Emma, 2 of my classmates and I went out for dinner at Hannah's bistro.
7/10 for food. 2/10 for service. I won't go back again.
The setting was simple. No big deal.
Since I don't usually have fish - I indulged myself and had white fish served with arugula and pesto pasta. It was pretty good.
Jill had chocolate brulee i.e. chocolate mousse and the caramelized sugar crust. Also quite tasty. But not exceptional.

The end of a fantastic weekend with great friends. Back to data analysis and reading articles..
Well, I can always look forward to mommy's coming! The countdown begins. :)

Goodies from Montreal

I had visitors from Montreal. But now they have all left. :(
Anyway, Alexis brought mommy and my favourite dessert - creme brulee...
heehee.
Satisfaction!!

We went to Toronto on Friday and I finally ate good dimsum! :D The thousand layer cake was terrible though - nothing compared to the dimsum restaurant in Australia. But they had this 4 "taster" dessert thing. Very nice!
Anyway, here are the action shots.




















hehehe. It was a really good time. Karen took us to Pacific mall, the largest Asian mall around. It looks like Hong Kong! It's a mini HK in Toronto. We came back at 5.10pm and hung around in Kitchener to meet Emma at 7.15pm. Her train was delayed till 7.45pm. We came home and had pizza. :)

Snowing is blowing with bocia and cookies

Today was an alright day. It's been snowing non stop, very cold. :)
Che: you look very nice singing in the rain. heh.

Went out for dinner with my classmate, D. It was a good time. Been going for prayer meeting the whole week. That's also pretty good. I hope that I will get to know them. Some of the guys seem pretty cool.
Anyway, I wanted to make foccacia..ever since I read this. I didn't make that many changes, just added gouda cheese on top. :D

And then yesterday, I wanted to bake something. I'm running out of ingredients though. Anyway, I had some stuff at hand, and after looking at several recipes, I settled on this. (I might also try this..) It seems that many people like soft cookies, I prefer harder cookies. I don't have chocolate nibs so I replaced with chocolate chips. The addition of the fleur de sel really does make a difference. Somehow finding that grain of salt ..make a big difference. You would think that it would melt, or that it wouldn't fit with the sweetness/chocolatey goodness of the cookie, but somehow the salt makes you crave something more.

I guess that's us - the salt of the earth. The salt didn't melt or blend in with the sweetness, but it stood out. And once you tasted it, mmm - it tasted good. The palate was pleased. :)
You are in the world but not of the world.

Cookie on a cup. :)

Before I forget, Gong Hei Fatt Choi. I miss CNY and wish I was home to celebrate it with you guys. Love you all - say hi to the family.

Tiramissuuuuuu

Hi hi again!
so many posts. Yeah, I'm making up for my absence.
heheh.

Anyway, I saw Cream Puff's tiramisu recipe and I thought - mm...tiramisu!
heheh. Apparently I'm really easy to influence. :)

I bought a packet of ladies fingers but they tasted AWFUL!! :( So, I thought - why not? WHY not indeed?? So I made my own. I used the Cordon Bleu recipe.
It was excellent. Easy and tasty. So, I ate one..:(
But I later regretted it because I didn't have enough for my tiramisu. haha. So I had to use 2 of the packet ones. They disintegrate really really quickly.
Instead of piping the ladies fingers I just made blobs. hehe. Too much trouble to pipe and I don't have a pastry bag.

Anyway, I searched high and low for a suitable tiramisu recipe. I didn't want to use heavy cream so I used this one by Nick Stellino! If it's good enough for Oprah, it's good enough for Sook Ning! :D
I know, the recipe requires many eggs. I used 7 eggs and cooked the egg yolks (sort of). Didn't really change anything. Was thinking of serving it with roasted hazelnuts.
Anyway, without further ado..

:)

Pizza night

Last saturday I went over to Kristin's and we had pizza night. :)
If you recall, I made pizza a couple of months ago. I used the same recipe and made bozza. hehe.
I'm getting better at it and I am getting a better idea of how the dough should be like.
Anyway, it was pretty good. I made 2 batches - one higher in hydration (very hard to handle) and one lower in hydration. I mixed cake and bread flour to get a mix that I felt was closer to the italian flour's protein content.
yupyup! :D
heheh. I sound so clever. lol

Here is Sara laying on the toppings.

And here is Kristin and her roommate.
And finally - a pizza!

I should have some sort of clever and witty introduction..but I have none. :(

Breakfast and curds

Hi.
Amboi, lama tak jumpa. :)
Research is going well, a little busy. Y'know lah - trying to save the world..*wipe sweat off brow*. Yes, it's hard being the tomb raider. heehee.

Kristin came over for breakfast. We were talking about Montreal and thought we should do breakfast. I made cinnamon raisin french bread. It was really good. Bobo never fails to produce tasty yummy light bread. :)
She brought over fruits and yogurt and had her french toast with chocolate chips. mm.
I had mine with jam and nutella. heehee.


Anyway, the meyer lemon ordeal wasn't over yet...So lemon curd it was. I used the recipe from Chocolate and Zucchini.
It was really good - I had to hand stir the mixture with my Kitchen Aid's "whisk" because I don't have a real whisk. heh.
And what could be better than lemon curd..on meringue?
heheh. That's right. Voila! I also made lemon bars and gave them away.
:)