Kong Bak

KONG BAK: Succulent slivers of pork belly slow cooked in dark soy, 冰糖 (rock sugar)and garlic is Mum's long drooled over dish.

I pre-marinate the sliced up pork belly in dark soy sauce & five spice powder
Mum's secret to firm tasty meat is to dry-fry the pork in oil until the liquid "comes out" of the pork before you add water and the rest of the ingredients.

Ta - Da after 3 hours of low simmering.. check out the lovely skin. Our dinner guests gobbled the pieces up, skin and all.

Next I try, He bi hiam + stir-fried kang kong (water convolvulus).


La moulinette - As recommended by Donna Hay magazine, best $79 dollars spent, small efficient and easy to clean. I chuck in a handful of dried prawns + 5 dried chilli (didn't dare to add too much cos Dave won't be able to take it!) Didn't know making hebi hiam was that easy.

Stir fry blended Hebi & Dried chili in lotsa oil

My sambal kangkongStill need to work out the food photography side of things and the kong bak was a tad sweet.

Dad & Mum's visit

Looked through Dad's FB photos of the family walk and really missed the gang. Trust the ekies to pig out with hei mee straight after a fitness walk. And its not just your ordinary hei mee, its $10 hei mee with big king prawns!

It not even been a month since we're back in Sydney and I miss them, counting down the days before they come over in Dec.

This morning I received an email re scholarship, we will be informed of the outcome from 27th of Nov - 11th of Dec.
Mixed feelings: Will feel disappointed if I don't get the scholarship but at the same time sad cos it means another 3-4 years away from home, how how how?

First bloom

Went out this morning to test out the temperature outside and saw this! Yay the first bloom on my gardenia plant has appeared! I'm so happy, finally some plant has not died on me!!
Also testing out our Lumix LX3 with macro shots... its gorgeous.

Roast Pork Loin

Who doesn't love a good roast pork with crispy crackling?

Went to Glenmore Meats on Friday, love Glenmore meats home of bulk sold, affordable good cuts of meat and it was here that I found this lovely rolled pork loin for only $10 bucks.

Menu: Roast Pork Loin + Braised Red Cabbage & Apple + Slow roasted pumpkin & potatoes with sage

Look at that lovely pink flesh

Ready to go into my 220 degree oven, 30mins to crisp then 180 for an hour to cook
After an hour of slow roast, the pumpkin has caramelised and Dave loved it so much he scraped up all bits off the foil.. I can't believe we finished ALL the pumpkin.
Deglazed my roasting dish and squished all the roasted veges for all the "juice" to make gravy


Dinner!
Verdict: Dave says I still need to work on the plating.
I need to try next time with pork belly...
Loin is too lean so it ended up a bit dry and the skin not quite as crisp..

Anyhow Quiche

Looking at my sidebar of posts, I realised that I've been terribly lazy or just busy with wedding preps to blog... now I'm so "eng" and having newly acquired a really nice Lumix I'm going to blog more... and of course about food, and trying to grow food... This is what I did on Wednesday, tried to bake a quiche before going out for a marriage reunion dinner hosted by my reception place.

Kai's anyhow quiche (followed the recipe for basic quiche ingredients then added my own choice of filling i.e whatever was in the fridge)

1. Bake shortcrust pastry for 10mins, line with baking paper and rice
2. Remove baking paper & rice and bake for further 7mins.

Oh yes did I forget, preheat oven to 220C
3. While the crust is baking
4. I wanted my quiche more eggy so I added 5 eggs instead of the 2 haha ok lah becoming a fritata
5. Mix 1/2 cup cream + 1/2 cup milk + 1/4 cup grated cheddar + 1/4 cup grated parmesan, was tempted to add the brie too but it was too soft to grate
6. Mix them all together with the egg
7. Chop up some cherry tomatoes and ham, drain corn kernels
8. Cook some red onions over low heat with butter in a saucepan on low heat til soft, then cool.
9. When pastry is done, cool.
10. Scatter the dry ingredients on pastry
11. Add all the wet stuff
12. Bake for 35mins on 160C

Ok at this point, I changed and rushed out of the house, very relieved to come home to find it perfectly done! Yay.. lunch for tomorrow.

Balcony herb garden

Ok ... now that work is quiet and I'm getting home early these days and have NO more weddings to organise I'm damn free..

And since getting married, I've "upgraded" what I present before my husband for dinner each night.

This "upgrade" has resulted in the inclusion of more "exotic" and expensive ingredients, most of which I want to give a shot at cooking.
In addition, my favourite chef Mr Jamie Oliver has this insane love of using numerous herbs in his cooking and to my delight thoroughly enjoyed as well.

So instead of spending a freaking $1.79 per bunch of thyme/sage/rosemary or $3.99 per bunch of basil/oregano I'm going to grow my own. If they die I know I suck, if they survive I save a lot of money and cook better.

List of herbs I will start with
1. Thyme
2. Sage

Already have:
1. Basil
2. Oregano

To aim for:
1. Chives
2. Chilli (its like $3.99 per pack of chilli padis that Mum gets from wet market at 30 cents!!!)
3. Cherry tomatoes (ok I know not herb)

Wish me luck

Good Food Market Nov 09

First Saturday of the month, the Pyrmont good living markets are on again, we went last month and I was disappointed that I couldn't buy my hydrangea plant so this time I went charging down with Dave to get me one.

But first breakfast!

Confused scrambled eggs and bacon roll
Chorizo roll with BBQ sauce (basil and tomato version is better)


Cloudy apple juice
Dave with our goodies


My Favourite shop: Flowers!


Yay! my gorgeous hydrangeas!!!
Oh yes and Dave got what he wanted to: very delicious Venison sausages!

Brownie Cake

Celebrating a friend's birthday tonight and as usual I've been assigned cake duties.
So I've decided to bake a brownie birthday cake, recipe courtesy of an awesome birthday gift, a year's subscription to Delicious magazine, and in my 2nd copy featured a brownie recipe by Ben O Donaghue.

Man this recipe is decadent: used 2 big blocks of good quality dark choc, almost 2 blocks of unsalted butter and 5 eggs... Best part was that it was my first time using vanilla from real vanilla pods instead of the usual rubbish essence, boy did it make a difference!

And playing with icing a bit using this easy kids icing tube set I made my birthday brownie slice cake!