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 ?!

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!

EGG DROP SOUP

Now I'm totally confused with blogger's new layout. pfftt..

Okay, I don't think people read my blog,

 but I feel bad for not being able to keep up the promise I made to myself about blogging. 

I've been struggling with my assignments all week long (hah. what an excuse). 

But really, assignments are such a pain in the %*#.

I'm half way done with my Strategic Human Resource Management assignment, 

which is a 3000 word essay, 

but my I haven't even started on my 2500 word essay for Organisational Behaviour. 

And they're both due next week *palmface

--------

By the way, some of my friends graduated last week. 

I didn't come to their graduation ceremony at Geelong and I felt really sad :'( 

I felt kinda stupid, actually. 

I had 3 classes that day and I've been skipping those classes to many times so I decided to went to those classes 

(but ended up half asleep in class anyway. boohoo)

That's me, holding up some drawings that I made. 

Those are (supposed to be) my friends' faces.

My drawing skill is getting worse each day. pfft.

I need to draw more. 

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

Melbourne is getting colder, people!

I hate winter. 

I'm more into summer.

We have tons of festivals on summer, so it's a lot of fun!

I hate that my skin gets really dry on winter, and my lips get chapped easily. 

And I have a problem with coats because I only have like.. 2 ?

And my outfit gets really boring and repetitive because of that!

Oh well..

I just hope this winter will not suck. 

Egg drop soup!

Since winter is coming, I feel like eating a bowl of soup for dinner..everyday.

hmm..

Anyone have a good and easy soup recipes?

Ok. I'm going to sleep now. 

I'll probably blog tomorrow..

If something interesting happen. ha!

xoxo

Baked Eggs and Fierce Meerkats *heavy pictures!

HELLO!
I did what I promised myself yesterday, to blog about today!

Today I went out for brunch with my friend and her mom who's visiting on Easter break.
We went to Hardware Societe, a cute brunch spot in the city.
I'm sure Melbournians are familiar with this place already.
I've heard a lot of good comments about Hardware Societe and I've walked pass this restaurant quiet a few times but didn't get a chance to actually eat there til today!
I was pretty excited to finally sat down and ate there.

my friend and her mom. Don't they look like twins?
i have weird smile
the busy baristas

I ordered their famous baked eggs with chorizo, while my friend ordered their smoked salmon-something (it's like a sandwich with smoked salmon and sunny side up) and her mom ordered baked eggs with mushroom.
I was skeptical at first about my dish because personally, I loath runny yolks.
I can't even eat those beautiful poached eggs that are usually the main attraction on every single menu on every brunch spot here in Melbourne. meh.
But I ordered it anyway.

The presentation was very appealing!
I love how they use a wooden board on as a tray for the tiny casserole pot and the baguette slices.
Then came the moment when I poked the eggs and yes, the yolk was runny.
I was a bit overwhelmed but decided to man up and ate it.
To my surprise, I loved every single bite of it!
Well of course, I stirred the egg a little bit so that the residual heat cooked the egg a bit more, but I have nothing to complain about!
Eating it with the baguette makes it even better. Hhmmm..
baked eggs with chorizo and tomatoes, nom.
my friend's smoked salmon-something
my chai latte

***********

After that, we went to Melbourne Zoo and turned our tourist modes on.
A lot of the animals were taking their nap so it was a bit tricky to find them.


This dude was hilarious. I felt kinda sad for him though. It was 27 degrees today!
So sunny!


My favourite ! Such a fierce pose. I think the meerkats were actually enjoying the attention, you know.
awwwwhhhh~


That awkward moment when turtles have better love story than you.




taaaa tahenyaaa wawawiii jeewayaaaa ~
went all 'Lion King-ish' with this plushie



dat ass.

So tired from all the walking, not to mention the heat ! Oh boy.
Uni will resume tomorrow. I am not ready for it!!!!

dun dun dun

The urge to blog strikes back.
Oh God. Why am I so bad at writing ?
I can't seem to find a good time to write, heck.. I can't find anything interesting to write!
If you're wondering, I did just import my old blog here -_-'

I have a lot of things to share .. Not that they're that important.. But hey, at least I'm writing something :)

1. I've cut my hair short (that's like.. 3 months ago) , and planning to keep it short for awhile
Me at the back, with my crazy ass friend.

2. I gained a few pounds, lose some, and then gained even more

3. I got my first studio work done for a friend's business. Check out NaveCase , still have to do a lot of practice though.

4. I finally bought a Macbook Pro, I named him (yes, it's a HE) Vincent. Ha!

5. I finally experienced summer in Melbourne! I loved it! It's pretty cool with all the great events and festivals that they had here. Went to several night markets, open air cinema, moomba fest, tons of bbq parties, and did a lot of laying around on the grass (something you definetely can't do in Jakarta!)

6. I got a new job at a cafe in Chadstone , and it's going well :)

7. Not trying to be a drama queen but I fell out of love twice and decided not to like anyone anymore for the time being.

8. Met Mychonny !


I think that's all for this post. I'm going to write more from now on!

Congratulations Debora!

Hi people,

I'm in the library right now. I've been here for 10 hours straight and my butt is hurting right now. 

To be honest, I spent roughly 4 hours wandering around the internet and only spent the rest on books and lecture notes, eventhough I wasn't really focused because I was chatting with my friends most of the time.

Yesterday i went to the city after church and met up with Pinka. 

We were planning to eat in Sahara because we wanted to try something new ..

We're a bit sick of eating the same cuisine over and over again.

We were so excited but then when Pinka got there (I was just about to reach Melbourne Central Station), the restaurant was closed for renovation !

And guess what, it will re-open on the first day of my exam. Dang it.

We ended up eating Asian food again. Pffttt..
Pinka ate an individually portioned hot pot, while I ate sweet and sour pork on rice that tasted a bit off pudding for me. 

Pinka's hot pot was quiet nice though. With $12.5, you get quiet a lot of meat, veggies and fish balls, tasty broth in a pot, a bowl of rice and a drink! 

Mine was only $8.5, but I prefer having what Pinka had. Mine was such a waste of money.

I didn't even take a picture of it. I was too dissapointed!

*****

We did our forgotten-annual purikura ritual before I went home too~

I have too many purikura pictures with Pinka -_-' 
We didn't know how to decorate our purikura anymore. 

We ran out of ideas already!

I look like a monkey on some of the pictures. 

Probably because there are shadow spots on my face (or I'm just fugglyy)

********************

 This morning I received a really cool email from Sportsgirl, saying that I won a book by Pip Lincolne , "Make Hey While the Sun Shines" ! 

It's a book filled with 25 DIY projects which sounds pretty cool.

I will have something to do this holiday! yey!

The last time I won something from a giveaway was a Dora scooter back in elementary school, and that was a long time ago. So this was a pretty refreshing experience :) 

Can't wait til the book arrive at my house!

 

Oh, not long ago, I also won a perfume from a photography contest held by Karamel Magazine. 

Mine is the one on the right. 

It was taken at my friend's apartment in the city, with no tripod. I put my camera on the balcony's fence ..

It was pretty scary nonetheless.

I haven't received the perfume yet, but I'm just happy to be back in the game for once!

Uni life have been hectic, good thing I have my friends that always stupidly entertain me. hah.

ps. It's still pretty weird to have people calling me by my real name -_-'

 I'm used to hear people calling me "Deby", but not "Debora"