Oktopodi

In preparation for my Chinese New Year Reunion dinner, I went to the shops to get some chicken and fish. Three whole chicken for $9.99 and about $18 a kilo for a whole Ocean Perch. I think. I can't even remember, but I don't think it was too expensive. Anyway, I couldn't help but notice some gleaming octopus at the Island Markets. Hm. I LOVE octopus. I pay freaking $20 odd dollars to have some  pickled octopus at the greek stores and when I was at the Estia festival last (Estia? I'm unsure of the spelling), all I ate was grilled octopus on the barbeque with some Ouzo. $7 a plate, and let me tell you - I can eat about 10 plates! :)

SO, I thought it would be a good idea to get some octopus. Some greek salad with some greek styled BBQ octopus (without the BBQ of course). The lovely people at Island Markets gutted and scaled the fish for me, but when I asked them whether they were willing to clean the octopus, it was a no go. No matter, I could totally clean and gut an octopus. I tuff.

I was so NOT.

I brought the octopus and dunked it in the sink. The whole time, I was psyching myself up "It's ok Ness,you can do it Ness, it will be fun Ness". Didn't work. I turned the water on and reached to grab it, but the minute I touched its head, I squealed like a little piglet. It was DISGUSTING. More than anything, it was the eyes that were STARING at me and the head was just ALIEN. *shudder* No deal.

So Luke came running into the kitchen and agreed to cut out the eyes, remove the beak and the ink sack. After that it was all on me. And to be honest - after the eyes were removed, it was a lot easier.

After I cleaned the octopus, I took a stab at attempting to marinate it Greek style, so in the same bowl, I added four cloves of chopped garlic, oregano, salt and olive oil.

Word to the wise - if you are attempting to cook BBQ octopus, use a freaking barbeque.

Well, I didn't have one, so I thought that I would pan fry it. Bad idea. The octopus was swimming in its own juices.

The end result? The meat was sweet, tender and juicy. Completely worth the work and the squeals. However, I think that the recipe could be improved tenfold with the use of a barbeque. Might give it another go when we finally get one.

Friday 28 January 2011

Friday lunch. After a yummilicious dinner of won ton noodle soup, I thought that the easiest thing would be to pack the leftover won tons for lunch.

Have I mentioned my awesome new lunchbox?

It's be the Nude Food Movers - and I love it! I think it's a great tool for packing a healthy lunch. In my effort not to go hungry, I am determined to follow the "rules" and graze all day, which means to eat about five to six small meals a day.

So, what did I pack for lunch? I guess the question is - what was leftover? I had leftover dumplings, half an orange, a cup of chicken broth and 3 chinese mushrooms. So I packed them all! I put the chicken broth into a microwaveable cup and popped the chinese mushrooms in it. And in my lovely lunchbox (which I will now name Lou-Anne), I packed the dumplings, chili sauce (which was also leftover), the orange, some cherries and a container of custard and peaches. Easy easy lunch. And it kept me well fed through out the day!

Did I mention that I LOVED my lunch box? :) I think I might actually name it Larry, as opposed to Lou-Anne, I think Larry has a nicer ring to it and growing up, I LOVED Robert Downey Jr's character in Ally McBeal who was called Larry too.

Speaking of celebrity crushes - I have never met any woman who hated Colin Firth. I love love love Colin Firth and even more so after I went to watch the King's Speech. Luke and I usually have date night on Thursday night, but this week, we decided to have date night on Friday night. We also decided to use Christie's very generous present (a $100 gift voucher to Gold Class) to enjoy an evening of Colin (that's for me - Luke was there for the story line) and a late dinner afterward (which I should mention - it was very hard to find in Hobart!)

I'm not a movie critic, but by golly, that was an awesome movie! I thought that Colin Firth's potrayal of a monarch was absolutely superb. His stammers were conpletely convincing and it kinda opened my eyes to the fact that not everyone wants to be king. I thought that Geoffrey Rush was brilliant too, but I don't think he was better than Colin Firth. For starters, he was playing someone eccentric - he didn't have to potray someone tortured with a speech impediment. Plus, he was also playing an Australian. Not to take anything away from his performance, because I thought that he was BRILLIANT, but I thought that Colin was better.

Anyway, after the movie ended, Luke and I raced to Blue Eye, a new seafood place where Tacos used to be. I think it is owned by the same owners of Flathead in South Hobart, so our expectations were high. I forgot to bring my phone, so no photos on this meal.

When Luke booked the table, he was informed that the kitchen would be closing at 9pm, so we needed to be there just beforehand. We arrived just before and managed to get seated. The wait staff were terrific - I mentioned that we would just order the mains because we were aware that the kitchen was closing, but she assured us that it would be fine to order a starter if we wanted to (and yes, we wanted to). So Luke and I shared a serving of chili salt squid, which was served with warm chorizo, artichoke and rocket salad, with a saffron aioli. It was delish! The squid was so tender, I barely used any effort in slicing it in half with a knife.

For mains, upon recommendation, I ordered the pan-fried blue eye. I was considering the steak (because I was having a conversation with my colleagues that morning about steak) but then Luke suggested that I should have seafood, considering we were at a seafood place. So I did. And I didn't regret it! I had the pan-fried blue eye, with sauteed potatoes, mussels and saffron and mushroom tapanade. It was so delicious! My only criticism was that I didn't have a spoon to eat all the delicious saffron broth at the bottom of my plate. Now why didn't I ask for a spoon? Oh that's right, I was busy stuffing my face! :) The blue eye was cooked perfectly - it was tender and juicy. Initially I thought that the potatoes were under-seasoned, but the fish was seasoned so well, it didn't matter!

You can check out the menu here. I highly recommend blue eye!

KANG KUNG!!! (I never thought that it would be something I would be interested in...)

Well, has anyone guessed what those veggies were? They are kangkung also known here in Australia as water spinach. I have always liked them, but never really thought about them until Claudia was visiting and she was talking about how she was astounded that a plate of kangkung cost $12. Which kinda made me think - I have not eaten kangkung for a good 11 years. Could that be right?

As luck would have it, I was in Wing and Co, and was looking for some bok choy, but instead, they had the kangkung for about $2.70 a bunch. A BIG bunch. Bargain. So I got a bunch and brought it home, and cooked it in some vegetarian sambal. It's not how we would usually have it at home, but it was yummilicious anyway!

Ingredients

a bunch of kang kung (my bunch was so big that I halved it)
3 cloves of garlic (I love my garlic!)
1 tablespoon of oyster sauce
2 shakes of sugar
1 tsp of the vegetarian sambal (because that is what I had in the fridge)
1 tbs of oil (in this case I used canola oil)

So I heated the oil up in the frying pan (I really need to get a proper wok - I don't feel quite Asian enough with the pseudo-wok Luke has got) and chucked the garlic in. Then the kangkung and a little (and I stress, a little) bit of water for that sizzle! Once the kangkung starts wilting I added the oyster sauce and the sugar. Mix it well, and finally add the vegetarian sambal.

An interesting note about kangkung...

I read this on Wikipedia the other night as well:

There is a belief in traditional Chinese culture that discourages extensive consumption of Ipomoea aquatica as a staple food (in contrast to rice) with the explanation that the hollow stem makes the person weak and hollow like the plant, although this belief does not advocate refraining from eating the plant entirely. But the elderly, for example, are discouraged from consuming it. This belief probably derived from ancient observations following attempts to replace consumption of rice with the relatively resilient Ipomoea aquatica during times of food shortages and war and noting loss of muscle strength, probably due to the fact that Ipomoea aquatica contains less food energy than rice. There is also a belief in Chinese culture that extensive consumption may result in muscle cramps. Despite this, it is a common vegetable in Asian cuisine.

Which I thought was interesting. Don't eat too much kangkung - otherwise you will be weak and hollow!!! :)

Coming back to the reason why I'm writing this blog in the first place. I want to lose weight, but I refuse to try those fad diets, or go hungry. I am willing to put in the hard work of exercising and controlling my portion sizes, but we all know that when we go on "a diet" or try to eat healthy, it is often that we get to a stage where we are too hungry to even care. So another trick I have up my sleeve is to incorporate more vegetables into my diet. I'm not a vegetable lover, but I remember the veggies that Mom used to cook at home and have often thought to myself, if I can cook veggies like that, I would eat them more often. Recently, I have been thinking that if Asian greens are more readily available and less expensive, I would eat more of them!

Which brings me to gardening. I found this youtube video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bEoDIm8Nm8) by this dude called the Garden Guru and needless to say, it's pretty encouraging! I still have some of my kangkung (I may have gotten more when I wandered into Island Markets - oops!) so I will attempt to grow some kangkung. Will keep you updated on the progress!

Just lookd at my post - who knew that I would have that much to say about kang kung!

New dumplings...

So I know that I said that I was not interested in participating in the starvation diet, but unfortunately today I inadvertently did! I was meant to meet a friend for lunch, and we said that we were going to this Thai place in Salamanca who has got pad thai to DIE for ( before you judge, I was only intending on eating a half serving!) but instead, for some reason, she brought lunch and has decided to go to the park and eat it. Why would you organise to eat lunch with someone and bring your own lunch??? Oh well, I conveniently had a meeting at that time, so I ended up staying in the office, which also meant that I could either walk across the road and get a burger, or just go hungry. I went with the latter. 

So to curb my hunger (not that I was really hungry), I ate a Whatchamacallit. It was divine! Peanut flavoured crisp and caramel in a  coating of chocolate! 260 calories later… what was my maximum?

Ok – so I thought that the maximum amount of calories I need to take was 1200 calories, but I just looked on this website (http://www.freedieting.com/tools/calorie_calculator.htm) and it tells me that in order to maintain my weight (which I obviously do NOT want), I would have to consume 1761 calories a day. For weight loss purposes, I would need to consume either 1409 calories or 1408 for extreme weight loss. So there you have it, I have another 1148 calories to eat for the day.

A note about calories - I'm not too diligent about keeping tabs on how many calories I consume. It takes too much trouble, and for someone as impatient as me, I really can't be bothered. I'm just interested in knowing how many calories there are in something so that I can make healthy choices. For example in ice-creams: Magnums, about 270 calories (thanks Calorie King!), but chocolate Paddle Pops are about 100 calories. So to curb my ice-cream craving (and believe me, I have heaps of them!) I eat a Paddle pop ice-cream instead.

For dinner tonight I think I'm going to have some wonton noodle soup. I have leftover broth from making chicken rice and it seems to be a bit of a waste to throw out the broth. Of course, I've already frozen some, but my freezer is not big enough for another container, so won ton noodles it is. Luke loves them and it is something simple and easy for me to cook when I get home after work.

Sometimes I make the dry won ton noodles, but I think tonight it will not be necessary. I'm thinking of also doing some sort of different won tons. My usual won tons were classified as "god awful" by my mother (she doesn't like the taste of pork), but Luke absolutely adores them. Tonight however, I feel like something different. I have been absolutely craving dumplings and I can thank the Big Bang Theory for that. They talk about dumplings all the time and that is all I can think about. And what I can say is that no where in Hobart have I found dumplings which can satisfy my dumpling cravings.

So I'm going to try to make my own. Here is the recipe:

Ingredients

3 diced chinese mushrooms (more if you like the taste - but Luke doesn't like it so much, so I used less)

1 grated carrot ( I cut my finger while doing it btw, so be careful!)

Minced pork (I forgot how much I used - like half a packet, so if I had to guess, it would be about 200g)

3 prawns (diced)

Gow Gee skins

Oyster Sauce (about two tablespoons**)

**To be honest, I don't know the measurements exactly, I'm just guessing.

How to make it? Just combine all the ingredients (except the gow gee skins) and mix well. Take a teaspoon of the mixture, put it in the middle of the gow gee skin and fold in half. Wet the edge of the gow gee skin, fold the skin over and seal it. I haven't got any photos at the moment, but will upload some later.

After making the dumplings I just pop them into the boiling broth and add the fish balls and boil for a little bit I then add the two minute noodles (yes, I didn't bother getting the eggy won ton noodles) and cook for about two minutes and served. Voila!! Easy easy dinner.

Whatever was leftover, I just steamed them in a bamboo steamer for about 10 minutes. It is important that these dumplings are steamed before freezing, because it you don't, then the gow gee pastry will get soggy and split. I learnt that the hard way in second year Uni! I had just learnt to make won tons, so I made some and popped them in the fridge, quite looking forward to coming home to eat them. But alas! The stuffing made the won ton skin soggy, so what I was left with was some won ton stuffing with some soggy goo surrounding it. I was quite upset. I wondered why the restaurant I worked at managed to freeze their won tons to use whenever they liked, and I noticed,, they steamed the little buggers first! So there you have it - STEAM YOUR WON TONS BEFORE FREEZING!!!

Ok, I think I've carried on for a while about won tons. I'll end here. Did these won tons satisfy my dumpling cravings? They sure as hell did! Unfortunately, that I all I want to eat now! :) And in case any of you are wondering "Gee, where were the veggies?" - I did make veggies to eat with my noodles! I usually add bok choy in with the noodles, but in this case, I found one of my favourite Asian green and stir-fried it anyway! Can anyone guess what it is?

How did I get here?

I know what I'm like. I like making things I like using my hands and creating something. Everything I know, I have learnt from this awesome thing called the World Wide Web. Google is my best friend. While I am not creative, I like to think that I'm a good mimic.

But I love love love cooking. Reason? I love eating! :) Ever since I got to Tasmania, I have been picking up cooking tips along the way and from someone who used to consistently fail Home Economics, I think I'm doing ok.

This blog, is basically about me, what I'm up to and my interests. It will include all my projects, past, present and mostly, unfinished. From cooking, to sewing, to cake decorating, to photography, to travel, to wedding preparations, to weight loss, to design, to home decor - I hope you like it all!

xoxo

Onward to Tokyo... Day 1

So we re-traced our steps and went onward to Tokyo. I was particularly excited because Tokyo was meant to be amazing. (Or as Rachel Zoe would say, AMAH-ZING). But may I proceed with my first observations with Tokyo - the subways have no escalators!!! I had to lug my bag up flights and flights of stairs, and it was a nightmare. Why oh why did I bring all that stuff from Malaysia? What was I thinking? Why oh why did I buy that moh-chi from Hakone? Seriously!!! Travel light. MUST. TRAVEL. LIGHT. My mantra from now on. (Fast forward a few months... still didn't learn my lesson!)



Got to Roppongi and checked into the apartments - they were really cool and have I mentioned that they were better than Hotel Kyotokko? (I think anything would be better than Kyotokko in my eyes!) As we were in starvation central, we thought that we'd wander into this ramen store next to the hotel. I thought the food was tasty enough, but Daisuke told me that it was crap. Oh, did I mention that I met up with Dai? More of that later on...

So cut to later that evening when we decided that we should head to Shinjuku to what Mel De-Costa would say "Let's go see lights". The neon lights in Shinjuku were meant to be AMAZING and that would outdo anything we've ever seen before. But to be honest, either they did not live up to the expectations, or we had wandered into the wrong hood (we were lost ALOT, but it was a lot of fun!). I have a feeling that it was the latter. :)

But we managed to get up the one of the Tokyo Government Buildings (Jin, Von, KS - help me here, what was it called?) and saw the Tokyo night skyline. And it was amazing. We took forever to get there and when we were there, we made the most of it. Photo after photo after photo, so worth it!

We finally got some dinner - there was a huge debate about who wanted what, so we finally bought some burgers (it wasn't Moss burger people - I just can't remember what it was called) from this burger joint. Mine was pretty rank, but Kok Siew came out on top with her ebi burger! Who knew??? Ebi=prawn.

We finally decided to get some sleep and get ready for the next day to go to the Magic Kingdom! Woo hooo!!! Oh, and I think Jin might've punched me in my sleep, right about here....

Hakone - the Ryokan Experience

DAY FOUR!!!! We are OUT of Kyotokko - aaaaahhhhh..... I think I might've been the only one that was happy to leave. I think Kok Siew, Jin Lee and Yvonne have gotten attached. :)


Brekkie at the same awesome place - I can't remember what I had this time, but needless to say, it was GOOOOOOOOODDDDD....


On another note, thank God I had the other three girls with me, I would've been so lost in Japan. It amazed me how all three of them knew exactly where we were going, which trains to take and which buses we needed to be on! They even knew how much the fare was!!


Switched trains at Odawara and proceeded with another train to Hakone. Fun fun! The initial plan was that we store our luggage at the train station, but upon arriving at Odawara, we found that we could not. So, we thought that it would be a good idea to take our bags to Hakone with us and store it at the train station in Hakone. Great idea. NOT.

We thought surely, as there would probably be less people at Hakone, surely we will be able to get lockers to put our stuff there. We were SO WRONG. And then there was a frantic moment of looking for lockers to put our things. We saw somewhere that said "LUGGAGE STORAGE" and breathed a sigh of relief and attempted to lodge our baggages there. The guy who was manning the place told us in no uncertain terms (well, it was in sort of English, so I guess it was in uncertain terms! Haha...) that we were not allowed to do it and we attempted to lawyer our way through it. FAIL. Sorry, lemme rephrase that: COLOSSAL FAIL. J

However, we were a little cunning (or at least we thought we were) and sought the help of the tourist centre (which was the window next door) and even they thought that they were being ridiculous in not allowing us to store our bags overnight.

Anyway, after a lot of arguing and kerfuffles, we managed to store our luggages in A BAKERY. Honestly, the Japanese hospitality (barring the silly man at the luggage storage area) never fails to astound me.

So then we boarded a bus to take us further into Hakone to where the ryokan was. On our way, we all sat in different spots, Kok Siew, Yvonne and I listening to our MP3 players and Jin with her head buried in her Bromley’s guide to Japan. On the way in the bus, we saw some sort of procession on the street, which until this day, I have no idea what it was. So for people who have lived in Japan, a little enlightenment would be great! And that’s the thing about Japan, we didn’t have a local tour guide, so half the time, we had no idea what was going on. Although I should say that most times, it was fun though.

During the bus ride, clearly Kok Siew’s brain had ticked over and she was convinced that she had worked out the bus system and how much it cost. She was WRONG. I never thought that I would say it, but KS was WRONG. Oooohhh… that provided us with some form of entertainment for a while.



Moving along – we arrived at the ryokan and successfully checked in. The most expensive accommodation (well, anything is more expensive than Hotel Kyotokko!) we’ve been to, but for a private onsen, who’s complaining. Certainly not me!!!

Got into our room and it was SO COOL. Futons on the floor. A little table filled with Hakone mochi – apparently everyone knows about it in Australia. I had no idea what it was, but I had sampled some and quite enjoyed this delicacy and was determined to buy some on the way back from the ryokan.



Jin wanted to explore the area (what was there to explore? There are nothing but mountains in this sleepy town) but as we were tourists, and while in Rome, why the hell not. Walked along this somewhat deserted road only to find, in the midst of a town that seemed to be stuck in the past, a 7-11. Score. Of course, true to Hua Zhong hostel form, we bought out the shop. Noodles, chips, facials, ice-creams – I seriously think that our eyes were bigger than our tummies. The only difference between shopping with these girls now and back in 1996-1999 was that we can legally buy alcohol. And since we were in Japan, we bought sake. Cheap and nasty. Just the way alcohol should be. J

As I could not resist ice-cream, I bought this cool Sakura shaped ice-cream which was filled with some red bean paste. Interesting, but a little sweet for my taste. But still enjoyed it.



As predicted, there was nothing else to see, so we made our way back to the room, where we proceeded to put on our yukatas and tried to jumpstart our modelling careers. I won’t upload the piccies to the blog- there are too many, but I have uploaded them to my facebook. But here's a taste...

Just for fun (and because we could), we made our way down to the dining hall for some dinner, which turned out to be like an eight course meal. It was all very delicious. WAIT. I’m taking that back. Because some of it was NOT delicious. Like the fermented soy beans (WTF) and raw calamari. No deal.



Of course while at dinner we also saw a very beautiful girl with an older, clearly less unattractive man, which made us wonder… hmmm…..

And of course we had to grab some cards from the front counter to continue our tradition of chor tai ti and Bridge!!! Now that we were older and wiser, we thought we were way too mature to play Asshole Tai Ti (we weren’t) so we played Tai Ti and the losers had to drink. And Kok Siew lost, big time. :) And same went with Bridge. Which Kok Siew lost again. :) The other two shared the losses and I was having a gay old time with my winnings (I got ice-cream and the calories – BITCHES). And of course when we were merry, we reverted to Asshole Tai Ti. Which Kok Siew lost. I sense a theme here.

I should just say as well ( while I remember) that we did attempt to play cards in Kyoto (at my favourite Hotel Kyotokko). Unfortunately, let’s just say that the cards Jin provided were not to the groups’ satisfaction and we had to abort mission. :) And when I said that they were not up to satisfaction, it meant that it had canned food on the cards. WTF indeed. Jin - gotta love you! And I should mention that we would've played if Yvonne could stop giggling!!!

Oh, did I forget to mention that we jumped into our private onsen? Yes, it started with someone (can’t remember who but I daresay it was Yvonne) saying – let’s all dip our feet in the onsen. And that was nice. Then we realised that we could all fit in the onsen and have some facials done. But we had already dipped our feet in the onsen. So Yvonne came up with this GENIUS (please note the sarcasm here) idea of emptying the onsen and refilling it. “Don’t worry, it will refill” she says. “It refills very quickly” she says. BULLSHIT. It took forever!!! So each of us took a shower in the open freezing cold balcony (yes, it was OPEN). So imagine a balcony. The cold night air. On one side of the balcony is the onsen and on another side, a stool and a shower. Stripping stark naked and sitting al fresco on a tiny little stool and taking a shower. NICE (not). But despite all this, it was an experience and a very good one at that. I’m just complaining because I like to.

End of Hakone. Bring on Tokyo.