Cake Pop...

Christmas is the time to celebrate the birth of Jesus!!! But it's very unfortunate that many people nowadays take it purely as the season to party, to eat, and to shop! However, one thing that I like is the idea of giving gifts to others as a gesture of love and care =)

In recent years, I have been making some goodies as a gift to others in the Christmas period - everyone loves food for sure, especially in the Christmas time!!! This year, I've made some cake pops for colleagues at work. Cake pop is something that I've read from other people's blogs - these cake pops are easy to make, and the look of them are soooo adorable!!

Ingredients:

300g Oreo

150g cream cheese, chopped

200g white chocolate

a little copha

sprinkles for decoration

Lolly pop stick

1) Break the Oreo in small pieces and put in a food processor into crumbs

2) Add in the cream cheese, and make it into an 'Oreo paste'

3) Roll the 'Oreo paste' into small balls

4) Melt the white chocolate with a little copha

5) Dip the lolly pop stick into the melted white chocolate, and then stick into the ball of Oreo.

6) Put the tray of Oreo balls into the fridge for at least 30 minute

7) Dip the Oreo balls into the melted chocolate and sprinkle with your choice of decoration.

Ta-da.... all done... easy right?!?!?! And the thing is everyone in both Hubby and my work loved them! =)

A random lunch @ home...

A couple of weekends ago, Hubby and I went to the Masterchef Live in the Horden Pavilion in Moore Park... What made it even better was we got FREE tickets!!! Thanks to Stephen!!!!

Anyway, we went there after church on Sunday, thinking that it was like the annual Food and Wine Show in Darling Harbour which doesn't have many 'ready-to-eat food stalls'... but I was wrong!!! It had ALOT of decent food stalls which I wanted to try badly!!! But it was ashamed that we already ate, so all we could fit into out stomach was the small food samples... =(

We had a good walk around the venue, but maybe because of the steaming hot weather on the day, and the fact that hubby and I went for a bush walk the day before, we didn't have much energy... but we still managed to buy some goodies... and one of those was the Sultana & Walnut Sourdough, which made became our lunch for the next day....

I also went and bought some cold meat (Roast beef, and roast pork neck) from the local deli to go with the bread, and made it into a Ploughman's Lunch!! The sultana in the bread was giant... and very juicy indeed!!! Yummm....

A Special Dinner made by Hubby...

Hubby's annual special dinner is here!!! hahaha.... just joking... he probably makes dinner more than once a year, but only if I keep on asking him to make me a nice dinner though!!! =P

This dinner was definitely very impressive!!!! Restaurant quality for sure!!!!

Menu of the night:

Roasted garlic and potato soup

Roasted spiced potato with flame grilled prawn

Porterhouse steak with horseradish cream sauce

Chocolate Fondant with vanilla ice-cream

We had the soup as the first entree, it was garlicky and very creamy - even though hubby said he didn't put in any cream because he couldn't be bother buying a 300ml bottle when he only needed to use less than 1/3 of it! But it was the soup to die for. If I saw the name of this dish, I actually wouldn't even waste my time looking into it, because it sounds like a very heavy and filling soup and will give you a very bad breath afterwards. But in fact, this soup is light in texture, and the amount of garlic flavour was just right, and I can ensure you that you won't get a garlicky breath afterwards!!!

The second entree - roasted spiced potato and flame grilled prawn - although it sounds a bit ordinary, but it was really awesome in taste. The potato was spiced with paprika and chili, so it actually has a mild spiciness to it - not too hot. The prawn was delicious!!! Apparently hubby didn't need to marinate the prawns at all, only a small sprinkle of salt then flame grilled it with a cream brulee torch. Therefore it was kinda like half cooked and half raw, and you can really taste the sweetness of prawn!!!!!! I wanted more!!!!!

Steak... I reckon cooking beef is a challenge, but I always tend to either over cook it or under cook it, never just right! But hubby managed to cook it perfectly - pink in the center with the perfect sauce on the top. He made this horseradish sauce with garlic butter which tasted awesome with the beef!!!!!! Yummmm...

You see.... hubby can be a top cook if he wants to be!!!! hehehe... =)

King Fish Sashimi with Truffle Oil + Pan Fried Lamb Loin with Pearl Couscous

Another special dinner night... haha.. but this was dated back in early Nov - one month ago!!!

When I was in Hong Kong a couple of months ago, a friend of mine took me to a Japanese restaurant in Causeway Bay. This restaurant is really a hidden gem!!!! It's one of those small restaurants that hides in a commercial building - as soon as you walk in, you feel as if you went into an authentic eatery in Tokyo, it's small and crowded, all furniture and furnishing are in that high gloss oak wood, and all waitstaffs are dressed in the blue and white japanese fisherman clothes.

One of the dishes we ordered that I felt in love immediately was the King Fish Tataki with Truffle oil!! And in this special occasion dinner, I've decided to try to mimic it!!! Of course it wasn't as good as the ones I had in the restaurant, but it wasn't bad!!! =)

Katoomba St Cafe @ Blue Mountain

We planned to go out of Sydney on our anniversary, just to get out of the city and for a change of scenery!!! We've decided to go for a bush walk and get close to the nature, breath some fresh crisp air and enjoy God's creation.

But before we do all these... we have to fill our stomach first!!! Haha!!!! We got to Katoomba town centre and just randomly walked into a cafe. As soon as we sat down, we knew that this is not right, the girl at the coffee machine just gave us a glance, without any greeting, she turned back to her coffee!!! OKAY.... we were finally given the menu and hubby decided to order the lamb burger with wedges as extra on the side, since I knew that I'll nibble on hubby's wedges, so I ordered something light.... 'Our famous scones with fresh cream and jam' as stated on the menu. And two coffees please...

ummm... after the first sip, I was puzzled... then I had a second sip.... my reaction was... this has to be the worst coffee ever!!! It was tasteless - tasted like diluted skim milk with a coffee colour!!!! Yuckkkkk... I pushed the coffee to the side and never had my third sip of that coffee!

The scones came together with the lamb burger, and both of them looked pretty decent. I quickly sneaked my finger onto my hubby's plate of wedges.... ummmm.... not bad, not bad... crunchy and golden on the outside and soft on the inside!!! Yummmm... The lamb burger itself was alright, nothing exciting about it - just a lamb burger.

Ok, back to my own plate of scones... I sliced the scone in half and smeared it with a thin layer of cream and jam.... took my first bite.... didn't really enjoy it, took another bite, and my feeling didn't change.... To me, scones should be dry and fluffy, cream and jam will help to give it the fresh moist taste. But this scone was very buttery and moist like a pound cake, and the cream was overloaded with sugar which made this scone overly sweet! This 'famous scones' definitely not what I called scones!!!!

Overall I'd score this cafe pretty badly, maybe a 4/10 for food - bad coffee, bad scones, Ok for the burger and the only thing that I'd give it an above average mark was the wedges. However, this is only my personal opinion!!!

Another Jap Night + Vanilla Bean Ice-cream with Almond Toffee Dust and Poached Pear

8 years... I can't believe that time flies like a rocket!!!! Hubby and I have been together for 8 years, and of course there have been lots of ups and downs, joy and sorrow. The day hubby decided to stay in Aus for good, to when we started going out, to the day we united as one and have our home and family till now, God has definitely carried us through and let us experienced his blessings.... =)

The day of our 8 year anniversary happened to fall on a weekend, and happened to have great sunshine after weeks of miserable weather - thank you God.... so we've decided to out of Sydney and enjoy a day out at the Blue Mountain. But that also means we'll have a simple dinner at home, no extravagant cooking!!!! You might say, we should have gone out for dinner... but I guess december time is the month of celebrations and parties, so having a simple dinner at home is not such a bad idea!!!

I asked hubby what he wanted for dinner... he said sushi!!! hahaha.... yes you can tell we both love our japanese food!!!! So the menu for the night was:

Eel sushi and tofu pocket sushi plate

Edamame

Cabbage salad with vinegar dressing

Cold prawns

Very simple menu indeed!!!!! Eel and tofu pocket can be bought from Asian grocery store, also the edamame, which can be found in the frozen section!!!

A special night like this, how can you go without dessert?!!?!? Ohhh... I think I forgot to mention... I recently purchased an ice-cream machine!!!!! Yay!!!! Now I can make ice-cream in all sorts of different flavour, and tonight we had the test run of a basic flavour - vanilla bean!

With the ice-cream machine, it's so easy to make homemade ice-cream now. Before I had to go through the repeat process of freezing and churning, freezing and more churning. But now I just had to mix all ingredients and bring to a slow simmer, then pour into the machine and done! Although the thought of making your own ice-cream is fabulous, but the cost of making it is actually not too much cheaper than buying a tub from supermarket!!! =P but I guess it's the idea that makes it fun and priceless!!!!

Dessert for the night was vanilla bean ice-cream with almond toffee dust and poached pear! After the ice-cream was ready, I poured it into a tear-drop shaped ring to make this ice-cream extra special!!! hahaha... this tear-drop shaped ring is my recent purchase from Hong Kong!!!! So cheap!!! It was like $20HKD (<$3AUD)!!!!!

Almond toffee dust - sounds weird right??? Well... it was suppose to be almond praline, but I think because I didn't let it go hard enough before I put it in the blended, after the first pulse it turned into dust!!!!! =.=" anyway... it still tasted good! And the trick of doing a poached pear is the cinnamon stick!!!!! It makes such a different in flavour, so next time when you do any poached fruit, stick a cinnamon stick in there for that extra spice!!!!

Salmon Sashimi + Sea Urchin

Ummmm..... oh my gosh, I've neglected my blog for over two months!!!!! Very bad of me!!! Half of the reason was my laziness, and half of the reason was I've been away overseas and to several church camps. I'll try to catch up with all the posts, keep the finger crossed! =P

The place where I work at the moment is very close to the fish market, which means I can just pop down at lunch time and get all sorts of different fish for dinner! But I must say, this place doesn't smell all that great, very very fishy!!! Plus, since now fish market has become a 'tourist attraction', prices of the fish are not cheap at all!

One day I had a crave for sashimi, so I decided that I'd do a Jap dinner night!!! Lucky that I made this decision because I didn't leave work till late that night, and sashimi on sushi rice is just a quick fix for dinner!!!

Sushi rice is basically just normal medium grain or short grain cooked rice with a splash of japanese rice vinegar and a spoon of sugar! Easy!

Besides salmon sashimi, I also got some sea urchin as well - hubby loves that! And as I was queuing up at the sashimi bar, the glittering oysters caught my eyes!!!! ummmm.... ok, I'd get the oysters as well - I said to myself. I was gonna get the salmon roe also.... but I resisted... thinking that this normal week night dinner will get too expensive!!! hahah...