Broccoli soup

I received some of the final edits on my thesis from Al this weekend so I was busy working on that. Finishing it mid-afternoon meant there was plenty of time for me to whip up a delicious dinner for the evening.

The broccoli at the store this past weekend wasn't the greatest, but I wanted to eat it so I went with a soup instead.

I made a cauliflower soup a the week before and didn't like it that much. Roasting the florets didn't help up the flavour profile and I much prefer cauliflower in my gratin or curry.

I do, however, enjoy my broccoli all buzzed up into soup form.

I thought I'd go with something simple that I've (semi-)made before: potato broccoli soup. I amped it up with some spring onions too, but it turns out I didn't like the sharpness it added.


Plus a little baguette on the side. Perfect dinner!

Of course, dinner is never complete without dessert and Adam's incessant *whining* about pie resulted in a freshly baked one.

I certainly do enjoy making this pie though. It's relaxing to make, aside from the initial makings and the crust-in-pan development.

Asia Day 16: Home!

October 8
Finally, the day came that it was time to go home. My flight was just after lunch, so we headed to the airport mid morning so I could make it through the pesky customs line in good time. I had some money left over so I tried to spend it as best I could.

Obviously, I bought a Hello Kitty phone charm. Clearly the best use of money.

My trip was great, made better by all the appearances by family. I don't know if I'll go back in the next few years, but it'll be on my list of places to return to eventually!

Movie list for the flight home?

• Bon Cop Bad Cop
• Mr. Popper's Penguins
• Transformers: Dark of the Moon
• Just Go With It
• Bad Teacher

Clearly I didn't sleep on the plane. Unlike my flight TO Hong Kong, my flight BACK did not have a free seat next to me. In fact, I probably had the worst seat possible. I was in the middle seat of the middle row in the plane. Next to 2 asian guys who were keen on overstepping the armrest into my seat. Also, I pee A LOT!!! =(

By the end, the lines to go to the bathroom were over 10 minutes long! And there was only ONE LADY in front of me!!!

I met a lovely man in the line (har har hilarious) who turns out had circled the globe in the last 2 weeks. Wow!

We chatted while in line before getting back to our respective seats. I waited for him when we got off the plane and we chatted until my luggage came off the carousel (which was a very very long time =[) We switched cards and I guess we... are fb friends now?!

Anyways, I am glad to be back home! And I believe I am now caught up in my blog posts! Yahoooooo...

A whole year? Already?

Adam and I celebrated our 1-year anniversary this past weekend, so we decided to go back to where it all started...

Yes, my friends. We went to...

Greek Garden.

Delicious! I really do like that place so I was glad to get to have some Greek food again. As in, I was glad to once again have spanikopita that I don't have to labour over myself.

I left work a bit early so we could pick up a GPS from Future Shop on the way home.

That beauty of a baby set me back quite a bit, but all in good intention. This way we don't have to keep borrowing Jen's GPS and I get the excitement of owning a new fancy gadget.


I came home to some gorgeous delivered flowers, that was dropped off at the neighbour's since they came too early.

Then for a "fun" game of darts in the backyard where I clearly excelled. Darts because Adam was awful at winning me any prizes when we went to the CNE this year. So he made his own game so that he could "win".

Obviously, I am way better.

Some prizes didn't quite fit...

But clearly, I won them all.

Greek Garden was busy (busier than I'd ever seen). We were a bit early for the movie so we stopped in the bookstore first to peruse. I picked up another Michael Pollan book to add to my growing collection and we went to watch The Help.

I hadn't read the book so I was hesitant to watch it, but it was sort of the last chance to see it, so I figured, why not.

The movie was fantastic, and if movies are always worse than the books, then the book must be absolutely incredible.

It was a fun night and I was totally pooped out. Good thing everything in town is so close, home was only 10 minutes away!

Asia Day 14-15: Hong Kong

October 6
The last few days went by quickly. We were winding down and starting to organize suitcases for the packing fiasco that was barreling towards us at lightning speed.

I was finally able to get time away from my parents, so I spent it shopping by myself at the nearby Olympian City.

I got some time to myself, to think, and to really look at/buy things I wanted.

I got to have Japanese for lunch and bought a few things for myself. That made my happy.


My happiness is always shortlived, we were having dinner with some people I didn't know that evening.

My uncle had us meet him at the mall above the Mong Kok East station. We walked around for a bit and he showed me Goldfish Street (金魚街) before heading to the restaurant.

Lucky me, we were at a seafood restaurant. A large portion of the dinner was seafood, aka. food for me!

How do you buy your goldfish?

The family that invited us to dinner was my uncle's oldest (and youngest) daughter's godparents. They have two sons who were also there, the older married one also had his wife in tow. Among others, there was my aunt, uncle, the newlyweds, my aunt's sisters and one of the kids and husband.

We were a big table, and I was paired to sit next to my cousin (who came a bit late). On my other side was one of the godparents' kids. Turns out he went to UC Riverside, so we had a somewhat intellectual conversation. He was in business, so I clearly we had no real business delving into each other's respective fields.

Dinner was good and it was nice to see everyone before we left in a couple days.

October 7
If memory serves me right, this was the day we had dimsum with my aunt and her side of the family that was in town. After that, we walked Olympian City (again for me) before calling it a day some time mid afternoon. The evening was taken up with my uncle once more, where he took us to Carp Channel (鯉魚門).

It is so named, because the street only contains two types of stores:

• restaurants, and
• fish markets

All fish markets also have very large very old karp. A few of the fishmongers were fond of showing me that if you threw a small fish in the air towards them, these humongous fish would jump up with lightning speed to catch and eat it.

I. Was. Terrified.

Anyways, we walked the street and my uncle showed it all to me. We were waiting for my cousin to arrive to pick the food and a restaurant. He phoned to say he was near, so we picked out our food and picked a restaurant.

Oh. Right. I should explain that.

The restaurants don't actually have any food in terms of protein. Their service is, a chef to cook your meal. Your meal, being what you purchase at the fish market.

Let me explain via photos.

You choose what you want to eat from the tanks (above and above)...

Then they bring them to the restaurant in bags...

Then they cook them all up for you the way you like!

Sooooo delicious I was definitely seafood bellied for a couple days! =)

Sweet potato salad

I totally forgot about some sweet potatoes that I bought at the store a few weeks ago. I spotted them a few days before and decided I needed to make use of them.

I also started using this great website gojee.com recently. You can put in what you have in your fridge and it will search its database for great ideas!

Anyways, I popped in sweet potato as one of my "cravings" and i came across this delicious looking salad. Sweet potatoes, red peppers, black beans, onions. Sounds fantastic!

It was a breeze to whip up (although the cilantro sure was missed) and tasted great!