St Albans Roman town

Continuing from our previous post, we often drive down to St Albans town which is only 20mins from our place. This was once a Roman town, and the name of the town originates from a priest St Alban, the first British Christian martyr which was beheaded in the town.

There is a huge park next to St Albans cathedral which we always go to and also the popular weekend outdoor market. The cathedral is quite similar with the other churches here, not one of those rare ones which makes us go aww but still not too bad. When we were there last week, we got to witness a wedding ceremony taking place in the cathedral.

Childrn's water play area at the park, quite a cool concept. Wish I could join them.

Bird watching @ St Albans

Some interesting birdy pictures from our trip to St Albans park.

Steamed baoz and mantao

Its officially autumn in the UK but surprisingly it isn't that cold yet. We can still go out with a single layer of clothing but I doubt that will last for long. Just completed a round of pau and mantao making and was very satisfied with the results. The texture and taste was very nice and similar to the ones you usually get at dimsum restaurants. The colour was a bit yellow compared to the extra white ones you get at dimsum place probably due to some additives they use. Anyway, just thought we share some pics we took of our pau and mantao. The flavours were black+gold (red bean and kaya) and for the mantao was black sesame.

-Adrian

Steam buns @ Mantou

Back to blogging again!

It's been awhile since our last blog. I blame it on the good Summer that has come and gone. To be honest, I'm just feeling lazy.

What have we been up to the last couple of months?

Abit of travelling, catching up with friends in the UK, random drive and exploring different parts of UK, playing host to family and friends who came visiting, celebrating birthdays, engagements, baby shower party, football, BBQ, phototaking, berries picking, and of course our favourite pastime baking & cooking!!

And what have we done today?
We had Mantao with chicken curry, I made the curry and Adrian made the "Mantao", usually reffered as Chinese steamed buns. This is what I call team effort! You can easilly get those Mantao frozen pre-cooked from supermarkets and all you need to do is just steam it. But Adrian being him, made them from scratch. There is a popular story in China that the name Mantou actually originated from "barbarian's head" (direct translation). Interesting yea? Anyway, Adrian knead the dough yesterday to let it rest in the fridge. He rolled them up into individual mantao and steamed them today. He made unfilled mantao but he added a cheeky amount of butter into each one to give a nice buttery taste.

The mantao look really gorgeous sitting in the steamer.
I was really excited when I see the Mantao double in size. I somehow thought they look like alot like durian puff.. wish we had some durian paste around. Maybe we shall do that the nextime, or maybe not considering that it cost close to 10 pounds for us to buy one durian here.
Adrian then decided to panfry them later to go with our chicken curry. It was good, we had an amazing dinner tonight (as usual) =)

We will be making more mantao tomorrow, but with black sesame as stuffings. Hopefully will post some pictures up.

Breads galore

The obsession with baking our own bread started a few months ago and I think we have made a few more different variation of breads. What goes into your bread is really up to you. It is so simple to make. The smell of fermentation is just so..........addictive. Once I got over my fear of yeast and baking, there is just no stopping the creative juices. So far we have made, Apple bread, Coffee bread, Roasted garlic bread, Cinnamon bread and Mixed nuts bread. I'm going to try to make a bread with mixed herbs next. Life is good when you have freshly baked bread for breakfast or just for snacking.

I think this dark coloured bread was the coffee bread

This was the Apple bread. This was made the morning my Mum and Dad arrived in the UK.

This is Steph's first bread (I'm so proud of her). Made it when I was in Norwich. She didn't use enough dough so it came out looking like a flat bread. She cut it into thin slices and spread them with garlic and butter and roast for abit in the oven .. she calls it her garlic bread sticks.

This was our favourite bread of all - Cinnamon bread.Our next few breads would probably be something with Nutella, herbs, cheese or some root vegetables.

-Adrian

Long time no blog

Wonder what happened to us in the last couple of months?
I wonder what happened too? I remember we would blog every now and then but then all of sudden just silence. I think I was busy juggling my work and my studies but not sure why Steph decided to stop penning her daily/weekly life. Well I should start the ball rolling again by posting this.

I must say I do miss cooking a little bit but I don't have the chance to do this the last couple of months because I'm on an outstation job in Norwich. Only back on weekends and usually that doesn't give me much 'kitchen time'. Anyway, hopefully this assignment will end soon so I can stay at home a lot more. The plus point of working outstation is having the chance of eating three course meals everyday. I'm quite sick of eating out now but it is nice to have somebody do the cooking and cleaning for a change. I've definitely gain some weight from this assignment but hopefully the weight don't get too comfortable on my body because I will definitely lose them when I get back to my normal routine - 5 small meals a day.

Summer has been nice in the UK this year. I'm not complaining too much even though it rains occasionally. Somehow Norwich is blessed with better weather compared to the rest of the UK. Steph manage to visit Norwich last week and she trully enjoyed her stay here. I haven't done the touristy stuff yet because by the time I finish work, the shops are usually closed. That is UK for you. By 6pm most shops are closed for the day. Well at least Steph enjoyed herself.

-Adrian

First bread making attempt

My personal life for the last couple of weeks have been non existent due to work. Been working down in London the last couple of weeks and spending around 3 hours a day commuting to my workplace. Usually knock off work around 9pm to 10pm. By the time I get home, it is usually time for bed.
It is a public holiday tomorrow so I thought I would have a 3 days weekend but as usual, luck wasn't on my side and had to go in to work this morning. To suppress my disappointment, I thought I will cheer myself up by making something I haven't done before. Making my own BREAD. I prepared my bread dough last night so that I could just pop it in the oven early in the morning.
Call me crazy but I actually woke up extra early to make this. Need to get in to work by 9am so I woke up at 7am to do this. Made a multi-seeded bread (Check out the pictures below) with roasted garlic inside. Making bread makes the whole house smell like a bakery and it was really satisfying to have fresh from the oven bread for breakfast. Warm and crusty. My bread came out looking good but the taste was disappointing. I didn't put enough salt so the taste was quite 'healthy'. But you can always fix 'healthy' bread with a little bit of good old butter/margarine. We had our bread with olive oil and balsamic vinegar.
- Adrian

?????!!! ?!!

Liverpool drew Arsenal 4-4, so dissapointed with Liverpool's performance. They were too caught up in attacking.. and no one seems to know how to defend. Title hope? Forget about it already. End of story.

Chinese macaroni

The other day we had macaroni miso soup for dinner. This came straight from a packet (instant). Strange how Italian has started to influence our Asian food. I love macaroni soup because there are so tasty and easy to prepare. Just throw in whatever stuff you have in the fridge and you'll have your warm hearty comfort food. I always prefer using macaroni to instant noodles whenever I have the crave for some soupy meals. I just love the texture of those little macaroni.

We also had red bean soup with glutinous rice balls for dessert. Red bean is more commonly known as adzuki beans in the UK. We will usually have this once a fortnight. Adrian haven't perfected the glutinous rice ball because it wasn't chewy enough.

- Steph

oh happy day and 6-layer baked aubergine pasta

Today has been a fantastic day - good weather, good food, good company and good news. We went to St Albans, a nearby town to celebrate a friend's baby girl full moon. They served really good food, roasted duck, stewed lamb, pork leg stew, carrot cakes, etc. I can't stop eating seriously. Finally my guilt kicks in after I finished 2 big slices of carrot cake and learnt that Adrian only took a bite. Hmm... need to think of a way to make him eat more so that I wouldnt feel bad everytime I eat.

Y'day Adrian cooked pasta using aubergines for dinner. First he pan fried the aubergine and arrange them at the bottom of the baking dish. For the sauce, he used double cream and chopped tomatoes.

After that, he split a quarter pounder burger into smaller pieces and arrange them on top of the aubergine. He sprinkle a bit of paprika on top to give a slight kick.Next, the penne and loads of chunky garlic and pour some sauce over it. A final layer of aubergine with abit of butter and finally top it up with lotsa cheese.

Baked for about 15 mins and voila.. the 6-layer baked aubergine pasta. Really good.

Oh, almost forgot, I am so happy that Manchester United lost, they are out of the FA Cup! What a day.

- Steph