say Minestrone

It's mi-mi-minestrone! :9

From Wikipedia:

Minestrone (Italian: minestra [soup] + -one [augmentative suffix] hence "the big soup," the one with many ingredients) is the name for a variety of thick Italian soups made with vegetables, often with the addition of pasta or rice. Common ingredients include beans, onions, celery, carrots, stock, and tomatoes.

There is no set recipe for minestrone, since it is usually made out of whatever vegetables are in season. It can be vegetarian, contain meat, or contain a meat-based broth (such as chicken stock). Angelo Pellegrini, however, argues that the base of minestrone is bean broth, and thatRoman beans "are the beans to use for genuine minestrone".

Minestrone is one of the cornerstones of Italian cuisine, and is just about as common as pasta on Italian tables.

Another Italian dish under my belt! I decided to go for Jamie Oliver's (mobile) version of the soup out of convenience. It is still yummers and definitely easier than the fancier ones. Nutritious soup for this frail body of mine. Think celery (normally I would stay away from this), carrot, tomato, onion, garlic, potato and more greens. It's impressive. I never really liked minestrone soup so I am glad this version appeals to me! I have to admit it is comparably more Chinese somehow. Beans + real chicken stock next perhaps? :D

Oh yes...

Happy White Day! ♥ (I'm getting old...)

As it is apparent that 6 of my facebook friends have their birthdays today... happy birthday to them/you! Not forgetting the Valentines: I hope your love has been reciprocated. :D

after senior left

Done! I'm feeling rather satisfied for completing the task. I asked tons of questions, edited details, cut and pasted information to get it done. Although it wasn't too difficult for a task, it's still quite satisfying to get things on the move. One other senior said something that might have indicated that it's a simple task which doesn't require much details. For a split second I felt silly, but honestly I'm just a beginner and I guess putting in a little more details is better than the lack of it. Plus it helps in making me learn some things that I probably won't be too bothered to read up on. Anyway, to make things better, senior threw in a little complement after submission. He hasn't checked it out yet so I really have to cross my fingers and toes that it's passable!!

Yesterday felt like 3 days in comparison to the previous weekend. It was quite a weekend meeting up with the good old CTC people. Why the sudden meet up? Serene was in town for a little Singapore adventure. Saturday was quite packed with reunion lunch followed by a night band performance by none other than 22(Shaun, Nic, Naz and Boobs). The crowd size was definitely more than expected! No doubt that it took them by surprise. :)

We had a high-tea at Goodwood Park Hotel on Sunday. The high-tea buffet costs about $43 including service charge and GST. It was quite a decent spread consisting of cute little pastries and petite sandwiches. The scones were nice, warm and soft. I really like the blueberry one! The sandwiches were nice too. Personally I found the croissant with prawn and diced mango to be the most memorable one. We were also offered 2 selections of drinks, just in case the first selection doesn't suit our taste buds. I had Rosehips, which was quite sour. My little chemical experiment discovered that floral teas can't mix with milk. It forms white precipitate! Ok back to the point. The overall experience was nice. High-tea + friends = :D most of the time anyway. *nudges lovelettes*

As aforementioned, yesterday felt longer than the weekend because the day started much earlier and ended late. In addition to that, it mainly consisted of lazying around which I haven't been doing much of late. Ahhh I'll miss my tv and sofa when I go back to London. :(

1+ week of internship left! Omg I feel so much older already.

rabbit

Gotta release this urge of blogging. It's immense. I can't control it! I'm glad I am feeling it since I haven't been updating for quite some time. As usual, being an OL have been sucking so much of my time and energy away. I feel fatter already because of the long-ish office hours. My butt is officially stuck onto this chair. Need I mention that I'm growing horizontally? :'(

Anyhoo. I just finished downloading a couple of scanned JMags (!!). MINA's September cover caught my eyes. I really like it. Navy blue background and the slightly dark shade of red (bunny ears hat) really appeals to me. It complements the model's hair real well! My superbly stubborn stand on anti-dyeing of the hair is dying (pun intended). Kao Liese's heavy advertisement is to blame. Chiffon Beige is now my ideal artificial hair colour, since Ash Grey/Brown won't have too much of a change on my hair. It's something like the hair colour of this month's MINA cover girl. It's like a more golden shade of Ash Grey/Brown. You know what? I shall upload it for illustrative purpose. Credits obviously goes to MINA ♥

La couleur des cheveux est tres belle! (omg my French is really deteriorating)

Speaking of languages. I must brush up on my English and French!! Anyone wants to donate grammar books of the two languages mentioned? :D

Mila had a low budget lunch with me today!! Though my taste buds had to compromise with the (not really) low budget, it was quite a good one due to the company. I had fun getting lost (mentally) at Watsons and Sasa with Mi-chan. I honestly think places that sells beauty products is one of the funnest place you can hang out with your (girl)friends. Plus the samples. Minus the salesperson! Electronics and furniture is another. Oh yes. Pet shops too. Amusement parks... Why does it seem like there are so many fun places to hang out suddenly?!?!!

Last week was pretty eventful. Wisdom tooth extraction was not as scary as I expected. Yes there was sawing, drilling and hammering but thanks to the >5 shots of anaesthetic, the pain and terror was discounted to zilch. I didn't feel any pain at all! It was just a little bit of impact which lasted at most 5 minutes. The sound of the whole process was the scariest part! Eh no, the anaesthetic part was the scariest. To cut the long story short, I was injected with a little too much anaesthetic (dentist was scared that I would feel the pain) that I couldn't move the whole left part of my face! I couldn't blink my left eye, I couldn't move the left half of my lips... when I laught it's like a crooked smile! I felt ultra retarded and it was super scary. THANK goodness the effect didn't last long. It wore off within an hour. As a whole, the extraction was made a lot more manageable as I think I was in the right hands. Thanks Naz's mom!! It could have been a nightmare. :) (really enjoyed the 1 week break I had after the extraction too)

Relish with Grace and Amanda on the previous Saturday. I had a delightful time catching up with these two. & listening to the gossips/ social facts. I might have revealed that I'm a facebook stalker, which personally I think is not a bad thing. Being informative is a good thing, no? Come to think of the company, I think Amanda grew taller. It's either her hair/ short skirt or she really did grew taller! Grace is giving more matured vibes than before. (sorry if this came out weird, but I really do think/feel so)

Anyway. Relish is a restaurant located on the 2nd floor of Cluny Court. If any of you do go down, MUST TRY: Coconut Gula Melaka smoothie/milkshake (can't remember what's the end). It's a definite yummo! I really like their parmesan wings but some people thinks that it's alright. It does cost pretty much for half a dozen of wings ($9).

Alrighty! Back to doing tasks. I'm now a courier girl. Downgraded from "HR Manager". Afterwhich, HOME! Hopefully...

this one is quite long too

I just realised my camera either doesn't have an outlet for a wire to connect it to laptop/computer/tv or it's very well disguised. I've got this mega disgusting photo of a flattened bug on the envelope of my bank statement. It's all fat and squished, totally grotesque! I accidentally snapped it using the internal memory of the camera and I have no clue of how to transfer it over. It's such a disgusting photo that I really want to share. :(

Anyway, I suppose that's a sign to spare anyone (oh unlucky people!) from seeing it. Henceforth, only nice(r) ones will be on show today! Yesterday, my plan to bake cookies was postponed due to... personal reasons. But I've got them done today. In fact, I just baked them! My virgin try at baking cookies turned out to be just alright. The last batch didn't turn out nice due to over-baking. Le sob.

Sorry for delaying you for ages.

I haven't camwhored for ages.

Yummo!

It's really simple: mix butter and egg and then stir in the cookie mix. Then we're ready to go!

First batch, ready to be baked.

They looked so fluffy and nice while in the oven.

The 3 batches. 12 fat cookies and 6 mini ones.

Did I mention that my OPI nail polish arrived yesterday? I guess I didn't! I was excited as Mad As A Hatter was part my order. It's such a quirky and delightful colour! Oh and it's sold out at some stores so YES! I'VE GOT ONE IN MY HAND! Whoohoo! I just can't decide which one to use first. Oh bummer! ;)

Order came and I quickly ripped open whatever wrapping it had.

:D !! The one in the middle is Mad As A Hatter while the ones next to it (which looks similar but they are not) are Lincoln After Dark and Light My Sapphire. Love the names but love the colour even more!

:O !!

Right.

This came in the package. Cute isn't it!

My trip to NatWest turned out to be a useless one. For some reason a Cashcard and a debit card is the same. & I will not be getting a cheque book according to the bank dude. It's quite confusing as according to internet banking, I have a new option which says "order a cheque book". I have yet to try requesting for one though... whatever it is, I am seriously going to wash my hands off this annoying business.

I came back and did a bit of bag spring cleaning. Cleared out quite a bit of thrash that I've kept for ages such as...

Wts?

My scientific name.

DOESN'T IT LOOK FAMILIAR (for some)?! It's the name-order card from Serene's birthday dinner a year + ago! It seems ages doesn't it. I guess I kept it because it's somewhat meaningful. Yes, ultra sentimental I know. It's to make up for the fact that I have short term memory.

Omg. I even have the picture of me posing with the name-order card! (I'm starting to see a generic pose... hmm)

Good memories! :)

I'm down with 4 chapters of Macroeconomics

Another day spent attempting to be studious. I'm proud to say that my productivity has gone up by a couple of notches in the company of my 2 lovelettes who gave me glares to stop me from being distracted with the random-est things e.g. my hair (bad hair day), this little girl who's studying (her spirit amazes me), the air... if you get what I mean. Ahh, reminds me of the good old times of working over the same assignment together in class/school/old haunts of ours. This is especially relevant to Mila because we've been irregularly close to one another and we both (along with Hosanna) used to have study outings which, at the end of the day, often lose its main purpose.

Oh oh, one delightful thing that happened today was that Mila surprised Rachel and me with home-made bentos! Japanese curry rice yum yum! I loved the curry :D & the rice tasted really nice too since it's Japanese rice and as you know, the texture is just different. It's like more succulent due to it's fat and round nature compared to the other types of rice. Even though Mila claimed that it came out too hard/ powdery, I felt all loved inside - even though I didn't finish the bento *hides face* BUT YOU TELL ME, HAVE YOUR FRIEND EVER MADE YOU A BENTO? HAVE YOU? HAVE YOU? My friend did and I am truly touched that she actually went through the trouble of making it early in the morning! :D :D

One interesting thing that happened today was that... Rachel spilt hot coffee over herself and she was still high on air ever though it was scalding hot. Imagine the horror. I would have screamed my head off, especially if I were to be wearing such a cute, pure white lace-trimmed camisole! Like, my jaw will completely drop as I stare at the aftermath of the accident with my eyes popping out of the sockets... okay enough drama. Anyway, she had to continue walking around with her funkily dyed garments, carrying a nice aroma of coffee along with her. The funny thing is that the coffee actually managed to dye half of the shorts darker brown (she wore a pair of light brown shorts) so it looked quite acceptable.

C'est formidable que j'ai une amie à longtemps! Il y a beaucoup des choses et mémoires que je peux rapporter de temps à autre. Bien sûr, le même chose s'appliquer aux gens à qui on m'assortit étroitement. Et, Madamme Tay, merci pour des croissants délicieuse! Je pense sincèrement que c'est une charmante gâterie pour le soir. :)

A lot of things happened last week. In chronological order, my first niece's arrival to the world, lunch @ TNH with my green gay #2 (Grace!!) and Teng, my expensive haircut which only shows a fringe change (very short and highly temperamental) (all these on Wednesday, 14th) and Shaun's long awaited POP! I witnessed the touching moment of his graduation (his mom nearly teared up while putting his cap on for him) at the cost of getting a horrible and uneven tan. On. My. Face. Nevertheless, it was worth it and I thoroughly enjoyed being in the company of his mom and his grandfather. He's such a cute gentleman! Hehe, what are the odds of seeing your boyfriend graduating from BMT? Each recruit is only allowed 2 guests. :D

If I'm not wrong, her name is Charis Nadia. Skinny baby, weighing at only 2.185kg!

After the haircut, we decided to walk from PS to City Hall because SMU is in between the 2 locations. We came across Ah Teng's Bakery which we all found pretty amusing. I wonder if she still pops this blog now and then. :)

Here's Shaun's granddaddy with his daughter (obviously Shaun's mom, just in case my attempt in being fanciful turns out to be an embarrassing failure)

HOW CUTE IS THIS PICTURE! :D

Just a picture to feed the curious cats out there. Anyway, over to my beloved, he lost too much weight in the span of 9 weeks!! D:

I suppose this picture won't hurt. :P

Ok hang on, one last revelation before I close. I'm starting to find Timbaland attractive... no no no don't get me wrong. Not in that sense. ;)

an unexpected finding (or two)

Guess what I had for dinner! Clue: something fishy.

It's Friday!! I'm quite unsure about the level of excitement I am having right now. No school for the next couple of days, true, but the level of assignments they've set us for the coming week is unbelievable. I have not started on any of them so that really suck! Plus, the packing I'll need to do... urgh. Can't they just give us a break already? Why the influx of assignments due on the very last week? (why am I so dead lazy?)

Let's digress away from the sad stuff. Happy stuff! FOOD! Yummo. My sister was supposed to make a dish with salmon for tonight's dinner but she had to cancel that due to OT. I was so prepared to have it for dinner! It's like my taste buds are all excited and ready to taste the fishy-ness erupting in my mouth but had to disappoint due to the last minute change. You know like how when you expect something for a meal but you didn't get what you want in the end and had the craving for something similar? That's basically how I felt an hour ago.

In an attempt to satisfy my unsatisfied craving, I went to ransack the dried food cabinet and found a long lost instant sauce. Next to it was a packet of unfinished spaghetti. In less than a split second, I decided how I should satisfy myself in the next 30 minutes. I was really glad that preparation took less than 10 minutes and there was no hassle at all! Cook spaghetti till al dente, take it out of the water, mix in the sauce and seaweed (they both came in the packet), wash a couple of lettuce leaves and serve! I just had to take a couple of pictures of the end process, above and the following:

It looks a bit like Chinese noodles doesn't it? Like mushroom and mince pork noodles, or something similar. It's actually Japanese sauce.

MEN-TAI-KO!! Absolute yummo! The base is made of cods' eggs I think. It tastes really fishy, totally fatty and a bit sourish. It has this small balls-y texture because of the cods' eggs. I cringed for a while upon the virgin taste but it gets pretty addictive soon after.

I've been indulging in so much good and fatty food lately! Singapore is going to make me even more horizontally altered, le sigh. I haven't been gym-ing much lately. I was supposed to work-out more on Wednesday but the gym had to close after the pilates class I attended due to electrical failure. & because of that, I was not able to attend the calorie-burning class, Fight Klub!! It's just a fancy name for kick-boxing really.

Speaking of gym, something pretty cool happened on Wednesday. It was after we were told that Fight Klub had to be cancelled (before they told us they had to close the gym). We were asking the trainer about whether we can continue without the lights, air-con and music. The girl who was seated next to me asked me if I were Singaporean upon hearing my accent. So obviously I told her I am Indonesian but is just like a Singaporean and the usual stuff. We started chatting and I found out that she's a Singaporean (she doesn't look like one since she's mixed and she has un-singaporean accent) and studies at LSE!

Not cool enough? Well, today I met her again for Fight Klub and chatted after the session. It was then when I found out that she was from SMSS! COOL or not?!! It's so rare to find SMSS girls in the UK, let alone LSE (the Rs dominates this place). Another cool thing that I found out was... *drum rolls* SHE WAS ONE OF THE MORNING EXERCISE GIRLS! We used to have this morning exercise routine on one of the weekdays (was it Wednesday/ Friday?) and she was one of the demonstrators (alongside Benny and Mr Lee if I'm not wrong, or was it Mdm Rossenah?). No wonder I found that she looks so familiar! (Actually I was thinking whether all the Eurasians have the typical face because they all look pretty much the same- pretty nonetheless, yes pun intended if you didn't get that) She's already in her final year though. Hmm, I wonder if there are other SMSS girls at LSE...

Anyway, I digressed quite a lot didn't I? I've spent so much time typing this out too T_T oh well. It's going to be a busy, busy day tomorrow (onwards)!!

Random: I've started using Google Chrome today. It's so fast O_O

birthday week (real)

Mon anniversaire! :D

My first week being a 19 year-old was mellow and rather hectic. It started off calmly, gradually became unbearable and ended with a huge release of weight off my... well, mind. By now I'm done with French mock and Accounts first formative assignment of the term, both of which I did alright. I'll be relieved if I manage to scrape a pass. Haha, some aspects of me are just that stubborn! Overall, I had quite a pleasant week. I really enjoyed the shower of birthday wishes, care and love! & of course, being able to talk more to Shaun this week. I was all warm and fuzzy for 3 whole days. Thank you, all of you sweet people!! :) ♥♥♥

I made red eggs for myself on the night before my legal birthday. This year, apparently, my Chinese birthday was right before my English birthday. It could have been a really good reason for wild people to organise a 2 days long birtday bash, no? I think I would have done it if I were some spoilt, rich brat.

Le gâteau d'anniversaire! My sister decided to get me a cake, which was really really really nice of her! I picked the cake: Black Forest! :D

Posing with the cake! I'm cake-deprived T_T

Au Natural. (except the nails)

Cutting the cake!

Really cutting the cake.

The top bit made it quite difficult to cut.

Post-mortem. It consists of more cream than the forest. (hope you all get the joke)

Sis enjoying the cake she bought.

After the dinner (her treat) on the next day. As in on my legal birthday. This is confusing, huh?

A birthday present on the day after next!!! As in the day after my legal birthday. Hahaha, I did that on purpose to get you gears moving. Thanks Kodak and Karina! They wrote me a really sweet card too. It was really unexpected and made my day! Mila and Shaun made legal birthday via Mila's lj post (really touched!!!) and Shaun's call. Of course, my sister's dinner made my tummy very happy. :D

To tell you all the truth, I didn't expect much attention during my birthday. Well, namely because I've decided to celebrate when I'm in Singapore. The only activity I had in my agenda for my birthday was dinner with sister, which was a really filling and satisfying one! I'm glad to have done such a simple thing with my sister because I haven't been spending my birthday with any of my family members for the past few years. Distance is definitely the main culprit, with Time next in line. & next year, it'll be highly likely that I'm the only one in London. I know I've been having the mentality that it'll be totally cool and independent to be fully responsible of myself. Whether that's true or not, I still don't know. But one thing that I'm sure of is that I'll be craving for Singapore more often.

Like, I'm totally craving for satay, rojak, chicken rice, char kway teow, soya beancurd, wanton mee, fresh fish balls, my praaaaaawns, chilli, tako-pachi, popiah, bubble tea...... T_T Omg I'm like some hungry ghost roaming around in London! :(

Anyway, enough of home-sickness. Egawd, exams are cominggg!! I've got an ENORMOUS pile of readings to do (all thanks to self: PROCRASTINATION) and assignments due and blahblahblah.. those academics stuff. Same, old, same, old. Ho hum. The next 2 weeks will be pretty busy too due to assignments that have to be handed in on week 10. Le sigh.

Let's talk weather now. London's weather is currently undergoing some seriously erratic changes. This week I've experienced plenty of delightful Sun and it's predicted that next week will be quite miserably gloomy (and probably cold too) again. Last week was horrible because it rained for nearly everyday. It would have been bearable if not for the strong gusts! Of course I would have enjoyed the condition providing that I'm indoors, a cup of Earl Grey, some delicious tarts, a blanket and my dearest. The heater is obviously optional.

Oh yea, the dearest will be heading off to the jungle for training for 5 days and 4 nights. No communication is allowed. This is going to be quite an experience to remember.

I shall spice up my life with new dishes soon. As for now, BACK TO THE BOOKS!

okonomiyaki

I'm still pretty depressed right now. I shall talk about what I cooked last night...

♥ OKONOMIYAKI ♥

I didn't plan to make that and I really really wanted to and even had that in my mental list of "things to try whipping out" but I've been procrastinating since like... last year! Got to thank my sister for changing her mind in making sushi and getting the okonomiyaki mix instead. She was so nice to let me cook hehe. Or maybe she was just lazy... ah whatever it was quite enjoyable cooking it.

The challenge was that she didn't buy the okonomiyaki sauce... which is one of the important ingredient for an okonomiyaki. But thanks to the very useful internet, I was able to google out an alternative, or rather, home made substitute. It tasted quite like the sauce, not bad for a last minute kinda thing!

I used soy sauce (japanese), KFC ketchup (those little packs, the benefit of being environmentally friendly and keeping the unused packs instead of just throwing it away!), Worcester sauce and brown sugar. Most recipes requires sake and dijon mustard powder which I don't have and have no idea how to substitute those. So I obviously left them out.

It doesn't look like it because I added Self Raising Flour to the mix = batter got a bit messed up but it was still edible. The box mix was only enough to make 2 decent okonomiyakis which won't be enough for my sister and me.

:D

Messy dining table. The house is getting quite messy lately.

I wanna cook but I don't really wanna eat. I need an eater in da houseeeeee.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MILA-CHAN~ ♥

My close friend turned 19 today. That's like the last year of being a teenager. The last year of being young. The last year before she steps into her third decade. Next year it will be 20, or should I cornily say this: not a girl, not yet a woman. So Mila-chan, treasure your every year from now because you're going to be older (and wiser)! You can't say "I'm just xx-teen" and be easily excused from doing silly, childish stuff next year... but I don't think you'd care much anyway!! I don't think you are a person who'll let age stop you from doing anything you want to do. & I'm proud to have you as a tomodachi! (Even when we are 50 and you still want to fangirl Massu, an otosan by then, and paint your fingernails different shades of pink...)

thank you for everything you've done ♥
HAPPY 19TH MILA ARIEL PALAMITA (fong)! May you get whatever you ask for, from university offers to being an AIDS volunteer (I'm still quite worried about this one)! :)

Coincidentally, it's Pancake Day today! & surprise surprise, I made pancakes for myself. I remembered when I saw my leftover buttermilk from Saturday's session of cake baking. By then, it was too late to invite some lucky people over for some pancake fest. I said lucky because well, my pancakes turned out not too bad and if anyone did come over, they would have been lucky enough to share my pride and joy. Or, they could be lucky because the buttermilk is supposed to expire today (opened it 2 days ago- they indicated that it should be used 2 days after opening)... we shall see.

The recipe I followed was from a recipe-sharing website. I have always wanted to try it but I had never used buttermilk before until the previous Saturday. I'm glad that I get to try out 2 new recipes within 3 days!! Or 3 actually. I'm actually going to try my luck at (spicy) egg fried rice tonight. :)

Anyway, back to where we were at. Here's the recipe I followed. Okay, so basically I reaped ~5 slightly smaller MacDonald's pancakes (actual output was 3 varied sizes) with:

Keep in mind this is for one medium to large serving. I'm quite full after finishing the batch.

Dry Ingredients:
1 cup of flour (I used Self Raising Flour- if not follow the website's suggestion: baking powder + baking soda)
3 and 1/2 tablespoon of sugar
1/4 teaspoon of salt

Wet Ingredients:
1 cup of buttermilk
1 large egg (size doesn't really matter actually)
2 tablespoons of margarine/butter (I think I used margarine)
3-4 tablespoons of milk

For frying:
Olive oil, peanut oil, canola oil, any kind of cooking oil (not sure about this), margarine or butter. Your choice! I'd say use oil because the latter 2 tend to evaporate quite fast, causing the batter to stick to the pan = messy.

Optional:
Blueberries, honey and... well whatever you want to add to your pancake! :)

Steps:

1. Mix dry ingredients.

One cup of SRF. I found out on Saturday that the actual 1 cup (in picture) is pretty small. All along I thought one cup refers to the normal... mugs.

SRF, sugar and salt in.

2. Mix wet ingredients.

Leftover buttermilk.

Milk & butter. Do try to melt the butter before you add it into the mix. I didn't and ended up with small chunks of butter in my batter.

Add the egg in and whisk the WET ingredients together.


Yea, like this. See the little chunks of butter?

3. Leave aside until you're ready to cook.

Dry and wet ingredients are both ready! :)

Do a bit of random things.

I was all alone at home, it's perfectly justified to pose with random things.

♥ ♥ ♥
(I look totally alcohol-loverish here)

4. When you're ready, mix the 2 together. The recipe says don't over stir... I wasn't too sure what that meant but I suppose once the ingredients are mixed until they are not more "flour bubbles" it's fine.

It should remind you a bit of mushy porridge/ oats.

5. Add a bit of oil/ margarine/ butter to skillet/pan.

I wanted to test if olive oil/ margarine or butter (whichever I used) tasted better for frying pancakes.

FAIL. Cannot be a chef-blogger-wannabe already :(

This picture looks too steady to believe.

6. Pour the mixture into the heated skillet and leave it there for a while before you lightly scrape the bottom. Flip it once the upper layer is not too liquidy/ the bottom is starting to turn black (just flip one side by a bit).

Heated = sizzle.

Are you ready, batter? >:D

IN YOU GOOO~

FAIL 2. Premature flip. (the pancake looks like roti prata here)

After a few more flipping. Ready! Golden-brownish in colour.

Trial 2: with butter.

Repeat same steps as trial 1. Note the change in size.

Result of trial 2. Looking good! :)

Trial 3: get personal, add Baileys! (used olive oil with this one)

Oops, underestimated the remaining batter.

Uhhohhh I'm in troooubleee~

.........................

7. READY TO SERVE BABY! :)

It was quite big a portion... and I had to finish all of it.

I've been craving for blueberries lately.

Pancakes + blueberries + honey...

...YUMMO! Unglam much rofl.

Here's something random. I never realised blueberries look like such on the inside. It's like a micro fruit with micro seeds.

Conclusion: diet plan is a total failure. Not forgetting the fried rice tonight... LE SIGH. The pancake tasted pretty interesting though, the buttermilk gave the pancakes a very slight sour-ish taste (perhaps from the buttermilk/ salt/ SPOILT BUTTERMILK OMG??!!!) which makes it more appealing to me. I never really liked pancakes because I get sick of it after the 2nd one. Or maybe this one is different because I made it myself. You know like how your appetite is bigger if you were to eat the things you cooked (something that taste better than expected) yourself? Sigh, the kickboxing session I went to yesterday has gone down the drain. :'(

Alrighty, I have come to an end for this mega long post. I hope this gave you an inspiration to cook! :)

P.S. I've learnt that you can make your own buttermilk by adding a tablespoon of white vinegar to a cup of milk. Stir well and leave it for... 15 minutes? & off you go.