4hr Cooking spree...

Today was a good old friend's birthday, and I volunteered to help him with food arrangements. Expecting 18-20 guests, we went groceries shopping to buy food. And I'd have to say, as much as we seemed to have bought, ie. $100+, it was just enough... Or more accurately just over enough. With 2.8kg of chicken and 1.5kg of uncooked pasta, +8L of punch that didn't end up being made... I think we covered everything...

First time cooking without the reliance of recipes, and depending only on past experience and memory. And apart from a few kitchen booboos, ie. letting the pasta cook with my back turned and having it spill... twice... thrice... :P I think we did a good job of it. Suprisingly enough, the chicken skewers were completely gone as well as all the veges too. But yeah... haha funny thing was someone asking me for cooking lessons :P Though I don't think I have nearly enough experience to be teaching someone else how to cook lol... but yeah... It was fun though, although as the title might suggest, I was running around the kitchen for 4 hours :P Makes me feel sorry for the professional chefs really... Although it is the first time I've ever served so many people at once, ie. dinner for 18... Maybe next time I decide to jump in the deep end and assist with menu's and food, I'll be much quicker haha...

O, and if your wondering what I cooked, it was satay chicken skewers, triple cheese pasta bake, chicken and mushroom pasta bake, chinese veges, and the others prepared garlic bread and a snack of nachos.

Neways, yeah...

Photos of Our Christmas Dinner

I said I'd post up photos for yesterday's dinner thingy, particularly the fish and the chocolate fountain :P so here they are... My photography skills are coming along, learning by experimentation, though the chocolate fountain photo is still slightly out of focus :P... I also made a chocolate banana bread today too and that tasted pretty darn good haha... Anyways... yeah...

Christmas Dinner 2008

Well, tonight we had dinner at home, and my bro and his fiancee was with us. We had smoked turkey, ham, salt baked rainbow trout, prawns and chocolate fountain type fondue. I have photos... but I am currently too tired to be bothered to upload them here... So... maybe tomorrow...

Speaking of tired... When I get bored I think about all sorts of stuff... Thinking about stuff that I'm uncertain about, stuff that I don't know the answers too... And just mulling unresolute over these answerless questions... Suprisingly, it takes alot of brainpower to do that and I'm running out of it... But I'll ramble on about this another day...

I feel dead...

Talking to other parents

Our little group organised a little gathering night on sunday to do some cooking... and we had heaps of fun and laughter as well as some fails because of retarded ovens that overheat... But in the end all the food turned out ok and edible. But after dinner while everyone else was watching School of Rock on TV... I winded up in like an hour or so long conversation with their parents, talking about all sorts of random things like from the acquiring of occupation permits for our new church from the council to the landscaping, to my study of landscaping, to my plans to transfer to archi at UQ, to my grades, to design and subjectivity, amongst other things. I reckon it's really cool to talk to the parents of other people if they are willing to mix with you because they know quite a bit too, and have their own distinct perspective moulded by years of personal experience and the experiences of other people close to them. Though I guess it probably made me a little odd, to see me just having proper "mature" conversations with parents while my friends are in another room watching TV.

But meh.. lol...

Slllloowww Days...

For some odd reason some days appear much slower than other days... It's particularly noticable at work too. Today was one of those royal sloth days. It seemed that classes would never end, and they just came one after another, after another... Why is that ay? I wasn't particularly tired, and although I've slowly lost enthusiasm as the day went on, it was just so slow... I was at work at 12:30 and I finished my last class at 5:30... and between 2:30 and 3:30 I have nothing and don't get paid, so I only taught for 4 hours today... I'm sure we have all experienced that kind of feeling. But I wonder if it had to do with my food... I've been trying to overload on carbohydrates, which means I've also been eating alot of junk food... Which have an adverse effect on blood glucose levels, which cause an increase in insulin, which result in the slowing down of the body, or making it tired and lethargic... Meh, I dunno... I have eaten about 1000 calories of junk food today tho... but hey...

Work Dinner, Pre-Christmas celebration...

Well, went to a work dinner tonight... It was amusing and had a bit of a laugh, though it seems our work place is incredibly female dominated at all age levels... out of 17 people only 4 of us were guys, and 2 of them were like head coaches of the 40+ age group. The other guy was probably 20+ and I'm the youngest guy there at 18. It's funny how teaching jobs are generally so female dominated too. I'm pretty sure a school teaching staff would be highly female dominated as well, particularly primary levels, which are also the age of children we teach. I guess females supposably have that natural caring role, and most guys don't even want to have to put of with childish behaviour, or to some extent the childish behaviour of others. Meh...

But yeah, it was a good night, and again I overkilled on food, $22.10 got me a garlic bread that was about 25cm long as well as a 300g fillet steak plus an incredible amount of veges. Leagues clubs sell cheap, decent food. But yeah, it was a fun night and our workplace has some pretty crazy people too so it made it all the more funnier. But yeah... Cos some work people are going away early so they decided to celebrate, but then they are gonna do some more stuff closer to christmas... They like their celebrations I guess :P

That was as fun as my day got... Came home to complaints about me forgetting to wheel out the bin yesterday night... Can't help it...

Chilli and Wasabi...

Tonight for dinner mum made some taiwanese broad bean noodle with chicken strips or something like that.. And the sauce that came with the noodle was sesame oil + sesame paste... as well as another packet of oil... Being the idiot that I am... I poured in the oil thinking it was the sesame and that the other packet was just the sesame paste... When I ate it, it felt like I just squeezed half a tube of wasabi into my mouth... My mum later found out that it was wasabi OIL... Who the heck makes wasabi oiL??? But yeah, it reminded me of the Nando's night some of us guys went on last friday... Out of 6 or 7 guys I was the only guy to order lemon & herbs, every one else ordered like... Mild or Hot... While the other guys said to me that eating Nando's without chilli was a waste of money, I found it rather ironic as the amount of chilli that they have on those chickens would clearly overpower whatever flavour the chicken had... Defeating the purpose of eating good food... My mum made a comment over dinner about how with so much chilli they probably wouldn't have known if the chicken was off before cooking cos they wouldn't be able to taste anything else lol... I found that rather amusing and probably quite true :P

But yeah... Can't really it chilli... and can only handle miniscule amounts of wasabi... but hey...