Sunday 12th July '09

Say hello to one of my new fish! He's a panda corydoras and so I named him 'Po' from the movie 'Kungfu Panda'. I think he's cute. He was the only one of his species in the tank and Ben took a while to finally catch him for me.

Tonight we all got together for dinner at Benoit and Ivy's place, or rather, Benoit's parents' place. They've decided to rent out their townhouse so now it's a 40km drive to their place. Eek!

Benoit cooked us a BBQ dinner.

steaks marinated with herbs
smokey chicken wings from IGA

I love the grill lines!

garlic bread

Roasted Beetroot, Potato & Carrots
Benoit's dad also made some roasted vegetables.
I'll need to get the recipe - all those delicious flavours!

After dinner, we had some fresh fruit but I was so full, all I could do was plop myself down on one of their comfortable sofas and eat - hence no photo. We had rockmelon, watermelon and honeydew. Fortunately I cut them all up while Benoit was cooking dinner, otherwise I don't think any of us could have found the energy to prepare them after dinner.

After barely staying awake to watch a movie, I made the loooooooong drive home.

Saturday 11th July '09

STEAMBOAT at Ling & Shallen's
I don't think I need to say much here...the pictures speak for themselves.




As usual, we each brought different ingredients to put into the steamboat.

Mee Sua

I went grocery shopping on the way to Ling and Shallen's place. I wanted to make some yong tau foo. The store where I bought the fish paste from only had it available in the frozen state, so Ling put it in the microwave to help it defrost. After a few minutes it wasn't totally thawed out but it was manageable. Sort of like a fish granita. Fish slushee. I mixed in some chopped coriander, a splash of soy sauce and some white pepper. We rushed to stuff the tofu and eggplants with them.

As usual, we ate until we could eat no more.

My first bowl.

There were several times when we'd add more food into the steamboat and then have to wait about five to ten minutes for the soup to boil and cook the food. The waiting part is frustrating when you're hungry. Ling had a great strategy that we'll have to adopt next time. He prepares two bowls of food - he staggers the times that he puts the food in them so that the first one can cool down and he can eat it, while waiting for the second bowl to cool down.



For dessert, I brought some ingredients with a rough idea in mind but I mostly just made it up as I went. Firstly, I whipped some mascarpone, castor sugar and thick cream together. We thought it would be nice with some brandy so I went to pour some in but sort of overdid it. I was praying that after mixing it in it wouldn't be too runny. Luckily it was fine. We had some lady finger biscuits in the pantry so we soaked them in some whisky and then broke them up to layer in glasses with the mascarpone mixture, defrosted frozen berries and left over Easter eggs that we broke into smaller pieces. It looked absolutely divine. We sprinkled cinnamon on them and put them into the fridge to set a bit before serving.

Dessert
Mascarpone Berry Cups

They were really good! I could taste the brandy and whiskey. The lady fingers could have done with a slightly longer soak in the whiskey.

Snacks
Shallen's Roasted Pumpkin & Bocconcini Vol au Vents

Friday 10th July '09

Wah! Just as I expected, my body was aching when I woke up today. I could barely move my arms and legs! Despite the pain, it was a good pain. The pain that makes you cringe but you smile on the inside knowing that you've done something good to keep your body in shape so the pain is worth it. Until you have to get dressed and realise you don't have the strength or range of mobility to pull those darn jeans on.

I went grocery shopping today. I walked past a stand with profiteroles on display a few times and just as I headed to the cashier, I decided to grab some. They were delicious!!

The pastry was so soft and fresh, the custard inside was light and not overly sweet, and there was a generous amount of chocolate on top of each one. Yum!! They were a hit with Mum and Jocelyn too.

Although I have a birthday to go to tonight, I hadn't eaten anything besides the two profiteroles since I woke up so I quickly made some pasta before heading out.

Spaghetti with Lobster, Prawn, Scallops
& Sundried Tomato in a Chive Butter


Thuan's Birthday
There was heaps of food on the table and Hoa was busy in the kitchen with her friends preparing all the hot finger foods.

Hoa & Timmy

Everyone loved prawns - I forgot to ask her what she used to marinate them with. There were beef and vegetable skewers, prawn skewers, spinach and cheese puffs, spring rolls and nori rolls. Just as I was getting full, all the 'main course' dishes came out. I was horrified - I was too full to eat anymore!! Yet I still managed some roast lamb, mashed potato and gravy and broccoli.

There was so much food, and so many leftovers.

Cake Time!

The cake looked untouchable. There were bite-size pieces of violet crumble covering the top and around the sides were slabs of chocolate. They looked as if they'd been made by pouring chocolate over bubblewrap. Or they were pieces of lego.

The question on everyone's mind was how the cake was going to be cut, short of a power saw. Hoa did a really good job with a cleaver ha ha!

Looking back on this photo, I can't believe I ate it all. I had a small piece of the cake, lots of the chocolate, a piece of the violet crumble, and a spoonful of whipped cream, vanilla ice cream, and the cookies and cream ice cream. Yes, that's right. I ate it all.

the birthday boy
Ok, maybe I can get him to smile later...

Thursday 9th July '09

Today I finally seemed to shake the migraine that I've had over the last few days and I thought it would help my general wellbeing if I went to the gym with Jocelyn. I've been meaning to go and check it out for a while now but of course haven't gotten around to it. It's the new Goodlife Health Club at Carousel, Cannington.

At first glance, I thought it looked great. The changeroom facilities appeared clean and modern. There were hairdryers available and although no swimming pool, they did have a sauna so you could relax your aching muscles after a workout.

Jocelyn and I did the Body Pump class. I've never done this class before. I usually do the Body Combat or Body Steps classes. This was great - you workout using weights to tone the muscles in your body and I really felt my muscles at work! I knew I was going to be really sore for days to come.

From the gym, I drove over to Lisa and Tom's place for dinner. We had planned to go out for dinner but Tom offered to cook dinner in for us. I'm glad we stayed at home for dinner - it was raining all night.

While waiting for dinner, I had brought some ingredients to make some 'healthy' berry shakes. Lisa blended them up - frozen berries, natural Greek style yoghurt, buttermilk and some cinnamon. We also added a bit of Bicardi! It tasted great! The buttermilk gave it a tang. It would have been nice to have some honey or perhaps vanilla ice cream but we thought we'd better not.

Lisa's mint garnish reminded me of the Transformers logo.

We also snacked on these nuts.

Each time we made a fresh round, we varied it slightly. Sometimes we put cinnamon, sometimes crushed cardomom. Sometimes we crushed ice blocks in, sometimes fresh mint leaves. Each time it was deliciously light and refreshing.

Dinner's ready!

Chicken Vindaloo

Vegetable Jalfrezi

My first serve

We also had a side of fresh cucumber salad with the basmati rice. I polished off my plate and agreed to have a bit more but Lisa sneakily poured the rest of the rice onto my plate - pretty much a whole full plate of rice! I actually managed to eat it all but had to roll out to my car a few hours later.

Wednesday 8th July '09

I dragged myself out of bed at about 5pm this evening. My migraine wouldn't go away and my head was pounding each time I turned around, sat down or stood up. I took a few panadeines and shuffled into the kitchen to make food.

I defrosted a lobster overnight.

After my 4-midnight shifts I like to treat myself to an indulgent dinner of lobster. Too bad I couldn't have a nice glass of wine to go with this.

I parboiled some potatoes and put them into the oven with a drizzle of olive oil, thyme, sea salt and cracked black pepper to season them. I didn't want anything fancy tonight.

I finely chopped some fresh parsley and chillies.

I added a squeeze of lemon to the parsley and chilli, and spooned this mixture on top of each half of the lobster tail meat. Just as the potatoes were almost done, I put the lobster into the oven to warm up before serving.

Dinner
Lobster with Chilli, Parsley & Lemon
Baked Thyme Potatoes & Salad

I dressed the salad with some olive oil and white balsamic vinegar. Very simple dinner. The last time I had lobster, I prepared it the same way. It's so light and zesty and the chilli was really hot - there must have been one of Ling and Shallen's chillies amongst the ones that I chopped up. More appropriate for summer, but I wasn't in the mood to do much as I had a head full of nails.

I used the lobster shells (I removed the meat from a second lobster to use in the next few days for something else) to make some lobster stock. I wanted to actually make lobster bisque but I didn't have half of the necessary ingredients.

When the stock was ready, I made some soup.

Supper
Creamy Lobster Soup

I heated up a few large ladles of the lobster stock in a small pot and then added a small dollop of butter. When it had melted, I added some plain flour bit by bit, whisking in the meantime to make sure all the flour was dissolved. When the soup began to thicken up, I added some milk that I had warmed up in the microwave. The soup was still rather watery so I added more plain flour, just a little at a time while whisking. I would have normally used some cream but all I had was calcium plus milk in the fridge, which is pretty watery so it took quite a bit of plain flour to thicken the soup up. I seasoned with sea salt and cracked black pepper and served the soup with some slices of lobster meat. Yum! The soup still lacked a bit of flavour though - I should have used some tomato paste or more seasoning.

Throughout the day, I'd taken a total of:

2 x Panadeine Rapid Soluble tablets
2 x Sumatriptan tablets
1 x Imigran nasal spray

AND I STILL HAD THE FRACKIN' MIGRAINE!! I lay in bed feeling anxious that I might have overdosed on the migraine medication and I swear a few times I felt my heart race.

Tuesday 7th July '09

Tonight at work was awful. I had a migraine that I couldn't shake no matter what pills I took. Even my migraine tablets didn't work. To top it off, it was stupidly busy at work.

So...no dinner break.

Supper
Wantan Soup

I used the rest of the pork mince to make these wantans and just a quick soup with dried salted fish and soy sauce to flavour it. Served with white pepper, spring onions, deep-fried shallots and chilli.

I know it's weird, but I love the appearance of the dumplings when they're cooked. The area around the meat looks wrinkly/bumpy. I know it's not aesthetically pleasing, but I think it's more the anticipation of biting into one of these dumplings that makes it look so darn appealing.

Monday 6th July '09

I grabbed KFC on the way to work. I love those Popcorn Chicken snack boxes. I ordered a 3-piece feed value pack to take to work for dinner.

I went for a quick break and finished the rest of my popcorn chicken and a piece of the hot'n'spicy chicken - the drumstick!

It was so busy I didn't have time to have my dinner. I managed to scoff a few biscuits before heading home to make supper.

Supper
Chicken & Vegetable Risoni Soup

Now, this is something that hasn't graced the entries of my blog for a while. Perfect for a cold night like tonight. I had two large bowls and then regretted the second bowl when I could barely move afterwards.

Simba sleeping in his bed with Mum's vest