31st January 2009

Every year I invite some friends over to my house for CNY. Most of the time the selection of friends depends on who I invite and who is free.

This was what we served my peeps this year. ^_^ all homemade (except for the select few like the mandarin oranges and the pie in the lower left corner)... and by mumsie [send my love to my mumsies] Mumsie made us the things that would be put together nasi lemak~! [drool] i miss nasi lemak....
This is the group this year. ^_^ oops, big light in the way.
Second shot, both were taken by eugene's camera and his tripod. ^_^ Let's see...

1st row L to R: Eugene, Kimberly (kim), Jaslyn, Melissa (mel) and Sabrina (sabs)
2nd row L to R: Yoong Yoong, Pauline, myself, clare, pui yee, khuan (foxy)
A very interesting turn of events led me to inviting Yoong Yoong, Pauline and Jaslyn. Nothing against them but I just normally don't invite people to my house unless I know you for years.... Nor do I invite people very much different from my gang.
At the table photos: Pauline, Jaslyn and Eugene.
At the table photos: Take 2.
At the table photos: Mel and her sister, Clare.
At the table photos: Sabs and Kim. ^_^ Kim is wearing the souvenir + birthday gift I bought for her in Melbourne.
At the table photos: Pui Yee and Me.
After our hearty lunch, we moved down to the living room and relax... Yea, it's just lunch and relaxing at my house. hahahha~!

I'm not that good in hosting... XD It's more like I offer a venue and you guys figure out what to do other than the food bit... ~__~ sorry
Keng Yen (my good buddy) came later than the rest but she brought goodies with her.
Yay~! Chocolate muffins? If I remember right, it was all chocolate icing... hahaha~!
And caramel and dark chocolate ermmm... cake? Anyways, they were both made by Keng Yen. She's awesome in making desserts.

The three girls left before everyone else... ~__~ I'll note that even my normal gang was a bit surprised that I invited them (since they were really different from who I normally hang out with). I was a little disappointed that there was this awkward tension in the air. [sigh] Bad chemistry experiment this time round. It's not anyone's fault, it's just the chemistry.

Thanks to my gang for being there for me, nonetheless. Love you guys and hope to be back soon. Missing you lots and LOTS~! Even Eugenia. [snicker] Cheers~!

The New Year Party 2009

You cannot believe how happy I am that I'm finally getting the blog from year 2008 to 2009. Hahaha~! Though the photos in here are technically taken on the 31st December 2008... [shrugs]

It was a small get-together party. I had wanted to meet up with peeps that I was more or less dying to see after being in Melbourne for a year and stuff. ^_^ no offense to those that I didn't invite la. I didn't have much days to prepare, though note that my mum always and lovingly goes beyond her call of duty? [lol] for me. The smaller the group, the better. =P

Things won't go this smooth without my mumsies. hehehe~!
The amount of food that we got for the night.
It was my first time to try to bbq the fish. That's Jess' (mok - to differentiate the few Jess I know..) fingers by the way. [lol]
The setup was about this simple. 2 BBQ sets ready and set to go. fufufufu~! That's my maid there manning the fire by the way.
Kimmy, Jess and Khuan here... to help with the preparations. [hugs] thanks~!
The feast... I apologize to those who hasn't eaten anything yet... hahaha~!
Manning the fire. ^_^ pretty fire....
You can see that the food is sizzling off the grill~! [salivates]
Jess armed with a skewer~! RUN~!!! [lol] I think that this skewer might actually be more deadly than her kendo stick... [lol some more]
The fire was going on so good that we were practically cooking faster than we could eat. Hahaha~!
Yum yum~! It's lovely just to watch the fire... I'm sometimes distracted by fire to the point that the food is a bit too "well done" [snicker]
The food that mumsie and the others handle are superb... mine is slightly charred. Fufufu~! I still eat it anyway.
Soon, the evening became night.. and we're still having loads of fun~!
Zie is so cute~! [cuddles] She's like a satay man~! hahahha~! So serious.. In case you're wondering, she's applying honey... or was it butter... [shrugs]
Oh, this was the first time I met Sou Leng? Forgive me if I got the spelling and even the name wrong~! Hahahahha~! She was one of the late ones...
Pui Yee was a bit late too. >;3 at least she came. kekeke~! To help finish the food, right? hahahah~! Yes~! That's beer~! Goes so well with roasted marshmellows... [drools]

[lol] Other than them, we extended the invite to my aunt's (mum's sister) family and grandma~! They were inside the house... having steamboat. hahahha~! So it was a steamboat and bbq party. =P Originally it was just a bbq party but grandma wanted steamboat SO yea. [lol]

The party went on... we ate our fill, cleaned up, packed up and waited for the new year fireworks. Cheers~!

Catching Up on Good Times

Oh gosh, I came back from a lovely dinner and heavenly desserts... ^_^
To rewind a bit to today's dinner, this would be Kok Hei. The last time I saw him was when we were doing SAM (year 2003~?!?!?) five years ago. Oh boy, time sure flies, doesn't it?? Though I must say that he looked much more mature from the last time I saw him.
I met him at Oakleigh station at 6pm. Taking 2 limited express trains, the trip there was only 20 minutes. He was working as an accountant here in Melbourne and had to take the bus from his workplace here. We had greek dinner. Yay~! We had Souvlakia(pronounced sue-vlak-yah) lamb Shish-cabob, served on top pita bread, with sliced red onions & chips, sour cream spread and mustard dressing. [lol] That's what I managed to see and taste.. (I totally apologise for the blerk photo, I swear it taste so very much nicer than it looks) [lol]

He ordered an extra side dish of pita and chips which we shared. Dinner came up to aus12.
Then he brought me to an awesome cafe / dessert shop called Niko. The dessert pieces were heavenly... This one was recommended by the staff. Vanilla Slice. Slight honey glaze on the top, custard centre and puff biscuit on the base.
Kok Hei recommmended this to me. Baklava. Delicious~!

Taken from wiki "Baklava or baklawa is a rich, sweet pastry featured in many cuisines of the former Ottoman(Turkey) countries. It is a pastry made of layers of phyllo dough filled with chopped walnuts or pistachios and sweetened with syrup or honey."
And this... I do not know the name since there wasn't a name label for it. On the outside is lightly fried almonds, it's not hard (crunchy) to eat.. it's kind of soft like caramel but not sticky. it's good ^_^
It was really really good. ^_^ It's not so sweet (so you can eat quite a bit of the desserts) but tasteful (they are pretty to look at, especially on display). Dessert was aus6.

I waited with him for his bus... he has to take the bus to go back to Glen Waverly. His bus came at 8.09pm (on time). He has the bus schedule on his phone. To which, I made my way to the train station (it was just across the street from the bus stop)... I had to wait for 30 minutes for the next train, waiting in the cold... By the time I reached home, it was 9.30pm... It took me an hour to get home. [sweatdrop] The express is really express..

However, the food and catching up with a good friend totally outweighs the transport wait and the cold weather. So I'm looking forward to the next trip out. Cheers~!

Van's Belated Birthday Party

24th July 2008
I was invited to attend Van's party. [grin] It would be my first time going to her new house in Auburn. Since she needed to borrow the glasses from me, she came to pick me. Woot~! Car ride~! [lol]

When I arrived at her house and walking to her apartment, it felt like a hotel. [grin] I think her new place was very cosy. [nod nod nod] I was put on balloon duty... Not that big a deal if you didn't have a fear of popping balloons... But I'm always gamed to take fear head on. Well, at least I try. [lol]

At least I got to use a foot pump, although I'll point out here that I do have a healthy pair of lungs [nod nod nod] That's what they told me when I did my annual checkup early this year. So when the first balloon popped and I wasn't scared, hurrah~! I'm semi cured. Not keen on blowing the balloon by mouth. No thanks.

All the food for the party were handmade by Van. And they were pretty simple to make. [nod nod nod] This one is toasted bread with chicken breast meat with a bit of avacado sprinkled lightly with black pepper and salt.
Again with the toast, but this time with tuna with a bit of cucumber... there was another with scrambled eggs with mayo ^_^
Then there's sushi~! This one is with tuna and cucumber... of course wrapped with Nori seaweed and Japanese rice mixed with rice vinegar (for those who never made sushi before)
This one is the scrambled eggs with cucumber... can you see the clever lil cycle of ingredients in the food here. ^_^
This one is with salmon... with avacado. [grin] Lovely.
Sandwiches. Tuna with lettuce. There was the chicken with lettuce and egg sandwich. ^_^
The funny / interesting thing about this party is that we didn't have big plates to put the food on...
So Van took the whole table as a big plate, covered it with cling wrap then laid down some A4 paper and arranged the food like a buffet table. I think it's pretty clever~! and easy access for everyone to take the food. [nod nod nod]
Although Van did invite a lot of people but only myself, Cindy, Ram and Alan showed up (Van is the one in salmon pink and black skirt)... Cindy and Ram were her classmates from cooking school and Van knew Alan through Cindy.
The boys were pretty cool. Ram's from Nepal and totally down to earth and funny. Alan's from China and doing a master's in multimedia in Swinburne. Yup, he's my sempai and he's only 1 year older than me. Ram and Van is a year younger than myself. I don't know about Cindy but all we know is that she's older than all of us. XD

It was very fun. Thanks again, Van for bringing us good food and sharing your good company with me. Cheers~!

Creating Mooncakes

It's that time of year where mooncake sales go up because mooncake festival is coming~! And what better way to celebrate this festive occassion than to dabble into homemade mooncakes. Sweet~!

First we needed to prepare the utensils/equipments... Well, the only utensils that we really needed to have beforehand was this. Mooncake mould. Yes, I'm aware that it's in shocking pink. It was much cheaper to get the mould in plastic than the traditional wooden ones... Aside from that, we used a mixing bowl, weighing machine, spoon & tray.

When I saw this I thought it looked freakishly weird so I decided to share it with you guys. What is it, you ask? That was the basis of a mooncake... before making it pretty that is.

The skin of the mooncake consisted of a special flour, icing sugar, shortening & water. We added fresh strawberry since we were making strawberry mooncakes. That strange black blob on top of it was actually red bean paste, which we bought pre-packed. Ahh... the convenience of technology...

Anyway, we covered the red bean paste with the mooncake skin and then we put it into the mooncake mould. [squash, squash, squash]

Oh~! To make it easier for the moulded mooncake to come out, we needed to dust the mould with flour... Oops.. so the first mooncake we made actually needed to be banged out since it got stuck-ish in the mould. Hehe~!

Tadaa~! A homemade mooncake. As odd as it sounds, initially the mooncake will be a bit oily (must be due to the shortening). This type of mooncake that we made just needed to be chilled before served. When chilling, the recipe book told us to wrap the mooncakes in kitchen tissue paper. [shrugs]


For first timers, I think it turned out pretty well. Cheers~!