I hope you’re not hungry…

July 30, 2010 | Filed Under La nourriture, La vie 

because the following photos of food are huge.

I’ve been enjoying my last days of freedom before I’m back at uni next Monday. I’m eagerly awaiting for my internal transfer to be approved so I can officially be a double degree-er! Exciting stuff I tells ya because this means I will be going overseas next year for a couple of weeks. I’m crossing all my fingers and toes!

Other than that I’ve been eating non-stop again because trying new places is always fun though I think the most fun I can have is having a lazy day at home, reading classics (found this copy of Alice at the Post Office! The cover is so lovely) and planning outfits for spring, hehe. I got these stockings at Topshop a couple of weeks ago, they really do nothing for my thighs but hey, life is short and who the hell cares about people thinking you’re fat?

When the dark clouds arrive

April 13, 2010 | Filed Under La nourriture, La vie 

Once again I’ve been a little bit busy, if you follow me on Twitter you would know how much an Economics assignment is giving me grief! I’ve been finding time here and there to be able to watch some TV, go out a bit and eat regularly, haha, which I guess is all that matters.

Last week I managed to get out a couple of times but most importantly I saw some friends who I hadn’t seen for a while! We went to Crinitis and ordered a 1m pizza. YUM but I only managed to eat a couple pieces before I was completely done. I had such a great time catching up that night. I didn’t bring my camera so I didn’t get any photos unfortunately.

On the Friday night, in a sort of spontaneous move, my friends Melanie, Joselyn and I decided to go to San Churro! It was beyond amazing… ahhh, I am getting a craving just looking at them. We over ordered again though, like we usually do and didn’t eat all the churros :( If you guys have a San Churro near you, you definitely have to go! Look at that fried golden goodness and all the different types of chocolate dipping.

Joselyn got an instax a couple months ago so I’m enjoying being in all these cute instant photos no matter how bad I look. I sort of forgot the excitement of waiting for them to appear! Now I’ll definitely have to make it my priority to track down some 600 film for my Polaroid.

Macarons!

January 7, 2010 | Filed Under La nourriture 

I love macarons! Why? Because they’re French, sweet and totally indulgent. I’ve always thought were were very temperamental. After watching countless contestants on Masterchef fail at making them I thought I’d fall victim to that too. Fortunately I did not and thus I AM A GENIUSSSSSSSS :D

Haha, okay my first batch weren’t great because they were overly sweet with a very disgusting butter cream. I don’t usually like butter so I guess butter cream just isn’t for me and also I overcooked them. I followed the recipe found in I Love Macarons by Hisako Ogita. It’s such a lovely book, it’s very simple to understand, minimal words and lots of pictures, I guess in a nutshell it’s very Japanese.

For my 2nd batch I tweaked the recipe found in the book firstly by halving the quantity. I found that there was just simply too much batter for me to make everything in one go. So instead of having around two dozen macarons I only had about 10. I also tweaked the cooking time, I found that cooking it at 200°C for 15 minutes was just too much. My oven is a gas one so I preheated the oven to 200°C, put the tray in and turned it off for 6 minutes and then cooked it at 160°C until it was firm enough to remove from the baking paper. These came out perfectly. They weren’t as sweet because of the matcha powder and the ganache had just the right amount of sweetness to it.

If anyone would like the recipe I used I’ll post it but I really recommend buying Ogita’s book, if not for the recipe’s, for how pretty the book is in general. It’s not too expensive too which is great! :)

The nest and egg

December 2, 2009 | Filed Under La nourriture, La vie 

Retail shopping. It’s powers of making me feel better never fail to amaze me. Sometime between my second to last and last exam I decided to let loose and go shopping with my good friend Jenny. I loved this ring but chose not to buy it and when we went back the third time and asked to see it I was fairly impressed but not swayed until the SA opened it! So cute, it’s eggs made out of pearls and  a little enamel chick hatching!

Before the shopping galore we went to get some food at a Japanese restaurant, Poporo. Not too sure if that’s what it’s called. It was good, NOMNOM. We both ordered a chilli chicken burger, green tea float and seaweed salad.

Afterwards we walked around doing nothing, talking about everything. Sometimes it’s good to just forget about all your troubles, pig out and buy too much. All with good company of course. Well, I’m free! I have no more exams and I’m just waiting on results. I’m scared and I hope I’m not too disappointed. Sorry for the influx of entries, as I mentioned before it’s a good stress reliever.

Éléphanteaux and its content is © Leanne N. unless otherwise stated. Thank you Lana.