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Browsing tag: food

  • May 28, 2010

    Five on Friday

    • I attended my first networking event this week. What’s more, I went by myself. This was a proud moment: I am an anxious socialiser, to put it mildly. And when the event was booked out, thereby causing a friend to miss out, I nearly decided to skip it. And did I mention the atrocious weather? But it was great – went better than I could have expected. I got there and it was packed, but just as I started to panic after scanning the room, someone in another department at work came over and we got chatting. Then I saw a friend from school, and then another old classmate, and it was all on from there.
    • On Monday, T and I attended a research session. It was by far the weirdest market research I’ve ever done, but apparently it may become more common. Basically, we watched TV for an hour, wearing a hatful of electrodes which monitored our brain’s reactions to the programmes. But hey, we got $85 each out of it and a really delicious pastry.
    • That was followed by the worst meal ever – a waste of nearly $30. We wandered all over town trying to decide what to have for lunch (it was well after 2 by this time). Finally, we ended up at the Thai place in the Atrium on Elliot foodcourt. I’ve had good food from there before, but their “seafood tom yum” contained just two prawns and some sad fish balls, and bore no resemblance to the hot and sour flavours of tom yum. Suffice to say it was watery yellow, with no red or orange tinge. As for the deepfried sweet and sour fish, I don’t know how it ever left the kitchen. They presented me with a plate containing a small, sad,  dried out snapper, accompanied by a tiny saucer of, well, seasoned vinegar.   The Gourmet Thai, my ass. I wasn’t expecting miracles, but I was hoping for something edible.
    • We blew out our internet usage this month, basically doubling what our package allows.  Telecom used to just slow us down to dialup, which was good: Orcon lets you keep going, charging $2 per additional GB. Ouch. Hopefully with a careful eye on our account we can keep it within the limits – which used to be 6G, but is now 7G thanks to the company increasing everyone’s limits for FREE – but if this becomes a regular thing I think we’ll be upgrading to a bigger package. We can double our cap for a pretty reasonable price, and change at any time.
    • I’m not the healthiest of eaters, as you may or may not have surmised. I wanted to make one of my monthly challenges to be eating better. But life, or more accurately, work and related pursuits have just kept me so busy, and since T is currently playing stay-home spouse, he’s been totally in charge of all things grocery related. Seriously, I have had some AMAZING meals since he’s been out of work. And I have eaten SO many veggies – I don’t think we’ve had a dinner in a looong time that didn’t involve a significant portion of them. From totally homemade pizza stuffed with peppers, onions, steak and cheese to roasted kumara, carrot and meat, not to mention amazing stirfries and other dishes, I am brimming with vitamins! It feels good.

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  • April 18, 2010

    April challenge: Raspberry slice

    I know you’re supposed to stick religiously to the measurements when it comes to baking. Err, I don’t. I do my best, honest, but if it’s between measuring out a teaspoon and guesstimating with a pinch between the fingers….fingers win every time.

    Mmm - crumbly goodness. Pardon the crappy cellphone picture

    This recipe turned out surprisingly well, though. I was silently cursing all the way throughout, positive it was going to turn out a complete disaster. I’m not sure what constitutes a stiff dough, and I’m pretty sure mine wasn’t anywhere near dry enough. Still, it turned out super tasty, and slightly softer (more cakey than chewy or slicey) than the kind you buy at the bakery. Let it sit overnight, though, and it hardens up a little more.

    I bought raspberry essence especially for this ($2 for a tiny bottle??!!) and would you believe it had all the flavour but none of the colour. It was CLEAR. And raspberry slice is meant to have PINK icing! But the ever-crafty T suggested I use a tiny bit of jam to add colour to it, and voila.

    (I also made a super delicious, no-bake chocolate slice [minus the coconut and raisins]…unfortunately, T has lost my camera and the photos of said slice. I’m hoping it’s just wound up in one of our friends’ cars.)

  • March 27, 2010

    Help me eat better!

    Somehow, I’ve gotten to be 21 and never really learned to cook. Since leaving home, my diet has totally changed – I make easy stuff like pasta, Mexican, stirfry and steak. Mum used to make a lot of Chinese (with the odd hint of Malaysian), the kind I never learned to make and is at odds with my philosophy when it comes to dinners: I want it fast and I want it now. Hence, my veggie intake has also suffered. She also used to make two or three separate dishes a meal (veges being usually separate from meat), where I go for one-pot meals.

    And T is absolutely no help in this area! He really isn’t too concerned about getting 5+ a day; but his is a family where it’s okay to feed the little kids chips (and maybe sausages) for dinner. (Not that my parents did much better. My brother literally never ate a single vegetable during his formative years, and still only eats a very very select few today. You know, I can’t even remember what he DID used to eat, except that there always had to be a separate meal made for him.)

    But scurvy is not a good look for anyone. Summer meant salad season, and this year I discovered the wonders that yoghurt and sour cream can do to vegetables. I’ve never been a fan of lettuce, but I’ve come to realise there are so many ways to do salads. (Although I love potato salad with a passion, I don’t really count potatoes as veggies. But I’m willling to be convinced otherwise :D)

    I may start buying real veggies for stir fries and curries, because frozen packs invariably contain ingredients I don’t like (Broccoli, I’m looking at ya). I might even look up some spinach recipes, which my iron levels will no doubt thank me for.

    Sadly, now it’s getting colder and vegetables are going to get expensive. What are some winter veggies? Share your favourite recipes…I want them all!

     

  • February 20, 2010

    Review: The Dominion

    I am positive that pretty much every time I do a mystery shop at a bar, I’m spotted. After all, who asks for an itemised receipt at a place like that?

    But anyway. We recently paid a visit to the Dominion on Dominion Road (formerly GPK, I think) and were really impressed.

    Our meals were immaculately presented and although mine wasn’t mindblowing – chicken breast with pancetta, olives, and barely any pancetta, on rocket and fried potatoes – T’s eye fillet was a SYMPHONY. It came with mushrooms, glaze and mashed potatoes…and oh my lord, it was perfection. The ingredients were in just the right proportions, and tasted amazing together. Perfectly cooked too. I only wish there had been more, especially for the price ($59 for both dishes).

    The ambience isn’t too shabby either – it’s spacious, airy and not too noisy, with both inside and outside seats. And Thursday night is “loyalty” night with $5 drinks – can’t go wrong!

    Eye fillet - still not quite sure what that tall yellow thing was, but it tasted okay

    Chicken breast

  • January 12, 2010

    My foodie confessions…

    (stolen from The Asian Pear)

    I have no sense of portion sizes. Coupled with very little self-control, is it any wonder I eat to the point of bloatation more often than I should? Is bloatation even a word? If not, I just coined it.

    I don’t really like fruit. I like berries and melons. The odd apple, orange, mandarin, kiwifruit, grape or banana. I could go a few weeks without eating any.

    Similarly, there are days when I don’t eat any vegetables at all. Something I’m working on. Really.

    I am super, super picky about the textures in my food. I don’t eat the fat on meat. Tofu. Squid. Jelly. Uh…and more, I’m sure, but I can’t think of any at the moment.

    More insanity: I like cauliflower but won’t touch broccoli. I like ice cream, but not once it’s melted. I only drink soda when it is still super fresh and fizzy to the point of pain.

    Golden, salty McDonald’s chips are one of the best foods in the world.

    When I’m sharing chips with T, I get annoyed when he takes one of ‘mine’ that I had my eye on. How juvenile am i?

    I love potatoes. I could eat them all day – fried, mashed, boiled, you name it. They are so versatile!

    I eat as little as possible beforehand if I’m going to an all-you-can-eat place. Buffets are like heaven to me.

    Sometimes I barely eat anything at all during the weekend because we’ve exhausted the pantry and haven’t got around to shopping.

    I eat too fast for my own good. And I get incredibly irritated if my meal is too hot to gobble down in my usual fashion. (I know you’re supposed to SAVOUR good food, but I wolf it down like I’m never going to eat again.)

    Biscuits were a staple in my household growing up. My brother would go through like packet a day. I tried to keep track of how many he was eating (a LOT more than I was) because I felt like I was being cheated. My mother scoffed at me and I shut up about it.

    I need a bib to eat. Seriously, the mess I am capable of making is a sight ot behold.

    I can eat rice with almost anything. But I will not eat creamed rice or rice pudding. Rice should not be part of any dessert.

    TODAY’S OUTFIT: (you get a face shot as I was feeling good)

  • November 12, 2009

    Eating in vs eating out

    2745938812_1dc4cb6febDebt Hater and Fabulously Broke recently blogged about the costs of cooking at home versus eating out every meal. Honestly, I think eating out every day would be bliss – but it’s a luxury FB says gets old, fast, and sometimes you just want a simple basic meal instead of heavy, restaurant fare. Something I can totally understand.

    We spend around $120 a week on groceries for the two of us. Sometimes it’s more, especially when we get lots of fruit and veg. (This also usually includes bits and bobs like cleaning products and toilet paper). I have to admit, we’re usually out of food by the Saturday and eat breakfast and lunch out. But the $120, by and large, covers most of all our basic meals.

    If we were to eat out three times a day, it would cost us $294. That’s cutting it really low, too – I’m talking a pie or roll from the bakery for breakfast, and an average food court/fast food meal for lunch and dinner. It would probably also be enough for sushi, a salad or something similar at that price.

    Breakfasts – 14 x $3  ($42)
    Lunches – 14 x $9 ($126)
    Dinners – 14 x $9 ($126)

    Ouch! Dinners alone would be the equivalent of our weekly shop. I’ve thought about this topic a lot, but never actually sat down to crunch the numbers. Looks like it’s definitely worth it for us to cook and eat at home.

    (Just as a side thought: why are all the quintessentially NZ foods so greasy and fatty? Fish and chips, pies, sausage rolls…)

    Photo / midorisyu

  • October 19, 2009

    Pantry staples

    Believe it or not, it wasn’t until I’d been living away from home a couple of years that I started to stock my kitchen cupboards with things like flour, rice and stock. I pretty much lived off pasta and strirfrys and as for baking? Nuh uh. The one time I ever tried to make a cake, I managed to produce this beautiful tri-coloured marble cake – rock hard on the outside and rubbery on the inside. It was in no way edible, even by the lowest standards. I was SO disappointed; I’d spent over an hour mixing ingredients and painstakingly layering the colours. Sigh.

    Now, at least, I can manage super basic cakes/muffins/biscuits. And we now have staples on hand which means if we haven’t planned out a specific meal, chances are we’ll still be able to whip up something for dinner. Not like the good old days…

    On any given week, you’ll pretty much find in our cupboards:
    -rice
    – pasta
    – beef and chicken stock
    – flour
    – sugar
    – tomatoes
    – corn
    – eggs
    – onions
    – soy sauce
    – chili powder
    – curry powder
    …and potatoes. It may be the poor man’s food, but I can’t get enough of them! Fries, chips, roasted, mashed, boiled, hash browns…I love them in all their varieties.

    We’re also working on expanding our spice collection (currently stands at less than 10, due to the fact each jar costs almost $5. We picked a buy-one-get-one-free voucher from one of those instore demonstrators last week though, which was neat).

    Am I missing anything? Should I be buying other things that I just never realised I can’t live without?

  • October 11, 2009

    The grocery game

    Personally, though I’ve done virtually no travelling – and certainly not on my own dollar – I think food in Auckland is somewhat overpriced.800px-Apples_supermarket

    Let’s do a comparison, shall we? Worldwide readers, feel free to chime in!

    (I’m aiming for budget brands/lowest sale prices here; bread, for example, can run up to almost $5 a loaf, and chicken up to over $20 a kilo)

    2 litres of milk – $3.20
    Cheapest loaf of bread – $1.40
    Boneless chicken breast (with skin on) – $9.99 kg, at the lowest
    Cucumber – 99c in summer, 3.99 in winter
    Kelloggs cornflakes – $2.99 for 500g, on sale
    Tomatoes – around $1.99 kg in summer, up to double or more in winter
    Potatoes – $1.99 kg, although we sometimes buy in bulk which is slightly cheaper
    Cabbage – $1.49
    Bananas – $1.79 a kg at the lowest when in season
    Beef mince – $5.99 kg, at the lowest – up to a ridiculous $13.99 sometimes at the supermarket for the premium stuff
    Cheese – between $8 and 10 a kg, at the moment?
    Muesli bars – varies by brand, between $2.50 and $3.50 at the lowest for a 6pack
    2 litres of ice cream – $3.50, at the lowest
    1.5kg flour – $2.50
    1 kg sugar – $2
    Eggs – we usually get a 20 tray for $5
    Pasta 500g – $1.10
    Pasta sauce – $2.99 for 700g (cheap stuff) or $3.50 for 500g (better stuff, on special)

  • October 2, 2009

    T’s birthday

    In our years together, T has had a string of disappointing birthdays.

    The first was terrible – probably the worst. He was in a car accident the night before (thankfully no one was hurt). But he was uninsured, and got completely screwed over by the other party’s company, despite not being at fault. Then the next year he was sent out of town for work, so we weren’t even in the same city. He did, however, spend something like $100 at a bar. And finally last year we had drinks at home, ending in heinous flatmate having a bustup with his crazy girlfriend and ordering her out of the house, only to have her storm through and throw a rock through his back windscreen.

    Nothing spectacular this year either (cheers, recession :P) but at least it wasn’t disastrous. I left uni early, getting a ride home with a classmate, got home shortly after lunch, and we drove over to his sister’s for a visit. She actually shares the same birthday as him, but she’s 5 years older! I felt bad that we didn’t get her a present, but we ended up buying her cigarettes which she was desperately in need of. Damn smokers.

    Then we debated back and forth about what to do – the day started off with torrential rain, but eased up and got sunny later on. But it was still too cold to warrant doing anything outdoors…

    We settled on going out to a nice dinner at the Angus Steakhouse which boasts the biggest steaks in town – and they are not lying!

    They were huge, massive, enormous! I got through half of mine, with a little help from him, and he managed about a quarter of his.

    They even have cute menus with a picture of a cow, telling you where each type of cut comes from on the animal. (Sorry vegetarians!)

    And the salad bar was to die for. All you can eat, with pastas, potatoes, rices, regular caesars and coleslaws and even a couscous type thing which was divine.I’m wishing I’d taken photos… but at least I got a picture of our steaks. And that’s after we’d eaten our fill; what’s in the shot is what we took home in our doggy bags.

    His leftovers...

    His leftovers...

    .. and my leftover

    .. and my leftover

    So although I didn’t get him anything, I (obviously) paid for our meals – $32 for any steak, plus uinlimited salad – and $20 for him to spend on himself. A nice, quiet and uneventful birthday. That, and his friends came around on the Friday for the traditional beer jug – or boot, in this case. Observe…

    The beer boot, warming up in the hot water cupboard and waiting for the foam to settle

    The beer boot, warming up in the hot water cupboard and waiting for the foam to settle

    I’m really not down with the 21st traditions, having been raised by typical Asians, so all this kinda shiz seems silly to me, but I just go along with it! I’m just grateful nobody expected me to drink any beer on my 21st birthday *shudder*

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