Perth 2013 - Day 6 - Swan Valley

Merry Christmas to all from Perth, Swan Valley. 

We woke up without any alarm - not sure if it was due to us sleeping relatively early the previous night or just that our bio clock was simply still working on our holidays. But well, the sun rose quite early in Swan Valley that we actually got a shock that we overslept. It was only 7 plus. So, we washed up and were all ready for our first hand experience at the farm!

It was really great to be out at the farm, though we did not really help much. All I did was questions after questions to learn more about the farm. But the close encounters with the farm animals were great. I never seen a hen with its eggs next to it, never seen the cows fighting food with the sheep. Even the hungry pigs made me laugh at its sight. Milking the cow seems really easy but we did not pluck up enough courage to try it on this very morning. Well, we did the next day and I was so glad I did!  

Farm Life @ Keller's

After the tour, we went back to our room and Marija served the breakfast in a trolley. So cool! And they have used ingredients right from their farm and garden - Imagine the fresh eggs, fresh milks and even the bread and jams were made from scratch! Lovely touch to a homestay, I have to admit!

Our breakfast with a view

After breakfast, we borrowed bicycles from Keller's for our tour around the area. Remember that I mentioned that it was Christmas, so most of the shops or rather all the shops were closed except for petrol station. How bad this was, right? And the temperature was really high that Philip had offered that if we felt tired and were not  able to continue our tour by the bikes, we could give him a call to pick us up. And he was to have his Christmas lunch with their family living nearby. How thoughtful they were, don't you agree? And that they have humbly mentioned that their bikes were old. But Philip changed new tyres for us. Oh great!

And so, we packed our water and our food and off we went. the traffic lights weren't that great in Swan Valley and it was not very direct. To cross to the next street, we would have to take a long detour and remembered, it was along the expressway. Not a very good experience especially under the hot sun. Own time Own target, we managed to roam through the town and get back to Keller's safely. Here's some of the pictures I took. There are many routes that you can walk and the maps can be found here. 

A tour around the Guildford Town

Back at Keller's was like heaven. We desperately need the aircon and rest. And whille, Philip and family were not back yet. We have earlier asked them if we could do some BBQ and they do have a BBQ equipment. But we decided to go easy with the cooking and here you go, our Christmas dinner we prepared - a simple and yet filling dinner for both of us. 

Our very own homecooked christmas dinner

Luncheon Egg Sanwich

Mummy's not cooking and so it's the day to make my own simple lunch. Judging from the ingredients at home, i decided to make a Luncheon egg sandwich. A very easy, simple dish but it is also simply delicious. 

Well, like what I had mentioned before, cooking is also mood - dependent and according to the chef's preference - thus, here's my ingredients for the day:

Ingredients:

Bread - 2 slices

Luncheon Meat - size of your delight

Egg - 1 or 2 depending on your preference - i used 1

Butter or Cooking oil - I used butter

Steps:

1. Toast the breads

2. While step 1 is in progress, beat the egg(s) in a bowl. Add salt and pepper if you wish

3. Heat up the pan and put butter

4. After it melted, pan fry the luncheon meat

5. After that, add more butter and pour in the egg 

6. When all's done, cut it into halves for easy- eating!

As simple as 1,2,3!

Ch4r's Luncheon Egg Sandwich

I am now exploring some recipes. Hopefully I can cook soon!

Homecook Japanese Chicken Curry Rice

Cooking day when I decided to take a break from work. As sis has some leftover japanese curry cubes, I decided to cook Japanese Curry Rice. Simple recipe to follow:

Ingredients:

1/2 tablespoon  olive oil

1/2 onions, diced - you can add more if you like onions, original recipe recommends 2 medium onions

2 medium potatoes, cubed

1 carrots, cubed - original recipe mentioned 2

Some Rice cakes (optional)

Chicken, pork or beef, cubed - I just prepared the quantity that I think we will finish - original recipe says 250g

700ml water

60g curry roux brick, mild

60g curry roux brick, hot

Ingredients - Carrot, Potato, Rice Cakes

Chicken 

Directions:

1. Heat the pot for a while and add olive oil and fry the onions until they are fragrant (2 minutes or so)

2. Add the potatoes, carrots, rice cakes and meat and continue to stir fry until the meat is cooked (about 5 minutes)

3. Add water and bring the mixture to a boil before cooking it on medium heat for about 20 minutes or when the meat is tender.

4. Remove the pot from the flame and add the curry roux bricks and stir until the curry is well mixed.

5. Stew the curry over low heat until it thickens (about 15-20 minutes)

And after an hour or so, here's our very own Japanese Chicken Curry Rice. Yummy!

Our very own Japanese Chicken Curry Rice

Basically, you can add in other ingredients that you like and create your own version of curry rice. For example, eggplants, broccoli, or even seafood. But do take note about the cooking time just in case some ingredients get cooked faster than the others. Manage your timing well and you can really enjoy cooking and of course, the end product - your yummy food!

Topokki

Cooking again and this time round, Topokki, or commonly known as Korean Rice Cake. It is really very simple to cook. I bought the Rice Cake and the Hot Pepper Paste from the Shine Korean supermarket at Marina Square. Initially, I only intended to buy the Hot Pepper Paste to prepare Kimchi Soup at home. After walking round the supermarket, I saw the Rice Cake and decided to buy it as well since I can cook it with the Hot Pepper Paste.

I followed the recipe behind the packaging. But since I am not cooking the whole packet, I was trying my luck to estimate the quantity of the ingredients to be used.

1. Rice cakes - number to your liking
2. Water - Estimate it to your best ability. I guess 100ml for a cup of Rice cakes is fine
3. Starch - I used corn starch and add a bit of water
4. Hot Pepper Paste - according to how hot you want the topokki to be

Wash the rice cakes using cold water. Mix all of the above except rice cakes in a bowl and stir it. Make sure they are well mixed. Heat the mixture using a plan and when it is boiling, add in the rice cakes and stir. Scoop them up when the rice cakes absorbed the sauce.

The ingredients

Here's my Topokki. Not too bad for a beginner. Maybe it is time to look for some other ingredients to go with the Topokki. For information, I think this dish needs to be eaten while it is hot. Otherwise, the sauce will start to clot. 

My Topokki

Popiah @ home

Mummy loves to prepare Popiah, otherwise known as spring roll. I guess she just has to prepare all the ingredients and it will up to us to decide what we want to eat. However, preparation of the ingredients is not easy at all. Mummy needs to cut and grate the ingredients and cook them. I guess the preparation time for this dish is equivalent to cooking a proper meal and it requires more effort. 

Mummy stewed the radish with carrot, boiled the prawns, bean spouts and crabmeat, fried the egg and beancurd and roasted and pounded the peanut. As for sauce, there are sambal chili and prawn paste and not forgetting the sweet flour sauce.

The ingredients

And then, it is up to the individual to decide what goes into our very own popiah. Normally, I will be very greedy and will add all the ingredients into my popiah. This is how the freshly wrapped Popiah looks like. 

The finished product

And when there is leftover ingredients, this is what Mummy would do. She will prepare the spring rolls and have them deep-fried. This is how versatile this dish is. We can eat it the healthy way where we could taste the freshness of the ingredients. Alternatively, we can have them deep fried to enjoy the crispness of the popiah. I love both the cooking methods. They each have their own uniqueness. Eat this fried version with the sweet flour sauce - is nice! 

Fried Popiah

Annyeonghaseyo Kimchi

Kimchi from South Korea

Bro bought back a packet of Kimchi from the Kimchi motherland. A big pack of Kimchi that could last us for a few meals. We tried the Kimchi fresh from the packet. Fresh and nice. Though it is packed from Korea, it did not lose its freshness. Crunchy, sour and spicy is all to describe this kimchi. 

Kimchi

Love it but we are not like the Koreans who will eat Kimchi at every meal. Thus, we got to think of ways to cook the Kimchi such that we will not feel sick of it. We have thought of cooking Kimchi Tofu Soup, Army stew, Kimchi instant noodle etc. Now here, mummy went to fry rice with kimchi. Something that we did not thought of cooking.

Here we go. Mummy's own version of Kimchi Fried Rice and I added some seaweed to it. Delicious and nice. The kimchi is really fresh. Sour and spicy but refreshing taste added to the fried rice.

Kimchi Fried Rice

Here's the Kimchi Yong Tau Foo Soup with noodle. Kimchi added a bit of favours to the already delicious yong tau foo broth that Mummy cooked.

Kimchi Yong Tau Foo 

Pretty sure Kimchi can go with any kind of dishes and we aren't sick of it (yet). I think the Koreans really succeed in inventing this kimchi.

I guess there will be more kimchi dishes coming out of our kitchen soon!

My very own version of Big Breakfast!

Woke up early in the morning and decided to do up a breakfast for sis and myself. I decided the menu to be scrambled egg, toast bread and hotdog. 

I have not tried cooking scrambled eggs before and had to Google for an easy to follow recipe. I love the technology when I need instant search on something. Luckily I have all the ingredients it needs for cooking scrambled eggs at home.

For the toast bread and hotdog, just put them into the oven or microwave. As simple as that. Who says preparing breakfast is tough?

For the scrambled eggs, I looked at the recipe and improvised a bit. For 1 person's serving, the ingredients required are:

1. 2 eggs

2. 2 tablespoon of fresh milk

3. A pinch of salt (to my liking)

I did not add any ground pepper as I thought this should be added according to each person's preference. So we added the pepper when we were about to start feasting. 

Directions:
1. Whisk the eggs and milk using a fork and add a pinch of salt.

2. Heat the pan over medium heat. Pour the egg mixture in and wait for 5 seconds. Then I started stirring and cutting up the eggs as I am afraid that it will get burnt on the bottom. Continue until you find that the eggs are cooked to your liking.By the way, I use Olive oil instead of normal cooking oil.

And here we go. Our breakfast is ready!

My very own version of Big Breakfast

Cooking isn't really that hard, but I guess the cleaning and washing up is the dreadful part. Got to thank Mummy for helping to clean up the mess. After the scrambled eggs was done, she had cleaned up the utensils I used during the preparation. 

Anyway, here's the actual scrambled egg recipe I improvised from. And maybe, I should start preparing breakfast (at least once a month) for the family soon. 

Cooking Journey - Muah Chee

One of my all times favourite snack from childhood till now is Muah Chee. It is a simple snack made of glutinous rice flour with peanut powder. We can always buy at the pasar malam (stalls at night market) or at the carnival stalls. It costs around S$2 for a small packet and you can never get enough of it.  

Bff L, suggested cooking muah chee after stumbling upon a simple recipe. 'It just takes minutes' was her reply. I wondered if that was true but we decided to go ahead with her plan. We have got nothing to lose but lots to gain if we manage to master it. To our surprise,  it is really easy to prepare muah chee at home. Trust me. All we need are ingredients and a microwave.

While enjoying our delicious homecooked muah chee, we chatted about opening a stall to sell it. We dreamt of making big bucks together and at the same time, able to enjoy our favourite snacks. Great bonding session with bffs!

Seriously,  it never occurred to me to prepare this snack at home. Maybe that's why we always look forward to getting it whenever we pass by such stall. Went home and told mummy about it. And guess what. She mentioned that when grandfather used to be around, he loved to cook it at home too but was using the wok and not microwave. Oh man, I don't recall eating the homemade muah chee by grandfather.

I guess maybe it's time that I asked Mummy to cook this for me soon or rather maybe I will do it for her instead. 

Muah Chee

You can find the recipe here.

Happy Birthday, BFF J!

BFF J's birthday was over and we had yet to celebrate the day with her due to the working schedules we all had. Finally, we decided on 10th Aug which was over the long weekend. Decided to have a BBQ at L's place but due to some mis-communication, we did not manage to get a pit. So L decided to cook for us instead. Not a bad decision after all, since she is a GREAT cook. 

We met up before the dinner for a swim. Really need to get rid of the fats in order to load more later on during the dinner.

Menu was out a just before the day. And here we ate:

1. Baked Salmon with herbs

Heard from her that the salmon was brought back from Germany by her daddy. The salmon is really fresh tender and it tasted slightly like smoked salmon. Wonder what went into the marination process! Have to admit that baking is really a great healthy cooking method. 

Baked Salmon with herbs 

2. Pesto Pasta with mushrooms

Not into the different types of pasta, but I guess L cooked the Fettuccine this time round. Normally I do not go for this pasta as it is flat and in my opinion, it does not give me that chewy feeling. However, I was wrong. This pasta was chewy and great. The mushrooms were well hidden beneath the pasta and it was stir fried with garlic earlier on. With the pesto sauce, all ingredients were then mixed together to form this dish. 

Pesto Pasta

3. Broccoli Soup

What's more to say about the soup. Does not have the broccoli taste and it is thick and nice. This soup was the 'HOT' item on the table and the last person had to scrap in order to enjoy the last spoon of it!

Broccoli Soup

4. Millie Crepe with Nutella

Baking is fun and non-oven cake is really amusing me. I always wanted to try some of those non-oven baked cake but I am getting lazy to get my hands started. Maybe I should really start to try out some recipes before I hit back the normal office hours work. 

Okay, back to the Millie Crepe. I read it up and it seems simple but time consuming. It takes a bit of patience to get the crepe ready. How many crepes to cook depends on how many layers we want the end product to be. This is a great dessert after the sumptuous meal. L never fails to wow us with her desserts. I love this!  

Millie Crepe with nutella

Time for home, time to depart. Goodbye till we meet again for home cooked food!

Cooking Journey - Mushroom Risotto

It all started when I saw BFF L's, facebook picture of homecooked risotto. A whatsapp message was all we needed  and off we went to her place for a homecook dinner.

I love cooking and cooking with friends is fun. Or rather, I can join in the cooking process as and well I like it. I do not have to execute the whole cooking process to enjoy the meal.

Mushroom risotto was what we set for the menu. L mentioned that it will take around half an hour from the preparation to the end product for the dinner. Okay, I trusted her as I have not cooked risotto before. 

So she gave the instructions for us to chop the different types of mushrooms into a small-bites size. I volunteered to chop as I thought it was the simplest task. And as I chopped, the portion got bigger and I was rather stunned that I questioned L. She replied it's fine. The horror part was that we had extra servings of risotto in the end that I could bring home some for brother's supper.

Next up was the cooking of risotto.  Step by step, we followed instructions. It wasn't difficult to cook risotto but it requires patience as each step takes time to add the ingredients and to stir them together.

It all paid off when it's time to serve dinner.  I guess due to the extra big portion of risotto,  we took an hour to cook instead of her usual half an hour. But I loved our homecooked risotto! Delicious and I looked forward to our next cooking gathering.

Mushroom Risotto

I'm not sure where BFF L got her recipe from, but you can take a look at Jamie Oliver's recipe. 

http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/rice-recipes/a-basic-risotto-recipe