Last night, I post about my little adventure with potato and sweetcorn soup. It was cheap, the cost of the soup was only 3 dollars and I made enough to feed myself for a week and more. I think as a student living alone overseas, you really need to be frugal at times. (I have to admit though, frugality is not my strong point).

Anyway, few days ago, I was walking in the market and I came across these lovely butternut squash for just AU 90C each! Unbelievable price :D Naturally, feeling that I had stumbled upon a good bargain, I bought the squash without really thinking what I am going to do with it. Pie, custard, panna cotta, soup or as a side dish. So much possibilities.

Anyway, soup we shall make from the lovely squash (courge in French) and here I offer two vesion of it. :D

Soupe de Courge a la Vanille
(Butternut squash and Vanilla Soup)
note: this was taken from the lovely chocolate and zucchini foodblog and modded

2 white onion, sliced it
200g or 2 medium potatoes (choose a floury kind, like Russet)
1 tbsp pure vanilla extract (or if you got a rich pantry, 1 vanilla bean, scrapped)
1.2kg butternut squash
120ml liquid cream
1.5 litre chicken stock or water
salt and pepper
100g butter, room temp and diced

Peel and cut butternut squash into pieces or alternatively, after you have scraped out the seeds and membranes, steam it whole until soft and just scrape out the flesh from the skin afterwards.

Peel and cut potatoes into pieces.

Saute the onion but do not caramelised it until soft. If you don't want it to have any oils at all, don't saute the onion but just boil it together with the squash and potatoes.

Now, bring to boil in a stockpot, the liquid, squash, potatoes and onion. Once boiled, reduce to a simmer and cook til both the potatoes and squash are soft.

Pulse the soup with a handheld mixer until fine. Add more liquid and bring to boil if its too thick. Stir in the vanilla and butter cubes and pulse. The butter is to give the soup that shiny and smooth texture and also makes the soup more sweet, believe it or not.

Stir in cream. Season to taste. Voila!


Pumpkin Soup with Sage Pesto

1kg butternut squash, peeled, seeded and chopped
2 medium sized floury potatoes, cut into pieces
2 large onion, chopped
1.5 litre chicken stock or water (depends on how skrimpy you are :D)
125 ml cream
few knobs of butter
pinch of nutmeg
salt and pepper

In a stock pot, bring to boil butternut, potatoes and onion together with the stock. Once boiled, bring to low heat and simmer til vegetables are soft.
Pulse soup til smooth with a handheld mixer.
Season with salt and pepper and nutmeg.
Throw in the few knobs of butter and pulse the soup to incorporate it.
Stir in cream.

SAGE PESTO

8g fresh sage
20g flat leaf parsley
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 tablespoon toasted pinenuts
30g toasted walnuts (optional)
4 tbsp olive oil
1/2 tsp salt or fleur de sel
25g grated parmesan

In a food processor, process the sage, parsley, garlic, nuts, oil and salt until smooth.
Transfer to a small bowl and stir in parmesan. Season to taste.

Serve the pumpkin soup with a dollop of the pesto.

Serving suggestions: To accompany the two butternut recipe, you can have some savoury muffins as a side dish. Here is a recipe for caramelised onion muffins.

CARAMELISED ONION MUFFINS
the recipe yields 12 muffins (approx 125ml size each)

50g butter
3 red onions, thinly sliced
1 tbsp soft brown sugar
250g self raising flour
Note: if you do not have self raising flour, use the same amount of plain flour and add in 1/2 tsp baking powder with 1/4 tsp baking soda
3 tbsp chopped fresh basil
90g grated cheddar
1 egg (about 55g) lightly beaten
1 tbsp olive oil
315 ml milk

Preheat oven 190C/375F.
Lightly grease 12 muffin holes with softened butter or if you are using muffin cups, then you do not need to grease the muffin moulds.
Melt butter over low heat, add onion, cook stirring until very soft.
Add the sugar, and cook, stirring continously for 2 minutes. Let cool.
Sift flour into a large bowl, stir in basil and cheese and season to taste.
Combine egg, milk and oil. Mix finely. Make a well in the flour, and pour in the milk mixture.
Add in 3/4 of the onion mixture.
Fold gently until just combined. The batter should be lumpy.
Spoon mixture into the prepared moulds and top with the remaining onions.
Bake 20-25 minutes or until risen and golden and when a skewer is inserted, comes out clean.

Labels: cheap eats, recipe, soup

COLD COLD COLD COLD MELBOURNE WINTER!

So what do you reckon we need to fight the winter blues? Lots of warm tasty soups!
Now, I have been quite inspired lately to make soups. They make good fill-me-up for my lunch breaks and immensely cheap to make. You be aghast by the kind of price people are paying for soups in melbourne.

Last week, I made potato and sweet corn soup. It was totally unplanned. I was walking round and round the Safeway supermarket in my area mulling over what to get, as I walked around the veg section, I was thinking potato and leek soup. But you need bacon for that, and I do not want to buy 100g of bacon only to use a slice. So, I dropped the idea.

Still wandering around Safeway, and holding 2 big potatoes, I came across some canned sweetcorn on sale. Not bad. AU 1.29 for 420g. Let's buy a can!


Anyway, my housemate reckon I should write recipes for fellow students that are looking for recipes that is budget but yet healthy and delicious. Well, I have to say this potato and sweetcorn soup is restaurant grade :D

POTATO AND SWEETCORN SOUP

300g potatoes (use potatoes thats good for mashing)
1/4 white onion
2 litre chicken stock
420g sweet corn
100ml liquid cream
100g butter

Peel and cut potatoes into cubes.
Slice the onions.
Together with the chicken stock, bring to boil with the potatoes and onion, once boil, simmer until potatoes starts to be soft. Add in 3/4 can of sweetcorn, reserving the other 1/4 for garnish later.
Mash the potatoes with fork as you simmer and using a handheld mixer, pulse the soup until fine, if its too thick, add more stock and bring to boil. Add in butter and pulse with the mixer and finish with cream.

Stir in remaining sweetcorn for that crunchy bite.

Next Stop: Soup fun with butternut squash.

Labels: cheap eats, recipe, soup

Labels: recipe

"You kept me going round and round"

I am an INF/TJ. I took the test for one last time, deliberating very long and carefully over the questions and my answers. I have equal amount of F and T.

I should ask the good people that created the MBTI test, how many times do you reckon you need to take to be sure of who you are? Since it is all scientific based, why does it differs? The results of probabilities more than accurate statistics?

Still, it makes absolute sense now. As I was reading and re-reading Keirsey's book, I found myself couldn't quite agree to the specific type that I was suppose to be in. Personality should be contextual, because facing our friends, we are on a different character and facing our parents or even our job, we are behaving differently. Then again, some will argue that the type of personality(ies) that we have are the base to how we approach different people and situations.

I find that I tend to be too warped up in my own world most of the time. Sometimes, I feel that I have lost that connection with the real world. Half the time, I tend to block myself out because the real happening world are not up to my expectation or even that I am not up to the expectation. I honestly believes that for the half quarter of the century, I have just been floating along.

Life had not been easy with ups and downs, but somehow I just floated through it. Somehow.

Still, for most of the time, I reckon that when meeting people and making friends or even towards my parents, I always have an ideal of how people should behave in my world. For most of the time, I became quite disappointed when they do not turned out to be how I expected them to be. It has not stop me from idealising though.

Now, I understand that my personality is what causes me to be like this half the time. An idealist with too much ideals and not enough practicalities. (See, I told you I just float :D)

Still, it has been said that throughout periods of our lives, we will develop different parts of our personalities and certain people might even developed a more dominant opposite side. I reckon for some times now, my "T" (analytical) is developing and in some parts, overwhelming my "F" (feeling) side.

The amazing thing is, I am really and INFJ. lol. INFJ only made up of 1% of of the world, out of the other 16 types of Myer-Briggs personalities. I reckon that is why I found it so hard to be able to find somebody that I am able to really really connect to?

Everytime you reckon that you did find somebody, they most of the time turns out to be just fool's gold. But, statistics had also shown that INFJ(s) has the highest number of dissatisfaction in regarding towards relationship in their lives. So, I AM DOOMED!

Our wants and desires really does differs so much from what reality can offers. :/

In my world, I am happy and content. In the real world, I ask, what is happiness? I am happy from many simple things in life. But then again, sometimes I became really down and really doubt myself. You reckon if you are truly happy you will be feeling like that?

Lord, I ask for more faith in you and in myself.

Being surrounded by people all the time is really tiring. I like my environment to be really quiet and peaceful because inside my head, its an ongoing chaos all the time. I talk to myself inside my head all the time, either that or I have alot of commentaries going on inside there. But its funny how I like to go about doing things with my headphones blaring out music real loud. How you reckon to be peace and quiet when the music is so loud in your ears?

Simple, the music locked me out of other noises. Being enveloped by this repeating sound and then it will slowly diminishes and will be left with just me and me. Nothing else. How lovely.

I also find that i study better and are more productive and creative at night. Its the surrounding, that quietness. If only daytime can produce that kind of peace nightfall can produce.

I reckon, I volunteer for isolation if somebody offers to pay me to do it. :D

People chases you and you chases after other people. Why are we always after something that we cannot have?

I been in a tizz for the past few weeks. Really tizzy as I reckon that I will never understand any kind of men and boys. Never good dealing with them and try trying to understand one, Lol, I know I am not the only one out there trying to understand this alien species. Mr. Men, what are you? (You can see me flogging a white flag) I blank out and retreat back to my shell. Retreat... retreat... retreat...

It is ok to march to a different beat.

I misses the simple times...


Also, people, what kind of food taste nice? I been asked that one too many times. Remember, when you cook with sincerity. It has to come from your heart, your sincerity in wanting the person receiving it to enjoy and be happy with it. One thing about cooking for me, seeing people smiles and be happy and really enjoy what I serve them, that keeps me cooking.

Today, I botched up the first batch of cupcakes. Made a second recipe. They turns out really lovely. Pictures, I reckon I'll put them up in facebook. But, its good to share the recipe.

Vanilla Cupcakes
(yield approximately 28 tiny cupcakes, 8 large cupcakes)

150g butter, softened.
150g castor sugar
175g flour
1/2 tsp bicarbonate soda
1/3 tsp baking powder
3 whole eggs (approx 55g each)
1 tsp vanilla essence
125 ml milk.

Whip butter and sugar til creamy, add in egg, 1 at a time, and beat til well combined.
Add in dry ingredients part by part and again mix til well combined.
Lastly, add in milk and vanilla essence and mix well to combine.

Pipe into cupcake cups and bake in 180C oven for 18-25 minutes or until risen and firm to touch. Alternately, you can insert a skewer into them, if it comes out clean, it is done.

Vanilla Frosting
115g butter (softened)
1-1/2 cup (170g) icing/confectioner's sugar
1 tsp vanilla essence
2 tbsp milk

Beat butter until creamy and sift in icing sugar.
Beat to combine well. Add vanilla essence and milk. Beat to combine.
Scoop into a piping bag fitted with a star nozzle and decorate your cupcakes.
You can also garnish it as you like.

Note: As the cupcake recipe is a very basic cupcake recipe, it goes along well with plenty of different types of frosting flavours. I recommend also to drizzle the cupcakes in a flavoured syrup to make them moist AND yummy then top with frosting of choice. :D

Music reflects the state of mind. 6pm and it is dark and cold! How hateful...

Noah and the Whale - 2 Atoms in A Molecule (Mp3)
*If love is a game/how come I've never won

I love the quirky lyrics and the arrangement of this song. Not to mention the song title appeals to me immensely! :D

Labels: indie, mp3, recipe

It's just one of those days. Days when I should be really finishing my chemistry work and other shite. But well, here I am. I am on a sushi steamroller sometimes.

One thing, the past few days after doing the Myer-Briggs test back and forth, I am perplexed.

2x INFJ, 2x INTP and 1x ISTP. WTF? I have split personalities I am sure of it. One thinf for sure, I for introvert. I average 87% introvert-ism. 100% I am an introvert. Just the other parts thats IFFY. =.=

Anyway. BECK. If you have not heard it yet. Shame on you. Here are some delicious gems from a delicious mind of a musician.

Beck - Gamma Ray (Mp3)
Beck - Vampire Voltage No.6 (Mp3)

Labels: indie, mp3

August 15th @ Prince Bandroom, St Kilda.

LADYHAWKE with special guests Ooh Ee and Van She. 1 night only folks!

BTW, this is not THAT movie starring Michelle Pfeiffer. :D

PNAU ft Ladyhawke - Embrace (DJ DLG Re-edit) (MP3)

An awesome track being given that french flavour. Fred Falke and Miami Horror done a great job remixing it, but do check out DJ DLG.

Also, more on Sam Sparro. I love him. Here is another great track, "Sick".




Feist on Sesame Street! I used to love Sesame Street as a child and hearing The Count counting numbers was one of my favourite parts. Now Feist has gone a-counting and done a track based on her song "1,2,3,4" :D

I Love it! Sesame Street has just gone uber-cool. :D

Feist - 1,2,3,4 (Sesame Street version) (Mp3)

Another also, here is a track by DJ/Prioducer Beef Wellington, called "Slightly Elevated". It is a great down tempo electro. It is not new, this track happens around 2002, but still sounds so fresh. I happened on it in one of the episode of the fifth season L-Word.

Beef Wellington - Slightly Elevated (Filla Brazilla Mix) (Mp3)

Cheerios!

Labels: aussie made, mp3

I can't get enough of Ladyhawke aka Pip Brown.

Also, DLG is making big waves and his remix of Pnau's "Embrace" ft Ladyhawke is hawt!

I'll hook it up later. Right now, late for class! :D

BTW.

Saturday 2nd August @ POGO.

BAG RAIDERS with Oo EE, Duplo, and Kablam!

and

This Saturday 26th July @ Basement Myers, 1PM. ---> GALVATRONS!

AND

Grazzhopper Fest 08 @ Beckley Park Geelong.

I won't list who's who. But, the one that I cares about is VNDLSM! They are playing. Not to mention Galvatrons, Grinspoon and FAKER! etc etc...

Now, to see who want to trek all the way to Geelong~ =.=

Labels: aussie made

After many months (since Easter) of listening to the same repeated shit on my mp3 player, (due to Casp possessing my portable drive fullllllllll of choones) I have (FINALLY) a new playlist. (But no, I still have not got my portable back).

ANYWAY. So much music, so little time.
If the people that actually visits here (yes thank you!) are interested in any of the tunes, drop me a line. BTW, sorry for broken links. I'll fix it.


postscribe: it's shite cold, cold, cold Melbourne weather.

Labels: aussie made, electro, indie, mp3

Since I am on a roll. Why not.

One of my favourite electro track, Simian Mobile Disco's Hustler got reworked by A-Trak (see picture).

Simian Mobile Disco - Hustler (A-Trak Remix) (Mp3)

Labels: electro, indie, mp3

Suddenly people around me are being so serious...
Is it me or is it you?

Vast ambiguity followed by rampant miscommunication.

I just wish to return to normal. I miss

Anyway, music. It's a biggie...

Sara Bareilles - Love Song (Mp3)
Lady Gala Ft Colby O'Donis - Just Dance (Mp3)
Tiesto Ft Charlotte Martin - Sweet Things (Mp3)
Santogold VS Switch and FreQ Nasty - Creator (Mp3)
ed: Santogold (Hawwwt)
Pnau ft LadyHawke - Embrace (Fred Falke & Miami Horror Mix) (Mp3)
ed: LadyHawke is great! Modular as usual produces great artists.
LadyHawke - Paris Is Burning (Mp3)

Also, Presenting Oo Ee: DJ/Producer from MELBOURNE. One of his best track was his remix of Chromeo's Bonafied Lovin'.
Santogold - L.E.S Artistes (Oo Ee Remix) (Mp3)
Chromeo - Bonafied Lovin' (Oo Ee & Riot in Belgium Mix) (Mp3)

ENJOY!

postscribe: The Presets. I missed the melbourne stop of the Apocalypso tour. (My only excuse was sheer ignorance. And Casette Kids was touring with them! Argh!~)

Labels: aussie made, electro, indie, mp3

As with everything Australia, we are always the last in getting good music.

Aussie born Sam Sparro, Electro-funk and the Gay community newest poster boy released "Black and Gold" back in 2007. The song was a real huge hit in the UK, but only been gaining massive following now back in his home country mid 2008. (Which is NOW!)

He is bloody fantasssstic. Great voice, clever lyrics and good to look at. I reckon he be the kind of gay that I turn gay for. Wait. I am already liking men. Does that mean I am gay? :D

Can't rave about him enough. So, here are 2 of his songs from a really great album. GO GET IT!



Black and Gold (which is currently being spinned to death) (MP3)
21st Century Life (I reckon this is a great followup, so yeah, he is not a one hit wonder!) (MP3)

More on Sam Sparro.
Official webbie
Official MySpace
He is even on WiKi! -->Sam's Wiki Spot.

I LOVE ELECTRO!

Labels: electro, mp3, sam sparro

I desire that Iphone.

It has been awhile since I've sat down and write about anything at all.

Majority of times, I've found myself with a lot of things to write about, but when faced with the screen, incapable of putting them into words and even forgetting what I wanted to write about.

"Where are all the weird and wonderfully obnoxious thoughts that was so me, that I wanted to jot down?"

I reckon that I am the type of person that should record as I go because everyday. from the moment that I opened my eyes, a lot of thoughts flitted through my mind. Then again, if all I ever do was go around everywhere with a diary and a pen and writing down each and every single thoughts, I reckon I be quite incapable of doing anything else.

Now, the reason that I actually have anything at all to fill this space is because for the first time in a long while, I actually took to pen and paper and write. Without a computer, which since I was 13 years old, has became a indispensable part of my life, suddenly, I needed something to fill up my time.

Wow. I reckon that I do need to practise my handwriting. My handwriting has become so shoddy. ):

Hmmm.. But, Why am I without a comp? This, for anybody that knows me well will know that it is impossible to pry it away from me. The moral of the story here is "Do not try to be smarter than what you appeared to be really are".

Trying to fix something that you are not familiar with is not a good idea. Anytime.

HAH! When will I ever learn? *sheepish grin*

Oh well, now I would actually have the time to read all these wonderful books that I currently have in possession.

One tiny thought... Why do people (some people then) dislike yeast extracts like Vegemite? It is YEAST. Majority of people ate it in some form or another daily. READ : BREAD.

Do not like the taste or smell? For me, I am acutely aware of that strong smell of yeast every time I smell bread. Too salty? Boring?

I love yeast extracts. I could dip my spoon in it and lick it, I'll drink it as a hot drink. (Yeh! I know... Most people are quite disgusted when I said that I consume Vegemite as a drink =p) But, it is yummy.

Ever since young, whenever I was sick or unwell, Mommy always made me water congee with vegemite or a hot drink with it.

To me, its connotation is comfort.

These are just some of the creative ways you can use vegemite for, beside the good old boring "spreading it thinly on toast or crackers".

Use it as a marination for meat, especially beef. As a base for brown stock/brown sauce. Instead of roasting your veges with tomato paste as in traditional brown sauce/stock making, try using vegemite. YUM~

As I have mentioned, use it as a meat marination and use that marinated meat in a stew dish.

Mix it with a bit of honey and uses it as a baste for roast pork. =D

My cooking secrets slowly revealing itself! hahaha

All these lead up to one thing. In one of my favourite book, "Molecular Gastronomy" by famed French chemist, Herve This, it is mentioned that "how you likes or dislikes and even detect taste, it is all controlled by the grey matter".

(I know! Why aren't you not surprised...)

Tastes. Distinguished by the surface of the papillary cells on the tongue. (Bless~ I still remembered what I have learned in uni). by using MRI techniques, which record cerebral activity by detecting changes in blood glow in the brain, neurobiologists had been able to detect and identify the cerebral areas activated by taste molecules. The summary of this; The perception of taste is actually laterilised in a way that is analogous to language use and motor activity.

INTERESTING FACT: Left handers and right handers taste detection areas in the brain are activated differently (in the insula).

I wonder... What about people that are equally adept at using left and right hands?

HO!

After a few agonising months, my webbie is finally customised! No longer some ugly generic blogger template!

YAY!