Keep Calm And Cook

Dishes we have cooked for the past 2 weeks! Haven't really cooked a wide spread for awhile because we have been so busy with school work. When a friend came over to do a project together, we finally had the chance to cook!

Roasted garlic cauliflower. 

Tried this because the reviews and ratings were super high!

We made it without cheese since we didn't have it, still tasted good! 

Try this if you like garlic! Click here for the recipe.

Found black glutinous rice at the city market and I was elated. 

This is one of my favourite desserts, 

love it even more when it's topped with one scoop of vanilla ice cream :D

Cooked this by myself and my mother didn't believe it HAHA. 

With google, nothing is impossible.

Last packet of curry premix D: 

But it's alright, I don really crave for curry anymore.

2 chicken dishes, egg with cai poh and bak kut teh. I cooked all 4 at the same time. 

High level of multi tasking and I did it! (Y) 

Laksa with noodles! 

Tuna casserole. I LOVE THIS DISH. Tuna is one of my favourite!

Home made poutine which is as awesome as it looks!

Sweet Temptations

Some bakes over the past 2 weeks!

Cinnamon raisin bun by G

Chocolate brownie

Donuts made by my Korean friend :D

Banana coffee cake with chocolate chip streusel

This is damnnn good, for people who bake, you got to try this!

Click here for the recipe!

Whoopie pie. 

In case you didn't know, its marshmallow cream in between!

Yoghurt cake, peach cheese cake with jelly by G

My proudest bake! Cinnamon raisin bread! Oh my, I MADE BREAD. 

My friends said it was good, made me so happy!

I just feel super accomplished. 

Click here for the recipe!

Chocolate pound cake by G

So as you can tell, G and me are the ones baking! It's like a leisure activity for us. I really love to bake! I think it's more fun than cooking! Or maybe because I already ran out of ideas on what to cook. Baking seems so much easier since the ingredients are usually about the same yet you can make a variety of them. I wonder if I will still have the excitement to bake when I go back. I think of my kitchen at home I am quite sian to bake already, the one in my current apartment is so nice and pretty spacious to work with!

2 DOWN, 2 LEFT.

My papers today went super well, seriously, I never get this feeling of awesomeness after any NTU paper. Even the paper I was super unprepared for turned out well.

Received a gift from God today (I choose to think it is). After my first paper I wanted to do some revision for my next paper in the library. And I chanced upon this question bank that was left open at some hidden window which I wouldn't know if I didn't press F2. Okay that's not the point. But I decided to read through it since I didn't read the textbook at all. The question bank had like 140 MCQs & true/false questions X 8 chapters. Read only all the MCQs instead since I didn't have much time plus I was already very tired and really not absorbing much. I was more of browsing and trying to memorize as much as I can rather than really attempting it. AND GUESS WHAT?! EVERY SINGLE QUESTION for my final paper came from that question bank!!! Awesome or what! It was a breeze when I was doing it, so surprised how I managed to retain so much information. I could afford to just anyhow do some that I really don't know because I knew majority of them confidently. Really a gift from God. :)

It's official. I'll be out of here in less than 2 weeks. I'm looking forward to traveling around US, but not really ready to go home yet. My exchange is really coming to an end omg. Sometimes it still feels so surreal that I'm actually on exchange, so surreal that I'm in a foreign land (or maybe not so foreign anymore) This actually feels like home to me, I'm so used to everything here. I don't really want to go home, except for the fact that I can't wait to meet some of my friends. Or maybe to see how my family has been, the most exciting thing is to actually see if my mum has lost weight successfully. HAHA, I will be so happy for her if she did. At the same time, I am damn worried about how my family/friends will react when they see a plus size Sharron. Oh the horror. Everyone gains weight when they go on exchange right? Tell me yes.

Exams in less than 2 days and I'm so surprisingly chill. Maybe because it's exchange. This is like the slackest period for me. So overwhelmed with quizzes/midterms/assignments the past 12 weeks and I can finally take a break now. Just submitted my last assignment a few minutes ago. I really don't feel any urge to study, I'm not stressed and I'm not panicking even though I haven't started studying and I have TWO papers this Sat. Weird? But I'm enjoying this feeling, taking things one step at a time, enjoying the last few moments of exchange instead of worrying about exams. I mean, I just need to pass right? And my papers are 35% only I think it will be manageable since I have done decently well for the other components. Hope I won't regret for being this complacent. (& I hope I won't end up panicking tomorrow!)

Lots of Macs and Starbucks the whole week because I have been doing work outside! I'm too nua when I'm at home :/

Baked raspberry oatmeal bars because there was too much jam and I had to clear them. Baked oatmeal raisin cookies too (3rd time!) Have been practising to find the perfect way to bake it! Going to give some to our landlord this Friday because he invited us over to his place for a meal so must have some standard!

Cooked up a feast with chicken drumlets, curry, egg with onion, broccoli with mushroom and belachan brinjal! It's been super long since we cooked a proper meal. School work has drained us out and we have no time to cook at all.

Went to city market again to have my favourite spicy pork with vermicelli at the Korean stall. SO GOOD SO AWESOME. Tried this chow mein with chocolate chip, peanut butter, butterscotch and peanuts we spotted while walking. Though it sounds weird, like who on earth eats chow mein as a dessert, IT WAS SURPRISINGLY GOOD! It's like rice krispies, but with chow mein instead. Oh well, chocolate never fails!

Just went through the worst hell week ever. I thought it was bad enough when I had 3 midterms in 3 days. But I had 3 presentations in 3 days this time which was much much worse. Slept for an average of 4 to 5 hours everyday. I even slept on the sofa twice because I wanted to wake up to continue my work without disturbing TY with my alarm. (The sofa was really comfy btw) So I have cleared all 3 presentations and they went well. Quite relieved for one of them because we were SUPER UNPREPARED, like 10 minutes before the presentation I was still editing my slides, trying to come up with what to say. And that class is a pretty smart class, I was worried that we would challenged by questions and we will really die because we didn't even prepare much in the first place. Thank God we managed to answer the questions and we managed to smoke our way through! (Y)

But no it's not over yet, I have 4 assignments to hand up next week. And my final exams start next Saturday. WTH. I have 2 papers on Sat by the way. This is madness. Too busy to notice that time is slipping by so quickly. 3 weeks left in Saint John :O I'm not ready to go home yet!!

DAY 4 MONTREAL

Day 4:

Last day in Montreal! Since it was a Sunday and there is a very famous church in Montreal, we attended mass there. I totally forgot that it would be in French. Sat through an hour of French mass not understanding a word that the priest is saying. But I could still guess some parts here and there. Usually they would charge a fee to enter the church to take some photos but we managed to avoid paying because we stayed in the church after mass ended. Saved $$ :D

Pretty altar

Went for brunch at Le Gros Jambon. This is supposed to be eggs benny but it totally doesn't look like one! The egg was fully cooked, nothing like a poached egg. The smoked salmon was pretty bland too. I find it a little pricey as well. I guess online reviews aren't that accurate afterall, or maybe I ordered the wrong food.

Went to Biodome after lunch! Walked through 4 different ecosystems and this is my favourite! There are many more photos in my camera but I am only blogging those from my iPhone so you can only see penguins. Anyway, the penguins are SUPER CUTE, especially when they walk! Took a super cute video of this penguin walking, shall upload it soon!

Went back for dessert at Juliette & Chocolat again! Last meal in Montreal :<

Savoury crepe with tuna, egg, tomato, red pepper pesto and cheese

Cranberry and pistachio brownie

Intense chocolate brownie with vanilla ice cream and caramel sauce. 

MY FAVOURITE out of the three!

Okay so this marks the end of my 4 days 3 nights in Montreal. The most memorable thing was eating. I can only remember eating and eating everyday. It was a nice getaway and I really wish I could travel more.

Now I am back to reality. Lots of assignments and presentations coming up sigh.

2 more weeks of school left and 1 month till the end of exams. Time really flies.

DAY 3 MONTREAL

Day 3:

THIS IS THE DAY WE ATE THE MOST. Tried all the most popular food in Montreal!

Started off with brunch at L'Avenue! A few friends recommended me this place and already warned that the queue is usually long. True enough, we queued for quite awhile in the cold but it was worth it. MOST AWESOME MEAL IN MONTREAL. The eggs benny with chorizo sausages were so good, definitely a must try. The banana and nutella pancakes were super fluffy and good too! The caramel and rum syrup went very well with it. I'm already craving for this now :O Oh, and the restaurant has a super nice toilet with TV! Totally doesn't look like a toilet at all.


Went for a hike up Mont Royal after a hearty brunch. Spent 1 hour just to walk up and spotted a rainbow along the way. After the hike we went to search for the best bagels in Montreal. Apparently there are two very good bakeries, St Viateur Bagel and Fairmount Bagel. We tried both since they were within walking distance from each other!  Tried sesame bagel at St Viateur and it wasn't as plain as I thought, and it somehow reminds me of the butterfly you tiao! It was more chewy than those at Tim Hortons and there is a tinge of sweetness in it. Feeling greedy so I got a cinnamon raisin bagel as well!


Fairmount Bagel had more exotic flavours. We tried an onion bagel and pumpernickel bagel. I like the onion one! We bought smoked salmon spread too, goes really well with the bagels!

Despite going to 2 bagel shops, we were not done with our food trail yet! Went to try the BEST POUTINE at La Banquise. We shared a poutine with mushrooms, onions and green peppers. Sounds healthy but it's not, how can fries be healthy! It was really good, but I would prefer my poutine with meat though. I am a meat lover! To end off the food hunt, we went to try BEST SMOKED MEAT at Schwartz. Queued for pretty long in the cold! I felt that the meat was a little too dry and was a little disappointed. Apparently the one with some fats would taste better but the person did not ask us for our choice and just gave us lean meat :/

To sum up, we went to 5 places in a day JUST TO EAT! Really non-stop eating. #howigetfat

To be continued.