Great Weekend

Weekend started early for us although Friday morning and afternoon was kind of hectic. In the evening we had a great BBQ (or should I say Barbe - the OZ way) on the roof top of our friend's (Firdaus aka Possuman. LOL) place near Queen Victoria Market. The city scenary was simply great and we could see the sun setting. It was a terribly hot day but good thing I could feel this gentle breeze blowing from the roof top. After the barbe we had Blackjack marathon (10pm plus to 4am. This activity was not planned!) at his place. Imagine we didn't know time was passing so fast so you could guess the amount of fun we had. No money was involved but still we had all the fun.

Saturday - Our body refuesed to leave the bed having gone to bed at 5am. So we finally woke up at 1:30pm and did a quick wash up and rushed to the market. It was raining super heavily and parts of St. Kilda road was flooded. Traffic was bad too but anyway we managed to get our stuff from Queen Victoria and later seafood at Prahran Market.

I usually like Saturday's dinner coz it is not planned. It is dependent on what we can get from the auction at Prahran Market and us being creative on how we cook or prepare. Today's was fun - Ken bought LIVE Western Australian Yabbies! Good thing coz we wanted to go visit a Yabby farm which is 1.5hrs drive away from Melbourne City so now we are not making the trip.


Live WA Yabbies
 

Became more active when we sprayed water at them

This particular one was real active
 

Whole Perch. We are going to steam it for dinner one of these nights.

Boiling the LIVE yabbies. Cruel?
 

Turning red

Yum!
 

Our only meal of the day!

Possum Feeding

Late last night or rather early this morning we went possum feeding at Carlton Park. Basically we wanted to finish the bread that was left from the previous feed.

For those who do not know what a possum is ... well they are marsupials and are native to Australia. Some people treat possum as pest. Anyway they can be found commonly in many trees and they are nocturnal creatures. We notice that their vision is not very good but gathered that they have a keen sense of smell.

Oh this time round, we saw 2 possums and we pressume that they are mothers as we suspect in their pouches are baby possum. I googled and confirmed -
"The possum spends the first four months of their lives in their mother's pouch. By the time they are six months old the young possums are living outside of the pouch all the time."
Source:http://www.kcc.org.nz/pests/possum/resources.asp


Approaching us with caution
 

They can get real friendly (Hmmm...well there's food rite)

Possum talk?!?
 

Aren't they cute?

Feeding on white bread
 

This particular possum is very shy and it seems smaller in size as compared to the others

Baby possum in mother's pouch
 

Foutain and a colonial style (i think) building in the park. Nice

Orange Sunset

This evening the sky was filled with hues of orange. The sunsets in Australia is simply breathtaking. This is the second time we saw such awesome sunset in Melbourne.

Pictures were taken from our apartment and the carpark. It was about 8:40pm then.


8:38pm-First shot from our apartment
 

8:39pm-Sky was illuminated with hues of orange

8:46pm-The sun was going down real fast. Shot was taken from our carpark
 

8:47pm-Another shot from the carpark

Time 12:02am. Location Pran Central. Fire alarm in our building went off and within minutes 2 fire engines arrived. We looked out of our window and saw people looking up but the firemen seem calm and were not in a hurry. So we just ignored the alarm but eventually Ken went out to the corridors to check and decided that we should make our way down just to be on the safe side. Thank God it did not affect the residential apartments.

The luggage shop on the ground level was filled with smoke when we arrived at the scene. 2 firemen were trying to break into the shop to investigate. I guess the sprinklers went off as the streets were wet.


Fire Engine parked beneath our apartment
 

Another fire engine parked just outside the scene with alot of onlookers

Firemen at work investigating
 

The luggage shop was filled with smoke

Streets are wet
 

Firemen crew

Italiano

Dinner tonight is Italiano. We had a successful "catch" this afternoon! Besides getting some assorted fish fillets and whole trouts, we also managed to get our hands on some scallops and mussels at bargain prices. I will be embrassed or rather I will be spoiling market if I wrote how much I paid for them. ;-P


1/2 dozen of Scallops
 

2 dozens of Mussels

Lite seasoning and some herbs
 

Stir fried mussels

Garlic and olive spaghetti with tomatoes and mushrooms
 

Ken's lot - Spaghetti con Mitili

Serena's lot - Spaghetti con Pettini
 

Mamamia!

What's for Dinner tonite?

Tonight we have company! Our friends Andrew and Jocelyn are popping by for dinner. So we decided to go simple and just bake everything!

On the menu were baked sweet potatoes, pumpkin, herbed chicken drumsticks, marlin kebab and coleslaw. For dessert I made mango pudding and they brought a lovely cake. The cake was splendid but unfortunatley we have no idea what cake it is.

Not much pictures though coz we were busy running around today besides cooking. Come on we have other business to do besides cooking all day! We have a life man! LOL


Lot of Marlin Kebab
 

Can you make out what other goodies are there?

Look how beautiful and sinful the cake is
 

We were too engrossed in the cake that we forgot to take pics of the inside but I guess it was good coz we would have prevented you from wetting your keyboards! *EVIL GRIN* Texture of the cake was soft and moist with tinge of oreo cookie flavour. Yummilicious!

Oh for those who want to attempt the Onde Onde ... One tip you've got to eat them all the day itself coz what happened was when we tried it today the skin was hard. We thought of steaming them briefly so that the skin may get softer but have not tried it yet. So best bet - make them fresh, eat them all on the same day and share them with your neighbours!

There are so many local snacks that we miss back home and the only way to feed the crave is to make them ourselves. It's amazing coz we didn't know we could cook before we arrived. :P Well, I guess back home in Singapore, we are too use to driving to the hawker center to feed that crave.

We made 90 plus onde onde today. Can't imagine I use to buy them (10 pieces) for S$3 from Maxwell Market and I need to pre-order! Now I can be a glutton and eat till I am sick of it for the next couple of years.

Verdict: Excellent! I am not kidding.


Ken filling the onde onde with gula melaka
(palm sugar)
 

Waiting to be boiled

Once its cooked, it will float
 

Coat them with some grated coconut

Yummy
 

Should I sell 10 pieces for A$5? Labour is expensive here
Yesterday we made some Wu Kok with some left over steamed yam. Hey I know you must be thinking ain't we eating too much? Well we had only wu kok and yu sheng for dinner!

Verdict: Not bad!


Savoury filling
 

Yam balls

Trying to squeeze more filling in
 

Yam puff No. 1

Final Product. Shape ain't like those commercial ones coz it's homemade. Haha
 

Delicious

The weather is turning cold again. Yesterday evening was 16 degrees celsius and we gladly welcome it! We finally went for our walk after 1 week plus of break. Hah blame it on the heat wave we've been experiencing.


Doesn't this look like a scene from some kung fu movie with swordmen and swordwomen floating around
 

Vibrant colors. Lily family I suppose

Dusk
 

The Ian Potter Foundation Children's Garden

Observatory
 

Sunset
Dinner tonight was Japanese! Yeah at long last I manage to get my hands on some Unagi!


Too greedy!
 

Our feast


 

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