Easter weekend

Easter break is over! Back to work! In the UK, Easter weekend is a 4 days break cause we celebrate Good Friday and Easter Monday. There are 8 public holidays in UK compared to approximately 13 in Malaysia (state dependant). In the UK kids get Easter eggs (made with Chocolate) on Easter.

Why do we eat easter eggs at Easter?
For Christians, Easter eggs symbolise new life. They believe that, through his resurrection, Jesus defeated death and sin and offers people the promise of eternal life if they follow his teachings. This is why there is a tradition for Christians to be baptised at Easter, which celebrates new life in God.
However, the festival of Easter stretches back to pre-Christian times, too. It gets its name and some symbols, including the Easter Bunny, from the Pagan Spring Equinox festival, which is a celebration of Spring and also of new life.

Weather wise, it was horrible. I think it rained 3 out of the 4 days. So we were indoor most of the time. SO what do you do when you are indoor? COOK of course. Below are some of the dishes we had (some for the first time) over the long weekend. Steph is probably a lot heavier now compared to last Thursday. Well, somebody has to help me finish all my yummilicious dishes.

Roast chicken with stuffing

and the damage done by the both of us.








Fish fingers salads
English breakfast
Sushi
Curry flavoured mee hoon Fruit jello

Custard flavoured buns







Salmon spaghetti in tomato cream

-Adrian

Tea infused pasta

Everyone knows that England is a tea drinking nation. I probably drink 5-8 cups a day when I'm at work - White no sugar. Came up with the idea of making this tea-infused pasta whilst I was drinking tea one day. The aroma from fresh tea made me think that I should include this aroma in my cooking. So when I got home one day, I decided to try this out. Firstly I boiled 3 tea bags in a pot. Probably left them in there for a good 3 to 5 mins. Before they started getting too bitter, I took the teabags out and added in half a cup of milk, salt and pepper. Moments later I added in some ham which I've fried separately earlier on. Then I added in my chicken breast, leek and some chicken stock. I let the tea reduced to quite a thick consistency before adding my pre-boiled pasta. Once the sauce thickens up and the pasta has absorbed most my tea, it was time to serve my experimental pasta. It tasted good but I found that it lacked the aroma that I was looking for. Probably I should add a few more teabags next time. Anyway, will try to perfect this dish before I attempt to serve to my friends back in Malaysia...kekeke...

-Adrian

Freezin onions

What's the best way to store onions?

FREEZE THEM!

We over bought onions in the supermarket, and we have a whole big bag of it! We already have some at home, but when we saw that the store was selling it for such a deep discount, we decided to get it. It think it was 20p for 1kg. Who can resist cheap onions right? hahaha. And the onions that we bought were gigantic not those small cute ones.

Doubting that we can finish all of them in time, despite that we love to use onions in our cooking, it is quite impossible to consume all those before they get rotten. Not like we are cooking for a whole big family, it's just the two of us!

So what do we do? Well, we decided to freeze them.
After half way peeling through the onions, I decided to leave a couple on the shelf. My hands are tiring me out. And I havent even got to the hardest part yet... chop and dice them. Ever wonder why do we tear everytime we chop the onions? Some type of chemicals are released into the air when we cut an onions which make your eyes tear, and I find white onions are the worst-- purple never seem to be as bad. I usually try not to breath while cutting onions, but come on, it is easy if I only have one to cut, but now I have a whole lots of them! How could I not breath? So I opened all the kitchen windows, and the balcony door, and was so glad that it was a windy evening, so the air was just circulating in the kitchen. and voila, no tears at all!

Read from some articles that to avoid tearing, you just need to cut a cone out of the bottom of the onion (where the roots come out) and it'll be fine, but you need to cut out a huge chunk of it. Well I am happy with my method.

After dicing all of them, I stuffed them into a sandwich bag, a tupperware and the also wrap them up in clingfills. Separated them into different sizes and parts so that it is easier to use them as required for different dishes. I make sure it is all wrapped up for odour protection.

Look at my onions collection! kekeke.. this will last us for a very long time... so satisfied. The only downside to this is I have to bear with my onion smelling fingers till the next morning. *sniff sniff, eewwww...

-Steph

CHELSEA - One up

Chelsea looked like champions tonight with a 3-1 win at Anfield. Like they say, past results are no indication of future performance. Today just proves that the ball is round and anything can happen. I never expect Chelsea to win so comfortably against Liverpool which recently found a rich vein of form. They thrash the likes of MU, Real Madrid and Aston Villa. Anyway, I'm really happy Chelsea won. Too bad I miss the match because I was at work. Steph wasn't happy with the results but I think I can live with that (Sorry Steph).
Ivanovic (2 goals) and Drogba were the point getters tonight.

what a Fungi dinner

Bought some portobello mushrooms over the weekend. I've never seen such huge mushrooms before! You could just hold one and munch on it like you were munching a piece of bread.. this giant is more than 10cm wide! Portobello mushrooms are popular mushrooms for stuffing...Adrian wrote me an email on what to do step by step cause he was still at work. So I just follow his instructions. First, I stuffed them with the leftover 'Quorn beef' bolognese we used for our pasta. Quorn is totally meat free, a type of vegetable protein made to look and taste like meat. I used quorn chicken before and they taste really good, almost like the real deal.

See, aren't this stuff huge?

So there you go, all mushrooms stuffed. Completely pushed down the stuffings with the back of the spoon to make sure the mushrooms are really pack.

Then I sliced up a ball of mozzarella cheese and spread them out on top of the mushrooms. Sprinkle some oregano and drizzle a little olive oil over them. And into the oven they went.

Took them out after 15 - 20mins. I thought I over baked them, coz the mushrooms looked kinda dry. So I used those juice which must have oozed out from the mushrooms and pour them back into the mushrooms.

There you go.. nice stuffed portobello served with couscous and spinach. Couscous is a Mediteranean dish and they are high in protein.

These are yummy! To my surprise, the mushrooms are not dry at all, instead they are really moist and juicy. So healthy, no meat, no fat and high in protein. Will definitely do this again someday. Maybe can try grilling them instead and stuffed them with some other ingredients.

- Steph

tonigh is the Night!

Liverpool-Chelsea will face each other for the Champions League game tonight. This battle is the highlight of this year's quarterfinals. Been waiting for this game anxiously and can't wait to see how both team square off in the field. I hope Liverpool wins, while Adrian supports Chelsea. Read about our previous blogs rearding this match here and here. Who do you think will win?

Last night saw Porto drawing ManUnited in Old Trafford. What a terrific game and Porto showed some incredible skills playing against United. Also found out that Porto has a striker by the name of Hulk.... This guy was voted the man of the match, truly the Incredible Hulk.

-Steph

oh my, what a lovely pungent-ness smell

I prepared dinner today! Adrian gotta work in London, so by the time he comes back, we will both be starved. Each time when I am incharge of dinner, it will be 99% that we will be having Chinese meal. Why? I need my rice... tend to feel uneasy if I don't pop some rice into my mouth for more than 3 days. typical chinese girl.

For the vege, I sitr fry the lettuce together with some mushrooms, beancurd and oyster sauce and chinese Shao Hshing wine. I love lettuce but dislike having them for salads. Adrian always munch them raw.. eeee-yak!

As for the meat, I did the Shrimp Paste Chicken, Har Jiong Kai (in Cantonese). This is one of Singaporean’s favourite fried chicken dish. I remember having them quite frequently while working in Spore. This dish is like a must order when I eat in any Tai-chau stall.

I used the Lee Kum Kee's shrimp sauce which I've brought along from Spore. To many Westerners unfamiliar with this condiment, the smell can be extremely repulsive... but to Asians, this stuff are like heaven made.
I used chicken drumsticks instead of the more common used chicken wings.



Really simple -
1. clean the chicken (dont throw away the skin, that's the best part!)
2. marinate them with shrimp sauce and let them sit in the fridge for few hours
3. Coat the chicken with corn flour
4. Open wide the kitchen windows (to let the smell escape or the whole house will smell of shrimp)
5. Fry them till golden brown

and tadaa!

Tender juicy on the inside. Crispy shrimpy taste on the outside. Say hello to my pungent shrimp fried chicken (I can still smell it in my nose) ... and Bye bye to KFC!

- Steph

fatty Tortellini

We had store-bought fresh tortellini with cheese and ham fillings. It's a type of ring-shape pasta. Decided to have it with cream instead of the usual bolognese sauce. We throw in a bunch of spinach, ham, garlic, onions, cheddar cheese, chicken stocks, double cream and finally a dash of whisky to enhance the flavour. It was really yummy but in my opinion the cream is too overwhelming coz Adrian throw a whole full cup of of cream into it!! For those health concious out there, maybe can try serving this with alot of salad to go with it or just cook tortellini soup instead. It is my first time having tortellini and I can't wait to have another round again.. but definitely with less cream please.

- Steph

drools.. Eggtarts

What a beautiful sight! Adrian made these pretty 'Portugese style' egg tarts, and it was simply yummy. These little pastries have been my all time favourite. I remember getting them for 40cents back then when I was still in primary school but I think they are probably selling for at least RM1.20 now.

The custards are really simple to made and we used the leftover pastry dough from our char siew puff, so making these only took us less than 30mins. But we dont have enough pastry dough to go about, and guess what?

We had eggtortillas tarts!! he used tortilla wraps instead for the remaining custard..

- Steph

the G-riots

Finally, back to bloggin again. Been spending some time down in London, also been getting abit lazy and preoccupied with... er, the lovely spring weather, G20, Obama?!

London host the G20 meeting lastweek, and all the world leaders were here. Mr Obama was in town! Yes, I'm a big fan of the President and his beautiful wife. As usual, for most major summits there will be protest, riots and demonstrations. And for this case, the people are generally angry at the bank bailouts situations whereby governments throwing trillions trying to save the banking system... and ppl are even more pissed when the bankers are still getting their fat bonuses despite the fact that the money pumped into the bank are basically the tax payers money.

Anyway, it was quite tense in the city of London during the days prior to the summit.
Effigies of bankers are 'hung from lamp-posts' in the run-up to the G20. City workers have been warned not to wear suits, but to dress down in chinos and loafers because they would be obvious targets during the demonstrations.

Canary Wharf, the business centre of London, was also one the hot spot for demonstration.

Was having lunch with a friend in that area on the day of the summit, and was hoping that I will bump into a demonstration so I could, maybe join in the protest... well, just for the fun of it. Erm, nothing happens, the demonstration took place in the city of London instead and there are ppl who died at the protest.
Quite a serious riot apparently.









NOTHING happens in Canary Wharf!! Dissapointed, I head back home.............

wait, is that Citibank building on fire?

- Steph