I love it when my girlfriends and I get together for dinner. Somehow the best conversations always seem to be formed during the great wait for your food to arrive from the kitchen. The other night we were trading relationship horror stories (the ones where you start with “omg you wouldn’t believe what this douche did to a girl I used to know”) and a friend who’d never dated before exclaimed that hearing all these stories made her fear relationships even more because everyone seems to get hurt/cheated on.
She does have a point. The stories of ever after and true love have become less apparent, less heard of, while botched fairy tales where the girl gets dumped have quickly risen to become a staple topic at girly dinners. But honestly, I think getting dumped may not necessarily be as terrible as it is made out to be. Of course, if your ex-boyfriend was a lying, cheating bastard who dumped you for another girl, then yes, I will be signing my name on your petition to have him sterilized and sent to live among sheep.
But what if he broke up with you because you weren’t the greatest girlfriend? And that you weren’t the flawless female you thought you were? If that is the case, then the break-up serves as a way to re-examine yourself, to discover the flaws you subconsciously knew you had all along but never took notice of – I mean, who likes admitting they have flaws right? You can cry for a month but you have to realise that there has to be a reason why your boyfriend left your purported perfection to cruise the highway for singles once more. And while it stings like a mother to admit that you were the main cause of the break-up, good news is you finally have time to work out what actually went wrong, to brush away the thin shroud of denial that once comforted you and slowly, work on diminishing your weaknesses.
Being in close contact with a person gives you awareness of how you behave in private: you show a ‘secret’ side of you, a certain vulnerability that your family and best friends never get see – I think this is the ultimate reason why even the most mutual break-ups hurt. But it’s okay. Every break-up we go through only serves to make us stronger and a little closer to figuring out how relationships work. And slightly twisting a song title from Daft Punk, we all emerge hardened, better, faster and stronger. Whether your past relationships have been happy or progressed into grisly horror flicks, I think we all can learn a lot about ourselves from being romantically involved with a person. Of course, I am in no way recommending that you throw yourself on the next available guy mmkay!
Ok is this blog turning into a relationship advice column or what lol? I have to apologize, some of my girlfriends flew in from Singapore last week and god, it’s been so long since I’ve had a girly dinner with people my age so the stuff we talk about is bound to end up on this blog ^_^; Oh and one more thing I like about girly dinners? The bitching fest that comes with dessert 8D
Some photos from last week:
1. My vegie burrito from Vegie Bar: Refried beans wrapped in a tortilla and nacho chips with sour cream and guacamole.
2. If these blended fruit juices had come in shorter glasses, they would’ve deceptively looked like potent cocktails.
3. My friend’s wild mushroom risotto from Vegie Bar.
4. Coffee stop at the Sensory Lab.
5. Showing my friends from Singapore my favourite graffiti wall in Melbourne.
6. Chicken paella at the Morrocan and Spanish restaurant, La Paella, off Sydney Road.
7. With a name like Van Gogh, this has to be the prettiest cake in the world.
8. Is it safe to say we will never run out of cakes in Melbourne?
A recipe post, as promised! I know, I know – I can hear your “pasta, A-GAIN??” groans from my bedroom. Listen up mmkay, pasta is a staple in any student’s pantry because they’re cheap, they don’t go bad, add in some olive oil and they make a far better couple than Blair Waldorf and Dan Humphrey are being made out to be.
I really ought to stop watching that show since it’s evident from the degrading quality of the past seasons that the writers have been at each other’s throats, trying to think of more ridiculous situations that would never happen to even the most filthy rich of New Yorkers. BUT IT’S SUCH A GUILTY PLEASURE GUYS D8 I like watching each episode, scoffing at the unrealistic tribulations that plague Ms Waldorf (obvsly the only character worth watching) and asking my friends, “Did you see that episode? What were they thinking?!”
If I could distill the entire Gossip Girl narrative into a pie chart:
It’s a little sad to laugh at your own jokes but HAHAHA SO TRUE NE!
Thankfully, I have other shows to distract me from the fall of Gossip Girl:
Not so serious: The Big Bang Theory (love Sheldon!!), Community (Jeff is SO hot!), Doctor Who
Serious-serious: FRINGE, Burn Notice, The Mentalist
I was so upset when Ugly Betty and Pushing Daisies got cancelled some time ago, they were such good shows! A lot of my friends enjoy watching Grey’s Anatomy and I’ve tried getting into it but I have this unfortunate thing against medical dramas. My mother works in the medical industry so I find hospitals utterly repulsive. This doesn’t apply to my brother though, he’s been watching Grey’s since he was 14? IKR, SO INAPPROPRIATE LOL. I asked him how he got introduced to it when I first caught him watching the show and he said, “Dad downloaded it for me.” I don’t even know where to begin.
Anyway, back to the main point of this post:
My friend, Amy, takes up kickboxing and the people she meets at her gym have rather colourful personalities that’s all I’m gonna say ;p She’s close to this girl, Ching, who has been a secondary savior in my life. I say secondary because we don’t know each other personally but this girl has changed my life forever! She taught Amy how to cook this pasta dish, which is both easy and tastes absolutely divine, delicious, amazing etc. It doesn’t really have a name so I’m calling it Ching’s Pasta and you gotta admit, it has a nice ring to it.
Ching’s Pasta
Ingredients – No real measurements, sorry!
Pasta of your choice (I used linguine!)
A few tbs of olive oil
Garlic (I used a LOT)
Italian Herb Mix – you can get this at any supermarket
About 1/2 cup Chicken Stock (or vegetable, if you’re vegan/vegetarian)
Mushrooms, as many as you prefer
Basil*
Freshly grated Parmesan*
Chili flakes
*I didn’t have basil on hand so I used coriander/cilantro leaves instead. I happen to be a huge coriander fan so all the better!
*Also, Parmesan cheese wasn’t included in the original recipe but you can’t make pasta without the cheese, that’s my philosophy. Can I insist that you buy REAL Parmesan cheese (like the actual wedge!) and not the pre-grated ones? It does make a difference, trust me.
1. Cook the pasta in a pot of salted boiling water until al dente.
2. Slice the garlic evenly, DON’T dice as you normally would (Ching’s special instructions k take note!)
3. Heat the pan with the olive oil and add in the sliced garlic
4. Once the garlic’s been cooked, add in about 3 heaped tablespoons of the Italian Herb mix (again, depending on the intensity of your herb mix – adjust accordingly)
5. Add the chicken stock and the mushrooms, stir!
6. Dump in the cooked pasta and add the chili flakes, coriander and possibly 2/3 cup of grated Parmesan.
So fricking good. Thank you for the recipe, Amy and Ching! It is now immortalized on tea noir and ready to be passed down to my children.
A shout-out to Amy who has been inflicted by self-confidence issues as of late: Girl, stop over thinking things – you are a beautiful person and I refuse to let you believe otherwise COS BABY YOU WERE BORN THIS WAY AND GOD MAKES NO MISTAKES (What, you trying to defy HIM now?)
School is killing me, guys. I have so many essays and a presentation due in the next two weeks, someone please volunteer yourself and write them for me ;__; BUT! I’m so excited for school tomorrow. They’re screening Star Wars (The Empire Strikes Back, I think?) for my Hollywood lecture and we’re sorta having an impromptu snack party in the lecture theatre as well. I don’t think food is allowed in there but whatever, you can’t watch Star Wars without popcorn and crisps! Hope everyone’s had a brilliant week so far! <3
AND BEFORE I FORGET: Check out Cat's BLOGSALE FOR JAPAN! She has some really great cosmetics up for sale and it’s for a good cause!
I have never met my best friend in real life. Ours is a profound friendship bordering on ingenuity and slight insanity. We met in that bizarre universe people called the internet through the unlikeliest of people, two friends – one known for her promiscuous ways and the other, a gay designer friend I used to be close to. This is really starting to sound like a cliched rehash of The Devil Wears Prada lol but bear with me.
We bonded over a common love for fashion, design and caramel lattes with two sugars. It was almost cosmic. It still baffles me how we have managed to forge a close friendship despite living in two different countries. We both had strong personalities and I remember him telling me once, “The only reason why we’re best friends is because no one else can stand us.”
Have you ever met someone you feel instantly drawn to on an emotional level? A friend you can divulge even the most sordid secret with, someone who takes your side no matter how much of a bitch you were to your ex-boyfriend (true story!), makes fun of you when you do something stupid but immediately puts you at ease after he’s done? Aaron has been a pivotal part of my life for the last 3 years and somewhere in the middle of that, despite having only talked online, we dropped the “friend” label and became best friends.
Naturally, we often talked about meeting each other and sometimes we’d dream up these dramatic scenarios of our first meeting taking place in Champs-Élysées where we’d run from opposite ends dressed in McQueen to meet in the middle LOL. The funny thing is our first meeting was more anti-climatic than we had imagined, the Earth didn’t implode/explode and Katy Perry wasn’t around to do a medley of Teenage Dream/Firework. It felt like we’ve been going out forever and it was great to see that we were the same online and offline. Inside jokes were shared, insults were traded and significant events were retold with a strange note of familiarity. This is quite possibly the most surreal experience I’ve ever had.
Quoting Aaron, “It felt like the physical manifestation of texting you throughout the day.”
I was in KL for 3 days and he graciously rearranged his schedule so we could hang out everyday so nice omg ;__; On our last day we went to Whisk, a little cafe he’s fond of that serves some damn good red velvet cake with cream cheese icing. We tried a little bit of everything and drowned it all with sips of caramel milkshake. I’ll let the photos speak for the amount of sugar we consumed that day lol.
The last couple of photos are of Aaron‘s recent design project! Isn’t he immensely talented? I love surrounding myself with creative people and seeing his work for the first time in the flesh instead of on my computer screen was definitely a highlight of the trip. Thank you for your time bb, it was perfect – YOU are perfect! I wish I could stay longer but really, as long as we talk online it probably won’t make much of a difference lol. MISS CHU BB <333333333333 MOVE TO SINGAPORE PLX.
Happy Christmas everyone! I’m back from my trip in Malaysia and while I didn’t take any photos at all, I had a stellar time with my cousins. But now that I am home again and reunited with my weighing scale, I am very much inclined to cry. I GAINED THREE KILOS OH MY FORKING MADONNA. How did I let this happen?! Asian food isn’t supposed to make me fat dammit – one month of cheap ass Asian grub and I am still far from looking like SNSD. Maybe it’s the lack of kimchi in my diet right now. Whatever it is, I am hauling my ass to the gym starting tomorrow because I would rather work out than not eat at all.
Also, did anyone check out the MANGO sale that’s been going on since last week? I got a couple of things including the pair of heels Scarlett Johansson’s wearing in the campaign photos! How hot are they? They’re 5 inches high and as with all my shoes, they are perfection!
I’ve also been digging up my old copies of Vogue for some light reading and coupled with ice cream from the Island Creamery, it’s my favourite way to waste away the slow afternoons. I’m trying to immerse myself in as much fiction as possible too, before school starts swamping me with massive amounts of incomprehensible theory. A friend gave me a set of books by Haruki Murakami last Christmas and I’ve always regretted not being able to bring it with me when I moved (I ran out of luggage space, the shoe whore in me deemed my heels were more important ._.) so I’m gradually leafing through the pages of each book. If anyone wants an introduction to Murakami, I really enjoyed his collection of short stories: Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman - check that out if you haven’t ;D
p.s new links will be coming up shortly! I’m doing a major overhaul on all my links and reorganizing them into a new page so it’s taken longer than I’d like.
It’s been two weeks (well, almost) since my return home and I still find myself thinking about this fish & chips joint I discovered whilst exploring the area around my apartment. Touted as Melbourne’s healthiest fish & chips eaterie by The Age, a broadsheet newspaper similar to Singapore’s The Straits Times, Hooked is definitely one of its kind. “Healthy” fish and chips? That may sound absurd but Hooked has really proven itself to be the restaurant du jour for the health-conscious in Melbourne (i.e. Me!)
A giant mural of a naked mermaid greets you when you enter the restaurant, smiling boldly despite her state of undress. Fashion magazines and the morning’s newspapers are stacked on the main table, available for perusing as you wait for your food to be served. I have a bit of a crush on the counter girl (she’s in the first pic) – she has beautiful porcelain skin and the way she does her hair and make-up reminds me of a retro pin-up girl, like a family friendly Dita von Teese!
And the food? SO FORKING GOOD. Pick your choice of seafood (their housefish is the Blue Grenedier, which happens to be one of my faves!) and have it grilled or tempura-battered. You can then choose for your mains to be served with either a side of hand-cut chips, their special Hooked salad or an Asian-inspired baby bok choy salad with rice. Plus, you get your choice of one of their homemade sauces too!
I had some grilled calamari with brown rice and baby bok choy. I think they’re really generous with the calamari – the other fish & chips joint I used to frequent only served 4 small pieces of squid ~_~ The vegetables are steamed and lightly dressed with a medley of soy sauce and kecap manis, a thick black sweetened sauce from Indonesia. Brown rice has gotten a bad rep for being the less tasty cousin of white rice but there was nothing nasty about the rice in my meal. It was fluffy and moist, just how rice should be. I picked the pesto-based Salsa Verde, a mean green sauce I am completely addicted to. I’m convinced there’s weed in the Salsa Verde – I just kept dunking everything I had on my plate into the tiny bowl of leafy basil heaven and it was gone in minutes.
The weird orange-brown pieces on top are actually shavings of fried sweet potatoes and I must confess that I really, really hate sweet potatoes but these were really yummm! So it’s true: everything tastes better fried lol! I thought they were a really nice touch too, it’s not everyday you see fried sweet potatoes (not in Singapore anyway).
My roomie ordered the standard fish & chips with sweet chilli sauce. Another outstanding meal, the batter was crisp and enhanced the fresh flavour of the fish instead of turning it into one oily mess. The hand-cut chips were also stellar, I like that they all varied in shape but at the same time, I feel sorry for the dude who has to cut the sacks of potatoes every morning. He’s my hero.
Hooked – Healthy seafood to go.
384 Brunswick St, Fitzroy
Phone: 9417 7740
My internets died on me this afternoon. Australia, I really want to like you but your shit internet providers are setting booby traps for me in our love game. Aaron suggested I take a break from the internet so I dropped all plans of drowning my modem in the bathroom sink and went out for coffee instead.
Scooping out minute amounts of brown sugar in an old jam jar to stir in my latte definitely beats pre-packaged sugar sticks.
I finally got an iPhone 4 last month yay! And I got to pick a free case thanks to Apple’s iPhone 4 Case Program. Since I’m part Chinese (thanks Grandma!) and part Malay (thanks other notable blood relatives!), it has been inscribed in my DNA to have a “can’t lose out/tak boleh kalah” attitude so I picked the most expensive and prettiest case offered >D
Writing out to-do lists on napkins is a good way to whittle time away and pretend you have your life organized. I haven’t packed at ALL. Yeah, sure everyone thinks I still have time. But I have an exam to study for, gifts to buy, an apartment to clean, a freezer to defrost, bills to p- you get the idea.
Plus, what plagues me most is not the question of what clothes to bring (I’ve half a mind to pack some undies and pyjamas so I have an excuse to buy more clothes) but MY HEELS OMG, which pairs do I keep here and which pairs will travel the world with me? …and make-up. WHAT DO I DO WITH MY MAKE-UP?! *SCREAMS*
Shoot me: A couple of months ago, I did a swap with Fiza but never had the time to take photos of the loot she sent over from Singapore. I sent her a bottle of Bio-oil (which is available in abundance here) and she sent me a tube of the Korres Mandarin Lip Butter Stick (crazily overpriced in Australia). She included some extras as well, so lovely of her! The Korres Mandarin Lip Butter Stick has a slight pink tint to it and omg the scent is so yummeh!
Extras: Some fruit masks from The Face Shop and hand cream! Haven’t tried the hand cream yet because I’m trying to finish the one I have from L’Occitane.
MOAR NAIL POLISHES! I love the pale lilac shade, Fiza! It’s going to be perfect for Spring! And the dark grape-ish glitter shade is beautiful!
Everything she sent came in this striped nautical pouch, ++ brownie points for effort! Thank you so much for everything, Fiza! I loved everything you sent, including the skincare samples (didn’t take a photo because I forgot to bring them out with me!) I’ll be seeing you soon <33
I'm on a blogging roll yeahhh! It feels good to be writing for myself rather than for school and I love that I now have the time to take photographs again. I'm thinking of doing a giveaway soon and it *might* have something to do with Twitter so this would be the perfect time to follow @ilyana for more updates. If you don’t have a Twitter account, it’s about time you get one, honey because you don’t know what you’re missing: Rumour has it that I’m pretty funny on Twitter ;p
I’m going to update my About and Links section of the site within the next couple of days too, I have new blog friends and I can’t wait to share their blog links with you guys. Take care guys! <3
Marshmallow Pie
Ingredients
16 graham crackers, crushed
1/3 cup butter
30 large marshmallows
1 cup heavy whipping cream
1/4 cup hot milk
1/2 (1 ounce) square semisweet chocolate, grated
1. Mix crushed graham crackers with butter or margarine. Reserve 2 tablespoons of this mixture for the top of the pie. Press remaining mixture in pie pan.
2. Cook milk and marshmallows in a double boiler until marshmallows are melted.
3. Cool marshmallow mixture. Fold in whipped cream, and add grated chocolate.
4. Pour chocolate marshmallow mixture into graham cracker pie shell, and put reserved crumbs on top. Refrigerate several hours or overnight.
Recipe taken from here.
You can be sure it’s mostly guilt that drives me to post food recipes on this blog. It’s my way of saying “Hey guys, sorry for disappearing but I’m still here, werqing what my momma gave me.” You guys are probably used to my disappearing acts anyway, try 12 weeks of intense essay-writing and you’d probably want to do as I do on my free weekends: lie in bed and pretend you have a life outside school.
The story behind this lurid pink marshmallow pie is quite simple: I was watching Nigella’s new show, Kitchen, and in one of the episodes, she makes a “grasshopper” pie out of marshmallows and some green-tinged Crème De Menthe. I was transfixed the whole time, fascinated by the almost tacky inclusion of marshmallows. Marshmallow…pie? DUH! My childhood fantasies and cotton candy dreams in a pie; easily the best thing ever. Plus, there’s no baking involved which means no mess! I must confess that I didn’t follow the recipe too strictly: the marshmallows we get here are small and come in pink & white which sheds some light on why my pie is pink lol (too lazy to separate the whites from the pinks!)
Classes are done for the year, I just submitted a couple of essays (7,500 words in total what the flying f-) today and I have an exam in about 3 weeks. But really, why delay the celebrations? I’M FREEEEEEEEE. Now I just need to get my life back but first, some pie for the road.
I haven’t blogged in…7 weeks.
And my friends have been dropping ~subtle~ hints.
It’s a bit unethical of me to keep bribing for your love and forgiveness with snapshots of food but I do it so well I don’t think I’ll ever stop for as long as school continues to pervade every second of my life lol.
I was lucky enough to be invited over for a dinner party at a friend’s place a month ago and impressed with his cooking, we made a covert deal: he was to email me his favourite recipes and I was to reveal the address of my secret brunch hangout. This pasta recipe is so easy to make; it’s actually deceiving and I say this because yes, it’s a cinch to make but it tastes like you’ve actually made an effort lol. Whiffs of this would make your dinner guests think you’ve spent hours at the stove stirring while the sauce simmers away, a seemingly complex coral-red with bits of herb green strewn in.
Capellini with Shrimp and Creamy Tomato Sauce
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 lb. Peeled shrimp
3 large garlic cloves, mashed.
1/4 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 cup sweet red vermouth*
1 can diced tomatoes
3/4 cup heavy cream (aka double cream)
1/2 teaspoon lemon juice (freshly squeezed)
1/2 lb angel hair pasta*I don’t drink alcohol so I substituted this with 1/2 cup of apple juice and a generous squeeze of lemon
1. Heat oil in skillet. Add shrimp, garlic with oregano, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1/4 teaspoon pepper. Turn until golden.
2. Stir in vermouth, tomatoes. Stir until tomatoes are soft.
3. Add cream and briskly simmer until sauce has thickened slightly.
4. Add lemon juice. Let it simmer for a while more.
5. Meanwhile, cook the pasta. Serve immediately.
In place of the powdered stuff, I actually used fresh oregano. I’d like to think that it does make a difference and plus, I love pulling the slightly woolly leaves off their stems and releasing them just centimetres above the pot so they can infuse perfectly with the pasta sauce by way of gravity. I like sprinkling more atop my pasta because god, I love its peppery sweetness that goes so well with anything tomato-based.
Also, I need to admit what you see in these photos aren’t shrimp; they’re grey prawns fresh off the market. Shrimp usually comes frozen here and I hate waiting around for anything to defrost (I’m lazy!) so I settled for the cheaper, faster option ;D Obviously, this recipe isn’t figure friendly (double cream omg) but does it even matter?
This is going into my instant salvation in 20 mins or less recipe folder for days when I need something more than what a few mediocre rolls of sushi can offer me. Thank you for the recipe, Felix!
Magazine picks of the month and I finally got Nigella Express – it was going for $12.95 at a bookfair in school, I’m extremely excited about this so it gets a spot in this entry >D
RUSSH is a bi-monthly Australian fashion magazine, I would consider it better than Vogue Australia actually. Alessandra’s on the cover of the current issue and urgh, could she be any perfect?
STUNNING.
Catherine McNeil is on the cover of Vogue Australia but sadly, the editorials in the magazine are so lacklustre. This is a pretty picture no less and I like the dramatic eyeliner in this one whoo.
And finally, we return to the familiar food porn from the domestic goddess, the anti-chef I watch obsessively on the Discovery Home & Living channel back home. Nigella Express is a beautiful, well-written collection of fast recipes for the overworked and busy.
What would this entry be without the salacious promise of new make-up mmm? This is MAC’s Mineralize Skinfinish in By Candlelight, quite the poetic name for a beautiful peachy highlighter from the In The Groove collection. To be honest, I bought Petticoat first but I didn’t like it as much as I thought I would. It’s a pretty raspberry but it wasn’t very exciting so I exchanged it for By Candlelight which I much prefer.
Here’s a swatch! You can barely see it on my skin – which is the point, really. You want highlighters to look like the glow on your skin is from within you, not on you (greasyyyy!) lol.
I must get back to my readings now sigh. I’m taking Anthropology this semester which exposes one to ‘unconventional’ culture practices e.g. eating the body of a dead relative and it is quickly becoming the subject I enjoy going to for lectures because my lecturer is this kooky English guy with the most remarkable and terribly explicit sense of humour. I’m sorry I haven’t had time to read all your entries but mid-semester break is coming and I’ll be doing some massive catch-up readings then. Meanwhile, you can follow me on Twitter or ask me a question on formspring. Take care and my muslim readers, sorry I’m a wee bit late but Happy Ramadhan & Eid!
A couple of days ago, I decided to brave the morning sunlight and make another batch of gyoza(s) with the leftover filling I had from my previous gyoza batch. It’s taken a month but I’ve managed to stay in my apartment for days at a time without getting into a boredom induced fit. It’s not that hard because once you’ve blown your money on 4 pairs of shoes in a span of 6 days, you don’t really have much of a choice, do you now?
The point is I’ve been cooped up in my room for most of the week, staying in bed as I befriend the stark, reclusive darkness of my room while watching movies on my macbook sans the greasy buttered popcorn. My cinematic adventures came to a standstill when my external HDD (hard disk drive, for you non-tech folk) choked on a deluxe movie hotdog (I think it was all the sauerkraut) and died. I think I must have died too because my life was in that external HDD- every single image I’d taken for tea noir was stored in there (and in HQ no less), my web design work, my portfolio, other bits of random shit – all equally precious to me.
It’s the perfect murder actually – the best way to kill someone is to commit tech murder. Get rid of a person’s computer and all forms of back-up he/she may possibly have and watch in glee as they quietly drown in their own desolate pool of tears. And maybe I shouldn’t have typed this slightly morbid paragraph, I don’t want the possibility of fueling a tech murder rage lol.
Disclaimer: I won’t be held responsible for any tech murders happening from this moment on kthxbai.
Afraid your computer would crash? It used to be so simple: Get an external HDD, back up everything and sleep comfortably at night knowing your files are safe from any impending virus attack. Of course, if you had a Mac in the first place, the possibility of getting hit by a virus is close to a zero so why not just save yourself a 2-3 years of misery with an unattractive Windows comp and get something snazzy off Apple.com? 8D Sadly we now live in an age where we need to get a BACK-UP FOR OUR BACK-UP; getting one external HDD just doesn’t cut it anymore, you gotta have at least two ._.
Disclaimer: I am in no way affiliated with Steve Jobs and Apple Inc- yeahhhh dassright dassright bb, I’m just one of those regular Mac snobs Windows lovers are accustomed to hate. Don’t worry tho, even if you are a Windows user, I don’t choose my friends based on their preferred operating systems lol (look at Nadz, she’s a Windows fan and she’s still alive lol) so I’d love you just the same – pinky promise! ;D
OKAY BACK TO THE MAIN OBJECTIVE OF THIS ENTRY: Yes! Gyoza! They look difficult to make but don’t be deceived by their fancy crimped edges: if a klutz like Nadz can make them – you can too! (LOL I’m sorry cousin, I know I’m name-dropping you excessively in this entry but know that I love you bbcakes <3) They're extremely versatile too, you can fill them up with almost everything you want (provided the combo tastes good, don't be daft and start thinking of chocolate, prawn and beetroot gyozas please) I've been making gyoza for two years now and they make such a good + cheap meal if you make a lot and freeze them all.
I’ve got a little prawn, minced chicken and cabbage thing going on thar.
This recipe makes about 60+ gyozas
Ingredients
250g minced chicken meat
300g prawns, chopped into pieces
5-6 cabbage leaves, chopped
2 tablespoons of minced garlic and ginger (I use a pre-bottled minced garlic and ginger mix I found at the Asian supermarket)
Soy sauce (don’t have any real measurements, I guess most of the time lol..maybe 5 tablespoons?)
Sesame oil (again, no real measurements. Use about 1 tablespoon? If you love sesame oil like me, use more!)
2 packets Gyoza skins
1. Make the gyoza filling! In a large bowl, combine minced meat, cabbage, soy sauce, sesame oil, garlic and ginger. Mix them together with your hands.
That’s right, get in touch with nature – USE YOUR HANDS. Mix them until the ingredients seem to stick with each other and won’t fall apart.
2. Spoon about a teaspoon of filling in the middle of your gyoza skin and moisten the edges of the gyoza skin with some water.
3. Start crimping, honey. Now this is the stumbling block for a lot of people because it’s pretty much the hardest part about making gyoza but it gets really easy once you get the hang of it.
I’m not going to go into the minute details pertaining to crimping the gyoza because there’s an excellent step by step picture tutorial here that’s guaranteed to make you a GYOZA CRIMPIN’ MASTER in no time.
I’m not a purist so I cheat and use any round, white chinese dumpling skin I can get my hands on – They’re the same thing. I like making gyozas on my chopping board, it’s the only flat surface I have available. The white atomic clouds you see aren’t a rare form of mould – it’s plain flour. I like freezing my gyoza after I’m done making them and the flour prevents them from sticking to the board once they’re frozen.
Remember less is more. Be a scrooge, you have to be economical with the filling of each gyoza or crimping is going to be a bitch.
My little gyoza minions ready to be frozen/cooked!
In the pan! You sorta fry the bottoms first til they’re crisp and then you dump about 1/3 cup of water in to steam the tops. More details on the cooking technique here.
What do you do when they’re all cooked? Make some dipping sauce, of course!
Fancy Gyoza Dipping Sauce!
50ml soy sauce or enough to fill a small dipping bowl (ooh real measurements now)
1 teaspoon rice vinegar or white vinegar
1 teaspoon sesame oil
some chopped spring onionsMix well and happy dipping!
Enjoy! If you have any questions, ask away in the comments!
Back to my external HDD, in a fit of moral panic I texted my dad and he said it might just be a problem with the casing/enclosure of the HDD so I went to get a new one for my still breathing HDD and it’s fixed now YAY! Sorry you had to read such a long rant (this could possibly be my longest entry yet lol) Have a good weekend, everyone! <3
I turned 22 on Sunday, another year older and perhaps none the wiser. It still hasn’t hit me that I’m an adult now, maybe that’s for the better lol. Turning 22 is scarier than turning 21 because all my fears are suddenly amplified by the passing of another year. I realised today most people reading this blog don’t actually know who I am save for my name (Ilyana is actually my middle name), my age, my incessant need for shoes/make-up and that I now live in Melbourne. So since this is my birthday entry and birthdays signify something personal to most people, I shall now reveal a couple of things about me that most of you prolly won’t know. It’s a list of “OMG EPIC FAIL” moments and hopefully you’d find this quite comical as I did when I wrote this for my creative writing module’s non-fiction piece.
Shit that has happened to me:
1. Going to the bathroom when I was 10 and forgetting the lock.
2. I’m at the doctor’s, he tells me to strip and I realise I have my bunny undies on.
3. After dropping several hints on what I want for my birthday (this beautiful bag I saw in some store), my boyfriend gives me a bag. A laptop bag. We are no longer together.
4. My mother phoning my aunts, grandma and her best friend to announce I just got my first period and therefore I am “normal”.
5. My grandmother passed away and my grandfather dies 5 days later – let’s not go there.
6. A friend gives me chocolates from Japan and hide it at the back of the fridge only to find it gone the next day. Ammar, if you’re reading this – I know it was you.
7. I spent the last couple of years thinking my bff’s blog (Aaron‘s old blog lol) was named silks on nets. It was strange and a little poetic but still strange tho I never asked him about it. I found out recently (at my own expense) it was actually silk sonnets.
Excellent milestones aren’t they? Also, if you’ve got a question to ask – ask me on my formspring! I promise I’ll be kind XD
22 and my skin has never looked worse sigh. I’m sorry you had to see this but well, everyone has pores. You just have to accept that. I hate all the break-outs I’ve been having thanks to school. Skin, can you please act your age?! Stop being a hormonal teenager, god – GET IT TOGETHER ALREADY. Eyeliner: Maybelline’s gel liner, Lipstick: NYX lipstick in B52, Blush: MAC highlight powder in Mellow Rave.
I went out with Nad for a pre-birthday brunch at The Quarter (I could actually get used to this starve-in-the-morning-eat-at-noon thing) and that vanilla milkshake you see me having is probably one of the best I’ve had. I was looking at last year’s birthday entry and I was wearing yellow in it as well lol – I love mustard yellow, it’s such a beautiful color. This mustard yellow trench is from MANGO and it is my ABSOLUTE favourite. Best investment EVER. The color of the trench looks more accurate in the first photo than this one – this one’s been tainted by the fervent use of yellow lighting in cafes.
My mexican omelette! It’s got roasted potatoes, caramelized onions, spinach and goat’s cheese with toasted rye bread. YUM.
This is Nad! We were schoolmates back in primary school and we never saw each other again for close to a decade until I moved to Melbourne. She goes to the same uni as I do…except she’s graduating in a couple of weeks, lucky duck. NAD WHO’S GOING TO BUY ME PRESENTS NOW THAT YOU’RE MOVING BACK TO SINGAPORE?!
Nad had french toast soaked in maple syrup and cinnamon sugar with bananas on top :3
And as promised, beauty stuff! I’ve been obsessing over Lancome’s L’absolu Rouge lipstick in Voile De Rose when it first appeared on Temptalia and let me tell you, finding this lipstick was not easy. It’s a US-exclusive which is ridiculous – how the governments of this earth expect to work towards world peace when we, as women, don’t get equal access to make-up collections is beyond me.
Anyway childish rants aside, last month I decided I had enough of this country-exclusive bullshit and checked out the local Lancome counter to see if there were any dupes of Voile De Rose. I was swatching every pink lipstick that had similar tones on my hand and comparing each swatch with an image of Temptalia’s Voile De Rose swatch that I saved on my iphone (See I’m so obsessed it’s almost obscene). 10 minutes in and I found my baby! This is Lancome’s L’absolu Rouge Gold Lipstick SPF 15 in 354 Rose Rhapsodie. It’s a very very close match – I won’t be surprised if it really is Voile De Rose packaged under a different name. Rose Rhapsodie is a soft shade of pink, so pretty *_*
Finally got my Rouge Coco in Mademoiselle from my mom when my family visited me last month! My first CHANEL lipstick whoo! Mademoiselle is the shade Vanessa Paradis is wearing in the ads and it’s a deep rose with beige undertones. I’m going to wear this today so I hope the formula doesn’t disappoint me.
Swatches for you! L to R: Rose Rhapsodie, Mademoiselle. Sorry Rose Rhapsodie looks like a blur of pink city lights, I thought I had a good shot of both swatches (it was my only shot) but when I got home and checked the images on my computer, it turned out to be er, otherwise. Ah well. Also, please take note Rose Rhapsodie looks darker in this shot than it actually is.
The love of my life, Nadz, called me in the wee hours of the morning – I won’t lie lol, I was up at midnight waiting for her call and I waited for over an hour before she finally did.
Me: “Bitch, you’re late.”
Nadz: “Huh, what time is it over there?”
Me: “1 am”
Nadz: “OH SHIT.”
HAHAHAHAHA FAIL NADZ FAIL. I miss you <333333
The parents called me the next morning.
Parents + brothers in the background: "HAPPY BIRTHDAYYYYY!!!"
Me: "Aww thanks guys!"
Dad: "We're going to Carousel later in your honour."
Me: "SIAPA PUNYE BIRTHDAY NI?!?!" (That's malay for "I'm sorry but whose birthday is this?!?!")
Shucks, I miss my family so much. After getting me my dream miu miu bag, you guys would think that my parents would stop with the STUDY HARD! GET GOOD GRADES! blackmail.
Well.
I don’t know how to say this but.
Clearly, they’ve taken it up a notch.
MY ALMOST CHANEL IS NO MORE! Chanel Classic Jumbo Flap in Black Caviar with gold hardware, I HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR YOU ALL MY LIFE. The catch is I have to share the bag with my mother – not that it bothers me, I’d take my chances even if I’m forced to share the bag with an orangutan LOL. Ahh this is crazy, I’m over the moon!
Thank you for all your birthday wishes on fb/twitter! I loved reading each one <33333333333
chanel photos credit: my dad’s cellphone, chanel.com
