tastay satay

My good friend Jacqui from Sydney visited me one weekend in 2012. This was exciting as I hadn't seen her in ages and it was my first (and probably only) overnight visitor for the year :)

We went to the Gorman Art House markets where I enjoyed satay chicken from the Thai food store. The dish was more than enough and great value for money as it costed below $10. The sauce was delicious, sweet but had some peanut-like depth to it. This was accompanied by cucumber pieces marinated in some sweet vinegar dressing that I was not familiar with. I googled up thai salads with cucumber and it seems like its common to dress cucumber with sugar, vinegar, fish sauce and chilli flakes in salads. I couldn't finish the dish at the end but I was pretty content at the end.

hot air balloons and brekkie

Ever since my first year in Canberra, I wanted to see the Balloon Spectacular – a festival of hot air balloons that begins at dawn. I figured that I’m probably not going to be in Canberra for the long run so I wanted to make the effort this year to attend the festival. And I did it! Yay!

Waking up at 4am and facing the morning cold was worth every second of the festival. I felt like a child again where anything was possible.

By 7am ish, I was starving so my friend and I went to the new café in Curtin called My Gourmet Delights. I ordered a brown rice veggie pattie which came in a toasted sandwich… unfortunately it was pretty disappointing. The pattie was dry and was akin to eating old brown rice. There were extra carbs from the bread and they didn’t tell me that it came with cheese (which I didn’t feel like eating)... boo… oh well. At least the balloon festival was rewarding!

Down the alleyway to a Himalayan restaurant

Dan and I used to get take away for dinner every few days and we quickly got tired of our options. I probably got frustrated quicker as I usually prefer to eat ‘something different’ whenever possible. Instead of sticking around our geographical location, we ventured to Manuka. Normally when you go to this suburb at 6pm on a Friday evening, it takes about 20 minutes to find a decent park. However, we ventured there on a rainy Monday or Tuesday evening and wow the streets were quiet! It felt like there was a zombie apocalypse and it was kinda refreshing.

I pulled him down one of the alleyways of Manuka… towards the ‘Taste of Himalaya’. This restaurant has always intrigued me because Himalayan/Nepalese food isn't very common and because the restaurant is in an odd location.

We ordered the Chicken Shush Tawook (bottom dish in picture) which was boneless grilled chicken marinated in Middle-Eastern spices topped with Spanish onion, tomato and rocket salad served on a bed of tortilla bread with hommos dip. We also got the Daal Jhaneko (top dish in picture) which were lentils cooked with fresh garlic, ginger and spices, flambéed with cumin, tomato and coriander. We ordered plain rice to go with it but should have ordered the pounded rice instead, even if it was against the advice of the waitress… and to try something different. Apparently the pounded rice has the texture of corn flakes. Imagine eating a spicy food with that!

The chicken dish was tasty and all the components complemented each other – juicy and spicy chicken wrapped in a fresh tortilla. The salty hommus added a punch to the dish and it was all balanced out with a refreshing salad. The lentils were not bad, but we couldn’t help but compare it to a daal in an Indian restaurant that we eat at frequently. We were looking for a punch that we couldn’t find in this dish.

I’d probably go to the restaurant again but, in my style, order something different.

hot cross buns, hot cross buns

I know its months past Easter but I still want to post up pictures of my favourite hot cross buns from Easter.

I've been living with my current housemates for about one and a half years now. During that time, my male housemate frequently mentions that he gets a free batch of hot cross buns from the Silo Bakery every year as his parents know the owners. For those not familiar with Canberra, the Silo Bakery is quite well known in town for its bread and pastries. Its situated among the popular cafe scene of Kingston.

I'm a bit skeptical of 'popular' eateries. Is it popular because it has a 'unique' brand but the food is actually the same as everything else offered in the area? Is it popular just because its sophisticated for Canberra but in the grand scheme of things (aka v.s. other cities) its actually bland? Is the eatery trying too hard to be cool that it becomes contrived?

I woke up on the Thursday before the Easter weekend and it was a major struggle to get out of bed. I was pleasantly surprised by a package waiting on the kitchen bench - free hot cross buns! They looked kinda rustic.

The hot cross buns were actually really good. There weren't too many sultanas and there was a good balance of spices. The top of the bun was glossed with a nice marinade. And the buns were satisfying - none of the 'just spiced fruit bread' bullshit.

That day, I also tried Woolie's 'sticky date and caramel' hot cross buns for the first time. I was intrigued by the concept but the buns were pretty ugh - bland fruit buns with overpowering hits of tough caramel. 

I remember I ate 2 hot cross buns that day, not doing any exercise and feeling bloated and guilty. I'm probably too hard on myself - I guess I don't eat fruit buns all year round.

black sesame rice paper

I was browsing the Asian grocery stall at the Mawson shops and came across a suspicious looking product. They were like Vietnamese rice paper rolls with black sesame seeds. I'm a huge fan of Asian black sesame dishes so I thought I'd give this a try. Each pack was around $3 and came with 3 sheets - half the quantity of packets of normal rice paper rolls. I prepared them like rice paper rolls by dipping the sheet in very hot water and rolling them up. I was quite intrigued by the texture:

Each sheet was quite thick, became a bit slimy and was very hard to roll up. They were also quite tough and chewy to eat. I soaked the sheets for a bit longer, but even after 10 minutes, they were unpalatable. Makes an interesting looking dish though! Like ants or sea animals swimming?

After some googling, I realised the rice paper was meant to be warmed up in the microwave or in oil, allowing the rice paper to fluff up like a prawn cracker. Whoops and cool! I served them like sang choy bow, using the rice paper as a bowl for marinated veges. Fun and crunchy!

brb, i'm just going to warm up an apple in the microwave

I usually snack on apples at work but since the winter cold has hit Canberra, I haven't really been tempted to bite into the cold crunchiness of apples. Instead of wasting the lot of apples I bought for that week, I needed to adapt... how could I prepare them another way? I realised that work has cooking appliances that actually apply heat to food - amazing! This included microwaves, sandwich presses, toasters and ovens. During a mid week hump hour (1-3pm ish after lunch when my energy usually crashes), I prepared an apple in a microwave safe dish. I cored it, stuffed it with frozen raspberries, popped it in the microwave for around 4 minutes and voila! The raspberries melted creating a moat of juice around the apple that helped stew it. The inside of the microwave was pretty colourful afterwards - it looked like something from the planet Mars decided to have a mental breakdown and splatter everywhere. Nevertheless, with a dollop of natural yoghurt, the baked apple was delicious and homey.

And I tried again another day by chopping up the apples and with mixed spices. The cut up pieces of apple reduced the cooking time by half.

And the name of this blog entry comes from a conversation I had with a colleague, who recently inspired me to get back into food blogging! It helps to be open and honest with the right people.

work snacks

To celebrate surviving hump day of the working week, here are a few pictures of snacks that get me through the 9 to 5 day:

Banana pieces 'iced' with cashew nut butter and sunflower seed butter

A garden looking snack. Carrot crudites with a spinach garlic dip.

Broccomole (guacamole made with broccoli and silken tofu) with carrot crudites. I got the dip recipe from this website, with a few amendments to make it less spicy.

zucchini fritters/omelettes

I eat half a handful of nuts everyday and if I'm lucky, I might have some meat/tofu/legumes with lunch or dinner. I realised that I need more protein in my diet, so I bought a packet of eggs... other than morning pancakes, I've lived without eggs for so long that I kinda have no idea what to do with them. Fritters maybe? I've had some pretty good fritters from restaurants and cafes.

I grated one zucchini, mixed it with one egg and some gluten free flour (this was leftover from my diet earlier this year). It looked kinda promising. I also put some spinach in a couple of fritters.

As I poured the mixture on the pan, I gradually realised that they looked like mini omelettes... I waited with patience...

And who would have known, they tasted like omelettes too... (of course, you idiot). Nice and mushy on the inside. I think they had too much liquid in them, probably from the zucchini. I should have squeezed the water out of the zucchini beforehand. Or I should have put in more zucchini to increase the solid:liquid ratio. Oh well... next time!

gluten free bread: Deeks Bakery

Ever since my non gluten/soy/nuts/dairy diet, I've become more appreciative and aware of what food substitutes exist for key food groups and how these can help form a balanced diet. During my diet, I remember craving the texture of bread. I then discovered gluten free flour and it felt like I was alive again.

Deeks Bakery is a specialist bakery in Canberra offering a complete range of gluten free products, from loafs to sweet baked goods. Their loafs can also be found in major supermarkets such as Coles and Woolies. During one boring work lunch, I decided to browse Coles, and bingo - Deeks' bread was on sale.

With gluten free baked goods I've eaten, the key difference between them and and produce with gluten is the elasticity. Biting into Deeks bread was like biting into cake - there was no stretching of the bread, no bounce and no 'tearing' across the grain of the bread. But this isn't a bad thing, it's just different. The bread probably doesn't fill me up as much as, say, Burgen bread would, but I could definitely live on it.

http://www.deeks.com.au/

veggie patties attempt

I love eating pre-made veggie burgers and sausages from the supermarket. But as usual, I wonder how natural these products are, how much unnecessary sugar/salt/flour/vegetable is added, how different would it taste if an ingredient was substituted for another. I've made my own veggie patties in the past but they were unsuccessful as they would either crumble in a heaped mess or taste bland. However, I gave it another shot.

I wanted something that was dominantly vegetables rather than legumes/beans. I used mushrooms, carrots, zucchini, home grown herbs, home made wholemeal breadcrumbs, brown lentils, garlic and onion.

I put all the ingredients, except the lentils, in my food processor (first pic below)... however, the mixture crumbled everywhere as I tried to assemble the patties. I was almost close to giving up, then thought I should pop half the lentils in the food processor. Out came a mix that looked like dog food, felt dense and compactable (second pic below). I could then assemble the patties.

I used a cookie cutter to shape the patties and baked some of them in the oven til they were crispy (I froze the rest). They looked adorable! The texture of the cooked patties was good, but they needed more flavour, perhaps through the addition of more herbs, spices or a nice sauce.

I sauteed some mushrooms in a home prepared Moroccan spice, tossed them with some raw spinach and voila! I made myself 4 lunches and many more to come.

dairy free 'ice cream'

Most of my colleagues know that I'm a foodie so they often provide me endless recipes from mainstream magazines/newspapers. I came across one recipe for dairy free 'ice cream', which was essentially any fruit frozen blended with dairy free milk until it forms an ice cream consistency. I froze a kiwi and banana... one ambitious morning, I got out my whiz stick and blended the frozen fruit with a dash of soy milk. The fruit didn't budge at first, but with a lot of persistence and noise, out came a delish frozen slushie that resembled ice cream. I sprinkled a few nuts on it, and voila! Ice cream for breakfast :)

It was a special treat and had a gelato-like consistency. You could probably add sugar/honey to sweeten it. I wish I knew about this recipe during summer!

hello again

I realise that I haven't blogged for about 3 months, which is a really long gap in the life span of my food blog. Right now, I don't really want to explain where on earth I've been. However, I've continued to take pictures of food, so I'll let the pictures say the majority for me :).

I've ordered take away from the Turkish Pizza House in Weston once and was pretty happy with it. In attempt to re-experience this, I ordered a falafel plate to take away. It was around $10 and a somewhat safe take away option. The texture of the falafel was kinda like a bunch of condensed and over-soaked chickpeas. The falafel were also too salty on their own. This didn't discourage me from ordering from here again but just taught me to not order falafel by themselves again.

Turkish Pizza House
8 Liardet Street
Weston
ACT

multicultural food fest #3

Yesterday, I went to one of my favourite events in Canberra – the Multicultural Food Festival. It was crazy busy and in comparison to previous years, the fest was more spaced and there were more and a different range of stalls. Seemed like there were new stalls – for example Croatian, a wider variety of Indian, cider stalls etc. Or maybe these stalls were always at the food fest but they were in more prominent locations or this was the first time I acknowledged them. I realised that there weren’t as many Asian food stalls as previous years – my theory is that Sunday (today) is Chinese/Lunar New Year. I guess families who own Asian restaurants and normally would host a stall were busy with festivities and their own families.

A lot of the festival was a haze – I was parched and quickly drunk ½ a cider and a cocktail before I ate anything. I went to cider stall hosted by ‘The Apple Thief’ – I don’t think I’ve seen this brand before so was excited with the possibility of something new. There were three types of cider – pink lady (sweet), granny smith (dry) and pear (in between). As I usually over consume on sweet foods, I got the granny smith one… regrettably though… it was like light beer – a light taste while you’re drinking it and a dry aftertaste. I ended up handing it over to a guy. The cocktail from Digress (Italian and Indian restaurant) was refreshing – probably one of the better things I’ve had from the restaurant in my experiences.

I made an effort to avoid eating one large meal and feeling completely full so opted to have small bites from different stalls… This was difficult because all I could find was deep fried stuff and Chinese stuff that I didn’t want to eat (my family makes better). I ended up getting ‘Aloo Tikka’ balls from the Digress stall (curry potato balls) that were very salty (best served with a dry alcoholic drink). I also got a chicken kebab stick from the Samoan stall, which tasted like plain barbequed meat. If you are like me and like trying lots of different foods, it’s definitely best to go with a group with the same mindset and share.

In my experiences of the food festival, I normally ‘over-consume’ on food/drinks. However, today I feel more gross/bloated than I normally do post-festival. My flatmate reminded me that I’ve been pretty good with my diet in the past few months (including not eating a whole piece of cake by myself) so the food’s probably not reacting well with my body. To balance out my excess calorie intake, I have an urge to exercise… but today so far, the weather has been very temperamental (rain, shine, rain, shine), so it’s been very difficult to exercise outdoors. DETOX STARTS NOW.

veggie stack :)

It was Friday, I survived another tough week at work, did an interview and was feeling lethargic. I thought I’d treat myself on Friday evening – many people who I know, treating yourself would mean you’d have a glass of red wine and cheese or takeaway food. But drinking red wine by myself would make me feel like an alcoholic and I don’t normally eat cheese. And there was a storm so I wasn’t inclined to step outside for takeaway. I treated myself with a veggie burger… just without the bread.

I love most veggie patties – it’s a mysterious object so I love guessing what’s inside and thinking about how I would create my ‘dream’ veggie pattie. It’s ‘safe’ because it’s only veggies (as opposed to sausages or meat patties that probably have mashed up animal intestines). Veggie patties have a dense and wholesome texture which is adds variety to my diet of that’s mainly crunchy veges and soft beans.

I scanned the aisles of Coles and picked up probably the most expensive packet of veggie patties. I didn’t choose them because of the price (idea that expensive = luxury = self-pampering) but because I love mushrooms. One downside about these patties is the amount of packaging used – an outer paper bag and inner vacuum bag containing the patties. The majority of veggie patties in the supermarket use only a vacuum seal bag and that is sufficient.

For the sake of brainstorming, I looked up a few recipes for veggie stacks... I came up with a stack that would look reasonably colourful and would have almost all my fav veggies.

From the top, ingredients included:

*Herb pesto: including basil, chives, herb olive, pine nuts, olive oil

*Red onion

*Oven baked/ grilled mushies, zucchini and red capsicum

*Store-bought mushie pattie

*Guacamole

This mushie pattie tasted a bit like red meat, so in hindsight hummus would have suited it better. But the veggie stack was a perfect treat… well with my tastebuds/preferences at least.

toasted rolled oats vs. raw rolled oats

My breakfasts are usually pretty healthy as I eat muesli/granola (less-processed options bought from the supermarket), home made granola or a cooked breakfast mainly with veges. However, I realise my weakest point might be the stuff I buy from supermarkets - although I'm pretty selective with it, it usually contains more sugar than I really need.

I'm trying to get around this by making my own granola. So for approx every 7 cups of cereal mix, I add a heaped tablespoon of honey. The other day, my granola included the usual rolled oats, linseeds, dessicated coconut and puffed wheat. This time I included dried cranberries, dried apple, hazelnuts, pecans and almonds. It was delicious! I'm not going to cut out the dried fruit for their sugar content because I figure I'll be snacking on some sort of fruit throughout the day anyway.

My male body-building housemate told me that cooked rolled oats has less essential vitamins etc than raw rolled oats as the cooking process/heat kills the good stuff. As I need to make my next batch of muesli, I thought I'd look into it.

There's heaps of body building, nutrition and dieting forums that talk about this (like here and here). The original poster would ask whether there was any diff between raw oats and cooked oats. However, this would often be followed by a stream of posters saying 'I don't know, but I think raw oats taste good/bad... they are difficult to digest as evidenced by my friend who had stomach pains after consuming them... or I incorporate them into my diet by putting them into smoothies'. Sometimes posters said 'Yeah they are good for you', but provided no evidence or reasons why. These forums didn't contain any facts but just people showing off their diets and their experiences. I want facts, not personal experiences.

Livestrong.com did a comparison of nutrients of instant dry oatmeal to the cooked stuff using the U.S. Department of Agriculture nutritional tables and found that dry oatmeal has more antioxidants, vitamins, minerals. I particularly like an article on Veg Weight Loss that actually pulls out data from the USA website and compares them. I checked this against the original website. But the Veg website points out that the difference in nutrients may be because 100g of cooked oatmeal has a higher water content (and takes up a lot of the weight) than 100g of raw oatmeal.

But what about rolled oats? The Australian and New Zealand Food Standards website gives nutritional info for boiled rolled oats and raw rolled oats, so I put together a comparison table of this. The raw stuff has more energy, protein, calcium and more vitamins than its boiled counterpart. I'm not sure whether the info on the boiled oats would be affected by its higher water content.

	Oats, rolled, boiled	Oats, rolled, raw	Unit
Proximates
Energy, including dietary fibre	273	1572	kJ
Moisture	83	9.3	g
Protein	2	11	g
Nitrogen	0.35	1.88	g
Fat	1.4	8.7	g
Dietary fibre	1.7	9.5	g
Fructose	0	0	g
Glucose	0	0	g
Sucrose	0	0	g
Maltose	0	0	g
Lactose	0	0	g
Total sugars	0	0	g
Starch	10.2	58.1	g
Available carbohydrate, without sugar alcohols	10.2	58.1	g
Available carbohydrate, with sugar alcohols	10.2	58.1	g
Minerals
Calcium (Ca)	9	45	mg
Copper (Cu)	0.102	0.502	mg
Fluoride (F)	94.44	60.22	ug
Iodine (I)	1	4.3	ug
Iron (Fe)	0.9	3.73	mg
Magnesium (Mg)	24	131	mg
Manganese (Mn)	1.214	5.821	mg
Phosphorus (P)	80	411	mg
Potassium (K)	53	313	mg
Selenium (Se)	1.5	14.1	ug
Sodium (Na)	1	7	mg
Sulphur (S)	39	151	mg
Zinc (Zn)	0.42	1.92	mg
Vitamins
Thiamin (B1)	0.103	0.535	mg
Riboflavin (B2)	0.026	0.141	mg
Niacin (B3)	0	1.01	mg
Niacin Equivalents	0.42	3.29	mg
Pantothenic acid (B5)	0.06	0.34	mg
Pyridoxine (B6)	0.01	0.07	mg
Biotin (B7)	5.4	30.1	ug
Folate, natural	0	18	ug
Total folates	0	18	ug
Dietary folate equivalents	0	18	ug
Vitamin C	0	0	mg
Vitamin E	0	0.35	mg

Aus & NZ Food Standards links - raw rolled oats and boiled rolled oats

I'm not sure if toasting the oats in the oven would have the same effect on boiling oats in terms of their nutritional content. Nevertheless, I'll try mixing my raw oats with my toasted oats and see how I go.