Was won­der­ing what to do with left­over coconut milk that we bought to make cur­ry with, then I came across this post on how to make fruity striped ice cubes!

We hap­pened to have a can of frozen man­go juice as well, it was per­fect :D 

Aren’t these mon­ster pop molds just awe­some? Mike bought them last sum­mer :D It looks like the mon­sters have glow­ing brains under the kitchen light…

 I added sug­ar to the coconut milk before pour­ing it into the mold, but I thought it tast­ed a bit bit­ter after it was frozen… does coconut milk taste bit­ter? Or did we leave it in the fridge for too long and it went bad…? Nei­ther Mike and I felt unwell after eat­ing two each, though. Hmm…

It’s going to hit 30℃ tomor­row — here comes summer!

Have a beau­ti­ful rest of the week!

 

 

Alton Brown’s per­fect pop­corn, cooked on a stove! Fea­tur­ing Mike imper­son­at­ing Ker­mit the frog, and me imper­son­at­ing Fozzie Bear.

 

(we’re far too eas­i­ly amused.)

Hope your week is filled with sim­ple joys :)

 

 

 

My friend post­ed a pic­ture of her lunch box on face­book one day, with oni­giri (Japan­ese rice ball) in it. I asked if she could teach me how to make them when we get togeth­er next time, but we both have busy sched­ules and it was going to be a while before we could get togeth­er, so she sent me this video. 

It seemed doable. So Mike and I set out to make it. We got salt­ed her­ring and avo­ca­do for fill­ing. As you can see, they did­n’t turn out per­fect­ly tri­an­gu­lar as the video has shown, and the salt­ed her­ring was real­ly salty, while the rice sur­round­ing it was rather bland. But they were cute! :D

 

They actu­al­ly did­n’t taste too bad. But I tried to think of ways to improve them. So I boiled the her­ring and pat­ted them dry before­hand. I also sprin­kled salt on my hand while form­ing the oni­giri (I skipped this step in my first attempt even though it was part of the video instruc­tion, because my hands are per­pet­u­al­ly dry with occa­sion­al tiny cuts and the thought of sprin­kling salt on my hands just made me wince… but it was­n’t too bad when I actu­al­ly did it). And I put a bit more fill­ing into each one. Also, I fig­ured out how to make them “per­fect­ly tri­an­gu­lar” like the Misa said in the video — I just need­ed to put more rice in my hand! 

So, the sec­ond attempt!

 

I brought them to school the oth­er day :D Can’t real­ly see them because they’re wrapped, but they are more tri­an­gu­lar! And they tast­ed much bet­ter with the her­ring being less salty.

Will be mak­ing more of them, I’m sure. They’re actu­al­ly real­ly fill­ing. Per­fect for an evening class that stretch­es over din­ner time.

On a sep­a­rate note, had a love­ly evening last night get­ting togeth­er with a friend I haven’t seen for a long time, with a pink vel­vet cup­cake! It was so pret­ty, I have to share a pho­to :D

 

Have an awe­some week­end, every­one! :D

 

Sat­ur­day, movie night (Ponyo! I high­ly rec­om­mend it :D), per­fect time for a mint hot chocolate.

Mike saw a “recipe” for mak­ing mint hot choco­late in our local gro­cery store’s fly­er. We made a pot of pep­per­mint tea and dis­solved hot choco­late mix with it. It’s that sim­ple :D

 

It was sur­pris­ing­ly VERY minty. Will have to make this again soon.

I tried to avoid get­ting clut­ter into the hot choco­late pho­tos as much as pos­si­ble, but as you may guess the cof­fee table is yet again cov­ered in but­tons, yarn, hooks and nee­dles. I’m work­ing on some new projects for a friend’s new shop for hand­made stuff! Can’t wait to show you when I’m done :D

Have a great evening!

 

 

 

*squeal*

Home­made ice cream! :D

I once want­ed to get one of those ice cream balls that one throws and kicks around for a while and out comes a tub of ice cream (well, one has to put cream and sug­ar and salt into it first). 

And then one day my friend Annie point­ed me to this recipe on Kevin and Aman­da. It involves con­densed milk (one of my favourite things!) and with­out the use of an ice cream machine! (thanks Annie!)

Whip­ping up 2 cups of whip­ping cream (ah, sor­ry, messy kitchen :S)…

Dis­solv­ing 2 table­spoons of matcha pow­der with a bit of hot water (I’d use more next time, the green tea flavour is a bit too faint)…

Mix­ing the dis­solved matcha with one can of con­densed milk…

Fold­ing whipped cream into matcha/condensed milk mixture…

And mix­ing it all up :D (see? the green tea was rather pale)

Freeze overnight — makes an ice cream tub full! :D

It’s quite a bit rich­er and sweet­er than reg­u­lar ice cream, so I’d say it’s best eat­en in small serv­ings, but it’s quite delicious! 

Since the recipe makes a full tub it would be fun to divide up the base recipe and mix with dif­fer­ent flavours!

Won­der how I could make laven­der flavour with the laven­der tea I have… 

 

Have a sweet weekend!

 

 

 

 

March is an extreme­ly busy month, with cours­es com­ing to an end at the same time and presentations/papers due at the same time. (has the school admin­is­tra­tion thought this through?) 

Any­way, it means that I have to make a con­scious effort to make and eat good deli­cious food so that I don’t end up hav­ing ramen noo­dles three times a day (even though ramen noo­dles are awe­some). 

My friend and I went to the Dumpling House in Chi­na­town after school one day — must go back! Check out the lat­tice pat­tern on the fried dumplings (above). Also ordered spinach dumplings for the dis­ease fight­ing ben­e­fits of leafy greens.

 

Made cur­ry beef — with coconut milk! So proud of myself. Actu­al­ly quite easy. Just was­n’t sure whether coconut milk would cur­dle like reg­u­lar milk. I don’t think it did.

 

Then with the left­over cur­ry sauce Mike made cur­ry fish ball! It’s a kind of Hong Kong street food :D

 

And last week Mike made the per­fect fish con­gee.

 

I’m off to mak­ing myself some lunch :D 

Hope you’re enjoy­ing this ear­ly spring weather!

 

 

 

My most fre­quent­ly cooked foods are rice (in a rice cook­er), instant noo­dles, fried eggs, chili, and Chi­nese greens (in the microwave). Need­less to say, my inter­est and skills in cook­ing are lim­it­ed. So when Mike and I try out new dish­es it’s very excit­ing :D

Like these avo­ca­do and brie sandwiches!

 

And but­ter pork! After going out for Indi­an food a cou­ple of weeks ago we want­ed to try mak­ing but­ter chick­en our­selves. So we bought a bot­tle of but­ter chick­en sauce. But we did­n’t have chick­en. So we cooked it with pork because that was what we had in the fridge. It still tast­ed quite good! We even added mush­rooms to it :D

 

Have a fab­u­lous Tuesday!