Mussel Ultimatum

I hope everyone had a nice weekend. Certainly I did. It was nice and sunny to start with and I ate lots of food :-0 lots, lots… until I felt full right up to my eyes- you would have been able to see food floating in my eyes *blush*

I had polenta hot pancakes with crème fraîche for breakfast at a fancy waterfront restaurant, which happened to be pancakes with fresh cream and grilled apricot. I just got so excited at the word ‘polenta(Italian cornmeal)’ since I had never had one before and almost every expensive restaurant in Wellington seems to have a polenta dish on menu. Disappointed by my accidental pancake experienc, I went straight to the local German bakery- they make the best cakes in the world- and grabbed these naughty delicious cakes.

The pinky sponge roll with berry cream has become my all time favourite. I had one today again. Shh…. :p So soft…hmmmm…. the cheesecake beside it wasn’t as nice as it looked, I finished it too, though.

Then, in the evening we went to Leuven, Belgian pub, and took advantage of ‘free second meal deal’ and had two pots of steamed mussels. I had almost one and half kilogram of mussels by myself. Well done, Nancy! Ta dah~!

Steamed mussels in blue cheese broth is my favourite, although I ordered saffron and garlic aioli one this time. I love the fat chunky hot chips exclusively offered by Leuven in Wellington. When I had the same food at Leuven in Sydney, it tasted different strangely. Maybe my palate remembers the taste of the food you have for the first time.

We continued to see ‘Bourne Ultimatum’, which turned out to be the best out of the whole Bourne sequals. It was so exciting! It deserves ‘The best film of the year’! I sat on the edge of the seat, stuffing myself with popcorn and choc top ice cream in thrill and excitement. Amazing car chase, smart tricks and reverse. Loved it, loved it! ;-0

Out evening ended in a late night naughty dessert cafe, with cake and hot chocolate. Hm…. what a fantastic weekend I had. Am I showing off? I guess so… *blush* Sorry, folks!

* happen to…

The shop happened to be run by Korean.
He happened to show me the photos from his childhood.

* take advantage of …

Many people are trying to take advantage of tourists.
This house will take advantage of the sun during summer.
When you are drunk and unconcious, you are more likely to get taken advantage of.

* turn out

I thought he was single, but it turned out he was married and has children.
The movie turned out to be better than I expected.

* show off

She showed off her brand new handbag.
I can’t stand people showing off money in public.

* deserve

He doesn’t deserve to be punished like that.
She deserves Oscar for her role in her recent movie.

Colour me Gimbop!

It sounds like a movie title, doesn’t it? Hah hah. I watched ‘Colour me Kubrick‘, a movie about a guy pretending to be Stanley Kubrick, the film director of a few famous movies including ‘A Space Odyssey‘, ‘A Clockwork Orange‘ and ‘Eyes Wides Shut‘, which opened my eyes to his movie world for the first time since I was a little crawling baby, peeing in my nappies, *blush*when the previous movies came out. If you guys haven’t seen ‘Vanilla Sky‘ by Tom Cruise, I recommend it since it is inspired by ‘Eyes Wide Shut’ and has some interesting scenes very dreamy and surreal. I was thinking it would be a good idea to make a section for people to write recommendations about movies or music. Ho ho. To start it off, I recommend ‘16 Blocks’. I watched it the other night and I laughed a lot, very funny, not because it was a comedy film, but the performance by the supporting actor was just hilarious, adding fun bits to the story. ‘16 Blocks’, stared by Bruce Willis, is a really good combination of suspense, action and comedy. I won’t say much. You just watch it. I guarantee you will enjoy it. v confidence v

I love different colours in my food. What looks good tastes good, doesn’t it? I turned humble Gimbop into colourful flowers. In case you might wonder what Gimbop is- what’s normally spelled as Kimbap, but I think my way of spelling it will sound the closest to the original pronunciation of it :p, it is Korean equivalent of Japanese sushi, more precisely Maki which is wrapped in nori(seaweed), but it has more stuff inside that brings out the full flavour of individual ingredients. Maki, to me, is tasteless without soy sauce and wasabi to dip in. Oh, oh, oh~ no offence here. *blush* I just think it has just too much rice and very little stuff inside. Not suitable for people on low carb diet.

So I mixed rice with vegetables of different colours to reduce the amount of rice. Carrot for orange, beetroot for purple, spinach or cucumber for green, egg yolk for yellow and the list goes on. They look too pretty to eat, don’t they? *proud* What’s inside? One with spicy tuna, the other with teriyaki mushroom.

The soup at the back is called ‘Taro soup with ground perilla seed‘. I know tropical islanders eat taro(Toran) with coconut milk,
but I replaced it with perilla seeds as is the way how Koreans eat it. They only make it on special occasions such as religious ceremonies or traditional holidays. Perilla seeds, which come from perilla leaves add creamy flavour and texture to food, and its leaves are used in making tuna or seafood maki to help digestion. But I don’t think I can get them here. I haven’t seen them at supermarkets.

Special Pasta with Capsicum sauce

When I tried to cook pasta the other night, I realised I didn’t have any tomatoes, not even canned ones that I always make sure I have in my pantry. Disappointed, I thought hard for a moment and remembered a recipe on a cooking show that had a pasta sauce made with red capsicum. At first, I wasn’t very convinced about the capsicum sauce business. Up until that point, pasta sauce was either tomato or cream based. Is anyone laughing at me? *embarrassed* But that night I kind of felt like trying it out, I guess I had no other option . As it turned out….guess how it was? ….. it was very delicious and full of sweet flavour from capsicum. I must say I was really impressed by the taste. It was definately worth a try. “Never afraid of new recipes, even it they sound strange!”

I tried to film the cooking process. But it was so hard! Can you imagine? Cooking with one hand and maneuvering a camera with the other… *Whew~* I couldn’t help laughing. I’m going to post it when I get around to editing it soon.

<Fettuccine with Grilled Capsicum Sauce>

Just a picture of steps of making for now.

Ingredients

2 capsicums, 5 cloves garlic – grilled (they can be pan grilled if you are lazy like me, he he )
1 zucchini, 1 onion – pan fried
English spinach – 3-4 stalks, stems removed
kalamata olives

Here goes the video recipe. (I went through my old folder and found one waiting to be edited, but I thought better of it.  I just want to get done and over with it instead of having it lingering in my mind for a year.)