Lair of Flying Green Song Rabbits

For those days (all) we were too cheap to go out and have dinner we made a lot of food. Cooking for 12 people was hard considering we could only do most of the prep in one kitchen and if too many people help then it gets pretty crowded. A bit of a lose-lose situation here.

These are a few things you can cook in bulk quickly when you have limited funds and a lot of mouths to feed! No we did not eat ALL of this in the one night, it was several nights and some we didn't take photos of.


Potato salad via Minglez' recipe but I ended up making it...
Potatoes, peas, corn kernels, sausage and full egg mayonnaise.



Bangers and vegetable stirfry in minced garlic sauce.



Kebu's amuse-bouche of sliced smoked salmon with avocado and dijonnaise served on toast croutons. I think a sweet grain mustard mixed with avocado and wasabi would have a bit more kick though.



Full table.





Another night's meal.



Oven baked satay chicken wings marinated by Steven. Pan-fried lamb cutlets in rosemary marinated by Minglez.



Pan-fried chicken breast fillets marinated in mixed herbs and salt. A bit overcooked since I didn't want to undercook chicken. This took forever to do, next time should put it in the oven.



Mashed potatoes with some skin.



NOT. This was the Japanese hotpot dinner some people had instead of a homecooked meal.



Happy hungry people.


Stuff not pictured was spaghetti bolognese, miso and tofu soup, mi goreng, bacon and eggs and pancakes for breakfast.

EDITED BY SERENA

Hmm it's been a while since our little holiday but I thought I should probably write something about it before we all forget it!

Some of the people who took the train! I hitched a ride with Kebu in car!



So on February 4th, 2010 the 12 of us minus Maria went on a holiday to the Gold Coast! Everyone assembled at the airport at about 9am for the 10:05 plane. We checked in smoothly and went smoothly past security although Kebu went through the luggage screen twice (was it cuz of a stapleless stapler??) and I got randomly selected to be examined through a random screening test (wtf I somehow look like a terrorist and the lady said I sounded nervous.)


The weather wasn't looking too good but here's our plane waiting for lift-off.


Bye bye Sydney.


To rid myself of nervousness on the plane we camwhored lol.


And some more...








And more...


This is so not my frightened face at the turbulence...


The sky is super super pretty!

We had nothing else to do so for the rest of the trip S, minglez and I did the jetstar booklet quiz and got something like 18/40 or was it 30... anyway major fail.


When we reached the coastline to GC it was so pretty!! Lots of pretty photos followed.






At the airport everyone was starving but we walked out of the checkout place before we thought about food... so there we were standing waiting for a bus while starving with some of us not having had any breakfast. Eventually a bus came and we all climbed onboard and watched for the right bus stop to get off at.

Everything went smoothly and we arrived at our apartments.


Capricornia. I thought I had a full length picture but my camera was on movie mode so instead I have a sideways 2 second movie of the place.

We checked in with no problems and our hunger almost disappeared with the excitment of arriving at a new place!! I ran in and took over the ensuite muahahaha.

We had rooms 11 and 12 on the 3rd floor.

In Room 11:
Ensuite: Miiven
2 Singles (1): Josh and Quach
2 Singles (2): Simon and Shu

In Room 12:
Ensuite: Me and my crush
Queen bedroom: Serena and B
2 Singles: Kebu and Richard although he took the rollout bed and placed it in the loungeroom and slept there for thew remainder of the trip.

Room 11:

Entry/dining area where we had a night of Pizza and drunken shot pong.


Kitchen where I cooked endless Miso Soup and where all the stuff we didn't want to go off was stored.


Loungeroom with really comfy recliner chairs. Those chairs were awesome... especially right infront of that aircon that was on 24/7....


Bathroom with bathtub that was only used to wash feet.


My ensuite room! We made it look really neat before we left! We even had a balcony where I liked to go at night with a view of the pool and spa.


Our ensuite walk in robe + bathroom. There's no door to the bathroom.. and the door to the wardrobe doesn't lock!!


S and B's room left messily before we left.


Kebu and Rich's room well mostly Kebu's room....


Laundry room where Kebu is found a lot of the time....

After checking out both rooms and comparing them we finally got ourselves out the door to lurk the streets.


We searched for a place to eat. Half of us went to Maccas but I wasn't feeling the fast food vibe and after passing a Thai place with people eating massive bowls of noodles I was set on Thai. Everyone is so indecisive or unwilling to express their opinions so I proclaimed we shall have Thai and a few of us sat down and had Thai with this nice Thai IcedTea. It wasn't the best thai but it filled us up!!

When the meal was finished, thai half of group met up with maccas group and we went to Woolworths to do our grocery shopping. There was just too many people shopping at once so Crush and I decided to head back with Minglez instead of interfering with deciding on food.

I don't actually remember what we did when we got back... maybe take a nap lol.

Later as the others got back we cooked spaghetti. By we I mean S and B mostly haha. Most of the guys sat around and did nothing. I think I helped make the sauce a bit. The spaghetti took forever to make as we were unaware of the presence of a large pot so cooked small bunches of spaghetti at a time... it was a time consuming process but it was a delicious meal!!

Did we go out for icecream after? I do not remember... anyway that's all for Day 1 I'm tired..

Today, I saw my elderly next-door neighbours having lunch and afternoon tea together in their backyard while I was searching for an onion to make a tuna and carrot salad recipe by Harumi Kurihara.

The image put a smile on my face.

Today was a beautiful day, and it really was.

I'm sitting here staring at my abnormally large muffin top, wondering if I would ever accomplish losing all this excess body mass.

My New Years resolution from 2 years ago was to lose weight and attain my ideal of 55kg with leaner thighs and tummy. Instead, I went from 62kg to 69kg as of just a couple of weeks ago.

Complete FML!

62kg doesn't seem that bad in comparison...

I suppose it is all just numbers and to be honest, it is. It doesn't really matter if you are a few kilos over as long as you still look healthy and glowing. After all, a girl with a bit of meat and likes to eat is very attractive.

Before I left for America I was roughly 63kg down from 65kg. It's hard to believe that I gained approximately 5kg in the space of a month, eating whatever I liked (majority of it made up of cheese and carbs). Not only that, when I came back I was visibly bigger; my cheeks were rounded again, my double chin more pronounced and my tummy bigger than I have ever seen it in my entire life.

And now I wonder to myself, do I deserve this with my uncontrollable gluttony and bad sleeping habits? It is definitely all my fault that I let this happen. I have not respected my body and give it the exercise, fibre and unsaturated fats that I need.

So I'm sitting here scratching my itchy arms, overworked from the vigorous jumping around I did earlier that strained my blood vessels.

I think about the cellulite beginning to form on my thighs and bottom, the same thighs and bottom that no longer fit my favourite Sass & Bide skinnies. Heck, I can't even pull up my new Levi's I just brought back from America!

I see the photos from the Gold Coast trip and cringe; did I always have those fat rolls on my back?

And lastly, I ask myself if I will continue growing wider and heavier as the years go by (I remember just several years ago when I was 54kg) and end up being 75kg in just a couple more years? What about after my first pregnancy, will I be one of those overweight mothers who can't drop the weight no matter how hard they try?

I shudder.

I realise the path I am on yet don't want to stop indulging in the newest foods. I have yet to try many things that I must eat before I die such as foie gras, squid ink pasta and rat. YES RAT!

As I stare at the bump that looks as though I am 3 months pregnant, I think "God, am I fat!".

Just a couple of days before everyone went to Gold Coast for our annual trip (except Maria, my condolences for your loss Marweechi) and M and I made a promise that we would cook scones sometime so one afternoon she called and I agreed to go over to her place to cook in the weekend!

Other than scones, we also decided to try our hand in making siew mai. SO pro! Recipe taken from Ju. We figured scones might not be filling enough and they would be pretty quick to make so we needed to make something else, preferably savoury and landed on this after scouring through Ju's posts for inspiration.

Met M at the station and we went to get ingredients. Just a few things we were lacking, though most should be stocked in any Asian household such as soy sauce and Huatiao wine. EVERYONE has Huatiao wine, right right??


Midori slicing up the Chinese mushrooms that her mum soaked for us when we got home :O



Me and spring onions. I seem to make really, really weird faces when I am concentrating. You'll see what I mean later...



Bowl of minced pork, mushies and onions. Looking good!



Frozen, de-shelled prawns because M's mum had them. We soaked them in water to defrost but all that moisture had to be towelled out before we could put them in with the mince.



Almost there.





Looks like I'm not the only one with weird facial expressions LOL!



Our first trial batch, ready to be cooked.



Doesn't M look sickeningly cute? =p



The real batch. We ended up making half siew mai half dumplings because Midori fails at siew mai moulding hehe. And I fail at dumpling folding wtf.



The full steamer. So tall o_o



Cook shot! Ugh we look so weird when we aren't dressed up and pretty.



Finished results. I feel so proud *wipes tear*

Actually I thought they were quite fail. They tasted pretty good, only the mince was too lean. We bought it from a Western butcher rather than an Asian one so the meat was super lean and it did not taste spongy or soft. What a downer.

Next time, must use Asian fatty pork mince! Egads the fat...


Cute and plump!



Very lean meat and no tobiko unfortunately. I think the skin was wrong too, it should be egg wrappers instead of normal dumpling wrappers in order to get the yellow colour.



Scone making time!



Over-whipped the cream, or under-whipped? I think it was verging on becoming butter, oops. I was actually trying for Chantilly cream.

The scones though, oh, boy were they good. They need to be bigger and more cylindrical, but were crumbly and soft and tasted heavenly.



You can't have scones without tea!


We laughed about us being those matronly women who know how to cook everything when we are older, and pass on recipes to our daughters ahahaha. We talked about girly stuff for a bit, took some photos and shared the food with Midori's siblings. It was a great day spent despite the heat and half-failures.

We must do it again!


Oh and