Tuesday Dinner

Was too lazy to go to the city to get groceries.


I looked into the drawer of dried goods... it is laden with stuff... now what could I cook tonight?


The snap-lock bag of split yellow peas stared back at me, beseeching me to cook them up before they get infested by moths. 


And tonight's dinner is dhal.


Dhal is probably the one of simplest and most satisfying food to cook and eat. Perfect for a cold winter's night. :)

Tuesday Dinner

On This Day

This year I celebrate my birthday with my family and KT.

I was woken up at midnight to the sound of people singing "Happy Birthday". It took me a while to register in my sleep-fogged mind that they were wishing ME a happy birthday. 

I must have looked like a stunned mullet. :)

My expression has been digitally immortalised.


The cake? Coffee swiss roll. 

C gave me a headband decorated with peacock feathers; I've wanted that for a while. 


Dinner tonight? Hot pot prepared at home. 


My birthday the way I like it.

On This Day

Pizza for Dinner



Four cheese and sage pizza - Gruyère, Cheddar, Gorgonzola dolce latte, Mozzarella





Four cheese and sage pizza fresh from the oven - salami (sopressa) and mozzarella pizza in the making



Sunday night we had pizza. Sunday night we had pizza we made. We bought a 33cm pizza stone for the occasion. It was a successful first attempt; very, very satisfying to make as well as to eat. We used recipes from the Gourmet Traveller, with embellishments. :P 


The pizza dough was surprisingly easy to make, 1 quantity of pizza dough yields four 33cm pizzas (we like the crust to be thin and crisp) which was plenty for 4. 

The ingredients for each recipe were for 1 quantity of pizza dough, but we made half-quantity for each recipe, and pretty much overloaded the base with topping. :) 

The oven was set at 230°C fan-forced. The pizza stone should be pre-heated so that the crust is crisp. 

Pizza dough
(Adapted from the Gourmet Traveller)


Ingredients:
15g yeast
400g strong plain flour / '00' flour
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil


Method:
1. To activate the yeast, combine yeast with 100mL of lukewarm water in a small heat-proof bowl. 
    Stir to get an even mixture, then stir in 2 tablespoons of flour. Cover and stand in a warm place 
    for 30 minutes or until mixture is foamy.
2. Place remaining flour into a large bowl, create a well in the centre, add in yeast mixture, olive oil, 
    a pinch of sea salt, and 140mL of water. Mix until combined. Knead until dough is smooth and 
    elastic (about 5 minutes). Divide dough into four, and place onto an oiled oven tray.  
    Brush dough with olive oil, cover and stand in a warm place until doubled in size (45 minutes - 1 
    hour).

For the four-cheese pizza, we used Gruyère (coarsely grated), Cheddar (coarsely grated), Gorgonzola dolce latte (crumbled), and Mozzarella (thinly sliced). Roll out on a lightly floured surface one portion of the pizza dough. Scatter the cheeses evenly onto the base, making sure to leave a little margin. Top with sage leaves. Bake on the pizza stone for 10 minutes or until golden. Drizzle with garlic-infused olive oil and serve immediately. 

For the salami and mozzarella pizza, we used sopressa (roughly torn) and Mozzarella (thinly sliced). The sauce was made by frying up some chopped up garlic and onion, adding in passata and blended red peppers, season slightly with sea salt (not too much, as the salami can be quite salty), then simmer until it becomes thick (10-12 minutes), stir constantly. Remove from heat and let cool. Roll out on a lightly floured surface one portion of the pizza dough. Spread tomato mixture evenly onto the base, making sure to leave a little margin. Top with cherry tomato slices, sopressa, and mozzarella. Bake on the pizza stone for 6-8 minutes or until golden. Drizzle with garlic and oregano oil and serve immediately. 

For garlic and oregano oil, cook oil and garlic in a small saucepan over medium heat until garlic is golden (3-4 minutes), add oregano, remove from heat, season to taste and set aside.

Pizza for Dinner

Trans-Indian

I've been back in PJ for four days.

I've been busy stuffing my face with good food. My plan to maintain my weight, or even better, lose weight, is flushed down the hatch with each gulp of Sarsi. :P

My morning ritual is to check the classifieds for suitable job openings. I realise how difficult it is to apply for a job from across the oceanic divide. By the time I enquire about a job opening, half the population of Australia has beaten me to it. If I'm asked when I could go in for an interview, I regretfully reply that I'm not in situ... but how about in one and a half weeks' time? ... No?

On the morning I arrived home, C coerced me into tending the jungle of a garden (my father harbours grand dreams for the garden to bloom into his private Utopia; the only creatures calling the garden Utopia these days are bats and rats). We've given the garden a considerable make-over ever since, up-turned pots, half-tended patches of soil... but we're getting there. Really, we are.

Which reminds me, I bought some cut herbs, hopefully the cuttings can grow roots so that I can pot them. I have yet to go downstairs to check on the cuttings. Hopefully they're still alive in this sweltering heat. Fingers crossed.

Yes, I've been busy...

Trans-Indian

2010

What have I been up to since the start of 2010?

Well, I've been busy working, for a start. That has not changed.

I've made more bracelets.

I have yet to sort out the ABN issue to get my stall application going through.

I would take my first driving lesson this Friday.

As of next week, I would join the workless population in search of work. So far, the search has proved futile.

Not to worry. I have some unfinished continuing education business that would keep me occupied until I go back to Malaysia for the Chinese New Year.

What does the new year hold for me? I have not a clue. I do know that once I get back from my break, it would be a fresh start for me.

2010

Checking out

The apartment is in a major start of disarray.

On the 6th day of Chinese New Year, we are packing up a storm in preparation of our moving to the block across the road.

The living room is filled with cardboard boxes of all shapes and sizes, empty, half-full, full.

I am here to document this important event.

Fluffing, in other words.

I love that word.

I should be packing, too, but the stomach's growling, and I'm thinking of oh jian (oyster omelette).

So I'm googling for a good recipe. To keep up the energy to pack up.

I liken renting to an extended stay at a hotel.

Check-in, unpack, pack, check-out.

With more than just one suitcase of clothes.

Heaps more.

Checking out

Chinese New Year / Australia Day 2009

Yes, it was yummy!!!

I should realign this picture, but I don't have time. It's obvious KT enjoyed himself!

This is my first year and last year in Australia that the first day of Chinese New Year coincides with Australia Day. I was told by KT that this is a once in a hundred years occurrence.

Chinese New Year, Australia Day or not, a pharmacist works for bread and butter.

And Vegemite, of course.

Thank goodness I start an hour later today, that gives me some time to blog about my Chinese New Year cooking / eating dinner feast.

KT asked me to cooked loh hon chai ( a vegetarian dish) and a fish dish (fish in Chinese sounds the same as abundance).

I pestered my mother for a loh hon chai recipe, and tried it out yesterday night. Great success. :) KT was satisfied.

Fish dish? Oh, not so great success. I wanted to do a salt-crusted snapper, but the Donna Hay recipe turned out too salty. I have to look for a better recipe.

We had sambal prawn, too. Very great success. Spicy to the max. My nosed leaked like a burst pipe. So spicy that my stomach did acrobatics in the toilet, too. Not so appetising.

Chinese New Year morning? A staple - fried battered nian gao with sweet potato. Yummy. And the too salty fish? Fish porridge. Also yummy.

Chinese New Year / Australia Day 2009

Arrgggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhh!!!

Surprisingly I was quite alert at work, considering my haphazard sleeping schedule.

I even bought all the ingredients to make lad nar before I went to work.

I was all set to cook.

Until I went home, that is.

I just wanted to rest and relax.

So I ordered Thai takeaway.

It fitted the occasion.

I reasoned that I needed to have the lad nar taste fresh in my mind before I experiment with the recipe.

OK, I was downright lazy. :P

With my takeaway lad nar tucked safely in my stomach, I crawled straight into bed. Unhealthy, I know. Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgggggggggghhhhhhhh!!! To think that my colleagues commented that I've lost weight, and now I fall back to my old stinking habits.

If that wasn't bad enough, I had to be woken up by KT to open the door for him at 3am.

Now, at this early hour of 6am Sydney EST time with daylight savings (that's 3am witching hour in Malaysia, when I would still have been nocturnal), I'm still awake!!!

This has to end. Tonight.

Arrgggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhh!!!

Back in Sydney

I arrived in Sydney on 11th January 2009 morning.

I slept until 5pm that day.

Cooked dinner, which my father can take credit for - "man fan" - rice in broth.

Simple but yummy:

Ingredients:

• Pre-cooked rice
• 4 packets of bonito flakes
• 1 large piece of konbu
• 1 tablespoon Awase miso paste
• 2 tablespoons mirin
• Soy sauce - adjust to taste
• Suki-yaki beef
• Spinach, rinsed and chopped
• 2 eggs
• Fried ikan bilis (the small variety - ngan yu chai)
• Chopped spring onions
• Fried garlic in oil
• Black pepper to taste
• Chopped fresh red chillies, or Japanese chilli flakes (ichimi togarashi)

Method:

1. Boil bonito flakes and konbu for stock. Once the konbu softens, take it out, cut into strips, then throw them back into the stock. In this way, the konbu can also be eaten.
2. When the liquid comes to a boil, turn down fire to a slow simmer, skim away foam at the surface.
3. Stir in miso, mirin, and soy sauce to taste.
4. Add in beef. Broth at this point is at a simmer so that beef is not overcooked.
   
5. Add the eggs, stirring while adding to create egg strands in the broth.
6. When the beef is just cooked, add in spinach.
7. When the spinach is wilted, ladle broth over rice in a bowl, top with fried ikan bilis, chopped spring onion, fried garlic in oil, chillies or chilli flake, and black pepper.

Yes, I've been quite productive since I came back. That's because my sleeping pattern is off - I went to the bathroom at 5am and couldn't sleep ever since! I even had time to look up a recipe for lad nar. This web page is very informational, there is even a clip on how street vendors cook lad nar in Thailand! So tonight's menu is, yes! Lad Nar!

I really need to get some shut-eye before my gruelling 10-hour shift. Oh, no. :P

Back in Sydney

Look Me No Up Is It???

My "prinsip-prinsip seorang ahli farmasi teladan" are simple enough:

1. Every decision I make is with the customer's benefit and well-being as priority,
2. I would not recommend the customer to do / get something that I would not do / use myself, and
3. I would not sell the customer short or try to take advantage of the customer for the sake of profit.

So what made me so mad today??? This customer came in with a medication he was dispensed with earlier, which he had paid for, and he demanded to know why he paid a higher price than that stated on the sticker. The price stated on the sticker refers to the amount paid by the patient that would contribute towards the safety net amount, which is a limit to the amount of money a patient has to pay in a calendar year for government-subsidised medications. Once the safety net limit is reached, the patient pays a much lower price for each government-subsidised medication. Amounts contributable towards the safety net amount do not include "extras"; for instance, a brand price premium of a few dollars paid by the patient to the manufacturer of a market-leader brand (the brand that first come out into the market) as "royalty" for the research and development of manufacturing a market leader. 

It sounds confusing enough for me to explain it, what more for the customer to understand it. I have tried a few times to explain a brand price preimum to customers, and sometimes I get the customers so flustered I often wonder why I bothered in the first place. So when this particular customer told me he didn't understand what I was trying to tell him, I almost empathised with him. ALMOST I say. Why is that??? If the customer had one ounce of decency to tell me politely, even impatiently, that he didn't understand, I would have been more than willing to try to explain it a little better. NOOOOOOOOOOOO... he had to act as if he was starring in this HK TVB series, as if he's haggling prices of ikan masin at the pasar, complete with the confrontational hand gestures and imperious tone (I have money ah, I want to buy your salted fish for $3.23 dollar less, you REFUSE ah??? Then you don't sell salted fish lah... I DONATE the $3.23 to you to sell your stall and take up residence in some rumah atap in the kampung you came from). He even accused me "You mark-up the prices gah???" 

Seriously, my pay is so bad and I don't get extra from extorting the measly $3.23 from you, what makes you think that I would derive any sick pleasure from robbing you of your hard-earned "coffin money"??? I also thought to myself that why raise your already high blood pressure over something so trivial when we would have settled this calmly??? Seriously some people just don't know how to take better care of themselves. 

You've got your principles on how to settle a dispute like an ahli kongsi hitam, and I've got my principles to treat customers with respect, even when they can't seem to tell the difference between respect and something floating in the sewers. 

I then told him that he could get the cheaper brand of the same medication for $3.23 less, provided that the doctor had not indicated that brand substitution was not permitted. His eyeballs nearly fell out of their sockets when he asked me "You mean the doctor said that cannot change brands???"

I was on the edge of my patience. I checked his script, and told him the doctor has allowed for brands to be changed, and I asked him if wanted the cheaper brand. He asked if they were exactly the same. I said yes, and he said, "Well, what are you doing to do about it?" More hand gestures.

DEEP BREATH. "I am going to change the brand over. It will take a few minutes.". He even thought that I was going to just refund him the $3.23 but let him keep the branded medication. I really had to take ANOTHER DEEP BREATH before repeating that I had to swap the more expensive brand over to the cheaper brand before I could refund him his money. 

With him obviously satisfied, he sat down and good-naturedly chatted with his friend whilst waiting for me to fix things up. Oh ho... so we could be friendly and amiable to our friends, but when it comes to the pharmacy graduate, we need to show her who's the boss, do we? We need to display hand gestures as if we're ready to take the graduate down with a parang if she refuses to refund the money, do we? 

Well, I wish him all the best in his future undertakings with the victim he makes of the next pharmacy graduate he crosses paths with. It most definitely would not be me. 

Look Me No Up Is It???