♥ Porterhouse Steak!!

My latest attempt in the kitchen: Porterhouse steak with Pepper sauce with Crushed Peppercorn and served with salad! I've always always wanted to grill a steak for the boyfren cuz he's really a steak lover but have been reluctant to, because i wasnt confident enough that it'd be a success. But just very recently, we went to Kmart and finally bought a grill pan after months and months AND months of deliberation! So i gathered up my courage (haha, sounds so exaggerated i know...) and finally attempted to grill a steak for my dear.

Da-dang! The steak is ready to be eaten! Look at how delighted the boyfren is... *laughs*

Surprisingly, grilling a steak isnt as difficult as i originally thought it to be. I used to be hooked on cooking shows such as Ready Steady Cook, so i kinda picked up a tip or two from those established chefs from that show! Hooray for cooking shows! *_*

I was very worried that the steak wouldnt be cooked to my desire, but surprisingly (again!) it was! I'd say it's medium-rare? The sides are well cooked but the center of the steak remains a pale pink. The boyfren finished the entire steak in a flash!! He absolutely loved it and was repeating in a non-stop fashion about how yummy it was. I'm not sure if it really tasted that awesome, cuz i didnt even take a bite off that piece of steak (i'm not a steak lover... not 1 bit). But i trust that if he says it's good, then it cant be that bad. So yayy! A surprise success for me! *happy*!

♥ Midweek Snack: Wedges with Sweet Chilli & Sour Cream!

Had afternoon snack with the boyfren and a fren at Mocha Jo's, Glen Waverley~ deepfried potato wedges served with sweet chilli and sour cream! Very potatoey, very crispy, very satisfying... The purrrrrrfect mid-week comfort snack to last me through to the weekend!

♥ little stitch says hello!

The boyfren bought me this really cute Stitch charm after our breakfast at Boxhill! :)

♥ Steamed Cheong Fun (Rice Roll) with Deepfried Dough Cruller (炸两)

The boyfren skipped classes on Tuesday so we went to Boxhill for some Asian breakfast at "Da Pai Dang", a Hong Kong-style Asian cafe.

We ordered 1 of my favourite dim sums: Steamed Cheong Fun (Rice Roll) with Deepfried Dough Cruller served with soya sauce. I love deepfried dough crullers! I can eat heaps~~❤

♥ Korean Stirfried Fishcake with Choy Sum, Kimchi, & Korean King Oyster Mushrooms

In addition to kimchi pancakes, i also cooked another simple korean dish~ Stir-fried Fish Cake with Choy Sum, Kimchi, and Korean King Oyster Mushrooms!

Korean Fish Cake Pieces (i used about 6 pieces)

Korean King Oyster Mushroom (i used 2 mushrooms)

Prepare ingredients:

(1) Fish cakes

(2) King Oyster Mushrooms

(3) Choy Sum

(4) Kimchi

Instructions:

(a) Heat oil in pan, pan-fry some garlic (roughly chopped up) until fragrant.

(b) Throw in the choy sum and stir-fry with the garlic until cooked through.

(c) Add in mushrooms, then fishcakes, and give it a good stir-fry.

(d) Add in kimchi last. Give it a thorough stir-through.

(e) Add in some soya sauce, kecap manis, salt, and sugar (to taste).

(f) Before dishing outta pan, add in some korean corn syrup and stir-fry well.

(g) When the fishcakes start to have that glossy glow on them, and when the dish appears alittle sticky, remove pan from heat and serve warm!

Enjoy :)

♥ Korean Savoury Pancake: Kimchi Pancake

I made some savoury korean-style pancakes with kimchi! Recipe can be found here.

Chop up some kimchi into smaller pieces or strips.

Prepare some pancake flour...

Add kimchi to flour. Add in water, little by little. Using a pair of chopsticks/a spoon, mix until batter forms. Batter shouldnt be too watery.

The batter should look something like this.

Heat oil in pan and pour in batter. Cook till crispy then flip over to the reverse side and cook till crispy too. Then remove from pan, place on cutting board, and slice the pancake into individual pieces.

Place on serving plate and sprinkle some sesame seeds as garnishing!

♥ Serradura (木糠布甸)

Finally, a dessert post! Today i made Serradura (木糠布甸), a Macau dessert specialty. I first came across this dessert through a HongKong cooking show, "Beautiful Cooking" (美女厨房), where very pretty actresses/models are invited to the show to test out whether they are good cooks. Chinese have a saying that a good wife should not only be presentable in terms of physical & facial beauty, but that she should also be able to excel in the kitchen and cook yummy dishes that can tie down a man's tummy, so that he'll be more reluctant to find 'supper' elsewhere (入得了厨房 出得了厅堂). Most of the pretty models & actresses who were invited to the show failed horribly in the kitchen and there're many parts of the show where u're guaranteed to be laughing till your tummies hurt! It's a really entertaining cooking show, and i got to learn stuff along the way too, such as this particular dessert, which is both appealing to the eyes and to the tastebuds! :)

Basically, these are the ingredients that you'll need! Cream, Marie Biscuits (crushed till powdery form), Condensed Milk, and Vanilla Essence (i omitted this cuz i didnt have it in my kitchen). For a detailed recipe, click here to be redirected!

♥ ovenbaked pizzas!

Fresh oven baked homemade pizzas straight outta the oven!! Our poor appetites continued on and we had no craving for rice, noodles, etc. So i suggested pizza! If u dont already know, i'm a huge Western food lover, not so much Chinese food lover, although i'm Asian Chinese. I like how Western food pays alot of attention to food decor, food art, and on its presentation of the dish. Chinese dishes usually are very lacking in terms of visual attraction.

So 1st up: Ham, Pineapple, and Cheese pizza~ the boyfren's most loved. It turned out perfect! I like those little popped-up golden-brown bits of cheese on the top of the pizza, they taste absolutely delicious! On a side note, i love popped-up-cheese on toast!! Do you? :D

2nd pizza we had was: Bacon & Egg pizza! The boyfren loves to have pineapples in his pizzas, so i threw in some pineapples as well :)

And lastly, we also had hot & spicy spam pizza!

♥ assorted mini heartshaped sandwiches

Afternoon quickie snack! Mini heartshaped sandwiches with various different spreads! There was black sesame paste sandwiches, nutella sandwiches, peanut butter sandwiches, honey syrup sandwiches, and condensed milk sandwiches! ~❤~

♥ Spicy Sichuan Deepfried Beef Chitterlings

We revisited (巴国布衣) Ba Guo Bu Yi Tooraking Fine Chinese Cuisine at Toorak Road very soon for more spicy sichuan food (click here for snapshots of the food we had during our previous visit). The boyfren and especially myself have been lacking in appetite lately and strong flavoured spicy sichuan food is the perfect attempt to whet our very poor appetites!

Deepfried lean beef chitterlings. Very spicy but utterly tasty!

Sweet & spicy pork strips stirfried with fish fragrant sauce (鱼香肉丝). I looooove this dish because it has a strong vinegarish flavour! Very appetitizing indeed!

Taro paste rolls (orh-nee rolls) (香芋卷). Somehow, these were not as good as the deepfried and steamed mantou platter.

♥ Alannah Hill Hoisery: Sweet, Girly, & Self-Pamerping!

Bought some very sweet and girly hoisery from Alannah Hill boutique! Love her products, every item makes me feel so pampered; every item so sweet and girly~~~

From Alannah Hill's 2011 Autumn/Winter collection, i especially LOVE this coat!

♥ Cupcaking @ Joy Cupcakes!

Early evening snack whilst shopping around at Westfield Doncaster at Joy Cupcakes! He had a strawberry shortcake cupcake and i had their rosewater and pistachio cupcake! Very prettily and delicately decorated and tasted superb. The buttercream isnt too sweet (just purrrrfect) and the cupcake moist and soft! A total enjoyment :)

♥ A hearty midweek breakfast!

My midweek breakfast of bacon, egg, and hash brown! yummms~~~

♥ i drove for the 1st time!!

I drove for the 1st time! Well... sort of.

The boyfren allowed me to take over the wheel and just drive @ snail's speed around the very empty uni carpark just to get a taste of what it feels like to be behind the wheel ^_^

I had the full and unwavering support of my new beary bunny plushie! >_^

♥ the guinea piggie's peanut buttered french toast!

My dear boyfren decided to take over the kitchen and make me some afternoon snack. He decided to attempt Hong Kong-style french toast! 2 slices of white bread pressed together, with peanut butter spread within, dipped in egg, pan-fried/deep-fried, and then served with honeyed/maple syrup & butter (ours omitted butter cuz we didnt realize we had none left in the fridge). I must say he did a fantastic job with the french toast! I felt so pampered, all i had to do was watch him from the sides and take 'backstage' snapshots of him & his masterpiece!

Spread a thin layer of peanut butter on 1 slice of white bread. (Note: Do not be overly generous with the peanut butter. The boyfriend applied a very thick layer and the peanut butter started oozing out from the sides when the toast was being pan-fried!)

Whisk/Beat the eggs, add some brown sugar, and set aside.

Combine the 2 slices of bread and dip it into the egg mixture. Make sure every part of the bread is covered with egg).

Heat oil/butter in pan. Hongkong-style French Toast is usually deepfried, but we wanted a healthier version (and also didnt want to waste so much oil), so we decided to pan-fry it (but with alittle more oil than usual). Place the peanutbuttered and dipped-in-egg bread onto the pan and start to pan-fry till 1 side is golden, then flip the bread and pan-fry the other side.

A very camera-shy boyfren in action (he tried to avoid being photographed by covering his face with his hoodie). He was trying to flip the bread over (p.s. he needed the assistance of 2 frying sticks! haha).

After much bugging (and he probably got tired of trying to shun my camera) he finally tilted his head slightly and gave a smile ^-^

Trying to crisp the edges of the toast...

Drizzle some maple syrup & enjoy with some butter and of cuz a nice warm cuppa coffee! (We omitted the butter cuz we didnt realize we finished our previous tub alr). Thanks darling (❤), the french toast tasted awesome, better than those we get @ HK-style cafes :)