Hetalia Effect

I got the wrong idea when I first saw Hetalia on YouTube. There are so many BL and yaoi things going around Hetalia and I thought it was just another harem anime. But it isn't. In fact, it's probably one of the most interesting manga / anime I've ever encountered.

So I came to know a lot about the cultures of other countries (even though they may not be really accurate), including the foods. There was one Drama CD where Lithuania said "Russia always dump everything into the soup" I became interested in knowing what Russian food is like.

After browsing the Internet (thank you Bill Gates for making life so much easier), I found some Russian recipes and I thought Solyanka would be the first to try because the ingredients are simple and from reading the recipes I feel that the taste would not be so wrong.

Glad I tried this recipe:

I changed this and that a little because I like to keep the serving size small. I think I needed more onions next time, but I love the taste of pickled cucumbers in this soup. It's like hot and sour and fresh!

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Lapcheong Craze

For the past week I've been intoxicating myself with all the fats from lapcheong (Chinese pork sausage). It's so good, and it reminds me of my days at home.

It goes well with rice, egg noodles and kwetiaw (flat rice noodle). It's full of flavor. And if you can get the good quality ones, it's also juicy.

Fried rice...

Fried kwetiaw

And fried rice...

And fried rice again...

I love lapcheong!

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Fasting and Abstinence

This is a really tough challenge for me. In my whole life, I always failed.

This year I promised to skip Facebook for 40 days. It's one of the greatest challenge for me. Somehow I always have time to post something on Facebook, be it just a wall post, a comment, video, pictures... I wasted so much of my time being online.

I haven't told my parents but I've been going to bible study sessions. I know I've been pressing my switch on and off; sometimes I'm really eager to search the light and sometimes I just prefer to be in the dark. Right now I'm trying to switch it on again.

So, pray for me so I can abstain from Facebook during this 40 days!

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Braised eggs and my ego

This event was last month. I did indicated that I wanted to help out with cooking for the event, but 4 days before the event, I was suddenly asked to be the coordinator of all volunteers in the cooking section.

I couldn't turn down the request because of several unspoken reasons, so I did become a coordinator.

By the way, I was in charge of making telor kecap (hard boiled eggs braised in sweet soy sauce). Pretty easy to make when you have 20 eggs to make, but it's quite a hassle when you have 180 eggs to boil, peel and cook. I got two people helping me out to peel and cook them so it wasn't so bad.

The eggs above took 8 hours to become this brown. Heh. Took me the whole Febreeze to neutralize the smell of my room afterwards.

Anyways, long story short, since I was so busy with food preparation, nobody took my photos so I was like a shady ninja walking around with trays of food. Which I think was pretty cool.

I used to be (or maybe I still am) a little thirsty for acknowledgment. But somehow I had some kind of enlightenment this time. I felt it was kinda fun to be in the shades. I smelled like hydrolyzed cooking oil and my hair was all messed up (unlike some people who decided to leave the kitchen and take a good shower before they meet everyone). Some people approached me and said they were satisfied with the food (which made me really happy even though I didn't cook all of them), so I'm happy enough.

I felt so blissful that God gave me the patience to be humble!

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The Bento Boxes Are Back!!

Guess what guess what!! The bento boxes are back~!

Thanks to TOKYOPOP's bento contest, I got fired up again. On Friday night, I read about the contest from Hetalia Archive's updates and then I told my friend that I was seriously gonna make one! At first I didn't know which characters to make. Took me quite a while do decide on the chatty Nordics!

 The chatty Nordics: Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Norway and Iceland

And then.. I thought "hey, the Nordics haven't been featured as much as the others until Book 3 and Book 3 hasn't been published in US!". I kept thinking, did I make a wrong choice, did I make a wrong choice.... and then since I have leftover rice in the fridge I decided to give my final shot. 

As such, the Axis Powers vs Allied Forces bento was made!!

Top: Japan, Italy and Germany onigiri

Bottom: China, Russia, America, France and England's almond cookies

Wheeee I'm so happy right now~

I don't know if I can win the contest but since it's been a while since I made my last bento, I felt really excited. I must thank TOKYOPOP for giving me the final push to going back making more bento!

It's getting warmer nowadays... It snowed about a couple days ago, but right now it's raining pretty heavily. Looks like there's thunderstorm outside. The sky looks bright pink because of the lightning. Reminds me so much of Russia ☆

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It is made out of...

Love!

My friends normally asked me for a recipe, or where I find the recipe. My answer is, I don't know. I don't have a recipe and I don't find it online either. I simply looked at my mum when she cooked for me.

My friends said it's talent, but I say it's love. You always cook with love.

Anyways!

This steamed minced pork stuffed tofu has been my favorite childhood food. It reminds me of home, it reminds me of my mum, and it reminds me of... my mum's LOVE!

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Indonesian style fried egg

Cook the yolk till it's not runny anymore.
Cook the egg white till it's slightly burnt and crispy.
Cook both sides of the egg.

It's definitely very different from Western style fried eggs. A little close to over-easy, though.

In Indonesia, some people like to eat fried eggs with sweetened soy sauce. But I like it with chili sauce :)

Last Wednesday was my first Snow Day ever. I'm kinda glad I experienced it once before I graduate!

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