Wagamama, Solihull

Hi friends,

I had dinner with truly wonderful people at Wagamama in Solihull last night. Wagamama is the Asian cuisine restaurant chain. Although they are around since 1992, I had never tried it before. Quite few of Japanese friends told me “you wouldn’t like it. It is not Japanese foods you know.”

Well, my Indian friends told me that they do not have Tikka Masala in India. Wagamama must be something similar to Japanese. Similar but not the same.

This is what I had yesterday. Teriyaki Chicken Donburi and Ebi Gyoza.

And these are what my friends had, vegetarian curry with fried sweet potato (tried to be tempra?).

Squids.

Yakisoba (fried noodles) and teriyaki salmon.

More Yakisoba.

And more but this one looks like Pad Thai to me.

Pudding! Chocolate fudge cake and white chocolate and ginger cheese cake..

Then herbal tea. This is flowering Jasmine tea. Isn’t it beautiful?

My verdict? Hummm…Japanese “Little Chef”.

My favourite product 4

Hi friends,

One of the things I cannot stand is, seeing people biting nails in public.

OK, it could be the habit die hard but I strongly recommend those people not to do it once you step out from your bedroom. It hardly makes you looking intellectual nor sophisticated.

I know the beautiful lady at work. One day, I saw her biting her nails, cuticles, and skins at the side of nails.  

I could even hear the noise of that, as she was doing such a vulgar thing right next to me! It gave me goose bumps.

Ladies, there should be a far more elegant way to take care of cuticles and nails…

My favourite product. “Strictly Professional Cuticle Oil”.

It contains sweet almond oil and soy bean oil. If you notice dry skins around nails, don’t bite them off. Apply a drop of this oil and massage the nail and the skin around it. If you have really dry skin and weak nails, use cotton gloves after the massage and leave them over night.

This oil is only £1.33 and the postage 50 pence. Available on Amazon.co.uk

Simple breakfast - sausage & English muffin

Hi friends,

My extremely simple breakfast today. (I noticed that my fridge was almost empty this morning….)

I like sausages but prefer to eat it without skins.

This is my lazy cooking, putting everything on a frying pan. It will save time for washing up.

Green tomato chutney. This is the bronze award winner of Food of West.

Bit more spiced than normal tomato chutney. With cheese and meat, it is not bad at all.

Breakfast in reused cups

Hi friends,

This is my breakfast this morning.

I don’t like buying things I don’t often use. The egg framer is one of them. You know, those sad things to be used to make perfectly round fried eggs. A slice of onion ring does a good job for me.

Whilst I was cooking an egg, I grilled a bread roll with Welsh Rarebit Cheese (yum!).

See, when the egg is cooked, it is almost round shape, isn’t it? Onion can be removed easily if you grease the inside before cooking or you can just eat it with an egg if you like it.

Then, my great recycling. I used plastic cups of Heston’s lemon and earl grey panna cotta. The pudding itself was not worth the price, but the cups look rather decent, don’t they?

Potato salad was half of the potatoes I steamed yesterday for the hash brown. Added sweet corns, ham, mayonnaise, French mustard and pepper.

My breakfast with neat salads in reused cups…

PS: Plastic cups are not suitable for cooking. 

De-cluttering Life! - Skirts, Trousers and Tops

Hi friends,

I don’t think you have seen me in a skirt. I got rid of quite few and have only 3. All of them are at least 4 – 5 years old by now.

Trousers. Again, it is unusual of me wearing them. Although they are relatively new in my wardrobe, I will get rid of black ones and navy ones. Why? They look too normal and I have nothing to go with them.

Tops. I have better control on them. I like them all and often wear them. The right one looks like a skirt. It is a top. I often wear it as a skit though.  I like versatile things.  

De-cluttering Life! - Jackets

Hi friends,

The next target is jackets. I love wearing a crazy jacket on a simple dress or wearing a simple jacket on a print dress. I allow myself to have around 10. The right 2 jackets have to go. They don’t suit my complexion. I look washed out in them.     

De-cluttering Life! - Dresses & Jeans

Hi friends,

One of my friends said she has no time to clean or tidying up her house properly as she has better things to do.

I haven’t. Ha-ha!

What else can be better things to do in my life? Having “the base” I feel comfortable and maintain it. That is absolutely essential to me. The base denotes the place I live, as well as eating and self-grooming (inc. clothing). Cannot ignore them as they are affecting me every day and they are what make of myself and my life.

I work full time, sometimes do silly hours and it involves trips to abroad. I might not have enough time either. That is why I decided to live with the things I can manage, I can look after at the comfortable level of standards.

I own around 100 things to wear. My absolute number is 111. If it becomes over 111 items, something has to go. 100 things sounds a lot, but trust me ladies and gentlemen, they are not. This number represents from a winter coat to a pair of knickers.

I do “inventory check” on a regular basis. First off all, it is rather drastic, but empty the wardrobe to check all the stuff I got in it.

Then, start from my favourite things out of all items – dresses. They look a lot, don’t they? I allow myself to keep 30 dresses in total. They have not quite reached the number yet. As I wear a dress at work, I am comfortable with this number. It is just reflection of the frequency of use.

Then, jeans. I love blue denims since I was a child. I used to sleep in my Levis to make them looking shabby when I was a teenager. 

These are all my favourites but the very right distressed looking pair has to go. Why? I liked them and they looked stylish and sexy but I felt like a mutton dresses like a lamb in them.

Some ladies around my age proudly say they share dresses with their daughters. Well, that is good for them but definitely not for me. If I dress like girls in the office, I am sure I look cheap and silly. They look nice on them as they are still in their 20s. There is always a limit and I see the boundary between being quirky and being weird.

Juno’s de-cluttering continues…

     

"New" Chocolates from Lindt

Hi friends,

Lessons not so learnt. 

I just could not resist when I found them with an introductory price. (£1.49 for now, but normally £1.99.)

My darlings, they are really nice!! Look at this!

Divine….

Power Breakfast

Hi friends,

We are having a cooler day today. As my hanging baskets and roses are slightly wilting because of heat, I welcome some rain. Although it is cloudy, there is no sigh of rain, not a drop of it.

This is my breakfast today.

Minestrone soup, bread rolls, omelette with mushroom sauce, home-made hash brown, salads, and coffee.

Frozen potato products are not for me, they're so tasteless and can be dry. Hash brown is actually not so difficult to make at home. Boil or steam new potatoes. (My choice is always steaming as it preserves Vitamin C better than boiling.) Add some salt and pepper.

Then, cut steamed (or boiled) potatoes like this. Don’t mash them as we want to keep the texture. I use a plastic knife for this.

Use avocado oil if you have. It is high-heat cooking.  Shape potatoes and put flour lightly on the both surfaces, then shallow fry it. That’s it.

For minestrone soup, I used this. 

This bag contains oats, lentils, carrots, pasta, peppers etc. You still have to flavour it, but it is so easy. I just added a tin of tomatoes, salt, tiny amount of tomato puree, a cube of vegetable stock, and oregano.

Omelette. 

I used Shiitake and Shimeji mushroom for sauce and 3 eggs for omelette.

My power breakfast.

Good bye my beautiful dress

Hi friends,

My beautiful colleague asked me to post something about clothing. She said she liked my 1 week wardrobe article. Thank you for your kind words, you made me smile and this is my thanks to you.

Now, let me think.

I like living with few things. Few but things I really like, I use and I value.

This dress is the 2^nd most expensive dress I have in my wardrobe but I have never worn this dress. I bought it for my friend’s wedding last year. Unfortunately, I missed the opportunity to wear it. It looks like emerald green in the photo but it is actually beautiful blue. Blue was supposed to be the theme colour for the day.

Although it is still new and cost me some money, it has to go. I will take it to a local charity shop tomorrow. If I don’t use it, to me, there is no real value in it. That is the strict policy in my simple life.

Waste? In my definition, waste means, space you keep for the things you don’t use. When you do that, you kind of lose your control and you buy things you actually don’t need. That is the real meaning of waste to me.

Good-bye my beautiful dress. Sorry I could not wear you…

Lemon & Earl Grey Panna Cotta

Hi friends,

Everyone is orange, red and brown around me and my arms and hands are getting darker, too. Yes we are having sunshine for more than 2 weeks in England. Miracle!

This is the hanging basket I made few weeks ago. 

Only problem out of this weather is, I am losing appetite…

This is my supper today.

Heston’s Lemon & Earl Grey Panna Cotta which I found at Waitrose. You know, I really have no will power whenever I find something new. Damn you, those marketers, you do a good job!

It was a tasty pudding, but nothing special. I was expecting something spectacular when it came with Heston’s name. It wasn’t.

I adore Heston Brumental’s cooking. It is almost scientific experiment, isn’t it? It is one of my dreams to eat at his restaurant Fat Duck, but for now, this will do.

Chilled Pimm’s with a slice of lime….very bad, indeed.

My favourite product 3

Hi friends,

It looks like we are having proper summer this year!

At work, I am a hot desker. I do not have a fixed desk in the office where my department is but have been a squatter in the other place since last summer.  

This “the other place” is one of the shabbiest building in the site and has been a temporary arrangement to shelter engineers for the past 13 years. What a long “temporary” period!

My dear residents of this shabbiest building have no modern luxury called air conditioners and ladies, please note, they are not the specimen in pin stripe suits and pink shirts coming from Sales & Marketing. They are engineers! Two of my managers noticed the “scent of engineers” when they entered the building…oops!

However, I have my standards to maintain. This is the product I use.

Majority of deodorants and antiperspirants contain paraben and aluminium. According to the article of The Daily Mail, they increase the risk of breast cancer. Cancer Research UK and NHS are saying something less controversial and avoid a definitive conclusion about them.

Well, in any case, the choice is up to us. As usual, I go for a safe option for my skin as I am allergic to everything. Whilst you can buy the products around £2, why do I pay for nearly £6?

One jar covers the whole summer usage and it is cheaper than 3 cups of coffee at Costa.

I would call this value for money.

Pork Chop with Onion Sauce

Hi friends,

Another beautiful day. It seems like we are having lovely summer days in the coming week.

Super markets are selling lots of meats for BBQ. I got a good quality pork chop and found this jar at my beloved Waitrose.

It is for curry but you can use it for anything as substitute of onion puree.

I made sauce with this, wine, ketchup, bit of brown sauce and garlic puree.

Yummy….

Korean Kimbap and Unhealthy Supper

Hi friends,

What a beautiful day we had!

At last, summer has come to England. I went to the country walk in late morning and enjoyed open-top drive in twilight.  That is the beauty of being in English county side, isn’t it?

Anyway, this is my healthy lunch today. Korean Kimbap.

They are like Japanese sushi rolls but do not use rice vinegar. It is equally healthy though as it uses lots of vegetables.

If you are interested in recipe, here it is.

http://koreanfood.about.com/od/riceandnoodlerecipes/r/kimbap.htm

Then, my shamefully unhealthy supper.

I completely lost my appetite because of hay fever. I did not have all of them. Just a glass of pink grapefruit lemonade and dry gin in the bath. That is all.

Not very good… but I enjoyed it!