Munching Mondays - Lotus root soup!

Hello everyone! Getting into the groove of uni life. It's been hectic but I am loving it! My excitement cannot be contained!

In celebration of my first day of class and many more to come, I shall cook up some lotus root soup for dinner.

I love all kinds of clear soups. I think one of my favorite is pinto bean soup(the clear one) Other than chinese soups I love 'tong sui' which is usually warm sweet soup. As weird as that sounds, I promise that its not weird. It's really nice and it's my form of comfort food.

Okay, I've gotta nerd it out! Let me know what's your favorite comfort food!

See you next time!

Asia Colion

Funtastic Fridays - Nerdy fun!

Okay you'll think I'm mad for trying to make studying into a 'fun' post but I must say that working on this project is tough and I may or may not have shed unseen tears because of it. HOWEVER!!

It is pretty fun if  I don't think of it as work. I really need to change my mindset planning a four day English program should be fun by right? Right?!?

So I will force my brain to make it fun. Mind over matter! For now, this is my situation:

So much  fun!

See you on Monday!

Asia Colion

Wooly Wednesday - Shoes at last?

Another late post again! Sorry! Classes started and then everything went downhill. I am planning to make the shoes sometime this week end hopefully. Planning to do some Mary Jane skimmer like these or something!

will post pictures soon!

Asia Colion

Munching Mondays - Soya beans and meat replacing

I'm not a vegetarian but I do go vegetarian for one week in a month (sometimes I eat meat during that week  because I'm not that disciplined but mostly veggies are eaten)

I don't do this for health reasons. I'm healthy-ish and have no allergies to dairy or gluten product. It's just an excuse for me to eat more veggies because, have I ever mentioned that I love veggies? I LOVE THEM!

However, vegetarian food available in Malaysia has imitation meat which contains a lot of flavoring and additives to give it a similar taste of meat.Not to mention can sometime be very overpriced.

 No offense to vegetarians, but I'm honestly and sincerely confused as to why you eat imitation meat? Could someone please enlighten this poor uncultured soul?

Moving on, so I usually eat tofu and eggs to sub proteins but recently, I came across a bag of dried soya beans. I bought it thinking I would make soya milk (which I will) but it's really rather a lot of soya beans.

And then it hit me! I could use soya beans as a protein substitute as well! Thus this blog post was born (fanfares and grand music!)

To use dry soya beans, you need to re-hydrate them by soaking them for 8 hours at least. I just soaked them overnight. Pop them into a bowl with enough water to cover two times the amount of soya beans and say goodnight.

 The next day, your soya beans should look like the one on the right (double the size). The one on the left is a dry bean.

 I wanted to use these beans as minced meat so i gave them a little roast in the over for about 10 minutes to get that chewy meat texture

Pop them into a grinder and.....

Voila! soya bean pulp. Now go and do what ever you want with it. Search for recipe's using soy bean pulp or okara.

I think I'll use this to make okara cookies next time!

Asia Colion

Funtastic Fridays - Of culture and tradition!

If you've noticed, yesterday, Google's logo changed because it was mid autumn festival! Being a Malaysian Chinese, I feel that I have probably lost huge chunks of my Chinese culture.

In fact, I always tell my mother that I'm very Westernized from my speech (mah Chinese is so broken ya can't fix it back together! Yo mama jokes) to my dressing.

Mainly for practicality, Malaysian Chinese don't wear cheongsam's and samfoo's. It's too hot here.
Also, My lecturer insists that it was the Manchurian's who wore them. But aren't they a Chinese tribe too!?!?

Not to mention, I originate from a big-ish city (Petaling Jaya) where you don't greet your neighbors because the uncles and aunties just stare at you grumpily in response when you do, talk about extinguishing a behavior! Let's just say, our community life is rather non-existent.

However, during the mid-autumn festival, we do send mooncakes to our relatives and friends. I'm so un-Chinese, I don't know why we do it but we do...I think its kind of like an Chinese thanksgiving where we give it to people to say thanks for being around! or something...feel free to correct me if I'm wrong because I most probably am. Haha!

Mooncake.

Just in case you get the feeling that I'm completely smug about the fact that I don't know much about my culture. I am not! In fact I'm super embarrassed about it and I'm working on it! I promise!

Anyway, enough chatter about me and on to the exciting(or at least I thought it was exciting)  part!

I went out with two lovely girls for dinner/supper last night at a shop in a small town called Broga and people of Broga town just congregated at this community hall and were celebrating mid-autumn festival with flair!

It was seriously amazing!I mean the whole town, everyone chatting together and having fun...its just blows my puny little big city person mind (I'm not contradicting myself, read that again if you must :P) 

Here are some not so good quality pictures that I somehow managed to catch with my phone. I'm apologize about that but they were walking on the streets together and I was just too amazed and surprised.

Dragon dance walking down the streets!

Followed by lion dancers complete with percussion!

Practically the whole town with their grandparents and kids walking with lanterns after the dragon and lions

There was this awesome feeling of community which I probably never or hardly experienced before and it just makes me feel all warm, fuzzy, and happy inside. I really hope that, one day, I too will be able to find and live in such a harmonious community.

Over and out!

Asia Colion

Wooly Wednesdays - Lacy doorknob cover

Hello everyone! I know I said I wanted to do footwear last Wednesday but I recently moved back to the jungle where I learn how to be a special educator A.K.A University and....

I saw these really cute doorknob covers which are actually to stop children from opening doors and hurting themselves (or something to that effect)

But they were so cute and I thought to myself I could use it for aesthetic reasons (I love pretty things a lot!)

Thus, I made my own! Tada!

I had to modify it so that I could still fit my key into the lock haha!

This is what it looks like opened. makes a good doily if you don't want to cover your doorknobs.

Just some feminine, lacy, ribbony, goodness! 

If you live in a cold country and hate touching cold doorknobs you could probably do this in a less lacy pattern to give you something warm and soft to touch when opening doors. Just a suggestion. :)

Asia Colion

Munching Mondays- Garlic smelling hands

I really have an insane craving for mac and cheese now but I only have healthy food with me. Hence, I will have a healthy dinner TOMORROW! (Procrastinators unite!)

So, my hands smell like garlic and I find that rather yucky but at least I won't have to cut garlic for a long time. Why ?

The trick for cooking which I use to reduce my cooking time is to pre-chop my garlic and store them in cooking oil then put it in the fridge.

It's completely safe! I have been doing this for the whole of my previous semester and I did not have any stomach discomfort nor did Sienna. (My ex-roomie and the person with the lacy purple scarf)

After all you only need two things: Garlic and oil (prefably not olive because you can't heat olive oil  too much or it will be bad for your health.) I used vegetable oil(Palm oil, I think.)

How I did it?

1. Crush and peel garlic
2.  Chop garlic finely
3. Put in an air tight glass jar (or clean old pasta sauce bottles)
4. Fill jar with oil till you cover the garlic
5. Put in fridge

As you can see the oil solidifies. This is completely normal and a good thing! Reason?

You can  now control the amount of oil you use without accidentally pouring out too much into the pan while cooking.

You also get Garlic infuse oil. How do we use it now that we have a jar full of garlic in oil? (and garlic smelling hands)

1. Grab a spoon
2. Scoop out the amount of oil garlic mixture
3. Drop into warm pan 
4. Fry garlic till golden brown
5. Stir fry vegetable/meat
   or
6. Put the oil  and fried garlic into a bowl and add in some soy sauce for a simple dressing

Hope you found this tip useful :)

Asia Colion

Funtastic Fridays - Movie!

It's Friday, I'm in love.

So I decided to do something mainstream today. Purely because I have run out of hipster ideas but the hipster in me lives still! 

I'm one of those people who are never current with movies. Honestly, I'm not really bothered about it unless I'm hanging out with movie buffs ( Half of the time I feel like I am.) So I watched Mary Poppins today.

 

If you have never watched it in your entire life, you SHOULD. I know  it's old but you know old is gold. In addition to Dick Van Dyke and Julie Andrews, you're in for a good feel good time.

Spoilers if you haven't watched but it's still a pretty cool video

That's all for today. I'm totally out of ideas on what next to blog on Fridays and I'm open to suggestions! Do let me know what you'd like to read about on Fridays. :)

Asia Colion

Wooly Wednesdays - Crochet shoes?

Now that Andy's scarf is done my next project seems rather ambitious but oh so pretty! I can't help myself.
I think, like most girls I have a weakness for pretty feminine things.

Super pretty and feminine!

Really excited about this. I hope to be able to come up with an outdoor version. I mean come on! These are waaaay too pretty to be worn around the house. Any normal  crochet-er/knitter would wanna show off this handy work! Honestly, it deserves to be shown off!

Or perhaps something less ambitious like barefoot sandals although I have no use for them other than for aesthetic reasons

Aren't these just gorgeous?! I don't know who made these but they are so talented!

Choices, choices. I can't decide. Which one do you think I should attempt?

Asia Colion

Munching Mondays! - Wanton Wontons

This is what I have for lunch today!

Homemade wonton soup noodles!

Me wrapping the wontons (Mother dearest prepared everything, I just wrapped the wontons)

The funny story starts here.

Before I was requested to wrap wontons, I was chatting with a friend  when I told him:

Me: Hey I have to go wrap some WANTONS. brb
Friend: Wrap wantons? What?
           Noun: A sexually immodest or promiscuous woman
           ???

And of course when I came back I had  the laugh of my life although I'm not really sure he found it funny.

Anyway, I explained to him what i meant and that in Cantonese we pronounce is as "wan tan" like "Wan tan mee." 

Gosh! Imagine what he must have been thinking while I was wrapping wontons clueless-ly!!

Asia running around the red-light district like a maniac and wrapping clothes around immodest women while screaming at them: REPENT AND DRESS MODESTLY!!

Then dashing on to the next woman and leaving a trail of havoc in my wake! So much fun and excitement!

Haha! I wish for adventure and excitement in my life so I can only dream about it for now. I hope you had a good laugh with this post! :D

Do let me know if you've ever encountered funny moments from a misunderstanding. Spread the laughter ;)

Asia Colion

  

Funtastic Fridays - Tea time therapy

Hello everyone! It's Friday again! This week has been rather hectic for me and here's why:

Yup that's my closet and practically all my clothes left. Give me a ":)" for arranging it according to the colours of the rainbow.  

The other half belongs to my sister. Some people may think that's so little clothes other would think it's a lot of clothes. Well I think it's TOO MUCH clothes! It's been  a nightmare. So this Friday, I'm gonna have myself  some tea time therapy!

What's tea time therapy? Guys probably won't understand this but if you ever want to make a girl happy, this might (all girls are different after all) help.

Felt Asian today.

Some girls enjoy going to really cute (probably pricey) tea places. Why? Because it's cute and it make us feel happy and pampered. But if you're on a tight budget, putting in the effort to make  your own tea time set up a little prettier would be even better!

Don't feel Asian? By all means go Western!

FromFalling leaves 25th/afternoon tea party. If you like artsy stuff you'll love her!

All you need is some tea and pastries. If you have cute tablecloth, cups and teapots WHY NOT?! Just go for it!

There is something just charming about having tea time by yourself if you set it up nicely. It doesn't have to be elaborate. I don't know how others feel about it but to me, it's like having a tea party without having to go through the small talk (I'm not very good at it that's why) and major preparation and clean up. All in all, I find this fun and therapeutic (very relaxing to just sit down and drink tea for no reason). 

That's all for my funtastic Friday, gotta get back to packing those clothes! :'(

Asia Colion

Wooly Wednesdays - Andy's scarf

Still working on Andy's scarf this week. This one is probably going to be the last post about it because I have to finish and present it to him before he leaves.

Okay, I'll be honest, I have been slacking off on the scarf (Andy, if you're reading this, I'm sorry!) coupled with work from my internship, packing up things for the beginning of my semester in Unicorn and preparing to move things from house to house, falling sick (I sound like a very sexy frog, if frogs talk) and blogging preparing for my first time ever worship leading. It's been pretty hard to keep up with the scarf.

Has grown twice it's  length since last Wednesday!

Enough of my groaning and moaning. I was thinking of sewing an extra felt lining to cover up the back of the scarf this will make it nice and toasty for cold weathers since acrylic yarn isn't the warmest thing for making a scarf with. It's going to look so fabulous!

See how the back has those tiny running lines along the top right diagonal? Gonna hide those!

People will spot Andy from miles away and they will call him, the guy with the checkered scarf and everybody will know that the guy with the checkered scarf is Andy. 

My mission would then be accomplished. What's my mission? Well, it's to make conversational pieces of work (scarf in this case) which people will talk about and recognize from miles away.

Well, Andy, better be prepared for all the attention the girls gonna give ya, I hope you like it! ;)

 Asia Colion

Munching Mondays - Meal planning (mp) week 1 execution!

This is going to be my first meal plan ever. Join in my quest to healthier and convenient eating. If you're too busy to do it yourself you could use mine but I eat a lot of food (especially veggies) that people dislike.

Tada! So this is my meal plan for lunches

Avocado Tuna pasta salad with grapes!

And an up close

It probably doesn't look particularly nice now but I can assure you, it was really tasty. What's more, it was so easy to make! What's not to love? :)

The only hard part was waiting for lunch time to come (I prepared this before going to work) :D

Leave me a comment on how you like your pasta. See next post!

Asia Colion