What do you do when.....

1) What do you do when your mum goes away?
a) You slack off and don't do any work around the house until the day before she comes back.
b) You leave all your shoes out so that you can just pick and wear whichever that would suit your outfit.
c) You invite your friends over for dinner and get your girl friend to do all the cooking.

If your name is 'Alv', the answer is ALL OF THE ABOVE!
Except, he's a little better than that, he actually helped in (c) part of things :)

2) What do you do when your friend's parents are away too?
You have a dinner party at his house!

Day/Date: Saturday, 24 June 2006,
Time: 7:30pm

Venue: FLim's Place

Entree
Deep Fried Sesame Prawns w/ Sweet Chilli Dip
Spicy Tofu Fries w/ Garlic Mayo Dip
Chawan Mushi
<>
Main
Roast Rack of Spring Lamb w/ Herbs
Roasted Potatoes
Roasted Pumpkin
2 Bean Salad w/ Prosciutto and Pine Nuts
<>
Dessert
Rich Chocolate Mousse w/ Strawberry Compote
and a Filo Nut pastry

When we found out that Alv's mum was going back to Singapore again for an indefinite time, the first thought that came across my mind was: "Damn, now I gotta cook things that he would eat!" because he's so 'easy going' when it comes to food and all.. NOT.

The day his mum left, he sent an email out to our group of friends inviting them for dinner at his place. A couple of hours after that, FLim IM me and we talked about dinner. Somewhere along the line he offered to have it at his house and after a few emails back and forth between the three of us (Alv, FLim and I) we changed the venue to his house and madame had the pleasure of planning the dinner.

So I dusted off a few of the cookbooks that 'I always buy coz it looks good but never really used' in search of the perfect menu.

Oh, I should add that Alv made the MISTAKE of asking everyone for suggestions. The Farmer came back with Lamb and the Fok came back with a full menu:

• Entree: Oysters (Mornay and Kilpatrick)
• Main: Spicy Lobster or Pepper Lobster (something like that)
• Dessert: Banana Fritters w/ Vanilla Ice Cream

Sif! I said, this is not Jamie's Kitchen and I am not cooking Lobster.

Anyway, come Saturday, I had a dinner menu devised with the help of Michelle Cranston of Marie Claire, Kitchen and Jane Lawson of Yoshoku; and on-site help in the form of Alv and FLim. Job well done I might add.

Friday, cut and marinated the Tofu fries. Saturday, started prepping and cooking at 3:30pm, a bit of delegating here and there which made things a lot easier. Alv made the mousse, FLim grinded the herbs (WHEN he managed to get off WOW), I prepped the lamb and slathered on the herb marinade once he was done with it, and FLim also did the Chawan Mushi. Somehow I managed the rest and got Q to do the sauce for the Chawan Mushi while Fok arranged the Entrees. Good Old Alv did the frying and Tj well.. he was just being Tj. Last but not least, the Farmer... he did all the washing. Funniest thing was that Flim had a dishwasher too but Jxz did all the washing. LOL

The only disappointment of the day was the Chocolate Mousse... due to a certain helper's impatience the cream was not whipped enough, so the mousse turned out to be thick in texture instead of light and fluffy. Oh well.. we all ate in anyway

--(i) Clockwise: Sesame Prawns w/ Sweet Chilli Sauce,
Spicy Tofu Fries w/ Special Mayo dip and Chawan Mushi --
<>

--(ii) Clockwise from the Left: Roast Rack of Lamb w/ Herbs,
Roasted Potatoes, Beans Salad w/ Pine Nuts
and Prosciutto and Roasted Pumpkins. --
<>

--(iii) Left to Right: Filo Nut Pastry, Rich Chocolate
Mousse and Strawberry Compote.--

>> More photos from Dinner

QED Idea No. 1 - This is how you eat Soba.

Ange: I don't know how you can eat soba with nothing but dipping sauce. At least make some side dishes or something. So lazy :p

Anyway, here's Quick and Easy Dinner (QED) Idea No. 1:

The original recipe is called Otsu :: 乙 [おつ] - which essential means: strange, quaint, stylish, chic, spicy, queer, witty, tasty, romantic.

Since it is food related, it most probably means everything but strange, queer, witty, romantic rofl. (I think it means tasty) Anyway, I found the recipe at chika's shewhoeats food blog who referred it to 101 Cookbook's site.

As usual, I modified the ingredients and added my usual favourites: mushrooms, chicken, capsicum and onion. But the rest is essential the same. (Had to omit coriander though, silly Mish doesn't eat it)

The last time I made something vegetarian, Michelle complained that "there's no MEAT", so I added the MEAT and the rest.

It's easy enough that you can't complain it takes too long woman! Since you are that lazy, I would recommend getting the pre-fried tofu instead. If I can do it after a long slog at work, so can you!

p/s: Ali, what's that blue thingy! :)

<>

Here's the satisfied customer ;p

About the blog

Feed Me! I'm Hungry!

Product of a Friday night at home with not much to do.
Lack of name creativity came from the fact that I was peckish at the time this blog was registered and the first post was made. (hence my second attempt at writing a better introduction)

The first food blog I came across is the famous Chocolate & Zucchini last year when I was searching for a Chocolate Cake recipe. At that time, I thought wow this is cool! But never gave much thought about it because I wasn't too interested in baking then and blogging wasn't really "cool" amongst people I know then.

Later on I came across Keiko of Nordljus's Green Tea Opera Cake when I got really into my 'green tea' phase and that blew me away. That's not to say that Clotilde's blog didn't, it just that I didn't put two and two together until later on when it occured to me that there was a food blog community out there. I think one of the journalists at The Age wrote an article about it and I'm sure it was from that article that I got a bit more educated about food blogging.

It wasn't until when two of my closest girl friends moved to London on a travel/career break adventure that I decided to start up my own food blog. I was also getting more and more inspired as I delved more into the world of food blogging, trolling food blogs at lunch breaks and after work made me think about all the time I have in the world; since I'm on a break from all sporting activities and with the loss of my cooking companions and all ....*ding*

So here we are, two months on and still going strong.. still making my friends crave for all these things that we use to make together on the weekends or on special occasions.

Who am I?

ilingc || 27 || Female || Melbourne VIC AUS

A journey in Cooking, Baking and Experimenting.

I blog about the food I make for my friends, family and me boy.

18.08.2006

Jaffa Crepes

-- Jaffa Crepes Round 1 --
<>

-- Jaffa Crepes Round 2 --

I love crepes. I've always wanted to make Crepes Suzettes. Somehow, we ended up making Jaffa Crepes instead?
We had dinner at Queenie's place on Saturday. Her mum cooked us dinner. A scrumptious semi gourmet meal. Mrs Chan is so hospitable and a good cook too. Everytime we go to Q's and if her mum is around she would make us tea and bring us nibblies etc. (we're so spoilled)

Anyway, we were suppose to be playing Taboo after that but since the guys ended up watching some stoopid show on tv, Queenie and I decided to make dessert instead. Somehow tossing between chocolate souffle and crepe we ended up with crepes suzette. I think her mum's comment about how that was her favourite might have had something to do with it.

Anyway, the best thing about the whole night was I got to drive the Porsche! Drove it down the road to the Shell service station for milk. The boy was sooo jealous. *evil laugh*

Dinner for 7 at Queenie's

Entree
Chinese Mantou w/ Grilled Duck pieces
<>
Mains
Rocket and Pear salad w/ a Sweet Chilli and Garlic dressing
Creamy Spiral pasta with onions, mushrooms, bacon and chorizo sausages
Steamed Vegetarian Buns
<>
Dessert
Platter of Apricot Cheese, Marinated Olives and Duck liver pate w/ crudites
Jaffa Crepes (Crepes Suzette drizzled w/ Chocolate Cointreau sauce)

--
Thanks for dinner Mrs Chan and thanks again for your hospitality.

p/s:
- Thank you too Queenie for letting us crash your house AGAIN.
- Okay, thanks Mark for organising even though you do much beyond promising us Taboo and not delivering ><

Party at Hoi's

--(i) Green tea sponge cake sandwiched w/h
green tea butter cream, topped with chocolate ganache.--
<>

--(ii) Baked Lemon Slice.--

Ok, I admit. I'm a green tea nut. I love Mattcha Ice Cream. Can't get enough of it. Tried making it once, the cheater's way that is. A tub of ice cream and some mattcha powder. Didn't turn out too good. Probably because I had crappy low fat ice cream. Hahah. Going to try it with 'good' quality ice cream next time.

My obsession with making a green tea cake stemmed from when I had a piece of Green Tea Butter Cake from BreadTop. So hooked on it that I decided I was going to make one. I have a recipe for a pound/butter cake, but wasn't sure how much mattcha powder to put in, so I went googling for a recipe. Found nothing under 'Green Tea butter cake' nor 'Green Tea Pound Cake'. A few recipes for Tea Cake though? I suppose it's all the same, but I'm a newbie when it comes to baking. I'm better at meals than cakes and I have been told repeatedly by someone (probably mum) that cakes are different than your regular meals. You can't just chop and change the measurements, it might not turn out the way it's suppose to be. So, I was being pedantic.

Anyway, I bumped into this 'Green Tea Opera Cake' by Keiko at Nordljus. I was like OMG. Drooled over it the whole lunch time. She takes scrumptious photos.

Anyway, since I was going to my friend Hoi's for lunch and dinner, I manage to convince her that we should make dessert and it should be a Green Tea Opera Cake. (all I had to do was send the link to the cake) Except when we went googling for the recipe we found that it needed a whole barn full of eggs for the layer! Ok, I'm exaggerating. But it was a lot of eggs on the recipe that we found (and I could hear my arteries choking), so Hoi suggested we do a sponge layer instead.

So this [see(i)] is what we ended up with. Umm.. it doesn't look too good because we didn't really have a fully 'furnished' kitchen. Hoi just moved into her place and we made the mistake of using a serrated knife. (Newbies that we are)But it tastes sooo goood!

We had so much time on our hands that we even made a baked lemon slice [see (ii)]. It didn't taste too good at the start but it was good after a few days. It had a shortcrust kind of base layer which we pre-baked and then we baked the curd. Too bad it wasn't lemony enough.

Dinner at Hoi's

Entree
Baked Ricotta Cheese with spices
<>
Main
Roasted Tandoori Chicken w/
Roasted Butternut Pumpkin, Brocolli & Cauliflower
<>
Dessert
Green Tea Sponge Cake
(Baked) Lemon Slice

It was a great catch up Hoi hoi.. thanks for cooking dinner and lunch :) Let's doing it again! umm in 6months eh? hahaha. Maybe the next time, Jan won't pike on us :P

Gochisousama deshita Hoi Hoi!

First of the first of the first... what the?

Ok I've really gone and done it now. Lol

I have been speculating to some friends that "I am bored" and have been considering starting up a food blog, having accidentally discovered them while I was googling for recipe ideas.

This will take a while but oh well, time is what I have in the world right now on a cold wintery Friday night. (How sad that I am at home blogging while my boy is watching 24 and the rest of my friends... well.. I wonder what they're up to? Getting sloshed somewhere, wow-ing*, working^ and what not.

Hopefully this will not turn out to be an "abandoned exercise" because of my lack-of-motivation. The last time I came up with a webpage thingy it got abandoned after a month haha.. but that was donkey years ago.

Stay tune

*this refers to those who are breathing in the "World of Warcraft"
^haha those in London are 'still' working at the time of writing