Dinners in flat 3A Northcote Road

So I'm in my new flat, right?

And it's this gorgeous house with a fantastic kitchen (clean too) that comes with a fabulous housemate, right?

Now what could be better than having dinner in this gorgeous house with this fantastic kitchen with a fabulous housemate?

Ashley and I have been on a cooking spree lately. We've made delicious scrambled eggs with tomatoes, spinach and cheese, accompanied with some roasted potatoes, yesterday...

Mmmm... Sizzling in the pan.

And tonight, we roasted these hamburger patties from Sainsbury's which, much to my amazement, was really really good! Yes, me, the one who hardly ever eats red meat, actually gives this patty 2 stamps of approval! The meat was tender, juicy and succulent. It was well-seasoned and flavourful.

I remembered to take the shot half-way through my meal. Lol!

Well, at least it makes innard shots much easier! And look at how tender and juicy the patty is! YUM.

It's been a while since I had such heavy dinners.... Just a tad worried about how this will affect my waistline and weight, but for now, I'm basking in the afterglow of having had a really delicious meal.

Gym early tomorrow morning (for sure)

61s , Mars Chocolate Milk & Random Pan-fried salad

I've officially moved out of flat 61 in University Hall and into 3A (basement flat) Northcote Road with Ashley and while I am CRAZY excited/happy about shifting into a proper house, I do miss my 61 flatmates a lot.

So we decided to have a farewell dinner together with our customary fish & chips.

61s!

We were riding high on a tide of cholestrol, lotsa grease, batter and atery-blocking double-fried extra salty lips-turn-white (Poor Adam) chips and engaged in some post-meal fun.

Namely, attempting to rebuild the Aztec pyramid on the plateau on Kyle's head....

Building block #1

Up, up & Away~~~~!!!

I'll be missing you guys much 61. =) Here's to more fun, more laughter, more racing Mario Kart while high on rosé wines and many many more fish & chips!

Anyway, I was roaming round Sainsbury's after school today and chanced upon cartons of Mars chocolate milk.

Yes, think the offspring of Mars chocolate bars and milk...

I can't say that I'm very tempted by this. Just the thought of drinking Mars chocolate bars is scary enough.... @.@

And here's the dinner I cooked tonight! I'm so proud of it coz it was insanely delicious (albeit it doesn't necessarily look tasty... But believe me! It WAS SOOOO GOOD.)


Just random pan-fried brussel sprouts + red peppers + mushrooms + shredded chicken breast in sundried tomato paste drizzled generously with tobasco sauce and topped with a shower of paprika and grounded black pepper.

MmmmMmmmmmm..............

Oxford

This is the 3rd time I've been to Oxford and I never fail to be completely astounded and blown-away by just how beautiful a city Oxford is.

I met up with Jesse (Master, I love you!) over the weekend and we had a blast! Apart from the great food we had...

We also had the lovely company of Mike who was nice enough to show us around New College to satisfy our insatiable desire to capture the picturesque beauty of Oxford...


What I really love about the city is that it is so captivating; every corner you turn, every step you take, every nook and cranny is filled with old charm and the spice of the old, traditional England. It's lovely. Everytime I walk along the streets of Oxford, I am enchanted and unusually quiet. If you ever visit, you will understand what I mean when I say that it feels like you're living a dream and strolling through a poem.

I love Oxford!

Anyhoo, as usual, when I go out and dine out, I take pictures of the food that I eat - a commemoration of sorts! This time is no different!

Okay, wait, before I get ahead of myself, this time WAS different. Jesse was such a sweet darling and asked me along as her guest for her college formal dinner. I must say that I was very impressed! It's such a shame that University of Bristol doesn't organise such frequent formal dinners!

Anyway, so Jesse and I put on our dresses and pumps and headed out to dinner in full glamour (minus the limo and red carpet)

We the gorgeous people of the formal dinner!

We had place cards (as usual) without my name on it (unusual, but am loving it so much more!)


Haha! This was hilarious! I had a good laugh out of this and even more so when the other guests who were reaidng the place cards gave me either perplexed looks or called me 'Ms Guest'. Oh the world at its best...

I totally rocked it.

Here's the menu...


And in order....

1. Appetiser

Sadly, this wasn't delicious at all! I think it's mostly because I'm not a fan of pumpkin soup...

2. Main course - The Lamb

Loved the veggies more than the meat... Which I thought was really bland and tough to chew.

3. Dessert!

This was the BEST dish of the night HANDS DOWN. This forced rhubarb crumble tart is magnificent.

Not being a fan of cream of ANY sorts, I rolled the cream off the tart and dug my spoon in. Some inner voice tells me that the spoon was having just as much fun as I was digging into the crumble tart. Mmmmm.

I bet you would too if you could've!

I suppose what this dinner really bestowed upon me was the knowledge that you're never too old to study...

What do you notice about this shot?

Yep, that's right folks. 3/4 of the dinner was filled with mature folks. Now in UK, you're considered a mature student if you're above 21.... Now looking at it, I really don't think we constitute (accurately) 'mature students'. If 21 year olds are mature.... Then surely, these esteemed and wiser folks must be 'ancient'. I don't mean this in a disrespectful manner, rather, I am filled with awe at the knowledge of how determined and capable these people are and how dedicated they are to bettering themselves.

To say the least, I was on one hand comforted, and on the other, greatly inspired.

Oh! And before I forget, when I arrived on Friday (the dinner was on Saturday night) , Jesse and Mike had the terrific idea of making dumplings for dinner! I've never actually made dumplings with friends before so this was a real treat! I was stoked!

Jesse and I went to Tescos for the ingredients that would make the filling while Mike kindly got us the wanton skins!

Not surpringly, shrimp and minced pork made the filling.

We did a rather amusing job at trying to find the perfect way (or most ridiculous, for me) of folding dumplings.

See that lumpy brain-looking one? Yep, That's mine....

Told ya the plate would be a helluva amusing!

Not surpringly, Jesse put her creative mdecided to construct a mammoth dumpling at some point! Check this out!

H.U.G.E.

It was getting just a tad boring to have only boiled dumplings...

Delicious as they were.

So Jesse suggested pan-frying some and off I went!

Ta-dah!

I must say that I enjoyed the pan fried ones more than the boiled. I dunno, there's just something about fried stuff that makes it oh-so-GOOD!

In between bites of yummy dumplings, we played a round of Balderdash - the Queen of all bluffing games and one which I am hooked on at the moment.

I'll explain the game another time.

Another thing that was equally good but 50 times healthier is Physalis - a kind of berry fruit....

Every bite was heaven!

Now onto the weekend food proper....

Drinks on Friday night @ Raoul's (a pub)

Yup. This thing was a GIGANTIC.

The skinny red drink was mine - non-alcoholic cranberry+apple juice mixed with peach bits. Yummy!

Lunch on Saturday @ The Rose (a café)

An organic chicken sandwich - no dressing. Just chicken.

Look at how fresh the ingredients were!

Drinks on Saturday night @ Royal Oak (a pub)

I'm not really sure what this is called... But based on what I can remember, it's called Winter Pimps.

It was Jesse's drink but I had a few sips. ;) Heehee

No matter, I had a sip and it felt like a warm doze of honey + peach brandy. It was smooth and lovalicious!

Brunch @ Patesserie Valerie (a french café)

The best ever cuppa mocha I've had. I swear by this. It's fantastic. Expresso and LITERALLY with a cup of hot chocolate. The chocolate was rich and creamy and decadent. I loved it.

Kudos to the barista; the foam was perfect.

The Valerie Club - a normal club sandwich platter filled with Valerie-goodness. The bread was as good as the ones I've had in France (English bread sucks).

Make sure you visit this. It's amazing.

Okay, that's all for now lovelies! I can barely keep my eyes open any longer (time check: 1:20am). So good night and comment!!! =)

See you all soon! xoxo

Berry-good scones!

*ahem ahem ahem*

It is with great pleasure (and a little apprehension) that I introduce my first ever batch of scones!


Kyle was telling me how great his newly purchased jar of French raspberry jam is and how great it'd be if we had some scones and clotted cream to go with it.

Since I have the ingredients for scone-making on hand it it is, I volunteered to bake some scones and he agreed to get the clotted cream.

Since this is my virgin experience with scones, I figured I ought to try something fancy.... So instead of your regular raisin scones, I decided to try baking some berry scones! And a good thing too! Coz Kyle doesn't like raisins! (Phew!)

Additionally, seeing as how much of a health freak I am (and the fact that I love to alter recipes and my seeming inability to follow recipes to the "T"), I swapped half of the plain flour for wholemeal flour.... And added less sugar and less salt.... And swapped buttermilk for skimmed milk.

Healthy berry scones. Mmmm.........

Our target was to have scones for breakfast this morning. Thus to ensure that we didn't have to wait for the scones to bake, I started baking them last night!

Now off we go!

The dry & wet ingredients....

The batter.

The frozen berries dusted with flour...

The berries rolled in flour - to prevent them from sinking to the bottom of the batter during baking.

The berries folded into the batter... Mmmmmm

Dollops of batter onto baking tray.... And whisked off into the hot oven for baking!!!

The first batch of scones.... Mammoth berry scones.

Yeah, I overestimated the amount of batter and so these scones were HUGE! Think size of your fist huge! Hahahahha! But as you can tell from Kyle's thumbs-up, the scones smelt and looked temptingly scrumptious.

I altered the amount of batter I dished out on the baking tray, so the next few batches of scones reasonably normal in size. (Hahahaha)

Finally....

The resulting mountain of berry-good scones!!! Whee!

Well, we waited, went to bed and woke the next morning to THIS:-

Breakfast is served!

The scones were sooo delicious! It wasn't heavy but rather light and fluffy... Like a muffin....

See? All juicy with berry-goodness and you can tell that the dough isn't as dense as that of a normal scone.

Okay, I think this is probably an error on my part - I think added just a tad too much baking powder; hence the unusual fluffiness....

Nevertheless, they were still undeniably delicious.

The berries were a nice change from the usual raisins you find in normal fruit scones - they addded a tinge of sourness to the scone and was a refresing change. They were also the perfect complement with Kyle's seedy raspberry jam (which was SUPERB).

All in all, I thought the berry scones were delicious! And breakfast has never tasted more satisfying than today's.

The best part? ----> There's still half of batch left!

Guess what I'll be having for breakfast/tea for the next few days! XD