End of the world & "-Maker"s

New Year! "Last" year! This aloe drink knows when the end of the world is!! However, I do not believe that the end of the world ends on that date.

In addition, I went to Macy's today and there was a sale ($9.99 USD) for multifarious dessert-makers. For people who...want to impress without the mess. Publicity without the authenticity. For $9.99 to $29.99, you can get:
1. Donut maker (Hm, okay, cool)
2. Tart maker
3. Cookie maker (Really?!?!)
4. Circus waffle maker (Understandable.)
5. Brownie maker (REALLY??!?!?!)
6. Cupcake maker
& more.

Why can't people use ovens? This isn't Hong Kong (where we live in an oven, yet kitchens are not always equipped with them). I am being super biased here -- who knows? Maybe the makers make the exact replica of the perfect doughnut/brownie... and ostensibly, less energy is used because less heat is produced.

However, I will say that the cookie maker would be a useful grill/frying pan for a dorm room. However, I have an electric stove/skillet thingy now!

I Tell You, Mango Smoothies Require Mango.

For La Maison Française, my college house resident program, we played pétanque, which is basically like curling, but without the ice or the skates... so before we went to play, we went to Saxbys, which is this coffee shop right next to my college house [still not explicitly stating where I live! :O but one could definitely find out...]. I got a mango smoothie since it was 8pm and I didn't want caffeine in my system, lest I lie in bed for seven hours unable to fall asleep. I was really happy when they gave me a big straw too :D

Isn't my photo beautiful? I'm trying to make food look more amazing... And the amazing part of this was that I took it in at around 8:20pm, without flash [can you believe it!?]

Anyway, the smoothie was quite disappointing. It was basically sugar and mango juice and crushed ice. I do not call that a smoothie. There were no mango chunks, mango textures [the fleshiness did not exist], or anything else... I'd imagine that smoothies have milk or some sort of apple juice/juice base, but this was full out basic.

I suppose some people like smoothies that are way too smooth [so smooth that they are essentially drinking a thin liquid], but I prefer smoothies to be thicker, and have actual pieces of the substance with which the smoothie was made, which in this case would be mango.

Free drink on the house, though, so it was still nice :D

Melon Tapioca!

My mum has wanted to try this ever since we made tapioca that first time. She read that blending tapioca with melon makes a delicious drink.

She is correct.

It's like bubble tea; however, not only is there a lack of "tea" in the bubble tea, but there are also TWO TAPIOCAS!

Yes - mini tapioca beads PLUS big tapioca balls. YAY!

Plus, there is no added sugar, and the melon adds even more texture to it. Unfortunately, it's not very photogenic.

Sugar Cane Drink

I was going to blog about an omelette that I made, but it was definitely not photogenic.

So. I will just say that it tasted really good and blocked out the characteristic Boca burger taste. I am never going to buy Boca burgers again. I don't get why I used to like them. They are so dry, and have that weird characteristic taste... Erg... well I only have two left.

TVP is way better.

Anyway, instead, I'm going to talk about this sugar cane drink that my mum bought for my sister, but she dislikes it. So... it wasn't worth 80 Cals of pure sugar, in my opinion. This is why:

1. I've had legit fresh-out-of-the-press [yeah, literally, a sugar cane press] sugar cane juice before, at ParknShop in HK. That stuff is REAL; it's not as sweet, has that sugar cane flavour [no, sugar cane juice is NOT the same as sugar syrup], and almost tastes a tad sour, in a refreshing way. I actually can't describe it.

2. The first ingredient in this juice is water. Great. It's not even concentrated. Then it's sugar. What happened to actual smooshed sugar cane? I am aware that apple juice is basically sugars and water... but you list apple juice as "apple juice" not "water, sugar, apple essence". Well, to be fair, there is pretty much no where else to get this stuff in the U.S., so I suppose if I had an emotional attachment to sugar cane juice, I'd probably enjoy it more.

Here is a picture. An "artistic" statement. Trashed...Should've bin in a bin [ha.ha.ha.]

MP's Chocolate!

So, during dessert [after which we ate pizza. Don't ask.] at MP's grad party, I tried three chocolates, from this rather dandy tin box of chocolates. It was a Polish brand. There were five flavours in total, but I tried the chili, coconut, and brandy flavoured ones since they seemed to be the most "exotic".
The chili one was a huge disappointment. Actually, the label just says "HOT CHOCOLATE", which implies that it is either a high-temperature-chocolate-drink flavoured, or a spicy flavoured chocolate [with the chili pepper, right there!]. It was neither, unless you count the fact that it was probably 35 degrees C. In this case [or should I say, in this tin], the whole box of chocolates were hot chocolate. Meaning that the brandy was hot brandy, and the coconut was steamin'.
In short, the "Hot Chocolate" flavour tasted like a dark chocolate truffle and did not taste even a bit peppery or chili-ful or spicy or zingy. Rather huge disappointment, as I wanted to measure my home-made chili chocolate cake [from a few years ago] with something that's actually in industry.
The "White Chocolate and Coconut" flavoured chocolate was really textured, though. No, really, I honestly. Fell. In love. With. It. The taste of coconut was very prevalent, which made up for the failure of the "Hot Chocolate" flavour earlier. There are some brands of chocolate in which the coconut is basically jam-packed in sugar, like the interior of an Almond Joy. This one, however, was literally "jam"-packed, in the sense that it was NOT a saturated dessicated coconut mass. Instead, there was some sort of coconut "jam" or goo, which worked well with the harder outer shell. The white chocolate was extremely smoooooth, not sickeningly sweet, and paved the way for this gelatinous center.

So, I've never had brandy before. I don't drink. This flavour tasted like a normal truffle, except that there was this hint of something weird. I suppose the weird thing was the brandy. Because I couldn't detect brandy [as I don't know what it tastes/smells like], everyone decided to sniff it. It was actually quite amusing [Okay, not just amusing. I was literally choking with laughter] watching people sniff the brandy truffle.
The bright side is that none of the chocolates that I ate had dimples due to the plastic or metal moulds at the factory. Thus, I can conclude that they are better than the Lindor Truffles, with respect to their appearances. Actually, the Lindor truffles were definitely inferior to these, tastewise, too. Plus, no condensation, even though this is July, whereas Lindor's sweaty exterior was prevalent in January.
Looks like ganache. Smooth move, Choco Amore doods. [MP gave me some Polish chocolate for my birthday last year. It was really smooth too, which was a pretty huge feat considering it was a fruit and nut bar.]