Rhapsody through Water

DIY Starbucks Purple Drink

Hey guys!

So the other day I was mindlessly scrolling through Instagram when I stumbled upon a range of pretty pastel coloured Starbucks drinks that are apparently the "in" thing right now (Starbucks isn't big in Australia so I would have no idea). From pink to purple to green and yellow, the drinks were just too visually appealing for me to leave them alone. With a little bit of googling, I discovered I just happened to possess all the necessary ingredients to recreate my own version of the purple one and so on a whim I decided why not? Here's what I did to make my own Starbucks purple drink:

What you'll need:

• A fruit iced tea (I used peach iced tea and to my knowledge, Starbucks uses passionfruit iced tea but any type of fruit flavoured iced tea should work just fine)
• Soy milk (or coconut milk)
• Blackberries
• Ice
• Sugar/honey (optional)

What to do:

Step 1: Add the ice

Step 2: Pour your iced tea over the ice

Step 3: Fill up your mason jar with soy milk

Step 4: Add a handful of blackberries and stir

And that's it! If the purple colour isn't showing up as much as you'd like, you can try crushing a few blackberries first before stirring them in. You may also add in some honey or sugar to sweeten it up a bit but my peach iced tea already came packed with a ton of sugar so I didn't. But it's as simple and easy as that! I can't comment on whether or not this tastes similar to the actual Starbucks one since I've never tried it before but I do believe that this would be a delicious, refreshing drink to satisfy all your senses...or at least your eyes and mouth. 

The Grounds of Alexandria - Part 2

I visited the Grounds of Alexandria yet again this weekend, and boy has it changed! 2016 is certainly the year of drinks; from freakshakes to fruit-infused water, everyone is hopping on the hype train to destination hydration. Alexandria is no different. This month saw the long-awaited opening of the new Soda Bar, in the centre of the Grounds, serving up scrumptious smoothies, juices, and (you guessed it) some pretty unique sodas. 

Even if you steer clear of buying drinks, the Grounds Cafe offers free self-service water that is subtly infused with watermelon, cucumber, and fresh mint leaves. While the water looks completely ordinary, it does have an undeniably fruity and refreshing flavour that really sets it apart. 

However, the real queen of drinks at the Grounds of Alexandria this weekend was not the fruity water or sparkly soda, but something else altogether. Believe it or not, the Grounds have added to their impressive repertoire a very surprising take on an old classic: the hot chocolate! We got a mug to share, accompanied with some divine desserts.

From left to right: chocolate brownie, salted caramel slice, and mango mascarpone tart

Is there anything more comforting than a mug of steaming hot chocolate in the winter? The Grounds of Alexandria does it in style, heating their chocolate in huge pots that are suspended over an open fire. As you wait in line to be served, you can warm your hands over the glowing charcoal, and watch the miracle of your hot chocolate being created. The Instagram-ready mugs are topped with whipped cream, a blowtorched marshmallow, and extra shards of fine dark chocolate. Not only are they pleasing to the eye; they also pack quite the punch.

As somewhat of a hot chocolate connoisseur, I can attest that this is without a doubt one of the best hot chocolates I've ever had. The taste is creamy, dark, and complex, with a hint of spice that warms you from within. From what I could make out through my super-discreet detective skills, the secret recipe involves the use of aniseed, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Who knew? I'm certainly inspired to try making it myself at home, if only it is half as good as theirs.

I've never seen hot chocolate quite like this!

Habitica - Part 2

Recently, we have gotten back into HabitRPG, now known as Habitica. After a year long hiatus in which we succumbed to many lazy habits, we decided enough was enough and it was time to get ourselves back into shape. So, without further ado, this is our long-awaited second part about Habitica.

The first thing you need to know when you join Habitica is that there are four classes, Warrior, Rogue, Mage and Healer, each with its own special abilities. When you first start out, you're automatically assigned as a Warrior, meaning that your primary attribute is Strength. After reaching level 10, you will get to choose if you want to join a new class. Rogues are good at earning more gold, and have a higher chance of finding item drops. Mages are able to level up more quickly through gaining experience at a higher rate. Healers take less damage from uncompleted dailies, so they are less likely to die. If you join a party with friends, it's good to have a diverse range of classes among the group, as each class has its own specific set of skills.

Our awesome party members and real life friends!

As you reach certain levels, you will collect quest scrolls. Quests can be done in cooperation with your party members which is a prime motivation factor. They may involve collecting items by ticking off completed tasks, or battling boss monsters by finishing your dailies. But if you leave any uncompleted dailies during a boss battle, everyone in the quest will lose health. Once you complete a quest, everyone will be rewarded in the form of gold, items, experience, and occasionally pieces of exclusive equipment for your avatar. Each class can contribute to the quest in different ways through their unique skills; for example, a Healer can spend mana to help their party members regain health.

There's plenty of legendary equipment for your avatar to wear.

This boss will be pretty tough to beat...

By far the most exciting part of Habitica is being able to hatch pets and grow them into mounts. This is done by collecting potions and eggs through maintaining good habits. When you pour a hatching potion on an egg, it will turn into a little pixel creature that can be displayed alongside your avatar. There are over ninety different pets to collect, including flying pigs, dragons, and pandas. If you collect enough food, each of the pets can also be turned into a rideable mount. 

Just a few of the many pets you can hatch - foxes, pigs, and dragons, oh my!

There is also a community aspect to it with many different guilds to join. The guilds have forums where you can chat with people who share common interests with you. Currently there are many different guilds available, include a Writers' Guild, a Health Nuts Guild, and an Introverts Guild. You can even join and create challenges that involve completing a set of new habits and/or dailies for a reward. 

This is only the tip of the iceberg, there is a lot more to this world and the developers are constantly coming up with new ideas to make the site as engaging and interactive as it can be. We encourage you all to try it out for yourself and let us know what you think! 

Carrot Fries & Potato Fritters

Today we're back with another easy, delicious, healthy brunch: carrot fries with garlic potato fritters! As you can tell from my recent posts, I have really been launching myself into cooking lately. As a young adult, I feel I am long overdue for brushing up on my skills in the kitchen. Granted, I'm not exactly ready to tackle a paella or a croquembouche, but nevertheless I am proud of how far I've come in the past few weeks. If practice indeed makes perfect, then surely I'm well on my way.

For this recipe, I used:

•  a couple of carrots (peeled)
• a potato (peeled)
• 2-3 garlic cloves (shredded)
• cheddar cheese (preferably aged)
• extra virgin olive oil
• flour
• an egg
• salt and pepper
• flatbread
• cream cheese (to serve)

And for the dipping sauce:

• curry powder
• chilli powder
• parsley flakes
• greek yoghurt
• honey
• Indian five spice blend: cumin, brown mustard, fenugreek, nigella & fennel

As always, keep in mind that this recipe is very loose and open to adaptation. If you're missing a few ingredients, do improvise! Go off-script. I promise that I will not be offended.

Skinny-sliced carrots and crumbled cheddar

Alrighty, shall we begin? 

1.  Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius. Slice the carrots into skinny shoestrings.
2. Shave approximately 50 grams of cheddar. Use your hands to break up the pieces into small crumbs (as seen above). Set aside. 
3. In a small bowl, crack an egg. Add 2 tablespoons of water, a pinch of salt, and plenty of pepper as desired. Mix thoroughly with a spoon.
4. Line an oven tray with baking paper. In small bundles, dip the carrot sticks into the egg mixture, making sure they are entirely covered. Then, roll them in the crumbled cheddar and place onto baking paper. 
5. Place in oven and set the timer to 15 mins. Meanwhile, to the remaining egg mixture, add any remaining crumbled cheddar, as well as a generous dash of olive oil and the shredded garlic cloves. 
6. Add 2 tablespoons of flour, and mix thoroughly. Set aside.
7. Using a peeler or sharp knife, shave the potato into thin strips. Combine these with the mixture and make sure all of the potato is coated. Form into a small patty and set on a greased baking tray. Place into oven.
8. Once the timer goes off, turn the carrot fries and bake for a final 5-7 minutes. Keep an eye on the potato fritters - take them out after 15 minutes or once they are golden-brown. 
9. For the dipping sauce, simply combine 3 tablespoons of greek yoghurt with 1/2 tablespoon of curry powder. Add a pinch of chilli powder, a few shakes of pepper, 1 teaspoon of parsley flakes, and 1 teaspoon of Indian five spice blend. Add 1 teaspoon of honey and mix thoroughly.
10. Tada! All done. Serve piping hot with toasted flatbread, and cream cheese to dip. Enjoy!

Carrot shoestring fries with curry yoghurt dip and cream cheese

Garlic potato fritters

Serve with flatbread and dipping sauces

One of the joys of cooking is the pride you feel when you successfully create something that you genuinely enjoy eating. The most valuable lessons I've learned in the kitchen over the past few weeks have nothing to do with technique; more importantly, I've learned to be daring and inventive, to follow my instincts, and to never be afraid to improvise. 

A Quickie on Rye

• Garlic toast:
• Rye bread, sliced
• Garlic, crushed and shredded
• Copious amounts of ground pepper
• Crumbled vintage cheese
• Extra virgin olive oil
• Roasted zucchini
• Baked egg:
• Free range egg
• Blue cheese
• Pepper
• Salt
• Salad:
• Rocket leaves
• Chopped walnuts
• Homemade dressing:
• Greek yoghurt
• Curry powder
• Honey
• Pepper
• Fennel seeds

Enjoy! XOXO ;)

Healthy Capsicum Snacks

Howdy lovelies! We're back today with another super easy recipe that is perfect for this gloomy winter weather we're having in Sydney right now: stuffed baked capsicums! These are so easy, so tasty, and they warm you right up. What I love most about this recipe is that it's totally adaptable to whatever you have lying around in the back of your fridge. Go on, open up your fridge right now. What do you see? A lonely eggplant? A stray couple of mushrooms? Maybe some leftover curry rice? All of that will be perfect for what we're about to do. Yes, by the time we're done here, your fridge will be as tidy as new.

Ingredients ***
Large capsicums
Cheese
Eggs
Garlic
Onion
Olive oil
Sweet potato
Potato
Cashews / seeds / nuts
Pepper / any herbs or spices you have at hand
Any leftover curry / sauce / vegetables / just get creative

Method:
1. Preheat your oven to 180 degrees celsius.
2. Cut the tops off your capsicums and wash out the seeds. Place the capsicums cups and lids on a baking tray.
3. Dice all vegetables into small cubes. Add to capsicum cups.
4. On a small platter, shred garlic cloves and add some olive oil and ground pepper and/or other spices. Mix well, then drizzle the mixture over the capsicum cups.
5. Add cashews and/or seeds as desired.
6. Drizzle sauce as desired.
7. To each capsicum cup, add cheese and pepper liberally.
8. Place the capsicums into oven and bake for approximately 40 minutes.
9. Take out the capsicums, checking that they are well roasted. There may be some light charring. Add a cracked egg onto each capsicum cup, and place back into oven for another 5-10 minutes.
10. Take the capsicums out, let them cool, and enjoy!

*** Apart from the capsicums, none of the ingredients listed are absolutely necessary. You can stuff the capsicums with anything you like, including rice, couscous, or minced meats. Tomatoes, zucchinis, beans, and mushrooms would probably do very well. Raid your pantries for sauces and spices, and be daring.

I have a feeling this recipe will be a staple in our house over the winter. There's nothing like hot roasted veggies to lift your spirits in rainy weather. Once roasted, the capsicums become very sweet, tender, and juicy, and make for a great healthy snack. Give it a go!

Cathedral of Lights

Chiang Mai, Thailand

This post has been a long time coming (since I teased about it like 3 months ago, sorry!), but since I have returned from my travels and now have all the time in the world, I have no excuse not to write this up. Rightio so to pick up from where I left off, after Guangzhou I flew off to Thailand and spent New Years over at Bangkok. But before reaching Bangkok, we decided to take a pit stop at Chiang Mai in Northern Thailand and whilst I can definitely say that I loved Thailand (minus a few issues here and there), I think I loved Chiang Mai just a tad more than Bangkok. My first impression of it was that it was a relaxing, laid back city, populated with copious amounts of hipster looking cafes and temples. Needless to say, my three days there were filled with endless coffee-drinking and temple seeking - which I loved! Everything was situated nearby everything else and the low-rise nature of the city made it feel very homely and neighbourhood-like. As the drill goes, here are a collection of some photos I took on this trip. Warning: This post is VERY photo heavy.

The sunrise over Chiang Mai as seen from the hotel I stayed at. Oh did I mention, the hotel rooms there are super huge?!

Sorry you have to see a shot of my feet but the hot springs there were too nice not to be mentioned here. Ahhh they were so relaxing, I think I could've stayed there forever.

Hehehe how cute are these? Looking at them just lifts my spirits :)

Ok for some reason I have a serious lack of food photos (maybe I was too keen to eat so I forgot to take some...can't blame me :p) but you can't go to Thailand and not eat more than your share's worth of mango. Yummmmm.

Wat Phra That Doi Suthep

Aka the most well-known temple at Chiang Mai

The view of the city, taken from the temple which is located on top of a mountain. The weather wasn't particularly great that day though so you can't really see much. 

Other Temples

These are only a few of the hundreds of temples there. I'm not even kidding when I say that there are literally temples on every street there, maybe like 50m away from each other. I reckon you get bored of them pretty quickly but some are beautifully designed and well worth a look at.

Chiang Mai University

Apparently it's a tourist attraction cause there are even tour buses within the university that can take you around (and it's big enough for this tour to last a good half hour too). I thought the campus was quite pleasant and scenic, especially that lake. Do you see that photogenic lake?! Also, how cute are those elephant shaped hedges? Animal-shaped hedges are scattered everywhere around the campus and they're not just limited to elephants!

Wat Rong Khun, Chiang Rai

Technically not Chiang Mai but we took a day trip up to Chiang Rai and saw the white temple, also known as Wat Rong Khun. Definitely my favourite temple because of how majestic and grand it looked and it also had a touch of creepy (see the tree decorated in skull ornaments). Everything was so detailed, even the bathroom (the gold looking temple)!

Baan Dam, Chiang Rai

Also at Chiang Rai is the Black House Museum (aka a collection of black houses) which we also paid a visit to. This was slightly creepier than the White Temple cause each house was filled with dead stuffed animals and animal skulls and the like. Not my cup of tea really. But I thought the architecture of the houses was interesting. 

Apologies for the uber long post. Unfortunately I didn't really get to capture the essence of the city itself through my photos like all the cafes and the delicious food (omg Pad Thai and Som Tum soooo good) and the red trucks that we rode like taxis (very interesting experience). But I guess that's a learning point for next time. Next up: Bangkok!