You should have seen the look on my face when this box arrived today. 24 Christmas cupcakes from My Little Cupcake and only a handful of staff left in the office to finish them. Excellent.

Looks like the over-eating season is here. Time to loosen the belt buckle.

G and I felt like pizza but didn’t actually feel like cooking any of the ingredients, so we put our heads together and came up with the party pizza. What’s with the name?

I’m glad you asked.

Well, you know when you go to a mates place and they put out a plate of nibbles for the party? It’s usually stuff like cabanossi, cheese, sundried stuff and, if your friends are healthy, celery and carrot sticks. Why not make a pizza topped with all that goodness (minus the healthy stuff of course)… Seriously, why not? It was awesome. Okay sure, it probably isn’t the best for my heart (or my ass), but my taste buds sure loved it. Needless to say they were having a party in my mouth (Lame, I know. But it’s my blog so sue me).

Instead of spending money on a Sugar Hit that would last about 30 minutes, whereby after the eating I would probably regret being a gluttonous pig, I decided to spend my money on a sugar hit that would probably last me about a year (maybe two).

Even though I don’t have a sweet tooth, I’m a sucker for gummi bears. Who doesn’t love gummi bears? It takes you back to the days when life was a giant playground and you didn’t have a trouble in the world – except the trouble you’d get into for finishing the entire packet of gummi bears without sharing. Oops.

Also picked up a box of TNT Sour Cola Straps.

The combined weight of the 2 boxes of sugar: 2.5kgs.

Looks like I’ve got a lot of eating to do. If you come over in the next 6-12 months, please feel free to give me a hand and we can sit there buzzing and bouncing with sugar. Good times.

Instead of going out and battling the father’s day crowd we decided to stay home and cook up a feast. I think my parents are starting to trust my cooking now, at first I think they were a bit skeptical and would watch everything I did, now they’re no where to be seen when I’m cooking. Awesome.

On the menu last night was lemon and rosemary crumbed lamb rack served with roasted tomatoes and chips. I was a bit nervous doing a roast lamb – never tried it before. But it turned out perfectly and we were all very pleased with the result. Mum cracked open a beautiful bottle of Margaret River Shiraz which matched the food perfectly.

I love eating eggs for breakfast, but the only time I get to do that is on the weekends. Most weekends I just opt for making scrambled eggs or sunny side up. I’d love to go for the healthier choice of poached eggs but I never do because they’re like impossible to make.

There are some weekends, like this weekend, where you feel like googy eggs. It’s so much fun dipping your toast into googy eggs, it’s kind of like chocolate fondue but with eggs and toast. Yum! The frustrating thing is that I can never get it just right. The egg always turns out a bit too raw or too well done with the yoke starting to go solid and hard. I’ve tried to many times and I every time I complain about it to someone I get different advice, “Oh you should boil it on high for 7 minutes”, “Put it in the microwave for 1.5 minutes”, “Pour boiling water and cover it for 10 minutes”. Well I’ve tried it all and it never turns out. The only way I get soft boiled eggs is if I go to my grandma’s place and ask her to cook me a soft boiled egg, which she gets right every time!

Thankfully I found this little beauty – the “Egg-perfect egg timer”. All you do is put it in the water as your boiling your eggs and it will change colour as the eggs cook. I’ve tested it out on all three levels – soft, medium and hard and each time it’s been egg-perfect. I enjoyed a lovely soft boiled egg this morning and a medium egg (pictured above) yesterday.

All I have to do now is find a gadget to help me make poached eggs.

With the weather getting colder and colder it seems that all you want to do is stay home under a warm fleece blanket with a nice cup of hot chocolate. Especially with all this wet weather we’ve been getting, the thought of going out for a big one doesn’t sound appealing at all.

Thankfully I’ve recently discovered the ultimate at home cup of hot chocolate – Lindt Hot Chocolate Flakes. In my books, Lindt are the best chocolate makers and I’ll argue with anyone who would suggest otherwise, unless your Willy Wonka, wouldn’t argue with Willy Wonka or an oompa-loompa.

I was really impressed with the Lindt hot chocolate, and that’s a lot for someone who doesn’t have a sweet tooth, I’d choose a packet of chips over chocolate any day but it’d be a tough choice if it was a cup of Lindt hot chocolate. It’s like drinking a cup full of a Lindt ball liquid centre. I’m drooling just thinking about it.

Part of the appeal is that it’s made of chocolate flakes, not powder. When you open the packet it looks like a hundred crumbled up Flakes. Seriously yum!

Had a couple of late nights this week so I when I saw this “rejuvenation” drink, I thought it was just perfect (and it’s green, who doesn’t love stuff that’s green).

I’m a huge sucker for marketing, so all you have to do to make me buy stuff is make it look pretty or give it a cool name, like “The little bottle of water”. It could be the dumbest thing ever, but if it’s got a cool name – I’m sold.

I hope this company makes other flavours of water because I’m not 100% sold on this one. It’s apple, lemon and lime flavoured, but I think it’s a little bit too much on the sour side. It tastes like you’ve just eaten about 10 of those chewable Vitamin C tablets. But hey, it’s a rejuvenation drink and I must give it to them, you do feel more awake after drinking it (from the shock of the sourness).

If you like green apple warheads, you’ll like this.

Going to the supermarket when you’re hungry is never a good idea. You always end up buying a heap of junk food and the worst thing, well for me anyway, is that you know you’re only buying it because you’re hungry, but you manage to convince myself that you really would like eating this later.

While strolling down the chocolate aisle in my hungry state I spotted these familiar, but unfamilar bars. NEW Cadbury Bubbly – “chocolate with an aerated mint flavoured (or chocolate) centre”. Hmm… sounds a lot like a good old Aero bar to me. Intrigued as I was, I bought one of each flavour to test out.

I love mint Aero bars so I had pretty high expectations for this, while they looked and felt the same it just didn’t quite cut it for me. The Cadbury chocolate just didn’t blend as well with the mint. So the original mint Aero bar is still a winner.

On the other hand, while I’m not the biggest fan of the Chocolate centred Aero bar, the chocolate Bubbly is really good. It’s like a Dairy Milk chocolate bar, only funner.

I’ve been trying to “snack right” at work lately after demolishing an entire packet of Tim Tams to myself in one day, which is quite an accomplishment for someone who prefers savoury over sweet. But it’s not just Tim Tams, it’s anything I can get my hands on when sitting at my desk – chips, cupcakes, cookies and more.

So in a bid to snack right I took a trip to the fruit store and found these ugly buggers – dried figs. I was never really a fan of figs. It took me a while to get over the ugly factor, but as soon as I did I’ve never looked back.

I love birthdays. In my family when it’s your birthday you get to choose what you want to eat. So I was uber excited when my cousin requested for poh piah.

For those of you that don’t know what poh piah is, just think of a big spring roll that doesn’t need deep-frying. The ingredients vary depending on personal preference, and to many Singaporeans, depending on how your grandmother makes it – because we all know, grandmas are the best cook. In my family we use Chinese sausage; prawns; bean sprouts; shredded cucumber; egg (or egg roll); lettuce; sweet soy sauce (and chilli if you like it hot); and a vegetable stew kind of thing that has carrots, cabbage, bamboo shoots and tofu all thinly sliced.

One of the great things about poh piah is that you sit around the table and make the rolls yourself as you go. You get to pick and choose what you want to put in and, the fun part, how big you make it. When I was a kid, eating poh piah was (and still is) great fun. You got to make a mess of yourself (and the table) if you didn’t roll it properly or if you put way too many ingredients in.

I must admit, it was actually quite stressful making these rolls as a kid. Sometimes when it fell apart, it was like failing a test at school. But after many years of practice and having sauce drip all the way down your arm because you put too much sweet soy sauce in, I think I’ve finally mastered it. It’s all about the right proportions, don’t be too greedy; smart layering, use lettuce as a base to hold the sauce; and neat rolling, tuck
your corners in nicely.

And the final result, a poh piah that doesn’t drip and doesn’t fall apart.