Chicken Saganaki, Spaghetti Aglio Olio & Salad

I have been thinking of how other half and I can celebrate Valentine's this year, since both of us are working in different states. Finally, I decided to take a day off from work so that we both could spent time together. What other more meaningful way than to cook together?

Chicken Saganaki

The 1st time I had Saganaki was at Roka, where we celebrated our 2nd wedding anniversary. You can read it here. I've always thought that 'Saganaki' is a Japanese word (e.g. Nagasaki, Kawasaki, get the drill?). In actual fact, 'Saganaki' refers to various Greek dishes prepared in a small frying pan called 'saganaki'.
From my research online, most recipes published were for Shrimp Saganaki. I wanted to substitute shrimp for chicken. Thankfully there was a recipe online for Chicken Saganaki. I tweaked it a little and added some olives and British parsley.

Feta cheese from Emborg

May I present to you...Chicken Saganaki!
The ingredients are: Chicken breast, Onions, Garlic, Red Wine, Oregano,Crushed tomatoes, Feta and Parsley (Olives are optional).

Chicken Saganaki

Spaghetti Aglio Olio

This humble spaghetti needs no introduction. The key ingredients are relatively simple (garlic, chilli flakes and olive oil). There were many versions of Aglio Olio recipe online. We wanted to attempt the one by Rachael Ray but we did not know where to get canned anchovies.

Anyway we still went ahead with the basic recipe. This was made by hubby.

Spaghetti Aglio Olio

Home-made Salad

What? Meat and carbs but no veggies? Hubby made a simple salad which consists of red and green bell peppers, Romaine salad and tomatoes, with olive oil and balsamic vinegar as dressing. Lastly, he threw in some bread (I told him we should use bread crumbs, but he said to save time we have to make do with what we have).

Salad

Overall, we were very satisfied and happy with the outcome of our 1st attempt at the Chicken Saganaki and the Spaghetti Aglio Olio.

Belated Valentine Lunch

Tao Buffet @ Penang Times Square

A couple of days ago, my boss treated us to a pre-CNY buffet lunch at Tao, Penang Times Square.

I'll let the pictures do the talking.

To be very honest, I don't quite like eating buffet sitting down on the floor. 

The food was just so-so, probably since I'm not a fan of Japanese food.

Sorry for the blur pictures. Tried to snap as many pictures of the food before they were gone!

I don't know what are these dishes are called in Japanese (didn't bother to remember).

These were the only food pictures I have....

Jellyfish

Assorted seafood

Octopus

Abalone

Meat and prawns

Prawns

Cakes

Strawberry and chocolate chip ice cream

The two pictures below are courtesy from Thian Chang my colleague. 

Decoupage and the weekend project

I do not consider myself artistic, since I can't draw well and used to getting C's for art subject.
However, decoupage is a form of art which do not require me to draw or paint, what-so-ever.
It just require patience, creativity and some skill (which I still lacked). I got hooked on decoupage when I stumbled upon this art while looking at some blogs 2 years ago. Also, decoupage was what I did to pass time when I was looking for a job back then.

Most of my creations were done on wood. I've done some on bottles and glass too. I never seem to be able make the surface smooth, lack of skill I guess.

These two were done on wooden chopping boards from Daiso.

These two blocks of wood was given by a nice church member. I should have used sandpaper to smoothen the surface before pasting the tissues.

I used the cover from a biscuit tin and added the rest of the accessories. Got this inspiration from my church member.

These two small wooden boxes were painted and decoupaged. Now used as my mini jewellery box.

Decoupage can be done on egg shells. So I tried...What do you think?

My collection of decoupage tissues..

This weekend, my project was to transform this tin (used to be Kjeldsen's butter cookies) into a flower-themed storage tin. Got hubby to be involved in this project. He used sandpaper to remove the original colours of the tin and then sprayed the tin white.

I cut out the flowers from the tissues, arranged them and applied a layer of gesso followed by sealant and lastly a coat of clear varnish. The final product...

From what I gathered, most professional's use JoSonja and Americana decoupage kits (gesso, glaze, varnish, etc). Many ladies (from blogs) are really really talented and good at decoupage. They do offer basic decoupage classes to anyone interested and also sell customized decoupaged products. Really pretty!

Then next thing to learn is folkart. Unlike decoupage, I think I need to attend classes since folkart involves painting..

L'Erbolario products

When we were at Pisa, we randomly stepped into one of the shops selling L'Erbolario products. If you know that L'Occitane is from France, you made the right guess that L'Erbolario is from Italy, to be exact from Lodi.

I'm not really a fan of beauty products, but for the sake of getting something, I decided to get their solid perfumes which was quite cheap, about 9.90 Euros each. There were so many scents to choose from and they all came in many coloured tins.

This perfume from the Primaverde line has a very light yet refreshing smell. Here's the description I got for this scent:

Top notes: Bergamot, Mandarin, Lemon, Peach, Mango, Papaya
Heart: Lily of the Valley, Rose, Primrose, Freesia
Base: Musk, Amber

Primaverde Profumo Solido

The second perfume I bought was from the Frutto Della Passione (Passion Fruit) line.

Frutto Della Passione

The sales lady was also nice to include some samples for me to try...but...

All the instructions were in Italian. Since I could not differentiate which cream serve which purpose, I managed to ask this nice girl while were were at the airport.

And found out that some are for the body, while others are for the face.

Cream for the face and body

Bagnoschiuma (shower gel) and Crema per il Corpo (body lotion)

I've used the Iris shower gel and it does have a calming smell which reminds me of Johnson and Johnson's bath gel. I noticed that their hand creams are very rich, in the sense that once applied you have to really rub your palms together for some time before it is fully absorbed. Perhaps the product is made to suit the European weather which is quite dry compared to our Asian weather.

Grabbed these lovelies during Christmas last year to compare between Crabtree & Evelyn's hand creams and the ones from L'Occitane. Verdict, I prefer Crabtree & Evelyn's Wisteria over the Rosewater.
Both  Rose Des Champs and Rose 4 Reines from L'Occitane smelled lovely and the texture of the cream is better than Crabtree & Evelyn's.

Hand creams from Crabtree & Evelyn  and L'Occitane

Can't to try out these too...
Purposely bought the smaller bottles since I love collecting miniature stuff (perfumes, etc)

Shower gels from L'Occitane

Today's lunch: Vegetable Soup and Stir-Fry Minced Pork with Ginger

I've been craving for home-cooked soup the whole week. Since today is an off day for me (sadly hubby has to work) due to Thaipusam replacement holiday, I decided to cook.

Vegetable Soup

This is one of my favourite soup. It's pretty simple as the ingredients are just radishes, carrots and pork bones/ribs. I added cabbage this time round. Just boil a pot of water, add the pork bones/ribs, then the remaining vegetables. Boil under low fire until the carrots and cabbages are soft. Don't forget to add pepper and salt (or soya sauce) to taste.

Comforting vegetable soup

Stir-Fry Minced Pork with Ginger

This is another simple dish which anyone can cook. I decided to do something different by adding the leftover radishes and black fungus. Before cooking, you can marinade the minced-pork with some white pepper, salt/soya sauce and Shao Hsing cooking wine. I'm a pepper lover, so I added some black pepper and some paprika (for the sake of using the paprika we bought from Greece..haha). Don't forget to slice some ginger, and squeeze out some ginger juice. 

Heat the wok and add some sesame oil. Add in ginger and fry until fragrant. (Tips: Sesame oil and ginger are like best friends, they always go well together, IMO). Next add in the minced pork, and stir-fry until slightly brown (cooked). Add the radishes and black fungus to the minced pork. Now, pour in the ginger juice and continue to stir-fry. It is up to you whether you prefer this dish to have a little gravy, or lots of it. Add water accordingly. Depending on water content you've added, add in salt and pepper to taste. Ah..also, if you like to have some colour to the dish, you can add in some dark soya sauce. Simple right!

Stir-Fry Pork with ginger, radishes and black fungus

Cooking is all about trial and error, you can't tell a person to add more of this or that; if you like more ginger for example, then go ahead and add more ginger. If you are a pepper lover like me, then add more pepper.

Can't wait for hubby to be back for lunch. Serving the soup and pork with chilli padi (red chillies) is a must!

Moving to the new block....

After working at AT for almost 2 years, I was quite eager to move to the new Building H. This new building is the only one with a water feature and bubble lifts (which at the point of writing, has not arrived yet from the manufacturer).

I remembered when the water feature was up, many employees purposely made their way to this new building to snap pictures.

The Lobby

My office is on the 1st floor, which means I need to climb up a flight of stairs, which is actually great because I personally think we lack exercise and movement while were at the old office. In fact, I would still take the stairs once the bubble lifts are installed.

My colleagues and I as well as my boss and his boss, are sitting metres away from the glass windows overlooking the sea and Pantai Jerejak.  Of course the best cubicle would be big boss J's cubicle since he can directly see the sea view  while all of us have to stand up to be able to see it.  Looks like I have more reason to go to the pantry to 'mencuci mata'.

The picture below does not do justice to how pretty the scenery actually is.

View from the pantry

Previously all of us have low partition cubicles, almost no privacy. Now I really enjoy working at my cubicle. More space to myself, carpeted floors and cleaner surrounding.

My cube

Plan b @ Paradigm Mall

Last Sunday, Dan, Charles and I met up with Jon and Esther at Paradigm Mall. After lots of thinking, we decided to have brunch at Plan b.

According to the restaurant's website their Aussie-meets-New York-deli menu boasts of hearty breakfasts, contemporary salads, wholesome sandwiches made with freshly baked breads; pastas and a variety of rustic cakes and desserts.

True enough it was almost lunchtime, yet people were ordering sandwiches, burgers and the breakfast menu. Also I noticed that this place seemed to be very popular as it was almost full by lunch.


We were served water (free) in this bottle, which reminds me of some chemical bottle from the lab..haha..

Plain water (refillable)

I browsed through the menu, and decided to order Eggs Benedict, since I have never tried them before.
What I regretted was ordering the avocado-feta sides instead of the smoked salmon. Eggs Benedict are actually poached eggs and grilled turkey bacon heaped on a toasted English muffin, topped with Hollandaise sauce. I've always wanted to try this since I saw it on Martha Steward's show. Somehow I thought Hollandaise sauce would blow me away, but somehow it tasted normal, nothing spectacular.

Eggs Benedict (RM 14)  with avocado-feta (RM 9) as sides

Esther was wiser, she ordered streaky beef bacon as sides instead.

Eggs Benedict (RM 14)  with streaky beef bacon (RM 6)

Both Dan and Charles ordered the Char-Grilled Cheeseburger which actually tasted awesome. This juicy home-made patty came with fries, onion rings, and a bowl of salad.

Char-Grilled Cheeseburger (RM 25)

Jon's order was the last to arrive. He ordered the Home-made Salt Beef Sandwich. This came with home-made chips, gherkin and salad. The sandwich was so filling (and salty) that he couldn't finish the salad.

Home-made Salt Beef Sandwich (RM 21)

We took a few photos for fun:)

Esther and I had known each other for 10 years now. She is my 1st Sarawakian friend. Got to know her while we were both doing our laundry and we immediately clicked.

Esther  & I

Both Charles and Jon were Dan's course-mates in university. Jon was our best-man during our wedding 2 years ago. Charles was my drama-kaki during university. Watched Avatar (the cartoon) and One Tree Hill with him.

Charles & Jon

The 3 young men 

We had a great time catching up, although I can't really remember what we talked about. We were too engrossed with our food, I think!

Btw, thanks Charles for the treat:) The total bill came up to RM 162.40.