Moon series by Laurent Laveder

Moon Games is a series's of silhouettes featuring people interacting with the moon using props. The series was taken by French landscape astrophotographer and astronomy journalist Laurent Laveder. It's a simple concept but made for amazing photos.

There's heaps more in the series but here are a few of my favorites.

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Mind map of a toddler

Anyone who has kids or regularly looks after children will find this funny and somewhat true. I especially like the muppet appreciation lobe. Oh Elmo how I have come to dislike your voice! Sometimes anyway :)

 

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Pork Rolls - Meadowbank

A little gem we found a few years ago in meadowbank. The little bread shop underneath the apartments serves the best pork rolls you can get. Even compared to the pork rolls you can get in cabramatta I'd save myself the trip and go to to this place.

The pork rolls are $4 each, it's packed full of three kinds of pork, pickled carrot, cucumber, lettuce, fried onion and soy sauce. The rolls a so huge by the time the ladies are finished making them that they wrap the ends up in cling wrap before serving it in the bag.

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Nerf Wars?!! Part 2

Recently in an attempt to organize out Nerf arsenal I realized that it had grown substantially since my first Nerf post.

4 extra units and lots of ammo. My favorite is still the long clear one and the massive circular cartridge. Though the transformer is probably the most coolest.

There are foam bullets EVERYWHERE!

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Takoyaki!! Yum

After watching a cute anime episode where two kitty cats fought and chased after a takoyaki, I definitely had a huge craving for one :p.

We prepared all the ingredients for the filling and prepared the batter. If you aren't a fan of octopus you can make vegetarian ones or use different types of meat. We used some cabanossi, zucchini, sweet corn! And one of my favorites is using the laughing cow cheese, either on it's own or with sweet corn.

We used a mistral brand dutch pancake maker, it's a good one to get because there is an electric bottom so you can make it at the table or you can take the iron pan off and use it on the stove. It also has a picture of an octopus on it haha so maybe they should just name it takoyaki maker.

 

So when all the ingredients are ready spray the moulds with oil. Half fill each mould with batter and put in your filling, then fill with more batter til the mould is full. Wait for the batter to crisp up a bit, this next part gets a bit messy. Pour more batter onto the pan so it overflows and start turning and tucking in the overflowed batter into the takoyaki with skewers. Repeat that until they form into nice crispy balls.

They can be served immediately but the filling is super hot. Pour mayonnaise or bulldog sauce on top and Bonita flakes before serving. Enjoy!

All this talk of takoyaki I think we should make it again :)

Takoyaki batter Recipe

2 eggs
200g wheat flour
680ml icy water
1 tsp granulated dashi
2 tsp soya sauce
Pinch of salt

1. Crack eggs into bowl and whisk.
2. Add icy water, dashi, soya sauce, salt and whisk together
3. Add flour, sift in 1/3 at a time and mix

 

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Truly Random

Yesterday something happened that truly reflects the title of my blog. I was home in the afternoon and decided to take out the trash, the bins are only about 5-10 meters from my front gate. I threw out the trash and as I turned back there was an older Chinese lady walking towards me with some pieces of styrofoam to throw out. I smiled as you do and she started talking to me in mandarin ( my mandarin is not great, I usually resort to deciphering what they're asking through context and the few words I do understand).

It was a nice little chit chat but as I started heading into my place she asked to see the interior because the place she lives in with her daughter has the same layout except with only 2 levels instead of 3. I was shocked but I said yes because she seemed like a nice enough lady.

Here's where it begins to get more random. A few steps down the path she exclaims that she should go get her daughter to come over too and she started pulling on my arm insisting that I should come over and have a look at their place first. So with maybe a fleeting thought that I could possibly be in a Charlie the unicorn type situation I quickly locked up and head over to my neighbors.

The lady's daughter (Linny) was just as surprised about the situation and a little embarrassed I think because their place was very messy, my place is messy too I told her. So after making awkward introductions I chatted to Linny for a bit before her mother insisted on showing me their upstairs. The place was practically the same layout but without a hallway to upstairs and she had replaced the carpet with floorboards, it looked nice.

After a couple minutes Linny's mother proceeded to tell me about how she used to have a mole on her cheek in the same spot as mine and that she removed it herself by stabbing it multiple times with a needle and that it hurt for a month but after the scab fell off it never came back. @.@ it sounded pretty painful.

Anyway, we headed over to my place and my friend had been waiting for me outside. I quickly gave her a rundown of the situation which she found hilarious and let us all into the house. I showed them the garden and my plants, which I am quite proud of even though it is a little neglected. She was very interested in my vietnamese celery and shocked me again by asking for one of the babies that had started coming up around the base. So I dug up a baby plant and put it in a pot for her. Meanwhile jancypants is inside trying not to laugh.

So we head back in and I showed them the rest of the place to many comments on use of space, how big our tv is and asking if we had a son when they saw Kens nerf collection ( which has grown since the initial post) haha.

Then as her daughter Linny was trying to shooe her out because she knew that I needed to go grocery shopping for dinner, she proceeded to check out my parsley plant for babies as well.

Haha truly a random event of the evening/ month. I'm glad a got to meet one of my neighbors and that they are friendly if not a little strange haha. Tis my life's randomness :)

 

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Sweet sweet dessert day!

Yesterday a friend came over to show me how to make macaroons and in our excitement we ended up turning it into an awesome cooking day. We made macaroons, a roast pork for dinner, a snow egg and a little creme brûlée.

Here are a few peek previews and I'll link in the posts soon.

Our purple ( which turned out a lilac colour) macaroons.

My pork roast, a method I've trial over many years, its not perfect but pretty good almost every time, no major disasters.

Our snow eggs which we ended up making over three weeks. It was worth it in the end!! Extremely yummy and once we got it right it think it was as good as the one we had at quay.

And lastly our creme brûlée which we made last minute because we had a lot of egg yoke left over. It hasn't yet been eaten so I'll put up another photo of the sugary caramel top when we do.

After all that we'll definitely have to hold off on the sugar for a while :) ...... Maybe ;)

Thanks for the awesomely fun day Jancypants.

 

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Parramatta Pheonix

Phoenix in parramatta is open where the Borders used to be, level 5 towards the cinema. The place hasn't gotten much traction yet it's still quiet even at peak times. We've tried it out twice and found that it had improved the second time round.

To make sure we had a base for comparison we got our favourites ;).

What I like to call the footballs. Savory mince wrapped around a sweet mochi like skin and a crispy shell.

Glazed char siew buns, kens favourite.

Prawn in rice noodle sheets

Chicken and sticky rice, wrapped in a banana leaf.

Vege dumplings and prawn dumplings

Chicken feet

Egg tarts

Salt and paper squid

Desserts! Watermelon and jelly and silky tofu. Yum yum :)

The food isn't bad though not as good as the rhodes branch. The only thing we found a little annoying is that the cart servers were really trying to up sell their wares.

Other then that it was a pleasant experience.

 

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Miss Chu Tuck Shop - Townhall

Miss Chu tuck shop serves vietnamese style food. It is a place originally started up in Melbourne and now has opened up 4 places around Sydney's CBD. It has been described as a modern day hawker style take away place.

It was nicely decorated place with large chalk menus, stools seating around the shop and I especially loved that they had iPhone chargers in that seating area so you can charge your phone while you eat.

For larger group seating they had repurposed ironing boards and folding stools. I liked that the place had a quirky feel to it and a touch of family background.

We had to order the pho ($14)! It was cold and what better way to trial out a vietnamese place then to test the pho. It was good, not to salty and not too watery, a nice broth and meat mixture.

Free range chicken hanoi curry ($15). I loved the pho but when I had the curry it was definitely my favorite of the two. It tasted just like how my mum makes it. The potatoes are cooked so they are soft through but still hold its shape, the chicken is moist and the curry soup is slightly chilli, just to give it a nice kick.

We tried the pineapple and mint frozen young coconut juice ($7.5). It was a nice twist on an old favorite.

The place was nice and very authentic but a little price for the portions. Next time we might try the rice paper rolls, they good call Miss Chu the queen rice paper rolls.

 

Miss Chu Tuck Shop

501 George st

Sydney

Tel: +612 9283 0357

Open: Mon - Sat

11am - 9.30pm

Visited: 20th June 2012

 

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Ninja cookies!

I've been trying to find a decent cookie cutter recipe for a while to use with my ninja men cutters. I'm not a big fan of gingerbread, which is the recipe that came with the cutters, so I been testing out recipes. The previous recipes I've tried have either not been very nice or the cookies end up being Michelin ninjas.

This recipe is a base for all holiday recipes.

Sugar cookies

200g unsalted butter at room temperature

280g caster sugar

1/4 tsp vanilla extract

1 egg

400g plain flour

A pinch of salt

1/2 tsp cream of tartar

Your choice of icing

1. Preheat oven to 170'C/ 325'F
   
2. Mix butter, sugar and vanilla extract with an electric mixer until light and fluffy ( may take about 10 mins)
3. Mix in the egg, scrape in the unmixed ingredients from the sides with a rubber spatula
4. Add flour, salt and cream of tartar and mix well but don't over mix. The dough should be light soft and easy to handle
5. roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface and cut out shapes with your cookie cutters
6. Bake for ten minutes or until the edges are lightly golden and the centre is still pale
7. Remove from the oven and let cool slightly before putting them on a cooling rack to cool completely before decorating

Excellent to have on their own, with a cup of coffee or tea.

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