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!

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!!!!