Sunday 17 March 2013

Phuket Trip2

 
 
More phuket pictures
 
 

Hotel Resort

 
 
The view from the hotel swimming pool
 
 
 
 
 
Art Market!

 

I bought some cool post cards, an eco bag, key chains, notebooks etc etc.




A lot of food stalls and hand craft shops and clothes shops and MORE!!!
 
There were lots of local students hanging out after school.
Some students were playing music on the stage too.
 
 
 
I did my nails here!
 
The lady didn't understand English,
but she had a friend who could speak English and we successfully communicated :)
 


Yay!
 
 


 

 
 
My First Thai Cooking Class in Kata!!!
 
 
My boyfriend knows that I looooove cooking and so he secretly booked a cooking class for us.
I didn't expect this at all! It was so fun and exciting! 
 
 
 
Welcome snack :
Thai spring roll.
Let's get it started!





I learnt and made 3 famous Thai food at Kelly's Cooking Class in Kata.
 
Kelly explained different kinds of spicies and ingredients they use for Thai cooking.
Then we all went through her recipe first, then started preparing the dishes.
 
 
 
 
First, 

My Very First Green Curry!!
Not from a package, I made it from scratch!!!
 
It was so so so delicious!!!
 
 
 
 
 
Then, this is the chicken pad thai I made :)
It was sooo delicious tooooo!
I couldn't finish it all so took it away and ate it for dinner later on.
 

 
 
Tom Yum Soup


I put less chillies but it was still very spicy!
But I liked the sour taste of the soup.
 
 
We had the cooking lesson with a french couple.
The lady found it too spicy but the man loved it!
 
 




 
 
Other pictures....


 
 
Feeding bananas to Mar Mar (The elephant's name)
 
 
 
 
 
 
Local students :)

 
 
 
Electric wires looking dangerous...

 
 
 
Finally,
the Big Biddha!!
 
 
 
 
 
This Buddha is still under construction.
People from all over the world have been donating money to finish up this buddha.
I saw some Japanese yen displayed on the donation wall together with many other foreign currencies.

Phuket Trip

 I went to Phuket back in January.
 It was my first time visitingTailand.

 
 
I made a breakfast box and ate it at the airport.
 
*Onigiri (rice balls)
*Japanese rolled egg with seaweed
*Chikuwa&carrots tempura
*Fried chicken
*Pickled radish
*Mini tomatoes
 


 
 
Welcome to Phuket!
 
 
 
 
Our first meal in Phuket.
Pad Thai
 
 
 
 
 
Green Curry




Pinapple juice!



 
 
 
 
The wather was sunny sunny all the way till we left Phuket.
 
Nice weather
 


 
 
Cute elephants


 
 
 
 
 
 
Back to food

Thai Burger

 
 
 
 
 
Noodles in soup
(I don't know what it is called but it was a little bit sourish and tasty!)
 
&
 
Basil chicken
(It tasted different from the basil chicken I usually eat in Singapore but this tasted awesome!)






We ate lunch at the kata beach but didn't swim there.
It was a way too hot for me.
 
After I went to Phuket, I realized that I was not a beach person...haha
 
But I really enjoyed my time in Phuket.
people were always so polite, friendly and helpful.
I loved the people and their bowing culture too!

Tuk tuk is an open air taxi.
It is like a small truck with a roof on top.
 
It was quite scary to ride it especially when they drove pretty fast...
 
 
 


Weekend lunch: Shyogayaki Pork and Pickled Cucumber

 
Saturday Lunch
 
 
*Ginger Pork  (Shyogayaki Pork)
*Pickled Cucumber
 
 


 
Pickled Cucumer Recipe
 
Ingredients
*Japanese cucumber 1
*salt 2 shakes
*Sesame oil 1 tea spoon
*Tobanjyan 1 tea spoon
 
 
Instructions
 
1. Cut the cucumber into edible sizes, add salt and leave it for a while.
2. Get rid of the water came out of the cucumber. 
3. Add the sesame oil and Tobanjyan, mix well and keep it in the fridge before you eat.


Wednesday 13 March 2013

Cold chicken shabu shabu salad dinner and my sister is back!

 
Today's Dinner
 
 
 
*Cold shabu shabu salad with chicken, tofu, cucumber and tomatoes
*Spinach marinated in sweet black sesame sauce
*Spinach & fried beancurd ohitashi
*Japanese sweet rolled eggs
*Multi grain rice
 
 

I was going to make ginger pork but changed my mind and went to buy chicken instead!
 
 
My sister was back home from Yamaguchi!
I talked to her over skype today and saw her face after almost 6 monthes of not seeing her!
Even though I'm  not physically there with my family in Japan, I felt that all of us are back together again!
 
Skype and video calls are such amazing inventions... :)
 

Hamburger steaks in creamy tomato stew

 
The other half of the hamburger steaks
 
 
 
* Hamburger steaks in creamy tomato stew
* Cherry tomatoes, okura, seaweekd salad
*Multi grain rice




I made a lot of hamburger steaks few days ago and turned half of them into Japanese style hamburger steaks and I cooked the rest in the creamy tomato stew.

 

Ingredients for the creamy tomato stew sauce


*Water
*Soup stock (I used 2 cubes of maggi buiyon)
*Tomato ketchup-half a cup
*Fresh cream-5 table spoons
*Cheese-some
*Herbs-some


Instructions


1.Place hamburger steaks in a pod, pour water till it just covers all the hamburger steaks. Heat up a pod and bring it to boil, then add the soup stock and the tomato ketchup. Place a lid and cook in low to medium fire for 10 mins or so. Stir sometimes so that you don't burn the hamburger steaks.

2. Put the rest of the ingredients in the pod and cook for another 5 mins or so with the lid on.





Sunday 10 March 2013

Ginger & Plum Sweet Japanese Style Hamburger Steak

 
Tonight's dinner
 
 
 
* Multi-grain rice
*Ginger&Plum Sweet Japanese Style Hamburger Steaks
*Sliced cabbages with sesame dressing
 
 
 


 
 
Whenever I make a Japanese style hamburger steak,
I will make a shaved radish sauce.
 
But today, I didn't have a radish at home so thought of making a new sauce to try..
It turned out very delicious!
 
 
By the way, I made about 8 hamburger steaks and  turned 3 ouf of 8 into this Japanese style ones 
and made the rest into a tomato stewed hamburger steaks.
 
 
 

 

Ingredients for the basic hamburger steaks

 
Minced pork 600g
Onion 1/2
Egg 1
Bread crumbs 5 table spoons
Mixed Herbs 1 table spoons
Butter 1 tea spoon

 

Ingredients for the ginger & plum sauce

*Plum salad dressing 3 table spoons 
*Minced Ginger marinated in mirin and soya sauce
(whenever I buy gingers, I chop them into small pieces and put them in a small jar,
pour soya sauce and mirin and keep them in the fridge.)
 
 
Nice-to-have-add-ons
*Tarako mayonaise
*Pickled plum
 
 

Instructions

1. Mince onions. Heat up a pan with the 1 tea spoon of butter, stir fry the onions. Once the colour of the onions turned yellow, put off the fire.
2. Put rest of the hamburger steak ingredients into a bowl, mix well.
Once the onions are cooled down, add them in, mix well, and make the hamburger shapes.
3. Heat up the pan again with some oil, cook the hamburger steaks. Once they are well cooked, take them out of the pan, serve on a plate. Pour the sauce before you eat!
 
 


Girls Talk at Hard Rock Cafe

 
I had a hair cut in the morning, then went to Hard Rock Cafe with my friend!
 
 
Our farourite Nachos...
It is so huge that we can never finish it...


 
We also ordered some salad.
Chicken, avocados, onions, cabbages, tomatoes, herbs etc...
 
It was refreshing and went well with nachos.
 
 
There were a few rock bands rehearsing in the cafe for tonight's(?) show.
They were good but sometimes their music went too loud that we couldn't hear each other...
So we had to stop our conversation and wait till their music became softer...
 
My friend had some good news to share with me and we had a long fun girl's talk! :)
 
Happy Saturday!
 


Crispy Saba Fritter Sandwiches

 
Crispy Saba fritter with sweet tomato sauce on the next day...
 
 
 
Saba Fritter Sandwiches & Scrambled Eggs
 
 



Wednesday 6 March 2013

My Favourite Crispy Saba Fish Fritter Cooked in 2 Different Yummy Sauce Dinner

 
Tonight's dinner
 
 
 
*Crispy Saba Fritters marinated in  2 different yummy sauces
*Yuzu pepper Okura
*White rice
 

 
 
The one on top is saba with sweet tomato sauce.
The one at the bottom is saba with ginger soya sauce.

 
 
The tomato sauce saba tastes like sweet sour pork
and the ginger soya sauce saba tastes like kabayaki.
Both were very delicious!
 
 
 
 
 
 
Few weeks back, my boyfriend went to a supermarket somewhere far,
somehwere so called "Singapore's countryside" with his friends.
 
He bought me some frozen saba from there. :)
 
 
So I decided to cook it today.
 
 
Whenever I cook saba, I make saba no miso ni.
It is a saba dish marinated and cooked in miso sauce.
 
 
Today I realized that I left my miso at my boyfriend's house.
So I decided to do something else.
 
 
 
I had 3 big pieces of saba fillets, so decided to cook in 2 different sauce.
In this way, I won't get sick of it! :)
 
 
 
 

Ingredients

 
*3 slices of saba fillets
(If using frozen saba fillets, please defrost them before you use)
*Some corn starch
 
Tomato sauce ingredients: 3 table spoons of tomato ketchup, 2 table spoons of mirin, 2 table spoons of sugar, 5 table spoons of water
 
Ginger soya sauce ingredients: Minced ginger 1 table spoon, 3 table spoons of soya sauce, 5 table spoons of mirin
 
 
 

Instructions 

 
1. Pour boiling water on saba (to get rid of the smell).
Slice saba into eatable pieces, take out bones as much as possible
 
2. Put corn starch around saba and pan fry them with roughly about 5 table spoons of oil.
Once you take out the cooked saba from the pan, wash the pan.
 
3. Pour all the tomato sauce ingredients in the clean pan and bring it to boil. Meanwhile, if you have another pan, heat it up and pour all the soya sauce ingredients in the pan and bring it to boil
 
4. Once the sauce starts to boil, place saba in the pans.
Flip the saba sometimes to let it absorb the sauce.


Tuesday 5 March 2013

Sunday feast with friends

Lunch from last sunday

 
My boyfriend invited our friends over lunch last sunday.
They are Vegetarian.
 So we cooked vegetarian dishes - except for dumplings- for our vegetarian friends.
 
*Tempura  (pumpkins, eggplants, onions & carrots
*Agedashi tofu
*Chijimi
*miso soup with deep fried bean curd, carrots & onions
*Japanese sweet egg rolls
*pork dumplings (Sorry! for ourselves only)
 
My bf's mum made vegetarian beefun (very YUM!)
Our friend made an Indian dish called Aloo gobi masala (Cauliflower dish, very YUM!)
 
Yes it was a feast! I stuffed myself. So satisfying!


My boyfriend also baked a chocolate cheese cake for dessert...
it was thick and creamy and so so delicious...
 
I ate 3 pieces.
 
I couldn't resist!
 
 Now I'm thinking about it...I'm getting hungry again...
 
 
 
 
 
After the huge delicious meal, we played Monopoly deal card game!!
It was really fun!
 
We playd a few rounds and my boyfriend left for Australia afterwards.
We should organize another lunch party or picnic when he comes back! :)