Tuesday, January 31, 2012

sushi rolls

sushi rolls are the new sandwiches. they're a popular choice for lunch as they're tasty, healthy-ish, easily available and portable. And they're eaten cold so no need to microwave anything! I love the fresh taste of vinegared rice and attempted to make my own sushi rolls. sashimi grade salmon isn't easy to come by [I dont know if I'd eat the salmon from coles or woolies raw] so I've used canned chicken [the mayo and smoked flavoured ones work very well] and avocado with shredded carrot and salad leaves as the filling. They work very well! cooked prawn, smoked salmon and canned tuna would work too. It's quite easy finding sushi rice, sushi vinegar and nori [seaweed] at coles or woolies so there's no reason not to try making these!

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Chinese new year and other things

 For those who didn't know, last Monday was the first day of the chinese new year. We got together with some other chinese background-ed folks to have a hotpot meal, above which consists of various types of meat, tofu, vegetables and noodles cooked in a broth at the table and eaten as they cook. I love those processed meatballs, octopus balls and fishballs. [which you can only get at asian grocery shops] of course we always end up preparing too much food. we had just 7 people but bought enough food for double that!
 This isn't food related but I just thought Socks looked so crisp and smart next to the laptop one day.
at the office barbie - lots of saturated fat and cholesterol i'm afraid!

Some pan fried squid and flathead fillets that were dredged in a seasoned flour- yummy!

oh and Happy Australia day!

Monday, January 09, 2012

frozen meal reviews

One night, we made the error of not booking a table at the restaurant we meant to go to and found that it was full [a friday night] and every other place we tried to ring up was full too! We really didn't feel like cooking so did the next best thing [apart from going to Macca's] we bought frozen ready meals from the supermarket!
Who'd have known you could have ready meals from all around the world right from the freezer section?
this one from lean cuisine $4.50 on special was quite a good serving size, which was surprising for something that only has 300cals. the meat was tender and the pasta was cooked just right with a nice springy texture. The sauce was tasty enough but it did indeed taste low fat. [whether that's a good thing or not is up to you to decide!] what i mean is that it didn't taste rich. a good filling meal nonetheless.


 Gav had this Indian curry one which was $5.60, it looked like a small serving at first but after tipping it unto a plate it was a good sized portion. Apparently it was developed by some award winning chef from the UK who won some briyani award.
 It smelled so good and was very tasty. As good as a freshly made curry from an Indian takeaway. the whole kitchen smelled like a curry restaurant when it was being microwaved.
 There were good sized chunks of meat and generous lashings of curry sauce. Gav said he would buy this again. It's a good convenience meal but because it has no veggies in it, you'd need a side salad or some other vegetable to balance it off.