I am a really lazy blogger xD

Hello my pretties, I trust you've all had a very merry Christmas and are enjoying the holidays before work and school starts again in the New Year.

Between all the insane Christmas and Boxing Day shopping and the mountains of yummy food, I managed to get in some quality time with la familia and catch up with some of shows I'd been wanting to watch. I am now completely hooked to the Korean drama You're Beautiful. I am a Shin Woo girl all the way!!!!But I also adore Jeremy!!And Tae Kyung has the most heart melting smile when he smiles, although I don't really like Jang Geun Suk in this series because he just looks too girly with all the mascara and lipstick. When he first appears with his hair covering one side of his face, I thought he looked like Nana >.<".

In other news, the doctor has diagnosed the bf with stomach ulcers :( he'd been complaining of stomach cramps and pain below his left rib for quite a while and finally went to the doctor last week. He's been put on medication for a month and has to watch his diet, nothing spicy, or too rich and he can't eat too much. This means that there won't be too many Nunu's Kitchen posts for a while. On top of this, his tennis elbow (he works in IT) has gotten much worse lately, to the point where the pain keeps him awake at night. Argh, I just wanna put that boy into a bubble!

Yes, I know you're all just here to see what I've hauled, so without further ado, here are the photos.

Some clothes for work xD

Boxing Day haul, mostly electronics and other bits n bobs for the house.

Some random pressies from colleagues etc.

My new bag courtesy of the Pookie and Frida Giannini xD

On the subject of Gucci bags, how's this for originality? Exhibit one below is Aldo's Bocchigliero (good luck pronouncing that!) it's on sale right now for $20.99 from $48.00

And in this corner, we have the Gucci Pelham studded hobo in Anthracite leather going for a cool $1700, if I recall correctly, it was a 2007 offering.

No, you're not seeing double, these two bags are almost IDENTICAL!The only difference is the colour of the hardware and of course the material.

Friends' kitties amongst all the Secret Santa pressies xD

I didn't realise my eyeshadow matched the kitty until the girls on NB pointed it out heheh. Kill 2 birds with 1 stone, EOTD and a kitteh!

They were so fluffy!!like a stuffed animal!I wanted to steal it xD

My gift from Alienman's Secret Santa! After some mishap with the post office (I live in a newly developed area that isn't on the Post Office's GPS, only bills make their way to our house =.="), it arrived safely yesterday and I totally ripped it apart the moment I got home. This girl got me far far FAR too much!!! I am SO getting her back!!! She got me EVERYTHING I wished for and then some more!!! She got me the UD Half Baked palette!!!!! She even wrote me love notes xD. Thank you very much SH, I loved it all very very much!! Watch out for the package coming your way!

There be no chestnuts roasting over the fire at the Nunu's house, but there be some makeup brushes! Lol, I haven't washed these in...ages...ew...I know, instead of washing them, I just buy more brushes ^.^;

I thought I'd post a photo of my makeup collection as of end 2009. It's tiny, tiny, compared to everyone else's, but I only started collecting in earnest from around mid-year and since then it's been increasing at a slow but steady pace xD. Let's see what it looks like by the end of next year eh?

Whew! what a long post! The New Year is upon us, this year seemed to have flown by so fast! So many things have happened and so many more things are on the cusp of happening. The lovely Miss Yumeko is moving to my hometown (Hong Kong) for the next two years and I would like to wish her and her hubby all the best! I look forward to your posts in the new country! To my beloved Alienman and Dao, both who recently graduated from University, congratulations! I'm so proud of you both! I wish I could've given more than mere mental support through the computer during your hard times, but I'm really so glad that you both made it! and Alienman, you're now officially 2 hours drive closer to being groped by me xD. I look forward to your Only In Portland posts :). Good luck to the Russianfortunecookie with her graduate application, I'm gonna be rooting for you! I know you can do it you smart cookie you! Sooji, you have a special place in my heart, not a day goes by without me bursting out in laughter from reading your posts no matter how bad my day has been. I wish you and David all the best for the future (p.s. I had a dream last night where you posed for your wedding photo with your 4 pack of Tide bahahahahaaaa!). This is by no means a comprehensive list of the people I'd like to thank, and I apologise profusely for anyone I've omitted, regardless here's my Oscar speech: I would like to take this opportunity (omg so cliched I know) to thank the girls on NB for being there always, in my times of happiness and sadness, to my family whom I love despite all its craziness and imperfections, to my colleagues for being the best people to work with anyone could ask for, to my readers for putting up with all my madness and last but not least to my bf, the love of my life, for his understanding, unwavering support and overwhelming love, J I love you.

May you all have a very enjoyable New Year's Eve, stay safe and may all your dreams come true in the New Year.

See you all in the New Year.

xx

It wasn't mono and haul (plus a minor Sephora rant)

I didn't have mono after all.
Instead, I had a mofo case of strep. Antibiotics were taken and I have made pretty much a full recovery. Thank you all for your concerns.
Things have been really crazy at work since my return to the office, the only thing keeping us going is the continuous stream of chocolate which have been arriving at our office. Nonetheless, I managed to sneak in a quick visit to the downtown Sephora, they had been sending me almost daily reminders of how it's the last day to spend my $15 Beauty Insider coupon, and my Asian genes were screaming at me to not let go of a good deal.
Oh. My. God. it was utter chaos inside.
Things were flying off shelves, I saw a man indiscriminately throwing things into his his basket, and women fighting over the last remaining Urban Decay palettes. I grabbed the 2nd last NARS Orgasm blush and the 3rd last Dior Petal Shine quint and ran to the cashiers.
Here comes my rant.
The below conversation took place between me and the cashier:
Me: "Do you still have the clutch with the 8 samples?"
Sephora: "No, besides those don't apply in conjunction with promos."
M: "Apparently I can get a Kat Von D tote with this coupon..."
S: "I've never heard about it."
M: "Do you know what's the Sephora sweet steal for this week?"
S: "What is that?"
M: "It's when you have a special product that's usually discounted to like $10, but only for a limited time."
S: "We don't have that for the holiday season."
M: "..."
When I got back to the office , I checked the Sephora website and saw that the sweet steal of the day was a Philosophy shower kit for $5!!!!She lied!!!I'm kinda angry because I really want that kit!!!Grrr!
Anyways, for all you who are interested, here is a photo of my recent hauls.

I made a big Bookcloseouts order when they were having their Black Friday sale. All those books only cost me $37!!! If I'd purchased them individually at somewhere like Chapters, that would've gotten me about 2 or 3 books if I'm lucky! Raw deal!!! As you can see, I'm quite a fan of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series (still debating whether or not to buy the final book, it's just not quite the same if it's written by someone else), I am also finally reading the Bridget Jones Diaries and The Devil Wears Prada.
While I was in line waiting to pay at La Senza, I saw these cute colourful tubes of eyeshadow, (actually I didn't know what they were, the Pookie told me xD), it's like a loose shadow with a built in sponge bullet applicator. They remind me of those old YSL Eclat de Givre eyeshadows. They're part of Victoria's Secrets' Beauty Rush line and were on promotion at 5 for $10, so out of curiosity I decided to swatch them on my arm:

Needless to say, these 5 promptly came home with me. I believe the colours I got were Bluetopia (light blue-green), After Midnight (dark navy) , Plum Passion (who named you?!), Brown to Earth (brown with gold shimmer) and Gold School (true gold). They're all shimmery (or "Luminous" according to their label) and they're definitely pigmented. I used After Midnight the other day as a liner on my upper lash line, I did have to reapply once throughout the day, but then I do have super oily lids >.< and I never really remember to use eyeshadow primer...
Another haul I made today:

My Beauty Diary Black Pearl and Pearl Powder masks. They were on special again at my local Asian supermarket for $10.99 a box of 10 so I hauled hard. These are going off to my girls xD.
It's exactly 7 days until Christmas!! Have you all done your present shopping? I'm not really a Christmas person, I'm more of a scrooge xD, but I will be attending an xmas dinner with le pookie and some friends this weekend, there is going to be a $20 secret Santa hahah.
Until next time my lovelies.
xx

Nunu's Kitchen - Black Bean Clams

Food I make


Manilla clams were on sale. Remember to scrub the shells clean!!!Use a toothbrush that you won't be using or one of those Scotch Brite scrubbers. It's very important to keep your clams alive by keeping them in water.

Black Bean Clams

You will need:

• Approx 1kg clams, scrubbed clean
• 2 slices ginger, minced
• 1 large clove garlic, minced
• Approx 8-10 pieces of small fermented black bean, minced
• 1 tbsp vegetable oil
• Dash of Chinese cooking wine
• Chilli peppers or black pepper, optional to taste

La Methode

• On a chopping board, mince together the fermented black bean, ginger and garlic. Mix together with  the vegetable oil to form a sort of paste. Set aside.

• Put heat on high, when your wok is hot, put your clams in. Cover with lid.

• When the clams open (if the clams released A LOT of water when they opened, you might want to throw some out, or you could keep it and use it to make noodles the next day hahahaha), throw in your ginger, garlic and black bean paste. Mix to coat clams with paste

• Throw in optional chilli peppers or black pepper
• Throw in the wine.
• Eat.

• The Pookster made rosemary lamb chops and grilled veggies!

Nunu's Kitchen - Congee and pan fried udon

Food I make!


I felt sorry for the pookster for having to wait on me hand and feet for the entire week so last night I got off my fat ass and made dinner. My throat hurts like a mofo so about the only thing I could eat without screaming was congee. Congee is essentially rice gruel, it is thinner than porridge and due to its watery consistency and ease in consumption, is generally the food of choice for the sickly and the young.
Making congee is hella easy, depending on how thick or thin you want your congee, approx 1/4 - 1/2 cup of rice to 1 litre of water will produce enough for 2 persons. Please do not do as the pookie once did, he reckoned that since he can eat 3 cups of rice normally, he should make congee with the same amount of rice. Uncooked rice expands ridonkulously, the more water you cook it in, the more it'll expand. Therefore, do not use your regular measurements of rice.
It's best to soak your rice overnight as it cuts down overall cooking time.

Congee

You will need:

1/4 cup pre-soaked white rice
1 litre of water
salt to taste

La Methode

• Throw the rice and water into a rice cooker
• Press cook
• Switch off rice cooker when rice is puffed out and water is slightly viscous (approx 1-1 1/2hrs)
• Season to taste

No seriously, that's it. Of course this is the boring plain version of congee, but there's all sorts of other exciting things you could add to it like, salted pork bones, fish, chicken, liver, kidneys, thousand year eggs, all those yummy things you see in Fear Factor...xD

We added some left over roasted chicken.

Pan Fried Udon

You will need:

Udon.

Marinated meat of your choice, I used chicken.

Veggie of your choice, I used snow peas. Washed and peeled if necessary.

Vegetable oil

Oyster sauce.

La Methode:

• Marinate your meat (does that only sound dirty to me because I'm a sad sad person?xD). I used the typical, oil, soy sauce, sugar, salt, ginger and corn flour marinade. I call this typical because I swear meat in any Chinese dish is pretty much marinated this way, with some small variations. There's really no specific measurements, everything is eyeballed. If you want, you could premix the marinade, and taste it before you put your meat in to make sure it doesn't taste like crap or whatever.

• While your meat is marinating (heehee!xD), blanch your veggies. In other words, boil some water, chuck your veggies in, let it sit in the water for a minute or so, then remove and soak them in some ice water. This allows your veggies to keep their colouring during the cooking process and also shortens cooking time.

• Oil your pan and cook your meat until it's around 80% cooked and has a bit of seared colouring. Remove and set aside.

• Wipe your pan with a paper towel. Add approx 2 cups of water to the pan, when it starts to boil, add your udon and allow it to cook until it starts to separate.

• Drain and briefly run udon under cold water, this prevents the udon from over cooking and becoming sticky.
• Add about 1tbsp of vegetable oil into the pan and happily poke your udon around the pan until it is coated with the oil.
• Add oyster sauce.

• Stir fry the noodles in the oyster sauce for approx 1 min.
• Add meat and veggies. Cook for another minute or until meat is fully cooked.

• Eat

And that is how you make a lazy meal fit for a person with suspected glandular fever, or any other illness for that matter.

Fin.

First snow, Volturi makeup and still sick

Woke up this morning to find that the first snow of the season had fallen overnight. Soft perfectly symmetrical snowflakes fell from the sky only to melt the moment I managed to catch it. The first time I ever saw a snowflake I was so surprised to find that it really does look like ones I'd seen in picture books as a child. 


View outside my window this morning.

While beautiful, snow also means my most hated season of the year has officially arrived. Being a southern hemisphere transplant, its been really difficult for me to deal with the long, cold, and wet winters typical of Vancouver. For pretty much my entire life, I've had Summer Christmases consisting of month long holidays from school, bbqs by the pool, and sunny beaches. My bf finds this strange, he can't imagine Christmas in Summer, to him Christmas is all about snow, fireplaces and hot turkey dinners.
The fact that I'm still sick adds to this winter misery. I was feeling much better by Friday morning, possibly due to the promise of a free dinner, but by Friday afternoon my sore throat was back with a vengeance and by the time I got home at the end of the dinner, the pain had spread to my entire upper respiratory and even to my ears. I was practically screaming with each swallow.
So it was back to the doctor the next day, and the diagnosis? they now suspect that I have glandular fever.
Mono at my age.
Seriously.
Off we trot to the labs for a blood test (where I proceeded to 'break the tension' of the waiting room rather beautifully with my wailing). So now I have to wait for them to call back to see if i'm infected, and in the meantime, I just have to suck it up.
Think Happy Thoughts.
Remember the Twilight themed makeup I mentioned in my previous post? I hunted them down during my last trip to the drugstore. No swatches because the saleswoman was already giving me the evil eye when I took these photos. I couldn't risk getting kicked out cos I needed me some drugs damnit! I will go back some time this week with a better camera for swatches for my Twilight fans.


The entire display.

Some kind of glittery body mist

When I initially saw these, I was like, "I wonder what are these?", the pookster pokes his head in over my shoulder and says "They're loose eyeshadows."

....

He follows my blog xD.

The gift sets that I mentioned in my previous post. From what I can see it consisted of an eyeshadow palette, a dual lipgloss, 2 nail polishes, an eyeliner, a sharpener and some kind of shimmery white eyeshadow? Oh wait, maybe it's for your face to achieve that sunny vampire sparkle. The price is really reasonable for so many products but no idea what the colour payoff is like. Maybe I'll get a set just for the fun of it xD. I don't know any fans that I can pass it on to tho...

Closeup

I conclude with a photo of my current position.

Since I am quarantined, I have no excuse not to study for my LSAT. The analytical reasoning questions are driving me insane, I donno how I'm gonna do this for real come February next year =.=". 
Lastly, I'd like to thank the pookiemon for taking care of me during my sickness despite being quite ill himself. Baby, I love you mwah!

Sick...

Sorry for the lack of updates lately me lovlies, but I have been getting sick on and off for the past week and this week I have finally come down with the flu.
No, not the swine kind, just the normal boring kind.
As a result I have not done anything shopping, cooking or beauty related.
No, wait, I lie, I bought face masks from The Face Shop and a dress...not from The Face Shop xD.
The dress:

It's my workplace's annual Christmas party this coming Friday and it is going to be held at a downtown Italian Restaurant. Of course I maintain that I have nothing to wear despite owning at least 10 dresses which I've worn once and never again....la la la...
I saw this dress and instantly fell in love with it, it's gray lace with very intricate beading, such a refreshing difference from all the other shiny satiny party dresses out there. It's a stretch fabric so it's quite forgiving on the *hips that I've suddenly grown (*not really hips, more like love handles but hips sound better >.<).
I'm scared of the neckline, I will definitely be using double sided tape!
I have absolutely no idea what jewellery or makeup I'm going to wear, I am absolutely useless when it comes to these things. Dramatic smoky eye with nude lips? Subtle eye with red lippy? Do you ladies have any suggestions?
I hope I am not still sick on Friday >.<
On the cooking front, I made dinner for le pookster's parents the other night, sort of an early Christmas dinner as his mom is going overseas for Christmas. I was terrified, I've never cooked a large meal and his mom is Buddhist vegetarian so no meat, no eggs, no garlic and no onions. I've never made a strictly vegetarian meal in my life! I made steamed miso tofu, mushroom risotto, steamed fish (for Pookie and his dad) and grilled veggies. This was my first time making risotto, I didn't realise you had to stir so much!!! No wonder Ramsay is always screaming and shouting when his contestants make risotto! In the end it all came together, the food all came out fine, and his mom even took all the leftovers home! I'll take that as a compliment xD.
No photos because I was too busy during the cooking to take any and too hungry to take any after cooking xD.
I also got a haircut today:

Side:

Sorry, no full frontal, I'm a bit paranoid about posting photos of my face.
While I was waiting for my antibiotic prescription, I noticed that the Calvin Klein makeup line was available at my local Rexalls drugstore. You'll remember that the line was discontinued at Sephora a while ago. The ones I saw were prepackaged kits with 5 or 6 products in a box for $40. If you're wanting to snag yourself some of the collection, do check it out.
I also noticed Twilight Volturi makeup sets for $35 for a set of 5 products. For all you die hard fans, that's at London Drug.
La la la that is all, back to Neocitran and electric blanket.

Nunu's Kitchen - Italian Meatballs.

Food I make!


Si Bella, today-a we make-a the meat-a balls.
Um...yeah, I still can't speak a word of Italian, but that's okay, you don't have to be Italian to make this dish!
Omg, I'm on such a blogging ball xD.

Italian Meatballs


You will need:

Approx 600 grams extra lean minced beef
3 tbsps of breadcrumbs
1 large egg
1 extra large portabella mushroom, sliced.
1 1/2 cups your favourite tomato based pasta sauce, I used Ragu xD.
A few sprigs of coriander/basil.
1 tbsp minced garlic
Olive oil
Dry mixed Italian spices
Salt and Pepper to taste.

La Methode

• Add everything to the minced meat and mix well.

• Mix, mix, mix.

• Put frying pan on your stove and put heat to medium.
• Form balls about 1" diameter wide, drop them into the pan as you go along. It took me 2 batches to finish.

• Flip 'em!I used chopsticks xD.

• Once they're nicely browned, remove from pan and set aside. Don't wash the pan yet!!

• Saute mushrooms in the juices leftover from the meatballs.

• Add the meatballs back into the pan with the mushrooms.
• Add the pasta sauce and coriander/bail.

• Serve over pasta of your choice.