Pre-Christmas weekend in Hamburg

I could not go home this weekend since I have a case study discussion in Hamburg on Saturday. So my dear came here on Friday after work. On Saturday, Pei Wei arrived as well in the morning and we went for a walk in the town. Then, it started snowing ... ...

Since my case study starts at 2p.m, we decided to have a lunch buffet before, only realizing that it opens only from 12p.m. after we arrived at the shop at 11.30a.m. We changed our plan and decided to come back for dinner buffet. Then we headed to the Christmas market in front of the Rathaus to grab some food.

It was so packed in the market that we have to squeeze ourself through the crowd. We couldn't find anything at the end and decided to get into a mall. It was a good ideas as it was warm inside at least. Unlike in Malaysia, the mall here does not provide so many options for dining. We wanted to have something simple since we want to leave some space for the buffet that night. So, we decided for some bagels. The first time I tried since I don't fancy this kind of fats food, with plentyful of cream and cheese. Anyway I gave it a try and order the chicken bagel. My dear had the tuna and Pei Wei went for the smoked salmon. I chose spinach bagel to go with it. It tasted suprisingly good and fresh although not what I expexted. The chicken was blended with some fresh cheese and herbs. Together with some salat and tomatoes, not so bad. I could just finished half of it and my dear got the rest done.

Then I went for my discussion. My dear and Pei Wei waited for me in a cafe. The discussion took longer than I thought and my dear was a bit angry at me :( since they have to wait for almost 3 hours in the cafe. We then headed to the restaurant again for their dinner buffet. I visited this restaurant before around 1 month ago with my dear and a course mate. The restaurant is opened by a Taiwanese and it offers lunch and dinner buffet with lots of sushi and dim sum. Here one can only compose the ingredients by himself and decide the way it is prepared, either sweet and sour, spicy or satay, anything you like. The sushi varieties was plentyful and I like the rolls the most with butter fruit and salmon. Though the dim sum was a bit disappointing. Anyway, we had a lot of stir fried shrimps, squids and oysters. My dear got some satay lamb with bean sprouts. At the end, we were so full and satisfied.

Before Pei Weil went back to Oldenburg, we had a walk again at the Christmas market. It is just different from the day in the night when the lights are on and the christmas tree twinkling. It feels like Chritmas. We grabbed a lot of photos. My dear and I also went home after Pei Wei train left as we were all so tired after a long day. I enjoyed the day very much and hope that three of us could spend some days together here again.

Nasi Briyani

Last Wednesday after my fatburner class, I arrived home and cooked nasi briyani with curry chicken. This is because my dear likes to eat Indian food. The recipe is as below :

Ingredients
500g rice, wash and drain
2 tbsp oil
2 3/4 cups water
1/4 cup evaporated milk or yoghurt
1 1/2 tsp salt

Spices (A):
6 cardamoms
1 star anise
6 cloves
2 stalks lemon grass, smashed
2cm piece cinnamon stick
2 pandan leaves, knotted

Fry in oil till crispy:
15 shallots, sliced thinly
3 cloves garlic, sliced thinly

Heat oil in a wok and fry spices (a) until fragrant. Add rice and stir-fry well for about two to three minutes, then transfer rice into an electric rice cooker.Add water, evaporated milk or yoghurt, pandan leaves and salt, then switch on the rice cooker.When rice is cooked, dish out to serve with a sprinkling of shallots and garlic.

After that, I cooked some Indian curry chicken. We cooked this very often and posted before in this blog. We added this time some Masala spices to give it an Indian touch.

Enjoying my long weekend!!

I have a long weekend, so I came back to Oldenburg after my lecture. I rushed back to my domitory and packed all my stuffs. Hihi...feel happy because I can cook some delicious foods for my dear and Pwei. I cooked some simple dishes for dinner: a bowl of herbal chicken soup with San Yao (山药). After that, I fried belacan chicken wings and stir fried tofu floss. I found this recipe from a cooking magazine.

Stir fried tofu floss recipe:

Ingredients:
2 blocks Japanese tofu
30g dried shrimp (chopped)
2 eggs (beaten)
1 carrot

Seasoning:
½ tsp salt & pepper
2 tsp corn flour

Boil the tofu first and crashed into small pieces. Beat the eggs and mix with the tofu floss and add seasoning. Then heat up the oil to fry the dried shrimps and carrot, pour in the egg mixtures and fried until cooked.

It is really a simple dish with cheap ingredients. Therefore my dear called it "Kampung fried egg" and called me "Kampung girl" ... haha ... he liked it though..

Busy Weeks

We were so busy for the last few weeks. This is because I took 10 subjects for this semester and I have to attend block lecture for Interkulturelles Wirtschaftkommunikation in the 1st weekend. Tiring and scared because this is the only one subject in German. During these few weeks I am busy researching information for my Case Studies- Truck Tires in China Market. Besides that, I am busy for my International Finance, Introductory for EU System, Research Method, International Organisation and Management and International Accounting (five block lectures coming soon).

My dear was busy for his PhD research project because he needs to submit 2 papers before end of this year and somemore he needs to find out more new ideas and result to prepare for a conference next year. Now he works as fulltime Medical Physicist in the hospital. Therefore we didn´t update our blog for some time... ...

Yeah...it is snowing here!!!

My dear went to Jena (a small town in East Germany) for attending a seminar yesterday and today. Since yesterday it is snowing here almost in whole Germany. I stand in front of the window and enjoy the view outside. I feel so happy because it was really nice. My dear called me to make sure that I don't miss it . He knows that I like snow very much. I still remember when I was in Szeged (Hungary) during winter 2002, one week before Christmas, we started our Europe semi backpack trip, while we were walking to the bus station, the snow fell down heavily, this was the 1st time I saw snow in my life. I felt really happy.

When we visited Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna (Austria), my dear showed me that the snow has a repeating cystal shape. I was so surprise. Thus, at every destination – Brussel, Prag and Amsterdem when it was snowing, my dear sure would show me the shape of the snow again. Unfortunately, in Paris and Rome we could not see any snow because the temperature there was higher compared with other Europe country during winter.

According to weather forecast, it will continue snowing until next week. The Christmas feel is coming ... ...