The Magic Cupboard
Posted by spunky | Filed under Monkee Do
The magic two door cupboard.
Owned by a female of the species.
What a rare sight. I say rare, only because us girls have TONS OF CLOTHES. I don’t know how I managed to squeeze them all in there. I wear, I wash, I wear, I wash. I have enough clothes to last me two weeks and more without ever doing the laundry.
The question is…
WHY?
The Magic Two Door Cupboard exists because I live in a room that does not allow a cupboard any bigger. It was either, big cupboard, single bed or small cupboard, queen sized bed.
I chose the latter, for the cupboard will not offer me much sleeping space.
I want some air going through that cupboard, some breathing space for the dresses that are hung so close together I can’t tell one from the other. I have t shirts that I wish I could throw away but each of them remind of of something, or someone. I am but a sentimental fool.
I want to buy a pair of scissors to give new life to some of the t shirts.
But first, I have to hold my breath as I say ‘Out!’ to some items that, have simply gone out of fashion, but what do I know about fashion? I have to throw out clothes that I have outgrown. And no more hoping to squeeze into that tiny tank top. I’d rather be able to breathe when I am sitting down, thank you very much.
Enough already, Spunkymonkee. Is Chinese New Year around the corner? OMG, more new clothes? I’m not complaining, but maybe the Magic Two Door Cupboard wants to lose a few pounds too.
Nothing?
Posted by spunky | Filed under Monkee Bizniz
I can’t seem to find the things to write about these days.
Living for the Now instead of worrying about the future is a fun thing to do. Letting go of the past has also been a great activity.
There. More on that whenever. The Yoga Championship is in less than 2 weeks. I am freaking out haha.
Death by Shampoo
Posted by spunky | Filed under Monkee Do, Monkee See
Random photo of one of my favourite subjects, and it has nothing to do with this post…
*This post was locked away as a draft. I thought I might as well publish it*.
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I killed a cockroach. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: cockroaches, shampoo, sunset
Fried Rice with Preserved Olive Vegetables
Posted by spunky | Filed under Monkee Do, Monkee Grub
W got me into it. She brought out a bottle one afternoon when we had porridge at her place.
I fell in love.
It’s the saltiness, the ‘giam giam’. I don’t know how to use words to describe it. Preserved olive vegetables just kicks ass! You could eat it with porridge, rice, noodles, or use your imagination. I doooooon’t think I will use it as a sandwich filling though.
Our new flatmate (who is moving in next week) is a pretty cool chick, she loves her food! We’ve made plans to bake something once a week, just to get practicing. I got a text message from her yesterday, she suggested a fried rice with olive vege and pork floss, served with chili padi.
We do not have pork floss in the kitchen, so this will have to do:
Fried Rice with Olive Vegetables
There’s no need for salt as there’s enough in the olive veges. Heat oil, break egg into wok and fry til you can break it up into small pieces, add garlic and fry till fragrant. Throw in rice, fry till hot and add preserved olive vegetables. Finish off with a dash of fish sauce. Cut chili padi and sprinkle around rice when serving. If you really want the kick you can actually fry the chili padi with the rice. That should send your tongue ablaze!
I’m really blogging this so that Jin can get her fix. Tee hee!
Dinner party for 6
Posted by spunky | Filed under Monkee Do, Monkee Grub
It has been raining since Sunday. Bambi seems to be getting a natural wash, but yeah I’ll have to bring her for a proper wash soon enough, when the rain stops.
I’ve not been to yoga since the last 5pm class on Saturday, not wanting to be stuck in the rain with Bambi is a bad excuse. Looking at the rain now, I’d be stuck in the shopping centre for a long time if I had gone for yoga.
Still, there’s no excuse for not going. Monday I wanted to chill, yesterday I was plain lazy. Today? I’m preparing for a dinner party. All I really needed to do was soak the chicken in the marinade and come back to marinade the beef. I watched the rain as it grew, I watched it and imagined my journey on the wet road. Not the best scenario.
Anyhoo. Tonight’s dinner was planned based on the fact that us peeps are BROKE.
Yes, broke.
We want to have dinner together but we are broke.
We could go to the hawkers, jostle with the crowd, end up spending more than $10 when we order lots of food and drinks.
I came up with a better idea, if each of us put in $10 each, I’d have $60 to play with.
I bought 6 chicken legs, 5 portobello mushrooms, thyme, a bag of washed potatos, a bag of onions, a pack of rocket, some clams and garlic, and some organic chicken stock, which I discovered I don’t really need to use tonight, hmm. Total spent? $50.
Starter: Clams with butter, garlic and mirin
Clams
Garlic
Mirin
Oil
Give the clams a good soak. Heat up pan and add some oil, melt a dollop of butter in the oil and throw in garlic, quickly fry and throw in the clams, season with salt. Finish cooking with some mirin.
Ta- daaaaa!
Don & Steph have contributed 3 huge beautiful steaks.
Here’s how it was done last time, as usual looking for anything and everything you have in your fridge/cupboard.
Today’s steak will get this treatment:
Oyster Sauce
Teriyaki Sauce
Ketchup and Chili Sauce
A touch of black soya sauce (optional)
(amount I don’t count, I just add what I think is right..)
Don’t go ‘eeeeeeeeee’ yet okay? I’m cutting it all up into strips so that everybody can have a portion. It gets covered in fried garlic chips too! So this either gets to be starter part two or.. hmm. See? I told you we can be greedy!
The marinade was heated till it boiled and I had to add sugar to tone down the saltiness, it IS very salty. There’s heaps left so I might use it to roast some other meat, perhaps some pork, or another chicken. A lesson learned from this experience, using pre-chopped garlic from the supermarket does not give you the same result as fresh garlic thinly sliced and carefully fried.
Main: Seaweed Soaked Chicken with roasted potatoes
The chicken legs have been sitting in a seaweed brine since 11.30am. I emailed w yesterday and asked her if nori would go well with roasted chicken cos I have some which I usually sprinkle over my cod-roe pasta but for some reason they are all stuck together, probably due to my bad storage method. She gave some objective advice and it turns out she’s not a fan of seaweed so I googled and I got the recipe here but as usual I am tweaking it to suit the situation. I could not find two decent sized whole chicken yesterday and decided it would be better if we each had a chicken leg.
Brine:
Nori
Salt (sea salt if you can) about 300g
Sugar 150g
thyme about 10 sprigs or so.
Came home last night to set all the above in pot of cold water and bring to boil. Went to bed to let it cool. Woke up this morning, dumped some of it out as my pot is kinda small, added more water and submerged the chicken legs in the pot. It is now sitting pretty in the fridge. A few more hours and it will be seared and get the roasting treatment along with the potatoes and onion and some butter, in our trusty Baby Belling.
The Portobello Mushrooms don’t need a lot of work. Just sprinkle dried herbs, salt and pepper and drizzle olive oil over before roasting.
Tonight, everything will be served with a lemon, butter and chives rice. (Thanks to w for the easy recipe)
-Fold butter, grated lemon skin and finely chopped chives into piping hot rice.
Alternatively I could pluck Joey silly and use basil instead of chives. Joey is the name of my basil plant. She’s thriving pretty well these days.
Update -
Dinner went really well! We had so much fun chatting and the boys did a fantastic job washing up and cleaning around the stove area. RESPECT! SW came home pretty late (he’s party number 6) so I had to reheat everything for him in a casserole dish. The dude is happy and has just gone to bed.
I’m happy, although this dinner took all day cos of my dilly-dallying, it feels great to see your friends enjoy your cooking. I did manage to sqeeze in coffee with Kwanyi after I pre-roasted the chicken in the afternoon!
The girls came early to help out! Among other things, they spun the rocket, dressed it with olive oil, balsamic vinegar and grated cheese over it and that was PERFECT. Thank you! 
*update: I did go buy some tomatoes, lemon and butter before I started to cook, so dinner did work out to be around $60!*
Tags: Baby Belling, beef, chicken, clams, dinner party
I love the rain..
Posted by spunky | Filed under Monkee Bizniz, Monkee Do, Monkee Grub
I love the rain
on a lazy Sunday noon
I love the rain
on a quiet midnight moon
I love the rain
when I’m tucked behind the sheets
I love the rain
when I’ve no shoes on my feet
I love the rain
when I’m watching a thrilling series
I love the rain
it fills my mind with queries
I love the rain
when I’ve food stocked in the fridge
I love the rain
pitter-pattering on the bridge
I love the rain
for it brings us new beginnings
I love the rain
Cos it makes life a little thrilling
Random picture of a fluffy cat in the neighbourhood. If I had a cat like that on a rainy day, I’d be in heaven. Of course, I’d have to have a box of antihistamines on standby. I hate cat-allergies. It’s a useless thing to have (as with most allergies, why can’t we just enjoy every sight, smell, sense taste etc??), the number one allergy that don’t make sense would be peanut allergy.
For your information I ran out of food yesterday and was grumbling online, until B & M agreed to pick me up on their way to dinner (Teppanyaki!) because it had been pouring ALL DAY. I crashed a couple’s Sunday out, bad Monkee! Too much Earl Grey tea later, I turned almost insommniac, finished the last episode of 24 Season $, had a horrible time trying to sleep and ended up over-sleeping so I missed yoga. Here I am, hungry again, dreaming about the cod-roe pasta I will make when I get home.
