Seafood Pie - Cooking

Friday night means no rice night. My parent being very asian have to eat rice every night, except for friday and saturday nights :) I normally cook dinner on Friday nights with the help of mum to make sure I don't burn the kitchen down and so that dinner is served before 12am XD

 I decided to make seafood pie. Got the idea from watching The Naked Chef (Jamie Oliver was so good from the very start). And mum wanted to get the marinara mix from Safeway as it was like half price or something (how asian right?) I'm not a fan of the marinara mixes from supermarkets as they're frozen and you're buying a whole lot of ice with your seafood. And the seafood lacks flavour. But it was HALF PRICE.

The sauce didn't thicken like I hoped it would and the cream and cheese made it super rich and filling.

This whole pie for 3 people. Obviously we didn't finish it and some of it ended up as my breakfast the next morning, then the filling of the pie was used to make a sauce for pasta for lunch and I finished the rest of the pie for dinner again. So 4 consecutive meals of seafood pie. The taste just got better and better.

Eating Out: Wong's Lucky Bar 旺旺幸运吧- Whitehorse Rd, Box Hill

Situated in the MIDDLE of the ROAD (in between the traffic light which connects box hill central and 7-eleven, where the tram stop is) is this little Malaysian/Chinese Restaurant. They've been putting a lot of ads in the Chinese newspapers about their $6.90 Hainanese Chicken Rice and "Authentic" Laksa.

Walked in to see WILL PAN on the mounted tv =D Sat down and ordered Hainanese Chicken Rice, Seafood Laksa and Nasi Goreng. Watched Jay's 2007 World Tour Concert whilst waiting. The dishes arrived very quickly and looked quite presentable....but looks aren't everything. Sorry no pics, totally forgot to take pics until everything was half eaten but I'm pretty sure everyone knows what Hainanese Chicken Rice, Laksa and Nasi Goreng looks like.

Hainanese Chicken Rice-I can't say it was exceptional. I would probably give it an alright. The rice was very fragrant, the 6 or so decent sized pieces of boneless chicken could have been "smoother" and I swear the chilli sauce was dyed red.....Overall this dish was like SALT on SALT on more SALT and that was without the soup....

Laksa- Made from quite bland seafood mix and seafood highlighter I have to say I was quite disappointed. I felt the soup base didn't have enough spices and not rich enough. It was a creamier colour than usual. If I were to come here again I wouldn't order the laksa again. But then again what would a honkie girl who hasn't been to Malaysia know about a laksa?

Nasi Goreng- What can you say about fried rice? It was pretty average. I'm not sure what is supposed to be in Nasi Goreng but it can't be brown special fried rice right?

Verdict? To be honest I wouldn't come back again considering all the other choices in Box Hill. Sorry, maybe for their Hainanese Chicken if they decide to go easy on the salt.

Twiggy Sticks

These are the best studying snacks. Soooooo yummy (and FATTY and SALTY). Pretty much is salami in a stick...and last week they were HALF PRICE at Coles and being the asian I am I got a whole KILO :) I think that's about 30-40 long twiggy sticks. Btw, if you hold them for a while the fat inside starts to kind of melt and its like fatty heaven. A whole new flavour.

The things I do to avoid studying =.=" 

Sunset

One thing I don't think I've mentioned that I really really enjoy. Sunsets. Soooo pretty.

(Taken from my window with camera phone, normal setting)

In reality it was a lot more orange but due to limitations of a 3.2mp camera phone camera it turned out kinda pink. But still pretty.

Permanently Straightened Hair

This post ain't about food. I'm sorry I haven't really posted much lately cos year 12 is evil, so much hw and study to do. 12am nights, 7am mornings KILL YOU. Anyways back to what I'm posting about, HAIR. Kinda related to schoool...
When I was in HK I decided to get my hair permanently straightened. Although it was a long 3 hours of sitting in a chair (I have an extremely short attention span) and quite expensive, I'm really glad I did it. Cos I don't have to use my straightener again for a while : ) which means I can sleep in for like 5-10 mins every morning. Seriously in year 12, any extra sleep is heaven.Hopefully it'll last for quite a while cos the feeling of waking up without having to do anything to your hair is AWESOME. By the way, my hair is naturally quite wavy and a mess every morning but now that is a thing of the past.
Anyways that is all, I'm going to be running on adrenalin soon cos I'm so tired.

Still have 2 posts yet to be published =.=" must remember to finish them soon.
-china post (from 2 months ago)
-yum cha inn (from 1 month ago)

Cooking-Schnitzel, Caesar Salad, Potato and Corn mash

Friday nights means NO RICE night :) For dinner I made Veal Schnitzel with Caesar Salad and Potato Corn Mash.
Took 2 hours....but there was so much to do.
Veal Schnitzel: Needed to crumb and fry. Such a pain in the ass. (only can fry 2 at a time)
Caesar Salad: Wash lettuce, make dressing, grill bacon, make croutons, poach eggs.
Potato Corn Mash: Peel + chop potatoes, boil them, cook off onions and corn, mash potatoes, mix in onion and corn.
Made to serve 6 people, as my two younger cousins come over for dinner every Friday night. (poaching 6 eggs in a row it a absolute pain cos you have to do them one by one =.=") is there a way to poach more than one egg in one pot?

 

Dinner : )

It actually wasn't that good. Need to improve on a lot of things.

My little cousin was shocked to find out that mayo is made of raw egg yolk and oil. Well proper mayo anyways.

Cooking-Chips/Wedges + instant noodles

Yesterday I came home from school and decided to make potato chips. But since I didn't have 40 mins to bake them, I decided to microwave the cut up potatoes to speed things up. However thanks to the storm, the power went out whilst I was microwaving =.=" So I made an instant noodles instead, my favourite flavour. Tonkotsu :) Or pork bone soup flavour.
SOOOO YUMMY :)
So after like 30 mins, the power came back on and I decided to finish making my chips/wedges. Finished microwaving them, then seasoned them with herbs and random spices, then chucked them into the mini oven (which is really really good for just baking small batches of things). Unfortunately managed to burn myself on the oven whilst flipping the chips (did I mention I'm extremely clumsy in general?) Whipped up some chilli mayo to dip them into and had my 2nd afternoon tea XD

 

Verdict? Alright, not crunchy enough unfortunately. Also I should have peeled the potato, the skin was chewy and gave a weird texture.

Yeah, instant noodles and chips for afternoon tea : ) 

(so gonna get fat now =.=")

Lamp

Got this for christmas from my aunty, not sure where she got it but it was most likely in HK.

 

I think its really cute, it's a small led lamp. 

It's really good cos it doesn't heat up as much as my desk lamp, which is a lifesaver in my sauna bedroom =.=" (the afternoon sun shines in directly) gets so hot in summer.

Miss the stuff you can get in HK, everything is so cute but practical.

Obesity

Today I watched a doco on tv called "Why skinny people don't get fat" or something along the lines of that. Why it interests me? Cos I think I MAY be one of those people and my brother certainly is.
Evidence to why I think I could be one of them? Cos I when I got back from HK I was the same weight as I was before I left (same for my bro) which sounds crazy thinking of all the things we ate.
So pretty much a few things brought up by that show:

• People have a set body weight which they hover around. That would explain why I didn't gain weight after HK.
• Some people don't have the urge to eat snacks if they're full. They showed a test they did on kinder kids and it was quite surprising, some kids just weren't even tempted by chocolate biscuits and all that. HOWEVER for my brother and I, we fail to just walk by and ignore snacks. But this could be a major reason to why obesity is such a problem, because some people just can't resist and therefore overeat.
• Some people's metabolism increases when there is excess energy. Possibly true for my brother and I.
• The mind unconsciously makes you fidget, or move to burn of extra energy. This one could be possible but can you burn off that much energy?

I've always wondered why my brother can be like a human garbage bin and not gain weight. He's almost 6 foot tall and weighs under 60kg. And no he barely exercises but he can eat amazing amounts of food (i swear he could put a buffet out of business secretly). Loves the most unhealthy foods as do I. (whipped cream out of the can, bacon fat, any sort of animal fat, butter, cream, just everything unhealthy.)

But my theory, it all starts when you're a kid. You have to learn to stop eating if you're full (because you feel full for a reason, your body has enough food), to encourage healthy eating and make sure you stay active.

Which brings me to think back, during my last week in HK, I did feel full a lot of the time, even if I hadn't eaten much. Just looking at the amount of food could make me feel full (but nonetheless I kept eating cos it was just soooo yummy) but is that a way that your body tells you it's had enough, to limit what you eat? So what are your views on this?

Sorry if I don't blog very often anymore. I have limited time because of year 12. Hopefully I can blog on the weekend, still have a lot of unfinished posts to post.