Fueled By Flapjacks: January 2007

Fueled By Flapjacks

Saturday, January 20, 2007

Rangoli

On Tuesday night Linda, Jenny, Crystal, Justina and I visited Rangoli Indian Restaurant for a feast of delicious Indian food.

We were presented with a plate of papadum before we even ordered. I munched on it because I was hungry. It had a satisfying salty crunch which distracts one from the murmurs of a hungry tummy.

Jenny and I both ordered the butter chicken. I can't resist a good butter chicken. It's such a comforting dish. I love the sauce so much I can drink it straight. I'm not kidding. The portions were probably about just right. Well for normal people but honestly, I would have happily stuffed myself with more. I can easily eat a whole container of takeaway butterchicken that is meant for at least two people.

I love the rich orange colour. It must definitely be one of the most beautiful hues in the world.

Jen and I also ordered naan each. I ordered the plain, she ordered the cheese.

Justina also ordered naan but I can't remember which. I think it might have been filled or something. I didn't get a picture because she was all the way on the other side of the table.

This is Crystal's chicken korma which I tried a little bit of and found it very tasty. However, I still prefer my butter chicken despite how unadventurous it is.

I also got a shot of Linda's order which was a chicken curry, similar to butter chicken with more tomato. I can't remember the name because I don't retain Hindi well.

I would definitely eat here again but I would have to try really hard to order something other than the butter chicken. This is one of the reasons I'm not a very good food blogger. I tend towards old favourites and I'm never very good at savoring or documenting food because the minute you put something in front of me I have a vicious urge to devour it. Ah well, you can't do everything and my real purpose is just to remember what I ate because I do look back at these pictures when I'm bored.

Labels: Indian

posted by Lauren @ 1:40 PM 1 comments

Monday, January 08, 2007

The Ultimate Eggsperience

Tonight, I intended to make a nice healthy omelette to compensate for the Chai tea frappachino and triple chocolate cake I consumed at The Office. However, my omelette was so weighty that I couldn't flip it, so I turned it into scrambled eggs. It turned out to be the best scrambled eggs ever! Soooo good.

I even found a double yolk in one of my eggs. I'm not sure but I think it must be good luck.

In case you want to replicate it. Here's how I made it. Pour a little olive oil into a pan and add some garlic. Stir a little, then add mushrooms until brown. Add tomatoes. These won't take long to cook. Remove mushroom and tomato from pan. Cook frozen spinach. Remove from pan. You could probably cook that with the other vegies but I forgot. Remove spinach. Combine eggs and milk for omelette mixture. Spray pan with cooking spray. Pour mixture into pan. Add spinach. Sprinkle lots of oregano and thyme. Add BBQ and tomato sauce. Add mushroom and tomato. Then scramble. Add a bit of pepper before serving and maybe some tasty bread.

Labels: home-cooking

posted by Lauren @ 7:14 PM 1 comments

Sunday, January 07, 2007

Health Kick

My healthy kick-off to the year has been going pretty well, except for the icecream. hehe. It's summer, what can I say?

Earlier this week, I tried to do something a little more exciting with my oatmeal. Normally, I just cook it with some maple syrup. This time I added some raspberry essence and some strawberries. I wanted to add some fresh raspberries but they had gone off before I even bought them and I failed to notice. Bad supermarket! I cooked the oatmeal with rice milk because I wanted to see what it tasted like. It has an interesting sweet, rice taste and looks slightly brown and watery. It's okay, but I think I prefer soy milk as an alternative. The porridge turned out alright but the rice milk made it a little sticky for some reason and it wasn't flavourful as I had imagined, so I added some maple syrup which thinned it out and made it sweeter. You just can't go wrong with maple oatmeal. This morning, I made my oatmeal with maple syrup, grated coconut and sultanas. Tasty.

I also made a fantastic breakfast on Thursday or Friday morning. I can't remember which. I had a little craving for something special so I decided to whip up some french toast. Normally I just use an egg and milk mixture to soak the bread in but this time I added a drop of vanilla essence to it. I also sprinkled sugar across just before toasting it in the pan. I served it with sugared grilled banana and maple syrup. Delicious and not too un-nutritious.

I've had curry at least one more night this week and I've eaten two stir fries (peanut satay & sweet and sour). Last night I made a pasta dish. I haven't made one in forever. It's pretty much vegetables (mushroom, tomato, spinach) and vegetarian sausage cooked in a pesto tomato sauce with garlic, oregano and thyme over penne pasta. It may not look like much but I think it is delicious and most of all it's nutritious.

Labels: breakfast, home-cooking, Italian, pasta

posted by Lauren @ 8:11 PM 0 comments

Wednesday, January 03, 2007

Vegetarian Yellow Curry

New Year's Day was a grace period where I was allowed one day to get all the unhealthy eating out of my system. For the most part it is but certain indulgences are allowed every once and awhile. My aim is to eat lots of fruit and vegies.

Tuesday went very well. For breakfast I ate cereal, a banana, a nectarine and some grapes. For lunch, 2 tomato rolls and for dinner I made a scrumptious vegetarian yellow curry. It was so easy to make. I cooked half the vegies in the microwave before hand so I pretty much just had to stir stuff around in the pan for awhile. Using canned curry paste also made things easier. The ingredients were 200ml lite coconut cream, 1 tbsp yellow curry paste, 1 potato, some butternut pumpkin, half can of chick peas and 1 vegetarian sausage. I ate it with a slice of Turkish bread and was extremely impressed with my meal. I followed it up with a dessert of strawberries and raspberries dusted with icing sugar.

I planned to make it again tonight but after shopping all day, I'm too tired to cook so it will have to be tomorrow night.

Labels: Indian, Thai

posted by Lauren @ 6:23 PM 0 comments

Time For Thai

You thought the eating was over? You would be wrong.

On Monday night, I went out with Hecy, Justina and Linda to Spices Thai restaurant.

I love me some Thai. We shared four dishes.

The "blackened beauty" - barbequed beef and vegetables in a tasty oyster sauce.

Chicken green curry

Chicken pad thai

Praram - chicken and vegetables in a delicious peanut sauce. This is my favourite Thai dish.

I dig into one of my favourite carbohydrates - rice!

Justina and I with the aftermath of our eating experience. This is just before I scooped up all that peanut sauce like a soup because I love me some peanut sauce.

We weren't that stuffed after so we went back to Linda's house where we finished of the ambrosia. Now I have a little bit of what I will call an "ambrosia belly". It's like a pot belly but much more pleasant sounding. I haven't listened but possibly it jiggles like ambrosia.

Linda, me and Hecy finish off the ambrosia.

Labels: dessert, Thai

posted by Lauren @ 6:07 PM 0 comments

My Last Meal Of The Year

I celebrated New Year's by going to a BBQ where I proceeded to have my last face stuff of the year. It took awhile to get the barbie going so Linda and I ate a ton of corn chips with salsa and dip, a couple of savories and some crackers with cheese.

Sometime around 9pm we all sat down at the table. This is what we ate.

Salad with feta cheese.

Steak and sausages

Honey soy chicken kebabs

Mince and mince and cheese savories

We were so stuffed by the time dessert rolled around that we couldn't eat much.

We did however consume Linda's home-made ambrosia, otherwise known as "Jenny Craig's Worst Nightmare". This gastronomic delight consists mainly of cream and yoghurt with some strawberries, marshmallows and chocolate chips thrown in. It's mostly fat with a little bit of nature. Lord knows how many calories are in this thing. I wouldn't want to know. We ate two bowls along with a couple of eclairs before we felt sick to the point that the word "ambrosia" made us groan. We had to sit carefully to take the pressure off our strained stomachs.

The delicious ambrosia.

Chocolate eclairs with bavarian cream

Dan, Tim, Felicity and I psych ourselves up for the eating.

Labels: bbq, dessert

posted by Lauren @ 5:31 PM 0 comments

Yum Cha

And the eating continues. Last Thursday I went out for my first yum cha meal in a long time. Eaters present were myself, Linda, Justina, Annelies and Sam.

My camera batteries died on me but Linda was nice enough to take pictures of some of the food. We got lazy and just decided to eat in the second half so not so many pictures.

Some kind of pork vegie thing and a shrimp vegetable dumpling.

Dumpling of some kind. The outside almost tasted like bread. I think the filling might have had a sweetish taste.

Mmm... sticky rice. One of my favourites. I don't think you could ever get sick of this.

For dessert we ate durian tarts and egg custard tarts. The durian tarts were interesting, like the fruit itself. At once custardy, fruity and savory. They weren't bad. I liked them initially but they tasted a little onion-y, for lack of a better description and there was only so much durian I could take. Of course, stopping the consumption of durian does not cease the taste of durian. No, it is a powerful substance indeed. It will find a way to invade your tastebuds - hiding in the corners of your mouth, resurfacing in yum cha burps. And you can't get rid of it no matter how many mints you eat. Beware the durian - a dangerous fruit. It's consumption is even banned in some hotel rooms on account of the smell.

It was a very tasty outing and I would do it again but not too soon because my body has already suffered enough damage in the last week. The price is definitely a bonus. We didn't eat a huge amount but we only spent $8 each.

Labels: Chinese, yum cha

posted by Lauren @ 5:19 PM 0 comments

Christmas Dinner

Now for the Porter family Christmas feast. We all went to my aunt's house where much food was delivered to my happy festive belly.

The dinner buffet - garlic bread, pesto and sun-dried tomato bread, cape seed bread, salad with a ton of feta cheese, potato salad, prawns, beetroot, ham, turkey, stuffing, potatoes, squid rings, mussels and possibly a few other things I can't see properly.

And the dessert. Chocolate log, strawberries, pineapple, pavlova, chocolates, cherries, ginger, cookies. And there was also brandy snaps with cream and Christmas fruit cake which I didn't manage to snap a picture of.

Mmm... I also had the tastiest dip made of sun-dried tomatoes and spinach. It was so good I just kept dunking and dunking those potato chips into it. I couldn't get enough.

Labels: Christmas, dessert

posted by Lauren @ 5:07 PM 0 comments

Christmas Breakfast

It seems like it is tradition to do a lot of eating in the last few days of the year. It's kinda like you have to get all the indulgence out of the way so you can give your full attention to New Year's resolutions like eating healthier.

Christmas Day is definitely a feastage day. Our family started the day with a fantastic breakfast of mint chocolate chip pancakes, croissants, bacon and eggs. Definitely filled me up til dinner time.

Home-made mint chocolate chip pancakes with chocolate syrup. Also tasty with maple syrup.

A flat pancake to show it's chocolate chips. Probably could have done with some more.

Chicken bacon.

Croissants

Labels: breakfast, Christmas, pancakes

posted by Lauren @ 4:04 PM 0 comments

Tuesday, January 02, 2007

Harajuku Birthday Yumminess

I realized that I never posted any pictures of the glorious gastronomic delights featured at my Harajuku birthday party so here they are:

The dinner buffet including rice, teriyaki chicken, mince savories, kumara and potato, nigiri sushi, salmon sushi, teriyaki chicken sushi, mini spring rolls, squid rings, garlic bread, sausage rolls, kebabs and probably a bit more. The ultimate party fare. Even less leftovers than the year before so it must have gone down well.

And my fave part, the dessert (not such a good shot because it had to be taken quickly before the masses ascended upon it) including chocolate mud cake, coconut pie, cream, watermelon, strawberries, after-dinner mints, pavlova, eclairs and green tea icecream.