A Malaysian Lunch

Woke up early to get ready n prepare breakfast before setting off at half past ten for my computer driving test. I passed with two mistakes; n 'sort of being forced to' treat my dear hub to lunch coz i didn't get 100% (we had a deal). You see, Redundant means brain doesn't function properly. Well, anyway, we had M'sian food (which is fair enough, i treated him my originality!) at this restaurant which i have been eyeing for a long time:

Hub's fried Kuay Teow. I think he fancies chao  kuay teow a lot, which shd be on top of my list to-do. Well, his remark on this particular one was, good enough, better than the ones in SG, n very big portion. ** if i ever cook this, i will make sure it's less oily, no 'si ham' n lotsa chive buds.

This is my tom yum. I was craving for sth spicy e.g. curry etc, n i tot tom yum wld do the trick. Sour but not spicy enough; n seafood used weren't fresh. Too much vermicelli which i only managed to eat like less than half?  Sigh. i must cook myself another very spicy pot of tomyum or curry soon.

Our dessert: fried pineapple ice cream. Such a disappointment. They used Canned pineapple ring, n batter was thick n soggy. Ice cream tasted like the ones sold in cheap tubs. Even nestle tasted better. N the caramel sauce was definitely not helping.

Promoting low calorie, less oil and more greens diet

A quick post today as we're off to church in less than 2 hours. Burrp, just had a full very late lunch a.k.a very early dinner. Has been cloudy n chilly today, my poor babies din manage to get their sunbathings again. :-(.

We had two simple but healthy meals since morning (i am trying to help someone lose some weight LOL); first one being easy mustard ham sandwiches;

Leg ham, fresh tomatoes, continental cucumber n baby spinach with honey mustard n avocado mash sandwiched in between multigrain toasts.

Messy messy, i was multitasking then. Was scolded for not concentrating in one thing at a time. Yeah. Food hygiene!

Finally.. and at last, i managed to cook my first 'steamed pork and preserved vegetable' which has been on my to-do list for a long time. Was it a Hakka dish? i don't know but i sort of grew up eating this dish, n my auntie used to make it very often when i was staying with them back last months.

Easy peasy but not too easy to get the right taste, minced pork seasoned with soy sauce, pepper, dash of salt, cornflour, water n top with preserved vegetable.

Steam on high heat for 20 mins

The result: my hub complained the meat is too lean (which i think is alright for health reason). N i guess i shd have mixed the preserved vege with the meat instead of merely spreading on top.

A chinese meal always comes with some greens. I am a huge broccoli fan. so do not be surprise if u see me cooking broccoli a lot.

Fried the last portion of overnight rice with cucumbers n broccoli stems to go with the dishes.

Hello to Saturday

Hello to Saturday. Has been a week since my in laws left. Sat is a busy day for me, coz it's house cleaning day and there are many many chores like laundry, sanitizing kitchen towels, toilet wash, and floor mopping. Goodie huh? For no reason, i seem to enjoy these chores. I just realised what a 'cleanliness' freak i am.

Anyway, i am here to write my daily meal diary again, n pretend i am a masterchef with great culinary skills.  LOL. I am so pathetic. I daydream everyday hoping i can whip up some excellent dishes for my hub, but sadly, my skills are, well, kinda limited. Here in my own space, i tend to materialise my dream. LOL. So here they are, simple but healthy (i guess) (if you wan to know how they taste, pls refer to Mr Jiang) :

Yesterday's very late lunch. Leftover ginger onion chicken, stir-fry lettuce with carrots, steamed rice n sweet potatoes.

N i managed to bake! 2nd masterpiece from the mini oven! Chocolate spiral shortbread. I was out of patience, otherwise they cld have looked better.



N the rockmelon dinner last nite.

Today was classic. Mr Jiang woke up late, so he ended eating brunch instead:

Tomato egg

Went with Shanghai noodles

N his daily milk tea

Sorry for the upside down pic. i 4got to rotate. Mr Jiang's bowl.

Dinner was some simple Joyce's styled fried rice.

Ingredients for fried rice include marinated mince pork, mixed vege, diced carrots, broccoli stems n overnight rice. Goes well with chilli oil. Yummy.

A restaurant chain called SOFIA

I am not doing anything special for dinner tonight due to the extensive amount of leftovers we had from the previous meals; and we sort of achieved a mutual agreement to have fruits only for dinner. There is a rockmelon which needs to be consumed before it stinks the whole house (it has already conquered my fridge!) n several others like the kiwis, n nectarines. Yeah, a fruitful meal tonight before the six rounds of brisk walk around the cricket ground. Oh, did i mention hub found a nearby cricket playground which has been our exercise ground then?

If no, i will tell you abt it later. Right now i am going to write about a restaurant chain which has been my favourite family dining spot ever since we first stepped in. I've heard many encouraging comments about this restaurant before i even tried it; they have a chain near my uncle's house along Burwood Highway and i used to pass by everytime i headed down that way but never dared to step in due to the 'family' term they use to define 'extra large' portions. Yeah, not even two person can fit into that category; n i didn't wan to risk over-eating or packing home some leftovers.  

For this reason, we sort of took the advantage when my in laws came to visit (in fact two!); n i remember the first time being a coincident when we were travelling down to Philip Island. My father-in-law n hub had such positive impression of Sofia that we went back to their chain near my uncle's place on the day before they flew back to BJ. We ordered three dishes on the second visit, n the portions were as massive as normal we had to 'ta-pao':

BBQ meat Italian pizza (large). We didn't even manage to finish half of this; the crust was a bit disappointing to me. Thin but not thin enough to give the crunch n crispiness. Filling wise was ok.

House special: Grilled steak (medium raw, grilled to perfection!) Juicy, n just right! Served with mushroom gravy n chips, which could be better with mashed instead. My father in law remembers this piece as one of the best he has tried so far in Melbourne.

Fristo Misto (i think), deep-fried seafood platter. Lotsa calamaris, a few fish fillets n prawns. Quite good, or rather good enough coz i don't actually expect seafood to be excellent in this part of the world where frozens are commonly used. This leaves me wondering; why frozen when it's surrounded by oceans n sea? Boy i miss KK seafood. no where beats Sabah when comes to seafood. The platter was served with 'mint' avocado lookalike dipping n fresh salad. No chips, unlike the first one (below).

Only three n more than enough to fill our tummies. And it was lunch. We brought back the leftover pizzas, n some deep-fried calamaris, n they took us (hub n me) two point five meals to finish. That is how small our stomachs are! LOL

The next two were the meal we had in a small town called Frankston when we were journeying down south to Philip Island. Franskton is a beautiful town by the seaside. Crystal clear ocean, n lovely beach. Reminds me of Sapi Island, except that they dun have as much beautiful fishes like Sapi does. The place is famous for its seaview, n sand sculptors which unfortunately was closed when we were there due to the  recent thunderstorms n rain.

We came across Sofia as we were walking along the seashore, n these were wat we had:

Steak with prawns n mashed potato. I don't quite remember this anymore, but the steak wasn't as good as the second time one. I did like the mashed potato though. n the gravy which left me licking n licking non stop.

The first seafood platter we had. With chips n a different dipping sauce which i think is sour cream n tartare.

Two only n that kept us full the whole day. We didn't even have dinner that night at the Penguin Paradise so imagine how big the portions are!

I guess we'll have to wait for visitors or get more people to join before we can visit the restaurant again. I am thinking of their homemade gelatos next. Slurrp..

Ginger Onion Chicken

I suddenly had the desire to stew some chicken with the leftover ginger n massive 'spring onions' my in laws left us with, hehe, been bragging about it to mr Hub for the last two days, n as usual, he din believe me at first (maybe coz i am a crappy person who daydreams too much). LOL. Dragged him to Boxhill this morning to buy good corn-fed chicken n ta-da, here is my first ginger onion chicken with stir-fry broccoli:

Dinner, Leftover Noodles as Starch (pity, we had too much leftovers)

Broccoli Garlic

Main: Ginger Onion Chicken which can last us at least two meals

My hub has this passion for fridge magnets; everywhere he goes he sure comes back with a special magnet to add to his collection. Me? i only collect postcards.

My Hub's Collection on our mini fridge (only 60% here)

My two Darlings.

Baby 2 : Cherry tomato



Baby 3 : Basil Columnar



Sigh, now that there are only two of us, the food volume seems to go down so much slower; even a loaf of bread takes us at least 10 days to finish. we had to freeze half n make sure the other fresh half is consumed before the expiry date, which usually last for 4-5 days only. Sure hard to cook dinner!

Mount Dandenong

Hehe. We are enjoying the moments of being 'redundant', thus, the drive up to Mt. Dandenong to sip a cup of tea/coffee n devour the long famous Miss Marples' devonshire scones. N to enjoy the scenic view from the hill top which stands at 633m above sea level, n smell the fresh scent of forest hills. isn't it wonderful? i wish everyday is like this.

Mt Dandenong is about 35 mins drive from our place in Doncaster

the Melbourne metropolitan from the hilltop. Sky wasn't that clear today.

Miss Marples' scones with raspberry jam n clotted cream. Skinny cappucino n tea. I personally think, Sunny ridge garden's scones taste better.

I love this forest. Such a beautiful creation.

I had a great time driving up!

I continued being a lazy pig today, so for dinner, i easily steamed n roasted some Ozzie sweet potatoes (Yummy!), mixed frozen vege (leftover by in laws) with instant brown onion gravy, n a yummilicious beef pie. Not tat hard to please a man! LOL.

Dinner and a parade of our new home

Been lazy today, did something which i rarely do: taking naps during the day! I accidentally fell asleep on the couch till i heard hub making tea, which i thought was an act indicating his hunger has striked but he protested saying NO. Well, i still got myself up (it was 6pm already n i had no excuse not to get up) n thank God, dinner was leftover beef from last nite, so simple as it was, here's wat we had for DI-ner tonite:

I'm such a lazy pig. Even shooting a photo makes me tired. Thus the blurness. Pardon me pls.

Have i shown you pictures of my new home before? i mean, after fitting in all the fixtures etc?

Dining table with the platter of fruits

The couch. No more red. I changed the cover recently.

The balcony. Meet our plant no 1 on right bottom

Outside toilet.

Aisle

Bedroom with the built-in mirror wardrobe.

Simple deco on one of the side tables

My workplace No.2

My baby Chives. I accidentally toppled it the other day, n the poor thing hasn't been standing straight since. Just trimmed it (an hr ago?) hoping it will grow more beautiful chives for my omelette.

We sort of moved things around after my in laws left, n the house looks different from the pics now. I have more babies, 'thai basil' n 'cherry tomato' added to the family; which makes the place feels more homey n alive. :-)

Monday Again

I'm going to start a homecooked meal diary from today onwards, just to recollect the meals i've made and/or bakings i've done for the day.



Back to a Monday again, i cannot believe how time actually flies. Woke up to the sound of a 'radio' alarm (basically an alarm that turns on the radio at the set time), went to Vicroad with hub to settle his license conversion (i totally envied him for having the pleasure of converting directly without having to sit for some troublesome tests, i shd have done sth in SG! Argghhh!!) and did some shopping before coming home to my first masterchef episode in this unit.

Before long, i will be facing another Monday and waiting in a computer room to sit for my first theory driver's test. Sometimes i wonder how time can actually change someone's situation or circumstances. It's pretty ironic. Like today i'm in a dilemma due to a certain problem, in the next couple of days i foresee myself dancing with joy becoz the problem will then be over. Yeah. time tells everything. Now i understand why God tells us to think of today only (present) becoz no one knows what will happen tomorrow (the future). And there's no point also, becoz we can't change what has already happened (the past).

Anyway, here is what i 'masterchefed' in my kitchen for dinner:

Tomato Beef Noodles

And, with the leftover raspberry peach jam i cooked few days ago, i made some tartlets for tea.


Raspberry Peach Tartlets for Tea