Ushering 2010 With A Big S-M-I-L-E

This year, we're welcoming 2010 with a big SMILE

Yes. We are.

We're committed to having a more positive outlook in life.
We're committed to loving each other more, day after day.
We want to grow in strength, both with wisdom and compassion.
We want to be more focus in our responsibilities - that includes our research work as well as anything else we set our minds to.
We will persevere in our life's challenges miles and miles away from home, no matter what the odds are (for the past 8 mths we thought the odds were against us, but we survive through it all)

To start of, we're done some interesting things. We got ourselves a sleigh and rode mad rides down the hill behind our apartments. Take a look at some of the blurred shots we took.





Here's the field covered with fresh snow.




And here's what it looks like when there's just too many people there. Lucky for us, we woke up about 7 to play in the snow.



We also been baking a lot... Yes we have... Here's some of our master pieces, of which we love baking bread the most. We're also (mostly, wifey) kinda obsess with our new blog on our baking rendezvous - but we're waiting for a couple of recipes first before making the link available  here.















Well, I know I've not been contributing to this blog as often as I have - probably that's because we've been very busy and focused with work of late too. If its not reading in the lab, we're off to acquire some stuff for the home. For example, I've bought some soil as I've taken up another interest which is to build our indoor herb garden. Problem is, its winter and there's not much places where you can find them selling seeds. So the easiest to plant for now would be garlic and next in line, onions.






We've also changed the position of the furnitures in the unit. As we got another futon which was given to us by our new acquaintances we've made in the building. We also got ourselves some extra lights for the the kitchen and the study area.





All that being said, we're looking forward for good week ahead. So just sit and relax. Enjoy your coffee and biscuit as we bring you more news of things over here. Hope to hear from you all too.


picture taken from wife's recent baking wonders - biscotti

Poach Eggs

Ok, this ain't the photo we took of our poached eggs but its close.

The reason I'm sharing this with you is that I've tried numerous methods to do poach egg, but found this to be the simplest of them all. I can't explain it any better than the following video posted on youtube,





So hope you have a great breakfast just like we do with our poached eggs....

Who Moved Our Cheese?

Its not that its missing or what but there's just too many, we don't know where to begin.
Yes, we both love the all natural goodness of the dairy by-product - C H E E S E

If we're to leave this place (though not anytime soon), one thing we'll miss most is how easy it is to get good cheese over here and also the variety of them available is simply unimaginable.



We currently just purchased an array of cheese from our local friendly store, Pete's. We took the liberty to snap some of them.

Our favourite for now, is the 3 years ol' Caron brand cheddar cheese from Montreal. High on fats but it is really good especially with crackers.
The picture taken after we finish it all.



p.s. good thing about taking them now is that all the fats won't count much given the cold weather right now :) hehe

Here's from Cows brand (incidentally the same brand as the famous Ice-cream we took in Spring).






Also smoked type of cheese called, Smoked Gouda from Du Village (really gotta build up our knowledge on Cheese)






And finally we got ourselves another type of cheese, called Brie. I personally plan to use it on my sandwich, but will be looking for other recipes where I can use it.






And not too long ago, we also got freshly grated Parmesan from Pete's and used it mostly for our Spaghetti. Its really good compared to using the dry type of Parmesan. And the end product, combined with our home made meat balls were really out of this world - beats Italianis or TGI-Friday's anytime!!


here's me making the meatballs.

Missing Home

Just over 1/2 a year being away from home could do alot of things to yeah.
Like missing the local delicacies.

Example

Char Kueh Teow


Fried Oyster (Oh Chean)


Hokkien Mee (KL style)


Ipoh Dim Sum


Sigh...

Perseverance...

Inspired

Next aim is to cook up something like this:

Grilled Turkey and Brie Sandwich with Cranberry Chutney

http://closetcooking.blogspot.com/2009/10/grilled-turkey-and-brie-sandwich-with.html

Looks delicious. Are you salivating already?

Easy pocket guide: A Student's Guide To Shopping Essentials In Canada (Applies to Halifax, mainly).

As part of my continuation to the earlier blog entries I had written,

• A Student's Newcomers Guide (Prelude) to Studying In Canada
• A Student's Newcomers Guide to Studying in Canada Part 1
• A Student's Newcomers Guide to Studying in Canada Part 2
  

I'll like to share another tip for any other newcomers to this part of Canada particularly (Eastern side - Halifax, NS). Although its meant to target students, but it may apply to others who believes that there's always other better deals out there.

Here's all you need to know, to get going and being able to start your life and live within your budget. Personally I wish I had known most of these before hand so that I could have saved more.
p.s. you may be a bit luckier if you had gone to studying in bustling places like Toronto, Calgary, Victoria, Vancouver, etc as they tend to sell some of the essentials at a slightly lower price as oppose to over here.

So, here's the deal...

When down in Halifax, all you need if you pretty noob and new to the surroundings, just find out how to get to Halifax Shopping Center (HSC). The stores that you'll find bargains for your simply basic needs are.

• Dollarama - simply things like light bulb, kitchen utensils, glue, stationary, gloves, scarfs, etc.
• Walmart - don't buy it unless there's discount. But most things should be better priced then others like Zellers. They do have discounts regularly, so watch out for things like electrical items (boiler, mixer, mini-oven), clothes, shoes, ligthings, bedding wears, etc.
• Sears outlet - if you want to find for slightly branded items that are on discount (believe it or not up to 70% sometimes), then this is the place to go. Its a little hidden here in HSC (behind of Walmart), so be on a lookout for it. You'll find your Timberland or Columbia shoes going for 50% - 70%. Clothes are also cheaper and of more variety. Of course you'll have to find if there's any your size or not. The trick is, there's no fitting room, they store tries to make it as hard as possible for your to try different things on and decide. They just want you to buy it there and then without much evaluating. And to top that up, there's no returns! But mostly the things there are at a bargain! Just that they may have some slight defects so be on a look out for it and see if you're comfortable with that.

As for food? There's no 1 particular place that sells them at a bargain. This is a bit tricky. I wrote a short blog on it comparing the various retail outlets here.
Personally I feel that Atlantic Superstore has the best offers although, you'll need to be careful as they are a bit more lousy when it comes to quality control (for fresh products). Sobey's on the other hand tends to offer things at a better deal if you'd buy a little more. e.g. a buy 2 of the same product and pay less overall.
Of course if you're not really into fresh food, then you could just settle with Walmart. But if you feel that you miss your home food and want to whip something like char kueh teow, then you could head to the Asian groceries. Just google it within Google Maps (type Asian Groceries) and you'll be able to see where they are located. There's even an Indian groceries at Robie Street.

I've snapped a shot of Walmart (Mumford road) and Halifax Shopping Center using Google Street view.

A Bit Of Home

Was digging through some of our ol' photos taken when we visited Toronto and Niagara and I came across some shots that we took when we went to a few Asian supermarkets there.


frozen durian in a package (worry-free and torn-free durian delight)


but if you miss the memories of handling the actual thing, they the REAL deal too - FROZEN of course.


haha.. Ipoh's if definitely BETTER...




pathetically sweet Chile sauce....

Of course all of these stuffs are in Toronto. Sadly there's less of this in WASPY (western anglo saxon) dominated area like Halifax.

Busy Busy Busy

Ok we regret not having done much work. But with summer holidays coming to an end and the imminent arrival of September (that's when our classes begin), we're using up our precious free time as much as we can before its slips away and we're stuck with frozen food.

But all is not lost of course, no work on the books means lots of time in the kitchen. Of late, we've experimented preparing the following things. (I regret not taking some photos of them - probably because of the shame of not having perfected the dish yet - but anyway given our circumstances, I would say we did quite ok):

• Cincaluk chicken
• Cincaluk omelet
  
• Risotto (using brown rice)
• Skewers
• Po-boy cajun style shrimp sandwich
• and my Mrs has perfected the art of baking the Mrs Field like chocolate cookies.
• lastly, I tried making oven-dried tomatoes
  

Here's the photo of the oven dried tomatoes.

The tomatoes all lined up before cutting them


These are locally grown Nova scotian tomatoes. It would have been better if we did with plum tomatoes but for our case these tomatoes were on offer that day.


Just out from the oven


The sun (oven) dried tomatoes all jarred up.