Food Diary – 15 Jan 2013 (Breakky Mushrooms)

Normally in our household, it’s the Husband’s job to prepare breakfast. It’s just because he gets ready much quicker than me. And I love getting dress & doing my make up every morning.

Today, I asked him how to make his really nice Breakky mushrooms. He taught me this. Well… I almost stuffed up but luckily he came to my rescue.

1. Chop some garlic

2. Peel (optional) & cut the mushrooms. He likes his mushrooms peeled. Just a personal preference.

3. Put the garlic & mushrooms in a pan.

4. Put butter in it

5. Put the lid & wait for around 10 min until the mushrooms get soft.

This is what it looks like on my plate for breakfast. The Husband made the scramble eggs.

That’s why I did Zumba & 750 m of swimming today. For what I’ve eaten today, what went in were more than I burned. Well.. I was going to go for a run as well but got caught up watching Australian Open :).

Food Diary – 14 Jan 2013 (Octopus in Oyster Sauce)

I forgot to write a blog entry yesterday because othe Australian Open 2013 has begun!

The Australian Open justifies my couch potato time. It doesn’t stop me to tweeting though.

Yesterday, one of the female players was wearing a see through white top & today (15 Jan), one of the male players wore see through pants. While the games are great, the fashion mishaps are also interesting.

Anyway, I made this Asian style (maybe my style) of octopus meal yesterday. It’s easy to make & tastes good. The only down point was it took about 1.5 hours to cook so the octopus gets soft & easy to eat.

The most important part before the steps below is to put lemon juice & salt all over the octopus & let it sit for about 30 min or so. I prepared mine the night before & left it in the fridge. This is so it won’t get the fishy smell.

1. Cut onions, chili & garlic. I used my pre made chili & dried garlic (because I’m lazy). Season it with salt & vegetarian stock (it’s just because my other half is vegetarian).

2. I should have put some ginger but I don’t have it in my fridge so I put lemongrass powder instead. Just a pinch or so.

3. I put the octopus in the wok & put around 1 tbs of fish oil & 2 tbs of oyster sauce. If you think it’s not enough just adjust it to your taste.

4. Put Assam juice in it. You can buy this at Asian convenience shop.

First take a bit of the package

then put in a glass or mug, fill it with hot water

using a spoon or fork, mix the Assam with water & the water will turn to this chocolate colour

Using a strainer, put the Assam juice in the octopus meal. I also put on some lime leaves in it.

5. Because I want the sauce to be a bit thicker, I diluted a table spoon of corn starch with water & put in to the octopus meal.

Note: the colour became like this because I took out the juice from the wok instead using water.

6. Put lid on, let the octopus soften for about 1.5 hours, stir occasionally. Add more salt, pepper or anything that you like. Then add some veggies if you like.

Food Diary – 13 Jan 2013 (Indonesian style omelette)

I remembered when I first came to Canberra & saw the price of a carton of free range eggs at Woolies. I was shocked & as a student at that time, I couldn’t understand why people would rather pay around $6 a carton of free range eggs compared to the $2 one.

In Indonesia, almost all eggs are from cage eggs. The concept of free range eggs is what Indonesians would classified as ‘village eggs’ (telor ayam kampung). This is because the chooks in the village are roaming free & they didn’t produce as many eggs as the cage ones. The eggs are also lighter in colour & smaller. Normally Indonesians used these kind of eggs for taking ‘jamu’ (herbal medication/concoction).

Now in our household there are no other forms of eggs other than the free range types. The reason being is because we love the chooks & we don’t want to see them suffered in cages.

In Islam, we’ve been taught to respect & love the animals. That’s why the slaughtering technique for Halal meat is done in such a way in order to make the animal not suffer so much.

Australia is not predominantly a Muslim country as Indonesia but Australians treat, respect & love their animals as if they’ve been learning the Islamic compassion towards animals.

This morning, I made omelette for the Husband for his breakfast after the RPM class. It’s Indonesian style of omelette. I remembered one of the maids taught me to make this a long time ago. Well, there’s a saying in Indonesians that if one declared herself can’t cook, at least one she should be able to make omelette. So basically, everyone knows how to make omelette (telor dadar).

1. Crack some eggs

2. Cut all the things that you want to put in your omelette.

3. Put the no. 2 to no. 1. I also put a teaspoon of oyster sauce, a half tea spoon of chili condiments, salt, pepper & a pinch of vegetable stock.

4. Using a fork, stir everything until combined

5. Heat 1 or 2 table spoon of oil to the frying pan & put in all the omelette mixture

6. Make sure to flip both side of the omelette so it’s cooked. And serve it. Indonesians love to eat omelette with rice (& chili condiments).

Food Diary – 12 Jan 2013 (Knead Patisserie)

Since our France holiday in August 2012, The Husband has been a fan of croissants. We tried so many croissants from many different bakeries in Canberra and couldn’t get a nice enough croissant that was up to the standard that we had in France.

So, one day, at a fundraising dinner, we sat next to a French guy who married an Australian lady and lives in Canberra as well. He told us about Knead Patisserie & how he thinks that’s the closest to a real French croissant in Canberra.

Since then we’ve been frequenting the place almost every Saturday morning to get croissants & pain au chocolat from there.

The place is located inside Belconnen market & opposite a flower shop there.

Despite it’s location, they did a good job creating a different atmosphere than the rest of the shops in the market.

We haven’t tried other pastries from the shop yet but they all look good. Their croissants are the one the I highly recommend. It’s so crunchy in the outside yet so soft in the inside. Yum!

Food Diary – 11 Jan 2013 (Two Before Ten)

I didn’t cook at all today. Just busy doing nothing & enjoying Summer until the end of February where things are already lining up & I won’t get home until around 9.30 pm on most days.

As usual on Friday mornings, I had the PT session. It was only for 45 minutes but at the end my legs & arms were really sore.

After that I met up with some close friends for brunch at Two Before Ten.

I really like the ambience of the place. It had a “Melbourne” feel. What I mean is the design, their serving staffs & the way they present their food have unique characters.

The menu was easy to understand, not too much & uncomplicated.

The coffee & food were nice.

The only down point was the service at a certain time of day. Especially when the public servants had their morning coffee break at around 10 am.

When I came at 9.15, I was greeted with smiles by the wait staffs, they brought me waters & offered me whether I would like to order any drink.

By the time my friends & I were ready to order, it was a bad timing already & it needs extra effort to get attention from the staff.

Will I come back again? Oh yes!

In the afternoon, I went swimming at Cisac. I like swimming there because the pools are heated.

In the evening, the husband & I had a date night. We went to see Life of Pi on 3D. I hate 3D glasses! But it’s amazing to see the animation on 3D so it’s worth the pain of keep adjusting the glasses.

Food Diary – 10 Jan 2013 (Indonesian Fried Rice & Monkey Magic Restaurant)

I’m really tired & dopey at this moment. I’ll put some stories tomorrow. In the mean time, I’ll just put photos of the Indonesian fried rice that I made this morning.

This tomato is from our balcony garden:

For dinner, we went to Monkey Magic in Belconnen. We used to love this restaurant. Now they changed owner & it was so bad! We’ll never go back again.

Food Diary – 9 Jan 2013 (Oishii Japanese Restaurant in Canberra)

I had a crazy dream last night & when I woke up, I felt like making some chili. I know it didn’t make sense but for heaven’s sake, I made a lot of chili!

Today was my second day back with The Personal Trainer (PT) again. OMG! It was so hard! But I felt good afterwards though. I have never thought I could do a 25kg pull down before. When I was at the gym, I looked around & no one was overweight. Sometimes I wonder why they still work really hard at the gym when they already have a six pack stomach. Some of the girls can be in a youknowwhat magazine spread.

I even chatted with one of the girls & she said she exercises twice a day! Her statement really motivates me to do more exercise.

This post is supposedly about my review of Oishii Japanese restaurant in Civic not about me rambling around the bush. But anyway, doesn’t matter I suppose.

I have decided that this year I won’t be bother to hang out with people whom I only do small talk with. I’ll spend more quality time with the friends that I care about & enjoy more time with The Husband.

So, today I went to see one of my precious girlfriends at Oishii. Time always flies every time I meet her & I always wish we can chat a bit longer. We make a promise to catch up at least once a month.

The ambience at Oishii was nice. It felt like an expensive restaurant for some reason. Maybe the dark wooden wood creates that feeling.

The menu was not so good & not really helpful with some Japanese & Korean words but no pictures. It has English explanation but for visual people, it’s hard to digest.

The service was standard for the rest of Australia but good for Canberra’s standard. I think Canberra service industry people are not really doing service. Don’t let me start with the shop assistants! Awful. Except at the Aesop store that always excellent. I’m just wondering sometimes, maybe the shops in Canberra centre have requirements that you need to be grumpy to get a job. Too bad my brother in-law is a genius who works in Silicon Valley with robots & stuff otherwise he’ll be good as the face of Canberra’s service industry because he’s the grumpiest person that I’ve met so far.

The food was okay. It’s nice but nothing stands out.

I ordered Agedashi Tofu for starter.

My girlfriend & I ordered Korean beef & Seafood soup for mains.

It came with some Korean side dishes (& they didn’t even bother to explained what they were).

This is my second time coming here so my summary is it’s okay, but if I have the choice, Iori & Coo are still better.

When I got back home, I went to the pool again. I saw the same people that I met yesterday. A threesome couple (well.. sorry to make judgement Mr Threesome, I don’t know you but it’s just my assumption).

Well assumption based on observation. Yesterday, I saw this guy kissing a girl & massaging her. She was with a girlfriend then not long after, he massaged the other girl & kissed her as well. Today Mr Threesome was there again with the two girlfriends.

After my swimming at the apartment, The Husband & I went to the swimming pool in Cisac. I did about 300 meters of laps & my legs feel so sore from this morning’s PT.

We ate leftovers for dinner, watching a DVD & The Husband made me a chocolate cake.

Just a perfect cake, so heavenly moist to end a perfect day 🙂

Food Diary – 8 Jan 2013 (Pancake, Salmon & Mashed Potato)

My day started with nice pancakes made by The Husband. He said it was easy to make it.

Stir these ingredients until smooth, let it sit for a few minutes & fry it in a pan with very little oil.
1 cup of milk
1 cup of flour
1 egg

He also beat some cream & we ate it with the jam that I bought at the Maggie Beer Farm in South Australia.

This what it looked like on my plate

The weather was really hot in Canberra today. It reached 38 degrees and was very windy. I went to the pool & there were so many leaves in it from the wind. Yet, it was a nice day again to enjoy the pool in Summer.

Last year I ordered these shoes from Etsy in July. When I got them they were too big. So I returned them and the seller sent me another size that just finally arrived today. I’m happy with the size now & the shoes are comfortable.

For dinner, I made baked Salmon & mashed potato.

To make life easier, I marinated the Salmon with Korean sauce for about 30 min.

And then baked it at 180 degrees for 25 min.

I wasn’t very confident in making the mashed potato because this is one of The Husband’s specialties. I think he makes really good mashed potatoes.

This is my version of mashed potato:
6 washed potato peeled & steamed
Salt & pepper to taste
Vegetarian stock to taste
1 table spoon of butter
2 table spoon sour cream
Some milk

It came out nice & went well with the baked Salmon in Bulgogi sauce.

Food Diary – 7 Jan 2013 (Mussels in Chili Tomato Sauce)

Today I feel sad about what has happened in Tasmania. Around 100 houses burnt down in the bush fire. I think it’s a bit unfair that I am enjoying summer by the pool & thinking what to cook for dinner while some of my fellow Australians don’t have their pool & kitchen anymore.

Somehow also I am glad that the local government as well as federal government are giving as much assistance as they can to the victims of the bush fire.

The news had been devastating today but I can seek refuge in cooking I guess..

Yesterday, I bought a kg of mussels at Fyshwick market. It was on sale & cost me only $4 for what I was cooking tonight.

I have never cooked mussels before. It just never crossed my mind to cook something that looked difficult.

So, since I bought it, I had to cook it somehow, right?

I got this recipe for Mussels in Chili Tomato sauce from Taste.com.au

This is the link for the website if you’re interested.

http://www.taste.com.au/recipes/878/mussels+in+chilli+tomato+sauce

I have to admit that I’m not good at following recipes, so I didn’t follow the recipe strictly.

For example, I used 4 chili without removing the seeds so it’ll have a bit more kick to it, I didn’t cut the tomato but blended all the ingredients together in a big blender so it’s quicker, and I put stuff in as I felt like it according to my taste.

Well, it turned out really well! The Husband also agreed that it tasted great!

We had the Mussels accompanied with the Rosé that we bought at Yalumba in Barossa valley. It turned great meal to a perfect one.

Food Diary – 6 Jan 2013 (Indian curry from a box)

I promised The Husband yesterday that we’re not going to do anything today. So it’s all about relaxing at home & enjoying Sunday at 38 degrees heat in Canberra.

True to my words, we slept in. I was still in my dream land when I talked to the Brother in law & wished him a safe journey back to the States at 11 am!

When I woke up, I went to the pool downstairs & was a bit surprised to see more than 2 people there. The water of the pool was still cold but because the weather was gorgeously hot, it was perfect then.

For lunch, I found this Indian meal & Assam curry in my pantry & heated it up for about two minutes.

This is the food inside the package:

This is the Indian curry

This is the vegetarian fish fillet. When I first met The Husband, the idea of vegetarian food was unimaginable.

This what was on my plate for lunch

In the afternoon, I went to Fyshwick market. The market has a sale on every Sunday starting from 4.30 pm. I got cooked prawns for $15 a kg, Salmon & mussels were all half price. I bought too much stuff but at least I won’t need to do groceries shopping until next week.

For dinner, I made creamy pasta. I like to put chili in my pasta. So it’s not from a particular recipe or something, just my own translation of an Italian meal.

I also put Tuna in it

This is the pasta that I bought. Only needs 5 minutes to cook!

I mixed the sauté onions, chili & spring onions with the cooked pasta & add some cream. Let it simmer (in my electric wok, took about a minute) & pasta was done.

This was what on my plate for dinner