1 week from home....

Christmas is just round the corner and I'm ONE week away from HK, Noel and home.

I've been SO excited lately I can hardly sit still or focus on my readings for more than 10mins at time! Hahaha!

I've missed home and Noel (well, in my books, they're the one and same! :D) and am looking forward to seeing them both soon.

Meanwhile, I've decided to offload pictures from my overly bloated camera memory stick in lieu of the obscene amounts of photos I intend to take during the Law Christmas ball, which I'm ecstatic over as well.

Hahaa! Speaking of the Law Ball - I haven't even gotten round to piecing an outfit for that night yet, and I haven't got a party dress in my wardrobe! :S This is going to take some creativity and imagination but I'm looking forward to the challenge on Monday evening! Gambatte~!

Ok! So what have I unearthed from my huge stash of food pictures?

This: My 1st ever attempt at making my own granola. (If my memory serves me right, this was made during Spring this year... SO sometime in or around April 2010? Hahha! I KNOW... I'm pathetic at updating this blog! I promise to be more consistent this year. Kekkeke~

Maple Cranberry Crunch is what I've called it! Check it out! I love how the ruby of the cranberries contrasts so wonderfully with the rich gold of the granola bits.

Isn't it gorgeous!?

Noel absolutely ADORED it. Since neither of us has a sweet tooth, this was less sweet compared to normal granola and as I used less butter, honey and sugar, the stats on this batch was much lower and healthier compared to the average granola without compromising on the other health benefits! I'm pretty proud of how it turned out though I feel that I should bake them longer and have them crisp up a bit more next time.

More crunch, more bite! *nyom!*


2010 marks the year where I have been in a perpetual mood to bake and create. My latest hobby (I suppose) = Creating recipes and feeding people. SOooooooo shortly after the granola, I jumped right into making my first ever loaf of bread!

Hahaahahaha! This was an enjoyable/interesting experience 'coz I didn't have the right tools to make a perfect normal-bread-looking loaf, so I had to improvise and baked this in a round tray.... But anyhoo...

The process:

This was the first proofing. Such a cute tiny ball of dough huh =D

After 1 hour! @.@ My baby has GROOOWWWWN~!

Turning the dough out and punching the air out of the little lump! *bam bam bam!*

The final product!! And my first ever loaf! Woot! Proud mama here! YES.

This was scrumptious. The crust was firm and crusty... the dough was soft and supple with just the right amount of elasticity. I was pretty pleased with my 1st attempt - without ANY tools even! Hahah! Yes I know, I'm pretty jurassic in my equipment; I make everything with just a wooden spoon, bowl, sheer arm power *flexes* and my trusty oven!

We're not huge bread lovers, but we managed to finish this eventually. You probably can't tell, but the loaf was MASSIVE! Lol! We put it in the deep freezer and retoasted it before eating it... It lasted us a good month! @.@

Before I forget! This was the stash I made for that day - didn't take pictures of the cookie tarts I made (boo~) but at least there's this shot!




Look familiar? Haha! Yeah, they're my Jam Jewel cookies - the red ones at least. The green ones were coconut jam cookies - which were even more popular than the jam ones! @.@ Guess I know which ones to make more of and sell next time! I think Noel loved it so much he ended up hiding a stash for himself away from his colleague at one point! Lol!

My boyfriend cracks me up. He's my biggest fan and vice versa. =)

Ok! It's 7:47am now! And I'm off to get my customary morning run! Toodles peeps!

Chat soon!

Peace! xoxo

Peach Crumb Cake

I can't believe it.

My 2-month old toaster oven is, literally, TOAST @.@ Don't ask me how I managed to fry the poor fella.... I'm still losing sleep over it. I killed my oven!!!!

As dramatic as it sounds, this is a HUGE problem for me - that toaster oven was my everything! It roasts, toasts, cooks, bakes and goes DING!!!! =(

Now that the oven is dead, I guess Noel won't be having any roast meat or toast or baked pasta or lasagna or confectioneries any time soon.... *Big Sigh*

Anyway! Was over at Cynthia's place a week ago and baked a peach crumb cake and a lemon cake (forgot to take pictures of my lemon cake but it was well received too!).

Noel and I had the 1st half of the peach crumb cake for breakfast one day and the other half for a quick snack before my 5 hour dance practice.

Here're some shots of my really yummy peach crumb cake!

Wholesome goodness!

Innards shot!

Up close & personal with the cake's tender parts. Mmmmm

The crumble was nice and cinnamon-y and crisp (despite having sat in the fridge overnight) and wasn't overly sweet too (hooray for good estimating an not following recipes!)! The sponge cake base was also really fragrant and soft - almost like that of a chiffon cake! The only improvement to note for the next crumb cake I attempt is that I should be less conservative with the volume of fruits next time. All in all however, the crumb cake was, much to my own surprise, really really good.

This might come as a surprise to some of you who know how massively into cooking/baking I am but this was probably the 3rd or 4th time I've actually had my own baking.... I mean, I eat my own cooking all the time but baking is a TOTALLY different matter.... It's really really strange coz I derive more pleasure from seeing others eat it than actually chowing down on it myself.

I am SO weird.

Oh oh oh!!!! And check this out! I've been quite down lately and guess what Noel brought back one day?

It's gorgeous and a really happy looking bouquet.

As you can tell, I am very very happy. XDDDDDDDDDD

Dancing Pigeons + Obscene Dim Sum

I just got back from a really horrible dance rehearsal....

Horrible 'coz my body felt as heavy as lead and as stiff as a wooden puppet whilst my brain swirled about languidly in the recesses of my skull like cotton candy. I wasn't registering anything and it took me twice as long to react than it normally would.

*sigh*

This is what too much worrying/stress/insufficient rest/illness does to you. It's happening to me and I think it sucks majorly.

The production is scheduled for 23rd August and at the moment, I feel like I'm deteriorating and I hate that feeling. *sigh* Just gotta work harder and rest more. Maybe it'd be a good idea to stop hitting the gym especially before dance practices. :S Knowing my gym-a-holic self, that'd be a pretty tough feat.

So today's practice was sh*t. And I'm feeling sh*t. Hopefully, I'll redeem myself tomorrow. I gotta. This ain't me and I know it.

On a happier note, Noel and I finally met with some interior designers for our new apartment and we're exhausted from running around HK but incredibly excited to see the preliminary sketches! We still have 2 more designers lined up but we're already frothing with merriment.

Plus! I had my caramel popcorn fix at G.I. Joe today. I love having dates with Noel. It's always so much fun. The movie deserved a 3/5 (5 being the best) in my opinion.... Simply because certain parts of the movie just seemed.... Too easy/simplistic. Watch it and you'll know what I mean. The action was good though! And I was amused to find the actor from Step Up 1 playing the lead protagonist in G.I. Joe. Worth a watch but not worth a 2 thumbs up.

Speaking of dates with Noel... Owing to certain hiccups we've been having in our relationship, I've thoroughly exhausted my poor boy and so I went all out to make him the most fabulous dinner, with dessert, a stroll and a back massage later that night. Throw in a manicure/Pedicure and facial treatment and I think our home was a spa.

Dinner was roasted pigeon with swiss mushrooms and seared scallops on the side.

It was yummy! One tiny bird for Noel & one for me too!

We were so stuffed from dinner that we had problems enjoying our dim sum breakfast this morning with some of Noel's friends.

The interesting dish was the Lo Mai Kai (glutinous rice)... Instead of the usual steamed-in-lotus-leaves setting, this Lo Mai Kai was actually fried and crispy.

Delicious!

I believe our table ordered an obscene number of just that dish! In fact, I'd dare say that we ordered an obscene amount of food --- enough to feed the hungry in Africa for a week maybe (okay, I exaggerate, so shoot me).

P.S. This was at the beginning stages of brunch. We tripled/quadrupled this number of dishes towards the end. We had to send some back!

Alright, that's it for now. Just wanted to rant about my slacking off at dance. Will work HARDER! 2 weeks to production! GARGH!

Chat soon!

Loves.

C.

Food-thingies in HK

I'm doing pretty well tonight - I'm guessing it's coz I'm procrastinating from ironing and I'm just trying to clear my harddrive of some of the random pictures I've taken about things I want to blog about but have been too lazy to do so.

That was one long sentence.

Anyway!

About a month and a half ago, I was taking a stroll down the street and this hamburger-looking tupperware caught my eye. Seeing as how I love these random looking knick knacks, I couldn't resist the urge to buy it!

Dismantled.

I know! Isn't it the cutest? It even comes with its own baby fork & spoon! I'm going to use this when I get back to Bristol. Can't have Noel bringing this to work -- It'd be... Hm. Unprofessional. Lol. Kinda! Or just really funny. Depends on which way his colleagues swing!

One of the great things about creativity is that it results in the creation of different flavours of the same food. I'm talking about my 雞蛋仔! I came back this time around to a pleasant array of 6 flavours!

Original, Chocolate, Strawberry, Yam, Green Tea, Sesame w/ Coconut!

See! New array on top shelf -bottom shelfs are the original, which still are the local fav I think since it sells out really quick and the new flavours have to made on order.

One of my new favourites has to be the strawberry (Chocolate still ranks first though!).

It's nice, refreshing and, honestly, tastes the same as the original but it has that strawberry milk aroma to it that makes much better (I think).

Met up with Yan Lin 2 weeks ago and we totally LOVED the desserts we had at Azabu Sabo.

Hers.

Mine.

We pretty much ordered the same dessert just with different accompanying ice cream - mine was green tea and hers was the vanilla softie.

Both were fantabulous!

Though I think Yan Lin will agree with me when I say that dessert was more memorable than our main course.

Yaay for japanese ice cream desserts.

Food & Easter in Hong Kong (Part 2)

Part 2!

Am working on my 2nd coursework (which I find a much easier task to handle) and just had dinner. Thought I'd put up more pictures of my trip back to HK.

Anyway, an interesting occurence that happened while I was in HK was that I was spotted and asked to sign on with a modelling agency, which I did.

What really vexes/confuses me is how in Asia, I'm deemed reasonably pretty but much too large in size, whereas in UK, the converse occurs - I'm tiny and ugly (I've been told by 10 men at a go once, so I'm very positive of this).

*sigh*

Yes, am working on losing weight.....

Moving on...

It was a Friday when I signed on with the agency and Noel and I kinda have a tradition of trying a new restaurant every Friday night - part and parcel of an unspoken promise to have a 'date' weekly. Usually, I select the restaurant as Noel's busy at work.

This time, I thought to try yakitori at Maguro, which was situated along Staunton Street, Central, HK.

The food was delicious though one must be prepared to pay as serving sizes are small and pricey. Still, it's worth a visit.

Yakitori mushrooms + Mackrel

The mackrel was deliciously fresh. The meat was juicy and sweet while the skin was grilled to crispy perfection. It was really good. (Then again, I am biased towards fish, just so you know)

Grilled cod + Beef

Cod is a must have since it's Noel's favourite. While the cod was good, I thought the beef was tastier.

Zoom in on the Beef. YUM.

It was tender, juicy and aromatic - filled with sweet spiciness from the teriyaki dressing. It literally melted in my mouth.

DELICIOUS.

More fish. This time, the specialty for the day - Salmon cooked in white miso. We had to wait abpprox. 15-20mins for this though it was well worth the wait! Highly recommended.

Tofu with bonito shavings.

This was a surprisingly flavourful dish. Ranks 2nd favourite dish on the list just before...

Tuna collar bone.

THE HIGHLIGHT OF THE EVENING.

O.M.G.

This was a piece of juiciness robbed from the kitchen of heaven. We didn't know of the existence of this dish initially, until I saw the waiter serve a massive piece of fish to our neighbours and was so intrigued, I asked what it was and was answered with unanimous songs of praise.

In fact, our neighbours were so kind that they ordered a serving for us! And when we were informed that we were going to be served a smaller portion, they had an uproar. But seeing as how full Noel and I were by then, we didn't mind that much.

So the piece you see above is 1/4 the actual slab I saw my neighbours enjoy.

Nevertheless, it was GOOD. The flesh at the collar of any fish is the sweetest and this was no exception. In fact, it exceeded expectations by a mile. The meat was juicy and sweet, the skin was crispy and the accompanying dip made with mirin, sweet soy sauce and a dash of rice vinegar sealed the deal.

Noel and I devoured this baby in no time!

I was still sucking on the bone and licking my fingers long after we stripped the bone of every morsel of meat.

I was a happy camper. I ruled the yakitori. YES!

On Saturday, I was craving some mexican and so we visited El Taco Loco - also situated on Staunton Street.

Honestly, Staunton Street is the place to go for good food. Any restaurant you dine in will please your tastebuds.

Back to El Taco Loco.

Noel and I had just finished an amazing work out in the gym and were looking forward to a good meal.

Let's just say we were more than satisfied with our food.

Jalepenos + Salsa + Mojo - didn't use any of this. It was just to showcase what they offered on the side.

Forgot what this was called, but there were 4 of them in a basket. The wrap sandwiched creamy melted cheese and chicken breast cooked in pesto. Yummy!

A side order of chilli fries.

Hahhaha! I never knew how much Noel loved his chilli until we had this! He was scooping up the chilli all by itself! Apparently, he says it reminds him of his stay in the US and how much he loved it then and still loves it now.

El Taco Loco gets a thumbs up from us - point deduction for the poor service. What's amusing though is how you're eating off disposable dishware and plastic baskets. Intereting dining experience. Large groups not recommended as restaurant is narrow and cramped. Max. no. of persons = 6. (ideally, 4 - to be comfortably seated)

Whenever I'm back, Noel knows that I'm starved for shopping and relaxation so we usually make a trip down to Shenzhen for some good ol' spa and shopping time. Unfortunately, food there is limited so we usually have our meal at Fairwood - a fast food chain serving cheap local HK/Chinese food.

This is what we had.

My curry chicken cutlet.

Boring and bland. The curry gave me a tummy upset (a minor one though as I didn't taste more than a sip of it. Thank goodness too!)

Noel's baked rice + spaghetti combi. Much better.

Okay, this is all folks! Part 3 deals with my shopping spree with Bel and Elaine! Stay tuned!

Food & Easter in Hong Kong (Part 1)

I sure am making good use of my self-indulged break by catching up on blog posts.

Okay, here's a catalogue of my fun fun FUN trip back to HK during Easter! I managed to squeeze all my classes into the penultimate week before the holidays officially began so I won myself an additional week of holiday!

Not bad huh? I was really lucky.

Anyway, on my first night back to HK, I felt like sushi (as I always do) and so Noel and I popped over into the sushi bar just opposite our apartment and had....

A truck load of sushi. Notice the mountain of rice balls - we never eat the rice.

And were damn happy about it too!

And after sushi, we went to Hui Lau Shan for some 'healthy' dessert. I say 'healthy' only because the shop purports to serve healthy desserts by using only fresh fruit. And while this is true, we all know that desserts are never healthy... Hahah! Oh who cares. I was on holiday!

We shared this decadent delight of mango ice cream + mango bits + crystal jelly in mango juice.

After dessert, I still had a craving for egg tart and so we walked just a wee bit down the street and I got myself one.

It wasn't good, but it satisfied the craving!

The next day, I wanted dim sum and so we went for dim sum (muahahah!) This is where I retire from yabbering and let the pictures do the talking.

Sesame balls with bean paste filling.

Innards shot!

Lotus bean paste bun + Char Siew bau!

Noel digging into the yummy char siew bao!

HK style Chee Cheong Fun with Shrimp

Glutinous rice dumpling which wasn't good AT ALL.

Pretty shot but too bad it sucked majorly.

Satisfied dim-sum-ers!

Noel later took me to the Inter-Continental Hotel's The Living Lounge for some tea/dinner. He's been raving about how beautiful it is and indeed it was. The entire lounge faced the HK harbour and the scenery was magnificent.


I ordered a spot of tea that came with a funny looking pistachio biscuit.

Tea set.

I was thoroughly amused with how distinctly different the front and back of the biscuit looked.

Front.

Back.

And along came dinner...

I ordered a grilled salmon with herb butter sauce.

Noel got himself a sirloin steak with herb butter sauce.

Seeing as how I was present, fries were a must.

On days when Noel was at work and I had the day to myself, I spent most of it studying/researching for my coursework.

Cal is a good girl. (NOT - didn't get much work done in the end. :S)

In the shot above, I was at Mix - a salad/sandwich bar just below Noel's workplace. It's one of our favourite spots to meet up for a quick lunch when he has the time to lunch out.

On 2 occassions, I visited Starbucks. I know the coffee there is overpriced and no longer as good as it used to be, but I love Starbucks. It brings back fond memories.

Not to mention, I had a really GOOD cuppa hot mocha one time.

Sinful but GOOD.

On other occassions, I cook. I love cooking (as most of you must have already surmised) but I love cooking for Noel even more. And so every time I go back to HK, I make sure I cook.

Here're are some shots of my dishes:-

My version of spicy ma-po tofu.

Teriyaki cod fillets - I made the teriyaki sauce. :)

Long beans cooked in oyster sauce with dried scallop shavings. One of the 2 veggies that Noel willingly consumes. The other being spinach.

Mushroom prawn (egg whites only) omelette. Noel loves this.

Sadly, whenever I go back to HK, my bodily systems foul up on me and not only do I get severe indigestion, I bloat and bloat and bloat. I think it's cause I'm not used to the oil or the preservatives used. Back in UK, I have a purely organic food diet with no salt, oil or sugar added to my food.

Add to that, I was suffering from PMS and every night, I had a craving for this:

Double-skinned milk curd + Red bean

I'm not a fan of milk, but I am a fan of this milk dessert! Hahahha! How ironical yeah?

Okay folks, that's it for now. Part 2 later on!