Banana Pancake and Chicken Noodle Soup

Quick post today!

I still got to do my assignment or my team mates will kill me. 

joking. 

but seriously, 

I need to finish it a.s.a.p.

Today's breakfast 

Banana Pancakes with Honey

I have some left over bananas from my last grocery shopping, 

their skin are starting to get brown spots everywhere and they're getting a bit mushy so I decided to mash them up and mix it into my pancake batter.

Just like the recipes I found online, 

the banana makes the pancake slightly sweeter and give it a little more body. 

And it's more filling than normal pancakes, of course.

I had this with a cup of chai tea. Hhhmm..

should I buy maple syrup?
 honey is good enough though..

Lunch / early dinner for today is..

Chicken Noodle Soup

Been craving for this for a while. 

Melbourne is getting cold and a bowl of soup is what I need.

Made with 1 small carton of chicken stock, ate one bowl of this and I still have 2 servings left for tomorrow (and perhaps the day after tomorrow). 

Yeeeyyy for leftovers! 

Leftovers make my life easier. 

If only I have an oven, I would definitely roast the chicken first with some olive oil and seasoning,

it'll be 10x better than just having bland chicken pieces in the soup T_T

Good thing I seasoned the soup generously, it makes up to the bland chicken pieces. 

THAT'S IT FOR TONIGHT. 

BACK TO ASSIGNMENT !!! 

THANKS FOR READING 

XOXO

oh.. that yucky yellow colour on my drawings is pissing me off.

Spanish Omelette and Drawings

Today was an unproductive day for me. 

Woke up at almost 9, which is quiet late in my dictionary since I usually wake up at 6 or 7. I didn't know why, but I think the weather is the main reason why.

I sat in front of my laptop almost the entire day, tried my best to come up with some words to put into my strategic marketing group-assignment, but nothing great came up. To be honest, I don't even know what I'm talking about in the report. 

Apart from that, I still have a prototype website to make. gaahh.

So to put it simply, it's 2 weeks prior to my exam period (which I have 4 subjects to tackle), but I still have 2 group assignments due in those two weeks and I haven't even started preparing myself for the actual exams. I am so screwed. 

So what do I do when I get all stressed out ?

I eat.

And what do I do when I get stressed out at home?

I cook.

I think of this as a 'defence mechanism' within me that always urges me to think about food whenever I'm stressed, or bored or slightly sad. Even though my kitchen is far from perfect nor clean (well, I share one kitchen with 5 other college students. What do you expect, ey?), I think of it as a sanctuary. 

At least I can get my mind off of those things for a good 30 minutes.

Today I didn't cook anything special. 

Since I haven't done my weekly shopping, I'm running out of ingredients. 

Good thing I still have a few staples in my pantry that I can make something out of..

For breakfast, I had Raspberry Oatmeal Swirl since I still have remaining raspberry mixture stacked in my fridge and I also want to finish my greek yogurt a.s.a.p..

Raspberry Oatmeal Swirls

For lunch, I made a filling, thick Spanish Omelette. 

It was an easy dish to pull off.

 It's just your typical omelette but with slices of potato and onions in it. 

I like to slice it as if I were slicing a pizza. Haha. nerd.

Didn't have any greens to go with it, so I just ate it with some tomato sauce 

(broke college student alert!)

BANANAAA ~~~ POTATONNNAAAAAA~~`
*I just gotta do it. 

Brown Onions

(pizza looking) Spanish Omelette !
Not a really good presentation though. haha

Lastly, I made pasta aglio e olio for dinner.

(which I totally forgot to take a picture of , dang)

I used my last drops of olive oil and garlic clove for this dish, so I better put them on my grocery list.

I've made this a lot of time, but I'm still not sure how to do it the right way. 

The recipes on the internet are different from one another,

some say use chopped / minced garlic, some say use sliced garlic..

some use a bit of cheese at the end, some say don't,

some say toss the pasta onto the pan with the garlic oil, some say just drizzle the oil onto the pasta,

I don't know. It's confusing.

It's sort of like a battle of authenticity.

I'm cool with any method, as long as it tastes good.

One thing that I always do for my aglio e olio: 

I put the garlic and chilli flakes with olive oil onto a cold pan, and then put them on low-medium heat and slooooowwly toast the garlic.

I used to heat the oil first and then put the garlic and chilli flakes afterwards,

 resulting in oil and garlic splatter extravaganza and I left with burnt - bitter garlic. 

uh oh. I've learnt the hard way.

anyone have their own method of making aglio e olio?

Oh, as you can see form the pictures above, I'm starting to draw food again!

I used to draw them on my scheduler a while ago but the creative process went away for a couple of months so yeah..

But since I cook a lot these days, I might as well just document my food through drawings too :)

Oh, what is that yellowish tint on the right side of the paper ?!

Raspberry Oatmeal Swirl and a Flying Steam Explosion

Hey, how you guys doing? 

Melbourne's weather was as confusing as usual, it was sunny in the morning but it's raining right now and it's freezing cold.

Sometimes I wonder if I can survive in a colder part of the world, countries where they actually have minus-something degree in winter.. I can't even stand Melbourne's winter sometimes. 

Such a noob.

Back in Indonesia, I didn't really need to worry about breakfast because it's always there, 

ready for me to enjoy. 

To think about it, I did take it for granted. haha.

Now I'm here, living by myself, with limited cooking skills and budget.. dang.

I found out that planning your meals can be troublesome. 

And breakfast is one of the trickiest one, I must say. 

I can just skip it, but no... I don't like to skip breakfast. 

Me? skipping a meal? That's sort of impossible. 

I love eating, I'll do anything to make sure my tummy is ready to face the world ~

Since it was sunny this morning, I made a rather special item for breakfast.

I mostly have something warm for breakfast but this time I chose to have something on the colder-side.

Apart from the occasionally I'm-out-of-money cold breakfast options such as cereal and milk, this is my first attempt on having greek yogurt for breakfast. 

I just found out that Greek Yogurt is actually better than low fat yogurts that are out in the market and my favourite brand so far is Chobani.

With a plain 0% Chobani yogurt, 

I made Nigella Lawson's Raspberry Oatmeal Cookie Swirl!

Frozen raspberry !
It was on sale last week woot woot.
lesson no. 1 Thaw them first before blitzing.

It was a bit difficult to blitz the frozen raspberry because I used a handheld blender
(because I don't have a food processor).
It splattered everywhere and it got stuck in the blades a couple of times, I almost gave up. lol
but then I added a few drops of water , and wait until the raspberry are thawed a little bit and it started to form a really thick red sorbet mixture! nom nom.

Don't forget to add the sugar!

Final result ! 
I was tempted to fill the whole glass but decided to spare some of the raspberry mixture for tomorrow.
Oh, I used the new Belvita biscuits for this,
it's lovely because it has actual oat pieces in it!
Nice texture combination.

 It was a great and filling dessert style breakfast. 

Totally going to have this again tomorrow!

----------------------------------

I went to my university's library and started my very own revision of a subject about eCommerce. 

Spent a good couple of hours reading and trying to understand what the hell my lecturer is saying in the ilectures until I decided to go to Woolies 

(to buy salt and pepper. such a lousy excuse for not studying). 

Then I met my friends and I went to their house to hang out for a while. 

I helped my friend cooked her dinner (that I also ate, haha).

We made sweet and sour chicken (sorry, but I forgot to take a picture of it)

Here's the thing, there is a problem with my friend's rice cooker, it won't close properly!

We decided to pile a saucepan and a bowl on top of the rice cooker to weigh it down.

So we sat and chat while we wait for the rice to cook. 

Then suddenly..

BOOM.

The saucepan went flying up in the air, then clashed onto the floor, leaving a serious dent on the side..

The bowl, well.. it dropped on the floor and shattered into pieces. pppfffttt...

We forgot that there's  a steam hole on top of the rice cooker that was covered by the saucepan. 

I think that's the reason why the little explosion happened. 

The worse thing is, that is my friends housemate's saucepan. 

We felt so bad and did apologise to her. 

Lucky us, APOLOGY ACCEPTED!

Lol. this is such a ghetto way to fix a broken rice cooker.

Finished the day with this yummy ice cream. hhmmm...
This is going straight to my waist T_T

That's it for today, 

Hope you guys enjoyed your first day of the week !

Crispy Pork and Chorizo Couscous

Have you ever had a craving for one very evil, greasy, heart clogging food that seems so hard to get and yet, you still very much attached to?

I know I do. 

One tiny little restaurant (I believe the people who lives in my area are familiar with) called ZabThai, is practically a jewel in Burwood and they serve all kinds of Thai food, 

but there is this one dish that makes this restaurant famous and most likely, 

the one reason why people are coming back for more.

It's their crispy pork.

The problem is,

I've went there a few times for the past couple of months but they're ALWAYS closed. 

I don't know if it's just my (bad) luck, or they really had a loooooonnnngggg Easter break. Gosh.

But yesterday, I finally had my first ever ZabThai's crispy pork in 2012 . 

 Ohhh yeah. 

Not the healthiest and good looking food, I know. 

But it's a treat once in a while.

And a treat is always good.

Notice that I had the egg well done, literally.. WELL and DONE. 

It's like the oil from the pork is not enough already! 

But for this dish, I must say .. that rubbery, solid, and not-supposed-to-be-crispy-but-crispy-anyway fried egg did it for me. 

(Uncle Bourdain must be so disappointed -_-)

 

Woohoo. Look at those chilli seeds. 

You can have this dish mild, medium or fiery hot like mine.

And don't forget to have a box of tissue next to you. 

Because cue the river of snot, this food is SPICY, it's so good though. 

A-ha, and I gave my egg yolk to my friend because I just don't eat yolks by itself. no . just. no. 

That night, I walked home happy, full and satisfied. 

Nothing beats the walk of shame of

"holy %$*# I just ate a WHOLE portion of crispy pork. You're such  pig!" 

But then again, it was worth it. hah!

------------------------

This morning I woke up and cooked my lunch (and early dinner).

I'm going to have my usual long shift at work today. 

I always work from 12 to 8.30pm every Thursday. hhmm..

Late night shopping hours sounds wonderful when you're actually shopping, 

not when you're working.

ppfftt..

I've been constantly eating Subway on my break at work and now I'm getting pretty bored with it.

My friend at work also got tired of eating Chinese food, so we decided to pack up some food!

This is my attempt in cooking DivasCanCook 's Cajun Kielbasa Couscous.

But instead of Kielbasa sausages, I used chorizo 

(because it was on sale at Coles last week!)

I can hear my mom screaming back in Indonesia,

"Deby ! Don't play with your food!"

Can't help it, mom.

Fresh celery hhmmm...

 I didn't know that celery is THAT big.

The magical couscous !

For couscous newbie like me, 

just bear in mind that couscous .. is a pasta not grain nor rice.

Oh yes, I've done my research.

Stirfry all of them while waiting for my couscous to fluff up!

 Serve the chorizo and veggies on top of the couscous and voila!

It was an easy recipe to follow, 

and judging from tiny taste bites that I took, I can say that it's tasty too!

Here's DivasCanCook video of the original recipe

 and check out her other videos for more recipes! nom nom!

Worst Banana Bread Ever + Ukulele Time!

O hi :)

I spent a good amount of time at the library today.

But the good news is, I finally finished one of my assignments! hurrah!

The library is like a second home to me and not because I like to read..

It's just that.. well, I sleep, eat, drink and use the computer there for hours.

------------------------

If you don't know, I'm a huge fan of banana bread.

And so far, my favourite banana bread are the ones that they sell at the patisserie I work in, and my sister in law's homemade banana bread. yuumm..

Well today I was craving for them,

 and I bought 2 slices of banana bread at the library cafe in my uni, and it was so... gross.

I don't know how to describe it though..

The texture is just not right, and it's as hard as a rock!

I might be exaggerating about the rock part, but it is too firm in my opinion. 

I like my banana bread fluffy and moist! hhmmm..

Such a waste of money! boohoo!! They're quiet expensive too. 

They're around $3.2 each!

Lesson learned : NEVER buy banana bread at the library cafe, EVER. AGAIN.

blergh..

-------------------------------

AJ Rafael's "We Could Happen" is playing on my iPod all day long. 

I don't know why but the song is too cute !

I even decided to learn how to play that song on my (long lost and forgotten) ukulele.

I've been neglecting it for a long time, 

that is why I'm not getting any better at it T_T

I was going to record myself playing the whole song but I can't seem to get the right strumming pattern for it so I decided to just record the intro part, haha!

I'm not a pro at this so please excuse my horrible attempt of playing this song on my uke.  

-------------------

Whhoopps. It's 1 AM already. Gotta sleep!

I have classes tomorrow! 

See ya!