BACK TO SCHOOL

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

The 2013 new year's passed by not too long ago, but I'm already looking forward to Chinese New Year's (which is made of lots of potlucks=food, and red envelopes=money). The only thing coming in between me and CNY are these few weeks of school! So while I must endure this period of time until the Chinese festivities start rolling in, I have made the best of this time by spending it with the best people and the best food:

Nice and hot Nescafe latte with butter cookies

A new year began, but it doesn't mean that old habits have to change right? My caffeine fixes are becoming less frequent than usual *yay* - since I will never be able to fully abolish it from my weekly routine.

Another "bad" habit, you could say, of mine, is the need to have a dessert after dinner. Sometimes freshly cut fruit just doesn't cut it (my cravings), and I'm too lazy to make my own dessert, so we adventure into the cold weather, and ended up eating more cold food.

My dear friend owed me money, and I demanded to be repaid through food, and so here it is!

Strawberry sundae

Warm brownie sundae

But on days where we (actually, it's usually just myself) want to make our dessert, I now turn to my Cloer crepe machine quite often. I shall have to write a post on that one day to show you the magic of it making paper thin, equally sized crepes - every time. *gasp*

Filled with Baileys pastry cream, topped with strawberry reduction & blueberry

Another thing I often make now is soup, since it tastes the best when you're cold, and these few week's winter weather has really gotten to me. I like to put a lot of ingredients in my soups, and in the one below, I put: spinach, onions, carrot, chicken, goji berries, tomatoes, pearl barley, millet, and a good seasoning of soy sauce and black pepper. Fill it with enough water to cover everything, bring it to a boil, then keep it boiling on low-medium for a good hour to get all the flavours out (:

All ready to boil!

I am still in the midst of finding a food/dish that I do not like to eat/will not eat, since I tend to like everything! But my friends tend to be slightly more picky eaters - you know who you are (: But one of the few dishes that I feel like the majority of them all like to eat is the Korean pancake I make. I'm glad they like to eat this, since it's something they can all agree on.

Cabbage, red & green pepper, mushroom, and kimchi pancake, topped with mayo.

An example of something most of them don't eat is salmon head. Out of the entire salmon (we're talking cooked salmon, because salmon sashimi is a whole different topic), the part I like the best is the head because it has the softest meat. I just bake it, and sometimes, with a few slices of ginger.

I love cheek meat!

So, "Have you eaten dessert yet?" may be a question that you've wanted to ask me - or not.

Either way, I will answer the question (which is one that I've asked myself because you don't seem to ask me many questions!), and yes, I have eaten dessert tonight. It followed my third consecutive day of salmon head for dinner, and it was this:

Somehow I made this with no scale or measuring cups. *proud of self*

So fluffy!

I folded a generous handful of ground hazelnuts into my sponge cake batter, and the entire room smelled of hazelnuts upon baking~

Here it is, after slicing, and filled with Baileys pastry cream (I still have a container-full left from the day I had a crepe buffet party), topped with strawberry reduction, it doubles in height!

Sliced, and ready for me to enjoy my after-dinner dessert.

X

MUAH MUAH MUAH

VICKI CHOW

P/S

My going-to-the-gym thing has been going much better than I had expected! The one downside I soon discovered was how I felt like I'm allowed to eat more fatty foods since I exercise it off later. Let me tell you about one of these foods...

My lovely European friend chopped up an entire package of bacon the other day, and pan-fried it with chopped onion. Three generous spoonfuls of bacon, along with the same amount of bacon fat was mixed into a bowl of white rice, which then became my dinner. I regret not taking a picture for you all to see, because it was rather beautiful, but that simply means we have an excuse to buy more bacon!

Eating less "healthy" is OKAY! (as long as you exercise)

My friends and I are going on our weekly farmer's market trip tomorrow! It's one of the rare things we will wake up early for - because there's good food there to have as breakfast~

Are you willing to wake up early for a good breakfast?

I will not leave you hanging with a question today, but with the last bite of tonight's cake instead *how nice of me*