Oh.My.Wow.

The Best Noodles in the Whole World.

Over the past few months I've come to realise that I have a real "thing" for sweet/spicy combinations. This explains not only my love for chilli chocolate and spicy broad beans, but also for this recipe.

It's one which I perfected over my four years at university, I can't quite recall how I first came up the the combination for the sauce, but it's simply amazing. Just the right amount of sweet, just the right amount of savoury and just the right amount of spicy. Delish!

Ingredients:
1 small capsicum (red bell pepper)
1 small sweet potato (yam)
200g organic bacon
400g hokkien noodles
4 tbsp soy sauce
4 tbsp kecap manis (sweet soy)
1 tbsp sambal oelek

Directions:

1. Peel the sweet potato (yam) and either chop into thin slices, or cubes, depending on you preference. I prefer slices simply because they cook quicker, but there's definitely something  satisfying about biting into a big chunk or soft sweet potato!
2. Roughly chop your capsicum (bell pepper) and bacon, set aside.
3. Put a little oil in the bottom of a wok or large frying pan, add the sweet potato and cook over a medium heat until soft, until about two thirds cooked.
4. In a separate, smaller pan, start frying up your chopped bacon.
5. Add capsicum to the sweet potato, cook until slightly softened.
6. Place your noodles in a strainer and run under hot water to separate.
7. Add drained noodles, sauces and back to the wok, stir and cook over medium heat until noodles have softened and sweet potato is soft and delicious.
8. Pop it into a bowl and gobble it all up!

PS. how awesome is this cider label? And so yummy too!

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/indiethrifter/6424869863/" title="IMG_1286 by Indie Thrifter, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7023/6424869863_de10bce685.jpg" width="500" height="333" alt="IMG_1286"></a>

Indie/DIY Bands & Musos: Chantilly

I came across the lovely Chantilly via Miki's Scrapbook a few days ago (I believe I found this via Glossay) and I reckon she is just the perfect candidate for Indie/DIY Bands and Musos.

Not only is Chanitlly's music just plain ahhhh-dorable, but she's all about DIY and thrifting. She is our people. OUR PEOPLE. Which is exactly why she should all be helping her out!

Have you ever heard of Kickstarter? If not, it's about time you jumped on the creative wagon. In a nutshell, Kickstarter is a website which gives creatives the opportunity to raise money for their respective artistic pursuits - everything from music recordings to short films to art shows and everything in between. Actually, many of you would be familiar with the Kickstarted campaign that Red Velvet successfully ran for their most recent line.

So that's what Chantilly is doing. She doesn't need much, only $2000, and with $400 already raised it would seem her goal is not too far out of reach, but, as any muso will tell you, you can never spend too much money on a recording!

So, why should you donate your hard earned money to Chantilly? Hmmm?? Well, firstly because she's very, very talented. Have a watch of the above video to hear a glimpse of her tunes, or listen to her past recording on her MySpace page, and if you like what you hear and have a few bucks to sparethen hit up her Kickstarter page and donate away! What? You need more incentive? Well, in that case I'd better let you know about the incentives.

The lowest possible donation is $1, but for donations between $5 and $2000+ there are some brilliant rewards! For example for a donation of $10 you will receive a digital copy of the finished EP before anyone else hears it, for a pledge of $40 or more, you will recieve the brand new EP, a copy of her past album, AND a super rare copy of her first ever demo - handmade from cereal boxes and drawn on with sharpies. There's also an opportunity to have Chantilly go thrifting for you and write a custom song for you. C'mon, that's pretty sweet.

Haylz x

I Am Sooooo BACK!

You may have noticed that up until the last few days it has been particularly quiet here at my lil' blog. This is partly because my social life really kicked into overdrive (holy CRAP I've been exhausted), but mostly because I was feeling particularly blurry and lost, and really just not quite myself. Sooooo BLAH!

But, I'm here to tell you that I'm back. There are a number of events and realisations that drew me to this point, none of which I will share here (sorry guys and gals, not the place) but what I will share is exactly how fantastic I feel having come back home to me. Hooray! Sooooo fantastic!

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/indiethrifter/6409932119/" title="desk5 by Indie Thrifter, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7173/6409932119_f3a0ab3f52.jpg" width="500" height="333" alt="desk5"></a>

Awesome Photography Stuff

So, part of finally being "me" again, is shoving my head right back into photography. So that's why I'm up at 3am penning this very post. Oh... wait... it's 4. 4am. Anyway, it's share time!

I was speaking to a friend of a friend a couple of weeks ago, letting him know of my plans to become a freelance photographer and all that jazz, when, to my surprise, he turned out to be a freelance photographer himself. Totes awesome. He had a couple of tips to share with this here young newb, the main one that I remembered (yes, it was getting on in the evening and I was a couple of ciders in...) was that the best thing you can do when starting out, apart from buying an awesome lens, is to learn how to shoot manually before you even start a photography course, as it'll put you head and shoulders above those who haven't got a clue how to set the ISO, aperture and/or shutter speed.

I spent a little while flicking through Google to find a real newb-friendly explanation of manual shooting, then I stumbled upon Mom & Camera. Holy heck does this lady know how to write a tutorial for the fresh-photography-meat. I was particularly drawn to her Take Better Photos series. Most of her photo editing tips centre around Photoshop Lightroom 3, (which I'm not familiar with, yet - though am now planning to become very up close and personal with this seemingly sweet program) so I haven't delved too far into these, but Gayles explanation of shutter speed, ISO and aperture are truly superb. Thank you Gayle!

Next on my search I found a whooooole bunch of photography accessories that I can't wait to try out. So here they are:

Photojojo

So many nik naks, so little time! There are a number of bits and bobs I'd really like to get my hands on from this site, the real stand-outs being

The Super Secret Spy Lens! I get super nervous and super shy when shooting peeps on the street, so this lil' baby would do me quite nicely.

Cute Juice Box (or as us Aussies say, "Popper") Camera.

Wide-Angle & Macro Lens Adapter - much cheaper than buying a brand new lens! And yes, I understand that the quality will not compete, but if you're just dabbling and testing your skills it's probably a great place to start.

 

Lensbaby

In all honesty, I can't quite get my head around these lenses, but they sure do look like a bunch of fun to play with! Sort of like a toy camera, but a DSLR toy camera, if you will. Anyway, look at the pretty pictures they make...

 

The Monacled Lop

Just try to tell me these one of a kind and customisable camera bags arent' the freaking cutest. Just. You. Try. Nope? Well you must agree with me then. Check it, yo!

Buy their pretty things here!

Ooooh wow, now I'm all excited again. And glad that Christmas is just around the corner. So very very glad.

Haylz x