Formal Marathon

Some awesome formals so far ...

I still have 10 to go for the year! :)

Here are some nice pics I took for this term:

'Cheesy' Freshers Formal

Just imagine having potato and gnocchi for starters, cauliflower cheese for side, and this beautiful cheese cake for desserts..... I've never seen such a dairy rich menu before in my formal experience LOL :D

And to top it all, we went to Cindies after that for a 'cheesy' night out with 80s music ...
Completely cheesed out that day...

Above it all, this is my favourite picture from Hughes Hall formal, its reputation as the best formal in Camb is undeniable ...

Smokin' hot lamb shank! Love the way the camera captures the steam ...

And this caramel-cream-sponge cake dessert is like a cake version of creme brulee, equally sinful, reminds me of the chicken stir fry project I had not too long ago with French styled presentation, hehe

I self declared my own holiday today, refusing to look at any more never ending pile of supervision work, hence the massive updates for once. With 7+2 essays pending, it'd be quite interesting to see what happens to me by the end of the month, LOL. Anyways it's feels great to kick all the work aside and do nothing!

*Brainstorming on what to experiment tonight*

EU Food Fair

It's kinda funny when I've been going to Msian Food Feast and Asian Food Festivals since 1st year, but when you go to a European version, it is NO WHERE near the scale of mass production (with quality of course) of our events in Camb. The turnout was about 30 people or so, excluding the committee members, but nevertheless very interesting in the point of view of my inquisitive taste buds and food knowledge.

They've Greek, Russian, Slovenian, French, Polish, and Turkish food, quite a nice variety. However the extent of make-it-yourself-ness in producing the dishes is about 50% only. Especially the French outlet, which consists of quiches, cakes and pastries which are mostly Sainsbury-like items. Slovenian food is my favourite, but though most of them seem to have a common salad item which seems the same to me! LOL


This is the pork kebab, Russian cabbage pastry, and Greek lentil mash with bread (forgot the specific names)
Potato sald, pepper with stuffed cheese mix and vegetarian kebab

Pork kebab again with Slovenian sausage and bean stew and bread
The Polish Bigos (mixture of Sauekraut cabbage, and some other things) with bread, and on the right is the Slovenian stew with beans, barley and ham.

Somehow I still prefer our Msian feast or AFF, they take food more seriously LOL

American Pancakes

Having supressed some essays, I must say I can't wait for the workload to stop! Anyways, my posts have been accummulating like crazy, hence this is gonna be a slightly long picturesque post, so prepare for a feast (for the eyes lah)... :P

I had cravings for American pancakes with maple syrup last weekend, having got bored with cereal or English fry ups for breakfast. Was quite surprised with the results, well, its not that hard to begin with and the ingredients are easy to find.

American Pancakes

3 cups (I used my rice cups instead) of self raising flour
1.5 cups of milk
1/4 cup sugar (or less if preferred)
1 egg
1/2 tablespoon salt (very important)
some oil

Basically all you have to do is mix everything up till a nice consistency, i.e. no lumps. Heat the pan till its hot, with a little bit of oil. Then use a ladle and scoop the batter to form a nice round pancake shape. It cooks really quickly if the pan is sufficiently hot, and hence you'll have the time of your life flipping pancakes in the kitchen! should take about 2-3 minutes each side maximum

Spread a chunk of butter and drizzle with generous amount of maple syrup, and you'll get THIS! :D



More follow up posts coming up soon, as I'd already wasted enough time and will have some crisis tonight, LOL. Hope everyone is surviving term well!

Essay Overload

What a crazy past 2 weeks! With all of the sudden inflow of work, tentatively now I have 12 essays left to go, it's actually quite funny if you think about it. Supervisors are getting more and more bold by incorporating many parts in the questions they set now. By this I mean that I have one particular supervisor, who set us 2 questions, with each question have FOUR totally unrelated subparts to it, hence making up the 8 out of my 12 essays left..... Mannnn, but I guess it's good for me in a way, and my course this year is more interesting, which makes it slightly more bearable :)

Have not been cooking much these days, yet I have been brainstorming on new things to try out. Too heavy focus on normal/familiar cuisines, and its time to step out of comfort zone!!! Looking to try out things that I haven't made before, just to spice things up a little bit. Aiming to cook more once this tsunami of essays end, which probably leads us to the Christmas holidays ...

Booked my Christmas holiday to Italy too!!! (finally!) Hence should expect some squid ink pasta post in December!

Anyways, back to work, its gonna be a geeky weekend :P