More Bento

I'm glad that I had lots of leftovers from the shabushabu party at my apartment. It makes me think, "okay, what am I gonna do with these things?". In a sense, it gives me the excitement in this gloomy weather and stressful days.

I try not to make the same dishes over and over again to keep my brain working. Otherwise, it will be no different than eating out at the Union.

Just recently, I discovered that fake crab sausages (which they claim are made with fish) go pretty well with rice. I'm in love with it!

A few years ago I would consider those fake crab sausages expensive commodities because they were pretty rare on the market since I'm not from Japan. It's like a WOW, IT'S A CRAB SAUSAGE!! kind of feeling.

Anyways, more bento pictures.

omurice with ham + crab spicy garlic fried rice, frankfurters, squid balls on sauerkraut, fried fishball, romaine lettuce salad

Fried rice
Ingredients
- 1 tsp minced garlic
- 1 cup cooked white rice
- 1 piece ham, cut into 1cmx1cm size
- 2 crab sausage sticks, cut into 2 and shredded
- 1 tsp soy sauce
- a pint of white pepper
- sriracha chili paste (or some other chili paste that you like)
- 1 egg, whisked

Steps:
1) Heat oil in medium heat (3-4 in a 7 heat level settings) in a skillet
2) Add garlic into the skillet. Fry until the garlic is brownish.
3) Add in rice, ham, and crab sausage sticks into the skillet. Add soy sauce, white pepper and chili paste. Stir and mix well until the color of the rice is uniform.
4) Cook for another 2-3 minutes while stirring.
5) Set the fried rice aside.
6) Add a little oil on the skillet. To even the oil on the skillet, use kitchen towel.
7) Check if the oil is hot by dripping a drop of the egg. If it cooks the moment it reaches the skillet, pour in the rest of the egg mixture into the pan.
8) Stir the egg with chopsticks for about 5 seconds. After stirring, make sure that the egg covers the skillet without holes.
9) When the surface is still a little wet, add in the fried rice on the omelet.
10) Fold the omelet slowly. Use a spatula or a chopstick. \
11) Place the omelet on a plate/bento box.

Took me approximately 20 minutes to prepare all these in the morning from scratch :)

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They Killed The Miso!

Ok, today is catfish day (even though it's not June 25th - the national catfish day in US). I didn't really know how I should cook it, so I decided to give it a shot with the miso paste my bro left in my fridge.

In my head, I somehow know that rubbing the fish in miso paste won't do much good. I mean, I don't know how it would turn out to be, but I feel that "something's missing". So I experimented with adding honey into the marinade (you know, sometimes sweet and salty goes together pretty well).

Still playful as ever, I added in chopped garlic and ground cloves (a very very very tiny amount of it). And then, some coconut powder.

As instructed on the catfish packaging, I preheated the oven and broiled the catfish for 5 minutes.

The result?

As you can see it. Slight browning on the surface (I bet it's thanks to the honey). The coconut powder somehow turned rather dark, which makes it look like it's been sprinkled with black pepper. Overall, I like the appearance, but the taste...

Well, I won't say it's horrible, but the garlic and ground clove were too strong that they killed the miso! I didn't taste the miso flavor at all! Is it because the miso paste was cheap? I'm pretty sure I used enough miso to make the fish salty enough.

It's below my expectation :(

The best recipe I've experimented on was the sharp cheddar cheese with tomato catfish. And some lemon juice, as far as I remember. The recipe is... buried somewhere within my blog. I'm sure I can find it if I check my recipe-tagged posts. Yeah.

Lesson learned: never mix miso with garlic.

 

Oh well, time to eat!

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Morning Food

This semester, I try to constantly wake up at 7 no matter what time my class start every day so I have time to enjoy heavier breakfast and to make lunch boxes. There are times when I just feel like extending my sleep for another 5-10 minutes, but so far my morning program has been smooth.

Enjoying breakfast slowly actually gives me the feeling of ease and peace. It makes me feel that my fast-paced life is slowed down a little. Every time I enjoy my breakfast, I would think "Ahh... today is a great day". Or something like that.

I don't really make bentos that are difficult to make. As long as it has varieties in the meal, it's good enough. That's actually the biggest reason I'm making lunch boxes almost every day: you can't get a 5-meal menu when you're eating out. Most of the time, it's always a one big menu.

Balado shrimp, steamed veggies with kewpie, nastar + putri salju, fried omelet, rice and bits of tempeh

 

buttered garlic crab fried rice with shrimp paste chili, steamed vegs, chicken curry, pizza puffs

And there are just times where I make cute bento just for fun. And to release my stress as well. I feel sad for eating the bento afterwards, though.

Cloud Strife bento (hair: egg yolk, face: white egg, eyes: seaweed), canned sanma, ham, steamed vegs, crab shreds

Sadly enough, the face got crushed as I put it inside my bag. I don't feel like carrying the bento on my hands in such a cold weather. I just want to put my hands inside my jacket's pockets. LOL. As I ate the bento, I felt like I killed Cloud.

I tried something new today:

spicy sanma fried rice with mustard and black pepper, sesame yaki soba, colored egg white roll, romaine lettuce, frankfurters

I was surprised that the idea to make colored egg white turns out to be good. I had egg white left overs because my friend just made crepe suzzette the other day. The bento would have been boring if the egg roll is completely white, so I thought. Glad that I tried this!

  

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Annual New Year Party at Home

It can be tiring as hell, but it can be fun as hell as well.

I have never really helped my mum in the kitchen for any big family gathering at home years before. Well, this year, I did. And I just realized that preparing 9 or more types of dishes for 50 people at home can be really draining.

We called in an excellent Sate Padang cart that we used to buy from. My family's always a big fan of that Sate Padang.

I was so excited with eating it that I forgot to take a picture of the sate padang itself :P Talk about gluttony...

Well, next up is Padang food, my mum's special cooking.

 From top to bottom: telor kari (egg curry), kentang balado (chilli potato), terong balado (chilli eggplant)

Pempek Palembang (fish cakes)

Indonesian birthday fried noodle (decorated with colored quail eggs, bengkuang, and carrots - I love decorating dishes!)

Jengkol kari (jengkol is a legume-like fruit that smells like horse crap and will make your urine smells like sewage water, but tastes good if you like it! Well, I'M A BIG FAN.)

 Mini French crepe with beef rogut.

Acar bawang (home made shallot pickles)

A must-have dessert: es buah (longan, lychee, nata de coco, tropical cocktail fruits). We always have it every year!

I love arranging the plastic spoons! Wish I could do better :/

Bits and pieces of traditional Indionesian snacks. We didn't make them, of course. That would be an additional 2 days of pain in the ass. LOL. They're really good :)

Hmmm.. I kinda regretted posting so much food pictures today. Now I'm craving for those foods. Aahhh.

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Happy (belated) New Year

First of all, happy belated new year! I've enjoyed myself too much during winter break (oh, the stress relief after final exam... that's really wonderful!).

I went back to Indonesia for a couple of weeks. Good foods.. yum.

There is something weird that I've noticed about my taste in foods. Indeed, a $30 3-way foie gras dish might drive me nuts, but for some reason, it can't beat the $0.30 cheap chocolate paste bread that I buy from a cheap family-run shop that I used to eat when I was little. Or the $1 bowl of meatball soup dish they sell on the road side, knowing that hygiene is definitely one big problem down there.

Foods that remind you of your childhood, or your hometown. Foods that give you warmth. I think that's the best food in the world.

I'm back in US, and it's really hard to reproduce the exact copy of those dishes. Ingredient-wise, and skill-wise. Time is not much of a problem for me - there is always time to indulge food, even if I have to sleep one hour less for that.

Well, here's one of my favorites: Nasi Langi.

It looks cheap indeed. I mean, it's only rice, cut-up fried egg, tempe, small cuts of beef, peanuts, fried potato pieces, fried onions, slices of cucumbers and kemangi leaves neatly placed on a banana leaf. Cheap ingredients - nothing like prime rib steak or duck confit. But hey... Nothing's better than home!

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Distant World Final Fantasy Concert @ Chicagoland

Back from Rosemont Theater!

The first Distant World concert I've attended was at Minneapolis, and it was a VIP seat. This time, it wasn't a VIP seat (it's too expensive!), but I feel that this concert was 100 times better than the concert at Minneapolis.

There are so many world premierre songs played at Rosemont Theater. Here's the program:

1st half:
Prelude (FF)
Fithos Lusec Wecos Vinosec (FF 8)
Winning Theme - World Premierre (FF)
At Zanarkand (FF 10)
Don't Be Afraid (FF 8)
Ron Faure (FF 11)
Distant World ~ Memoro de la Stono (FF 11)
Love Grows (FF 8)
Swing de Chocobo (FF)
Melodies of Life - World Premierre (FF 9)
Fisherman's Horizon (FF 8)
J-E-N-O-V-A Remix - World Premierre (FF 7)

Intermission

2nd part:
Bombing Mission (FF 7)
FF 7 Main Theme (FF 7)
Suteki da ne - World Premierre (FF 10)
Aerith's Theme (FF 7)
Dancing Mad - World Premierre (FF 6)
Kiss Me Goodbye - World Premierre (FF 12)
Theme of Love (FF 4)
The Man with the Machine Gun (FF 8)
Medley: .... Twilight, Beneath the Bloody Borders - World Premierre (FF 14)
Terra's Theme (FF 6)
One Winged Angel Advent Children version - World Premierre (FF 7 AC)
Winning Theme
ENCORE: One Winged Angel Advent Children version (FF 7 AC)


English version of Suteki Da Ne. Yes... that sounds really awkward. To be honest, I'm not a big fan of the English version. The phrase "suteki da ne" is kept in the song, but the rest of the lyric was translated. Well... they keep the meanings close, but it sounded really really weird after years listening to the original Japanese version of that song.

Melodies of Life and Kiss Me Goodbye (both are in English) wasn't well sung either. :(

And lastly J-E-N-O-V-A. I was very very very excited when Arnie announced that song, but as I hear the beginning of the song... it was horrendous. The remix didn't have the vibrancy - it didn't make you feel that you are in the middle of a battle. It gets much better in the middle, but I had been disappointed with how the song was started.

Of course, One Winged Angel blasted the whole concert. I didn't expect it to be in Advent Children's version - they have Chicago Mages, comprising of 2 electric guitarists, to hype up the song. Brilliant!

Another surprise Arnie and Nobuo told us at the end of the concert was that the second CD of Distant World is going to be recorded next January, and will be on sale next summer!

Distant World tour is going to continue even next year, and for sure, they will come back again to Chicago in July. Something to look forward to? Of course!

Photos (and perhaps videos?) will follow soon.

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Bento fever

Monday and Thursday are the only days in this semester that I can't get free lunch. I'm currently working at a cafetaria, so they give me free lunch at the end of work. Saves me a lot of money :)

I'm fine with Thursdays since I have no other classes after lunch time, so I have my own sweet time to make or buy lunch. But not for Mondays.

So I decided to bring lunch from home, just like how I used to when I was in elementary school. The difference was that my mum used to prepare it for me, and this time I prepared my own lunch.



Pika bento (or so I call it). It's the cutest bento I've ever made, so I felt sad when I stabbed the pikachu with my spoon and put it inside my mouth. It's actually pretty simple to make:

1/2 C white rice
2 tsp ground turmeric
2 tsp chicken stock

You can add coconut milk instead of water when cooking the rice, but that's optional. What I wanted to achieve here was just the yellow color, and not making the traditional Indonesian yellow rice. You'll need more ingredients to make that :)

As for the sushi rolls, the basics of making sushi rolls still applies - the only difference is that you use yellow rice instead of white rice:

1/4 C cooked rice
1tsp salt
3 T vinegar
1 seaweed sheet
1 frankfurter sausage (or any sausage of your choice), cut into long halves
1T mayonnaise

Mix the rice with salt and vinegar well until they appear more sticky. Spread rice evenly on seaweed sheet, covering about half of the sheet, place the sausage in the middle on the rice, spread the mayo on the sausage, and roll it. Some people use a sushi rolling board, but I don't. After you roll it halfway (all the rice covered by the seaweed, make sure to clench the roll with your hands to make the sushi roll firm. A great tip from my friend is to stick a few rice at the other end of the sheet so that after you roll it, the seaweed doesn't get undone. Basically, the rice will act as a glue :)



Again, it's sushi rolls. It seems that sushi rolls are kinda perfect for lunch boxes - they are bite-sized and contain carb, meat and vegetables (depending on the choice of filling).

I tried using frozen steamed vegetables because they contain a mixed variety of vegetables. They have good texture, but one thing I regret about these kinds of vegetables was when they were seasoned in the packaging. I'm not a big fan of vegetables with caramel sauce, so I don't like the overall flavor. On the other hand, I find unseasoned frozen vegetables pretty good!




Unagi. Oh yes, I LOVE unagi! It's been my favorite ever since I started eating sushi (just because it's the only cooked fish they have - I wasn't used to eating raw fish back then). I didn't make this from scratch - I bought the pre-grilled ones from Asian market here. I just have to grill it for a little bit in my toaster oven.

And if you notice, I also have usaringo (rabbit-shaped apples)! It's always been my dream to make one. I have been watching many J-doramas and anime, and I always saw usaringo in their bento boxes. So.. I finally managed to make one! It's pretty simple:

Slice apples into wedges, leaving the bottom a little flat so the rabbits can stand. Make a 'V' shaped slice on the skin, make sure that you don't cut it too deep. Start peeling the skin from the edge until it reaches the 'V' cut. Pull the skin apart. And at this time, the "ears" actually won't stand. So you have to soak it in salt water (~1 tsp per 2 cups of water). Just wait for about 3-5 minutes and the ears will magically stand up!



This one was pretty simple, but I'd say it's pretty balanced. A little too much rice for me, though. LOL. I shaped the rice using a rice mold (the Japanese have tons of collections of rice mold!) Most of the foods in this bento were leftovers from dinner. Leftover salsa, leftover chicken... It didn't take long preparing :)

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