Cookware Purchased on Boxing Day

This are the two cookware which I purchased during Boxing Day sale. I had tried using the 20cm fry pan and I love it. As for the wok, it's kept safely in my storeroom at the moment. I will only take it out when my current wok start giving way which I reckon won't be too far away. 

1st Time

I'm roasting pork belly with crackling. It's definitely my 1st time doing this dish. I wanted to try it long ago but I'm pretty scared because it looks hard. So far after more than an hour in the oven, it looks promising. Just got to wait and see I guess.

Wish me Luck!

2009 Boxing Day Shopping

Ho ho ho ho!!! CL and me just got home from Doncaster Westfield. Got there after 8am to report for boxing day shopping. Spend 5 hours and ended up with a gigantic hole in his credit card our pocket.

I manage to buy a really nice jacket!! A pair of shoe and half year supply of intimate apparel. CL manage to buy some tops which we happened to hunt them down by luck.

I added some cookware for the kitchen again. This time a 20cm Jamie Oliver pan and a Jamie Oliver wok. Will post the photos up later.

Simply Spanish

During my parent's visit, we bought them around for international food cuisine : italian, thai, indian, vietnamese etc. The recent trip, we introduce them to Spanish food.





Simply Spanish at South Melbourne Market is the only place we being to for paella. I'm still hunting for other alternative to make a comparison. But at the meantime, we are enjoying the paella served here.


Simply Spanish served 2 types of paella. 1 is the big pan paella which they cook outside the store. We always have that, cost $10 for a box take away. They seem to be pretty popular as they have two big pans cooking at the same time. I even experience having to queue and wait as the demand was high. The other kind of paella is the small size seafood paella (enough for 2) which will take them 40mins to cook after ordering.





Since there are 4 of us and with time to spare, we ordered 1 serve of Big Pan Paella and another Seafood Paella all to share. Good chance to try taste what's the different between the two.


 Big Pan Paella


The Big Pan Paella was 1st up since they just finished cooking the 1st pan for the day. It has a mixture of mussels, squids, chicken pieces, chorizo etc. Dad and Mum enjoy the dish too :-)



While waiting, we also had Chickpeas with Spinach. The chickpea is cook with some spices. Can't really remember what spices but I like the dish. We also had some complimentary bread with olive oil.


As for drink, I tried their Spanish Coffee. It's very unique! I'm guessing the milk on the bottom of the glass is condensed milk. But the ration of milk : coffee is just right! It's not too sweet and the coffee is strong. At the end, we ordered another 2 glasses. 1 for CL and 1 for Mummy.


 Spanish Coffee


It didn't really seem that we waited very long for the Seafood Paella. Think because we being eating non-stop plus chatting. 


The Seafood Paella potion is huge. Definitely able to feed more than 2 people. The prawns are huge and fresh!!! The taste between the big pan and seafood is quite distinguish. Guessing because both are cook with different stock.


 Seafood Paella


Both paellas are winner to me. But if time permit, I will go for the Seafood Paella coz I love seafood more than meat.

Shark Feeding Dives Videos

Found some videos which I uploaded ages ago but didn't publish.

These 2 videos are taken by CL during our shark feeding dive in Fiji.

Johnnycakes

Johnnycakes with maple syrup and banana

We were I was planning to go to the Farmers Market at Collingwood Children Farm this morning. CL doesn't seem to be interested when I suggested to him last night. In fact I had suggested a thousand times and never make it to one. Plus we slept really late as a result of started watching a movie late.

CL suggested to have cereal for breakky since we had a heavy dinner last night. But cereal is our usual breakky during the weekdays as we tend to spend time sleeping more, quick shower and breakky before rushing off to work. Since we were not required to go to work, I suggested to have pancakes.

Filpping through Nigella cookbook How to be a Domestic Goddess. Found a recipe that consist of a mixture of plain flour and either cornmeal or polenta. So far, only tried making pancakes with plain flour so found this recipe very interesting. Since I had polenta in the pantry, I decided to give Johnnycakes a try.

I halfed the ingredients as it state the amount makes 30-35 pancakes. We definitely won't be able to finish all!

 I ended up with a pan full of pancakes which was just the right amount for us although I could easily eat a few more...hehe

Both of us loves this pancakes! It's yellow instead of white coz of polenta. The skin is a bit crunchy.....it is suppose to be...no idea. It can be pretty fluffy but I thinned it during cooking.

This is definitely our favourite pancake recipe!!

Good Life (Adelaide)

We stopped over at Adelaide for 1 night on our way to Kangaroo Island. Took the opportunity to meet up a friend of ours for dinner. She recommended Good Life pizza since we haven't tried it before.

I loved the their concept, organic plus local produces right down to drinks, flour to make the pizza base.

We started the dinner with Olive Bread served with Adelaide Hills Olive Tapenade. I'm one who doesn't really enjoy olives. I had tried it before but just can't accept the taste. As for this dish, I find the taste of dip pretty unique. Still acceptable for me. Sorry don't really know how to appreciate them :-)

We ordered 4 pizzas in total with 3 different variety.

The most popular pizza for the night was Free Rang Roast Duck Pizza with shitake mushroom and spring onion ginger jam. I only came upon restaurants serving poached chicken with spring onion ginger jam but never with duck. Loved the uniqueness of this dish!

The 2nd pizza was Angaston Spicy Salami with kalamata olives, red onion, baby bocconcini and basil. Honestly, I have no idea what it taste like now plus I only had a slice.

The 3rd pizza we had was Kapunda Chicken oven roasted with baby potatoes, garilc, rosemary and mild parmesan. 1st time having potatoes in pizza and the roast chicken is delicious. I remember I like the cheese including CL who don't really fancy cheese.

We also had 2 sides which I forgot to take pictures of. It was Roast Vegetables and another Mixed Lettuce Salad. Both were very nicely served.

At the end of the meal, we were all stuffed with pizza that leaves us no space for dessert at all. We couldn't even finish all the pizza.

I will definitely go back for the Duck Pizza if I happen to go Adelaide again. At the meantime, just have to look out for such restaurants in Melbourne.

My 1st 3x

Today is the day I start my age is a 3….30^th years old. What have I achieve or experience for the past 10 years I wonder??? Is it well spent I question myself.

At the age of:

20 – I graduated with a Diploma of Electrical, Electronic and Control and found a job as a Engineering Assistant or was it Assistant Engineer…..don't even remember the title. Started dating with CL, my 1^st and only boyfriend.

21 – Experience oversea education; learn to be independent, learn how to live with housemates. Most challenging is learning how to live together with CL (yes we stayed together for a year during our uni days to cut cost), sharing a tiny little room we rented.

22 – Learn how to be independent again without CL. Sharing a room with another female species other than my Sister. Flew back to Sing with a degree and 2 years of experiences with money can't buy. Started working as a SCADA Engineer in a local small company which the slogan is "NIKE" = just do it.

23 – Working, working, working. Got to admit I did manage to learn quite a bit on job.

24 – Slaving myself and planning for an escape?

25 – Flew into Melbourne for 2 weeks vacations, at the same time got married, a week honeymoon at Cairns and back to Sing alone.

26 – Got my Aussie permanent residency, got myself out of Sing system, relocated and actually felt married! Got ourselves out of living with a bunch of dirty, super pampered, think they are very rich uni kiddies. Started working in an Aussie local company as a Project Engineer. Have our 1^st kid.

27 – Promoted to being a Aunt and a Godma. Got my driving license after 2 tries.

28 – Finally I started driving and took over our 1^st kid after CL bought a 2^nd kiddo.

29 – Been living in a apartment my almost my whole life so after moving to our current place, it's like learning how to live in a house. Married to a Aussie on my last day of age 29…..yes, CL got his Australia Citizenship and took his pledge yesterday.

30 – What can I add into my achievement/experience next? A house? Obtain my Aussie Citizenship? Kid?? …..hmmmmm It's something I won't have any idea till next year but 1 thing I know is I'm having a stuffy +irritating + block + running nose and a pair of itchy eye. I HATE HAY FEVER!!!

3 down 6 more to go

I have being trying to blog more especially on the back entry which I wanted to do.

Out of the 9 entries, I did 3. So 6 more to go!

1> Ayame
2> Tutto Bene
3> Kangaroo Island Vacation
4> Traditional Hakka Dish
5> Spanish food at South Melbourne Market
6> Good Life in Adelaide
7> Rockpool - My advance birthday dinner
8> My Surprise Birthday Present from CL --- Most important!!!!
9> Homecook food by Dearest Mummy and Me =)

I will leave my advance Birthday Dinner and Present till my birthday to blog about it :)

Tutto Bene (2nd Visit)

From memory and blog entry, the 1st time and previous time we being to Tutto Bene was almost 2 years ago. We tried our luck getting a table without booking a couple of time for the past 2 years without success till Sept 13th 09.

We haven't being into the city for quite a while so decided to spend the day in the city walking around. From memory the plan was to go to Crown and find a nice place for lunch. But when we passed by Tutto Bene on the way, we couldn't help but pop in to request for a table. Lucky stars fall upon us :). I'm guessing because we were really early, can see it from the number of empty tables around us.

We just love their Risotto and couldn't forget it! So far, it's the best risotto we tried in Melbourne.

Started off with some complimentary bread with olive oil. We don't really know how to appreciate olive oil because we can't taste what's so special about it and how it won so many medal.

PRIMI PIATTI
Calamari Fritti
We were served by a really friendly, knowledgeable waiter. Because me and CL don't eat olives and we don't really want something too heavy for entree, he suggested Fried Calamari. The Calamari was lightly battered with semolina and quick deep fried. It's really light in taste, fresh and doesn't taste oily.

RISOTTERIA

Seafood Risotto - Special of the day on the left and on the right Anatra, funghi e salvia - Braised buck, porcini, mushroom and sage

CL had the seafood risotto and I went for the braised buck risotto. Both dishes were totally different as CL's dish was tomato base and mine creamy slightly heavy base. Both were fantastic! Delicious!
I can even taste the "freshness" in CL's dish and have chunks of duck meat in mine.

CONTORNI E INSALATE
Ruchetta selvatica con scaglie di parmigiano, olio e limone - wild rocket with extra virgin olive oil, sea salt, lemon and parmigiano
We actually wanted to try Zucca arrosto con cannella e peperoncino - Roasted pumpkin with cinnamon and chilli but the waiter suggested to match our main with wild rocket instead. Gald we accepted his suggestion because it blend it with our main very well.

We only had space for 1 dessert to share and we ordered Creme Brulee.

DOLCI

Brulee al tiramisu con ganache di cioccolate e gelato al mascarpone - Tiramisu infused brulee served with in house mascarpone gelati and chocolate ganache
The sweetness was just right, soft and not watery. As for infused with Tiramisu, honestly I don't remember except did taste a bit of liquor. Does that count???