A Week in the Life of Sandylah
I'm supposed to be proof-reading my friend's essay, but my brain isn't in the right frame of mind at the moment. It was either the massive home-made burger I had, the creaming soda, or the iced coffee - or perhaps all three combined! Whatever the cause, I chose to blog instead.
So last Friday, it was supposed to be slave labour Sandy night me cooking dinner, but I guess my parents couldn't handle eating another meal made by me, so we decided to go out to Won Kee in Cabramatta for dinner. This time I invited Dom to come along and eat with us. We ordered similar things to last time: deep fried soft shell crab, spicy salt and pepper tofu, soy chicken, sizzling pepper beef, and sweet and sour pork. Once again, it was a really good meal. The batter on the sweet and sour pork was surprisingly good -- still nice and crispy despite bathing in the sauce. The sizzling pepper beef was really peppery like last time. The soy chicken was pretty average, but had really nice skin. Spicy salt and pepper tofu was fantastic again, and ditto with the deep fried soft shell crab. Actually, that might have been better than last time. All in all, a really satisfying meal, costing just over $70.
Saturday and Sunday was pretty bummy. I just did some re-potting in my backyard, swapping some crappy terracotta-coloured plastic pots for some sexy black light cement ones that I bought on Friday with Dom. We also bought an awesome old-school galvanised steel watering can. It's so awesome!
I has a watering can!
Monday, my Parents asked me to make dinner (just when I had thought they'd given up on me) since I was going to be at home all day. As usual, I wasn't sure what to make, but settled on a chicken tajine since I remembered the one I smelt at Badde Manors. Once again, I went for a combination of a few recipes to figure out a good combination for me and my family.
My ingredients in the end were:
- approximately 750g chicken thigh fillets, sliced into 3cm cubes
- 1 large sweet potato, cut into 3cm chunks
- 2 carrots, sliced into 3cm lengths, roughly 1.5cm in width
- 400g tinned diced tomatoes
- 2 brown onions, sliced
- 2 garlic cloves, diced
- 1 1/2 cups chicken stock
- olive oil
- 3 tsp ground cumin
- 3 tsp ground ginger
- 2 tsp ground tumeric
- roughly 50g slivered almonds
- fresh coriander sprigs
My method:
1. Heat up a non-stick pan over medium heat and add the slivered almonds. Make sure they are evenly spread and to toss them around occasionally so they don't burn. 2-3mins should do the trick. Set aside in a bowl.
2. Heat the pan with oil and cook chicken cubes in batches for about 3-5mins, or until nice and golden, then set aside.
3. Heat pan with oil and add onions and garlic. Cook for roughly 5mins, or until the onion is clear-ish.
4. Add carrots and sweet potato and cook for a further 5-10mins, making sure to turn the vegetables so they cook evenly on all sides.
5. Add the spice mix (I try to coat all the ingredients evenly in it, but you don't have to) and cook for about 1min.
6. Next, add the tin of diced tomatoes and the stock (I added about 1 cup of stock at this point, and added the remaining stock later on in step 7 when I added the chicken). Bring to the boil. Turn down the heat and let it simmer, covered, for about 45mins, or until the carrots and sweet potato soften up, and the sauce has thickened. Stir occasionally to avoid bits sticking to the bottom of the pan.
7. Add the chicken to the pan and stir through (this is when I added the remaining stock). Cook, uncovered, for 10mins, or until your family come home ready to eat.
8. Serve spoonfuls on top of a bed of rice, and top with toasted slivered almonds and fresh coriander sprigs.
9. Remember that your Dad likes eating this kind of stuff with bread and curse yourself for forgetting to buy fresh bread rolls for him to eat it with, and hence, making too much rice. Also get annoyed no one else uses the coriander except you.
Chicken Tajine with Carrots and Sweet Potato
I secretly love the colour combination of this dish
On Tuesday, the guys and I made a return to the Bavarian Bier Cafe in Parramatta. We all got the Freshly Baked Bavarian Pretzel with Butter again, but this time, Dom had their Tuesday Giant Schnitzel and Schnapps Challenge which is a Pork Schnitzel served with fries and a salad, and he got a 500mL Franziskaner Mango Weissbier. I ordered their Aged Prime Scotch Fillet served with fries and also added their Zigeuner Hot Sauce because I was eyeing the Zigeuner Schnitzel, but didn't want to eat a schnitzel again. Dom seemed to thoroughly enjoy his meal and his beer, although he was really praising the Bavarian Diesel drink that Guti ordered after having a taste. I thoroughly enjoyed my steak. I ordered it medium-rare, and it came medium-rare. I hate how some restaurants overcook it, but this one was nice and pink in the middle. It looked like a small cut of steak, but it was really filling, and so nice and tender. Om nom nom! The original sauce it came with was a bit weird -- watery-looking and kind of familiar-tasting, but I couldn't quite place it. I found the spicy sauce I ordered additionally to be better.
Aged Prime Scotch Fillet
Sooooo good!
Fast-forward to Thursday and I went and picked up the pre-ordered copy of the God of War Box Set for DX's birthday present. It was only available at EB Games which is a bit annoying because I generally don't like shopping for games there since it's over-priced and has bad customer service (at the Liverpool store at least). The fact that they didn't have a bag for me to carry to box in just made me hate them more. They're just lucky it was a cool looking box set!
Overall packaging of the Box Set
The cool-looking box that contained all the goodies:
God of War III game, re-mastered God of War I and II on one blu-ray disc, sountracks for all three games, art book, and postcards
I also went into JB Hi-Fi to see if I could find Fallout 3 for the PS3 since I've got nothing else to do. I found the Fallout 3 Game of the Year Edition for $100 so I picked it up and headed home. I was a bit apprehensive about it because I wasn't sure if the check-out chick put in the disc for the regular game or the GOTY edition, but I gave her the benefit of the doubt. I didn't want to think because she's a girl she therefore doesn't know about games. Well, it turns out she did give me the wrong version. Grrr. I loaded it into my PS3 and no mention of "Game of the Year" showed up anywhere. I wouldn't have been so annoyed if I wasn't paying an extra $50 for nothing, so Dom came by after uni and we went back to JB Hi-Fi to get it exchanged for the right version. Unfortunately, they didn't have it in stock for some reason, and the guy offered me the regular version of Fallout 3 at a staff discount. I declined, got a refund, and we headed to Game where we found it there for the same price, and they actually had it, and the guy gave me the right version. And Dom picked up an adorable Sackboy keychain too. I guess I'll be shopping at Game more often.
Fallout 3 Game of the Year Edition
You know it's the right version when it's written on the disc
On Friday, it was up to Jo and I to make dinner again. We decided on spaghetti and spicy meatballs in spicy sauce. It was simple and we were hankering for spicy meatballs. We had to make two pots of sauces, one spicy and one non-spicy.
Ingredients:
- approximately 750g beef mince
- 500g egg spaghetti
- tomato paste
- 2 700mL jars of pasta sauce of your choosing (we got oven-roasted garlic and onion)
- 3 red chillis, sliced (we kept the seeds as well. Also, since we were making one pot of sauce with chilli and one without, we split the chillis up. One for frying meatballs and two for the pot of chilli pasta sauce)
- 2 cloves of diced garlic
- 1 tsp of pickled chillis
- pinch or two of dried basil
- salt and pepper
- olive oil
- optional: a few pinches of cornflour
My method:
1. Get Jo to season the beef mince in a large bowl. Essentially, you combine the tomato paste, pickled chillis, basil, and salt and pepper to taste (we didn't add too much pickled chilli because our Mum can't have anything too spicy. I personally didn't taste anything spicy in the meatballs overall).
2. Roll the beef mince mixture into balls, approximately 2-3cm in diameter (we covered ours with cling wrap and put it in the fridge so we could cook them later).
3. Heat oil in pan. Add some chilli and garlic and cook the meatballs in batches (I did mine in thirds). Make sure you turn them regularly so that they don't burn on one side. Don't cry that they're not perfectly spherical. Cook them for about 10mins. Repeat for the remaining meatballs (don't forget to take out all chilli and garlic and adding a fresh pinch in before cooking a new batch of meat otherwise it'll burn) and then set aside.
4. Grab a large pot, fill it with water, and cook the pasta according to the instructions.
----- Because we had to make a spicy and non-spicy sauce -----
5. Get two pots and split the sauce into desired proportions (I made roughly 3/4 spicy and 1/4 non-spicy). Bring sauce to the boil and then reduce heat so that it simmers.
6. To the pot of sauce that is to be spicy, add two sliced chillis and stir.
7. Add meatballs into the sauce filled pots, splitting the proportions as desired. I added some cornflour in each pot to thicken up the sauce.
8. Worry if you've got the proportions right, whether the meatballs will be thoroughly cooked, if the spicy sauce is too spicy, and stir sauces occasionally. Let it simmer for about 15-20mins.
9. When everyone's ready to eat, grab spaghetti, top with desired sauce and meatballs.
I invited Dom over to eat as well since he loves spaghetti and meatballs. I think??
Sandy's "OMG I can't believe how stupidly long and complicated this was" Spaghetti and Spicy Meatballs in Spicy Sauce
The sauce was spicy indeed. Yuuuuummm....
Optional: with sliced kalamata olives and cheese-stuffed bell peppers
DX also dropped by, not to eat, but to pick up his God of War Box Set. LoL. He played it for a bit at my place and I must admit, it looks so freaking crazy epic! The first few battles are of massive proportions and the whole moving environment just blew my mind. Too bad I'm not really into those kinds of games. Anyways, after DX had left and after Dom and I had our dinner I went over to Dom's house and pretty much just passed out. I hadn't realised how tired I was after all that cooking.
Today for lunch, Dom and I decided on some more home-made burger goodness. We invited Peter to hang out and share in the goodness! We bummed around for a bit afterwards, doing nothing in particular until Dom decided to take me home and spend some precious one-on-one time with Peter.
Home-made burger delight!
Beef mince patty, two slices of tasty cheese, lettuce, mushrooms, onions, tomato, beetroot, garlic sauce, and wholegrain mustard on a sesame seed buuuuuunnn....
That's pretty much it really. Other than that, I've found a way to stream tennis live so I've been watching whatever matches I could of the Indian Wells Tournament. I was cut to learn that Federer and Djokovic both got knocked out in matches I couldn't watch. I saw Nadal get through to the semi-finals, and this morning I watched Murray get defeated by Soderling. Damn. Only one of the top four men players remaining in the tournament. I'm cut. Figures though, I finally find a way to watch tennis and no-one I'm interested in is playing. Blargh!
And finally, I'm currently obsessed with the song 'Hey, Soul Sister' by Train. I find myself listening to it on repeat and singing along like a goon. It is fantastic! You should all sing with me!!
~ Heeey.... Heeeeeeeey.... Heeeeeeeey ~
So last Friday, it was supposed to be slave labour Sandy night me cooking dinner, but I guess my parents couldn't handle eating another meal made by me, so we decided to go out to Won Kee in Cabramatta for dinner. This time I invited Dom to come along and eat with us. We ordered similar things to last time: deep fried soft shell crab, spicy salt and pepper tofu, soy chicken, sizzling pepper beef, and sweet and sour pork. Once again, it was a really good meal. The batter on the sweet and sour pork was surprisingly good -- still nice and crispy despite bathing in the sauce. The sizzling pepper beef was really peppery like last time. The soy chicken was pretty average, but had really nice skin. Spicy salt and pepper tofu was fantastic again, and ditto with the deep fried soft shell crab. Actually, that might have been better than last time. All in all, a really satisfying meal, costing just over $70.
Saturday and Sunday was pretty bummy. I just did some re-potting in my backyard, swapping some crappy terracotta-coloured plastic pots for some sexy black light cement ones that I bought on Friday with Dom. We also bought an awesome old-school galvanised steel watering can. It's so awesome!
I has a watering can!
Monday, my Parents asked me to make dinner (just when I had thought they'd given up on me) since I was going to be at home all day. As usual, I wasn't sure what to make, but settled on a chicken tajine since I remembered the one I smelt at Badde Manors. Once again, I went for a combination of a few recipes to figure out a good combination for me and my family.
My ingredients in the end were:
- approximately 750g chicken thigh fillets, sliced into 3cm cubes
- 1 large sweet potato, cut into 3cm chunks
- 2 carrots, sliced into 3cm lengths, roughly 1.5cm in width
- 400g tinned diced tomatoes
- 2 brown onions, sliced
- 2 garlic cloves, diced
- 1 1/2 cups chicken stock
- olive oil
- 3 tsp ground cumin
- 3 tsp ground ginger
- 2 tsp ground tumeric
- roughly 50g slivered almonds
- fresh coriander sprigs
My method:
1. Heat up a non-stick pan over medium heat and add the slivered almonds. Make sure they are evenly spread and to toss them around occasionally so they don't burn. 2-3mins should do the trick. Set aside in a bowl.
2. Heat the pan with oil and cook chicken cubes in batches for about 3-5mins, or until nice and golden, then set aside.
3. Heat pan with oil and add onions and garlic. Cook for roughly 5mins, or until the onion is clear-ish.
4. Add carrots and sweet potato and cook for a further 5-10mins, making sure to turn the vegetables so they cook evenly on all sides.
5. Add the spice mix (I try to coat all the ingredients evenly in it, but you don't have to) and cook for about 1min.
6. Next, add the tin of diced tomatoes and the stock (I added about 1 cup of stock at this point, and added the remaining stock later on in step 7 when I added the chicken). Bring to the boil. Turn down the heat and let it simmer, covered, for about 45mins, or until the carrots and sweet potato soften up, and the sauce has thickened. Stir occasionally to avoid bits sticking to the bottom of the pan.
7. Add the chicken to the pan and stir through (this is when I added the remaining stock). Cook, uncovered, for 10mins, or until your family come home ready to eat.
8. Serve spoonfuls on top of a bed of rice, and top with toasted slivered almonds and fresh coriander sprigs.
9. Remember that your Dad likes eating this kind of stuff with bread and curse yourself for forgetting to buy fresh bread rolls for him to eat it with, and hence, making too much rice. Also get annoyed no one else uses the coriander except you.
Chicken Tajine with Carrots and Sweet Potato
I secretly love the colour combination of this dish
On Tuesday, the guys and I made a return to the Bavarian Bier Cafe in Parramatta. We all got the Freshly Baked Bavarian Pretzel with Butter again, but this time, Dom had their Tuesday Giant Schnitzel and Schnapps Challenge which is a Pork Schnitzel served with fries and a salad, and he got a 500mL Franziskaner Mango Weissbier. I ordered their Aged Prime Scotch Fillet served with fries and also added their Zigeuner Hot Sauce because I was eyeing the Zigeuner Schnitzel, but didn't want to eat a schnitzel again. Dom seemed to thoroughly enjoy his meal and his beer, although he was really praising the Bavarian Diesel drink that Guti ordered after having a taste. I thoroughly enjoyed my steak. I ordered it medium-rare, and it came medium-rare. I hate how some restaurants overcook it, but this one was nice and pink in the middle. It looked like a small cut of steak, but it was really filling, and so nice and tender. Om nom nom! The original sauce it came with was a bit weird -- watery-looking and kind of familiar-tasting, but I couldn't quite place it. I found the spicy sauce I ordered additionally to be better.
Aged Prime Scotch Fillet
Sooooo good!
Fast-forward to Thursday and I went and picked up the pre-ordered copy of the God of War Box Set for DX's birthday present. It was only available at EB Games which is a bit annoying because I generally don't like shopping for games there since it's over-priced and has bad customer service (at the Liverpool store at least). The fact that they didn't have a bag for me to carry to box in just made me hate them more. They're just lucky it was a cool looking box set!
Overall packaging of the Box Set
The cool-looking box that contained all the goodies:
God of War III game, re-mastered God of War I and II on one blu-ray disc, sountracks for all three games, art book, and postcards
I also went into JB Hi-Fi to see if I could find Fallout 3 for the PS3 since I've got nothing else to do. I found the Fallout 3 Game of the Year Edition for $100 so I picked it up and headed home. I was a bit apprehensive about it because I wasn't sure if the check-out chick put in the disc for the regular game or the GOTY edition, but I gave her the benefit of the doubt. I didn't want to think because she's a girl she therefore doesn't know about games. Well, it turns out she did give me the wrong version. Grrr. I loaded it into my PS3 and no mention of "Game of the Year" showed up anywhere. I wouldn't have been so annoyed if I wasn't paying an extra $50 for nothing, so Dom came by after uni and we went back to JB Hi-Fi to get it exchanged for the right version. Unfortunately, they didn't have it in stock for some reason, and the guy offered me the regular version of Fallout 3 at a staff discount. I declined, got a refund, and we headed to Game where we found it there for the same price, and they actually had it, and the guy gave me the right version. And Dom picked up an adorable Sackboy keychain too. I guess I'll be shopping at Game more often.
Fallout 3 Game of the Year Edition
You know it's the right version when it's written on the disc
On Friday, it was up to Jo and I to make dinner again. We decided on spaghetti and spicy meatballs in spicy sauce. It was simple and we were hankering for spicy meatballs. We had to make two pots of sauces, one spicy and one non-spicy.
Ingredients:
- approximately 750g beef mince
- 500g egg spaghetti
- tomato paste
- 2 700mL jars of pasta sauce of your choosing (we got oven-roasted garlic and onion)
- 3 red chillis, sliced (we kept the seeds as well. Also, since we were making one pot of sauce with chilli and one without, we split the chillis up. One for frying meatballs and two for the pot of chilli pasta sauce)
- 2 cloves of diced garlic
- 1 tsp of pickled chillis
- pinch or two of dried basil
- salt and pepper
- olive oil
- optional: a few pinches of cornflour
My method:
1. Get Jo to season the beef mince in a large bowl. Essentially, you combine the tomato paste, pickled chillis, basil, and salt and pepper to taste (we didn't add too much pickled chilli because our Mum can't have anything too spicy. I personally didn't taste anything spicy in the meatballs overall).
2. Roll the beef mince mixture into balls, approximately 2-3cm in diameter (we covered ours with cling wrap and put it in the fridge so we could cook them later).
3. Heat oil in pan. Add some chilli and garlic and cook the meatballs in batches (I did mine in thirds). Make sure you turn them regularly so that they don't burn on one side. Don't cry that they're not perfectly spherical. Cook them for about 10mins. Repeat for the remaining meatballs (don't forget to take out all chilli and garlic and adding a fresh pinch in before cooking a new batch of meat otherwise it'll burn) and then set aside.
4. Grab a large pot, fill it with water, and cook the pasta according to the instructions.
----- Because we had to make a spicy and non-spicy sauce -----
5. Get two pots and split the sauce into desired proportions (I made roughly 3/4 spicy and 1/4 non-spicy). Bring sauce to the boil and then reduce heat so that it simmers.
6. To the pot of sauce that is to be spicy, add two sliced chillis and stir.
7. Add meatballs into the sauce filled pots, splitting the proportions as desired. I added some cornflour in each pot to thicken up the sauce.
8. Worry if you've got the proportions right, whether the meatballs will be thoroughly cooked, if the spicy sauce is too spicy, and stir sauces occasionally. Let it simmer for about 15-20mins.
9. When everyone's ready to eat, grab spaghetti, top with desired sauce and meatballs.
I invited Dom over to eat as well since he loves spaghetti and meatballs. I think??
Sandy's "OMG I can't believe how stupidly long and complicated this was" Spaghetti and Spicy Meatballs in Spicy Sauce
The sauce was spicy indeed. Yuuuuummm....
Optional: with sliced kalamata olives and cheese-stuffed bell peppers
DX also dropped by, not to eat, but to pick up his God of War Box Set. LoL. He played it for a bit at my place and I must admit, it looks so freaking crazy epic! The first few battles are of massive proportions and the whole moving environment just blew my mind. Too bad I'm not really into those kinds of games. Anyways, after DX had left and after Dom and I had our dinner I went over to Dom's house and pretty much just passed out. I hadn't realised how tired I was after all that cooking.
Today for lunch, Dom and I decided on some more home-made burger goodness. We invited Peter to hang out and share in the goodness! We bummed around for a bit afterwards, doing nothing in particular until Dom decided to take me home and spend some precious one-on-one time with Peter.
Home-made burger delight!
Beef mince patty, two slices of tasty cheese, lettuce, mushrooms, onions, tomato, beetroot, garlic sauce, and wholegrain mustard on a sesame seed buuuuuunnn....
That's pretty much it really. Other than that, I've found a way to stream tennis live so I've been watching whatever matches I could of the Indian Wells Tournament. I was cut to learn that Federer and Djokovic both got knocked out in matches I couldn't watch. I saw Nadal get through to the semi-finals, and this morning I watched Murray get defeated by Soderling. Damn. Only one of the top four men players remaining in the tournament. I'm cut. Figures though, I finally find a way to watch tennis and no-one I'm interested in is playing. Blargh!
And finally, I'm currently obsessed with the song 'Hey, Soul Sister' by Train. I find myself listening to it on repeat and singing along like a goon. It is fantastic! You should all sing with me!!
~ Heeey.... Heeeeeeeey.... Heeeeeeeey ~