Savory Zucchini Pancakes

This healthy recipe is a great way to increase your uptake of vegetables, especially when they are so flavorful (hopefully this can encourage children to eat a few more greens).

Step 1: Wash, deseed and shred your zucchini. I only used 1 zucchini and made about 8 small pieces.

Step 2: Mix the shredded zucchini with a little bit of salt so it would start releasing some of its water (and less squeezing in step 3). Let it sit while you cut up your garlic and shallots.

Step 3: Get a clean towel and start squeezing as much water as possible.

Step 4: Mix in the garlic, shallot, bread crumbs, 1 egg, herbs, salt & pepper

Tips: If you run out of bread crumbs, just crumble up some crackers
Add in any of your favourite herbs! I added dried thyme, oregano, paprika and sesame
Fry a small piece of your batter to taste if it has enough seasoning

Step 5: Fry them in low to medium heat and you are done!

Optional: Make your own sauce to change up the style of your zucchini pancakes. e.g. Soya sauce with chilies for an Asian twist, and crème fraiche for a French twist!

Have fun making them and let me know your feedback!

Gluten & dairy-free dinner in 30 minutes

After all those barbeque parties over the weekend with the carnivores, sometimes you just want something light and refreshing. Here is an idea for a light but filling dinner: Salmon Zoodles (zucchini noodles) and cherry banana nice-cream.

Salmon Zoodles

Step 1: Shred your zucchini, prepare your minced garlic and marinate your salmon with salt and pepper.

Step 2: Pan fry the salmon with olive oil, garlic, and (optional) herb of your choice (rosemary). Then put the salmon in the oven till cooked.

Tip: While you are pre-heating the oven for the salmon, throw in a tomato or bell pepper for extra color and nutrient for your dish.

Step 3: Quickly stir fry the zucchini with olive oil, S&P and garlic till tender. Then plate when your fish is done from the oven.

Tip: The zucchini contains a lot of water, so you may drain it before and after cooking.

Optional: For an Asian theme dressing for the zoodles, you can mix a bit of the Korean citron tea sauce with light soya sauce and some water.

Just in case you aren’t full yet……you can finish off with a dairy-free ice cream. Just two simple ingredients: frozen banana and a fruit or flavouring of your choice.

Banana Nice-cream

Step 1: Slice 1 banana and freeze it overnight

Step 2: Put the frozen banana and your favourite frozen fruit (e.g. strawberries, blueberries etc) or flavouring (e.g. cocoa powder, matcha powder vanilla extra etc) into the mixer.

Step 3: The mixture will become lumpy, then gooey, and will finally look like ice cream (I promise!) Eat it straight out from your mixer or put it back to the freezer and save it for next day.

Well this requires preparation a day prior, but it’s quick to make once you have your ingredients ready 🙂

Hope you enjoy these simple dishes and have a healthy summer!

 

 

Oil-free baked chicken nuggets

Who knew that chicken nuggets can actually be healthy? Without losing the crunchy texture and delicious flavour, this recipe brings your regular mcnuggets into another level.

Step 1
Season chicken strips with salt & pepper and crush up some bread sticks.

Remarks: You may season your chicken strips with your favourite spices. For bread crumbs, you can bake overnight bread, crush up crackers or bread sticks or simply buy panko breadcrumbs.

To make the coating more flavorful, I added thyme, oregano, cumin and salt & pepper into the crumb mix.

Step 2
Cut up the chicken meat into small pieces, and prepare the egg wash

Step 3
Put the chicken nuggets into the egg wash and then into the bread crumbs

Step 4
Pre-heat oven at 200 Celsius or 400 Fahrenheit and bake the nuggets for 15 mins.

Done and Voila!
Serve it with your favourite dipping sauce 🙂

Event Re-cap: Star Rock Party on April 19, 2014

To celebrate one of our executive member’s birthday, Titanium Entertainment Group (TEG) decided to throw our song bird, Kenny, a night that he would remember. Nothing is better than hosting a band show for our vocalist to share his dazzling voice.

Setting off the right ambiance for the night, we kicked off with some rock music. (After all, our party was called “Star Rock Party”.) The first band, Overdriven brought us a taste of rock music from Japan proceeded by the next band, The Happening, performing covers of Linkin Park’s classics. Then we softened up the evening a bit with Chris performing his solo, “Wherever you go”. After the break, The 5th Unit & E union, played the latest hits including Maroon 5’s “This Love” and Adele’s “Rolling in the Deep”. Last but not least, our birthday boy, Kenny, who is also the vocalist from Redleave, performed local hits such as活著Viva from Nicolas Tse.

The idea of the night “Star Rock”, originated from us hoping to fulfill everyone’s dream of becoming a super star. We brought in our own karaoke system and got our audience involved and be part of the performance. Special thanks again to Kenny, the birthday boy who generously sponsored the venue for the event. The entry for the night was complimentary and people were welcomed to bring in their own drinks. Through this event, we hope to provide a platform and channel to promote local bands and interaction within the music community. As our tradition, of course, we ended the night singing our theme song “Titanium”.

Interested in having TEG hosting your next special event? Feel free to send us a message to our inbox for more details. Leave your comments in the box below and let us know what event you would like to see next! Stay tuned for our upcoming event!

Event details: https://www.facebook.com/events/1433943753513976/

Event Recap: Let it Blossom- February 9, 2014 (Titanium Entertainment Group)

To kick off the year of the Horse, Titanium Entertainment Group (TEG) celebrated Chinese New Year with a fuchsia theme. On February 9, 2014, TEG hosted our first mixer event “Let it Blossom”! As Valentine’s Day was just around the corner, our committee meticulously designed a string of games to connect our fellow participants and break the ice.

We started off the night with a pairing game with our favourite movie and Disney couples, followed by our version of human bingo. Each person got to learn more about each other and found out something interesting about that person.  The highlight of the night was when our official emcee hosted TEG’s original game “The Day on Valentine’s…” . The game allowed participants to interact and be the character of our story while dictating the development of the plot. Last but not least, we wrapped up the evening with our lucky draw and everyone left with amazing gifts and a sweet look on their face.

TEG will continue planning more exciting events for 2014. Stayed tuned for our next quarterly event in the Summer!

UK & Ireland Trip Day 1 & 2

I was in UK and Ireland for about 17 days and I want to share and pinpoint places that I visited. Unfortunately it’s not the perfect itinerary, but it gives you an idea of how many things you can do in one day.

Left Vancouver on August 25^th and arrived London (LHR) on the 26^th.

Day 1: arrived to LHR. It was during the Olympics so there were many helpful Tourists Ambassadors that were providing information of getting to city center. There are basically a few ways to get to London city center. There are basically two lines that you can take with the underground train.  However, if you have many luggage like we did, it’s better off to take the airport shuttle. I think there’s only one company that provides the service and they advertise it as 18 pounds each. It cost us about 55 pounds for both of us at the end because we had 3 big luggage in total.

Comments: We were staying at Radission Edwardian Blu Grafton Hotel, which is situated 30 seconds away from Warren street station and about a 20 min walk from Euston station (train station). There’s also many buses that stop in front of our hotel and also many restaurants and supermarket that’s around us. I consider it as a convenient location if you are planning to travel outside of London. If you only want to spend time at London city center and do shopping, I recommend staying at Marble Arch/ Oxford Circus/ Picadilly.

We ate at our hotel’s restaurant which provided a great deal for a 2 course meal and rested that evening.

Day 2: Woke up early because of jet lag and started to explore around.

Comments: Even if you are only staying in London for a few days, it’s a good idea to purchase an Oyster card. You are able to get your deposit and remaining money in the card back when you refund. Your fares will be 20% cheaper when you use your Oyster card compared to paying with coins. It’s convenient because you will not have to worry about carrying heavy lose change around. Also, it can detect how many times you use in a day and it will not charge you more than a $7 day pass if you are travelling in the zone 1 area, which is the city center area.

My mom wanted to go to Chinatown (Piccadilly station) to visit the local travel agency. However, it was not open during Bank Holiday so we had to visit again.

Comments: We bought a Labara SIM card which costs 10 pound and comes with 5 pounds worth of minutes. They have cheap rates when calling international, and have free minutes when calling to a Labara phone.

We end up eating at the W hotel’s restaurant called Spice Market. It’s a fusion restaurant and from my experience, I think they combine Chinese, Japanese, Thai and Vietnamese food together. We then bought tickets to the Chicago show for that evening. I wasn’t able to find the half off ticket booth, but perhaps it’s worth to find out.

It was a short walk to Trafalgar square as well, and we end up wandering our way to the Savoy Hotel (Fairmont) on the Strand to find out Gordon Ramsay’s restaurant, the Savoy Grill. Unfortunately we didn’t see the lobby’s coffee shop earlier, where it serves high tea next to the beautiful river view.

We got changed and took the bus back to Savoy Restaurant for dinner. The dinner was prompt since it was a pre-theatre menu. We had plenty of time left to walk to the Gatwick Theatre.

The theatre wasn’t big, but I quite enjoyed the intimate setting. Even though I was sitting on the upper deck level, my distance from the stage wasn’t that far.

 

Asian Cucumber Salad

Another easy and cheap recipe salad to make when inviting friends over.

Step by Step:

1. Wash and cut up cucumbers to thick strips
2. Marinate with salt for about 30 secs
3. Rinse and drain
4. Add a dash of vinegar, sesame oil, sugar, soya sauce & chili flakes (optional)
5. Mix, chill and serve!

Summer Greek Salad (under $10)

This is rather a late post for a summer salad. Since I am in Hong Kong and it’s 30 degrees out, I think it’s not too late to post this fun delicious recipe. I made this a few months ago in Vancouver for a pot-luck and it’s great if you are under a budget (I.E. for students).
You can add in any ingredients you want, and there’s no strict rule with the measurements. Basically you want to have a 1(vegetables):1.5 (pasta) ratio.

I used seasonal items which are usually on sale. I bought red and yellow bell peppers, cherry tomatoes, cucumber, penne pasta and a Kraft Greek salad dressing. It would also be nice to add small amounts of chopped red onions, olive and feta cheese if you have a little bit more to spend.

Step by step:
1. Wash and chop up vegetables
2. Cook and drain pasta
3. Mix pasta, vegetable, salad dressing, and S&P for seasoning
4. Put in fridge and chill to serve. Viola!

Atlantic Provinces

I have decided that there doesn’t need to be a specific structure with blogs, so I will be blogging about things I like such as eating, travelling, aesthetics etc.

Here’s a short summary of my 8 day trip to 3 provinces.

Day 1: Flew in to Halifax around evening from Toronto. Walked around the town and harbour/seawalk.

Day 2: In the morning, we drove to Pier 21 Museum. It’s a very interesting museum and gives you a bit of history about immigrants in Canada particularly people landing through Pier 21 (spend at least an hour there). There’s a market near the museum, but there has nothing. There’s a coffee shop nearby where we bought the blueberry maple coffee beans.

In the afternoon we drove to Peggy’s Cove which is about 1.5 hours away from Halifax.

We drove to Lunenburg to sleep in the evening. The Italian restaurant Trattoria Della Nonna was very good.

Day 3: Lueneburg is a very pretty city. It’s listed as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. You can take a ride on the blue nose, but I am not sure if it’s still under construction.

Lueneburg’s land mark is the 3 churches. It’s nothing really, but it’s a nice place to take pictures.

We drove to Wolfville (about an hour north of Lueneberg through highway #12). We went to Gaspereau Vineyards (apparently renowned brand in NS, but the wine is rather dry) and Luckette Vineyards where it serves simple lunch (and where we bought the cranberry apple wine).

We hurried to Moncton, New Brunswick and arrived in the evening, which was about a 4 hour drive. Please don’t try the japanese food there even though it’s owned by asians.

Day 4: On Saturdays, Moncton havs farmers market. It’s quite neat to check it out. I felt I was in Quebec because there were so many french speaking people. There are museums near the university but it was closed that day. I’ve also heard magnetic hill is a good attraction too. It’s an optic illusion so once you parked your car to N, your car will actually go up.

We went to fisherman paradise for lunch (DO NOT GO THERE) before we took the confederation bridge to PEI.

We stayed a night at summerland, but there was nothing open. In hindsight, I would probably stayed in Charlottetown for a few days and explore PEI instead of moving to different hotels.

Day 5: On our way to Charlottetown, we went to Anne of Green Gables Museum. We also went to a restaurant called Fisherman’s Wharf where it serves delicious lobsters and includes a salad and dessert bar with all you can eat chowder and mussels (well obviously its not the best quality, but it’s great value). We spent the evening walking around the city. I just love this place so much. It’s a very cute city and has nice architecture.We went to a Chinese restaurant in the evening which was actually legit, it was a short drive away from the city centre.

Day 6: We did a little bit of sightseeing in the morning. I liked the Founder’s hall which was located at the Charlottetown Tourism info center. The museum is very interactive and provides history about Canada’s confederation. Spend some time walking around the city and check out their museums if you have time, their tourism is very well done there. St. Dunstan’s Basilica is a gorgeous church and can’t be missed. If the locals direct you to Cow’s ice cream store, save your money because you will be disappointed when you expect to get the best ice cream you will ever have.

We took the morning ferry back to NS. The PEI ferry terminal was less than an hour drive from Charlottetown. The ferry trip was about 1.5 hrs.  I then drove straight to Sydney, which was one of the bigger cities in the Cape Brenton region. The hotel we wanted to stay was full so we stayed at Hampton Membertou, which was a brand new hotel with a nice restaurant shared with the convention center just across the hotel.

Day 7: There wasn’t any exciting museums in Sydney so I drove to Louisburg where it’s famous for the Louisburg Fortress. It’s a historical site and there will be live actors reenacting the era when you go in August. Afterwards, I drove about 3 hours to Truro to stay overnight because it was only an hour away from the airport and I didn’t want to rush myself to catch the flight the next morning. Truro is a small town so do not expect anything, although the VIA rail has a stop there.

Day 8: Flight back to Toronto

My first post

Yeah! set up a blog, although I have xanga, but I guess this will be my professional blog from now on