Baking: how to make

As part of Bupa's best blog competition for 2015

Students baking is an essential skill if you don't want to waste a lot of money buying café laden snacks. We show you some videos on how to bake basic snacks.

Choux pastry.

It should be light and fluffy and with a little bit of cream on the inside. Saveur an online magazine shows you how to make them easily in their video below.

Red Velvet cupcakes

These are simple to make and you can make it from scratch. They are about 400 cal for a big one. But you can do baby ones or vegan ones as they have less calories.

Joyofbaking.com shows us to make it.

Chocolate tart

This is so rich and decadent and easy to make at home. The ones you get outside can be stodgy and calorie laden. And very expensive. The video below shows you how to make an easy chocolate tart.

Macarons

These are small cookie like snacks but the ones outside are sugar laden. Do it yourself with egg whites is even better. This is Martha Stewart's recipe below

Korea festival

The Korea festival is on this year and its the second one. As per usual it is free for everyone to attend and we went at night when the K-pop was on. All the performers were really good. Then the judging began.

Korean cakes

Biscuit samples

Games

The entrance

 At night the crowd numbers and types were a bit different. During the day it was more the families and older people and at night it was a younger crowd. At night it was the International students where as during the day it was more local Aussies.

And also the food is a lot cheaper during the night meaning that we get to try everything such as dumplings, rice skewers and kimchi udon. Some thing which we're not able to do during the daytime as the udon was $10 during the daytime. At nighttime it was $5. Sweet. And it was 5 dumplings for $3 and two skewers for $3. Also a bargain.

The skewers were lovely and so was the kimchi udon. That spice was just gorgeous. It added that kick to it. The dumplings though were just perfect and it did not need the sauce as there was lots of spicy sauce on my rice skewers and some in the kimchi.

Do go to next years one in the evening.

Beetroot smoothie from Maxcare pharmacy

As part of Bupa's best blog competition for 2015

This is an easy smoothie recipe which is good for winter and good for when you are at home studying.

I tried this recipe courtesy of Maxcare Pharmacy Airport West

Smoothie- Image courtesy of Maxcare pharmacy on Facebook.

Beetroot smoothie – a quick way to stimulate the digestive system and help the liver in detoxification processes. Beetroot is rich in nitrates that help improve blood circulation and lower blood pressure.

Preparation time: 2 minutes

Ingredients:

1 and half cup of organic sweet and creamy Greek Yogurt
1 cup of fresh strawberries (frozen if fresh strawberries not available)
2 tablespoons of Bioglan Beetroot Powder

Put all ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth. It is that simple.

Bioglan Superfood Beetroot Powder is available in all pharmacies in Melbourne and Australia.

Internet Streaming and why students do it

These days a lot of students watch tv online. We talk about the advantages of tv online.

TV- Image courtesy of mashable.com

We don't want to have to wait until an episode is shown on TV. Its more convenient and its free (for Youtube) that is. The screen is often clearer and there are subtitles.

With streaming you can find out about the latest cooking shows and entertainment from around the globe. You can pause and rewind shows especially if English is your second language. Many students find this easier than watching the mainstream as you can watch it at any time which is convenient to you.

It takes about five minutes for the program to load and can be watched legally in places such as Netflix and Stan.

The only downside is paying for it. The service can cost anywhere between $10-$30 per month depending on what you watch. Youtube is free for most of the time but new releases are somewhere between $3-$20 depending on whether you want to own or rent a movie.

Sometimes the service stops when the WI-FI drops out but then it goes back again.

We enjoy watching TV online as there are also no ads.

Students what is your favourite programs online?

Lentils as Anything

RNIS paid for their meal online and therefore did not need to pay in person.
As part of Bupa's best blog competition for 2015

Specials board

Lentils for Anything is a volunteer run cafe which serves the local community. It is a pay as you feel cafe. They have five branches now including one in Sydney. I went to their newest one in Preston. It is near the train station; in fact it is around the corner from the station.

The volunteers are friendly and they will serve coffee within 10-20 minutes. Today I had the Eggplant pasta and it was so good.  I didn't mind that they used packet pasta, but the eggplant was fresh and the tomato sauce was homemade. the eggplant is sehr gut. And so was the lettuce and tomato.

The cake on the other hand was plain weird. It was this mandarin cake with chocolate sauce. I liked the cake better by itself.

The chai didn't have much spices to it. It took about 10 mins to make it.

Rating: 15/20- good food and good philosophy. And yes we should all follow the healthy philosophy. Keep up the good work.

People do donate online if you can.

Greening @RMIT dinner

RNIS and all the RMIT community were invited to the dinner so we did not have to pay
As part of Bupa's best blog competition for 2015

This dinner was all about Fair Trade and to mark the end of another semester. There were lots of good memories of terrariums and gardens being shown. It was held during the Fair Trade Fortnight

There was even an Instagram competition where someone won a prize of terrariums.


I really enjoyed this healthy dinner made with lots of love and grown in their rooftop garden. Then there was a talk about fair trade as it is the Fair trade fortnight. So what does it mean to be fair trade? Hmmm a very tough question for some. But I think it basically means that farmers get a fair price.

I enjoyed the quinoa salad and the dahl as well as the other vegetarian curries. And there was a cabbage salad in there all made of love. The quinoa salad was very minty.

By the end of the night I was lighter.

Many thanks to Greening for the invite. And I hope to see you next semester.

The Thermomix party at Prahran Market

As part of Bupa's best blog competition for 2015

Every year there is a Thermomix party at Prahran market to promote the Thermomix and Prahran markets goodness. Last years party was full of a lot of samplings. This years we were treated to a few recipes. Such as the green juice, meatloaf bread and dip.

Beetroot salad

Samples

Dip and crackers

Making your own gluten free bread is easy and you can do this and many other things in the thermomix.The thermomix weighs our your ingredients and they help you chop them and melt chocolate. They also have a beeping system for warning you if things do go wrong.

Cooking in there is a breeze

The dip was great, but what was even better was the brownie which was full of chocolate goodness.

The salad too was great and it was easy to toss everything in there with the lemon and the olive oil. Yum I say. Dare I say more.

Do buy the thermomix if you can as that saves you time. For every thermomix it comes with a dish tray thing to steam vegetables. It is about $1900 but it will save you from having to go out everytime you can;t be bothered cooking. Also do feel free to change things around to your liking.

Good Beer Week at the Euro

RNIS was invited by the Euro to sample their beers and pizzas and did not have to pay.

The European Bier café is an old beer café run by Sherrie who is really friendly. We met her both at Mundo Lingo and at this event and enjoyed ourselves thoroughly. About 30 other people came to this event and we met up with the two Scottish tourists who love beer as much as Melbourne does.

Budweiser 

Just last year they introduced a pizzeria which is enjoyed by many. Their pizzas there range from $7-$12.

This session was run by a beer aficondo called Julie who is from Adelaide.

Mozerella

We tried four pizzas with four beers. Normally it is about $35 and on top of this we added a garlic pizza. We loved the garlic pizza. We also loved the vegetarian and margarita pizza. The margarita pizza had buffalo cheese which was nice for a change. You don't see that in many pizzas.

We also learnt the etiquette of beer drinking and cheering which is quite common in Australia. All the beers that we tried tonight were from Germany. The Bud tasted a lot like apple and it was the first one up.

The next two didn't have much taste, but the last one tasted like licorice.

Rating: 18/20- I shall be back and many thanks to Sherrie for the invite.

Is it ok to be queer?

As part of Bupa's best blog competition for 2015

Being gay, lesbian, trans is all ok in Australia. In that we like to do the same things as the normal straight people. The gay community is a very friendly one in Australia and its ok to join them even if you are not gay. In fact the gay community love to watch movies, have bbqs etc.

Coming out is also alright as we are all fairly open. In fact there is a queer space at your campus. Just ask the friendly student union staff.

But in some of the Asian countries it is not. Asian countries are a lot stricter. Many parents do not like their child to have sex before marriage or have same sex relationships. For most Asian countries it is taboo.

In Australia it is ok to have same sex relationships. But the Victorian government says no to same sex marriage. Hence all the protests.

In Australia is it illegal to discriminate against someone just because they are gay. According to the Human Rights commission all people are equal. In fact there is a University guide which we have recently covered

Le Cordon Bleu set to open in Melbourne

A culinary school will be open soon in Melbourne. We explain.

Le Cordon Bleu is one of the world's greatest culinary schools which has great success. It is based in Sydney  and Adelaide but now it will have a campus opened in Melbourne. Melbourne is the culinary capital of Australia.

They will feature at this year's Melbourne Food and Wine festival in a bid for people to win scholarships and promote their campus. The move to Melbourne was only natural for them.

And the fees for the course is the same as the domestic students so Internationals don't need to pay high fees. The only con is that it is far away from the city, near Moorabbin station out in zone 2.

These are the courses that will be offered in Melbourne to prepare students for the workforce:

• Advanced Diploma of Hospitality (Commercial Cookery) or (Pâtisserie)
• Grand Diplôme
• Diplôme de Cuisine - Certificate III in Commercial Cookery
• Diplôme de Pâtisserie - Certificate III in Pâtisserie

To apply and to find out more do check out their website.

LGBI guide- how universities fared in the latest assesment

As part of Bupa's best blog competition for 2015

The Human Rights commission has released a new guide just for lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans students and they rate universities on this. You can see it here.

This assessment was done by the Australian Human Rights Commission who has released a guide on how to treat students who are gay. Many International students are gay or lesbian and some countries don't allow this such as China. But Australia is an open country.

The guide is meant to make picking a university easier for LGBTI students.

Universities around the country are being accessed according to 15 different criteria. They include having a safe space on campus and training staff to deal with LGBI students. Surprisingly most universities failed in this department.

But the one that they most passed is having a department just for the queer students. About 60% passed for just having events for students. The majority of them also passed for having events on campus just for the queers.

Our response to this is that it is great to see a guide from the Human Rights commission as queer, gay, lesbian and trans people are all equal. Universities should treat them as such. These people are being discriminated against by the straight people.

The Wheelie good party

As part of Bupa's best blog competition for 2015

The Wheelie Good Party was on in North Melbourne today at the lovely Melrose st Village. Here there were lots of dogs and bikes and smiling kids. There were also some International students there.

One of the workshops which was run

Kombutcha tastings

I tried Short Batch's ice cream. It was really nice and the business is a push bike one which does everything by cart.

There were many classes for kids and adults alike. Here we learnt about the road rules riding a bike. Bikes have the same rules as cars on the roads, except for wearing a helmet and visability and the use of the bike lane.

It was here that I bumped into Joyce of Mel: Hot or NOT. She was there selling her Cycle Style items so do support her.

There were free smoothies by Bike N blend nd that really excited me when I read about this event. I guethat seeing as North Melbourne is a huge hub for International students I would have thought that many would have turned up. Instead it was families and young kids. But still a free event with such lovely company couldn't hurt right?

Run by the Squeaky Wheel and Good Cycle co in conjunction with the City of Melbourne this event had a great turn out and I really enjoyed myself today.

Many thanks to the Squeaky Wheel and Good Cyckle co for Organising it but it could have been better promoted via Facebook and Meld.

The Sports and Recreation expo

As part of Bupa's best blog competition for 2015

This expo was on today at the Drill Hall and here lots of sporting clubs came- 20 to be exact. But only 30 students came and participated in the Bollywood and all.



Capoirera was my favourite one and I had a chance to play in the band. I had heaps of fun.

The aim of the expo was to showcase sporting clubs to many of the students who have never known them and win prizes such as free gym memberships. It was also a chance for them to get active. I know I will.

And it was also a chance for many students to interact with stalls and play their free games such as the shooting game that was played at the Malaysian stall