Travelogue - Perth, Western Australia (1)

Eeeeks! Back with yet another Perth entry! I endeavour to be fast and furious!

This time round, I flew Jetstar and got really lucky - three seats all myself! Okay, I schemed a little. I told one of the crew that I had a bad back and asked if I could take the second last row since it was empty. Had such a wonderful flight being able to lie my body down straight. 'Cept that it was really cold onboard and I definitely under-packed my hand carry!

My travel essentials - shawl and my little mini bolster for my back

Caught a pretty sunrise when we were approaching Perth. It was like sleeping on a bed of clouds.

Such a beautiful sight.

Tex picked me up from the airport and off we went to have breakfast! I can't remember if we actually did have breakfast in the end, but what I recalled was that he dropped himself at school and I drove Rosie home. Talking about assimilation into other countries' culture, can't get any faster than this.

Reached his place and immediately changed into pyjamas to get comfortable!

Mama-made pyjamas pants are the best!

Cooked myself an easy lunch, took a nap before heading out to pick Tex up from school.

 

 

Turns out that unknowingly, we bought each other gifts! He got me a Canon Powershot S110 camera and I got him an iPad mini. Now we can both Skype each other without disruptions yay!!

 

 



My little purchase from the airport :)

Tex's Mum treated us to dimsum the next day! Ever since Hong Kong in 2007, I have been really careful in choosing dimsum as my meals but this was quite yummeh!

This Salt & Pepper Squid is my favourite! I like anything salt and pepper, I realise.

The husband with his new toy. Downloaded games immediately, basket.

And I made Cheese Baked Potatoes with Bacon & Onions.

Here's the recipe!

Ingredients:

1. Three big-sized potatoes
2. One big white onion
3. Four slices of back bacon
4. Shredded Mozzarella cheese, around 600g
5. Salt & Pepper
6. Celery leaves for garnishing
7. One Masterfoods Creamy Cheesy Potato Bake recipe base
8. One cup of thickened cream

Unfortunately, I didn't have the mood to prepare the receipe base from scratch so I cheated by buying the ready-made recipe base. Kinda regretted not making my own.

Preparation:

1. Slice the potatoes thinly. All of them needs to be of the same thickness so that all will bake evenly. I suggest each piece to be around 0.5cm thick at most.
2. Dice the onion and slice the back bacon into small strips.
3. Combine the thickened cream and the recipe base together. Stir and set aside.

Cooking:

1. Pre-heat the oven to 220 degrees Celsius.
2. Stir fry the onions and bacon until the onions turn soft and the bacon turn a little brown.
3. Oil your baking tray with butter generously.
4. Arrange the potato slices in a way that they stack diagonally above each other like fallen dominoes.
5. After the first layer, spread the stir-fried onion and bacon thinly on top of the potato layer.
6. Repeat Step 3 and 4 if you still have potatoes.
7. Pour the cream and recipe base mixture over the potatoes.
8. Cover the tray with foil and bake in over for 45 minutes.
9. After 45 minutes, remove from oven and top with mozzarella cheese. Bake for a further 15 mins at 180 deg uncovered.
10. Check on the cheese and if they start to brown, let it bake until your desired colour!
11. Garnish with celery leaves and tuck in!

Caution: Baked cheese normally looks lighter in the oven than when you take it out. Remember to take into account standing time to achieve your desired level of chao-ta-ness of the cheese!

From the photos above, you can see that I kinda burnt the sides a little. That's because I forgot to turn the temperature of the oven down after taking out the foil and topping the dish with cheese. So always keep a lookout! They melt so much faster than you think.

That's all for today! It's challenging to be blogging from memory and trying to remember things that happened close to three months back! I hope to be blogging next about my bucket list item and also the best birthday present I ever received in my entire life - a skydiving experience!

YAY!!!!!

Travelogue - Perth, Western Australia February 2013 (7)

Been close to five days since I am back but work has practically drained all energy that I managed to conserve from my recent vacation. When one gives, one takes. Oh well. I fight on!

And I do need to be quicker with my updates, don't I? Hahaha!


It was on one of those days when I got Rosie by myself, hence drove down to Matilda Bay for a walk.

Tex also dropped me in the city for some shopping because I felt too cooped up at home!

Dinner in the city!

People-watching.

Ordered an Iced Mocha without ice-cream but they might have forgotten and gave me a scoop anyway!




Cheap thrill.

Tex came by to pick me up and we went to have supper! Tried this very busy Asian dessert joint.

Yam dessert

The next day was a Saturday so I insisted that we should visit a farmers' market which only opens on weekends! Woohoo!

Xylia would so love this..

Childhood fun!

Had breakfast by those stalls! I love getting food from stalls like that - food is always prepared just in time and served piping hot!

Yummy bratwurst!

Our shopping from the market!

Okay! I am here to share another recipe - Garlic White Wine Mussels. May I also declare that the mussels' recipes are a mish-mash of what I have tasted, seen on Internet and finally came up with my own! They are all suited to my taste hence I didn't try to follow closely to other recipes.

Sidenote: we used mussels that were bought the other day but silly us put them in the freezer. As a result, we couldn't get them to open even when we simmered them for a longer time than usual. Lesson to learn from this - buy mussels only if you intend to cook it for that day!

Ingredients:

1. About twenty fresh mussels
2. One big white onion
3. Two bulbs of garlic (Yes I exaggerated a little here but essentially, this is the main 'spice' for this dish so put as much as you want! I am very liberal with my spices.)
4. Two Chilli Padis (Optional; you can skip this if you do not want your soup to be a little spicy)
5. Chicken stock
6. White wine (If you can, drop by a liquor store and look for cooking white wine which is sweeter in nature)
7. Salt and pepper

Preparation:

1. De-beard the mussels. Refer to this post on getting who to do the dirty job. Throw away any mussel that is opened at this moment.
2. Dice the onions and chop the garlic finely.
3. Slice the chilli padi.
4. Add water to chicken stock and bring to a boil; we need about a big bowl of stock. 
5. And we're ready to cook!

Cooking:

1. Oil the pan with olive oil generously over medium fire.
2. When oil is hot, throw in the diced onions and stir fry.
3. As soon as the onions turn soft (not brown), throw in the massive amount of garlic and chilli; stir fry again.
4. When the garlic emits a strong fragrant smell and just before they turn brown, add in chicken stock and try three tablespoons of white wine. If you like more or less, add or reduce accordingly.
5. When the mixture comes to a boil, throw the mussels in and cover lid tightly to let it simmer for 20 minutes.
6. Add salt and pepper to taste. Throw away any mussel that is not opened at this time.
7. Simmer again for 3 more minutes.
8. Garnish with celery leaves or coriander!
9. Ready to serve!

TADAH!!

Like I mentioned earlier, use fresh mussels to cook. Frozen ones would be tough to gauge if they are dead or not. This batch of mussels that I used were from the batch that were used to cook Chilli Mussels. Notice that they did not open as much as the Chilli Mussels did!

View after dinner.

Sausages from the supermarket!

On the day I left, we brought Rosie to meet our friends!

Guys and their toys.

Seishen hasn't given his $1600 Honda Accord a name yet. The car is sold by the way.

Make-up palette for guys,

Thanesh's uncle's house has a hot tub! (That cannot be used)

Because I was grieving over leaving, I treated myself to creamy chicken stew onboard. That tasted quite nice.

And I bought ice cream back!

Nah, just kidding. Underwear from one of my favourite lingerie retailers in Australia, Peter Alexander! Mad comfortable can.

So cute right!

Yay, finally concluded the travelogue for this trip! I hope to start on Hanoi's ASAP. :)

Travelogue - Perth, Western Australia February 2013 (6)

Hello! Blogging about Perth from Perth. This is getting a little too long, isn't it?

On this day, we decided to head to King's Park again for a day picnic!

Whipped up another salad for our munch.

Baby Spinach with all you can see that is in this photo.

Love sun bursts.

Free to roam just about anywhere.

After which, went to watch Tex play one of his games! He has now quitted soccer for the time being as he needs time to concentrate on his thesis. Prioritising, baby!

Even in summer, sometimes the wind gives me goosebumps.

Went to Wah Do for their delicious Chinese food again!

My favourite dish of all - 椒盐排骨

And say hello to the best apple strudel ever - Corica! I can't believe when I arrived in Perth for the first time, I didn't like it at all. Now, I just wanna buy a lot and go home with it. Mum has also officially told me she wants nothing - but this.

On another night, Tex cooked a really delish pasta to finish off his feta cheese!

That was breakfast on another day. I have lost track. Hahahaha!

Okay, this must be a Tuesday because on Tuesdays, KFC has offers like 9 pieces of chicken for AUD$9 or something!

Large pot of seafood stew that I cooked while entertaining some of our friends

Roaming around his university

Decided to be adventurous and drove out to City Beach on my own! Spamming of beach photos ahead, just because I love the turquoise waters.

Date night out with Tex! He brought me to an outdoor theatre where we caught Pitch Perfect! :)



Hokay! That is all for today! Going off now to squeeze some lemons to make honey lemon for the husband! :)