.

And this is a wonderful surprise.

Touched beyond words.

Moved to tears.

And feeling very very very lucky, cherished and loved.

Today is a perfect day.

The Chocolate Victoria Sponge

I love sponge cakes and I love baking them more!

It was Cat Ballie's birthday last night and I wanted to bake her a cake. She's a fan of the classic victoria sponge and chocolate.

So I got around to combining the best of both worlds and came up with this!

I am really quite pleased with the turn out as it has been YEARS since I last baked a cake (cookies are much easier because they're just dough... Cake requires a little more precision) and it was my first attempt at the victoria sponge.

I halved the sponge and gave the lower layer a delicious and generous spread of whipped cream topped with chunks of dark chocolate bits and finished it off with some chocolate fudge sauce... Popped on the top half and dusted it with icing sugar before lining the cake with small cream flowers and M&M's.

Sadly, when I entered Weatherspoons, the cream flowers melted due to the heat! =( But it still looked somewhat decent though I was mildy embarrassed.

Cat looked A.M.A.Z.I.N.G. She was in a cream/black laced backless dress which complemented her hair and skin perfectly. Plus the smoky eye make up - how did you do that girl? It was lovely.

Anyway, I do hope you liked the cake! I know I enjoyed baking it for you! Happy Birthday once again and much love! xoxo.

Chinese New Year 2010

Those of you who knew me before I moved to UK will know me for dismissing my heritage vindictively and with much gusto.

So I am sure that this will come as a shock when you learn how oriental I have and have been behaving of late. If you had witnessed my actions, you'd think an alien from Mars had usurped your poor friend and substituted her for an alien Calista-wannabe.

Recently, I realiase that I have not only taken efforts to speak more Mandarin and Cantonese, but I have also engaged in various traditions surrounding Chinese New Year. For example:

1) I trimmed my own fringe in line with the tradition of having to cut one's hair before new year;

2) made 汤圆 (tang yuan = sweet dumplings); and

3) 大扫除-ed (spring cleaned)

And yes ladies and gentlemen, those are Chinese characters on my blog. *chortles* A new addition to my already multifaceted personality. I've just realised how much I love being Chinese and how proud I am to be one.

My dad is extremely pleased. You have NO idea just how pleased and words are inadequate to describe the intensity of his happiness.

MOVING ON!

This post is not supposed to be about my transformation but about my FANTABULOUS CNY's Eve Dinner party (Invite and new gorgeous friend, Makiko-san, courtesy of Xicheng) and subsequent CNY dinner at Mayflower (good times and good food courtesy of Henry)! <3

Lets get the ball rolling shall we?


CNY EVE DINNER

I ended up at this fabulous via pure luck. I had met Xicheng for breakfast one morning and he was kind enough to invite me along to this dinner which he was having with his friends on the condition that I contributed a dish. Since the menu was full of savouries, I decided to bring a dessert.

The initial plan was to make red bean or green bean soup as it was traditional and easy to make.... But I stopped short of doing so as it dawned on me that 汤圆 was/is a MUST. They are after all, a tradition.

So for the 1st time ever, I made a trip to the Asian supermarket down by St. Thomas and grabbed myself several bags of glutinous rice flour and a can of sweet read bean paste (I would have made the black sesame paste but that was too time consuming). Xi Cheng offered to help.


汤圆 is suprisingly easy to make. All you need is flour and water and a lil' bit of imagination.

The set up.

Some water + flour + red bean later....

They look amazing don't they?

We ended up making a WHOLE tray's worth. Like so:

And we only had a dinner for 8!

While we were making the 汤圆, I got to know Makiko-san. She's such an AMAZING person - she's doing her Masters in Music (classical music) in Bristol and will be doing her PhD after her Masters! Not to mention, she's absolutely gorgeous and sweet.

Makiko-san! xxx

After we finished (I totally overestimated the amount of flour needed and have enough left-over to make another 100 more!), we brought the uncooked 汤圆 over to Xicheng's friend's place and was greeted with the following:-

Firstly, a very very talented Chinese painter/Calligrapher. Who happens to be very very happy (as you can tell) and one of the nicest and warmest people I've met.

Asian veggies!

OMG. I miss the cleaver.

Pork. Not a big fan. In fact, not a fan at all! But it was very very fresh as you can see!

Cooking!

Speaking of cooking, I got to see Xicheng in the kitchen! Check it out!

Xicheng: Master chef of the cabbage.

The aroma wafting from the kitchen was incredible and Makiko-san and I were dancing about in the kitchen, pretty much singing/chanting, "It looks delicious" in Japanese.

And boy, was the wait worth it.... Photo spam evidences this. Just take a look!

This was a really interesting dish I've never had it before. But they called it porridge and it comprises of barley, nuts, sweet potato boiled/cooked down.

It was a great dinner and finally, when it got to dessert, I made 2 versions - (1) soup based and (2) peanut/sesame/sugar based..... Basically, wet and dry versions.

Didn't get a shot of the soup as I left it in the massive pot, but I did get this shot:

It looked good and I hope it tasted good! (I didn't have any)

Oh oh!!! Not to forget, Makiko-san graciously shared a bottle of New Year's sake with us! And it was so pretty - it had gold flakes in them!

Pretty - it had gold flakes in them!

So this was my Chinese New Year's Eve and it was great!

Now onto....


CNY DINNER @ MAYFLOWER

Henry told me that Mayflower served Chinese food that closely resembles home.... And boy was he right on that! The food was really delicious albeit a tad too salty for my liking.... Then again, I don't eat rice and so that could be why. The rice may mitigate the saltiness.

Nevertheless, we had a large group of about 20 people! And we started of with fortune cookies (oh how I love them).

I don't know if this suggests something, but I did get this fortune twice in a row.

Me like.

Was not 3rd time lucky though....

TOTALLY diggin' this one!

My favourite dish for the night had to be the prawns - I miss chunky prawns and it has been a while since I had seafood.

(Oh seafood.... <3)>

And then we had red bean soup for dessert!

Which, unfortunately, made it into my tummy before I got a shot! Hahahha!

A group shot:

Big group. Much fun. Awesomeness.

Best Chinese New Year I've had - lack of red packets notwithstanding! =D

Sugar n' Spice

Here's a fun fact: this cookie was inpired by my professor.

Another fun fact: Inspired while doing tutorial homework.

Am I not the most geekish person ever?


Anyway, it's 12:30am and I've just had my dinner.... My digestive tract has been acting up of late and I've been rather ill so dinner was the 2nd meal for today.... *sigh* I need to get my appetite back on stable grounds. T_T

So a lil' something about this cookie. I opted for a harder, firmer cookie dough this time 'coz I wanted to try something new and thought it'd be pretty cool to have a crunchy and hard spiced cookie. The idea was to make coin-sized cookies (and therefore bite-sized cookies) that you can pop into your mouth and after biting down hard on it, the cookie will break into tiny pieces and release a mild but oldly addictive spiced aroma.

To add some originality to the cookie, I thought of rolling it in some sugar.... Just to see how it might turn out. And as you have probably guessed, I was pleasantly surprised. =)

With respect to how I envisioned the cookie, I thought I achieved my objective. To ensure that I wasn't going to breack any teeth (insert random geek-dom-ness - negligece in providing defective products) before I distributed them out, I tried 2, just to make sure they weren't too hard...

Unfortunately, I think it might still have been too hard for some.... ^^' Reviews weren't too good on these this time around... Probably coz it was an unexpected cookie; can't blame them since I didn't warn them about the hardness of the cookie! Hahah! My bad!

Thank gawd no teeth were harmed in the process.

Anyway, onto the shots....

Waiting patiently (or impatiently) for the hot breath of the oven.

Voilá!

Was inspired by Alice and Wonderland.

Mmmmm.

One of the things I adored about taking these out from the oven is how sparkly they were. They resembled jewelled amber dew drops. Sparkly and pretty, like a gem stone.

I really loved this cookie.

Brownie Fudge Mochaccino Cookies

I was up late one night and had just baked a batch of Brownies for Meeran and Liyan (marshmellows included), when it struck me:

Why shouldn't I combine brownie dough + cookie dough together?

You'd get the perfect balance of fudge-yness and chewy-ness.

Perfect?? YES YES YES! (Or so I thought... Gleefully too)

Well, here I am reading up on standing of applicants in EU Courts and baking.

Queer but true.

Anyway, in between Articles 263(1) to 263(4), I threw together my fudge brownie batter and a chocolate chip cookie dough I've tried before, chopped up the remainder of my white chocolate and dumped it into the glorious gooey chocolate and added some coffee essence just coz I felt like it.

Chocolate + Coffee are THE star pairing.

Which is why I LOVE mocha.

You must be crazy to not love Choco-Coffee, or incredibly sensitive to caffeine... Like Noel. My poor boy trembles after drinking English Breakfast Tea. @.@

So anyway.... Off into the oven the dough went.

The cookies were honestly good enough to eat as they were.... But I'm in a mood for excess at the moment...

A sin, I know.

I am a self-confessed sinner when baking.

And probably inspired by the white snow flakes wisping by my window at the moment... So I scurried down to Waitrose to get some vanilla white chocolate.

You know it's good white chocolate when you can vanilla flakes in them. Mmm. Hate white chocolate but I can appreciate a good product.

I know that the chocolate fudge and coffee cookie is already dense and rich and so I lightened the white chocolate melt by adding in some skimmed milk. Personally, I think I should've added more but I was afraid that it might not allow the chocolate to harden... So I was a tad conservative.

Here's the end result.

Again, self-praise is an international disgrace bla bla blah.

But to hell with it! Look at these babies!

On the chopping board waiting for the white chocolate goodness to harden.

On a plate. Just 'cause it's prettier.

Upclose and Personal

I am particularly proud of this shot. XD

OKAY. Now who wants to be FED?

Food, food, food..... GREAT food. YUM.

The thing about school is this:

You don't get much time to do anything else but READ and READ and READ.

And then when you're done with reading, you WRITE and WRITE and WRITE.

Whether it be typing out a 2,500-word essay on the laptop or writing out tutorial answers on a notepad, the result is the same:- school, and especially law school, is time-consuming.

Which explains why I have't updated in E.O.N.S.

Apologies.

Nevertheless, I am BACK. And guess what? With a post about none other than food - good food for that matter. Let's cut to the chase, shall we?

After 3 gruelling weeks of having sold my soul to the workaholic-devil, I have emerged from beneath the workpile and went on a grocery splurge on baking products. All I knew was that I woke up one morning and my mind was screaming, "BAKE BAKE BAKE!!!"

It was a scary mantra and one that repeated itself all the way to Sainsbury's, down the aisles and all the way to the checkpoint, where it turned from "BAKE BAKE BAKE" to "YES YES YES! PAY NOW."

As you can see, I NEEDED a creative outlet - I needed to create/make something and I needed to do it QUICK.

You might think I overexaggerate when I say that I need creative expression. But let me assure you, it is not. I do thrive on creative expression. When I do not get my 'fix'(gosh, sounds like an addiction doesn't it?) I feel empty and frustrated. The cognitive dissonance can be quite hard to bear as I am left feeling unnurtured and uninspired.

The inspiration for this recipe was Noel. Everything that went into this cookie, and even things that were omitted, are Noel's favourites - coconut, macadamia, white chocolate with NO cinnamon added. Valentine's day, which also coincidentally is our 3rd year anniversary, is round the corner and I have him pretty much fixed in my thoughts.

I'm really quite proud of these cookies.

Firstly, the recipe was ENTIRELY self-constructed. No prior recipes referred to, no existing recipes tweaked. I literally did it from scratch and by instinct! Extremely proud of that achievement!

Secondly, considering that I haven't baked in almost a full year now, I am exeptionally proud that I didn't set my kitchen on fire..... Let's just say that I've managed to set my TOASTER on fire... So that should give you an indication of my level of *ahem* 'expertise' in the kitchen for the moment.

Thirdly, I did all of it my hand! That's right peeps, the old-fashioned way - no techonology. Just a fork. (sore arm yes)

Okay! Enough rambling. Let's move onto food porn (you know that's why you're reading this):

The Dough

Yep, I need a bigger bowl. It was bursting with goodness! Gaaaahhhhh

The Line-up

Convicts: It's a crime to be sinfully delicious.

The Close-up

A cookie-shot ain't complete until you have one of these!

*Blissful sigh*

Aren't they gorgeous!? I'm so happy!!!

Which reminds me, Cat and I went to QED Bistro down by St. Michael's Hill the other day for some yummy crepe. They were so good though I must say, I kinda expected/wanted my crepe to be thinner and crisper. Nevertheless, it was amazing for its price and size (massive!).

My spinach-cheese-mushroom crepe.

That's me, right there before digging in... Spastic look included.

Cat's mexicana crepe (avocado alert)

A very very delighted Cat. ;)

Good times.