The last supper [in luleå]

It was our last big dinner/supper gathering. We all met at Katalin's place yesterday night and feasted on good home-made food (I made sayur lodeh and tom yum soup). It was fun but there was an inevitable tinge of sadness in the air.

Our spread of delicacies for the main course!

Our dessert of deeeeee-licious carrot cake made by Kata and Jaime's honey corn flakes!

I had my first real goodbye yesterday. I had to bid farewell to Minttu my beautiful friend from Finland. I am really saddened by the fact that I will not see her for a long time. But a long time does not mean forever :)

I also found out that I'll be in Amsterdam the same time as the Brazilians will be! So I don't have to say a real goodbye to them yet. Reticlyve was so sad that I was leaving, but he lit up the moment he knew we'd meet again soon.

Brazil has just bumped Peru of the #1 spot for dream destination now. I love those boys.

Biggest Barriers to weightloss...Friends who are awesome cooks

It's all about the food here at Varnortsvagen. All we do once the sun sets (That is at about 2pm) is eat. Here's a quick rundown of recent foodie activity.
1. The 'Quick-we-are-leaving-soon-so-use-up-the-asian-food' Lunch
There was laksa, chicken rice, and other random side dishes.
Bryan couldn't have any because everything had some form of shrimp paste or extract, so he had his special pasta. It was a fine meal, with enough leftovers for the next day's lunch.

2. Flan Queso (Bryan's Cheese Flan)
This was one incredible dessert. Best Flan I've Ever Had. Period.
The master dessert chef behind the creation.
My second slice of heaven :)

3. Kata's Midnite Chocolate Chunk Cookies
We don't care what time it is. If there be cookies, we be there! And these cookies were too good to miss. Think I had 5...maybe 6.....and 2 more to go.... They were perfect dipped in unsweetened vanilla tea. OmNomNomNom!

Ending with a Bang

It was my turn to make the flatmate dinner tonight. It was the third and last one. How quickly the months have flown by. I wanted it to be extra special. So I made Chapatis stuffed with potatoes (Aloo Parathas), Butter Chicken and a Tomato Chutney. For dessert I, I presented them with Chocolate Fondant Cake drizzled with vanilla cream......oooh it was the best part of the meal as far as I was concerned. Moist cake that just gave way to a warm, liquid chocolate center.....
OMNOMNOMNOM Indeed! And I was so stressed so that I would not cook everything on time, that I forgot to take pictures :( Oh well, just gives me reason to recreate it in Singapore then.

There was a bit of drama it the dinner as I was cooking midway when the painters came (to paint the ceiling and the walls that had water stains) and said they needed to cover the entire interior with plastic, so they needed me out of the kitchen. I was rightly annoyed, but could could I do except knock on the door right in front of mine (Katalin's door) and ask to use her kitchen instead. Thankfully Claudia and Nina, her housemates were cool with it :)

So dinner was half an hour late, but they said it was worth the wait. And to celebrate, I opened my bottle of sparkling wild strawberry wine to share with the girlies during dessert. It was perfect when paired with the fondant cake.

Celebrate!

On Friday night, we were all not planning to sleep as the bus to Rovaniemi (Santa Claus Village in Finland) was leaving at 5am Saturday morning. The gang was to be gathered at Vishnu's place for snacks and movies. And I had told them that I want to make a special cake to celebrate the birth of my adorable niece Amritaa. So that was the perfect time to do it :) And although the cake I made is essentially a Berry Crumble Pudding, that night it was dubbed 'Amritaa cake'.

Just drizzle some vanilla sauce and oh boy...this cake is a dream if I may say so myself.
Katalin and Minttu made some gingerbread cookies too, The made regular round ones and a very special........
I Love Singapore! How cute right?
Here's us doing what we do best, vegetate in front of the laptop watching some random movie =)

Onde Onde Biasa

I made onde onde again. This time the traditional way - rolled in coconut. Yellow ones were sweet potato and green ones were plain, cos I didn't buy pandan.

While my international friends liked it, it was the Singaporean verdict that mattered most- cos they know what it should taste like.

Vishnu said that it pops in the mouth and oozes out syrup. And the skin wasn't too thick. But the best indication that it was not a disaster, was the empty plate littered with powdery soft coconut glistening with sugar that was left behind for me to pick at =)

This will impress my Indian Mother-In-Law (if I had one)

I cooked up a storm today. Made 5 dishes for an Indian dinner I promised to cook for Uncle Jimmy and his family- friends from church. I invited Vishnu to come along because everyone from our group has left to go skiing in Ruka except us 2.

Here's the menu:
Jeera Pulav (Cumin rice)
Vegetable cutlets
Yogurt potatoes
Pepper Fish Curry
Chicken Tikka

I wanted to challenge myself this time.
So last night I worked from midnight to 6am this morning to prepare all the ingredients, just so that at 11am (when i begin cooking after a nap) all the activity I had to do was limited to the stove-top and oven.
My workstation, complete with a steady stream of good music from my iTunes library.

I learnt that when you don't have a grinder, a grater is excellent to make pastes. But grating chilli and onions isn't any fun at all. In desperate times right guys?
Everything was in order and neatly stowed away. Vegetable cutlet mix, pepper curry paste, yoghurt sauce for potatoes, chicken happily marinating in masala spiked yogurt, potatoes boiled and cubed and plenty of chopped corriander.

The furious cooking began at about noon and I ended at 4pm, just in the nick of time for uncle Jimmy to come and pick us and the food up. Here's how it all turned out!
The yogurt potatoes were really yums :) I made the gravy thicker because the fish gravy was the more liquid kind.
Spiced basmati rice steaming away on top of the stove.
The Jeera rice turned out nice and fluffy. It was my favourite dish of the lot. Simple and homely.
Vegetable cutlets, potatoes, peas, corn, spices and curry paste. These were a hit, should have made more.
The pepper fish curry with a sprinkling of almonds. The gravy wouldn't thicken up even after a lot of water had evaporated away, so I just threw in a lot of breadcrumbs and voila! Perfect consistency. Hahaha! Very spicy and shiok, but I prefer attah's version more.
Chicken Tikka! Can't tell you how it was cos I don't eat chicken, hahah. But it was the only mild thing there.

I thought I was only going to feed 5 people but it turned out that there were 8 people there and still there was enough food to go around and a little bit left over too. I think God multiplied the food after Uncle Jimmy prayed for it ;) And Africans love their spices, so the food went down well with them. Yay, another cooking experiment that did not end up in disaster.

Flatemate Dinner! This time it's East-Meets-West!

Time really flies. It feels like it was just a few days ago that I experimented with my sweet potato onde-ondes, but in fact many weeks have passed and today was my turn to cook for the girls again. I took a lot of time to think about this one and I finally came up with a menu that seemed plausible.
-Citrus Jasmine Rice
-Attah's Tomato soup
-Thai Fishcakes
-Strawberry Clafouti [traditional French dessert]

As usual, I wrote the menu on the fridge 2 days ago so that anyone could object if they were not feeling it - not that it has ever happened, but we don't want to end up serving something someone would hate. Thankfully everyone just told me how interesting it sounded.

So this afternoon at 2:45 after I got back from church, wishing my dad 'Happy Swedish Father's Day ' and talking to Redzman and Shaun for a bit, I got cracking.

I think the hardest part is not cooking per se, but cooking everything at ONCE. It's a lot of multitasking to ensure that no time is wasted. So while I defrosted the fish for the fishcakes, I chopped up everything and boiled all the potatoes I needed. While mashing the fish and other ingredients for the fishcakes I got the rice going. While baking the Clafouti I started pan-frying the fishcakes. Wah Piang Eh!

In the background were Kenza and Lucie going "Shila! Shila! We're HUNGRY!!!" or "Shila! I'm so hungry I'm gonna eat my slippers!". It was really funny but I felt bad that they were starving. I promised dinner at 7, but it was served at 6:45 =D Not much, but for someone who cooks as slowly as me, preparing a four course dinner for 4 hungry girls in 4 hours is no small matter.

Kenza was watching me cook for a while and she announced to the other two, "I know why Shila cooks so slowly. She takes the vegetable, feels it, looks at it, cuts it so gently and kindly..." I thought she was so funny, I just told them I like to "respect my ingredients". But I must say all the girls in my flat are good cooks, especially Kenza, who remains unfrazzled at the prospect of cooking couscous and accompanying gravy with vegetables and roasted chicken for 20 people!

I digress.....here's how it turned out! Click on the names of the dishes for the recipes.
Thai Fishcakes. Bad picture, I assure you they look a lot better in real life.
Clafouti. For how good it tastes, it was ridiculously simple.
The whole shebang :) With Citrus Rice still in the pots.

The girls were all smiles and the plates were empty, so I'm satisfied.

Ratatouille

Since I'm gonna be away for 10 days, I figured I better empty out my fridge because everything in there were fresh vegetables that would not wait for my return. I had eggplants, zucchinis, tomatoes, capsicums, mushrooms, onions, garlic....what to do?

Make Ratatouille of course! The French girls here thought it was a good idea too, so here goes my own spin on it.

1. Chop up the onion and garlic and set aside. Chop up the tomatoes and set aside. Chop up the zucchini, eggplants, capsicums, mushrooms and set aside.
2. Heat up some oil and saute the onions and garlic until nice and fragrant, then throw in all the vegetables except the tomatoes. Keep mixing until the vegetables go tender and you see that all the water is being released from them.

3. Throw in the tomatoes and mix well. At this stage, you can also add in some tomato paste if you feel that your tomatoes are not flavourful enough of if you want a thicker base, but the paste is optional. Then season with basil (I used dried), cumin powder (for a touch of indian), chilli powder, salt and pepper. And keep mixing until everything is well incorporated.
4. Cover and let it simmer for about an hour.
5. This is what you will get...
You can cook it for longer until you get a thicker base, its really up to you :)
This is how I ate my ratatouille...
With low fat yogurt on the side and 3 Swedish wheat crackers. Guilt free and delish!

I decided to freeze the entire pot of ratatouille so that I will not have to cook for 2-3 days once I return. Yup, I made THAT much!

KLADDKAKA

Oh how I love Kladdkaka. It's a traditional Swedish dessert that is in fact a chocolate fudge cake! Chocolate cake is okay, but nothing satisfies me like a a good chewy fugde brownie, so this easy cake is just perfect fix for me. My thanks to Veronika, my Swedish friend who shared the recipe with me :)

Okay...so it's not a pretty cake, well it was never meant to be a pretty dessert really. Most cafes I've seen here serve it with just a simple dusting of powdered sugar. No frills, but I kid you not, scrumptious =D

Here's how to make your own slice of heaven!

100g butter (melted and set aside)
2 eggs
1 1/4 cup sugar
150 ml flour
60 ml cocoa
1tsp salt
5ml vanilla

preheat oven to 175 degrees C

prepare your baking tin: grease it with butter and then coat it thinly with breadcrumbs (this cake will stick otherwise)

Beat the eggs with the sugar until fluffy

Add all the ingredients except the butter into the egg-sugar mixture and combine well

Add in the butter little by little, mixing well after each addition

Pour into the pan and bake for 20-25 mins

The cake is ready when a tester comes out clean, but it should still be soft in the middle and not well-done, you will also notice that it is a very dense cake and will not rise much

Let the cake cool in the pan so that it can become chewy and 'fudgey'

N'joy! A small slice is all you need to be overcome with the pleasure sugar and chocolate bring, as this is one intense dessert experience...which is good, because then the kladdkaka will last longer =)

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Communal living means caring and sharing. Whenever anyone bakes, we usually bring portions over to each others' apartments. This is how I divided the cakes I made today :) It's so fun living with so many cool, appreciative people around you.

Deepalulea (18 Oct)

This one one fun night. As Vishnu said in the Facebook album, there is no need for alcohol, just have good food and great people and it is all set. Vishnu's mother had sent him some ingredients and had hand written all the recipes for him. So the amazing boy spent all day in the kitchen, cooking briyani, spicy soya sauce prawns, chicken curry and raita! It tasted stupendous.



He had also invited close to 30 people so the house was really packed. Where else will you find Scottish, Finish, Brazilian, Spanish, Polish, French, Singaporean, Australian, Puerto Rican, German and Swedish people celebrating Deepavali together?! I decided to wear my punjabi suit and add a bit more 'Indian' to the mix.


It was really cool also because almost all the guests brought desserts along so after the main meal we had a huge array of desserts to try. I'm tell you guys, this bunch of exchange students all have a culinary gift. My kulfi paled in comparison to a lot of the stuff on the table :p

The eating began at 7pm and went on till about 11pm. Then after helping to clean up, we rounded off the night just sitting around and talking, and finally by singing along to songs on someone's karaoke software in their laptop. Best party I've been to so far in Lulea, and the most wholesome one too.

International Dinner (17 oct)

This was really cool. Everyone brings a food from their home country and it's all laid out on huge tables, 'starters', 'mains' and 'desserts'. There must have been over 50 different dishes to try...from American "Better Than Sex Cake", Brazilian coconut shrimp stew, Italian Fritata, French crepes, Swiss breads, Trinidad and Tobago rice and beans, Puerto Rican Quesitos....and really the list goes on. It was amazing. Daunted by ho much I have been spending on food alone, I decided to go really easy and make coconut agar agar. Vishnu made payasam...which the Brazilians and a French girl claimed to be something from their hometown as well. Very strange but cool I guess.