Green on the Go smoothie

Posted by WMint on Jun 15, 2013 in Cooking & Recipes, Food, Smoothies | 0 comments

It can be difficult to have breakfast when you happen to lead a busy lifestyle and trying to do too many things in the mornings at once but with a little of bit of planning ahead it can be done. That’s where smoothies come in. Smoothies can provide a powerhouse of nutrients and are often a fantastic way to get most of your daily fruits and vegetables into the body. They are versatile, easy to make and don’t not take up much time at all. For those who love drinking tea, this smoothie is perfect for you.

To give you that extra antioxidant kick use your favouite tea as the base for your smoothie instead of water or milk.

Green on the Go Smoothie

Difficulty: super easy. Makes: 1-2 servings

Ingredients

• 1 cup favourite green tea (I used Madame Flavour’s Green,Jasmine and Pear tea)
• 1 kiwi, peeled, chopped
• 1 cup baby spinach leaves
• 1 ripe banana
• 1 small/medium apple, peeled, chopped
• 1/2 avocado

Instructions

1. Just blend everything up and enjoy.

If you find yourself out of time in the mornings, this smoothie can be made the night before and stored in a reusable bottled container.

This recipe has been featured in Advance Fashion Magazine, an online fashion magazine. For more summer fashion food click on the link where it will connect you to the website. There you can get free access to their latest Advance Magazine from the home page, The Shape Issue.

Nectarine yoghurt muffins

Posted by WMint on Jun 11, 2013 in Baking, Cooking & Recipes, Muffins, Photos | 2 comments

In the last Best nectarine muffin post, I described how a few months ago I bought a whole box of ripe nectarines for $5.00. During that time I spent a lot of my free time in the kitchen trying out so many different stone fruit muffin recipes and this is the third one right here. Each recipe has been distinctly different from the other and these ones here make use of Greek yoghurt instead of milk and oil (Best nectarine muffins) or oil and nectarine puree (Dairy free nectarine muffins).  The dairy free versions were fruity, had a nice summery aroma and dense. The ‘best’ recipe version was soft and cake like, while these nectarine yoghurt muffins are something that is fruity but also light and fluffy.

Totoro plush review from Jzool.com

Posted by WMint on Jun 7, 2013 in Anime/Manga, Japanese/Otaku Stuff | 0 comments

I have to admit, I have quite a soft spot for plush toys. Even more so when they come in the shape of some of my most favourite Studio Ghibli characters. You can imagine my excitement as I was randomly searching the web for Totoro plushies on ebay, Amazon and Google to find a baby sleeping on an enormous Totoro plush. I clicked on the image immediately and looked for where I’d be able to find myself one of those cuddly things. Trust me, the image was adorable. It made me want to recreate that photo with my own kids, and I’m far from having any children any time soon. I’ve got to find their father first haha. I mean just look at that (below), just look at how adorable that is.

Image source

Cherry yoghurt and Banana yoghurt muffins

Posted by WMint on Jun 4, 2013 in Baking, Cooking & Recipes, Muffins, Photos | 0 comments

Now if you thought that the muffins would contain both cherries and bananas then you are wrong. I didn’t think of it at the time and now it’s a bit too late to try it now that cherry season is over. But next time when summer comes around, I might actually give it a go. So what did I do here instead? I divided a muffin batter in half and used one half to make six cherry yoghurt muffins and the other to make six banana yoghurt muffins. Sometimes you want more than one flavour without twice the amount of muffins and work involved. And that’s how I ended up with Cherry yoghurt and Banana yoghurt muffins.

Japanese Grocery Store: Fujimart

Posted by WMint on Jun 1, 2013 in Japanese/Otaku Stuff, My Adventures | 0 comments

Anyone who has known me for a long time would know that I love most if not all things Japanese. When I heard from one of my clients that there was an authentic Japanese grocers in Melbourne, I was estatic. Turns out Melbourne has a Japanese grocery store that has been established since the early 1990s and that is Fujimart. In fact we have two according to Go Japan Go. One of them is Fujimart on Elizabeth St next to Aldi in South Yarra and the other is on Burke Rd, Hawthorn (Suzuran). I definitely need to check the other one out mainly because it’s a little bit closer to me than Fujimart.

Now my local Asian grocers already stock Japanese and Korean groceries. To me that was already amazing. So when I went into Fujimart and realised that the whole store is dedicated to Japanese produts, I was stoked. Fujimart is just filled with items imported from Japan from stationery, kitchen utensils, dining plates and bowls, storage items and of snacks and grocery foods.

Hodori Korean Garden

Posted by WMint on May 31, 2013 in Eating out, Korean, Places to eat | 0 comments

You can never really go wrong with having Korean food, at least not in my books. I just love Korean food. Is it the Korean BBQ? yes but not entirely. Is it the kimchi that sends me swooning over Korean cuisine? Not really (Though I have tasted really good kimchi once). What about the spiciness? Can’t entirely say I’m a fan, yet. To be honest I just love the the fact that Korean food encompasses such a wide array of vegetables to compliment each dish with even more vegetable side dishes to boot. To me, a dish that has a lot well cooked and seasoned vegetables is a dish made in heaven. And that’s why, my friend you can’t go wrong with Korean food. Today I wanted to try eating at a different Korean restaurant in Clayton and suggested we go to Hodori Korean Garden.

Best nectarine muffins

Posted by WMint on May 29, 2013 in Baking, Cooking & Recipes, Muffins, Photos | 0 comments

 During the Australian summer I had this crazy idea to buy a whole box of over ripe nectarines for the sweet price of $5.00. Little did I know how many nectarines I’d actually end up with. This was a few months ago. After a couple of weeks the box was still more than half full and I was finding myself stuck with what to do with these perfectly edible morsels that were fast approaching their expiry date. I did what a ‘normal’ person would do and started to look up ways to use nectarines in cooking. The most fastest way to do so it appeared was (apart from stewing, tarts or making fruit preserve), is to use them in muffins and that’s what I did. I experimented with all sorts of recipes that used nectarines in them in order to find the ‘best’ recipe there was out there.

Tokyo Teppanyaki

Posted by WMint on May 24, 2013 in Eating out, Japanese, Places to maybe eat | 0 comments

I have always wanted to experience teppanyaki dining. When I saw that Groupon has a special deal for a six course teppanyaki lunch at Tokyo Teppanyaki on Chapel St, I couldn’t just ignore it. That particular voucher is no longer available however last time I checked (and this is last week) there was a nine course teppanyaki dinner version of the Groupon voucher. The reason I bought this voucher to begin with despite the appealing deal was because I was dining with a friend who for every meal we’ve gone out to eat, would not let me pay. I’ve had about enough of this behaviour so I decide to take my friend out to lunch with the Groupon voucher and that way at least I’d get to pay for once instead. Okay, so that problem was solved.

Eden Espresso

Posted by WMint on May 22, 2013 in Eating out, Places to eat | 0 comments

It was one of those days after the my first shift of work where my colleague and I finally had spare 30mins of lunch together. There had been many times when we’d tried to have coffee during lunch but either she’d have her lunch an hour early or I would. That’s what you get for working unconventional shifts but I’m not necessarily complaining. I like working at odd hours during the day. It allows me to be more flexible with my time so I can do other things that can’t be done after work hours.

2013 Japanese Festival Boxhill

Posted by WMint on May 19, 2013 in Imagery, Japanese/Otaku Stuff, My Adventures, Photos | 0 comments

This was my second time going to the Japanese Festival held at the Boxhill town hall. The 2013 Japanese festival is organised once a year by the Japan Club of Victoria and opens from 10am to 5pm on a Sunday. My friend and I however arrived much later on during the day and got there at about 3pm, so it was no real surprised to me, that some of the food stalls were running out of the good stuff. Luckily we still managed to get some takoyaki and taiyaki before they started to run out as well. I really wanted to eat okonomiyaki, but that was sold out quite early.

After getting some food we made our way to the town hall and was wondering if we still had to pay the $5.00 entrance fee. People were walking straight in without making a pit stop at the registration desk so my friend and I just walked inside with everyone else. There weren’t many performances left to see, but we managed to watch a Taiko drum performance which was quite interesting and the head of the board stepped up to close the ceremony with a sequence of claps. I can’t say I was sure what was going on, but the people around me knew what to do so I just followed suit.

In the lower level of the town hall is the trading area where you can find a lot of small Japanese stalls and vendors. I was really tempted to buy one of the beautiful drawstring bags, because the fabric designs were just gorgeous but decided not to because I already have one at home. I’m also in savings mode.