Sauceless vs Cheeseless

This was what I cooked last week.

*points to picture below*

And this was what I cooked this week.

*points to picture below*

Monday Night Verdict?

Apparently the latter is the crowd favourite. The crowd being mom and dad. Heh. I got an instant "Nice." from dad even before I actually sat down. Dad was already digging in. *as shown in the picture above*

It was a no-brainer since it's been known that dad is a Tomato Man. I've been stubborn for the past few weeks in attempting to cook all my pasta-ish dishes without the regular tomato based sauce. Hence last week's Salmon Spaghetti was flavoured with just garlic and pepper. I personally enjoyed it. *bias* Because unlike dad, I have a thing for pepper. Many weeks earlier, I worked up a pot of Green Pea Spaghetti and let's just say that lunch was enjoyed in silence. =P

In my defence, it was still yummy but apparently,
nothing beats good old traditional tomato.

Now I came to realise that I've been posting up pictures of all my cooking adventures without actually sharing a recipe or two. Well, that's 'cause I rarely cook with a recipe.
I either randomly come up with an idea of what would work and buy my ingredients or in some cases, make do with what's available in the kitchen.
Hence, today's cheeseless baked pasta!

The idea of baking my spiralini instead of just cooking them ala spaghetti came about yesterday while I was walking around Giant. Now being right in the centre of the hypermarket, I could have easily grab some cheese for the idea yet I stood there in front of that cheese and decided against it. I admit they were not cheap and I was not feeling generous. Heh.

So I came home and seek Google for help. After twenty recipes asking me to put lots of cheese on my casserole and a read on a cooking forum later, I came to a conclusion!
What was important is that I have enough sauce to cover the dish so as to not dry up my spiralini. The cheese, aside from being rich and yummy, was a core ingredient in holding up the dish together. All I need is something else to do the job!

Finally, a first time in Hiyashibeeps,
I am offering a cooking tip instead of a travelling one. :O

If you're cooking for lactose-intolerant people or simply want to avoid the rich and not exactly healthy cheese, break an egg or two and coat it over your dish. There's also the other option of using yogurt in replace of cheese but again, I got none in my kitchen and there's lactose in that too.

So dear readers, if you are out there.
Try your luck with a cheeseless baked pasta today!

On a side note, I'm done with all things pasta for the time being. Mom just reminded me yesterday night that I still have my Japanese rice in the fridge. Yikes! Looks like it's time to go back to Japan. *grins*

[L.E.P.A.K series: Paris] Chap 11: To Paris with Love

After sharing our humble shepherd's pie together for dinner, we then proceeded to wash up and hit the sack early as we have a loooooong day ahead. Not to mention a very early morning start. Now if there's TWO strong selling points that Tune Hotels pride on are their power shower and comfy bed – the two core essentials for tired travellers like us. So we snuggled in as early as 10pm...

... and woke up at 5 freaking am to catch the first tube out to King Cross St Pancras Station. We were literally standing right in front of the tube station waiting for the shutters to open... and before you start calling us crazy, we were not alone! Hah!

Oh oh! Before I go any further, let me tell you about this super duper
yummy yogurt we had for breakfast.

This is crazy stuff man!

Honey walnut yogurt yo! It was soooo goooood. All for a not-too-expensive-yet-not-exactly-cheap price of £0.79p. I mean it's cheap if you ignore the difference in currency and take it as 1:1 but if convert over that's like RM4.00 for a cup of yogurt. Then again, Cik Anai and I saw a walnut yogurt (minus the honey) selling at a whooping price of over RM10 at Cold Storage back here in Malaysia. So... £0.79p is so worth the every savouring slurp we had with that yogurt.

Yummy yogurt deserves one more shot! See it says right there
“Thick & Creamy Yogurt – Walnut & Greek Honey”. Yaaa meeee!
Alright, end of yogurt commercial. :P Back to our early morning adventure.

So what's with all the fuss about being early anyway?

Well, we were on our way to catch the 6.53am Eurostar train to Pa-Pa-Paris!

That's the Eurostar waiting lounge right there. We were worried that we might mess up the check-in process or get lost inside King Cross station since we have never been there before and therefore got off on an early start. Better be safe than sorry yo! And seriously this is one ride we cannot afford to miss. After all, it cost a small fortune to ride on the Eurostar. On the contrary, we found our way easily in the station and the check-in process was swift with our print-out-and-scan tickets. So with another stamp in our passport we made our way to the waiting lounge.

There was an information counter at the waiting lounge that was manned by a friendly staff. We picked out some free yet very informative brochures of Paris to read on board and even bought ourselves a carnet of tickets. That way we don't have to fuss about language barrier when we arrive in Paris later. A carnet consists of ten tickets that can be used in all Metro, RER, bus and tram rides in Paris. However buying it here at King Cross would mean you will be buying it in pound instead of euros and the difference in currency is a disadvantage in this case as we bought it at a slightly higher price compared to that of in Paris. But it is most definitely time-saving and convenient, so we went ahead and bought them. We also managed to pick up some good old junk food at the convenience store.

Finally we were called for boarding.

That's me in the compulsory "Hey, I rode the Eurostar!" pose. :D


The train was pretty empty since it was a weekday and we almost had the entire cabin to ourselves save a hand full of others. What's more we even booked ourselves the centre seats designed to accommodate a company of four. It has two double-seaters facing each other, sharing a single table. We took our chance with these seats hoping to either have the extra leg space or if the seats in front of us were occupied, well there's no harm in making new friends. ;-)


But there was no one to make friends with and instead Cik Anai pop over
and sat across the table. *grins*


And finally we were truly really definitely on our way. We grabbed our load of junks out and munch away on our very unhealthy breakfast. In our defence the Real McCoy's grilled steak flavoured chips were de-li-cious!


Cik Anai enjoying her yummy chips!


Time to show off the wonderful morning scenery Cik Anai managed to
capture along the way.

Rajin membaca konon. Hehe.

Did we just pass the border? *clueless*

Art or vandalism? *shrugs* I don't know.
All I know is that we are almost there!!

And WE ARE HERE!

After being in the cosy train for over two hours, we were once again greeted by the chilly breeze as we stepped out onto the platform. The real bummer though was not the chill but was the fact that we lost one hour due to the time difference between London and Paris. That means lesser time for us to see Paris. Not cool, not cool at all.

Time to hunt down the RER!

Our first stop... off to meet the hunchback of Notre Dame.

Umm... I mean Notre Dame Cathedral.

Promise no delays on the next update. Stay tuned!

What Do You Call Pandan in English?

Or is Pandan English?

*googles*

Oh. They are indeed called Pandan Leaves.

Sometimes I hate the convenience of googling for answers. And the fact that the word 'google' has turned into a verb. It makes life too easy, knowledge less appreciated. *sigh* Which reminds me of an exchange I read in one of the livejournal communities I've joined. If you were the ones who utter these words, understand that I mean well and in no way being disrespectful. It is truly something that worth our two cents to think about.

"What did we do before the internet.

Before google and wikipedia and imdb and YT etc etc.

Just sit around confused and feeling stupid?"

-Unknown

I guess she's right in that sense. Knowledge is now out there for everyone. If anything else, we should be pretty empowered by the Internet these days. But let us not make it less meaningful just because it's easy.

* * * * * * * *

On a different note. This post started out with me wanting to tell you guys I made
'Pandan Chicken' today. Except I kind of wondered off topic as I typed my post.
That's the beauty of it, isn't it?

Eleven pieces of Pandan Chicken with a tinge too much curry powder.

Nonetheless, pretty good for a first try.

.

.

.

What a weird post this turned out to be.

Late Night Chat Deserves Some Appreciation

Good night Cubbie! :)

The Creative aka Weird Birthday Gift

This gift deserves a post of its own simply because it still leave me feeling puzzled and amused everytime I look at it.

And because it somehow manages to put a smile on my face everytime I look at it, it now sits strangely out of place on my 'new work desk'.

Umm... thanks Mr IdunTalkMuch!

The World As I See It...

...is a remarkable place :)

"You are the world, and the world is yours."

An Itch You Can't Scratch...

IS ANNOYING!!

>__<

I fought the sore. I killed the fever. I’m preventing the cough but an itchy throat is just too annoying. *clears throat* More so during the night than day. And the phlegm is another unhelpful culprit . Maybe I should sleep upright tonight, since laying down seems to worsen things up. *clears throat* I just feel the need to keep getting up from bed to spit ‘nothing’. Nothing because nothing is coming out except saliva. Eeeeww… *clears throat* *pouts* *cough* Blergh.


It’s just sad that I’m not even looking forward to go to bed. :(